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

by Bryce O'Connor

  Making a decision, Raz scooped her up in one arm, cradling her against his chest, and sprinted towards the back wall.

  The other supports held, and they were outside in seconds, dashing into the trees. For half-a-minute Raz ran, driving straight north, towards the Saragrias. When he heard voices behind them, though, howling in fury and hooting as they gave chase through the dark, he slowed down, then stopped.

  The Monster reared its head within him, snarling hungrily at their pursuers, and Raz felt the bloodlust rise once more.

  Then something small and gentle came to rest against his chest, and he glanced down.

  Syrah was looking up at him, her one eye bright and tired in the soft blue light of the Woods. She was watching him, her right hand resting against his heart, and it seemed in that moment she knew what was going through his mind.

  When she spoke, it was in a quiet, comforting whisper.

  “Leave them, Raz,” she said, the broken, dirtied nails of her hand digging lightly into his skin in subtle supplication. “Please. For me.”

  There was a long moment as Raz stared down at the woman in his arms. He met her gaze evenly, feeling as though he were ready to fall into the depths of her one good eye. He remembered the last time he had listened to this same request, recalled the price he had paid for it.

  Then, like her words had been a lullaby, the animal retreated back to where it had come, settling into sleep.

  “If you’re sure,” he said softly, turning away from the sounds of approaching men. Syrah smiled at him as he did so.

  The warmth behind that smile was all Raz needed to spur himself to new speeds through the Woods, out of the trees, and over the carnage at the base of the path before taking the wide stone steps of the mountain pass two at a time.

  CHAPTER 40

  “We are fortunate, in the end, that Raz’s actions were not cordoned in with the facts of my own betrayal. He was an outsider, a man of the world, not of the faith. His choices—while still his responsibility—were not governed by the laws of the Laorin, and so he was not bound by the same restrictions, the same expectations and punishments. It is for this reason, I think, that his return to us that day was the first great step in earning the trust of the faith. Instead of running, instead of fleeing the men and women who had held him prisoner, he returned to us willingly, bearing with him proof that he was not the soulless contraption of mayhem and butchery so many have tried to paint him out to be.”

  —private journal of Carro al’Dor

  Jofrey felt he had only just gotten to sleep when the summons came in the earliest hours of the morning, well before first light. It had been a late, restless evening, he and the rest of council having retired well after midnight had come and gone. Carro had been interrogated to every possible extent, half the council seeking some reason to forgive him his folly, the other half demanding he be Broken immediately and cast out into the snow. Valaria Petrük and Behn Argo had—of course—been particularly virulent, both of them raging the night away about the “madness” of setting an untamable brute like Raz i’Syul Arro free upon the world.

  And all the while Carro had only smiled, looking—For the first time since he returned, Jofrey thought—at peace.

  It was towards this troubling realization that Jofrey’s mind had wandered as he fell asleep, the heavy series of poundings on his room door serving to rip him out twisted dreams of an old, bloodier life best left behind. Unused to the spaciousness of the High Priest’s quarters—which he had been hastily moved into permanently the previous afternoon—at first Jofrey’s groggy mind had been mostly convinced it was the sound of sudden hail hammering the wide window set beside the bed in the circular wall. When the pounding came again, though, he started up from his mattress, intent on shouting a tired “Come in!” as he made to swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

  Before he could get the words out, though, the door was thrown open, swinging inward so hard it hit the inside wall with a crash, bathing the dark room with a wedged stroke of the brighter light of the hall. In its wake Cullen Brern practically tripped inside, looking desperately in all directions before finding Jofrey. Behind him Priest Elber did the same, rushing in as though chased. Both men’s faces were white, their eyes wide when they fell on their new High Priest.

  “He’s coming back!” Cullen was the first to get the words. “He’s coming back! He’s got her!”

  For a full five seconds after these words, Jofrey sat stunned, still halfway in and out of the bed. Slowly, eventually, his eyes went to Elber’s, seeking confirmation of the impossible.

  “T-two!” the older man gasped, struggling to catch his breath. “Two people! Coming up the pass! When the first ward broke we wanted to wait, to let you sleep. But now the second tells us there’re two people and—!”

  “He has her,” Jofrey hissed in incredulous, disbelieving shock. “Arro found Syrah.”

  “It’s the only explanation,” Brern insisted. “If the Kayle were sending a response, it would be more than two. Jofrey, please! Let me take a group and meet them! Let me get to them and—!”

  His words were cut short, though, as Jofrey scrambled the rest of the way out of bed, snatched his robes from where they hung on the corner post, and dashed right at the two men.

  “Like hell,” he half-snarled, half-yelled as he pushed past the pair, running in nothing but his nightgown in the direction of the temple gates. “Cullen, get your brother. Elber, find Benala. We’re going to get them ourselves.”

  Not fifteen minutes later, in the dark of the early hour, Jofrey, Cullen, Kallet, Priest Elber, and Benala Forn were dashing across the Citadel’s inner courtyard, taking turns to blast aside the piled snow and ice as they ran. They made their way through the outer wall quickly, the hammering of their boots echoing eerily in the tunnel, the light of the glowing orbs hovering above their shoulders shivering against the stone that curved overhead. After that, their course took them out over the plateau and towards the top of the stairs. Jofrey led the charge, now, his magic fueled by his hope and need, his spells blowing the path ahead clear thirty feet at a time.

  For hours the five of them descended, sometimes yelling to one another to watch their footing, or else shouting concerns about what would happen if it wasn’t Syrah and the atherian, or what state the pair might be in if it was them. Jofrey had no patience for doubts, at the moment, and so didn’t deign respond to any such concerns thrown his way. He knew—he knew—that Arro had succeeded. In the same way he had felt—though told no one—a sense of calming relief as he’d watched the atherian’s fleeing footprints fill with snow beyond the frame of the Last Door, so did he feel an absolute certainty that it was the man and Syrah fighting their way back up the mountain in the night. He could sense Laor’s hand in that confidence, could sense the Lifegiver feeding that conviction.

  And so for almost three hours Jofrey ran in focused silence, refreshing and warming himself only when he had to, leaving the others far behind more than once. Around the next corner, he kept telling himself. Around the next one.

  And then, just as the sun began to make itself known over the distant eastern horizon, his anticipation bore fruit.

  Whether it was coincidence or by some godly decree, they met in the same place Cullen Brern had first encountered Carro and the atherian. Jofrey had descended the winding path, back and forth across the mountainside, vaulting down and cutting every corner whenever he could. He had taken the bend, hurrying down the steps and past the entrance to the alcove he knew the two men had rested in only a few nights ago, when a shape came around the ledge in front of him, large and dark against the orange and purple of the new dawn. Jofrey felt a thrill wash through him as he made out the black silhouette against the backdrop of the sunrise behind it, watching it lumber in staggering, uneven steps, one after the other.

  Then the figure caught sight of him, and it stopped.

  Jofrey said nothing as he continued his descent down the last of the steps, rushing along
the flat part of the path as he reached it and hearing the others hurdling along above and behind him. As he ran forward, the massive shape fell in exhausted relief to its knees.

  When the High Priest finally came to halt before the man, he felt his heart stop.

  Raz i’Syul Arro knelt, worn and beaten, half-hunched over the still, spectral, form of the woman curled up against him. The atherian was a terrifying sight, glistening and streaked with dark stains that looked almost black in the morning light. The dried and frozen blood clung to everything, from the great spear hanging limp from one hand on the ground beside him to the reddened teeth along the snout that hung wearily down, shielding the woman from the cold and the snow as it began to fall again. He was heaving, his eyes closed, his breath blowing out of his mouth and nostrils like smoke to rise and wreath his head. The man shivered, his body shaking even beneath the layered pelts of the crusted mantle hanging over his shoulders.

  When the atherian spoke, though, his voice was firm, his words audible over the crunching sounds of booted feet coming to a halt behind Jofrey.

  “Lead the way.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “Cruelty is, simply put, an accepted medium of interaction among the mountain tribes of the North. It is, in some ways, a limitedly quantifiable measure of power among a people who value strength above all else. A man who can be cruel is a man who must be strong, for cruelty requires a hardness of the heart and soul through which a man can stand firm even under the greatest of threats. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the Stone Gods were born, for if a man’s strength can be measured by his cruelty, why not his gods’?”

  —Legends Beyond the Border, by Zyryl Vahs

  For a long time Gûlraht Baoill stood silent over the shaking forms of the three Sigûrth warriors kneeling in a line before him. Their fear was palpable, like a stench they couldn’t shake, emanating from their helpless shivering and the breaking pitch with which they’d spoken as they’d delivered their report. Any other time the Kayle might have had the men lashed for displaying such blatant enfeeblement in his presence. Any other time he might have just killed them himself, demonstrating once more that he would tolerate no frailty within his army.

  As it was, the words they’d brought with them had stilled his heart, head, and hands.

  And pointed his rage, with all distinction, in another direction.

  “Take me to him,” he told the three men simply.

  The messengers jumped at the deep sound of his voice, but didn’t pause. At once they clambered to their feet and turned to hurry east through the forest. Gûlraht gave nothing more than a small nod to the man beside him before following, his great ax held in one hand at his side. As he moved away he heard Agor Vareks shout the order to march, and the rumbling sound of twenty-five thousand men lumbering forward behind him chased the Kayle through the trees.

  None of it reached him, in the frightening place he was descending to, the place of whirling darkness dragged forth by the news he’d been brought as soon as the camp sentries had made out their approach through the Woods. For several minutes he followed the messengers along their winding path through the underbrush, keeping his eyes on their backs. He didn’t take note of them slowing down when they realized their Kayle was in no rush to keep up with them, nor did he notice the terrified glances they gave each other as they glanced curiously up into his face.

  If he had, he might have measured the wrath he felt slowly building up within, consuming his heart and soul, leaking out to paint his features in violent detail.

  It wasn’t long before he started to make out the sound of men in the distance, then the glint of flames through the trees. A minute later the Sigûrth led him out of the forest into a circle of tents, and he felt warmth bathe him as they moved into the light of a great fire in the middle of the ring. All about, dozens of men from every tribe were standing, their voices an angry rumble, their faces rough and fearsome in the orange dance of the flames. At first, when the three messengers started to push their way through the gathering, warriors turned to snarl and challenge them, wondering who dared attempt cheat a glimpse of whatever it was the crowd encircled.

  When they saw the towering form of their Kayle, however, their threats died in their throats and they slunk quickly out of the way.

  Word spread through the men as a silent wave, washing ahead of Gûlraht like some spell across the ranks. Where a minute ago the air had been thick with the buzz of hard and curious voices, by the time he reached the center of the ring the only sounds that could be made out were the crackding of the fire and the whistle of the wind as it battered the tops of the trees far above them.

  When the last line of men parted, the three who’d led him there quietly vanishing into the crowd, Gûlraht was left to stand over the proof of his first true defeat.

  Of the bodies lain out before him, few were intact. They waited, mangled and ugly, in two curved rows of over a dozen each, wrapped partway around the fire. Gûlraht’s sharp eyes took in their state as the shadows leapt about, and for the first time since his father had called him a man of the clans he felt something like fear prickle up inside him. He had been warned in the story he’d been told by the messengers, but the words and tally had been drowned out by the greater loss they had informed him of. As he stood now over the corpses of the fallen, he heard them again.

  Then, as though to echo his thoughts, someone behind him whispered the one thing they were all thinking.

  “Dahgün.”

  As hard as he tried, Gûlraht couldn’t find fault in the fear while he stood looking down at the dead. His men hadn't just been slain. They hadn't just fallen in battle, or been claimed by the sword. His men had been ravaged. They had been torn apart, limbs wrenched clean of sockets, heads twisted the wrong way, backs bent almost in two. Those that did bear blade wounds showed more familiar signs, but they were no less alarming. Arms and legs missing. Innards and gore emptied from opened cavities, the stench kept at bay only by the cold. Bodies cleaved almost in two—and one that had been cleaved in two.

  To Gûlraht, it was these corpses that drew his eyes the most. The others he might have explained away, might have written off as a tale of cruelty of winter and Them of Stone. He had seen bears tear men asunder in much the same way, had seen wolves shred armor and flesh and drag off their prizes in pieces to scatter the bones amongst the cliffs.

  But the wounds caused by steel, he couldn’t ignore. Those bodies he couldn’t take his eyes off of, couldn’t look away from. They resonated within him, bringing to mind memories and images of a dozen bloody battles.

  They dragged Gûlraht back, because they were the same sort of savagery he caused with the very ax he held now in his right hand…

  For a long moment the Kayle wallowed in that realization, unwillingly wondering what sort of man—if it was a man at all—could have caused such devastation to his warriors. For a long time he stood and pondered what aid the Laorin’s false-god had summoned for his people, questioning his knowledge of the faith and their vows of peace.

  As his eyes shifted from body to body, though, they found a familiar face, and the doubts and questions whipping through Gûlraht’s head were momentarily snuffed out.

  Men did their best to leap out of the way as Gûlraht surged suddenly to the right, making a line for one corpse in particular, near the end of the first row. Those that didn’t move in time found themselves shoved roughly aside or shouldered back into the crowd, but no one muttered so much as a sound of complaint. All there were members of the vanguard, of the advanced force the Kayle had sent with the purpose of laying siege to the Laorin and their cursed Citadel.

  And all knew who Gûlraht had seen.

  Of any corpse laid out before the great fire, Kareth’s was perhaps the most intact. The man might have been asleep, in fact, with his hands folded over his chest, were it not for the uneven streaks of blood that stained the front of his cotton shirt black. He’d been run through, Gûlraht saw in an instant, and
from behind nonetheless. The cloth he could see was intact, which meant the weapon had taken him through the back. Somehow, someway, Kareth Grahst had allowed himself to be taken by surprise. He had failed to put up so much as a fight, failed to face his death like a man.

  And, in the process, had lost the White Witch.

  This last thought brought the anger back to the surface of Gûlraht’s mind, and as he stared down at his cousin’s body he felt his face contort into a grimace. He continued to dwell on the enraging loss of his one absolute and most desired prize, and from somewhere the Kayle heard a sound like a building growl.

  By the time he realized it was his own growl, Gûlraht had already lost control.

  The ax moved of its own volition it seemed at first, coming up into his two hands to swing high above his head, then driving down with frightening force as he bellowed out his fury and frustration. It struck Kareth’s corpse with the wet, cracking sound only sheared flesh and breaking bone can make. There were shouts of fear and horror all around him, but the Kayle ignored all, lifting his ax once more. It fell a second time, sinking into the body again, and was retracted even quicker. Before long Gûlraht’s was grunting and yelling with every strike, oblivious to the thick blood that sprayed his boots and clung to his ax, oblivious to the gore that flew in every direction as it cut and struck at the body again and again and again. Soon the only sounds that could be made out over the flames were the sickening thunks and cracks of the iron striking the dead man.