Tern shook his head. “With age does not necessarily come weakness, especially among the Laorin. He might be slower, might not have the strength he once did, but he has other talents that could pose problematic. Not to mention, if Arro is with him, even you won’t offer much of a challenge to a pair like that.”
“You give too much credit to your enemies, Quin.”
“It’s you who doesn’t give them enough,” Quin said sharply.
Azzeki didn’t say anything to that.
“We let the Laorin live,” Quin continued. “Whatever happens, Brahnt will have his hands full with the new Kayle anyway. If that resolves, though, Yu’ri might be valuable leverage against the faith, should it come to that.”
“So you propose we do nothing,” Azzeki said angrily. “Even as they shake the foundations of all you’ve fought for here.”
“Oh, we do something,” Quin said quietly. “But not to the Laorin. If Raz i’Syul wishes to change our contract without telling me, then I think it’s time I do the same. We offered him kindness, gave him everything he wanted, and yet still he thinks he can leave. No. If compromise and diplomacy don’t work, then we resort to other means.”
At that, Azzeki smiled. It was a wicked thing, full of cruel pleasure and anticipation.
“Tell me what I need to do,” he said.
CHAPTER 30
“There are times, in my old age, that I look back and realize what a fool I have been. Even in my later years, when I thought myself as wise as I was ever going to be, there were things I could not see. Talo is at the center of many of those moments, instances where I did not see the toll his choices placed upon him. Now, in retrospect, I find myself thinking of those times often when I feel loneliest, wondering if I could have alleviated some of that weight if only I had paused more often and put myself in his place.”
—private journal of Carro al’Dor
“He’s not coming, Talo.”
Talo looked around. Carro was a few paces ahead, his eyes set firmly forward, the stiffness in his posture barely shifting to accommodate the roll of the horse’s gait beneath him.
A blind man would have been able to tell that something was irritating the Priest.
“I wasn’t thinking of him,” Talo lied, looking back over his shoulder again. “I was just considering what a sad waste this has all been.”
In truth, of course, his mind had wandered back to Raz i’Syul Arro, but he couldn’t tell Carro that. Carro wouldn’t understand, after all. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t fathom what had come over Talo that would incite such a ludicrous act as proposing that the atherian join them on their way home. Carro was worried about the trip already, worried about Talo’s leg, worried about the winter storms, worried about the dangers of the Arocklen that waited for them a week or so’s good ride northward. Carro had no space left to worry about how, as Talo watched the last glimpses of Azbar’s dark walls finally fade between the snowy trees, he was feeling old memories return with a bitterness they’d never had before.
The last time I walked away, I said you’d be fine, he thought, still watching the last place the city had vanished between the snowy pines. I told Syrah you’d be fine. I didn’t even give it a second thought.
Talo felt a hand touch his knee, and he turned to see that Carro had slowed his mount to drop even with him. Their steel staffs, lying lengthwise across their laps, knocked and dinged together as the horses matched pace.
“I’m sorry,” the man said sadly. “I know it’s hard. It wasn’t easy on me either, but we had to make a choice. We’ll come back, though. When this business with the Kayle is done and over with, we’ll return, and this time we’ll bring enough help with us to make the voices of reason heard in truth.”
Talo nodded, but said nothing. Ordinarily he hated lying to Carro, but for once the deceit didn’t bother him. Maybe it was because it wasn’t altogether a lie. The Arena still stood, a wretched stain on Talo’s conscience. He hated that it continued to tower above the city they were leaving behind, a cancer of marble and mortar growing stronger on the blood and death it was fed daily. He’d set out from Cyurgi’ Di all of six weeks prior, and hadn’t dreamt he would be returning so soon, much less with so little accomplished. Yes, the continued thriving of the Arena would haunt him all the way back to the High Citadel, and every night until the opportunity came again to do something about it.
But it wouldn’t haunt him as much as the conjured image of Raz i’Syul Arro, younger and leaner, standing within the fires and flashing blades that had left him orphaned and alone.
Fires and blades that Talo, in all his wisdom, had left him to without a second thought.
The only silver lining Talo could see in all that was happening was that he was leaving neither the man nor the Arena completely unaddressed. They would keep each other’s company, in a sense, the pit giving Raz meaningful purpose, while Raz himself kept the pit in check and in control. Talo understood why the man hadn’t come. It had taken him aback at first, yes, but thinking on it, Talo supposed he shouldn’t have been all that surprised. If Arro had been the sort to run from a fight, he would never have become the man the citizens of Azbar cheered for and pinned their hopes on. He had wanted to come—he’d said as much, after all—but he’d articulated just as clearly that there was a difference between desire and need.
Arro had set things in motion in Azbar, and now he had to see them through to the end. He had lifted the terror of living within the shadow of the Arena from the citizens’ shoulders, and now had to bear that weight.
Talo thought abruptly of the broken statue of the Lifetaker, nothing but a marble pedestal and cast-iron feet sawed off at the ankles. He remembered his conflicting emotions at the sight of it, wishing to see it in its entirety while simultaneously feeling ashamed it ever stood in the first place.
Will they cast one of him? he thought, feeling the saddle beneath him shift as the horse shook snow from its eyes and mane. Will Raz i’Syul Arro, the Monster of Karth, the Scourge of the South, stand among the other greats in the Hall of Heroes?
He thought it likely, one day.
Talo looked up from the road. He couldn’t see them through the canopy, all thick branches and wet, clinging snow, but he knew the peaks of the Saragrias were somewhere there in the far, far distance. He hadn’t heard from Syrah except for her hastily scribbled letter regarding Gûlraht Baoill and pleading for his and Carro’s rapid return. He’d been disappointed that she hadn’t written more, but again felt like he shouldn’t have been surprised. It wasn’t likely the bird he’d sent after meeting Arro had ever reached the High Citadel. If the rumors were true, the storms that had mercifully spared the lower parts of the North had not done the same to the ranges and the Arocklen. Talo’s letter was likely scattered to the wind somewhere, or caught, wet and useless, lost among the Woods.
A pity, he thought, smiling sadly just in time for a rare ray of true sunlight to break through the clouds, shining down between the branches upon him and Carro. You would have liked him, Syrah. And I know he would have liked you, too.
CHAPTER 31
“It is not in the nature of man to hold true to his word. Honesty is a function of society, a construct of civilized culture. In truth, it is often in one’s best interests to lie, to deceive. It is often the easiest path, the one with fewest immediate obstacles, the simplest way to get to what one desires. It is the reason the good fall victim to evil, why the pure of heart are preyed upon by those willing to exploit their kindness. But it is also dangerous, for with betrayal… one breeds vengeance.”
—Commonalities of Ancient & Modern Society, author unknown
The crunch of snow on the stairs outside woke Raz before the pale light of dawn took the opportunity to. It had only been a day since Talo Brahnt had taken his leave northward, but already Raz found himself sleeping restlessly again. For a time, for the weeks he’d know the Laorin were out there, fighting the same fight, he’d felt something like safety. For a time h
e’d felt as though there was someone to watch his back.
Now, though, there was no one, and it made him sleep so lightly, even the shifting of snow outside was enough to wake him.
His bedroll still lay lengthwise on the floor parallel to the door some four feet away, as did the gladius, drawn and bare across the stone. Some habits would never die, and Raz had spent too many years sleeping in questionable places not to know the value of a blade that didn’t need to be drawn from its sheath.
Picking the sword up gently, Raz eased himself to his feet. The furs he slept under slid off his wings and bare back, falling into a rumpled pile on the ground. To his right by the last smoldering glow of the previous night’s fire, Arrun and Lueski slept on, close together on their own mats.
Raz took a few good whiffs of the air and smelled nothing strange. Only the woody scent of the hearth, as well as the lingering remnants of beef and oatcakes that had been the evening’s dinner. Still, the Koyts had very few visitors in their time since returning to Azbar—most people wanting to keep their heads low and not fraternize more than was prudent with a pair of former fugitives—and Raz had never had a caller this early in the morning.
He listened hard. He thought of assassins, perhaps a whole contingent of the city guard, or even a gang of mercenaries who had grouped up, willing to risk the Chairman’s judgment for a split of the ten thousand crowns still on Raz’s head. He was so involved in calculating how best to address each possible scenario, in fact, that he jump violently when whoever was outside merely pounded on the door, nearly causing him to take his own arm off with his blade.
“Arro!” the familiar voice of Alyssa Rhen called through the wood. “Open up! Lifegiver’s fat arse, I’m freezing out here!”
Cursing himself, Raz stepped forward and pulled the door wide. Sure enough, the Doctore stood alone on the stoop of the house, dressed in so many layers of white and brown furs Raz thought he wouldn’t have recognized her had she not spoken up. He opened his mouth to say something smart about the time, but lost his words when he realized that the woman was standing in nothing short of knee-high snow.
“Sun have mercy!” he managed to croak out, not looking away from the door as the Doctore stepped inside. “What the hell is this?”
“The freeze,” someone grumbled sleepily.
Arrun was up, peering groggily around the wall by the door to look outside. Behind him, Lueski, too, was moving, sitting up and rubbing her eyes with small fists.
“This?” Raz demanded, waving his free hand at the clear path the Doctore had cut up through the white to get to the door. “This is your freeze?”
“Yup,” Arrun said with a resigned nod. “We’re lucky it held out this long. Now shut the door. You’re letting the cold in.”
Raz realized he was indeed, feeling a wafting chill spill around his ankles like some invisible river of icy water. Shivering, he closed the door, shaking his head at what he’d seen. Once again he had to laugh at the ludicrous concept that he had, at one time, considered waiting out the winter in the woods.
“Wouldn’t have made it a day,” he mumbled to himself, turning away to sheathe the gladius on his belt, hanging by the door.
“What was that?” Rhen asked him, busy peeling herself out of her furs.
“Nothing,” Raz said quickly, eyeing her. “Now why don’t you tell us what’s so important you had to wake us this early?”
“Tern is throwing a special event,” the Doctore said, finally shedding the heavy undercoat she’d had on beneath all her layers. “If you think this is bad, consider how early my servants had to wake me up so I could come fetch you.”
“A special event?” Raz asked suspiciously. “What is your Chairman up to now? His tournament is filling every seat and then some. From what I hear, you could start charging people standing outside the Arena trying to make out what’s happening in the pit.”
“I asked him the same thing, but he gave me some speech about ‘monotony feeds stagnation.’ You and I both know the man has his finger on every pulse in the city that might lead him to greater profit. So long as he’s still using you as his primary source of entertainment, I’m fine with it.”
“Your concern is noted,” Raz said dryly.
Rhen waved the comment away. “You and I both know you’re Tern’s pride and joy. Even in this storm there were a dozen wagons come through the city’s gate this morning, some to fight and some to watch. The only thing you could do to make yourself more endearing in Tern’s eyes would be to literally shit gold, which at this point wouldn’t surprise me, given your arsenal of apparent talents.”
Raz blinked at that, surprised.
“Testy this morning, are we?” he said with a wry smile. “Since when are you so crass?”
“Since your being in my city means getting dragged out of bed before I’ve even really gotten to sleep,” Rhen snapped, unamused. “Now would you get your gear? The earlier you deal with whatever farce Tern has cooked up, the earlier my day ends.”
Raz chuckled again. Now that she was no longer hidden between all her coats and furs, the woman did seem distinctly disheveled. Her normally sleek hair was rumpled and untamed, which did not do much to flatter the ugly scar along her face, and her green eyes, usually so clear and alert, looked tired and red. She stiffened at his laugh, clearly in no mood, and Raz held his hands up in a sign of peace.
“All right, all right,” he said, unable to hide a smile as he backed up towards the stairs. “I’ll get my things. I admit I’m curious to see what new way Tern has found to toe the line.”
“I suppose I’ll get breakfast going, then,” Arrun said with a shrug as his sister came dawdling up behind him. She looked upset, clutching at the cloth doll Kal Yu’ri had brought for her, her favorite—and only, really—toy.
“I thought you didn’t have to deal with the bad men today,” she said quietly to Raz, eyes on the floor, fingering the rope hair of the doll. “I though you were staying here…”
Raz glanced uncomfortably at Alyssa, who shrugged and gave him a “What in every god’s name are you looking at me for?” look.
“I’m sorry, Lueski,” he said gently, easing himself down on one knee. “Sometimes, though, I’m going to have to go like this. There are going to be days where there are more bad men than others, and they need my help to deal with them. Do you understand?”
When Lueski didn’t say anything, he reached out to grip her chin carefully, pushing it up so that she was looking at him.
“It’s alright,” he told her with a smile. “It just means I’ll have stories when I get home tonight. You like stories during dinner, right?”
At that, Lueski gave a halfhearted smile, then nodded.
“Good,” Raz said, letting go of her and getting to his feet. “Now behave for Arrun while I’m gone. Maybe you two can go play in the snow?”
He paused and looked around at her brother.
“Is that safe?” he asked in a hissed whisper. Arrun rolled his eyes.
Raz took that as a yes.
“Arro,” Alyssa said crossly.
Raz ignored her, looking back down at Lueski.
“Can I get a smile?”
This time Lueski’s smile was more genuine.
“Good girl.” Raz patted her on the head fondly, then headed upstairs.
Ten minutes later found him heading back down, weighed down with full gear, Ahna thrown over his shoulder as usual. Rhen was pacing impatiently by the door, already back in her heavy layers, and huffed aloud when he pulled his mantle from its peg in the wall and threw it around his shoulders.
“I can go without it if you want me to freeze to death,” he told her with narrowed eyes, finally getting a little irritated. “Speaking of, how do you propose we get to the Arena? I hope you’re not expecting me to walk through all that.”
“And let you lose your legs?” the Doctore asked with a snort, striding for the door and pulling it open. “Tern would have me throttled. It’s bad enough you
fight without boots as is.”
Then she whistled out into the morning, the shrill sound dampened to Raz’s ears by the buffering snow.
At once the clopping of horse hooves picked up, iron shoe on stone, and a moment later a large black carriage rolled into view. It was pulled by a single burly stud, coat thick with gray winter hairs, impatiently hoofing the ground as a man seated on top of the carriage pulled the animal to a stop before the Koyts’ home.
“Street sweepers are up all night clearing the roads during the storms,” Rhen explained, pulling her hood over her head and the furs tighter around her neck. “Not an easy job, but they’re well loved for it.”
“I can see why,” Raz said with a nod. Then he waved a hand through the doorway and gave a mock bow. “After you.”
The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1 Page 63
