Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (3 page)

“Well, the knights are upset,” Klay said. “Surprising, I know.”

Tyrus had not noticed Klay opening the door and realized how foolish he had been. If a knight had followed him, given him a little shove… He shuddered at the idea.

Klay asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m admiring the view.”

Klay stepped to the rampart without a care. “I can’t stand the dungeons. Feels like you’re being buried alive. Fresh air stirs the blood.”

Tyrus preferred the dungeons. For most of his life, he had ignored scenery. If he was not planning a battle, there was little point. Now it taunted him. He both admired and hated the way Klay leaned against the rampart.

“Time to face Dura,” Klay said. “Hope learning nothing was worth it.”

“I needed to try. She can’t keep me here forever.”

“I doubt she agrees.”

They entered the tower, and Tyrus let Klay lead. Dura would have noticed his absence by now. No sense lying or hiding. Best to confront her anger and let it pass. Strange that a little old woman worried him more than four armed men, but Tyrus had spent his life beside a sorcerer and recognized real power when he saw it.

Since Tyrus first moved in, the Red Tower had become more alive with dozens of sorcerers returning to Dura’s side. He heard rumors of towers spread throughout the continent and wondered at the number of acolytes. Armies gathered. No one trusted him with numbers, but as a general, he hungered for logistics. He followed Klay past doors where knots of sorcerers studied sheepskins, parchments, and tablets filled with the Runes of Dusk and Dawn. Voices debated arcane patterns, and scraping quills accompanied rustling papers.

“Let’s find the little one,” Klay said.

The guests lived near the top with Dura. As they climbed the tower, he smelled a toddler’s diapers and underneath that more domestic things like old food and blankets. The living quarters were well lived.

Klay opened the door. At the far wall, a young woman, Einin, stood near a window. A cousin to the empress, she resembled Ishma, tall and thin, but with hair and eyes a more mundane brown. Her face lacked Ishma’s high cheekbones, making her appear younger. Fur rugs covered the wooden floor, and little Marah played on them. Nearly a year old, with chubby limbs, she played with blocks. The sunlight caught her stark white skin and straw-colored hair, making her albino features glow.

Tyrus entered the room, and little Marah looked right at him. He told himself she heard his armor, the rattle of his boots, but the strange eyes locked on him. Cataracts blinded the girl, but whenever he neared, she looked right at him. She never looked at Klay the same way.

Klay produced an orange from his cloak. Einin thanked him with a smile and went back to watching the window.

Klay said, “The bone beasts are on the other side of the forest.”

“I know. But I like keeping watch.”

Marah watched Tyrus. He stood taller, as though he were being measured. He saw in her the ghosts of Ishma’s cheekbones, chin, and rose-petal lips. Despite her coloring, she would grow into a great beauty like her mother. Lately, everything provoked the old memories. Marah’s face accused, she deserved her mother, and regrets knotted his stomach. Marah returned to her blocks. They bore Runes of Dusk and Dawn, and Tyrus worried that the Red Tower pushed sorcery on her.

He wanted to play with Marah. He should comfort Ishma’s child, and she needed friends, but he wore armor and had never been good with children. His size often frightened them. Better to stand guard.

The wooden click of a walking staff interrupted his thoughts. He pivoted toward the door, and a long time later, Dura Galamor entered. She had the liver spots and sagging neck of a woman near a hundred years old, yet she appeared regal. Whether that was the result of the staff or the robes or the commanding glare, Tyrus could not say.

Dura asked, “Back so soon?”

Tyrus said, “Biral is the best lead in months.”

“And who told you about Biral?” She glared at Klay.

“I apologize, mistress Dura,” Klay said, “but we wanted Tyrus to help identify the bone lord.”

“At least come up with better lies.” Dura turned to Tyrus. “Provoke the king, and you’ll end up sharing a cell with Biral. What is wrong with you?”

“I need to know what is going on inside the empire.”

“Bah. You are too valuable to risk. Who else saw you in the dungeons?”

Klay said, “Lord Borra.”

“Well that’s just brilliant—a fine mess.” Dura jabbed a finger at Tyrus. “Do you know how often I argue for your hide?”

Tyrus said, “Interesting choice of words.”

“Please. Neither of us pretends this is more than it is. And since you’ve deigned to grace me with your presence, let’s get back to work.” Dura smacked his chest plate with her walking stick. “Take this foolishness off.”

Klay coughed. “We thought it might help him blend in more.”

“Did it?”

“He’s too big to disguise.”

“A fine mess.”

Dura left, mumbling about finding patience. With her staff and trembling legs, she teetered down the stairs. Tyrus followed. He had learned that offering her help provoked angry rants. In another room one floor down, parchment and charcoal sketches covered the walls. He shed his armor, sat on a stool, and Dura went to work studying the scroll of sorcery etched into his flesh. Cold metal prods pushed at his back. She used calipers to take measurements, and she chewed her quill between scratching notes on parchment.

“Am I a prisoner?”

“You are my guest, but you swore an oath to serve.”

“Are servants not allowed outside the tower?”

“Depends on who wants to kill them.”

Tyrus started another question. He often found questions the best way to start a conversation with Dura, but she shushed him so she could take more measurements.

“Just as I feared.” She spoke to herself. “My measurements were correct.”

“Have you heard anything about Ishma?”

“I assume she is dead. Azmon would not forgive her for stealing his child. That is your old life, Tyrus. Marah needs you now. You have a new ward. Tell me again how he etched this rune.”

“I’ve already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

Tyrus shared an old memory of intense pain. Emperor Azmon had lashed him to a large metal slab with thick chains and used needles to scar his flesh. A burning tar stained the skin while Azmon chanted the rites. Had Tyrus been a normal man, he might have blacked out, but his runes kept him awake. Etching was torture. Tyrus had screamed and cried before the ordeal finished.

“And,” Dura said, “at the end, what did he say?”

“He said he had connected the weaves. He said I should heal faster.”

Dura slapped the rune. “But this weave has nothing to do with healing.”

“So you have said.”

Dura went to a corner and grabbed a large bronze platter, polished to a sheen. She dragged it over, held it near Tyrus’s flank, and pointed at the rune. “You are sure he was talking about this one?”

“How many times must we do this?”

“I ask the questions.”

“Yes, I am sure.”

Dura returned the platter. She collapsed into her chair and studied piles of runic sketches. She ignored him, and Tyrus realized something agitated her more than normal. Rather than provoke her, he perched on the stool and waited.

“Another champion died,” she said.

“Who did the etching?”

“I did.”

Few could endure the pain, and more often than not, the heart gave out. He had seen the same stress on Emperor Azmon’s face, when he failed to create more Etched Men for the Empire of Rosh. Decades passed before Azmon gave up and created beasts of bone instead.

Tyrus asked, “How many runes did he have?”

“Only four. He should have lived.”

“Some die on their first.”

“He was strong. If that rune truly connects those two patterns, he should have been fine. I had planned two more afterward. What went wrong?”

Tyrus worked to find words that would not offend her. She was so old, wrinkles upon wrinkles, liver spots and bluish moles, but if the champion was young and strong, then the death might be the fault of the engraver.

“How are your hands?”

Dura gave him a cold glance.

“If he was truly as strong as you say—”

Dura held up her hand—no tremors, no shakes at all. She had a surgeon’s control. “The rune was properly drawn.”

“You asked what went wrong.”

“I was being rhetorical.”

He had a strange memory of doing this before, sitting in a room like this, having this conversation with Azmon. Unlike Dura, the emperor was known as the Eternal Youth and had a boyish face with blond curls. He had lost many promising champions on the etching table. Tyrus had asked why, and Azmon said, “You are unique. It is infuriating.” Now Dura struggled with the same problem, and Tyrus wondered how long it would take her to reach the same conclusion.

“Biral spoke of a new beast,” Tyrus said.

Dura leafed through drawings of other runes.

“Have you seen reports? Maybe a beast larger than a wall breaker?”

She ignored him.

“I’ve spoken with Klay about the threats from the west, the Norsil tribes. Do you think they would listen to terms? Maybe an alliance against Rosh?” He waited and asked another question. “What of the fortifications on the plains?”

“You are not the Lord Marshal anymore.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t act like it. These decisions are made by others.”

“What decisions have been made? Azmon waits and builds his forces, and you let him. Why has no one attacked?”

“I am not in charge. The league is in its infancy, young, fragile. Forcing too much could risk everything. They make their own decisions about how to defend their own lands.”

“Doing nothing is worse.”

“Again, you are not the Lord Marshal anymore.”

“I thought you meant to fight. Sitting in this tower for a year was not part of our agreement. How can you protect Marah if you let Azmon conquer Ironwall?”

“Azmon has runes no one has seen before. Not even the elves. We need to unlock their secrets. If he waits to invade, we will let him.”

The league was a loose alliance between the Gadarans, Shinari refugees, the Ashen Elves, and the Stonelock dwarves. While they argued tactics, Azmon gathered his strength. Tyrus had seen it before. Azmon would conquer them one by one. Before they realized the danger, the bone beasts would be at the walls, clawing to get inside.

At a window, Einin looked out upon the brown scrublands that led to the lush forest of Paltiel. Mount Teles rose from the forest and dominated the eastern horizon, and beyond it, the Roshan army prepared for war. She imagined them marching around the forest, lines of heavy infantry wearing black armor and hundreds of monsters with black skin, bone claws, and burning red eyes. The emperor would avenge his daughter and turn Einin into a beast as punishment for stealing her.

She closed her eyes.

The sunlight warmed her skin while the wind moaned outside the wooden shutters. No armies today. If she could relax, she might enjoy the protection of the thick walls and a great sorceress, yet Dura could not figure out Azmon’s secrets, which meant she was a poor protector. Einin understood enough sorcery to know that.

She scanned the plains again. Brown hills rolled like a gentle ocean—empty, but the monsters would come. She had watched them destroy cities. She had stood far away, beyond the clamor of battle, but the wall breakers were easy things to see from a distance because arrows and ballistae followed them across a battlefield like a swarm of flies, and warriors clustered around them. When the beasts broke a ringwall, the excited roar of thousands of soldiers echoed across the battlefield before the pillaging began.

Now, instead of watching a distant city fall, Einin waited on the other side for the walls to crumble. She must escape. The best time to run was before the monsters arrived.

Marah played with her strange blocks, black and white with silver embossed runes on the sides, a sorcerer’s toys. She remembered fleeing with her, newborn and barely an armful. Einin had been clueless and nearly killed them both. A year later, Marah had started crawling, wobbly as a drunk.

Einin left the window to study maps of Argoria. She wanted passage back to her homeland of Narbor, but that meant crossing an ocean controlled by Rosh. To escape, she had to run farther west, away from them. She traced a finger across images of mountains and forests with squares for towns.

Klay said, “Careful, or you will wear a hole in that.”

“What is this place, Westrend?”

“A very old city. We trade with them less each year. My grandfather would have known more. They were great herdsmen, or used to be, before the Norsil conquered the western road.”

“Herdsmen?”

“Famous cheeses and mutton. Great big sheep, excellent for roasting. Something about the grass, or so I’ve been told. None of our sheep are half as big.”

“Do they have an army?”

“I’ve heard they survived Kordel, but I cannot say how. They might have surrendered to him or his sons.”

The more she learned the map, the more she hated it. Wars made it outdated; things the Gadarans took for granted she learned by degrees. It seemed to be over a hundred years old and useless.

“What about Kordel? Could he stand against Azmon?”

“He was Norsil.” Klay spoke as though something were obvious. “Barbarians. He was a great war chief who united the clans and sacked many cities, but his armies broke against the gates of Ironwall. That was my grandfather’s time. Kordel’s sons tore the Norsil apart with civil wars they are still fighting today.”

“Would they fight Azmon?”

“You’d be better off trying to find shelter from the half-giants.”

“But they eat people.” She turned to him, confused. He spoke her language well but mangled phrases. She struggled with his humor.

“They do eat people.” Klay grinned. “But with the giants, you know where you stand. The Norsil change their minds with the weather. Hundreds of clans, a few friendlier than others. Most kill outsiders.”