Klay said, “You haven’t thought this through.”
“I have.”
“Well, think again. First, you must pass the purims then the elves then the bone beasts. If—and it’s a big if—if she’s still in Shinar, then Azmon protects her.”
“He’ll keep her close.”
“So, you know that, do you? You know it’s all insane?”
“I owe her.”
“You saved her child. That is enough.”
“No, it isn’t.” Tyrus studied Chobar’s drooping eyes. He couldn’t believe it. “The bear drinks?”
“Are you kidding? He loves the stuff. Fermented berries, grapes, roots, honey. He’ll drink anything. Loves the sweet stuff. Have to watch him, though; makes him fat.”
Chobar snorted, but his jowls pulled back into a toothy grin. Tyrus had trouble remembering that Gadaran bears were a different breed. Chobar might understand what they were saying. Tyrus shifted his weight while he thought of a graceful way to leave Klay behind. He didn’t have time for drunk bears.
“This is the plan?” Klay asked. “Walking to Shinar?”
“You said the horses drew the purim.”
“They do.” Klay’s eyes opened. “Ah, I see how your little mind works. You’ll let the knights draw them away. Clever, mister Butcher, clever.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Not enough.” Klay gestured at the fortress and sounded disgusted. “Been out here, watching the walls for idiots. I should be dancing. Have you any idea how many babies are being sired right now?”
“They say a Reborn brings fertility.”
“Fertility, nothing—drunken debauchery—you know?”
“You need to go home.”
“And did I not say he would send us away?”
Chobar grunted again. Tyrus was either losing his mind, or he had begun to notice a pattern in the bear’s grunts and snarls. Chobar agreed with Klay— a sincere grunt, not as sarcastic as before. The bear watched Tyrus, and he had the feeling it understood him. Tyrus would not shake either of them off. If they were intent on following him, he had to accept that.
“Well,” Klay said, “I had hoped you would wait for daylight, but we are coming with you.”
“Why?”
“For old times, and to kill Azmon.” Klay shrugged. “To start the war. That is what you are after, isn’t it? You can’t get your woman without angering the emperor.”
“I will sneak her out.”
“Yes. You are so sneaky. Chobar, isn’t the Butcher of Rosh sneaky?”
“Dura knows you are here?”
“Of course she knows, and so does the king. They hope you and those foolish knights will force Azmon’s hand before he is ready. Then the league will act, and maybe Telessar won’t fall. Of course, I swore not to tell you that.” Klay coughed and scratched his head. “Officially, I am escorting you to the other side of Paltiel.”
Tyrus waited for more.
“I’m sorry I’m drunk. It’s been a long time since we had a feast.”
“Stay and drink. You can find me tomorrow. I have no mount.”
“No.” Klay sounded as if he needed to convince himself. “The best food is gone, and the best girls are with lesser men.”
“Then we should be going.”
“There was a baker’s daughter who wanted to ride a war bear, just so you know. I almost had Chobar drunk enough to let her try. He usually mauls people who jump on him. Then Dura sent me out here to catch you.”
Klay took a moment to fish his horn out of his pack. The ranger’s horn was spiraled and covered in elvish engravings. He inhaled and blew one long note. Chobar stood on his hind legs and roared.
“What was that?”
“Some friends watching other walls. We can go.”
Tyrus set off at a trot, and moments later, Chobar lumbered beside him with Klay leaning back in the saddle. Tyrus was happy for the company; the war bears were said to scare off purims. Not far from Shinar, other rangers on war bears met them until a dozen formed a box around Tyrus. Five of them had two riders, rangers in green and sorcerers in red. Tyrus recognized Dura’s students, but other than Larz Kedar, he had not bothered to learn their names.
“An escort for the greatest champion of the age.” Klay gestured at the handful of rangers. “Alas, you’re not very popular.”
Tyrus grunted at the understatement.
“Dura and Samos asked us to watch you, but don’t press your luck with the Shinari.”
Tyrus asked, “Why did you bring so many?”
“The purims are raiding settlements in the ranges. Out in the open like this, it’s better to be prepared.”
“You think they’ll attack this many bears?”
“The elves are gone. Before long, the giants will make them attack the gates. Another war on another front. Nothing is ever easy.”
“What can you tell me about the tunnels underneath Shinar?”
“The old city? Not much. Never been in them.”
Tyrus accepted that. He had ordered a map of them drawn after the Roshan conquered Shinar but left the city before it was completed. He had no idea how large the tunnel system was, but it was his best bet to get Ishma out of Rosh. Provided Biral was right and she was in the city in the first place.
Klay said, “If you want to know more, you should talk with Lahar. That’s how they got Dura out of Shinar. He was there.”
“I doubt he’ll help me.”
“True, but he would know. Lior won’t speak to you, not after the duel, but Lahar is more pragmatic.”
Tyrus jogged, a slow trot for the bears but all he could manage if he wanted to maintain the pace. The sun broke over the mountains, less interesting than before. He was too low to the ground to see the shadows flee from the light. High atop the Gadaran range, night changed dramatically to dawn, but down on the plains the sky grew lighter by degrees. Soon, he would need to break his fast. His stomach rumbled, and his runes demanded meat.
He asked, “Can we make the woods by tomorrow night?”
“The bears can’t ride that hard, and if the knights try, they’ll kill their horses.”
“And the purims are out in bigger numbers?”
Klay appeared sober and grim. Tyrus ensured that his sword was clear of his pack. He would need to grab it and drop the pack in a quick motion.
II
Screams filled Azmon’s tent. Tamar, a champion who had survived a fight with Tyrus, was chained to a table, and Azmon used a set of needles to etch a rune into his shoulder. Azmon worked a deeper etch, a long hollow needle tore a hole past the skin into the muscle, and a second needle, loaded with a boiling ink, entered the first. He used sorcery to set each puncture. Without spells, the ink would spread under the skin.
Azmon said, “Tighten the restraints on his head.”
Bone lords pulled the straps. Tamar screamed more than most. His shoulder was blotchy, blistered, and bruised, a mottled color of purple and red. Azmon blocked out the cries to keep his needle accurate. There were a set number of punctures per rune, and the smallest misstep could be fatal.
Tamar gurgled.
Azmon said, “He’s choking on his tongue.”
Two bone lords stepped forward, fighting with Tamar’s jaw and working a rod into his mouth. He gagged, and Azmon paused for a second to check his face. The eyes had rolled back into the skull.
“Check his pulse.”
Azmon returned to the etching. He could not stop now. Half a rune could be as fatal. If the inks did not take hold, the champion would die from poisoning. No one knew why, but scribes speculated that the ink lost shape and entered the blood. Azmon had tested the theory by poisoning people with ink. They died, but not as quickly as people did from a failed rune. He had no idea why.
“His heart is weak, Excellency, but he lives.”
Azmon continued h
is work. Better if Tamar stayed awake, but he enjoyed the silence. The rest of the etching lacked incidents. The tent smelled of boiling tar, and the fumes made it muggy. Drips of sweat ran down Azmon’s face. After they were done, the cauldron of boiling ink was removed, along with the tray of needles. Azmon inspected Tamar, who appeared healthy. One of the few champions with a gift for enduring etchings, he had survived his twenty-first. That put him in rare company, but Azmon could tell he was not the same as Tyrus. He might dare twenty-two, maybe twenty-three runes, but more risked his life. Decades of experience gave him a gut feeling.
“Wash and bandage him. Ice the rune. Wait for him to wake, and make him drink the broth.” Azmon lit a candle with rings in it denoting hours. “Tell me when he wakes.”
“Of course, Your Excellency.”
Azmon left them to nurse Tamar and made his way to the pavilion’s audience chamber. He took his seat and listened to reports from his master clerk, Elmar. The fortification of Shinar neared completion. The city became a necropolis, not a word Azmon liked but common among the Imperial Guard.
“Excellency,” Elmar said, “I’ve been able to confirm the stories on Sornum. Lord Rassan has sent reports and has been delayed crossing the sea, but he did create a new kind of bone beast, and it is smaller.”
“What delays him?”
“Minor revolts, and he struggles to find someone trustworthy outside his house to control Rosh. As he tells it, the city is still weak and stretched thin. There are few able-bodied men for conscription.”
“Tell him to let House Baramek control Rosh. Lord Balric will replace Rassan. I want him in Argoria. Now. I will not tolerate any more excuses.”
“As you wish, Excellency.”
“How is he related to Lilith and Rimmon?”
“A younger brother, the youngest.”
Azmon nodded—Lady Lilith’s little brother. The Hadoram family had produced many talented bone lords, and Azmon had heard rumors of a younger son with Lilith’s knack for constructs. He mulled it over, torn between weakening Sornum and needing talent at his side.
He asked, “How effective were his beasts?”
“Early reports say they changed the tide of the war against the Marsh Fen Orcs. A general claims the orcs retreated to their swamps after two battles with the new beasts.”
Azmon leaned back on his throne, surprised. Killings orcs was no small thing and a constant vexation. The gray skins belonged to the Demon Tribes and should be loyal to Mulciber, and by extension Azmon, but they were wild animals and impossible to train. They spent as much time fighting Rosh as they did the dwarves in the Deep. If Rassan could make smaller beasts that could kill an orc, Azmon might not need any more champions.
“How much smaller are his beasts?”
“Man-sized. I have no measurements to report, though.”
“How did this information get to us before Rassan left Sornum?”
“I have staff in the ports of Argante and Nineve. I have men talk with the sailors, to corroborate the reports from Sornum.”
Elmar was a talented man. Azmon understood why Tyrus had relied on him to manage the Imperial Guard. If he were a noble, or had a talent with runes, Azmon might use him at the front. He wished his lords were as resourceful as his master clerk.
“Tell Rassan, ‘No more excuses.’ I want him in Argoria.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“How long until the dry months?”
“They say soon.”
Azmon grew tired of rains that came in from the ocean and lingered before Mount Teles. The plains had become a muddy mess, and he didn’t want to march men or supply wagons over that ground.
A bone lord interrupted them. “Your Excellency, the beast is awake.”
Azmon followed the lord from his tent across the camp to a smaller tent, which dozens of the Imperial Guard secured. Fools thought they guarded it from lords intent on learning Azmon’s new runes, but the guards protected the camp from the thing within.
A female lay on a table, draped in a cotton smock. For a moment, Azmon felt like a proud parent, godlike, creating a new life. Then he saw the red glow of the eyes, robbing the illusion of humanity. The eyes turned her face into a nightmare. Other things made it worse. Her limbs lacked coordination and jerked as though a puppeteer pulled strings.
“How long has she been like this?”
“She just started moving.”
He dared think of her as Lady Lilith. He might have reincarnated the dead, and if so, he had earned a black place in history. No one had done it, at least there was no record of it, but she did not look human either. He had created something new. Wary of touching her, he watched from a distance.
Azmon said, “Stand.”
The beast struggled with jerking movements that seemed monstrous. The head tilted, and the hands twitched. Joints popped when she flexed her legs. The eyes flickered between glowing red and rolling into her head.
Now for the real test. “Speak.”
She made a sound like a sheep, but it was too deep for such a slender throat. Everyone shuddered and covered their ears. Azmon listened for syllables, something intelligent, but it sounded like the “ma” of a sheep. As she struggled, she croaked like a toad.
“Ma… ster,” the beast said.
“Again.”
“Ma-ster.”
“Very good.”
Azmon fought a need to celebrate. If he were alone in his tower, away from prying eyes, he could laugh at his triumph. Glancing at the lords, he saw their fear. He had created a speaking beast.
“We can build on that word. Come to me.”
The thing that resembled Lilith struggled to lift one foot, then another. After a few minutes, she had walked a single span. He made notes of each tick. Of course, he had hoped she would be further along than this, but her stumbles felt better than months of failures. He considered the other runes he had given her. Lilith should be capable of more than walking and talking, but she needed training.
For the first time in months, Azmon experienced a sense of accomplishment. Possibilities sprang to mind. With a new beast and a talented student, a new protégé, he was ready to assault Paltiel and fight his way atop Mount Teles.
III
Lilith found herself encased by canvas walls. She sensed dozens of men, in steel suits, beyond them. This prison was soft but surrounded by steel. She expected chains on her limbs and hooks in her flesh, but she wore a cotton smock, a strange prison, different from the horrors of the Nine Hells. She heard hearts beating against ribs, and thoughts of blood made her drool. A carpet covered the floor. She sat with her knees to her chest. Her tattered memories were unreliable things. She glimpsed an old life and knew the man with the golden hair, boyish yet deadly. The more recent memories, demons in the burning world, were stronger. She had no sense of time or her age or where she had come from, only that she had escaped.
Reality was slippery. She struggled to separate the waking world from nightmares. Things that should be nightmares were memories, and this place was calm and peaceful like a dream. She feared she would wake among the shedim again. The demons stood tall, with burning eyes and dozens of faces covering their black bodies, all laughing at her pain. She hugged her knees and rocked herself.
A curtain drew back, and the golden man entered. The white robes meant danger. He was slight of build with an attractive young face, but instincts told her to run. He carried a wooden box under one arm.
“You are still awake?”
She nodded.
“Say, ‘Yes, master.’”
Lilith struggled against the compulsion to please him. Her tongue was wrong, too large for her mouth. “Yes… master.”
Her voice sounded masculine. She imagined a woman, young, with brown hair, swimming in a pond, and thought she was that woman. Another life, another body—her limbs had aged since then, covered in scars. She rocke
d herself, confused.
“Your speech has improved.”
“Yes, master.”
He knelt before her and opened the box. Lilith hated the contents. They did this each day, playing games. He withdrew wooden blocks, white and black, with silver runes embossed on them.
“Do you remember these from yesterday?”
“Yes, master.”
“Good.” Azmon arranged five blocks on the ground. “These were my toys when I was a child. They helped me learn the language of God. They are the Runes of Dusk and Dawn. Did you know that you had a set like these?”
“No.”
“Your family has produced many great students. Do you remember your family?”
“Sons?” She struggled to find words, and when she had the words, her mouth was too big for them. “I had sons?”
“You had two sons. And three brothers. A family blessed with boys. Arrange the blocks in the ascendance matrix.”
The games exposed her clumsy fingers, but the more they practiced, the easier it became. She struggled to flip the blocks to the right face and order them. A vague memory bothered her: a tiny child able to find the pattern in moments. The golden man offered no help, and she avoided his blue eyes.
“Good. Faster than before.”
They played more games with the blocks. Lilith enjoyed it although it made her feel stupid. This had been easy once, and she slouched under the weight of that shame. A compulsion kept her going, that and the suspicion that the golden man could send her back to the demons. Thinking of their scaly hands and drooling mouths made her tremble again.
“Are you tired?”
“Hungry.”
“I will feed you later.”
“Yes, master.”
He arranged the blocks into a new pattern. Lilith found it familiar, and it made her nervous.
“Do you recognize this pattern?”
“No.”
“Say, ‘No, master.’”
“No, master.”
“It is a glimmer.” He passed a slender hand over the blocks, and what had been white and black wood became red and gold. “An illusion.”
Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) Page 13