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

by Bryce O'Connor

  Then, as though in final benediction, the clouds themselves thinned, allowing patches of true Moonlight to pepper the snow and rocks and cliffs about him as he plunged towards the forest far below with all the speed and urgency of an avalanche.

  Raz didn’t feel the burn in his legs as he moved, didn’t feel the ache in his chest as mountain air flooded his lungs. He didn’t notice it getting warmer, or his breathing coming easier as the atmosphere thickened. Nothing existed for him. Not the snow, not the icy stone beneath his feet, not the ledges he swung himself around and over, or even the cliffs he leapt and launched himself from into open air to land dozens of feet below. He became unaware of the world around him, unaware of the existence of more than a single thing beyond the mountain.

  Syrah.

  At first, as he’d started down the path once more, Raz had tried to make a plan, tried to steady himself and his rage. He had felt the tickle of an old, familiar terror in the back of his mind, but he’d beaten it back, trying to maintain control as he descended. With conscious effort he considered all the variables of the situation he was about to throw himself into, focusing with all his might on one factor at a time.

  But, as though mirroring his own descent along the mountainside, reason soon began to fade, cracked by the memories of the sounds he heard as echoes inside his head. The laughter and pleasures of the man, the voices of his friends, and the muffled, pained cries that could only have come from the white-haired woman.

  Syrah.

  The animal, for the first time in Raz’s life, rose slowly, steadily. As he dropped from bend to bend, leaping down entire flights of stairs, trusting his clawed feet to hold firm against the ice, Raz didn’t realize he had lost the fight. His mind preoccupied by the face of the woman from his dreams, he didn’t notice the darkness falling, the bloodlust rising up within him. In the end, it took him less than three hours to make his way down the mountain path, the evergreens appearing and growing thicker as he got lower and lower, the glare of firelight that marked the base of the stairs bright in the mercifully clear night.

  And it was a long time before that that the scene around Raz became nothing more than contoured shades of red and black, highlighting the cool, calm sway of the pines.

  Bjen al’Hayrd was not flush with pride at his new assignment as commander of the sentries along the base of the blasphemers’ pass. He was not fretful, nor anxious or worrisome. Bjen al’Hayrd had been a warrior of the Kregoan clan for far too long to still be plagued by such weaknesses, such frailties that needed to be beaten out of boys before they could truly be considered men. His was a toughened spirit, sympathetic to the Kayle and his cause, and he had been among the first to take a knee as the giant that was Gûlraht Baoill began to demand fealty from the western tribes.

  He had also been present when Vores Göl—the man whose position he had succeeded—had thrown himself into the fire in order to escape a coward’s death.

  And Bjen had no intention of echoing the man’s failures.

  “Eyes open, goat,” he growled while making his rounds, cuffing a Gähs archer who looked to be nodding off at his post. The Goatman jerked and blinked around at him in fear, muttering something in the dialect of his clan before ducking swiftly out of the way, his bow held tight to his chest in both hands.

  Bjen grinned at the man’s retreating back, the movement twisting the scars on his cheeks that cut spirals through the brown hair of his beard and shifted the carved finger-bones that pierced the bridge of his nose between his dark eyes. Bjen was big, even for a man of the mountain clans, and had always enjoyed the command his height and breadth won him, especially from the more slender tribes like the Gähs or the Velkrin.

  There is no place for the weak among the strong, he thought, turning and continuing his inspection.

  Kareth Grahst himself had given Bjen command of a full score of men, picked for their skills and utility. Grahst, it was rumored, was the new favorite of the Kayle following his defeat and capture of the infamous White Witch, and so Bjen had seen this promotion as a good sign of his own advancement in the new order of man the Kayle would soon put in control of the North. He moved about the camp with confidence, giving orders and hefting his twin axes at any who looked in danger of dozing off. Men moved about him in pairs, some trading shifts with those posted along the bottom stairs of the path, others bearing armfuls of dry wood carried across the dark from the Arocklen for the half-dozen fires he’d had built in a wide circle around them. He kept them lively, kept his warriors on their toes and constantly moving, refusing to allow them to settle or get comfortable.

  Bjen was not about to be taken by surprise, as Vores Göl had allowed himself to be.

  Thinking of the tales he had heard, Bjen turned southward, looking towards the Woods. He could see nothing, of course, the night beyond the fires painted black to his eyes by the light, but he imagined he could make out the line of trees, watching them shift in the faint breeze. He wondered again—for the hundredth time, in fact—what magics the sorcerer must have woven to sneak so easily past the camp. He’d heard the tale of the beast over and over again, spewed in keening screams from the mouths of the last men who had stood sentry over this very spot. Kareth Grahst had explained to him, when granting Bjen the command, his suspicions of how he believed one of the Priests had conjured the demon to do his fighting for him. It was a thought that had made Bjen’s blood boil, as any man not capable of fighting for himself didn’t deserve to be called a man at all.

  “More wolves. You’d think they’d have learned to run off by now.”

  Recognizing the voice, Bjen turned away from the hidden tree line and looked around. A pair of men, one Kregoan and one Amreht, were standing a half-dozen feet away, peering west and north through the dark. They appeared to be scrutinizing the indistinct mountainside, searching the bluffs above their heads for something.

  “Dolf,” Bjen said, moving towards the two and addressing the Kregoan, whom he knew, “what’s this about wolves?”

  Dolf Rohn was short for a man of his tribe, but half again as broad. He had the look of a wall, squat and thick, with a black beard and brows that were marred by carved lines that stroked vertically down his cheeks and forehead. His bottom lip was pierced by a pair of curved ribs that had been cut and filed into twin points, then braided into the hairs of his chin.

  “Vahlen says he thinks he saw something coming down along the cliffs, from on high,” Dolf told Bjen, looking around and shrugging a shoulder at the Amreht as his commander approached. “I said it had to be an animal, if it came through the rocks.”

  Bjen frowned, looking to Dolf’s companion. He didn’t know the Amreht—nor did he have any particular fondness for his kind, given they had practically had to be beaten into submission by the Kayle—but Vahlen’s words concerned him.

  Wolves didn’t generally hunt in the mountains. There wasn’t enough game to make it worth the energy.

  “What did you see?” he asked the man, studying Vahlen as he did. The Amreht’s skin was painted with traditional dyes, splitting his face down the middle. One side was clean and pockmarked, while the other was a solid shade of bright red, a feature believed by their tribe to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

  To Bjen, it looked more like the foolish powders the women of the valley towns were sometimes known to wear.

  But Vahlen, to his credit, struck no effeminate air as he spoke. He met Bjen’s eyes confidently, nodding briefly in respect as he answered.

  “Too big to be a wolf,” he said simply. “Came right off the path, through that clump of trees there.” He pointed upward, to a spot some thirty yards off and ten up, where a thicket of spruces stood, barely distinguishable at the edge of the casted light. “More like a bear, if anything.”

  Bjen studied the copses and the sheer cliffs around them. A bear was more likely, he thought, but bears tended to hole themselves up when the freeze came. Still, it was early enough into winter, so it was certainly possible,
not to mention ursali were not known to hibernate as soundly as their smaller cousins…

  Bjen decided it wasn’t worth the assumption.

  “Dolf,” he said, speaking to the Kregoan but not looking away from the mountain, “take four of the Goatmen and see what you can find. If it’s a bear there’ll be tracks, and the goats will sniff it out.”

  He saw Dolf nod from the corner of his eye, then turn and lumber off, shouting to a group of Gähs sitting huddled by one of the fires nearby. Not long after, the five of them were pressing out beyond the ring of the flames, the Gähs moving easily despite the deep snow, Dolf huffing and cursing behind them, a broad, two-handed claymore drawn and bare over one shoulder as he struggled to keep up, a torch held high in the other hand.

  Bjen and Vahlen stood at the edge of the camp, watching the group move. Others joined them, the half-dozen men not assigned to be on watch, and for once Bjen didn’t shout at them to get back to work, too preoccupied was he with knowing what the Goatmen might discover.

  It was a minute or so before the group of five reached the base of the cliffs, directly under the trees Vahlen had indicated. For several seconds Bjen could see them milling around, scouring the ground and rocks, illuminated in the glow of Dolf’s single torch.

  And then, so unexpectedly Bjen might have blinked and missed it, the light went out.

  “What the—?” Bjen began as he heard confused questions being shouted by the Gähs in the distance, his hands dropping instinctively to the axes he kept on each hip.

  Then the weapons were out and bare, because a single long, drawn out scream cracked through the dark, shattering the peace of the night.

  “WALL!” Bjen roared, smashing his axes together like an alarm bell as Vahlen ripped a longsword and dagger from his hips beside him. “TO ME! WALL!”

  At once the men around him responded, surging from all around to form a staggered, curved line along the edge of the ring of cleared snow as more screams hammered them from across the night. There were shouts, yells of horror, and another keening screech of pain that lingered, then ended abruptly. For several seconds Bjen and his wall stood silent, weapons held aloft, archers with arrows knocked and ready, aimed at the ground until it was time to draw. All around him Bjen could feel the men shifting nervously, and even he couldn’t help his eyes from darting about the blackness, looking for a sign of whatever it was he should be expecting.

  Then, as though on cue, he made out the rapid sounds of boots crunching through deep snow, approaching at a breakneck pace.

  “Hold,” he hissed as one of the archers began to lift his bow. He had just made out what sounded like hard, ragged breathing, coupled with whimpers of sheer terror.

  If there was a survivor, he didn’t want him accidently riddled with arrows before he could explain what had happened.

  “There,” Vahlen said, pointing with his knife. Sure enough, the ghostly form of a fox skull had just manifested out of the dark, the man whose head it helmed appearing shortly after. He was running through the snow as fast as he could, sending powder flying everywhere as he flailed and stumbled.

  “HELP!” he screeched. “HELP! DAHGÜN! DAH—!”

  His last cry was cut off though, as the night seemed to bend out of itself behind him, slamming the Goatman to the ground. The man screamed in terror as whatever it was dragged him backwards, back into the dark, his arms scrabbling at the snow as he vanished once more into the night.

  There was a terrible tearing sound of ripping flesh, and the world stilled once again.

  Bjen stood frozen, riveted by what he had just seen. It had all happened so fast, so suddenly, that he hadn't so much as had time to tell his archers to draw.

  And the man had said “dahgün”…

  Bjen al’Hayrd was not a superstitious man. He suspected, in fact, that this was one of the reasons Kareth Grahst had selected him to command the new sentries along the foot of the pass. He hadn't believed a word that the tortured men had screamed about a dragon appearing as though by magic from the trees, tricking them and decimating their ranks. He had seen the aftermath, seen the charred armor of the bodies that had been carted from the steps, but had chalked it up to the profane powers of the Priests and their false god.

  And yet now, while the night held its silence as though intent on swallowing the screams of horror and pain that had just shattered its peace, Bjen al’Hayrd found himself doubting.

  And it only made him angry.

  “Where are you­?” he growled, scanning the edge of the light, beyond which the unfortunate Goatman had just been dragged. “Where are you, you conjured bastard?”

  This time, nothing responded.

  Nothing, that is, until a warrior at the left-most edge of their wall howled in fear and agony.

  Bjen and his men whirled only in time to see a shadow that seemed to have come from behind blow past in a blur of silver and black, impossibly fast despite the snow. The Velkrin who had screamed was on the ground, clutching at his left side where a massive, gashing wound seemed to have suddenly appeared, cleaving him half in two. He didn’t take long to die, but even as Bjen and the rest of his sentries watched the man still, there was the wrenching sound of cleaved flesh, and a thump.

  All turned once more to see the massive shadow careen past them yet again, from the opposite direction this time, disappearing into the dark beyond the fires before Vahlen’s head had stopped rolling, the Amreht’s body tumbling at their feet in their midst.

  Bjen wouldn’t have had a chance of keeping his sentries in line if he had been the Kayle himself.

  It was instant chaos, the men howling about “THE DRAGON!” and “DEMONS!” as they scattered and spun, turning this way and that, attempting to guess where the thing would come from next. Bjen kept his head, but couldn’t do more than bellow for order, attempting to shove the nearest men back into some sort of formation.

  In the time it took him to gather even a small group of three about himself, the shadow struck thrice more.

  Bjen watched in horrified fascination as his men fell around him, victim to some great blade he only caught glimpses of as flashes of steel and white wood. Again and again the creature struck, hurtling in and out of the firelight, claiming blood every time. The camp was pure bedlam, the attacks only slowing down when a few of the survivors chose to make mad dashes south through the dark, hoping to reach the safety of the front line beneath the trees.

  None of them had disappeared into the night for more than five seconds before Bjen heard them die.

  Slowly, though no one gave the command, Bjen and his three warriors began to back up the mountain pass, tripping and stumbling as the heels of their boots caught the hidden lips of the steps beneath the snow. They continued to watch, in disbelief, as the twenty men Bjen had started with became ten, then nine, then eight…

  By the time only the four of them were left, they were some twenty steps up the pass, approaching the first curve in the stairs.

  For a long while, nothing happened. The world was quiet, the brutal scene below illuminated in the warm orange glow of the fires still flickering around the ring of cleared snow. Bodies lay scattered, almost ten in all, only a few of them whole. Blood painted the earth and stone like a mad canvas, accenting everything in curved streaks of splattered red. A few of the men were still alive, one or two of them moaning and shaking as they died, another delirious in his pain, pulling himself along on his side as he laughed maniacally, crawling towards the better part of his left arm cast some dozen feet away along the base of the steps.

  It was he who drew the shadow from the dark.

  As the dying man drew nearer to his lost limb, the fabric of the night seemed to bend inward once more along its southern edge, directly across the firelight from Bjen and his survivors. A part of the black itself broke away from its mother, a massive, winged silhouette that made easy work of the snow on long, powerful legs. In one hand it held a straight sword of some queer kind, and in the other it hefted the mo
st terrifying weapon Bjen had ever seen. It was a great, beautifully-crafted spear, with forked blades, a white handle wrapped with dark leather, and a cruel, pointed tip on its balancing end.

  The four of them stopped abruptly at the creature’s appearance, watching it move. Bjen took in the beast as it made its way slowly across the ring, calm and graceful despite its massive frame. As it moved the shadows twisted around it, splintering when it passed into the fires until six mirroring silhouettes reflected its every step, cast against the mountainside around them.

  When it reached the dying man, who had finally managed to get within reach of his severed left arm, it paused. For a moment it waited, like some terrible raptor studying its prey, watching the laughing man grab his limb and roll onto his back, struggling to reattach the arm to the stump below his left shoulder.