The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing Read Online Free Page A

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.
Finnadro
    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