The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1

by Bryce O'Connor

“Well would’ya look at that, Jerd?” one of the other men asked. “We done gone and caught ourselves a rose, ain’t we?”

  Even through her tears she could tell that they were still all staring at her, and Syrah fought harder, attempting to open her mouth and bite. The man’s fingers were too strong, though, and she only won herself a tighter grip by the arm that pinned her hands to her sides.

  “You ever seen a rose, Blith? ‘Cause I ain’t,” the man called Jerd snapped. “This one’s got ta’ be prettier than a rose, though.”

  He stepped forward, clearly under the impression that she was subdued because he reached out to touch her face. He wasn’t happy, therefore, when she kicked again, catching him in the arm.

  He yelped and clutched his forearm with his free hand. “Whore!” he hissed, stepping to the side and backhanding her so hard she saw stars. Then he reached up and ripped at her robes, tearing the seam of her sleeve. “Try that again and I’ll strip ya’ to skin and drag ya’ out of here by yer hair to let the Sun eat ya’ alive!”

  Syrah glared at him, her pinkish eyes blazing. She felt emotions she’d only ever rarely experienced. Hatred, vengefulness, desperation. She struggled, and the man holding her chuckled.

  “Hit ‘er again, Jerd. Don’t think she’s gettin’ yer message.”

  Abruptly Raz stood straight, ears extended, interrupting the friendly bartering over the price of a bag of wheat.

  “Raz, what—?” Jillia began, surprised, but he cut her off with a finger to his lips.

  He was sure he was the only one on the road who could hear the scuffling. Even he could barely make it out over the thrum of the crowd. Still, his ears pricked when what could only have been a woman’s muffled scream wound its way through the market sounds. On instinct he turned, looking for the standout, the most likely to be in trouble.

  The white robes had disappeared.

  Raz wasn’t sure what he felt as he looked over the heads that surrounded him on all sides with false calm, listening harder. The girl was a stranger to him, and her face had been masked. Not to mention she’d been wandering so close to the slums on her own.

  And yet… which of those facts meant he didn’t have to do something?

  Another muffled shout, and Raz’s eyes latched on to an old abandoned hutch of a house a ways down the opposite side of the street.

  “I’m sorry, Jillia,” he said, not looking away from the building, placing the bag of nopales he’d already bought down on the table. “I’ll be back for these later.”

  He stepped into the crowd, breaking a narrow line through the swarming bodies. Jarden’s staff gripped tightly in his hand, he didn’t make right for the building. Instead he crossed perpendicular, cutting pedestrians and carts off alike, ignoring the smattering of angry shouts and insults thrown his way. He could still discern it, still hear the struggle. That was a good sign. Stepping off the other side of the road, he darted through a group of street lyrists and ducked into the shadow of the alleys.

  Then, as soon as he was out of sight of the market, he leapt atop an upturned water barrel and vaulted onto the lowest nearby roof.

  His nighttime excursions served him well for once. Ducking low, Raz flitted from building to building, making a small loop over the flat rooftops, not wanting to catch the attention of anyone in the bustle of the bazaar. Within a minute he was where he wanted to be, and with a puff of dried dust he landed catlike and low on the abandoned house.

  Sure enough he could hear movement inside, and what sounded like someone gagged and struggling to get loose. The noise was clearer now, floating up through a poorly repaired hole to his right. The opening was about the size of a small person, like some child had fallen through the weak mortar, and had been carelessly patched with thatched straw. Loose bricks were still visible, clinging sadly to the sides of the hole.

  “Shut it, bitch!” someone hissed from inside the house, and there was a sharp smack followed by a momentary lapse in the sounds of scuffling. “Ain’t nothin’ to do but sit still and stop tryin’ to hit us! Garrot, keep a hold on her. Roe, pass me some of yer rope and start tyin’ up her legs. I’ll get her hands.”

  If Raz’s scales could have stood up on end, they would have. The silver bangles around his wrist clinked and shifted as he stiffened. There were two possibilities: either the men were rapists…

  … or they were slavers.

  It was a moment’s decision, and without a second thought Raz darted forward, leaping high. He crashed through the brittle roof of the hut, wings spread, falling in a shower of shattered brick. The remainders of the tattered straw thatching floated downward as he landed on all fours on the dirt floor. The kidnappers caught only a moment’s glimpse of white teeth and reptilian eyes before he was on them like a whirlwind, Jarden’s staff twisting and slashing through the air expertly in his hands, bruising flesh and breaking bones. The girl, one eye blackened and already swelling, took the opportunity to drive her heel into the crotch of the man holding her by the waist, doubling him over and forcing him to drop her.

  Raz’s clawed fingers found the collar of his tunic, heaved, and threw him straight through the flimsy mud-brick wall that divided the house.

  The explosion of reddish dust as a section of the room collapsed blew in the faces of the three men left standing, and their reflexes cost them their lives. The instant their hands went up to protect their eyes, Raz, unhindered by the dirt, moved with all the speed of his kind, slipping in between them and drawing his knife from his belt. The narrow blade found the exposed back of one, his staff crushed the skull of another, and the last went down with a scream when a sweeping tail knocked his feet out from under him.

  Well past the point of self-control, Raz dropped his weapons and fell on him like a starved hound, bare-handed. His jaws found the man’s throat in moments, lifting him in the air. There was the sound of tearing flesh, and the slaver jerked once, hitting the ground as Raz dropped the body. Blood pooled around the man’s head from his shredded neck, and he twitched only long enough to stare disbelievingly at the atherian towering over him.

  Raz watched him die, unblinking.

  Slowly the sounds of the surrounding city returned. There were panicked shouts approaching outside, shoppers attracted by the noises, and somewhere close a male voice yelled for the guards.

  Raz was struggling with himself, will battling instinct. His nose and ears told him that there were two people left alive in the room apart from him. The man he had thrown through the wall was stirring, groaning, his broken bones protesting every motion. Raz felt himself slide down the incline that was the fight to regain control of himself. He turned, folding his wings and bending to retrieve the staff and his knife from the ground. In the emptiness of his slipping conscience he found himself standing over the battered figure, cocking his head to the side and sizing the man up.

  He could taste the blood on the air.

  It would be so easy. It would be nothing. To cave his chest with a kick, or break his neck—it would take no effort. Maybe even bite, going for the vulnerable arteries about his throat. Raz liked that, didn’t he? He enjoyed it. He could still taste the metallic tartness in his mouth, feel the blood drying on his snout, tongue flicking in and out.

  It would be nothing…

  So what made him stop?

  Because there was certainly something holding him back, something pushing him to turn away and let the man go. He might survive. He might not. Raz could care less. But there was no need to kill him, helpless as he was.

  But still… so, so easy…

  Raz felt himself slip again, and he fought tenfold not to give in to savage instinct. He was losing, though. His control was fading, and he could sense something in the back of his mind being pulled from the deepest parts of his thoughts. It felt like an emptiness, a dark hole into which he could tumble so easily, giving in to the animal part of his soul.

  Raz felt himself take a step forward, watching as though through a blurry window a clawed hand�
��his hand—reach down toward the defeated man’s battered and bleeding face.

  “Don’t.”

  Raz’s reality shifted with a snap. He found himself standing in the center of the wrecked hut, coincidently almost directly beneath the wide hole he’d ripped through the brick roof. Above him the desert sky was a clean blue, outlined with the barest hints of wispy cloud. Beneath his clawed feet the earth was packed and solid and sticky with blood.

  And behind him the girl stood a mere arm-length away.

  Raz stood straight and half turned to look at her. Her thin white robes were dirty and torn, one sleeve hanging by only a few threads, revealing the palest skin he had ever seen. She was flushed from the heat and the struggle, but her pallor was unmistakable. Her one good eye, the other dark and swollen shut now, was a pale, colorless pink, returning Raz’s stare evenly.

  Albino? That took Raz by surprise. Albinos were rare as it was, but in the heat of the South they rarely survived more than a few years past birth, if they were lucky. This girl, whoever she was, was definitely foreign, likely a Northerner.

  Well, that explains the clothes…

  “Don’t,” she said again. “He’s had enough.”

  Raz blinked, looking back at the slaver. The man seemed to have passed out from the pain, the struggle to free himself from the remnants of the wall taxing his broken body to its limits.

  “You realize he’s liable to come after you again?” Raz asked without looking away. “You could have been raped or killed. And those are the most optimistic of your options.”

  The girl nodded without saying a word. Raz looked around again, sizing her up. She wasn’t the least bit frightened by him, that was certain. He found it almost amusing. Of all the things she could have been worried about in that moment, it was the life of the man who’d had her pinned and gagged.

  Then he shrugged, leaning down to wipe his dirty blade clean on the slaver’s trousers before sheathing the long knife on his hip and throwing the staff over one shoulder.

  “It’s your mistake to make, I guess. But I’m not helping him up.”

  And with that, the girl’s composure broke

  “No—” she said quickly. “Y-you don’t have to—” She slumped, as though letting the weight of the events that had just taken place catch hold of her for the first time. Now that she knew Raz wasn’t going to kill the man, she paused, taking a deep breath.

  “Thank you.”

  The last bits of the stern, authoritative bearing she’d held herself with seemed to drain away, and she staggered. Raz was just quick enough to catch her arm gently, helping her stand. The voices outside were getting more insistent, and he thought he could hear horses’ hooves nearby. The Karthian guard was on its way.

  “We have to leave,” he said hurriedly, pulling the wide hood of his white mantle back up over his head. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded and took a step closer as she, too, heard the horses. The throng outside was growing, shouting and debating whether to brave an entrance now that the fighting inside seemed to have come to an end.

  “This way,” Raz told her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her along to the back of the hut. One of the windows, boarded up with wooden planks and nails, led to the back alleys. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side, and so with his free hand he tore the boards away, scattering more dirt and splinters over the dusty floor.

  “Out,” he said. “Hurry.”

  She had just clambered her way through, Raz right behind her, when he heard the guard rush into the abandoned house. Landing on all fours, Raz didn’t hesitate. Sweeping the girl into his arms, he took off, moving away from the noise of the crowd.

  He ran for a good five minutes, making twists and turns that led in a wide loop through the slum town. They passed rickety sheds of thin cloth and leather, emaciated children playing in the dusty streets, and a mangy dog missing a back leg. A pair of women in old worn clothes that barely covered their wasted bodies watched them pass with tired eyes.

  And then they were back in the market, far from the commotion of the fight, Raz breathing hard as he looked around.

  A few people glanced at them in surprise, letting the pair be when they recognized him, though more than one stared openly at the blood that was drying along Raz’s snout and hands. He ignored them, scanning the bustling crowd for signs of trouble. Seeing nothing, he finally calmed.

  Something tapped against his chest.

  “Could you let me down now, please?”

  Raz placed the girl carefully on her feet. The Sun beat down incessantly, and he watched her tug her ripped sleeve over her exposed shoulder.

  “Here,” he said, pulling the silks from his back and draping them over her. “I can live without it.”

  For a second the girl looked like she would protest. Then she glanced up at the broiling ball of white high in the sky.

  “Thank you,” she told him again, pulling the hood over her head. The mantle hung on her like a grown man’s coat would hang on a small child, dragging along the ground and picking up dirt, but it did the trick. She squinted less from the shade, looking around.

  “We need to leave.” Raz was still peering over the heads of the crowd. “Where can you go?”

  “The Ovana Inn,” she said at once, looking up and down the road, unsure of exactly where they were. “My Priest-Mentor and our companions will be there. They might already be looking for me, actually.”

  “Then you need to get there quickly,” Raz said with a nod. He pointed a clawed finger down the east road. “Follow this street. Stick to the middle of the crowd, away from the edges. The Ovana is on the left side, about a half mile down. Find your friends and get out of Karth. If you’re lucky, those men weren’t slavers, but I wouldn’t bet on it. If they were, the ring will be after you. Leave as soon as you can.”

  “What about you?” she asked him as he stepped back into the alley.

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  And then he was climbing up the wall of the alley, the staff between his teeth, his strong arms and legs making short work of the cracks and protruding bricks that littered the two stories. Once he’d pulled himself up onto the flat roof, he peeked over the street-facing edge. It took him less than a second to find the girl in the sea of dark hair and colored robes. She was making her way east like he’d said, as close to the middle of the road as possible, but her going was slow through the crowd. Raz was more than a little nervous, keeping an eye out for trouble in the throng.

  He must have handled the group involved, though, because in the ten minutes it took her to find the inn he didn’t see anything more suspicious than an old one-eyed beggar lurking in the alley beside a dried-meat shop.

  He watched the girl step under the awning of the inn, pulling the silk hood down. Her white shoulder-length hair seemed to melt into her skin as she looked around. Then a man with a long ponytail and dressed in similar robes to her torn ones rushed from out of the Ovana’s entrance, embracing her.

  “Where have you been?” Raz heard the man demand worriedly over the crowd.

  Satisfied, Raz turned away, intent on getting home himself.

  “Where have you been?” Talo practically yelled, crushing her with an anxious hug. “I’ve been worried sick about you! Laor save me, I was about to go looking! What happened? Why is your face like that?”

  “I’m fine, Talo,” Syrah said with a half-hearted smirk, pushing his examining hand away from her cheek. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can, but we need to leave. Now.”

  Talo’s brow pinched together, and for a second Syrah thought he would demand an explanation again. But his blue eyes lingered on her injuries for another moment, and he nodded.

  “You’ll speak as we pack, acolyte,” he told her sternly, and Syrah bowed her head in understanding. Then she followed the Priest’s raised arm inside.

  Once she was safely in the dim common room of the inn, Talo looked across the road, scanning the top of the shop roofs th
at faced the Ovana with narrowed eyes. There’d been something there, he was sure. A figure, peering over the edge of the low rooftops, watching them.

  Whoever it was, though, they were long gone.

  CHAPTER 19

  “I only ever saw him once after that day, years later. I don’t think he recognized me… I don’t think he recognized much of anything from his old life…”

  —Jillia Ashani

  “I don’t know whether to call you fool or hero, boy,” Jarden grunted, shaking his head. He was leaning against the outside of his wagon, one foot resting on the timber spokes of a wheel. In his hands he toyed nervously with his panpipes. Beside him, the Grandmother frowned.

  “Would you have done anything differently?” Her gray eyes met Jarden’s.