As Iron Falls (The Wings of War Book 4)

by Bryce O'Connor

  The atherian from whose back they extended, though, was even more awe-inspiring.

  He was the biggest male she had ever seen. Though he never stood straight as he fought, Karan was sure even Brahen would have had to look up to this frightening figure of claws, muscle, and steel. Finely crafted armor encased his right arm, left leg, and both shins, and plate gauntlets covered both his forearms, tipping each finger in a wicked metal claw. In one hand he wielded a strange, narrow-headed axe, while in the other he hefted the most terrifying weapon Karan had ever laid eyes on. It was some sort of spear, the broad, double-bladed head of the thing looking like it weighed a hundred pounds on its own, but in the atherian’s hands the weapon looked to be lighter than the air it shrieked through. Even as she watched, the thing moved in an arcing blur that transitioned flawlessly into a series of stabbing slices, engaging two men at once while the male used his axe to meet a third.

  The other two, including the officer who had put her on the ground, were already lying in ragged heaps on either side of her, twitching and coughing up blood as they died.

  Even if Karan had been able to believe outright what she was seeing, the next thirty seconds did nothing to manage her stunned astonishment. As she watched, the winged atherian cut down the other soldiers in quick succession, felling them with such graceful, brutal ease he might have been little more than a skilled butcher handling a few fine cuts of meat. The first dropped as he stepped out of the way too slowly. He crumbled to his knees, howling in pain and clutching at his abdomen and the massive diagonal gash that had been carved into it by the cruel, curved edges of the spear. The second—fortunately for him—died much faster, the axe looping and crushing his sword hand, than zipping back to crash through the steel of his helmet before the soldier even had time to scream. Finally, with no other distractions to bother with, the atherian turned his full attention on the last man standing, bringing both spear and sword to bear.

  The soldier didn’t last more than a few seconds, shrieking in fear and pain as the male’s steel sliced his flesh to ribbons, then becoming suddenly silent as a clawed foot caught him in the side of the head in a spinning kick, breaking his neck with an audible crack.

  When this fifth body fell to the ground, there were a few seconds of stillness, the quiet of the night returning to the world except for muffled shouts of confusion and alarm coming from the buildings around them.

  Then the male’s eyes turned on Karan.

  Had she noticed them during the fight, she knew it was those eyes she would have found most fascinating. More than the male’s size, more than his strange weapons and armor, more even than his damn wings, it was his eyes. She had seen danger in the gazes of her kind before. She had seen wild savagery in slaves who had had enough, as well as protective ferocity in the mothers of those poor babes born into a life of chains. She had seen insanity and madness, brought on by hunger and fear and grief and every combination in between.

  But she had never, not once, witnessed even a measure of the cold, confident lethality that shone bright in the amber depths of this male’s stare.

  And it was that, more than anything, that convinced Karan of the truth.

  “Dragon,” she managed to say, pushing herself up to a side-sitting position, wincing and almost passing out as she did. “You’re… You’re Arro. You’re the Dragon.”

  The atherian blinked at her, almost in surprise. He looked about to say something, his mouth cracking open, when a shout from over his shoulder drew his attention.

  “Raz!”

  The male—Raz i’Syul Arro—turned quickly, and Karan looked past him. A human woman had come rushing out of a building along the east side of the road, one of the city inns that housed the hundreds of sellswords and travelers that passed through Karesh Syl on any given day. This particular woman, though, looked nothing like any mercenary Karan had ever seen. She was tall and fit, her entire body covered in white robes of thin, breathable silk that extended in long sleeves down her arms, a heavy steel staff clutched in one hand as she ran. Her hands were covered in bleached leather gloves, and her dirty boots were made of the same material, giving her the look of a shifting apparition as she passed beneath the staggered brightness of the lamps. In the night, she was about as strange a sight as the winged Dragon.

  “Syrah!” Arro snarled in what seemed almost to be protective anger. “What are you doing? If they catch us out here—!”

  “If they catch you out here, it would be problematic enough!” the woman—Syrah, the atherian had called her—snapped back as she rushed right past him. To Karan’s utter surprise, she took a hurried knee directly in front of her. As she did, Karan noticed even odder things than the stranger’s attire and weapon. The skin of the woman’s face was ghostly pale, and a single, rose-red eye shone with concern as it took in Karan’s shivering form, the other hidden behind a wrap of frayed black cloth. Her hair was bone-white and scraggly, like it hadn't been washed in too many weeks, loose lengths of it falling across her cheeks.

  An albino? Karan thought, so stunned she didn’t even think to flinch away when the woman reached out with a gloved hand.

  “Poor girl,” the woman murmured, sounding heartbroken as her fingers settled against Karan’s cheek. “Hold still. This won’t take a moment.”

  Karan didn’t think she could have moved far even if she hadn't been rooted to the spot, staring between this strange, white-haired figure and the towering form of the Dragon looming behind her, head flicking this way and that at every muffled shout from the buildings above. Before Karan could think to ask what was about to happen, there was a flash of white light that left her blinking, and she started in surprise.

  Then, like water draining from a bowl, the pain and the thrumming of her head faded, her thoughts clearing at once.

  “W-what was that?” Karan demanded, scrambling back and realizing as she did that much of the ache of the beating had fled her body. “What did you do?”

  “Only a small thing,” the woman answered, trying for a smile and holding up her hand as though she meant no harm. “The magics will do what they can, which will hopefully keep you from waking up tomorrow feeling like you were trampled by a horse.”

  “Magics?” Karan repeated, unsure she had heard correctly. “What do you…? Magics?”

  The woman only held her smile. “My name is Syrah Brahnt, a Priestess of Laor, the Lifegiver. This is Raz.” Still kneeling, she gestured back to the atherian behind her.

  “I know who he is,” Karan said quickly, taking in the massive male again. “I’ve heard the stories.”

  Behind Brahnt, Arro grunted in annoyance. “I’ll bet you have,” he grumbled, still keeping an eye out for trouble. “I’ve about had enough of these damn ‘stories.’” Then he looked down at the woman between them. “Syrah, what about the others? Are they going to—?”

  “I told Akelo to stay put,” Brahnt said quickly, using her staff to push herself to her feet. “He had Cyper spread the word to the others.”

  “Good,” the Dragon grunted, looking like he was thinking fast. “We have to get off this damn street, now.”

  As though to punctuate his words, there was a slam above, and all three of them glanced up to see shutters being shoved open and a pudgy, ugly face peek out of the open window. The fat Percian blinked for a second or two as he peered up and down the road, beady eyes adjusting to the dark.

  Then he saw them.

  “There!” he howled, leaning out to point with a thick finger as he hollered at the top of his lungs. “It’s him! It’s him! Guards! GUARDS!”

  The Dragon moved in a blink, too quick for Karan to realize what he was doing before she felt the steel claws of his strong fingers grip her under the arm, hauling her quickly to her feet.

  “Can you run?” he demanded, already dragging her toward the mouth of the nearest alley.

  “N-no,” Karan stammered, staggering and almost tripping again, much of the ache returning to her legs as they accepted her wei
ght.

  Apparently, the Priestess’ magic could indeed only do so much.

  “Raz!” Brahnt hissed, following them in a rush. “The chains! The chains!”

  The Dragon looked down as he pulled them into the shadows of the side-street, taking in Karan’s manacles with a curse. Obviously, he had forgotten about them.

  “Can you weaken them?” he demanded of the woman, though he didn’t stop, half-carrying Karan deeper between the buildings.

  “Maybe,” Brahnt answered, catching up to them. “But I need a moment!”

  “We might not have a moment!”

  “Raz, let her go! We’ll move faster if we get rid of them!”

  Get rid of them? Karan repeated to herself, still reeling at the surreal situation, unable to follow what they were saying. Even when the Dragon swore again, this time halting and resting her roughly against the nearest wall before bending down at her side, Karan struggled to comprehend.

  It wasn’t until Arro dropped his great spear—‘Ahna’, she remembered from the legends—onto the floor of the alley, then took the manacle and chains about her left ankle, that she understood.

  From a distant place of disbelief, Karan heard the male tell Brahnt to hurry. Indeed, her keen ears were picking up the hammering of feet and shouted orders and questions in the distance, undoubtedly soldiers come running at the shouted alarms now echoing tenfold all around them. Despite this, the albino woman took a second as she, too, bent down beside the Dragon, muttering what sounded like a prayer under her breath.

  Then she touched the metal between his massive hands.

  Karan felt a brief sear of heat as the chains began to glow, but then Arro grunted with effort, and with a screech of bending steel the links separated from the cuff. They repeated the same thing on the other side, and suddenly Karan was free, the winged male retrieving Ahna from the ground before standing up and handing her the still-cooling chains that had bound her for as long as she could remember.

  “Freedom is easy to give, girl,” the Dragon said as she accepted the broken length of metal links in stunned comprehension. “It’s harder to keep. Stay, or come with us. It’s your choice now.”

  And with that, he was gone, hissing to the Priestess to follow him. Brahnt gave Karan a meaningful look and a nod of encouragement, then hurried to follow the Dragon deeper into the maze of alleys.

  Karan stood staring down at the chains in her clawed hands. She gaped at the metal, limp and loose across her palms, like a dead thing that had only ever been given life by her misery. It weighed as much as the world, and yet nothing at the same time, and Karan saw the path she had never wanted but always known, etched in the nicks and rubbings of the steel.

  Then, with a single skip of her heart, she threw the chains aside and followed the Dragon and Priestess into the depths of the night.

  For perhaps the first time in her life, Karan ran unburdened.

  CHAPTER 46

  “Shield us from the darkness of the world, as we seek to chase it away with Your light. Protect us from the wickedness of man, as we strive to bring out the best that You have woven in him.”

  —basic Laorin prayer, taught to first-year acolytes

  As they ran, Syrah sent a messenger spell back to the Red Shield, letting Akelo and the others know that she and Raz were alive and in one piece. She’d wanted to say more, wanted to tell the men that they would find a way to reconnect when time allowed, but even that simple magic was hard enough to gather as they half-sprinted through the dark, trusting in Raz alone to guide them.

  She would have to believe the old kuja was smart enough to know to keep the band's heads down until they found a way to regroup.

  More than once, Syrah found herself cursing her missing eye in the dark. It had taken months of exercise and hard work in the practice chambers of Cyurgi ‘Di to get back even some sense of the depth perception she’d lost, and here in the faintest light of the overcast night sky her damaged vision was punishing her at every turn. She tripped over stacks of wood and baskets left out by workers and weavers during the day, and nearly slammed into walls as they took sharp corners. Ragged clothes left out to dry came ripping off their lines as she tangled herself between them, and once she almost dunked herself into a horse trough that seemed to have magically appeared across her path. Had it not been for the female atherian behind her, yelping a warning just in time, Syrah would likely have ended up face-first in the water, or knocked her teeth out on the edge of the stone basin.

  It was after this near-miss—and almost five minutes of half-panicked, haphazard running through the back-ways and side-streets—that Syrah decided they’d well and truly lost themselves.

  “Raz, that’s far enough!” she whispered as loudly as she dared. “It won’t do us any good losing the soldiers if we can’t find our own way out!”

  Raz, apparently, had been having the same thought, because as he slowed and jogged to a halt he frowned and looked around at the shadowy faces of the buildings rising up around them. Syrah did the same, squinting up into the night, but could make out little more than the ragged edge of the roofs above.

  “Idiot.” Raz was berating himself under his breath, turning in a circle as he tried to get his bearings. Apparently, even despite his better vision, he had no more of a clue where they had ended up than Syrah did. “Where are we?”

  “Laor knows,” Syrah snorted, looking over her shoulder. “We have a moment to find out, though. I don’t think they followed us.”

  “These are… the miller’s quarters,” a small voice said between ragged breaths. “Just… Just north of the outer markets.”

  Together, Syrah and Raz turned to face the female atherian, who was resting with her back against the wall, trying hard to control her gasps for air. Now, as they paused in their flight from the gruesome scene of the butchered soldiers, Syrah finally had a chance to study the lizard-kind in detail.

  She was a tall, thin youth, like a child who had grown up too fast on too little food. Her skin was mostly the same dark shade as Raz’s, except for a single upside-down triangle of yellow scales that led from the line of her jaw down her throat, the point settling at her chest. Her eyes were a similar shade, like the midday sun, a little brighter and lighter than Raz’s amber irises. They were the color of warmth and joy, except that at the moment the female’s gaze was averted from either of them, looking down at the ground as she kept fighting to control her uneven breathing.

  It was Syrah’s turn to curse herself, and she hurried toward the girl at once.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, reaching out with her free hand to rest her fingers against the atherian’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t be used to running, would you?”

  The girl didn’t respond, but as Syrah’s spell poured into her, rejuvenating her tired limbs, her golden eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Magic,” she said again, standing straight and breathing easier, watching Syrah’s hand as she pulled it away. “Is it…? By the Sun…”

  Syrah would have laughed, but Raz cut her off.

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  At his deep, double-tenor voice, the atherian started, her eyes jumping to him before dropping back down to the ground again.

  “Karan,” she said hesitantly. “Karan Brightneck.”

  That got a chuckle out of Raz, which seemed to help the female relax slightly.

  “Head up, Karan,” he told her with surprising gentility. “Never refuse to meet another’s gaze again. You are not a slave anymore.”

  The words shivered over the female, and Syrah watched with something like amazement as Karan’s chin lifted slowly.

  “Not a… Not a slave…” she echoed the words. “I’m… free?”

  “You are,” Syrah answered the question, feeling a well of pride and sadness as the female looked to her. “You are no one’s property, Karan. You are yours, and yours alone now.”

  “Mine…” Karan said, bringing her hands up to stare at them. “Mine�
� alone…”

  “And we want to make sure you stay that way,” Raz told her, firmly now. “But to do that, we need your help. How do you know where we are? Is there somewhere nearby we could hide, at least for the time being?”

  “Raz…” Syrah warned him quietly. “Give her a moment…”

  “We don’t have a moment,” Raz responded impatiently, not looking away from the female. “Karan, I swear I will do everything in my power to ensure you have all the time in the world to dwell, but right now I need your focus here, with us. Can you do that?”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  Then the female nodded, though she didn’t look up from her hands.

  “Good,” Raz said, peering about at the dark backs of the buildings on either side of the alley once more. “Then I ask again: how do you know where we are?”