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

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Damn he’s loud,” Mychal complained, looking up from his game. Outside the voices had gotten angrier, and even Ahna looked up in alarm, gray eyes suddenly scared.

  “Don’t tell me how to go about my business, you dune-dulled tanny,” the customer spat at Prida, who seemed to be trying to calm him down again. He was short and plump, with a dark-red tunic that spoke of a certain wealth. A wispy black beard curled out from the first of his three chins, carefully combed and styled to a point. Puffing out his chest like a sand toad, he continued haughtily. “Do you know who I am? I am Hodrin Evony, of the Evony family, and…”

  As the man started to spout his titles and the names of his family and what some cousin in Miropa would do to the Arro’s trade if they didn’t cut prices for him, Raz saw the signal. The derogatory slight at the nomads’ tanned skin had done it. Jarden’s right hand curled into a fist, coming to rest on his lower back.

  Raz moved quickly, leaving the tent out the back entrance with only a pause to pat his sister’s head and give her a comforting wink. He was a known figure in the market, and people moved out of his way without question, a few nodding to him but most either glaring or avoiding his eyes altogether. Ignoring them all, he made a short loop through the crowd until he stood directly behind Hodrin Evony, who was still belting about how he could ruin their family with a word.

  “I believe my uncle gave you a choice,” Raz said calmly. His natural voice was a deep, dangerous tenor, frightening to those who didn’t know him. “Pay or leave, Master Evony. Now.”

  Hodrin Evony turned furiously, and the angry flush in his pudgy cheeks blanched to chalk. He looked up, tilting his head almost completely back. He took in Raz’s sharp teeth, golden eyes, and wicked claws with a terrified glance and stumbled backward, knocking into Prida’s table and almost upending the bolts of different-colored cloths that were neatly stacked upon it. The man’s eyes lingered on the crest of blue and orange skin arcing along the back of Raz’s neck, only slightly raised, and he openly stared at the wings partially extended about a foot to either side of powerful scaled arms.

  Then Evony dropped the silk he’d already bought, blubbering incoherent words and stumbling sideways, backside rubbing the table until he was clear of the Arros’ stalls. From there he took off running, disappearing into the crowd, which acted like they hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Raz relaxed, pulling his wings flush to his back again before kneeling down to pick up the Karavyl fabric from the dirt. With a sigh he brushed it off carefully, standing and handing it back to Prida.

  “I’d feel bad, but covered in dust we won’t be able to sell it again for much anyway.”

  “I’m just glad you two were the ones around today,” Prida smirked, accepting the fabric and looking it over. “Tolman would have fed him his fingers.”

  “I would have offered to find him a fork,” Jarden grunted, moving back to the jewelry table as a young couple started examining a necklace strung with tiny glass stars. “They think they know it all, don’t they?”

  “They’re not all bad,” Prida insisted, tucking the dirty bolt under the table so that it wouldn’t get the others dusty. “I’ve met some of the local merchants, and they seem nice enough.”

  “Oh they're fine, until they realize they’re losing business to us,” Raz muttered, slipping behind the stall and looking out over the crowd.

  Karth’s market was a hot myriad of swirling colors. Capes, shawls, turbans, and even the dyed hair of street dancers all swept together to form a dull, undulating rainbow. Down the street to Raz’s left there was a roar as a fire-breather blew a jet of flames into the air to the crowd’s cheers. To his right, the lumbering form of an elephant plodded its way slowly across the road, towing a massive cart filled with thin yellow and green fruits. All around them people called out to each other and the crowd, some buying, some selling, but all sweating under the brilliant white globe of the Sun high above, framed against a cloudless sky.

  Raz felt constricted. He didn’t like crowds. It was one of those disadvantages that made city life—while appealing—less than perfect. Being surrounded on all sides, elbow to shoulder, bumping into everyone and getting jostled by the current of the pedestrian traffic—it all made him feel tied down and anxious, like he was stuck with nowhere to go. More than once Raz had suppressed the urge to leap straight up, over everyone’s heads, and spread his wings. When he was ringed on all fronts by the pressing throng, it often seemed the only place to go was up.

  Too bad he’d never been able to fly a day in his life.

  It wasn’t for lack of trying, mind you. Once, when he’d been ten summers old, he’d rebroken his wrist jumping off the top of his parent’s cart, trying to fly. Mychal had put him up to it, of course. The boy had been a little fiend in his younger years. Still, despite this accident, it had taken a long time before Raz finally gave up. The Grandmother thought it might be that he needed to be taught by one of his own, if any lived. Tolman had once joked that maybe someone should just shove him off a cliff and see what happened.

  Whatever it was that could spark some life into his wings, though, Raz had yet to puzzle it out. He’d adapted, in the end, though his father wasn't always the keenest fan of some of his methods of coping.

  The Arros were an earthbound people. Heights were not amongst their chosen interests.

  “Prida, I’ll take over for a bit.” Raz crossed his arms and rested a shoulder against one of the stall’s wooden posts. “Mychal wants someone to gamble his chores away to, and I already owe him a week.”

  “Well he’s not conning me into it,” the woman said with a laugh. “But yes, thank you. It’s getting a little hot for me out here.”

  Raz nodded, watching her tidy up the arrangement of bolts before disappearing into the tent. Absentmindedly he turned to gaze out over the crowd, taking in the bland mélange of movement and colors, glad to be on his feet for a time.

  “Worried Master, his Lordship, and High Ruler of the World might come back?”

  Raz looked around at Jarden’s question, confused.

  “Evony,” his uncle finished with a chuckle, striking a haughty pose and stroking an invisible goatee.

  “What? Oh. No.” Raz shook his head, shifting his attention back to the market. A tall woman in green with thin bangles hanging over her eyes stopped briefly to examine the texture of one of his silks. “I would just rather be standing than seated all cooped up in the tent.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Jarden said with a shrug, the long scars on his left arm, blatantly visible in his sleeveless tunic, warping a little with the motion. “It’s not fun being stuffed up in a hot little room all day. If I had the choice, I’d just as well not stop for more than a week at a time in any one place. Makes me jittery.”

  “Eh,” Raz said, shrugging. “Doesn't bother me. It’s a nice change from the sands. I just don’t like not being able to spread my wings.”

  Jarden laughed. “Not sure I can really relate to that,” he said with a smirk, his eyes following a tumbler bedecked in green and yellow making his way down the road, balancing and spinning three colored plates on the ends of thin wooden rods. “I feel I’m lacking the necessary appendages to give you fair advice.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  There was a minute before Jarden responded as he greeted a dark-skinned Percian and handed him a set of hammered bracelets reserved the day before.

  “I suppose,” he finally conceded. Then he grinned mischievously. “Go climb the roofs, then.”

  Raz gave him a sharp look, and Jarden laughed again.

  “Oh, I know all about your little nighttime trips. Don’t worry,” he cut in when Raz opened his mouth to say something. “Your father’s still in the dark about it.”

  Raz was quiet. “He thinks it’s dangerous,” he grumbled after a moment. “The last time he caught me up there he yelled for half an hour.”

  “He’s right to think that. You climb higher every time he finds you at it. Not
to mention there’s people around here who don’t want strangers snooping around their business. Especially after dark.”

  “But I’m not—”

  Jarden halted the outburst with a raised hand. “I didn’t say you were, but think of how it looks. You running around on the rooftops like some thief, in the middle of a city where there’s a half dozen murders every night.”

  “That’s exaggerating.”

  “Is it really?”

  There was a sullen pause.

  “I’m careful,” Raz said after a time, looking up at the clear sky. “I rarely cross into the deep slums. And I don’t let anyone see me. But what else am I supposed to do? Even Ahna sleeps at least eight hours a night. I barely sleep three.”

  “Take up woodcarving,” Jarden said with a shrug, turning back to face his table. “No. I’m kidding. With those big hands of yours you’d be likely to lose a finger fumbling over the blades. Just watch your back. You’re not a child anymore.”

  Raz nodded slowly, watching a breeze catch the loose corners of his goods, ruffling them slightly. “I’ll stop. I promise.”

  Jarden smirked.

  “Liar.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The citizens of Miropa would say he wore a white cloak not to fend off the heat, but rather to symbolized the blaze of the hateful fires that burned within him always…

  — “Born of the Dahgün Bone,” author unknown

  “It’s worth the risk.”

  “Aye, may’haps, but ain’t no need to jump into the snake-pit. There’s the men to worry about, and one a’ them buggers is bigger than anyone I ever seen.”

  “They’re Laorin, Jerd. They won’t kill.”

  “Even a muzzled dog’ll find a way to bite back if’n it get is’self cornered. I heard he managed to put down one a’ the runners without a problem.”

  “He knocked out a half-starved addict. That hardly deserves commendation, you dim-witted oaf.”

  “Call me a dim-witted anything again, ya’ gutless trim, and I’ll hang ya’ upside down by yer—”

  “Enough. Ayzenbas says you go, so you go. We’ve got the time. Keep an eye out, and maybe even you can manage to get her away from that entourage you’re so afraid of.”

  “Ain’t afraid of nothin’, Farro. Remind yerself a’ that once the boss smokes himself into an early grave. You won’t have many places to run to after that, will ya’?”

  The Ovana was a stifling sweatbox dropped in the middle of the desert purely to fool people into thinking it could be cooler inside than out in the sun.

  Or at least that was Syrah’s opinion of it.

  In reality, the Ovana Inn was a tavern along the east side of the main market street, deliberately built right in the middle of the bustle so as to attract maximum notice. It wasn’t the nicest or most expensive place to stay, but the city dwellers they’d asked had sworn that it was the safest, and Talo and Jofrey agreed it to be the best option for the duration of the two months they would be spending in Karth.

  It had only been three weeks, and Syrah was already ready to dive headfirst out of their market-facing window.

  The heat was unbearable, the air so dry her lips were calloused from constantly cracking and bleeding. The sun never waned during the day, and there seemed to exist no clouds to shield the world from its devilish light. Not that the nights were any better. As a clear moon rose each evening, the temperatures plummeted, falling so quickly and drastically that more than once their little group had been briefly caught out in a cold that could have rivaled a Northern freeze.

  And the people…

  Ugh… the people…

  “You’d think they’d be more giving,” Syrah thought out loud, chin in her palm, eyes on the street below. She was watching a particular couple, their heavy frames hung with rich clothes and jewels. Steadily the pair were making their way along the far side of the road, flanked on either side by a manservant toting some ridiculous sort of sunshade. Gaudy apparatuses, made of massive colorful feathers bound together at a long handle, the attendants would alternately use them to shade their masters and fan them. Even as Syrah followed the group, blowing a loose strand of pale hair out of her eyes, they passed at least a half-dozen begging vagrants. Each time the haughty pair would turn their heads to feign interest in the other side of the street, ignoring the dirty outstretched hands. Behind them their servants did the same, not even glancing down at the sad forms curled in whatever shadow they’d managed to snatch.

  “Why?”

  Syrah turned. Talo sat in the opposite corner, his wide frame filling the room’s single chair to capacity. He was thumbing through the book in his hands, A Comprised History of the North, with careful deliberation.

  “Why?” Syrah echoed, surprised and turning away from the window. “Why not? There are people starving all around them, and they sit and do nothing. It’s murder.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Talo responded, not looking up. “But I ask again: Why? Why should they be more giving? What do they have to gain from handing food and coin to those around them who need it more?”

  “What? Well… first off they’d get…” Syrah tripped over her own words. “They’d get…”

  She paused, unsure, in truth, of the answer.

  “Nothing,” Talo finished, closing the book with a snap. “They’d get nothing. Or perhaps they’d get the fleeting feeling of self-righteousness, of pride in their own generosity. A man might give away a copper and feel that he did a grand thing, and he would be right if not for the fact that he did it for his own selfish reasoning.”

  Talo lifted himself out of the chair, walking over to stand beside Syrah so that he, too, could peer down into the street.

  “What do you feel when we help these people?”

  Syrah blinked, looking up at her Priest-Mentor. Then she looked away.

  “Out with it,” Talo said, his eyes on the crouched figure of a dirty crone skulking in the stolen shade of a shop overhang. “What do you feel?”

  Again, Syrah hesitated.

  The other acolytes were often jealous of her, and they had every right to be. Talo was one of the most respected Priests in the faith, a man converted who’d found Laor in the middle of the Azbar gladiator arena, his blades on the very verge of taking yet another life. He was responsible for the banning of such pit fights in much of the North, and from there had only aimed higher with his successes. What few peaceful accords had been reached between the raiding mountain clans and the valley towns they’d plagued for centuries, Talo was largely credited for. These pilgrimages beyond the North were most often organized by him, taking the Priests and Priestesses of Laor as far as the swamps of the Seven Cities and the most distant islands of the Imperium. Even in the heart of the temples the ageing Priest had incited change, adapting and improving the self-defense practices and martial arts all acolytes of the Lifegiver learn from an early age.

  Talo Brahnt was a man many would “kill to apprentice under,” High Priest Eret Ta’hir had joked when he’d told Syrah that she would be Talo’s acolyte.

  But while he was a kind and gentle man, sometimes his methods of teaching—if efficient—were less than pleasant. He had a way of making Syrah’s own experiences part of the lessons he taught her.

  It often made her realize things about herself and others she didn’t always like…

  “What do you feel?” Talo repeated with a firmness that said it would be the last time he planned on asking.

  “I…” she began quietly. “I feel… empty. I feel like I should be doing so much more. We come here and we give and we give and we give, but I still feel like it’s nothing. I see these sick people, these starving children, and all I can think about is how the money I hand them will only feed them for a day at most.”

  “And there you have the difference.”

  Syrah looked up at Talo, who was smiling at her.

  “You give those people a copper, Syrah, and you think about how it will only feed them for a day. Mos
t others, when they give that copper, would laugh and gloat to themselves about how they just fed that person for a day. Do you see the relation? The difference?”

  Syrah paused, then shook her head. Talo sighed, looking sadly back out at the street.

  “You asked why those people aren’t more generous? It’s because they’ve no need to be. Whether because they were raised in such a manner, or because they are greedy by nature, or because they simply don’t care, I couldn’t tell you. But where what you give is never enough, people like that”—he waved a hand at the extravagant foursome before they disappeared into a perfumery—“are completely at peace with giving less, if anything at all. They’ve no drive to be more than what they are, and if they do do more, it is only because they’ve found a way to make it improve their own lives.”