On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Read online

  Which it was — like how Joya looked so much like Cianna, just younger, shorter, and with more attitude.

  You would think a necromancer would be bitchier than a sorcerer, he thought. That wasn’t the case. Sure, he had only ever had pleasant encounters with Joya, but there was the feeling to her that she had been through a lot, and it was best not to cross her, because she wasn’t the type to give second chances. Talk about strike first, ask questions later.

  “What’s that?” Pi asked beside him, pulling him from his thoughts.

  “What?” he asked, looking up.

  The dark-haired girl pointed off in the distance over the plains. He heard something rumbling, but didn’t really see anything. Was she looking with wyrded vision? He didn’t think so.

  And then he saw it. Torches.

  “Probably just a nightly patrol of dwarves.”

  “They’re kind of close.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “How’s Clara?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t seen her since this morning.” Pi looked downcast when they talked about his sister. He could understand. Devenstar hadn’t known anyone to ever take so long going through their trials. It wasn’t like Clara was bad at wyrd, or using her sorcery.

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Deven said. “Why don’t you go check on her?”

  “Flora would kill me if I left my post,” she huffed, and in the weak lamplight he saw her eyes roll.

  “What post?” Deven asked, leaning against the parapet. “There’s seriously nothing going on here.”

  “I know,” she mumbled, looking at the same group of archers, their bows against the wall, laughing over a bottle they were passing around.

  “Then go to her,” Devenstar told her. “That’s a command.”

  “Who gave you authority over me?” Pi asked.

  “Um, the Realm Guardian ranked me higher than you,” Devenstar said, and then smiled.

  “Oh, yeah,” Pi said. “Well, who am I to refuse orders from my ranking officers?”

  “Exactly,” Deven said, slapping her on the shoulder.

  She scooted past the soldiers and skittered down the stairs. He watched her retreating form, her hair bouncing as she ran to the keep.

  He turned back and watched the torches coming closer. They were definitely up to something. At first he thought they were patrols, but now that he watched, Devenstar could definitely see that they were congregating around something.

  But what? he asked himself.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Suddenly a flash of fire roared to life, and he saw a huge ball of something illuminated on the ground below, crackling and popping angrily.

  “Guys!” Deven yelled. “I think we have—”

  But he never got to finish his words. The archers crouched over their dice looked up at him just as a giant twang sounded in the night and the ball of fire arced through the air, flying high and over the wall.

  Devenstar crouched down, hands over his ears. Despite that, he heard the roar as the ball flew over the ramparts, felt the heat on his back. For a startling moment there was silence, and then a great reverberation. A shudder shook the ground. Glass shattered and rained down in the courtyard. He heard people scream.

  Devenstar eased himself up, looking over the edge to see soldiers stumbling away from a giant naphtha ball in the courtyard, burning and licking the air like a giant bonfire. He looked up, expecting to see the keep torn asunder. But despite some broken windows and a large dent in the side of the steel keep, there was little damage.

  But that wasn’t the end of the attack.

  There was a hushed noise, followed by a resounding crack of some kind, like trees snapping. Then the air grew still. Soldiers stood, holding torches high, and looked toward the keep.

  “Oh, shi—!” One of the archers started to yell, but it was drown out by a giant roar that bellowed to life behind the keep.

  Cracking and popping filled the air, and a rushing of something that Deven couldn’t quite place in the darkness, but deep within his soul he knew fear. Whatever was happening, his instincts knew he should be afraid.

  “AVALANCHE!” someone yelled as the first wave of snow pounded against the back of the keep and poured through openings, around the edges of the keep, and between towers. The snow flew toward them, never quite reaching the wall, but burying the courtyard as if the floodgates had been opened on a dam.

  Trees slipped along the waves of ice and snow. One buried itself deep in a barracks, while others got stuck higher up on the walls of the keep as snow hammered forth.

  It was amazing to Devenstar to see nature look like this. He had never imagined that the mountains could ripple and flow like water, but here he was, watching it.

  And then the roar fell silent, and the snow finished sluicing around the edges of the keep and into the courtyard. Devenstar stood in shock. A large green orb flew out of one of the upper windows, and boomed to life with Mag’s voice.

  The archers readied their attack, shooting out into the night as dwarves approached the wall. Long ladders slapped against the parapets, and Deven grew afraid. He knew what that meant.

  “WYRDERS!” the order yelled, and he readied his wyrd.

  As the first of the dwarves started scurrying up the ladders, Deven released his golden wyrd along with everyone else. He struck out with all of his might. Arrows rained down on the dwarves, knocking some off their perch, dropping them down on others. Lucky strikes took out an entire ladder’s worth of dwarves, raining them down on the waiting groups below.

  And then arrows were whizzing up toward them. Soldiers all around, whether wyrders, melee, or archers, were taking hits. All around him people fell; the lucky ones fell backwards over the parapet and along the ramparts to the snow below. Unlucky ones pitched over the side and plummeted to the waiting weapons of the enemy battalion, to be hacked apart with zeal.

  Deven lanced out with all the wyrd he could muster. He felt the panther in him grow, a growl forming on his lips, held back only by his gnashing teeth as wyrded spell after spell was hurled down at the coming dwarves.

  And then the fear he knew in his heart from the avalanche grew. A great darkness loomed up before him, and a pain quaked in his stomach. Devenstar stumbled back. He retched, but nothing came up. Sweat covered his face, and then the darkness was closing in on him. It hit him with a great force, arching his back over the wall, and down he plummeted. His vision was filled with blackness before his body fell to the courtyard in a puff of white.

  Russel’s heart raced. He hadn’t worked his wyrd. He wasn’t sure why — he heard the order, but while all the other wyrders started up, there was this burning feeling in him that he shouldn’t cast his wyrd. And then the darkness had come, swept up in front of the wall, and emptied itself down channels of wyrd into the wyrders who were casting.

  He was sweating, looking down at the injured, catatonic form of his root commander, Krouner. With shaking hands he reached down, touched his throat and felt a pulse. At least the man wasn’t dead. But what was he to do? If someone found out that Russel hadn’t worked his wyrd when he was ordered, what would happen to him?

  He felt a pulse to the west, and Russel’s eyes were drawn there. Something was coming. He could feel it in his blood.

  Come and see, it whispered to his mind. Sweat broke out anew, and Russel felt the swell of a headache pressing against the back of his eyes. He could leave. He could go west to the tower, to the place where his angel blood called him.

  He shook his head. That was just a story. The tower wasn’t real. He was stuck here in the realms. He had to face what he had done, and hope that Mag hadn’t noticed. The good thing was, Russel wasn’t well-known among the roots. Maybe if—

  “Get ready, soldiers!” the green orb yelled. “More ladders come.”

  Russel fell in line, pretending to be a soldier, though he didn’t fully know what they were doing. The melee drew their swords, axes, or whatever weapon they were proficien
t with, while the archers fell back, picking up long, forked wooden poles. He could only imagine they were for pushing the ladders away.

  He grabbed a post of his own and hefted it in his hands, feeling the weight of it as the first ladder slapped against the top of the wall.

  “Wait for it,” an archer beside him said. “Wait until they start coming up. The little bastards will pack on there like rats on rot. They’ll swarm up the ladder, and when there are enough on it, we can heave it back and hopefully kill some of the ones higher up.”

  So Russel waited. And waited. The soldiers were growing tense around him, waiting for the combat to start. But the wall had another defense. Deep inside there were slits, holes that pikes could be thrust through. It was those soldiers, inside the wall thrusting their pikes out, who were doing the damage now. But it was only a matter of time before the dwarves numbered too many for the pikes to take care of.

  As the first deformed, greasy head came into view, the archer that was beside him yelled: “NOW!”

  Forked poles were positioned on the top rung of the ladder, and Russel heaved with all his might. The dwarf on the top of the ladder hissed at him, drew a rusty sword, and started hacking at the pole he used to shove him back.

  A soldier was on the dwarf in a moment, and one good swing of an axe buried deep into the chaos dwarf’s head ended the threat. The dwarf tumbled back down the ladder like a pebble over a waterfall, knocking some of his comrades off and raising a yell from below.

  Still more came, and Russel pushed harder. An archer to his right put his muscle behind the effort. The soldier who had helped him had lost his axe, and reached behind them to the backside of the wall where replacement weapons were kept. He readied himself for another attack.

  Once the ladder was on the downswing, the force of his push wasn’t needed, and nearly sent Russel over the edge of the wall. The archer grabbed his shoulder, steadying him and pulling him back from the edge, but Russel was still able to watch the ladder slip backwards, fading into the night to end with a violent crash and screams from below.

  “Be careful,” the archer slapped him on the back. Russel watched pikes skewer climbing dwarves as he caught his breath and tried to ease his hammering heart. “You have to know when to let up. Those ladders are hard to push, but once you get them past a certain point, they carry themselves. Also, sometimes dwarves might try to grab on to the post, pulling you with them. If you feel any resistance, let go!”

  Russel nodded. He looked to the archer, and some part of his mind registered that it was a small blonde woman.

  “That ladder didn’t break, so it will come up again until the fall busts it.”

  “Is there any other way we can break them?” Russel asked.

  The woman shrugged.

  Moments later the ladder slapped against the top of the wall again. Russel waited.

  “Dwarves have reached the top!” the orb yelled, but Russel could barely hear the words over the chaos that ensued to his left. He looked — dwarves were flooding onto the wall, and the melee started.

  “Focus,” the archer said. “They’re a ways off yet, the soldiers will get it under control. Just focus on what you’re doing so we don’t have more.”

  And so Russel focused. When the next head appeared, the soldier who’d lost his axe before was ready, chopping at the dwarf before it had a chance to harm Russel or the blonde woman. Russel placed the forked end of the post against the top rung and pushed. This time he pulled back in time, noticing the difference in feel when there was less weight at the other end.

  He waited and listened. This time there was a resounding crack, and the archer slapped him on the back.

  “Perfect! We broke it. Now, on to the next!”

  Jovian was frozen in place. The ringing faded, and when it did he heard the chaos. The sound of falling rock and the crumbling of glass. It was a noise and a sensation of rumbling in the floor like he had known in the Shadow Realm, when the train had pulled up.

  “Jovian!” Maeven yelled.

  “AVALANCHE!” he heard yelled outside.

  “Are you okay?” Maeven asked.

  Jovian nodded numbly. “They need help!”

  He pushed to his feet and made his way steadily to the window, which was no easy feat because of the rocking of the keep. He swayed at the window, looking out at a large green orb floating mere inches above the ground. Inside the orb he could see the middle-aged face of Mag, her voice slipping out across the ground, finding the ears of the soldiers below.

  The frenzied activity and the rushing noise from behind the keep blocked out most of what she was saying, but Jovian saw her words lilting across the surface of the orb.

  WYRDERS! The orb commanded. All able bodies to the battlements!

  Before the orb smoldered a large burning ball, which Jovian imagined was the thing that had hit the keep.

  Rivers of snow raced down from each side of the keep, tumbling in a sea of white to bury the courtyard in a blanket of snow. The naphtha ball was quenched, a large hissing of steam floating to the heavens like a funeral pyre. The green message orb faded out as well.

  Soldiers spilled from the barracks that weren’t buried, running like rivers to the left and right sides of the ramparts, cresting the stairs. Some even slipped inside the wall through doors Jovian hadn’t noticed before.

  Moments later, another green orb raced from the keep in the direction of the wyrders.

  Jovian’s attention was drawn by the sound of popping and snapping behind him. When he looked, the large golden eagle peeked out from inside Maeven’s clothes, laying in a red heap on the floor. The eagle stepped out into the firelight, its feathers glinting like some metallic ore.

  Jovian nodded without needing to know what Maeven was asking. He opened the window, and Maeven took flight, winging out among the falling drifts of the avalanche and toward the action on the battlements.

  The keep swayed again, and soon the noise of the avalanche drifted away, even before the last bit of snow washed around the sides of the keep.

  “Jovian!” Grace pounded on his door. “Are you alright?”

  He raced to the door and pulled it open.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Grace said. “Check on Angelica. I’ll go to Sara.”

  “We’ll follow.”

  Grace nodded.

  He crossed the room to Angelica’s door, but she didn’t answer when he knocked. He shouldered the door open and saw his sister sprawled across the floor, her head bleeding across the tile, painting her golden dressing gown and blonde hair scarlet.

  Jovian slid to his knees beside her, gathering her to his arms. He checked her pulse. Steady.

  “Help!” he yelled.

  Shelara made it to him first, gathering Angelica to her and taking her to the central room, laying her on the green divan.

  “Caldamron,” she ordered in her proper accent. “Get me some warm water and bandages.”

  “What happened?” Joya asked, cinching her white robe around her body as she came out of her room.

  “Which?”

  “I know about the attack and the avalanche,” Joya said. “Angelica hit her head?”

  “No, I clubbed her when she came out, of course she did!” Jovian flared. Shelara looked at him warningly.

  Joya took a breath, but bit her tongue.

  “Sorry,” Jovian apologized. It wasn’t Joya’s fault that she asked dumb things when she was nervous, any more than it was Jovian’s fault he got testy when scared.

  “Where’s Grace?” Joya asked.

  “Checking on Sara.” Jovian walked to the window, keeping one eye on the action outside and one eye on Angelica.

  “Are they doing anything more out there?” Joya asked.

  “No,” Jovian said.

  No sooner had he said it, than arrows arced up through the night to rain down on a place some distance from the keep.

  “Shooting,” Jovian said.

 
; “At what?” Joya wondered.

  Jovian didn’t have time to answer, because Maeven stepped out of his bedroom at that moment, buttoning his brown breeches as he came.

  “Chaos dwarves are here,” he said.

  “Already?” Joya asked. “We didn’t see them coming.”

  “They have wyrders,” he said, shrugging.

  “How? What about the stone?” Jovian asked.

  “Beats me,” he said.

  Caldamron came back with a towel, warm water, and some bandages. Maeven followed him and started helping Shelara in whatever ways he could. She whispered to him, he handed her what she asked for, and so they went.

  “I wish there wasn’t such sediment in this water,” Shelara said. “What is it, anyway?”

  “Mineral deposits, I’m told,” Maeven said. He was sweating.

  “Are you okay, human?” Shelara asked.

  “I’ll make it. Just the cramps all wyrders have been feeling lately.”

  Shelara looked to Joya, but she didn’t seem to be affected presently. “Will it taint the wound?” she asked Maeven again.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Alright.” The dark elf continued to clean and dress the wound.

  “Guardian, what do you require of me?” Caldamron asked, clasping his hands behind him.

  “Um,” Joya looked to Jovian, confused.

  “I don’t know,” Jovian told her.

  “See what Mag needs. I doubt you can get to the battlements across the snow in the courtyard.”

  Caldamron nodded, and headed for the door.

  “What are they doing now?” Joya asked, coming to the window to look out at the battlements. She looked as helpless as Jovian felt.

  On the battlements of the wall the archers were still firing, and now the wyrders were stepping up. Multi-colored wyrd wreathed each of the people, painted in a shade of their own energy, readying for an attack.

  “Now!” they heard a voice shout, barely audible over the muffling snow.

  Lightning lanced out from the wyrders, but as it arched across the open air, a shadow bloomed up, intercepting the wyrded attack. It drank it in, drawing the wyrd into itself. Once tethered to the darkness, the shadows slipped back down through the wyrded lightning to each wyrder. The sound of the thundering wyrd gave way to echoing screams as the Wyrders’ Bane slipped into the minds of those casting from the wall.