The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (3 page)

“May I hold it?”

She hesitated.

“Don’t you trust me yet, Vessia?”

“It’s not that. It’s just…for so long I knew I was
meant to fly, yet I was unable to. I never want to be without wings
again.”

She handed him the opal.

“So small, yet so precious.” He hefted it in his
hand. “Amazing. Look—it fits in my salt bag.”

He slipped the opal into a tiny leather salt bag he
wore tied into the waist-tie of his legwals. Desert warriors
habitually carried salt at all times. In the extreme heat, a lick
of salt could be more valuable than water. He treasured the bag,
one of the few items he had inherited from his father rather than
the Bone Whistler, so she was touched when he pressed it into her
hands.

“Keep the bag if you like.”

“Thank you, Vio. But I think I prefer—”

Suddenly Vio cussed.

An eyeblink later, he shoved Vessia behind him and
raised his club to parry a blow.

“Time to join your master, Crusher!” Vio snarled at
his attacker.

“Not before you, Skull Stomper!”

Chezlio the Crusher, former Blue Zavaedi of the Bone
Whistler, was a big, ugly man. Like all the Bone Whistler’s
coterie, he wore human bones; in his case, mingled with piranha
teeth. Underneath the mesh of bones, he had daubed blue paint over
naked muscle. Blue feathers trailed from his human skull headdress
and shells clacked in the legbands around his calves.

Chezlio hammered blows down on Vio. The lighter man
darted in and out of five swipes for every thrust of his own. Then
Chezlio managed to lock his arms around Vio’s neck. The two men
scuffled in the dust, locked in a deadly hug.

Vio flipped Chezlio over his back. Chezlio landed
hard but nothing stopped him. He barreled toward Vio again.

“Get to safety!” Vio commanded Vessia, as if stone
clubs and flint spearheads were more dangerous to her than to him.
The reverse was true. She was immortal. Slain, she would die for a
day. His life would spill out with his blood, irrevocably.

But she ran. It had just occurred to her that
Chezlio’s “dead” master might be insufficiently dead.

She needed to find the Bone Whistler.

She had left him writhing on the ground after she’d
turned the power of his own Bone Flute against him. All it had
taken was that sight, the tyrant fallen, for the crowd to rise up
against him and his supporters. But their joy might have been
premature.

She passed a man shouting, “The Bone Whistler is
dead! Kill everyone who danced to his tune!”

You all danced to his tune, Vessia thought. Once you
bloody your fangs on revenge, where will you stop?

She reached the spot where she had left the tyrant.
Only a smear of blood marked the pavement.

She followed the stain he’d left crawling away.
Along the way, he’d shed his distinctive garments of bleached
leather and human bone. Nearly naked, he huddled like a rat in an
alley, submersed in a heap of midden. The stench of burning wool
overpowered the stink of the rubbish. The building behind him
billowed black smoke, and bits of fleece floated in the ash
drifting from the balcony. He was too weak to fight her when she
pulled away the trash and dung he burrowed under.

Someone had struck him with a spear in the shoulder.
It should not have been a fatal injury, except that she had already
weakened him with the Bone Flute. The shaft had broken, but the
spear point remained embedded in his ligament. Blood, like viscous
pomegranate, welled from the wound.

“Come to finish me off, Vessia?” he asked. The loose
flesh around his jowls quivered.

She marveled at his comfort with her name. The day
before, when he’d ordered her death, he had looked right through
her, seeing only a tool to hurt Vio. When she had come back to life
and defied him, he’d recognized her as the Last Aelfae: I didn’t
recognize you before, but it doesn’t matter. I can control fae as
easily as humans, he’d boasted. It seemed he did not just know her
as Aelfae. He possessed her name.

“Would you rather live a little longer, to face your
victims’ wrath?” she asked.

His lips drew back over his teeth. “Victims? Is that
how you think of them now? Once you thought differently. Once you
would have aided me, not betrayed me.”

“How have I betrayed you? The first day I met you,
you killed me.”

“You don’t remember me, or yourself. But I can
change that,” he said. He pushed something into her hands. “Take
back what was stolen from you.”

It was a stone knife. All blade, no handle. The
cold, sharp edge cut into her hand when he pressed it into her
fist. Droplets of blood seeped from her palm. Like a spider bite,
the prick hurt beyond its size. Shadows swam before her vision; she
was dizzy; she staggered; she swayed. Memories surged through
her.

The knife slid from her fingers and clattered on the
ground.

“Xerpen! Xerpen!” Hard, sob-like gasps wracked her
body. “Ayaha, Xerpen! What have I done?”

Umbral slashed the girl’s throat.

Or would have…if Time itself had not betrayed
him.

His blade, his arm and everything around him slowed
as if embalmed in syrup. His slash never completed the killing
stroke. Instead, he was swallowed into the edge of a Vision. He
could not move; then time sped up again, and he stumbled
backward.

Dizzy and disoriented, he crouched on the ground,
primed for battle. No opponents assaulted him. The Vision had
dissipated. He tried to hold on to what he had seen, but he had
been too far to the edge of the Pattern. Only one figure had shone
clearly: the White Lady.

The girl was still bound to the altar.

A clear night sky glittered with stars. The bat
beast, Shadow, hung upside down from a nearby tree. The rain had
ended. Nothing even dripped.

Hours had passed.
Hours
.

She was still bound with ropes of dark energy. The
circle of fire still burned. How could she have pulled in the
threads to weave a Vision? He rose from his battle-crouch and
approached her with the same caution of a man about to steal a cub
from a she-wolf.

Shimmering orange lights and shadows illuminated her
skin and the folds of dark wool sloped and dipped from her breasts
to her hips. Wide frightened eyes like a doe peered up at him.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

Dark lashes hit her cheeks. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“You’re going to kill me no matter what I say.”

“Yes.” He frowned. Somehow, in the middle of a dead
winter night, she smelled of wildflowers and summer clover. “Your
power is impressive, but in the end you’ve gained nothing but a few
breaths more.”

Still, although he palmed his dagger again, he did
not immediately try to kill her. The Vision had been important. He
wished he had seen more of it. He needed to think this through.

While he dithered, crunching wet leaves alerted him.
Three to four people approached. They had some stealth-craft, but
the squelching ground betrayed them to his careful ears.

Ash, grey with soot from her namesake, arrived at
the menhirs. Pieces of Stoneheart followed after her, carried by
Owlhawker and Masher.

“We were waiting for you at the other stone,” Ash
complained to Umbral. “That’s where the other Gifts to the Lady are
tied.” She disapproved of and dismissed the girl tied to the altar
with a single sneer. “I can see why you decided to bring
that
one
here alone, though. I saw you grab her from the
battlefield. She didn’t look too injured to me. Seems to have all
her parts.”

Masher went closer to examine the girl. He whistled.
“She sure has parts.”

Masher darted out of the way before Umbral could
smack him out of the way. Without a word to the girl, Umbral
brought down his blade. She flinched away.

But he tapped the throbbing black cords of energy,
not her neck. The shadow ropes fell away. She blinked at him in
wary surprise. Umbral held his hand out to her. Even more warily,
she took it and he helped her stand. He nudged the pile of her
clothes scattered on the ground. She took the hint and dressed
herself as well as she could in the garments he’d cut to rags. Even
piecemeal fur would still keep her warm. He stood between her and
Masher while she dressed, though maybe it was not necessary. She
used dexterity to the advantage of modesty.

Once he was satisfied she would not freeze to death,
he faced the others. “She is not a Gift to the Lady. Not yet. I
have a use for her first.”

“I’ll bet.” Masher licked his lips. “And I bet you
won’t share.”

“Get your head out of your groin,” said Owlhawker,
disgusted and angry. “What does any of that matter? Stoneheart is
dead!” He tossed the head and torso, neatly wrapped and bound, in
front of Umbral. It was an accusation.

“We’re all dead,” said Umbral.

“Don’t give me that Deathsworn big talk. I’m sick of
it. Stoneheart was killed in a battle we shouldn’t have been
fighting. We’re not warriors. We don’t get involved in wars!”

“You’re quite wrong,” corrected Umbral. “Our whole
reason for existing is to fight a War. Just not the war you’re
thinking of. Don’t be fooled by the colors on the battlefield or
the Chromas of the Tavaedies in their battle dances. There is only
one War, and we just won an important skirmish. Stoneheart served
the Black Lady.”

Owlhawker spat. “
That
for the Black
Bitch!”

In a flash, Umbral thrust the girl to one side,
stepped forward and punched Owlhawker to the ground.

“Stand up!” Umbral ordered.

Owlhawker cupped his bleeding nose. He stood up, but
a step further away from Umbral than before, sullen and wary.

“You want to insult the Lady of Mercy again?” Umbral
asked coolly.

“No,” said Owlhawker.

“Pick up Stoneheart. We will do him honor on
Obsidian Mountain. Then—”

The girl had been quiescent up until now, but she
took advantage of Umbral’s diverted attention to bolt free.

She got as far as Ash, who smacked her to the ground
with a wood staff.

Umbral intervened quickly, before Ash could beat his
prisoner to death. He hauled the girl back to her feet and leashed
her with black strands of darkness from his Penumbra: a cord about
her neck, wrists secured in front of her, a pull line that led back
to his black aura. A gag seemed unnecessary since she had not made
a sound besides small, sharp intakes of breathe.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “You may live
to see another turn of the moon, if you do
exactly
as I ask
of you. I deserve to get some use from you. I just lost a man
today. That deathdebt too is yours to pay, since he died to help me
get you.”

“I also have a deathdebt to collect from you,” she
said in a low voice. She did not spit and strut her hate, but he
saw it pooling in her vivid eyes.

“Good luck with that.”

“You
will
pay.”

She was so petite and helpless that the implacable
promise should have been laughable.

Umbral did not laugh.

He spun another weave of darkness and blindfolded
her.

The song of battle thrummed in his ears, and
Finnadro gloried in it. The song had no past, the song had no
future, just this moment, just this NOW. He was but a string
plucked by the eternal melody. No hesitation, no trepidation, no
fear at all could touch him when he was in the song, when he
became
the song. He soared.

Finnadro evaded when Hawk thrust a broken arrow at
him. In the next blink, a wolf tackled Hawk, bowling him onto the
ground. The wolf would have torn out Hawk’s throat, but Finnadro
barked, “Stop!”

The wolfling growled, letting lip rise to show
canine, but did not bite. Finnadro picked up a spear and pricked it
to Hawk’s throat, enough to raise a single seed of blood. The song
of
kill and be killed
still roared in his ears, but he beat
it back.

“Paro, is that you?” Finnadro asked.

The golden-eyed wolfling cocked his head.

“Change back to a man, if you still can, and bind
him.”

Paro growled again. This was the hardest moment for
a wolfling—or a man. To let the song go. To back away from a kill.
To show mercy.

If it was a mercy.

“I need him alive,” Finnadro added.

Paro changed into a man. He still had legwals on,
another good sign. Wolflings who retained humanity took their
clothes with them through their change, but wolflings who grew wild
were more likely to be naked, even as men. Paro refashioned the
leather straps from Hawk’s own chest harness to tie his hands
behind his back.

Hawk had been the last enemy still fighting. The
foot warriors who could flee had long since fled, and the Raptors
had either flown away or fallen.

Everywhere Finnadro looked, bodies lay half buried
in blood, slush and mud. This was his least favorite part of
battle. He freely admitted that the wolf in him—and all men had
some wolf, did they confess it or not—enjoyed the fight itself. The
aim of the arrow, the burn of flexing muscle, the honed focus, the
hunt and evasion, the growl and snap, the kill. War was love in
another form.

But the aftermath was something else. Bone-tired, no
longer elated by fear, still one had to force one’s tired body to
do the ugly work. Dragging bodies across the field, binding the
prisoners for the Chase, purifying oneself of murder, dividing the
wounded between those who would go to the Healers and those who
would go to the Deathsworn. Ugly work.

The Green Lady, disheveled after her own battle
against her Orange sister but still painfully beautiful, sparkled
into the air in front of him.

“My Henchman!”

“My Lady.” He went down on one knee. “I thank you
for our victory.”