The Warring Son (The Wings of War Book 2)

by Bryce O'Connor

  But it was the stillness of her form, the quiet in her eyes, that disturbed Raz the most. Something had been taken from the child. Something had reached in and scarred the delicate pattern of her soul, leaving a silence in her body that was akin to living death. Raz was familiar with it, or at least some form of it.

  Lueski had the same look about her he had witnessed for all too many years in the bearing of the Grandmother.

  “Lueski?” he asked tentatively, taking a step towards the girl.

  At once several of the guard on either side of her converged before him, partially blocking his path to her. He could still see her between them, though, and as he watched, Lueski seemed to shiver, shaken by the sound of her own name. She blinked and looked around at him, and the tears in her eyes flooded Raz with a mixed wash of relief and new grief.

  “Raz,” she whimpered. “Raz… They killed Arrun. They made him scream, and when he wouldn’t stop they sewed his mouth shut. Then they killed him, Raz… They took a saw and they held him down and they… they…”

  She blinked and reached up to wipe away her tears with the back of her sleeve. Then she looked back up at Raz with red eyes.

  “Why would they do that, Raz?” she demanded of him, a child begging for an answer that made sense in the small world she knew. “Why would they kill him?”

  “Because Raz didn’t do what he was told,” a voice cut in before Raz himself could respond.

  Tern was walking around the ring nearby, picking his way through the carnage as the attendants stumbled behind him, doing their best to keep his long cloak off the ground. He seemed to be looking for something, eyes scanning the snow as he spoke.

  “Arrun died because your oaf of a hero didn’t do what he promised, little girl,” Tern said. “He was killed because Raz didn’t stick to our deal.”

  Raz shivered at the words, feeling the falling snow drifting around him as he listened.

  “I’ll bet anything he’s made promises to you, too,” the Chairman continued, coming to a halt over whatever it was he’d been searching for. “Did he give you his word, hmm? Did he swear he would look out for you? Look out for your brother?”

  Stiff in Azzeki’s grasp, Lueski hesitated.

  Then she nodded slowly, and Tern smiled in wicked smugness. Toeing something loose from the snow, he kicked it over to the girl.

  “And how did that work out for you, child?”

  Lueski looked down at the thing as it bounced and settled at her feet. For a moment she seemed not to recognize it, staring at the object with watery eyes as though unsure of what it was. Then she made out of the face behind the snow and mud, filling in the missing pieces of the disfigured features.

  As Arrun’s dead eyes looked up into hers, blue meeting blue, Lueski opened her mouth and screamed.

  She screamed and screamed, delirious in her horrified fear, trying to scramble away but barely moving as the Captain-Commander held her where she was. The sound echoed about the silent Arena. Though he didn’t look up from the girl’s face, Raz knew that ten thousand stares were fixed on them, avid in their attention. This was what Tern had wanted all along. This had been his grand plan for the day. He thought Raz had betrayed their contract, so he wanted to regain control in one fell swoop. With one act of unfathomable cruelty, witnessed by the packed stadium, the Chairman had brought Azbar back under his fearsome control.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing Raz could do about it.

  “Lueski!” he shouted over the girl’s pained screeches, ignoring the pressing guard and taking another step towards her. “Lueski! Child! Look at me! Look at me!”

  The girl didn’t so much as pause in her screaming. She fought Azzeki’s grip even as her eyes remained fixed on her brother’s head, completely ignorant of the blade at her throat.

  “LUESKI!”

  Raz roared her name, ignoring the pained weight in his chest. This time the girl heard him. Her shrieks stopped abruptly, but she still didn’t manage to pull her eyes away from Arrun’s.

  “Lueski,” Raz pleaded in quieter tones. “Lueski, please. Look away, child. Look at me.”

  Lueski’s gaze didn’t budge. For a moment she was still, her body quiet again, and Raz thought she had lost her mind to the darkness again.

  Then she spoke, her words barely distinguishable, whispered to the winds.

  “You promised.”

  Ice washed over Raz, cold as the snow that had long numbed his feet. He fought it off, though, desperate to keep the girl from falling away from him, from disappearing into a place she couldn’t come back from.

  “I know, Lueski,” he said. “I know I did. I tried. I’m so sorry, I—”

  “Kill them.”

  Raz stumbled on his words as Lueski cut him off. Though she still hadn’t looked up, her face had suddenly hardened.

  “What?” he asked her tentatively.

  “I want you to kill them!” Lueski shrieked, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. “I want you to promise you’ll kill them! I want you to promise and keep it, this time! PROMISE!”

  Raz hesitated.

  “Lueski…” he said quietly, shaking his head. “Lueski… I can’t. I can’t promise that. They’ll hurt you if I try. They’ll kill you if I try.”

  Lueski said nothing in return. For a time she just stood there, tense in Azzeki’s grasp, wide eyes ever meeting her brother’s. Then, all at once, she seemed to calm. The stiffness left her, and for a moment the little girl Raz had found in the woods returned in full. At last she looked away from Arrun, turning to Raz.

  For a moment she just stared at him, taking him in, as though trying to fix him in her memory.

  Then she smiled a sad sort of smile.

  “I’ll miss you.”

  And before anyone could so much as think to stop her, Lueski brought her hands up to the bare steel of Azzeki’s blade, pressed the edge to her throat, and jerked it hard to one side.

  XXXVIII

  “NO!”

  Raz’s screeched roar ripped through the sudden hush of the stands. Blind to the guards in his way, he hurtled for Lueski, Ahna falling to the ground behind him. So shocked were the men around him that no one so much as moved to block his path. To a one they stared in horror at the little body tumbling from Azzeki’s grasp, leaving a trail of red along the man’s blade as she dropped.

  Raz reached her so fast he caught her before her head hit the ground. Scooping her into his arms, he lifted her to his chest.

  “No! No, no, no, no!”

  Blood ran free from the great gash in the side of her neck and trickled in lines from the corners of her mouth. She coughed, spraying his chest and face, hacking as her body tried to breathe. In desperation Raz grabbed the hem of his mantle and ripped a clump free with his teeth, moving to press it against the wound.

  Small hands stopped him.

  He looked back up at Lueski’s face. Even though they watered and bulged as her body fought to keep itself alive, there was a conviction in the girl’s eyes, a certainty in the act. Even as blood bubbled on her lips, spilling in staggered spurts from her neck as her heart pumped harder in an attempt to keep beating, her hands urged Raz not to stem the flow.

  “Lueski,” Raz begged. “Lueski, please…”

  All he got was the tiniest shake of her head, almost imperceptible in the writhing of a dying body. Instead her hands shifted on his, trying to tug free the cloth clenched in his fist. Eventually, he let it go.

  Then he took her hands in his, and held them to his chest.

  Lueski smiled. For a few seconds, through the spasms in her small body she gazed up at him, content and free.

  Then she was gone.

  Raz felt the throes leave her, felt the thrashing tightness subside. She sagged against him, head tucked up against the crook of his arm, and lay still. Pulling the girl tight against him, both her hands still held to his chest, Raz threw his head back and screamed at the sky.

  The pain in that sound seemed to bring the world b
ack to life. All about him men moved, gripped abruptly by a realization just as it struck Raz too. A singular, absolute thought that ripped through him, bringing fire and new life to his limbs.

  No chains hold your Monster now.

  He had just enough to time to lower Lueski’s still form to the ground, settling her gently in the snow by what was left of her brother, when Tern’s panicked order came.

  “KILL HIM!”

  But the world was black and red again, and Raz was gone even before Azzeki had time to bring his blade around.

  As if the guards around him were statues, Raz slipped between and below their outstretched swords and hands with ease. He had but one purpose left to him now. One objective to which he intended to apply heart, mind, and soul.

  Tern.

  Nothing and no one could stand in his way. The two that happened to get close fell screaming, one clutching at the lacerations down his face, the other at the gashes across his abdomen. The knife at Raz’s hip was forgotten, his other weapons scattered about the pit, but the steel tips of his claws were plenty enough to get him where he wanted to be.

  And when he reached Tern, they were enough to take the man about the throat.

  Tern’s squeal of fear was choked away as the fat man found himself suddenly free of the ground. With terrifying strength fed from the burning hate that melted away pain and injury, Raz lifted the Chairman completely off his feet, both hands around his neck. For a few seconds he held him there, content to watch the man kick and struggle to get out garbled words, pudgy fingers working at the steel of Raz’s gauntlets. Behind him, Raz knew the guard had frozen in their places, suddenly unsure of what to do.

  Then he smiled up at Tern, a wicked, hungry smile he hoped matched the man’s best leers, and began to squeeze.

  “Arro! Wait!”

  While color didn’t return to the world, the black and red that made up Tern’s struggling form certainly flickered. Through the rush of blood and hate Raz heard booted feet crunching against the snow, and he turned to snarl over his shoulder at whoever was fool enough to approach him.

  He paused, though, when what little conscious part of his mind he had left recognized the Doctore.

  The woman was walking around him cautiously, hands up and empty, not wanting to startle him. There was fear in her eyes, true, but more so there was concern. She moved around to be within easy view, coming to stand a little to the side and behind Tern’s writhing feet.

  “Arro,” she hissed. “Raz! Listen to me! Listen!”

  Raz ignored her, turning back to watch Tern’s face darken, thick tongue sticking out as he mouthed at the air in desperation.

  “Raz! Please! If he dies, you die. You won’t get out of the city. If you don’t get yourself killed here, the guard will close the gates and hunt you down.”

  “I’ve survived worse,” Raz heard himself sneer.

  “Not in the freeze, you haven’t. Think! Do you believe Lueski wanted you to die? Do you believe she wanted you to throw away your life, too?”

  “She wanted me to promise. She wanted to me to kill—!”

  “‘Them all,’” Rhen finished. “Yes, I heard. We all did. But you can’t believe she wanted you dead, too!”

  Raz didn’t say anything to that, and the Doctore pressed her advantage.

  “Killing Tern isn’t killing them all, Raz. If you want to hold to that promise, then you need to live. And to live, you need to let him down.”

  Raz hesitated, but didn’t relent.

  “You die here, you’ve killed one bad man, but there are more out there. You survive, and you might live to kill a thousand more.”

  A memory flashed across Raz’s thoughts. An image of Lueski smiling up at him, arms wrapped around his hips, greeting him after he’d finally come home.

  Did you win? she’d asked him. Did you beat the bad men? Did you? Did you?

  There are more out there.

  Raz felt some small parts of his mind slide back into place, and a little color returned. Tern’s face was purple, and he looked about ready to pass out. Raz paused.

  Then he let go of the fat man’s throat, dropping him unceremoniously to the ground at his feet.

  “You.” Raz pointed a steel claw at one of the Chairman’s attendants, ignoring the hacking and gasping form below him. “My sword and ax. Now!”

  The boy jumped to like he’d been stuck with a hot poker.

  “Get up,” Raz growled, reaching down to grab Tern by the hair. “UP!”

  The man staggered, half lifted, to his feet. Raz winced at the motion, feeling the ache of his wounds and the weight of the punctured lung return to him as consciousness started to win over the animal again.

  “Anyone so much as twitches,” Raz roared to the surrounding guardsmen, resting the claws of his free hand on Tern’s bruised throat, “and your Chairman goes the same way as the girl! Let us pass, and he can go free once we’re out of the city!”

  “N-Nobody move!” Tern gasped, finding his voice at last. “Nobody-Nobody move! Do as he says!”

  The guard did as ordered, lowering their blades and watching fearfully as Raz pushed Tern forward, limping on his bad leg again. Together the pair made their way through the men, Tern with his hands up, the Doctore following close behind.

  The attendant met them near the center of the pit, where Ahna waited, half-covered in snow. Taking the war ax and gladius one after the other, Raz sheathed them on his hip and over his shoulder respectively. This done, he bent down and lifted the dviassegai from the ground, never letting go of Tern’s long hair, and doing his best not to show the toll it took on him to pick up the weapon.

  “Horses,” Raz growled over his shoulder to Rhen. “Three of them.”

  If the Doctore nodded, he didn’t see, but the next moment she was off running, slipping below the portcullis and down the gangway.

  Pressing Ahna’s twin tips into Tern’s back, Raz pushed the man forward, moving to follow.

  For the first time, someone stepped forward to block their path.

  Azzeki Koro stood between them and the pit gate, reddened blade bare to the gray of the afternoon at his side. His dark eyes met Raz’s evenly, testing, seeking, almost as though he were searching for the extent of Raz’s weaknesses, searching for what kink in the Monster’s armor to take advantage of.

  “Tell your man to move, Chairman, or by every Southern, Northern, and unknown god alike I will spit you where you stand,” Raz hissed into Tern’s ear.

  “Azzeki, move!” the Chairman squealed at once, eyes bulging. “Are you trying to get me killed? Get out of the way!”

  For a few seconds the Captain-Commander didn’t budge, still searching Raz’s face.

  Then he stepped aside.

  Raz shoved Tern forward, pressing him stumbling past the Percian and the last of the guard. As they reached the portcullis, though, he stopped. A small form lay at the gate’s feet, peaceful in death, looking like she might have simply been sleeping beneath the blanket of snow that was already starting to cover her.

  Pulling Tern around, Raz kicked the knees out from beneath the fat man and bent him over Lueski’s body.

  “Pick her up,” he growled.

  “Wha—?” Tern spluttered, panicking. “No! I-I don’t—”

  “PICK HER UP!”

  The Chairman jumped as Raz screamed in his ear, then scrambled to lift the girl into his arms. Struggling to his feet again, the man was huffing and puffing by the time he stood.

  “Now tell your man to get her brother,” Raz ordered.

  Tern hesitated, then looked around at Azzeki and nodded. The Captain-Commander grimaced in distaste, but sheathed his blade and moved to grab Arrun’s head from the ground. Stepping forward, he dropped it in the crook of Lueski’s hips, bent up against Tern’s chest.

  “Now walk,” Raz said, prodding the Chairman down the gangway.

  This time he moved without pause.

  They tottered down the ramp, Raz limping with his hand in Ter
n’s hair while the Chairman struggled under the added weight of the Koyts. When they reached the bottom, what few fighters were left in the underworks looked around curiously, eyes widening as they watched the pair pass.

  Raz ignored them all, heading straight for the entrance.

  The doors were open for them, the streets outside almost devoid of traffic for once. Around the bend of the wall, though, Raz could hear the pounding of thousands of feet as the stadium emptied, the spectators intent on seeing out the day’s events until the very end.

  Feeling panic start to settle in again, Raz looked around in desperation for a place to hide.

  “You can’t get away,” Tern said in a falsely calm voice. “Let me go now, and I’ll make sure you get out of the city alive.”

  “Shut up,” Raz growled.Making up his mind, he started pushing Tern towards the alley across from the underworks’ doors.

  “It’s the only option you have,” Tern insisted, stumbling forward. “You think they’ll let you out of the gates in one-AAH!”

  Losing patience, Raz had shoved Ahna’s tips, hard, into the Chairman’s back. Blood welled through the cuts in the man’s rich cloak.

  “They’ll open the gates because you’ll tell them to, Chairman,” Raz hissed. “If you don’t, well… You and I have both been lucky to make it this far. I hope you’ve realized by now I’m not overly bothered with dying if it means taking you with me.”

  Tern was quiet after that.

  Clop, clop, clop.

  Raz’s ears twitched up at the sound just as they made the edge of the alley. Looking left, opposite where the muted thunder of footsteps was approaching from, he saw dark shapes loom out of the snow.

  Doctore, atop a thick gray stud, with another, darker horse in tow.

  “I thought I said three horses,” Raz said suspiciously, eyeing the woman as she dismounted beside him in a rush.

  “Two is all I could manage,” she said, her breath steaming in the air. “It won’t make a difference anyway.”

  “But what are you going to—?”

  “If you thought I was going to come with you, you’re wrong,” she said with a shake of her head. “Someone has to stay and clean up this mess. People will panic. The council will need help.”