As Iron Falls (The Wings of War Book 4)

by Bryce O'Connor

  They still feared him plenty, but with every passing day it seemed that fear was measured off with more and more contempt.

  And so, when the front door of the inn opened and two men stepped out of the dim light of the cave outside, the captain saw his chance.

  “Ho, friends!” he hailed them, pulling himself away from the bar and lifting a tankard as though to greet the strangers. “You lost yer way?”

  All around him, his crew began to still, turning in the direction of their captain’s voice. It would have been exactly what Wylsh needed, drawing their attention to an opportunity for a little fun, except for one issue: the two men ignored him utterly, not even glancing in his direction as they moved toward the bar.

  This did nothing to improve the man’s temperament.

  “Oy!” Wylsh called angrily as the pair reached the counter, each stepping through several layers of sailors like water through loose stone. “I’m talking to you, uglies!”

  This time one of them glanced his way, and the captain felt a stone drop into his stomach, a sensation he didn’t like in the least.

  The man’s eyes were grey as dry slate, set over a pointed nose above a beard that looked like it might have been black had it not been frosted and bleached by the sun. His skin was bronzed, though perhaps lightened by the Northern climate, and his clothes were nothing of note; a brown tunic atop cotton pants, with black boots that looked to have been very finely made. A sword, a wide-bladed saber, was slung diagonally at the back of his belt. All in all, the man looked as though he could have been the older brother of the tanned bitch who’d arrived with the Monster not half a week past, except that there was something missing in his gaze, like a light that should have been there had gone out.

  When the man looked away again, it took Wylsh several seconds to regain his composure. Then, though, his anger at being ignored flared in truth, and the next thing he knew he was shoving his way through the crowd.

  “OY!” he yelled again, louder now as he approached the two men. “I’m bloody well not someone you’d best ignore, hear?”

  This time, the entire room went quiet. All around Wylsh men and women were ducking away quickly, taking their cups and tankards with them. He could almost feel the gaze of his crew on his back, and knew there was no backing down now. Once he’d won this fight, he’d give leave for them to pick the bodies clean. That would earn him back some of the respect he’d lost.

  But as the two men turned to face him, the space around them suddenly clear of patrons, Wylsh felt some of his confidence slip away.

  Their eyes… It was like looking into the faces of the dead, like their souls had been cast aside in favor of a stiller, hungrier emptiness that lay there in wait.

  “We’ve no business with you,” one of the men—the one who hadn't looked at Wylsh when he’d last yelled—said coolly. “Begone.”

  He spoke with the accent of a Southerner, which was hardly surprising given the pair’s complexions. This man, though, was clean-shaven. He was a little shorter than his companion, as well as younger, but the way the other stood slightly over and behind his shoulder made it clear this was the one in charge.

  Wylsh sneered. “If you’ve come ta’ the Cove, then you’ve business with me. The Sylgid’s been gone three days now, and the Hollow Arrow leaves port tonight. Ain’t gonna be nothin’ left but my Drake.”

  “Is that so?” the man asked with distinct disinterest, turning toward the counter once again. “Unfortunately for you, we do not come seeking a smuggler.”

  “Then what did ya’ come for?” the captain asked, gritting his teeth at this continued indifference.

  “The Monster of Karth,” the stranger said, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear him, though he never turned away from the counter. “We are seeking Raz i’Syul Arro.”

  At once the quiet that had fallen over the room thickened, weighing down like dark clouds threatening rain. Behind him, Wylsh heard someone among his own men snicker, and he fought back the urge to whirl on them and roust the offender.

  Instead, his just gave the travelers a nasty smile.

  “That so?” he asked with feigned sweetness, his hands moving to the hilts of his cutlass and long knife. “Ya’ friends of his, or somethin’?”

  The one in charge stilled, then turned slowly to take Wylsh in much more carefully.

  “Or something, yes,” he replied simply. “Why?”

  “'Cause Wylsh’s left ear ain’t a fan o’ the scaly!” someone shouted from the back corner of the room to a roll of laughter from his fellows. Again, the captain had to work hard to ignore the taunt.

  “I see,” the stranger said slowly, his eyes moving to take in the browning bandages that encased the side of Wylsh’s head. “That means he was here, I take it. When?”

  Wylsh frowned at that. “Ain’t yer business when,” he spat. Then he grinned, getting an idea. “You want information, you pay. Tha’s the way of the world, ya’ know?”

  The stranger’s mouth tightened, and he shared a look with the older man.

  “We are willing to pay for good information,” he said after a moment, turning back to Wylsh. “Tell us what you know.”

  Wylsh chuckled, shrugging and slowly drawing the sword from his hip. “Ya’ got coin on you, you mean? Tha’s good. Maybe if it’s enough then we can tell yer corpses before we throw them into the sea.”

  “Eram.”

  The shorter of the men said the word coolly, like he was sighing in exasperation. In response, however, there was a blur of silver and grey, and Wylsh howled in pain and was forced to release the cutlass as his wrist was enclosed in an iron grip and pinned with crushing force against the bar to his right. The sound was cut short, though, as the gleaming silver edge of a saber appeared under his chin, pressing him until he was bent backward over the counter. Instinctively his free hand groped for his long knife, but even as he found the hilt a voice growled in his ear.

  “Try it, and I bleed you dry.”

  The older man stood over Wylsh, pinning his wrist with one hand and pressing his head back and down against the bar with his sword. The captain, for his part, couldn’t do more than blink up at him in confused surprise. The stranger had moved so fast it was almost like facing the Dragon again.

  This time, though, he didn’t hear any of the crew draw their weapons in protest.

  “Smuggler.”

  Wylsh turned wide eyes to his right. The shorter of the men had come to stand behind the captain’s captor, looking down at him impassively even as the razor edge of the saber tickled his neck.

  “Eram will not hesitate to separate your head from your shoulders,” the stranger said calmly, his dead eyes boring into Wylsh’s. “Of course, if you tell us what you know, that won’t be necessary. Now—” his grey eyes narrowed warningly “—when was the Monster here?”

  Wylsh would have liked, in that moment, to spit in the man’s face and tell him to go fuck his mother. To his credit, he almost managed it, his face twisting in preparation. Then the man standing over him—Eram—pressed the sword in ever so slightly, and the captain felt the skin of his throat burn as it parted like paper beneath the blade.

  “Th-three days!” Wylsh said hurriedly, his words choking as he swallowed with difficulty. “He was here three days past!”

  The shorter man, nodded slowly. “Good. Where did he go?”

  “Boarded the Sylgid!” Wylsh answered at once, feeling his back start to ache at the cruel angle he was bent. “Sh-ship belongs to Garht Argoan! Headed for Perce!”

  The stranger looked surprised at this. “Do you know where and when it’s scheduled to arrive?”

  Wylsh tried to shake his head, then thought better of it. Beneath him, he felt spilled ale soaking through the back of his shirt. “H-he makes stops en route. All along the coast. Slows him down. Sh-should be about eight weeks, if weather’s good.”

  For another minute or so they questioned him, and Wylsh told them everything, ignoring the warm we
tness he felt seeping down the lines of his collar. He told them of the one-eyed Priestess the Dragon had been traveling with, and the Southern woman who had accompanied them both. He told them of how Argoan set sail with them at first light of the following day. He even, in his panic, told them of how he himself had challenged the atherian, and essentially lost his ear as a result.

  For some reason, that tale seemed to strike a nerve with the two men, as though hearing of the Dragon’s prowess rubbed them the wrong way.

  Apparently Wylsh wasn’t the only one to have lost a fight to the lizard.

  “Anything else?” the shorter man asked finally.

  “No,” Wylsh said at once. “No, nothing. I swear on Laor himself.”

  Eram sneered at the name of the Northern deity, but glanced over his shoulder. The unnamed Southerner nodded once, and in a flash the sword was lifted from Wylsh’s throat and his right wrist released. He sagged to the floor at once, rubbing his neck and coughing as his hand came away bloody.

  When he lifted his head, the crew of the Drake stood about him in a loose circle, not one among them looking like they held even an ounce of sympathy in their glares. Abruptly, Wylsh realized he had just lost his ship, and the blood rushed from his head, leaving him cold and shivering. Through his daze his eyes moved, seeking those at fault.

  The two men were walking away, back toward the entrance, without giving him so much as a second glance.

  Wylsh saw red.

  His saber still lay where it had dropped to the floor beside him. Snatching it up with one hand, the captain scrambled to his feet, drawing his knife from his hip as he did. Shoving a few onlookers out of the way, he stumbled after the strangers, cursing as he did. He caught up to them just as they reached the door of the tavern, and with a howl he lunged, looking to plunge pointed steel into the men’s turned backs.

  The blades never got within a foot of either of them.

  It was not Eram, the taller one, who moved this time. Instead, it was the clean-shaven man, the younger of the two. One moment he was facing the door, away from Wylsh, and the next he was facing toward him. The Southerner didn’t even bother drawing a blade. Instead, he twisted and struck out, dodging the saber and dashing the knife from Wylsh’s other hand. Unable to stop his own impetus, Wylsh tripped forward, his cry strangling desperately in his throat. The man moved around him like smoke, spinning and ducking before slamming an elbow into Wylsh’s lower back. With nothing left between them, the captain slammed headfirst into the door.

  Then, before he could even begin to recover and turn around, he felt the saber ripped from his grasp.

  Shlunk. Crack.

  Pain unlike anything Wylsh could have ever imagined erupted from his abdomen. His breath came in a hot inhalation, and he screamed as the agony spread through his body, rocking up his back and through his limbs. He pounded and scrabbled at the wood he was pressed up against, unable to comprehend why he couldn’t step away from it, why he couldn’t move. When he managed look down, he saw the bloody width of a blade he recognized all too well protruding from his gut and disappearing into the timber planks of the door.

  He had been impaled, pinned to the wood with his own sword.

  It was as he made this realization that the shock began to overcome him. The pain began to subside, and Wylsh felt numbness tickling up from his fingers. He would have stopped moving, perhaps, except that someone reached for the latch next to his hip, and in the next moment his feet were being dragged over the floor as the two men opened the door they’d nailed him to.

  He didn’t see their faces again, but even over his renewed screams as the cutlass shifted through his torso, Wylsh heard them speak.

  “Ehmed,” the one called Eram said quietly, stepping through the opening and back out into Highmast Cove as though nothing had happened, “shall I send a bird?”

  The other man—Ehmed—responded at once. “Yes. Immediately. Tell Na’zeem the Monster sails for Perce.”

  PART II

  CHAPTER 20

  “There is power in this world, Hana, magic none among our people or any other truly comprehend. You may not possess it, but there are those who do, those who have been touched by the Daystar or the Night Eye. Believe in that power, my child. I hope it will bless your reign as often as it has blessed my own…”

  —Shas-ronah Rhan, Last-Queen, to her daughter Shas-hana

  Uhsula of the Undercaves awoke to darkness.

  There was nothing strange about that. She had lived too many decades already in her blind solitude, depending on others to tend to her needs. It had become comforting, even, not to have to see the pity and weariness in the faces of those around her, many of whom she was sure believed—with perhaps good reason—that she had long outlived her usefulness.

  But now, on this day, Uhsula smiled into the blackness, the images of her dreams lingering in the shadows of her empty vision.

  A winged ship, sailing beneath the arcing gaze of the Daystar, cutting through blood-red waters and leaving behind a frozen sheet of frosted waves.

  “Mistress?”

  Uhsula slowly rolled her head left, in the direction the voice had come from, ignoring the painful creak of her neck against the furs that layered the flat stone bed she rested upon. It took her a moment to sense the handmaiden’s presence, but eventually she found the female, lingering near the wall on the other side of the room.

  “Water,” Uhsula croaked through a parched throat. At once she heard the handmaid hurry to the far corner, then approach accompanied by the slosh of a full pail. After a few seconds a clawed hand slid carefully behind Uhsula’s head, gently lifting it as a ladle was pressed to her lips. She drank greedily, commanding the female to assist her twice more before she felt satisfied.

  “Will that be all, mistress?” the handmaid asked quietly after she had eased Uhsula’s head back down on the bed.

  The old seer shook her head. “No,” she said hoarsely. “Fetch the Queen.”

  She felt the female shift uncomfortably beside her. “Th-the Queen, mistress?”

  Uhsula nodded slowly. She couldn’t blame her young assistant for her uncertainty. It had been nearly a year since she’d called up Shas-hana Rhan, though the Queen made a point to visit herself when she could. Since the start of the last cool season, Uhsula had had no visions, had been able to provide no news of the state of their larger plan. Her sight had not extended beyond the realm of the Daystar, the First Born. It could not penetrate the natural magics that separated the sands from the cold lands of the northern woods.

  But now the visions had returned. Now the sight took life before her blind eyes once more.

  Uhsula couldn’t help cracking a quivering, toothless smile.

  “Fetch the Queen,” she said again. “Tell her our great hope has started to make his way home. Tell her he returns with a woman of ice and snow on his arm.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “‘Heave-ho, heave-ho, a seaman goes,

  sailing as the captain says!

  Heave-ho, heave-ho, a seaman goes,

  as they toss him to the depths!”

  —excerpt of a sailing song, c. 860v.S., author unknown

  Clang! Woosh. Clang!

  Steel struck wood in a dull echo over the emptiness of the ocean. Syrah ducked under a blow, then leapt clear over the haft that would have taken her at the ankles before moving forward to strike again.

  Clang!

  “Better!” Raz shouted from off to the side. “Now take her down!”

  Syrah didn’t know who it was he was encouraging, but decided to follow his advice. She was close to her opponent now—too close, truth be told, given that she herself was wielding her Priestess’ staff—but Raz was slowly drilling into her that focusing solely on one’s own advantages often left you blind to opportunity in a fight. In that moment she saw her chance, and she took it. Sidestepping quickly before her adversary could retreat and reclaim some range, Syrah feigned a high swing, turning it at the last second into a
spinning jab that placed the rod of steel squarely between the woman’s legs. Syrah twisted the staff, complementing the move with a spinning kick that caught her opponent in the chest.

  Lysa, the ship’s first mate, gave a rough “Oof!” as she tumbled to the deck, her feet suddenly no longer beneath her.

  There were shouts and applause from all around them as Syrah stood straight, wiping the sweat from her brow and smiling broadly before turning to face the spectators. Thirty or so men and women, most of the third of the crew who weren’t on duty at the time, were lounging about in a crescent around their little cleared space on the deck. Some had their legs over the Sylgid’s rails, alternately watching the fight and the blue-green water flowing by below them. Some were perched in the riggings and lowest booms overhead, cheering or groaning as they passed coins back and forth from won and lost wagers. Most, including Raz himself, were seated or standing among the covered crates and cargo tied down mid-ship. The atherian was clapping and grinning with the rest of them, and Syrah beamed at him before stepping over to extend a hand to Lysa.