Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (25 page)

They gathered in apartments cut out of rock, with limited creature comforts. The center of the room was devoted to a fire pit whose smoke vented through a hole in the ceiling. Einin was glad for the stone slab she sat on because the soles of her feet were bruised from standing in one place for so long.

Einin asked, “What now?”

“They deliberate.”

“How long will that take?”

“It’s best not to think about it. Dwarves take as long as they take.”

“Like pain, huh?”

“Less tolerable, I’m afraid.”

As they waited, hours passed, and the twenty lords sent delegates to Dura to ask questions. Einin listened to complaints about trusting the seraphim, again. The dwarves did not trust anyone with wings, especially Archangel Ithuriel, who had given the elves the easier gate to guard. Dura assured them that the surface would once again help with the Demon Tribes, after the Roshan threat was dealt with. The last delegate left, and they were alone again.

“Will the surface help them?”

“Lord Nemuel and King Samos have both agreed to it, but that’s not what the dwarves want. They delay and bicker. They won’t send an army, not in time to help.”

“So we go back empty-handed?”

“Wait for it. Their real request is coming, but not before dinner.”

After dinner, when they were preparing to sleep, a delegate knocked again.

Dura said, “Enter.”

“Mistress Dura.” The dwarf bowed, a strange gesture from a creature with more stomach than neck. “King Sian Dunbor Balrum of Dun Dunarum asks if the surface kingdoms will share the runes learned from Tyrus the Damned.”

Dura said nothing, leaning back against the wall. Annrin and Einin watched her, waiting. She took her time answering, and the delegate respected the silence. He had the air of a person trained in patience.

Dura asked, “Will Thadius declare the warlord?”

“They will want to see the runes first. The Talis ask us to risk our borders. We will not march if the runes are not real.”

Dura produced a scroll from her pack, thick with paper and wrapped in ribbon. “This is a sample of what we have learned.” She pulled the scroll back. “You vote on how long you want to review them first. I will not hand over the goods and waste time while you study. Tell him I want a deadline and a warlord and five thousand warriors.”

“No one will like that number. They debate one thousand.”

“They will have to do better if they want my secrets.” Dura untied the bundle and selected a scroll. She offered it to the delegate. “Have your etchers look at this matrix. They will know its value.”

The dwarf left.

“And now we sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“They’ll argue for hours. No one will believe that scroll, but I brought Rorgen, who bears those runes. They’ll be forced to believe it, and we’ll see how many warriors they offer us.”

Dura sighed and made to lie down. Annrin helped ease her onto the stone slab. Einin made a nest for her and Marah on the floor. She feared Marah’s nightmares and the way the child rolled around in her sleep. She did not want her falling off the stone beds. No one spoke, exhausted by a long day after a long trip. The coals in the fire pit died down, simmering red, casting little light until they winked out.

Klay sat against an oak and oiled his bow while Chobar destroyed a rotten tree stump. The bear tore at the ragged wood, hunting and grunting in the debris. The wood had aged to a rusty red color and flaked apart. Dark holes pocked the surface, and an army of angry ants boiled around Chobar’s claws. His large tongue lapped up mouthfuls of ants.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Klay said. “If I have to listen to knights discuss their code of combat one more ti—”

Chobar interrupted with snorts and a powerful sneeze. He backed away, scratched his snout, and rose on his back legs. Diving claws first at the stump, he shredded the wood.

“We waste weeks watching the Roshan patrol their camps. And now I’m talking to my mount.”

Chobar glared at Klay.

“Companion; I meant companion. We should head back.”

Chobar glanced at the path leading back to the knights. He growled low in his throat, a sound Klay associated with frustration. When Chobar lost his temper, he showed off his incisors.

“The stump will be here when we get back.”

Chobar sighed and lumbered over. Klay finished stringing his bow and slung it over a shoulder. They were solitary creatures, used to working in small teams with other rangers. The knights loved to talk and boast and make grand proclamations. They drove Klay deeper into Paltiel to be alone with his thoughts. He scratched Chobar’s ears, and Chobar leaned into him.

“The smell bothers me the most.”

They walked back to the camp. The knights would meet after supper, and being the most senior, Klay spoke for the rangers. If he dragged his feet a little more, he might arrive after the preambles.

Klay left Chobar on his own, away from the horses, and joined a group of armed men sitting on stools around a campfire. These were the most senior of the Shinari knights, the leaders of the Hundred. As he picked a place to sit, he heard whispers about Tyrus. They usually didn’t talk about him in front of Klay, and he pretended not to notice.

“He is often alone, near the tree line.”

“You saw him fight. He’ll kill a dozen of us, maybe more.”

Lior said, “No one wants his head more than me, but Nemuel gives him shelter, and we need Nemuel to liberate Shinar.”

Klay watched the fire. The logs were fresh, and the crackling flames mesmerized him, bringing back memories of the last time they fought the bone beasts and the elves used their oils to burn the monsters. Klay lost himself in the sparks, orange light, and glowing coals. Meanwhile, knights debated battle plans, whether to engage the Roshan on the fields or wait for them in the woods. They had said the same things a dozen different ways, and Klay knew all the sides to the argument. He found the fire more interesting.

Lior said, “We should harass the fortifications. We can outrun the beasts and keep them pinned inside their forts.”

Voices agreed and disagreed in a clutter of yeas and nays.

“Your father made the same mistake,” Klay said. “He charged the beasts. And those were the old ones who don’t run as fast.”

The camp silenced. The crackling fire sounded louder, and Klay pulled away to see dozens of angry glares.

“We cannot charge them,” he said. “Not with so few.”

“What would a ranger know about cavalry, I mean
real
cavalry?”

Klay bit back an angry retort. He had watched Shinar’s
real
cavalry fall to the bone lords, and Chobar was ten times smarter than their chargers, but he kept the thoughts to himself. None of these men understood what it meant to ride an intelligent animal. Horses could be broken. If a knight tried to break Chobar’s spirit, he’d become dinner.

“He is right about numbers.” Lahar rescued him. “We need more horse to charge the beasts. Two or three knights per monster, and we’ll still lose half our force to them.”

The knights liked it when Lahar said it; a chorus of ayes agreed. Klay went back to watching the flames.

Lior said, “If we do nothing, they will build a city between us and Shinar.”

Lahar said, “They already have.”

“A city of wooden stakes, I mean one of stone. They will build a castle.”

The smart play was to stay silent, but the endless planning bored Klay. He had run out of silence. “No, they won’t.” Klay shook his head. “The beasts don’t need to be protected. They will charge anyone who enters the plains. Besides, where would they get the stone?”

Lior asked, “What?”

“Shinar was built with Gadaran stone,” Klay said. “They use wooden palisades because there is nothing else to build with.”

“And it doesn’t matter, brother,” Lahar said. “We lose knights killing monsters, and they’ll make more with our dead. We need to kill bone lords.”

Again a chorus of men agreed.

“That is their plan,” Lior said, “use their monsters to kill our finest while their lords stay safe behind walls.”

“Well, it’s a good plan.”

“Honorless dogs. They use constructs to fight in their place. The rules of war no longer apply if they have no skin in the game.”

The chorus muttered while Klay fought to keep his eyes from rolling. The conversation turned, as it always did, to the code of combat. The knights would debate whether to suspend their code, and Klay had heard both sides argued a dozen different ways. They sought to justify killing by any means necessary. Lior pushed the idea on his men, Lahar stayed silent, and the most senior knights debated whether killing sorcerers in their sleep lacked honor.

Klay stood to leave, another day wasted on chatter. The rangers had a simple code. They killed things that tried to kill them. The weapons and tactics used were not as important as the results. As he left, he heard Lior shouting. He was a shouter. Failing to persuade, he opted to bully.

“We cannot pretend to have rules,” Lior shouted. “If they kill us from the safety of their tents, then they deserve to die in their beds!”

Klay heard someone following him: Lahar.

Lahar asked, “Tired?”

“Arguing about how to fight is a waste of time.”

“These are very old rules that date back to the Second War. The old timers have kept to the code for decades. They do not like change.”

“Then they will die.”

“To command those beasts, the lords must come into Paltiel, within range of the elven archers. Then we kill the masters like before.”

Klay sighed. “We keep talking in circles.”

“Nothing has changed.”

“So we are resolved to do nothing?”

Lahar did not like that. Klay understood their need to fill the empty hours with planning. Meetings felt like work, more productive than guarding trees, but everyone knew the truth. Months had passed, and they accomplished nothing.

“I want to avenge Shinar,” Lahar said, “but without the elves, the Roshan could kill us all. We need Lord Nemuel to attack, or we need King Samos to send an army.”

“So we do nothing.”

“Yes.”

“So be it. I’ll inform the men.”

“Don’t make a bad situation worse.”

Klay raised his hands. “I offer no insults. We prepare for Rosh; that is all. Shall we dig ditches? Who thought to bring shovels?”

“I do not like your tone.”

Klay studied the man. He was young, younger than Klay by five or six years, but he had a presence about him. He could say something silly like that and give it weight. He might have been a great king if he were the older brother and his family still had a kingdom.

Lahar said, “The stalemate will end.”

“Of course it will, but on whose terms?”

Klay made his way through the trees, past the knights and Gadarans. The rangers kept their bears south of the horses. The Ashen Elves had fortified their position with more sentinels, and Klay could not remember seeing so many standing in the open. Even last year, when they clashed with the Roshan, there had not been so many. Half of Telessar waited for an invasion.

He found Tyrus alone, leaning against a tree near the edge of the forest. When Tyrus folded his arms across his chest, it made his forearms look thicker than Klay’s thighs.

Klay asked, “Any changes?”

Tyrus said nothing.

Klay couldn’t tell if the man was blessed or cursed. No one wanted to talk to him, a blessing Klay craved, but that might take its toll on a former general. Could someone who had commanded armies adjust to being an outsider?

Tyrus asked, “How are the men?”

“Impatient.”

“Desertions?”

“None.”

“Well, that’s unusual. I’d think those monsters would scare off a few.”

They watched distant beasts with glowing red eyes, patrolling the camp walls. They were too far away to hear, but Klay knew from experience that they shook the ground when they ran.

“The waiting is the worst part.”

“Don’t tempt fate,” Tyrus said. “After the fighting starts, this might be our best memory. At least we are healthy and well fed.”

Klay sometimes forgot how old Tyrus was. He had enough scars to appear worn, but his strength and stamina spoke to a youthfulness. He had an unnatural body that hurt Klay’s head if he thought about it too much. The Damned was almost three times his age.

“How do you handle the waiting?”

“Practice. So, what are the Shinari arguing about now?”

“Honor and whether the beasts have changed the rules of combat.”

“Constructs lack rules, that kind of thing?”

“Basically. At least sorcerers stand in range of a bow. Those beasts are far more—”

“Efficient?”

“Demonic.”

“They are creatures of the Nine Hells,” Tyrus said. “After the Second War and the Age of Chaos, the shedim abandoned the Demon Tribes. They decided to create new weapons to fight the nephalem.”

“They corrupted us. They use the Avani to kill the nephalem. Azmon is more dangerous than all the Tribes combined. Dark times. The ancient Kassiri would have never sided with the demons.”

“I’m no historian,” Tyrus said, “but they did destroy themselves.”

“That they did.”

Tyrus heard stress in Klay’s voice. The ranger had a tightness in his shoulders and eyes, a young man worrying about the future. Tyrus had done this before, watched two armies flirt with the idea of a battle. They danced around terrain and waited for the other to blunder first. The fact that he was not the one to blunder freed him from worry, and Ishma was his real goal. He wished the two armies would collide soon so he had a diversion to cross the plains.

But they waited week after week.

Ishma languished in a prison, and he needed a way to sneak across a barren plain. The Roshan patrolled it with vigor, and he saw no gambit that might work. Any disguise they’d investigate. The distance was too great to cover in one day, and their flyers scouted the whole region. The waiting made him consider foolish things. He needed to know where Ishma was kept, and he wanted to capture a bone lord to find out. Late at night, he could approach the camps and catch one unaware—maybe. The beasts could see at night and would raise a ruckus. They’d capture him. And odds were small that these lords knew anything useful. So he waited like a squire while the lords of the realm schemed.

Klay asked, “What is Azmon waiting for?”

“He waits because you let him.”

“I won’t argue this again. I’m not the elf king.”

“I know. Truthfully, I don’t understand it either. So what is the plan?”

Klay described the Shinari plans. They would engage the Roshan as they marched on the woods, using archers in hopes of thinning out the bone lords. When the beasts charged the woods, the archers would take to the trees while the cavalry formed on the plains to the north of the Roshan advance. They planned to flank the lords but knew they must fight through the Imperial Guard to reach them.

Klay said, “It isn’t a great plan. They guess at where the Roshan will strike and where to position the horsemen. And the woodland border is hundreds of miles across.”

“So they defend the woods.”

“The elves won’t leave them.”

“And their horses are useless in the trees.”

“Pretty much, but I’ve learned that insulting their ponies is a bad idea.”

“Against a stronger opponent, we must use deception.”

“They think they do. Hit and run from the trees, like before. They mean to pull the beasts into the woods and overwhelm their masters.”