On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 21

  Jovian groaned. “I figured. You know I much prefer to unwrap my presents anyway, rather than just having them show up outside of their packages.”

  Maeven grunted a laugh. “Open the window for me when I’m changed.”

  “Sure thing,” Jovian said, and went to picking up his room. “Maeven, do you have to just toss your clothes everywhere on your way to the window? It’s not like you burst out of them, you know you can fold them up and set them on the bed, right?”

  “But I thought you enjoyed the wrapping?” Maeven smirked.

  “I like unwrapping, not cleaning up after a birthday party,” Jovian grumbled.

  “You’ll live, princess.”

  “But I’m worried you won’t if you don’t pick up after yourself.”

  “Then you would miss my butt,” Maeven picked.

  “But I’ve always wondered how eagle would taste.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Maeven said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m about to break every bone in my body and grow wings.”

  “Have fun,” Jovian said, tossing more wood on the fire.

  The spirit of the eagle came first, swimming up into his consciousness, taking over his senses. It was only when he melded his mind with the eagle, feeling the wild nature, the need for flight, for the cold air against his wings, that the shift happened.

  Maeven opened his mouth to scream as the first of his bones popped, but no noise came out. His mind writhed in pain as bones slid together, forcing muscles that were used to one shape and form into a new one. His bones cracked, rippled like water, and then settled into their new homes.

  He stumbled to the floor, the pain washing over him, and lost himself in the pulsing throb. When it was done, his skin began to prickle, and then the feeling of thousands of bee stings came over him as golden feathers sprouted from his flesh.

  In his calculated sight, he saw Jovian open the window. He jumped up on the ledge, and out he went, his large wings snapping open, and he drifted along the currents of the air.

  He’d wondered for a while why Sara wanted him to go see what this contraption was, and why she didn’t just send a wyrder to find out, casting their mind out of their bodies as Annbell told him they could. Now he remembered why: his sight as an eagle was so much sharper, so much better than a human’s. He could see easily from the clouds what was laid out on the ground beneath him.

  He sighted the object, like a flat stone disk being laid out on the ground. Sparkling sand in various colors was being drawn around the platform in geometrical symbols. He didn’t need to feel the wyrd rippling like waves of heat from beneath him to know that they were performing some wyrded rite.

  The eagle craved flesh, but he had to tell Sara what he’d found. He wrestled against the urge to attack the dwarves below, telling the eagle side of him what he needed to do, that sighting that thing below was the main reason for his flight that day.

  The eagle struggled against him, not understanding the words he was telling it. Finally he sent the image of carrion to the bird’s mind. He told it with images and feelings how grotesque he imagined the chaos dwarves would taste, about how dirty their skin was, and how much they stunk and how their meat was polluted with hate.

  The eagle conformed to his will with an almost snobbish change of mind. Maeven smiled inwardly, and coaxed the eagle back toward the window.

  It wasn’t open. He perched on the sill and rapped on the window with his beak.

  Jovian was standing there, arms crossed, looking out at him.

  “Cold out there, huh?” Jovian said through the glass, leaning his face close to Maeven’s eagle one. “Bet you’d like to come in.”

  Maeven fluffed himself up, twitching his wings and stepping to the side, toward where the window would open when Jovian opened it.

  “Will you clean up after yourself now?” Jovian said.

  Maeven cocked his head, and sidestepped back to where Jovian stood, face nearly pressed against the glass.

  “You know, your clothes? Will you pick them up?” Jovian teased. “You could just stumble naked through the keep.” Jovian held up a woolen shirt. “Or you could just pick up your stuff.”

  Maeven let out a screech, and hammered the glass once, hard, right where Jovian’s face was pressed. The blond boy jumped back with a startled yip. Frowning, he threw the latch on the window.

  Maeven hopped in. He pushed the mind of the eagle aside and merged fully with his human side. The painful transformation back into a real boy happened, muscles and bones pulling this way and that, until he was a shivering, shuddering mass of pain and flesh on the floor.

  Jovian tossed Maeven’s clothes at him.

  “Next time I could let the eagle have you, like it wants to feed, but I feel your mean attitude might have made your meat too nasty.”

  “You didn’t complain about my—”

  “Alright, alright,” Maeven cut him off with a chuckle. “Do you like wrapping gifts as much as you like unwrapping them?”

  “No,” Jovian said. “Besides, there’s no time. You have to report to Sara.”

  “What do you think it is?” Grace asked, peering out at the disk the dwarves and trolls were settling on the ground.

  “I feel wyrd coming off from it,” Dalah said, pulling her purple cloak tighter around her. Her voice puffed out of her mouth in vapor.

  “Can you sense what kind of wyrd?” Grace asked.

  Dalah shook her head, but it was Rosalee who spoke: “Rojo.”

  “What?” Grace asked, narrowing her eyes at her red-headed friend.

  “They’re about to transport something in,” Rosalee said, cocking her head to the side as if she were listening to something speak to her that they couldn’t see.

  “What can we do?” Dalah asked.

  But before Grace could respond, a blast of light shot up from the rojo, like a white beacon to the sky. She waited to hear a blast from the device, even braced herself for it, but nothing came. In fact, if anything, the blast of light that rippled in thrumming waves across the ground now as well, muffled sound.

  Within the light they saw a figure step out, the shape of a human, but the rest of the details were obscured by distance.

  “This one has power,” Rosalee said.

  “I feel it too,” Dalah said. “That’s a sorcerer.”

  “Alarist?” Grace wondered.

  “Most definitely,” Dalah said, stepping back.

  “We need to stop it,” Grace spoke the obvious.

  “We need to disable that device,” Dalah said. “We’ll deal with the sorcerer after, but first we need to make sure that no other sorcerers can make it through.”

  “It’s a rojo,” Grace heard behind her. She turned and looked over the wall to see Sara standing there, a black wool cloak tied tightly around her, her wooden cane holding her erect, if a little stooped to one side. “Maeven informed me.”

  “We see that,” Grace spoke back. “A sorcerer has come through.”

  Even from ground level she could see her sister’s face darken. “Most likely an alarist.”

  Grace nodded, figured Sara might not see her because the sun was behind Grace, and so she spoke: “Yes.”

  “You need to get off that wall,” Sara told her, taking a step forward, limping into the cane. “With their negative wyrd, they can remove the entire wall, send it beyond the Black Gates.”

  Grace looked around; the light from the rojo was fading. The sorcerer approached. Dalah and Rosalee were looking to Grace for instructions.

  “What do we do?” Dalah asked when Grace hadn’t said anything. She looked to her blonde-haired friend, the one who had sacrificed so much already. Grace knew if she asked Dalah to stay on the wall, she would, but she couldn’t ask that.

  “I have a plan,” Grace said, memories of the dream with the Star-eyed flooding into her mind. “If I’m correct, I can get rid of that device. You two need to get off the wall and to safety.”

  “Grace!” Sara barked behind her. “We’ve
no time. Hurry, get to safety.”

  Grace grimaced and made a severe motion to her sister, telling her to shut up.

  “Mag!” Sara called.

  “Yes?” The short-haired sorceress called from the other side of the breach.

  “What are your plans?” Sara asked.

  “Go,” Grace pushed her friends away, toward the stairs. Reluctantly they went, but once on the ground they stopped beside Sara to stare back up at Grace.

  “We need to fall back to the keep. Get our wyrders and archers into the windows, on battlements, that sort of thing. We need to have a guard of soldiers in the entrance hall that we can keep refreshing. We need to bar the steel doors.”

  “Make it happen,” Sara said. “And Grace, get your wrinkly ass off that wall before I blow it down myself!”

  Grace smiled. She knew that Sara knew it was no use trying to get her down. She made another motion, and Sara let out a noise that was half grumble, half yell.

  “Tell Chaos I said hello when you go beyond the Black Gate with that wall!”

  “I will mention it to him, tell him you’re dying to meet him,” Grace said. “Now shut up and let me concentrate if you want me off the wall.”

  Sara fell silent. Mag started giving orders, and soldiers started moving. Grace barely had a mind for what was going on around her, because with the thought of the dream there was another sense within her. She’d felt the stable influence on her muscles from the earth wyrd before, but before now Grace thought it might only have been a figment of her imagination. Now she could feel the presence of the earth like a second heart in her mind, thrumming its power, its presence through her. It waited for her, asking her what she willed of it.

  Earth was her element. Dhasturin were some of the last, most powerful people in all the Realms who could influence elements. Before the Great Realms fell from the grace of Goddess, and the Realm of Spirit left the lands, all people could control elementals to some fashion, some just subtly enough to make the wind blow, others powerfully enough to flatten an entire forest with a tornado.

  Now that the stigmata marked people and their elemental powers had faded, Dhasturin were the only ones who could work with elementals alone. Sorcerers had influence over elementals, but they had to bend the elemental to their will, besting them in battle during their elemental trials.

  Not dhasturin. They worked with their elemental, befriending it, and directing the power with a silver ritual blade called a dhast.

  Grace had blooded hers on Porillon, so it no longer worked. But her dream made her think maybe she retained some of the power. Maybe Goddess had visited her in her sleep, naming her Moonchild.

  Grace shook her head. The sorcerer neared, and she could almost feel Sara growing more impatient with every breath. None of them would leave her, including Mag, who had already gotten her soldiers and wyrders moving off the wall and toward the keep. Granted, none of them were on the parapet with her, but they waited beneath the wall, inside the courtyard.

  Grace was all that remained. And the sorcerer was near enough that Grace could see his black goatee and bald head. She could feel the malignant wyrd of an alarist, curling off him almost in visible waves of malcontent. He was within striking distance.

  The rojo started to glow again, and Grace called to the elemental of earth.

  “We can fight one,” Grace said. “But not two. Elemental, help me!”

  Grace felt the earth respond, a calming presence in her mind. The sorcerer raised his hand, calling his wyrd. Even as he did, Grace opened her mind to the elemental, felt the being infuse her body. She opened a rift in the elemental, all the while staring at the rojo.

  She felt the tremor in the earth. Grace whooped, knowing her power was back. The dream was right. The sorcerer faltered, there was hesitance in his assured pace. He felt the tremble in the earth. He followed it with his wyrd, and turned back to the rojo. Light shot out of the disk once more, but flickered like it was losing strength, losing power.

  And then, with a deafening roar, a giant sinkhole opened beneath the disk, breaking the seal of power around it and splitting it in half as it vanished in a sudden uprush of dust.

  The sorcerer was turning back, hatred in his eyes, but Grace was already running for the stairs.

  His first lick of darklight wyrd hit the wall. The parapets shivered, shuddering as if laboring with the immense power he sent after the divide. She could hear the dust trickling down the sides of the wall; she could hear the mortar groaning. And then the wall vanished, but Grace didn’t. When the wall came down, they heard an uproar of dwarven cries, and the thunder of feet. Grace plummeted to the ground, landing in a tangled heap, snow fluffing up around her. She stood, pushed out of the snow, and felt the heat of the sorcerer’s glare boring into her back. Judging by the panicked looks of Rosalee and Dalah, he was readying another attack.

  But he didn’t get a chance to see it strike. Sara let out a blast of blue fire, and Mag a spear of green lightning. They both struck their mark, throwing him backwards, feet over head, back down the rise and toward the enemy lines.

  “Hurry, you damn ox!” Rosalee said, grabbing Grace under the arm and ushering her to the steel doors of the keep.

  “Cianna!” Pi said, coming down the stairs from her room. The dark-haired woman didn’t stop. “Cianna?” Pi repeated, jogging down the last few steps and closing the distance between her and the necromancer. Pi struggled through the thickening crowd. Maybe Cianna hadn’t heard her over the bedlam in the entrance hall as soldiers crowded into the waiting area. She placed a hand on Cianna’s shoulder, and instantly a thin blade was lowered to her throat.

  Pi stepped back, swallowed, and followed the length of metal to the hilt, which was held by an elf with blue skin that blushed green like heat on cold glass.

  “Shelara, stop!” Cianna said, but it wasn’t Cianna. Pi swallowed again.

  It’s one of the other angels, she thought, noticing Joya for who she was.

  “I’m sorry, you two look so much alike,” Pi said.

  “I understand,” Joya smiled.

  The entrance hall was starting to get packed. Soldiers were coming in, and being directed by Maeven up one set of stairs or the other, depending on what root they were in. The noise was near deafening as orders were given and carried out.

  “Wyrders, we need you to decorate the battlements,” Mag said as she came in. “Archers with them — if you can’t get on the battlements, then a window will work.”

  “What’s going on?” Pi asked, pushed out of the way and closer to Joya by a group of soldiers as they made their way up the stairs to the right.

  “The wall’s come down, so there’s been a change of plans.” It was Mag who spoke. “We need all wyrders to the towers now.”

  Pi nodded, but she didn’t move. She pretended that she couldn’t break into the flow of soldiers, but the truth was, she wanted to go check on Clara.

  Mag moved on.

  “If you’re looking for Cianna,” Joya said quietly. “I saw her in the infirmary with Devenstar. They were with another girl, a blonde girl.”

  “Was she awake?” Pi asked.

  “No.” Joya shook her head sadly.

  “She still has her trial of fire to go through,” Pi said, looking down are her feet.

  Joya laid a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll be fine. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go figure out where to stand.”

  Pi nodded. She watched Joya cross the entrance hall when there was a lull in soldiers, and make her way up the left staircase.

  “Oh,” Joya said. Pi turned back. “If you see Cianna, tell her what Mag is telling everyone.”

  Pi nodded, and in the confusion of the entrance hall, slipped down the stairs into the infirmary. It was nearly as silent as a tomb there. The healers weren’t needed as much now that most of the cots were empty, their occupants either well enough to be back to the effort, or stacked up in the back, covered with sheets, waiting to be burned because their wounds had
been too bad.

  Pi saw Devenstar and Cianna almost as soon as her feet hit the floor. She crossed to them, and Cianna looked up before Pi got to them.

  “Still no change,” Cianna told her.

  “I saw your cousin,” Pi told her. “I thought it was you.” She tried to laugh, but was too nervous with what was happening outside to muster more than a fake chuckle. Nerves swirled in her stomach sickeningly at the thought of the keep being overrun with dwarves. But she couldn’t think of that now; somehow they would make it.

  “That would be Joya,” Cianna said, giving a tight smile. “I can see how we would be confused for one another.”

  “The wall has been breached, or is about to be. Mag is moving soldiers inside, and has said all wyrders need to find a place on battlements or in windows for the coming fight,” Pi told them.

  “We’d better go then,” Devenstar said, standing and offering a hand to Cianna.

  Cianna took his hand and stood.

  “How about you?” Devenstar asked.

  “I think I’m going to sit with her for a few, then I will find you guys,” Pi said.

  Devenstar didn’t release Cianna’s hand after they stood. She loosened her grip, waiting for him to let go, but he only tightened his fingers, and she smiled. She tightened hers as well, her heart soaring in her chest.

  Dear Goddess, woman. She didn’t want to be one of those women who thrilled at the touch of a man, but she couldn’t help it. All these years she had told herself she wouldn’t get involved with a man because of what happened with her mother, but here she was.

  But Devenstar was different . . . wasn’t he?

  Mom probably thought Arael was different, too, Cianna told herself. Her fluttering heart shut up about that time.

  “Where to?” Devenstar asked when they reached the entrance hall, now being quickly overcome with soldiers. There was barely any room to maneuver.

  “My room is at the top of the right tower,” Cianna said.

  “Oh yeah,” Devenstar said, wagging his eyebrows at her. She laughed. Soldiers turned to stare. She tried to drop her hand again, embarrassed, but Devenstar tightened his grip again. He pulled her toward the stairs to his right.