Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3)

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  “Normally, there is a feast and a week of games,” Breonna said. “The young warriors tell stories about your great battles and my many suitors. Uniting clans is a rare thing, but we need to march to your war.”

  “Will we lose more clans?”

  “No. I bought every one of them.”

  Tyrus inhaled slowly and watched the crowd disperse. With dread, he sensed himself getting lost in powerful political currents that he needed his wives and Olroth to explain. If Breonna had worked behind the scenes to buy him support, he needed to understand both how she did it and the cost of those moves. She had strong-armed the chieftains, and they would blame him. He glanced at her and saw a cold glare.

  “Thank you, my queen.”

  The corner of her lip twitched. “You are welcome, husband.”

  She stepped away. A group of large men, her sons and champions, escorted her down the hill, leaving him alone in the stone circle. He marveled at the day’s strangeness. Ishma’s daughter had asked angels to help him, and he asked the barbarians to help her in return. He shook his head at it all.

  The highlands began to drain of people as a river of bodies trickled between the camps and headed eastward. Tyrus estimated that less than a quarter of the Norsil remained—not as impressive a gathering as before. The number of thanes mattered more. He had thousands of men that made the veterans of the Roshan Imperial Guard look like overgrown boys. The Roshan were used to fighting men while the Norsil fought monsters.

  However, the numbers did worry him. Too many clans had deserted, which meant armies of Norsil—tens of thousands of thanes—still wanted him dead.

  All alone on the hill, he considered abandoning everything again. The idea of a long march and another bloody battle left him numb. He’d made things worse. If he left the Norsil, he might walk to Galkir and find a ship to take him to Erez or one of the other Blueswell ports, and from there, he might find passage to Kelnor. The rest of the war could be fought by others. Whether the shedim won or lost, he might enjoy the apple trees of his homeland one last time—a strange thing to yearn for, and it left his mouth watering for the crunch of the red fruit. He knew it for a foolish daydream but indulged it nonetheless.

  The landscape stretched before him. Most of the horizon was rolling brown hills except the great swath of the battlefield, charred black. They had won, he reminded himself, but everyone left with heads lowered in defeat.

  WALL BREAKERS

  I

  Azmon squirmed in his bed. Blisters covered half his body, and his runes did little to heal him. The Blight altered their magic, dimming it somehow, and the healing took too long. Drainage from his blisters—brown and yellow stains—covered his sheets, and a terrible smell filled the room as though an animal corpse was rotting under his bed. He squeezed his eyes shut. His fists twisted the sheets into knots, and he screamed into the pillows.

  The bone lords had burned him. Between waves of pain, he planned to turn their dead bodies into new beasts. He would drag them back to life and kill them all over again until they shared his hurt. The hatred distracted him for a moment. Between the burns and the Blight, all the progress he had made mastering his disease vanished. He lost years of work. The pain, like an exposed nerve, reminded him of the first days after Mulciber had infected him.

  He heard the squeak of a hinge and glared at the door. Red light clouded his vision, and he prepared sorcery. Elmar stood transfixed in the doorway. He sucked at his lips and looked behind him as though he might bolt.

  “What do you want?” Azmon demanded.

  “Excellency, the nobles seem pacified. None of my spies have seen them gathering in groups like before. You asked… for a report.”

  Azmon waved him away. “Keep watching them.”

  “Of course, Excellency.”

  Elmar checked the hallway, and Rassan entered. He carried his inks and brushes, but Azmon told him to take them away. Runes didn’t help anymore. Painted or etched, their sorcery had grown weaker. Holding still long enough for Rassan to do his work wasn’t worth the effort. They wanted to nurse him, and he wanted to be left alone. He fought a primal urge to crawl into a hole away from the prying eyes of predators.

  Miserable, Azmon wanted to share his misery with them. Their health—and scar-free faces—cried out for mutilation. His hatred made him spiteful. How dare such inferiors be more fit and smooth cheeked than me? He hated the way they came and went as freely as they pleased. They should be hunched over and broken, like him.

  He checked his jealousy. A moment of insight pierced the dark cloud surrounding him: controlling his anger was growing harder. The Blight filled him with rage.

  Rassan asked, “What else can I do to help?”

  “Nothing.” Azmon grunted a cruel chuckle. “Time heals all wounds.”

  Rassan said, “Excellency—”

  “How is Lord Balric? Has he been seen with Layamon?”

  “They do not talk. Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Good.”

  “And Lord Layamon?”

  “Holed up in his villa.”

  Azmon reached out and patted Rassan’s hand. Relief helped him relax, and he eased onto his side with a sigh. They had divided the lords and culled the ring leaders—a small boon. He could throw bone lords at Dura’s students. When he recovered, he could plan his encounter with his old teacher, but that was a problem for another day.

  “Leave me.” Elmar and Rassan looked reluctant, so he said, “I’ll post beasts at my doors. It would be best to give them a wide berth.”

  They left. Reaching out with his senses, he followed their path through the eyes of his many beasts. Paranoia had kept him alive, but at some point, he must trust them. How the idea chafed, though. The plotting would never stop, but he cherished the lull before it became more clandestine.

  Weeks later, Azmon pulled himself from bed. The constant itching kept him from sleeping. His blisters had closed, and his skin—still warm to the touch—had tightened into a hard leather. With a wave of his hand, he lit the candles in the room. He pulled at the wraps until he stood at his mirror, naked from the waist up. What remained of his blisters looked gray, and the skin around them had blackened.

  He used his claws to pick at a wound. The top layer of dry and brittle skin flaked off. Black blood oozed forth. He watched it pool in the blister for a while before licking the tip of his claw. The ichor tasted like rancid meat. He was more shedim than man.

  A knock at the door made him grab his robes. He called for Elmar to enter, but Rassan opened the door.

  “Where is Elmar?” Azmon asked.

  “I’m not sure. I wanted to check the black pocks.”

  Azmon uncovered his torso. “They are unchanged.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never read about it either.”

  “I’m becoming something new.”

  “There must be a way to reverse this—a scroll or something from the Second War. Maybe the elves know the counterspell?”

  Azmon kept his doubts to himself. Even if a spell to heal him did exist, he wouldn’t find it on creation. The sarbor kept the best runes away from the mortals. Azmon suspected that if the Blight caused Mulciber as much pain as it caused him, Mulciber would have cured himself. That he had bled black blood for thousands of years dashed any hopes of a cure.

  “Mulciber bound me to him,” Azmon said. “This is an object lesson in submission. I must accept the things I cannot change.”

  “We don’t have to submit—”

  “You keep seeking a way out, Rassan. There is no way out.”

  “I refuse to accept that.”

  “We are beyond redemption. Our beasts profane the language of God. For that, the seraphim will destroy us, and Dura will hunt us to the ends of the world. There is nowhere to run. Together we can survive, make Mulciber happy, and maybe destroy him.”

  “Impossible.” />
  “Ithuriel fights him because he can be killed. They use mortals to fight their wars to avoid risking themselves. It is possible. Grigorns, seraphim, and shedim all died in the Second War.”

  “We should run. Let them fight over the mountain.”

  “This is the price we pay for power. We rule in this world and become slaves in the next. Unless we kill him. Then things change.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Gorba Tull became an overlord in the Nine Hells. I spoke to him after I learned to commune with the dead.”

  Speechless, Rassan acted as though Gorba was more special than Mulciber. A legend from the Second War impressed him more than the Father of Lies.

  “What did Gorba say?”

  “He lied, saying he could help me defeat the shedim.”

  Azmon remembered the truth. Gorba had warned him against following Moloch because Moloch lied to Gorba the same way he lied to Azmon. Azmon thought he was more clever and could succeed where Gorba failed. Gorba had explained the rules to him long before, but he refused to listen. “If you want to survive the next life,” Gorba had said, “you must not fail Mulciber in this one.”

  “Gorba became shedim?”

  “In a way, after he died. He is an overlord in the Nine Hells.”

  Azmon didn’t say more. He saw himself becoming shedim as well and imagined Gorba Tull cackling at his arrogance. Despite all the warnings, Azmon had pledged to serve Mulciber. He was a young fool, blinded by forbidden runes. He didn’t recognize himself in the mirror any longer, and that created a profound loneliness. The real Azmon lay buried deep inside that new creature, and he sensed his former self atrophying. Soon, only the demon would remain.

  Azmon couldn’t tear his attention away from the mirror. When did I make my worst mistake? He thought back on his life, seeking the point of no return. Somewhere, he had lost his way and, unknowingly, lost himself in the process.

  Elmar entered. “Excellency, the dwarves withdraw. Several companies march toward Paltiel.”

  Azmon nodded. Rassan and Elmar became animated and spoke with excitement, but their voices were like dim background noise. He should rejoice. The long siege drew to a close, and his army was stronger for it. No one would expect that. But Azmon knew he had to do the worst thing next. He had to unleash an army of demons on the world. When he rode from the gates, at the head of that army, the last tatters of his legacy would be shredded. He would forever be known as the Demon Emperor of Rosh. People would speak his name with the same disgust as Gorba Tull’s.

  After years of delay, he confronted his fate. The Demon Emperor had a battle to win.

  II

  Marah spent weeks living through dull routines. She endured lessons during the day—an endless list of scrolls and books and runes to study—while at night she fretted over Dura’s fading health.

  She hoped Tyrus would elude the demons long enough to find her. The voices remained quiet, which made her happy. If the Butcher of Rosh died, the teeming dead would cheer his passing. Still, she feared for his safety. She wouldn’t know what to do if she was alone. The dread manifested in sleepless nights at Dura’s side, listening to her wheeze. She clung to Dura’s life more desperately than Dura herself did.

  Marah would sit on the floor of her room and practice meditating. She found the drills similar to embracing sorcery, and sometimes meditating kept the voices away. She sensed them in the air, circling her, begging for attention. Other times, when they grew too numerous to control, she needed sorcery to tame them. The constant struggle exhausted her. Dura claimed they were echoes instead of ghosts, but Marah suspected they were more than that, and while she learned many secrets from them, she wanted to be left alone.

  Dura said practice would help ward them away, but Marah made slow progress. She could ignore them but sensed them lingering, waiting for a moment when she dropped her guard. Nothing shut them out completely.

  Dura knocked at her door. “I’ve received word that the dwarves abandon the siege. We must prepare one last trip to Shinar. You will need to do your trick and lay hands on me.”

  Marah bit back a refusal. The last thing Dura needed was a long trip through the Paltiel Woods—she was too frail to travel. They struggled getting her up and down the stairs for her bath. Then Dura’s words registered. The healing was supposed to have been a secret.

  Marah asked, “What do you mean?”

  “You think you are so clever.” Marah heard a smirk in Dura’s voice. “We both know you’ve been keeping me alive for years.”

  “Mistress Dura, I have done no such thing.”

  “Don’t ‘mistress’ me. I’m too weak to make the trip, but we can’t let Azmon divide us. Come, there’s little time.”

  Marah stood and wrapped her arms around Dura’s hips in a tight hug. She closed her eyes and reached inside herself for the burning white gate. She embraced sorcery and poured it into the hug. The warmth drained away from her and infused Dura. In her imagination, she thought of the process like throwing logs on a fire—Dura’s embers burned low, and Marah stoked them with a piece of herself. Dura cried out and caught the windowsill. Exhausted, Marah’s knees wobbled.

  “Buzzard’s guts, girl, warn me before you do that.”

  “You said there’s little time.”

  “How did I sleep through that?”

  “I usually work slower.” Marah held her eyes. “I’m dizzy.”

  Dura muttered a thank-you and guided Marah to her bedroom. Her walking stick struck the stones in a firm stride. After reaching the room, they packed for the trip. Marah should have called for one of the students because packing took too long, but neither of them asked for help.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Dura said. “We have weeks of riding ahead of us.”

  “It won’t take weeks.”

  “It does when mercenaries carry me. I can’t stand to be in the sedan for long hours. There will be many breaks. We won’t cover the ground as fast as Chobar can, and there are dangers along the way.”

  Days later, Dura’s mercenaries carried Marah and Dura in a sedan chair. The chair was as large as a carriage and required eight men to lift. Half of the Red Tower, including Larz Kedar, provided an escort, along with fifty mercenaries. Lahar and the Soul of Shinar marched with them as well.

  Marah confronted the outside world in a sweaty panic. She knew walls and towers, but the vast wilderness confused her, and the fact that they marched through the trees without any roads to guide them terrified her. Alone, with her poor eyesight, she would be lost in minutes. Everywhere she looked, the horizon seemed the same, except for the Mount Teles in the east. She would need more than one landmark to find her way home.

  Fewer voices disturbed her on the plains. Once she adjusted, the horizon became less of a destination and more of an adventure. She leaned out a window to watch the green blur of Paltiel. In the distance, the ranger Annrin rode point on her war bear, Laban. Somewhere beyond the woods, Marah sensed the sadness of Shinar.

  Newer voices whispered. Many wept.

  Lahar rode his charger beside the sedan chair. Half of the twelve Shinari knights followed him, and the other half guarded the other side of the chair. His men became excited to return to the front lines, but he had mixed feelings about seeing Shinar again. The last time he had been there, his brother died, and the time before that, he’d lost his father.

  He could not forget Marah’s words. They wish to leave this world but are trapped in the beasts.

  He slumped in his saddle. The worst part of the journey was a feeling of unease because he had escorted Dura before as well. It seemed like only the day before when he and his brother had ridden with these men—who had numbered a hundred at the time—and followed the Red Sorceress from Shinar to Ironwall. Returning with such a humble host stank of failure.

  In the corner of his vision, he caught Marah leaning out a sedan window. She had grown quite
big in the past five years. Lahar sighed. Almost six years had passed since his father died, her father having done the deed. Ironically, the heir of Rosh and the heir of Shinar rode side by side.

  At least his men were in better spirits. He listened to them fill the long ride with mindless banter.

  Sir Hap said, “I’m sure the twelve of us can replace three thousand dwarves.”

  “Of course,” Sir Mors said. “After all, they are half our size.”

  “So we can replace a score of them?”

  “Well, don’t forget the horses and the lances. Dwarves use such little swords and are slow over open ground.”

  “Good point. So one of us is equal to four or five of them.”

  “Ten at the very least.”

  “So we can replace a full company.”

  “And when you factor in all our training and experience fighting the Roshan, probably many more.”

  “Of course. The twelve of us are worth a thousand dwarves.”

  Lahar grinned at his men.

  “Obviously,” Sir Hap said, “but don’t let them hear you say that. The last thing we need to fight is a thousand angry dwarves.”

  “A dreadful thought.”

  “Terrible waste of time, that. The real enemy is the Roshan.”

  Lahar said, “One battle at a time.”

  They continued talking, but Lahar’s attention pulled toward Annrin, who rode point on her war bear. He’d never ridden with Annrin before and felt a terrible sense of protectiveness every time she vanished over a hill—a stupid thought, he knew. With her bow and her war bear, she was probably safer than he was. His horse was little more than purim bait that far west. As the long trip wore on, he daydreamed about becoming a ranger. He wanted to know what riding a bear was like, and he couldn’t fathom any other way of riding one other than becoming a ranger. If Annrin spoke truly, trying to ride a ranger’s bear was a good way to become food.

  He had never said anything, but he wished Annrin had stayed in Ironwall—an argument he knew he would lose, but Shinar swallowed everyone he cared about.