“House Hadoram doesn’t need to be reminded of our sacrifices.” Rassan was the youngest noble present by several decades, but he would not be bullied into following them. “Azmon has a plan for turning this siege against the Red Sorceress. And he isn’t as weak as you think.”
“What is his plan?”
“He hasn’t shared it with me.”
“He is weak. He can barely sit for an hour.”
“You could not be more mistaken,” Rassan said. “The Blight makes him stronger.”
“It cripples him.”
Rassan said, “The Blight gives him more power over the beasts. Kill him, and they turn against us.” The lords tried to argue the point, but Rassan cut them off. “The time to strike was four years ago, when Moloch maimed him. You let him recover. Now, we need to let the siege play out.”
“This siege is a figment of his imagination,” Olwen said. “We can fly away anytime.”
Arlo said, “If he lets us.”
Rassan bade them farewell and headed to his villa. The other houses were positioning him to take the fall when they rebelled. Had they worked together years before, they might have deposed Azmon, but the opportunity passed. While the other nobles worried about Azmon, Rassan feared the real power behind the empire. If he displeased Mulciber, his face might be the one covered in black boils.
Rassan signaled his house guards as he returned home. A twelve-foot ring wall surrounded multiple dwellings within, one of which stood three stories tall. The grounds had seen little attention since the conquest, and weeds overran cobbled pathways. Inside, he made his way to his study, where his nephews, Nalan and Patori, studied scrolls. Their resemblance to his dead sister saddened him.
Rassan tousled their hair and checked their calligraphy. They were the last of House Hadoram. He glanced at their work, but his thoughts drifted to darker things. He needed a way to defeat the Father of Lies and the Prince of the Dawn. If he fell short, he would lose the rest of his family.
VII
In Olroth’s hut, Tyrus ate a breakfast of porridge made from a strange oat that looked like tiny yellow roses. He sat on furs, cradled a large wooden bowl in one hand, and finger-spooned the goo into his mouth. The smell reminded him of fresh bread. Tyrus had forgotten what proper food tasted like and slurped down every morsel.
Women and children filled the hut. Hanging furs divided the space into several smaller sections. Olroth’s sons, Pelor and Rood, stayed close, treating him like a prisoner, but no one carried off the children. In the center of the room, a large black cauldron hung above a crackling fire. Tyrus gestured with his bowl, and a woman ladled more porridge. He bowed his thanks and scarfed down more.
Later, he rolled onto his back and patted his full stomach. The warmth of the fire, the soft furs, the comfort of walls—he had forgotten such luxuries. He could drift to sleep without fear of snapping jaws.
The satisfaction didn’t last long. Civilization rekindled dreams of vengeance. Hope was worse than a slow death—it deepened the pain.
He whispered to himself, “I said I wouldn’t say the name.”
A smarter man might have rescued Ishma. Each time he dwelled on the old memories, he imagined crushing Azmon’s skull with his bare hands. If only he could kill his memories… He dreamed of burning Rosh and wondered how to convince the Norsil to help. First, he must kill weaker men. He had earned his place in Rosh and Ironwall by killing fools. He could do it again, but the inevitable bloodshed bored him.
Olroth entered and spoke with the women about Tyrus’s empty bowl.
“You eat more than I thought.”
“Thank you for that.”
“This challenge will not be fair. They will let fourteen warriors fight you, and I can’t do anything to stop it. You should only fight one of the strongest, but you are an outlander.” Olroth hunched down next to the fire and warmed his hands. “The war council doesn’t want you in our camp. The purims fear little, and we have learned to avoid what they fear.”
“I don’t think they were afraid.”
“Oh, they fear you. They sent their bulls. In days long past, men who earned that fear united the clans and conquered kingdoms. But you are an outlander and a berserk.”
Unsure how to argue for himself, Tyrus stayed silent. The word berserk was foreign to him but carried an undertone of insult.
Olroth offered an explanation. “You enjoy pain.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why else would you live with them? You seek it out. It is a sickness of the head, and we know it well. Berserks.” Olroth grimaced. “Young men, our thanes, venture into the Proving Grounds for tusks and pelts, but no one lives there, alone, with the monsters.”
Tyrus considered his life and whether he enjoyed pain. He could have wandered back to Ironwall. Dura might have found a way to protect him from King Samos, but he dreamed of death and vengeance. Not only did he want to murder his enemies, but he also wanted songs written about his kills. Maybe he was berserk.
Olroth went to a chest and dug out a short sword. “The challenges are knife fighting.”
“That’s a knife?”
“Belonged to a friend. It’s a reliable blade, better than the purim junk you use.”
Tyrus unsheathed it and let the firelight dance along the blade. He thumbed the edge. He had broken both his knives years ago.
“Come, the time draws near.”
They marched to the center of the settlement, where a mob had formed. Warriors cleared a path to the center and stood like fence posts around a circular sparring area. They wore layered mail and carried halberds. Tyrus glimpsed his opponents on the far side of the gathering. A dozen young warriors limbered up, jumping and shadowboxing. Outside the ring, women chatted, and men carried children on their shoulders.
After a lifetime fighting and commanding armies, Tyrus guessed their number at around five hundred—maybe half were warriors.
Tyrus asked, “Is this to the death?”
“I wouldn’t waste warriors on the Dark Walker. I am not as foolish as the purims.”
“So how do I win?”
“You win by winning. The other man gives up.”
“And I can’t kill him?”
“Unless you have to.” Olroth shrugged. “We prefer to use our strength against other clans or the purims.”
“What does that mean? ‘Unless I have to’?”
“If you have to kill him, you can. You do not waste life.”
“I don’t understand. What are the rules?”
“If you will die, you may kill. If not, you may not. Some will try to make a name for themselves with your death, but others will try to make you yield.”
Tyrus grunted. “And if I win, I get to stay?”
“No one will be happy about it. I might find myself in the ring next.”
Olroth led Tyrus into the center and stilled the crowd. He spoke, and the people waited. Fourteen young men stepped forward and made smaller speeches. They had cropped their hair and oiled their bodies, which made Tyrus scratch at his mangy beard as he anticipated hair pulling and wrestling.
Olroth kept talking while Tyrus counted runes and wondered whether the Norsil’s red ink held any secret powers. He decided it must not. He had killed plenty of Norsil on the plains. Tyrus noticed Olroth staring at him.
“I asked for challengers, and these stepped forward. We do not like to waste swordsmen. The clan needs its strength.”
“I think I understand.”
“Good.”
A youth entered the circle. Tyrus remembered a duel, long before, against a Shinari prince. The memory made him feel old. How many boys must I beat into the ground? The crowd stomped its feet and chanted a verse. The gibberish built in tempo until it reached a frenzy. The young warrior tossed his knife back and forth. A horn pierced the chanting, and the crowd silenced as the note hung in the air.
When it died, the warrior attacked—and lost.
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Tyrus met the charge with a boot to the face before bludgeoning him with the butt of his knife. The warrior crumbled, and the crowd gasped. At their angry grumblings, he sought Olroth’s face to make sure he’d done it right. Olroth offered a slight nod, and Tyrus awaited the others.
He endured eleven more warriors. Each fight took longer than the one before, and after the first two, they became wary. They defended to wear him down and inflicted dozens of minor wounds. They bled him. Tyrus stayed mindful of the last three warriors. They were the closers, and each bore scores of runes. If he’d fought the dozen all at once, he might have used tricks to save his neck, but the structured duels sapped his strength.
Red-faced, covered in blood and sweat, he slogged through each fight. As he progressed, the crowd lost heart. His opponents shouted to raise their spirits, but it didn’t work. Either the audience understood the tactics to bleed him dry, or his stamina shocked them. The bloodlust chilled. A lifetime of fighting helped Tyrus survive. For over sixty years, he had fought similar men. His runes offered an unnaturally long life—a miracle when he was young and wanted to live forever, but outliving all his friends and family made a long life pointless. Warriors were meant to die young.
Between skill and runes, he outclassed the Norsil. Even so, the last three fights were the hardest. He knew he couldn’t win them all. Dozens of wounds and hours of knife work had exhausted him. The mob sensed him wavering and grew louder. They wanted to see him fall, and he considered giving in.
He fought from habit. Rage stole his honor, and he knew it made him less of a man. Revenge was a pitiful thing to cling to, especially for a champion of Rosh. He had become little more than a bear thrown to a pit of dogs. If he let them win, the memories, regrets, and pain would end, but he refused to surrender.
He played up his wounds and stumbled to the far side of the ring. One of the closers entered. The man appeared confident, and the crowd sounded more excited than before. He was one of their favorites, a famous man. To survive, Tyrus had to break the crowd. The horn sounded and silence fell.
The warrior twirled his knife with an asinine flourish. He stabbed at Tyrus’s neck. No one could deny he intended to kill, so Tyrus revealed his raw strength. On their next pass, he stepped through the man with one smooth attack. Moving faster than he had so far, Tyrus gutted him from groin to sternum. The warrior shrieked and pitched forward. He screamed on the ground until he choked and died.
Tyrus pointed his dripping blade at the remaining warriors. “I am Tyrus of Kelnor!”
The crowd mourned their favorite while Tyrus glared at his opponents. They had to understand that he, too, had saved the best for last—except he hadn’t. He wasn’t as strong as he acted. Of the two warriors remaining, odds were one of them could kill him. He had to appear indomitable though and raised a hand to beckon them forward. He invited them into his arena.
Infamy won the next match before it began. The second-to-last warrior fought from a place of fear. Tyrus stood in the center, watching him circle. The man defeated himself with a bad feint that Tyrus punished with a broken arm.
The last fight involved little footwork, lest Tyrus betray his fatigue. He accepted a nasty stab wound to his shoulder to bring the man in close and choke him out. A sane man would have blocked the knife, but Tyrus accepted a crippling wound to win.
He struggled to his feet. The hardest part was hiding the hurt from the mob. He pulled the knife from his shoulder and tossed it into the mud. His arm hung limp at his side, but in a few days, the shoulder would heal itself.
The display appalled the crowd. They watched his stoic face and his bleeding shoulder with horror, but they had to think of him as immortal. Without language, his deeds must speak for themselves. Olroth addressed the crowd, and many drifted away. The ring dissolved into the settlement square again.
Olroth said, “I think one more, and you’d be dead.”
Tyrus agreed with a grunt. “I might take one more.”
“You’d find a way. You enjoy the pain.”
“Maybe I do.”
In Olroth’s hut, a group of women used buckets of water and rags to clean his wounds. They started arguing with each other and summoned Olroth. He entered the hut, exchanged a few words, and then probed Tyrus’s flesh.
“The wounds are healing? You need no stitches?”
“They’re not healed, just closed. This one”—Tyrus gestured at his shoulder—”is going to be bad for several days.”
“Days? Most men would lose the arm.” Olroth’s fingers pried at Tyrus’s flesh. He traced several of Tyrus’s runes and asked questions in his own tongue. He sat back, openmouthed. “This is wrong. This is how you fight packs.”
“Why bring me here? Your people hate me. What do you really want?”
Olroth ordered the women and children to leave. He hunkered down beside Tyrus and chose his words with care.
“A war is coming. The purims gather in great numbers—larger than tribes, you understand?—tribes of tribes, too many to count. The clans must unite, but there will be blood. The chieftains will fight each other to become warlord.”
“You want to be warlord?”
“I’m too old,” Olroth said. “You don’t understand. First, we must travel to the mountains. The trip is long and dangerous during the winter. Then there is a gathering. All the clans will come. My brothers’ clans will join us, but there are bigger families—much larger clans with bigger septs. The chieftains will pick a warlord to send to our father, Nisroch. The clans will fight for the men they like best. There will be lots of blood.”
“And I’m to spill it?”
“With a sell sword like you, I can make sure the right chieftain becomes warlord.”
CLANS AND GHOSTS
I
Tyrus was allowed to rest, and he spent his time either eating or sleeping. He also listened to the camp. The language would be hard to learn, a harsh and guttural tongue spoken quickly, but Tyrus had an ear for languages. As the days passed, his wounds faded. He reclaimed his full strength and flexed his muscles with pride. If a pack caught him out in the open, he would tear them apart. Sleep, a real sleep, did wonders for his mood as well. He dwelled on the past less.
As he adjusted to the new comforts, guilt replaced his memories. On the plains, fighting for each meal had seemed a just penance. He had failed Ishma and should suffer. Warm and well fed within the camp, his shame became unbearable. He should have died before her. Guardians were meant to die first.
More than that, his life lacked purpose. Once he had desired to please her with his death, to die guarding her like a hero in an old song. The sword masters of Rosh had filled his head with songs about men marked for death and glory. The fact that he had neither plagued him. Killing for a memory was little more than an empty gesture.
Olroth entered the hut, bearing gifts. He gave Tyrus new clothes, a mix of furs, woolen underclothes, and what looked like expensive leather boots. Tyrus changed, conscious of Olroth studying his body.
Olroth said, “You don’t have scars.”
“I have scars.”
“None that are fresh. They are all old and white. Horan, the thane whose arm you broke, is still bedridden. He has thirty-one of Nisroch’s Marks. He’ll live, but no one heals like you.”
Tyrus redirected the conversation. “Where did you find the clothes?”
“They’re yours. You won them when you gutted Wuldor. Your wives have been altering them for you. My wives helped with your measurements.”
Tyrus fumbled with too many questions. “My what?”
“You won them when you killed Wuldor. It is time you were a burden on them and not my household.”
“But I am an outlander.”
“I’ve given them the choice to leave. They have the right to be widows and lay claim to Wuldor’s inheritance.” Olroth gestured for Tyrus to follow. “Each man earns his place. Each man provides for his family. Whe
n you killed Wuldor, you claimed his property.”
Tyrus grabbed Olroth’s shoulder. “Wait, you said wives?”
“Of course. What?”
“Where I come from, a man has one wife.”
“But what do you do when she is with child?”
“What do you mean? Do what?”
“How do you father more sons?”
Tyrus scratched the back of his head, wondering if Olroth understood the words he used. Tyrus had never taken a wife, but women had one baby at a time. “You wait until after the child is born.”
“You wait?” he exclaimed.
“What else would you do?”
“Switch beds with a sister-wife. Who waits for the baby?”
“That is just how it is done.”
“But you would go months without fathering another child?”
Tyrus struggled to understand Olroth’s words, and they both stopped walking in the middle of the camp to regard each other as foreign things. Sister-wives. That Olroth had a phrase to express the idea in Nuna gave Tyrus pause. If Olroth could speak it, that meant the Gadarans spoke about it as well.
“The Gadarans have sister-wives?”
“Some of the Hill Folk keep to the old ways. Others imitate the Kassiri. They tell stories of nobles taking village girls for sport and not claiming the children as their own. They marry for land, if you can believe such a thing.” Olroth led Tyrus between rows of huts. “All Kassiri are like this? Not just the nobles?”
“We don’t have sister-wives on Sornum.”
“How did such weaklings conquer the world?”
As they crossed the settlement, Tyrus began to see the families for the first time. Women gathered in groups with children on hips or running underfoot. Men practiced with weapons, on the far side of the camp, and they taught boys as young as four or five how to fight with knives and staves. Men were a minority. They were all well-muscled warriors. Even the few graybeards looked dangerous. Tyrus also saw younger women training with the men on an archery range. Children filled the settlement.
Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3) Page 8