Free Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen by James A. West Page A

with a grunt. Leitos caught his arm before he could fall. Sumahn’s muscles quivered, and Leitos knew the Brother would never make it the rest of the way unaided.
    “I’ll carry her for a while,” Leitos said sharply, allowing no room for argument.
    Sumahn seemed ready to balk, but relented.
    Leitos took Nola’s weight and set off at a trot, making every effort not to jar the girl. Under the hammering of his heart, hers was light and fluttery as a bird’s. He could scarcely believe this same girl had drubbed him senseless not so long ago, and then helped Belina drag him to the Yatoan camp. It seemed months had passed since then, but the true count was no more than a pair of days, if that.
    Armala’s wall rose dark against the raining sky, and behind it loomed buildings of black stone, all abandoned for long years, save the palace at the center of the city. Adu’lin had ruled the Yatoans from there, but no more. He had died in the Throat, burned to ash, while Leitos made his brief war against the Faceless One.
    A crooked fork of lightning slammed into one of the two southern watchtowers within the city. A deafening boom of thunder rattled Leitos’s teeth. With that crash, the belly of the storm opened up, and a pounding deluge misted everything.
    Leitos ran harder, sure Nola’s heartbeat had grown fainter still. He hazarded a quick look at the girl. She and Belina were Zera’s younger sisters—rather, half-sisters, as their mother, like most Yatoan women, had been bred to an Alon’mahk’lar for the creation of Na’mihn’teghul, an order of changelings that could masquerade as humans, but were nothing of the sort.
    Where Belina favored Damoc, Nola’s resemblance to Zera was close enough that Leitos could imagine he carried the woman he had killed over a year ago. Their two faces melded before his eyes, and he swallowed desperately at the sharp knot lodged in his throat.
    “Stay with me,” he whispered, unsure if he was speaking to Nola, or to Zera’s ghost. Rain streamed down his face, diluting his tears. His vision shifted, and then he saw Zera, dying once more in his arms. The throbbing ache of loss and despair spread through him, seemed to wash over Zera— No! She’s Nola!
    The thought brought a brief and staggering weakness, and then he was rushing on again, footfalls once more sure.
    Nola murmured, her voice stronger than before, one hand clutching his robes. He spared another glance to her one good eye, set like an emerald in a mask of blood and pain. She stared at him. Her lips moved, but he could not hear her.
    “Leitos!” Ulmek’s shout cut through the drumming rain, and Leitos stumbled to a halt. Before he could turn, Sumahn and Daris were at his side, bustling him toward the side of a building. Ulmek, Belina, and Damoc were already there, waiting, scanning the sky behind Leitos and the others.
    Just as they ducked around the edge, a hail of arrows streaked out of the storm. A steel broadhead tore a gash in the shoulder of Leitos’s robe. More clattered off the cobbles.
    “Fauthian archers,” Damoc hissed. “I thought sure we had killed all those yellow bastards.”
    “Snakes never die easy,” Adham panted, sliding in amongst the group as another volley rattled against the roadway. It pleased Leitos to see that he looked like his old self. Resolute, fierce, a true ice-born warrior.
    Daris poked his head into the open, then jerked back an instant before an arrowhead shrieked off the corner of the wall. “There’s three, maybe four archers in the watchtower to the west. You’ll have to ask the gods how they survived that lightning strike.”
    Leitos didn’t care how they’d survived, but he meant to change their luck. A quick search of the faces around him showed who was the strongest. He forced Nola into Ulmek’s unwilling arms. “Take her to the palace.” To the others, he said, “Keep them safe.”
    “What are you doing?” Adham demanded, at the same time Belina said, “You