Then Raz took a step forward, leaving everything he’d ever known far behind.
CHAPTER 2
“What is for the best? To live a sheltered existence in the infinite confinement of these cursed mountains, or to seek out a way to better the lives of our people? The latter, you say? I agree, but what if the hunt for that better life meant putting them all in harm’s way, or putting yourself in harm’s way? What if it were a gamble regardless, with so much to lose and so little chance to gain…?”
—Shas-ronah Rhan, Last-Queen
“He is no longer within my sight, Hana.”
“Which means what? He leaves? He dies? I swear upon the light of the First-One, Uhsula, if the boy is not returned to me, I will—!”
“Calm yourself, child. Your hatchling yet lives, and as strong as ever. No, he merely passes into the Cold. My sight does not extend beyond the sands. I can see nothing now.”
Shas-hana Rhan sat hard on the stone dais that surrounded the dark throne carved directly into the wall of the cave. Her tail snaked nervously over the ground, clawed fingers rubbing her temples. The slim crown of black obsidian glass, a glittering circlet that usually rested comfortably over her brow between her webbed ears, suddenly felt as though it carried the weight of the mountain above her head. Pulling it off and placing it gently on the stone beside her, Shas-hana sighed in frustration.
“So he’s actually done it…”
Beside her, Uhsula nodded slowly. The old seer had not taken the recent years well. If she’d been ancient before, she was practically defying death now, almost half again the age of the average female when they passed. Her eyes, once pale and opaque, were now orbs of a watery white, so distinct in the dim light of the Under Caves that Uhsula often opted to have her acolytes cover them with a long piece of dark cloth that wrapped around her head. The membranes of her ears had caught the rot long ago, leaving only tattered fragments to cling along their bony spines so that it often looked as though a great spider were hugging the back of her skull. She could no longer walk on her own, requiring the aid of two other females who had been tasked with watching over her, but even with their help short trips left her weary, and everyone but the Queen usually went to her rather than forcing her to come to them.
As much as it pained Hana, though, she could offer no such kindness. Sassyl Gal, the royal spymaster, was reporting more than a little disgruntlement within the Under Caves of late. There were only so many eyes and ears they could risk pervading the world of man, and a lack of news meant nothing good. The atherian had no way of knowing what was happening in the world above, no way of knowing how Hana’s plan—already frowned upon in certain circles—was unfolding.
“Thank you, Uhsula,” the Queen breathed after a moment. “And I’m sorry I keep getting upset with you. Recently I’ve started to question this idea of ours…”
From where she sat on the steps at the base of the stone dais, facing away from Hana, the old seer laughed wheezily.
“Child, if your first doubts about this come twenty summers into the process, I’d say there is little to bear worry for.”
Uhsula picked up the wood-and-bone staff at her feet and tapped it against the ground. At once her handmaids appeared out of the dark, dressed in black loincloths that modestly covered the only parts of their bodies the atherian felt needed to be covered. They helped Uhsula to her feet gently, desensitized to the creaking and popping of her weary limbs as she stood.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, the seer turned to look with blind eyes at Shas-hana.
“Stand firm in your decision. It has been a long time coming, but finally we see hope that something may come of this great gamble of ours. Do not falter now. There is nothing we, or any of our people, can do to change what is to come. If you hesitate, Hana, there are those who will take the opportunity to shake your foundations until they see you crumble. Be strong, and the rewards for your years spent planning and worrying might just be reaped.”
Then she nodded to her acolytes, and the pair led the old female gently out of the chambers, disappearing into the shadowed tunnels of the mountain.
For a long time Shas-hana stayed put, her mind turning over a hundred different things as she picked up the obsidian circlet and toyed with it aimlessly. As usual, Uhsula’s visit had left her feeling odd, both partially sated and more discontent in the same space of time, like a child promised a toy but having to wait for it to be made.
The seer’s last words rang true, though, and the Queen looked up at the dark ceiling, that cursed prison of roughhewn stone.
Now was the time to be strong, if ever there was one.
CHAPTER 3
“Above all other actions come from our faith, it is often the great projects undertaken by the Laorin Priests and Priestesses of each new generation that gain us the appreciation, respect, and trust of the people of the vast North. Temples are a means of shelter and safe haven for the good of heart, the faithful a source of protection and guidance for those who need them most, and Laor an entity of comfort and spiritual warmth to the ones lucky enough to stumble into his arms. And yet, above all this, it is the broader ways in which we seek to improve life that the masses appreciate most. Eret Ta’hir did everything in his power to extend the Lifegiver’s benedictions as far as they would go, even encouraging expeditions into the South and lands beyond. Talo Brahnt—my cherished partner—fought to end the oppression and exploitation of the poor and unlucky within the desperate valley towns here in the North. And Syrah, well… Syrah Brahnt has no need for expounding. Her conquests—once she found her own better half—outmatch anything I’ve managed to dig up in the great archives here in the Citadel, and certainly outdo anything in recent history.”
—Studying the Lifegiver, by Carro al’Dor
… it is therefore with some desperation, my dear friend, that I’ve sent you this letter. The temple here in Azbar is a small one, and with only a few dozen of the faithful at my disposal I regret to say that we do not have the influence required to maintain order in this torn place. The town’s Chairman, Tern, has reopened the Arena under the guise of attracting travelers and coin, and in many ways I cannot say I blame him. While we do not suffer the attacks of the mountain clans that the communities closer to the ranges do, this past freeze took a great toll on us, and we are hardly recovered. By the time this message reaches you, I hope to have made some headway with restocking our supplies and getting the Chairman and his council to see sense, but with every passing day more blood is spilled in that pit than I bear to think about.
In truth, I do not hold high hopes for my success. Tern is not his father, and he does not share the man’s distaste for the Arena.
I may be attempting to coax reason from a man who has no intent or desire to see it.
I beg your aid, Talo. I understand that you have suffered your own losses in the past months, and that Cyurgi’ Di is in process of preparing for the coming winter, but if you have any help to spare it would be desperately appreciated. I fear for the people of this town, for as the prisons empty and the volunteers dwindle, where will the council look to fill the Arena if not from within its own borders? I do not mean to prod at old wounds, dear friend, but I’m sure you recall a time when those slain were guilty only of substantial debt or minor crimes.
I can no longer do this alone.
Yours,
Kal Yu’ri
Talo sat for a long few minutes, rereading the letter in his hands. The candle he’d lit almost an hour ago was burning dangerously low, but he didn’t bother taking flint to a fresh one. His fingers shook as he put the parchment gently down on the desk at long last. He leaned back in his chair, turning to look out the diamond-paned window set into the round wall by his bed at the edge of the room.
His life’s work was coming apart at the seams.
He’d long known it had been bound to happen. It had taken a great number of his younger, fitter years to make even the slightest headway with the Arena Doctores and
the towns that profited richly from the gladiator fights they offered, and a deal longer before he’d managed to push through a universal ban of the pits altogether.
He’d been a middle-aged man by the time that happy day had come, in fact.
The prohibition of bloodshed had been a tentative thing, though, and if he was being honest with himself, Talo was surprised his work had lasted this long. In a place like the North, any means of survival was a good means when the brutally bitter months of the freeze took hold. The Arenas offered men an opportunity to make a name for themselves, to win purses that would feed their families, to revel in glory that actually had its uses if they made it long enough to retire from the fights. Gladiators who fought well often came to be recognized, and upon leaving the Arena were often offered jobs as private escorts for traveling merchants, or even officer positions in the mercenary groups hired out to protect the valley towns every winter.
Essentially, on paper the Arenas had their benefits.
But it was the other side of the story, the results that the documents rarely showed, that made Talo sick to his stomach. The Arena, in reality, was a business that fed off a city, a place where desperate men were pitted against each other until one or both lay dead. Farmers who’d lost too many crops to the winds and snow signed their lives away with little more than a pitchfork to protect themselves. Criminals—yet people despite their convictions—were used as fodder for the enjoyment of a bloodthirsty crowd, thrown into the rings as a distraction, often unarmed. When the dungeons and prisons were empty, though, when the lines of willing recruits died away, the Arenas did exactly what Kal Yu’ri, High Priest of Azbar’s Laorin temple, had made mention of:
They started finding excuses to round up the citizens of whatever towns surrounded them.
Damn it all, Talo cursed silently, leaning forward again and resting his forehead in the palms of his mammoth hands. His straight waist-length ponytail, long since turned more gray than brown, fell across his shoulder as he thought.
What was he going to do? It was too late to send significant aid to Azbar. The magics had already warned the Priests and Priestesses of Cyurgi’ Di that the freeze was promising to be as brutal as the previous year’s. Within a week the temperatures would plummet, and the snows could start anytime within the month after that. The Citadel needed all the bodies they had available. There was little enough time left as it was to finish stocking the cellars with enough food to make it through the next ten months.
But maybe there was another way…
While it wasn’t impossible to make the journey to Azbar through the winter, it would certainly be more difficult a trek than it would have been had Kal’s letter arrived even a single week earlier. Still, it was a feasible idea, especially if the group remained small.
Say… two people?
Lifting his head from his hands, Talo extended a finger and started moving it in small, concise circles. As he did, the air began to glow, and within seconds a thin, silky wisp of vibrant white light appeared, twirling around his finger until he sent it off with a gentle flick of his hand. He watched the graceful trail of light zip away, splitting into three identical bands that disappeared beyond the room’s only door in a flash, two under the base and one through the keyhole.
Satisfied that his summonings were sent, Talo pushed himself to his feet, groaning as his bad knee protested the motion. Ignoring the pain, he crossed to a small oak cabinet beside his bed and opened its doors, pulling out another candle. With a thought it flared to life in his hands, and not a moment too soon as the dying flame on the desk behind him finally gave up with a last sputtering wink.
Smack!
“Ow!” Reyn Hartlet yelped, laughing. “What was that for?”
“That was for putting your hands where they don’t belong, sir,” Syrah Brahnt giggled from her place on top of him, straddling his naked hips.
“Well, you didn’t seem to mind that much last night, did you?” Reyn growled, sitting up suddenly and flipping the woman over onto her back so quickly she gasped and laughed.
They were in Reyn’s room tonight. As he’d selected to take on a permanent position in the Citadel as soon as he’d received his staff, his chambers were slightly larger and more lived-in. He had a small unframed mirror hanging from a nail on one wall, and a pile of books on a plain timber desk pushed up against another. Candles hung from the ceiling, suspended in thin metal cups, though none were lit.
Most importantly, though, was the fact that the bed was a good half width larger than Syrah’s in her current room.
Syrah laughed again as Reyn bent over her and nuzzled her neck, kissing it lightly as she fought playfully back. It was dark in the room, neither of them seeing any need for light, but he still managed to find her wrists and pin them on either side of the pillow above her head. Her laughter ended abruptly, replaced by a tantalizing “mmm” of pleasure as she arched her back, pressing herself against his bare chest.
“Every day you seem to learn something else I like, don’t you?” she whispered seductively into his ear.
Reyn chuckled, pushing himself up so that he could look her in the face through the dark.
“Not very hard, is it? You seem to like pretty much anything.”
“Guilty as charged,” Syrah breathed, and she lifted her head suddenly to reach his lips, kissing him roughly. He kissed her back just as passionately, letting go of one of her wrists so that his hand could stray down her arm, then her breast, reaching for the buttons of the simple nightgown draped over her slim form…
Then something darted into the room from under the door, and a small corner of the floor lit up with bluish-white light.
“Wait,” Syrah gasped, breaking off the kiss as she turned to look at the disturbance.
Reyn, noticing it too, didn’t protest, twisting off of her so that she could sit up and scoot to the end of the bed.
The narrow band of light was like a strip of thin silk, suspended magically in the air as it danced slowly in a gentle circle, casting a bright glow that oddly seemed only to fill the tiniest part of the dark room. Getting to her feet, Syrah made her way carefully towards the object and knelt beside it, extending a hand. The shining trail floated slowly forward, settling into her palm, where it hung for a moment.
Then it faded, and the room was dark again.
“Who was that?” Reyn asked through the black.
“Talo,” Syrah told him, standing up and reaching out to feel the nearby wall. The disappearance of the message had left her completely blind. “I have to go, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. Go. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Syrah nodded to the shadows, made her way carefully to the door outlined in the pale glow of the candlelit hallway, and opened it just enough to slip through.
Blinking and squinting as her sensitive eyes struggled to get used to the sudden light, Syrah turned and started walking, wondering what Talo could want at this hour. It was nearly midnight, and though she knew her former mentor was well aware of her and Reyn’s dynamic, she liked to think he would at least give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was asleep right now.
Which meant that whatever he needed to see her about was important enough to wake her.
Putting a little rush in her step, Syrah followed the familiar path towards the High Priest’s chambers. She’d been back at Cyurgi’ Di well over a month now, and her memories of the old halls—a little foggy when she’d first returned—were fresh in her mind again. It had been years since she’d been consecrated into the Priesthood and left for the western ranges, intent on working out a peaceful solution between the wild mountain tribes of the Vietalis and the valley towns of Metcaf and Harond below. Now, being home, it was as though she’d leapt bodily back into her time as an acolyte spent under Talo’s wing.
She couldn’t have been happier.
It was a few minutes before she was knocking on the wide door of the High Priest’s rooms, and she quickly flattened her
white hair and checked that all the buttons of her nightgown were clasped as her former mentor’s voice boomed “Come in!” from the other side. Pushing it open, Syrah stepped inside. Talo stood behind his desk, Carro al’Dor and Jofrey al’Sen across from him, and all three turned to look at Syrah as she walked in.
“There you are,” Talo said with a smile, motioning her forward. “Come. I was just informing these two about this.”
As Syrah moved to join Carro and Jofrey, Talo picked up what looked like a letter from the desk in front of him and held it out.
“Kal Yu’ri, the High Priest of one of our faith’s smaller temples and a close friend of mine, has requested aid from Cyurgi’ Di. What do you think of it?”
The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1 Page 36
