DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga)

by R. A. Salvatore

  He managed to get that one creature off the woman, then rushed into two of the others, slashing wildly and forcing them back, creating enough of an opening for Brynn, who was still fighting fiercely, somehow to climb back to her feet.

  She held her staff out horizontally before her, hands widespread on its solid shaft. She punched out, left and right repeatedly, forcing two zombies back, then went out with a stab hard to the right, crushing the face of a third.

  “There is no escape!” she cried out, as Belli’mar Juraviel came up behind her, so that they were back-to-back.

  “Then die well,” the elf calmly replied.

  And so they tried to do just that, as the walls of zombies closed upon them, sword and staff flailing wildly, tirelessly, brutally.

  They had several of the creatures down soon after and had forced their way back toward the encampment, back toward the fire.

  Juraviel found the new weapon first, grabbing up a flaming stick and thrusting it into the nearest zombie’s face. A puff of smoke carried with it a sickening smell, but the torch had much more effect than either sword or staff, igniting the creature. Juraviel worked frantically to keep its burning arms away.

  The zombie beside it began to burn as well.

  “A torch! A torch!” Juraviel yelled, hope creeping back into his voice.

  Brynn reacted quickly, throwing her staff into the nearest creatures to make them hesitate, then spinning back to the fire and trying desperately to find a torch. She burned her hand as she grabbed up one long stick, but ignored the pain and spun about, thrusting the flaming end right into the eye of a zombie.

  And so the tide of battle turned, briefly, as zombies fell back from the flames. One toppled, fully ablaze, and then another.

  But even so, Juraviel and Brynn knew that they could not win out against so many, for their supply of firebrands was limited indeed, and would fast exhaust itself.

  “Cut through one line and run away!” Juraviel instructed.

  Brynn nodded and turned to move beside the elf, but then stopped suddenly, feeling a burning sting in the side of her neck. She reached up, her expression curious.

  “Brynn?” Juraviel cried.

  The woman exploded into motion, coming forward again, thrusting her brand into the face of one zombie and driving it back.

  But then Juraviel watched as her movements unexpectedly and inexplicably slowed, as her arms drooped.

  “Brynn!” he cried again, slapping his torch to the side, then leaping out the other way as the zombie went up in a blaze of fire.

  Juraviel turned just in time to see Brynn tumbling down, zombies falling over her, thrashing and punching.

  He could not get to her, could do nothing to help her!

  Now Juraviel knew that he had to escape, to flee to Caer’alfar with this horrible news. He turned a complete circuit, his outstretched torch forcing the mob back. He ended the turn by throwing the torch into the face of one creature, then leaped straight up, his wings fluttering to carry him to the boughs.

  He almost made it, but one zombie caught him by the ankle.

  Juraviel fought against it, his little wings flapping frantically. But elven wings were not meant for flight. They were meant for enhancing leaps and breaking falls, and the zombie’s grip was too strong and unrelenting.

  Juraviel felt himself spinning down to the side, then swinging about fast.

  He saw the tree right before the zombie smacked him into it.

  Dazed and on the ground, Juraviel’s thoughts were for Brynn, and for his own failure in coming back to her. He should have flown off immediately for the north. His duty to the Touel’alfar demanded it.

  But what of his duty as a friend?

  He saw Brynn, then, briefly, lifted from the ground by a zombie and thrown back down hard, while others fell over her limp form, kicking and punching, though she was offering no resistance at all. She appeared to Belli’mar to be dead already.

  He kicked and thrashed, trying to break free. He scrambled away as soon as he felt the grip relent, climbing to his feet and taking two quick strides.

  But he was tackled, then he was punched, and, finally, half-conscious and helpless against the rain of blows, he saw another creature, this one fully engulfed in flames, coming toward him.

  In his last flicker of consciousness, Juraviel felt fortunate that one of the other zombies smashed him into blackness before he felt the burning flames.

  Belli’mar Juraviel knew no more.

  Chapter 6

  The Iron Hand of Yatol

  THE LONG CARAVAN SNAKED ITS WAY ACROSS THE BROKEN BROWN CLAY. IT APPEARED like a giant centipede, its torso a long line of camels and covered coaches, its legs the flanking soldiers riding tall horses. In the middle of that center line, in the largest and most lavish coach, Yatol Grysh sat back in his cushy seat, complaining about the heat constantly, though he had several attendants, all beautiful young women, fanning him and patting his brow with moistened towels.

  “I do so hate this,” the Yatol said repeatedly. “With the To-gai dogs, there is never any rest from my duties.”

  The two of his four attendants who were of obvious To-gai-ru descent, with their softer and straighter hair and almond-shaped eyes, didn’t flinch at the remark, having long ago gotten used to Grysh’s demeaning manner.

  “It will calm the outposters,” said Carwan Pestle, Grysh’s advisor Shepherd, and the sixth and final person in the wide coach. “They fear that the thieves grow bolder by the day.”

  The caravan had been barely out of Jacintha, making its way along the southern shadows of the Belt-and-Buckle toward Dharyan, the town controlled by Yatol Grysh, the seat of his power in northwestern Behren, when couriers from Temple Yaminos of Dharyan had caught up to them, informing the ruling Yatol that the thieves of the Corcorca region of To-gai, just west and south of Yaminos, always a thorn, had become even more active. That, of course, had unsettled the outposters, the Behrenese emigrants who had begun to settle outside the old Behren-To-gai border.

  Yatol Grysh had campaigned for those settlements, to the Behrenese people and to Chezru Douan, figuring that his job would become all the easier as the Behrenese settlers gradually began to civilize the wild To-gai-ru. But the early transition was proving to be something of a trial for the lazy man.

  Thus, Grysh had diverted his caravan to the south and ridden right past Dharyan, determined to enter Corcorca with his two hundred escorting soldiers, a contingent that included a score of fierce Chezhou-Lei warriors. He’d teach the dogs. Though there weren’t all that many miles separating Dharyan from the To-gai region, it was a difficult trek, with the wagons bouncing along a narrow, rocky, steeply ascending trail, up to the higher elevations of the To-gai plateau. Yatol Grysh did not enjoy the several days of discomfort.

  Grysh leaned back and looked out his window at the wide and barren landscape. In the distance to the north, he could see the towering peaks of the mountain range that had been a backdrop to his home for his entire life. He wanted to be back under their cooling shadow, in the temple that was his palace, full of luxuries and sweet foods, of clean baths and beautiful and dutiful women.

  But Yatol Grysh understood that the only way to ensure the continuation and safety of his precious palace was to rule these eastern stretches of To-gai with an iron hand. He hated the To-gai-ru, with their barbaric, nomadic ways. He hardly considered them human.

  Grysh looked at his To-gai-ru attendants and smiled lewdly. He did like their women, though.

  “The people of Douan Cal near completion of their wall?” he asked Carwan. Douan Cal, named after the Chezru Chieftain, was the largest and most important of the Behrenese settlements, and also the one most plagued by the rogue To-gai-ru bandits.

  “They work tirelessly, Yatol,” Carwan replied. “But their life is difficult. Water must be carried far and crops constantly tended. Their hunters have not learned the way of the local game yet, and thus often return without food. They are not many, but still
, they work as they can, whenever they can, at cutting the blocks for their encircling wall.”

  “Have they not enough To-gai-ru servants to complete the work?”

  “Many have left, Yatol. The To-gai-ru traditionally wander to the foothills in the summer season.”

  “And many, it seems, have wandered to the nearby desert, to come forth whenever it is convenient to steal from our people.”

  Carwan nodded. “Life is difficult,” he said somberly.

  Grysh sat back and stared out the window, considering the new responsibilities that had befallen him since Chezru Chieftain Yakim Douan had decided that the time had come for Behren to “reclaim” its ancient province of To-gai. True, the subjugation of the To-gai-ru had provided many slaves for Behren, and a seemingly endless supply of the wonderful and valuable ponies so prized by the men of Honce-the-Bear. But Grysh, who witnessed the hardships of controlling the wild folk of the steppes on a nearly daily basis, still wondered about the wisdom of the conquest, still wondered if the bother was worth the gain.

  For Yatol Grysh was wise enough to recognize that his people, the Behrenese, were not well suited for the trials of the cold wind and grassy steppes of brutal To-gai. How many years would it take the outposters to adapt? How many seasons would it take for them to come to understand the ways of the desert animals, the huge hares and spry deer, the giant and powerful chochunga buffalo?

  But that was his charge from Jacintha, to continue to build new settlements, stretching farther and farther to the west, a supply line of small towns across the windblown stretch of grassland that separated the heart of To-gai from Behren, so that the assimilation of the wild To-gai-ru could begin in earnest. Yatol Grysh was more a pragmatic man than a religious one, but both sides of that conflict saw prudence in following the Chezru Chieftain’s edicts to the letter.

  And so he had turned south and continued west, to the call of his people. Late that afternoon, as the summer sun began its descent behind the line of mountains, the call came back that the eastern wall of Douan Cal had been spotted by the point scouts.

  “Continue on through the darkness, then,” Yatol Grysh instructed. “Have a rider go ahead fast to instruct the outposters to light guiding signal fires atop the highest point of their eastern wall.”

  “It may be dangerous to travel after dark,” Carwan pointed out, but Grysh silenced him with a stern look.

  “Then tighten the line and move the wagons into three side-by-side columns,” he instructed. He turned to his military commander, Chezhou-Lei Wan Atenn, who had personally delivered the news of the sighting. “You will protect us from the fierce To-gai-ru bandits, will you not?”

  The Chezhou-Lei, proud and loyal, sat up very straight on his tall horse, staring at his Yatol with a frozen and determined expression.

  “I thought so,” Yatol Grysh said, and he closed the window’s shutter, for the sun was descending, and on the steppes, even in summertime, it was amazing to Grysh how fast the air cooled, the scorching daytime heat dissipating to an uncomfortable chill.

  Grysh slapped away the fanning ladies then, and motioned for them to huddle about his large form, using them as living blankets.

  He wanted to be home, true, but Yatol Grysh was a man who knew how to take his comforts as he found them. Surely the ride that night was not so unpleasant.

  The stories Yatol Grysh heard within the compound of Douan Cal were predictable. Bands of To-gai raiders had struck at the town repeatedly, taking their livestock, hurling curses and hurling missiles. None of the Behrenese settlers had been killed as yet, but several had been injured, including one old woman who had been hit in the head with a rock.

  “What is your assessment of our enemy?” Yatol Grysh asked Carwan later on when they were alone—alone concerning anyone who mattered, for Yatol Grysh did not think enough of his serving wenches to bother watching his words around them.

  “Young men,” Carwan answered after giving the question a bit of thought. “Teenagers, perhaps. The older To-gai-ru would have been more straightforward and more brutal in their attacks.”

  “Because the older To-gai-ru would be fighting for more than livestock,” Yatol Grysh said, and Carwan nodded eagerly.

  “The older ones once caused trouble throughout To-gai, fighting fanatically,” Carwan said. “They slaughtered entire villages without regard for the women or children.”

  “Because the older outlaws—and praise Yatol that few remain alive—fought with the names of their gods on their lips,” Yatol Grysh explained, “they believed that their fighting and murdering was paving their road to whatever they envision as their heaven. Men who do battle in such a manner are always the worst enemies, my young student.”

  “Like our own Chezhou-Lei?” Carwan dared to remark.

  “And always the best allies,” Yatol Grysh finished with a sly smile. “And tell me, what are we to do about these raiders? Do you believe that we will find them in the open desert?”

  Carwan leaned back and considered the problem. The outposters had become fairly competent at navigating this area of desert, by their own boasts, but none knew the region as did the To-gai-ru. There in Corcorca’s rugged landscape, valleys opened up unexpectedly at one’s feet and huge and towering mesas formed dizzying arrays of interlocking channels. Chasing the raiders about in that, their home ground, seemed a fool’s errand indeed.

  “We’ll not catch up to them if we spend the rest of the season in pursuit,” Yatol Grysh went on, for Carwan’s expression made his feelings on the matter quite clear. “And likely, they’ll strike behind us at every opportunity, to embarrass us more than to cause any serious mischief. But in that inevitable embarrassment lies a danger, my student. Do you see it?

  “We will turn a band of young thieves into a band of legends,” Yatol Grysh answered after only a brief pause. “And that legend will give the To-gai-ru of the region great hope that the veil of Behren will be lifted from their land.”

  “Then what are we to do, Yatol?”

  “The nomads’ latest encampment is not far from here,” Yatol Grysh explained. “We will pay them a visit on the morrow, I think, and see what we may learn.”

  Something about the manner in which he said the words had the hairs on the back of Carwan’s neck standing up. Something about the set of his expression at that moment, a bit of a grin, perhaps, but more a smug and determined look, told Carwan that his master meant to see to this thorny problem with all efficiency.

  Whatever the cost.

  Most of the caravan remained behind at Douan Cal the next day, with Grysh’s coach the only wagon riding out. Surrounding the Yatol, though, was the whole of his military escort, along with a few men from Douan Cal who knew some of the nearby To-gai-ru.

  Carwan Pestle rode with Grysh. He tried to start a few conversations at first, but it became obvious to him that his master was agitated and wanted to be left to his own thoughts. Carwan could guess what that foretold, for he had seen Grysh in similar moods, always before issuing a most unpleasant order. As Yatol of Dharyan, Grysh also served as principal magistrate, and so he was the one who ordered the executions of convicted criminals. It was not a duty that he seemed to enjoy, but neither was it one from which he ever shied.

  Soon after midday, Carwan was leaning out of the coach window, peering ahead intently, for the call had come back that the To-gai-ru encampment was in sight. Carwan Pestle had never seen a To-gai-ru settlement, and he held a healthy curiosity toward these strange nomadic savages.

  The wagon came over a ridge, the ground falling away gradually beyond, down to a wide and shallow river that meandered across the clay, the ever-eager flora of the desert springing to life about its inevitably temporary banks. A cluster of tents was set near one bend, the thin gray smoke of cooking fires lazily snaking into the pale blue sky. No horses were tethered within the camp that Carwan could see, but there was a fair-sized herd milling about. Above all else, the To-gai-ru were famous for their ways with horses, and Carw
an could well imagine that this seemingly wild herd was far from untamed.

  At least to the commands of a To-gai-ru rider.

  The lead riders fanned out left and right, forming a semicircle about the camp, the only open route leading right into the river. With perfect discipline, the second line of twenty warriors, led by Wan Atenn, kicked their mounts into a thundering run, galloping right to the edge of the camp and forming a tighter, threatening perimeter.

  Many cries of alarm came out to Carwan Pestle’s ears, and he noted that all of them were in the voices of women or young children.

  A moment later, Wan Atenn signaled that the village was secure, and the driver cracked the whip on the draft horses and Yatol Grysh’s coach rambled down to the encampment.

  Carwan Pestle peered intently all the way, as the small forms took on more definitive shapes, and he knew that his reasoning upon hearing the cries was correct. There seemed to be no adult men in the encampment.

  Wan Atenn rode up beside the window. “It is safe, Yatol,” he reported.

  “No weapons shown?”

  “Only the young and the old and the women,” Wan Atenn explained.

  Carwan Pestle turned a curious expression on Grysh. “Perhaps the men are out on a hunt.”

  “Indeed,” the Yatol replied slyly. “But it is well-known that the To-gai-ru hunt early in the morning. Only early in the morning.”

  “But—”

  “So if they are indeed out on the hunt, then what, my young friend, might they be hunting?”

  Carwan sat back and stared at the Yatol. He was beginning to get a very bad feeling about all of this, his stomach turning over and over. The coach came to an abrupt stop and Carwan was quick to the door, throwing it open and leaping out, then turning about and rolling out the retracting stairs for his Yatol.

  Grysh came out slowly, allowing Wan Atenn to set his warriors in defensive posture about the small stairway. The Yatol paused on each step, his heavy head swiveling to take in all the sights: the many tents, the many small children peeking out from under the shadows of the folds.