Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (27 page)

She hungered.

Blood trickled around her claws, and Lilith-Ishma lapped it up with one swipe of her tongue. Ishma whimpered and smelled of fresh urine.

“Do not harm her,” Azmon said.

She fought a compulsion to step back and brushed her nose against Ishma’s ear. “I remember you, Narboran whore.”

“Lilith, to my side.”

“Yes, master.”

Azmon’s leash tightened, but Lilith would free herself soon. In a moment of clarity, she remembered her old life, when she had been a woman and not a monster. These people—Azmon, his wife, and Tyrus—had destroyed her, hollowed her out, and filled her with disgusting urges. Lilith was herself, trapped in Ishma’s skin, and realized she had found the smell of Ishma’s fear intoxicating. She craved raw flesh.

Fury replaced shame. She would murder Azmon for doing this to her. She would crack his skull and lick out the brains. After she took his form, she would laugh on his throne.
When he is distracted
, she decided,
when his attention is wrapped up in runes or beasts, when he is overextended, the compulsion will be easiest to break.

Azmon struggled to control Lilith. She became an uncanny likeness of a younger Ishma, reminding Azmon of his wedding night. Azmon saw two wives; one appeared young, vibrant, and perky, while the other looked haggard.

“Lilith, leave her alone, now.”

“Yes, master.”

She resisted. Azmon fought for control. She grew stronger by the day, and he realized he had to destroy her. She was too dangerous, but he gambled a little longer. His oldest friend was out there somewhere, waiting to attack. Azmon knew Tyrus well. The man would swoop in like a hero in an old song, waiting for the last moment to save the maiden from the savages. He had done it before, in the Kabor Mountains, and would do it again.

Azmon pitied his lack of imagination.

Embers burned in Lilith’s eyes, but they faded to reveal an emerald green. Azmon gasped and touched her cheek. His young bride, brought back from the past, a memory made flesh. Her lip curled into a sneer, and he pulled back, coughing and confused. What had he created?

“Come,” he said. “Let’s find you some clothes.”

Tyrus awoke to the sounds of marching; thousands of armored men moved in lockstep. The jingle of their armor and stomp of their boots echoed across the Shinari Plains. He walked to the edge of the forest and watched for a while as the Imperial Guard formed between the Roshan forts and the Paltiel Woods. The bone beasts and lords mixed with the guardsmen.

Tyrus scanned the regiments for the new Lord Marshal. He saw several champions barking orders—and lords as well—but he doubted if any were the Lord Marshal. He watched Azmon, in his white robes with curly blond hair, walking to the front of the line. The guardsmen parted for the emperor and his entourage of a dozen bone lords, who all wore black silk robes and sported similar blond hair although theirs was dyed and too yellow.

The Roshan marched toward the woods and stopped before they came within range of the elven archers. The sight confused Tyrus because Azmon would not risk an arrow to personally lead an attack. He checked his gear and then hurried to Klay. He found him with the other rangers and elven sentinels. The elves had deployed lines of spearmen on the ground and archers in the trees. The Shinari cavalry clattered to the north to prepare their charge.

Klay asked, “Why did he stop?”

Tyrus studied the Roshan formation. He didn’t like what he saw but couldn’t figure out why. The men were too calm, he realized. They looked bored, which meant they didn’t expect to fight. Azmon withdrew a silk pouch from his robes and drew runes on the ground. On only one occasion had Tyrus seen him do that before a battle, when he had burned the city of Hurr.

Tyrus gasped.

“What is it?” Klay asked.

“Pull everyone back. He’s going to burn the sky.”

Storm clouds gathered. Lightning cracked. The sound was normal, but the lightning was red. Tyrus blinked away orange afterimages.

“Run.”

“Dura’s students said he wouldn’t do that. Larz claims to know the counterspell.”

“Larz is wrong. Run.”

“But he said—”

“He wouldn’t try it if it wouldn’t work. Run, dammit.”

If Azmon was trying it again, it meant he had devised a counter to the counter. Tyrus did not understand sorcery, but he knew Azmon well enough to fear him.

Klay told a sentinel. “Tell Lord Nemuel that Azmon is burning the sky. Tell him we need to fall back.”

The elf ran while everyone else watched the storm clouds gather.

Tyrus said, “We need to go.”

“Dura’s students said they could counter it.”

Tyrus edged backward. He wanted to drag Klay with him but had no time to fight Chobar. This changed everything. There would be no big battle, and he would not have a distraction to sneak into Shinar. All of these fools would burn.

Black clouds darkened the sky, thunderclaps cast orange lights, and gusts of wind rattled leaves. The sun disappeared, replaced by fiery explosions. Red streams poured from the clouds, and Tyrus remembered the molten rain. Burning drops sizzled through leaves, streaked down trees, and ignited veins of fire.

Tyrus retreated into the woods. Everyone followed. Elves fled the tree branches as the tempest grew worse. A fiery eye, the center of a cyclone, burned above them. Heat dried Tyrus’s skin, making his sinuses ache and crack. He dodged the burning drops and bolted deeper into the woods. The Gadaran horses lumbered after him, but the elven sentinels maintained an ordered retreat. They caught the molten rain on their shields.

When Tyrus was out of the worst, he watched the spell. The firestorm spun and consumed trees in seconds. The silhouettes of branches, like charred skeletons, were lost in the blaze. He watched a tree burn. Its bark glowed red hot, and smaller branches fell under their own weight. He witnessed the future as well. Burning Paltiel might take months, but Azmon would not care. He saved his beasts for Telessar.

Klay ran out of the smoke, coughing into his green cloak.

Tyrus asked, “Where are Dura’s students?”

“This way, I think.”

They fought their way past terrified horses and confused Gadarans. The sentinels, thousands of elven warriors, marched out of the smoke. Tyrus followed Klay and saw the red robes of sorcerers with the elven leadership. The sorcerers gestured at the fire with their staves and spoke words of power. Tyrus did not understand their chanting.

Larz said, “It’s different. Too strong.”

Nemuel said, “Do something.”

“We can’t,” Larz said. “It’s not the same spell. He’s changed it.”

“Stop trying,” one sorcerer shouted. “We are making it stronger.”

“What?”

“Look at the way it spreads.”

The woods nearest the sorcerers burned worse than the section Tyrus and Klay had fled. Nemuel abandoned the sorcerers to order the army west.

Klay asked, “What do we do?”

Tyrus said, “We follow the elves.”

Emperor Azmon Pathros watched the woods burn. He directed the storm for a bit and noted the locations of the sorcerers trying to stop his spell. None of their efforts would stop the storm. Before he released his power, he used sorcery to gather his sand into a spinning ball and drop it back into his silk pouch. A wave of lightheadedness greeted him, an old friend that left him powerless, and itches crawled up his spine. He could not scratch. The bone lords must see him as the all-powerful sorcerer, untouched by the side effects of the Nine Hells.

Nothing answered his spell. Azmon remembered an old saying that Tyrus repeated before a battle: “The man who strikes first often strikes last.” He waited for the fire to stop, for the storm to end. Dura could unravel his new spell in moments, but the fires raged. They sounded like a roaring waterfall.

“So,” Azmon said, “Dura isn’t with the army. Interesting.”

Lilith-Ishma stood to his right, draped in black silk like a bone lord. She stirred and stepped closer. “What do you mean, master?”

“A memory, of another battle, long ago. Dura was always stronger with fire, and if she led them, she’d counter my spell. She must be too old to leave her tower.” Azmon gestured to a lord. “Begin the assault.”

Hundreds of bone beasts roared. They stretched their backs, widened their claws, and rejoiced at being set free. They charged the fires, running like apes with their long arms mangling the ground and shorter legs hopping forward. Azmon watched them disappear into a wall of smoke. He could control most of them but leaned on the bone lords for help.

“Stay here, Lilith. This skirmish is beneath you.”

“Yes, master.”

Tyrus and Klay stood with the Gadarans when an inhuman howl carried on the wind. Tyrus raised his sword on instinct. Klay drew an arrow.

Larz asked, “What is that?”

Klay said, “Bone beasts.”

Tyrus saw it first, shadows darting through the flames. He marveled at that, a tactic he had never tried. The beasts could take the burns, charging in where the Imperial Guard would never march. He strained his ears, waiting for the echo of boots, and heard nothing. The Roshan army stayed outside the woods.

“Look at the clouds,” Klay said. “The spell seems to have stopped.”

“Why?” Larz asked.

Tyrus pointed. “The beasts are attacking the elves.”

They watched five brutes break through the swirl of brown smoke. They charged into the elven lines, but three of them sacrificed themselves on the spears and shields to open a breech. Tyrus had seen it before, when they used the wall breakers against a city. He didn’t understand what they were doing until the other two rushed at a sorcerer in a red robe. The man was cut in half with one slash of the massive claws, and the beasts attempted to retreat.

Tyrus said, “They’re after the sorcerers.”

Klay mounted Chobar. He stood in his stirrups and fired arrows. The elves clustered around some of the beasts, but dozens of others burst through the smoke. Their shoulders smoldered, and they bellowed war cries.

Klay pointed an arrow and screamed, “To Lord Nemuel!”

Tyrus stayed by his side, but he was tempted to bolt. This was not his fight, and if the Roshan were distracted with the elves, he might make a break for Shinar. He jogged beside Chobar, sword drawn, and watched the skies. The storm should ground the flyers, which meant Tyrus might make it all the way to Shinar before he was spotted. The problem was that he couldn’t be sure Ishma was in Shinar.