Embers (The Wings of War Book 1)

Acknowledgements

Many thanks go out to G. K. Bradford for putting her heart and soul into the edits, and Jenny Zemanek of Seedlings Design, for creating such an amazing cover!

As always, much appreciation and love to my five children, Luke, Cole, Lily, Owen and Cora.  Thank you for putting up with me when I’m in a frenzy of writing and I forget to make dinner.  You all are the best.

Special thanks to my mom, Marilyn Lanzalaco, and my friends Carey Hardin Gleckler, Opal Dickerson and Marian Little.  Your support means so much to me.  I love you all.

It’s the little things that make it possible for me to create stories.  Hugs and gratitude go out to my dad, Anthony Lanzalaco, my brother, Tony Lanzalaco, and my best friend, Jay Detzel.

Finally, I’m so grateful to Kelsey Haynes for reading Embers long before anyone else and offering some fantastic suggestions, including the title character’s name.  You never cease to amaze me.

“W
hat do you reckon them people do in there?” Ronnie asked no one in particular.  He continued to twirl a piece of his reddish-brown beard between his fingers as he stared at the twelve foot high wooden wall before him.  The warm breeze did nothing to stop the chill from absorbing into his skin, sending goose bumps along his arms.

“No telling.  I heard they were crazy city folk and foreigners who came up here to grow a new kind of weed,” Bobby Dean said, tentatively poking at a weathered board with his finger. 

Ronnie was about as experienced a mountain man as there was, knowing the backwoods as well as the roads that crisscrossed the small town of Oldport, but the strange feeling he had standing beside the tall barrier rattled his nerves something fierce.  The total lack of sound didn’t help his apprehension either.  He glanced around wondering where all the birds were hiding.

Oscar wasn’t feeling the same uncertainty that his companions were.  He was busy catching his breath, leaning his hefty body against the trunk of a large Poplar tree.  Propping his elbow on the butt of his twelve gauge shotgun, he waited a minute more before putting his two cents in.

“Sheriff Riggs will have our hides if he gets wind that we’re up here nosing around the compound.  If I was a betting man, I’d say he’s been paid off by the people that live in there to discourage visitors.” Oscar said the words with a strong confidence that he knew what he was talking about. 

“Maybe the Sheriff does have something going with them, an arrangement like. Wouldn’t that just beat all?” Bobby Dean reached into his backpack and pulled out a rope with a metal claw on the end.  He never went into the deep woods without it, figuring that a day would come when he’d need to climb a tree right quick if he failed to make a death shot on a large bear. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ronnie hissed, grabbing hold of his cousin’s arm.

“I aim to find out what’s behind this wall.  It’ll satisfy my curiosity and it might even benefit my wallet.  You all can stay behind if you want. No skin off my nose.”

Ronnie wiped the sweaty bangs off his forehead in frustration.  “Oh, man, Bobby, we came out here to nab us a bear, not go mingling with the weirdos.”

“I reckon we can have us a look around without anyone being the wiser,” Bobby’s voice went to a low whisper without him even thinking about it.  He stared at Ronnie with his one blue eye as steady as a boat on a calm river, and the hazel one twitching.  It was unnerving to look at a man’s face when his eyes should have belonged to two different people.  As usual, Ronnie glanced away quickly, not able to hold his older cousin’s gaze for long. 

Oscar came away from the tree, slinging the long gun around his shoulder.  Even with his hulking size, he managed to move fluidly.   

“I’m game, Bobby—if you think that rope will hold me.” Oscar grinned, flashing his tobacco yellow teeth.

“No worries about that,” Bobby Dean chuckled, backing up a few steps.

After whirling the claw around several times, he let it fly, the whoosh of air from the rope making the only sound in that part of the woods.  The claw met its mark, catching the top of the wall securely.  Bobby Dean tugged it into place, testing its strength before he began pulling his lanky body up.

It took Oscar a minute longer to make the climb.  He grunted and groaned the entire way, but true to Bobby Dean’s word, the rope held the big man.  Oscar’s round face was bright red from the exertion.  He smiled down at Ronnie for a second before he climbed over the wall and disappeared. 

Ronnie stood cemented to the ground, his hand shielding his eyes from the glaring sunshine.  He frowned up at the place where Oscar had just been.  Now that he could no longer hear Oscar’s heavy breathing, the forest was dead quiet again.  As quiet as the Oldport library, which he hadn’t been to since he was a kid, but it was the only other place that he could remember that was so forcibly absent of sound.  Even the critters seemed afraid to make any scurrying noises in the dried leaves beneath the trees. 

The longer Ronnie stood there, the harder his heart thumped against his rib cage.

“Shoot, I don’t know what’s worse, going in there with my fool cousins or staying out here alone,” Ronnie muttered to himself.

Bobby’s bird call whistled through the air, getting his attention.  Even if the birds

had been chirping in that part of the woods, he still would have recognized the distinct sound that only his cousin was known to make.

That’s what decided it for him. 

Ronnie grasped the rough cord between his hands and started up the boards.  His body was lean and muscled from working nearly twenty years at the lumber mill.  The climb was easy for him.   

When he reached the top, he took a moment to scan the area.  After seeing that the dense stand of trees continued on the inside of the enclosure, giving him some natural camouflage to blend with his clothing, he sighed in relief.  He’d been worried about dropping into a clear cut area and sticking out as if he was a beaver in a parking lot. 

Straddling the top, Ronnie pulled the rope over until it dangled down the inside of the wall.  He slid his legs over to stretch to his full height, hanging there for a couple of seconds before letting go.   

With a hard jolt, he landed between Bobby Dean and Oscar, and then jumped to a standing position quickly.    He wasted no time searching the trees from the ground.  Ronnie usually didn’t think much about trespassing, but then again, he’d never had to scale something as tall as the fence behind him to do so. He couldn’t shake the ill feeling that whoever built such a thing was serious about keeping intruders out.  He knew first-hand how some folks dealt with unwanted people on their land.  All his kin had shotguns propped up behind their front doors for just such occasions.

Bobby Dean flashed a smile before taking the lead with Oscar close on his heels.  Ronnie followed for a few strides and then stopped.  He dropped six rounds of ammo into the barrel and then pumped, pushing one into the chamber of the gun.  He usually loved the sound, but not this time.  It cut through the air like a shout announcing they had arrived. 

Bobby Dean stopped and looked back over his shoulder, mouthing the words, “What the—?”

“I ain’t taking any chances,” was all Ronnie had to say to get Oscar to follow suit with his own modified shotgun.  Bobby Dean nodded solemnly and primed his rifle for a shot.

Ronnie felt a little better knowing that the three of them were armed and ready to shoot if need be.  Hell, he rationalized, with their weaponry and experience, an army of bears wouldn’t be able to get to them. 

Why then was an uncomfortable tightness still pressing his chest up into his throat?

Stepping as softly as he could over the dry, fallen leaves and branches, Ronnie was all too aware of the heavy silence in the air.  He sniffed in the scents of the warm clay earth and tangy pine needles, finding no comfort in the familiarity. And with no breeze, the sticky wetness beading in every crevice of his body made the ordeal even more unpleasant. 

All of Ronnie’s senses were on overdrive as he fell into his usual hunter posture, bending at the hips slightly and darting his gaze around.  He could bring the gun to his cheek and get a shot off in a heartbeat if necessary.  His muscles were tight and ready to spring. 

It was Ronnie’s keen eyes that first spotted the wood sided building in the distance.  He whistled to get the others’ attention.  Jutting his chin in the direction of the well hidden building, he made sure they’d seen it before he stepped behind the wide trunk of an aged Oak tree. 

Bobby Dean and Oscar did the same, finding their own trees.  The three men were spaced out enough to provide cover for each other, yet still close enough to communicate.  Ronnie took a measured sigh.  He was grateful that they were in good positions. 

The calming breath that filled Ronnie lasted only a split second before all hell broke loose.  The musky smell that reached his nostrils was the first sign of immediate doom.  He turned to his cousins in confusion, catching the look of shock on Oscar’s face just before Ronnie twisted to see the giant tawny colored cat leap at him. 

Ronnie’s mind screamed
lion
as he raised his gun.  His and Oscar’s blasts hit the air at the same moment.  The bullets hit their mark, but instead of bringing the beast down, they only served to alter his course a little.  It was the lion’s shoulder that slammed into Ronnie, knocking him into the tree. 

The impact hurt like hell, but Ronnie had no time to think about the pain.  He bolted up and limped toward Bobby Dean, who met him in the open space between the trees.  Bobby Dean slung his arm around Ronnie and pulled him to the nearest tree for cover.  Oscar reloaded and stood ready.  The barrel of his gun was aimed at a beast that hadn’t been reliably spotted in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee for decades. 

The mountain lion was unnaturally large and Ronnie’s mouth gaped open as he scanned the beast from head to tail.  In a swirl of dust and leaves, the lion rolled, and was up.  Its rumbling growl filled the air with a heavy push that was so unknown to Ronnie’s ears that his stomach clenched at the sound.  

“Dammit, Oscar, shoot it again!” Ronnie shouted, gripping Bobby Dean’s side. 

Ronnie knew that Oscar was ready to let another round fly, but he never got the chance.  The blur that swept out of the trees brought with it a pocket of cool air.  As Ronnie and Bobby Dean looked on in horror, their burly cousin’s head went flying.  It disappeared into a cluster of bushes. 

There was a spurt of blood from the gaping hole in Oscar’s neck as his knees buckled to the ground.  He stayed in that position for a few seconds before finally tipping over.  A gush of darkness seeped into the ground where a head should have been.

The sight of Oscar, decapitated, froze the remaining two cousins for only a blink before each had their guns up and firing at the
thing
that had attacked their kin.  The blur had been unrecognizable, but Ronnie could have sworn he saw a flash of royal blue and long golden hair.  The explosions stopped briefly and the smell of gun powder was thick in the air as Ronnie and Bobby Dean stood back to back, reloading.

It was happening so fast that the men had no time to think about what they’d seen or to mourn for their childhood buddy who was dead in the rotting leaves.  A violent life of hunting, combined with their rebellious spirits and generations of mountain breeding, had given them the tools to live a few minutes longer than most humans would have.

The blur passed before them again and was joined by another from the opposite direction.  The bullets missed their marks until all the ammo was spent.

Ronnie saw something then that he couldn’t have imagined, when out from behind the tree stepped the most beautiful creature that he’d ever seen.  Only the fact that she’d ripped Oscar’s head from his body kept Ronnie’s jaw from dropping.  He instantly knew that she was the devil in disguise.  He believed in heaven and hell, and his mind readily accepted that that the blonde woman before him was some kind of demon.