War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2)

by Lewis, Joseph Robert

  “Where did it come from?” Zerai scanned the roofline as the crowd erupted into shouts and bodies began surging away from the tower, shoving and hitting as the frightened faces tried to escape the confines of the market square. The falconer grabbed Veneka’s hand and together they dashed to the shaded doorway of the nearest shop to stand and wait for the stampede to pass them by.

  Twice Zerai ran back out into the chaos to grab a fallen child and help get them back into their parents’ arms before they were trampled, and moments later the square was nearly empty, except for a few dozen men with extremely grim and grizzled faces, all staring up at the empty roofs and shouting curses and taunts for the assassin to come out and fight them.

  Zerai squeezed Veneka’s hand. “Samira and Bashir are still back at the palace, aren’t they?”

  “I think so. Petra is definitely with Edris.”

  “All right. I want you to go back and tell them what happened, and get them down here.”

  “What? No, I need to get up to the tower. I may be able to save the king!”

  He winced. “I don’t want you near them. The assassin may still be nearby, looking to put an arrow in Faris, or even Iyasu.”

  “All the more reason for me to stay close to them!”

  He hesitated a moment to make angry faces to himself as he tried to out-think her logic, and then he gave up. “All right, let’s go.”

  Together they ran across the empty square to the doors of the tower where a guard recognized Veneka’s green robes and let them inside. They met Iyasu and the others coming down the stairs, with Mathias lying limp in the arms of two young soldiers. Veneka surged toward the king to lay her hands on him.

  Zerai grabbed Iyasu. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, I’m fine,” the younger man said. His voice quivered and sweat stood in heavy beads all over his face.

  “Did you see where the shot came from?”

  “No, I was looking at those two men running around the square. The arrow came from somewhere else.”

  Zerai nodded. “The two men were a diversion, probably just for you.”

  “My God, you’re right.” Iyasu covered his eyes.

  “It’s okay, it’s fine, just stay with Jengo and keep your head down.” Zerai ran past them up the stairs, glancing briefly at Veneka as she sadly closed Mathias’s eyes, and then fixed his gaze on the angry red sunlight pouring in from the balcony above. He fumbled through his heavy leather glove for his lure, and when he ran out onto the balcony he had the lure whirling overhead, whistling crazily as he shouted into the sky, “Nezana!”

  The white falcon screamed and raced down to land on the railing before him. Zerai stood in front of the bird and made a series of slow, deliberate gestures with his right hand. “Hunt. Man. High. Circle. Hunt. Man. High. Circle.” He pointed to the rooftops on the opposite side of the square from where the two false messengers had been, and Nezana leapt into the air with a few powerful beats of his pale wings.

  With that done, Zerai bolted back down the stairs and caught Veneka on his way, spinning her around as he continued down to the bottom and out the front doors.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Nezana is looking for someone on the roofs over there. If the assassin is still up there, Nezana will find him.”

  “And then what?”

  Zerai drew his sword. “We get some answers.”

  “Iyasu and the others are going to the palace. I told them to send Samira back here.”

  “Good. And Bashir too?”

  She nodded tersely.

  “Then let’s get hunting.”

  They quickly spotted Nezana winging high above the rooftops and they set out following him at a quick jog, always trying to linger in the wider streets where they could see him better against the darkening sky before they charged farther and farther on from the Silver Tower.

  After half an hour of watching, waiting, and running, they emerged into a strange new quarter of the city where once again there were precious few people on the street and no signs at all of the white falcon.

  “Damn it.” Zerai stared upward, but the shadows of the evening clouds were closing in and he couldn’t see anything that might have been Nezana.

  Veneka touched his arm. “We should return to the palace. There might have been other attacks. There could be more wounded.”

  He nodded and turned to her, and the stone wall of the house behind him shattered. A blast of dust and sharp pebbles slammed him in the back as he stumbled to throw his arms around Veneka and get across the street. He paused to let the dust clear a bit, and then he rose up, squinting to see what had happened.

  The front wall of the house had simply been blown outward into the street, including the splintered and shredded remains of some furniture, clothing, and cookery. A man dressed all in dark blue hung with his feet above the rubble, suspended by a single hand around his neck.

  The hand belonged to Azrael.

  The Angel of Death hurled the man down into the street, and he reflexively curled into a ball, coughing and choking as he massaged his throat.

  Zerai noted the broken bow slung across the man’s back.

  “Your killer.” Azrael nodded at the gasping archer.

  Zerai nodded back. “Thank you.”

  The angel turned to leave.

  “Wait, please!” Veneka called out.

  Zerai raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing.

  “Where were you last night?” the healer asked.

  “Alone.”

  “I mean, why did you not come to the palace? There was a battle. Hundreds died.”

  “I know. I died with them. With each of them.”

  Veneka hesitated. “Yes. But we thought you might come to punish the soldiers if they were all gathered together.”

  Azrael took two steps closer to them. “No, you thought I would fight your battle for you, solve your problem for you. Instead I let the wicked punish themselves.”

  “But you could have saved those lives.”

  “I can’t save any lives,” the hooded woman said. “You will all die, that is your fate, that is your nature.”

  “You know what she meant,” Zerai snapped. “They didn’t have to die last night. You could have stopped it.”

  “I am not as free as you to shape the course of events in this world,” Azrael said. “There are limits. Even now I strain against those limits, but I will never overstep my bounds. The living will suffer, and the dying will die.”

  “Well that’s just great.” Zerai paced away, not wanting to deal with the angel’s cryptic, fatalistic nonsense, but he quickly turned back again as he remembered that he was in fact dealing with an angel. A very powerful angel. “Listen, we’re trying. We got Darius off the throne, we got a nice boring king on the throne, and an hour later he’s dead.”

  “I know.” Azrael stared dully into his eyes. “Your race is broken.”

  “You’re right!” a voice called from behind them.

  Zerai turned to see Iyasu and Samira emerge from the alley shadows. The sun was setting quickly and the narrow street was swiftly sinking into dim shades of slate and charcoal.

  The young seer blinked his red eyes and held out his hands in supplication. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t know what’s wrong with people, or what’s wrong with the world, but we are broken. Something is broken inside of us, that we keep doing these terrible things. War, murder, assassination. The world is so big and beautiful and bountiful, but here we are, climbing all over each other for crumbs, killing the innocent, obsessing about worthless treasures. We are broken.”

  A silence fell across the street. The dust finally settled on the rubble of the shattered wall, and Azrael and Iyasu stared at each other. The assassin coughed and raised his head.

  Zerai looked down at him. “I’d stay down if I were you.”

  The archer grimaced and laid still.

  “But this cannot be the end of it,” Veneka said. “We may be broken.
Yes, flawed, and dangerous. But we are also kind, and creative, and selfless. We are not doomed, we are just… making mistakes. Many mistakes. But we can change. We can change this. Right now, right here. This country. Let us change this one country. How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Iyasu said. “I’ve been trying to fix this country for nearly a year, and look at what I’ve done to it. I don’t see how—”

  “Wait a minute.” Zerai raised his hand, and then pointed at Iyasu. “You said when you first came here, you helped Faris pick a new king. Sim-something?”

  “Simon. But he was assassinated.”

  “Right! And did you ever catch the assassin?”

  “No.” Everyone looked down at the archer sitting on the rubble.

  Zerai squatted down next to the man. He pointed his sword at the man’s face and said, “You killed Mathias today.”

  The archer nodded.

  “Did you kill Simon also?”

  He cast an angry look at Azrael, and nodded again.

  Zerai leaned in a little closer. “And who paid you to kill two kings?”

  The archer leaned away and quickly surveyed the group surrounding him. Iyasu and Veneka did not elicit much of a response from him, but Samira and Azrael made his eyes dart and his lips twitch. “If I tell you, they’ll kill me. If I don’t tell you, you’ll kill me. You see my problem.”

  “We will not kill you,” Veneka said. “You will go to prison.”

  “How enticing,” the man said dryly.

  “You’ll keep your head,” Zerai pointed out.

  “I already have my head,” the archer replied. “Offer me something I don’t have.”

  “You disgusting—!” Iyasu lurched toward him, but Veneka held him back.

  “All right.” Zerai lowered his sword. “Tell us who paid you, and you leave Maqari with your life. But if you ever return, your life is forfeit.”

  The archer considered the offer for a moment, but one more glance at Azrael seemed to make up his mind. “Darius.”

  “How? He is in prison,” Veneka said.

  “A standing contract,” the archer said. “Every time I kill a king, I get paid.”

  “Behold, the very flower of humanity in fullest bloom,” Azrael said softly.

  “Well, this time you’re getting paid with your freedom.” Zerai pulled the man up to his feet, and yanked the bow and arrows off him. “Start running. You’ve got until sunrise to be outside the borders before we put a price on your head so high that every other assassin on the continent will be looking for you.”

  The archer sneered, backed slowly to the edge of the street, and then dashed away into the shadows.

  “There will be more,” Iyasu said. “Darius will have other assassins, other operatives.”

  “Well, there’s only so much damage he can do while he’s in prison.” Zerai paused. “We should probably go check the prison.”

  Veneka nodded and they both stepped back toward the alley where Samira had emerged, and where she continued to stand in frowning silence. The healer asked her, “Are you all right?”

  “Raziel was clear. He wants this person, cleric or angel, brought to him. Everyone seems to have forgotten our original purpose here.”

  “No one’s forgotten,” Zerai said. “But the situation has changed. Raziel wanted the killing to stop, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

  “I will not go back to Raziel empty-handed.”

  “No,” Veneka said. “You will go back with the story of how you healed a nation, prevented a bloody war, and helped the Angel of Death to… do whatever it is she needs to do. Raziel will understand.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Veneka nodded. “I know him well enough.”

  Samira arched an eyebrow. “You claim to know the mind of an angel?”

  Zerai tried not to sigh too loudly as he glanced back over his shoulder in search of Iyasu, and saw the young seer standing much closer to Azrael, together atop the remains of the fallen wall.

  “I know what you’ve seen,” Iyasu said. “I haven’t seen as much, or as often, but I’ve seen death in the same way that you do, every tiny bit of flesh reacting in pain and fear, surging and failing, hot and cold, shaking… I haven’t felt what you’ve felt, but I’ve seen it, and I remember it. I remember all of it.”

  The hard lines around the angel’s mouth faded. “I believe you.”

  “I’m so sorry, for all of it, for all we’ve done to you. We could have given you billions of memories of people dying peacefully in their beds, surrounded by their loving families, content and fulfilled, calmly slipping away, even eagerly awaiting their passage to the next world, but…” Iyasu’s mouth twisted and he looked away.

  “The failings of all humanity are not your failings,” Azrael said.

  “But you, no one sees you, no one knows you, no one realizes that you’re here, seeing this, feeling this, suffering for our sins along with us as we die, and I… I just want you to know that I see you, and I’m sorry.”

  The hooded woman paused, gazing down at the young man, and then turned away, saying, “Walk with me, please.”

  The two of them moved away, stepped down off the broken stones and pacing off into the deeper shadows toward the end of the street, and then turning the corner, passing out of sight.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Zerai started after them, but Veneka held his hand.

  “Let them go.”

  “Let our little Iyasu, the depressed and miserable young man carrying all the guilt in the world on his shoulders, go off alone with the Angel of Death?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He will be safer with her than with us.”

  “What? Why? Where are we going?”

  “To the prison,” Veneka said. “We’re going to see Darius.”

  “Then I will stay and watch over Iyasu,” Samira said.

  “No, Veneka’s right, he’ll be fine. Probably.” Zerai frowned. “It would be best if you could run to the prison and make sure that Darius is where he is supposed to be. And maybe reinforce his cell walls. A lot.”

  The djinn cleric nodded. “I suppose securing the butcher is what Raziel would want now.” And without another word, she dashed away in a blur of shadows.

  Zerai and Veneka hurried back through the dark streets, and the falconer kept them bearing in the right direction by the black outlines of the towers and spires against the faint shining stars just beginning to appear. Soon they reached the palace where they hurried inside in search of Faris, Jengo, or anyone who could guide them to the prison. Instead the first person they met was Petra.

  “Where is my sister?” the djinn the woman demanded. “I need her.”

  “She’s busy,” Zerai said. “And we’re in a hurry.”

  He tried to go around her, but she flash-stepped into his path. “No. You don’t understand. I need to talk to her. Right now.”

  “Why? What’s so important?”

  Petra smiled nervously. “I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 17

  Veneka

  Veneka narrowed her eyes at the djinn woman. “We have no time for this.”

  As Petra’s smile faded, Veneka strode past her through the palace halls, muttering to herself, “Where is Jengo? We need Jengo.”

  “We don’t have time for this?” Zerai hurried to keep pace with her, and he looked back over his shoulder at the djinn woman several times. “She’s carrying a child that’s part human and part djinn. I’ll admit, the timing is terrible, but isn’t this something we should, you know, care about?”

  “No.” Veneka stared straight ahead. “If she wants to stick her finger in God’s eye, she can do it by herself.”

  “Right, I get that. But what about the baby?”

  “What?”

  “The baby. The little tiny person who didn’t ask to stick her fingers in anyone’s eye, the baby that’s going to be the first of her kind in the world, the baby that she’s having purely out of spite instead of, well, a good reaso
n.”

  “We will deal with that when the time comes. If the time comes.” She shook her head. “You heard her before. She will probably miscarry at some point.”

  Zerai looked sick. “I guess.”

  “Are you all right?” She glanced at him.

  “Sure.” He didn’t look at her.

  They were still hunting for Jengo and Faris when a squad of soldiers dashed past them and ran through a doorway just down the hall. As they hurried to see what was the matter, they heard a chorus of shouts from the doorway and Jengo charged out into the hall with the soldiers at his sides.

  “Jengo!” Veneka called out. “What has happened?”

  “It’s Darius,” the warrior roared as he strode past them. “He’s escaped!”

  She stopped and looked at Zerai, seeing the same exhaustion and disbelief in his eyes that she felt herself. She turned and hurried after the tall man. “So what do we do? Organize a search?”

  “No, we know exactly where he is,” Jengo said. “He’s leading about fifteen thousand soldiers through the north end of the city. He’ll be here in about two hours, I think.”

  “Fifteen…?” Zerai shook his head. “How?”

  “The First Legion came back early from Ovati, before we could replace their commander. It was one of the first things Mathias was supposed to do, before he died.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” Veneka asked. “Is Taharqa going to relieve their commander in the streets? Can we just tell them that Faris is the king to make them stand down?”

  “Well, Faris is not the king,” Jengo pointed out. “And even if he was, it wouldn’t mean much to the legions. Since Faris never fought with them, they don’t have any loyalty to him.”

  Veneka felt an ache in her chest. “So they are loyal to Darius?”

  “Yes.”

  They all jogged through the last great halls and doors, and emerged into the main courtyard of the palace where the starlight fell on hundreds of soldiers on horseback, stringing their bows and tightening the straps on their reinforced leather armor. Veneka saw a small forest of spears and javelins standing like naked trees all around her, and the soft clicking of the beads in the men’s uniforms and in their hair made the darkness come alive.