TODAY IS TOO LATE (14 page)

Tyrus rode the waves of pain. He fought to control his breathing and his jaw, lest the tremors cause him to bite off his own tongue. Aside from that, he tried to lie still. The pain made him want to thrash, but movement hurt his stomach. A wretched battle, trying to master his own reflexes, but he refused to surrender.

A chill touched him, which was strange because his runes burned him as they healed. At first he found it a pleasant change, but then it felt wrong, unsettling, as though an animal stalked him. Maybe the chill was death? He heard a whisper at first, and struggled to place the sound, faint words on the wind.

The child was meant to die, Tyrus. She will be the death of you.

“What kind of sorcery—?”

I’m older than sorcery and runes. I am the chaos that came before.

“Show yourself.”

I am everywhere, Tyrus.
Laughter replaced the words, faded away, but one sentiment lingered on.
It is not too late to kill the baby.

Einin asked, “Who are you talking to?”

“I don’t know.” Tyrus listened hard for more. “Nobody, I guess.”

He feared that the pain gave him fever dreams, but they were never like this. He was wide awake, which meant something had either contacted him or he was losing his mind. Pain could do that to an Etched Man, make him hear things, but he had been hurt worse and hever heard such an oily voice before.

Einin asked, “Is it wise to wait?”

Tyrus wanted to laugh but coughed instead. She thought he was on the ground by choice. Best to keep her occupied.

“See if they left us the horses. We’ll use them all, ride them into the ground if we have to.”

Einin left, and he felt strong enough to roll over on his side. He tested his leg. He could flex it, but the effort made him groan. The wave of pain receded, and he gritted his teeth. A part of him was glad he had lived. He knew his punishment for betraying Azmon would be far worse than death. His soul would never make it to the Nine Hells. The emperor would forge him into a beast, and he would spend eternity at Azmon’s side as a mindless slave. To avoid that fate, he needed to run. Tyrus pushed up with one arm, turned his neck, and watched the sun: midday. They had to move and soon. Azmon would send the flyers.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

Dante Alighieri

Tyrus lost himself in the pain, an animal fighting the awfulness, wanting to gnaw off the offending limbs to end the agony. His stomach boiled, and pain lanced through his hip. A cry broke through his misery. A child, small and pathetic, also hurt. The heir wailed in Einin’s arms. Tyrus craned his head. The battle meant nothing if the heir was hurt.

“What is wrong?”

“I’m not making any milk.”

“Can you?”

“The empress said I could if I tried to feed her. It isn’t working.”

“Do you have regular milk?”

“No.”

Einin cradled Marah again, and Tyrus realized he knew nothing about nursing. He could not say if she held the baby correctly, but little Marah was not happy. The cries grew louder as Marah became more frustrated until she cried nonstop. Her voice—pained, dry, and squeaky—left him powerless. How often did a baby eat, and where would they find milk in a forest?

Ishma’s daughter starved, which meant he had killed his own men for nothing. The injustice angered Tyrus. He rolled onto his side, and his stomach tore like it had been stabbed anew. He snarled and punched the ground.

Einin asked, “What is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

He missed Elmar. His staff would wash him and set him on a nice cot. They would fend off the outside world, impersonate him in writing if necessary while he recovered. A wound this bad, they might petition Azmon for aid. His loneliness had weight. No one would help him again. Tyrus worked his way onto his hands and knees, wanting to stand, but a wave of pain wracked him. He vomited black fluid, filled with blood, and despaired at the sight because he knew it meant internal wounds. The sword had done more damage than he thought.

They must move, and pain held them back. Each wasted minute brought the bone lords closer. To make matters worse, they needed milk.

“Maybe you should lie back down.”

“Bring me a horse.”

Tyrus waited on his hands and knees until Einin walked a horse over. He climbed the stirrups. The horse tried to sidestep away, but Einin held the reins, and after a small struggle, Tyrus stood. Gasping, he leaned on the horse, fighting to control his breathing, to block out the pain, to think. The pain turned him into an animal, craving darkness, a place to curl into a ball and wait out the healing. Hiding here was certain death. He patted the horse’s flank, trying to calm the animal.

Whose mount was this? Best not wonder. A flash of regret, the outraged faces of his men as he killed them one by one. Tyrus closed his eyes. The memories would fade. The farther they ran from this place, the more they would fade, a pleasant lie, bordering on believable, enough to keep him going.

“Can I help?”

Tyrus shook his head and placed a foot into a stirrup. The wound in his stomach complained at everything he did. He couldn’t move a leg or use his back without his insides tearing themselves apart. He squeezed his eyes shut. This next part would hurt worse. He swung himself into the saddle. The noise he made sent the horse’s ears flat back, and it pranced about, unsure of its rider. Tyrus leaned over the pommel, trying to find a comfortable position, failing. The jostle of the ride would torture him.

“Give me those reins.” He pointed at the horse with Nevid’s armor. “Thanks. We need to get going.”

Einin waited. What did she want? He was in no mood for an argument. She seemed to understand, nodded, and climbed a horse while cradling the princess close to her chest. She struggled at first, to wrap her gown around a lancer’s saddle. They had large plates in the front to guard a man’s groin, and it caught on her silks. What happened to her horse? Tyrus didn’t care.

He asked, “Where were you going to go?”

“They say the Red Sorceress is in the west, at Ironwall.”

“A guess at best.”

“Where else could I go?”

Tyrus thought of the Roshan Empire. They had subjugated everything east of the Paltiel Woods: all the coastal cities, all the little towns, and all the ports that might take them back to Sornum. With Shinar fallen, nowhere else was safe. Small nations filled the west, easily conquered. Only a matter of time before Rosh destroyed them all. His stomach bounced up and down. The pain threatened to unhorse him.

“What will you do?” Einin asked.

“Protect Marah.”

Whatever that meant. Thinking of the child as Ishma’s child helped ease the sting of his betrayal. He would guard Ishma’s child as long as possible, until Azmon sent the army against him and he was forced to sacrifice himself. He might buy the girl time to run. He hoped for a true death but knew the bone lords would never offer one.

“We can’t ever go back,” Einin said.

“Best not think about it.”

But Tyrus thought about home. He longed to return to the mountains of Kelnor and the apple orchards. He preferred the smell of apple trees to the large oaks of Paltiel Woods. Did Azmon already know? The survivors had not made it back to court yet, but if Azmon confronted Ishma, he might discover her betrayal. Or maybe Ishma bragged about what she had done. She acted so strangely the last time he saw her. Maybe she wanted to die.

They rode deeper into the woods, and Tyrus began to feel better. His breathing improved first and his posture followed. The pain tore at him, but he had more control. He rode the horse, in tune to its canter, rather than sitting on it like a pile of rags.

“Your color is better. You looked like you were going to die.”

“Felt like it too.”

“But how?” She accused him of something.

“I’ll be fine in a little while.”

“Those wounds… the pain… it would drive a person mad.”

“You get used to it.”

Another lie; most Etched Men went insane. What does not kill a man might make him stronger, but more often it gave him a breakdown. Few could endure the wounds and the much greater pain of the runes stitching wounds back together. No one knew why Tyrus endured the pain. The riddle vexed Azmon. Once, after an etching, he had said, “If I could bottle your stubbornness or whatever it is, I could conquer the world.” New runes became a morbid game. Would one more kill Tyrus? What about another? When would he break?

Most men died at six. In Rosh, only a handful made it to twelve, and about a dozen made it to twenty. The few like King Lael were once in a generation individuals who became immortal heroes in songs, although a few had become godlike sorcerers most Etched Men were frontline soldiers. Tyrus was the only person to take a hundred runes, and the way he survived horrific wounds had earned him the title of the Damned because people thought nothing could kill him, and nothing could help him with the pain.

For years Amazon tried to create other champions with as many runes, and they all died. The expense of the inks, and the time lost on failures, infuriated Azmon until he abandoned etchings for beasts.

“We shouldn’t be in these woods,” Einin said. “But I didn’t know how to ride around them. All the roads were guarded.”

“Afraid of elves?”

“They hate us.”

“They might be Marah’s only chance.”

“But that would mean…”

It meant they would die so the child might live. Tyrus expected an arrow to his chest at any moment. All of the scouts he had sent into the woods never returned. The gamble meant little to him because he had been guarding others his entire life. A glance at Einin, and he could tell she had never considered the ultimate sacrifice. He could guess her thoughts, denial that she was easy to replace.

The Ashen Elves might spare Einin if they mistook her for the mother. But her gown made her look like the wife of a bone lord. Why did she wear so much silk through the woods? As much as the elves hated him, he doubted they would hurt a baby unless they fumbled an attack on him. Maybe, through the elves, the child would find her way to Dura.

Ashen Elves ahead of them, bone beasts at their backs, why couldn’t he find a man to fight? He wanted to face off against a bigger man, a great hero, someone who might take his head and give him a clean death.

The stupid thoughts gave him pause. He craved an end to the pain, which was not a good sign. Maybe the madness began. He reined in the horse.

“Help me put on Nevid’s armor.”

“Are you sure?”

“When they find us, there’ll be no time to dress.”

Einin tried again to feed the baby. She had been putting it off for hours because the thought of pulling her top down in front of Tyrus made her uncomfortable, but Marah’s cries, Marah’s accusations, forced her to act. The child needed milk, and all Einin could do was hope that the empress was right. She said trying to feed the child would produce milk, but no matter how many times she put a nipple in Marah’s mouth, nothing came out.

Tyrus noticed, and without talking, he slowed the mounts and let them rest a little. She tried to arrange her riding coat so that he wouldn’t see her front. Their arrangement didn’t afford much modesty, but to her surprise, Tyrus looked away. He looked like the type to rape and pillage, but she knew he did not. Nobles complained about his lack on interest in spoils because it made him hard to bribe and more loyal to the emperor. She had trouble picturing him as a guardian, protecting another’s life and dignity.

She heard cursing and grunts, peeked over her shoulder, and saw Tyrus changing horses. They had done that a few times to rest the animals while keeping their pace. He rode a new mount forward and waited.

Still no milk, and Marah hated her. Einin wondered what she was doing wrong. Ishma had a larger chest than she did, and for a moment she wondered if that was the problem. Maybe her smaller frame lacked something to make milk. Maybe fate had never intended her to be a mother. She pulled her gown up. How long could a newborn go without milk? She tried to focus on the woods, the dangers all around, but none of it meant anything if Marah starved.

“Still nothing?”

Einin shook her head.

Neither of them asked, but the question wouldn’t go away. How long could Marah last? Einin hoped Ishma’s visions were true. Why didn’t the seraphim help Marah? How far from Shinar must they go?

Tyrus sat taller in the saddle and ate dried rations. She tried to hide her astonishment. He moved with purpose again, but he was still hurt. His face had a tightness around the eyes, but he no longer looked like a man bleeding to death. Rosy skin replaced the gray hue, and the blackness under his eyes faded away. He grew stronger by the minute.

She asked, “Is it okay to eat?”

“I’m not sure, but it helps feed the runes. At least, that’s what they say. I’ve healed before without rations, but it takes longer.”

“Is it possible for you to die?”

“Of course.”

“But your wounds, I thought you were bleeding to death.”

“I might have come close this time. The runes stop it.”

“It’s… unnatural.”

She bit back the word
unholy
, catching herself before she said it under her breath. He must have good ears as well. With a hundred runes, he could have dozens of enhancements. The numbers and variations of changes to the body swelled in her mind. A hundred runes would make him more than human in dozens of ways. She saw that he had caught her gawking at him.

“Milady, I am the Damned.”

“They say you made a bargain with the lords of hell for your runes.”

“No. That was Azmon. But he did etch the runes into me.”

She knew he had lived longer than he should have, like the emperor, unnaturally young. Their immortality ushered in the first rebellions. People accused Azmon of forbidden rites to prolong his life. The civil war had happened when she was a child, after Azmon had made his first beasts. Tyrus could pass for a man in his thirties in low light although the scars gave his body a worn look that spoke to his years. She tried to guess his age but didn’t know where to start.

“How old are you?”

“Azmon says I shouldn’t talk about it. He says people wouldn’t understand.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

He offered a strange grunt. “I’m close to seventy. How old are you?”

Einin coughed. “Twenty. Well, almost twenty. How is your stomach?”

“Better. Still bad. Even with runes, that one will leave a scar.”