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

by Bryce O'Connor

  Then, with the speed of a lightning strike, the great spear whipped skyward, then down, falling like an executioner’s ax to take the man just below the chest.

  Both halves of him were finally still when the beast stood straight again, gleaming eyes looking up the stairs, towards Bjen and his three feeble warriors.

  Bjen heard one of the warriors to his left begin a death prayer.

  He watched, as though in some horrible dream, as the beast stepped over the two parts of his most recent kill, making for the stairs. It took the bottom step slowly, then the second, then the third, climbing upwards with a quiet confidence that was more terrifying than anything Bjen had yet seen. One man lost his head completely, dropping his sword and turning to run, tripping and scrambling up the path as he tried to escape the inescapable. The other two were made of sterner stuff, but their war cries were still shrill with terror as they charged, one lifting a massive two-headed ax over his head, the other a sword and shield. Together they made for the creature, and Bjen saw his only chance. Lifting both axes, he bellowed his own roar of defiance as he plowed forward, intent on taking the monster down. It might have been a danger in the darkness of the night, but in the light of the fires no man had a prayer of surviving a three-on-one engagement with the weathered champions of the mountain tribes.

  But the thing, it turned out, was no man at all.

  The first of Bjen’s survivors went down in a blink, the beast sidestepping the great overhead swing of the man’s ax casually, as though he were politely moving aside to let the man pass. As the weapon completed its arc, the strange sword came around in a blinding horizontally slash, severing head from shoulders. The dance wasn’t done, though, as the creature used the momentum of the strike to complete a spinning turn, lifting the great spear up as it did.

  The second man didn’t even have time to correct his shield placement before the heavy twin blades crashed into his side, cutting through his arm and into his chest, carrying through to slam him against the uneven stone along the side of the stairs.

  It happened so fast, Bjen didn’t have time to rethink his charge. As it was, though, even seeing his men snuffed out before him like candles pit against an ocean wave didn’t shake the resolve of a trueborn Kregoan warrior. Bjen roared again, his cry stronger now as he embraced death, seeking only glory for himself and his Gods at his end.

  Mercifully, the end came quickly.

  Bjen barely glimpsed the blow that pierced his heart. All he knew was that whereas in one instant the winged specter was before him, weapons held lazily to either side, in the next it was beside him. In the same moment Bjen felt a searing, numbing pain through his chest, and his breath choked in his throat. As his axes fell from his hands, fingers going limp with the shock of the feeling, he took in the beauty of the craftsmanship of the hilt sticking out of his chest, the care that had been put into the weapon. He lifted his head, finding himself face to face with the sleek reptilian maw of the beast, and he looked into its dead, golden eyes for a moment, witnessing the animal behind them.

  Then the blade was retracted, and Bjen fell forward down the stairs, tumbling along the steps, numb to the pain as his body died. He landed on his back, looking up the mountain face, and had only one last notion as he watched the creature continue to ascend the pass, hunting the last survivor.

  Dahgün, Bjen al’Hayrd thought, just before the Stone Gods came and lifted him to their halls of laughter and plenty.

  CHAPTER 38

  “I don’t know if the beast ever came back in truth, after that night. I believe that Syrah calmed the animal in Raz, that she managed to soothe the fire that had burned within him for so long. He will always be a killer, I think. It’s in his blood, in his nature. He is made to fight, made to protect. But I think that was the night Raz i’Syul rid himself of what little of the Monster was left in him…”

  —private journal of Carro al’Dor

  Not here.

  It was the first echo of conscious thought Raz had had in hours, but he didn’t fight to regain control. He needed the Monster, right now. He needed the cruelty, needed the hunger. It was the wakened beast—usually curled up and asleep within him—that had so effectively cleared the mountain pass. It was the beast that had hunted the sentries down to the last, keeping their cries short and their deaths quick.

  And it was the beast that had brought him to this place, drawing forth memories he didn’t know he’d kept.

  Raz sat crouched on the balls of his feet in the low overhang of a thin tent. All around him small boxes with provisions and baskets of wool and cotton were piled high, pushing out the cloth canopy and widening the space.

  Things they use, he thought, not blinking as he stared down at the piled, dirty furs at his feet. She was kept among the things they use.

  And she was here, or at least had been. Raz was sure of it now. He hadn't doubted in the true sense of the word, hadn’t strayed from the belief that Syrah was alive, but he had wondered. He had wondered in the way a man of faith wonders at times, given no tangible proof of the existence of his gods.

  But now, Raz was certain. He could smell her, could taste her presence in the air, heavy and recent. He hadn't known that he remembered what the woman smelled like until he’d gotten nearer to the tent, hadn't thought that he could recognize her in such a way. He’d prayed to the Moon and Sun that she would be where he’d left her, and hadn't given more than a moment to the fear that she might not be.

  Now I know, though, he thought, lifting his snout to taste the air. Now I can find you.

  There were a hundred scents and flavors to the room, few amongst them pleasant. Raz’s eyes dropped again to the short chains, shackled to the center post of the tent. The woman seemed to have been secluded to the space, allowed reprieve only to relieve herself, though not always. Instead of revulsion, though, Raz felt only rising, unbridled hate begin to build again, the conditions in which Syrah Brahnt had been kept feeding the wrath within him like tinder to a ravenous flame. He battled it back, though, closing his eyes and fighting to find the scent once more through the confusion that assaulted his senses. It took him a moment, but once he latched onto it Raz knew he would never forget it again. It was a clear, calm redolence, bringing to mind wind and dusk and living greenery.

  It was the scent of the Garin at sunset, the sands of the desert lake, when a cool breeze would blow waves across the still waters and tease the leaves of shaded palm groves swaying along its shores.

  Syrah…

  Raz opened his eyes again. He found himself—having not moved his head—staring once more at the cold iron of the chains, limp on the ragged fur blankets she had left behind.

  This time, he allowed the fire within to gain a little bit of a foothold, knowing he would need it soon.

  Turning away from the space Syrah Brahnt had been kept prisoner for the last two weeks, Raz crept over and peered between the entrance flaps of the tent, taking in everything he could see. When nothing moved among the trees in his view he slipped outside once again, standing up and allowing the animal to move his head this way and that, tasting the air.

  Within seconds, it had the scent.

  Silent as a whisper, Raz moved west towards the glow and noise of the camp. He kept to the trees, darting from shadow to shadow and trunk to trunk, Ahna’s gleaming blades held low and clear of the light. Before long the dull thrum of several hundred men became a true roar of noise to his ears, and the animal started being more cautious, peeking out from behind cover before moving.

  When he reached the edge of the camp, he stopped, and cursed.

  Syrah’s trail led right into the lines of two hundred some-odd tents, staked out wherever there was space among the trees.

  Without hesitating Raz moved north, around the camp, dashing through the underbrush. He saw men as he moved—though he made sure they didn’t see him—patrolling about in pairs and trios. Despite the later hour it seemed most of the Kayle’s warriors were still awake and active, and
Raz cursed again, wondering if he might have been able to brave slinking through the tents if more had been asleep. He blamed the Arocklen for it, blamed the ice and piled snow overhead that had made it hard even for Talo and Carro to sometimes tell the difference between night and day as they’d steadily made for the Citadel.

  Fighting back the fear that he wouldn’t be able to get to Syrah before the massacre at the base of the path was discovered, Raz kept moving.

  For a long time he made a wide circle west among the trees, keeping to what darkness he could find and pausing when he needed to. Three times Raz was almost caught, twice by camp patrols whose eyes he managed to avoid only at the last second, and once by a large man with red paint across his face that had been off among the Woods, relieving himself against a tree.

  This one Raz had killed, coming up behind him and crushing his forehead against the trunk for no other reason than to relieve a little of the anger that was threatening to pour out of him every time he allowed himself to dwell on where Syrah might be.

  It seemed, however, that the Moon was not finished in blessing him this night. About five minutes into circling the camp, Raz stopped dead, flattening himself against the tall roots of a great fir as the animal found what he was seeking. The scent of the desert shores caught him almost off guard, and he slowly eased himself down onto all fours to sniff at the ground. It was another fifteen seconds or so of scrounging around, backtracking and searching the snowy brush, before Raz found what he was after.

  A trail—strong and no more than a few hours old—pulling him further west than the tents, back into the trees.

  The woman had been dragged through the camp, then out the other side and into the Woods. Raz didn’t allow himself to wonder as to what reason there might be for this odd occurrence, but he moved with all haste as he ran, faster and faster as he got further and further away from the dangerous light of the cooking fires.

  With Syrah’s scent, after all, had come the reek of at least a half-dozen men.

  He didn't have to run long. Soon after, Raz found himself breaking through the greater body of the forest and sprinting out into a semi-open space, a wide, natural clearing crafted by the Sun-choking branches of the most massive tree Raz had ever seen. Even with only the dull light of the Moon coming through the canopy, he couldn’t help but pause and stare up at the monolith, following the dark outline of its trunk up and up and up into the spidery branches far above.

  But the Monster growled within, unimpressed by the scene, and took hold once more.

  Her scent led Raz forward, over the frozen ground and dead leaves, directly up to the tree, where it was suddenly much stronger. Raz sniffed around the base, assuming she’d been kept there, among the roots for a time, though again he couldn’t guess to what purpose. He followed the trail sideways, staying close to the ground, wincing as he came across the scattered hints of iron in the smell of moss and loam.

  She’d been hauled over the ground, skin to frozen earth, without a care as to what it did to her body.

  For a few seconds he continued in this fashion, paralleling the steep banks of a stream to the right. Eventually he overshot the trail, losing the scent and having to backtrack several steps before finding it again.

  As he did, something caught his sharp eye, pale and distinct even in the dim Moonlight. Raz paused and knelt down, resting Ahna’s point in the earth as he reached with his free hand to pluck something from the ground, lifting it close to his face.

  There, pinched delicately between the steel tips of his thumb and forefinger, was a single strand of fine, ash-white hair.

  Found you, Raz thought, lifting his eyes as the scent dragged his attention eastward once more, their amber glare settling wrathfully on a pocket of firelight that seemed separate from the rest of the camp, removed from the common foot soldiers.

  Pulling himself slowly to his feet, Raz let the strand of hair fall from his hand.

  By the time it came to rest among the dead, frost-tipped leaves, the Monster was no more than a deadly flicker among the trees, moving in the direction of the light.

  Syrah had never been more afraid in her life.

  When she’d come to an hour or so ago, the fear had taken its time to settle in. She’d been groggy, her head still muddled from the beating the men who’d come to fetch her from her tent had given her, pummeling her into unconsciousness. The confusion had since cleared slowly, replaced by a dull, deep ache between her temples.

  And the overwhelming, all-consuming sensation of sheer, paralyzing terror.

  She was on her back, her arms wrenched painfully up above her head, wrists shackled to a support post in the corner of the large tent she had found herself in. Thick furs muffled the roughness of the ground beneath her, and the air was warm, heated by a number of small, wood-fed braziers scattered about the space. Even through her grogginess and the headache it hadn't taken Syrah long to figure out where exactly she was.

  Grahst’s tent.

  Syrah had wondered—for weeks now, in fact—why Kareth Grahst had never paid her a “visit.” It had been part of the fear, part of the horror of every moment, wondering when she would hear boots crunching over snow and dirt, wondering when that entrance flap would be pulled open once more, and what cruel, bearded face she would see when it did.

  Eventually, the wait and fear had become worse than the actual acts the Kayle’s men had forced, one after the other, upon her.

  And now, that terrified anticipation was layered tenfold.

  She understood, now, why Grahst had denied himself her body. She’d wondered if the man was impotent, or perhaps preferred bed partners of a different sort. She’d gone through a hundred reasons, trying to convince herself that he wouldn’t come, that she wouldn’t have to bear the memory of him taking her, of his gruff hands pinning her down and stifling her screams, as a dozen had before his.

  She blinked away a tear building in the corner of her good eye, brought forth from the unbidden, hateful pit that was her stomach bottoming out at the thought.

  But Syrah had never screamed for help, despite the constant urge to do so. She had refused to cry out, refused to allow herself to be lost to fear and desperation and physical pain the men’s abuses had inflicted. In the days that she had been held captive, Syrah hadn't once broken before the men who came to take advantage of her, hadn't once given them the satisfaction of seeing her bend to their cruelty. Half a week prior she’d had the meager pleasure of overhearing—from a Sigûrth who’d either forgotten, didn’t know, or didn’t care that she understood the mountain tongue—that this fact was slowly enraging Grahst. She’d taken pleasure in that knowledge, drawn strength from it. It had given her something to survive on, something that didn’t let her die, even when she’d wanted to.

  Now, though, her situation had stripped her of that strength. Kareth Grahst was coming, and Syrah knew with agonizing certainty that the man wouldn’t be done with her until he had shattered her resolve completely.

  This realization had driven her half mad, for a time. For several long minutes she had struggled with her bindings, fighting and pulling at the irons until her already-raw wrists bled once more and the muscles of both arms ached from the stress. In desperation she had tried heating the shackles with magic, hoping to soften the metal, but the results—repeated as they had been the ten times she’d tried before on other days—were only her seething in pain as the cuffs burned into her skin. She had then considered every other spell she knew, every attack and ward and rune. Nothing played in her favor, the possible results ranging from a benign waste of strength to the risk of blinding herself completely with wood shards and splinters if she tried to blast her way free.

  Magic, in the end, fell short once again.

  And so Syrah had taken a ragged gasp of air, her body shaking despite the warmth of the tent, and begun to pray.

  She found comfort in speaking to the Lifegiver. It had been her only source of comfort, in fact. It had carried her through the wo
rst of the last weeks, lifting her up when her mind drifted to the darkest places. Her relationship with Laor had changed, she knew, had shifted through the course of these trials, but her faith had remained unbroken. She’d prayed and made her devotions, doing her best to plead for the wellbeing of everyone she cared for as often as she begged for release from this gauntlet she was suffering through. It had leveled her, kept her earthbound and sane, forced her to draw up the faces of her loved ones, her friends, and others who’d driven themselves unforgettably into her life. Now, as she felt something terrible descending upon her, she drew up these faces once again, thinking of Talo, of Carro and Jofrey and all those others far above her, likely mourning her from the confines of Cyurgi’ Di where the mountain men had them trapped. She prayed for their lives, for their happiness after she was gone, after Kareth Grahst—and then very likely the Kayle—were done tearing her down to nothing. She prayed for their safety, even if it meant the cost of her own life.