Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (9 page)

“I’m ready, Elmar.”

Elmar clapped his hands. Clerks entered with towels and robes. Azmon stepped out of the porcelain tub, and hands became too familiar. Soft cotton sponged away the freezing water. He hated people touching him, but among the nobles, the number of personal servants equated a status no different from holding titles and lands. After he dressed, Azmon left his tent to find a dozen of his best students waiting. They looked worried. So many rites exposed them to the Nine Hells and risked fatigue. Instead of pulling sorcery into the mortal world, their souls could be yanked to the other side, a wretched way to die.

Azmon grimaced at his desperation, using thirteen sorcerers during the witching hour. At best, the superstitions might increase their confidence, but he knew the shedim cared little about theatrics.

Clerks set up a table and wheeled in a barrel packed with ice. They had needed a lord and flyer to harvest the ice from a mountain range, a waste of a scout. The barrel emptied onto the table, and hundreds of ice chunks spilled out around a gray corpse. The clerks scooped ice back into the barrel and left.

Azmon studied the mutilated body of Lady Lilith, who had once been his greatest student. The upper half of her torso—one arm, head, shoulders, and rib cage—was all that remained. The grayish skin had a detached look, too large for its bones. He arranged the body and gestured for materials. Pieces from other bodies were brought in to complete her frame as he drew runes on her. In a large circle around the table, the other lords made more runes. Azmon had spent decades preparing for this, yet he kept failing. He checked and double-checked for a misplaced line.

He told the lords, “Make contact and wait.”

The tent chilled as the sorcerers reached out to the Nine Hells for power. Azmon watched their eyes change to white within white, their irises becoming pinpricks.

“Bind the runes.”

The sand at their feet snapped into rigid shapes. Azmon circled the perimeter to inspect them before he took his place at the center. He closed his eyes and bathed in the filth of the Nine Hells.

“Bring the offerings.”

Clerks brought thirteen Shinari slaves, seven women and six men, into the circle. Azmon checked their drugged stupor. Maybe the drugs would upset the ritual?

They killed the slaves, the runes drank blood, and the lords chanted the rite. Chanting lacked artistry; true masters held the runes in their mind, but the rite was too complex. As Azmon spoke, the air swirled, and gusts of wind snapped at the tent. Lightning sparked and thunder boomed. On their first attempt, the storms had surprised everyone and killed two lords. Azmon fought the distractions to focus on Lilith’s body.

The tempest grew.

The offerings morphed into hideous shapes, and Lilith’s body writhed on the table. Azmon passed a point he had never reached before. The pieces of flesh flowed into one another, pinking. Behind him, one lord cried out and then another. A vortex of runes spun in his mind, and he teetered between success and failure. Azmon’s heart pounded in his chest; sweat dripped down his back as he reached too far. Lords screamed while bodies crashed to the ground. Azmon saw yellow starbursts and began to black out. So close. His last sight was Lilith’s body becoming something new. Then everything went black.

He awoke in Elmar’s arms, shivering. Several blankets bound his body, and Elmar waved smelling salts beneath his nose. Azmon’s eyes burst open at the awful smells. They brought back memories of the Underworld.

“The connection,” he said. “It must be closed. Things can come through.”

“The runes are sand again, all of them.”

“All of them?”

“And the lords’ too, even the ones that died.”

Azmon pushed Elmar away and struggled with the blankets. Clerks helped him to his feet. He saw three of the lords in their black robes, laid out in a line. His clerks had moved them, smudging the circles of runes they had stood on. He had no way of knowing what had gone wrong.

“How long since I passed out?”

“Your Excellency,” Elmar said, “the table.”

Azmon feared the worst: a failure that had destroyed Lilith’s remains. They had never made it so far before, and he worried about the rite consuming the body. A strange cocoon, a husk of blackish sinew, covered the table. It confirmed his fears until he saw a woman’s foot protruding. It twitched. The flesh grew lighter with each heartbeat.

Elmar said, “There is a hand on the other side.”

“Help me.”

Azmon wobbled on his feet. He felt like he had been trampled, and his skin festered with itches. He would need a dozen baths to feel clean again, but he lurched to the table and tore away pieces of the cocoon. He sought the leg attached to the foot. With the help of the lords and clerks, they uncovered a woman with Lilith’s face. The skin looked firm again. The ribs, which had been gruesome, looked normal, covered in healthy tissue, rising and falling.

It breathed.

Lord Ralin asked in a hushed voice, “You brought her back?”

“No. This is better. Much better.”

Azmon could not describe what he had done. The evidence before him should have made him elated, but he was too exhausted. Elmar understood and braced a shoulder under his armpit. Azmon leaned on his human crutch and watched the creature open her eyes. They burned with red fire. The bone lords gasped at the revelation.

This was no woman.

“Find her some clothes.” Azmon wobbled against Elmar, and another clerk stepped forward to support him. “I need another bath.”

“You need to sleep.”

“Not like this. Not with the itching.”

“Of course, Your Excellency.”

A tear ran down Azmon’s cheek. The last time he had accomplished so much, he had given Tyrus a hundred runes. The new beast was his creation and not some gift from Mulciber. He had done this by himself, mastering his art and creating new life. He had perfected the beasts of war.

Tyrus sized up the forty champions standing in ranks. A brisk breeze of mountain air kept the sunny day cool. Gadaran society had an interesting caste system of nobles, clansmen, and farmers. Most herded goats and sheep, livestock that could survive in the mountains, and they struggled to protect their herds. They reminded him of his own people, the Kellai. Herdsmen tended to value honor and harbored a special hatred for liars and thieves.

The clansmen were the largest group. Courtroom peacocks made up the rest. Tyrus did not doubt their skill. They were all accomplished warriors, but the clansmen were hard men accustomed to hard lives. They had grit.

“Today we learn limits,” he said. “An Etched Man can be dragged down by lesser men. Spearmen learn to kill us the same way nobles hunt bears. A pack of dogs wears the bear down while the nobles bleed it with spears. Being big and strong doesn’t save the bear, so why would it save you?”

Tyrus stopped pacing before the largest noble. The man, Rorgen, was twenty-something with a thick blond beard and a resolved face. He seemed prepared for abuse. Tyrus remembered being the biggest kid and drawing attention from his trainers too.

“How many men will it take to drag you down?”

Rorgen clenched his teeth.

Tyrus asked another man, “Did I say that right?”

“Yes, master Tyrus.”

“You all understood my Nuna?” The men nodded, and Tyrus asked again, “You speak Nuna, don’t you? How many to drag you down?”

“Depends on the men.”

“That is a good answer.” Tyrus fought a grin. He must be stern. “Of these champions here, the best of Ironwall, how many?”

Everyone waited. Rorgen had twenty runes, and in another time, an age without Lael the Dauntless or the Butcher of Rosh, he would have made a name for himself. Tyrus watched him struggle with insulting other nobles.

“I can take twenty runes, master Tyrus.”

Tyrus paced, shaking his head. The Gadarans had this mistaken belief that they could measure feats of strength in terms of runes. They counted them without weighing their type, use, or training.

“You have, what, five ox runes? Can you take a man with twenty ox runes?”

“No one has twenty ox runes, master Tyrus.”

“I do.”

“None of us have that many, master Tyrus.”

“If it were twenty men, each with a boar rune, could you take them?”

The man reddened. “Only one rune each? I should say so, master Tyrus.”

“What if ten have bows and ten have spears?”

Everyone grew quiet.

“Let me repeat, a pack of wolves can kill a bear. So what makes you so special?”

“I’ve had training—”

“Give me a number. How many men can you take?”

“Two of the best. Five of the others.”

The numbers surprised Tyrus and gave him pause. He questioned at first if the man had fought five spearmen before, but a glance at his face revealed the bluff. He studied the young man, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Why five and not six or seven? No matter.

“Time to wrestle. Put your gear over there. Strip to breeches.”

The men broke into groups and helped each other out of their leather armor. Tyrus approached a group of clansmen. He told five of them what he wanted: a dirty fight. They shrugged agreement. After the men arranged their gear, they reformed in ranks. The Gadarans, like the Shinari, preferred golden inks for their etchings. Tyrus saw scores of men with glittering gold tattoos, like military medals, lining their chests.

“Big man, twenty runes, over here.” Tyrus gestured. “You five, over here. This is twelve runes against twenty.”

“What are the rules, master Tyrus?”

“Simple: be the last man standing.”

Tyrus clapped his hands, and the five circled the one. Big man waited, fists raised, edging in a circle. The clansmen rushed as one group, and the large man put a bone-snapping punch through one jaw, but the others tackled his knees, grabbed his beard, hung on his arms, and pulled him to the ground. He fought to regain his feet and threw two off, but they scrambled back and used their bodies to smother each of his limbs.

Tyrus said, “Enough.”

The nobles muttered about cheap tactics while Tyrus inspected the clansman who had taken the punch. Blood stained his face from his nostrils to his chin, and three teeth were loose. Tyrus waved to the audience, watching from another terrace, a collection of academics, nobles, etchers, and Dura’s students. A sorceress in a red robe came and walked the man away.

“Lord Marshal, the contest was not fair.”

Tyrus gritted his teeth. Whenever the pompous little nobles disliked him, they used his old title. Dura had forbidden it. He turned to the source of the complaint, narrowing his options down to one of two men. One shirked away from the other, and Tyrus had his heckler. More nobles joined in protest.

“They pulled his hair.”

“They tripped him.”

“The Norsil fight with more honor.”

That last insult provoked the clansmen, which Tyrus found interesting. He needed to learn more about the Norsil. They seemed infamous for winning at any price. Men he might like. He raised his hands for silence and approached the big man, who still had blades of grass stuck to his shoulders.

Tyrus asked, “You feel ill used?”

“I didn’t understand the rules. Give me a second chance.”

“I like you.” Tyrus clapped him on the shoulder. The trainees’ limited trust slipped away. The Butcher of Rosh humiliated them with dirty tricks, and they would become a mob if he let it continue. Time to raise their spirits. “I’ll give you a second chance, but you can be on the team of five. I’ll even let you pick your men, to fight me.”

The others leapt at the bait, but Rorgen winced. He was smarter than the rest and one of the few nobles capable of learning from a commoner. Tyrus hoped he had his measure. He didn’t seem like an assassin.

“Pick your men.”

“As many runes as I want?”

“Count the men, not the runes, and pick four.”

Tyrus squared off with five of the strongest, men of twenty runes. The blackish color of his runes contrasted with their shimmering gold. They circled, and Tyrus remembered a fight over a year ago when he had killed ten Roshan champions in the Paltiel Woods. Better men than these. He saw their dead faces, eyes shocked at his betrayal. The circle closed, but no one rushed him.

Fair was fair—they’d had their chance—and he jumped to his right. He tackled a man, rolled on top of him, and punched his face. He pulled the blow so the skull didn’t fracture, and the other four fell on him. In the confusion, he surged to his feet and knocked two down, but Rorgen tackled him at the knees. He fell to all fours and was about to kick him off when the others piled on.

Rorgen yelled, “Pull his arms.”

A man scrambled over Tyrus’s shoulders, reaching for his elbow, and Tyrus threw his head back. Skulls cracked. Someone tugged his arm. He tugged back, dragging the guy off his feet. Bodies collided, and he freed a leg enough to kick Rorgen off. He divided and conquered, threw one into the ground and gut-punched another. Rorgen snuck up behind him and hoisted him off his feet. Weightless, Tyrus flailed to cheers.

Then a bone snapped. Tyrus knew the sound, a loud, wet pop. They both fell, and Rorgen cursed. He rolled across the ground, clutching his thigh. The men gathered, asking what had happened.

“Did the Butcher do it?”

“No, it just broke.”

“I didn’t see him kick the leg.”

“What happened?”

Tyrus brushed off grass and asked for space. He knelt beside Rorgen and ripped apart his breeches to see the break. After probing the leg, he found the bone pushed against the muscle at an odd angle.

“Too many ox runes, not enough stone runes. Your muscles are stronger than your bones.” Tyrus pointed at a trainee. “You, get Dura, now.” He told Rorgen, “I’m going to help, but it’ll hurt.”

“What… will you do?”

“Straighten your leg.”

Rorgen gnashed his teeth. Spittle bubbled on his lips, but he agreed. Tyrus directed men to hold him while he explored the break to understand its shape. Broken thighbones were horrible wounds and often deadly because bits of bone could find their way to the heart. A broken thigh could hurt worse than a knife to the gut. Rorgen’s face yellowed at his touch.

“Ready? One, two—” Tyrus pulled the knee.

Rorgen shrieked but had too many runes to black out. Instead, he puked gray bile. Shadows slipped as the cluster of warriors moved back.

Dura said, “We have surgeons for that, Tyrus.”

“I’ve set plenty of breaks.” He stood. “Runes will handle the rest.”

“You mean you hope they will.”

Dura held out her hand. Tyrus helped her kneel, uncertain what to do when her spindly legs wobbled. Her hand felt light as straw, and her ancient body made him ache with sympathy. He could not imagine being so frail. She was fine once she knelt, and she ran her fingers along the leg, which was bruising a nasty purple.

Rorgen asked, “What helps the pain?”

Tyrus said, “You get used to it.”

“What if you don’t?”

“Then you die or go mad. There are no tricks.”

Someone called from the back, “You don’t have runes for pain?”

“They don’t exist.”

“Not even forbidden runes, from the Nine Hells?”

“Demons don’t care about comfort.” Tyrus chuckled at the thought. “The strong survive, and the weak die. That is the shedim way.”

He saw bitterness, disbelief, and anger. They thought he kept secrets to make himself stronger. Nothing the Butcher said could convince them otherwise, but runes were like demons: brutal and heartless.

Dura said, “Get me a splint, and keep him from moving.”

The Etched Men dispersed, replaced by sorcerers and academics. Klay pushed through the crowd of red robes, silks, and furs.

“They said Dura was down here.”

Tyrus said, “We had an accident.”

“How will they learn if you keep hurting them?”

“This time it wasn’t me.”

“Or so he says.” Dura raised a hand, and Tyrus pulled her up. “Etched Men misuse their gifts and blame the engravers.”

“He needs more stone runes.”

Dura squinted at him. “We will discuss this at the tower. Bring Rorgen on a stretcher, and we will do what we can to ease his suffering. Tyrus, Klay, walk with me.”

They crossed the training grounds and up a flight of stone steps to another terrace carved into the side of Mount Gadara. A flock of the king’s etchers made space for them to pass.

“You come from Paltiel?” Dura asked. “What news from the elves?”

“They’ve pulled the sentinels from the western borders of Paltiel, and the purims have noticed. I tracked several large packs. There are more packs in larger numbers than anything I’ve seen before.”

“That happens when you remove their predator,” Dura said. “King Samos never gives the Ashen Elves enough credit for controlling them.”

Tyrus asked, “And what of Rosh?”

“The stories are true: strange lightning storms in the large pavilion, but I don’t know what I’m looking at. Annrin suggested we bring you to study them.”

Dura shot him an incredulous look. “It’s been decades since I was sent out into the wilderness to spy on the enemy. What do the elven sorcerers say?”

“Lord Nemuel doesn’t understand it.”

“Then I doubt I would either.” Dura sighed. “No, this is something new from Moloch. What kinds of beasts have you seen?”

“Wall breakers and flyers.” Klay glanced around before saying more. “He has a fearsome army. Hundreds of beasts.”

“So he wins the arms race.”

They climbed hundreds of steps to reach the Red Tower. They followed Dura into one of the lower rooms filled with drawings of new runes. Sketches papered the stone walls.

Dura asked, “Did you speak with Lior and Lahar?”

“They do not want the Butcher’s runes.”

Tyrus cleared his throat. “We should discuss how you are etching the mercenaries.”

He met Dura’s glare with his own. Klay shifted a bit.

“Klay, the child and Einin are upstairs. You should check on them. I’m sure Einin would appreciate news about the purims.”

Klay took the stairs two at a time. Tyrus sometimes forgot that Klay was in his mid-twenties. He was tall with a strong jaw and often had a few days’ growth to his beard, appearing older than his years. The way he leapt up the stairs seemed youthful, eager, and made Tyrus feel old.

“I won’t be lectured on how to etch,” Dura said, “and not by someone who never held a needle. And certainly not in front of my students.”

“You must strengthen their bones.”

“I cannot waste runes on young bulls who think they can lift boulders. Tell me, what was he doing when he broke his own leg?”

“Lifting me. If their flesh is too strong, they will break their own bones. I’ve done it. You cannot unbalance an Etched Man.”

“And now you are an engraver? Pray tell, what ratios would you use for a swordsman? You think I etched him like an archer?”

“I know runes.”

“Really? Lift that glass off the table. Show me the Runes of Dusk and Dawn. Most of my students could lift that glass before puberty.” Dura wiggled fingers at him. “Show me your spells.”

“You know what I meant.”

“You are not the Lord Marshal anymore.”

“So you’ve said, many times.”

“No one commands my needle. You swore an oath to me.” Dura sat in a cushioned chair and shook her head. “I was etching runes before you were born.”

“You want me to teach them restraint?”

“Of course not. No point etching them if they cannot use their strength. I will consider changes, but I don’t need you lecturing me.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Go away. I need to review my notes about Rorgen.”

Outside the room, he found Klay sitting on the stairs, waiting. The man looked resigned to unpleasantness.

Tyrus asked, “How is Einin?”

“Can you talk to her about staying in Ironwall?”

Tyrus pointed his chin at the door, and they left the tower. Outside, he felt freer to talk. They discussed Einin’s plans to leave before the Roshan invasion, and Tyrus wanted to know more about the Lost Lands. Klay described barbarians fighting against the Demon Tribes and holding a territory that no one could map. There were no walls or cities, only nomads. Tyrus wanted details, numbers and strongholds if possible.