TODAY IS TOO LATE (19 page)

“Then what do we do?”

“The child has a birth rune. She should be stronger than most. We have to get out of the woods as fast as we can.”

“But she’s a cripple.”

Klay shrugged. “I’ve seen many strange things in Paltiel, but never a cow. The alternative is the Ashen Elves.”

“Are the stories true? Do they hate the Roshan?”

“You murder people with monsters.”

“I didn’t, and neither did Marah.”

“Why does no one in Rosh rebel? How can you do nothing?”

“There were rebellions and a civil war.” Einin heard stories of the slaughter but never saw it firsthand. “They didn’t end well.”

Klay scowled. Did he not know about the civil war? Maybe the news never reached this side of the world.

“How far?” Einin asked.

“To a human settlement? At least a week. To Ironwall, maybe three weeks. The distance is not the real problem. It’s the terrain.”

“Can she last that long?”

His sad expression said it all.

“How far are the elves?”

“A day, day and a half. That way. Mount Teles,” Klay said. “I cannot speak for them. I don’t know what they’ll do. The child is sacred, though. They wouldn’t hurt
her
. The Reborn have no nation. They’ll allow her into the Forbidden City.”

“It’s real?”

“You cannot see Telessar from here, but tomorrow we should be able to. It is very real, and the stories about how the Ashen Elves guard that mountain are real too. You risk your life to take her there.”

The conversation slacked off with the dying fire. Einin used a blanket to make a nest for Marah. She curled around her and covered both of them with more blankets. Satisfied that Marah would stay warm, she closed her eyes. Sleep came without effort.

Long hours in the saddle chapped Lilith’s face. Wind deafened her ears. Finding the soldiers’ camps had been easy—part of Paltiel glowed—and she used this as an anchor in a black landscape. She circled the soldiers in larger and larger patterns seeking out other fires, hints of people in the forest, and found nothing. None of the bone lords found anything either. The giant oaks kept their secrets.

They landed on the Shinari plains.

Lilith had no interest in sleeping within Paltiel. Elves hunted bone lords. Instead, they made large fires and tried to find warmth after freezing in the sky. She listened as her servants whispered about the woods and the elves and their wretched bows. Removed from the woods, out on the plains, they still feared sleeping.

Lilith led by example, wrapping herself in a blanket near a large fire and pretending to sleep. The talking died down. Although she needed rest, the thought of waking to an arrow piercing her chest kept her up. She listened to the other lords and heard few steady breaths as though they all tried to sleep with one eye open. The fire crackled and popped. Rolling over, she watched the dark shapes of clouds blocking out the stars and listened for sounds of battle from the woods. If anyone would be attacked, it would be the soldiers sleeping in Paltiel. Knowing this didn’t make sleeping any easier.

Before the dawn, she wasn’t sure when, she drifted off and found a few moments of rest. They were fitful and bitter moments seeking comfort on the hard ground or nightmaring of gray-faced elves murdering them in their blankets.

Sunrise found Lilith in the air again. Paltiel stretched across the horizon, and Mount Teles dominated the center. From a distance, the massive peak looked solitary, a part of the ground piercing the sky, but flying closer, she saw several mountain ranges rolling through the woods, canyons and cliffs and valleys overgrown with foliage as if the rocks and plants competed for space.

The looming mountain, snowcapped, belittled Lilith. Azmon meant to assault that thing? She saw glitters of metal from the Forbidden City, Telessar. The Ashen Elves could defend those passes for years, and that assumed the Roshan survived the forest. She heard stories of the trees swallowing trespassers. Yet the Imperial Guard marched through the woods with a few beasts. Lilith led from the sky, far away from arrows, using her dagger to direct flyers that signaled the men on the ground.

One of the flyers flew to her with news. They had found the cave. She dove lower: so many trees and branches, an archer could hide anywhere. Below, guardsmen and beasts set up a large perimeter around the dead men. Biral spoke true. Tyrus killed his own men. The site had taken too long to find, but now they could track him.

She spotted a place to land and proceeded on foot. On both sides of her lumbered enormous beasts, but she felt exposed. Arrows could strike from anywhere. Too many trees, too many branches, and she disliked the quiet because the elves planned something, but if she stole one of their arrows, faking the heir’s death became simple.

Rimmon doubted her, but she would free her brothers in a matter of days and rid the empire of a needless heir. She stepped over the bodies and knew most of them, champions all. They looked grotesque, swollen faces, waxy eyes, purpling flesh.

“Tyrus didn’t give them a proper burial.” She spoke to herself. “They must have hurt him badly.”

A guardsman said, “Milady, I think this is a bear track.”

“Wild animals stumbled upon them, so what?”

“Well, it didn’t try to eat any of them.”

“Bears eat fish.”

“I think they scavenge too, milady.”

“Then it wasn’t hungry. Why should I care? Be quiet.”

“Yes, milady.”

Lilith sneered until he lowered his head. Wasting her time on animals with such fine materials at hand. He did not see the treasure on the ground.

“It is so rare to find such specimens, strong, willful, well trained,” Lilith said, “when wretches fill the world.”

Tyrus protected his champions, fought for proper burials befitting nobles, and argued about the morale of the army. Azmon placated him, but when Lilith wore the crown, things would change. She would never sacrifice an advantage to please slaves.

With a few orders, she oversaw the bodies stripped and laid out in two groups of three and one group of four. Their heads touched, face down, so that she could work on their backs. She pulled a silk pouch of sand from her belt and calculated each matrix. Inhaling, clearing her head, she circled and drew the Runes of Dusk and Dawn.

Lilith smiled at the artistry of her work. Her talent had grown. One day she would replace Azmon as the Bone Queen of Rosh. A little more time to learn his secrets, a little more power, and the empire was hers.

She expanded her mind, touched the Nine Hells, felt the tug at her soul, and fought for her life. A heartbeat later, her blood chilled and her vision narrowed but power infused her body. She felt crippled and gigantic all at once, as though she might push over one of the great oaks.

She chanted the rites. Flesh stripped from bones with a terrible tearing sound, and the bodies lifted off the ground, joined at the head as a putrid aroma filled the air. They shed their fluids and entrails as the bones spun and wove together. Later, the flesh on the ground would wrap the bones together. In a few days, it would age into blackish leather.

The ritual took an hour, and by the end, exhaustion stooped her shoulders. Creating three beasts taxed her, an act of pride. Releasing her hold on sorcery left her with a hangover. She thirsted and felt the first stabs of a migraine. An awful itching crawled up her back. She wanted to return to Shinar and find a comfortable bed. Instead, she pushed past the pain to admire her creations. No one but the emperor created such beasts. Not as large as the wall breakers, but close to ten feet tall. Massive claws and fangs gave them an imposing presence. Red eyes watched her.

“Your souls are still in there,” Lilith said. “I can hear them screaming. You remember the one who hurt you?”

The beasts snorted like bulls.

“You will revenge.”

The word—
revenge
—echoed in their throats. She had a link to them that allowed her to control them, but they could not speak, not really; Lilith only imagined it. The drool and roars were real, though, because the beasts craved blood.

Tyrus stood guard all night, certain that flyers would descend on them. He paced around the camp to stay awake, pausing to listen for beasts breaking branches or flyers’ swooping wings. His stomach throbbed worse than broken ribs. When the sun broke the new day, he studied the bluish skies with confusion. Azmon sent no one after them? The peace betrayed him, and he wanted to fight, not spend another day running. Someone dared hunt Ishma’s child, inspiring a dreadful need to lash out, and he wanted to make the lords hurt. A silly thought but easier than the truth. His stomach tortured him, and he wanted to share his misery with the bone lords.

Klay walked down the path, stretching and yawning. “Sleep any?”

“We need to move.”

“You sure they’re following you? Maybe they left you to the elves.”

“They’re coming.”

“Who is chasing you?”

“Bone lords, Roshan nobles.”

“Einin will want to feed her baby again.”

Tyrus grimaced. Another fire, hours spent boiling bread into mush because they didn’t understand the game. This calm lulled them into complacency. The best time to avoid the beasts was long before they caught your scent. If they got too close, they had no options but to fight. He braced himself to explain why not feeding the baby was the best thing, when Marah screamed, a faint cry of frustration with Einin mumbling apologies.

“Something is wrong.”

They found Einin cleaning Marah. The broth had made her sick. The child had puked and soiled herself. Tyrus stood in shock, no clue what to do. But Klay drew a knife and cut a blanket into strips.

Einin said, “I’m sorry, princess. I’m sorry.”

Klay froze. So much for secrets. “She’s a princess? A Roshan princess?”

Einin didn’t notice, busying herself stripping and wiping Marah, whose little white face twisted into furious knots. The child cried with all her strength, veins bulging in her temple and neck and eyes scrunched shut. Tyrus wanted to help. The screams accused him of wasting his life with swords and knives. He should know how to make a baby happy, but he knew more about sick soldiers.

“Whose daughter is that?” Klay asked.

Einin said, “Emperor Azmon’s.”

“Einin!” Tyrus moved between Klay and the heir. “What are you thinking?”

“He should know what is chasing us.”

“You brought Azmon’s daughter to the Ashen Elves?” Klay glared at him. “Are you insane?”

Tyrus said, “It’s a long story.”

“We need to move,” Klay said. “Right now.”

“Agreed.”

Tyrus kept his thoughts to himself. Marah would never survive Paltiel. He tried to find options, alternatives, and found none. Marah needed the elves, and elves killed the Roshan.

Not long after they rode, Klay appeared more intent on covering ground. Tyrus thought he heard armored men. He paused and listened, but it was only the bear ghosting them again.

“Can you lead us to higher ground?” Tyrus asked.

“I can, but it isn’t on the way to Ironwall.”

“Do it.”

An hour later, they neared the top of a ridge. Mid-morning, Paltiel stretched before them. If the circumstances were different, it might pass as a beautiful sight, enormous trees reaching for the sky on a clear and sunny day. Farther west, the mountains became larger and Mount Teles dominated everything. The tallest trees grew near the peak, hulking oaks that made castles look like piles of rubble. Tyrus studied the ancient mountain. Impossible terrain at their front and bone beasts at their back while eastward the horizon still smoked. They could not see Shinar, but the city burned. Then he spotted them, tiny specks of black cruising above the tree line.

“There they are. Not as far along as they should be.”

“I don’t see it,” Klay said.

“Those dots on the horizon. Those aren’t birds.”

“You have strong eyes,” Klay said. “But at that distance they would be huge.”

“They are. The trees will give us some cover, make it harder for them to land. But once they spot us, they’ll guide the ground forces to our trail.”

“How fast do they fly?”

“Faster than horses.”