Demon Wars 01 - The Demon Awakens

by The Demon Awakens [lit]

  The shark closed, as did the Windrunner. A dozen men - Quintall, Thagraine, and Adjonas among them - had the rope in hand and were pulling it taut even as Avelyn desperately grabbed its other end.

  He couldn't lift himself even a bit, had all that he could handle and more in simply keeping his grasp on the rope and on limp Pellimar.

  But they got him up to the rail, Quintall grabbing Pellimar and hauling the man onto the deck, Avelyn dangling dangerously low. He heard the screams of the crewmen and looked down, one foot still in the water, as the great dark shape, fully twenty-five feet in length, glided under the Windrunner, under Avelyn.

  A split second later, the terrified monk was standing on the deck.

  "Big one," Adjonas remarked, noting the shark.

  Bunkus Smealy turned his greasy grin on Avelyn, holding one hand up, his thumb and index finger about five inches apart. "With teeth this long," he said cruelly.

  There were a dozen powries on the deck of the barrelboat, Adjonas noted, but none would go into the water with the great shark so close and so obviously agitated. Powries and sharks worked in concert, so it was said, but apparently there were limits to such friendship.

  A wicked grin widened on the captain's face; he decided to test that unlikely truce.

  "Give them a bump," he told Bunkus Smealy, and the first hand shrieked with glee and ran to the wheel.

  It wasn't a full ram - no sensible captain would pit his ship against the strong hull of a powrie barrelboat - but enough of a nudge certainly to send all but one of the powries on deck rolling into the water. The Windrunner's archers opened up hard as the ship crossed beside the powrie craft, leaving three more dwarves dead in the water.

  A second, smaller dorsal fin joined the first in its tightening ring.

  How the dwarves scrambled!

  "Get us away," Adjonas called to his crew. The sharks would feed on the dead, and the frantic actions of those still alive combined with the widening blood spill would likely bring more in, he knew. No powrie would dare go into the water to try and untangle the netted fan with frenzied sharks so close.

  Even worse for the powries, though neither Adjonas nor any other aboard the Windrunner could have foreseen it, the drifting barrelboat appeared remarkably like a wounded whale to the crazed sharks.

  The barrelboat, rolling from the contact with the Windrunner, with water rushing in the open hatchway, soon disappeared under the waves.

  The excitement on the Windrunner did not dissipate until the powries were left far behind. The monks had been the heroes of the fight, but Avelyn heard crewmen muttering "foolhardy" as often as "brave." The sailors were a tough bunch, proud and cynical, and if he or Quintall or any of the others expected a congratulatory pat on the back, they were disappointed.

  Avelyn and Thagraine took the severely wounded Pellimar into Dansally's quarters, and found the woman was versed in more skills than the sensual. Soon after, the man was resting as comfortably as possible, and Avelyn left the room.

  He found Quintall standing with Adjonas, the captain, looking weary, leaning against the mainmast.

  "Powries," he was muttering when Avelyn walked up. "More bloody caps than ever on the Mirianic, north and south. They have multiplied on their isles, the Julianthes, it would seem, bursting from their shores. Their attacks will only increase in number and in purpose."

  Quintall shrugged away the grim words. "How fares Pellimar?" he asked Avelyn.

  Avelyn sighed helplessly. "He may live," he replied, "or he may not."

  Quintall nodded, then suddenly exploded into action, his roundhouse punch catching Avelyn square on the jaw, dropping the man in a heap to the deck. "How dare you?" Quintall yelled.

  Sailors looked up from every corner of the deck; Adjonas eyed the stocky man with disbelief.

  Avelyn pulled himself up, wary of another blow, thoroughly confused by Quintall's actions.

  "You are the chosen Preparer," Quintall scolded. "Yet you risked your life to save Pellimar."

  "We all risked our lives by going out," Avelyn argued.

  "We had no choice in the matter," Quintall retorted, so angry that his spittle sprayed forth with every word. "But when the danger to the Windrunner was ended, when the powries were stopped and the way was clear, you went back into the dangerous waters."

  "Pellimar would have been eaten!"

  "A pity, but not important!"

  Avelyn swallowed his next retort, knowing that it would be a useless argument. He had never imagined such a level of fanaticism, even from stern Quintall. "I could not leave him, and you."

  Quintall spat on the deck at Avelyn's feet. "I asked you not for help, and would have refused it if offered. The way to our destination was cleared, the threat to the Windrunner ended. You should have gone aboard and stayed aboard. What a waste Pellimar's life, and my own, would have been had Avelyn, too, died in the water!"

  Avelyn had no response. The argument was indisputable. He pulled himself up, nodding in agreement, though in his heart he knew if the situation arose again he would again go back to the pair.

  "We do not know that the way to Pimaninicuit is now clear," Adjonas whispered, protecting the sacred name.

  "Pellimar is no good to us in any case," Quintall was fast to respond. "Even if he lives, he'll not likely crawl out of bed for many days."

  Avelyn studied the stocky man intently. The mission was all important - Avelyn agreed and he would sacrifice his own life for the good of the voyage. But to ask him to let another die?

  Avelyn shook his head, though fortunately Quintall and Adjonas missed the movement. No, the young monk decided, that he could not, would not, do.

  "Remember," Quintall said to him gravely.

  "I will go to Pellimar," Avelyn replied, taking comfort in the subtle vow the words implied, one that Quintall could not comprehend. "Dansally tends his wounds."

  "Who?" Quintall asked as Avelyn walked away.

  Avelyn smiled, not surprised.

  Pellimar's condition did not much improve as the days slipped past. The weather remained hot and clear, and no more barrelboats came into view.

  Perhaps it was the boredom, the heat, or the tasteless provisions, but the crew grew increasingly uneasy, even hostile. More than once, Avelyn heard Bunkus Smealy and Adjonas in a shouting match, and every time the monk walked the open deck now, he felt burning gazes of hatred on his back. The crew were blaming the monks for their discomfort, for this whole journey. Quintall had warned Avelyn and Thagraine of this, as Adjonas had warned Quintall. The Windrunner was usually a coast hugger. Journeys into the wide, vast ocean were extremely rare, and rumors told of a madness that often grabbed at a crew. Ships had been found, so the stories went, intact and seaworthy, but with not a crewman aboard. Some said it was the work of ghosts, or evil monsters of the deeper waters, but most rational, experienced sailors attributed it to fear and suspicion, to the long days of emptiness and the undeniable feeling that the sea would never end, that the ship would sail and sail until there was no more to eat and no more to drink.

  It got so bad by the sixth week out of Jacintha that Adjonas, to Avelyn's utter dismay, opened privileges of Dansally to other members of the crew. It had to be done in a calm fashion, so the captain ordered, and every time Avelyn saw another of the filthy sailors going to Dansally's door, his heart sank a bit lower, and he chewed a bit more of his skin from his lip.

  Dansally took it in stride, accepting her lot in life, but her expanded duties left her little time for her talks with Avelyn, something the monk, and now the woman, dearly needed.

  Even the extra privileges did little to improve the mood of the increasingly surly crew. The situation came to a frightening head one especially hot humid morning. Quintall spent the better part of an hour in a sometimes heated discussion with Captain Adjonas. Finally, Adjonas seemed to nod his assent, and then he called Bunkus Smealy to his side.

  More yelling ensued, mostly by Quintall, and when Smealy at last tried to counter,
the stocky monk snapped his hand under Smealy's chin and lifted the man from the deck by the throat.

  Avelyn and Thagraine rushed to Quintall's side, Thagraine pointing out that all the crew was watching with more than passing interest.

  "It proves my point, Captain Adjonas," Quintall remarked, giving Smealy a little shake. "He is the leader of the unrest, a man to be thrown over as food for the sharks."

  Adjonas calmly put his hand over Quintall's arm, easing it and his first hand down. Smealy pulled away, coughing and, predictably, turned to the crew for help.

  "Utter one word of encouragement to them," Quintall threatened, "and all my attacks, and those of my companions, will be directed at you. Both your arms and both your legs will be broken and useless when you hit the water, Bunkus Smealy. How long could you stay afloat, waiting for the Windrunner to turn about and find you?"

  The greasy man blanched. "We're too far out," he said to his captain, his plea sounding as a whine. "Too far!"

  "The island-" Adjonas started to say.

  Smealy stopped him with a snarl. "There ain't no island!" he yelled, and the murmurs of the crewmen, seeming closer now than a moment before, were in agreement.

  Adjonas turned a worried glance at Quintall. They had another month of sailing, at the least, and the captain honestly wondered if his crew would show that much patience. They had been carefully picked, most had sailed with Adjonas for nearly a decade, but weeks on end out of sight of land were unnerving.

  "Three months!" the captain yelled suddenly. "Before ever we started from Jacintha, I told you that we would find three months of travel before our destination was reached. Yet, we've not yet marked the end of our second month out of St.-Mere-Abelle. Are you cowards, then? Are you not men of your honor?"

  That backed them off, though they continued grumbling.

  "Know by my word," Quintall said to Smealy as the first hand, too, retreated, "that I hold you personally responsible for the actions of the crew."

  Smealy never blinked and didn't dare look away from the dangerous monk until he was halfway across the deck.

  "It will only worsen if Pimaninicuit is not easily found," Adjonas quietly warned the three.

  Quintall fixed him with an icy stare.

  "We are on course, and on time," Adjonas assured him, feeling the need to calm the man, "according to the maps I was given."

  "They are accurate to the league," Quintall growled in response.

  Indeed they were, for four and a half uneasy weeks later, the lookout cried out, "Land to forward!"

  All the crew rushed to the forward rails, and soon enough the gray haze became more substantial, became the undeniable outline of an island, conical in shape. Gray became green as they closed, lush vegetation thick on the slopes.

  "By my estimation we have nearly a week to spare," Adjonas remarked to the four monks - for Pellimar, though still very weak, was up on the deck again. "Should we go ashore and scout-"

  "No!" Quintall snapped to everyone's amazement. The captain's recommendation seemed perfectly logical.

  "None but the Preparers may go ashore," Quintall explained. "Any others who touch the shores of Pimaninicuit will find their lives forfeit."

  It was a strange decree, one that caught Avelyn so much by surprise that he hardly noticed Quintall had openly proclaimed the name of the island.

  The words caught Captain Adjonas off his guard as well, an unexpected proclamation and one that was hardly welcomed by Adjonas. His crew had been aboard ship for so long, with only the short break in Entel. To keep them out now, with land so close and inviting - land likely covered with fruit trees and other luxuries they had not known on the open sea - was foolhardy indeed.

  But Quintall would not relent. "Circle the island close once that we might discern where best to put the Preparers ashore, then sail out to deeper water out of sight of the island," he instructed the captain. "Then sail back in five days."

  Adjonas knew he was at a critical point here. He didn't agree with Quintall, not at all, but now with Pimaninicuit in sight, he had, by agreement with the Father Abbot, to let the monk take command. This was the purpose of the voyage, after all, and Father Abbot Markwart had made no secret of Adjonas' place in all this. On the open seas, he was the captain; at Pimaninicuit, he would do as told, or all payment, and the sum was considerable, would be forfeit.

  And worse.

  So they circled, spotting one promising lagoon, and then sailed out to deeper waters for the longest five days of the trip, particularly for Avelyn and Thagraine.

  Avelyn spent all the first day in prayer and meditation, mentally preparing himself for the task ahead. He wanted to go to Dansally and tell her of his fears, of his inadequacy for such a task, but he resisted the urge. This was his battle alone.

  Finally, he and Thagraine, carrying their supplies, slipped down the rope off the side of the Windrunner into the boat, Pimaninicuit looming large before them.

  "We need be far out when the showers begin," Quintall explained to them, "for the stones have been known to cause great damage. When it is ended, we will sail back here."

  A cry from the stern stole the conversation, and the monks and Adjonas turned as one to see one of the crew, a boy of no more than seventeen who had been especially sea-crazed, dive off the ship into the water, then begin swimming hard for the shore.

  "Mister Smealy!" Adjonas roared; turning a stern eye on all the crew. "Archers to the rail!"

  "Let him go," Quintall said, surprising Adjonas. Quintall realized that shooting the desperate man in front of the crew would likely cause a mutiny. "Let him go!" Quintall yelled louder. "But since he has chosen the island, he will find his work doubled." He bent low and whispered something to Thagraine then, and Avelyn doubted that it had anything to do with putting the fleeing man to work.

  Avelyn and Thagraine rowed away from the Windrunner moments later and the ship raised sail immediately, fleeing for the safety of the deeper waters far from Pimaninicuit. On board Quintall launched right away into lies about the dangers to the foolish seaman, about how the monks, and the monks alone, were trained to withstand the fury of the showers. "He will not likely live to return to the Windrunner," Quintall explained, trying to prepare the volatile crew for the blow that would surely come.

  Thagraine was out and running as soon as the small boat brushed its bottom on the black sands of the island beach. They had passed the mutineer on the water, far to the side, and Thagraine had made a mental note of his direction and speed.

  Avelyn called out to his companion, but Thagraine only ordered him to secure the boat, and did not look back.

  Avelyn felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hauled the boat to a sheltered point in the lagoon and tipped it low, filling it with water and securing it on the shallow bottom.

  Thagraine returned to him soon after.

  Avelyn winced, seeing the man alone. He knew what instructions Quintall had ordered.

  "There is much to eat," Thagraine said happily, trembling with excitement. "And we must seek out a cave."

  Avelyn said nothing, just followed quietly, praying for the young sailor's soul.

  The next two days, mostly spent huddled in a small cave on the side of the single mountain, overlooking the beach and the wide water, were perfectly unbearable. Thagraine was most ill at ease, pacing, stalking, and muttering to himself.

  Avelyn understood the man's distress and knew that Thagraine's agitation could cost them both much when the showers came. "You killed him," the younger monk remarked quietly, taking care so that his statement did not sound as an accusation.

  Thagraine stopped his pacing. "Any who step on Pimaninicuit forfeit their lives," he replied, straining hard to keep his tone even.

  Avelyn didn't believe a word of it; in his mind, Thagraine had acted as a tool for the murderous Quintall.

  "How will they know when we are finished?" Thagraine asked suddenly, wildly. "How will they even know when the showers occur if they
sail so far from the island?"

  Avelyn eyed him carefully. He had hoped to draw the man into a discussion of his action against the sailor, to ease the man's mind, at least for now, that they might concentrate on their most important mission. But his words hardly seemed to calm Thagraine; quite the opposite, the man, obviously racked with guilt paced all the more furiously, slapping his hands together repeatedly.

  The showers, by their calculations, were now overdue. Still the pair huddled near the edge of the cave, looking for some sign.

  "Is it even true?" Thagraine protested every few minutes. "Is there a man alive who can bear witness to such a thing?"

  "The old tomes do not lie," Avelyn said faithfully.

  "How do you know?" Thagraine exploded. "Where are the stones, then? Where is the precious day?" He stopped, gasping for breath. "Seven generations," he shouted, "and we are to get here within the week of the showers? What folly is this? Why, if the abbey's calculations are off by only a month, or a year perhaps . . . are we to stay huddled in a hole all that time?"

  "Calm, Thagraine," Avelyn murmured. "Hold fast your faith in Father Abbot Markwart and in God."

  "To the pit of Hell with Father Abbot Markwart!" the other monk howled. "God?" He spat contemptuously. "What does God know when he calls for the death of a frightened boy?"

  So that was it, Avelyn realized: guilt, pure and simple. Avelyn moved to take Thagraine's hand, to try and offer comfort, but the older monk shoved him away and scrambled out the narrow mouth of the cave, running off into the brush.

  "Do not!" Avelyn cried, and he paused only a moment before following. He lost sight of Thagraine immediately, the monk disappearing into the thick underbrush but headed, predictably, for the open beach. Avelyn moved to follow, but as soon as he got out of sight of the cave, something, some inner voice, called to him to stop. He looked back in the direction of the cave, then out over the hillside to the water. He noted that the sky had turned a funny color, a purplish, rosy hue the likes of which Avelyn had only seen at sunrise or sunset, and then only on the appropriate horizon. Yet the sun, in this region of long days, was still hours from the western rim and should have been shining bright and yellow in the cloudless sky.