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

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  “Without marks, your people will be killed by the purims.”

  Olroth shook his head. “More reason to wipe them out before the den mothers bear more litters.”

  “You can’t find them all.”

  “The men will want to try.”

  “Olroth, say nothing for now. Give me time to figure this out.”

  “What time? Where is the food? Where is the water? Are we supposed to sit on our asses while we starve? I won’t say a thing, warlord, but the men see an enemy camp with supplies. The fight will start itself.”

  They walked out of the muck. Tyrus couldn’t argue with the chieftain’s logic, and the worst part was he had inflicted the wound upon himself. A more orderly march, with proper supplies from the port towns, might have alleviated the problem. Of course, if he had wasted that much time, Azmon would have killed Marah. Tyrus scrubbed his face and shook the blood from his hands.

  He had to ask the Gadarans to feed a sworn enemy, and odds were, even if they agreed, the Norsil would gut them in thanks.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Dura had the clout to make it work, and she would understand the logic. Together, the Norsil and the Red Tower could kill Azmon and free Sornum from the shedim.

  VI

  In the largest of the red tents, Marah knelt beside a cot that held Dura Galamor. Marah was too tired to work her magic but sensed Dura’s vanishing strength. The woman faded before her eyes, which scared Marah more than the beasts and battles had. Marah’s strength was returning, but Dura’s wasn’t. With time to rest and eat, Dura should grow stronger. She should make a full recovery. Marah struggled to understand why the woman looked more exhausted after resting.

  And everyone sensed Dura’s death. The Ashen Elves paid their respects, as did Gadaran nobles and rangers. People made a point of traveling to Dura’s tent, inquiring about her, kneeling before her, and thanking her for winning the battle.

  Sitting at her shoulder, Marah watched it all. She listened as the rattle in Dura’s lungs grew worse. Dura struggled to breathe. Her gasps made people wince, as though she drowned.

  Klay and Chobar approached. Klay knelt on the far side of the cot and talked about messages to the king while Chobar lumbered to Marah’s side. The bear’s bulk threatened to push the cot across the floor, but he stepped carefully, and a large, wet nose probed Marah’s shoulder and neck. He licked her cheek. The giant tongue covered her from earlobe to nostrils and left her eyebrows matted and sticky.

  Marah said, “I missed you too.”

  She scratched his ear, and he grunted at the attention.

  Dura wheezed and grabbed at Klay. “Did you see him? Was it real?”

  “What?”

  “Tyrus. Was that real, or am I going insane?”

  Klay nodded. “He is with the Norsil. Even has a red rune on his face.”

  Dura shook her head. “How can that ox outlive me?”

  “He leads a war band, a large one with several clans.”

  “God has an obtuse sense of humor.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Dura ignored him. “We finally beat him. After all these years, Rosh flees.”

  “Azmon lives.”

  “His monsters can’t help him now.” Dura smiled. “Where is Marah?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I have a task for you, girl, and it won’t be easy. Promise me that you’ll leave. Go with Chobar and let me rest.”

  Marah was not a child anymore. Dura said rest, but she meant die. “I won’t.”

  “Child, it is time—long past time.”

  “No.”

  “If you try to heal me, you’ll hurt yourself. You need rest. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Klay approached Marah’s side of the cot but stopped when she frowned at him. She provoked a terrible silence, and people edged away. She placed her hands on Dura and struggled with the spell to save her life. Dura was right. Marah was too weak, and the runes were dangerous. Marah licked her lips, wondering how dangerous.

  If Dura could hold through the night, Marah might be able to heal her in the morning. She wasn’t sure if the night would be long enough to recover from the battle, but she was certain Dura wouldn’t last another hour. Dura’s eyes were dimming, and her breathing was shallow. She kept blinking away sleep, and Marah knew she would never wake.

  Dura began a lecture about good choices and children of light and darkness. Marah would have none of it. She closed her eyes and fought to save her grandmother, but she was too weak. The sensation of being powerless was foreign and wretched. Confused, she wrung her hands and began to cry. If they hadn’t fought the monsters, she could have saved her. Winning the battle meant nothing if Dura died. Marah had toiled to bring her down the wall, the hardest thing she had ever done.

  “That spell is a crime against nature,” Dura said. “I choose to be mortal. I did not take the forbidden runes for a reason.”

  “We need you.”

  “You want me at your side, no matter what it does to me. Don’t be selfish.” Dura had a coughing fit before continuing, “Even you can’t keep me alive forever. Rosh retreats. Mount Teles is safe. I’ve lived long enough.”

  Marah listened to the darkness in Dura’s lungs. Dura wheezed around fluid and gasped for air.

  “I don’t want to lose you.”

  Dura caressed her cheek. “No one wants to bury their family. Death is the price of love. Without pain, the happiness… means nothing.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “Please don’t… interfere. All things end. I love you.”

  Every instinct Marah had wanted to save Dura, even if doing so cost her own life. She’d rather die in her place than suffer the emptiness of being alone. Tears streaked down her face, and her shoulders shuddered. Finally, she did as instructed, one last time.

  “I won’t interfere.”

  Klay stepped forward and closed Dura’s eyes. He backed away when Marah glared at him. She finger combed Dura’s hair and straightened her collar. Touching that soul slipping out of the body and bringing it back would be so easy.

  She could make her teacher immortal, and the thought tempted her. She didn’t care if she died in the attempt, but Dura would be furious. Marah struggled to respect her wishes.

  I won’t be selfish.

  Dura’s humanity slipped away, and the body became inanimate flesh. Marah waited for Dura’s echo, but among all the dead people screaming for attention, Dura was absent. Marah blinked away tears. She wanted to hear Dura’s voice one more time. Marah’s mind, gifted but childlike, mature but inexperienced, struggled to understand the first whispers of her destiny. She held power over life and death, but her purpose eluded her.

  Warriors petitioned Lahar for aid. Messengers pestered him for information to report to Ironwall. After the battle, people deferred to him, which he found annoying. Weary and wounded, he struggled to recover. His runes burned as they healed, and a thick sheen of sweet covered his face. He wanted to retire to his tent and bathe the filth from his body, but his tent was gone. That section of the camp was a smoldering ruin.

  They had fought the beasts among their cook fires. Lahar wandered through the wreckage, wondering what to do with himself. His twelve knights had survived, as had Marah of Narbor, but the elves said Dura would not last the day. Dark thoughts nagged at him as he hiked a mountain of toppled bricks to gaze upon his ancestral home.

  Through a rent in the dwarven wall, he saw the ruin of Shinar. At first, he thought another dwarven wall had been scorched. The black char was so thick he could make out few details. Seconds later, he recognized the shape of the gatehouse and shuddered. He hadn’t realized things had become so grim. Shinar’s ornate decorations and shining white stone were burned beyond recognition. Sorcerers had tried to destroy his home. A mass of rubble and corpses decorated the doorstep.

  Once, as a boy, he had stood ne
ar that place and watched his father’s city. They had returned from a hunting trip near Paltiel. Birds circled the city, vast baggage trains of merchants clogged each of the doors, and the air bustled with voices. The city had been bursting with life. After the battle, it lay silent, an empty husk decorated with the dead. He heard the first caws of carrion birds.

  Numb after so much killing, he reacted with weary blinking. He didn’t know what he had expected to see—maybe a remembrance of his father. His home was gone.

  He climbed back down the rubble toward the survivors. In the north stood elves and men. In the south gathered a larger force of barbarians. Everyone grazed through the smoke and stank of the battle. The wounded were being dragged clear of the mess. The smells had grown worse, and a storm of ravens circled. Their cries replaced the sounds of battle.

  A messenger boy hurried to him. “Lord Lahar, I bring word—”

  “I’m not your lord, boy.”

  “The Norsil leader sends word.”

  “Give it to Lord Nemuel.”

  “It is for the Red Sorceress, but they won’t allow me inside the tent. It is from the Butcher of Rosh. He begs an audience to avoid more bloodshed.”

  “From whom?” Lahar blinked away a strange haze. The words woke him, and the world became a bit brighter. “What did you say?”

  “The Butcher, milord—he begs an audience with the Red Sorceress.”

  The boy thrust a tiny scroll at him. Lahar’s filthy hands stained it, but he unfurled the roll and squinted at the worst Nuna he had ever seen—awful penmanship, functionally illiterate spelling, but the gist was as the boy said. Tyrus wanted to speak with Dura.

  “Why did you give me this?”

  “The elves won’t let me near the tent, milord. Surely, they will let you inside?”

  A great thirst scratched his throat, and his stomach rumbled for food. He wanted to strip his armor and find a clean place to sleep, but the scroll gave him a new purpose. He strode toward the red tents, which had been spared from the fires. As he walked, others asked him to make decisions but he waved them off. Men wanted to know what to do about the Norsil.

  As he neared the largest of the red tents, people filed out. Marah left alone with red cheeks and puffy eyes. Tears muddied the soot on her face. Lahar slowed. He noticed other sorcerers in red robes grieving as well. He looked from his scroll to the barbarian army, wondering what he was supposed to do next. He rubbed the back of his neck and searched for help.

  Marah drew his attention. No one comforted the crying child. People avoided her, but he didn’t blame them. She had fended off beasts and bone lords to drag Dura off the wall. She was a powerful little freak, but he had pledged himself to her.

  He approached and knelt. “Marah, I bring word for Dura.”

  “Dura is dead.”

  Her flat voice slapped him. She sounded distant and dangerous. She scanned the wreckage, flinching at nothing. Lahar needed Lord Nemuel. The elves would know what to do, but given their bloody history with the Norsil, they would fight.

  He didn’t know how to mourn Dura. The passing of a world power made history come alive. He imagined monks chronicling that moment. Dura Galamor, who led the Order of the Red Tower for over seven decades, had passed from wounds suffered defeating the Roshan Empire.

  A momentous grief tore at him, and he wiped his eyes. Shinar’s golden age died with Dura. The Baladan Dynasty, the Kingdom of Shinar, and the Red Sorceress had all been killed by the armies of the Nine Hells. Argoria was impoverished, and the Norsil arrived to enslave them all.

  He said, “Tyrus of Kelnor seeks an audience with Dura.”

  “To discuss a truce.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I know a lot of things that I shouldn’t.” Marah’s attention drifted to him. “You know it won’t work. Lord Nemuel will burn them, but there are too many warriors. Their thanes have too many runes. They will fight through the flames. Out in the open like this, they will kill everyone.”

  Lahar swallowed. “You’ve seen it? Has it already happened?”

  “Any fool can see it.”

  Lahar fought an urge to shrink away. She didn’t talk like a little girl, and the adult voice in her little body unnerved him. Trembling, he clenched his jaw. Marah spoke of everyone dying as though it had already happened.

  He asked, “What do we do?”

  She brushed the side of his face. Her hand calmed his beating heart and soothed his mind. He felt cleaner, and gratitude left him with a fierce need to shield her from the barbarians. They would have to kill him before they touched her.

  “Gather what’s left of the Gadarans. Nemuel lives, but he’s hurt. Make sure he knows that if the elves fight the Norsil, they do so alone. You won’t offer any aid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I will talk to Tyrus.”

  “You go to him? Alone?”

  “If I don’t, everyone will die.”

  “They will kill you. Let me and my men take you to the woods. In a few days, we could deliver you safely to Telessar.”

  “Gather the men. Speak to the elves, and do as I say.”

  Lahar stood with an urge to carry her away. They had a little time before the elves attacked the Norsil, and he might put enough distance between them to save her life. She didn’t look heavy. He was certain he could run with her.

  Marah’s face became stern. “Don’t try to control me.”

  “But you can’t trust them. They are animals.”

  “I can shield them from the elven spells, which will make the elves go home. But I don’t want to do it just yet.”

  “Marah, you can’t—I’m sorry—but you can’t protect them.”

  “Deliver my message to Nemuel.”

  Lahar left Marah, and she closed her eyes. She dwelled on Dura’s absence, and her thoughts spiraled around a ragged hole in her life. A constant source of wisdom and warmth had vanished. The misery made it harder to block out the pain around her. She listened to thousands of people dying a second death. The wounded moaned in pain, only to scream more loudly when they became ghosts. Marah twisted toward the red tent. Dura had passed gently. She made no sounds after she died, and Marah didn’t know what that meant. Dura welcomed death while the dead warriors fought the afterlife.

  She had never met a happy ghost.

  New voices with strange accents called to her. She heard words she didn’t understand, and when she questioned them, others began translating. Several dead Gadarans claimed to speak Jakan, the language of the Norsil. Curiosity drew her to the Norsil side of the battlefield, and she marveled that their ghosts were more accepting of death.

  A few spoke Nuna and helped her understand the Norsil Jakan. As she discovered the nouns of their language, she mapped them to the Runes of Dust and Dawn, which was the first language of Avanor. Dura had taught her the trick, but it had limitations. Most of the dead spoke in slang and euphemisms that didn’t match runes.

  Marah whispered, Who are you?

  I am Snell of the Kor’Sanis clan. I speak the tongue of the Hill Folk.

  What do they want? They keep chanting the same words.

  We have not had a Blue Blade in the clans for generations. They ask you to join us, Ghost Warrior.

  I don’t fight ghosts.

  You drove away the demons. The Kassiri flee your flames.

  What are Kassiri?

  Marah picked her way across the battlefield. She snaked around mounds of bodies. The biggest beasts had fallen like black hills, surrounded by dozens of Norsil warriors. They too were large men, larger than any she had seen. Gadarans and elves noticed her walking toward the Norsil and began to follow. The Norsil answered by gathering together.

  As she went, she learned that the Ghost Warrior was like a king, and she thought she might pretend to be him for a bit. She could order the Norsil to leave. Dura would do something l
ike that, tell a little lie to save Chobar’s life.

  You are more powerful than Kordel or Kerros.

  Who were they?

  Listening to the dead, she picked up a spear. A voice thanked her for the honor. She used it as a walking stick. The dead Norsil approved, and she had another problem. Through her weak eyes, all the barbarians looked the same. She sought Tyrus and hoped he would find her. She had little hope of finding him on her own.

  Battle lines formed as Marah reached the center of the no-man’s-land between the two armies. Figures stepped forward from both sides—leaders, sent to discuss things. Marah waited for them in the center.

  She sensed her father’s runes approaching. One of the giant men was Tyrus, and she was surprised to find he wasn’t the biggest. In her memories, he towered over everyone, but among the Norsil, he appeared average.

  He reached her position before the elves did. “Where is Dura?”

  Marah said, “She died.”

  “How? I didn’t think she was hurt.”

  “Old age and a sickness in her lungs.”

  “Did she suffer?”

  “Not much.”

  “A good death, then, after a full life.”

  Marah frowned. “Dead is dead.”

  “Trust me,” Tyrus said, “some deaths are better than others.”

  VII

  Tyrus had wanted to see Dura one more time and cursed his luck. Marah had grown quite big and spoke like an adult. Her age accused him, making him feel ancient. She stood there as living proof that he was a selfish coward. Where did the time go? He tried to remember his years on the plains, but he’d lived like an animal from one meal to another. He had wasted too much of his life.

  Olroth grabbed his arm and whispered, “She’s the one from the wall.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “I didn’t notice before. Look at her.”

  With his strong hearing, Tyrus heard others in the ranks whispering the same. He felt the strangeness then. None of the Norsil showed any concern for the massing elves and Gadarans. Instead, they watched Marah.