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

by Bryce O'Connor

  “It’s possible.”

  “Perhaps,” Brahnt conceded with a shrug. “And you are a killer, boy. I won’t pretend it’s otherwise. But if you think it’s impossible to be a killer without sacrificing the heart, than you are a fool just as much. Do you remember the story of the dahgün?”

  “‘There are those that fight to end the fight,’” Raz quoted with a nod. “Or something like that. I remember.”

  “Then you will figure out what I mean by ‘take’—and what I mean by ‘give’—eventually,” Brahnt said with a shrug.

  Raz grimaced in queer amusement. “Maybe. Still don’t know what it has to do with the Laorin liking me, though.”

  For a time, Brahnt just looked down at the flames in his hands.

  Then he bent down, and held them out to Raz.

  “Here,” he said simply. “Take them.”

  Raz blinked. “Huh?”

  “Take them,” Brahnt said again, sounding as though he were hard pressed not to roll his eyes. “They won’t hurt you.”

  “How do you know?” Raz grumbled, taking a small step sideways, closer to Gale and away from the flames.

  “They won’t,” was all Brahnt said.

  Raz looked between the man and his magic, hesitating for a long time. He felt stupid, his primal, human fear of fire mixing with the obvious reality that the High Priest clearly had control over the flames.

  Essentially, it came down to whether or not he trusted the man.

  At that thought, Raz held out his hand.

  Brahnt was about to give them to him, making to pour the magic into Raz’s outstretched palm like one might pour water from one hand to the other, when Raz’s ears twitched.

  He spun around, Ahna flying into his grasp. Behind him the flames tumbling to the forest floor. They winked out in spattered blinks of white light as the horses kept walking, leaving Raz to stand along the trail.

  “What is it?” Brahnt asked in an urgent whisper, suddenly alert. Beside him al’Dor stirred, rising from his slumber as Gale stopped suddenly beneath him.

  “What-What’s happened?” he mumbled loudly, blinking away sleep and looking around. “What’s going—?”

  Brahnt shut him up with a hand over his mouth, muffling the question.

  “Raz?” the High Priest asked, barely loud enough to hear.

  Raz didn’t answer him. He was listening, sifting through the sounds of the Woods, trying to make the noise out again. He was sure he had heard it this time. It wasn’t a figment of his imagination, no trick played on him by his own mind while amongst the blood and stench of the dead wolves. He had heard it this time.

  And he heard it again.

  A snuffling, grumbling noise, from somewhere off to their left.

  And it was getting closer.

  “Raz,” Brahnt said insistently. “What is it? Do you need more light?”

  Raz was about to answer him, telling him to brighten the flames again, when another noise came. From the depths of the darkness, rising like an angry storm from the shadows, a deep, throaty grumble broke through the quiet of the night. Slowly it grew louder, and as it did Raz made out another sound, steady at first, then coming fast and faster.

  The thump of earth, coupled with the crunch of ice and leaves.

  The grumble built into a huffing growl, staggered with the steps, and then into a thunderous, bellowing roar that made Raz’s ears ring as—for the first time in his life—he began to fall back.

  He did so, because Raz could see now the thing that had lain hidden in the dark. He could see the size of it, see its lumbering silhouette charging through the trees.

  Charging, unstoppable and terrible in its might, right at them.

  “Run,” he said over his shoulder, taking another step back, then another.

  Then he turned around, breaking into a panicked sprint back towards the Priests.

  “Run!” he screamed. “RUN!”

  CHAPTER 17

  Only twice in his life could Raz remember ever running as fast and hard as he did now. The first time had been nearly a decade ago, when he’d heard the screams of his family lifted up into the night sky on the rising glow of his burning home. The second had only been a few weeks back, when he’d watched Lueski slit her own throat on the harsh edge of Azzeki Koro’s dark blade and he’d caught her before she’d hit the ground.

  Then, though, he had been running towards something. There is an inexplicable pull, in that situation, a distinct, indefinable desire that draws one to new speeds in the desperate haste to be there, to be where they are so hopelessly needed.

  It is an altogether different feeling to run from something, Raz discovered.

  He had known fear before. He was confident in his skills, confident in his strength and his speed, but only a fool faces death without blinking. Raz had known fear, had felt it creep along his spine when he’d understood the situation was dire. It had been a small thing, though, the hint of an itch on his mind that was easily disregarded.

  There was no ignoring what he felt now.

  The terror was so real it was practically tangible. It clung to his neck and back, grasped at his chest as he ran. Raz could feel it on his skin, feel it in his mouth. It gripped him so absolutely it was like he had been submerged, been shoved beneath a black tide of dread. It ripped at him, clawing at his skin, building up as a dark ache in his chest.

  And it pushed him with rough, cruel hands as he and the Priests barreled their way through the Woods.

  Trees whipped by, the branches of the shorter saplings whizzing above their heads. Raz could hear the thunder of the horses’ hooves as they ran, charging heedlessly through underbrush, down slick hills, and over icy streams that glimmered beneath the light of Talo’s single torch. They crashed through bushes and leapt over rocks and roots, twisting around the great trunks that rose above them like indifferent gods, taking in the fear of the mortals scurrying about their feet without so much as a twitch of interest or empathy. Together they careened, unconcerned with the direction or the distance, every thought focused only on being rid of the angry, looming shadow that lurched in their wake, pursuing them with alarming speed.

  And then, all of a sudden it seemed, Raz was running alone.

  He would never recall, looking back later, when he became separated from the Priests. He didn’t know if it was he who had taken a different path, or them. He eventually suspected that it was he who had strayed, falling behind the faster horses, unstoppable in their panic, and failing to follow them around a turn or losing them in the brushwood. Whatever the case, all Raz knew at the time was that in one moment the dark silhouettes of the horses seemed to be only a short way ahead of him, the animals screaming in fear.

  And then he was running alone through the Woods.

  For almost half a minute after this realization, though, Raz still didn’t stop. The terror still gripped him, stroking the skin of his neck like some wicked lover. It drove him ever forward, propelling him over crevices in great leaps, or else sent him vaulting over mossy stones and fallen logs. It whispered in his ears while he fled, teasing him with images of the terrible thing that had followed them from the hill.

  Run, the voice said. Run.

  It took losing Ahna to bring Raz back to his senses.

  It happened in a blink. Abruptly, materializing out of the limited light of the Moon through the ice above, the earth dropped away as if it had been torn away by some titan’s hand, the forest floor breaking off at a ledge before sloping severely downward. Without so much as a pause, Raz launched himself off the ridge of upward jutting earth, aiming for the massive trunk of a fallen tree that extended from the very base of the tall hill he would have otherwise had to slide down. He landed hard on the rotten bark and started moving forward again at once, intending to run the length of the trunk all the way to the flatter ground below.

  He did not expect Ahna’s head to get caught in the tangles of a dead branch that jutted out from the old trunk, just to the left of wh
ere he landed.

  In his frenzied, panicked mindset, all Raz felt was a massive tug on his left hand, the one that had gripped Ahna so tightly as he ran. In the next instant the dviassegai was torn from his grasp and Raz—suddenly off-balanced by the abrupt loss of her weight—only managed a few stumbling steps before he plummeted off the side of the tree, tumbling to the ground some seven or eight feet below. He hit the hill with a crash, his armor crunching against the frozen earth before he started falling, rolling and tumbling down the incline. He grunted and winced as he fell, cursing and trying his damnedest to get his feet under him. He couldn't manage it, though, the impetus of his mad flight through the Woods sending him head-over-heels, kicking up earth and ice and leaves around him as he spilled headlong downward. For ten long seconds Raz could do nothing more than swear and roar and pray to the Twins that he wasn’t going to break his neck against some boulder or root.

  Then, at long last, Raz’s tumbling form reached the bottom of the hill and he spilled out onto his back, wings and limbs flopping around him to lay stiff against the icy ground.

  For a while Raz just laid there, breathing hard, staring up at the dimmest blue light that was the canopy high, high above him. He listened, straining his ears as hard as he could, waiting for the expected sound of the beast’s screaming roar that meant it was lumbering down the hill after him. He knew he would hear it, knew the thing was coming for him. The terror wouldn’t allow him to conceive it any other way, wouldn’t allow him to pause and seek out rationality. It tore at him, wrenching at his chest as his heart pounded so hard it hurt.

  But nothing came. After thirty seconds Raz began to calm, feeling his breathing start to slow. Another half-minute and the world around him fell into clarity, no longer dimmed by the fear-induced tunnel vision that had driven him headlong through the trees.

  Soon after that, Raz forced himself to sit up, groaning as the muscles of his back—stiffened by the beating of the hill and the coolness of the ground—stretched and ached in protest. His groan seemed to echo through the gnarled evergreens looming around him as he rolled himself onto one knee.

  And it made him realize, once more, that he was alone.

  Raz froze, looking up suddenly. Again he listened, this time seeking out the voices of the Priests, or at least the whinnying of the horses or the pounding of their iron shoes against the hardened floor of the forest. The fear hadn't dissipated completely yet, but it had removed itself enough to allow Raz to focus on other things, on other sounds.

  Sounds that were just as absent as those of the beast.

  “Shit,” Raz hissed, shoving himself up onto his feet with another grunt. His head spun, and he stumbled over roots to a nearby fir, resting a hand against it and supporting himself as he closed his eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass. When it did, Raz looked up again, feeling things fall into place, and starting to assess his situation.

  He’d managed to keep the gladius, somehow. He checked it, half-drawing it and rattling the blade in its sheath before snapping it down again, satisfied the sword was in one piece. His ax, too, he still had, safely snug in the loop on his belt. His knife, though, was gone, lost in the tumbling fall.

  As was Ahna…

  “Shit!” Raz groaned again, scrambling back towards the massive form of the fallen tree. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  The leviathan was barely more than a silhouette in the dark. So little light penetrated the trees here that even Raz could barely see more than a few feet before him.

  Despite this, it didn’t stop him from clambering up onto the trunk, then rushing up its length back towards the top of the hill, using his steel claws and lithe tail as anchors as he climbed.

  He found her waiting right where he’d lost her. He thanked every god in the book when he made out the barest outline of the dviassegai’s twin blades, caught in the Y-shaped split of branches that had torn her from his grasp. He pulled himself up the last few feet carefully, claws digging into the soft, decaying wood beneath him, not wanting to risk dislodging her head from the branches.

  “Sorry, sis,” he muttered as he freed her gently, sliding her out of her perch.

  Once he was sure the weapon was undamaged, Raz eased himself onto his feet, clawed toes gripping bark and splinters well enough for him to find good purchase despite the slope. Looking up again, Raz could make out the ledge he had leapt from. There seemed to be a bit more light the further he went up the hill, and after a moment’s hesitation Raz began to climb, one foot carefully after the other, up the trunk. When he reached the top, the wood beneath him tapering to a rotten stub of moss and wilting mushrooms, he paused again, listening.

  Nothing. Not a sound or hint of the Priests, nor of the thing that had been chasing them. The Woods were quiet save for the creaks of the trees and the rustling of branches overhead. Raz was alone among the pines, lost in the steeps of the forest.

  “Shit.”

  Help wasn’t long in arriving.

  Raz had just finished heaving himself back up onto the apex of the ridge, leaping after Ahna, who he had tossed up first. He’d almost failed in his jump for the lip, some four or five feet in front and above his head, the darkness making it hard to see where he could grab and where he could push himself up over the torn earth with his feet. In the end he’d managed it, though, hauling his bulk onto the forest floor and shoving himself back to his feet with a grunt.

  He had just recovered Ahna, half-hidden in the underbrush, when a pale glow bloomed through the trees far to his left, distinct in its white, dancing rays that spilled in flickering lines through the trunks as it approached.

  Magic.

  Brahnt, Raz thought in relief, thinking of the torch the High Priest had managed to hold onto. Starting towards the light, though, Raz frowned as he realized that this glow was an unfamiliar one, too dim and gentle to be cast by the rippling flames of the Laorin’s fire spells. It was moving, also, in an odd way. It seemed to flow, almost, weaving its way through the Woods, drifting hither and to, an indistinct orb of light dancing back and forth across Raz’s vision.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Priests.

  But it seemed to be searching…

  “Here!” Raz yelled, not hesitating, hastening towards the spell. As soon as his voice broke the relative silence of the dark he saw the light stop then shift direction, making directly for him at alarming speed.

  It was twenty feet away when he finally saw what it was.

  It looked like a strip of silk, fraying tail washing back and forth lazily behind it as it moved. Like a stroke of white painted by some arcane brush in midair, the spell slipped over the brush and between the trees, illuminating the Woods for several feet in all directions as it moved. When it came to a stop before Raz it floated before him, like the white silk had been suspended in water, twisting slowly about in some intangible current.

  Raz paused, unsure of what to do. When the spell made no indication of resolving on its own, though, nor any effort to move or guide him through the trees, he slowly reached out a hand.

  The magic descended, as though drawn to him, to settle and hang across his palm.

  As it faded, he was made to understand the message. No words came to him. No disembodied voice of Brahnt’s or al’Dor’s or any other sorts. Instead a feeling enveloped him, an absolute understanding of what he had to do.

  Follow, the feeling said. Hurry.

  As the message was relayed the magic subsided, the silk fading in a glister of white until Raz was left holding an empty hand out into the air. Despite this, the light it had radiated lingered, existing without source, without center.

  But when the light moved, pulled back through the trees in the direction it had come, Raz chased after it with all haste.

  For nearly a minute he ran flat out, following the glowing orb of magic. He was experiencing the pull again, the desperate need to be in a place. He didn’t know exactly why, this time, but the feeling the messenger spell had given him had left little doubt
that there was no time to waste. He rushed deeper into the Woods, his path illuminated now by the light. He leapt over fallen branches, dashed around trees and sprinted up and down the rolls and break of the land. His clawed feet pounded the frozen earth, the feeling of desperation growing with every second.

  And then the magic faded, melting into the greater glow of a much brighter light as Raz charged between two massive trunks and found himself hurtling into thigh-deep snow beneath the inky black of the night sky.

  CHAPTER 18

  The clearing was a shocking sight after so many days beneath the sheltering boughs of the Arocklen. It seemed so strange, so out of place, taking Raz by such surprise he might as well have looked up to see two Moons arching above him in the night. About fifty paces across, it was an oblong space, borders edged by the Woods, as though the trees stood sentinel about the place. A single pine, small but knotted in a way that spoke of great age and beauty, stood slightly decentered, raised up on what seemed to be an odd mound of earth beneath the snow.