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.
The two bodies clashed together into a tumble. Marah kept shouting no, and Einin stepped back. The dwarf shoved his dead friend aside and bellowed a war cry. Lilith answered with screams of frustration and hate, a bitter and dark scream that seemed to well up in her toes and burst from her mouth. She did not want any of this. She wanted to be free. Her hate-filled screams were the first true thing she had done since coming back from the Nine Hells.
Claws and steel clashed while Einin fled. Lilith registered that as she ducked and sidestepped the blade. Their fight blocked the stairs, and Einin ran back to the Red Tower. That was good. She’d find no one to protect her there.
The dwarf stabbed her in the gut, and she had the strange sensation of feeling a blade brush against her spine. The sensation triggered an old memory of another sword sliding across her throat. The thick weapon went right through her, and the dwarf looked triumphant, but he had come in close enough to grab. Lilith tore out his throat. He backed away, making a delicious gurgling sound and leaving his sword in her stomach.
Lilith staggered into a wall. She had not felt pain this intense since the Nine Hells, and it brought back powerful memories of the shedim torturing her. The demons had a special hatred of the bone lords. She pulled the blade out, gasping as it slid through her, and crumpled to her knees as the blade bounced and rattled against the stone floor.
Azmon wanted her to strike, sending pulses of hatred through their link. She acted on instinct, trying to make her middle appear like Ishma’s again. The black blood stopped pouring out of the wound, and the tissues knit together. She stood, weak in her center, but capable of fighting. In a zigzag pattern, she stumbled toward the Red Tower.
Einin made it to the tower and slammed the door shut behind her. She found a heavy beam and rails to hold it in place. She placed Marah on the floor and struggled with the beam. Its weight and size made it awkward to swing into place. The wood bit into her fingers.
“No.” Tears poured down Marah’s face. “No. No.”
“I know, child.” Einin dragged the beam to the door. “I should have listened.”
“No.”
“We’ll be okay.”
“No.”
Einin worked one side of the beam into one rail and struggled to lift the other side into place. It took most of what she had, but she muscled the thing up into the bracket. She stood back, hands on hips, appreciating her work. They were locked in when a powerful force slammed into the doors. The beam bounced in the rails but held. A snarling animal clawed at the door and pounded again.
Einin snatched up Marah and retreated toward the kitchen.
“Let me in,” Ishma screamed. “Open the door!”
Marah wailed a denial, and Einin covered the child’s ears as she hugged her tightly. She did not understand what Ishma was doing, but a demon had possessed her. The empress had lost her humanity.
The doors banged again, and a terrible screeching sound came from the stone walls. The screeches climbed the side of the tower. A moment later, Einin guessed what it was. Ishma or one of the beasts climbed the walls. With dread, she thought of the living quarter’s windows, large enough for a person to climb through. There was no way to keep the thing out.
“I told them.” Einin spoke to herself. “I told them Azmon would come.”
Einin headed for the door but stayed her hand. It might be a trick, a sound of claws on the wall while the creature waited to jump down when the doors opened. Her choices paralyzed her: stay and wait for the thing to find her or walk outside and let the thing drop on her.
VI
A crowd of people fled the beasts, and Tyrus shouldered through the press of bodies. The upper levels of Ironwall were in chaos. Smoke hung in the air as buildings burned, beasts roared, and people screamed. Guards tried to run up stairs while nobles and serv
ants tried to run down. Caught in the middle, Tyrus listened to their angry shouts to get out of each other’s way.
“Let me through.”
“Out of my way.”
“Go down. They’re behind us.”
“Let the guards up.”
The stairs bottlenecked. They were narrow passageways twisting through the mountain, in some cases carved into the stone but often built beside terraces. Designed for one person to climb, they could not handle the throng of confused people pushing on each other. Tyrus stood at the entrance of one, unable to climb up. He kept his sword pointed at the ceiling to avoid hurting people by accident. Armed men rushed toward the stairs, and he held out a hand.
“Let the people get down first.”
A young guard went to push through. “We have to get to the king.”
“We can’t all fit at once. Let them through.”
“Out of our way. The king needs us.”
Tyrus shoved him back. “You’ll jam it up. Now back off.”
The guard fell into a fighting stance until one of his friends whispered, “That’s the Butcher.” Tyrus heard it and saw the young man had heard as well; he licked his lips and stood a little straighter. Tyrus did not like being called the Butcher, but if it avoided another stupid fight, he’d take it.
The crowd on the stairs thinned, and Tyrus pushed up them. He was in a stone passageway tunneling into the side of the mountain and branching off into other rooms at this level. Across the passageway stood yet another stairwell. The stones in the right wall exploded inward, clouds of dirt and bricks bouncing off the hallway. A giant black shape rolled to its feet and shook its head. Tyrus backed away as the bone beast stood, red eyes blazing.
Tyrus caught an amazing view through the broken wall—all of Gadara stretched out before him. Then he lunged at the beast, a ten-footer that drooled and flexed its claws until Tyrus severed a leg. The thing twisted and roared as Tyrus cut off half its head. The beast’s claws vibrated across the floor while it twitched and died.
Close to the top of the fortress, he sprinted up the lone stairwell that led to Dura’s tower. He rushed through a tunnel and skidded to a halt at the sight of two dwarves, dead in the hall. The bodies had voided their bowels, and a pungent odor filled the confined space. Blood had spurted along one wall, dripping down the stones and pooling on the floor.
He pointed his sword down the hall, then stepped up to the bodies and studied their wounds. He’d see them before, suffered several himself, jagged tears from serrated claws. A bear or a cat would leave lacerations, but the dead flesh was less cut and more mangled. He saw bloody footprints too, barefoot, leading to the tower. The impression of toes was delicate, small, from an adolescent or a woman. What was he looking at? He tried to understand why a barefoot person would walk through the blood.
He considered rushing to the tower—wanted to charge in—but decided to grab a guard. He hurried back down the stairs.
“Guard.” Tyrus bolted through another hallway. “Guard!”
He called several times until he found a man in armor.
“Tell Dura there are beasts in the Tower.”
“Beasts are everywhere.”
Tyrus grabbed the man’s arm and squeezed hard enough to bruise. “Tell her the Reborn is in danger. At the Tower. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“It’s exposed to the flyers. There could be dozens of lords and beasts. Tell her.” Tyrus released the arm. The man waited for more, and Tyrus said, “Go! Tell her now.”
They ran in opposite directions. The man headed down the mountain to find help, and Tyrus ran back to Ishma.
VII
Klay stood outside Shinar, doing nothing. He paced and kicked at the yellow clay of the plains. People fought, and he did nothing. Not only that, but six rangers wanted him to order an attack, wanted him to use his horn to summon all the rangers and race to Telessar. They wanted to defend the Forbidden City, but Lord Nemuel had ordered his army to stay at Shinar and continue digging ditches.
Jorn asked, “Why are we just standing here?”
Dacie shared his outrage.
Klay said, “Nemuel says we are not needed.”
“They will fly over the gates and drop the beasts. There’s nothing left in Telessar.”
“I know, but the elves are not concerned.”
Jorn said, “Give us the order.”
“We should vote,” Darcie said. “This is insane.”
Klay fretted about making a bad call. His newfound respect among the rangers meant more to him than he expected, and he did not want to let them down. If Lord Nemuel was not concerned about the flyers, then Klay should figure out why. He could not be reckless.
“Each minute we waste talking, those things get a bigger lead.”
“We’ll be lucky to catch them.”
“And there won’t be anything left when we do.”
Klay said, “We won’t come close to catching them.”
“Sound the call, Klay, or I will.”
“Not yet.” They argued, and he cut them off. “Let me talk to Lord Nemuel.”
Klay found him studying Shinar, near the front lines. He stood like a statue in his armor, nothing moving but his eyes. Klay walked up close to one shoulder so he might whisper. He didn’t want to question an elven lord in front of the sentinels.
Klay said, “We need to help Telessar.”
“No, we don’t.”
“The flyers will ignore the walls. They can fly to the White Gate and fortify the pass against us.”
Nemuel offered an uncharacteristic grin. The way he scowled afterward gave it a sinister twist. “We prepared for this after the Second War of Creation.”
Klay didn’t understand the reference. The beasts and flyers were new things, not relics from a forgotten age. The idea that the elves had prepared for Azmon’s raid so long ago sounded impossible.
“How can that be?”
“The shedim have wings. We had to guard against flyers.”
“The seraphim?”
“I’ve already told you it’s not them. They won’t waste their time on Azmon’s little toys.” Lord Nemuel turned to Mount Teles. “It shouldn’t be long now. The Roshan near the mountain.”
As if on cue, a distant rumble sounded from the direction of the snow-packed peak. Klay licked his lips. At first, he thought a volcano was erupting, but the sound had more personality—a roar, and an angry one at that. The size of it made him flinch and awoke an ancient terror. His instincts screamed at him to run, and without training he would have. He would have run anywhere to get away from that angry sound. It was a primal creature, a predator, and it made him want to hide in a hole.
He whispered, “What was that?”
Nemuel pointed at a shadow cast against the mountain, from what must have been one of the largest creatures in the world, with bat-like wings that extended into the clouds. They blocked out the sun.
“What—”
“Ashtaroth—Teles is her roost. We call her the Gate Keeper, but she calls herself the Cloud Queen.” Nemuel appeared satisfied. “The dragon sleeps around the White Gate for warmth. Should the shedim get past us, they must still battle her.”
“I thought the dragons were dead.”
“They are a dying breed but not extinct.”
“She doesn’t hurt Telessar?”
“We have an agreement. We feed her, and she guards the gate. She normally sleeps, but King Salathiel woke her before the Battle of Paltiel.”
“The king woke a sleeping dragon?”
“We’ve lost many kings to her temper. It is the price of wearing the crown.”
VIII
Afraid of leaving the tower, Einin had retreated to the kitchen. She barred the door with sacks of vegetables and a table, placed Marah in a far corner, grabbed a cleaver, and regretted her decision. Alone, watching a clo
sed door, heart racing, she told herself she should have run from the tower. She had made this mistake before, in the woods, when Tyrus had chased her down.
She whispered, “Idiot girl.”
A strange thing to say, she realized, but a comment the empress had said to her several times back in Rosh. Whenever Einin failed to read her mind or make a connection between what seemed to be unrelated events, Ishma would make her frustration known with an “idiot girl.” Now the empress wanted to kill her own daughter, and Einin was trapped.
Marah cried and shouted, “No. No.”
“Hush, child. She’ll hear us.”
Amazingly, Marah did hush.
Einin had to do something. Her grip tightened on the cleaver as she chewed her lip and scanned the kitchen. She saw clay pottery stacked to the ceiling, pantry shelves, and a cast-iron grill set in a fireplace with hooks and rods for hanging pots and a pile of wood to build a fire. Einin considered hiding in the chimney running up the side of the tower, but it was too small, and she couldn’t imagine doing it with Marah.
She reached for the table, to pull it away from the door. She should have run to Dura and thought it wasn’t too late when she heard creaking wood upstairs. The empress, or whatever demon possessed her, was inside the tower. Einin didn’t have time to run. She backed away, watching the door, trying to hold her breath but unable to still her heart. Gasping despite herself, she raised the cleaver and waited.
“I smell you in there.” One claw scratched the length of the door. The voice was deep. “I hear your heart, hammering away. Open the door.”
“Empress, you are possessed.” Einin licked her lips. “You need a priest or Dura, someone to help—”
A heavy bang vibrated the door. Clouds of dust burst from the doorframe. Einin heard a curse about Shinari oak before another slam. The door was made of five boards bound by two thin steel bands, and the boards cracked as the empress attacked the door. Her strength terrified Einin. Burning eyes peeked through the rent wood.
Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) Page 32
