“And you, Priest,” Raz said to the emptiness of the afternoon chill, tilting his head to watch the thickening snow spill between the branches of the tree. Reaching out a hand, he found Ahna’s haft and dragged her across his lap.
“Just you and me again, huh, sis?” he whispered sadly. The dviassegai offered no obvious response, but as he ran a hand over her worn white wood, Raz found old memories flitting across his mind. His uncle’s face, then that of his mother and father, then Ahna herself. Raz had always found that he had a better memory than man, but after so many years, even he had trouble recalling the details of their features. Their forms came now more as tanned skin, bleached and braided hair, and the shine of clan chains than it did with any particularity.
What did come clear, though, were the faces of a brother and sister, the former preparing dinner, the latter waiting anxiously for Raz to get home.
Smiling, Raz pushed himself to his feet and tossed Ahna over one shoulder.
Well, he thought, feeling the warmth of Brahnt’s magic shift around him as he made for the alley himself, maybe not just you and me.
XXVIII
“It feels, at times, as though I might have always intended to surround myself with fools, Azzeki. The buffoons who have somehow coaxed themselves into my favor seem to demand more from me on any given day then I ever demand of them. To hell with advisors! They were my father’s weakness. We have the guard on our side. What use have I of second-rate information from the council when I possess my own eyes and ears all over the city already?”
—AZBAR CHAIRMAN QUIN TERN TO CAPTAIN-COMMANDER AZZEKI KORO
TRELL HAMUS ran as though some dark demon were hounding him. He wasn’t so sure the idea was far off, because in the hush of the falling snow his imagination kept frightening him with the sounds of beating wings and the clink of heavy steel armor.
The Monster had caught a glimpse of him, Trell knew. He’d passed the mouth of the alley leading into the courtyard in his haste to get back to the town hall, and he was positive he’d seen the man’s amber eyes on him, if only for a moment.
Even if the Monster didn’t know Trell’s destination, though, the guardsman couldn’t help but imagine the atherian barreling up behind him, intent on finding out why he’d been eavesdropping and what he had heard.
He hadn’t meant to, of course. He’d had no scheme, when he set out, to overhear anything. Trell had only been there because he knew the city best, and was the fastest runner the guard had to offer. The order had been given to him by the Captain-Commander himself, in fact.
“Find the High Priest,” Azzeki Koro had said. “Tell him his presence is requested at once. The Chairman has need of him.”
Trell had barely given himself time to nod and salute before he was off running, heading straight for the temple. He’d thought it the obvious choice, and had been surprised, therefore, when he’d been informed by the acolyte who had answered the door that High Priest Yu’ri was away, off to see the fights.
“The fights?” Trell had asked, as it seemed an odd choice. The boy, dressed in the plain white clothes of his position, didn’t have much of an answer, merely shrugging and nodding.
By the time Trell made it to the Arena, the day’s tournament was all but over. Figuring he would do better to keep an eye on the crowds as they left, funneled through the narrower walls of the Hall of Heroes, rather than risk missing Yu’ri in the Arena itself, Trell posted up and waited. When the day’s matches came to a close, climaxing with a great roar of the crowd, Trell hopped up onto a stack of barrels and old wooden boxes along the wall of the blacksmith’s shop directly across from the Arena entrance.
There, for the duration of the people’s exiting, he waited, peering into the masses, looking for the signature white of the faith’s robes.
Nothing.
When the last of the spectators finally wound their way down the Arena stairs, drunk on some spirit or another, Trell started to get worried.
The Captain-Commander was not known for his patience. Even less so was the Chairman himself.
For a minute more Trell debated taking the standard route back to the temple, hoping to catch the High Priest as he returned home, or at least find him back at the temple itself. When he saw the mass start to gather around the door of the underworks, though, he’d decided to linger.
If the High Priest held an odd penchant for the tournament, why wouldn’t he hold a similar enthusiasm for the fighters themselves? Perhaps even the Arena’s newest champion, the so-called “Monster of Karth”…
Trell himself had yet to see Raz i’Syul Arro. He’d heard stories from his friends, rumors and descriptions from the other members of the guard, but he’d never managed to pay himself a seat to see a four-day final’s bout in the Arena for himself. Perhaps it was a bit of this curiosity—as well as the desire to leave no stone unturned—that led Trell to sift through the crowd waiting outside the underworks.
For a quarter hour Trell tucked his way through the mass of people shifting about impatiently. All manner moved around him, some shouting and cheering, others talking quietly amongst themselves. Each time the doors opened, everyone would shift their eyes to them, anxious to see what would step out from between them.
The first two times it was nothing but the corpse cart and some straggling gladiators who had made it through the day, and both times the crowd had returned to their business disappointed.
Almost as disappointed, in fact, as Trell was.
The High Priest was nowhere to be found. He’d gotten in among the crowd thinking that perhaps the man’s white robes were covered by a cape or coat, making them hard to find from a higher vantage point. He had no more luck finding the man from the ground, though, and Trell was truly starting to panic. If he had to run all the way back to the temple for Yu’ri, Azzeki Koro would have his hide.
It was then, right then, as Trell was debating what to do, that he found him.
Kal Yu’ri was at the very back of the throng, separate from them even. He stood in the entrance of the wide alley directly across from the underworks’ double doors, side by side with a man Trell didn’t know. What was more, both men were in plain leather and furs, neither sporting the customary robes of Yu’ri’s faith.
It didn’t matter, though, Trell thought. In fact, he was so awash with relief at having found the man in a respectable time, so anxious to get to him as he started to push through the crowd, that he didn’t notice the sudden tension around him once again. He was so busy pressing himself between bodies, trying to get to the High Priest, that he stumbled when the path opened suddenly for him, nearly falling down as he tripped into the sudden lack or resistance.
Looking around to see why the people had out of his way, Trell froze.
Though it was only for a moment, Raz i’Syul’s golden eyes met his as the Monster passed. There was a fierceness there, instilling an absolute fear that lingered long after the atherian had moved along, making for the very alley Trell had been aiming for. The guard’s mind, though, was for once torn away from his objective as he took the beast in.
No amount of his friends’ descriptions would have adequately conveyed the Scourge of the South, and Trell couldn’t help but think what fools those who chose to face him in the pit must be. Seven feet tall, the great mantle around his shoulders did little to hide the size and litheness of the man, and nothing at all to hide the steel claws of the intricate gauntlets he had on each hand. His wings were hidden in the furs, as was most of his tail, but Ahna, the famed great spear, was on one shoulder. An old leather bag hid her blades from view, and Trell was startled to find himself inexplicably saddened by the fact that he wasn’t able to witness them in all their glory.
For a long moment the guard stood still, watching the atherian walk even as the crowd closed behind him. He didn’t recall his mission at all, in fact, until Raz i’Syul was at the mouth of the alley along which Kal Yu’ri and his nameless companion waited.
Waking abruptly from his
daze, Trell started to push forward, keeping an eye on the High Priest. He expected the two men to watch the atherian pass by in silence, or perhaps add their cheers to the crowd.
What he did not expect, though, was for the Monster to nod towards Yu’ri, and for Yu’ri’s companion to nod back. Then as if that weren’t surprise enough, after a moment the two men detached themselves from the wall and started following Raz i’Syul deeper into the city.
That had confused Trell beyond measure. What business could a High Priest of Laor—and whoever his companion was—have with the bloody champion of Azbar’s great Arena?
As Trell finally broke through the crowd, reaching the freedom of the street just as the two men disappeared around a corner, his confusion shifted, though. The guard had been told of the trouble the Laorin were causing the city, trying to interrupt the economic upturn Azbar had seen since the reopening of the Arena. They’d been told to be on the watch for trouble and to report anything they found directly to Azzeki. It was this thought that morphed Trell’s bewilderment. First it turned to doubt, then curiosity.
And then it became nothing less than full-blown suspicion.
Therefore, with the city’s best interests in mind, Trell Hamus had chosen to follow the group, deciding that—if his hunch proved to be nothing of note—he could always make himself known and deliver his summons as scheduled.
And now, a half hour later, Trell was running for his life.
He hadn’t waited to hear the full conversation. He’d heard enough as it was. Talo Brahnt, the Lifetaker, the betrayer of the Arena, had returned to Azbar. The master of the High Citadel far to the North had snuck back to skulk within the walls of their town, clearly looking to cause as much mayhem as he had in the stories Trell had heard from decades prior.
“And I would like to know if you would consider coming with us.”
It was then that Trell had run, not waiting for the Monster’s answer. It was then that he’d darted across the mouth of the alley. He had no doubt Talo Brahnt would use his cleverness—or maybe even his magic—to coax the champion of Azbar into turning traitor, just as the Lifetaker himself had. He had no doubt that the High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di was determined to steal away the very foundation of the Arena, the heart of the Chairman’s Tourney, and the heart of Azbar’s people.
And he had no doubt that Quin Tern would want to know at once.
XXIX
“Wisdom may make you wise. Cleverness may make you clever. With just the wrong amount of each, though, both may make you a fool.”
—SIGÛRTH PROVERB
QUIN TERN sat behind the great desk that had once been his father’s, his back to the glass doors leading out to the balcony overlooking the ravine. The fingers of one pudgy hand were pressed against his temple, the other rubbing the roughened wood of his chair’s armrest as though it might coax out an answer to the problem before him.
“What do you want to do?”
Quin looked up. Azzeki stood as always. In the ten years the man had been a part of his retinue, Quin could barely remember the Percian ever sitting, in fact.
“Do?” he hissed in fury. “I want to burn every last fucking one of them to ash. I want to lock them up in their damn temple and set the whole fucking thing aflame! That’s what I want to do!”
“Tempting.” Azzeki chuckled darkly. “But ill-advised.”
“And you don’t think I know that, too? The Laorin have lost power in the last half century, but they still hold enough sway to destroy all we’ve built here if they set their mind to it. We’re fortunate only the Lifetaker decided to show his face, for now. No. Kal Yu’ri will have to be left untouched. We may have need of him yet, regardless.”
“To assist us with the mountain man?”
“Fuck the mountain man,” Quin screamed, slamming a heavy fist down on the desk with such force it nearly toppled the inkwell in the corner. “He wants to hole himself up in the Woods? Hide himself away with his warriors and his slaves? Fine. For now I’m happy to leave him to it. Kassus has done the maths. Between Ystréd, Stullens, Drangstek, and Azbar, we could have our own army. Maybe forty thousand strong, if we conscript. Plenty large to keep Baoill at bay should he decide to peek his nose any further south.”
“Then why do we need the Priest?” Azzeki asked, frowning. “The faith is already attempting to undermine what you’ve done here. You know I’m not happy to say it, but if the lizard leaves now, it would be chaos. The dungeons aren’t near full enough to offer the fighters we need, the gladiators are out of favor, and with the freeze on us there isn’t a soul in the city who would be willing to go out and hunt game for entertainment. The Monster needs to stay. Give me leave to handle Yu’ri. Cut the head off the snake, as you Northerners say.”
“The problem,” Quin said in exasperation, “is that Yu’ri is not the head.”
Azzeki’s eyes narrowed. “Your Lifetaker?” he asked.
Quin nodded. “Before I met you or Arro, I didn’t think it would have been possible to show me a man more dangerous than Talo Brahnt. I saw him fight a dozen times before I was ten. I had to sneak into the Arena, because my father had forbidden me from witnessing the bouts, but I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.”
“That was almost forty years ago. I doubt he would even see me coming.”
Tern shook his head. “With age does not necessarily come weakness, especially among the Laorin. He might be slower, might not have the strength he once did, but he has other talents that could pose problematic. Not to mention, if Arro is with him, even you won’t offer much of a challenge to a pair like that.”
“You give too much credit to your enemies, Quin.”
“It’s you who doesn’t give them enough,” Quin said sharply.
Azzeki didn’t say anything to that.
“We let the Laorin live,” Quin continued. “Whatever happens, Brahnt will have his hands full with the new Kayle anyway. If that resolves, though, Yu’ri might be valuable leverage against the faith, should it come to that.”
“So you propose we do nothing,” Azzeki said angrily. “Even as they shake the foundations of all you’ve fought for here.”
“Oh, we do something,” Quin said quietly. “But not to the Laorin. If Raz i’Syul wishes to change our contract without telling me, then I think it’s time I do the same. We offered him kindness, gave him everything he wanted, and yet still he thinks he can leave. No. If compromise and diplomacy don’t work, then we resort to other means.”
At that, Azzeki smiled. It was a wicked thing, full of cruel pleasure and anticipation.
“Tell me what I need to do,” he said.
XXX
“There are times, in my old age, that I look back and realize what a fool I have been. Even in my later years, when I thought myself as wise as I was ever going to be, there were things I could not see. Talo is at the center of many of those moments, instances where I did not see the toll his choices placed upon him. Now, in retrospect, I find myself thinking of those times often when I feel loneliest, wondering if I could have alleviated some of that weight if only I had paused more often and put myself in his place.”
—PRIVATE JOURNAL OF CARRO AL’DOR
“HE’S NOT coming, Talo.”
Talo looked around. Carro was a few paces ahead, his eyes set firmly forward, the stiffness in his posture barely shifting to accommodate the roll of the horse’s gait beneath him.
A blind man would have been able to tell that something was irritating the Priest.
“I wasn’t thinking of him,” Talo lied, looking back over his shoulder again. “I was just considering what a sad waste this has all been.”
In truth, of course, his mind had wandered back to Raz i’Syul Arro, but he couldn’t tell Carro that. Carro wouldn’t understand, after all. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t fathom what had come over Talo that would incite such a ludicrous act as proposing that the atherian join them on their way home. Carro was worried about the trip already, worried about
Talo’s leg, worried about the winter storms, worried about the dangers of the Arocklen that waited for them a week or so’s good ride northward. Carro had no space left to worry about how, as Talo watched the last glimpses of Azbar’s dark walls finally fade between the snowy trees, he was feeling old memories return with a bitterness they’d never had before.
The last time I walked away, I said you’d be fine, he thought, still watching the last place the city had vanished between the snowy pines. I told Syrah you’d be fine. I didn’t even give it a second thought.
Talo felt a hand touch his knee, and he turned to see that Carro had slowed his mount to drop even with him. Their steel staffs, lying lengthwise across their laps, knocked and dinged together as the horses matched pace.
“I’m sorry,” the man said sadly. “I know it’s hard. It wasn’t easy on me either, but we had to make a choice. We’ll come back, though. When this business with the Kayle is done and over with, we’ll return, and this time we’ll bring enough help with us to make the voices of reason heard in truth.”
Talo nodded, but said nothing. Ordinarily he hated lying to Carro, but for once the deceit didn’t bother him. Maybe it was because it wasn’t altogether a lie. The Arena still stood, a wretched stain on Talo’s conscience. He hated that it continued to tower above the city they were leaving behind, a cancer of marble and mortar growing stronger on the blood and death it was fed daily. He’d set out from Cyurgi’ Di all of six weeks prior, and hadn’t dreamt he would be returning so soon, much less with so little accomplished. Yes, the continued thriving of the Arena would haunt him all the way back to the High Citadel, and every night until the opportunity came again to do something about it.
But it wouldn’t haunt him as much as the conjured image of Raz i’Syul Arro, younger and leaner, standing within the fires and flashing blades that had left him orphaned and alone.
The Warring Son (The Wings of War Book 2) Page 27