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

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  OUT OF THE GRAVE

  Book Two of

  The Shedim Rebellion

  Burke Fitzpatrick

  Published by Blade Books LLC

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Especially the elves.

  Copyright © 2014 by Burke Fitzpatrick

  Cover art by Clint Langely

  Map by Jonathan Roberts

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Visit BladeBooks.com for more information.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9910572-2-1

  For Chuck Nunley, the first stranger to buy my book and drop me a line on Twitter. Thanks for the kind words.

  CONTENTS

  Maps

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Afterword

  About the Map

  Amazon limits the file size of illustrations to 127KB. To meet that requirement and maintain readability, the map is provided in two parts. Visit bladebooks.com/freebies for the full version.

  PART ONE

  The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.

  Homer

  THE RED TOWER

  I

  Tyrus waited for the men to kill him. He had spent most of the day training forty warriors and knew that a handful plotted his death. The clack of wooden practice swords echoed through the mountains. Forty swords struck each other, but the echoes made it sound like a swarm of locusts. Real weapons littered the training terrace, giving the assassins means and opportunity. From the tension in their faces and their furtive glances, Tyrus could tell an attack loomed. He grew bored. They did this every few weeks.

  The breeze cooled his skin despite the glaring sun. They were too high in the mountains for much warmth. Exercise offered its own heat, and Tyrus, like most of the men, wore woolen breeches and little else. The forty champions of Ironwall were all large men covered in runic tattoos, but Tyrus was the largest and their unofficial master while he trained them. More than that, he had more runes and scars and the blackest name. Most Gadarans had light, short hair, but Tyrus had chin-length black hair. He also carried a real sword, and that usually kept them in line, but not today.

  Tyrus stomped over to Kirag. “Kill me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, ‘Kill me.’”

  Tyrus threw the sword at the man’s feet. The blade sank into the ground. A hush fell over the trainees and the spectators. Kirag checked his friends before his attention drifted to another terrace and a wall looking down on the training field.

  Ironwall, a city of white stone, spiraled around Mount Gadara with terraces carved for homes and gardens. Tyrus saw half the city below them, while above, on another terrace, a railing was peopled with nobles, sorcerers, and priests. Their robes fluttered in the breeze. Many of them had sponsored the warriors for training, and powerful families wanted Tyrus dead. He sought the one who had hired Kirag, but he missed the signals.

  The Shinari and their Gadaran cousins, nobles all, still hated him for sacking Shinar. He couldn’t blame them. They called him the Damned and the Butcher of Rosh. In his old life as second in command of the Roshan Empire, he had killed their kin and burned their homes. A year later, fate had thrust them together, and the bad blood had to bleed.

  Kirag picked up the sword and twirled the blade a couple of times while his friends moved to his side. The clansmen and mercenaries circled Tyrus. The practice yard was a boiling pot of caste systems and pride. He didn’t understand the politics but had seen enough brawls to know the clansmen respected purse strings more than titles. They respected strength even more.

  Tyrus asked, “So who bought you?”

  Calling a noble a mercenary usually provoked an attack, but Kirag glared instead.

  “Boy, you won’t kill me with attitude.”

  “But you’re unarmed.”

  “Does that lack honor? Your owner wants a clean fight?” Tyrus gestured at the men and the circle widened. “I’m getting tired of waiting. Kill me.”

  “Obviously, I can’t.”

  “You are certain? Attack me. Give it your all.”

  Kirag stabbed without warning, a decent attack that would have killed many of the trainees. For Tyrus, the sword moved more slowly—or rather, he was faster. He sidestepped and grabbed Kirag’s wrist, yanking him forward, off balance. They stumbled to the ground. Tyrus locked his arm and planted a knee in his back.

  They were all Etched Men with the Runes of Dusk and Dawn carved into their flesh. The symbols were a mix of dashes and triangles—a language only sorcerers and priests spoke. During the Second War of Creation, sorcerers had discovered a way to etch spells into men’s flesh, and the runes empowered them, gave them abilities regular warriors could not match. Metallic inks were part of their magic. The Gadarans used gold, and their runes glittered like medals. Tyrus had Roshan runes, which were dark green, nearly black, and they covered him from his chin to his ankles.

  He held down Kirag, waiting. He expected at least six trainees to attack. They were dangerous in groups but not in single combat. Tyrus checked their faces. Either he was paranoid, or they were confused.

  He asked, “Do you yield?”

  “I do.”

  “Say it.”

  “I yield!”

  Tyrus helped Kirag stand and offered the sword hilt first. “Again.”

  He enjoyed taunting them. The forty greatest champions in all Gadara stood before him, and audacity kept him alive. Rich, powerful families wanted him dead, and with a few well-placed bribes, these were the men to do the deed. He would stroll before them, bare chested, barking insults. He dared them to attack and punished the ones foolish enough to try. They saw his body covered in dark runes and vicious scars—he had survived horrific wounds—and they thought of him as a god. The trick was to act the part.

  “Attack. Use a different strike.”

  They repeated the exercise a half dozen times. Kirag was imaginative, trying several different gambits, but they all ended with Tyrus pinning him to the ground. He looked like a boy being schooled by a seasoned veteran.

  Kirag said, “I’m done.”

  “Was it a trick?”

  “No.”

  “I did not use sorcery against you?”

  “You have more runes.”

  “There are five men here who could do the same with fewer runes.” Tyrus pitched his voice for the crowd. “You refuse to believe, but runes mean little without training. When Rosh attacks, their champions won’t count runes. I trained them, and unlike the lot of you, they wanted to learn.”

  A year had passed since he came to Ironwall, but he spoke to the willfully deaf. No one cared. The spectators and trainees assumed he lied—or thought they knew better—and wasted everyone’s time. When he had knelt before the Red Sorceress and pledged loyalty, he had hoped she meant to act.

  The Gadarans wanted champions like Tyrus, with hundreds of runes, but people often died on the etching table from pain so intense it could stop the heart. Tyrus tried to explain that he was unique—no one knew why—but they ignored him. Tyrus watched the
ir frustration grow. They killed good men with one too many runes and blamed their greed on him. He studied the gallery of nobles with their indifferent faces while he barked new orders. Warriors fell into ranks. They went through the drills. He pulled men aside, corrected their form, and barked insults. Most of his life had been spent killing or practicing to kill, and familiarity gave him a strange detachment.

  Drills required little thought. The assassins did not strike, and he doubted his paranoia. Calling out their leader might have startled them, or maybe the attack would come tomorrow.

  As lunch neared, Tyrus saw a man in a green cloak, the ranger Klay, step onto the terrace. He wore mesh armor, a small armory of knives, a sword, and a recurve bow. Tyrus had no friends, but he had fought beside Klay, and that bond had strengthened over the last year. Tyrus dismissed the trainees, and Klay pushed through the crowd. A man in his mid-twenties with rugged features, Klay appeared older than his years. He stood tall and lean, with cropped brown hair and a crooked nose that slanted his face.

  Klay said, “I’ve got that thing we spoke of.”

  “A clean shot?”

  “A small window, and closing. It’s now or never.”

  “You have my armor?”

  “I do, but we must hurry.”

  Tyrus followed Klay to a stairwell. The mountainside was riddled with stairwells. The city had been carved from its side, and stairs connected dozens of different levels. Klay knew the servant passageways well and helped Tyrus dodge the nobles. In an alcove, Klay helped him dress in his plate armor before they climbed down into the bowels of the fortress.

  II

  Tyrus had never used water to torture. He stood in the corner of a dark stone cell and listened to the drip-drops. The liquid sound bounced off the stone walls. The room smelled dank. One torch, mounted near the door, cast flickering shadows over a rack, which looked like a wooden table aside from the twin buckets, mounted above and below the head restraints. A valve controlled a spigot, and beads of water bubbled around the copper tip before dripping.

  On the table, a naked man strained against leather straps. He was unable to move, with his limbs, shoulders, and head lashed down. The dripping water struck him in the forehead, just above his eyes, and a little stream had formed down the side of his cheek, matting his hair, pooling on the table, and dripping again, like an echo, into the bucket underneath.

  “Give me the numbers of the new bone beasts.” Klay paced beside the table. “I know Rosh is building more.”

  “They don’t tell me anything.”

  Drip-drop.

  Tyrus stayed in the shadows, out of the man’s periphery. This was Klay’s show, with Klay’s methods, and Tyrus was meant to observe. The Gadarans were a funny people, using water to torture. In his homeland of Rosh, they used hot coals, pincers, and blades, but the fiendishness of the water amazed him. A person could be put under the bucket hundreds of times. Klay said they had learned the technique from the dwarves, who claimed drops of water bored holes into stone.

  Klay asked, “How many bone lords does Rosh have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have no idea where you rank or how many outrank you?”

  “I cannot betray the emperor.”

  “Worry about me.” Klay pulled a lever, and the man’s head lowered. He adjusted a spigot, and more water came out, making the man sputter, cough, and wheeze. Klay let him back up. “Tell me about the bone lords, or should I leave again?”

  “Azmon does things to the dead. I can’t escape him. Please, I beg you.”

  Klay said most prisoners broke after less than an hour in the restraints. They could not handle their inability to move and the sensation of drowning. For most of his life, Tyrus had been a champion of Rosh and guarded its people. Now, listening to his countryman betray the empire, old loyalties warred within him. He had an urge to protect the man.

  “Please, I don’t know anything else.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Klay opened the heavy door.

  “Wait! Don’t leave me like this.”

  Klay gave Tyrus a grim nod and left. The prisoner screamed after him, pleas first before insults that degenerated into animalistic howls. His body flexed, veins trembling across cold skin, but the table ignored him. The heavy wooden frame did not budge. Tyrus waited in the corner, unseen. Patience was the hardest part because he had to let the water do its work. The man fought some more, grunting and cursing before he sobbed.

  Tyrus thought he’d be ready in a few more minutes and endured the sobbing for as long as he could. He tightened the spigot. No one deserved to be treated like this, but it might save an empress.

  “Hello, Biral.”

  “That voice. It can’t be.”

  A large man who could fill a doorway, Tyrus towered over the table. He wore Gadaran armor, layers of steel plate. Biral fought his restraints harder until his face purpled, and Tyrus let his infamy work: the Butcher of Rosh had killed a dozen famous champions, sacked scores of cities, and led an army of monsters across two continents. He had tired eyes, but people saw what they wanted. His size, as well as his scars, bullied more than any sneer.

  “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Tyrus said. “Hard to recognize you.”

  “You died. You fell from the sky.”

  “There are a lot of stories about me.”

  “But the scouts saw you fall.”

  Memories of pain pushed to the surface, things Tyrus wanted to forget. He had crashed one of the bone lords’ flying monsters into a forest. Almost a year had passed, and he could still feel the wind on his face and hear the thunderclap of breaking branches as the beast slammed into the trees. By all rights, he should be dead—he cleared his throat.

  Dozens of old scars pocked Biral’s torso. They looked like lashes from a whip but were too clean. Purple half-moons the size of a man’s finger cut into the flesh. Only sorcery left such clean lines.

  “Where did you get the scars?”

  “Emperor Azmon didn’t believe me. I told him you betrayed us. He called me a liar. Said you were his oldest friend… He did things to me.”

  “He is a hard man to please.”

  “No one would listen. I was loyal.”

  Biral babbled about his service and sacrifices for the Empire of Rosh. He had spent months regaining the trust of the bone lords. Tyrus pretended to listen but was more interested in the scars. Such punishments might inspire dread, but they also sparked rebellions.

  Drip-drop.

  “Please, get me out of this thing. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Where is Empress Ishma?”

  “What?”

  Biral sobbed questions—how would he know anything about the empress?—and Tyrus ignored him. Biral claimed banishment from the court, patrolling the borders like a common soldier. He evangelized his ignorance.

  “But I know about the new beasts. And the bone lords. Just let me out of this thing, and I’ll tell you everything. I can give you numbers.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “But—”

  “The Gadarans want those numbers. I want Ishma.”

  Biral licked his lips. “The empress?”

  Tyrus drew a knife and lifted it above the table for Biral to see. “If it were me, I’d cut the information out of you.” Tyrus tapped the tip just below Biral’s eye. The man held his breath, and Tyrus let the knife linger. “But this device is better. It causes pain without killing. No blood. No mess. Think about spending years on this table.”

  “How did you convince them to take you in?”

  “I ask the questions.”

  “Don’t they know what you’ve done? Who you are?”

  “After I left, what happened to the empress?”

  “Azmon tells us nothing. He trusts no one.”

  “How did he punish her?”

  “Punish?”

  “I’m going to start cutting.”

  “
But Ishma did nothing. You betrayed him. Everyone knows that.”

  Tyrus pulled back. “He blames me?”

  “You stole the heir. The rebellion died in the forest. With you.”

  Tyrus dared hope the story was true. The royal couple were at odds over the newborn heir, and Ishma, fearing for its life, had staged a kidnapping. If she remained blameless, then Tyrus could breathe more easily. Months of guilt washed away. He never should have left Ishma behind, but no, Azmon was smarter than that. At best, he had invented the story to save face. Ishma had a small chance to escape before the trail led back to her.

  Drip-drop.

  “Where is she?”

  “He keeps her in a tower in Shinar.”

  “She is still alive?”

  “No one knows. No one has seen her in months.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Please.”

  Tyrus went to a corner, wiped hay off a block of ice, and chipped a chunk with the hilt of his knife. He plopped it in the bucket above Biral’s head and loosened the valve, increasing the drops, and soon the room filled with bubbling sounds like a small brook. Biral’s teeth chattered as he sputtered about the empire. Tyrus stepped back to his corner, out of sight. Biral called to him, insulted him, screamed at him.

  “I’ll tell you about the beasts! Azmon is working on a new one. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.” Biral moaned. “Please. I know things. Please stop. Please!”

  Drips dropped faster as Tyrus’s attention lingered on Biral’s scars. If Azmon could do that to one of his nobles, what would he do to Ishma? Tyrus preferred to think of Ishma as the striking beauty of Rosh, a woman with long black hair and emerald eyes whose smile made soldiers blush, but he could not shake the image of her chained to a table while torturers mutilated her flesh. She had not been seen in months—what did that mean? Biral looked defeated, and that dashed Tyrus’s hopes. He might be telling the truth.