Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (37 page)

“I don’t care.”

Klay could never tell if he tested Lord Nemuel’s patience. The elf had few facial expressions and seldom made eye contact. The gray skin created an impression of coldness, which Nemuel cultivated. He stood apart, an other, but Klay had known him a long time and enjoyed talking to him even if he got crisp answers.

Rangers reported to Klay, an unofficial elevation in his rank. He was still young but had earned respect from the elders. They liked the way he had handled Tyrus, Dura, and the battles in Paltiel. He had impressed the right people, others deferred to him, and the idea of letting everyone down terrified him.

Nemuel pointed at Shinar. “Flyers.”

Klay cursed, caught woolgathering. He had been looking right at the city and missed the movement. The alarm sounded. Archers and sorcerers prepared to attack, but the beasts climbed higher, circling Shinar, never venturing past the walls until they were beyond threat of attack. Dozens of them flew in no recognizable pattern. Strange that geese were more organized than sorcerers. The flyers looked bulky and flapped their wings more than Klay thought was normal, struggling with the weight. Klay saw it then—they carried beasts.

Klay said, “That’s not enough to attack an army.”

“It’s a diversion or a raid.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

Once they were high enough, the flyers headed toward Paltiel. Two groups formed; one headed toward Telessar and the other toward Ironwall.

Klay said, “They’re attacking the cities.”

“They are.”

“We should send Telessar help. Ironwall is too far away, but a regiment or two might make it to Telessar before the beasts do too much damage.”

“We hold, here.”

Klay half heard him as he watched a wall breaker being carried through the air. He struggled to believe that a creature so big could be lifted into the air. As the flyers passed overhead, their shadows flittered over Klay. They soared like manta rays, lazy, almost comical but carrying monstrous cargo.

“We cannot hold here,” Klay said. “They’ll fly over the walls.”

“Telessar is fine. A few flyers won’t threaten the mountain.”

“You said this was all of your strength.”

“It is all the strength of
my
people.”

“The seraphim guard the mountain?”

“Oh no.” Nemuel seemed amused. “To fight seraphim, Azmon must pass the Gate Keeper.”

Klay didn’t like the sound of that. Nemuel seldom showed so much satisfaction at an enemy’s misstep, and Klay’s anxiety didn’t lessen as he watched the beasts fly to the Forbidden City. He wanted to fight back. Azmon cheated, he realized, flying his army over theirs. It wasn’t right.

“What about Ironwall?”

“That is Dura’s problem.”

As the flyers approached Paltiel, Klay waited for the angels to return. He imagined the white wings lancing through the air with their spears, shredding the flyers and leaving their cargo to tumble through the air. But they never came. He wondered at that as the flyers grew more distant.

In Ironwall, Tyrus stood on one of the taller ramparts facing Mount Teles. He scanned the scrublands for bears and green cloaks, but they were empty. He hoped Klay had survived the tunnels and that he would return to Ironwall. A guilty feeling wouldn’t go away, as though Tyrus had sacrificed Klay for Ishma. In many ways he had; he knew it, and admitting it hurt. Every victory required sacrifice, but Klay deserved a better death. Tyrus’s attention lingered on the rolling brown hills as he hoped for news of his friend. No word came, but no one had reported back yet. The elves had a city to siege, and the Gadarans marched to war.

Movement drew his attention: a flock of birds, dark shadows, above Paltiel. He had no way to gauge the distance or their size, but the first inkling of alarm crept over him. He leaned into the rampart, squinting at the shapes. They grew closer and larger, and the wingspans were too wide to be shedim. As they got larger, he saw the telltale sign of long tails and necks.

The watchmen must have had multiple runes enhancing their vision as well because they pointed and shouted. Archers and spearmen gathered on dozens of walls. When the flyers passed over Paltiel, entered the scrublands, and did not change course, the alarm bells clanged. Shouting on the walls spread to the streets, and the city panicked.

The flyers were not the right shape—too heavy in the hindquarters, and their wings flapped more than normal. Each carried a heavy load, and when Tyrus spotted multiple red eyes, he unslung his sword. In a moment of clarity, Tyrus remembered a conversation he’d had with Azmon after Shinar fell, when Azmon said the age of castles was over. The beasts would not run through the walls; they’d drop over them. He struggled to articulate the knowledge.

“Pull back into the streets.” He called to the guards. “Defend the people.”

“We can’t abandon our post.”

“This isn’t the target.”

“I’m not taking a lashing for you.”

“You defend what the enemy attacks.” Tyrus wanted his command back. “You don’t tell the enemy what to attack.”

He leaned against a rampart. The wind sickened him, but he spared a glance before backing away from the drop. The Gadarans prepared archers and ballistae, strung bows, and cranked the wheels of the siege equipment. They readied the defense of the walls, but the beasts would drop behind them. Tyrus ran along the wall, watching all the Gadarans doing the same thing.

“Find your officer,” Tyrus told a guard. “Tell him the beasts attack the fortress.”

“They have to get past us.”

“They already have. Watch.”

Flyers swept in, above the range of the archers. Their shadows passed over the lower walls one by one. The men on those walls shouted the alarm, but they were hundreds of yards down the side of the mountain, and in seconds the flyers had bypassed most of the Gadaran strength.

An enormous flyer with thirty-foot wings flew straight at Tyrus. The wings snapped and swooshed as they cut the air while its claws carried two bone beasts, ten-footers, not wall breakers but big enough to wreak havoc on infantry. The bone lord at the reins held an orb of crackling fire. He threw it at the archers as he flew lower, and a streak of gray smoke followed it to the wall before it exploded. The blaze consumed two archers as the flyer flung the beasts. They flew overhead and crashed into buildings near the fortress.

The roof of a house became a gaping hole of splintered wood and shattered clay tiles. The other demolished a stable filled with screaming horses. A dozen flyers launched similar attacks, hellfire paving the way for beasts. Tyrus saw two flyers with empty claws but carrying a half dozen of the smaller beasts on their backs. The flyers circled the keep’s roof, and the others leapt off.

He didn’t understand. A dozen lords couldn’t possibly control their flyers and all the beasts. Then he realized they didn’t have to control them—only set them free to rampage through the streets.

“A diversion,” he said.

The beasts ran amok in the streets, hellfire exploded on rooftops, and Tyrus was frozen from shock. He struggled to see their real target. Maybe King Samos? He wondered what Azmon could want. The realization took longer than it should have as he surveyed the attack and his eyes lingered on the top of the mountain, where the Red Tower stood exposed. Azmon’s wife and daughter were easy targets. He blinked away disbelief. Shock gave way to clarity, and that freed his limbs.

His body lurched into life.

He jumped down from the wall and ran for the keep, the fastest route to the Red Tower. He pushed past screaming crowds and ignored a roaring beast. In the distance, alarm bells clanged. From the air, bone lords launched fire orbs. In the streets, the city became a panicked, burning mess, and too many guards stood on the walls. No one stopped the beasts from tearing apart everything in their path. Tyrus ducked into a servants’ passageway and climbed stairs. He would let Ironwall burn before he lost Ishma again.

Lilith sampled all the foods in Dura’s pantry, but none of them satisfied. The taste was wrong, off-putting, not soured but not right either. She ravaged a leg of lamb and had dim memories of eating it before. Other than the need to eat, a primal urge to chew, the food did not satisfy. The cook watched her with a puzzled expression, and she wondered what he might taste like—pumping blood and dripping meat, raw and slimy—the idea made her drool. She sought a substitute. Breads were like chalk. Honey had lost its sugar. Roots left a film on her teeth. Her attention came back to him, and she struggled with the need to maintain her disguise.

“Miss, I will prepare a plate as the Lady Einin asked, but I must insist that you leave the stores alone.”

Lilith caught most of it: Nuna, a language for pompous little fools. She snarled at the man, wanting to maul his jugular.

“I am the Empress of Rosh.”

“Apologies.”

“Get out.”

“Now see here, this is my kitchen. My family has worked for mistress Dura for three generations.”

“Out.” She dragged him to and flung him through the door.

“Empress or not, Dura will hear of this.”

Alone, Lilith ate more slowly. She had given up on finding food that tasted as good as her memories—she remembered feasts and banquets, the best food from all over Sornum, prepared by artists—and while she blamed Gadaran cooking, she knew the truth. Her hungers had changed.

Another reason to eat slowly was the constant reminder through her bond with Azmon. He kept whispering the idea of patience to her, calmness, emotions about waiting. Lilith didn’t understand what he wanted but chewed her food more slowly and picked her next sample with care. Why did he care what she ate?

The mood of the tower changed, a current of excitement in the air. The heartbeats of the guards picked up tempo, and she heard panicked shouts. Distant bells carried on the wind. Lilith wiped her mouth with the back of a forearm and stood a little taller to strain her senses. What was happening outside?

Azmon’s compulsion changed. Violence, destruction, he wanted her to strike, now. The commands were more hatred than orders and focused on the Red Sorceress. Lilith lost control, and flames jumped from her eyes. She blinked away the red light and stepped outside. Dura was hurrying to a lower platform, hundreds of yards away. Then she saw Azmon’s beasts. Dozens of flyers circled the mountain and rained fire and monsters.

The beauty of the chaos broke her heart.

She also heard the glee in the minds of the bone beasts, a collective joy at being unleashed. She shared a strange bond with them, her cousins, shedim in their own way, trapped in the bones of dead men. Lilith would free them from the bone lords and lead them across creation. They would punish Azmon first and then all these mortals. The World of Avanor was theirs for the taking, and if she found a way to create more beasts, she could finish what Azmon had started and hand this world to the shedim.

She stood at the base of the Red Tower. A dwarf ran to her, carrying two packs full to bursting. Lilith sniffed. The strange creatures smelled like wet dogs.

“Empress, Lady Einin sends word to meet her in the keep. She takes the Reborn to safety, outside the walls.”

“Does she?”

“She says she has everything you need. Come with me, now.”

Lilith’s knee-jerk reaction was to refuse: a little girl wouldn’t order her around. But the need to please Azmon took over, and she would not make the same mistake as before. The heir was more important than killing Tyrus. Vengeance could wait.

“Take me to her.”

“This way, empress.”

They hurried to a stairwell leading into the guts of Ironwall.

Lilith found Einin in a narrow passageway with no torches. Arrow slits provided thin bands of sunlight throughout the chamber. She sized up the dwarves as she approached. She knew very little about dwarven warriors and could not even guess if they had runes.

Marah’s white mop of hair snapped around at her. She screamed and pounded on Einin’s shoulders. Marah wailed the word “no.” She put such energy into the sound, as though she despaired at being ignored and screamed from the bottom of her belly. Lilith didn’t know how the child saw through the illusion, but the baby knew too much.

“Please, Marah, just please…” Einin then spoke to the dwarves. “We’ll be able to make it to the southern pass through the keep. Then double back at the second wall to the northwest side of the fortress. You can meet us with your clan there.”

“No guarantee that they’ll come.”

“Marah will need guards on the plains. They are filled with Norsil and purims and half-giants.”

“The warlord would have to decide.”

“Well, we can’t stay here. Everyone thinks I’m paranoid, but trust me, those beasts are… hunting… us.”

Lilith’s eyes glowed like flames in the dark hallway, and Einin’s mouth hung open, quivering, as though she wanted to say something. Lilith enjoyed this moment, the cat fidgeting right before it pounced. The smell of Einin’s terror was intoxicating.

“No.” Marah shouted. “No. No. No.”

A dwarf said, “What is wrong with the—”

Lilith’s claws took him in the eye. Her knuckle lodged in his eye socket, and the tip of her claw scraped the back of his skull. He jerked, spasmed, and almost broke her fingers. Her hand was stuck. The other drew his sword faster than she expected, and Lilith flung the dying one into him. She jerked her claws out, and bits of his face came free with them.