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

by Bryce O'Connor

  The surge of screamed agreements rang for a long moment, echoing over the roll of heavy applause that accompanied it.

  “Today, however, is only the beginning!” Tern continued once it had died away. “Sixteen entered the ring this day to fight for their chance. Sixteen were defeated. Not even the best of them could stand to your Monster, your great Scourge. But there are others. Indeed, there are five hundred others! Will one among them be the slayer of your champion? Will one among them wield the blade meant to end Raz i’Syul Arro’s life? Come! Witness the fights for yourselves, and we. Shall. SEE!”

  With those final words, Tern bent himself into a surprisingly graceful bow for his size, then turned away from the stadium. The crowd was whipping itself into another frenzy, clapping and stomping, but through them Talo could see once more the indistinct shape of Raz i’Syul, his great spear thrown over one shoulder, making for the pit gate as the portcullis rose once more.

  “Come on,” he told Kal brusquely, heaving himself to his feet and ignoring the throb of a bad knee left unmoving too long. “We need to go.”

  “Go?” Kal asked in surprise. “Go where?”

  “To speak to the Arena’s new favorite!” Talo yelled back over his shoulder, already limping down the steps, hurrying to beat the rush of the exiting crowd.

  CHAPTER 20

  Talo was very glad Kal had roused him early that morning. They’d barely been standing for a half hour now, fringing the throng of spectators that hovered around the heavy double doors in the outer south wall of the Arena, and already his knee felt ready to give. Pain had yielded way to numbness some five minutes before, and Talo didn’t move for fear that his leg would refuse to go with him if he did.

  Had they spent all day on their feet in the upper rings of the Arena, like the latecomers, Talo rather thought he’d have been ready to beg Carro to just take the limb.

  He stood side by side with Kal, leaning against the wall of a wide alley directly across from the doors. Beyond the encircling protection of the stadium the wind had grown cruel again, but no one seemed to mind. The people before them swirled excitedly, murmuring amongst themselves in anticipation. Every here and there children bounced up and down, trying to see above the crowd. Minor fights broke out every couple of minutes as individuals tried to push closer to the doors, settled by the guardsmen roaming through the group.

  All waiting impatiently for the appearance of Raz i’Syul Arro.

  The doors they crowded around led to the Arena underworks. It was the entrance of gladiators and animals, fighters and fodder alike. Talo had barely been able to take his eyes off them the entire time he and Kal had been standing there. He kept losing himself in old memories, images from long years ago of those doors opening up to him for the first time, and then of the crowds that awaited the Lifetaker after some great victory, just as they awaited Raz i’Syul now.

  Maybe he’s smartened up, though, Talo thought. Maybe he’ll find himself another way out.

  He hoped not. He and Kal were standing in the wind and cold of the gray afternoon in the hopes of catching the atherian as he left. There were things to be said, questions to be asked, and Talo wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance, if he’d get one at all. Kal had already tried to talk him out of it, calling i’Syul “unchecked” and “wild,” and Talo had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t hear the end of any desire to speak to the man if Carro got wind of what they’d witnessed today.

  Despite himself, Talo had to crack a smile at the image of his partner, green faced and clammy, attempting to hear out his and Kal’s description of the fights.

  “They’re opening.”

  Talo blinked at Kal’s words. Sure enough, the doors were swinging slowly apart. He didn’t allow himself to get too excited, though. Twice they’d opened already, each time for attendants wheeling out narrow wagons piled high with the remains of the fights, the dead barely covered in the same old cloth, stained red and black. Talo had no interest in sharing the crowd’s peaking thrill at these grim reminders of the day’s violence.

  This time, though, the only thing to step from the doorway was a massive figure, face and body mostly hidden under a heavy black-and-silver fur mantle, great spear thrown over one shoulder as he walked. It was fascinating, watching i’Syul cut a swath through the throng. Many screamed and shouted his name as he passed, but none were fool enough to reach out and touch him, much less get in his way. On the contrary, even as they cheered him the men and women of the group seemed to retreat from the man, pulling away as though repelled by his proximity, then falling together again to follow. As a result, the atherian was clear of them in seconds, never looking left or right as he walked, not even when he passed in front of Talo and Kal, heading down the alley they had sheltered themselves in.

  Nodding to Kal, Talo pulled himself off the wall and took the man’s offered arm. Together the pair started limping after i’Syul as fast as they could manage.

  For some time they followed him, trailing the atherian’s dark form around corners and bends, down main fairways and side streets alike. Azbar passed them in sullen silence, the city’s spirits dampened by the gray of the winter day. What few people they came across didn’t bother giving the disguised Priests a second glance, preferring to turn and watch i’Syul until he was out of sight.

  The atherian had been in the city for weeks, but it seemed the fascination with his presence was far from dissipated.

  They were heading south all the while, cutting through market and residential districts alike as they walked. i’Syul seemed in no hurry to get wherever he was going, bearing a steady pace through the buildings and trees that grew every here and there where spaces between the walls allowed. The wind cut in and out around them as they took turns and hills, sometimes blocked by stone for a minute only to be channeled by it the next, ripping in an angry howl through the narrowest lanes. Several times Talo had had to raise a hand to shield his eyes from the chill gusts, worrying in those moments if they would lose the atherian as he moved. It had been their ambition to wait for the right moment to call out. They had no desire to draw a crowd, but were just as intent not to make the man fear he was being ambushed on some back road.

  After about ten minutes of tailing him through the city, though, the atherian took away all say they had in the matter.

  They’d just finished struggling down a short set of rough-hewn stairs, weaving their way through a few empty streets at their base, when they turned a corner to find that all trace of the man seemed to have vanished. As though he’d simply blinked out of existence, i’Syul had disappeared into thin air. They stood along a tapered path that slanted slightly uphill, the cobblestone beneath their boots inclined inward to allow for rain and snowmelt. The whole space was barely wide enough to accommodate them both side by side, and penned in by the back walls of the two- and three-story buildings jutting up to tower over them like silent witnesses.

  It was the stillness of these walls, the emptiness of the alley and heavy silence of the sky above, that caused both men to jump when a dark shadow plummeted from the rooftops to crash onto the cobblestone behind them.

  “Most know by now,” a throaty tenor growled, “that it’s a very bad idea to follow me.”

  Together the Priests whirled around. Talo managed to compose himself, hands up to make it clear they were not armed.

  Kal was not so calm.

  Perhaps it was the scene of the fights they’d witnessed only an hour before, or maybe it was just the heavy form of Raz i’Syul Arro looming above them now, great spear held before him, its blades naked to the icy afternoon. Regardless, Kal’s hands whipped upward. There was a flash of light, and ivory flames lined his palms and fingers, ignoring the wool of his gloves or the edges of his robes.

  The change in Raz i’Syul was instantaneous. Whereas in one moment his reptilian face had held nothing more than confident disdain towards the strangers who had been tracking him through the city, in the next it was hard and cold,
golden eyes taking in Kal’s flames with a calculating intelligence the likes of which Talo had rarely seen. He could make out lithe muscle bunching beneath what little dark skin was left exposed to the elements between armor and cloth. The red webbing along the back of i’Syul’s neck flared up, bright as a setting sun against the somber palette of the city. Steel claws gleamed in the white sheen of Laorin magic, red in places where blood still caked the metal.

  Abruptly, Talo realized how close the High Citadel and the temple of Azbar were to requiring new leadership.

  Raz i’Syul, though, didn’t charge. He barely moved, in fact, the only adjustment in his form coming as his thick tail shifted in the air behind him, suspended over the cobblestone. His eyes never left the flicker of Kal’s flames, and after a few seconds an odd change came over the man.

  His face darkened, his grip on the spear spasmed, and his lips pulled back in an ugly snarl, revealing every inch of narrow, wicked teeth.

  “Priests?”

  The hissed question did not seem directed at anyone in particular. In fact, Talo had the distinct impression that the exclamation was merely a manifestation of whatever realization had suddenly gripped the atherian, voiced in something like disbelief.

  Talo decided then was as good a time as ever to make himself heard.

  “Kal, calm yourself,” he said quietly. Beside him Kal opened his mouth to argue, but Talo gave him a pointed look, and the man hesitated.

  Then, after a moment, he let the magics go, and flames dissipated in a glimmer of white as Kal’s hands fell to his sides.

  Talo breathed a quiet sigh of relief, then looked to the atherian again.

  “Raz i’Syul,” he said with a nod, letting his own hands drop now that it seemed i’Syul wasn’t about to tear them apart just yet. “I apologize for the secrecy, but we deemed it a necessary precaution. I am Talo Brahnt of the High Citadel, Cyurgi’ Di. This”—he indicated Kal—“is Kal Yu’ri, of Azbar. Obviously you are correct. We are Priests of Laor, though I’m quite surprised you know of us. I would have thought it unlikely, considering where—”

  “I know more about you than you think, Priest.”

  Talo was taken aback by the harshness of the words. i’Syul had his eyes on him, now, and something burned there that took a moment to recognize. At first he thought it might be fear, but that made no sense. It wasn’t hate either. Talo had seen hatred in all its forms over the years.

  No, he realized finally. What he saw in the slit pupils of the atherian was nothing less than pure, unbridled fury.

  “I know of your beliefs,” i’Syul hissed. “I know of your god, your ‘Lifegiver.’ I even know of your magic, if that’s what you call it. The Grandmother told me much and more, when I asked.”

  “Then you should know we bear you no ill will,” Talo said, lifting his empty hands again and taking another limping step forward. “I hope that this ‘Grandmother’ of yours told you we are men of peace, of hope. All who speak in Laor’s name seek to follow the righteous path. It’s why we are here. The situation in Azbar has grown out of control. You know this, I know this, and every person in the city knows this. We also know what you’ve done—what you are doing—to make it better. We know you are fighting to alleviate the strain the Arena has placed on the backs of the innocent. As a man of faith I cannot thank you for that, given your methods. As a man of family and friends, though, I cannot thank you enough.”

  “I don’t want your thanks,” Raz spat, and once again Talo was taken by surprise by the venom in the man’s words. “I don’t need your approval, Priest. I don’t care for your opinion of my ‘methods,’ as you say. I will protect mine and my own as I see fit, and you and your false god have no place seeking me out to tell me whether that is right or wrong.”

  “False god?” Kal exclaimed furiously. “Now wait just one minute, you—!”

  “We had hoped”—Talo cut across the Priest loudly—“to discuss with you the future of this city, and what you intend for it. You seek peace, I believe. So do we. We may go about it in different ways, Arro, but at the end of the day I know you want an end to the killing as much as we do.”

  “There is no end to the killing,” the atherian growled. “There is no end to any of it. The monster that is men like Quin Tern does not stop, even when its head has been cut off. I would know.”

  “You would know only that which you have experienced,” Talo said gently. “You are at war, man, and in war there never seems to be any end. Only the next fight, only the next move…”

  Raz’s eyes narrowed at that.

  “You claim to know much of war for a man of the cloth. Tell me, what does a Priest experience in his lifetime of hardships that would lead him to such conclusions? The bickering over the freshest bread and cleanest robes? Maybe disputes held in warm rooms about what light best holds the wonders of your holy relics? Don’t give me that shit, Priest. What you learn in books is not enough to inform you on the ways of the world.”

  “For your information—!” Kal started up again, but Talo once more cut him off.

  “I recommend,” he said pointedly, giving the other Priest another look, “that you not attempt to judge a man’s past by his present, Arro. It will often leave you a fool.”

  “And I recommend,” Raz retorted angrily, “that you not assume a man knows nothing of what he speaks about. You think I don’t know you? You think I don’t remember you? You’re older now, I’ll give it to you, and I don’t recall the limp. Your hair’s changed, too. More silver now. Still, there’s enough. There can’t be many among your faith of your size, and none with your voice.”

  “My voice?” Talo asked slowly. He had the odd feeling he was not going to like where this was going.

  “Your voice,” Raz said with a nod. “I remember it. I remember everything about that day. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you! Laor save me, I was about to go looking.’ I remember your inn, the Ovana. I remember the girl, the men, the empty house. Mostly, though… Mostly I just remember the fire.”

  Something cold was clawing at Talo, now, and it wasn’t the wind. He didn’t recall the exact words, but he trusted that Arro had them right. Vaguely he remembered hurrying out to Syrah, exclaiming outrage at her injuries only to have her insist she would explain, but that first they had to leave.

  He remembered a shape on the rooftops across the street, vanishing before Talo could get a better look.

  “You were there…” he said quietly. “I should have known, but I never really thought… I was surprised you didn’t stay with her to guard her, though frankly I was more surprised you helped at all.”

  “I helped,” Raz spat, “because I was raised to do for others what they could not do for themselves. I helped because your girl would have ended up raped or murdered or sold off to the rings if I hadn’t. I didn’t stay with her, because I was above, on the roofs, watching to make sure she wasn’t being followed.”

  “She wasn’t,” Talo said. “We prepared ourselves for it, even as we packed, but no one ever came. We left as soon as possible, just as you’d instructed her, and no one tracked us then, either.”

  “No one tracked you, because the slavers I kept your acolyte from had decided I was the one more deserving of punishment than you.”

  The clawing cold took full hold of Talo then, pulling at his stomach and heart.

  “What do you mean?” he breathed, wide eyes on the atherian. “What happened, child?”

  Raz i’Syul stood silent for a long moment. Above them the wind was still picking up, its screams fading in and out, though it never dipped down into their narrow road. Had it done so, Talo thought it might have shaken the man from whatever place he had gone. The atherian’s eyes were still on him, but they looked past him now, seeing nothing but whatever memories were forging their way through his mind. The fury in his features didn’t fade, but with it now were other things, too. Hate and fear came in true, mixing with a sad sort of pain.

  Grief, Talo
realized.

  After a time, i’Syul pulled himself back to the living world. Rather than answer Talo’s question, though, he stood straight, letting his spear hang loose from one hand.

  “Come near me again, and we can find out how committed your god is to keeping you alive,” he said roughly.

  Then he turned away from the Priests, moving back the way they’d come. As Talo and Kal watched him go, he took a corner at the end of the alley and vanished once more from view.

  “Lifegiver’s mercy,” Kal breathed, sounding as though he’d been holding his breath the whole time. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it out of that one…”

  Talo didn’t respond, watching the turn in the road where the atherian had disappeared. The cold inside him wasn’t fading. Instead it weighed on him, pulling him down until he wanted to press his back to the wall and slide to the cobblestone.