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

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  “Balbos is not warlord, or there is no deal. His brother can rule in his place.”

  “Agreed. You are now my sell sword.”

  The emphasis she placed on the word reminded him of his nightmares. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he checked his periphery for demons. Nothing threatened him, yet his heart beat faster.

  He said, “My family is to stay with the Vor’Quin clan. Olroth is unwilling to give them up.”

  Breonna sat back. Her face became chilly, and Olroth had warned him that this might offend her—she could insist on the wives as hostages. Olroth said the custom differed from clan to clan. Breonna gave a small nod of her chin.

  “We can renegotiate,” she said. “After the war, as you say. And, afterwards, we can discuss your vengeance with your chieftain. We shall discuss many things, like the Kassiri art of fighting stone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t live behind stone walls, and we don’t have machines to break them. Without such machines, you will never conquer Shinar. We will march to it and camp in front of it—like the Great Kerros—and the Kassiri will laugh.”

  “You want to learn siege warfare?”

  “We will teach the chieftains to wage better wars. The age of raiding farms is over. If we are to rule, we must defeat castles.”

  She was playing with him. Neither of them expected Tyrus to survive the battle with the purims, and if his nightmares were any indication, neither did Mulciber. The problem vexed him, though. The Norsil could not conquer a fortified city without engineers. At best, he could help her buy the equipment from Blueswell, but they would need training. He couldn’t see the Norsil learning to fight like the Imperial Guard, and the thought gave him pause as he wondered whether he could use thanes against Azmon.

  Azmon would stand on the battlements and burn the sky. Without Dura protecting them, the Norsil would be slaughtered. Breonna needed a general to teach them a new kind of war, and he realized, a bit late, that she was much more ambitious than he’d thought. She meant to be queen of more than just the Norsil.

  Breonna folded her hands under her chin. “Tell me your thoughts.”

  “You want a lord marshal.”

  “What is this?”

  “You are the crown, and I am the enforcer. I will make the men do what you want.”

  “Very good. That is exactly what I want.”

  “I can do that.”

  Her glare looked unconvinced. “Few men kneel before a woman.”

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “Your great love.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  “I’ve heard the stories. The Dark Walker lost his woman and wandered the plains hoping to die. You are not really that weak, are you?”

  “I’m not.”

  “So, it’s not true?”

  “Stories grow in the telling.”

  “Well, you don’t fight like a lovesick fool, but I’m curious about the other stories. You won’t bed Norsil women because of your great love?”

  “I’ve bedded Norsil women.”

  “After they put a knife to your throat.”

  “They did not.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Your wives had to claim the timid Kassiri, almost against his will. Oh, have I offended you? Then the stories must be true. You loved only one woman? And you would not take another, not even to ward off a cold night?”

  “I served an empress.”

  “But she did not love you back?” The wrinkles around Breonna’s eyes curled in amusement. “You claimed no wives and followed her around like a lovesick pup?”

  “She was the best of our women. Of any women.”

  Breonna pretended to be impressed. “Tell me more about creation’s best woman.”

  Tyrus wanted to refuse. Listening to someone mocking Ishma inspired murderous thoughts, but when he began talking, he was unable to stop. Details poured forth. Ishma’s beauty had inspired songs when she was a young girl, and by her early twenties she won a war with a marriage. Famous for mesmerizing a sorcerer emperor with her beauty, she went from queen of a small shipping nation to the empress of an entire continent. As Tyrus bragged about his empress, Breonna’s face shifted from mockery to contemplation.

  “Did your empress command men in battle?”

  “I was the lord marshal. I commanded the armies.”

  “So the Kassiri are like us? Women cannot lead?”

  “Ishma commanded the Narboran lancers. They were a small force, but they were her warriors—men on horseback, like the knights of Shinar.”

  “Did she win many battles as their queen?”

  “She was famous for avoiding battles. On Sornum, five nations banded together to oppose us, but Ishma married the winning side.”

  “I like this empress. I married into two clans to unite them, and I married my sons off to others to unite those. I have forty children, fourteen of my own blood and nine sons.” Her attention drifted away. “Our people are not that different. Rally the strong together and kill off your enemies. Alliances and warfare. So much war. Your Ishma commanded an army of lances. And you, you watched her die?”

  “I fought to save her, but I was tricked. By the time I learned of it, she had been killed.”

  “By the man who burned Shinar?”

  “Yes.”

  “The sorcerer with the monsters that pull down walls? The Hill Folk tell stories about a large warrior with a body covered in black marks and a man in white robes who burns the sky. The sorcerer was her husband? This is the man you want to kill?”

  Tyrus said nothing. Breonna knew the story well, he realized, and pretended ignorance to get his version of the story. A smug smirk meant she enjoyed watching him figure that out.

  “How does a man like you end up protecting a lowly chieftain like Olroth?”

  “I lost myself on the Proving Grounds.”

  “And he found you.”

  “I don’t have many friends.”

  “He should have destroyed you. For that matter, so should I.”

  She sounded as though she was struggling to convince herself. Nothing Tyrus said could persuade her. He had never been good at that kind of talking. Ishma and Azmon could manipulate people with pretty words, but Tyrus had relied on his size and his reputation to push people around. He knew speaking risked offending Breonna, so he let his scars and infamy talk for him. If she thought the threat of death worried him, she had not spoken to enough people.

  She said, “You want to die.”

  “Sometimes.” Tyrus shrugged. “But I don’t like quitting.”

  “You know how you want to die, don’t you? Some great battle—I would wager—where you avenge your woman. I had a husband like you, obsessed with imagined glory. He was my second husband, and no one will remember him. Compared to my fourth, he was a little boy playing a man’s game.”

  “Death is a warrior’s job.”

  “In your dreams, do you die in her arms?” Breonna laughed a little. “Do you sputter blood as you look up into her adoring eyes?”

  Tyrus took a calming breath to prevent losing his temper. “Ishma saved a Reborn and will spend eternity in the Seven Heavens. When I die, I’ll go to the Nine Hells. That is my fate. I will never see her again.” Tyrus’s voice grew quiet as he said the painful things. “She is better than me. I have too much blood on my hands.”

  “So you die fighting the purims instead.”

  “Most likely.”

  “And it will all be for nothing.”

  “Demons want my head. All I can do is make them earn it.”

  “That army isn’t for you. This isn’t the first war we’ve fought against them. We have spent centuries fighting the purims. It’s what we do.”

  Tyrus shifted his weight. If he could relive his life, he would. Breonna’s words echoed Mulciber’s mockery.
It will all be for nothing.

  With Olroth’s message delivered, he had more questions, about where he would sleep and eat. She sensed it and called one of her guards. They spoke in Jakan, and Tyrus surprised himself by following most of the conversation. They sent him to another man’s hut for lodging.

  II

  Lahar sat on a stone wall and ate his lunch from a wooden platter stacked with cheese, lamb, and bread. The meat was cold and tough, as though it had sat out in the sun too long. The bread had dried out a bit as well, with a strange grit that tugged at the inside of his cheeks. The entire meal was too dry, and he found himself working his jaw to unstick chunks of food from his teeth and tongue. While he ate, he gazed up Mount Gadara, to the very top, where the Red Tower watched everyone.

  He had spent a few days trying to talk himself out of returning to the place, but the decision became inevitable. He needed Dura’s help. No other etcher could be trusted with the task.

  Kirag hiked around a bend in the terrace and threw his hands up at the sight of him. “I checked the barracks. I checked the Shinari knights. Where were you today?”

  “I have things on my mind.”

  “So think while you train.”

  “Not today.”

  Kirag stopped himself from saying something more. He appeared to be thinking, and the sight of it was not flattering. His mouth hung open, and his brows knit together. Lahar forced down more of his lunch.

  Kirag asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “My runes. I need to have them fixed.”

  Kirag scratched the back of his head. He sat beside Lahar and stole a slab of cheese to chew on. They both looked up the mountain at the Red Tower. Lahar appreciated that the man understood his plight without filling the silence with needless chatter.

  “So, you’re going under the needle again?”

  Lahar groaned.

  “What? What did I say?”

  “Finish this. I have a sorceress to see.”

  Each step up the mountainside tempted fate. The foreboding staircase kept whispering that he might not return, and he realized, too late, that he should have spoken with Annrin one last time. She would be furious if he died on the table. The thought stopped him. If he talked to her, she would convince him to forgo the etching. Lahar’s own father, a man famous for taking runes, had never attempted so many.

  He focused on placing one foot in front of another and ignoring nostalgia. Romanticizing the past became easier when confronting his death. He hadn’t done much with his life. In time, the histories would forget Lahar and his brother. Their father would be famous as the last king of Shinar. At the top of Mount Gadara, he stepped out of a stairway into gusting winds. The ramparts provided a wonderful view of creation—a cloudless day with endless blue skies. Mount Teles dominated the east, and the Lost Lands of the Old Gadaran Empire stretched across the west.

  Lahar wondered if he might find another place in the world. The horizon tempted him, inviting him to set off on a distant journey and start over someplace else. He could become a famous mercenary captain and sail the seas around Blueswell.

  Instead, he knocked on the tower door. His presence caused a stir among the acolytes. A flutter of red robes and questions found him standing beside Larz Kedar. They awaited an audience with Dura.

  Larz asked, “Does Samos know you want another rune?”

  “I don’t need his permission.”

  “I meant no disrespect.”

  “He is your king, not mine.”

  “Ah, and who is your king?”

  “I am my own king. It’s a blessing and a burden.”

  Dura called for them. She sat on a stool in her study. The walls were peppered with sketches of runes and anatomy. Golden light from a dozen candles lit the space. The light danced across her white hair. She held a feather in one hand and had ink stains along her jawline where she rested her other hand.

  She asked, “What is this nonsense about another etching?”

  To answer, Lahar pulled his tunic over his head and dropped his trousers. He slowly turned a circle in his loincloth, showing off his golden runes. Most he had sought when drunk—he usually needed wine to consider an etching—and he knew Dura could read them better than anything he might say. A dozen etchers had mutilated his flesh.

  Dura said, “Well, that is a fine mess you’ve got there.”

  “So you understand what I want?”

  “I haven’t a clue, boy. Now get dressed.”

  Lahar pulled on his clothes. “I need to be etched like a swordsman.”

  “You are well past that. The son of Lael Baladan deserves a better death.”

  “I want a rune to balance the others. Should I ask someone else?”

  “If anyone will kill you, it should be me. The king will be less upset.” Dura scratched her chin.

  He had watched etchers try to pick the right rune before. They made him feel like a jacket being tailored.

  She would not look at his face but kept glancing between his chest and right arm. “Do you think we can keep him alive?”

  Larz said, “Doubtful.”

  Dura asked, “Should we give it a go?”

  “If he seeks another etcher, his death is assured.”

  “Agreed.” Dura looked at Lahar. “You seek this of your own free will?”

  Lahar said, “I know what I risk.”

  “Give me time to think. Larz, wash him and prepare the table. I’ll need a well of the new ink.”

  Chains bound Lahar to a giant metal slab. He wore no shirt and shuddered against the chilly steel. Dura hunched over his right shoulder, and Larz hovered near a workbench filled with various needles, towels, and calipers. The room had an acrid odor and a heaviness in the air because a cauldron of boiling tar hung from a metal stand. The heat, the smell, and his own nerves drenched Lahar in sweat.

  Years had passed since he’d taken a rune sober. For the first time since his brother died, he wanted to survive the process.

  The first needle to pierce his skin made him rock his head back into the slab hard enough to daze himself. He felt the boiling ink funnel through the needle, past his skin, into the deep tissue. He opened his mouth to curse, and one of Dura’s students caught his teeth with a strap of leather.

  “Bite down.”

  Dura said, “Keep him quiet.”

  The room chilled as multiple sorcerers became infused with sorcery. All around him, people with dead eyes studied his shoulder, and not one of them had the decency to look him in the face or apologize. The air solidified around him, and though he wanted to fight, he couldn’t move, except for his jaw. One of them had been nice enough to let him grind his teeth, and he focused all his energy on gnawing the leather strap. He wheezed instead of screaming and struggled to breathe against his restraints.

  As the ordeal progressed, he watched his shoulder as multiple punctures become a rune. With stab wounds, Dura drew hundreds of tiny punctures that built up into a block shape. The pain began to fade, which had never happened before. Lahar felt tired and marveled at the fatigue, which grew worse than the pain. Darkness clouded his vision.

  Before he passed out, he heard Dura say, “Oh no.”

  Lahar awoke without pain and rejoiced. He spun and danced at the freedom to move again, relishing it the same way a dog might scratch its back in a soft patch of grass. Then he noticed the world was gone and he danced in a mist. Dread stilled him. He had never seen this place before. Gray mists floated past a gray landscape, and if his feet weren’t on a solid footing, he might have thought he was floating in a cloud.

  He could be trapped in a small dungeon cell and not know it because seeing more than a couple yards in any direction was impossible. A blue light coalesced before him. Lahar wanted to say something but found himself robbed of the power of speech. Great white wings unfurled from the light, and a giant of a warrior flickered into being. Lahar gaped at
one of the seraphim.

  “Greetings, Prince Lahar Baladan. I am Archangel Ithuriel.”

  Lahar squeaked.

  “Your soul is trapped between two worlds. When your body dies, you will be pulled into Pandemonium. If the shedim or seraphim find value in your soul, they will fight to claim it. You will be ushered into either the Seven Heavens or the Nine Hells. Those souls found wanting are often left to drift in Pandemonium until they prove themselves.”

  “What?”

  “Do not trouble yourself with the details. You won’t remember them. Your curiosity is why I speak. You wanted to know what is happening.”

  “I’m dying?”

  “As you knew you would. You hunger for it.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Both the archangel and Lahar seemed surprised that he had managed such a long sentence. He wanted to live, and desperation gave him strength.

  “A hard truth, my prince—pain survives death. The battle is eternal. Seeking release in death is for fools. Pandemonium will not cure your troubles.”

  “I don’t… want…”

  “But you do. You punish yourself.”

  Lahar struggled with too many thoughts. His brain, his memories, his entire life warred within him. He realized an empty death wasn’t what he wanted at all. He had trained to serve, and he intended to take solemn oaths to defend a Reborn hero. His entire life stretched before him, and this cruel place would rob him of his future.

  He struggled to voice the complaints. If he could say one word, it would be unfair.

  “You offer your life for the Reborn?”

  He had so many things he wanted to say. His heart was bursting with words, but his mouth failed him. Tears welled up in his eyes. The angel judged him with a detached serenity that insulted him to the core.

  Why wait for me to die? Why not tell me this years ago?

  “I see your heart, Lahar. You train for Marah. You think the girl can redeem your father’s line? She cannot. Marah is not a hero in a song, and protecting her will not make House Baladan respected again. Marah is a weapon. In the coming war, she must choose a side. Once she makes her choice, the other side will destroy her.”