On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) (13 page)

Jovian fell backwards, sliding across the floor, barely stopping before he tumbled into the burning coals of the fireplace.

There was a moment of deathly silence, a ringing in his ears that he couldn’t shake. Jovian sat dazed, the warmth of the fire at his back and Maeven crouching before him, his hands on Jovian’s shoulders. He shook Jovian, and his mouth was moving like he was shouting, but Jovian couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

Through the window to his right he saw a green glow coming from outside, a large brightness, like that of the twilight sun coming to roost in the courtyard of the keep. To his left, just out of the range of his sight, the shadow he now knew was Wyrders’ Bane slid over the wall and out the door.

Devenstar turned away from the cold expanse of the plains on the other side of the wall, and looked across the courtyard to the keep above. He’d only been stationed on the wall now for an hour, and despite the fire crackling in a brazier nearby, he longed for the warmth of his own room. He looked up high to the right tower, letting his mind wander. But as often happened when he let his mind wander, his thoughts turned to Cianna.

He wondered which one of the illuminated windows in the right tower was her bedroom, and if she was in there right now. Devenstar hadn’t seen Cianna since they parted when they first arrived at the keep, and he didn’t like that. He had felt a growing bond with her through their travels, and he was sure she was just busy with other things. But he still didn’t like it. He would prefer she was busy with him, but that was dumb.

After all, she has just met her cousins for the first time in . . . what? Ever?
He frowned and looked to his left, where a group of archers were nestled against the wall of the parapet around a lamp, playing dice. He wished he could have joined them and forgot all the worries on his mind, but he couldn’t.

He had been okay knowing that Cianna was an angel, even learning that she was the daughter of Pharoh. He had grown used to that, and thought of her as just another person, even if she wasn’t. Even if she was actually an angel. But meeting her cousins, hearing her pronounce two of them as Sylvie, and then having them pass out and be whisked away . . . that was a little more than he had been prepared for.

And the Guardian of the Realm of Shadow. What in the realms! The Shadow Realm was little more than a realm he had heard about, but never really paid much attention to because
no one
in their right mind ever went there, and here was a group of people, three of them nephilim, who had traveled
through
the Shadow Realm. Not only traveled through it, but one of them, Joya, had actually been chosen by the realm as its leader. And she was from the Holy Realm, the supposed arch-enemy of the Shadow Realm.

And as if that wasn’t enough, they had brought two from the Shadow Realm with them!

Devenstar shook his head. The tightness of the ponytail he wore was giving him a headache. He wasn’t used to keeping his hair tied up, but it kept it out of his eyes, and he was able to watch the group of dwarves milling below on the other side of the wall, even if his mind was on other things.

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 proficient 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.