“How long will that take?”
“Months to get there and back and bring their engineers and build the weapons and break the walls.”
“My sons won’t last months.”
“Jethlah’s Walls are famous. They will not break easily.”
“Then we climb them.”
“Better to starve them out.”
Breonna shook her head. “I want Olroth broken and bloody at my feet. I want Ironwall to know that their stacks of stone are worthless.”
“Larz Kedar is in there. Even in the Burning Isles, we have heard of Dura’s second. He will mount a strong defense.”
“Bring more sorcerers.”
“The cost will be steep.”
“My purse is Argoria.”
Orfeo offered a polite smile. “Argoria is not yet yours.”
“It is, and I don’t need a map to tell me that. Ironwall is hiding, and so are the Ashen Elves. They are weak and divided. For the first time in generations, war bands can march across the plains unopposed. After we feed the clans, all of this is ours. The Kassiri will be broken once and for all.”
“Ironwall and Telessar won’t be so easy to conquer.”
“They hide just like Olroth. We’ve already won.”
They grew silent and looked at the map. Breonna imagined Orfeo must see the same potential she did, once they solved a few nagging problems. She dreaded the day the Kassiri returned from Sornum. Her warriors had bested the monsters, but she didn’t enjoy the thought of going to war against a people who could make a kingdom of people vanish.
Orfeo said, “I will take this to my people. I can promise nothing, of course, but we will discuss your proposals.”
“What kind of king can’t make promises?”
“One with many peers.”
Orfeo left, and Breonna paced in front of the table. She asked herself what kind of queen could not feed her own people and grew agitated by the complexity of her new world. The Burning Isles would try to settle the coast and take it from her. She had to be vigilant in the negotiations, but she was learning. All the things she did not know made her nervous. She was wise enough to see a map full of things she didn’t understand—aqueducts for water, fortresses for trade routes, ancestral lands. But she knew to ask questions. After six husbands and dozens of sister wives, she could smell a liar. A little skill and an army of thanes would be the beginning of her new dynasty.
Breonna called a war council, and thanes entered the room. She laid out her plans to test the defenses of King’s Rest. She wanted their best climbers. Only a handful had to make it into the keep to open one of the two doors connecting to the outer walls. The rest of their forces would wait for the signal to charge whichever door opened.
As the weeks slowly went by, Lahar stalked the halls more. He felt like a wolf circling his lands. Sitting and waiting to fight did not suit him at all. He wanted to be active, and some days he patrolled so much that the men began to joke that his post had become the entire keep. His nerves fed theirs, and they grew antsy, but he could not stop himself. Waiting to die was a wretched fate. He understood why his father had opted to charge the Roshan army and decide the matter.
The children hated it as much as he did. All the families in the keep made the claustrophobia worse, and not an hour passed without crying infants. Children screamed from lack of sleep on the inside, and strange messengers screamed about surrender on the outside. All the noise made him dream of a quiet hunt in the woods, far away from people. The idea of tree branches over his head and a breeze on his face—the fresh air outside the city’s stench—became luxuries he feared he would never experience again.
He wanted to drink again. In Ironwall, he had drunk himself oblivious rather than wait for the Roshan to conquer the world. His people had lost a war, and the wine helped him forget the dead and pass the time. A few bottles seemed to make the hours pass faster.
Lahar checked on Larz Kedar. The sorcerer maintained contact with the Red Tower in Ironwall. Lahar found him hunched over a desk, scratching at parchment with a quill—two of his other students were studying scrolls in the same room.
“Any birds today?”
“That is the third time you’ve asked.” Larz held up a tiny roll of paper. “I’m tempted to withhold this out of spite.”
Lahar frowned. “How long have you had that?”
“How long has it been since you last pestered me? I had intended to send someone to fetch you, but I figured you would find me first.” Larz gave him a tired look. “The message is the same as four days ago. King Samos and the temple want to drive them out while Marah is gone. They ask us to count Sea Kings and thanes. Again. Your cousin is as annoying as you are… Majesty.”
“That’s all he sent?”
“No word on the warlord in the wastelands.”
“Bah.” Lahar paced in the room, and his boots drew irritated looks from Larz’s students. “He must have rangers monitoring the Lost Lands.”
“Of course he does, but they won’t send such things to us.”
“Tell him Shinar is too strong to attack.”
“He won’t like that.”
“Tell him there are almost a thousand warriors with as many runes as my father had, and the Sea Kings grow in number with each day. Whatever else is happening in the Lost Lands, he would be a fool to march on Shinar.”
“I won’t call the king a fool.”
“I’m calling him a fool. You are writing it down. Kings can do that to one another. We can trade insults, especially if it is a truth he needs to hear.”
“He doesn’t listen. He asks the same questions, hoping the answers will change. They think the city can be taken because Marah left.”
“Then Ironwall deserves to burn.”
“Shall I write that down too?”
Larz didn’t sound sarcastic, only tired, and Lahar considered it, only for a moment. Samos would be angry, but they might never see each other again. Lahar could not think of anything more foolish than an army marching across the plains with war bands and Sea Kings covering the countryside. Lahar did not know where they went or what they did, but from King’s Rest, he had watched war bands leaving the city. They had sent thanes out on all of Shinar’s roads.
The three sorcerers awaited him. All his unanswered questions left him frustrated, and he fought the urge to take out his frustrations on the sorcerers. They were just as irritated but better at hiding it.
Lahar asked, “And no mention of the Deep Ward?”
“Not a word.”
“Why do we even have birds?”
Lahar waved away the question and apologized. He asked Larz to impress upon the king the size of the Norsil force, then Lahar left. King Samos had relationships with the dwarves, and a dwarven tunnel was close to the gates of Ironwall. If anyone would have received word about Marah’s fate, it would have been Samos. But they didn’t send anything useful, only foolish fantasies about conquering Shinar.
The clouds on the horizon took on a reddish glow as the sun began to set, and Lahar left on his evening rounds. He checked the reinforced main gates, the men sparring in the throne room, and the lower cellar doors that led to the city tunnels. He passed scores of men standing guard, and he occupied his mind by counting the stairs and stones and windows that he passed. He had become attuned to the rhythms of King’s Rest, learning people’s habits, when the guards would change their shifts, and when the women lit their cook fires.
He ended his rounds by mounting the battlements to watch the sun set. Another day had passed, and another long night of waiting began. He stood with dozens of Norsil wives, who all carried long bows, and he watched the horizon darken by degrees. Red clouds purpled, turned blue, and finally surrendered to the night.
Meanwhile, the giant whisperers called out their offers of surrender in the courtyard below. He was tempted to sortie from the main gates just to kill
the fools. His annoyance hid some admiration. He could hear the pain in the men’s voices as they screamed—their throats sounded raw, yet they didn’t stop. Lahar wondered if an arrow would be a mercy.
The stalemate continued: an impregnable fortress versus an overwhelming army. Lahar slowly thumped a fist on a battlement. The city had changed over the last few weeks. There were fewer dark silhouettes and more glowing windows.
He asked himself, “Will she ever return?”
Just as he was about to leave, he heard metal strike stone. The sound carried up the wall. He waited for it to happen again but heard nothing. Then he heard it a second time. Leaning out over the battlements, he tried to spot the source of the sound. The way the battlements jutted over the wall made it difficult to see the base of the keep, but something fluttered in the wind.
Lahar was about to call for the horn when an arrow hit him in the shoulder—the same blasted shoulder as before, no less. He pulled back, blinking, more surprised than in pain until the shock wore off. Then his shoulder throbbed.
Lahar said, “We’re under attack.”
The sorceress, Demelza, asked, “Pardon me, Majesty?”
Lahar turned to her, and her brown eyes widened at the sight of the arrow. More metallic rings echoed from below, and the air chilled with sorcery. Demelza’s eyes became white on white with little pinpricks for pupils. She hurried to the wall and sent fire washing down the side of the keep.
The archers drew their bows and hurried to the side. Shouting began, and someone blew a warning note on the horn. Lahar flexed his hand, which was good enough to hold a shield, and drew his sword.
VI
Lahar waited to fight the thanes that made it to the top. His arm numbed, and his shoulder throbbed. He hadn’t taken the arrow out yet, and he thought himself lucky he hadn’t been hit in the face. Hefting his sword, he waited to fight, but Demelza and the archers fended off the climbers. No one made it to the battlements.
He lowered his sword, disappointed that he had done nothing but provide Breonna’s men with some target practice.
Larz Kedar hurried up the stairs. “They’re climbing the keep?”
Demelza said, “They tried.”
The sorcerers noted war bands on Shinar’s Walls, waiting to charge the two upper doors. They both launched fiery orbs to scatter them. After a few volleys, the sorcery stopped.
Smoke wafted up the keep’s walls, and Demelza inspected Lahar’s shoulder. She said it was deep enough in that pushing it through might be better. Lahar grimaced at that, and sweat beaded on his brow. The runes had already begun to burn, and he had braced to snap the shaft and shove it through when war cries sounded around the keep.
Lahar heard swords from the stairs and grunts from outside. He hurried to the ramparts but was careful to check over the side as quickly as he could. He saw nothing, but one of the archers shouted in Jakan.
Larz translated, “The windows, over the courtyard.”
They left Demelza to guard the battlements and raced down the stairs. Larz outpaced him as his shoulder became a problem. Lahar had to slow himself for fear of flying down the stairs face-first.
By the time he made it to the windows, the fight was over. Olroth and his men had dealt with the three thanes who’d made it into the keep. The others abandoned their climb and were chased by arrows and fire. Larz made some comment about how few men could scale King’s Rest, so they must have been some of Breonna’s best thanes.
Then they dealt with Lahar’s shoulder. He bit down on a leather strap as they shoved the arrow the rest of the way through his shoulder. Lahar was furious that he had been wounded with his sword still in its scabbard. He thought back on all his patrols, all his vigilance, but all he had accomplished was bleeding without fighting back.
Breonna watched the red sorcerers spoil her attack. Good men burned, and they would be hard to replace. For a brief moment, she watched thanes make it to the stone windows above the courtyard, and hope filled her with a nervous energy. She thought the main doors might open to all the men she had waiting in the streets.
But her hopes died with her thanes. She watched the keep light up with torches and lamps. The sorcerers hurled fire at Shinar’s walls, and the three war bands she had ready to charge an open door had to withdraw.
She told Orfeo, “You were right.”
“That keep has defied invaders for over six hundred years.”
“Send for the siege engines.”
“At once, my queen.”
Breonna clenched her jaw at the keep. She had wanted Tyrus to lead her thanes because he understood how to fight castles. The man had broken cities across two continents, but she could teach herself such things. The Islanders would ship in the little men who knew how to throw rocks, and she would ask her questions.
She had not given up on King’s Rest yet. Orfeo wanted to starve them out, but Breonna saw a chance to practice knocking over walls. Once she learned how to break King’s Rest, conquering Ironwall would be simpler. And when the two great castles were gone, all of Argoria would be hers.
VII
Emperor Azmon Pathros cut his way across Sornum. Thousands of bone beasts rushed before him, ravaging the countryside like a plague of locusts. Most of his new creations were as large as huts, and they tore through towns with little effort. Nothing was spared. They slaughtered livestock as readily as people, and the few who tried to flee on horses discovered Azmon’s hunters, beasts shaped like mastiffs that could fell a horse. The beasts spread across Sornum, originating in the coastal city of Narbor and radiating inland.
Wearing his golden mask and black robes, Azmon walked behind the vanguard with several lumbering brutes. He told himself he didn’t need the guards. With his connection to the monsters, he experienced the countryside through their eyes. Nothing would surprise him, but Mulciber made him paranoid. He had managed to surprise Azmon, which meant he had more secrets to discover before he could feel safe again.
He had rebuilt the host he had lost in Shinar, except his new beasts were stronger, more dangerous. With each soul he harvested, his powers grew, letting him control a larger army.
Loneliness nagged at him. The beasts could not talk, and he had killed everyone else. He wanted to hear another’s voice or, at the very least, find an audience to behold his greatness.
Instead, the roar of monsters echoed across the mountains. They had traveled beyond the Kelnor Mountains to the Green Fen marshlands. Most of the people of Sornum had abandoned the marshes because they were home to several demon tribes. Efforts to exterminate the creatures had always failed, and the land was not desirable for crops or mining. Azmon wanted their bones though, so he sent his hordes into the marshes.
They found empty dens.
As his creatures spread out, they met no resistance at all, and Azmon, carried across the water by one of his wall breakers, surveyed an abandoned village. The place stank of the demon tribes, but the fires had been cold for weeks. He reached out across his connection to the beasts and found similar sites across the marshes. They had all been empty for a while.
“Mulciber called them to war.”
As one, the advancing horde slowed and changed direction. Azmon called them away from the marshes to sweep southeast down the far coast of Sornum. They had hundreds of miles to travel before they reached the larger cities of Kaldur and Lahmi. The wall breakers carried him across the marshes while he dwelled on the war he wasn’t allowed to fight.
Gorba Tull was hunting his only living heir. Azmon wanted to take his position back from Gorba, but he wasn’t strong enough yet. He had more secrets to unravel and more souls to harvest. His daughter could rebuild House Pathros. If she survived Gorba, the two of them could kill Mulciber.
When the beasts reached dry land again, he had the wall breakers put him down. He needed to practice his powers. Mulciber had discovered him probing the Underworld before, but Azmon thought he
might be powerful enough to hide his second attempt.
He visualized the burning gate, grasped the source, and swelled with power. Runes filled his mind, and he sought to use a summoning ritual but directed it toward his daughter, somewhere in the depths of the world. He fumbled about, searching for her, and worried he might stumble across shedim. Hours passed, but lost in the trance, he barely noticed. The difficulty of the spell made him nervous because it increased the odds Mulciber would discover him again.
Azmon found Tyrus.
He sneered at the traitor. The hatred was primal, and the beasts reacted to it by roaring their anger. His oldest and most trusted friend, a brother in all but blood, had thwarted every attempt Azmon made to reclaim his daughter.
Tyrus stank of sorcery. All his runes drew Azmon to him, and he could sense a piece of himself etched into the ox. None of the other Etched Men gave off the same aura, but none of them had hundreds of runes either. Azmon wondered if he might strike Tyrus from afar, but he didn’t know how to attempt such a thing.
Then he sensed his daughter in Tyrus’s arms.
Azmon reached out, traveling to the dreamworld and inviting her along. The sensation was odd, similar to when he left his own body to see the world through the eyes of his bone beasts. He entered a dark place and felt a tug as he attempted to drag Marah into the place with him.
When she answered the call, he flinched. She radiated power like the shedim, and he worried that he might have angered her. They circled each other in the darkness between worlds.
Her voice, soft but firm, asked, Who are you?
“I am your father… and I come with a warning. An overlord, a very dangerous shedim, hunts you. Mulciber sent Gorba Tull to lure you into the Deep Ward.”
I know.
Azmon hid his surprise. “Then why would you travel to the Underworld?”
Marah ignored him to study the darkness. In a blink, a white light replaced everything, and Azmon shrank back to shield his eyes. When he dared look again, he saw her as she was—a child little more than eight years old, with ghostlike features and long flaxen hair. She looked like her mother.
Dance of Battle: A Dark Fantasy (Shedim Rebellion Book 4) Page 40
