Chobar pulled her close with one paw. His giant tongue licked her from her chin to the top of her head. He licked her several times, and she didn’t have the energy to fight off his bristly tongue. The side of her face pinked before he was done.
He is a noble creature, but you risk your life with such spells.
Marah responded with a mental shrug. He is my friend.
“Noble Chobar.” Marah rubbed his giant nose. “You didn’t have to fight them.”
Chobar sniffed and prodded her with his nose. She struggled to climb up his massive shoulders. Her body was fatigued, and she fought off a yawn. Only a few minutes before, she had scrambled up his side to race around town, but the battle had left her weak and dizzy. He’d become an insurmountable hill of fur. He helped her by rolling onto his side, and when she was situated, he lumbered home.
Klay stood outside the ranger barracks with Larz Kedar and a few of the rangers. They gossiped about the king’s secret plans until lightning hundreds of yards away made them reach for their weapons. They fanned out to inspect the terrace. Smoke wafted up the mountainside, and everyone gasped at the sight of Chobar.
Klay stumbled forward as though someone had clubbed him.
Chobar limped toward them with the glassy eyes of an animal in terrible pain. He bore scorch marks across his chest and one shoulder while Marah hung from his back like a rag doll.
Klay ran to catch her. “What happened?”
Marah said, “I did something bad.”
“What do you mean? Who did this?”
“It isn’t Chobar’s fault. He was trying to protect me.”
Larz rushed to Klay’s shoulder. He grabbed Marah’s hands and inspected each of her fingers, her arms, feet, legs, and face. Chobar slumped down onto his side with a small moan. Klay was torn between checking Marah’s wounds or Chobar’s. Like an idiot in shock, he did nothing.
Klay asked again, “What happened?”
“Priests attacked Chobar.”
“They. Did. What?”
“I attacked them back.”
Larz said, “She doesn’t seem hurt. What’s wrong, Marah?”
“I’m so tired.”
“Tell me what happened,” Klay said. “All of it.”
“Give her space,” Larz said. “Look at her.”
“I was nice.” Marah spoke to herself. “Their heads belong on pikes.”
The way she spoke the words—along with her sudden sneer—sparked a reflex, and Klay stepped back. He coughed to hide his discomfort and inspected Chobar’s wounds. Klay didn’t understand what he saw. Blackened hairs surrounded patches of bright-pink skin. Chobar smelled burned but had no blisters.
Chobar buried his face in Klay’s chest. The bear let out a long sigh, and Klay asked him if he was okay while rubbing his neck.
Larz said, “We should—”
“Talk to Dura. I know.” Marah yawned. “It wasn’t my fault. I tried to be nice.”
Larz shifted from inspecting Marah to carrying her. She was too big. Her head rested on his shoulder, and her legs hung down near his knees. Larz patted her back and shifted his weight from one foot to the other while Klay picked through Chobar’s scorched fur.
“I don’t understand,” Klay said. “There are no burns.”
Larz asked, “Did you heal Chobar?”
Marah said, “Yes.”
“Well, that explains the fatigue,” Larz said. “We need to get her into a warm bed and feed her. Chobar should eat too. Bring him along, Klay.”
Two rangers came running to Klay with reports about the battleground. Klay signaled for them to talk and walk while Larz carried Marah to the Red Tower. They described cracked cobblestones and four dead priests. Larz halted at that. He shot a questioning eyebrow at them, and they nodded the answer. He shook his head and continued walking.
One of the rangers pulled Klay back. “There’s more. They say she tortured the leader.”
Klay asked, “Tortured?”
“Made him promise not to hurt Chobar. Used runes on him until he agreed.”
Klay grunted his approval. “Any word on why they did it?”
“None,” the ranger said, “but she only struck when they tried to kill Chobar.”
“Survivors?”
“One.”
“I want his head, but we talk to Broin first and make sure the king backs us. They have no right to target our bears. Put him in irons.”
“He’s badly burned; the temple will want him.”
“Arrest him. Let the temple argue for his release.”
Klay caught up to Larz. He made mental arguments for punishing the priests and rehearsed different ways to report to King Samos. Chobar panted as he followed Marah, and Klay checked for a trail of blood, but he had no visible wounds. Klay wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. Klay couldn’t stop staring at Marah either. He needed a way to explain the situation to others, but he didn’t understand it himself.
“Dura is going to kill me,” Larz said. “I knew she shouldn’t be playing with that bear. I knew it, and I let her do it anyway.”
Klay asked, “Why would the temple want to hurt her?”
“They don’t. They want to test her. Bedelia has bickered with Dura about it for years.”
“Is Dura teaching Marah to kill priests?”
Larz gave him a wary look. “She teaches herself, Klay.”
“How is that possible?”
Years before, Klay had known one other Reborn, Edan, the Rune Blade. Edan spent his life training with Dura and Lord Nemuel, and he was about ten years older than Marah before he could control his powers. Klay asked more questions, but Larz dodged them all. As they hiked up the various stairwells and terraces to the main keep, Klay’s attention drifted up Mount Gadara, to the very top, where the Red Tower watched the whole city. He wondered what the sorcerers were teaching Marah.
V
Over the course of several weeks, the highlands filled with Norsil clans—hundreds of them, some small like Olroth’s and others ten times as large. The highlands became a thriving city of huts that shocked Tyrus as it sprang into existence. If he had not watched the Norsil build it from nothing, he would have sworn they used sorcery. Hundreds of thousands of Norsil flocked in from the four corners of Argoria.
They arranged hunts and slaughtered herds of woolly rhinos. Tyrus watched from a small hill one afternoon as a great sea of humanity flooded the empty plains. They marched up the hillsides and built a city in the highlands.
Olroth found him and took a moment to appreciate the view. He looked like a proud father.
Tyrus asked, “Where did they all come from?”
“Larger clans use message birds to reach all the clans north and south of Mount Malacoda.”
“I don’t know this mountain.”
Olroth pointed southeast. “The last mountain before the end of the world. Home of Nisroch’s Aeries. All the northern clans tell the same story. Purims march on us. They do not act like purims anymore. They do not fight among themselves, and each day the women’s council reports bad omens.”
“You think there are enough purims to threaten this place?”
“They always outnumber us, Tyrus. They have litters of pups, and it only takes them eight years to reach fighting size. Thankfully, they eat their own, but without Nisroch’s Marks, we would have died long ago.”
Tyrus imagined hundreds of purims birthing thousands of pups, and only a few hundred of the best lived long enough to learn how to use swords and clubs. The idea was hard to imagine until he saw the fear in Olroth’s eyes. The Norsil prepared for a nasty war. The size of it all, the vastness of the plains, the great herds of beasts, and the armies about to do battle made Rosh’s conquest of Sornum seem smaller. Tyrus had only led thirty thousand men and a few hundred beasts. If the purims outnumbered the Norsil, they would fill the horizon with warriors.
“No water for farms. We follow the herds, and so do the purims.”
“But with this many warriors, you could build a great empire.”
“We have a great empire. We claimed the plains from the demon spawn long ago.” Olroth gestured at the highlands. “Gatherings like this can’t last more than a few weeks. The herds will run out, and we will follow the rivers to find more game. Each of the big clans will take a direction, and the smaller clans will pay tribute to follow in their wake.”
“What kind of tribute?”
“Sell swords. That is how the big clans stay big. They let smaller clans die for them.”
Tyrus had heard that before. “The Gadarans use a similar system.”
“Some of the Hill Folk keep to the old ways, but the Kassiri lords are fat cowards.”
Tyrus had many questions. He wanted to know where they got their steel and why a few of them spoke Nuna, but most of all, he struggled to find a way to harness the Norsil. All they needed was good land for food and a few stonemasons, and they could conquer the world. If he could teach them to ride horses, they could retake Sornum in one or two campaigns. He doubted it would take more than three years.
“You have no sorcerers?”
“We do not profane the language of God.”
“Then how do you crash gates?”
“Why bother? We wait for them to open their gates, and we take their caravans.”
Tyrus let the matter go because his own people on Sornum were similar. They were a small mountain people who often sold their swords to larger nations, and they did not understand the value of city states. Tyrus had seen what an emperor like Azmon could do, how he focused an entire continent into attacking another continent. Olroth wasn’t that kind of chieftain. Tyrus might as well try teaching a fox to herd chickens.
Olroth said, “If we are lucky, the purims will attack soon. When the herds start to thin, blood will start to spill. The more clans we have, the worse the infighting will be.”
“The big one is back.”
Balbos, Breonna’s Baby Boy, approached their camp with two dozen armed men. Olroth cursed and left the hill to greet him, but Tyrus hung back. Olroth’s brothers, in the neighboring camps, noticed Balbos too and sent delegations. Five clans had made camps in the valley with Olroth, and while Tyrus didn’t understand all the marriages, he knew the smaller clans worked against the larger ones. He went to the gate to watch Olroth work.
Outside the gates, the chieftains and warriors gathered. The clan responded in a similar fashion when purims attacked. Younger warriors and women with bows clustered near the gate while the best warriors met the threat outside. Aside from arrows nocked to bows, no one drew steel.
Tyrus caught fragments of the exchange. Balbos wanted Olroth to move his camp outside the valley. The giant of a man screamed and pointed toward the outskirts of the highlands. Olroth matched the man shout for shout. Comically smaller than the brute, Olroth seemed to be screaming at the man’s nipples. Olroth’s brothers and other chieftains added their own shouts. Balbos began backing off until he saw Tyrus.
He pointed at Tyrus. “You Kassiri dog!”
“He’s my dog,” Olroth said.
“You let the Kassiri fight your battles?”
“He is a Kellai. They were slaves who broke free from the Kassiri.”
Tyrus hid his surprise. He didn’t think Olroth would remember a detail like that. They had not spoken of it since their first meeting. Tyrus felt dim. He understood most of the words, but they took seconds to parse. The heated shouting confused him, but his own wives used many of the same words.
Balbos sneered. “So, you let an outlander fight for you?”
“I will kill you where you stand, if you like.” Olroth stepped up to the mountain of muscle without flinching. He pitched his voice for the crowd. “And I don’t care how many brothers you’ve got or what your mother says. You won’t be in the world anymore, and that will warm my heart. This one—” Olroth hooked a thumb at Tyrus. “Can kill as many purims as he likes. I’d rather let an outlander die for me than my own blood.”
Many of the older chieftains said, “Well spoken, Olroth.” The younger warriors stayed near Balbos with the smugness of their superiority. Nothing Olroth said would win them over. They were Norsil—God’s chosen people—and Tyrus was not only an outlander but also Kassiri filth. As the two groups squared off, Tyrus picked the men he would kill first. He relaxed as old instincts took over. At the first hint of movement between Olroth and Balbos, Tyrus would rip apart the two men standing beside the brute.
“All this for a Kassiri?” one chieftain asked. “I heard he doesn’t like girls.”
Nervous laughter broke the tension. Balbos and Olroth did not join in. Their staring contest continued, but the rest of the men jumped at the opportunity to laugh and leave without losing face. The men drifted apart, and Balbos abandoned his task. Tyrus checked with Olroth to make sure he’d understood their argument correctly.
“He forces you to move camp?”
Olroth waved him off. “His mother is coming soon, and he wants more space for his men. She will claim the largest hill and force other clans to move. If she tries to move us, there will be blood.”
“His mother commands a large clan?”
“Women don’t command warriors, but that hasn’t stopped her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Another day. I need space to think.”
Tyrus had missed something during the exchange, and his ignorance made him nervous. What else had he missed during all the yelling?
Two days later, what appeared to be another chieftain with a clan arrived. Tyrus watched them march across the plains to the highlands, but he noticed a change in the Norsil. The clans that shared the little valley with Olroth ignored the new arrivals while Baby Boy and several of the larger clans from the highest hills marched out to greet them. With little to do all day but train boys and dodge his wives, Tyrus watched for a couple of hours as the new arrivals marched into the highlands.
An older woman marched beside Baby Boy, and she appeared to have an honor guard like Olroth’s, only much larger. She arrived to cheers. The warriors rattled their swords for her, and families lined up to greet her. Tyrus was unsure of the custom, but he had seen monarchs welcomed with similar fanfare. Other clans shunned her, though. She arrived equally beloved and reviled.
That night, during the evening meal, Tyrus asked Olroth, “Who is the new arrival?”
“Those are the last remnants of Kordel’s sons—Clans Kor’Nellae, Kor’Lomis, Kol’Han, and Kol’Voris.”
“Not the clans. The woman leading them into camp.”
“I won’t open my gates to her. Fancies herself our queen, but we do not have queens.” Olroth shook his head and saw Tyrus’s confusion. “She is the half-wit’s mother, Breonna. She’s survived five husbands, all of which she positioned to be chieftains, and she’s birthed a dozen boys, nine of which she married off into other clans. Now they are chieftains too.”
“They love her.”
“She is Kordel’s great-granddaughter—daughter of Kolzak, who was Kordel’s greatest grandson. He almost reunited the clans after his grandfather died, and Breonna has spent her life marrying her sons into other clans to reclaim Kordel’s power. Half the clans answer to her.”
“Kordel’s great-granddaughter?”
“Fools jump at her slightest whim. She fought a dozen little wars and united some of the biggest clans. Oh, she’ll let Baby Boy walk in first and lay the credit at his feet, but he plays her game.”
“If she is winning…”
“She will not sit on my war council. She will not send me off to my death. There are rules—old rules. Warriors lead by example. If I want to st
art a war, I don’t send my sons out to do my fighting. I charge at the front, or we don’t fight at all.”
Tyrus nodded.
“She’s survived husbands and sons because she never risks her neck. Starts wars from her hut and expects me to kneel before her.” Olroth spat. “We’ll fight her boys when we need to. That’s why I brought you here. For now, I want to feast while we have game to roast. The lean days will come soon enough.”
“She sends her sons against us?”
“For now we feast, I said.”
They ate well, but apart from the proportions, the meal did not resemble a feast. No one danced, and the mood stayed somber. Tyrus kept quiet. He sensed a lot of history and feared angering people with questions. The clan ate and watched the bonfires as though they were funeral pyres.
As the fires burned down, Olroth said, “Tomorrow, there will be a gathering of chieftains. Each will bring five thanes, and we will choose a warlord to lead our host. Baby Boy calls himself Kordel Reborn. Baby Boy is a brilliant brawler, but his mother does all his thinking. She will order her sons to support him, and that is most of our strength.”
“Who will you back?”
“Any of the chieftains in this valley—as will all the smaller clans.”
Tyrus watched the fire and waited for more.
“You should know gatherings often end badly. Those who won’t serve the warlord usually die. And the warlords are often little more than survivors of the gatherings. Each chieftain will bring his thanes, as tradition dictates. I’m going to bring you, and it’s important that you watch the men who back Baby Boy. They will be the ones to strike first.”
“Am I one of your thanes?”
Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3) Page 18