Child of the Daystar (The Wings of War Book 1)

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Wha?” the man gasped. “I-I’m paid! It was all business! Don’t—!”

  “Who?”

  The question was a deadly hiss, but the slaver was silent, breathing hard and clutching at Raz’s wrist.

  “WHO?”

  Another silence, and Raz’s world shifted into an even darker shade of red. He took a step forward, ignoring the flames that licked at his furs and feet. The man screamed, the fire biting at his legs, searing the hair off the back of his head instantly.

  “I don’t know who!” he shrieked. “Some girl who threw a rock at me! An old man! The one who stabbed me in the leg! Please!” the man seemed to sag as he started to sob. “Please… my family… let me go back to my family… please…”

  In a single fluid motion, Raz ripped Tolman’s dagger out of the man’s leg, brought it up, and slashed the slaver’s throat wide open. The cut was so vicious Raz felt the blade nick bone, and blood gushed from the wound to flow over his wrist and fingers.

  Pulling the twitching form close, he waited until the dying eyes met his.

  “My family will have to do,” he hissed.

  Then Raz drove the blade into the man’s chest and shoved him backwards into the fire.

  It was a long time before the figure stopped writhing in silent torment. Unable to scream, he thrashed, clutching at his body while the flames tore into him. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled the air once more, and finally he seemed to crumple and lie still. The fires had eaten away his clothes and boiled into his skin, but Raz didn’t look away until the face was gone, blackening like those of the family the man was curled beside.

  When he did finally pull his eyes from the figure, Raz didn’t do it because he’d seen enough. His gaze only faltered as a shine caught his attention, a glimmer of something lying on the ground a ways away, half buried in the ash and sand by the remains of Jarden’s home.

  Raz moved as though in a dream, only barely aware that he’d made the conscious choice to investigate the curiosity. In the half existence he was suspended in, he found himself standing over the source of the gleam, staring down at it.

  The bronze-tipped end of a bleached-wood staff.

  The rest of the weapon was still there, too, mostly hidden by the mixed dust that had been kicked over it during the struggle. Reaching down, Raz picked it up carefully, lifting it free. As he did, something else came out of the ashes. Something clinging to the other end of the staff.

  The better part of Jarden’s left arm fell to the ground with a thump.

  For a full minute Raz looked down at the limb, his eyes fixed on the fingers that had so shortly before been alive and well. Then his gaze moved up, following the length of the arm. He traced the familiar scars—the two that extended farther down than the others, then the rest of them—as high as he could.

  The flesh blackened and ended, cut off by fire.

  But still Raz followed the path his eyes had taken, and it was only a second before he found what he was looking for. There, half buried under blackened wooden planks and embers, the charred, beaten skeleton that had been his uncle’s body lay spread. In death the man did not seem happy or at peace. The wet sockets of his skull stared straight up into the night sky and his jaw hung loose, fleshless face screaming at the dark and smoke above.

  It was even possible to see the pointed nick along his ribs where a sword had thrust in and stolen his life.

  With a snap Raz could audibly hear, the slope his mind had been clinging from tipped over, and he plunged into a swirling ocean of rage and fear and pain. Falling to his knees, he dropped the staff and clutched at his face, his entire body shaking as it was bathed in the mixed waves of the night cold and fire’s heat. Images flashed through his mind, crashing over and drowning him. His mother and father, Jarden, Tolman and Prida and their child, Sameyl and his family, Ahna…

  Ahna.

  Raz shuddered and stopped moving, his hands over his face, eyes staring into the fire from between his fingers.

  Ahna. Ahna was gone. Her body was there, somewhere, hidden in the flames. His little sister, his favorite person in the world, was dead.

  They were all dead.

  Raz threw back his head and screamed at the night, claws digging into the back of his skull until he bled. To a one every man, woman, and child in the vicinity who heard it caught their breath, and they watched in horrified fascination through the fires as the terrible black silhouette that was Raz i’Syul Arro rose to its feet, wings spread wide.

  And then he was gone, a flickering darkness that disappeared like the smoke curling in the air around them.

  IX

  “Where once the artisans and merchants of the fringe cities were regarded as noncitizens, in the last century their growing importance to the economic balance of the desert cultures has granted many both wealth and position. The market districts of Miropa and Acrosia, for example, are larger than the upper- and middle-class quarters of either city put together. Sadly, they will remain ever dwarfed by the derelict shacktowns of both…”

  —exc. “The Cienbal,” by Adolûs Fenn

  The blacksmith’s shop was hot and unfamiliar, barely more than a heavy wooden roof held up by thick columns of dark timber. A sign hung from leaden chains over the doorway, swinging in the warm wind, embossed with the name “Jerr’s Hammer” in curvy, artistic lettering. The air tasted of soot and sweat and metal, and even at this earliest hour of the day, as the Sun only just began to peek over the horizon to the east, three apprentices were rushing about, feeding the fires and filling cooling barrels with fresh water.

  Raz stood in the frame of the entrance, an open space where there might have been a wall that had either been removed or simply never built. He said nothing, Jarden’s cracked and beaten staff at his side, eyes following the bustling apprentices until one took notice of him and stopped dead. The boy, maybe ten years old, took in the blood-spattered figure wide-eyed. His gaze lingered on the dried darkness that caked Raz’s hands and lined his mouth before glancing down at the staff and the leather satchel hanging from one shoulder.

  Then the boy rushed to the far corner of the shop where an older man stood working at a bench, his back to the entrance. He was a hulkish figure, bald with broad shoulders and thick arms tanned from years spent over the forge. He looked up when the apprentice tugged on the hem of his leather apron and pointed, and Raz saw the gray eyes of a born and bred desert dweller shining above a thick black beard. They hardly blinked at the sight of him.

  “Sethle, run for the surgeon,” Raz heard the smith whisper urgently, and the boy took off at a sprint. The man himself hurried forward.

  “Raz i’Syul,” he said, wiping his blackened hands on a dirty rag. “Nay a common figure ‘round these parts. ya’ all right, lad?”

  Raz blinked. He looked the man up and down. Despite his size, the smith was still a head shorter than him.

  “… Do I know you?” he asked quietly. The man must have heard something in that question, because he halted his approach.

  “Nay, boy, but who doesn’t know you?” he said cautiously. “But I guess it’s rude a’ me not to introduce meself. Allihmad Jerr, at your service.” He made a fist over his heart and bowed briefly.

  Raz nodded slowly, not even following Jerr’s movements. Instead he looked up to take in the three forges that burned along the back wall. There was a long moment of silence.

  “Er… can I do somethin’ for ya’?” Master Jerr asked, scratching at his beard. “What happened? ya’ need help?”

  The atherian looked demented. Blood streaked and splattered his ripped tunic. His arms were bruised and cut, and he had a nasty gash across his right shoulder that looked like a knife wound.

  He didn’t even seem to notice. Nor did he seem to care that his claws and teeth were stained reddish-black.

  Raz nodded, his gaze not leaving the hot glow o
f the fires.

  “… A weapon… I need a weapon, a proper one. She told me… Mama told me to come here. Said it was the best.”

  “And she’d be right ’bout that,” the smith said, braving another step forward. “But you ain’t lookin’ like you need a weapon, lad. Ya’ look like you need a bed. Just come sit until Sethle gets on back. He’s off to get the surgeon and—”

  “No.”

  Jerr started, cut off in the middle of his sentence. Quick as the wind Raz was in front of him, shadow flickering against the roof of the shop, twisting into something demonic.

  “But look at yourself, lad. You need…”

  “No,” Raz said again, his voice no longer halting, the look on his face suddenly clear and sharp. He slung the leather satchel off his shoulder, emptying its contents on the ground. A score of broken sword blades and abandoned knives fell to the floor, and Raz kneeled beside them. With the end of Jarden’s staff he scratched an outline in the dirt. When he was done he laid the staff down beside the image and stood up.

  “Use these.” He gestured to the clutter on the ground. Then he pointed at the picture. “Make me that.”

  Jerr looked down, studying the objects for a moment, and then the sketch. It was a long moment before he looked up again.

  There was a hesitation as the man’s eyes traced the bloody lines of Raz’s hands, mouth, and wounds.

  But, in the end, he nodded.

  “Two weeks,” he said, motioning for one of the apprentices to come and collect the objects from the floor. “Come back in a fortnight, and you’ll have your blade, boy.”

  ________________________

  Twin prongs—if you could call them that, each one two hand-lengths long, a hand-width wide—and a hand-length apart. They had a gentle curve about them, a delicate sway in their molding starting from their tips downward, moving out, then in, then out again before joining sharply at the base. Every outside edge was honed to a killing whet, as well as inside the scimitar curve at the top of each blade, but apart from that the inner surfaces of the U-shaped spearhead were dull and wide enough to pin a man’s neck against a wall. The metal was a thumb-width thick where it hadn’t been folded down to an edge.

  It would pierce as well as a lance, parry as efficiently as a sword, and slash as savagely as a battle-ax.

  Jarden’s staff itself had been modified. Not only at the end, where the antler-like blades were fused to a steel cap, but along the length as well. Black-dyed leather wrappings formed grips along the bleached-white wood. The far end, originally crowned with bronze, was now weighed down by a heavy point, slim but dense and sharp, serving to add both balance and bite to the design.

  As a whole the weapon was over seven feet in length from tip to tip. It would rise several inches above Raz’s head for now, but that would change in time, he knew.

  “I’ve named it a dviassegai,” Jerr said, watching Raz run a claw over the wood and contour the inside of the blades. “It means ‘twin-headed’ in old desert, apparently.”

  Raz didn’t respond. Instead he gripped the two leather handles farthest from each other and lifted the weapon from the table. It was still top-heavy, despite the hefty pointed counterweight.

  He would get used to it.

  “Melted down all the stuff you gave us, jus’ like ya’ wanted,” the man continued, standing off to the side as Raz examined the spearheads closer. “There wasn’t enough steel there, but the alloys we added’ll only make it stronger. The hard part was hollowin’ out the stave. We had to take the caps off and borrow one a’ them four-foot drills they use for shavin’ out long flutes. Almost gave up on tha’ more than once, I tell ya’. The center’s steel now, though. All soldered together into one piece. I’ll stake my shop on the fact tha’ you’re the only person I’ll ever know who could pick it up alone without fallin’ over.”

  Raz nodded, hoisting the weapon up. It was indeed heavy, even for him, but he’d get stronger. He had years to get stronger. Satisfied, he let the weighted tip rest on the floor, pulling the leather pouch from around his back. From it he drew the last thing left inside, a heavy sack of coins he’d taken from what little had been left of Crom Ayzenbas’ thin body, and handed it to the smith. Then he returned to examining the bladed end.

  “What did you call it?”

  They were the first words he’d spoken since arriving at the shop, taking Jerr aback.

  “A—a dviassegai,” the smith stammered, pulling out a handful of gold crowns from the sack while Raz continued to scrutinize the blades. He stood there, staring at his own disfigured reflection in the steel for a second more. Finally, Raz pulled the empty leather pouch over the spearhead and turned away toward the night outside.

  “Oy!” Master Jerr yelled after him, holding up the coin sack from which he’d taken his payment. “You’ve given me too much, lad!”

  But Raz didn’t turn around, and the smith watched as the boy pulled the fur-lined hood of his cloak up over his serpentine head. Then he was gone, disappearing into the shadows of an alley, the dviassegai slung across one shoulder.

  X

  “There is only one absolute law amongst our order, but this law will be followed unconditionally: to kill is to steal away the gift that Laor has granted us. It is not our right as His children to throw back in His face that which is most precious to Him, and that which He has given us. Nor can we knowingly perform an act which directly results in death. Follow these ideals, and you will be welcomed with open arms amongst people of all faiths, not just the Laorin. Do not… and we will Break you.”

  —Eret Ta’hir, High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di

  Syrah looked over her shoulder, back along the tree-lined road they’d been following for the last four days. It had been just over two weeks since their flight from Karth, and they’d crossed the marked border between the southern and northern lands only hours ago. Her face had healed well with some help from Talo’s gifts, and she’d repaired and cleaned her robes as soon as they were clear of the city.

  Memories, though, were not so easily mended.

  With each passing day the air was growing cooler, and soon they would have to start wearing the thin fur coats they each had packed away in their satchels. Even so, the feeling of the oppressive desert sun lingered on Syrah’s skin. She could sense the hot wind and the blowing sands as though they’d followed her into the evergreen groves of the North.

  And she remembered the shadows of the abandoned hut, the figures of the men, and the brief moments of brutal combat that had climaxed her visit to the southern lands.

  “Something on your mind?”

  Syrah jumped. Talo had dropped back to walk beside her, his blue eyes set before him, one mammoth hand on the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder.

  She hesitated. “… Raz i’Syul,” she said after a moment.

  Talo nodded, his steel staff hitting the dirt path with a dull thunk every other step. It hadn’t been hard to find out who Syrah’s rescuer had been, and where he’d come from. Apparently no other atherian—an odd reptilian people Talo had only ever heard of—had ever become so intricately woven into civilized society.

  “They usually just make for good slaves” was the common brush-off he’d gotten when he’d had a moment to ask around.

  “The boy will be fine,” Talo told her reassuringly, resting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s clear he can take care of himself, isn’t it?”

  Syrah nodded, looking at the ground now and kicking a stone with her booted foot. The sun was less abusive this far north, and clouds weren’t so rare. The wide hood and thin veil that had protected her sensitive eyes in the desert had been replaced by a simple leather traveler’s cloak hung comfortably over her shoulders.

  “The atherian is a capable fighter,” Talo told her finally, lengthening his stride to catch up to Jofrey and Reyn, “and he’s clearly not stupid if he urged you to
get out of Karth. Laor forgive him for the lives cut short by his hand, but praise him for his head and heart. The boy is a survivor, Syrah. Don’t go wasting your time in worrying. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’ll be all right in the end.”

  PART III

  862 V.S.

  I

  “Let him be our weapon. We have all the knives we need in the dark. Let him be our sword in the light. Raz i’Syul will prune our dead weight and, like the Dramion sea hydras of myth, we will be born again stronger for every head he cuts off.”

  —Imaneal Evony, Mahsadën šef

  Ahna cut through the air in a wide arc. Raz dropped low, spinning and catching one of his opponents right above the knee. The dviassegai’s blade split through the man’s boiled leather like parchment, biting into bone and flesh. Barely losing momentum, Ahna carried through, severing the limb. Screams echoed in the dark chamber as Raz stood, still turning. Ahna came around with another heavy swipe at a second one of the group. The man ducked, smiling at his own cleverness.

  His grin was still frozen on his face when Raz twisted, bringing the dviassegai close, and speared him through the throat with her pointed tip, pinning the man to the wooden column behind him.

  Prying the weapon free, Raz let the body fall to the ground with a thud and turned to face the three left standing. Two men and a woman, none of them looking very happy with their predicament despite the nice odds.

  Maybe it was due to the five already dead, scattered in a ragged circle on the larder floor around Raz’s feet.

  All three were still armed, their swords held in both hands, eyeing him nervously. Almost uncaringly Raz met their gaze, resting Ahna’s point on the ground. The hood of his white robes had fallen back during the fight, and he regarded the three of them calculatingly, the sunset-red skin of his ears spread wide and menacing. The metal armor that encased his left arm gleamed in the light of the oil lamps hanging from the low ceiling. Leather manica wrappings covered his right forearm and right thigh, stretched tight and firm. His left leg was shielded with steel plate mail, extending from the bottom of his hip all the way to his ankle, and his right lower shin was fit with a light iron guard. Heavy gauntlets gloved both hands, each finger tipped with a steel claw Raz had always thought completely unnecessary. His own claws worked just fine for tearing through armor, cloth, and flesh.