Willing to Endure: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 3)

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  “This is a dangerous place, Tyrus, a contested land. I cannot protect you from the grigorns or the shedim. Moloch is coming. He gathers the demon tribes in numbers that have not been seen since the Second War. He will devour Nisroch’s children.”

  “Who is Nisroch?”

  “One of my brothers. He turned his back on the sarbor thousands of years ago, before the Second War. He sacrificed his wings and claimed the lands west of Gadara.”

  Tyrus hid his disappointment. “A grigorn?”

  “The First of the Wingless, and one of the few to survive the Second War. He will not help you. In many ways, he is worse than Moloch. The Norsil were a different people when he claimed them. He turned them into barbarians, and he will destroy you for meddling with them.”

  For some reason, Tyrus looked over his shoulder. Doubt made him want to retreat, but the dreamscape had no sense of direction. He’d looked backward out of habit and grew irritated with himself.

  “We will part ways if you continue down this path,” Ramiel said. “Dura is too old to guard Marah, and there are many who wish to use the child. She needs a guardian.”

  “She is Azmon’s daughter.”

  He couldn’t say the rest. As a small boy, he had been conditioned to guard House Pathros, and the idea of guarding Marah only to kill her father felt wrong. Staying away from them both was the simplest path. He could not serve half of House Pathros.

  “You know she is more,” Ramiel said. “Moloch hunts her. The demon tribes drive the Norsil west. You will be beyond my reach. The wilderness belongs to the grigorns.”

  “I will build an army.”

  “You will fail. And when you die, who will claim your soul?”

  A chill swirled through Tyrus’s stomach. The idea that he would spend an eternity in the Nine Hells with the shedim robbed him of his voice.

  “Moloch uses the Norsil against you. He gives you false hope while he gathers his forces to attack the Deep Ward. Before you act, he will—”

  “You gave Ishma false hope.”

  “Tyrus—”

  “You expect me to trust you? She did what you wanted, and you let her die.” Tyrus shook with the need to strike Ramiel.

  The gray smoke fought him, and Ramiel’s serene face faltered.

  “I’ll take my chances in the west.”

  “So be it. Your screams will fall on deaf ears.”

  Ramiel vanished, and Tyrus sank into the shadows on the ground. The darkness became ropes that climbed his legs and pulled him down. He struggled against a sensation of drowning, but his newfound strength meant nothing as black tendrils climbed his face and slithered up his nostrils.

  Tyrus awoke gasping. He had a moment to hate Ramiel for his meddling before he heard panicked shouting outside his hut. Instincts drove him into a crawling run out the hut door as he blinked away sleepiness. A horn sounded a high-pitched note, and the settlement startled awake. Outside, men and women scrambled to arms and hurried to the gate. Tyrus stood half-dressed and weaponless.

  He searched for Olroth and wondered if anyone else spoke Nuna. A familiar sound carried over the din: the snarls of purims. In large packs, the monsters produced deeper growls that resonated as though thousands of blades were sawing at trees.

  Tyrus ran to the gates. Along the thorn walls, Norsil with torches pointed and shouted. Tyrus heard large animals clawing at frozen ground. He hurried to the gates, where the Norsil seemed to be planning a sortie. He found Olroth shouting in Jakan as more and more Norsil poured out of the huts.

  Olroth said, “If we let them tunnel in, we lose the clan. They know it. Their strength is waiting for us to open the gate.”

  Tyrus wished he had time to put on armor. The Norsil champions wore layered mail coats that made him feel naked and exposed. He blamed himself for not replacing his armor and weapons, unless he inherited a set from Wuldor and didn’t know it. The realization hit like a punch to the gut. He should have spoken to his wives more.

  “This is the most dangerous moment,” Olroth said. “When we open the gates, they will run for the huts. We must hold them at the gate.”

  Men formed a mob of bodies at the gate. Behind them, women strung bows and formed a firing line. Their somber faces spoke to their grim task. Men shouted things Tyrus couldn’t understand, but a distraction would help them fight off the purims.

  “Give me a halberd.” Tyrus tugged Olroth’s shoulder. “Throw me over the gate first.”

  “What?”

  Tyrus playacted catching a foot with both hands and heaving a heavy object over his shoulders. “Quickly, as a distraction.”

  “There could be a tribe out there—are you mad?”

  “Do it, and meet me on the other side.”

  A man tossed Tyrus a halberd. Olroth put his back to the gate, and Tyrus sprinted at him. Surprising them sounded good, but fighting a tribe alone was a stupid way to die. Shrugging off his doubts, Tyrus planted a foot in Olroth’s hands, vaulted to the top of the gate, and jumped over the pit of sharpened stakes. He landed hard and rolled to his feet in the middle of fifty purims. More were running around the camp walls.

  Snouts quivered at Tyrus, and ears twitched. A large monster, at least ten feet of fur and muscle, licked its lip before Tyrus swung the halberd through its guts. Tyrus spun the blade high and drove back the monsters. He maimed two more that edged closer. The pack howled, and Tyrus screamed back.

  Designed to fight large creatures, the Norsil halberd had a blade less like a spear and more like a giant cleaver while the butt had an iron counterweight. Tyrus cleaved through purims or crushed them in alternating blows. A purim jumped at him, and he caught its snapping jaws on the shaft and twisted the creature into another. The counterweight shattered the thing’s head. Tyrus choked his grip near the weight and swung the blade through two purims before a creature landed on his back.

  Normally, he would have shrugged it off, but because he was unarmored, claws lacerated his hips and shoulders. Tyrus screamed, and two more creatures tackled his midsection. The halberd became too big to use in a brawl. A heavy force shoved Tyrus into the ground. Purims piled onto him, driving him into the churned snow, and the press of bodies blinded him.

  They would have ripped him apart, but the Norsil charged.

  He heard battle cries, clashes of heavy objects, and the occasional thunk of arrows biting flesh. Tyrus wrestled as best as he could, but he had no leverage. Then the weight vanished. He breathed deeply and blinked away afterimages. The purims fled before Norsil cheers.

  Olroth found Tyrus. “None passed the gate, and no one is dead. A few too wounded to walk, but a good exchange.”

  Tyrus fought his instincts to curl into a ball. He grunted and snarled through clenched eyes. The claw wounds in his back had cut down to the bone. He writhed on the ground, grateful for the balm of snow.

  “I’ve never seen the like before,” Olroth said. “Purims usually jump at us.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “A stretcher is coming—hold on.” Olroth placed a hand on Tyrus’s arm and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “Your wounds, they’ve already stopped bleeding.”

  “I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

  “But… how?”

  “No one knows.”

  Tyrus controlled his breathing and fought against the pain. He wanted to walk from the battlefield. If he could manage that, the Norsil would turn the night into another legend about the Dark Walker. If he could not be their ghost warrior, he intended to be a famous killer. The pain was worse than expected. Dozens of purim claws had hooked into his flesh. He should have expected it, wearing nothing but a woolen shirt among a pack of animals.

  I’ve survived worse.

  Tyrus repeated the mantra. He had endured pain that would drive a lesser man insane. A few gouges would not hold him down. He rolled to his hands and knees, but his head hung low as he gr
oaned. Deep wounds up and down his back and legs would make the next part torture.

  “Stay down. We have a stretcher.”

  Tyrus snarled and stood. Pain clouded his vision with yellow starbursts. His feet wobbled. Olroth caught him. Tyrus did it though, stood when he couldn’t walk a pace. The look of awe on the Norsil’s face made the pain tolerable. They would tell stories of that night making the Dark Walker sound like death incarnate.

  Tyrus slouched into Olroth.

  “You are a stubborn fool.” Olroth smiled though, gesturing at another Norsil to shoulder Tyrus’s other side. “They whisper about my new sell sword. Suddenly, I’m a good chieftain again, but they can’t figure out why you are not dead.”

  “Well, it’s not for lack of trying.”

  “That was a large pack. There are too many of them now. We need to head west while we still can. We will unite the clans.”

  Tyrus winced with each step. His legs felt as though they had been sliced by dozens of daggers, but through the pain, he remembered Ramiel’s warning. The archangel was right. The purims drove him to the grigorns. Tyrus imagined Mulciber’s laughter carrying on the wind.

  PART TWO

  It’s better to stand and fight. If you run, you’ll only die tired.

  —Viking Proverb

  SPRING

  I

  Months passed for Tyrus—tedious months spent carrying a camp across the plains. Each of the huts and large segments of the thorn wall broke down into bundles of bone, stakes, and animal skins. Everyone, from the warriors to the littlest children, hauled a piece. The men split their load so half of them could patrol the hillsides. The younger women did the same to keep watch with their bows. Tyrus noticed plenty of older women, but none of the men were half as old. He saw dozens of crones but few white beards. Tyrus either spent his days carrying hundreds of pounds of animal skins on his shoulders or ran beside Olroth seeking purims to fight.

  They traveled south from the Lost Lands into the Norsil plains. The rolling brown hills grew in height until they resembled a range like Mount Gadara. The gradual rise in elevation surprised Tyrus, and each day he would stop to look at the path they traveled. The endless plains spread out behind them along with distant packs of purims.

  Tyrus asked Olroth, “What are these mountains called?”

  “These are just hills. The real mountains are near Malacoda.”

  “They look as big as the Gadaran Mountains.”

  Olroth laughed. “Gadara is for the Hill Folk. Wait until you see Mount Malacoda. Those are real mountains that you must climb. These things you can hike.”

  “Is it as big as Mount Teles?”

  “Almost.” Olroth sniffed. “Almost.”

  Spring warmed the plains. Snow melted to reveal dead grass and mud. The soggy dregs of winter lingered on in the shadows of hills, where clumps of ice became muddy and brown. Underneath the snow was a brown grass, long, matted, and spongy. Tyrus’s boots squished across the plains. Days grew warmer but no less difficult. The mud slowed the children. If ever a people needed horses, it was the Norsil. Klay had told him once, though, that horseflesh drew purims like a dinner bell.

  The purims stalked them westward. Traveling without walls presented new challenges. Heavy days of marching ended with preparations for long nights that included erecting smaller thorn walls, hammering defensive stakes around the camp, and lighting as many watch fires as they could manage with their limited fuel.

  They fought off five purim raids, all late at night.

  Tyrus marveled at the Norsil’s military discipline. A high-pitched horn gathered the clan into a tight cluster. The oldest held the youngest in the center. Women and children, armed with bows and slings, formed one perimeter. Men with swords and halberds created another. They reminded Tyrus of the wooly rhinos in the way they circled their young, and the purims hunted them in much the same manner, charging to scatter warriors and pick off stragglers.

  On their march west, purims claimed the lives of six warriors and eight wives. They carried off eleven children. Those were the hardest losses for Tyrus. He wanted to follow them, but Olroth held him back. Tyrus insisted they could rescue the younglings, but Olroth said the purims used them as bait. Even if they weren’t killed when they were snatched, a counterraid would take too many men, and the warriors would return to find more women and children missing.

  Long ago, the Norsil had learned to cut their losses.

  All the work gave Tyrus an excuse to avoid his wives, but Beide, the youngest and most tempting, schemed to be near him all the time. She found ways to stand near him, offer him food, and drape blankets on his shoulders. Protecting her daughter, Brynn, brought back memories of his first years as a guardian. House Pathros had conditioned him to defend prince Azmon, and protecting children felt natural. He carried her through the mud along with his pack, and he feared for her life whenever a scout spotted purims.

  Each time he heard the horn, he imagined purims carrying Brynn off. The stress wore him down. He slept little. The trudge of the march dulled his senses. When he had been alone, he was comfortable with the idea of dying. Since he was protecting innocents, he couldn’t stand the thought of losing a child. His talent for killing kept Brynn safe, but the clan still lost children.

  After one raid, Tyrus told Olroth, “Let me go after the children.”

  “They kill them while they run. You would rescue corpses.”

  “We have to do something.”

  “Keep the smart ones safe. There is nothing we can do if a child strays from the clan.”

  “Fine. Let me kill the purims.”

  “Tribes are hounding us, Tyrus. There are too many to kill, and if they hurt you too bad to march, then what? Shall we spend more nights on the plains waiting for you to recover? How many children will we lose then?”

  “I don’t like being hunted.”

  “No one does.” Olroth became solemn. “Let go of the things you cannot control. We are food when we travel, but once we set camp and build our walls, we will punish them.”

  They passed over one mountain range into another area of rolling brown hills. Weeks later, they saw the first light-blue outlines of mountains on the horizon. Each day, those grew a little taller.

  The closer the Norsil came to the mountains, the more everyone’s mood improved. Multiple rows of mountains filled the horizon. In the foreground were rolling green hills that grew into a highland area similar to Mount Gadara. Far behind the highlands stood distant red peaks. They were jagged slate tipped with snow and devoid of greenery.

  The highlands appeared stranger and stranger as Tyrus neared them. Little details became clearer, and he saw the familiar walls of the settlement—but built on a massive scale. The highlands were crowned with thorns, as though the Norsil had built one vast castle from the spear-like bushes. Most of the hills had sheer cliffs, but the one long slope entering the highlands was barricaded by multiple walls, and the hilltops had similar walls to ward off anyone foolish enough to climb the cliffs.

  Olroth came up beside Tyrus. “Nasty business marching in winter, but we made it.”

  Tyrus asked, “This is the place of the gathering?”

  “The highlands helped our ancestors survive when the Kassiri hunted us to the edge of the world. We broke them here, just like we will break the purims. The big peak, there, behind the highlands, that is Mount Malacoda.”

  Tyrus balked at the hills. “We can’t possibly defend all of that from the purims.”

  “Not with one clan.” Olroth chuckled. “But several hundred clans will do the trick.”

  “You think the purims are dumb enough to attack that many clans?”

  “They’re not known for their smarts.”

  “I don’t see anyone else.”

  “They’ll come. They’ll be forced to. We camp on the far side of the entrance.” Olroth pointed at a little valley near the souther
n edge of the highlands. “And we wait for the other clans. The gathering will be higher in the hills, that tall one there”—he pointed again—“but I won’t stake a claim until my brothers arrive with their clans. We will let Breonna’s sons claim their stakes too. Less bloodshed.”

  “How do you know the other clans will come?”

  “They come, as sure as the spring. Their scouts watch the purims, same as ours. Everyone smells the coming war. They would be fools to fight alone.”

  “Who is Breonna?”

  “Her sons control the largest clans.” Olroth waved the question away. “They will fight for claims and respect. There are many hilltops and valleys that people think denote rank and respect. I’m too old for such nonsense. We are the first to arrive, but we will be the last to claim land. The boys won’t like it, but I’d rather kill purims than clansmen.”

  “How often do the clans kill each other?”

  “The large ones always fight for territory. They leave me alone because I camp closer to the Proving Grounds.” Olroth shrugged. “No sense worrying whether they will fight. Tonight, we could wake to hundreds of purims pulling down our walls.”

  “Purims seem to have fallen back.”

  “Stay vigilant. They only come here in large numbers.”

  In a little valley off the main entrance to the highlands, the clan rebuilt their camp. They unbundled their packs and erected their huts again while a few of the men broke off to scavenge sections of thorn walls from older camps. Olroth arranged a feast with fire dancing, and Tyrus heard children laughing again. He even enjoyed retiring to his hut. His own fire warmed him more than it used to. He had protected his wives and his children—a foolish thought, but keeping them safe on the plains was no small thing—and he settled in for a decent night’s sleep, knowing that if he woke to the sound of horns again, the walls would afford him enough time to dress in mail.