Dance of Battle: A Dark Fantasy (Shedim Rebellion Book 4)

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  Tyrus dragged himself to his feet and lumbered back toward the tomb. He had caught the sarcophagus before it smashed into his face and was more bruised than broken. His forearms screamed, but he could still use his hands. He hurried back toward Gorba, refusing to let Marah face the fiend alone. All around him, the sky fell, and clouds of dust stung his eyes until he made it to the tomb door.

  Marah lay against a wall, dazed and shaking her head. Gorba looked at the ceiling with his hands raised as though straining against a great weight. Tyrus reached for his blades, but his scabbards were empty. His knife lay on the floor. He went for it, but it flew away from him.

  “Mulciber’s general.” Gorba grinned. “I remember when you snuck through the Nine Hells to free our master. You’ve seen better days.”

  Tyrus remembered meeting him then. When they had passed the Black Gate, Gorba was one of the shedim who had helped them take a secret stairway down to one of the lower hells.

  “I’m spoiled today,” Gorba said. “Finding a mortal like you, who can kill sarbor, is rare. You and I shall have all kinds of fun together. I wouldn’t waste meat as good as you.”

  Tyrus had heard enough and sprinted at Gorba. If he didn’t have a blade, he would rip the demon’s throat out with his bare hands. Gorba was still straining against something above him, but shards from the broken wall rose into the air and streaked toward Tyrus. He twisted and jumped out of the way, but Gorba flung more at him, and one caught his shoulder, spinning him.

  “A vessel such as yours will give me new powers.”

  Gorba’s one good eye glowed red, and Tyrus felt a pinch behind his right eye socket. Something foreign and awful swirled inside his skull and made his mouth taste of salt. He slid to a halt and grabbed his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “My body died long ago. This vessel is made from the spirits I claimed in the Nine Hells. You look so strong.”

  “Get out of my head.”

  “Oh no, my sweet, I want to try on your skin.”

  Tyrus strained against his own body, willing his muscles to move, but they wouldn’t. When Gorba next spoke, his voice was in Tyrus’s mind.

  My, you are strong! I might be able to kill Mulciber with you.

  Tyrus tried to scream, but he had lost control of his mouth. He couldn’t do anything to fight off the voice. His vision narrowed. A cold sensation washed over him, like the dreams when he drowned in the dark—but worse. He feared death. Terrible thoughts came to him, and he wondered if he would have to watch his own flesh die. He tried to thrash, but all that happened was a series of fitful jerks. Each movement was cut short by the thing inside him.

  Hush now, my sweet. This will feel better if you relax. Struggle, and your body will tear itself apart.

  Appalled, Tyrus froze. His body was betraying him, and the voice left stains on his mind. He closed his eyes and willed himself to wake. He wanted the feelings to be like the nightmare with Mulciber—he wanted to drown in the darkness and awake in his bed, covered in sweat. Tyrus fought hard to push the unclean feeling away.

  Impressive. Few mortals could resist for so long. Give yourself to me, Tyrus. My mind will outlast your flesh. Surrender… and I’ll grant your precious little prophet a clean death.

  Touch her, and I’ll kill you.

  Gorba giggled. You are only mortal. You couldn’t possibly understand us. Did they ever try to teach you runes? Or were you too big for books? With such a will, you might have been a sorcerer.

  Tyrus snarled and thrashed, or he thought he did. He had lost contact with his body, as though he was paralyzed and trapped in a dark room.

  He tried to scream. I. Won’t. Surrender.

  All things end, my sweet. Gorba cackled. The old must make way for the new. If one of the shedim strikes me down, they will feed on me to grow stronger. This world is no different. One day, the mountains will crumble, the oceans will dry, and even the sun will darken to make way for something new. You will help me break the angels and demons. And when they are gone, my reign will begin.

  Tyrus could no longer scream. The darkness thickened around him. His struggles made it worse, and the vice tightened. The more he fought, the more control Gorba took from him. An animal panic set in. If he had been a wolf caught in a trap, he would have gnawed off a foot to get free, but he didn’t know how to escape the darkness. A force held him down when he wanted to die. He’d rather be dead than enslaved.

  VI

  Marah held her head. The crashing rocks and collapsing floors rang in her ears, but the thousands of creatures being crushed to death filled her mind. Her own body and identity was cast adrift in an ocean of death.

  Kennet whispered, You must run.

  The shock faded a little when Tyrus stumbled back into the tomb, but he and Gorba were locked in a contest of wills. Marah could sense sorcery but not runes, and she didn’t understand what was happening. Gorba was using a demon trick on Tyrus, and Tyrus was going to die. The people outside were dying, and she would be the last to die, after the demons finished playing with her.

  She whispered, “We’re all going to die.”

  Marah wasn’t sure what to do. She used sorcery to flee into the dream world. A place opened in her mind, and her consciousness retreated from the real world to enter the place between worlds. A profound darkness surrounded her, and a silence filled her being. No one was screaming, nothing crashing into the ground. The dead were gone. She took a moment to catch her breath.

  “Ithuriel?”

  Marah clenched her jaw. The archangel had told her she was alone. And Ramiel was dead. She needed help, but no one was close. She knew she was wasting time. With each passing heartbeat, Gorba came closer to killing all her friends.

  Marah hugged herself. “I don’t want to die.”

  She needed someone who knew how to fight the demons, and in a moment of desperation, she knew who to seek. Her thoughts turned to Sornum, and she traced a weak little tendril connecting all Tyrus’s runes to their maker. The trail was faint and led to many dead ends. She fumbled about, searching Sornum for a creature of power, a creature related to her. She eventually latched onto Azmon.

  “Father, Gorba is killing me!”

  She sensed Azmon twist and stumble. He was ripped into the world between worlds and screamed in pain.

  He asked, “How are you doing this?”

  “Help me. Gorba is too strong.”

  “Gorba Tull?”

  Marah could not tell the story fast enough, so she imposed herself upon the darkness, and a ghostlike echo of the battle played out around her. Shapes, wisps of smoke, became dwarves fighting against impossible odds, and at the center of it all was Marah, lying on the ground while Gorba towered over her.

  Azmon turned to take in the scene. “You must run. The battle is lost.”

  “I can’t. We’re surrounded.”

  “You are outnumbered.”

  “How did you survive the Nine Hells?”

  “I had help.”

  “Help me. How do I kill Gorba?”

  “I’ve never fought an overlord.”

  “But you want to,” she said. “How would you do it?”

  “Fight fire with fire.”

  “If I do that, everything will burn.”

  “It’s already burning.”

  “Show me.”

  Runes filled the dreamworld. Azmon used the same trick to draw them in smoky outlines. He stood beside her, in a semblance of his dark robes and golden mask, tracing shapes into the darkness. Marah had seen the runes before. She knew them. Revulsion almost severed the connection for her. She had sensed such runes in the dead beasts around Shinar.

  She said, “I can’t do that.”

  “You are outnumbered. Even the odds.”

  “Damn you.”

  Marah flung him out of the dreamworld, which she knew to be cruel. The sudden jolt of b
eing cast out would cause a physical pain as if his skull had been cracked. She felt a tight pain behind her eyes when she left the world too quickly, and she knew enough to brace for it.

  Marah crawled toward the door of the tomb. For a moment, she struggled with an impossible question—either she committed a terrible crime or she watched everyone she knew die. From the door, she saw dwarves fighting back a tide of monsters, and the city collapsed around them. Thousands of ghosts screamed their fury at her—most were tribesmen, but many were dwarves.

  They all said the same thing, You did this to us.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She took Azmon’s runes and altered them as she explored them. Her mind filled with swirling patterns, and her strange affinity for the Runes of Dusk and Dawn helped her see past many of the failings of Azmon’s techniques. She didn’t need human sacrifice because the city streets ran red with blood, and she didn’t need to draw such simple things in sand—the Stone Song was harder to master than the beasts—and, she realized, she didn’t need half of the rite because she didn’t need to summon demons into the mortal world.

  Thousands of shedim surrounded her. All she needed were bones to wrap around the demons.

  Marah began weaving spells together, and for the first time, she felt the pain of using such runes. Her skin itched as though thousands of bugs were crawling on her, and her stomach twisted into knots. She feared, for a moment, that she might lose control of the sorcery and unleash some unknown horror on them all, but she forced down her revulsion and finished the rite.

  The dead were shocked by her betrayal.

  I know, Marah whispered. I’m so sorry.

  They railed against her as she defiled their bodies. Among all the horrible sounds of the battle, a new one filled the air. Bodies were rent with the splash of liquids as the corpses twisted and turned in the air to become beasts. She wrestled with the shedim. The runes gave her a power to bind them to a body, and the shedim sensed at once what was happening. Many fled. Reaching out with her sorcery, she pulled them back to the city.

  She constructed one beast and six more then dozens at a time. The effort made her eyes roll back into her head. Trickles of sweat poured down her face and back. She had to stop weaving runes to retch. Her vomit splashed the stone floor, and she went back to her sorcery.

  She used the runes in ways that Azmon had never intended, but Marah had done the same with the runes for fire and stone. Whenever a sorcerer had taught her new runes, she found ways to make them dance for her. So much of what her father had shown her was clumsy, and Gorba had brought all the materials she needed to make the monsters. She wove her own patterns from the forbidden runes, and the roar of very large and powerful bone beasts joined the chaos in the city.

  VII

  Tyrus’s mind had become a snarling animal floating in a dark void. His body disappeared. He felt nothing and had lost control of himself, but he knew Gorba tormented him. Whether he had died or was locked away in a box, he could not tell, but he thrashed and snarled against his prison. He refused to be taken prisoner, and the darkness infuriated him.

  He wanted to die fighting. He screamed challenges and insults, but the darkness never answered. Nothing he did pierced the blackness. Tyrus refused to surrender and was rewarded when the darkness shifted. A tiny burst of color and sound broke through. Tyrus heard the battle in stutters as though his cage had cracks. For a brief moment, he felt himself convulsing on a stone floor.

  Then the darkness returned.

  Gorba whispered, What has that infernal child done now?

  Tyrus regained some of his hearing. He blinked his eyes, and the putrid smell of spoiled fish and rotten eggs filled his nose. He coughed and shifted his weight, rolling to his side to vomit.

  Old sounds, wretched sounds from the long wars on Sornum, filled his ears. He heard bone beasts roaring at their opponents. Heavy footfalls charged across stone streets, and creatures fought with snarls and slams.

  Tyrus couldn’t make sense of the noise and wondered whether Azmon had come for him. He wanted to ask why the bone lords were in the Deep when Gorba began cursing in a strange tongue. The ugly words were snapped off and guttural, but they communicated hatred. What happened next felt like a boot to the jaw. A dark thing fled from inside Tyrus’s skull.

  Tyrus reacted as though a knife had plunged into his guts. He twisted and coughed and sputtered. Dark liquid matted his eyelashes. He felt his face and wiped his eyes. Blood? Tyrus rubbed his fingers together and smeared more blood between them. He was bleeding from his eyes.

  Marah crawled across the ground, and Gorba crashed through the tomb doors, stalking her. She commanded a twelve-foot beast to attack. Gorba collided with the beast, snarled, and tore off one arm then another. He grabbed the creature by its jaw and savagely yanked the skull off its neck. The lifeless thing collapsed, and Gorba advanced on Marah. She backpedaled away from him, casting about for anything that might help. Fighting consumed the streets, and everyone else was busy with their own battles. Marah had to stand and fight the fiend.

  A sneer twisted Gorba’s face. He let loose an animal howl that made him sound insane. He screamed at her and flexed his talons. His one good eye glowed a vicious red.

  “You dare to use beasts against me?”

  Marah licked her lips and answered with fire and lightning. Gorba erected a shield, but not before she burned him. She screamed back at him, a high-pitched and childish screech at odds with all the deep roars of the monsters around her.

  She screamed, “You won’t get away with this!”

  But the shedim warriors were destroying the bone beasts. Marah sensed how unevenly matched they were, and a few of the dead said the demons had fought worse creatures in the Nine Hells. She wanted to make more of them, but her heart was racing as she struggled to catch her breath.

  Gorba said, “Kneel. Pledge to serve, and I’ll spare your friends.”

  “Liar!”

  “Oh, come now… Let me have my fun.”

  “You are all liars.”

  “Child—”

  “I am not a child!”

  Marah sent three of the large creatures to attack Gorba, but he used runes to fend them off. He cursed them while they snarled, and the four of them rolled across the floor in a tangle of ripping claws and gnashing teeth.

  Silas and Klay found her.

  Klay picked her up and ran, Silas following close behind.

  Marah yelled, “Wait!”

  Klay said, “We need to get out of here.”

  “I won’t leave him.” Marah pounded on Klay’s back. “Tyrus is in the tomb.”

  Klay slowed, but Silas pushed him forward, saying, “There’s no time.”

  Marah shouted, “I won’t leave him!”

  “He is your guardian,” Silas said. “He is supposed to die in your place.”

  “We can save him.”

  As far as Tyrus could tell, he wasn’t wounded. His body felt as though it had been beaten with clubs, but his bones were unbroken. Other than the blood on his face, his body was intact. He shook his head, trying to clear an itch that would not go away. Something had been inside him, and the thought made him retch again.

  He crawled to the entrance of the tomb. What he saw confused him. Dwarves were trying to withdraw while shedim foot soldiers clashed with bone beasts. The beasts wouldn’t last long, and Tyrus didn’t understand why the two were fighting. He cast about for a weapon and found a dwarven battle-ax. He stumbled forward, seeking Marah.

  The dwarves and tribes were fleeing from the beasts and the foot soldiers. Hundreds of dead bodies littered the streets. Tyrus searched them for the tiny white shape of Marah. He had lost his ward. He feared one of the monsters had carried her off, and he stumbled through the carnage with no idea where to go or whom to fight.

  The battle made no sense.

  Powerful claws seized him, and he felt weigh
tless as he was picked up and carried away. His arms were pinned to his sides. He kicked and squirmed to break free, but the thing was at least ten feet tall, maybe bigger. He shook his head, trying to clear his eyes, while some vile-smelling creature made off with him. The next sound struck him mute.

  Marah said, “Bring him. Hurry.”

  Tyrus struggled to swallow. “Marah?”

  “Everyone is running. The ceiling is going to fall.”

  “Marah, what did you do?”

  “I saved you.”

  “Did you do this?” Tyrus understood at once. The beast was listening to her. “Did you make beasts?”

  “You said whatever it takes.”

  “But not this. I didn’t mean beasts.”

  “I won’t let you die too.”

  VIII

  Tyrus demanded to be put down. He glared at the creature that had been carrying him, and it looked like one of the Roshan monsters. The fangs and long claws seemed at home in the dead city, surrounded by other monsters, but he hated being so close to the beasts. He took Marah from Klay, and they kept running toward the passageways that lead back to Ros Mardua.

  A few score of people gathered around Marah. The thousands of dwarves they had arrived with were behind them, fighting in the streets. Everyone tried to run, but the tribes circled what was left of the city. The falling stalactites had created a mess, and the city looked like a landslide. They scrambled over piles of rubble, and beasts attacked the few tribesmen who attempted to block them off.

  Shedim foot soldiers landed. A dozen of them surrounded the party. Marah sent beasts at them, and the wardens went to work. Tyrus was torn between putting Marah down or attacking the creatures. When one of them cleaved a warden’s arm clean off, he put Marah down and charged. The beasts howled. The shedim tore them apart, but both sides lost enough for Tyrus and the wardens to push through.