As Iron Falls (The Wings of War Book 4)

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Right now, Brahen, you are filth.”

  Raz’s words whispered out, as sharp as the gladius in his hand. Behind him, the frightened squeals and groans of disbelief were snuffed out like a candle in a soft, dangerous breeze.

  “You think I don’t see what you’ve done here?” Raz snarled quietly down at the man, meeting his wide golden eyes. “You think I don’t know how you’ve gotten to be so strong, when those around you wither away? You use that strength as a weapon against your own kind, wield it as fiercely as the whips in the hands of the Tash’s men to take from them everything you want, knowing not one of them can do anything about it.”

  Raz leaned in until their fangs were only inches from each other. “What would happen, though, if everyone in this room rose up at once? What would happen if I told them all to stand, to fight, to end the suffering, the theft of their food and water, the fear they feel in the night? On their own, sure, there’s nothing they could do.” A growl built in Raz’s throat. “But all together?”

  For the first time, Syrah thought she saw something like fear flicker across Brahen’s face.

  “Yes,” she heard Raz snarl, discerning the same thing. “Yes. You see it now, don’t you? Or did you always see it, and just worked that much harder to control them for fear they'd see it too?” He pressed the blade up a little, causing Brahen to grunt as his head was forced to tilt back. “You’re strong, Brahen. Obviously. Chances are you’re fast, too, and I don’t get the impression you’re a fool. Even with a life ruled by iron and nothingness, the Sun has seen to give you so much. You could have fought to protect these people. You could have stood by them, for them. Instead of fear and hate, you could have built trust and respect.”

  Raz snarled. “But you didn’t. Instead, you beat them, you brought terror into the one place they might have been free from it. You wore them down, used them like stones to whet the blade you then threatened them with. So… Shall we ask them what should be done with you?”

  Brahen’s eyes widened even further, but he couldn’t open his mouth to respond without risking cutting himself on the blade. Raz, for his part, looked up and around, taking in the room.

  “Well?” he demanded, perhaps louder than was advisable given the ruckus they’d already caused and the rumbling of confusion still rising from the quarters below. “What of it?”

  Syrah looked around, scared of what she might behold. She expected to see anger and hate on the faces of the slaves, to see hunger and vengeance painted across the tired hollows of their eyes. She thought even that voices would start ringing up before long, calling for Brahen’s end.

  What she found instead, though, surprised her as much as anything else she’d witnessed that evening.

  To a one, every head was turned toward Raz and the pinned male, but there was no anger lingering in their gazes, no hate or grumblings of “off with his head!”. On the contrary, most of the slaves’ expressions were fearful, even concerned, and to a one they sat and knelt stock-still, like they were afraid a wrong move might take Raz by surprise, and the blade would slip.

  “Arro… Please. Let him go.”

  Karan’s voice didn’t shake when she spoke this time. Instead, it was even, if worried, and when she turned to look at the female Syrah saw that her clawed hands were up and her yellow eyes were on Brahen, like he were a hostage Raz had taken without cause.

  “Please,” she said again, a hint of pleading in her voice this time. “Please. Let him go. You don’t understand. You don’t—you can’t understand. There is nothing in this life but the next day, nothing but surviving to see the Sun come up again. Brahen is a brute, but wouldn’t you be too, if that’s what it took to survive?”

  Raz said nothing, watching her silently, like he expected her to go on.

  “Please,” Karan insisted again, taking a step forward this time. “There is no value in killing him. If he didn’t exist, chances are another just like him would. This life is nothing more than a fight for the next moment, a battle for the next meal, or the next night of sleep. Brahen is merely one example of the few ways those with little else to live for can get by.”

  Behind Syrah, she heard others echo her words. Even Abir, she saw as she turned to face to room, was nodding slowly, though he still hadn't looked up from the floor. Indeed, some of the slaves were getting to their feet, standing—whether uncertainly or with chins held high—to stare Raz down.

  Abruptly, Syrah saw the game he had just won, heard it in his voice as the Dragon chuckled darkly.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise except hers, he got to his feet and wrenched Ahna free of the planks with a grinding crunch.

  “Get up,” Raz snapped down at Brahen. At once, the atherian scrambled to his feet, rubbing his throat and eyeing the dviassegai slung once more over Raz’s shoulder and the gladius hanging loosely in his other hand.

  “You beat them, and you starved them,” Raz growled, not looking away from Brahen. “You made them fear for their lives in the only place they might not have had to. And yet—” he half-turned and swung the sword, making the male flinch until he realized the blade was indicating the cluster of humans and atherian alike who had stood in his defense “—still they understand. Still they wouldn’t want you hurt.”

  He gave those words a moment to sink in, seeing Brahen’s golden eyes sweep over the group, a little of the cruelty lingering there sinking away to be replaced by something altogether different.

  “They would stand by you, despite knowing that you would never have done the same for them,” Raz pressed, turning back to the man. “They would see you live, despite knowing what it would mean for them, perhaps for the rest of their lives.”

  With a flick, Raz tossed the gladius up. It spun twice in the air, then stopped as he caught it in a reverse grip.

  When he presented it to Brahen, hilt first, there was a hiss of shock from the rest of the room.

  “Right now, Brahen, you are filth,” Raz repeated to the male, who stared at the blade with something between amazement and terror. “Personally, I think you’ll try to run me through with this the minute I hand it over. They, though—” he jerked his head over his shoulder to indicate the slaves “—apparently think better of you than that.”

  He shook the gladius, indicating that Brahen should take it.

  “So, what’s it going to be?” the Dragon asked evenly. “Are you going to strike? Are you going to prove me right? Or are you going to use that strength of yours to show me you’re worth a little of their appreciation?” His fangs gleamed in the light of the shimmering magic. “You feared them, when they might have risen together against you. Consider that, and the position you all stand in now.”

  For a long time, Brahen continued to stare at the blade. Nothing moved but the shadows as he took it in, gazing at the intricate grip like he couldn’t decide if accepting it would mean his salvation, or his doom.

  And then, as Karan and many others gasped around her, Syrah watched the male reach out, grasping the sword’s leather hilt in a clawed, white hand.

  In the sheltering shadows of the alley, Syrah stood with Karan once more, watching the camp burn. Abir shivered in a huddled ball behind them, which did nothing to relieve the ache that threatened to swallow much of her heart. For several minutes Syrah couldn’t bring herself to look down at the entrance of the enclosure, couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge the horror of the scene that extended across and beyond most of the road, up to and past the small gate in the south side of the wall. She gave herself the time she needed, allowed herself to seek the Lifegiver in the twisted shapes of the flames and the rising body of the smoke that blotted out what little light the moon had been able to provide.

  When she was finished with her prayers, Syrah took a breath, steeled herself, and turned her eye earthward once more.

  Hundreds of forms moved across the cobbled road, bent and lingering to crowd the aftermath of the battle as they pillaged what they could from the dead, or wailed out in grief wh
ile mourning over the bodies of the lost. Beyond them, the gate’s single broad door, built into the south wall of the compound, was dented and bloody, swung wide to reveal the inferno-like hell that was all the blazing remains of the slave camp. Around it, in the grass of the compound and spilling into the street, the bodies shimmered, partially hidden by the living, but still and black in the shadows of the firelight. Syrah didn’t try to count them, didn’t even give it a thought. The battle had been quick and brutal, she and Raz leading the charge to challenge the soldiers manning the gate with the two-score slaves that took up with them, the other ten spilling out at their rear to break down the doors to the other buildings. At first the guards had put up a good fight, Raz’s strength and Syrah’s magic the only true weapon their little army had against their swords and shields. A dozen slaves or more died screaming within the first minutes of the fight, the Tash’s men shouting alarms and howling for reinforcements. Some ten patrols who’d been nearby answered the call, bolstering the troops with fifty additional men and sending runners to the palace for more.

  By then, though, the hundreds of others had been freed, and no armor or blade in the world could save the soldiers from the sheer mass of howling bodies that thundered over them as swiftly as an avalanche, the humans fighting with pilfered swords and anything else they could get their hands on, the atherian with chipped and broken claws.

  After maybe five minutes, the slaves had won their freedom, paying for it in blood and pain and life, and before long the camp began to burn, fires lit with flint and tinder stolen from the pockets of the dead. Keys had been recovered as well, and even as she watched Syrah witnessed them being passed among the group.

  The pain in her chest sharpened as she saw one shaking, sobbing boy even use them to unclasp the manacles from the still, prone form of a woman who looked just old enough to be his mother.

  “This was the easiest part.”

  Over the crackling roar of the flames, the voice boomed out, making each and every figure in the crowd start and look around. Even Syrah and Karan had to gasp as Raz made himself known, appearing suddenly from the curling smoke atop the wall over the gate, his winged silhouette painted ten feet above the crowd against the shimmering firelight, Ahna hanging from his right hand while her blades dripped black.

  Before long, even the cries of the grieving faded away as all turned to listen.

  “Casting off your chains is only the first step in the journey ahead of each of you,” Raz kept on, his head turning to sweep over the masses that swelled about the street before him. “You have not gained your freedom yet. Even now, the Tash’s soldiers will be gathering.” He raised his free hand to point toward the towering form of the palace in the center of the city. “Even now, the men who think to own you are learning that you are no longer bound in their irons. This—” he cast the hand back at the fires behind him “—is only the first of the battles that must be won. This is only the beginning.”

  He jerked his arm back then, hammering a clawed fist against his broad chest.

  “You know who I am,” he thundered. “Call me what you wish—call me Dragon, or Scourge, or Monster. It does not matter. You know what I have come to do, as you know I will not stop until I see that goal fulfilled. The Tash will fall, and Karesh Syl will either crumble with him, or learn to stand on something other than the broken backs of the enslaved.” He glared around at them, hefting Ahna onto his shoulder before crouching on the wall, like he wanted to whisper a secret to the group. “You are only the smallest part of the uprising you must become. You are only the seed, and so you are the hope. Consider that, as I say this: what is your choice? Will you stay and cower? Will you allow the army to come and throw you back in chains?” He raised a hand and clenched his steel claws into a hard fist. “Or will you seize this chance, this hope, and fight for the freedom of will and life all men deserve?”

  The response was instantaneous. Like the building howl of a winter storm, the voices of the thousand or so that clustered up and down the street at Raz’s feet rose in rapid unison. In seconds the sound was so deafening, Syrah saw Karan cover her ears, though the atherian screamed along just as loudly as any other.

  Pride and courage slipped back in, then, replacing some of the grief that had been weighing at Syrah’s heart as she’d witnessed death claim its fill that night.

  As the cheer died, individual voices could be heard over the fire.

  “To the camps!” one tall man was shouting, thrusting a stolen sword eastward, deeper into the quarter. “To the camps!”

  “Free the others!” a female atherian with a slashing wound across her face howled, and there was a swell of thunderous approval.

  “The Dragon fights for us!” several people screamed. “The Dragon fights for us!”

  And then, with that booming chant catching to echo against the night sky, the crowd surged eastward as one, looking to gather its strength and grant others the same deliverance they had been given on this night.

  When the last of them had thundered past, Syrah, Karan, and Abir were left alone except for Raz’s dark form, still lingering on the wall. With the sudden absence of the living, the gruesomeness of the scene revealed itself in truth, and Syrah couldn’t help but sob in helpless gasps as she gazed out over the street, the corpses of the dead already stiffening in the coolness of the evening air. There were the soldiers, of course, their white leathers slashed and torn and bloody, scattered in clumps here and there where they had been overrun. Far outnumbering them, though, were the other forms, haggard corpses of half-starved men and women and atherian, as well as smaller bodies Syrah just couldn’t bring herself to look at. Instead, as she took in a racking breath she watched Raz drop off the wall, landing among the carnage to pick his way toward a place in the center of the battlefield. When he reached it, he bent down, hesitating over a large, still form.

  When he stood up again, he brought his gladius with him, ever so gently prying its handle free from the heavy, pale-scaled fingers still grasped around its handle.

  When he stepped around the body to approach their little alley through the butchery, Syrah saw that Raz’s strong, righteous demeanor had been replaced with that of a man who bore all the weight of the world on his shoulders. It broke her the slightest bit, and as he reached the shadows they were hiding in, she stepped forward to meet him, wrapping an arm around his muscled frame for the second time in less than an hour, holding him tight.

  Raz accepted the embrace with a relieved sigh, sheathing his gladius over his shoulder so that he could hold her in return.

  When they finally broke apart, he gave her a silent look, conveying his gratitude before speaking.

  “Take the old man, and fetch Akelo and the others,” he told her quietly, nodding to Abir over her shoulder. “Karan likely knows the way. I don’t know where you’ll find me, but we need to regroup. It won’t be long before the Tash gathers the army to retaliate, and we can’t let that happen. Even if we managed to free every slave in the city…”

  “Thousands would die in that battle,” Syrah said sadly, studying his face with concern. “Yes, I know.”

  Raz nodded, taking a breath. “If we’re to end this before it comes to that, we need to strike, and we need to strike fast. Tell Akelo I’ll hear any plan. Tell him to push Aleem and the other recruits for anything they can tell us about the palace, no matter how trivial they think it might be.”

  Syrah gave him a half-hearted smile. “It would be stupid of me to tell you to keep your head down, wouldn’t it?”

  Raz found it in himself to return the grim grin. “It would, yes. They need to see the Dragon. All of them.”

  Syrah watched him a moment more, taking him in. Then she reached up, cupping his cheek, ignoring the stickiness of the blood that clung to his scales.

  Lifting a hand to grasp her fingers briefly in his, Raz closed his eyes, breathing her in.

  Then he was gone.

  Sighing again, Syrah turned to the alley, moving t
o take Abir by the arm. The old man jumped at her touch, looking around at her.

  “Is it… Is it real?” he asked her in a pleading tone. “Are we free?”

  Syrah gave him a sad, warm look. “Soon, I hope,” she told the shivering Percian. “Soon.”

  Then her eye moved to Karan.

  “Do you know the way back?” she asked.

  The female nodded at once, and before long they were hurrying yet again through the winding bends of the back roads, slower this time, allowing Syrah to watch where she was going, which she appreciated.

  It kept her from dwelling on the fact that the war they had come to wage had arrived all too soon, and all too swiftly.

  CHAPTER 49

  “The great poet Arcel Larent of Acrosia is most celebrated for an oeuvre he composed at the deathbed of his greatest love. Even as she passed, he wrote of it, claiming later that in that moment, in that cohesion of fathomless grief and heartbroken inspiration, he was one with the Moon’s divinity, following his beloved into Her Stars for the briefest of moments. In the last line of the poem, he speaks of his fall back to the earthly realm, and of how that final separation from her was “a thing beyond the pain of death, beyond the horrors of any torture and terror.” I thought I had understood that passage, had come to terms with its meaning.