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

by Bryce O'Connor

  By the way the Kayle was suddenly frowning, Raz thought it might have been the first time in his life the giant had ever been beaten into any kind of retreat.

  Baoill recovered rapidly, though. As Ahna swung above and down at his head, the man stepped nimbly aside and forward, bringing Raz within reach again. The ax shrieked as it aimed to sever Raz’s neck, but he ducked and twisted, bringing a steel-clad fist around to punch at the Kayle’s face. Baoill shifted and brought an arm up to accept the blow, and the sharp edges of Raz’s knuckles cut black and blue furrows down the man’s shoulder. Baoill gave as good as he got, though, taking advantage of the brief opening to throw his own punch.

  The haft of the man’s ax caught Raz in the chest, knocking the wind of out of him.

  It was Raz’s turn to retreat, wheezing and struggling to catch his breath as he danced away from a pursuing Baoill. The man seemed unwilling to release his advantage, hounding Raz about the courtyard, bellowing his war cry as he swung and cleaved at the air, his strikes only ever barely missing as Raz ducked and weaved. By the time he got his wind back, Raz was bleeding from two more wounds across his chest and upper arm.

  Slowly and steadily, the ground about the two men was turning from white to streaked and splotchy red.

  As soon as he was able, Raz went on the offensive again. Ahna lanced out abruptly between Baoill’s strikes, her points finding their mark but becoming fouled in the thick plating of the man’s lopsided chest piece. The Kayle responded instantly, grabbing the dviassegai about the neck below her blades and holding her firmly to him. As the ax fell once again, one-handed this time, Raz dodged sideways before returning and vaulting over Ahna’s haft as he kicked.

  The top of his foot connected with the side of the Kayle’s face, and Raz felt the crunch as at least one tooth came loose of its socket.

  Baoill grunted in pain and staggered back, releasing his hold on Ahna. As she came away she took the loose leather platings with her, tearing the other straps and dragging them off the man’s shoulder. More blood fell to the ground as the white shirt beneath was revealed, the pale cloth marred by two thick points of crimson where the dviassegai’s tips had apparently managed to work their way through the armor. When Baoill found his footing he stood straight, spitting out blood and a pair of broken teeth before touching the fingers of his free hand to one of the red splotches, staring as they came away wet and sticky.

  Then he looked over to Raz, who was busy kicking the leather chest piece free of Ahna’s points, and began to laugh.

  A second later he was charging in headfirst again, the roar of the man’s army spurring him forward like the thunder of hooves leads a stampede.

  For longer than either might have believed, the pair fought. Neither felt the fatigue that attempted to weigh them down, each too entranced in the battle. Pain was non-existent even as they cut and slashed each other’s skin and flesh, the sting of the wounds melting together with the bite of the wind as the snow began to fall harder about them. When one part of the courtyard became too precarious, slick with blood and packed ice as they stomped and darted over the ground, they would move to another area, then another. Eventually it seemed to onlookers that not a square foot of the massive semicircle was untouched, but before long the snow was falling so thick and rapid that the red evidence of the titans’ vicious passings was obscured by the even more powerful force of the squall rising around them.

  Raz, though, was as unaware of the storm as he was the lacerations that cut across his chest, arms, and thighs, or the burn in his shoulders as he brought Ahna around faster and faster. He had eyes only for the Kayle, whose dark form shifted in and out of the snow as they met and retreated, then met and broke apart once more, over and over again. Ahna slashed. The ax fell. Claws arced though the air. A massive fist hurtled forward. Wings and tail whipped out. Heavy boots kicked up.

  There seemed no end to the pattern, but even of this Raz was oblivious to. He was gone, taken away from the world in a way he had never been before, not even within the oppressive wall of Azbar’s Arena. It wasn’t the animal that had overcome him, for once. The scene before his eyes was white and grey and dark and bloody, not the frightening shades of black and red that descended as the Monster rose. His mind was clear and whole, his own in its entirety.

  And it was focused on the single, obsessive need to kill the man towering before him.

  They had made it to the edge of the courtyard that opened up to the endless emptiness of the heavens. On a clear day the pair might have looked out, over the edge, to bear witness to the splendor of the green and white lands laid out for them by whatever gods of creation truly reigned supreme. Instead, there was only a solid ocean of swirling, cold grey, the snow falling so thick and fast now Raz could barely make out the shape of the Laorin party standing some fifty feet away, their backs to the wall of the Citadel.

  It was here, at the edge of the world, that Raz’s strength failed him.

  Ahna flowed around him like liquid metal, whirling and spinning and striking out at every opening the Kayle offered him. They traded ground for the better part of three minutes, back and forth along the edge, each unwilling to disengage and step away for fear of leaving themselves vulnerable. Their weapons crashed and cracked against each other, shrieking as only metal screaming over metal can. Sparks flew, flashing in their eyes, but not once did either give the other enough of a gap to go for a killing blow. Every opening was a trap, every feint readied with a counter attack. They were matched so evenly, Raz a little faster and Baoill a little stronger, it seemed for a time nature would decide the winner as both men blinked away snow and wind, fighting to keep their vision clear.

  But Baoill, in the end, proved the more enduring of the two.

  It happened as Raz decided it was time to chance a change in his patterns. The Kayle was too good a fighter, too skilled with his ax to allow himself to be beaten with moves he’d seen a dozen times. Until that moment Raz had kept as far from the man as possible, using Ahna’s greater reach to his advantage as often as he could. The tactic had been his saving grace often enough, but it had also been his bane, as the Kayle was always just quick enough to react to the strikes and lashes.

  He had to get closer.

  Raz made his move in the same moment he came to the decision, hesitation having long been cut from his mental state as he fought. As Baoill knocked aside yet another overhead cut from the dviassegai, Raz twisted and lunged forward, bringing Ahna’s pointed bottom end around with momentum the Kayle’s parry had provider her, driving the steel forward. For half-an-instant he tasted victory as the man’s blue eyes went wide, seeing the mistake he had made.

  Schlunk!

  Ahna’s point buried into flesh, and Raz went cold.

  Blood followed the edge of the dviassegai’s steel, dripping to the ground and freezing to the metal. Baoill had brought up his right arm, using the limb like a shield. The dviassegai’s tip had run it through, driving between muscle and bone, but the sacrifice of the limb had saved the Kayle’s life.

  And cost me mine, Raz realized in horror as the ax came down on Ahna’s haft, the inside curve of the iron blades catching the wood and steel like a hook. There was a massive tug, and Raz felt his fingers, numb and weak from the cold and fight, give way.

  Ahna was torn from his hands, the dviassegai clattering and rolling over the stone deeper into the courtyard, disappearing into the falling snow.

  As the ax came down again Raz did his best to react, dodging back and reaching for his ax and gladius. With the understanding of his sudden disadvantage, though, awareness seemed to rush into his body, as though his mind were screaming at him that this was a fight he was going to lose. His legs suddenly felt sluggish, his hands and arms thick and heavy. He managed to pull his ax free of its loop at his hip, but his right hand slipped off the sword hilt as it stuck firm in its scabbard, frozen shut by the snow and ice that had built up as they battled. Baoill’s great ax came around, unrelenting, and Raz spun to
cross his ax and armored forearm in a desperate block. Iron hit wood and steel. There was a crunch, and splinters flew about Raz’s face as the shaft of his ax shattered, leaving only the bottom half in his hand. The blow carried through, barely dampened, slamming Raz sideways.

  His claws, finding purchase at the last moment beneath the snow, were the only reason he didn’t slide right over the edge of the cliff.

  Raz stood himself up precariously, his right arm numb and throbbing beneath its steel bracer after accepting the blow, the splintered shaft in his other hand. Behind him, maybe a foot away, the edge of the plateau waited, the endless gaping mouth of a terrible leviathan come up the mountains to claim him.

  And before him, looming like a shadow against the backdrop of falling snow, stood Gûlraht Baoill.

  The Kayle of the mountain tribes was not the erect, powerful man he had been a quarter-hour before. His hair was wild and matted with freezing sweat, his face bruised and his mouth bloody. He panted, grimacing in pain as he held his right arm to the stained cloth of his torn and cut shirt. Red ran down the weathered skin, dripping off his elbows to trickle about his right foot. His armor was a mess, little of it left unscathed and much of it punctured and torn completely off as more blood seeped here and there from between iron-studded plates. All in all, the man looked more dead than alive.

  And yet, Raz knew as he waited for the inevitable killing blow, it was he who had won this fight.

  As he watched, Baoill toed at something in the snow, kicking it up and over the edge of the cliff. Raz saw the glint of the head of his war ax plummet down to vanish into the tumbling grey of the storm.

  Baoill spat, splotching the ground with yet more red.

  “My admiration you have, beast,” he wheezed, edging forward as he brought the great ax up in his good hand. “Not lightly given. I would have the name of yours, so seek you out in the afterlife I might, when time comes.”

  “I have many names,” Raz responded, playing for time as his mind whirred. “Which of them would you prefer?”

  As he spoke he looked around, seeking a way out. He still had his sword, but he didn’t trust himself to be able to pull it free in time when he had already failed once. His claws wouldn’t reach the Kayle before the ax fell, and the same went for his teeth. He had to find another answer, had to find a way to survive.

  Then Raz’s eyes fell on the dull outline of the Laorin, huddled under the looming silhouettes of the Citadel’s walls, and he saw something that made his heart stop. As he looked, he thought he saw a portion of the group shifting and moving. He couldn’t make them out through the snow, but it looked as though several people were holding back another.

  There was the barest glimpse of white hair, and Raz’s suddenly remembered a smile he had told himself he would fight for, no matter what.

  Even if survival wasn’t an option, in the end…

  “I would have all,” he heard Baoill answer him, as though from a far-off place. “Names you have won. Name your father placed upon you, and name of his, so tell him of the strength of his son I might.”

  Raz’s eyes didn’t leave the Laorin. For once, he didn’t care what the Kayle was doing. He sought the hint of that pale hair once more, seeking the warmth it brought his soul.

  When he saw it again, clear for a moment as the woman struggled with the men that held her back, he began to find the courage he needed.

  “I am Raz i’Syul Arro,” Raz thundered, turning back to the Gûlraht Baoill and standing tall as the mountain man continued his slow advance forward. “Son of Agais, son of Aigos. I am heir to the masters of the Arro clan. I am the Monster of Karth, the Scourge of the South. I am demon and dragon, a child of the Sun and Moon, watched over by Her Stars.” He raised a hand, pointing a steel claw at Baoill. “You can tell my father that, whenever you meet him.”

  Gûlraht Baoill nodded his approval.

  “I shall remember your name, Raz i’Syul Arro,” he said, stopping some four feet away. “And my men. They call you dragon, as well they should. I doubt I will ever meet a more worthy opponent.” He set his feet, preparing for the final blow.

  “So…” he said quietly. “Until we meet again, dragon.”

  Then he lunged.

  And Raz met him.

  He did not leap forward, as if to collide with the man and knock him off balance. He did not strike at his face, for he didn’t have space to get his hands up. Instead, Raz darted forward just enough to get inside the arc of the weapon, wrapping his arms around the Kayle’s body as he felt the great ax’s haft slam into his side. Baoill, understanding his mistake in an instant, roared and wrapped his left arm about Raz, ax and all, pinning him to his body in turn.

  Then Raz set his feet, said a small prayer to the Sun hiding somewhere above the storm overhead, and strained backwards.

  Under the momentum of his pull and the Kayle’s lunge, they tumbled, entwined together, into nothingness.

  CHAPTER 52

  “It was with this great act that the Dragon of the North was born. As a man he had proven himself, driving the Kayle of the clans—who many among the mountain tribes had begun to suspect was perhaps some bastard of the Stone Gods themselves—to the brink of death. As a beast he had shown his character to be more human than animal, demonstrating himself capable of sacrifice and abandonment of desire for others.

  But only as the Dragon could he have been responsible for what came next…”

  —Born of the Dahgün Bone, author unknown

  “NO!”

  Syrah’s barely heard her own scream reverberate over the howl of the storm. She stared, still struggling against the powerful arms of Cullen and Kallet Brern on either side of her, at the empty spot along the edge of the plateau.

  The empty spot where, only a moment before, she had watched the dark outline of Raz drag Gûlraht Baoill down with him over the edge of the cliff.

  “NO!” she shrieked again. “NO! RAZ! RAZ!”

  “He’s gone, Syrah!” someone bellowed in her ear, though she wasn’t sure who. “Please! He’s gone!”

  But she wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it. From the moment they had seen the great spear Ahna skitter by them across the snow, Syrah had felt dread consume her entirely. She had tried to intervene, tried to get to the shadowy shapes lingering in the snow at the edge of the precipice, but Carro of all people, standing beside her, had shouted for someone to hold her back.

  And so the Brern brothers had taken her under the arms—their touch only driving the building panic within her—and kept her from rushing to Raz’s aid.

  And now he was gone…

  At once, Syrah stopped fighting, all will ripped from her. She fell to her knees in the piling snow, shivering and shaking. Cullen and Kallet released her as they realized she had given up, the younger of them crouching down beside her.

  “Syrah,” Kallet said quietly. “I’m so sorry. But please, we have to move. Please. They’re coming.”

  There was the sound of bodies in motion, and Syrah realized that all about her the Laorin were retreating, rushing back for the relative safety of the Citadel’s walls. She looked up, seeing a score of men and women moving forward before her, forming a wall between the others and the dark mass that was blooming through the snow towards them across the courtyard, the rough outline of a hundred bodies pressing forward through the storm. Light bloomed in complicated tendrils through the air as the Priests and Priestesses before her began crafting a line of interlacing wards, sealing Cyurgi’ Di’s entrance from assault, at least for a time.

  “We failed…”

  Syrah looked around. Carro stood beside her, staring with sadness through the weaving magics at the coming line of mountain men. His scarred face was heartbroken, that of a man whose last hopes had just been snuffed out.

  “We failed,” he said again, and then Syrah understood. Carro’s sacrifice had been in vain. Raz had not won the fight. The Kayle was dead, but no champion stood to claim his title. It would pass on t
o the next in command, to the generals of his army.

  Generals who seemed to have wasted no time in pressing their advantage.

  Syrah felt hot tears build in her eye, stinging in the wind, and yet they were not tears of grief. Watching Raz fall had torn her apart, ripping away a part of herself she hadn't realized had become so entwined with the atherian, but it wasn’t sorrow that claimed her now. As she watched the coming onslaught of men, men who had chained her, defiled her, stolen away her body and her freedom and now the very man who had pulled her from their clutches, something scorching billowed up from within.

  Wrath took her by force, and Syrah’s quivering turned suddenly into spasms of fury.

  Before anyone could stop her, she was on her feet again, barreling towards the mountain men with a raging scream.