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

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.”
    “It was no victory, I fear. The True Enemy has
deceived my Sister and me both. All of this was but a game for him,
a distraction, while he stole from us what he wanted all
along.”
    “My Lady?”
    “The White Lady has been taken. Once again, I must
beg your aid to save her.”
    “Where has she been taken?”
    “It is veiled from me. There is a wound in the
world, and it is growing. It saps my strength; it steals the future
from me. Finnadro, I love my sister, I cannot bear for her to be
harmed. If you love me, find her.”
Vessia (Present)
    Vessia’s captors, Vumo (her husband’s brother) and
Amdra (her niece), had put a sack over her head and tied her to a
horse. At first she was so furious, she just wanted to hurt Vumo.
It was hard to bite through the sack, and her hands and feet were
tied together, but she did get in some elbow action. It pleased her
to hear Vumo grunt in pain. He never retaliated, only held her
firmly, stomach down, over the horse in front of him while she
thrashed trying to fling herself off. His horse plodded at a
leisurely pace, equally indifferent to Vessia’s efforts.
    “Can’t you ride any faster?” Amdra’s piercing voice
could be heard clearly through the wool sack.
    “ She’s making it
difficult.”
    Not difficult enough . Vessia would never
escape this way. Even if she could wriggle off the horse, perhaps
breaking her ankle in the fall, or worse, what then? She couldn’t
untie herself. She’d roll or crawl for a few scoots at most before
they scooped her up again. Wasted fury was no escape plan.
    She stopped wiggling. Hopefully, Vumo would think
she was exhausted already because she was old and weak and unable
to fight as well as she used to. That shouldn’t be too much of a
stretch to believe since she was exhausted, old, weak and
unable to fight as well as she used to.
    For now, she must be docile. Lull their
suspicions.
    So far, she had only one thing in her favor, which
was that they were riding horses instead of Amdra’s raptor, Hawk.
If they had been flying, the journey would have taken only a day or
two. Overland, it would take a full turn of moon. If they had to
cross the Boglands, it could take two moons. The longer the
journey, the more chances Vessia had to escape before they took her
to the Orange Canyon tribehold.
    She knew who waited for her there. Once back in his
power, she would never escape.
    At first she had no idea why Hawk was gone, or how
soon he would be back, but listening to their terse conversations,
she learned that he had been captured alive by the Green Woods
tribe.
    Vessia had an idea how she could turn that to her
advantage.
Hadi
    A ragged cheer rose from the throats of the
defending tribesmen as the last of the Orange Canyon warriors fled
the field. In truth, though, there was little to cheer about,