Her eyes locked on him. She had found him despite her need for a spear to pick her way through the field. She possessed her parents’ regal bearing, an ability to wander between two armies as though it were the most natural thing for a child to do.
The similarities didn’t stop at her temperament. Aside from her coloring, her cheekbones bore a strange resemblance to her mother’s. Ishma haunted her pale features. Tyrus’s stomach lurched with homesickness, a feeling made more terrible because his real home lived in the past. He remembered a golden age, once, before the beasts and demons, when he had been a great warrior protecting a beautiful queen. Marah would never know the real Rosh.
Behind her, the elven force stirred. People of station pushed through to the front of the line and entered the no-man’s-land between the armies. A sentinel acted as a crutch for Lord Nemuel, who limped and nursed a gashed shoulder. Other emissaries joined him. Tyrus recognized Larz Kedar and Klay.
Without Dura, the parley would become pointless.
Tyrus studied the Ashen Elves and smelled another battle. The elves sneered at the Norsil in the same way that they despised the bone lords. And the only way his thanes could defeat their sorcery was to charge through the hellfire. Even though they had the numbers to prevail, most of his thanes would burn alive. The cost of such a victory appalled Tyrus.
Nemuel asked, “What is the meaning of this invasion?”
Marah said, “I asked Tyrus for help.”
Nemuel and Larz did not like that. Klay seemed less surprised, but Tyrus frowned. For some reason, he assumed Dura had guided Marah to visit his dreams. He appraised her, wondering if she had really asked him to come home all by herself. Ramiel’s words came back to him. “Marah asked me to.” He struggled to believe that a waif could command angels.
Marah asked, “You came to help me, didn’t you?”
“I did. I owe you my life.”
Olroth grabbed Tyrus’s upper arm. “Are you sure she is a Blue Blade?”
“Of course,” Tyrus said. “What is wrong with you?”
“The Kassiri fled when she burned the flyers.”
“Olroth, what is wrong?”
“She is the one, a Blue Blade with a bloody spear. She defeated the Kassiri sorcery.” Olroth’s jaw trembled. “Look at her. She is the Ghost Warrior.”
Gooseflesh crawled up Tyrus’s arms. Among the Norsil, he saw hundreds of thanes trembling like Olroth, and he sensed a great moment thrust upon him, like a new power ascending before his very eyes. He doubted Marah understood what she was doing. And then he doubted his doubts. He feared Nemuel and Klay had coached her, but they looked as confused as he felt.
Klay asked, “Tyrus, what is he talking about? What is a Ghost Warrior?”
Marah’s confident gaze betrayed her scheme. She resembled her mother so much that Tyrus dreaded her next move.
Marah spoke lowly. “The Ghost Warrior will lead the faithful from the wilderness and reclaim the lands stolen by the Kassiri in days long past. She shall defy sorcery and armies to purge the world with a great flame in one hand.” A flame burst to life in Marah’s left hand. “And a bloody spear in the other.”
Thanes translated the words into Jakan, and the message rippled through the ranks. Marah thrust her spear at the sky, and a thousand barbarian blades answered in kind. The rustle of mail gave Tyrus a strange chill. Another commanded his army.
Slack-jawed, he listened to her chant the story of the Ghost Warrior in perfect Jakan. Her accent was strange, but she spoke of the great river of blood that cleansed the ancestral lands of the Norsil. He remembered Brynn chanting the words during fire dances. Blood fled his face, swirled in his guts, and left him dizzy.
In the distance, a thane wailed. Klay and Larz appeared baffled. A terrible sneer split Lord Nemuel’s face.
Marah said, “One prophet drove the faithful into the wilderness. Another shall lead them home.”
Tyrus asked, “What are you doing?”
“Saving lives.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dura is dead. No one else dies today. Not this day.”
Tyrus squared his shoulders, a reflex born from a lifetime of smaller men trying to order him around. He chafed at taking commands from a little girl, and he saw a similar reaction in the Ashen Elves. The air chilled as their sorcerers reached for sorcery. Decades of experience told him that the elves would burn at least half of his men before both sides butchered each other. Without sorcerers, the Norsil faced terrible casualties. To save them, he knelt before Marah. The move startled the elves.
Tyrus said, “No one else dies, Marah. Not today.”
Rattling armor and weapons cascaded behind him as a thousand men knelt. Marah turned to the elven sorcerers, and Tyrus couldn’t see Marah’s face, but the elves released their sorcery. The chill vanished from the air.
“Tyrus, what are you doing?” Lord Nemuel limped forward. “Get up. Now.”
The Norsil let out a collective gasp, and Tyrus imagined the anger on their faces. A current filled the air as a mob prepared to strike. Tyrus had felt it many times, right before leading a charge—the tension, the anxiety, the smell of a thousand hearts racing. Thanes prepared for carnage. Nemuel backed away.
Marah’s voice broke the tension. “There are enough ghosts in this place. We don’t need any more.”
Tyrus stood and said, “I understand.”
“You will see to it?”
“We will not attack anyone. Not today.”
Klay asked, “Tyrus, what are you doing?”
“We are not done here,” Nemuel said. “This child does not speak for Telessar or the Red Tower.”
Larz Kedar said, “She most definitely does not speak for our order.”
Olroth said, “The Ghost Warrior offers you mercy. Cherish such a gift.”
Nemuel said, “She is in no position to offer anything.”
Tyrus said, “We will talk after we see to the wounded and clear the field of our dead.”
Nemuel said, “This isn’t over.”
“It is,” Marah said, “for now.”
She stepped to Tyrus and lifted her arms. Whatever had possessed her to act like an empress vanished from her face. In that moment, she became a small child who wanted to be held. An urge to protect her made him stoop to pick her up. In his arms, she buried her face into his neck, and Tyrus fumbled with her spear.
“I’ll protect you from the elves,” Marah said. “Take me away from all the ghosts.”
Marah glanced at Nemuel. Tyrus felt like a child caught between angry parents. Nemuel seemed intent on striking, and Marah awaited the attempt.
Tyrus worried that a battle was unavoidable until Nemuel cursed in his own tongue and the elves carried him away. The elves withdrew from the field. Larz backed away as well and returned to the camp. The Gadarans clustered together and sought guidance from the red sorcerers.
Alone, Klay stepped in closer to whisper, “Have you lost your mind?”
Tyrus held Marah close. “She’s right. Enough people died today.”
“She is a Reborn. King Samos knighted her at the claiming ceremony. Do you understand? She is a lord of the realm, and you give her an army?”
“She knows things she shouldn’t. And she killed bone lords.”
“I don’t know what a ghost warrior is, but you cannot—”
“We can fight tomorrow.”
Tyrus abandoned Klay in the middle of the field. While he wanted to talk about Dura’s last days and the politics of the Ashen Elves, he had a camp to set up and wounded to collect. He made a point of turning his back on Klay and hoped the rest of the Norsil would ignore him too. It might save the ranger’s life. Klay belonged on the other side of the field, away from their Ghost Warrior.
Marah had hoped being reunited with Tyrus would feel better. Dura’s absence was still a crushing burden, and Tyrus w
asn’t like her grandmother at all. He stank like a farm animal, and he was covered in prickly mail and sticky blood. Dura’s boniness and wrinkles had been replaced by muscle and steel. Marah enjoyed being carried though, and as Tyrus rejoined the Norsil, they clustered around them. It reminded her of the streets of Ironwall whenever she had accompanied Dura on an errand.
The memories made her cry.
Some of them refuse to believe. You are too young. You are a girl. You sob like a newborn. They will try to kill you.
But… I did what you told me to do.
Marah wiped her face and climbed closer to Tyrus. She hated the constant tug and jerk of the voices. She wanted to run from it all, but other voices whispered that the Norsil would kill everyone if she did. Her life wasn’t her own anymore. Her words and actions belonged to others. Without Dura to protect her, she would become a strange doll that people fought to control. She needed Dura’s help, and the fact that her voice wasn’t among the teeming dead was a cruel twist.
Bind them to you. Etch them, and they are yours for all time.
Marah thought she heard the voice of a dead barbarian. Images flooded her mind—a monstrous warrior with black hair and scars, impossibly tall, cutting his palms and blessing his children with red runes. If she had to guess, she would say it was Tyrus’s father, but the voices whispered a sacred name, Nisroch.
Share your blood. Share your power. Use the spear, Ghost Warrior.
Marah said, “Please put me down.”
Tyrus said, “We’re still too close to Shinar.”
“I only need a moment.”
Olroth of Clan Vor’Quin. He is a great man and should be rewarded for protecting your friend.
Start with Olroth.
Show them all that you are the Ghost Warrior.
“Olroth of Clan Vor’Quin, step forward.” Marah wondered who that was. When the gray one stepped forward, she frowned. She’d expected someone younger. “You saved my friend’s life and took him into your clan. You fought for him when the other clans wanted his head.”
Olroth asked, “How did you know?”
“Kneel and claim your reward.”
Marah gasped when she cut her palm with the spear. She studied her ruined palm with a morbid curiosity. Why was this part of the ritual? She placed the bloody palm on Olroth’s forehead. The effort of the spell made her knees shake, but she branded Olroth with a red rune, a triangle above three lines, which signified the hearth and would ward him from the cold. The rune was a childish thing that no etcher would risk someone’s life to grant, but Marah didn’t have the strength to attempt anything else.
As soon as the etching finished, yellow sparks filled her vision, and her legs dropped her. She had a gut-churning moment of vertigo before Tyrus caught her and she was safe in his arms again. Limp as a doll, she collapsed against him. The voices of the living and dead all whispered the same thing: She was the legend given flesh.
“Tyrus, do you have a place for me to sleep?”
“We will make a place for you.”
She hung on his shoulder, feet flopping against his stomach. She wasn’t sure if that followed the expectations of the Ghost Warrior, but she was too exhausted to care. She sensed awe in the Norsil. She had not misstepped—if anything, she made Tyrus more important. He carried her into their ranks. They circled and reached for her. Fingertips brushed her legs, arms, and hair.
VIII
Lahar saw armies massing for a battle and dragged himself toward the line. A sheen of sweat covered his brow, and a tightness filled his limbs. The accursed runes pulled gashes together, burning as they did so, but he endured the pain to fight again. The Norsil would press their advantage, and he hoped to find Marah before the chaos began. When he pushed his way to the front, he found the armies breaking apart.
Both sides abandoned the field.
Lahar found Klay and Larz talking to Lord Nemuel. A knot of elven and red sorcerers stood guard around them. Everyone spoke in whispers. Lahar was cleaning his sword and sheathed it as he approached.
Klay said, “King Samos won’t allow them to claim Shinar.”
“Neither will we,” Lord Nemuel said.
“Samos will march against them. He won’t care about the odds.”
“Marah can protect them from our sorcery,” Nemuel said. “Without walls or runes, we will not defeat them.”
“We have defeated them before.”
“They had no sorcerers or siege equipment. They broke against your walls, and Dura burned them. That won’t happen now.”
“Wait.” Lahar coughed. “Where is the Reborn?”
Larz said, “She went with them. She claims to be their prophet.”
“When did this happen?” Lahar stifled his questions as everyone turned angry faces at him. He had missed something important. Klay said Dura had passed and the Norsil headed south with Marah, who didn’t want any more bloodshed. The words became so much noise as Lahar fixated on the idea that his ward was in the middle of a Norsil horde. He wondered how he was supposed to protect her from the barbarians. The shock dulled his senses until he heard Nemuel threaten Marah.
“Marah must die.”
Lahar thought the elf might be joking, but he wasn’t. With that flat tone of voice and those cold eyes, he was serious.
Klay asked, “Will you kill her?”
“Ithuriel commands us to protect her.”
An awkward moment passed before Klay asked, “So you want us to piss off the angels?”
Lahar sputtered, “What in the Nine Hells is going on?”
Nemuel said, “Marah betrayed us to the grigorns, Your Grace. She needs to die, or the Norsil will conquer all of Argoria. But that is your problem. We retreat to guard our home. We won’t allow those creatures near Telessar.”
Klay said, “Let’s learn her intentions before we declare war.”
“They invaded. They declared war.” Nemuel’s jawline flexed as he ground his teeth. “We are abandoning the league. I will argue it to our king, and he will listen. Marah hasn’t come into her powers yet. If you let that child grow, she will become stronger than Alivar.”
Lahar asked, “But Ithuriel wants her to live?”
“He does.”
“So he wants her to have that army?”
“We shall see.” Nemuel cursed in his own tongue. “Ithuriel has made mistakes before.”
“Let’s bury our dead,” Larz said, “and then discuss plans.”
“There is little to discuss,” Nemuel said. “If you won’t fight those animals, you are not friends of Telessar.” Nemuel gestured to his sentinels, and they stepped forward to help him walk. “Tell your king, any Avani who wander into Paltiel forfeit their lives.”
Klay asked, “Even rangers?”
“The Reborn won’t betray us to the grigorns. No matter what the angels say, we will not suffer another false prophet.”
The elves withdrew from the meeting, and Lahar sensed the smallness of the Gadarans that remained. Without the elves and dwarves, their army diminished to merely a large war band. They and a few hundred warriors were left to fight thousands of Norsil. Lahar, Klay, and Larz watched the elves gather their wounded and dead.
“I don’t understand,” Lahar said. “Did the Butcher abduct her or something? How did my ward end up in the middle of the Norsil army?”
“She went on her own,” Larz said. “The Butcher of Rosh knelt before her.”
Lahar said, “Well, buzzard’s guts.”
The dusk deepened, and Lahar grew weary. He found an abandoned bedroll and carried it north of the battle, away from the muck and smoke. Out on the plains, he collapsed on the yellow clay, but fitful dreams filled his sleep. A bluish light visited him, and he craved rest so much that his eyes watered. He wanted to be left alone.
“You must not lose faith, Lahar.”
Lahar struggled to talk. “Who…?�
�
“I am Archangel Ithuriel. The elves refuse to listen, but Marah is not the enemy. Not yet.”
“Did she betray…?”
“Tyrus killed one grigorn, but he cannot kill the other two. Zephon is stronger than Nisroch and has grown more powerful since he went insane. For now, the Last Seven Battles are forestalled. However, killing the rest of the grigorns is one of the last battles of the Third War.”
In the dream world, Lahar struggled with his tongue. Forming words became a grueling exercise, but he couldn’t believe the Butcher of Rosh had killed a grigorn. The wingless were legends from before the Age of Chaos.
“He what?”
“The Norsil might be used against the shedim. Only time will tell. I doubt a prophet can keep the clans from ripping themselves apart.”
“Is she… like Gorba Tull?”
“She bears a similar mark, but Gorba was no prophet. Marah’s rune is older, more primal. She is the Judgment against Chaos.”
“What does that mean?”
The angel would not answer, and his stoic face betrayed little. Lahar struggled under his probing eyes. Ithuriel seemed to peer into his thoughts, but the angel’s secrets remained hidden. Lahar knelt in the grayness and held his head. He didn’t understand anything, and his ignorance threatened to unman him.
He asked, “You let her… command barbarians?”
“For now. She can end the stalemate. As long as Moloch cannot turn her against us, we will allow her to live.”
“What must I do?”
“Keep your oath. Go and protect her. She will not survive if she is alone.”
Lahar started awake. Still in his armor, he reached for his sword out of instinct. The elves marched past, carrying their dead into the Paltiel Woods. Lahar blinked away sleep and watched them go. He couldn’t be sure if the dream had been real or not, and though he wanted it to be a fever dream, its vividness lingered. The elves abandoned them, and the angels wanted him to stand with the barbarians. The world had gone insane.
He groaned and collapsed on the bedroll. It offered a nice pillow, but he should have taken off his armor. He felt the tingling in his fingers and toes from where the joints pushed against his veins. Sleeping in his armor like a fool—he berated himself. He needed to close his eyes for a few days and awake refreshed. He dragged himself to his feet and wandered back to camp.
Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3) Page 45