On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5)

by Travis Simmons

  Goddess, she thought. Help me.

  Cianna closed her eyes and felt a power she had never known before infuse her mind. It was as if an awareness joined with her, an idea of what she needed to do. Cianna reached out with her mind, felt the streams of death flowing through the rephaim, repairing his injuries. She grabbed at them with every ounce of her mind and twisted, turning them backwards, undoing the healing they had done.

  She heard the rephaim halt in his approach.

  “What’s . . . happening?” it gasped.

  She opened her eyes and saw blood running from his mouth, from the hole in his chest where the soldier had accidentally stabbed him, from several other wounds. Cianna dug deeper as she pushed to her feet, empowered by her success. She twisted her hands and watched the angel fall to one knee, his fists clenched at his side.

  “I’m stronger than you!” he raged at her. “You have no power over me.”

  And then she yanked her hands apart and felt the death power inside of him tear apart as well. His wings slipped from his back like a tree sliding down a slope. His skin loosened, cracked apart, sloughed from his bones to pool on the ground at his knees.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, but his jaw fell from its hinges, clattering onto his chest, and then pulling away from the muscle and shattered on the ground. In moments the angel was reduced to nothing but a skeleton, kneeling in a pile of his own soupy skin.

  Jovian heard the yells in his room.

  “What’s that?” Angelica hollered to him from the common room.

  “I don’t know!” Jovian said, dashing toward his window. A large blast lit the glass and he stumbled, falling into the wall and slipping gracelessly to the floor. He stood on wobbly knees and made his way to the window.

  “Fallen!” he yelled to Angelica. “Outside!”

  “We have to go to them!” she yelled.

  “No time. Attack from the windows.”

  The smell of burning flesh stirred Mag from her sleep. She was surrounded by a field of white, but it didn’t take her long to remember what had happened. What she couldn’t figure out was where the smoke was coming from. It was a smell that terrified her beyond reason.

  With a burst of wyrd she pushed herself from the snow and saw the carnage before her. Two fallen were still ambulatory, while two others lay dead at the feet of Joya and Cianna. But it wasn’t the fallen she worried about just then, because Mag saw the source of the smoke. A hole the size of a barracks was blasted out of the wall, and she could hear the war cries of approaching trolls and dwarves.

  “Goddess help us,” Mag whispered. She formed a ball of wyrd in her hand and spoke into it. She launched it to the center of the courtyard and willed it to expand, to trumpet her orders to the soldiers.

  “Mind the walls! Archers, prepare your bows. Soldiers, to the breach!”

  People started obeying immediately. Above her she could hear the twang of bow strings, this time facing out toward the coming threat rather than in toward the angels. Soldiers scurried around in the courtyard, making good for the breach.

  A fallen stalked toward them, but a blast of red wyrd from a second-story window struck it in the back, knocking it flat on its face in the snow. It was female, with flowing red hair and a pretty black dress. It batted its wings and was in the air in moments, wheeling toward the open window.

  “Goddess, may my wyrd fly true!” Mag said and let loose a stream of green fire at the fallen. It ignited its dress as if she had touched a torch to hay. The flames licked up the folds of the dress, eating away at the blackened feathers. As the angel started spiraling toward the earth, a blast of purple wyrd struck it from another window on the second floor, and the angel exploded.

  Cianna and Joya were on the last angel, and Mag concentrated on the breach. She swung to the left, climbing the stairs two at a time.

  “STEADY!” she yelled. “THEY COME!”

  “Joya, we can do this,” Cianna said, backing toward her cousin. “One left.”

  But the fallen looked around him, saw all of his companions lying dead, and took flight. Joya lashed out with a clap of pink lightning, but the fallen twisted to the side, spiraling out of the way. He looked back at her, sneered, and rose higher.

  Just as he was nearly out of sight, a blast of purple fire flew from an upper window and climbed high up into the clouds. There was a burst of light, and then a smoking form was hurtling toward the earth. It smashed onto the wall with the sickening sound of breaking bone and lay still.

  Joya didn’t wait to ask questions; she ran to the wall where she had seen Shelara fall. It only took her a moment to find the ooslebed. She was broken, but still breathing.

  “Cianna, help me get her inside.”

  Her cousin was there in moments, one of the dark elf’s arms tossed around her shoulders. Together they wrestled the lithe figure into the entrance hall and down to the infirmary.

  “What happened to you?” Grace asked, rushing to their side as quickly as she could with her infirm body.

  “Fallen,” Joya breathed heavily, helping Cianna to put the ooslebed to rest on the nearest cot.

  “What?” Rosalee said.

  “Fallen angels attacked,” Joya sat on the stairs, gasping for breath. “We pushed them back, barely.”

  “LISTEN UP!” Cianna yelled to all the recovering people. “We need anyone and everyone who’s able to get up to the courtyard. The wall has been breached and the dwarves are attacking. If your tea has run its course, we need your wyrd on the walls. MOVE IT!”

  Cianna didn’t need to ask them twice. Joya pushed out of the way and watched the recovering people race toward the stairs.

  Rosalee scowled. “I’m sure some of them aren’t well enough to fight.”

  “It’s their decision now,” Grace reminded Rosalee. “Joya, what exactly happened up there?”

  Joya told her everything she remembered.

  “And you said you weren’t able to hurt it at first?” Grace asked.

  “It’s strange, I don’t know what changed.”

  “Same with me; I felt a kind of resolve before my wyrd would work, and then it didn’t take much at all.” Cianna joined them. “But we’re needed again.”

  Joya nodded. “Later, we’ll discuss this.”

  Grace nodded. She knew they wouldn’t be discussing it again. There wasn’t much Joya could really tell her, it seemed. She wasn’t able to hurt the angel at first, and then she could. No amount of analyzing things would make that statement any clearer.

  “We need all able-bodied people out there, now!” Maeven yelled to the people coming up from the infirmary. They issued toward the door wordlessly.

  “What . . . what can I do?” Astanel asked, coming to stand in front of Maeven. He recognized the man from Meedesville, but he’d never had the opportunity or the courage to talk to the arms master. At least, that’s what he’d been in Meedesville. He knew Maeven had been versed in almost every weapon known, and that he knew just as much about beasts and dalua. Maeven now had short hair, tousled and messy around his head, and a good month’s worth of a beard. The man made Astanel nervous. Still, the people coursed around them, charging out into the bedlam that the courtyard was becoming.

  “What can you do? You’re a sorcerer, right?” Maeven asked, but a flurry of footsteps coming down the steps from the Guardian’s Tower drew the druid’s attention away.

  “Maeven!” Jovian gasped, coming to a halt before the dark-haired man. He was holding a box out before him. It was engraved with twined vines, and had a golden hook latch on the front that looked more for decoration than for serving any real purpose. “We can use this.”

  “The Orb of Aldaras?” Maeven asked, taking the box and opening the lid. The moment the lid opened, a pulse ran through Astanel’s wyrd, and he felt stronger, braver. Maeven must have felt it too. He looked to Jovian questioningly.

  Angelica slid to a stop beside Astanel and ruffled his hair. He hated how it made him feel comforted. He was seve
nteen now, he should be stronger than this, he should be out there now, fighting. But the blonde woman’s hand on his shoulder brought him peace. To him she was a pillar of courage. She winked at him, and he blushed.

  “It’s more than that now,” Jovian said. “Not a lot of time to explain, but Wyrders’ Bane is no longer bad; it boosts our strength instead of sapping it.”

  “And it’s in the orb?” Maeven asked, looking down at the swirling, opalescent surface.

  “Yep,” Angelica said.

  “Brilliant. We need to get this out there among the wyrders!” Maeven said. He looked at Astanel. “Do you think you can get it out there? Get it somewhere safe, where it won’t be destroyed?”

  Emboldened by the orb, Astanel nodded, his blond hair slipping in front of his eyes. Angelica opened her mouth, maybe to protest, but she fell silent. Maybe she realized that Astanel needed to do this.

  “Good,” Maeven said, handing the box to Astanel.

  “I’ll go with him. Just give me a moment,” Angelica said. “I have to grab my weapon, and maybe get out of this dress.” She charged off, up the stairs.

  “Bring mine too!” Jovian yelled after her. Maeven pulled him to the side, and they started talking in between Maeven giving those wyrders coming up from the infirmary instructions.

  Astanel opened the box and let forth the throbbing power of the stone. He basked in its strength, feeling is seep into his very bones.

  Outside a battle waged. Wyrd flew through the air, and the sound of the melee drifted through the opened doors. It was complete chaos, and Astanel couldn’t decipher any words, couldn’t really determine any activity. When he read books, he was so easily able to see in his head every detail, but outside, in the growing darkness of evening with only the flashing and glowing of wyrd and a few torches, it looked like shadowy shapes struggling with one another.

  “Are we ready?” Angelica asked, coming to stand beside Astanel.

  He jumped. He hadn’t even heard her come back. He nodded, and Jovian joined them. Angelica handed Jovian an ivory and gold scabbard that looked like a shin-buto, and she strapped a similar sheath of lapis on her back. She drew her blade from its confines in a song of metal. Jovian mirrored the action.

  “We’re going to guard you,” Angelica said. “I’m sure your wyrd would work well out there, but you have the orb, and that’s precious, okay?”

  Astanel nodded. He liked how she took him seriously, like he was an adult.

  “Any idea where you want to place it?” Jovian asked.

  “There’s one place,” Astanel said. “The ramparts should be out of their way, right?”

  “Perfect,” Angelica said.

  “Alright,” Jovian nudged him forward, and Angelica fell into step before him, leading the way.

  The moment they were out of the entrance hall, the noise of combat deafened Astanel. Lightning sizzled the air, fire burned, wyrd exploded, blood flowed over the snow, painting it in gore, and screams tore the air, from human, dwarf, and troll alike.

  Angelica was cutting a path before them, slicing at a back here, stabbing through a chest there. A troll lumbered up before her. It was the largest thing Astanel had ever seen: tall, almost like a giant, and rippling with muscle. It had tusks that came from its mouth, spiraling like ram’s horns up the sides of its face. In its huge hands it held a cudgel.

  “Jove, take him around,” Angelica said. “This will be interesting.”

  The troll swung at her, and she darted out of the way. A blast of purple wyrd shot from her hands, blinding the troll with a brilliant flash. It stumbled back and she was on it, slicing and hacking. . .

  Jovian pulled Astanel between two barracks. Here it was quieter; he could hear the throbbing of his heart, the noise of his breath in his ears. The muffled sounds of combat came to him through the narrow passage.

  “Alright, we can slip through here and around the back,” Jovian said. “It should be a pretty clear shot to the right side of the ramparts.”

  He was watching Astanel, and the boy didn’t know why, but he nodded. When he nodded, Jovian took that as indication that he could move forward. He slapped Astanel on the shoulder; in his nervous state, Astanel almost dropped the box, but instead lurched forward. Jovian nodded, and turned back to the darkened way ahead.

  Astanel considered conjuring a wyrd light, but thought better of it. The darkness might be half of their protection. Not only that, but he was aware that he had blessed little training in using his wyrd, and a little spell like that in his anxious state might flatten the entire courtyard.

  Astanel had never been out among the barracks of the different roots, but he had walked through the courtyard many times before on aimless journeys. He thought Jovian was going in the right direction. Before long mountains greeted them, and Jovian turned left, slipping along the base of them. The footing was unsure, so travel went a little slower.

  Something was moving behind them. Astanel turned, stumbling into Jovian as he did. Panting, the boy pointed back the way they came. A shape loomed up out of the darkness.

  “It’s just me,” Angelica whispered, her voice labored.

  “Are you okay?” Jovian asked.

  “I’ll live,” she said. “Just a couple bruises. Nothing that won’t heal.” She gripped Astanel’s shoulder, pointed ahead of them, and nudged him a little. Jovian picked up the pace again.

  The base of the mountains melted away to brick and mortar, and as if that heralded entry back to the battle, voices and cries could be heard carrying through the darkness.

  And light. They could see once more, even if it was by the flickering and flaring of wyrd. A few times Astanel had to avert his eyes when a blast of wyrd was too bright to look toward.

  He crushed the box to him, the weight growing greater the longer he kept his arms in the carrying position.

  They came to a halt, backs pressed to the wall of the last barracks before the stairs. Jovian motioned for them to stay there and slipped around the corner.

  “Are you okay?” Angelica asked. Astanel looked at her as a shadow took shape behind her.

  He dropped the box, pushed Angelica aside, and blasted out with his wyrd. A concussion of black, alarist wyrd flashed from his hand, tossing him backwards even as it flared to life, enveloped the misshapen dwarf, and then vanished, taking the enemy with them.

  Angelica pushed to her feet, brushing snow off her backside.

  “How do you do that?” Angelica wondered as Astanel picked himself off the ground.

  Astanel shrugged, closing the box, which had fallen open when he dropped it. “It was wyrd that was forced into me. When I’m scared, it’s a kind of default for me. It takes concentration for me to pull from the well. The alarist wyrd is always there.”

  “Even though you aren’t an alarist any longer?” Angelica asked, looking around them, now more alert.

  “I never was an alarist, but the grigori woke the wyrd within me before it was time. It’s his wyrd,” Astanel said.

  “I got it,” Angelica said. “I think.”

  “Alright,” Jovian said, coming back to them. “We are going to have a struggle. Angie, up here with me. Astanel, we’ll clear a path. There’s not a lot going on up the stairs. The archers are up there, and there’s a gaping hole in the wall, but there’s a nice expanse that you should be able to plant the orb on. When you see a clear path, take it.”

  Astanel looked up into Jovian’s startling green eyes, and his mouth ran dry. He couldn’t form words, because Jovian kind of scared him like Maeven did. He nodded.

  “Let’s move,” he said to Angelica, and they turned the corner of the barracks and were into the melee.

  Astanel didn’t care what kind of wyrd he channeled that night. He shifted the box to his left, freeing up his right hand in case he needed to use his wyrd again.

  Angelica and Jovian didn’t stray far from in front of him. They didn’t engage unless they had to, and at times they did, sometimes only to slip behind one of t
he soldiers, other times to hack at a dwarf engaged with a soldier.

  Astanel kept looking behind him, checking the way back to make sure nothing followed, but it was a mess of scrambling battles, a flurry of weapons, flashes of wyrd. Nothing could have followed them, because they were lost in the fray.

  A cudgel took out a soldier behind Astanel. The soldier fell into the boy, and Astanel stumbled, fell, and nearly lost his grip on the box, but held fast to it as if his life depended on it.

  Through the vine-engraved wood he could feel the orb pulsing with power, boosting his resolve. He scurried backwards. A hand under his shoulder helped him to stand, and when he looked to see who it was, Jovian was retreating from him, helping to clear the way. He hadn’t seen that the soldier at Astanel’s feet was dead, and that the troll was focusing his eyes on Astanel.

  Astanel darted to the left as the cudgel swung down again. He broke between two fighting groups, scrambled for the wall, and started following it to the stairs. He looked for Angelica and Jovian, but they were lost in the crowd. The troll hadn’t lost sight of him, however, and with a powerful swing, groups parted before him.

  The troll roared and charged for him.

  Astanel fell to the side. The troll rammed into the wall, and it shuddered under the pressure.

  Astanel fell backward on the snow. Holding up his hand, he shot out his wyrd straight at the troll. But he was scared, and his wyrd flickered off above the wall, striking a tree that winked out of existence as if it had never been. The trees around it wavered slightly, as if the vanished tree had let out a breeze with its passing.

  The troll was stunned, and Astanel took that moment to regain his feet. Gasping for air, he fled along the wall, searching for the stairs.

  Hammering footfalls followed him. Just when the tension of not knowing where the troll was behind him grew too much, he darted to the left between another fighting group, barely missing the point of a thrusting sword.