29. Wingbeat in Silence #2
I've done nothing to deserve such reverence, Auryn thought. Not a single thing.
She stayed for hours. Sitting beside the sick. Praying. Hoping.
It was the children—the sight of them—that nearly broke her every time.
The innocents. Those who should have had entire lives ahead of them.
She sat with them the longest. Reading aloud to a small circle — none of whom understood the words, but clung to the cadence.
She lit the sacred flames at each corner of the temple herself.
Helped mop more blood and waste from the floor.
Tears burned in her throat, but she did not cry.
Not until her feet reached the marble path outside, and even then, she swallowed them.
A Reskala approached and signed. Clipped. Formal.
'Does the Sokar return to the Rising?'
She nodded. “We will depart.”
She wrapped her shawl tighter about her shoulders as the unusually frigid air stole her breath. The sacred flames in the corner guttered, despite no draft. One went out entirely. Auryn raised her hands and cast through the focus rune on her wrist, relighting it without a word.
“Let us go quickly. The darkness is upon us.”
They did not make it a hundred paces before her heart faltered.
Something was wrong.
The air shifted. Stripped, as if something with violent intent had passed through it. A silence swept the street, not heavy, but watchful. Auryn’s feet slowed. She turned her head, sensing — not a presence, but an absence. A pause in the breath of the city.
Her Reskala didn’t speak, but their tension thrummed, runes already hissing. Preparing.
Behind her, a torch guttered once.
Then the wind changed.
Sharp. Unnatural.
Her Reskala tensed and drew their blades when she stopped and raised her hands, prepared to cast. These men had guarded her for months, and they’d learned to trust her instincts.
Auryn’s head snapped up as a shriek echoed across the open latticeway — a predatory cry, birdlike and furious. The sound drew forth the image of the Moores. Its clear skies. Birds flying above then diving with deadly precision to attack their prey.
Voices shouted in a language Auryn didn’t fully understand, but the syllables spurred her into action.
“Gliders,” she warned, instantly casting a ward around her guards.
They come. Feathers and death.
“They attack from above,” she bit out, ignoring the voice. “Raise your shields. Ready runes for aerial projectiles.”
That won’t be enough. Not with only four little runes at your side.
Night smothered the alleyways in darkness, and even with Auryn’s wards lighting the surroundings, none of them heard their attackers until it was too late.
The sound was like leather beating on drums. Powerful massive wings descended on the five of them, and at the heart — Glider warriors dressed in feathers, steel, and war paint.
Golden eyes blazing, they gave a sundering battle cry as they dove from above.
Legs first, muscular thighs taut, and feet booted in leather crowned with sharp spikes in the shape of bird talons.
The first Reskala barely had time to raise his blade.
A blur of dark feathers and silver metal slammed into his chest from above, shattering Auryn’s ward like it was nothing.
The Glider’s curved glaive pierced through bone with an audible crack, and the Reskala crumpled, his blood fanning across the ground in a grotesque arc as he was cut in half.
Auryn shouted, but the second and third Reskala were already moving, blades drawn.
She tried a larger shield.
Too slow.
The Glider moved impossibly fast, her braids trailing behind her like inky black smoke.
Another dropped from the sky, blade glinting. The second Reskala raised his shield—and it split in half under the blow of a serrated spear. Auryn ducked as the dying cry of her guard filled the air, his throat torn open with one clean slice.
"Death to the Veilweaver!" one of the attackers screamed in a guttural accent, brown wings flaring wide behind her like a shadowed sunburst.
Auryn’s breath caught. Panic tried to rise, but she stamped it down. She turned to run —
The third Reskala leapt between her and the incoming blade, roaring as it lodged deep into his chest with a sickening crunch.
His eyes met hers, wide and blood-filled, just before he collapsed against her.
She screamed as his weight knocked her down.
She fell hard, the back of her head cracking on the cobblestone.
His sticky red blood sprayed across her face, her chest, her arms. It soaked into her clothes. Still hot with life.
She pushed him off with shaking hands. Surged to her feet. Cast fire. Threw it behind her, but didn’t hear the shouting.
Run.
Just run.
Anywhere, as long as it was away.
A heavy thud behind her. Something spun through the air.
A rope with metal weights at either end slammed into her shins and tangled tight. Her legs yanked from beneath her. She hit the ground hard; her breath knocked from her lungs.
The fourth Reskala charged, fury burning — only to be lifted off the ground by one of the Glider’s bladed polearms, skewered clean through. His scream choked to silence as his body slumped. The Glider warrior looked above her — smiling, giving a triumphant cry.
Auryn struggled against her bindings, twisting, gasping. Her fingers clawed at the rope, but it wouldn’t give. She was starting to lose circulation in her legs.
Or was that fear? The sense that these might be her final moments?
Fight. Do not disappoint.
The Gliders closed in. Two women, both tall, lean, faces painted with white war lines.
Their brown and auburn wings flared as they stepped forward, each wing spanning longer than a Reskala’s full height.
Their weapons were lowered but ready. One of them spun her glaive with a hiss, the other raising a curved dagger glowing violet at the edge.
“Give your head for our glory,” one of the women commanded in her native tongue.
Still, Auryn scratched at the ropes. When they didn’t give again, she gritted her teeth and poured fire on them. Mana flames burned her skin, but she hardly felt the pain as the Gliders kept moving towards her.
Better suffer burns than lose her head.
Her heart thundered.
A scream built in her throat.
Weave. She had to Weave.
And then…
It came.
A sound like a thunderclap.
From above, much like the Gliders had earlier, a colossal figure dropped from the heights of the tallest nearby lattice, wrapped in a mantle of glowing runes and fury. His battleaxe ignited mid-fall, a low hum of rage echoing in its metal.
His face was shrouded in black cloth, but Auryn didn’t need to see the scars on that visage to know the taste and feel of this mana.
Her heart leapt into her throat.
Zarrek.
The Bloodletter.
With his arrival, a last burst of courage swept through Auryn. She screamed, raising her hands and aiming her flames at the Gliders. They cursed, lifting their arms to defend—
But Zarrek was already there, moving faster than her eyes could follow.
The first Glider turned just in time to lose her wing.
With one mighty swing, Zarrek’s battleaxe tore through feather, flesh, and bone.
The appendage hit the ground with a wet thump, twitching like a beheaded serpent.
The Glider shrieked, collapsing, clutching at the bleeding stump as dark grey blood spewed from her severed limb.
Zarrek didn’t stop. He roared and slammed into the second warrior, dropping his shoulder into her chest and kicking her knee sideways. The crack of bone echoed down the corridor as she crumpled, her scream ragged and broken.
Auryn gasped, blinking up at him.
“Catch.”
A silver dagger spun through the air. She caught it clumsily. Hands shaking, she twisted onto her side and cut through the rope at her ankles. Iron wouldn’t have touched it, but this blade was runed. It burned in response to her mana, slicing through the ropes in a flash.
The Glider that lost her wing, still howling, tried to rise.
Zarrek’s battleaxe caught her mid-motion, slicing clean through her torso in a diagonal arc.
Blood sprayed the stone like ink on parchment.
The other clawed toward her blade — too late.
Zarrek stomped down on her wrist, crushing it with a sickening pop.
He reached down, grabbed her by the braid, and dragged her upward.
“Say hello to the Rivers for me,” he growled and buried his battleaxe in her chest.
Silence returned in slow beats.
Auryn sat up, legs freed, breath ragged, her face and robes soaked in blood — some of it hers, most of it not.
The warrior turned toward her, chest heaving, eyes unreadable.
“Zarrek…” she breathed.
He sheathed his weapon.
“Not here,” he said hoarsely. “We have to go. More might come.”
She nodded, still dazed.
He offered his hand. She took it, letting him haul her to her feet.
And together, they ran for cover.
They didn’t go far. Auryn could hardly move. The burns on her legs throbbed in agony, and the weighted ropes had done some kind of other damage she couldn’t yet identify.
Zarrek stopped them in a nearby alleyway, shaded and hidden from easy view.
His eyes never ceased their movement, his spine stiff, and his hands clenched into fists.
He crouched beside her, gaze sweeping the alley’s mouth for anything out of place, blood still dripping from his battleaxe.
Then, and only then, did he look back at Auryn.
“You all right, little star?” he asked, voice gentler than the carnage deserved.
Auryn nodded. “I think so.”
He exhaled roughly through his nose. “Didn’t think I’d get here in time. Though,” he added, flashing her a dry smirk, “figured your Resh’Agar wouldn’t let anything happen to his woman.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m not—”
The smirk widened into a grin. “His? Don’t forget, I can smell lies, Auryn. Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t carved your name into the walls of the Jade Lattices by now.”