TODAY IS TOO LATE (28 page)

The woman lurched in the saddle. She grabbed her front, and he expected her to fall. Had he hit her in the shoulder or the chest? She pulled on her reins. Black wings snapped open like a thunderclap. The thing had dived so steeply that it struggled to break its fall. Klay watched her skim the clearing, and then he saw Tyrus do the impossible.

Tyrus climbed the back of a beast and jumped. The entire area swarmed around him like angry wasps, and he launched above them all. His body cleared a field of blades. Arrows followed him. He caught the hind legs of the flying beast with one hand, and the other carried the sword.

“Sweet mercy, he jumped.”

Klay grabbed the tree to keep from falling. No one could jump so high. It must have been ten feet. Only big cats, big game, could do that. He steadied himself. Tyrus clung to the flyer’s claws.

Klay cursed himself for wasting time. He drew another arrow, aimed, but only sighted the flyer’s stomach. Any shot might hit Tyrus by mistake. The worry became irrelevant as the flyer climbed out of range.

If he had done his job, if he had landed his shot, she wouldn’t have had the strength to pull on those reins. He had lost the battle. In anger, he drew an arrow and sought black robes. The lords were easy to spot beside the soldiers, and he had picked one when a battle cry from the riverbed surprised him. Elves, a lot of elves, hundreds, stormed the clearing.

Klay saw his brothers and sisters running beside them, bears leading the charge. The bone lords looked stricken, and Klay smiled at their disbelief. The sight of the elves, or maybe knowing the Butcher told them the truth, broke their spirits.

A sea of spears and shields rushed the clearing. Klay had never seen the elven army in full force before. The drilled perfection was unnatural. They maintained a perfect line as they charged. When they shouted a battle cry, in their musical language, they did so as one voice. The effect devastated.

A chorus of screams hit first, like a physical blow. A crash reverberated through the forest as shields and spears collided with beasts and guardsmen. The Roshan army looked crippled, paralyzed by the sound, dazed by the strike. The beasts became enraged. Without them, the fight would have been over. Instead, they bought time for the Roshan to regroup. The elves adjusted, knotting around the beasts to fight them with spears and fire. Klay realized the beasts felt no fear. Elven discipline did not impress them.

The beasts held a line, and Roshan rushed from the north. A series of smaller clashes sounded as guardsmen and sorcerers joined the fight. Hellfire exploded beside the blue flames of the elves. The surge of elves paused, and the front lines teemed with brutality. Warriors hacked and gutted one another.

Klay forced himself to breathe. He sighted a sorcerer’s black robes and released. The arrow jumped through the air and took the man in the face. Klay picked another, but before he released, a beast blocked his shot.

The battle lines shifted. The Roshan pulled back but did not run. They reformed. Klay could not find anything worthy of an arrow. In frustration, he shot a beast in the eye, proud to thread that needle. He saw a sorceress to kill, but she was out of range. A quick glance at the trees, and he spotted a better perch. He scurried over thick branches like a squirrel, leaping from one tree to the next. By the time he was ready to shoot, the sorceress was gone. He couldn’t find her but saw a lord directing three beasts. He sighted, released, and the arrow punched him in the gut.

When the lord fell, his beasts shredded everything near them, Roshan and elves alike. Klay thanked Tyrus for the advice. He drew an arrow and scanned the lines for more sorcerers, but the field shifted again and was filled with elves. The Roshan fled.

Klay climbed down. He fell the last eight feet and found Chobar waiting. He vaulted into the saddle and steered Chobar toward the center of the elven lines.

“Hold, boy.”

A flaming orb crackled overhead. Elves caught the explosion on their shields. Klay stood in his saddle, retracing the stream of smoke with an arrow until he found the owner. He shot, and the bone lord gestured with his staff. Klay’s arrow burst into ash. Klay snarled and set three arrows after the sorcerer. He drew and fired as fast as he could, and the lord burned them all. While the lord concentrated on Klay’s missiles, he didn’t see the elves overwhelming his line. A spear cut his legs, and another pierced his chest.

Klay smiled but caught bright light in his periphery. He had made the same mistake. Another fiery orb streaked toward him.

“Roll. Roll!”

Chobar dropped low and Klay dove. He intended to roll to his feet but crashed shoulder first into a dead swordsman. The man’s heavy armor smacked him like a shield, and he felt ribs crack. He had no luck at all, turned on his side, kept a hand near his face, as elves jumped over him, and realized he had lost his bow. Pain lanced his side; a rib was broken. His chest burned whenever he breathed. Chobar stood over him.

“The black robes. Kill them,” Klay said. “Go. Kill.”

Chobar raised a bushy eyebrow and ignored him. Chobar shouldered elves away from Klay and snarled at the ones that came too close.

“Go. Kill them. Help the elves.”

Chobar snorted. Klay shook his head. He looked for his bow but didn’t see it. He must have flung it when he smashed into the ground. The chaos grew. The Roshan seemed to retreat, but the sounds of battle continued. They tried to use a dense thicket of trees as cover. Klay doubted if they understand how elves thrived in these woods.

“Help me up.”

Chobar dropped down for Klay to get back in the saddle. He drew his sword and leaned low on Chobar’s shoulders.

“Charge.”

The bear peeked over his shoulder.

“Yes, I’m sure. Charge.”

Chobar surged forward. Klay used his cloak to protect his face. He listened to clashing steel, screams of pain, and crackling fire. The world roared as it burned.

Tyrus clung to the flyer’s foot as the ground pulled farther and farther away. Wind howled in his ears. His eyes watered. A world of mountains and trees and armies faded away. The blue sky, quiet and cold, became everything—so much blue, an empty space, vast and unwelcoming. The forest below resembled a green stain, massive oaks reduced to bushes.

He resisted an urge to drop his sword and held the flyer with one hand, fearing he might slip, but he needed the sword. He thought of his knife, long gone, and was certain that he only had one blade. Although he wanted to ignore the ground, he looked down again. He had never flown before, hated the beasts, but the view amazed him. Empires were such tiny things. Aside from smoke and fires, he could not see the armies slaughtering each other.

Another stupid death—of all the risks he had taken in a long career, this one felt the most foolish: to drop from the sky like bird shit. Accomplishing what? Killing Lilith delayed the inevitable. Another hunter would replace her; dozens of them hungered to serve Azmon. At best, he bought a delay for Ishma and Marah and Einin, which meant he had turned himself into a worthless distraction.

Tyrus snarled. He was not dead yet. He could force Lilith to land, and maybe if he walked again, he could help the others, but first things first.

The flyer’s claw resembled a giant chicken’s foot, only black and bony. Tyrus tightened his grasp and felt the bones crack. His strength worked against him. He swung his legs up to hook a foot and climb. The beast trumpeted complaints. The other talon scratched at him, cutting his thigh. It tried to rake him again, and he swung his sword. Two claws tumbled through the air. The flyer moaned and shook.

Tyrus reversed his sword as though it were a dagger for stabbing and plunged it into the flyer’s leg. The beast shuddered and kicked, but Tyrus refused to be knocked off. He pulled himself up and stabbed again. His boots found the leg. He scrambled up the flyer’s side.

“Steady.” Lilith cursed. “Take us to the plains.”

The wing, flapping in his face, was the hardest part to climb around. From the hips, things became easier. All along the beast’s spine, horns stuck out, providing handholds. Tyrus knelt, leaning into the wind, shimmying toward the saddle.

Lilith glanced back. She pulled the flyer into a steep bank. Tyrus clung to the horns until it leveled out again. She twisted in the saddle, and he saw a spark of hellfire. Exposed, nowhere to go, he raised his sword hand and flames burst around him.

Tyrus screamed. And regretted it instantly. The heat seared the inside of his mouth. He struggled to breathe—gray smoke and pain and the smell of burnt flesh, burnt hair. His sword burned him. He tried to throw it, but his hand had fused to the handle.

Lilith banked lower. His stomach fell into his hips. Tyrus feared falling, so he dove at her. Instincts more than his watery eyes helped him tackle, grab, and fight her for the reins. She hit him. A knife stabbed his arm. He found it, tossed it. A sticky fluid covered her front—blood.

“Damn you,” she said. “Why won’t you die?”

Tyrus coughed. His throat blistered. Wind tore his scalp. He realized his hair had burned off. He flexed his fingers around the sword hilt and bit back a moan. They had never been this ruined before. She might have crippled him.

“The shedim won’t forget this,” she said. “They’ll torture you in ways you cannot imagine.”

His voice croaked. “I’ve fought them before.”

“What?”

“Take us down.”

Azmon never told the bone lords where he learned his forbidden runes. The nobles suspected a conspiracy with the shedim, but if they knew Azmon pledged all of Rosh to the worst of the demons—the Father of Lies, a fiend the rest of the shedim feared—it would start another rebellion. All the secrets made Tyrus feel old. He had seen and knew too much.

“Liar,” Lilith screamed. “He would have told me.”

“Take us down.”

“I am his greatest student. I would know.”

Tyrus laughed. “You are all spark and no flame.”

“What would a warrior know?”

“Azmon’s words, not mine.”

“Liar!”

The flyer smoked. She had burned her mount as well as him. They glided lower or fell slower, Tyrus couldn’t say. Mount Teles loomed before them. They had circled back to the battle. Lilith slumped against him. He wondered what made her bleed and if he could land the thing on his own. Maybe flyers were like horses; given free rein, would they land themselves?

“Azmon is a weakling.” She sounded deranged. “I am the Bone Queen of Rosh.”

“Take us down.”

“Never.”

They seemed lower than before, but not low enough. The trees looked like trees again, and he saw warriors, thousands yet to die, but a rout in progress. The elves hit from two sides, cutting down the Roshan as they fled. Beasts put up a better fight, and elven bodies flew through the air.

“Take us down. We can see to your wound.”

“And beg the emperor for clemency?”

Tyrus jerked the reins. The flyer banked. Maybe he could figure this out. Lilith fought him. She threw elbows into his side, but they had no strength. He brought his sword to her throat.

“Land. Now.”

She froze.

Tyrus and Lilith were the oldest members of the Court of Rosh and had fought beside each other hundreds of times. She came from a powerful family—House Hadoram had produced a few emperors generations ago—and Lilith had risen to great heights but spoke to him less as her hunger for rank grew. Tyrus had stopped trusting her years ago, when they fought the Five Nations. They had drifted apart, becoming strangers. He never dreamed they would end like this.

“You want to land?” She raised a hand and spoke a word of power. Hellfire exploded on the flyer’s head. “There. We’re landing.”

The flyer had no time to complain, its head a smoking ruin, the neck slumped out of view, and the wings went limp.

“What have you done?”

“We die together, Tyrus. Hold me tight.”

“Why?”

“Azmon won’t find any pieces to play with.”

Their forward motion stalled. Vertigo assaulted him and passed as they fell faster than they had flown. Lilith clung to him, and he needed to be free. Even though it felt crass, he pulled the sword blade across her throat. She struggled for a moment, a choking sound he tried to ignore before she went limp, and he was free to climb out of the saddle.

He pried the sword from his burned hand. The flesh tore, not that it mattered. He wanted to accept his death, to finally die after long years of service, but not like this. Tyrus of Kelnor should have fought a great warrior, a renowned champion who matched him in runes and strength and skill in a duel to inspire songs and stories for generations. Instead, he fell from the sky.

The fall took longer than he expected, time to breathe and question everything. Wind tore at his eyelids, watered his eyes. The ground raced toward him, became larger, urgent. Instincts demanded life. Trees knifed at him. One was close, large, hundreds of feet tall, plenty of branches. He had no idea if riding the flyer down or jumping off was the best thing, and with little thought he decided to jump.

A moment of weightlessness, drifting away from the flyer, before he slammed into a branch. No mace ever struck so hard or broke as many bones. He heard thunder, realized it was his body snapping branches. Yellow and black images clouded his vision. He marveled at the sensation, old and forgotten. His runes had never let him black out before.

Maybe this was death.

The rest of Einin’s journey through Paltiel stayed quiet. She welcomed the change. Nothing chased her or attacked her or threatened her. Marah ate without complaint. The elves guided them to their outpost. After sleeping on the dirt, she enjoyed a warm bed and the luxury of soft blankets. Basic comforts made her homesick. She longed to bathe.

The outpost was carved into the side of Mount Teles and sat empty. The day before, troops of sentinels had passed them, hurrying to battle. Einin asked questions, but her guides ignored her. She quieted. The elves fed and escorted them through the forest but were not interested in friendship. The rangers imitated the elves, and the silence became heavy. Einin wondered about elven etiquette. Maybe no one talks on holy ground? No one rode the chargers, either, and Einin refused to be the only one on a horse. She kept to this conviction until her feet blistered and her knees ached. Stubborn pride competed with marching warriors until the pain took its toll. She broke down and asked for a horse. No one spoke, but she sensed their amusement.

They let her ride.

Several days later, the woods ended. Prairies of brown grass and rolling hills stretched for miles. Einin had noticed the trees slimming down to a more normal size, but the abrupt end of the woods felt unreal. She blinked at a clear sky, no more branches or leaves. The vastness intimidated, exposed her to predators, and she wanted to withdraw. A loneliness crept over her. She realized the elves had not followed. They left her with the rangers, vanishing behind trees.

Einin asked, “How do they do that?”

“No one knows.”

Annrin, the female ranger, spoke. The bearded one, Conal, did not like her. Einin knew their names and little else. They spoke Kasdin, which simplified things, but Annrin seemed more fluent. Einin hoped Conal’s coldness was a lack of language. They dressed like Klay, green cloaks over leather armor. The flaws of their humanity reassured as if scruffy hair and crooked teeth had become attractive. Better than the uncanny perfection of the elves.

Annrin said, “They will not leave Paltiel while it burns. We need to proceed carefully; war bands stalk the plains.”

“What kind of war bands?”

“Half giants or the Norsil barbarians or the purims. They are more active on the other side of the divide.” Annrin turned to the horses with hands on her hips. “Horseflesh draws the purims like a dinner bell, but we’ll have to risk it. Our bears might scare off a small pack; anything else we will need to outrun if we can.”

Annrin pointed at distant peaks, bluish shapes on the horizon, stumps compared to Mount Teles. One of the mountains stood taller, and she thought she should know its name. Roshan nobles spoke of Shinari allies in Ironwall, on the other side of Paltiel, but she couldn’t remember the name of the mountains.

“You speak my language well.”

Annrin said, “It helps us gather intelligence.”

“Do they speak Kasdin in Ironwall?”

“Not really.”

Einin had wasted her time at court. Years in a new land, and she didn’t know a word of the local tongue. Poor preparations continued to haunt her, but she resolved to learn from her mistakes. If she fled Ironwall, things would be different. Her mind filled with a long list of things to do before she rode out into the wilderness again. Marah would be safer next time.

Annrin said, “We shouldn’t waste the light.”

Conal took a horse and scouted ahead. Einin and Annrin rode together. Hundreds of yards away, downwind, the bears stalked them. The horses were nervous, but they never bolted. Later, the group rested for lunch. They sat on a hill, passing a canteen between them and waiting for Einin to nurse Marah with one of the elven feeders. The bears kept pace with the horses. Massive animals, muscular and aggressive, and their armor—glinting in the sun—made them more imposing. The way they stayed close to their masters without spooking the horses showed their intelligence.

“How do you tame those monsters?”

Conal said, “You dare talk of monsters?”

Annrin said, “She meant no insult.”

“We didn’t create the monsters. You brought them to us, killed our families with your monsters.”

Annrin said, “Easy.”

The rangers exchanged glares until Conal left. He scouted ahead. Annrin stood and dusted her leggings while Einin stowed Marah’s things and felt her cheeks burning. She should know better than to use such a stupid word. Einin realized the plains were no different from the court, politics everywhere.

“His family is from Shinar.”

“I didn’t know.”

“How could you?”

Ironwall offered little sanctuary. The seraphim wanted Marah, not her. She would navigate the politics of its people on her own because the countryside offered nothing but war bands, and she didn’t know the language. The city they rode to probably offered less. No one to trust, but problems she understood from a lifetime at court. Politics suited her better than battlefields.

“You never tame one.” Annrin helped her mount her charger. “Your question. They cannot be tamed. That is our secret, but everyone knows it.”

Einin was grateful for a change of subject. “They look tame.”

“They’re smarter than most breeds, wickedly clever, actually. The ones that take to hunting people are hard to put down. To ride a bear, you must earn its respect.”

“How?”

“Ah, now that is the secret only a ranger knows.” She winked. “In truth, that isn’t much of a secret. It varies from bear to bear. What might please one angers another. That’s why the ranger corps has always been small.”

“I don’t understand.”

Annrin laughed. “Most recruits become bear food.”

After the battle, Klay picked through the dead and collected spent arrows. Most of the bodies wore the black armor of Rosh. He had never seen such slaughter. Corpses scattered like fall leaves, making a mockery of holy ground. Ash and smoke drifted on the breeze with black scorched trees everywhere. Chobar lumbered beside him, blood matting his coat. Klay needed a delicate touch when he inspected the wounds. Better to wait for the bear to rest.

Rangers sang dirges. Their keening drifted over the battlefield. Only two bears had survived the day. Klay patted Chobar’s shoulder. His companion’s safety offered relief and guilt. Klay was in his mid-twenties and had ridden with Chobar for about five years. He imagined himself wailing over Chobar’s broken body and didn’t know if he was strong enough to outlive his friend.

The battlefield stretched for miles. None of the Roshan had made it to the Shinari plains. Klay searched for Tyrus, but all the bodies looked the same. Every engraver on the continent would want to see a corpse with a hundred runes, and he hoped it was intact.

“Find the Butcher for me.”

Chobar raised an eyebrow.

“The Etched Man from the river. Find his body.”

The bear stood. His nose twitched as he made a slow circle. Smoke drifted on the breeze. Chobar thumped to the ground and picked his way over bodies. Klay followed. The bear’s snout prodded dead men, pushed past shields and tabards.

“Over there.” Klay pointed. “Where the big flyer crashed.”

The flyer had stripped two trees of branches, but only on one side. The torn bark revealed naked wood, stark white. Pieces of the monster clung to what was left of the trees, ripped away as it fell. The ground was a refuse heap of wood, leaves, and black gore.

Chobar rooted through the debris. He grunted, found something, and clawed at the branches. They wove together tightly. Klay called him away and picked through the heap. He worked slowly. Sharp pains lanced his ribs whenever he bent over. A flayed figure made him gasp. He swallowed bile. Branches had mutilated the body, more blood than skin. Deep cuts exposed white fat and bones. The clothes and armor were little more than rags.

Klay heard a snapping noise and knelt to find the source. Warmth radiated from the flesh. The clicking sounds, hundreds of popping knuckles, came from the body. He pulled back, confused. A mangle of bones in a forearm slowly reformed. The runes, he realized, knit the bones back in place.

He stumbled back. “Buzzard’s guts.”

Tyrus was more monster than man. One nostril flared. The other was a torn flap, and Klay heard a wheezing sound. With punctured lungs, the body still breathed. Klay scratched his chin, trying to understand what he saw. Had Tyrus died and the runes brought him back, or had they kept him alive? How had anyone taken runes so far? No one could endure such torture, and as he took in the morbid scene he wondered why Tyrus’s heart hadn’t given out.

He cleared the leaves and ripped away clothing. Hundreds of runes. Not regular runes, either. Engravers of low skill tattooed them onto the skin, but the true masters engraved them past the skin. Despite the flayed flesh, the runes were visible, working, etched deep into the meat of the muscles. The sight revolted and beckoned at the same time. A masterful artist had etched them.

Lord Nemuel found him. “We found the last of them. None reached the plains.” The elf’s ears twitched at the popping noises. He gasped. “He’s alive?”

“Look at the runes.”

“They are an unholy abomination.”

“But masterful. We underestimated Azmon.”

“Dura said he wasn’t the true power behind Rosh. She said one of the overlords of the Nine Hells has been working through Azmon. She blamed Gorba Tull for the beasts.”

“Look at them. I mean… look at them.”

“We should kill him.”

Klay owed Tyrus little. The man spared Chobar, but he had also sacked Shinar. He killed one Reborn yet saved another. They had fought together, though, and that meant something despite having their own reasons for fighting Rosh. What if his stories were true? What if the Butcher served the seraphim?

Klay said, “He won the day for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Striking from the riverbed. That was his plan.”

Nemuel pursed his lips. “Jorn neglected to mention that.”

“We took out the beasts while Tyrus killed their leader.”

“Even so, this is a crime against nature. He deserves better. If the wounds don’t kill him, the pain will drive him mad.”

Klay considered a mercy killing. He could offer the man that much, but the runes stayed his hand. The engravers in Ironwall would want to study this. No one would believe him. He watched the runes work and didn’t believe his own eyes.

Klay asked, “Do you think it’s possible to recover from this?”

“No.”

“But what if he does?”

The two of them studied the body. The flesh moved little. The healing would be slow if it did work. The popping noises continued, though. A shred of sorcery within the broken shell struggled to survive.

“We should let Dura decide.”

Nemuel shrugged an agreement.

One of Tyrus’s eyelids fluttered open. His lips twitched. He said something, but Klay missed it.

Nemuel said, “He wants us to take his head.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Cut off my head.’ He asks for a mercy killing.”

Klay knelt beside Tyrus. He wanted to offer comfort, and his hand hovered over a lacerated shoulder. He feared he would cause more pain.

“You survived. It is a miracle.”

“Kill me.”

Klay heard him. A perverse part of him wanted to see if Tyrus lived. The runes might fail, or his heart could give out. They would learn much, and if Azmon had more champions like this, they needed to know.

“Not today, I’m sorry.”

Tyrus whimpered. “Please.”

“That is another’s decision.”

“Voting?”

“No. Not a decision for woodsmen.”

Elves carried Tyrus from the wreckage and laid him on a table. Moving him produced moans. His voice wheezed as though a lung was punctured. The cries worsened when they straightened his limbs. Klay listened to the elves marvel over the runes. Beside him, Nemuel stood as stiff as a statue, but his eyes missed little. His gray skin lent coldness to his face, and his white hair gave the appearance of frost. Klay could tell Nemuel did not approve.

“We torture him as well. A clean death would be a blessing.”

Klay shook his head.

“That is not life,” Nemuel said. “He is another beast.”

“He has free will.”

Nemuel sniffed. The elves boiled onions and funneled the mixture to Tyrus. They sniffed his midsection, checking for internal wounds, and set to work with their knives, needles, and thread. Tyrus let out a shrill scream.

“Why didn’t he bleed out?” Klay asked.

“Who knows?”

“A hard man to kill.”

“That is not a man.”

Tyrus drowned in delirium. His runes kept him awake as if he could fight, but his mind could not withstand the agony. A few times, when they moved him or bumped him, a new pain struck hard enough to sober. He caught fragments of his surroundings, impressions of trees, elven faces, bodies manhandling him—he sensed Klay nearby. He was dimly aware of a small miracle: he had not been captured by the Roshan. Tyrus feared waking on Azmon’s etching table.

Delusions took over. Old memories mixed with nightmares, impossible to ignore. He saw things that could not be real, shedim and dead men walking in Paltiel. He forced his eyes shut, tried to block them out, and the images danced on the insides of his eyelids. His mind rebelled against him, refused to turn off the waking nightmare. Closing his eyes should bring on darkness, but it only made brighter horrors.

“This isn’t real.”

A man asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I killed them. Make them go away.”

“Relax. Try to rest.”

“I’ll kill them again.”

“Hold him down.”

Tyrus tried to swing his fists, a terrible mistake. His broken body tore more, the pain filled his mind with a red haze, and people piled onto him. He choked from trying to scream and feared he had swallowed his tongue. Why didn’t the elves kill him? What had he done to deserve this?