Half-Orcs: Book 06 - The Prison of Angels by David Dalglish Page B

plan,” he said, heading for his tent. “Word of what just happened will spread through Mordan quickly enough, and whatever the aftermath, we must be ready.”
    He glanced to the sky, where the angels were but distant specks.
    “Their brashness grows. War is coming, Ian, whether we want it or not. One god has fallen from this land, and the other hungers to possess the rest. How long until they deem our entire nation full of sinners needing repentance by sword?”
    “They won’t go that far,” Ian quietly insisted. “I spoke with many angels during the war. We fought alongside them, and they were selfless allies. They cherish life. They embrace peace, and seek only to protect the innocent.”
    “That was when we warred against demons,” Bram said, shaking his head. “That was when they knew their purpose. Five years is a long time, Ian. Long enough to forget the past. Long enough to become all too human.”
    Bram looked once more to the sky, shook his head and turned away.

 
     
     
    7

    I t was the happiest day of Jessilynn’s life, broken only by momentary terror every time Sonowin banked one way or another, forcing her to hold Dieredon tighter lest she fall. Given how they flew high enough to pierce the clouds, it would be a very, very long fall.
    “You’d catch me, right?” she asked Dieredon, needing to shout directly into his ear to be heard over the wind that ripped at their hair and clothes. She sat bareback atop the winged horse, with nothing to hold onto but the elf’s waist, which she kept in a deathlock.
    “If you fell?” Dieredon asked, glancing back at her.
    She nodded.
    “Most likely,” he said. He stared at her, then gently tugged on the reins. Sonowin’s great wings shifted angle, and they dipped lower with a stomach-churning lurch. When they leveled out, the clouds were far above them.
    “Is it easier to breathe now?” he asked.
    Meekly, Jessilynn nodded.
    “I didn’t want to complain,” she said, and she meant it. Her excitement was great, and she hated to spoil it just because her head felt strangely light, or because her stomach seemed ready to empty the little remnants of her breakfast across miles and miles of faded grass.
    The land rolled along as they flew north. Jessilynn spent a moment with her eyes closed, her forehead resting against Dieredon’s back. Slowly her stomach calmed, the world seeming to spin a little bit less. Rejuvenated, she looked out over the land and felt her spirit soar. Nothing compared to flying like a bird, seeing the shifting of the rivers and the entire limits of vast forests. Carefully she leaned a little to the right, to better see past Sonowin’s bobbing head.
    “Is that it?” she shouted, almost pointing before thinking better of it.
    “If you mean the gorge, then yes. We’re almost to the Bone Ditch.”
    It was surreal seeing it from such height, a place that had been nothing more than a story to her while growing up. It was said that when Celestia created the orcs, she split the land, starting at where the Rigon flowed out of the northern mountains. It was a massive chasm now, the rock a faded red, the cliff faces sheer. At the very bottom the Rigon flowed along, steady as ever. The great span and deadly fall had been one of the most significant protections the eastern land of Neldar had against the creatures that had been trapped there. But during the Gods’ War the orcs within had been loosed, the prophet using his dark magic to aid their crossing.
    “What do we do when we arrive?” Jessilynn asked, thinking of the bridges the orcs had supposedly constructed over the past few years.
    Dieredon gave her a strange look.
    “Land.”
    Sonowin banked lower, and the growing proximity to the ground increased her sense of speed. The great chasm wound below them like a giant snake, until what had been a speck in the distance grew and grew, and she realized it was the orc bridge crossing the Bone Ditch. There was only one, constructed of