“How did Rassan defeat the Demon Tribes?”
“His message offered few details, but the messenger told a story of smaller beasts, smarter beasts, Your Excellency.”
Azmon paused and stood straighter. “How small?”
“A little taller than a man.”
“And they defeated the Marsh Fen Orcs?”
“I assume so, Your Excellency. There aren’t many details.”
Azmon continued to his tent. The smaller beasts he had built lacked the intelligence to fight armed men. The larger ones used brute force, but if Rassan had found a way around that limitation, Azmon needed to know. Why had he kept it secret? Azmon suspected another plot. Rassan would build his own army, on Sornum, to overthrow House Pathros.
“Send a flyer for Rassan. I want him brought to me, immediately.”
They entered the large command pavilion at the center of the camp. Lamps offered dim light compared to the noonday sun. Hanging walls sectioned off the tent. The main room had tables and shelves arranged on a rug-covered floor: the illusion of home smelled of old parchment and dust. One shelf held many hourglasses marking weeks, days, and minutes until Azmon could attempt another rite. The falling sand marked many failures as he consolidated his empire.
Elmar dragged in a bleating goat.
“Leave me.”
The staff filed out, and Azmon turned to the goat, studying its musculature: a decent offering. He withdrew a silk bag of sand from his robes, knelt, and used fistfuls to draw the Runes of Dusk and Dawn.
Azmon finished and surveyed his work. He steeled himself for the next part, which, despite years of practice, still unnerved him. Closing his eyes, he inhaled and visualized a gate rune that burned like an orb of lava. Part of his mind entered the gate, traveled beyond his body, and sought access to the Nine Hells. Time slowed. A familiar tug pulled at his soul—a clawing hand, dragging him toward damnation. Azmon brushed it aside, and power infused him. The room chilled, and he opened his eyes to tunnel vision. The goat trembled. The unholy rite bothered Azmon as well.
He profaned the language of God.
He spoke a word of power, and the sand swirled together into lines like wire. He calmed the goat, running one hand down its flank while the other drew a knife and slit its throat. The animal screamed once, but another word of power silenced the noise. Runes drank the spilled blood.
“Mulciber, hear my call.”
Azmon invoked the Father of Lies as the rite commanded, but he prayed the shedim did not notice. A goat rather than a human sacrifice helped avoid their attention. His mind traveled to Pandemonium, a place of shadows, flames, and ghosts. In person he would see more, but the link offered glimpses of the Nine Hells. He searched for his childhood friend, Tyrus of Kelnor, and had killed a herd of goats on the task because searching without a body was like finding a teardrop in an ocean. A year had passed since scouts saw Tyrus and Lilith crash. They found Lilith’s body but not Tyrus’s.
Prolonged contact with the Nine Hells caused sharp pains behind his eyes. Azmon searched a little while longer and severed contact. The goat lay on the runes, dry, sunken in. After he released the sorcery, he felt unclean, and his chest ached. His skin crawled as though bugs covered him.
“Elmar.” A tent flap opened to a blinding flash of sunlight. “Burn this thing. Don’t let anyone cook it. And prepare a bath.”
“Of course, Excellency.”
Azmon tore at his robes and flung them away. He needed to take a break from the rites; with too many of them each day, the lingering effects grew worse. The smell of sulfur filled his nose. A thought had gnawed at him for months. If Tyrus had sacrificed himself for Marah, his soul might not be in the Nine Hells. The Seven Heavens might have blessed him.
He heard a wonderful sound: three or four clerks pouring buckets of hot water into his bathtub. He shed the rest of his clothes and went to bathe. As the warm water washed away the slithering sensation, he worried about the shedim. He had not told the demons of his lost daughter.
One of two cities had her, either the elves in Telessar or Dura in Ironwall, and maybe they had Tyrus’s corpse as well. They would want to study the runes. He lowered himself farther into the steaming water until his nose was at the surface. Heat penetrated tense muscles. Should he ask the shedim to confirm his suspicions? What price would he pay for such a favor?
Azmon’s bath chilled around him; gooseflesh spread across his arms. His hair matted to his head, and cold water trickled down his neck. He scowled at the largest hourglass as the time approached for another rite.
Elmar entered. “The lords are prepared, Your Excellency.”
The witching hour neared, a superstition for illiterate farmers, but he had tried everything else. He grasped at old wives’ tales while losing the respect of his nobles. They gossiped about his failures, his obsession. His scowl deepened. Something about the new rite eluded him.
“I’m ready, Elmar.”
Elmar clapped his hands. Clerks entered with towels and robes. Azmon stepped out of the porcelain tub, and hands became too familiar. Soft cotton sponged away the freezing water. He hated people touching him, but among the nobles, the number of personal servants equated a status no different from holding titles and lands. After he dressed, Azmon left his tent to find a dozen of his best students waiting. They looked worried. So many rites exposed them to the Nine Hells and risked fatigue. Instead of pulling sorcery into the mortal world, their souls could be yanked to the other side, a wretched way to die.
Azmon grimaced at his desperation, using thirteen sorcerers during the witching hour. At best, the superstitions might increase their confidence, but he knew the shedim cared little about theatrics.
Clerks set up a table and wheeled in a barrel packed with ice. They had needed a lord and flyer to harvest the ice from a mountain range, a waste of a scout. The barrel emptied onto the table, and hundreds of ice chunks spilled out around a gray corpse. The clerks scooped ice back into the barrel and left.
Azmon studied the mutilated body of Lady Lilith, who had once been his greatest student. The upper half of her torso—one arm, head, shoulders, and rib cage—was all that remained. The grayish skin had a detached look, too large for its bones. He arranged the body and gestured for materials. Pieces from other bodies were brought in to complete her frame as he drew runes on her. In a large circle around the table, the other lords made more runes. Azmon had spent decades preparing for this, yet he kept failing. He checked and double-checked for a misplaced line.
He told the lords, “Make contact and wait.”
The tent chilled as the sorcerers reached out to the Nine Hells for power. Azmon watched their eyes change to white within white, their irises becoming pinpricks.
“Bind the runes.”
The sand at their feet snapped into rigid shapes. Azmon circled the perimeter to inspect them before he took his place at the center. He closed his eyes and bathed in the filth of the Nine Hells.
“Bring the offerings.”
Clerks brought thirteen Shinari slaves, seven women and six men, into the circle. Azmon checked their drugged stupor. Maybe the drugs would upset the ritual?
They killed the slaves, the runes drank blood, and the lords chanted the rite. Chanting lacked artistry; true masters held the runes in their mind, but the rite was too complex. As Azmon spoke, the air swirled, and gusts of wind snapped at the tent. Lightning sparked and thunder boomed. On their first attempt, the storms had surprised everyone and killed two lords. Azmon fought the distractions to focus on Lilith’s body.
The tempest grew.
The offerings morphed into hideous shapes, and Lilith’s body writhed on the table. Azmon passed a point he had never reached before. The pieces of flesh flowed into one another, pinking. Behind him, one lord cried out and then another. A vortex of runes spun in his mind, and he teetered between success and failure. Azmon’s heart pounded in his chest; sweat dripped down his back as he reached
too far. Lords screamed while bodies crashed to the ground. Azmon saw yellow starbursts and began to black out. So close. His last sight was Lilith’s body becoming something new. Then everything went black.
He awoke in Elmar’s arms, shivering. Several blankets bound his body, and Elmar waved smelling salts beneath his nose. Azmon’s eyes burst open at the awful smells. They brought back memories of the Underworld.
“The connection,” he said. “It must be closed. Things can come through.”
“The runes are sand again, all of them.”
“All of them?”
“And the lords’ too, even the ones that died.”
Azmon pushed Elmar away and struggled with the blankets. Clerks helped him to his feet. He saw three of the lords in their black robes, laid out in a line. His clerks had moved them, smudging the circles of runes they had stood on. He had no way of knowing what had gone wrong.
“How long since I passed out?”
“Your Excellency,” Elmar said, “the table.”
Azmon feared the worst: a failure that had destroyed Lilith’s remains. They had never made it so far before, and he worried about the rite consuming the body. A strange cocoon, a husk of blackish sinew, covered the table. It confirmed his fears until he saw a woman’s foot protruding. It twitched. The flesh grew lighter with each heartbeat.
Elmar said, “There is a hand on the other side.”
“Help me.”
Azmon wobbled on his feet. He felt like he had been trampled, and his skin festered with itches. He would need a dozen baths to feel clean again, but he lurched to the table and tore away pieces of the cocoon. He sought the leg attached to the foot. With the help of the lords and clerks, they uncovered a woman with Lilith’s face. The skin looked firm again. The ribs, which had been gruesome, looked normal, covered in healthy tissue, rising and falling.
It breathed.
Lord Ralin asked in a hushed voice, “You brought her back?”
“No. This is better. Much better.”
Azmon could not describe what he had done. The evidence before him should have made him elated, but he was too exhausted. Elmar understood and braced a shoulder under his armpit. Azmon leaned on his human crutch and watched the creature open her eyes. They burned with red fire. The bone lords gasped at the revelation.
This was no woman.
“Find her some clothes.” Azmon wobbled against Elmar, and another clerk stepped forward to support him. “I need another bath.”
“You need to sleep.”
“Not like this. Not with the itching.”
“Of course, Your Excellency.”
A tear ran down Azmon’s cheek. The last time he had accomplished so much, he had given Tyrus a hundred runes. The new beast was his creation and not some gift from Mulciber. He had done this by himself, mastering his art and creating new life. He had perfected the beasts of war.
BLUE FEAST
I
Tyrus sized up the forty champions standing in ranks. A brisk breeze of mountain air kept the sunny day cool. Gadaran society had an interesting caste system of nobles, clansmen, and farmers. Most herded goats and sheep, livestock that could survive in the mountains, and they struggled to protect their herds. They reminded him of his own people, the Kellai. Herdsmen tended to value honor and harbored a special hatred for liars and thieves.
The clansmen were the largest group. Courtroom peacocks made up the rest. Tyrus did not doubt their skill. They were all accomplished warriors, but the clansmen were hard men accustomed to hard lives. They had grit.
“Today we learn limits,” he said. “An Etched Man can be dragged down by lesser men. Spearmen learn to kill us the same way nobles hunt bears. A pack of dogs wears the bear down while the nobles bleed it with spears. Being big and strong doesn’t save the bear, so why would it save you?”
Tyrus stopped pacing before the largest noble. The man, Rorgen, was twenty-something with a thick blond beard and a resolved face. He seemed prepared for abuse. Tyrus remembered being the biggest kid and drawing attention from his trainers too.
“How many men will it take to drag you down?”
Rorgen clenched his teeth.
Tyrus asked another man, “Did I say that right?”
“Yes, master Tyrus.”
“You all understood my Nuna?” The men nodded, and Tyrus asked again, “You speak Nuna, don’t you? How many to drag you down?”
“Depends on the men.”
“That is a good answer.” Tyrus fought a grin. He must be stern. “Of these champions here, the best of Ironwall, how many?”
Everyone waited. Rorgen had twenty runes, and in another time, an age without Lael the Dauntless or the Butcher of Rosh, he would have made a name for himself. Tyrus watched him struggle with insulting other nobles.
“I can take twenty runes, master Tyrus.”
Tyrus paced, shaking his head. The Gadarans had this mistaken belief that they could measure feats of strength in terms of runes. They counted them without weighing their type, use, or training.
“You have, what, five ox runes? Can you take a man with twenty ox runes?”
“No one has twenty ox runes, master Tyrus.”
“I do.”
“None of us have that many, master Tyrus.”
“If it were twenty men, each with a boar rune, could you take them?”
The man reddened. “Only one rune each? I should say so, master Tyrus.”
“What if ten have bows and ten have spears?”
Everyone grew quiet.
“Let me repeat, a pack of wolves can kill a bear. So what makes you so special?”
“I’ve had training—”
“Give me a number. How many men can you take?”
“Two of the best. Five of the others.”
The numbers surprised Tyrus and gave him pause. He questioned at first if the man had fought five spearmen before, but a glance at his face revealed the bluff. He studied the young man, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Why five and not six or seven? No matter.
“Time to wrestle. Put your gear over there. Strip to breeches.”
The men broke into groups and helped each other out of their leather armor. Tyrus approached a group of clansmen. He told five of them what he wanted: a dirty fight. They shrugged agreement. After the men arranged their gear, they reformed in ranks. The Gadarans, like the Shinari, preferred golden inks for their etchings. Tyrus saw scores of men with glittering gold tattoos, like military medals, lining their chests.
“Big man, twenty runes, over here.” Tyrus gestured. “You five, over here. This is twelve runes against twenty.”
“What are the rules, master Tyrus?”
“Simple: be the last man standing.”
Tyrus clapped his hands, and the five circled the one. Big man waited, fists raised, edging in a circle. The clansmen rushed as one group, and the large man put a bone-snapping punch through one jaw, but the others tackled his knees, grabbed his beard, hung on his arms, and pulled him to the ground. He fought to regain his feet and threw two off, but they scrambled back and used their bodies to smother each of his limbs.
Tyrus said, “Enough.”
The nobles muttered about cheap tactics while Tyrus inspected the clansman who had taken the punch. Blood stained his face from his nostrils to his chin, and three teeth were loose. Tyrus waved to the audience, watching from another terrace, a collection of academics, nobles, etchers, and Dura’s students. A sorceress in a red robe came and walked the man away.
“Lord Marshal, the contest was not fair.”
Tyrus gritted his teeth. Whenever the pompous little nobles disliked him, they used his old title. Dura had forbidden it. He turned to the source of the complaint, narrowing his options down to one of two men. One shirked away from the other, and Tyrus had his heckler. More nobles joined in protest.
“They pulled his hair.”
/> “They tripped him.”
“The Norsil fight with more honor.”
That last insult provoked the clansmen, which Tyrus found interesting. He needed to learn more about the Norsil. They seemed infamous for winning at any price. Men he might like. He raised his hands for silence and approached the big man, who still had blades of grass stuck to his shoulders.
Tyrus asked, “You feel ill used?”
“I didn’t understand the rules. Give me a second chance.”
“I like you.” Tyrus clapped him on the shoulder. The trainees’ limited trust slipped away. The Butcher of Rosh humiliated them with dirty tricks, and they would become a mob if he let it continue. Time to raise their spirits. “I’ll give you a second chance, but you can be on the team of five. I’ll even let you pick your men, to fight me.”
The others leapt at the bait, but Rorgen winced. He was smarter than the rest and one of the few nobles capable of learning from a commoner. Tyrus hoped he had his measure. He didn’t seem like an assassin.
“Pick your men.”
“As many runes as I want?”
“Count the men, not the runes, and pick four.”
Tyrus squared off with five of the strongest, men of twenty runes. The blackish color of his runes contrasted with their shimmering gold. They circled, and Tyrus remembered a fight over a year ago when he had killed ten Roshan champions in the Paltiel Woods. Better men than these. He saw their dead faces, eyes shocked at his betrayal. The circle closed, but no one rushed him.
Fair was fair—they’d had their chance—and he jumped to his right. He tackled a man, rolled on top of him, and punched his face. He pulled the blow so the skull didn’t fracture, and the other four fell on him. In the confusion, he surged to his feet and knocked two down, but Rorgen tackled him at the knees. He fell to all fours and was about to kick him off when the others piled on.
Rorgen yelled, “Pull his arms.”
A man scrambled over Tyrus’s shoulders, reaching for his elbow, and Tyrus threw his head back. Skulls cracked. Someone tugged his arm. He tugged back, dragging the guy off his feet. Bodies collided, and he freed a leg enough to kick Rorgen off. He divided and conquered, threw one into the ground and gut-punched another. Rorgen snuck up behind him and hoisted him off his feet. Weightless, Tyrus flailed to cheers.
Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) Page 7