TODAY IS TOO LATE (23 page)

The final outpost was the last square stone they saw. Beyond the Deep Ward, the tunnels became twisting and gnarly things, like hollowed-out veins of ore. The smell returned, rotten meat, unwashed flesh: the Demon Tribes.

Tyrus asked, “Azmon, is this wise?”

“No. But it is necessary.”

“I don’t think we were meant to find these runes.”

“Of course not. Ignorant people are easier to control.”

“No. I think God doesn’t want us to have them.”

“God gave us the ability to use them. But the Sarbor fear us and keep us in the dark. I want to be free of them.”

“What is the broken clan?”

“The Tusken.” Azmon sounded disgusted. “Half dwarves, demon spawn, the survivors who betrayed Skogul to the shedim. They guard the Black Gate.”

Tyrus wondered how big a half dwarf might get and how many of them he would have to fight. No margin for error. He fought things he had never seen before, and any mistake would kill them both.

“Why the Black Gate?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why not the White Gate?”

Azmon sighed. “The elves had their own war, centuries ago, before Jethlah united the Avani. There used to be many kinds of elves, the wood elves, the high elves of the mountain, and the dark elves of the Underworld. Some scholars claim the Ashen Elves won while others say they were the ones who survived. Their kind struggled with extinction. Their gray skin is from mixed blood.”

“You’ve studied their history?”

“What little we know of it. Believe me, I would rather visit the White Gate, but the elves allow no one near it, not even their own kind. It is holy ground.”

“But doesn’t the Black Gate lead to the Nine Hells?”

“That’s where we are going.”

Tyrus stopped. He wondered if he might knock Azmon unconscious and drag him to the surface. In any fight between a sorcerer and an Etched Man, the Etched Man usually died. The sorcerer had to be taken unaware, and they were a wary lot. Plus, the long trip back to the surface would require someone to stand watch, and he would need sleep at some point. Azmon watched him as though he could read his mind.

“This is not suicide, Tyrus.”

“Then why wait until now to tell me your plans?”

“I wasn’t sure if we could make it this far.”

“You weren’t sure?”

“The men who’ve seen the deep can be counted on one hand, including us. Getting past the dwarves was the hard part.”

“What about fighting the shedim?”

“We won’t have to fight all of them,” Azmon said. “They are like us, factions, armies, rivals and war. The Nine Hells haven’t been united under one overlord in hundreds of years. Trust me. Some of them will welcome us.”

“And the others?”

“The others are why I gave you all those runes.”

A black shape cutting across the sky startled Tyrus. Trees loomed around him, mocking him. He had lost himself in his memories like an old fool. He pulled his horse to a stop and listened. Wings cut the air, far off to his right. The flyers scouted farther than he expected, and he dismounted next to a tree that seemed easier to climb than any of its neighbors. He had no time to take off his armor. Climbing with it on was only possible with runes, but it wasted his strength. His stomach felt better, still weak.

Near the top with swaying branches threatening to throw him, he watched the scouts. He had never been on this side of a Roshan advance before, but he saw the leader in the center. The scouts clipped the treetops and reported back. Trees shuddered and shed leaves, a sign of the beasts pushing past. If he strained his ears, he could imagine the beasts snapping branches and the infantry’s mail jingling as they marched. A part of him wanted to be in charge of those men. Those were his boys.

Tyrus had no proof, but the center flyer had to be Lilith. It seemed fussy, drifting in the center while the other bone lords carried her orders and the beasts below flushed out the enemy. At least, he knew none of his officers would be flying. A strange thought: could the flyer carry Azmon? Tyrus watched it for a few minutes. He couldn’t be sure, but he saw no white robes.

He began climbing down when a distant keen of pain carried on the breeze. The sound was big and deep, inhuman, like a trumpet. He scanned the woods and spotted a blaze. The scouts in the air wheeled around the spot and pulled away. Tyrus couldn’t see them but imagined arrows darting out of the trees.

Elves attacked.

Tyrus waited, wanting to see their tactics. The woods blocked his view. He fell as much as climbed down and landed with a clash of steel. Returning to Marah tempted him, but the elves would not let him into Telessar. He mounted and rode toward the cries of pain. Soon, more beasts burned. The silent woods came alive with the distant sounds of battle.

He had never guessed the elves would use fire within Paltiel. The thought made him smile. He would place a large wager that the tactic surprised the Roshan as well. They would see the Red Sorceress under every leaf.

Tyrus rode into chaos sooner than expected. He broke into a small clearing, and to his left stood a dozen elven spearmen and to his right a dozen archers. Their arrows had oiled rags around the heads. Surprising an Ashen Elf was supposedly impossible, but their open mouths and wide eyes, in those strange gray faces, were at least startled.

As one, they trained weapons on him. The general in him marveled at such discipline, such well-trained precision, and not one order barked. The arrows would kill him before he closed with the sword. His mount reared up, fighting him to charge. Tyrus considered it. Charge forward or away—take the arrows in the chest or back—and hope either way that Marah remained blameless for his actions.

A tree creaked.

Tyrus and the elves turned as a bone beast pushed aside a tree trunk. One of the larger monsters stepped into the clearing, a wall breaker, fifteen feet of bulk with claws longer than swords. The red eyes glowed. The thing roared a challenge of such ear-piercing force that no one moved.

The elves acted first. Long spears attacked its arms and chest, trying to push it back. A torch lit arrows and bows twanged.

Tyrus saw ceramics for oil, but a punch to the chest caught him off guard. Two arrows had lodged in his armor. He inhaled, and his flesh felt fine. He snapped the arrows, kicked his mount into a charge, and hurtled toward the beast.

Lilith watched one of her strongest beasts burn. The cries of pain sounded human. As its creator, she knew the thing’s moods and could hear the shock and despair in its bellows. The fire jumped from the flailing arms into the trees. Black smoke clouded the forest. The elves fired their own woods? Lilith watched the flame spread and realized their desperation. They would not break or retreat. She needed to kill them all.

Reality replaced the dread of the abstract, and like most things, the anticipation was the worst part. The ancient woods had not swallowed them whole. Instead, a few pockets of warriors ambushed their beasts, and while she was in danger, the actual fight looked smaller than the one she feared. But the pattern troubled her. Teams struck and disappeared. No true front, but attacks and withdrawals while the search net had spread her forces too thin. The lords were easy to pick off. She needed a more defensible position.

A flyer approached. The rider screamed over the wind. “Five beasts burn.”

“What of their masters?”

“Arrows. They’re hunting us and ignoring the guardsmen.”

“Move the lords among the champions. Form a shield wall. Make the elves climb the trees, and set the trees on fire.”

“Yes, milady.”

“Bring me an elven arrow. Let the guardsmen know I’ll offer a dozen gold marks for one.”

“Yes, milady.”

The arrow provided insurance if the heir died. She might return with the dead child and claim the elves did the deed, but there was only a small chance that it would save her brothers. Lilith doubted if she could misdirect Azmon’s anger so easily. For the ruse to work, she must mutilate a dead baby with the arrow, and while the thought made the bile rise in her throat, it would be easier than losing her brothers. A few years ago, the thought would have shocked her, but the more she learned of the dark arts, the less sacred everything else became; a minor sacrifice in the bigger scheme of things.

This was the price of leadership. If she would take Azmon’s crown and anoint herself the Bone Queen of Rosh, then she must learn to make difficult decisions. The squeamish did not win empires.

A volley of flaming arrows, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, leapt out of the trees. Their trails of faint grayish smoke hung in the air as they peppered a flyer. The beast moaned, a high-pitched cry, as its belly filled with shafts. The burning missiles punched dozens of holes in its black wings. She sensed her forces pause as the flyer, a confused jumble of thrashing wings and a whipping tail, plummeted. The crash tore limbs from trees, a cracking sound like thunder echoed across the woods.

The elves cheered.

All of Paltiel gloated at her, and then a clash of steel exploded from the woods. She darted around and found them, the main force of elves charging her guardsmen. With each beat of her heart, the battle grew larger as more elves rushed into the fight.

Tyrus dreaded moments like this. She remembered him talking about it endlessly, an unexpected turn of events giving the enemy an advantage and breaking morale. Champions charged into that chaos to keep the men fighting. She must retake the initiative. She raised her dagger, signaled the other flyers. Send everything. Collapse the line. She watched her orders take effect, but too slowly.

Lilith reached out for sorcery. The chill of it hardly registered in the wind. A brief moment of panic—the other world tugged at her soul, clouded her vision—and power infused her limbs. Casting spells while flying was stupid. Blindness assured a crash, but if she did nothing, the elves would win.

She cast hellfire down into the elven lines. The orange flames burst in trees. She threw three bolts before she released her power. The effort left her weak and thankful that she was tied to the saddle. The other scouts followed her example, but none were as powerful, and their explosions looked too small, a few pebbles thrown into a river of elves.

Arrows leapt at the scouts. The elven fire worked better than it should, some secret in their oil. Lilith kicked her mount higher—better to freeze than burn. Her future slipped away. The crown of the Bone Queen was cast into the burning forest. Maybe she should retreat, return to Shinar for a larger force. Empty-handed, she would face Azmon with nothing to show for all the treasure lost in the woods. Better if her entire force died and she with them.

Tyrus had never fought a beast. He spent years watching them evolve from mindless constructs to monstrous animals, and he had seen a few people triumph over them, but he never fought one. If he wanted to spar, he would not have chosen a wall breaker. The beast towered over him, three times his size, claws as long as swords. He knew it wanted to attack him, had been ordered to kill him alone, because it’s burning eyes locked on Tyrus and ignored the elves.

His horse reared up, complaining. Tyrus slapped it with the flat of his sword, and it charged. The beast ignored the elves, ignored the spears and arrows, and smiled at Tyrus. Did he know that thing?

At the last moment, he dove from the saddle. The beast flayed the horse, large claws severing its head and a leg and slicing the saddle. Tyrus rolled under its arms. His armor punched his shoulder and face, like blows from a hammer, but he kept his sword and swung and severed a foot.

The beast crashed to one knee. It inhaled, massive lungs rattling, and then screamed an ear-bleeding cry. The claws raked at Tyrus again, and if the elves had not chosen that moment to pelt it with more arrows, Tyrus might have been torn in half. Instead, the beast roared at the arrows, and Tyrus lunged. His sword stabbed its chest. The blade crunched past bones. The beast twisted, wrenching the blade from Tyrus’s hands. It bellowed in pain, and a forearm swept Tyrus off his feet.

He felt weightless, flying through the air, before he bounced off a tree. On the ground, blinking, he arched his back and inhaled. Cracked or broken ribs—breathing felt like daggers in his side. He climbed to his feet. Heat washed over him. The elves had fired the beast. It fought on. Blinded with arrows, limbs pinned down, foot crippled, but the thing still clawed at the elves. They avoided its good arm and hacked away.

Tyrus saw his own death in the monster’s pained face. They would kill him the same way: blind him, handicap him, and use numbers to overwhelm. How else could they kill the Damned?

He backed away, keeping trees between him and the archers, trying to think of a plan. He lacked a weapon, he was outnumbered, and the wrong enemy surrounded him.

He thought,
I don’t want to kill elves
, when a glint of sunlight on steel warned of an attack. A spear lanced toward his neck, and without his runes, it might have killed him. He brushed it aside, but the blade caught his cheek. A body crashed into him, tall and slim. Tyrus stood like a tower and didn’t budge. He wrestled an elf, had the creature in a bear hug, pulling the spear into its chest, lifting it off the ground.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

The elf kicked at Tyrus’s legs, repeated strikes hammering boots into Tyrus’s knees and shins. He tried to talk, but the elf threw its head backward into Tyrus’s face. He tossed the elf to the ground, and it tried to roll away, but he speared its back. He caught a lung and felt the elf thrash and die through the shaft.

Tyrus took the spear and knife and ran. No one would notice one more death in such a large battle, but what if he was wrong? Would they blame Marah? He sought cover. The runes went to work on his ribs, and one side of his body burned. Above him, between branches, he saw black flyers. The scouts held the key to the battle. Take them out, and the ground forces became a blind, confused mess.

He half expected another arrow or spear to hit him. None came, and he found a giant tree to brace his back against. The trunk was wider than a barn. He was on the wrong side of the lines with no way to attack the Roshan without killing elves.

Another flyer glided above the treetops. Tyrus hefted the spear, but he had no shot. He heard a crash of steel, a sound he knew well enough to estimate the size of the force: hundreds, maybe a thousand fighting men, far more Roshan and elves than he had expected. What was Azmon doing?

Lilith watched her forces, spread wide throughout the forest, collapsing toward the center of the big fight. Her champions and beasts fought a large elven army. She had no more orders to give, nothing to do but wait for one of the two lines to break and wonder if her men would win.

She considered using more runes. The cold left her teeth chattering, but she should risk more. Her vision narrowed as a crackling ball of flame grew in one hand. She flung it toward the tiny figures below and watched it explode. Twice more, she flung hellfire at the woods and wondered if the damage, mostly absorbed by the trees, was worth the exertion. The other flyers followed her example. A few bolts of bluish flame leapt out of the woods at them. The elves had their own sorcerers.

Lilith signaled to a scout. Everything they did felt so slow. She watched the man guide his mount to her and wanted to scream at him to fly faster.

“They were ready for us, milady.”

Lilith said, “Tyrus’s archers warned them of the raid. He blundered into their lands, and we pay the price.”

“Your orders?”

“Tell the emperor we’ve engaged the elven army and need reinforcements. No sign of his heir yet.”

“Do the elves have the heir?”

Lilith snarled. “Do not speculate or guess. Relay my message exactly as I’ve said it. Repeat it to me.”

She listened to her message twice before she was satisfied. He banked his flyer toward Shinar. A warm day with a clear sky, but they flew so high that the wind chilled her bones and chapped her face. She rubbed some warmth into her shoulders and imagined Azmon receiving the news. The army would not be ready to invade Paltiel for weeks. They needed to refit and replace beasts first.

She guided her mount into a large circle, taking in the burning beasts and trying to understand the enemy position. Tyrus usually did this, assessed the enemy deployment and asked for beasts to shore up the Roshan lines. If he could do it, how hard could it be? She saw a pattern, more fighting on their northern flank, the beginning of a battle to the west.

She waved to a scout and barked orders. Her voice rasped, burning her throat, and she watched the tedious delay between giving the orders, the messenger relaying them, and the guardsmen responding. Too late, the battle shifted. Men marched to the wrong place. She waved at the flyer again, and they repeated the process two more times with similar results.

Lilith had screamed her throat raw, but the problem was the flyers. She had to land and lead the army herself. She gazed out over the trees, filled with murderous archers. She would not only sacrifice her bird’s eye view, but she would also become a prized target. The elves were not civilized. They would never ransom a Roshan noble.

“Pull the men back,” she screamed. “Use the beasts to screen. Reform. Let the elves come to us.”

A scout yelled back, “What about the heir?”

No one ever questioned Tyrus like this. People cowered before the Damned. Her mental list of insubordinates grew longer, and she would make examples of them later.

“We break the elves first.”

The man started to question her again but held back. Lilith waited, and he stayed quiet. Not as stupid as he seemed. She pointed at the formation she wanted to move, and her scouts relayed the orders again.

Emperor Azmon dismissed his wife’s guards. He stood before her chambers, hand on the door, dreading the conversation. Messengers returned with bad news: no heir and plenty of elves. His wife had either hidden her tracks well or worked alone to steal his child because he found no hints of a bigger plot. He had only begun to search, but the nobility appeared innocent.

She was such a difficult woman, too intelligent, too skilled at scheming. This confrontation was a gamble, a chance to gauge her reaction and decide her fate with little evidence. If he guessed right, and she acted alone, then she would see through him in moments.

He pushed the door and found Ishma waiting in the center of the room, draped in white silks that matched his white robes. Black hair, free, dangling around her shoulders the way he loved. She met his gaze.

“Welcome, Your Excellency.” A curtsy so low it was sarcastic.

“Ishma.”

“How may I be of service?”

Her charms arrested him. An odd thought after over twenty years of marriage, but runes protected her looks, and she knew how to use them. The face that had convinced him not to sack Narbor. Had anyone told him that his mercy would mean endless ridicule, as though he were a dog in heat, he would have burned the city to the ground. He had not expected her to look so good after childbirth. A clever illusion? Yes, touches of makeup, hair hiding the weight in her cheeks and neck plus a billowing gown. Small deceits. She had started lying before he stepped into the room.