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

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Enough!” Brynn cried again, and she leaped forward at Aydrian, who turned on her angrily.

  “You would consort with such a beast, and yet you question my actions?” the young king yelled at her. “Begone from here! At once!”

  Brynn saw that there was something deeper here, something almost feral within Aydrian. How could he know anything of dragons? Why had he acted so violently, without the slightest hesitation?

  And why had Agradeleous?

  Brynn stared at him for just a moment longer, then rushed out the door, fearing that her dragon would assume its greater form and simply stamp the house flat.

  She found Agradeleous hardly in a position to do so, for Aydrian’s bolt had stung him and stunned him. He was many feet back from the doorway, sitting in the yard, and seemed more shaken than Brynn had ever before seen him.

  “Quickly, let us be out of here,” Pagonel said to her, moving by and taking her by the arm. He pulled her past the dragon, with Yatol De Hamman moving even faster and farther.

  But Agradeleous did not stand to follow.

  “Agradeleous?” the mystic asked. He let go of Brynn and rushed back around to regard the dragon directly, to see the curious expression. Was it rage? Fear? “Come along,” the mystic prompted.

  The dragon stood up, still staring with obvious murderous intent at the house.

  “The treaty is signed,” Pagonel went on. “Our business here is done. Let us be gone from this place.”

  “Long gone,” the dragon finally agreed. “Long, long gone.”

  “Aydrian!” Sadye yelled, grabbing the young king as he broke from his pacing and stalked determinedly toward the door.

  Aydrian turned on her, his eyes glowing with outrage, his expression more ferocious than Sadye had ever seen. But she, who had tamed the weretiger within Marcalo De’Unnero, did not back away.

  “What are you doing?” the woman asked, and as Aydrian’s muscles tightened with tension, she tightened her grip upon him.

  “What was that?” the woman calmly asked.

  “A dragon,” Aydrian explained, though his teeth were so tightly gritted that he could hardly push the words through. “The second oldest of the races and the most vile by far!”

  Sadye shook her head with every word. “You knew that Brynn Dharielle was rumored to possess such a beast,” the bard reasoned.

  “So?”

  “So explain your reaction,” Sadye replied.

  That simple question did ease the tension from the young king and put him back on his heels. He had indeed heard the stories, and had eagerly anticipated the prospects of seeing the creature—had even fancied himself taking the dragon as a fitting mount to the man who would rule the world. Sadye’s confusion was justified, he realized. What indeed had just happened?

  “I cannot explain,” he admitted. “The revulsion within me—I had not anticipated …”

  “Were you not joking earlier that you would desire such a beast as a mount?”

  “I would desire its vile head as a trophy, and nothing more!” Aydrian roared.

  “Aydrian?”

  Again, the surprising outburst had Aydrian shaking his head with more surprise than anyone in his audience.

  “My liege, I will rouse the troops at once,” Sir Mallon Yank declared. “We will bring down the beast and deliver its head!”

  “You will stand down,” Aydrian replied immediately. “The southerners arrived under a flag of truce, and we will honor that.”

  “Yes, my King.”

  “The unfortunate outburst is to be forgotten,” Aydrian told them all. “We have signed a treaty and will hold to it, as will Brynn and her people, and the Behrenese. The issue of the southland is settled for now, to my relief. Let us turn our attention fully to our own lands now, and be done with Prince Midalis and the rebellion.”

  It was news that they were all glad to hear.

  “Perhaps the next time you request a gathering with Brynn, you would be wise to advise her to leave her beast in To-gai,” Sadye said quietly to Aydrian, while the others went about straightening the room and ensuring that their guests were long away.

  Aydrian wrapped his arm about the woman’s shoulders and laughed. “Wise indeed,” he agreed. “Wise indeed.”

  Chapter 42

  Pecking Away

  UPON RETURNING TO JACINTHA, YATOL DE HAMMAN WAS NOT PLEASED TO LEARN that fighting had broken out anew along the southern sections of the city. “There is no order! All of Behren is in chaos because of you,” he accused Brynn. “Fool woman!”

  Brynn didn’t shrink back an inch from the blabbering man. “Push my patience at your peril, Yatol,” she calmly replied. “Had you not attacked my city, I would not have marched forth in response.” He started to protest, but Brynn raised her hand into his face and spoke over him. “Spare me your talk of a mistake. There is no time for that anymore. Your country is in ruin, and you have no one to blame but Abbot Olin—and yourself.

  “So go back to your home, Yatol,” the woman went on. “Secure your province and release this anger you hold toward me and toward To-gai. It is an unhealthy practice, I assure you.” That last threat had been not the least bit disguised, and Yatol De Hamman blanched and swayed back from the imposing warrior woman.

  “Let us return to your people,” Pagonel offered from behind Brynn.

  “Indeed,” Brynn replied. “I have had more than enough of the Behrenese.”

  They found the To-gai encampment up in the foothills easily enough. Many of the warriors had gone home by then, leaving only fourscore patrolling the region. Tanalk Grenk was there, however, patiently awaiting Brynn’s return.

  “To-gai’s conflict with Honce-the-Bear is at its end,” Brynn explained to the man. “King Aydrian has been warned to stay north of the mountains, and given his loss here, it will be a long time before he can turn his eyes south to us once more. When the issue of his struggle with Prince Midalis is settled, To-gai will go to the victor in parley again, to reaffirm the treaty we have signed.”

  “You have done well for our people,” Grenk congratulated, and he offered a respectful bow. “Yet again.”

  “My efforts have been no less fruitful than your own,” Brynn replied. “Your actions and leadership saved Dharyan-Dharielle, and allowed us to break out from the besieged city.” The woman paused and looked to Pagonel, taking strength in his serenity.

  “And that is why it is with complete confidence that I hand the leadership of To-gai into your able hands, Chief Tanalk Grenk,” Brynn explained, and for perhaps the first time in his entire life, the powerful To-gai-ru warrior seemed as if his legs would not support him!

  “My lady?” he stuttered.

  “My road takes me north,” Brynn explained. “By his deeds has Aydrian named himself my enemy, and I cannot go quietly home while he continues his errant course.”

  “An enemy of Brynn Dharielle is an enemy of To-gai!” Tanalk Grenk said determinedly.

  Brynn offered him a grateful smile and patted his shoulder. “Aydrian’s misdeeds against the Touel’alfar are no business of any To-gai-ru except for me. I am a ranger, as surely as I am To-gai-ru. I could not ask my warriors to follow me across the mountains. I could not risk the welfare of To-gai in my defense of Lady Dasslerond, who was as my mother. I am going north to do battle with Aydrian because I must. To you I entrust the leadership of our people, and I have no doubt that you will perform magnificently. To you, I entrust the care of Runtly, who is precious to me.”

  “And when you return?” Grenk asked.

  “I will take back my pony, but that is all,” Brynn replied. “My abdication is complete. If ever I am needed by To-gai, I will be there, by your side, but if I return from Honce-the-Bear, my road will be …” She stopped and glanced over at Pagonel, who smiled and nodded.

  “You are going to study with the Jhesta Tu,” Tanalk Grenk reasoned.

  Brynn smiled and continued to look to the mystic. “If I am fortunate enough to live through the
trials with Aydrian,” she admitted.

  When she turned back to Tanalk Grenk, she was surprised to see that he didn’t appear ready to argue, nor was he puffing his chest with pride. “If I serve To-gai half as well as did Brynn Dharielle, then my name will be legend among our people,” he offered, and he bowed so low that it seemed as if his face would touch the ground, and when he came up, Brynn saw the hint of tears in his dark eyes.

  “I would ride with you anywhere in all the world, against any enemy,” he said. “I would battle the dragon itself if you but asked. You cannot know …”

  Brynn interrupted him by moving forward and wrapping him in a great hug.

  “I could not go and do what I must, were it not for you,” she whispered to the man. “I leave To-gai in all confidence that she will be safe and well led.”

  Tanalk Grenk nodded, and Brynn hugged him again. Then she gathered up Pagonel and walked off the plateau encampment, down to where Agradeleous waited.

  The eagerness of the dragon had the woman more than a little concerned.

  “He is worth killing,” Agradeleous explained to her.

  “And you mean to do that?”

  The dragon fell back and the eager sparkle in his reptilian eyes dimmed considerably. “Better for another, that task,” he said. “For me, I will fly about the beast’s kingdom, putting towns to the flame!”

  “No,” Brynn replied, and she closed her eyes against the memories evoked by Agradeleous’ obvious hunger. She remembered well the carnage she had allowed the dragon to inflict upon the Behrenese settlers in To-gai, and knew that forevermore she would hear their terrified screams in her mind. Her fight in the north was not with Honce-the-Bear, however, but with Aydrian—specifically Aydrian.

  She would not turn Agradeleous loose in such a manner ever again.

  They spent the night in preparation, Pagonel and Brynn determining how they might best serve Prince Midalis, and then they were off with the dawn’s light, flying east to find the prince and his navy.

  Three more catapults came online that day on the field outside of St.-Mere-Abelle, and Duke Kalas wasted no time in adding them to the bombardment. At any given moment throughout that morning, a trio of boulders were in the air, soaring out far and wide to smash down among the structures of the great abbey, or mostly, along the front wall near to the great gates.

  Responding fire from the abbey’s artillery proved sporadic at best, and wholly ineffective. Nor could the monks reach out this far with their gemstones.

  Every so often, Kalas’ artillerymen changed their tactics and loaded up with smoldering pitch and elevated the firing angle, and then with a great whoosh, they launched all fifteen of the massive catapults together, sending a wave of fire soaring over the abbey wall.

  “Are you enjoying this as much as I?” Kalas asked De’Unnero as the two stood and watched the continuing bombardment.

  “You would knock it all down if you could,” the monk replied.

  Kalas didn’t even bother to reply, just stood there watching, a superior grin upon his face.

  “Are you not just giving them more ammunition to throw back at us?” De’Unnero asked.

  “That is why we throw the pitch over the wall, but launch the stones in short, so that most smash against the front wall and bounce down beyond their reach. Not that it would matter. When King Aydrian arrives and tells us to charge in, the monks will run out of time long before they will run out of stones to throw.”

  “He will arrive soon?”

  “Tomorrow, from what I have heard.”

  “And what of the rumors from the southland?”

  “By all reports, Abbot Olin was defeated and captured,” Duke Kalas answered. “By all reports, Prince Midalis played a hand in that defeat. I fear that King Aydrian perhaps reached too far and too fast.”

  “No,” the monk argued. “It was not Aydrian’s error, but Abbot Olin’s. He should have stepped more carefully—he had enough warriors at his disposal to hold strong against any opposition, had he kept his focus upon Jacintha and Behren alone.”

  “Do you think they are afraid?” Duke Kalas asked, indicating the great abbey once more.

  De’Unnero turned back to regard the ancient structure. “They are concerned, of course,” he replied. “But they know that you’ll not knock down their solid walls from out here. And they know that they can withstand a siege forever and ever—the abbey is fully self-supporting. The brothers understand that to take St.-Mere-Abelle, you, or Aydrian, will have to charge those walls. The monastery has been attacked many times, good Duke. Never has it fallen.”

  “Never has it faced the wrath of Aydrian, or the combined armies of Honce-the-Bear,” Kalas was quick to answer. He put on a sly look, and offered, “Nor, perhaps, the wrath of Marcalo De’Unnero.”

  “St.-Mere-Abelle will fall,” De’Unnero agreed, but far from jubilant, his tone was somber. De’Unnero wanted the abbey taken, of course—this was the moment of his ascension. But it pained him nonetheless to know that to put things in the Church aright, he would have to bring down the formerly unconquerable fortress. There was some mystique about St.-Mere-Abelle that appealed to the warrior monk: unconquerable, indomitable, ageless.

  “Do you think they have had enough shaking for the morning?” Kalas asked.

  “Take care you do not pile your missiles too high before the walls,” the monk warned. “Else we’ll have to move them aside before we batter at the gates.”

  Duke Kalas snorted and turned to look over his shoulder. “The artillery is to stand down!” he called to one of his nearby undercommanders, and the man saluted and ran off to relay the command.

  “We will resume tomorrow morning,” Kalas explained to De’Unnero. “And every morning thereafter.”

  He chuckled as he considered a black line of smoke rising from behind the abbey’s wall, the result, no doubt, of the last pitch barrage. “We will wear away their resolve,” he promised. “And then St.-Mere-Abelle will fall to Aydrian’s control.”

  Marcalo De’Unnero eyed the man for a long time, but resisted the urge to correct him on that last part. St.-Mere-Abelle would fall, true, but control would cede to him, and not to Aydrian.

  Later that day, a runner arrived with word that Prince Midalis had come ashore in the east yet again.

  “St. Gwendolyn?” Duke Kalas asked hopefully, for he had left a sizable force in place, hidden within the abbey. “Then at last, the renegade found a fight.”

  “Pireth Tulme,” the runner corrected. “And then Macomber Village.”

  Duke Kalas looked at De’Unnero, and the monk merely shrugged. Once again, the prince had known exactly where to strike.

  “Gather a force and retake the place,” said a disgusted Duke Kalas.

  “Yes, my lord,” the runner replied, and Kalas waved him away.

  “Pray that Aydrian arrives soon,” Kalas muttered to De’Unnero. “We are in sore need of a victory here, to ensure that the peasants do not start believing in the superiority of Prince Midalis. Though he wins no major victories!”

  “He is gambling that he will need none,” the monk replied.

  Trumpets heralded the arrival of King Aydrian and his force of five thousand the next day. He wasted no time with formalities, or even in surveying the damage done so far to St.-Mere-Abelle, but went straight to the tent offered him as his audience hall, to meet with Father Abbot De’Unnero and Duke Kalas.

  “You have heard of Olin’s failure?” Aydrian snapped as soon as the pair walked in. He noted, too, that De’Unnero’s eyes were not on him, but were on Sadye, and the monk seemed less than pleased to be looking upon her once more.

  “Rumors have reached us, yes,” Duke Kalas replied.

  “They are all true, I assure you,” said Aydrian. “Olin attacked my old companion, Brynn Dharielle, and her To-gai-ru kinfolk, and he was soundly thrashed. Of course, it helped Brynn’s cause that Prince Midalis happened to sail into Jacintha harbor in support of her war with Olin.”


  “The prince has proven to be a thorn up and down the coast,” Duke Kalas agreed. “Always does he seem to be striking wherever we are not.”

  “It’s the witch with her gemstones,” De’Unnero offered. “The witch you let walk out of Ursal.”

  The two men stared hard at each other, and Aydrian was the first to blink. Perhaps De’Unnero was right here, he knew. Perhaps, in his supreme confidence, he had erred in allowing his mother to walk free. Was she now using her soul stone to scout out the regions along the coast where Midalis could safely strike? Had she gone so far to the south as to recognize the situation in Jacintha, and then guide Prince Midalis to the side of Brynn?

  It seemed a bit of a stretch to Aydrian; there were great limitations to spirit-walking, after all. But still, something was obviously going on here.

  “Behren and To-gai are no longer involved in our struggles,” Aydrian explained to the two men. “I have signed a treaty with both Brynn Dharielle and the representative of Jacintha.”

  “If they hold to it,” Duke Kalas murmured.

  “Brynn Dharielle’s word cannot be questioned,” Aydrian countered. “She has agreed that To-gai will not go to war with Honce-the-Bear, and so they shall not. As for Behren, by all reports, the people there are too busy battling with each other to turn their eyes to the north.”

  “Then we need not fortify Entel, beyond a force that could repel Prince Midalis,” Kalas reasoned.

  “Entel is secure,” Aydrian assured him. “Prince Midalis will not engage us fully at this time. His strategy is to strike where we are weakest and then to run away.”

  “He is trying to erode support for you among the people,” De’Unnero reasoned. “He is trying to make sure that they understand his viability as their king.”

  “And to counter that, we need a more substantial victory than the prince could ever hope to gain,” said Aydrian. He pointed straight out the door, across the fields to the distant gray-brown structure of St.-Mere-Abelle. “We need to overrun St.-Mere-Abelle, and soon,” he explained. “Once the abbey is ours, my armies will be free to fortify the coastline more completely. Where then will Prince Midalis strike?”