The Last Winter (The Circle War Book 2)

by Matt King

  “That is for Aeris.”

  A woman matching Aeris’s height and athletic build filled the last of the regular seats around the stage. Her entourage included three armored guards who situated themselves on the floor behind her seat.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “That is the Orlesse matriarch.”

  “Is she friendly?”

  Dondannarin’s eyes narrowed. “To some.”

  “Rise for the Revenent!” a voice called out from the crowd.

  August stood along with the rest of the crowd. Cheers arose outside the arena walls. They carried inside as Aeris came through the doorway, flanked by the two guards he’d passed at the entrance. Her crimson cloak stood out against the gray and white robes worn by the rest of the people. He remembered seeing pictures of crowds screaming for Princess Diana when he was a kid. The people’s reaction to Aeris was no different.

  She’s goddamn royalty.

  Aeris made her way to the stage. Most of the council smiled as she took her seat in the Revenent’s chair, all except the Orlesse matriarch, who kept a stone face.

  When Aeris looked his way, her eyes widened slightly. She raised her hand.

  He started to raise one back until he noticed Dondannarin returning the gesture.

  “Thank you,” Aeris said to the room. “Let us begin.”

  The council waited until Aeris was seated before following in kind.

  “Before we discuss the business of the Departes, I wish to welcome a guest to our council.”

  All eyes turned to August. The crowd hushed. The most he could muster in return was a half-smile and a nod.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the Orlesse matriarch asked. Her voice was commanding, with a sharpness that stood in stark contrast to Aeris’s fluid tone. “Why have you brought this stranger to our council? He is not welcome here.”

  A rumbling of voices chattered agreement. August felt like melting into the stage.

  “He is here at my request,” Aeris answered. “I know the sight of a man is painful for many of you while the wound is still fresh, as it is for me. But we have asked the old god for help and this is who he sent. He is a powerful warrior—a victor in many battles—and he is capable of leading our fight against the Garoult.”

  The matriarch’s glare turned to him. “But he is one man, is he not?”

  Aeris let the crowd’s displeasure swell and die away. “Yes, Colliere, he is one man.”

  “We asked this god for an army. He sends us a joke. You cannot hope to face the Garoult with our current force. You will doom our race to die.”

  A section of the crowd erupted in angry cries directly behind Colliere. August was beginning to see the setup. The families lined up behind their leader. The Orlesse faction was the only vocal one. The rest of the crowd looked around anxiously.

  “To not face the Garoult is to prolong the inevitable,” Aeris said. “We don’t have the means to travel to distant planets. C’Thora is a dead world, as is ours. Garoult is our only hope. Our only hope.” She paused, perhaps waiting for the cheers from her own contingent, but she was met with only mumbles.

  She looked around the stage and the audience. “You do not agree?”

  More mumbling.

  “We should delay the attack at the very least,” Colliere said, seizing the apparent momentum. “Wait until the next Departes before executing this plan. Give us time to explore our alternatives.”

  “What alternatives are those?” Aeris asked. “Go back to our holes? Live on ground worms and dusty chiron water for eternity? They will not last forever. They may not last another year. How many times have we moved to a new plot of land only to find that there is nothing to sustain us? How many times have we sent scouts across the dead oceans to find a new source of food, of water, only for them to come back empty-handed? It is time we saw Vontanu for what it is—a ghost. No amount of wishing can change this, no matter how much we want it back.”

  “This is all easy for you to say,” Colliere replied. “Your life is not at stake here.”

  A few of the council gasped. The crowd held its collective breath.

  Aeris was visibly shaken. She looked like she’d been blindsided. “Whatever powers the old god gave me, I would trade them in an instant if it meant the survival of the Vontani. You must know this.”

  “All we know is that if we lose this war, you live on. You, the catalyst behind our fall.”

  Angry shouts erupted from behind Aeris, matched by the Orlesse clan who cried back in defense. August looked to Dondannarin for an explanation, but she only glared at Colliere. The noise of the crowd vibrated the stage beneath his feet. It took the guards slamming their staffs on the ground to bring some semblance of order back to the meeting.

  “You were the one who failed to secure our future in your dealings with Paralos!” Colliere called out. “Why should we sacrifice our lives for so little promise of victory? Why not instead make peace with the Garoult and concentrate our efforts on healing ourselves?”

  “Because the Phaelix will betray that peace,” Aeris said. “He will be hungry to see our people wiped from existence. He sees us as weak.”

  “We are weak.”

  “Are you?” Aeris rose from her chair and approached the Orlesse matriarch. “Are you weak, Colliere?”

  She stared back at Aeris, her nostrils flared.

  “Answer my question.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “No. Tell me. Are you weak?”

  Colliere opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. She glanced to the guards behind her. “No,” she said.

  “Are you weak?” Aeris asked the next woman on the stage.

  The matriarch shook her head.

  “Are any of you?” she called out to the crowd. She was answered with a smattering of Nos.

  “You remember the lines of your families. You remember the sacrifices they made to ensure the survival of our people. Ask yourselves what they would do now. Would they flee? Would they beg for mercy? Or would they fight?”

  More heads in the crowd started to nod in agreement.

  “As long as I am Revenent of the Vontani, I will not allow the Phaelix and his Garoult to defeat our legacy. They have taken half of our family from us. We will take half of their world in return. We will take what we are owed.”

  “But Revenent,” another matriarch said. “How do you propose to counter the Silence?”

  Aeris motioned to August. “That is where our new ally will show his true worth.”

  She strode back to her chair as August was bombarded with doubtful glares from the women on stage. He didn’t know what kind of silence she was talking about, but something told him he didn’t meet the council’s standards for beating it.

  “When the Departes opens, the Garoult will be ready for war, no matter what the Phaelix’s letter promised. They will send their umari through the portal first in hopes of delivering an early killing blow. We must withstand this assault.”

  August motioned Dondannarin down to his level. “What’s an umari?” he whispered.

  “Garoult war beasts,” she answered. “Large, deadly, and extremely powerful.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  Aeris continued laying out her plan. “Once the umari are defeated, we will need to pass quickly through the portal. We know from the past that they keep the portal surrounded. Most of our forces will press forward. Dondannarin will lead the group protecting our flank. August will be tasked with dismantling the Silence.”

  “By himself?” Colliere demanded.

  Yeah, he thought. By myself?!

  “They will be expecting a squadron to attack, not one man, and they will not be expecting this man. We will fight in darkness. He will be nearly invisible to the Garoult under these conditions. He will not have the same weakness to the Silence. August will take this machine down, and when he does, the Garoult will be at our mercy.”

  Dondannarin was already on her way down t
o explain when he looked up. “The Silence is a machine,” she said. “It negates sound in the range that Vontani can hear, but not the Garoult. We rely on our senses in battle, and if we cannot hear, our enemies have the advantage.”

  “Can we beat them even if I’m able to destroy it?”

  The wrinkles around her cheeks deepened as she gave him a wry smile. “The Vontani had never lost a battle to the Garoult until they used this machine. We do not plan on being the first.”

  But have you ever fought them with half an army? he wanted to ask.

  Aeris continued. “We will need to push the Phaelix’s forces back quickly so that the solemirs will have time to make it through the portal before it closes. The elders and our children will be inside. Colliere, I will need you to lead the group that guards them. Once the Garoult see them, they will strike.”

  Colliere answered with a single nod.

  “Are the great families of the Vontani in agreement then?”

  The matriarchs glanced to each other before answering. “We are.”

  “Then our plan is set,” Aeris said.

  “All rise for the Revenent!” her guard called out.

  She stood along with the rest of the stage, including August. Her eyes met the other matriarchs’s before she scanned the crowd.

  “The Departes will dawn in a few hours. Go, be with your loved ones. Gather your strength, for the Vontani will soon write a new song of victory. May the spirits of our fallen watch over us all.”

  The mood of the people seemed high as they began to empty the arena, which struck him as odd given that they were only a few hours away from a fight for their lives. Aeris walked around to each of the matriarchs, taking their hand in hers before they walked off the stage to the cheers of their families. She met longest with Colliere. The conversation ended with the Orlesse woman giving a conciliatory nod before walking away.

  August waited for her with Dondannarin at his side.

  “I almost did not recognize you,” Aeris said.

  “Yeah, the beard was getting a little crazy.”

  “You didn’t do this because of me, I hope.”

  “Didn’t cross my mind.”

  She smiled. “It seems I owe you another apology,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For not telling you of my plans first. In truth, I didn’t think of it until that moment. So many assume that I have some magical power to create these grand plans, when the fact is, I often don’t know myself until the moment is upon me.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Dondannarin said. “She is a natural strategist.”

  “And you are a loyal friend.” Her smile seemed sad. Her eyes flitted to August and then back to Dondannarin. “I must join the others in preparation. You will find food and drink for him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I will see you both after we celebrate the Garoult’s defeat.”

  By the look on her face, he wondered if she believed there would be a celebration at the end. Her guards fell in behind her as she passed through the crowd of people still left behind.

  “We should go,” Dondannarin said.

  August walked beside her down the ramp to the floor. He kept one eye on Aeris as she passed through the entrance. “Hey, what did Colliere mean when she said Aeris was the catalyst behind the fall?”

  Dondannarin’s gaze dropped to her feet. “It is not my place to say.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Aeris should speak to you of such matters.”

  “And what makes you think she’s going to tell me?”

  Dondannarin stopped. She waited for the others to pass before she spoke. “Aeris’s father was the Revenent before her. It is his likeness you see on top of this hall. When the Phaelix sent his offer of peace, her father was the one to read it.”

  She left it hanging there as though it explained everything. He tried piecing it together instead. “So she watched her father die, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “How does that make her a catalyst of anything?”

  “Because,” she replied. “Aeris was the one who convinced him to accept the Phaelix’s invitation in the first place.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Again,” Paralos said.

  Bear picked himself off the ground. His ears rang from the hit. The Horseman who stood over him looked ready to do it again.

  “I don’t understand why this is so damned important.” Bear’s panting breaths echoed off the walls of the cave.

  “It’s important because you are a champion, and you are meant to fight in this war.”

  Part of me is, at least. When he looked back up, he knew Paralos had been listening. He was already shaking his head.

  “Shadow may not be there for you forever. You must learn to fight on your own.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be there for me?”

  “Because she is not meant to fight for anyone but August. Meryn has her convinced that Dillon is her child. All you are is a barrier trying to keep her from him. There is nothing compelling her to help you now that August is gone.”

  Bear searched for her inside, pulling on the connective link between them in an effort to coax her forward, if only for a moment. He felt nothing on the other end. There wasn’t even a whiff of the chalky, dusty smell of her world.

  “Are you done, Mr. Lawson?”

  He wiped the dirt from his bare chest and stood tall, never turning an eye toward the god. The other three Horsemen sat by the fire next to one of the smaller Orphii that had walked over to watch. Its diamond eyes caught the light of the flames.

  The brother acting as his sparring partner held a makeshift staff made from the branch of a tree Bear had brought down earlier. The wood was as hard as stone and hit like a freight train. Bear had the dried blood on his face to prove it.

  “You ready?” he asked the Horseman.

  The Horseman gave a slow nod.

  “Fight,” Paralos ordered.

  Bear put himself in the stance shown to him by the brothers at the beginning of their session—one foot slightly in front of the other, knees bent, fists raised, arms loose but ready to defend. He was so busy going through his checklist that he barely ducked the first swing, a lazy shot at his head.

  The brother shifted the staff from one hand to his other as he circled around Bear, testing his movement. He faked his advance twice, making Bear flinch each time. Bear pictured him laughing behind the featureless mask.

  The Horseman swung for his neck. Bear raised his forearm to block it.

  “No!” Paralos yelled. “You are trying to dodge his attacks, not take the brunt of the blow. Had that been a blade your arm would be lying on the floor.”

  “It was just a reaction.”

  “Change your reactions.”

  The Horseman raised his gloved hand to Bear. He flexed his fingers.

  “He’s telling you to get in close,” Paralos said. “In close, you are effective. No one will match your strength if you can get your hands on them. Dodge his blows, time your strike, and then move in. Practice what they showed you.”

  Bear regrouped to try again. He moved back into position.

  The Horseman switched the staff to his right side. He held it like a bat, just like they had practiced earlier. When somebody came at him with a two-handed weapon, he was supposed to lunge inside mid-swing with arms extended to block the attack, then grab the right arm while pushing back with his left to disarm. They’d done it a dozen times already.

  He nodded to show he was ready.

  The Horseman slid sideways before coming across with a heavy slash. Bear stepped forward with both hands to stop the swing. When he reached down to disarm, the Horseman let go of the staff with his left hand and sent Bear to the ground with a left cross across his chin.

  Paralos laughed.

  “He cheated,” Bear spat. The room felt like it was spinning.

  “Your enemies will not operate by a script. Again.”

&n
bsp; “No more. I’m done.”

  “Again.”

  Across the fire, the other three brothers stared back at him from behind the matte black coverings of their masks. He got up, making sure to hide any ill effects from the hit. He felt their stares on his back as he walked over to get into position.

  “Ready,” he said.

  There was no waiting this time. The Horseman came storming forward with his staff spinning in his hand. He struck first against Bear’s arm and then again across his leg.

  “You are dead,” Paralos said. “Once more.”

  Bear shook off the sting and settled into his stance.

  Again, the Horseman struck hard and fast, cracking him across the shin. He pounded the end of his staff on the ground out of frustration when Bear came up limp.

  “Move your feet and find a way inside his attacks.”

  Bear tried making the first move next, and the Horseman made him pay. He ducked beneath Bear’s lunge and slapped the length of the staff across his lower back.

  Paralos sighed. “Again, you are dead.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “If you don’t understand the consequences of your failures, you’ll have no drive to succeed. Watch for the signs he’s giving you and react.”

  Bear tried to go for the disarm again. The Horseman smacked him across the ear. He went for the body next and took the blunt end of the staff on the nose. He stumbled backward. When the Horseman tried to capitalize, Bear whipped out his arm and caught the brother’s fist in his own.

  No more.

  He squeezed his fingers until he could feel the metal on the Horseman’s glove starting to bend. The Horseman tried to pull away, but Bear wouldn’t let go. Every bit of pain and frustration he’d been holding back came out through his grip.

  The Horseman fell to one knee.

  Out of nowhere, a fist crashed into Bear’s cheek. Something else struck the back of his knee hard enough to send a lightning bolt of pain up his back. He let go of the Horseman, but not before the staff rocked his head from side to side, opening a long gash across his face. The final blow came from a kick to his stomach.

  He stumbled to the ground clutching his side. When he looked up, the other three Horsemen stood between him and their fallen brother.