“She is too young to be so strong. I need help if I am to return to Argoria.”
“You are finished.”
“Master?”
“I don’t nurse the sick and wounded. Another has been chosen.”
“Master, she can be defeated. I can—”
“You failed… again. Another shall lead my armies.”
“Who?”
“Tend to Sornum. Do not lose any more of my cities.”
“Are they following me?”
“Oh, Azmon, they will never stop hunting you.”
He asked one last time who had replaced him, but Mulciber broke the connection. The red smoke drifted skyward and dissipated on a breeze, leaving Azmon alone with his monsters. He feared his replacement might be Rassan, and the thought filled Azmon with a murderous rage. He imagined ripping the young man apart for his insolence, but he knew it couldn’t be Rassan. It would be someone stronger, not a mortal. Mulciber would send one of the Overlords of the Nine Hells.
V
Everything in the Nine Hells burned. The shimmer of heat distorted the orange ash of the ground and the red, angry horizon. The sky glowed like coals and lacked a sun or a moon or clouds. Billowing smoke, dark and oily, created the illusion of clouds and a storm so that shadows swirled around the flickering flames. Untold numbers of teeming dead were tortured by legions of shedim. Pained howls and roaring battles mingled with the crackle of fires. The sulfuric smell, the corrosive smoke, and the shimmer of heat gave the impression of an erupting volcano. Lightning, red and white, tore across the burning sky.
An eternal battle waged between the recently dead and the denizens of the Nine Hells. Stronger demons fed on weaker demons, and the weakest of them all chased after the freshly dead to harvest. Winged creatures with black skin and armor and weapons flew overhead, their bodies decorated with the tiny faces of the souls they had claimed. On occasion, a flyer would tuck its wings and swoop down onto a lesser demon scrambling across the burning ground. A vicious fight would ensue, and either the flyer would return to the skies stronger than before, or a new demon would emerge on the ground.
The hells acted as a great forge, taking the dead and molding them into larger and larger creatures of war. The process took thousands of years. The greatest warriors were destined to fight seraphim in the last war.
Among the smoke and heat shimmers, a legion of shedim marched to the Black Gate. They had emerged from one of the lower hells, and the lesser demons scurried away from the columns of armed warriors. At the vanguard walked a bulbous creature, bald, with one good eye and a mouth of fangs hidden in thick, jowly cheeks. A crown of bone thorns pushed through his bald head, giving him the twisted appearance of royalty. His fleshy arms, more fat than muscle, were covered in scales, and thousands of tiny faces decorated those scales. He had survived the Nine Hells for thousands of years and risen to the rank of Overlord of the Fifth Hell. He wore the robes of a sorcerer, but that was a remnant of his mortal life among the Kassiri in a long-forgotten empire.
He was known as Gorba Tull, famous for killing Alivar, the Greatest of the Prophets, and for tricking Azmon Pathros into freeing the King of the Nine Hells from his cage. Gorba, along with the legion that followed him, were the vanquished of the Second War of Creation, but they had spent thousands of years waiting to return to the mortal world.
Gorba Tull signaled a halt before the Black Gate. The burning wind continued to blow, and the landscape emptied of lesser demons. Anything able to flee from the legion had vanished.
The portal to the mortal world was a twenty-foot circle that churned like a lava flow. The black surface was a cool layer of rock riding on the molten currents underneath, and as it churned, veins of red fire occasionally broke through to the surface.
Gorba watched the gate with dread. If he had not grown strong enough, entering the gate would burn him alive.
“This is our rebirth,” he called to the legion. “This our beginning.”
As one voice, the legion answered, “Only the strong may pass.”
“I will see you on the other side.”
He wondered how many of his legionnaires would survive the passage. Mulciber dared much by summoning Gorba Tull to the mortal world. In his absence, another overlord would try to claim the Fifth Hell, and other legions would vie for status and power. They marched toward angry angels and left devious demons in their wake.
Gorba Tull stepped into the gate, and hungry tendrils dragged him inside. The passage burned and suffocated. For a brief moment, he feared it would consume him because the heat hurt worse than any of the torments he had endured at the hands of the shedim, but all that suffering had prepared him for the battles to come.
On the other side, in the ancient dwarven city of Skogul, a blistered and smoking Gorba Tull fell from the gate. Disgusting smells filled his nose—water and mold. As he recovered from his ordeal, he sensed dozens of creatures standing nearby. When his vision cleared, he saw the Tusken warriors guarding the gate. They were the half-breeds who had survived the fall of Skogul, part dwarf and part troll. They had the stout shoulders and beards of dwarves but the grayish flesh and fangs of the demon tribes.
Gorba Tull lashed out with a spell that looked like a whip of fire. The guards died, and with a second sweep of his hand, he harvested their souls. Power renewed his body, and the blisters began to fade. He snarled and howled, and his cries echoed throughout the ancient city.
Outside the chamber, he found an entire city of stone and, above his head, the cavernous roof filled with stalactites. His legion emerged from the gate, each warrior as burned and angry as he had been.
The strangeness of the mortal world made him itch. It was a soft place, a damp place, and surprisingly dark. He sensed tens of thousands of mortals within the city, and then he sensed something much worse than the mortals standing nearby. He spun, and his mouth dried at the sight of an angel.
The angel stepped forward, and its illusion shattered. Black wings shrouded the shoulders, and dozens of black lines cracked the surface of the face and skin, revealing the demon within. Mulciber, King of the Nine Hells, glared at Gorba Tull.
Mulciber said, “Welcome home, Gorba.”
Gorba dropped to one knee. “Master.”
More shedim emerged from the gate. Gorba dared a glance at Mulciber and found him standing like a statue, watching the legion enter the mortal world. Gorba remained kneeling and waiting but grew impatient.
“Shall I punish Azmon for you, Master?”
Mulciber turned to Gorba, and his eyes glowed with a red fire.
Gorba said, “He is not worthy of your attention. Allow me, as my first task on this world, to show him the price of his failures.”
“Leave him be.”
“He was defeated by a little girl.”
“That little girl is the one we’ve been waiting for. She outfought the greatest sorcerer in the mortal world on instincts. She will end the war.”
Gorba lowered his head to scowl at the stone floor. He had thought his first tasks would be to kill Azmon and his daughter. The Risen of the Nine Hells were destined to destroy the Reborn heroes of the Seven Heavens. Their fight was one of the Last Seven Battles, and Gorba had spent thousands of years preparing for his conquest.
“You do not want me to destroy her?”
Mulciber said, “She must choose sides first.”
“But we are destined to fight, Master.”
“We will know, soon enough, if the Risen must battle the Reborn.”
Gorba growled low in his throat, but the sound echoed in the stone chamber and drew an answering snarl from Mulciber. Gorba glared at his master but stayed kneeling. “Azmon can’t replace me, my dread lord. And neither can his daughter. I will crush them both and claim their souls.”
Mulciber’s angelic form faded away completely, and the dark monster appeared. Claws and fangs pushed out of black flesh
as the white skin cracked and peeled.
Gorba lowered his head. If he’d been facing another overlord, they would have fought, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough to challenge Mulciber. Ruling the Fifth Hell had spoiled him. He had spent centuries refusing to bow before anyone.
“Do not underestimate Marah,” Mulciber said. “She is different from the other prophets. Her connection to the Creator is stronger. I haven’t felt such a thing in a long time—not since the First War.”
“Who is she? Is she a Reborn seraphim?”
“No.” Mulciber thought on it. “That’s not how birth runes work.”
“What is my task?”
“Keep Ithuriel’s attention on the Deep Ward. That is your charge. I want the Ward broken, dismantled. Let the tribes run freely to the surface.”
“And Azmon?”
“Let him build another army. We will need one soon enough.”
“You indulge him. He is not powerful enough to warrant such attention.”
“He will be. If he survives a while longer, he will learn that we are his only friends. Then he will grovel for our help.”
“I can replace him. Any of the overlords can replace him.”
“He is the first mortal to survive the blight.”
The number of legionnaires in the room grew, and Mulciber and Gorba Tull left the chamber to tour the city. The smells of food and water assaulted Gorba, making his skin crawl. So much of the mortal world had been forgotten that the old sights and smells nauseated him.
They passed ranks of mortal warriors, pathetic little things, demon tribes and Tusken alike, kneeling before their masters. Gorba knew they used such fodder to fight in the mortal world, but they appalled him. They were an army of vermin compared to his legions.
Mulciber said, “The tribes have weakened the Ward. Now the seraphim will defend it. Your task is to keep them focused on the Ward while I attend to matters in Kelut.”
“The last of the grigorns?”
Mulciber nodded.
“If Marah defends the Ward, can I destroy her then?”
“Teach her the limits of her power. Force her to choose sides.”
“And if she chooses Ithuriel?”
“Then you have my blessings to do what you do best.”
VI
Klay hiked the stairways of Ironwall to attend a private meeting with the king. As he climbed terrace after terrace of stairs, he considered Broin’s offer to become the Lord of the Rangers. He didn’t know how Broin handled the court, but Klay thought it might have been like the years he had spent running interference between the Red Tower and the Ranger Corps.
He muttered to himself, “I’d rather fight with steel than words.”
After presenting himself to the guards of the keep, he was led to King Samos’s private chambers. Samos hunched in his chair, piled into it with his heavy stomach resting on his knees. Bedelia stood in a corner with a calm face. They were an odd pair—one a frumpy old man with quarrelsome whiskers, and the other a soft-faced middle-aged woman with forced decorum. Her unblinking eyes searched Klay’s face with an intensity that put him on guard, and he almost forgot to bow before the king.
The guards closed the door.
King Samos asked, “Are the rumors true, Sir Klay? Would Marah ride Chobar through the streets and play with him?”
“Yes.”
Klay thought that alone should redeem the child. The Gadaran grizzlies were a unique breed, larger and more cunning than most animals, and anyone befriended by one was rare. Among the hill folk, it was considered a good omen for a bear to protect a person. The grizzlies wouldn’t befriend someone that they wouldn’t allow near their cubs.
“So you can get close to her?”
“May I ask why you want to kill a Reborn?”
Samos frowned, and Bedelia answered. “If what you say is true, the elves fear the child. Remove her, and the Norsil are defenseless. The elves will end this invasion for us.”
“Your Majesty,” Klay said, “Emperor Azmon could not kill her.”
“I know. But she trusts you.”
Klay said, “There must be another way.”
“Remove their leader,” Bedelia said, “and the clans will start fighting each other. That is their nature. A hundred years ago, when Kordel died, his sons slaughtered one another for decades until the Norsil retreated into the wastelands.”
Samos said, “Bedelia, would you excuse us?”
Bedelia nodded and left the room. Samos gestured for Klay to sit in another chair beside his fireplace. The room reminded him of Broin’s office, only far more expensive. The rugs and wall hangings were worth a small fortune.
“Once, all of that”—Samos gestured at an ancient map of the Gadaran Kingdom hanging on the wall—”belonged to my family. Kordel would have climbed our walls and enslaved us all, but the Red Tower burned his thanes, and they ran. Now, we hide behind walls. We hide from everything.”
Klay studied the map. He knew the real territory that the lines only hinted at because he had spent much of his life patrolling ranges. The map was so out of date that it meant nothing. The vast swathes of land were too big for the remaining Gadarans to defend even if they managed to take the old kingdom back from the Norsil.
Samos said, “You are no assassin, but you can get closer than anyone else.”
“She is a Reborn at the very least and probably a prophet. We should unite with her and take the fight to the shedim.”
“Do you think she will abandon the Norsil?”
“Maybe. She could study with the elven masters in Telessar.”
“And would the elves surrender such a prize? If she is a prophet, she will have the power to break kingdoms apart. That is what all the prophets did—the ones who lived long enough to build empires—they redrew maps and built things like Shinar.”
“I saw the battle. Azmon threw everything he had at her, and she survived. What chance do I have?”
“You can get within arm’s reach of her.”
Klay imagined thousands of thanes furious at him. The king sent him on a suicide mission, and the look in Samos’s eyes said he regretted asking. Klay would never be a Ranger Lord, and songs would be written about the honorless scum who murdered a child prophet.
He withdrew into his own thoughts. All the years of fighting, all the struggles to keep Marah alive in the forest, to keep her secrets in Ironwall, and to help Tyrus defend her and her mother—all of that effort so he might smile at her while he slit her throat? Klay shook his head. Even if he thought it was the right thing to do, he doubted he could go through with it. The thought of hurting her turned his stomach.
Samos leaned forward to peer at him. “She cracked Jethlah’s Walls?”
“I keep telling people the same stories, and no one listens.”
“Our walls aren’t half as strong as Shinar’s.”
“She is not a threat to us.”
“It’s a shame she chose her allies so poorly. Can you steal her away from the Norsil? Or perhaps Lord Nemuel can convince her to go to Telessar?”
Klay imagined trying to outrun the thanes. Tyrus had collected a war band filled with powerful men. Usually, a war band had one or two such warriors, and a ranger could keep at a distance with his mount and use his bow to even the odds a little. Tyrus had thousands of such warriors. The entire ranger corps would be hard-pressed to fight such a force.
Samos touched his arm. “Is there a chance of it?”
“Maybe, Majesty, but getting close will be a trick.”
Samos sighed. “We cannot allow the Norsil to have a prophet. If she won’t abandon them, she needs to be stopped.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I would be disappointed if you did.” Samos’s voice grew quiet. “The histories say prophets get stronger as they age. We have a chance to stop her before she comes into her powers. Imagine if K
ordel had a prophet behind him. He would have conquered all of Creation.”
“What if she doesn’t want to conquer anything?”
“She is with the Butcher of Rosh. He conquered Sornum and tried to conquer Argoria.” Samos sneered at his map. “He will use her to enslave us all.”
“But Tyrus wants to kill Azmon.”
“If you can convince them to go to Sornum, that would be wonderful. As it is, they have a stronghold without farmers. We are the only kingdom close enough to help them.”
“There’s the Burning Isles.”
“I doubt they can afford the Sea Kings.” Samos shook his head. “Tyrus will need supplies, and the Norsil are not farmers. There’s nothing left alive on the Shinari plains. They can’t beat the elves in Paltiel. So that leaves us. They will use Gadara to feed their army and use our mines to pay for the Sea King’s ships.” Samos glanced sideways at Klay. “You know him better. You think Tyrus will use us to invade Sornum?”
“You assume he can control Marah.”
Samos waved a hand as though it were obvious. “She is a child.”
“She doesn’t act like a child,” Klay said. “And if Lahar tries to save her, should I kill him too?”
Samos gave Klay a withering look. “Don’t toy with me. I know this is a coward’s solution. If you want to think about old songs, think about the False Prophet. How many would have cheered if Gorba Tull was killed as a child?”
“Marah isn’t Gorba Tull.”
“We don’t know that.”
Klay shook his head. “I know it. She has a good heart.”
“Then why did she betray us?”
Klay had to admit joining the Norsil was perplexing. The grigorns had lost the Second War of Creation and become mythical. Few people still worshipped them, and doing so was almost as bad as worshipping the shedim. The Norsil had saved her though, and that meant something to her.
“Tyrus knew what she was,” Samos said. “He’s been planning this for a long time. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
Dance of Battle: A Dark Fantasy (Shedim Rebellion Book 4) Page 8
