The Winged Warrior: Tower of the Deep, #2

By H.M. Richardson

Hennelyn, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a soldier, has lived for two years in a fenced fort near a majestic mountain range, watching as her father, a general, tries to conquer the indigenous population.

Yes, Hennelyn did live there. Until she betrayed her own father and her adopted brother, Arcmas.

Now seen as traitors and outcasts, she and her good friend, fourteen-year-old Nik, are fleeing for their lives, guided by their new allies, the local Bunjis. Hennelyn fears the soldiers, but her greatest concern is Arcmas. Trained as a soldier at fifteen and chosen specifically for his special abilities, Hennelyn knows the brother she loves is now her worst enemy.

 Will the Starkhons catch them? Or will Arcmas find them first? What will happen in that huge hulking ruin – the Tower of the Deep?

  

Hennelyn, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a soldier, has lived for two years in a fenced fort near a majestic mountain range, watching as her father, a general, tries to conquer the indigenous population.

Yes, Hennelyn did live there. Until she betrayed her own father and her adopted brother, Arcmas.

Now seen as traitors and outcasts, she and her good friend, fourteen-year-old Nik, are fleeing for their lives, guided by their new allies, the local Bunjis. Hennelyn fears the soldiers, but her greatest concern is Arcmas. Trained as a soldier at fifteen and chosen specifically for his special abilities, Hennelyn knows the brother she loves is now her worst enemy.

 Will the Starkhons catch them? Or will Arcmas find them first? What will happen in that huge hulking ruin – the Tower of the Deep?

  

Hennelyn, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a soldier, has lived for two years in a fenced fort near a majestic mountain range, watching as her father, a general, tries to conquer the indigenous population.

Yes, Hennelyn did live there. Until she betrayed her own father and her adopted brother, Arcmas.

Now seen as traitors and outcasts, she and her good friend, fourteen-year-old Nik, are fleeing for their lives, guided by their new allies, the local Bunjis. Hennelyn fears the soldiers, but her greatest concern is Arcmas. Trained as a soldier at fifteen and chosen specifically for his special abilities, Hennelyn knows the brother she loves is now her worst enemy.

 Will the Starkhons catch them? Or will Arcmas find them first? What will happen in that huge hulking ruin – the Tower of the Deep?

  

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Voice Crying Publishers
• Release date: Jun 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201227012

Book preview

Soli Deo Gloria

Chapter One

In the clearing of the little valley that he and everyone else at the Outpost called Springs Falls, Arcmas came out of his second drugged sleep in as many hours. Perhaps he’d been unconscious longer this time; he wasn’t sure. A soft muzzle whiffling at his neck helped to completely rouse him. He gave a start as he opened his eyes and found himself staring up the long nose of a horse. The horse was startled, too; its head flew up and with a squeal it skipped away from him into the long winter grass nearby, where it nosed aside fresh snowfall to reach the fodder underneath. The air was frosty; Arcmas could see his breath float in white wisps around his face, vanishing between exhales. He’d last been put to sleep while it was still night; now the pearly paleness of a new day surrounded him.

He stirred and stretched cold, sore muscles, sitting up to look around. Two horses were nearby; they were vaguely familiar to him as part of the Outpost’s herd. They grazed the long winter grass by the creek, enjoying the novelty of their new feeding ground a while before they headed back home.

Arcmas slowly rose, finding with relief that he was now free. The first time he’d been drugged last night, he’d awakened to find himself bound with ropes and even haying wire around his clawed hands; a precaution taken by his sister, Hennelyn. She knew better than anyone that he could cut through mere rope with the sharp claws growing from each of his fingers. He was a little surprised but relieved to find himself completely unharmed. Apparently his traitor sister - adopted sister actually - and her bunji friends had actually not wanted to hurt him, just as she had promised before they had put him out once more with their sleeping drug. But his head still swam with dizziness, the strong drug holding on; it would likely take a while to pass.

This did nothing to improve his temper, as the restless urgency of returning to the Outpost churned inside him. He had to get back there, to make things right with his superior officers as soon as possible. They would have discovered by now that both he and their latest prisoner - that Arcmas himself had recently captured - were gone.

His sister’s treachery still staggered him. Somehow in the months that he had spent away from her and Father, training to be a proper Starkhon soldier, she had developed sympathy for the diminutive native people who lived on this vast prairie. These people called themselves ‘bunjis’, the indigenous population that the Starkhon newcomers were still trying to completely conquer, so that they could enlarge their own empire out here. Here on the farthest western verge of their spreading civilization. Though the secure fort that the Starkhon military had named the Outpost had been built two years before, Arcmas’s adoptive father, General Kanow, and his troop of one hundred men had only recently been able to capture two bunjis. The first Hennelyn had helped to escape. And now the second, more important one... Arcmas had lost her.

It didn’t matter that Hennelyn had tricked him into bringing the captive these few miles away from the Outpost, where her bunji friends had then shot him with a dart of sleeping serum, capturing him and freeing his prisoner all in one blow. It was still going to be seen as his fault. And to think that Hennelyn had tried to persuade him to join her, as she had persuaded young Nik to do, one of their family servants. Nik, who had once been Arcmas’s close friend as well as Hennelyn’s, but now on her side in this treachery. Arcmas had seen him there the evening before.

Join her? Impossible!

Arcmas had thought that Hennelyn must have been told how he’d been trained all these months just to capture that particular bunji girl, because she was the apprentice of this tribe’s old Adon Miru, the bunji holy man. Ever since Arcmas had ‘come of age’ at fifteen and left home to become a soldier, that had been the end in sight. Maybe she hadn’t been told. He had no idea why.  But there was an even more important reason for what he’d accomplished. A Starkhon priest - the first Arcmas had ever seen, this important representative of their great Emperor Tol Lorsumn - had told him back in his training days that he’d been magically created by the emperor’s power to serve both emperor and empire, helping to bring the free bunjis out here into the same submission that the Starkhons had imposed on all of the others of the eastern villages they’d taken over.

I don’t care what that apprentice tried to tell me last night, about my own race of people existing somewhere. Where? I’ve never seen them. It’s a lie. The priest told me I had been made for this one special task. And I succeeded! But now Hennelyn has ruined all of that.

For a long moment he stood there thinking, absolutely still, with his wings folded around his body like a cloak. These great appendages were like a hawk’s, colored brown and tan, with creamy undersides and tips. Not that Arcmas needed his wings to stay warm. Since he possessed a complete set of feathers under his soldier’s uniform, he rarely felt cold. Only his face and front part of his neck were bare of feathers but for the few which sketched straight brows over his eyes. Long tail feathers also protruded from the back of his tunic.

The only cold thing about him beat in his chest: a heart that felt like ice within, overwhelmed by the pain of his failure and of the unforeseen loss of his trust in Hennelyn. Those two things together completely hollowed him out. The awful ache almost overshadowed the pressing need to get back and let the troops at the Outpost know what had happened. But not for long.

Soon he turned and raked the woods with his yellow eyes, suspecting that he was not totally alone here. But he could not see any bunjis, even with his sharp vision, hiding as only they knew how. From a tense and listening posture, he suddenly thawed into motion.

First he clapped the dull grey helmet of his uniform back onto his head, then woodenly stalked to Whitefeather’s still body and picked it up gently. She had been his newest ally and friend, a glorious bald eagle which he had trained to fly communications between himself and his trainer. But Hennelyn had shot her down with an arrow when she found that Arcmas would not join them, to prevent Arcmas sending the bird back to raise the alarm.

He flew with the poor limp thing into a treetop and fixed it firmly in the branches, out of the reach of ground-based scavengers. There was no time to weep over her. Light as eiderdown on the wind, but carrying a heart as heavy as a rock, Arcmas spread his enormous pinions and rose into the air, winging his solitary, unsteady way back to the Outpost.

The cluster of the Outpost buildings, perched on the highest hill and inside a tall wall built of spruce trunks harvested and lashed together, appeared ahead of him just before the hour of the midday meal. The short journey had sapped his strength alarmingly because of the lingering effects of the drug. Once or twice on the way he caught himself calling out for Whitefeather; then he would remember what had happened and grieve afresh.

As he swooped down low over the Outpost, sleet began to fall, which would surely ground him in moments. It collected on him like frosty scales, tripling his weight, but at least he was at the end of his journey.

Down below, soldiers crawled everywhere like ants, both inside and outside the walls - the search was already on. Their numbers had swelled to three hundred because of the extra men the ambassador had brought along on his arrival, a few days ago. Arcmas descended, weary but intent on the figures below. He soon spotted the ones he was looking for to the west of the general’s house, high on the top of the westernmost hill just where the terrain sloped down to form the bush-choked northern valley.  He could tell who they were from the small, shining wings adorning their helmets. The four of them sat there on their horses: Ambassador Siras Thraulor - with silver wings above each covered ear, Centenor Jakhron (copper wings), and General Kanow himself (the gold wings) with his loyal soldier, Decenor Ghundrew (his wings as pewter as the helmet) - the one who had trained Hennelyn from a young age onward.

Arcmas saw that they noticed him. The men covered their eyes with their hands against the ice-heavy rain and watched as he angled heavily towards them. The moisture sluiced from his wings and tail-feathers, creating a streaming trail behind him, as though he were swimming through water instead of air. Those unlucky few standing under his flight path were drenched by this deluge as he passed.

He set down on the plateau, far enough from the horses to avoid frightening them. He probably looked terrible; his clothes and feathers coated and dripping. He flapped as much water and ice off as he could. After he had folded up his wings, he hesitated a few moments. Then he took a deep breath and walked quickly up in front of the Ambassador, saluting smartly. Siras acknowledged him but did not bother to dismount.

Where have you been, Solit Arcmas? he snapped. We were looking for you. The young Adon Miru has somehow escaped; we don’t know how. The guard in the tower was discovered unconscious by his replacement.

Arcmas nodded.

I know, Excellency.

Siras’s cold grey eyes narrowed, and his voice grew smoother.

You know, do you? And perhaps there is something else about this that you know - is there, Solit Arcmas?

Arcmas slowly reached into his tunic, and brought out the forged message that Hennelyn had written. He held it out so that Siras could see it.

I think that this will explain things better than I can, sir, he said quietly.

The ambassador glared at him, but he deigned to dismount. He took the piece of paper, shielding it from the rain with his cloak, and ran his eyes over it. Then he breathed in sharply and read it again. His grey eyebrows settled lower over eyes which flicked up to bore holes into Arcmas’s uneasy gaze. His thin lips writhed.

I didn’t write this, he said, quite gently, but the hand holding the paper shook with anger.

No, Your Excellency. I know that now, sir.

Then who did write it, Solit?

The traitor forged it, sir. At first I thought it was from you, sir.

I see. And did you do what the letter directed? There was no release yet from the drilling glare. Arcmas licked lips that felt dry in spite of the rain.

Yes. I did, sir.

So it was you who struck the guard down and removed the prisoner?

Y-yes, sir.

And where is the Adon Miru now, Solit Arcmas? asked Siras in his most dangerously silken tones. Arcmas looked nervously around at the other three, who were listening intently.

It - it turned out to be a trap, sir. The traitors were there waiting for me with a troop of armed bunjis.

Of course it was a trap! spat Siras. And why didn’t you smell a trap right away? Or, since you were stupid enough to fly into it, why then didn’t you escape and bring the Adon Miru back?

I attempted it, sir. I lost control of the situation, because - because they drugged me, sir. With a dart.

Siras glared at him. Arcmas could no longer bear his gimlet stare, shifting his own eyes away. The Ambassador suddenly whirled around to address Ghundrew in a tone like a cracking whip – no more dulcet tones for him.

Decenor, ride around to the men and call off this aimless search! he barked. The Adon Miru and the traitors are far ahead of us by now. We must plan our next move. Call the marshals and centenors together!

Ghundrew, who had spent years in Tai Kanow’s service, saluted but glanced secretly   to the general for confirmation. He got the slightest of nods. He saluted again, for the general this time, and touched up his horse. Jakhron caught this exchange, and smiled contemptuously to himself.

Siras turned back to Arcmas. Again his voice became furiously soft.

Quietly he asked, Did I not tell you, Solit, not to accept orders from anyone but me? And did you not act on something not from me?

Yes... Your Excellency. But I thought...

He was immediately silenced by a backhanded blow that rocked him on his feet and knocked his head to one side. His breath hitching in pain, Arcmas slowly straightened. His right cheek now bore a vivid red mark, high on the cheekbone. Jakhron looked on at this treatment of his own trainee with no sign of emotion. Not so General Tai, who had jerked in his saddle as though the Ambassador’s blow had struck him rather than his adopted son.

You are not trained to think, Solit! You are trained to obey - and you have failed. Siras wound up for another blow. The youth steeled himself, but General Kanow suddenly yelled curtly, Enough, Ambassador!

The general leapt down from his mount and moved quickly to the boy’s side. Siras looked on, struck dumb by Tai’s insubordination. The ambassador’s face snarled and twitched as his arm slowly lowered; his glare was enough to strike oil from stone.

Forgive me, Your Excellency, Tai apologized, but this is getting us nowhere. The forgery must be a good one - Arcmas was taken in, that’s all. And I need to ask him something very important, if you would allow me?

Siras managed to control himself. He flapped an irritated but permissive hand. Tai addressed himself to Arcmas, gently but urgently.

Arcmas, we need to know. You mentioned ‘traitors.’ Who were they? Can you tell us? Arcmas’s shoulders sagged. He swallowed before answering.

Yes, sir, I can. One is a member of your staff, called Wendaniko.

Young Wendaniko? You’re telling us that Nik...?

Yes, sir.

Tai stared in disbelief, but he didn’t argue. When he’d stood silent long enough that Siras grew impatient, the ambassador prodded, And who are the others, Solit?

I saw only one other, Your Excellency. It was... his eyes flickered anxiously to Tai. It was ... the general’s daughter, sir. Mistress Hennelyn.

This confession gave Arcmas more pain than the blow he had received. His head bowed lower.

A long minute passed while the three of them stood like a grouping of rain-slicked sculptures. Tai looked stricken. He probably had not expected Arcmas to confess this - that at the very least the boy would have never named Hennelyn out loud. Jakhron was the only one who moved, scratching at his bristly cheek as though in boredom. Then Siras sucked in a long, loud breath and seemed to tower up even taller.

"I knew it! I knew it had to be that girl!  Did I not hear the rumors of another bunji captured before and then released? Didn’t I hear that she had helped interrogate that prisoner? We were going to have these whispers investigated next, after dealing with the Adon Miru, whom Arcmas has allowed to escape. And I recall now that I haven’t seen this daughter of yours at all today, general - now I know why. This, Kanow, this is what comes of trusting a half-blood, especially of the weak Luinian line. We disapproved of your marriage, all those years ago - now look what your daughter has cost us. Two bunji prisoners!"

Tai made no answer to this tirade, but his rigid silence seemed to alert the ambassador. Siras’s cold grey stare met the general’s and almost quailed under the furious smoulder he saw banked within the mahogany orbs. It had no doubt been a mistake for him to mention the fair-haired wife from the southern lands that Tai had lost to death seven years before. But Siras had not been appointed Ambassador for nothing. He quickly recovered his poise and added threateningly, smoothly as warm cream, One might almost question your loyalty as well, General. Not a breath of this was reported to me – in all this time! I wonder what the emperor will have to say to that.

The smoulder flashed into fire.

She’s a child! the general spat out hoarsely. She thought she was doing what was right!

I see. And you, a doting father, protected her... lied for her.

There was no lie!

Oh, I see. No lie, you say. Only a lack of truth!

Siras stuck a bony finger almost in Tai’s face. Jakhron looked on with a leering grin.

You’ll be fortunate if you get out of this with nothing but a court-martial, General. When this is over, you will have signed your death warrants, both for you and your daughter. The emperor will hear about this affair from beginning to end, because you will be writing the report.

Tai straightened his shoulders.

I will be only too glad to have my case presented to the emperor’s court, he said calmly.

Oh, you shall. You shall, the ambassador assured him with chilling certainty. As for Solit Arcmas here, he will get the chance to reverse his error.

He turned sharply back to the winged youth. Solit, you will follow Jakhron back to the Outpost where he will be in charge, both of your debriefing and your punishment. And then you will receive fresh orders.

Yes, Your Excellency, Arcmas answered in a voice dull with resignation. 

Good. Then you are dismissed. You too, Centenor Jakhron.

Yes, sir! Jakhron barked. He and Arcmas saluted the ambassador together. The centenor reigned his horse around and galloped away without waiting for Arcmas, who slowly started plodding through the slushy snow on foot. As he passed Tai, the youth’s step hesitated. He almost lifted his wet, dejected head to look into his adoptive father’s grim face. Almost. But not quite.

Not so far away, the two fourteen-year-olds mentioned, Hennelyn and Nik, were marching with the rescued Adon Miru apprentice and four more bunjis through the needles of freezing rain, in single file. They were all burdened with backpacks and rolled-up fur blankets which were getting soaked, even though the hide sides faced out and the fur was folded inside. Disheartened by the thought that she probably wouldn’t get a chance to dry off before nightfall, Hennelyn sloshed on. She had been enjoying the last few days of indoor luxury at home. And poor Nik! A glance back revealed him to be trudging along wearily, his hood failing to keep his white-blonde hair dry as it clung to his solemn face. Water dripped from his elbows and darkened his breeches.

They followed Laero Grogo’s lead, trying to keep up as his strong legs kept pumping him along through the slushy, wet prairie. Though her plan had worked, and the Adon Miru was free and among them, it didn’t feel much like a victory. All because she could not banish last night’s meeting with Arcmas from her mind. She had hoped... and if hopes were riches, we’d all be kings, she told herself wryly. But there was no denying the grief in her heart, nor her concern for her brother, changed though he was. She wondered what might be happening to him now, after his grievous failure.

Also, how quickly will the Outpost soldiers be after us? Hennelyn worried silently. Or Arcmas himself? Though all seven of us together could hold my brother off, I suppose. Surely Father will have to solve the puzzle of all the false trails first. And it takes time to get three hundred soldiers moving. But Father would probably send out swift three-man patrols first, wouldn’t he? They have horses, and we don’t!

Suddenly, as though Laria (the young Adon Miru) sensed the misery in both of the young people, she began to softly sing from her place fourth from the front, just behind Brinkle. Her voice rang as sweetly as birdsong and rose to the high notes just as effortlessly. One by one the other bunjis quietly joined in, a pleasing mixture of tenors and basses, some picking out a harmony to match. Their combined footfalls provided the underlay of percussion. Listening but not understanding the bunji words, Nik and Hennelyn nevertheless felt their spirits oddly lifted, as though the song was speaking courage and peace straight into their hearts.

After ten minutes or so of this, the rain stopped, and the sun peeled back some of the curtain of clouds to peek down at them intermittently, like a game of hide and seek. Later on, after pausing for lunch, the sunlight shone more steadily, giving up on the game. Everyone’s clothes steamed in the warmth, drying as they marched over terrain that was damp but no longer sodden. It was very cheering to think that even their boots might be dry by the time they halted, whenever that might be.

Some hours later, though they were dry and warmer, Nik was stumbling with the weariness of a sleepless night and a long day of scrabbling over half-frozen land under his pack. He was a strong boy, but not used to this kind of exercise or missing sleep. Hennelyn’s nerves had screwed themselves up tight again after the bunjis had stopped singing. She was still expecting trouble, and it turned out that she was right.

Just as the sun impaled itself on sharp mountain peaks and fainted out of sight, leaving streaks like bloody handprints on the lower sky, the straggling line of tired hikers all faltered to a stop. They stared around them, the whites of their eyes glowing in the dusky purpling light. They heard the howls of wolves, but that didn’t worry them much. It was the other sound they’d picked up, sounding far away but growing louder every moment. The barking of dogs!

They’re coming! cried Hennelyn in alarm. "I knew Father would send out patrols first - what are we going to do?"

Chapter Two

Nik made a small urgent sound, hopping from foot to foot. Hennelyn was ready to rush on, hoping against hope to outrun the dogs, yet none of their bunji companions moved. They stood still, and Grogo made a shape with his mouth, below his moustache. Hennelyn remembered the other bunji who’d done the same thing the evening before. Just like that time, she didn’t hear a sound.

Still, there was a definite result. In seconds, a great hairy shape bounded into the clearing. It was the wolf-chieftain that had come, the same big male which had approached Hennelyn’s fire the first night she was out on the prairie, alone and afraid. As the moon started to take over the job of lighting the world, his striped grey coat seemed tipped with silver, and his bright eyes glowed.

The bunji smiled and lifted a hand, and the wolf trotted up to him, his great red tongue flicking out to lick the offered appendage. He looked huge next to Grogo, who like all bunjis stood a few inches shorter even than young Hennelyn. The wolf capered around Grogo like a pup, making no sound except a happy whine. Hennelyn watched with astonishment. Then the animal sketched a rapid ring around each one of the other bunjis, and they laughed at his eagerness. One of them sank a hand into the beautiful thick coat of his back to caress it. The wolf looked once at Hennelyn, where she stood nervously behind Brinkle. Though the wolf made no sign of aggression, she still shrank back behind her friend.

Some of the beast’s packmates now came into sight. They did not run right up to everyone like their leader, but they stood near with their ears pricked and their mouths opened, panting. Their leader returned to Grogo, who murmured a soft command. The wolves turned their heads towards the barking, and slipped away after their chieftain into the night towards the sound. Grogo faced Hennelyn.

They will keep your dogs - and patrols - busy and far away from us, he declared.

Hennelyn’s heart beat fast, and she was full of wonder.

So that’s why the dogs have never helped us to find you and your people, all this time, she marveled. Grogo nodded.

That is why, he agreed. "That lead ‘lowl’ we call Thraefarn, which in trade speech would be... ‘far-sighted’, I suppose, though in our language it means more than that. He is great in courage and wisdom. He and his kind have lived among us for many generations, and never have we done any harm to them, or they to us. Your pets – your dogs – are of the same sort, though not as clever. Still, they can understand us."

I never would have guessed such a thing if I hadn’t seen it happen twice.

Mmm... there is much that you do not know about us, Grogo told her. Maybe it is because you are such warlike people. You seem to be at war with all, even nature. Your people foul the pure stream of the Freewater River, and you needlessly fear many of our beasts. Come, let us keep on. I know you are getting tired. Only a little farther and then we will stop to eat and sleep.

Eventually they halted beneath big spruces which formed a prickly canopy above them. Here, the ground was free of snow. Grogo thought it was too risky to light a fire that first night.

We have not gone very far yet, he explained, and the Aesthe might be out. Which happened to be the bunji title for Arcmas.  

Of course, he was right. Everyone wearily collected piles of spruce boughs to lie on, up off the cold ground, and Grogo directed them to share blankets, two wrapped up together for warmth. That left him out, but he