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

by Bryce O'Connor

  Standing on the edge of the road, looking out over the scene, Raz almost chuckled to himself. In the South, the blood and battle had seemed an appropriate way of life, an angry and harsh way matched so well by the unforgiving sands and endless glare of the Sun.

  But not in a place like this, Raz thought, feeling those distant winds finally reach him, shifting his heavy furs around him as he continued to watch the faraway roll of the mountainous horizon. Not in a place like this.

  CHAPTER 13

  It wasn’t quite dark by the time Raz reached the Koyts’ little home on the very outskirts of town, but it was late enough that the streets were mostly empty and the lamplighters had started making their rounds. As he climbed the uneven stone steps to the house’s front door, Raz watched one such man, fascinated as the lighter reached up with a long rod of thin wood, capped by a burning candle, to set a street lantern ablaze. While Raz couldn’t imagine it was fulfilling labor, the fact that such work existed at all was nearly beyond him. There was no such concept in the fringe towns around the Cienbal, just as there was no concept of loggers or trappers or any number of other occupations.

  Smiling to himself, he reached up and knocked on the door.

  “What’s so funny?” Arrun asked him at once as the boy pulled it open, seeing the look on Raz’s face.

  “Just trying to imagine what your market squares would look like with elephants and snake charmers,” Raz replied as he ducked into the house.

  Lueski and Arrun’s residence was a palace by most Southern standards, but in Azbar it wasn’t much more than a small home, once doubling as a bakery. From the outside one could make out its two stories easily enough, round windows cut into mortared granite on both floors, with a solid wood stand built street-side around and along the lowest part of the outer wall. Arrun had explained proudly that, at one time, their parents—Warren and Marta—had had all manner of breads and baked goods on display through all hours of the day, selling to regulars and passersbys alike. Every third day Arrun and his father would go into market weighed down with heavy loaves and cakes, trading them to the larger bakeries for flour and ingredients.

  Arrun had finished the story quietly, explaining how, after the freeze had claimed their mother and father, though, it had become much harder for he and Lueski to keep the storefront afloat.

  On the inside the home was a bit blander than one would presume initially. The siblings had sold off nearly all of the accoutrements one would expect to find in a family setting. There was no furniture to speak of save two thin feather mattresses on the floor by the fireplace. The wide hearth was unadorned, with nothing left to place or hang along its frame. Mirrors, silverware, tools, jewelry—anything that carried value of any kind was long gone, first sold off to the well-respected dealers along the markets, then to the less reputable pawners one could find crawling about the alleys of the paupers’ quarters.

  By the time the Koyts had nothing left to sell, their house had gone from a lived-in family space to an empty shell of a home. When they’d arrived back for the first time after Raz had dealt with the Chairman, they had been greeted by a thin layer of dust, and cobwebs along every corner. Most of the next day was spent cleaning, then buying food from the market with the advance Raz had been granted by the council.

  They hadn’t bothered with furniture, yet. No one talked about it, but Raz knew Arrun was putting real consideration into taking advantage while they could and leaving Azbar behind for good.

  The market streets had been an enjoyable experience. While the narrow, intersecting roads possessed an order to them that was utterly lacking in the bazaars of the fringe cities, Raz had found himself almost grinning at the familiarity of the bustle, the push of the crowd. No one shouted aloud save to find families lost in the throng, but the general hubbub of the people droned constantly, giving the roads and their shops that spark of life that no other place in the city could have. It brought Raz back years, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the Arros would have made of the place, this strange city in the woods, all gray and black and green from stone and earth and tree.

  It had been a pleasurable trip, but a short one, and before long they’d been back in the emptiness of the Koyts’ home, now two weeks later just as it had been then.

  “So whose ass did you whoop today?” Arrun asked with only half-masked enthusiasm, closing the door behind Raz.

  “I think I’ve told you enough times,” Raz grumbled over his shoulder as a small voice squealed from the corner by the fire, and Lueski came pelting towards him, “to watch your mouth around your sister.”

  Arrun chuckled, then stepped around him to allow Lueski to leap on Raz and hug him around the waist—a well-formed habit now—heedless of the knife and ax beneath his furs.

  “Did you win?” she asked him excitedly, looking up at him with lake-blue eyes through black hair. “Did you beat the bad men? Did you? Did you?”

  Raz smiled back.

  “Well I’d had to have, wouldn’t I?” he told her, gently disengaging from Lueski’s arms as he leaned Ahna in her usual spot against the wall by the door. “Who else would have stories for you, otherwise?”

  He almost laughed as Lueski positively bounced with excitement.

  “Go help your brother with dinner,” he told her, turning to hang his mantel on an old iron peg by the door. “I’ll be down as soon as I’ve washed up.”

  Lueski bounded off at once. After he’d pulled his ax and knife free of his belt, leaving the gladius strapped over his shoulder, Raz made his way upstairs to one of the three small bedrooms on the second floor. He’d claimed the middle one—Arrun’s old room—for his things, and once he’d closed the door behind him he started undoing the clasps of heavy steel plate around his arm and leg. The largest of the chambers would have served him better, but Raz had felt claiming Warren and Marta’s former room would have been heartless.

  Before long, Raz was mud-free, every inch of himself scrubbed clean in the warm water Lueski had already prepped in a bin for him. After that, his armor came next, caked earth knocked off as best he could before wiping everything down with a damp cloth. Once he’d hung everything to dry and changed into clean clothes—leaving his dirt-soaked ones in a pile against the wall for Lueski to clean in the morning—he made his way back downstairs, gladius still on his back.

  Arrun and his sister already had dinner ready, plates—one of the few purchases they’d made other than food—set out by the fire to warm. Accepting one from Arrun as he made his way to the hearth, Raz sat down as close to the flames as he could stand, basking in the heat.

  For a time the three of them sat in silence, content in the meal and heat and company. Arrun had prepared a hearty spiced soup for he and his sister, but for Raz he hadn’t bothered doing more than searing a pair of large trout steaks that barely fit on the platter. The meal had become a quick favorite of Raz’s, who’d only ever had silverfish from the Garin growing up.

  When dinner was almost done, though, Lueski looked up expectantly. Arrun, too, seemed a little on edge, but hid it better. Tilting his head back to swallow a last mouthful of fish, Raz chuckled.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting to hear about my day, then?” he asked.

  Lueski nodded fervently, and Raz smiled.

  It had become a ritual for them, and as Raz threw himself into the details of his day’s fights—leaving out certain unnecessary details Lueski didn’t need to hear—he felt the comfort of routine take hold of him. It had been too long since he’d been able to stay in once place for more than a few nights at a time. He remembered his old room at the White Sands with an odd sense of loss, but shook it off.

  Despite the bleakness of the house, despite the precariousness of his situation, despite the weight of the shadows he could feel dancing around him, moving steadily closer with their knives and swords and axes wielded aloft, it had been many years since Raz had felt so content. It was something to hold on to, something nearly tangible for which he fought. This
peace, this satisfaction, bore the comforting weight of a heavy coat, fighting off the cold that was all the other horrors waiting for him out there in the world.

  And I won’t lose it.

  It was with this thought that Raz put Lueski to bed later that night, tucking her thick feather-stuffed blankets around her mattress by the fire. It was this thought that pulled him down into sleep a few minutes later, laid out on his bedroll before the front door, one wing pulled over him under his own quilts.

  And it was this thought that had made him draw the gladius free of its sheath before doing so, laying it out, bare and ready, between his body and the door.

  CHAPTER 14

  In twos and threes they’d face the beast,

  each thinking themselves worthy.

  In twos and threes they fell like wheat,

  while the beast was hardly dirtied…

  —“The Monster Come North,” by unknown minstrel

  “Spectator or combatant, sir?”

  Carro blinked.

  “I beg your—” he started in alarm. “What do you mean, ‘spectator or combatant’?”

  They stood outside the east gates of Azbar. Talo had left Carro to deal with gaining them entrance to the city, standing a little ways back, horse reins in hand, allowing himself to gaze up along the high stone wall that loomed over them like a sleeping giant. It reminded him of the walls of Cyurgi’ Di to an extent, but with a sinister ambience that lacked in the defenses of the High Citadel. There the sleeping giant seemed a calm sort, peaceful in its slumber.

  The walls of Azbar, on the other hand, felt more like the titan could wake at any moment and crush Talo where he stood.

  “Do you declare yourself spectator or combatant, sir?” the officer at the gate was asking impatiently, quill poised over the pages of the open booklet on the narrow desk he was sitting behind. “Are you here to watch the fights, or take part?”

  Talo, glancing behind him, couldn’t blame the man’s ill-tempered demeanor. Though the snows had yet to come—an odd blessing for what promised to be a hard winter—the cold had arrived in force. Frost tipped every blade of the grassy field that surrounded the town, giving the green of the pasture a smoky tinge. The ground of the path beneath their feet—in the summer churned soft and muddy by the comings and goings from the gate—was hard and sharp, frozen into whatever wear it had shown when the freeze descended. The Priests had long since abandoned their traveling tunics for the warm layers of their faith’s robes once more, but even so the chill still bit at them now that they had stopped moving.

  And yet, despite this bitter cold, behind Talo the line of men, women, carts, and horses trying to get into the city extended halfway between the wall and the woodlands across the plains. Most of the figures seemed harmless enough, travelers come from afar to see the fights, judging by their packs and wagons, but there were other sorts mixed in among them. Some—like the unsavory fellow directly behind Talo in line, wide frame slouched over the old dappled charger he rode atop, clothed with tattered furs and with a massive two-handed claymore hung from the side of his saddle—were of a different make altogether.

  “I—well I—” Carro stumbled over his words, obviously taken more than a little aback by the officer’s query. “I—that is to say we—”

  “Spectators,” Talo interrupted at last, deciding to put his lover out of his misery. “Come to see what’s become of the Arena since last we were here.”

  The officer glanced between the Priests, giving Talo a particularly hard look, then nodded. Not bothering to write anything down in his little book, he waved them through.

  “What was that about?” Carro hissed after he’d taken his horse from Talo and they were safely through the gate. Talo, in response, put a finger to his lips and kept walking a few paces into town, then led Carro and the horses around the corner of a natural slate fountain that had frozen over in the cold. There he stopped, hugging the wall so that he was half-hidden by the stone, and watched the gate.

  “Spectator or com—” the officer began, but the haggard, hard rider than had been behind them in line cut him off.

  “Combatant,” he growled at once in a gravelly, hoarse voice.

  The gate officer, choosing to ignore the interruption, looked the man and his horse up and down.

  “Name and occupation?” he said after a moment, dipping his quill into the ink well at the corner of his desk, set up next to a couple of lit candles to keep it from hardening.

  “Wehn Galen,” the rider replied. “And my occupation is none a’ yer business.”

  The officer, obviously a great deal more patient than Talo had given him credit for, didn’t bother responding. Instead he jotted something down in his little book, pulled a sealed letter from a small drawer to his left, then gestured towards the gate.

  “Make your way to the town hall and present this”—he held up the envelope—“at the gate. A few of you have already passed through today, so it won’t be long before the Captain-Commander comes to fill you all in on the details of your agenda and agreements. Keep the peace of the town, stay away from other combatants, and report to the Arena at your assigned day and time, or forfeit your fight. Lodgings you will need to procure for yourself, and know that none of the inns and taverns in town are accepting credit as payment.”

  Finally, as the officer stood and held out the envelope for the rider to reach down and grab, the man allowed himself something of a vengeful smirk.

  “Few of your kind are expected to live long enough to pay the debt, you see.”

  The rider muttered something unintelligible in reply, then pulled his horse around, kicking it into a trot through the gates. As he rode by their little corner, Talo turned away, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.

  “Seems our friends in Ystréd weren’t exaggerating,” he muttered, looking around at Carro. “They’re padding the lists.”

  “Lists?” Carro asked, peering around Talo towards the gate again.

  “Fight lists. The pool of names they can draw from for the pit.”

  “Ah.” Carro frowned at the gate for a moment, then turned to face the city. Though most of it was hidden by the buildings, walkways, banners, and rooftops that immediately surrounded them, the highest points of Azbar were visible in the distance. At its apex, cresting the cliffs that hung over the gorge at the city’s back, the town hall watched over all. Though they couldn’t see it, both men knew the Arena was somewhere below it, dark and hungry and waiting.

  “A list of dead men walking,” Carro said sadly after a moment, then sighed. “So much blood spilled. It seems such a waste, Talo. You may have left a good man in the South those years ago, but if Arro is responsible for this butchery, I’m not sure he’s deserving of our help.”

  Talo didn’t reply. They’d left Ystréd in too much of a hurry to find out more about the situation in Azbar. They’d debated asking around and trying to find out more on what was going on, but had decided against it. In part they couldn’t really afford to delay their arrival, but there was also the fact that they couldn’t risk word of their nosing into the city’s business reaching Azbar before they did. Given what Kal Yu’ri had told them in his letters, Talo wouldn’t have put it past the new Chairman to have the entirety of his guard alert to their coming.

  Whether the soldiers would be instructed to merely block them from entry, or deal with them through less peaceful means, he wasn’t so sure about.

  Still, despite the evidence to the contrary, Talo wasn’t just ready to pass judgment on Raz i’Syul Arro. Most like it was nothing more than the sense of debt he felt he owed the man, or maybe the memory of how many had judged the Lifetaker a bloodthirsty beast in his own time, but something held Talo firm in his conviction that Arro should have the opportunity to explain himself.

  The aging High Priest thumbed the steel of his staff, cool even with leather gloves between skin and metal.

  Conviction, after all, he thought to himself, has an endless value all its own. />
  “Let’s find Kal,” he said finally, turning to lead them north, deeper into the city.

  Azbar’s Laorin temple was a pitiful thing by most standards. In comparison to the fortress that was the Citadel, it was particularly ramshackle, a hunched, unadorned building sheltered in the hugging canopies of the evergreens that rose up on either side of it. Its entrance was a plain stone archway, stained with lichen and moss, set into a crumbling hip-high wall surrounding the temple and the gardens beyond in its entirety. The grounds were meticulously cared for, tended undoubtedly by the heedful hands of the temple’s limited population of Priests, Priestesses, and acolytes. Despite the freeze, the paired plots on either side of the slate walkway that led to the temple itself were alive with late-season flowers, weather-resistant shrubbery, and vines that had browned in the cold but continued to climb handsomely over the walls of the building. In the summer the place would be abloom with all shades of greens and blues and whatever brighter colors the flowers of the warmer season would bring along with them.