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

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  Lilith smiled and rocked faster. She knew runes, or had, and enjoyed the trick. A memory, she recognized the golden man’s talent. Others would struggle to make the trick so smooth.

  “You have this pattern inside you.”

  Lilith stopped rocking. His words made no sense. She had no blocks inside her. A sense of dread built as though she might wake from this dream. They had done this yesterday.

  “No, master.”

  “You must try.”

  She repeated the denial. No was a powerful word, but he refused to listen. He did not like the word, and she closed her eyes to hide from his scowl.

  “Relax. Breathe. In and out—deep breaths—that is good. Now open your eyes and focus. You can do this. You must try, for me.”

  Lilith opened her eyes.

  “Your hair is black.” He gestured at his hair. “Make it this color.”

  An easy trick, one she had mastered days ago. She lifted her long hair in front of her face and willed it to change. The black shimmered into a blonde, similar to the man’s hair. She dreaded the next part.

  “Now look at my hand.”

  “No.”

  “You mean, ‘No, master.’”

  “No.”

  He was surprised at that, and so was she. Her fear made it easier to refuse him. Their bond frayed when she did not want to hurt herself.

  “You must try. Raise your hand. Notice the nails and knuckles? Make them like mine. Make your hand the same as mine.”

  Lilith closed her eyes and willed her hand to change. Her skin moved on its own. He said she had done well, but she kept her eyes closed. Seeing another person’s hand on her arm never felt right. She could not accept it, and it brought back bad memories. Even with her eyes closed, the memories stirred. She saw faces of people she had known; names drifted into her awareness.

  “You did well. Open your eyes.”

  “No, master.”

  “This is a better trick than my illusion. Your flesh has changed.”

  She opened her eyes. Her hand itched—oversized and wrong—she struggled to control herself. Tears clouded her vision, and she pulled at the skin. Neither of these hands were hers. She clawed at her own flesh.

  “This is not me.”

  She thought her real body might be underneath the fake skin, but it wasn’t, only blood and tissue and pain. Her claws shredded her skin, exposing the pulp of the muscles, a blackish tissue, oozing a blood more black than red. The sight of it, a beast’s flesh, made her panic. She wanted it off and scratched harder, but it wouldn’t come off because it was she.

  She was a beast. What had happened to her body?

  “Stay with me.”

  “Get it off!”

  “Stay with me, Lilith. You can do this. This is you.”

  She wailed, a mixture of fury and despair.

  “You can be anyone you want. I gave you the runes.”

  Memories stirred, and her breath shortened. She had been flying on a beast when a force grabbed her. She remembered the wind in her hair, a large man with eyes that glowed yellow: the Damned. Her face burned, and a red glow tinted her vision. The boy before her, Azmon—his name was Azmon—looked afraid, and she enjoyed terrifying him. She remembered dying; she was dead. The memory exhausted her, left her weak and feeble. She remembered the man cutting her throat and falling from the sky.

  “He killed me.” She sobbed. “I’m dead.”

  “You remember. Good. Stay with me, Lilith; I need your help.”

  She remembered more—her time on the table, Azmon’s experiments. She was a bone beast, another disgusting monster.

  “Release me.”

  “I’ve freed you from the Nine Hells. You are reborn. I created my own Reborn hero.”

  “I am a Reborn?” She remembered Blue Feasts and celebrations for the babies born with birth runes, but this was different, shameful and wrong. Her flesh was not her own. She wanted to punish the Damned for killing her.

  “Revenge?”

  “No.” Azmon raised a finger in warning. “That is the mistake you made before. I want my daughter back.”

  Lilith didn’t remember a daughter. Her memories had holes. Maybe the emperor had a daughter after Lilith had died? How long had she been dead?

  “How long?”

  “They took her from me a year ago. You will rescue her.”

  Lilith had used the wrong words. She did not care about his daughter and struggled to talk. How long had she been dead? Azmon smiled while she cried. She brushed aside her tears, aware that her face was wrong too, a false face. She was trapped in another’s flesh. The tears would not stop.

  “You remember more each day. Soon you will be ready.”

  “Yes, master.”

  IV

  The day wore on, and a warm sun cooked Tyrus in his armor. The plains were hotter than the mountains. His pulse pounded in his face, flushing his cheeks, and puddles of sweat filled his boots, blistering his feet. Runes could repair blisters if he let them; instead, each step rubbed the skin raw. Thankfully, Klay had slung Tyrus’s pack across Chobar’s saddle. Tyrus kept a decent pace but had reached the achy part of the run.

  Four rangers rode in a wide diamond pattern, watching the flanks, while the main troop stayed near Tyrus. The plains had rolling hills, high enough for men to disappear between, and running headlong into an ambush was a real danger.

  A long day awaited him. The tedium of placing one foot before the next, across many miles, dulled his senses while worries about finding Ishma distracted him. Azmon would keep her close—he was certain—but she could be anywhere in the camps or Shinar. Tyrus needed to capture a noble who knew about the royal family, and finding someone like that would be as hard as rescuing her.

  As his mind wandered, he couldn’t help but remember the last time he had saved her. Memories of failure gave him doubts. He underestimated his enemies again and repeated old mistakes. Images of the caravan being rushed by Hurrians—a flight of black arrows followed by charging pikemen—kept dogging him. Oblivious and arrogant, he had walked into that ambush and wasted the lives of hundreds of good warriors.

  As he jogged beside the bears, he replayed the ambush in his mind. He should have been more vigilant with the scouts. A young, undefeated champion, Tyrus had assumed the Hurrians were irrelevant, and it made him paranoid now. With a glance at the rangers, he was comforted that he was not alone. They fidgeted with their weapons. The purims were demon spawn and primitive. Behind walls, people described them as a nuisance, but on open ground they made everyone nervous.

  He wished he had never spent those weeks on the road with Ishma. His best memories—and his worst—all wrapped together, amazing conversations with a beautiful young queen and a series of colossal blunders that caused needless suffering. He had been alone most of his life. No woman compared to her. Azmon tried to arrange several marriages, but short of being forced into one, no nobles would send their daughters. He was too big and too common, valuable as long as Azmon lived. They thought the hulking warrior would become arthritic and useless, but that was before he had a hundred and twelve runes.

  Klay stood in his saddle twice. The sun was setting, a blue sky stained orange.

  “What is it?”

  “Purims, following the knights.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The bears.”

  Tyrus had not noticed a change in their behavior. “How far?”

  “No idea, but they become more active at night.”

  “Do the Norsil work with them?”

  “No. They are sworn enemies.”

  “They share the Lost Lands with them?”

  “If you can call constant warfare ‘sharing.’ And the half-giants fight for land too. Life is cheap on the plains.”

  “Has anyone tried to make alliances with the Norsil?”

  “They are barbarians.”


  “But if they can survive on the plains, they would be powerful allies.”

  “They’re barely human. They eat raw meat—worship the shedim. You can trust them to lie, cheat, steal, and kill.”

  “They must want something.”

  “You haven’t met them. Trust me. They might look like men, but they are the real animals.”

  As the day ended, Tyrus hoped they would make the woods without incident, but a horrible sound echoed over the plains like thousands of metal teeth sawing wood. The sound, hard to place at first, was the tearing and snarling of thousands of furious animals. Underneath that cacophony was the dim sound of ringing steel and pounding cavalry hooves.

  V

  They crested a small hill and saw, in the distant shadows, packs of purims swirling around men on horses. Hundreds of monsters raced around a tight formation of knights. The knights were hard to see because the purims were as big as mounted men; some stood at what must have been eight or nine feet tall. Their snarls, that monstrous sawing sound, reminded Tyrus of a deer dragged down by a pack of wolves.

  Klay said, “Buzzard’s guts, it’s a whole tribe.”

  Tyrus asked, “How many?”

  “Hundreds of packs, maybe a thousand warriors.”

  Tyrus saw large creatures with thick arms covered in fur. They had mannish bodies with heads that were a cross between a wolf and a bear. Strange disc armor, black plates held in place by straps, covered their torsos, and most of their weapons were crude clubs with black spikes. Small creatures followed larger ones, and when big ones pointed, the small ones leapt into the fight.

  Tyrus unslung his sword, a reflex, but his first thought was to run. This was not his fight, and he sought a way around the obstacle. One look at Klay, and he could tell the rangers would attack. Tyrus figured Klay had saved his life at least twice, more if he included the politics of Ironwall, so he decided to keep his friend alive. The decision came and went in one breath. He dropped his pack, rolled his shoulders, and ran at the purims.

  “Stay on my flanks.”

  “Wait, Tyrus. You don’t understand—”

  “Keep them from pulling me down. Guard my flanks.”

  The distance closed, and the sound grew worse. Underneath the sawing snarls, Tyrus heard men and horses screaming in pain. The sorcerers dove off the bears, but the rangers had a practiced dismount, rolling backward out of their saddles. Bows twanged. Crackling hellfire exploded. The blasts drowned out the snarls, and for a moment, the purims looked surprised. The oily smell of burning fur filled the air.

  Tyrus thought it might scare them off, but they raged at the sight of the war bears. Purims smashed the ground, pounded chests, and charged.

  He sensed war bears in his periphery and sprinted forward. He became the tip of the spear, a position from which he had fought for most of his life. Old songs filled his head—champions with the most runes led the charge because they were marked for death, marked for glory—and he meant to show the demon spawn why he was called the Butcher of Rosh.

  Screaming a war cry, he sprinted up a hill. In answer, an eight-foot animal man, all fangs and claws, leapt at him. Tyrus had a moment to appreciate its athleticism before he used an overhead slash to knock the creature down. The two-hander split its head in half, and war bears slammed into the line. Tyrus jumped over the dead purim and shoulder charged another out of his way. Then he set his feet, put his weight behind his blade, and swung with his core. The five-foot sword cleaved three purims in half. Blood sprayed, and animals howled. Tyrus took a step and pivoted the blade into a counterswing that killed two more. In a bloody blur he advanced through their ranks like a farmer reaping wheat.

  He found himself surrounded. The bears did not kill as quickly, and the purims ganged around him. A small one leapt onto his back, and he grabbed its forearm to wrench it forward. Tyrus swung it into another one before ducking and slashing again. He risked losing his blade with wide swings to force the creatures back. A dread built as the purims closed. Without Etched Men to watch his flanks, he would be pulled down and gutted. He waited for the vertigo of a yanked foot, or the crush of a shoulder behind his knees, but instead hellfire exploded on his right.

  He flinched as the heat washed over him. Instincts took over. From fighting beside sorcerers, Tyrus knew to charge the blast. Whatever had been there was gone, and in the moment of confusion, the demon spawn would lose track of him. Smoke stung his eyes. Stench choked his lungs, but he swept his sword low, blind, and felt the blade sever legs. Large shadowy figures toppled, and more explosions surrounded him.

  Tyrus fought to the top of a burning hill; flames licked his armor, casting an orange light on him as he became the focal point of the battle. None of the purims had the power to stand before him. The howling grew worse, and a storm of maces and knives were thrown at him. He guarded his face, felt the missiles batter his armor, and used the purims as shields whenever he could. One of them roared in his face, and Tyrus grabbed its chest piece and yanked it into an oncoming mace. The monster’s friends howled at Tyrus, and he screamed back.

  Adrenaline and fury replaced strategy on both sides.

  Animal men climbed the hill, crawled over their dead friends, and Tyrus killed them all. In a detached sense, he knew this kept Klay and Chobar alive, but aside from drawing the attention of hundreds of demon spawn, he focused on hacking apart easy targets. He fought without honor, and he severed hands and feet as often as necks. For their part, the purims made this easier than they should have. Their disc armor exposed shoulders, forearms, and knees, and they had a tendency to display their anger before they attacked. A dozen times Tyrus could have been wounded, but his opponents showed off fangs instead of biting, and Tyrus obliged them by stabbing their snouts.

  Walls of flame erupted on his flanks, funneling purims toward his two-hander. Tyrus sliced a purim from shoulder to hip, kicked it down the hill, and glanced at his rear. Larz Kedar juggled orbs of hellfire. He had the dead eyes of sorcery, and all around him bodies burned, yet Larz appeared clean and relaxed without a drip of sweat on his face. Meanwhile, Tyrus blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. He had no way of knowing if the blood was his or his victims’, nor did he care.

  The weight of his armor pulled at his shoulders. Even an Etched Man could not fight at such a pace forever, and the way the fighting sapped his strength made him pause to take in the battle. He wasn’t sure who was winning. The Shinari knights continued wheeling about on the plains and charging the purims. The purims knotted around the Gadaran infantry while sorcerers cast hellfire. A haze of brown smoke hung above the battlefield. The purims were as numerous as before, but the snarling lessened as they fought on two fronts.

  The battle shifted, an unspoken moment when the largest of the purims lost interest in the Shinari knights and stalked toward Tyrus. Those packs able to follow trailed after their leader, and Tyrus kicked bodies out of his way to make room. His hill was littered with dead and dying monsters. The big one stood about ten feet tall and carried a club that looked like a tree trunk. His snout was filled with white scars, and he had one ear. Littler demon spawn scrabbled out of his way when he took the hill at a run. Tyrus meant to charge as well, but he tripped on a dead body and slid to one knee. The purim altered his swing, and the club thudded into Tyrus’s shoulder.

  To the sound of snarling cheers, Tyrus bounced down the hilltop. He sensed broken bones as his left arm numbed and struggled to grasp his sword. The blow left him dazed, and while he found his feet, he struggled to focus his eyes. He shook his head and saw a large shape hurtling toward him.

  He dove out of the way. The club hit hard enough to shake the ground. Tyrus found his feet and rolled out from under another swing. The club sank into the ground, and while the purim snarled and pulled at the club, Tyrus slashed its wrists. Howling in pain, the purim pulled back bloody stumps. Another swing separated the head.

  The body stayed on its feet a se
cond after the head bounced to the ground. When the body toppled, the battle shifted again. The fight had cooled, dying away. Small pockets of horsemen and bears finished off a few purims, but many of the creatures fled over the hills, running in multiple directions. They had a strange lope, three-legged so they could carry their weapons.

  The snarling faded, replaced by the moans of the wounded.

  Klay found Tyrus. The ranger cradled an arm. He had a gash in his mail, and blood streamed from his shoulder. Chobar stood to watch the purims flee, his tan coat covered in dark stains that made it impossible to count his wounds. Many of the war bears did the same, standing and roaring. Tyrus saw two that were too wounded to stand. Their plate barding was the only way to distinguish a war bear from a dead purim.

  Tyrus asked, “The purims can outrun horses?”

  “Sometimes.” Klay was out of breath. “Over small stretches.”

  “Why do the bears hate them?”

  “Long story.”

  Tyrus waited for it, but Klay carried most of his weight on one leg and had a clammy face. Sweat poured down his cheeks, and he coughed as much as he gasped. Tyrus grabbed his upper arm, and Klay used him as a crutch.

  “Bastard clubbed me. Can’t feel anything below my knee.”

  “Move your foot.” Tyrus asked him to move his leg in a couple of different directions. “I don’t think it’s broken. Let’s find you a dry place to sit.”

  “I could really use that. What’s wrong with your arm?”

  Tyrus’s left arm hung at his side, but to a practiced ear the sound of bones clicking into place, like popping knuckles, could be heard. The familiar burning sensation of his runes trying to fix the break made him sweat more. His armor was dented inward, but it did not cut off his circulation. He could flex his fingers.

  “Club broke my arm. Bone didn’t shatter, though. I’d be nauseous if it was that bad.”

  “How long until it heals?”