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

by R. A. Salvatore

  Pagonel moved out slowly from his relaxed form, to the edges of his tent, and then he floated up through the tent, slowly rising, looking back, then looking all about at the quiet encampment.

  He noted one form, moving out of a tent to the side of his own, and thought nothing of it for a moment, until he realized that it was moving with purpose, and not toward Pagonel’s tent as the mystic had anticipated, but toward the tent of Brynn Dharielle.

  That too would prove fortunate.

  The shadowy form slipped silently through the tent flap, leaving it open just a bit so that he could navigate the darkness within.

  There lay Brynn, curled under a blanket against the cold desert night air, and there to the side lay her fabulous sword, Flamedancer.

  The form moved in closer, his hand reaching for the weapon.

  Caught in fitful dreams, Brynn didn’t hear any of it. But then, through her dreams, came a face she knew and trusted, the image of Pagonel, speaking to her directly.

  Get up! the ghost implored her, and his tone was one of dire warning, a silent but insistent cry that warned her of imminent danger.

  The woman was moving before her eyes even popped open, rolling to her belly and flipping a forward somersault, rolling to her feet.

  She saw the glint of metal, flashing off the low firelight outside, and moved instinctively, snapping her arm down and across while turning her hips out of harm’s way.

  She did get nicked on the forearm, but it was no serious wound, and nothing that slowed her as she worked out from the side of the small tent, trying to find some maneuverability even as the attacker retracted and realigned the blade.

  The sword thrust came in fast and low, but awkwardly, the man’s retraction before the strike giving the skilled Brynn more than enough time to compensate and set not only her defense, but her return attack. She leaped forward, turning over above the blade in a tight somersault, bringing her legs around to slam down atop the man’s shoulders. He brought the sword up in response, but there was no strength behind the movement.

  Brynn was quite glad that this one didn’t understand how to ignite Flamedancer at that moment!

  Her legs clamped about the man’s neck as she came over and down, and a quick twist sent the man spiraling off to the side, tumbling headlong against the tent as Brynn let him loose.

  She was up before him, and as he tried to turn about and bring his sword to bear, the ranger bore in, too close to be warded by the blade. She shouldered the man back against the tent flap, knocking him completely off-balance. Then she went for the sword arm, driving stiffened fingers into his forearm muscle, stealing his strength, while grabbing at the sword hilt with her other hand.

  Falling and stung, he couldn’t hold the sword away from the strong woman. She pulled it free and stepped up against him, moving just off to the side as she reversed her grip, turning the sword point down and behind her.

  Even as she began the killing strike, her tent flap was flung wide and Pagonel cried out to her, “Do not kill him!”

  Brynn held the blow, and as the man sorted himself behind her, she launched an elbow into his face, laying him low. Then she came out and swung about, reorienting the sword so that its deadly tip turned in toward the helpless man.

  Pagonel came in, bearing a torch, and the woman recognized her attacker as Merwan Ma.

  She looked to Pagonel, confused, for he and the man had seemed to come to an understanding—so much so that Brynn had relaxed all guard over their captive.

  “It was not Merwan Ma!” Pagonel said against her doubting and angry look.

  The mystic rushed to kneel before the sobbing man. “It was not you, was it?” he asked.

  Merwan Ma waved him away.

  “Tell me!” the mystic insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders and squaring him up. “It was the Chezru Chieftain, was it not? Come out with his soul stone to possess your body? Tell me! Your God-Voice possessed your body. He threw out your free will and substituted his own.”

  The Shepherd broke down completely then, falling to the floor and covering his head with his hands.

  “What does it mean?” Brynn asked.

  “It means that Merwan Ma has seen the lie that is his life,” Pagonel answered. “The Chezru religion cannot tolerate such a thing as has happened this night, and yet, it was the Chezru Chieftain himself who perpetrated this horror upon Merwan Ma.” He looked down to the sobbing man. “And he knows it.”

  “Shackle him and put him under guard,” Brynn demanded.

  The mystic nodded. “The danger is mostly past now.”

  “But tomorrow?”

  Pagonel was shaking his head before she ever asked, obviously anticipating the question. “The theft of a body is no easy task, even for those Abellicans most skilled with the soul stone. Merwan Ma left an opening for his God-Voice, one wrought of confusion. But now he knows the truth and will be more vigilant, and I will teach him to resist such intrusions.”

  With Brynn’s accepting nod, the mystic helped Merwan Ma to his feet and ushered the man out of the tent and back to his own. He offered a few instructions, a few mental games the man might use to help him battle the attacking spirit, should it return, and then he set a pair of guards outside the Shepherd’s tent and returned to his own to contemplate these newest, troubling developments.

  There in the dark, in his meditation, Pagonel considered the startling events and the good fortune alone that had allowed disaster to be averted. He thought of his own reasoning as to why Merwan Ma had been possessed, of why the man had not been up to the task of ejecting the attacking spirit. For surely Pagonel would have had no trouble at all in repelling Yakim Douan, and Brynn had done so in mere seconds.

  All it took was a little mental discipline, a bit of understanding that such an act was wrong in the extreme.

  Pagonel popped open his eyes, staring straight ahead, seeing something then so simple and basic that the biggest surprise of the revelation was that he had not recognized it before, and that Merwan Ma apparently had not. He unfolded himself and rushed from his tent, past the guards, and into the tent of Merwan Ma, where he found the man sitting and staring blankly, hopelessly.

  “Tell me of Transcendence,” the mystic implored him.

  Brynn used every trick that she or her leaders could think of. They intercepted flashing signals and sent some of their own along the line, and managed to turn the dogged pursuit off course several times.

  On one such occasion, apparently running free up along the north road that connected Dharyan with Dahdah Oasis, the ranger made the decision to continue north, into the foothills of the Belt-and-Buckle, reasoning that her warriors would find more rest there, more supplies for them and their horses. Also, the thinking went, if the Chezru Chieftain came out to find them, he’d have a harder time spotting their encampment along the craggy rocks and canyons of the steep foothills.

  And so they shook off the pursuit of Shauntil and Yatol Bardoh for several weeks, as the summer of God’s Year 844, Abellican Reckoning, turned to autumn, marking the second anniversary of Brynn’s rise as the leader of the To-gai-ru rebels.

  “It has been a good two years,” Brynn said to Pagonel and some others one night about the campfire. “We have struck hard into Behren, harder than any of us might have hoped.”

  “It was a good first year and a half,” one of the leaders, the ever-grumbling Tanalk Grenk, replied. “Now we hide, while the Wraps tighten the noose about our necks.”

  There was little Brynn could say in the way of argument. They had won a couple of minor skirmishes that summer, mostly over supply caravans, but the victories had been few and far between, and always with the knowledge that Yatol Bardoh and Shauntil and their legions were not far behind.

  “We must strike again, and hard!” the man went on, rising and brushing off his worn breeches. He paced about the fire, staring into the hard eyes of his seasoned warrior companions. “Let us find again the glory of battle! Let Behren tremble beneath the t
hunder of our charge!”

  “Where?” Brynn asked, stealing a bit of his bluster, and quieting the murmurs of excited agreement that had begun. She too rose and paced about. “To take a city would delay us longer than our pursuers allow. And to turn and fight the pursuing force would be folly.”

  “Then let us turn for To-gai,” another man offered. “Let the Behrenese chase us about the land we know, and that they do not!”

  The murmurs began anew, and Brynn closed her eyes, for this was exactly what she had been fearing as the war had ground to a halt. She and Pagonel had been over this time and time again, and in considering the return to Behren, they had always come to the same grim conclusion: that such a turn would mark the end of the campaign. For in To-gai, their warriors would find other pressing duties, and with the pressure off the Chezru Chieftain to come to resolution, attrition would weigh against them, and not for them. With the army running about To-gai and not Behren, the Behrenese would have no reason to seek peace.

  Little was settled that night at the campfire, and a frustrated and troubled Brynn went back to her tent. She had only begun her typically fitful sleep when a call awakened her. She rushed out to join several others, Pagonel among them, as they stood on a nearby ridge, staring to the south, where the fires of a huge encampment could be seen.

  “And so the chase begins anew,” one man muttered, and walked away.

  “Douan has found us,” Pagonel remarked.

  “Is there any way to hide from his spirit eyes?” Brynn asked.

  The mystic turned to her and shook his head. “We can prevent possession, likely, but out of body, he is swift, and he can fly high to gain proper vantage points. Even if we lit no fires at all, not even those concealed in deep fire pits or in the shadows of overhangs and caves, he would find us.”

  “Send the scouts out far and wide,” Brynn instructed. “Let us turn now to the west, and use our speed to outdistance our pursuit.”

  “Back to To-gai?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “And you believe that her efforts will falter once back in her homeland?” Merwan Ma asked Pagonel soon after, the two sitting alone near one low-burning fire, for the winter chill was blowing up there already.

  “The odds were never in her favor,” the mystic replied. “In truth, I never believed that she had any chance at all of breaking free of Behren’s immoral stranglehold, unless the Chezru Chieftain and his Yatols came to understand that To-gai was worth less than the effort required to hold it.”

  “And she must have known as much, as well,” said the Shepherd, and the mystic nodded.

  “She, we, all expected to die. And so we likely will.”

  “Then why did you try?”

  Pagonel looked at him as if the question itself was preposterous, and that expression conveyed all the reasons Merwan Ma needed to know.

  “Brynn’s world has crumbled,” said Pagonel, and he paused and looked at Merwan Ma, waiting for the man to return his stare. “And so has your own.”

  Merwan Ma sat back and folded his arms over his thin chest, letting that realization sink in deeply. He knew that Pagonel spoke the truth, knew that his entire life had been tossed aside, simply because he had seen the Chezru Chieftain in the illicit, even sacrilegious, act of using the hematite gemstone. And Merwan Ma, the keeper of that sacred chalice, the appointed attendant to the God-Voice and mentor to the new God-Voice, once one was found, had come to recognize, as had the mystic, the deeper implications to all of this. Merwan Ma had felt the intrusion of Yakim Douan keenly, and understood that the God-Voice had almost forced his spirit from his body entirely, taking the corporeal form as his own. If he could do that to a grown and intelligent man, what might he do to an unsuspecting infant in the womb?

  “I am not going west with Brynn,” Pagonel said to him, drawing him from his contemplations.

  “South to the Mountains of Fire?”

  “East to Jacintha.”

  Merwan Ma’s eyes opened wide. “They will kill you. They will not hear you!”

  “This is a bigger issue than my life.”

  “You say it as simply as that?”

  “I do.”

  Again, Merwan Ma sat back, staring hard at this unusual man. “And what of me?”

  “I will ask of Brynn that you be set free,” Pagonel replied. “And she will not argue the course. If you choose to go south, to the Mountains of Fire, I will tell you proper phrases, passwords, that will ensure your acceptance in the Walk of Clouds. Your road will be your own to determine.”

  Merwan Ma continued to stare at him, trying to read the thoughts behind the words. “My road will be mine to choose, but you are hoping that I will choose to go with you, to Jacintha.”

  Pagonel smiled.

  “They will kill me, too,” Merwan Ma said, and the mystic did not disagree.

  Merwan Ma shrugged, and gave what might have been his first honest smile since entering the city of Dharyan so long ago.

  The next day, the pair stood before Brynn, their gear heavy on their backs.

  “You have my love and my respect,” Pagonel said to her. “I know that you will choose correctly in every course you take.” He gave her a hug and kissed her on the cheek. “May good fortune keep you alive, Brynn Dharielle. Your home is the Walk of Clouds if you cannot find it again in To-gai.”

  “I only hope that I will be buried in the soil of To-gai,” the woman said grimly, her tone telling the mystic that she understood well that her war was fast ending. If her force could not outguess the Behrenese, they had no chance of victory.

  “There will be others who come behind you,” Pagonel replied. “Who use the name of Brynn Dharielle, the Dragon of To-gai, to inspire those who would follow them. The quest to see To-gai free does not end with you, even should you fail.”

  “And you will plant the seeds of dissent among the Chezru, that Yakim Douan will find his power wavering,” Brynn replied.

  “And perhaps, in the time of Transcendence, which is not so far away, another will take up the cause of Brynn Dharielle, and use the tactics of Brynn Dharielle, and how will Behren fight back then?” said Merwan Ma, and the other two looked at him with perfectly stunned expressions, then broke out in laughter.

  “Jhesta Tu mind tricks, to bend him to my will,” Pagonel quipped, and Merwan Ma, after a quick, panicked look to make sure that the mystic was joking, joined in the laughter.

  And so they parted ways, with Brynn leading her riders out to the west, and Pagonel and Merwan Ma beginning their long walk down the eastern road, some two weeks from Jacintha.

  Chapter 36

  Defensive Position

  “SHE HAS TURNED WEST,” SHAUNTIL INFORMED YATOL BARDOH WHEN THE NEWS arrived from Jacintha in the morning.

  “The mountains were her last refuge,” the Yatol reasoned. “Now that we have found her once more, she is out of room. She runs for home.”

  The Yatol turned to face the warrior and chuckled wickedly. “Swing the line to block all passes into To-gai.”

  The Chezhou-Lei warrior put on a confused expression. “We cannot hope to pace the To-gai-ru, with their fine steeds.”

  “We will trail,” the Yatol explained. “Send those we already have in the west to block the passes. Have them set their great ballistae in defensible positions in case the dragon makes an appearance.”

  Shauntil’s expression did not change. “The only forces we have close enough to the plateau divide are those you sent north to Dharyan, Yatol.”

  The man nodded.

  “If they swing east, it will leave the city undefended.”

  “And so the Dragon of To-gai may get her last victory,” Yatol Bardoh said. “And then we will have her, and all of her forces, bottled up and waiting to be destroyed. Do not consider me in such a manner!” he scolded when Shauntil’s expression grew even more doubting. “We must look upon that which will achieve the greater good. If Dharyan is sacked once more, it will be rebuilt, but once we destroy the
Dragon of To-gai, there will be no one to replace her.”

  The Chezhou-Lei warrior snapped to attention. “Yes, Yatol,” he said, and he found that he was beginning to see the wisdom of Bardoh’s thinking. Indeed, if they could finally be rid of the Dragon of To-gai, then the price of Dharyan would not seem so great a thing.

  “If they catch me with a Ru servant, they will tear the flesh from my body,” Merwan Ma said excitedly, addressing a group of soldiers at Dahdah Oasis. The place was crawling with the Jacintha garrison, another several thousand marching down the western road to link up with Yatol Bardoh and Shauntil for the final defeat of the Dragon of To-gai.

  Behind the Shepherd, Pagonel kept his head bowed and his hands, bound much more loosely than they appeared, in close to his torso.

  “You should give your servant over to us, here and now,” one of the guards remarked, and he turned to his friends, laughing, then continued, “that we might launch him by catapult into the midst of our enemies!”

  They all broke out in laughter then, including Merwan Ma, though the Shepherd certainly wasn’t pleased at the grim reminder of that horrible sight.

  A couple of the soldiers moved toward Pagonel.

  “No!” Merwan Ma shouted at them, and they did stop, and turned to stare at him hard.

  “He is needed for the service of the Chezru Chieftain,” the soldier standing before the Shepherd declared angrily. “You would deny us?”

  “I am a Chezru Shepherd!” Merwan Ma replied. “Once attendant to Chezru Yakim Douan.”

  “So you say!”

  “Would you dare to guess that I am wrong?” Merwan Ma shot back, not backing down a bit. “I can name for you every member of Chezru within Chom Deiru! I am only now returned from the retaking of Dharyan, with word from Governor Carwan Pestle, my peer and my friend. So would you challenge my word, soldier? Would you risk the wrath of Chezru Douan and his Chezhou-Lei?”