The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1

by Bryce O'Connor

  Tolman alone had braved entering Agais’ tent after the night’s events, and then only for a brief minute to whisper his heartfelt sorrow and to inform the clanmaster of the state of his brother and the other injured. Agais, sitting at his wife’s side, had only nodded, his eyes red and wet. One hand ran through her pale hair slick with the sweat of a difficult labor, the other resting across his knees where he’d been laying his head. Slipping out again, Tolman didn’t feel the tear drip down his dark cheek, clinging to the stubble of his chin.

  CHAPTER 11

  In the week that followed, little changed in the Arros’ small camp. Jarden came to the next morning, though Surah forbade him from leaving his bedroll. It was another three days before Mychal and Raz stirred from their induced slumbers. In that time many people came from other tribes, wanting to see for themselves if the rumors were true. Had the Arros indeed taken in a lizard-boy? Was it truly winged? Could it really have taken on a fully grown sandcat?

  Not wanting to stir up trouble, Agais—having finally mastered his own grief—allowed them free entry, only forbidding them from getting too close.

  Most who came were little more than politely interested, giving their condolences to the families of the dead and wounded when they heard of that night’s tragedies. Some even had their clans tender aid, though Agais gently refused everything except bandages and medicines, thanking every benefactor.

  But there were always those who could not understand why the Arros would endanger the lives of their family by harboring a “savage reptile.” More than once Tolman, Achtel, and Ishmal had had to get between Raz and an angry visitor claiming it was his or her right to finish the job the sandcat had started. One woman of a smaller clan, the Syrros, had gone into hysterics, threatening to come back with her husband and brother if they didn’t let her “kill the lizard.”

  It was Iriso that shut her up.

  Stepping between the crazed visitor and the three men guarding Raz, Mychal’s mother cracked her across the face with a sound like splitting wood. Iriso then did her own screaming, making it clear that the men of her clan could do much more than go after just one of her people. Then she’d grabbed the struggling woman by the hair and thrown her bodily from the tent, stepping out and raising a finger to indicate the sands beyond the caravan.

  “Get out,” Iriso spat, and watched the beaten woman leave, muttering dark threats under her breath.

  The Syrros never came.

  Thankfully, by the end of the third day the visitors seemed to have had their fill, and life found some balance once again. Hannas and her twins still grieved, but took solace in the activities needed to survive along the Garin. They soon joined the others in fishing and cooking, all three hardly speaking a word between them.

  No one pressed them to talk.

  Agais, too, returned to them, thanking Kosen for taking on the clanmaster’s responsibilities. He still spent much of his time by Grea’s side while the woman recovered, but his eyes were dry. Privately, at dusk as the next Moon rose, he’d taken the basket bearing his daughter’s still body into the sunset-lit grove, returning several hours later empty-handed.

  Ovan had been buried at the edge of the palms, resting at the shore of the still lake beneath the shade of the trees.

  The Grandmother tended to Mychal and Raz, pleased with how both were doing. Mychal’s stump healed well, his sutures already sealing, and his father had busied himself fashioning a crutch from some spare wood. Raz was doing even better. His wounds had started to close by morning of the first day. New scars in the form of paler, imperfect scales formed, but even the marks along his snout were barely visible. His silver bangles had been pushed back up his left arm to give space for the wooden splint that secured his broken wrist. Even his wings were doing well, though the old woman doubted whether the frayed edges where the sandcat had managed to rip whole pieces free would ever completely heal.

  Midmorning of the fourth day, at long last, the two boys stirred. Mychal awoke first, screaming and crying when he saw his lost leg until his parents came running, their faces tear stricken with mixed grief and relief. The child’s cries woke Raz slowly, his eyes flickering for a long time before he came to. He called out as well, stiff and sore and barely able to move. The Grandmother rushed to his side, lifting him into a sitting position.

  “You foolish boy,” she whispered, offering him a cup of water while the babe cried out weakly in her arms. “You foolish, brave child. What would we have done if you’d gotten yourself killed? What then?”

  Raz didn’t respond, too intent on his parched throat. He gulped down the water in an instant, spilling less now than he had almost a month ago, and then held the cup out for more.

  That night the blaze of the cooking fire was larger than ever, and the clan celebrated the return of the two boys to the world of the living. Even Agais emerged from his tent, returning only briefly to bring his wife a plate of steaming silverfish and seasoned tubers. Then he sat down, taking a place beside Raz, who was staring around in wonder. It was the first time he’d been allowed to eat with the clan, and the fire and crowd mesmerized him.

  “They’re one stronger because of you, boy,” Agais told him, knowing he wouldn’t understand. Raz looked up at the man curiously, and Agais pointed at Mychal, huddled between his parents close to the fire. He was wrapped in a rough-spun pale blanket, looking significantly happier than he had that morning. Then Agais placed a hand on Raz’s chest, trying to convey what he meant.

  “Because of you,” he said quietly with a small smile, the first real one he’d managed in days.

  The babe still looked confused, glancing down at the clanmaster’s hand resting on the scarred, scaly muscles of his breast. Chuckling, Agais gave up, handing the boy a plate of food instead as it came around. Raz dug in at once, not bothering with his hands and instead picking the silverfish meat up with his teeth before tilting his head back and swallowing it whole. Next he nibbled on a tuber curiously, and made a face. Beside him, Jarden—allowed out of his tent for the first time as well—laughed, giving the boy a piece of his fish.

  It was gone in an instant.

  After dinner came to an end, everyone satisfied and feeling better than they had in days, Jarden pulled out his pipes and started to play a desert jig. It was a rough tune, made awkward considering the man only had one hand to move the wood across his lips, but nevertheless it wasn’t long before little Barna had pulled her cousin Kâtyn in the circle to dance. The two girls hooted and yelled, twirling around the cooking fire as the blaze burned purple and green and red. Soon they were joined by Iriso and Achtel, Surah and Ishmal, and a number of other odd couples, laughing and kicking sand in all directions with their twisting feet. Their shadows jumped and dashed across the canvas tents around them, and the music grew louder and faster after Achtel’s sons pulled skin drums from their wagon to pound a beat along to the pipes.

  It was a celebration worthy of both the living and the dead.

  From his place on the perimeter between Agais and Jarden, Raz looked on in wonder. His lips were pulled back and his mouth hung half open in his strange alien smile. Side to side he bobbed his head unevenly to the music. After a time, though, his smile faded, and he looked around. He leaned forward, trying to see past the clanmaster, sniffing the air.

  Then he opened his mouth.

  “Grrrr… Grrrree…rrrreeraaah… Grreerrrahh…?”

  Jarden stopped playing so abruptly the pipes might have burned his lips.

  It only took a second for the dancers to stop their furious circling of the fire. When the music died, they looked around curiously.

  “Wh-what was that?” Jarden demanded, dumbstruck.

  Agais gaped at the boy sitting beside him. Raz turned to the man, nudging his arm with his reptilian snout and looking up questioningly.

  “Grreerrrahh?” the lizard-babe asked again.

  “Her Stars,” Agais whispered in shock. “Grea. He wants to know where Grea is.”

&nbs
p; In its entirety, down to even Anges, the youngest among them, the clan gawked at Raz. Then not a few amongst them smiled.

  Agais stood up, took Raz carefully by the hand, and walked him to the tent where Grea still rested.

  When the atherian finally arrived from the Crags a week later, bearing with them carved-bone instruments, dried meat, and shiny stones and gems to trade, the Arros avoided them at all cost.

  None among them were about to abandon one of their own to an uncertain future.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Laor may not be accepted in the hearts of all, but Laor holds all close to his heart. Only the most wicked of men will be kept from returning to earth after death. In this way, the Lifegiver weeds out the vile from the constant cycle of life.”

  —Eret Ta’hir, High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di

  Damn these stairs.

  The harsh winds of the Veitalis Range pulled at Talo Brahnt’s white cloak and fur-lined cowl. Snow whipped into the Priest’s face, and he hunched over, one gloved hand tugging the worn fringe of his hood down over his brow. His blue eyes, still sharp despite his forty years, kept a close watch on the treacherous path beneath his feet. The carved-stone stairway stretched upward into the white oblivion that was the storm, disappearing barely a dozen yards above his head.

  Still, there it was, a silhouette looming like some great beast against the clouds.

  “Nearly home, little one!” he called out, pulling gently on the small hand he had clasped in his free one. Glancing back, he couldn’t even see the girl’s face, so large was the oversized hood that covered it. Talo had had to hurriedly design a makeshift cloak for her from one of his own spares and—considering she was several times smaller than he—the results were questionable.

  Carro, you will always be the better seamstress, Talo thought with a smirk that loosened some of the snow caked in his beard. Shifting his pack more comfortably on his shoulders, the man turned his eyes back upward through the storm.

  It wasn’t long before the stairs finally reached their finish, flattening out as the mountain itself seemed to plateau. A great semicircular platform of leveled stone gave their aching feet respite, but the child didn’t appear relieved. Instead she squeaked and hid behind Talo’s leg, her pink eyes wide, taking in the sight before them.

  Cyurgi’ Di, the High Citadel, was Laor’s most northern temple. It towered above the pair, utterly dwarfing their forms, the weathered granite bastions on either side of them soaring into the storm. Nestled in this small nook of the wall that was the temple’s only entrance, Talo pulled his hood back, letting fall the long brown ponytail that hung just above his waist. He smiled a little now that the snows abated enough to see by.

  The Citadel was a massive structure, carved long winters ago into the side of the mountain, the cut stone mortared and shaped into a massive circular wall that hung partially suspended over the cliffs on two sides. Arrow slits leered down on them like eyes, but it had been centuries since they’d been put to any real use. The Laorin had few restrictions, but the one cardinal rule of their faith insisted that no life could ever be taken by a Priest or Priestess’ hand, even in self-defense. The slits now served as little more than a good means of getting fresh air into the halls.

  Although it did get a little breezy during the harsher blizzards such as this…

  Gently tugging the child along with him, Talo approached the temple gateway, a massive vaulted tunnel that cut through the breadth of the wall. The snow finally ceased altogether when they entered the arched way, their damp footsteps echoing loudly across the dry stone. For a few seconds they were free of the storm, free of the battering winds that had almost knocked them clear from the steps more than once. Too soon, though, they cleared the tunnel, and the flurries kicked at their faces once again, mocking the high walls that rose to encircle them.

  “Nearly there, Syrah,” Talo promised anew, starting across the wide bailey and cutting a path through the three or four inches of undisturbed powder blanketing the brick. It wasn’t long before Talo was banging against the tall temple gates, set in the wall at an angle from the tunnel.

  A muffled voice picked up from the other side, barely audible against the wind. Abruptly a small slot in the door slid open just around chest level. A pair of blue eyes similar to Talo’s blinked at them for a second, then disappeared, and the clambering from the other side of the gates grew exponentially louder. There was a clang, and with the screech of poorly oiled iron hinges one of the massive timber doors swung inward.

  “Talo!” a cheery voice greeted them when they stepped inside. “It’s been a long time! Thank the Lifegiver you made it through this horrible weather we’re having. Wouldn’t have chanced that, not me, no sir. I would have—”

  “Hello, Dolt,” the Priest said with a smile, cutting off the speaker, a portly young acolyte with a patch of curly brown hair atop his head. Talo ruffled it affectionately. “Missed you too. Is Eret awake?”

  “Think so, might be,” Dolt Avonair muttered, thumbing his bald chin. “He was just sitting for supper with a few of the elder Priests a half hour ago when my watch came up, so he might still be there. Lamb tonight. Very nice. And the potatoes! Absolutely—Hello, who’s this?”

  The acolyte bent low, peering around Talo’s leg. The girl had peeked out of her hiding place once the door clanged shut behind them.

  “Our newest addition,” the Priest informed him, patting Syrah’s head. Passing his pack off to Dolt, he reached down and lifted the girl up, resting her awkwardly on his hip. He was a bear of a man, but this apparently didn’t bother the six-year-old too much. She clung to his thick neck and buried her face into his shoulder, her head still covered by the hood, hiding once more.

  “Have my things brought to my quarters, please. I’ve business with the High Priest.”

  Dolt nodded, and was about to say something more when Talo raised his free hand.

  “Now, Dolt,” he said firmly. The acolyte shut his mouth and bowed, then took off sprinting down the hall, pack in tow. Talo smiled, watching him go before turning and heading in the opposite direction.

  A fine boy. Just a little loose of the lips.

  The halls of Cyurgi’ Di—in sharp contrast to the temple’s outside façade—were well lit and warm. Copper pipes in the floors and ceiling channeled fresh air and heated steam from furnaces in the deeper chambers of the temple. Oil lamps glowed from their iron brackets every few paces along the walls, supplemented by torches and tall candles that burned white and blue. Rough-hewn tunnels and corridors branched off the main way, some level, some with stairs or slopes that led up or down. Talo smiled again, remembering the early period of his faith just after his conversion. The Citadel was a veritable labyrinth, and in those first few years he’d gotten lost and turned around more times than he could count.

  Now, though, he knew the place as well as any man could know his home.

  It wasn’t long before more and more people started to appear, crossing paths with him in the hall and nodding, or else looking up from their private studies when he passed by open doors. Priests, Priestesses, acolytes—further into the mountain more and more of them appeared, right up until Cyurgi’ Di became a bustling hive of life. As the day closed, many of the Laorin were still about, some on duty, cleaning or patrolling, some taking advantage of the idler hours to pursue private thoughts. Talo even passed one room where a group of first-year Priests and Priestesses were practicing self-defense techniques, twirling about the heavy steel staffs they’d received at their consecrations.

  Talo rarely carried his, despite a bad knee that was getting worse with every passing year. Even a staff seemed too much like a weapon and—with his old life a trailing shadow that never seemed to let go—a weapon was the last thing he wanted to be near. The few times he had been forced to defend himself, his boulder-like fists and quick reflexes always proved more than enough.

  It was nice, sometimes, to know that some parts of a former self could still survive with yo
u.

  Soon the smell of hot food wafted through the air, thickening with the approaching clatter of the dining hall. It wasn’t long before the Priest and his companion stood at the opening of a massive chamber, tall and broad and big enough to fit a thousand people with room to spare. More lanterns hung from the walls, and hundreds of mismatched candles lit the eight long tables that took up the floor. High above them, lining the apex of the vaulted roof, the two rows of stained-glass clerestory windows were darkened by the storm. In the light of the next clear day, though, they would be bright, illuminating the entire chamber with blues and greens and golds that hung in the dusty air.

  A smattering of early diners formed little pockets on the benches as they ate and conversed. There was no head table, no raised platform for the elders. Laor saw all living things as equals, after all. The men ate with the women, the old with the young, the converts with those born into the faith. Even those of highest rank shared tables with the acolytes in their first days of training.