Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (28 page)

Klay watched a line of twenty beasts charge the elves. Lord Nemuel led the elves, and Klay caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared in a sea of armor, shields, and spears. Klay craned his head, fearing that the elf lord had fallen, when a thunderbolt sent two beasts flying. Nemuel surged forward, sword glowing white-hot. He savaged a beast, severing claws first then both legs. More beasts set on him, and the sentinels fought to his side.

Klay used his knees to direct Chobar at the mob. He held five arrows in his hand and drew and released as quickly as he could, his fingers spinning the shafts around and onto the string. He hit one beast’s eye, and the other arrows bounced off bone plates. The one burning orb fixed on Klay as the beast screamed an ear-bleeding roar. It knocked aside two elves and charged.

“Get him, Chobar!”

Klay rolled backward out of the saddle before Chobar collided with the beast. Chobar’s claws and teeth went for the throat. Klay had performed the dismount thousands of times, but his boots slid on the grass. He teetered before falling on his rump. Chobar pushed the beast over and tore out its throat. A second beast raised a claw to brain Chobar, and Klay managed a shot that went wild. Before the beast struck, Tyrus severed its arm.

Klay stood. More beasts charged out of the smoke. The fighting became barbaric as beasts piled into the elven lines. They hungered for Lord Nemuel, and elves struggled to protect him. Nemuel used lightning, thunderclaps, and his burning sword to keep them away. A loud boom sent three of the monsters flying into the trees. Klay’s ears rang from the blasts. He struggled to shoot straight, stumbling as he fired. His bow wasn’t much use anyway. Blinking away afterimages, he sought Roshan warriors or bone lords to kill instead, but there weren’t any. The smoke hid the line.

The Shinari and Gadarans engaged beasts in teams of three, but the trees made it impossible for the cavalry to form up and charge. The shrill cry of horses hung in the background. Klay scanned for Tyrus and found him fighting beside Nemuel against four beasts.

Klay called, “Chobar!”

The bear trotted to his side. His armor had five huge dents where a beast’s claws had been deflected, but he appeared fine. The sounds of battle faded. Klay heard the stomping of large things running away. Rolling waves of smoke dissipated on a breeze, revealing hundreds of dead elves. Nemuel ordered teams to grab their dead as the elves pulled back.

Tyrus stepped over the dead to get to Klay. Black gore covered his armor, and blood dripped down one of his arms.

Klay asked, “Are you okay?”

“Thing bit my shoulder, but I’ll live.”

“Why do they retreat?”

“They killed enough sorcerers.”

They followed the elves deeper into Paltiel. Klay blinked away tears from all the smoke and struggled for a clean breath of air. The haze clung low and gave the sensation of drowning. Thousands of warriors withdrew. They made it to a larger clearing where everything was green and the air smelled fresh.

Lord Nemuel talked with the princes and wove his way through the crowd.

Lior asked, “Why did they retreat?”

“They did what they set out to do,” Lord Nemuel said. “The beasts killed the sorcerers first.”

“How many lords did the archers kill?”

“None.”

“What do you mean, ‘none’?”

“They never came within range.”

Thunderstorms distracted everyone. Klay turned with dread as the skies darkened except for the telltale signs of red-and-orange lightning. Azmon summoned another storm, and Klay understood the strategy. He shot a worried look at Nemuel, who offered a grim nod. The bone lords would never be within range. Azmon meant to burn Paltiel an acre at a time.

Klay said, “We must pull back.”

Nemuel watched the skies burn. He said nothing, intent on the clouds. Most of the soldiers admired the display of power. Azmon mastered the elements to burn an entire forest.

Klay asked, “Lord Nemuel?”

“We will pull back. Where is Larz?”

Larz said, “I’m here, milord.”

“What is Azmon doing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Can you counter it?”

“I need more time to study it.”

Nemuel rounded on the sorcerer. His ashen face was filled with fury, a strange counterpoint to the man’s flushed cheeks. Everyone was sweating and covered in soot.

Nemuel said, “They are within miles of holy ground. That fire will kill trees that are older than Shinar.”

“I know, milord.” Larz raised apologetic hands. “But I need time. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“We need to retreat,” Tyrus said, “before the beasts strike again.”

“We need Dura.” Nemuel glared at the clouds. “Sound the horns. Pull back.”

The first trickles of molten rain fell.

Fires burned for a day without answer. The elves withdrew from the inferno deeper into Paltiel. Tyrus stayed close to Klay and the other rangers. Everyone wore expressions of disbelief and despair. They grumbled that the oaks should not burn so fast; their bark should protect them from fires, and Azmon used demonic sorcery to destroy them. Tendrils of smoke lingered over the retreating warriors. Wisps of brown haze marked them for the beasts—at least, that was the rumor.

Bubbling water caught Tyrus’s attention. He had a strange moment of recognition. A year ago, he had been in this part of Paltiel, with Einin, after he had killed his own men to protect her. The trees thinned for a small river that was wide yet shallow. Green moss that resembled long strands of seaweed drifted in the current.

The elves deployed teams along the river and worked to clear brush. Tyrus recognized fire lines but doubted they would stop Azmon’s spell. The rangers waited for instructions, and soon Lord Nemuel approached.

He said, “We sacrifice too much. Send for Dura.”

“She went to the Deep Ward,” Klay said.

“Useless negotiations. The dwarves will send nothing.”

“Do you think this fire line will work?”

“No. We wait for reinforcements.”

“From where?”

“Telessar.”

Tyrus listened. In the chaos, people spoke freely around him, and he enjoyed hearing things firsthand. Meanwhile, the sky had darkened with brown smoke. Azmon attacked a wide swath of the forest, burning a path that ten armies could march through. Everything smelled of smoke and dust.

A ranger appeared on the other side of the river, calling to Klay and fording the stream on his war bear. The leaders of the army met him on the other side, and Tyrus followed out of habit. No one complained. The ranger passed a small message to Klay, the kind tied to messenger birds.

The ranger said, “No news from the dwarves, but Ironwall sends an army.”

“Sending or raising?” Klay asked.

“The nobles ask for mercenaries.”

“So days, if not weeks,” Klay said, “before they march, and half of Paltiel will burn by then.”

“We’re in talks via birds but need a larger force to cross the plains. There are too many purims for the ranger corps. The king can see the smoke from Ironwall, but I wasn’t sure what to say. Are they using fires from the flyers?”

“No,” Klay said. “It’s a new spell that we need Dura to stop.”

Lior asked Nemuel, “What do you want to do?”

Nemuel said, “We must attack them on open ground. But we wait for help from Telessar.”

Lior asked, “Infantry against the beasts?”

“We have no choice.”

“He can’t burn the whole forest down.”

Nemuel said, “Not in one day, but in a month, there will be nothing left.”

Klay spoke to the newcomer. “Send a bird to King Samos. We engage the Roshan, but this is half their force. The rest are in Shinar. We need Dura’s students and as many champions as they can spare.”

“Of course, master Klay.”

A boom of thunder in the distance stilled the conversation. Behind them, storm clouds gathered. Red lightning cut the sky, and molten rain fell. Tyrus could not help watching the storm. Azmon created beautiful, horrible things. If the woods were not burning, it might look like a thunderstorm right before a blazing sunset. The fires and red lightning gave it that glow as though a storm chased away the sun.

Larz approached the group. His red robes were covered in so much ash that they looked scorched. He had black fingerprints on his chin and cheek and a smear across his forehead that he made worse with the back of his hand.

“I think I know why we couldn’t counter it. It’s a clever riddle, tuples of runes to hide the sky fire, but I might have unraveled it.”

Nemuel asked, “Can you counter it now?”

“Azmon is Azmon.” Larz scratched his chin. “But I want to try.”

Klay said, “He’ll send the beasts again.”

“Yes,” Nemuel said, “but we’re ready for them.”

Tyrus listened and said nothing; this was not his place, not his army, and, if he were honest, not his war. He wanted the distraction, though, or a small victory for the league. Anything that hurt Rosh gave him an opening. A crowd of officers gathered and deferred to Lord Nemuel and Larz. Without a counter to the spell, the firestorms would push them back to Telessar.

Tyrus asked, “More waiting?”

“For a little while longer,” Lord Nemuel said. “Then we strike with all the sorcerers, sentinels, and Rune Blades of Telessar.”

Emperor Azmon Pathros leaned on a staff made of white oak, an expensive piece befitting an emperor, thick and sturdy with numerous carvings running down the shaft, but he hated staves. He associated them with invalids. Casting left him weak, though, and he leaned on his crutch heavily enough to fear it might slip from under him while the woods burned.

He watched one of his storms consume a great oak. Over a hundred feet of wood glowed white-hot in the middle of a fiery cyclone. An inferno consumed the sky and drenched the woods in molten rain. The trees shed their leaves first then their branches, and the smaller ones cracked down their trunks. With tedious efficiency, the howling storm eroded the biggest oaks.

For two days, Azmon had cast the spells. He felt wretched, dehydrated despite drinking flasks of water. All of his white robes smothered, and he cursed his great-grandfather’s sword, the Dawn Caller, which tugged at his hip like a ball and chain. His eyes itched as though sand were in them, and boils blossomed across his skin. That was new. Working dark spells required a link to the Nine Hells, and that usually left him itching, but days of casting gave him festering sores.

He glared at Mount Teles, still miles away. The snow-capped peak pushed through the clouds, beyond his spells. The Roshan crawled through a smoldering landscape, and the broken remains of trees resembled charred skeletons. The bone lords rolled out a red carpet for Azmon so the ashes would not touch his white robes, a stupid conceit ridiculed by the wind. Flakes of ash swirled around him, graying his robes.

Azmon’s storm faded. He limped along the carpet and weighed the costs of attempting another. Prolonged use risked insanity, but he measured the acreage burned and the miles to go. He had thought the storms would clear bigger swaths of the forest, but the oaks didn’t burn like normal trees.

He hungered for a bath, a meal, and maybe wine, something to distract him from the boils. Things crawled on him like centipedes under his shoulder blades. They weren’t real, but in his mind, he heard Dura chiding him for ignoring his lessons. Her gravelly voice echoed across the years. “In each of us, there are two children. One is a Child of Light, and the other is a Child of Darkness. The child you feed with little choices, day by day, is the one that will dominate you. Your choices decide what kind of man you will become.” Why had his master turned on him? If Dura had stayed in Rosh, Azmon could have conquered the world decades ago. He agreed with her ghost. He took on too much.

“You are right, Dura.”

A bone lord asked, “Your Excellency?”

“Nothing. Give me space.”

The army marched forward. He hoped the show of force would antagonize the elves into one big battle, but Azmon’s students were incompetent. Not one of them could summon a storm, and that left all the heavy lifting to him. He reached the end of the carpet. Fresh trees waited for him, green and beautiful. Vines covered their trunks with leaves.

Azmon thought about retiring for the day. He reached out with his senses, finding Lilith. Her anger—so pure and naked—weighed on him. If their bond weakened, she would revolt. She was the worst kind of weapon, as dangerous to her owner as her target. He leaned on the staff.

One more storm before he rested. He pulled the pouch of sand from his robes. While tracing runes, he took cleansing breaths, afraid that familiarity threatened oblivion. A careless mistake, a miscalculation, an omitted rune, and he could destroy himself. Satisfied with the matrix, he reached inside himself for sorcery. An invisible force yanked at his soul, and Azmon considered surrender. He might die and be done with all his struggles. Danger awoke him, and he realized he was losing the battle. The other side came close to claiming his soul. He wrenched himself away, and the power of the Nine Hells came with him. His vision narrowed, but power infused him.

He summoned the inferno.

Azmon was about to release his grasp on sorcery when he sensed another spell, coming from the trees. Someone of power—Dura perhaps but too clumsy—worked to counter his spell. He felt grim satisfaction at that; when would the elves learn? He raised a hand to command his beasts when the storm faltered. With a whimper, it snuffed out.

Thousands of elves charged from the woods.

A lord asked, “Orders, Your Excellency?”

Azmon released his hold on sorcery. He was too exhausted for more spells and needed to see the danger with a clear eye. The Roshan were in a burned wasteland, carving their way through Paltiel. Armies charged three flanks, thousands of elves, tens of thousands. Their gray faces and light hair matched the wasteland well. Azmon had underestimated their strength and recognized it in an instant. He was horribly outnumbered.

“Your Excellency?”

Azmon turned to the lord. “Attack.”

A strange sound carried on the wind, like a breeze stirring leaves. Arrows darkened the sky.

Azmon summoned a beast, and the brute smashed through lords to reach him in time. It hovered over him, shielding him from the arrows. Some of the lords used sorcery to burn the missiles, but too many became pincushions. Azmon sent the rest of the beasts, forming a semicircle around him and the lords while the guardsmen formed a line. He watched the elven spearmen surging forward with such perfection in their attack, such discipline. Where could he find warriors like that? Behind the spearmen, the elven archers fired as they ran.

Elven sorcerers, Dura’s students, and bone lords filled the ashen clearing with crackling flames and explosions. Hundreds of blasts left Azmon’s ears ringing and seemed to shake the world.

He sent a command to Lilith. Their bond did not allow for words, but he communicated a need and sought her out. She darted through the crowd of lords, but she kept her cowl up, hiding her new face. Azmon hoped no one noticed his wife’s likeness running across the battlefield. She took arrows as she ran but seemed oblivious to her wounds.

“Master?”

“Stay with me, Lilith.”

“Yes, master.”

Elves slammed into the wall of beasts with a thunderous clash of shields and spears. The Imperial Guard plugged holes beside the beasts. Azmon withdrew, shouting orders as his archers tried to answer the elven arrows. He cast about for more men, but everyone was fighting. The elves had struck from three sides, and he knew he had to escape before they enveloped.

“Your Excellency, help us. There are too many.”

Azmon said, “Target their sorcerers.”

“Excellency, we need help.”

Azmon reached for sorcery and knew doing so was a mistake. The thing from the other world was too strong. He groped for the power in a way he had not done since he was a small child. He won, but the effort left him shaken. He had cheated death and knew the invisible presence drooled at the thought of consuming his soul. The tunnel vision was worse, and he was lost in a sea of chaos. If not for the black blurs of his own men, he wouldn’t know whom to strike.

“Excellency, help.”

He grabbed the lord—incompetent fools thought of him as a god; they should know how to defend themselves—and he turned the man’s robes white. Azmon changed his own robes to black. The glimmer cost him dearly. He stumbled and, without his staff, would have fallen.

“What did you do? Take it off.”

Azmon said, “Get away from me.”

The next bit was harder. He sent the lumbering beast to the decoy, to protect him from arrows. Azmon hurried to the rear, while there was still a rear, and cast about for cavalry. He needed a horse. Azmon released sorcery and stumbled. He vomited bile and lost his staff.

When he looked up, he saw Lilith’s eyes burning in anticipation. Seeing his wife’s face—such a remarkable resemblance to Ishma—with a beast’s glowing eyes left him slack-jawed for a moment. Even though Lilith couldn’t possibly know it, she mirrored Ishma’s hatred with an uncanny precision. Her claws lengthened, and the bond between them strained. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and shot her a furious glare.

“Help me,” Azmon reached for her, “or we both die.”

He realized she might not care. How did you threaten a beast? Focusing, he sent her a command and poured all his willpower into it. She would not kill him today. She grabbed him and became his crutch.

“Take me over there. To the horsemen.”

Azmon had to ignore the battle and focus on controlling Lilith. He heard beasts rampaging and knew that they killed as many Roshan as elves. He had released his hold on the creatures. His ears filled with the screams of the wounded and dying. A group of lancers charged from one flank to the other. The Imperial Guard would be surrounded soon. Azmon waved at the cavalry.

“Lilith, fetch him. Tell him to help the emperor.”

She shrugged her way out from under him, and he fell. More bile burst from his mouth. Yellow afterimages danced in his vision, but he must not pass out. Lilith would eat his heart if he did. The din of bloodshed and butchery grew worse. He pushed to his hands and knees, gasping. Hands dragged him to his feet. They were strong hands but human.

“Excellency, come with me.”

Azmon knew him, Tamar of Rosh. He had etched the man weeks ago.

“Give me your horse.”

Tamar hesitated.

“Give it to me.”

Azmon pulled himself into the saddle, which was oversized and designed for armored men. A huge plate in the front protected his groin and stomach.

“Tamar, grab another horse. We are leaving.”

Azmon counted the lancers for the first time: a dozen, maybe fifteen. He dared a look at the lines. Most of his beasts burned. The army was lost.