Winds of War

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Help!” she grated. She thrashed her body and clenched the muscles in her stomach until they finally gave out and she hung slack.

  Multi-colored light painted the cobwebs like splintered diamonds hanging from rotting beams in the otherwise empty room that would be her grave. A spider flitted across one. It was tiny, but it still brought her back to the Webbed Woods and the last time she thought she was going to die.

  She tried to force herself to think about the same things she had when Redstar was killing her—when she lost control and the energy of Elsewhere coursed through her like a hot spring. About all the places in the world she’d missed out on seeing while hiding beneath a shack. She considered every scar. How Wetzel used to cut her mercilessly, bidding the darkness within her to rise up.

  She begged her body to bring that power back to bear.

  But it never came.

  “At least I’ll die in a church,” she groaned, sardonic.

  She’d never been religious. Wetzel didn’t care for anything but his studies and his potions. But as a child, she’d gone with Whitney and his family to the Troborough church house. Her first few visits, everyone stared at her. Whitney’s mother told her it was because she was “just so cute.” But his father’s eyes shot daggers sharper than her ears.

  But she’d watch the other families leave service, their eyes circled by luminous white paint once a year during the Dawning, when the moons blotched out the sun, and the people of the Glass were forced to look inward for Iam’s light. Tears speckled her eyes as she recalled how they smiled and caroused, mothers hugging their daughters, fathers tussling their sons’ hair.

  She’d always longed for that. One year, Whitney’s parents even took him to Yarrington for the ceremony led by Wren the Holy at Yarrington Cathedral. She remembered being the loneliest she’d ever been in her life, sitting by the stream staring at the empty Troborough chapel while Wetzel called for her to help with his potions.

  No matter how many times Whitney told her what a load of shog it all was, she always wanted to belong. Wetzel cared for her the best he knew how, but he wasn’t her real father.

  She hung her head and closed her eyes. Wetzel didn’t believe in any Gate of Light, didn’t believe that the dead would be delivered into the waiting arms of Iam. Like her ancestors, he believed that after death, the spirit went to Elsewhere. To linger without purpose, watching until the essence of one’s soul would one day be returned to the world of the living. She wondered if she might find her true parents on that eldritch plane.

  In truth, she only hoped death would bring relief from painful memories. That when her eyes shut for the last time, she would no longer have to remember the pain of abandonment, the shame of her heritage, or the brutality she’d experienced at the hands of men like Kazimir.

  She swore. There were no men like Kazimir.

  The steeple door creaked open.

  “I won’t go with you,” she said. She opened her eyes and expected to see Kazimir, only the entry was empty. She searched from side to side, trying to keep her heart from beating through her rib cage. She’d seen him move like this, like a shadow. “You might as well kill me because I won’t come with you.”

  A faint clicking noise drew her gaze to the floor, and there, sniffing her dangling feet was a wyvern.

  “Aquira?” she said, incredulous. “What are you…”

  The creature blinked. She stood up on her hind legs and stuck her forked tongue at Sora’s feet.

  “You need to leave right now before he returns. You need to go home…” The words trailed off as she realized that, like her, Aquira had no home to return to. Her master had been murdered for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like Sora’s own parents.

  “I’m so sorry girl,” Sora said. “You didn’t deserve any of this. Neither of us did.”

  Sora stretched her foot to pat the wyvern on the head. Aquira’s frills rippled as she closed her eyes, purring softly in a series of rhythmic clicks. Sora could feel the heat radiating off the creature, even through her heels.

  The corners of her mouth rose.

  “Aquira,” she said. “Do you want to help me out of here?”

  The wyvern merely stared up at her and blinked again.

  “The chains. Can you melt them?” Sora shook her arms, and in doing so, her entire body. Aquira scurried away, and Sora cursed under her breath.

  “Why don’t I speak wyvern?” she groaned. Aquira stopped a few paces away and turned to look back at her. Sora inhaled slowly and remembered one of Wetzel’s lessons about ancient Panping mystics who learned how to dominate the minds of lesser beings. Sora couldn’t do that but the birds her old master always tested his concoctions on always favored her.

  “Aquira,” she whispered. “I know you can’t understand me, but if you don’t break me free, I’ll lose everything.”

  A chorus of distant screams echoed, then a loud crash outside kicked dust off the ceiling and made Aquira dart for the door.

  “Aquira!” Sora shouted. “Please, stop!”

  The creature stopped in the entry near the stairs and turned.

  Another crash, louder than the first, made the entire steeple rumble. Aquira tilted her head and before Sora could say another word, rushed back to her.

  She flew up onto Sora’s leg, claws poking into her.

  “Good girl,” Sora said, gritting her teeth. “You can do this.” Aquira’s needle-like claws wound their way up her body until she was sitting on Sora’s shoulder.

  Sora shook her right arm, so the chain holding her bound to the ceiling rattled.

  “Right here,” she said.

  Aquira’s strange, yellow eyes blinked in Sora’s face, then she growled and turned to the cuff.

  “Yes!” Sora exclaimed. “That’s right.”

  Aquira’s scaly tail wrapped the back of Sora’s neck for balance. It was like wearing a campfire for a coat the wyvern was so warm. Then, she flapped her wings to hover just overhead. The weight made Sora’s already sore shoulder feel like it was going to tear from the joint.

  Sora squeezed her eyelids shut to stifle the groan festering in her throat, not wanting to scare her reptilian savior again. A sweltering brush of air wrapped her forearm. Fire spewed from Aquira’s mouth, bright and hot. It was aimed at the chains, but Sora’s hand blistered anyway.

  The metal wilted like the wax of a candle. Even Sora’s magic couldn’t compare. When half her body swung free, Aquira used the momentum to leap up onto the other chain. In an instant, the second was reduced to molten slag as well.

  Sora crashed to the floor, one of her heels driving a hole in the old wood plank. She gasped for air. She hadn’t quite been crucified, but with both arms stretched she hadn’t realized just how labored her breathing had become until she had a lungful. She clutched her chest. Against her cheek, she felt a dry, coarse tongue.

  She threw her arms around Aquira. The wyvern didn’t fight it, just nuzzled against Sora’s neck, frills tickling her chin. More screams and banging noises sounded from outside, but Sora couldn’t bring herself to let go. She squeezed harder and Aquira’s purring intensified.

  Before she knew it, she was sobbing. Her tears trickled down onto Aquira’s scales and turned to mist. Her whole body, inside and out, grew warm from holding the wyvern but she didn’t care. Her life had been so chaotic since the Black Sands took everything away from her that she hadn’t even really had time to stop and let it all out.

  Wetzel. Troborough. Seeing Whitney again and dealing with his ‘jobs’—tears over all of it poured from her eyes like a dam had been broken. It took all her effort to pull away and momentarily focus her blurry vision on the lizard-like face of her unexpected rescuer.

  “I promise, you’ll never be without a home again,” she sniveled.

  Aquira went to lick her again when the bang of the church doors slamming shut downstairs made her heart sink. She waited for the loud thumping of boots against the stairs, same as she’d hea
rd when Kazimir left her earlier.

  “C’mon,” she said, scrambling to her feet. Her legs were numb from hanging, but she didn’t let that stop her. She ran to the stained glass window, she wrapped her fist with the hem of her dress, then bashed on it as hard as she could. The glass vibrated but didn’t break. If there was one thing for which the Glass Kingdom was proficient, it was hardened, stained-glass panels.

  Sora struck it again and again until Aquira released a snarl that raised the hairs on her arms. She turned around, and in the entryway, saw the white hair and dark, callous eyes of her captor. Her hand fell toward a knife she didn’t have—a knife Kazimir had stolen from her.

  He strolled forward calmly, clicking his tongue in disapproval. He purposefully avoided the beam of sunlight flooding in through the high window, but as he turned, she noticed that, unlike before, he was now covered in grime. His hair was unkempt, and a few of his knives were missing from his bandolier.

  “Where are you going, my dear?” he asked. “We were just starting to get along.” The sound of his voice made her spine tingle, but she also noticed something new in it. For once, he seemed flustered.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said.

  “You are going to help me find your friend and honor my pact.”

  He’s alive?

  Hoping Kazimir wouldn’t see the relief on her face, she looked down as she unwrapped her hand from her dress and balled it into a tight fist. Aquira snarled at Kazimir. Only a spark came out of her mouth, clearly drained from melting the chains.

  “And who is this adorable, new friend?” Kazimir asked. “I swear, today is just full of surprises.”

  “Stay away from us!” Sora screamed. She drew back her bare hand and punched through the glass. It was only a small hole, but when her hand recoiled, it was sliced all over.

  Bleeding.

  Now she felt it, that dark, unexplainable power inside. All at once, she was unstoppable and vulnerable, as if she, herself, were walking the planes of Elsewhere. Fire erupted from her injured hand and blew the entire window open just before Kazimir was able to grab her.

  Wind howled, and light flooded the steeple. Kazimir leaped backward into the shadows, wincing as if in pain. It was then that Sora remembered another of the lessons in one of Wetzel’s old books. The upyr were fearsome, but immortality came with drawbacks… the insatiable need for blood, and a horrible allergy to sunlight which turned their skin to ash.

  Sora grabbed Aquira and backed away slowly. The lust in Kazimir’s eyes was replaced by terrible rage. She lifted her leg over the sill and stepped out onto the slanted roof, her eye never leaving her captor.

  The racket in the city was deafening. Metal clashing, screams of agony and war—death all around her. Out of her peripheries, she saw the low palisade wall on the landlocked side of the city. Gray-skinned Shesaitju from the detainment camp swarmed over it like ants from a nest.

  The image of Troborough burning at the hands of the Black Sands flashed through her mind. She tripped on a loose tile and rolled to the roof-ledge. Aquira flew from her arms, but Sora caught her by the tail.

  As Sora struggled to pull the squirming, squealing wyvern back up, she stared through the steeple’s broken window. Kazimir stood in the light, his skin flaking away, smoking like parchment under the heat of flame. He clenched his jaw but never made a sound. Instead, he knelt, scraped his knife along the ground to coat it with Sora’s blood, and lifted it to his lips.

  Sora felt a nibble on her finger and looked to see Aquira fluttering below. She let go, and the wyvern drifted downward.

  She quickly returned her attention to her assailant. His eyelids flickered as he licked off every last drop. His skin seemed to shift a to a lighter shade. The sun’s blisters slowly faded as he stood and rolled his neck with a series of pops.

  “Your blood is like a storm,” he said with renewed vigor. “Come, my dear. We have so much to accomplish together.”

  Sora panicked. She looked down, then back up at the monster bearing down on her. The sunlight dried and cracked his skin, but the marks healed faster than they could form.

  Sora didn’t think. She pushed off the wall of the church with her feet and let go. Air rushed up around her as her heart sank into her stomach. The fall ended abruptly as she crashed onto the flat roof of a Panping Ghetto home. Her ankle banged off something, a sharp line of pain streaking up her leg. Her back felt like it had broken in two. She thanked the gods she’d crashed through a galler bird cage and into in a pile of feed. It wasn’t soft, but it was better than the unforgiving ground. Groaning, she flipped over and noticed Aquira had already taken to stalking one of the freed birds.

  She wanted to lay there forever, exhaustion tempting her to close her eyes and pass out, but one look back at the broken-down church and she saw Kazimir preparing to make the leap.

  “C’mon!” She grabbed Aquira and swung her up onto her shoulder just as the wyvern went to snap at her unsuspecting prey.

  Behind them, Kazimir made the jump like it was as easy as walking. He stretched his arms out wide, like a bird in flight, and then at the last moment, flipped head over heels, landing with the grace of a prince.

  Sora’s ankle burned, but she pushed her legs as fast as they could go. Blood coated her hand from the glass shards digging in, and she flung a ball of flame back over her shoulder. Kazimir spun out of the way and kept moving. She’d never seen anyone move like him.

  She jumped between two flats. Where only the day before she found herself cursing how the Glass Kingdom had crammed together the houses of her ancestors, now she was grateful for it. From roof to roof she went, not daring to look back. Kazimir’s footsteps—if they even made a sound—were drowned out by the unseen chaos overtaking the streets of the city.

  “Running is futile,” Kazimir said, not even panting as he chased her. “With me, you’ll be so much more than some thief’s plaything.”

  Sora glanced back, and her foot crashed through a tarp covering a devastated structure at the edge of the ghetto. She crashed through wooden beams, then through a flimsy floor. Aquira slipped from her shoulder, but not before one of her claws ripped off a small chunk of skin.

  By the time Sora stopped falling she was at street level, covered in dust and bits of wood. Her dress was torn at the seams, half her scratched torso exposed, one sleeve missing.

  “Aquira?” she moaned. Her vision was spotty at best, but she didn’t see her new friend anywhere.

  “Alva shueth!” someone barked in Saitjuese. Before she could see where it came from, a gray hand pulled her from the rubble. Her gaze met those of a Shesaitju soldier wearing scaled leather armor and a waist-coil of black wooden plates.

  Sora was in so much pain she couldn’t think straight. She knew she had to keep moving, but the sight of a Shesaitju again transported her weary mind back to that fateful day Troborough burned.

  “Get off me!” she snapped, tearing free of the soldier and igniting a fire around her hand. There was so much blood it enveloped nearly her whole arm, burning hot and bright. A second soldier aimed a spear at her neck and cursed her in Saitjuese.

  Before any of them could make a move, a knife sliced across each of their necks. Blood squirted as they fell to their knees, pawing at their throats.

  “Nobody but I will ever touch you again,” Kazimir said.

  Sora spun and fell backward, her magic abandoning her. The white-haired devil emerged from the ruined structure, mindlessly flipping a throwing knife by the blade.

  “G… get away from me,” Sora stammered. She reached inward for that well of power she so often relied on but was too petrified.

  “I—” Kazimir was cut off when Aquira appeared on his shoulder and dug her teeth into his neck. He howled and fell to one knee, smoke sizzling out of the wound as if the wyvern’s teeth themselves were made of fire.

  Kazimir ripped her off him and held the flailing creature by its neck. Rage contorted his features. His fangs extendin
g like swords. He drew another knife and raised it to Aquira’s throat.

  “Enough!” he roared. “I tire of chasing you, mystic. Perhaps killing your friend here will show you that I will not be denied.”

  “Please don’t!” Sora begged. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll… I’ll do anyth…” She didn’t finish because she noticed that while the marks from Aquira’s bite were healing, Kazimir’s flesh was beginning to flake away again from the sunlight. His hand crackled, allowing Aquira to squirm free and hide between Sora’s legs.

  “Just leave us alone!” The chance to fight back energized her. Sora raised both bloody hands, and a pillar of flame exploded from them. It struck Kazimir on the hip and sent him flying back into the rubble.

  Smoke and embers danced, but he didn’t stay down. He flung a plank off his body and hopped back to his feet. Now, from the shadows, he watched her.

  Before she could catch herself, Sora’s eyes lowered toward a stain on the floor. His followed, and what he saw made him grin.

  He knelt down to the tiny pool of Sora’s blood gathering around his boots. Sora looked deep into herself. Her whole body was numb from pain, but she drew on all her worst memories. She knew summoning another flame so soon might make her pass out. Elsewhere sapped her body like it’d spent a week harvesting barley every time she did it.

  But she had no choice. Fire swirled around her hands once more as Kazimir raised her blood to his lips.

  She heard another voice behind her, sharp and sudden. She glanced back, just for a moment, and saw a cluster of Shesaitju warriors staring at her, clad in golden armor and faces were covered by masks in the visage of snakes. At their center stood a breathtaking warrior unlike any she’d ever seen. Despite the chill in the air, he was shirtless, his gray skin covered head to toe in white tattoos.

  When she turned back, Kazimir was gone.

  Sora scanned the shattered remains of what appeared to be a home in the middle of the Panping Ghetto. Fear had her crippled, both physically and magically. She turned back toward the impressive Shesaitju man.