Page 2 of On Wings of Blood

Fate was cruel.

I took my first gasping breath, feeling my soul fluttering violently about within my body, as if uncertain it had a true place there, before finally settling uncomfortably, as if unwillingly accepting we were stuck here together.

But where was here? This was not my world. This was not Aercanum. I could sense that from the very air. It reeked with the tinge of iron and ash. Blood and death.

With a groan, I shifted my weight, the movement sending ripples of pain down my back. Something was pinning my legs down.

I stirred again and, this time, glanced downwards. A chill ran through me. Not something. Someone. Someone dead lay atop me, weighing me down.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. But that only made it worse as the scent of decay filled my nostrils more strongly. I gagged.

My ears pricked at a faint sound.

Then came another.

I strained to decipher the muffled murmurs. Footsteps marched against hard ground.

People were coming.

I sat up and pushed at the heavy body that had fallen over my legs, struggling to free myself. Should I call for help? Or hope they’d pass by without seeing me?

The voices were growing closer.

Abruptly, a figure appeared on the edge of my vision, bouncing up the mounds of bodies like a large weasel.

It was a man. Small and wiry. He had a smirk upon his lips, revealing a row of ratlike yellowed teeth.

I lay still, hoping he would think me just another dead body on the heap.

But it was too late. He must have caught my movement before I’d seen him. With a quick rattish leap, he was on top of me, pinning me down.

I could smell the stink of his rancid breath as he lowered his face to mine and sniffed long and deep.

“Barnabas!”

The voice cracked the air like a whip. Loud. Deep. Commanding.

The man sitting astride me froze, his face torn in indecision.

“Yes, Master?” His voice became like the slithering of serpents. Odious and simpering.

“What have you found?”

An intake of breath. The man’s face was very close to my ear. He inhaled again, drawing in my scent as if it held the fragrance of a rare wine.

And then, to my horror, his tongue snaked out. Red and foul-smelling, the twisting flesh approached my neck.

“Barnabas.” The voice was sharper. “I asked you a question and I expect a swift response.”

The tongue slid back into the rat man’s mouth. I saw the look of disappointment in his eyes as he begrudgingly responded, “This one’s alive.”

A pause. “Impossible. All the others were dead. The place has been on fire for days.”

There was a glint in the man named Barnabas’s eyes I didn’t like.

I held my breath as we looked back at one another. Then he smiled.

“Even so, she’s alive, milord. And she smells”—he sniffed the air again like a hungry mongrel, and I flinched—“exquisite.”

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