Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (24 page)

“How long will it burn?”

“Pain lasts as long as it lasts. Don’t question it. Fighting makes it worse. Breathe deep; relax. Again. Good. Focus your attention on something else.”

“Can you help me see in the dark?”

“I am sorry, but I don’t think you’re strong enough. These can be just as dangerous as regular runes. Too many, and the heart can give out.”

“I don’t like the dark.”

“Nor should you. Things watch us, but embrace your fear. It might keep you alive.”

Einin tried to ignore the burning and succeeded in varying degrees. It was like a scalding bath; at first, it burned, but after a moment or two, the sensation dulled to a tender throb. She smelled the ink, though, an acrid thing, garlic and sulfur with a tangy pungency as though someone had been burning orange peels. She might never eat her favorite fruit again.

“Let’s work on your verbs, present tense. No Kasdin. Down here, we speak in Nuna, unless it is an emergency.”

“Why?”

“It’ll force your mind to work.”

They traveled through several intervals of camping in the passageway. Guards used a stretcher to carry Dura, and they seemed to make good time, but without landmarks or a horizon, Einin found it impossible to tell how far they traveled. Dura and Annrin took turns quizzing Einin. As they traveled, she became better at hearing the men around her. The knowledge came slowly, but she could follow conversations better, picking out words she knew well and guessing at the rest. She acquired a new vocabulary, dozens of words for
stone
and
darkness
and
weight
, but she struggled with nuance.

Before they camped again, a massive wrought-steel doorway appeared out of the shadows. Dozens of dwarven warriors, huge specimens in beetle-like armor, standing five feet tall and almost as broad, guarded the door. The dwarves expected them, and the steel doors swung open. Einin’s hair blew back in a draft of warm air filled with the smell of gardens, greenery, and fresh bread. There was light as well, a golden glow that felt like sunlight compared to their meager torches. Einin feasted on the sensations and found more subtle smells of fresh water in the air, humidity, and unwashed people.

Dura said, “Welcome to Dun Glordan, the first of many cities on our descent.”

Einin saw dwarves that had been their vanguard and noted the differences in their armor and tabards from those of the guards of Dun Glordan. The vanguard had a dozen different clans. An emissary with four guards greeted them and bowed low before Dura.

They spoke in the rumbling language of the dwarves, and Einin panicked at first because she recognized none of it. Startled, she looked at Annrin.

“I don’t know either. It is their tongue, Gimirr.”

Dura reached for Einin. “Come, we present Marah to their king while everyone else rests. We’ll resupply afterward.”

Dura walked Einin through foreign protocols as they passed through several corridors to the king’s throne room and presented Marah of Narbor to King Harladum Dunbor Garanrum. He was a white-haired dwarf on a large steel throne and was nonplussed by everything they did except for the presentation of the birth rune, which was similar to the Blue Feast.

In Kasdin, King Garanrum asked, “May I touch the rune?”

Einin said, “Yes, your majesty.”

Like most dwarves, he was all shoulders, forearms, and knuckles, the build of a badger. His thick fingers could crush Marah like a grape, but the king reached out and traced the rune with great care. Einin braced for cries or screams, but Marah giggled instead, and the dwarf king blushed.

“Now,” he said, “we discuss aid to Telessar.”

The room was filled with what Einin guessed were nobles, berobed dwarves with stoic faces. They grumbled and nodded until Dura said no. A chill fell over the room.

Dura said, “We will present our case to the Council of Kings at the stronghold of Ros Mardua. Time is short, and I will not debate each king individually.”

The languages shifted around Einin, from Kasdin to Nuna and finally to the dwarven tongue of Gimirr. She understood little, but the expressions said enough. The dwarves were unhappy.

“And you agree with this, Keeper?”

Einin realized the king spoke to her. “I’m sorry?”

“You are the Keeper of the Reborn, are you not? Her kin? You agree to tell us nothing until the Council of Kings?”

Einin bowed to hide her confusion. “Apologies, your majesty, but in this mistress Dura and I are of one mind.”

Garanrum sat back. He exhaled, and his mustache fluttered. His beady eyes glared at Dura. Einin waited, oblivious of the politics.

“So be it. I will send my eldest son to speak for me.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Dura bowed. She guided Einin out of the room. “You did well, my girl.”

Their trip became tedious in its repetition, long hours marching through darkness, made drearier by fitful bits of sleep. They passed a few junctures of tunnels converging on theirs or forks where theirs ended. The dwarves guided them through the warren. Einin lost track of time. Without seasons or weather or the sun, she could not say if they had been underground for weeks or months. To feel human again, she needed a night’s sleep ending in sunlight.

Dura applied new paint to Einin’s chest every few days, and she became accustomed to the burning ink. They passed a dozen cities the same as the first one, and the rituals involved in each meeting with a chieftain or king were so similar that Einin learned a bit of the dwarven language. Einin lost track of the names: Ros Moridal, Dun Berthal, Ros Koruthal, Dun Dunarum, and many more. Each king wanted to impose terms on the aid granted to the elves, and Dura offended them all by forestalling any discussions until the Council of Kings. Their expedition grew in numbers the deeper they went. The dwarves outnumbered the Gadarans two to one. Each king sent his delegate, and Einin saw a pattern.

“They are minor lords, aren’t they?”

“Which ones?” Dura asked.

“These kings we meet. If they were truly powerful, they would come with us to the council and not send their sons or nephews.”

“The most powerful kings await us at Ros Mardua. They would not be seen following me to a meeting. We will be the last to arrive.”

As they neared Ros Mardua, the tunnels became less refined, more functional. There were bits with fresh stone and a few with naked stone and soil showing. Dura said they were places where the Demon Tribes had tunneled through. The cities became bigger, and Einin learned their structure, diamond shapes, three-dimensional, cut into the stone. At each stop, kings demanded information, and Dura turned refusal into a polite art.

At some point, the larger cities became smaller again and less welcoming than before. Einin saw them as military outposts with few comforts. They stopped at one, which was a bustle of warriors and cramped space.

Dura said, “Tonight we feast, and then convene the council.”

“This is the place of kings?”

“This is where they agreed to meet, the city of Ros Mardua.”

“How far underground are we?”

“Hundreds of miles.”

“So far?”

“Their tunnels are disarming, but you descend much faster than you realize. We are about a third of the way to the Bottom of the World and the Black Gate. The dwarven realms continue for hundreds of miles, but beyond that, you leave the warrens of the Deep Ward and enter the realm of the Tribes.”

That night, they ate a feast that spanned hundreds of tables. It was a solemn meal with little talk and surprising in that most of the food was mutton from Gadara. Einin had hoped to try dwarven food, but the dwarves welcomed Marah of Narbor with food from the surface. After the meal, the tables were arranged into a circle, and leaders stepped forward, as varied in their appearances as their warriors. Einin struggled to tell the difference between nobles and commoners and wondered whether they all might be nobles.

Twenty kings, wearing simple bands around their temples, gathered in the center of the circle. Dura pulled Einin to her, joined the circle, and Einin realized this was the council. She had expected a great hall and a hosting monarch, not an underground picnic. The suddenness seemed wrong after all the bowing and ritual greetings with the minor kings. The body heat produced by the council grew, and soon Einin felt sweat trickle through her hair.

The council began in the dwarfish tongue, and Einin waited beside Dura for her cues. At one point, she presented Marah as she had done so many times before. They continued to talk until Einin was aware of a throbbing in her knees and feet. She shifted her weight, moved Marah from one hip to the other, and wondered why the council did not sit in chairs.

Dura spoke in Nuna. Einin was surprised at how much she understood, and Annrin stood nearby for when she had questions.

“It is true,” Dura said. “For thousands of years the accord between the nephalem has stood. The Gimirr guarded the Deep while the Talis guarded the heights. It has been that way since before my people, the Avani, became a power in the world. But the shedim have split the Avani and use the Roshan against Telessar. It is time to revisit the ancient accord.”

“If that is what we are doing, where are the elves?”

“Defending their home.”

“You speak of the Roshan as though you stand apart from them.”

“We do.”

“You mean to say, your people betrayed us.”

“I say what I mean, and any who know me know my word.” Dura stared down a king. “Many of the Avani kept their honor. Not all of our kingdoms joined the shedim.”

“How can any help the black wings?”

“I seek to right this wrong.”

“Where was the help when Skogul fell? We righted our wrongs. Now you ask us to fight your battles. We have our own battles. We cannot abandon the Deep to stop the Roshan. The Tribes would destroy us.”

Dura said, “The Tusken never made it to the surface, but Azmon is within striking distance of the White Gate.”

“Telessar will hold.”

Dura said, “That is what we said about the Five Nations and all of Sornum and Shinar. Azmon defeats us one by one. The shedim swallow continents bite by bite. If we unite, we can stop them.”

“He is your student, is he not?”

“He was.”

“And a Reborn?”

“What is your point?”

“How did you allow this to happen?”

“Later, we can discuss the best ways to train a Reborn. When the Roshan conquered Sornum, you did nothing. When their ships landed on Argoria, you did nothing. When I asked for help defending Shinar, you said the city would not fall. Now I am asking for help with Telessar, and you say the same things. This threat is greater than the Tribes. Moloch begins the Third War. He turned Rosh and Sornum against you and gives them forbidden runes. When do we oppose the Shedim Rebellion? Do we let them take both Gates and trap us in the middle?”

Voices swelled with complaints until a king raised his hand. Silence and respect answered him. Einin had caught his name, King Azagar Dalir Thadius.

“These are not excuses, mistress Dura. We do not shirk our oaths. The war for the Deep goes badly. We are on the front lines. We shield the surface from the Demon Tribes. If we help the elves, the Deep Ward will fall.”

The assembly agreed in a chorus.

Dura said, “Much has been asked of you, but I must ask for more. We cannot lose the White Gate.”

King Thadius repeated, “If we march on the surface, the Deep Ward will fall.”

“A small force from each king would make the difference.” Angry mutters began, and Einin heard many ask who would lead that force, but Dura shouted. “I ask you to unite the clans, under a warlord, and send an army to Telessar.”

The dwarves yelled, and the twenty kings fought to control the room. The leader, Thadius—Einin thought of him as the leader because others deferred to him—silenced the hall by striking the butt of a hammer onto the stone floor, over and over, in a measured rhythm until silence fell.

“In exchange,” Dura said, “I offer help with the Blood Quests and reclaiming Skogul, like the Kassiri of old. The Red Tower and Ironwall and Telessar will aid the Gimirr in their fight against the shedim.”

“We will discuss this request in private. Mistress Dura, Marah of Narbor, her Keeper, and her honor guard will wait in their quarters while we deliberate.”