“At this moment, I’m all you want.” Annrin pushed him away. “You are better than this, milord.”
“Milord, huh?” He sniffed at the rejection. She called him Your Grace when she was in a good mood and milord when he irritated her. “I thought we had been over this.”
“You have taken so many runes, people expect you—”
“This is not a song about Etched Men marked for glory. All the heroes are dead, Annrin. They were all marked for death. I want to enjoy what time I have left. Azmon can keep the crown.”
She kissed him, long and hard. The pub patrons pretended not to notice, but the talking died down. Lahar and Annrin had become more open with their affections, giving credence to months of rumors.
Annrin said, “The king will marry you off, and you’ll leave me with a royal bastard.”
“The dynasty is dead, Annrin. My bastards will be common as dirt.”
“You are such a romantic. Please put a common bastard in me.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t want some minor house buying my bloodline. I’m not a stud—not for the likes of them, at least.”
Annrin whispered, “Are you even sober enough to perform?”
“Give me time.”
“So you want to drool on me for an hour? No, thank you.”
“That hurts. I’m a majestic kisser. A kingly kisser.”
“What is this?”
Lahar grew sad as she pulled back his tunic. The white wool had a yellowish outline from the blisters. With one look at her face, he knew the kissing was over.
“You said you were done with etchings.”
He avoided her eyes by watching the fire. “I believed it when I said it.”
“You want to die on Dura’s table?”
“The Red Sorceress doesn’t have to do it herself. I’m not that picky. Any table will do.”
“Did you mean what you said? Even if we liberate Shinar, you don’t want the crown?”
“Shinar is gone. It exists in history books.”
“We can rebuild.”
“With what? King Samos and the temple won’t rebuild Shinar. They want to rebuild the Old Gadaran Kingdom or Jethlah’s Empire. Shinar will live on in name only.”
“Can you see the future?”
“I see enough. There aren’t enough Shinari left to people a village.”
“And what’s it like, being the smartest person in the room?”
“It’s lonely.”
Annrin snorted. “You’re a fool, Lahar.”
“Only when I drink.”
The warm glow of the public house was interrupted by a banging door, a gust of wind, and flakes of snow. Four priests entered, wearing the blue tabards of the Temple of the Eagle. The door closed, and the room stilled.
Lahar recognized the war priests, the temple’s version of sorcerers. They carried heavy walking sticks that looked mismatched with their well-muscled shoulders and straight backs. From their stern expressions, he doubted they wanted a drink.
The lead priest, a man of about thirty with a shaved head, stalked toward the fireplace, and Lahar patted Annrin on the leg, a slight signal to shoo her away. With a scowl, she ignored him.
“High Priestess Bedelia wishes to see you, Prince Lahar.”
“I thought you had heard—I’m the last of my line. I’m a king.”
“We were unaware that you had been coronated.”
“I see.” Lahar lost his thirst and placed his mug on the ground. “I’m not a king until the temple puts a crown on my head, is that it?”
Annrin said, “Lahar, don’t. Not the temple.”
“You have been summoned, Prince, by the high priestess.”
“Tell her to come herself. She knows where to find me.”
“Drunkards do not command the high priestess.” The man grabbed Lahar’s armpit and dragged him to his feet.
Lahar enjoyed the last moments of his wine—the lightheadedness of quickly standing when drunk—and he measured the priest’s strength. Of course, their real strength was their sorcery, but the man didn’t seem to have many runes, at least not for strength.
Lahar allowed himself to be dragged about halfway to the door. Gordy gave him a strange look, a twitch of his mustache that might have been confusion or gratitude—Lahar couldn’t tell.
He shrugged in apology. “I’m sorry, Gordy, I am, but I guess I lied.”
Gordy shook his head and slowly sank below the bar. All his daughters vanished into the kitchen as chairs scraped the floor. The regulars backed away from the priests and lined the walls. Lahar shrugged off the lead priest. Two more stepped forward to grab him.
“The high priestess is in no mood for—”
Lahar sucker-punched the man’s gut. He hit with enough force to purple the man’s face. Hands grabbed him, and he answered with an elbow to someone’s jaw. Before he knew it, he was howling his anger and throwing furniture, and people fled into the wintery night. The fights that he remembered usually started like that: someone insulted his family, and an unspeakable rage took over.
A staff crashed into his bad leg, and the pain was strong enough to make his rage slip. He sucked air and wobbled. A thunderclap flattened him to the floor and rang his ears. An electric shock coursed through his whole body and made his back arch so fiercely he feared it might break.
The spells stopped. Lahar coughed and glanced about the room. Annrin had an arrow nocked and pointed at the lead priest’s head.
From their bloody faces and the scuff marks on the floor, Lahar thought he might have given as well as he got. He had never brawled with priests before.
“Hit him again,” Annrin said, “and I’ll dance on your grave.”
“You dare threaten the temple?”
“I’m threatening you. Idiot.”
Lahar said, “You are all lucky I’m drunk. I’ve killed greater men for less than this.”
The priest said, “The temple wishes an audience, nothing more.”
Lahar wasn’t sure if Annrin was bluffing. She seemed ready to kill. She would not be exiled if she should kill someone in his name, especially a priest. The temple would pay good money to watch her hang. He couldn’t do that to her.
“Fine,” Lahar said. “I’ll grant your master an audience.”
“You’ll come with us willingly?”
“I’m coming of my own free will. Lead on, good sirs.”
Annrin helped him to his feet. He whispered that she should tell the king, but she ignored him and helped walk him to the door.
Another ranger blocked Annrin. “Do not interfere with the temple.”
“I’m going with him.”
The priests didn’t object, and neither did Lahar. His bad leg could no longer hold his weight. Without Annrin’s help, he would have had to crawl out of the Welcome Wench.
V
Tyrus awoke in a white haze. Fog obscured the sun. Daylight glowed through the mist, and a cloud swallowed the horizon. The bright light, reflecting off the mist, left yellow spots in his vision. Most days, he awoke before dawn, but his wounds and exhaustion had made him oversleep, which was odd, because the purims should have attacked during the night.
Instead, Tyrus spotted dozens of warriors in the fog. At least forty men wearing mail and carrying halberds circled him. They were draped in red cloaks. Tyrus sat and rested a hand on his axe. The men, Norsil clansmen, stood about twenty feet away and appeared relaxed. Their halberds pointed at the sky. Wafts of fog drifted past, and he wondered if standing would provoke them. Axe in hand, he crept to his feet.
In the past, when he had fought the barbarians, they screamed battle cries and charged. The silence bothered him more. He peered into the fog, wondering whether there were more warriors. His runes could not penetrate the mist.
One of the older men stepped forward. He had brown hair with flecks of gray, a grizzled beard, and a jagged scar through his nose, as though a claw had trie
d to cut his face in half. He was a large man, but all of them were large. They matched, if not outmatched, Tyrus in height and weight, which was strange because Tyrus was famous for his size.
The older man spoke harsh, guttural sounds as though he were choking on his words. Tyrus didn’t understand. The man tried two more languages, or what sounded like two more, before Tyrus heard words he knew. They took a moment to parse—Nuna, he realized, one of the languages of Argoria.
“You are the Dark Walker.”
Tyrus noted that it was a statement. “I’m Tyrus.”
“I am Olroth, chieftain and ring-giver of the Vor’Quin clan. You fight well, for an outlander.”
Tyrus sized up the warriors—too many to fight alone—all large and brimming with steel. They wore three layers of mail. Their halberds had outlandishly wide heads, like short swords mounted on poles. They were the right tools to fight purims though, and more than enough to pin Tyrus down and sweep away his head.
The Norsil wore dark-crimson runes on their faces. Tyrus had seen only red ink on the barbarians. Most runes were black or golden. No one else etched their faces, either. He grimaced at the thought of a hot needle drilling holes into his face.
“You come to the Proving Grounds alone?”
Tyrus had never heard the name before. “I came alone, yes, to the Lost Lands.”
“You sound strange.” Olroth squinted at him. “Not one of the Hill Folk from Ironwall or Westrend.”
“I come from the lands beyond the ocean. Far to the east.”
“Kassir?”
“Kassir fell long ago. Before the Age of Chaos.”
“You are still Kassiri.”
“I am Kellai. My people were laborers for the Kassiri.”
The conversation reminded him of old legends. Thousands of years in the past, before the Second War, the Kellai and Kassiri ruled Sornum, but the Kassiri built a famous empire while the Kellai became a smaller clan that defended mountains no one wanted. His words bothered the Norsil. They spoke in their own strange tongue.
“We are Norsil,” Olroth said. “We refused the Kassiri chains. They drove us here, took our lands, burned our homes.”
Olroth spoke of the Kassiri as the poets did, as though they were still alive. Kassir was older than the Age of Chaos. The Kassir Empire fell after the Second War of Creation. Other empires had risen and fallen in the centuries since.
“You come to the Proving Grounds to die?”
“I fled… the Kassiri.”
“We tracked your kills.” The leader gestured northwest. “We found others. You kill alone?”
Tyrus nodded.
“No burns or spells.”
“I use blades.”
“How does one warrior kill a pack led by a bull?”
Tyrus wasn’t sure what the man was talking about and wondered whether One Ear had been a bull. He saw curiosity on a few faces and hatred on others. Olroth toyed with him. The false hope was the worst part. If they meant to kill him, he would rather just die. They would rob him of a good death, swarming and pinning him with their halberds, but it was better than being eaten alive. He wanted to finish it instead of pretending to talk. He intended to kill a couple of them before they pulled him down.
Tyrus hefted his axe. “I’ve always been good at killing.”
“Relax. We could have killed you in your sleep, but we are not Kassiri. We kept our honor.”
Olroth sheathed his sword and gestured for Tyrus to do the same. Tyrus noted a nervous energy in the war band and weighed his weapon. He put the blade into the snow so the handle was close at hand.
“The purims call you Dark Walker.”
“You speak with them?”
“Their warriors shout the name in front of our gates. They call you out.”
Tyrus nodded.
“They have only done that with a few warriors—great men, long dead. Kordel was the last to earn their respect.” Olroth gave Tyrus a once-over. “You killed many Norsil too—not of my clan but other Norsil. The Tor’Thim tell stories of a vengeful spirit on the plains, a specter with black marks and black hair. Other clans tell the same story, a ghostly warrior who haunts the Proving Grounds.”
“Everyone hunts me. No one will leave me alone.”
“We fight more purims every day. A war is coming that will shake the plains. It’s been brewing for three or four years.”
Tyrus hesitated. He couldn’t believe that was a coincidence.
“You are not a ghost warrior. You are just a man who bleeds.” Olroth pointed at Tyrus’s wounds. “We can kill you now.”
“So why haven’t you?”
“I want to win the war. A man like you can help me do it.”
About three years before, Tyrus had abandoned any hope of winning over the Norsil. He’d killed too many of them, and his dreams of forging an army died. He craved death instead. The problem was that he couldn’t figure out how to kill himself, and he wanted a better death than being eaten alive or executed. For the first time, though, the Norsil offered to talk, and Tyrus wasn’t sure what to do.
Olroth was hard to read—his weathered face betrayed little. Tyrus had known men like him, strong and cunning enough to lead war bands. He had no illusions about his value to a man like that.
Tyrus asked, “What exactly do you want?”
“I had hoped to find the ghost warrior in our hour of need, but you are not the legend. I want my men to fight like you though. I want warriors who can kill a pack led by a bull.”
“You want me to train your men?”
“And kill purims. You kill them anyway. Why not do it for me?”
“And if I refuse?”
“We kill you for killing clansmen.” Olroth shrugged. “You may choose.”
To his credit, Olroth acted as though it were a choice. With a sincere calm, he waited. His strange temperament gave Tyrus pause, and he wondered what Olroth really wanted. His men didn’t hide their disdain, so Tyrus doubted he would train any of them. Olroth wanted an expendable killer, and Tyrus didn’t know enough to guess at who needed killing. He scanned the men and weighed whom to attack first. As with a pack of purims, Tyrus might kill a dozen of them before their halberds hamstrung him. The rest would kill him quickly, but that would be such a meaningless death. He weighed his options long enough to make Olroth frown.
Tyrus said, “I will go with you.”
“A hard choice?”
Tyrus nodded.
TRIALS AND AUDIENCES
I
For most of the day, Tyrus followed the war band west. The landscape of rolling hills, snow, and thorn bushes never changed, but Tyrus knew when he left his range. Olroth stayed nearby and silent. With hand gestures, he sent groups of warriors to scout. Tyrus appreciated the discipline. Whenever they hiked up a small hill and he saw the distant shapes of the Norsil watching other hills, he felt safer. Alone, he never knew if a pack of purims stalked nearby.
The Norsil halted at a high-pitched note carrying on the breeze. Men pointed spears in the direction of the sound, and Olroth told Tyrus to wait. The Norsil climbed a snow-covered hill on their bellies and peered over the top.
Tyrus waited, and they stood. Olroth gestured for him to join them. As he crested the hill, he saw scouts and, a few miles beyond them, several packs of purims on a hill. They looked like black rocks in a white landscape. He counted at least thirty of them.
Olroth said, “I’ve never seen them do that before.”
“Do what?”
“Announce themselves. Do you know what they are doing?”
Tyrus pivoted. Another pack stood on a hill to the east. “One Ear did this the other day. He used the little ones to wear me down. There will be a third pack to the north. I’m guessing. These will chase us to their friends.”
“One Ear?”
“That’s what he called himself.”
Olroth’s mouth fell open. “The bull told you its name?
You spoke with it?”
“Yeah, but the smaller ones never talk.”
Olroth said something to his men, and a flood of harsh words filled the silence. Olroth cut them short with a bark. Tyrus scratched his beard. Things lived in his unkempt hair. He didn’t see much difference between the regular purims and the bulls, but he’d fought a few really large purims before.
Olroth signaled his men west at a faster march. “We need to cover more ground before we lose the light.”
“How far to your camp?”
“It will be close, but we can’t fight bulls out in the open. There could be a whole tribe.” Olroth watched Tyrus out of the corner of his eye. “You’ve fought bulls before?”
“Only one with a name. Why?”
“Have you fought any half-giants?”
“No.”
“Bulls can kill half-giants. If that one has a tribe with him, we will lose a lot of men.”
The group of Norsil broke into four smaller mobs of ten warriors and scattered a bit so that the main group never crested a hill all at once. The groups stayed close enough to help one another, and Tyrus stayed with Olroth. In case a fight started, he hoped someone else spoke Nuna. As he crested a hill, he saw more purims before them, groups of them standing on hills, funneling the Norsil toward something.
Olroth directed with his spear, guiding his men around the purims.
Tyrus grabbed his arm. “Go at them. Not around.”
“We can’t lose the light.”
“They are forcing you to the bull.”
“He will be behind us.”
“They guide you into a trap. Stand your ground or make them adjust.”
Olroth pointed the spear at the smaller group of purims. His decisiveness and resolve impressed Tyrus. They did not stop to debate, and the rest of the Norsil reacted without a word. As they ran at the smaller group, Tyrus waited for them to break. They held out longer than he would have guessed before scrambling off the hill.
The purims made a few more attempts to alter the direction of the Norsil, the last of which looked like a battle line with about twenty of the monsters smashing their clubs and axes together, but at the last moment, they broke and ran. As the sun set, Tyrus caught shadowy shapes loping between the snowy hills.
Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3) Page 4