“Aydrian,” came the elf’s simple answer. “Aydrian and his gemstones. We have been deceived.”
“We cannot fight them all,” Pony remarked.
“If we turn now, St.-Mere-Abelle is doomed,” the prince replied.
“St.-Mere-Abelle is doomed in any case,” Juraviel noted. “Duke Kalas’ army is huge.”
Prince Midalis looked all around, searching for answers. He seemed to grow more desperate by the moment, but then Pony put her hand on his arm, forcing him to calm himself and to look at her.
“We have nowhere to run,” the woman told him.
Prince Midalis nodded his agreement. “Then let us fight,” he replied, his voice full of determination.
“So it begins,” Aydrian announced, sitting astride his horse before the gates of St.-Mere-Abelle. He turned to a young monk standing beside him. “You have brought the items as I instructed?”
“Yes, my lord,” the man sheepishly replied, and he handed Aydrian a quiver of arrows.
Smiling widely, Aydrian calmly told Marcalo De’Unnero to order the catapults to pound at the door, and to begin the charge for the main gates. Then the young king drew one of the arrows from the quiver and held it up before his eyes, marveling at the small ruby that had been secured to its shaft, just below the arrowhead.
He was still staring at it when De’Unnero returned to his side. “You cannot think to …” the monk began, but Aydrian merely laughed, stopping him.
The young king took out a soul stone and pulled his great bow, the bow of his father, from the side of his saddle, and, with a fluid movement, strung Hawkwing.
“I have not practiced my archery as much as I should have,” he lamented, as the catapults fired and his warriors took up the charge. With a shrug, Aydrian set the ruby-imbued arrow to the bowstring. “Still, I expect that I can place the arrow close enough to the gate towers to cause a bit of discomfort.”
Inside the uppermost open rooms in the gate towers flanking the main door of the great monastery, the brothers of St.-Mere-Abelle responded to the assault with blasts of magical lightning, like blue-white arms reaching down to sting and slam the front ranks of the charging warriors.
In the left-hand tower room, flanking Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy, Bishop Braumin cheered his brothers on, imploring them to throw every ounce of energy they could muster into their initial blasts. Braumin had seen Aydrian quiet the magical response in Palmaris, after all, and he could only assume that the young king would similarly cover his attackers here.
Father Abbot Bou-raiy also implored the brothers, yelling out to them, reminding them that St.-Mere-Abelle had never fallen and telling them that it would not do so now! From both towers and all along the walls at the front of the monastery came a thunderous response. With gemstones and crossbows, with boiling oil and heavy stones, the brothers and the peasant army fought hard against the crush.
Bishop Braumin did notice the group of figures across the field, watching it all, and he knew that Aydrian and De’Unnero were among them. He took little interest in them, however, for they seemed far out of his magical reach; and so he didn’t even see the young king, still sitting astride his horse, lift his great feather-tipped elven bow and let fly a solitary arrow.
The missile, to any who noticed, seemed like nothing at all, a minor bolt amidst a swarm of carnage. It arced perfectly through the morning sky, descending to the open tower top room on the right-hand side of the battered gate. Nor did any of the monks notice the presence that accompanied that missile, the spirit of Aydrian, moving out of body, retaining his connection with the ruby set in the arrow’s shaft.
The arrow clicked down against the stone, shattering as it hit the ledge of the great open window in the tower.
And then it exploded, a tremendous fireball blasting through the tower room, silencing the magical defenses of the monks in a burst of sudden and terrifying flame.
“By God,” Braumin Herde muttered, stunned by the magical display. The man’s knees went weak beneath him as he heard the screams from across the way, as he saw one man and then another leap out of the tower, flames clinging to every part of their bodies. “By God.”
“Sunstone shields!” Fio Bou-raiy cried desperately, for when he looked across the field, he could see Aydrian lifting his bow yet again. The monks scrambled to produce the proper stones, but they were not in time.
A second arrow came down from on high, arcing into the courtyard behind the gate itself. The ensuing fireball had the peasant force gathered there in defense of the gate screaming and running, many of them with flames leaping from their clothing, their hair, their skin. Even worse for the integrity of the defense, the flames caught on the great beams holding the door, as well.
“Get some serpentine down there!” Fio Bou-raiy cried. “Get some water down there!”
Braumin Herde, his body glowing blue-white now from a serpentine shield he had enacted, fell over Fio Bou-raiy, and worked feverishly to include the man within the shield, even as the third magical fireball went off, this one blasting through the room that contained the leader.
Braumin flew back from the force of the blow, but held stubbornly on to Bou-raiy, even when they crashed against the back wall. Still holding tight, the bishop climbed to his feet and pulled the Father Abbot up with him, then ushered the man from the burning room, down the tower’s spiral staircase, and out of the structure altogether.
“Hold as long as you can, then organize a retreat to the cellars,” he instructed Master Machuso out in the courtyard. “We must make them fight for every inch of ground. We must make them climb over the bodies of their dead comrades every step of the way!”
The old master nodded his agreement and ran off, rallying the brothers and the peasants against the unexpected devastation, making sure that the sunstone shields were being emblazed all across the battle zone. And indeed, the next ruby-set arrow that soared in from across the way crossed into an area of antimagic, where Aydrian’s spirit was repulsed. The fireball did not explode.
“A conventional battle, then,” Master Machuso remarked, and he nodded grimly, certain that he and his brethren could give this enemy all that they could handle with or without magic.
His determination turned to great hope soon after, when cries echoed down from the northern stretches of the monastery wall, heralding the arrival of a second force, led by Prince Midalis.
Aydrian and De’Unnero soon heard the rumors, as well, and soon after that, saw the force of Prince Midalis, charging hard from the north.
“We’ll pivot and move them out from the wall,” De’Unnero reasoned.
“Then Midalis will flee inside the monastery,” Aydrian reasoned. “And that, we do not want.”
De’Unnero started away, but Aydrian reached down and stopped him, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Look there,” the young king explained, motioning toward the west. “Duke Kalas will see to the army of Prince Midalis.”
De’Unnero settled immediately as yet another army made its appearance on the field, charging in hard from the west. Duke Kalas had returned, with a force three times the size of the one Midalis had brought. A quick glance to the north and then back to the west showed the young king and the fierce monk the truth of it. Prince Midalis would not make the gate before Duke Kalas.
“Duke Kalas will have the fight without well in hand,” Aydrian assured the monk. “Come, let us go to the gate and see to the fight within.”
Aydrian had to walk his horse in a zigzag course to avoid the carnage before the gate and walls of St.-Mere-Abelle. He figured that more than a third of his force of five thousand were down, but he didn’t care—for the gate had been weakened, and the defenses were tiring. Connected through his hematite, he could tell that there was some sunstone antimagic about, but it was nothing substantial out here, beyond the gate, and certainly nothing that would inhibit the power of King Aydrian.
Like a wave, his men parted before him, opening a line to the great portal.
Aydrian drew out Tempest and leveled the blade, then sent every bit of his strength into the graphite set within the sword, and a tremendous white bolt of lightning shot forth.
The doors shuddered inward; the great locking beams—weakened by the fires and the press—snapped apart.
The swarm flowed into the courtyard of St.-Mere-Abelle.
“Kill all who will not yield,” Aydrian told his men and, flanked by Sadye and Marcalo De’Unnero, the young king walked his horse into the monastery’s courtyard.
“We’re too late,” Prince Midalis lamented when he saw the approach of the huge army, angling to intercept him.
“Flee or fight?” Bradwarden asked.
Prince Midalis turned a steely eyed gaze the centaur’s way.
“Fight well and die well!” Bradwarden roared, and he took up his pipes.
The men from Vanguard and Alpinador formed into a defensive square about Midalis and Bruinhelde and the other leaders, setting themselves against Kalas’ charge.
An arm of the duke’s army swung around to the north to seal off any retreat, but the prince’s warriors had no intention of fleeing.
As one, the prince and his forces ducked low, as Agradeleous soared above him, Brynn and Pagonel taking the dragon out in a sudden charge. They got near to the opposing army, with Agradeleous even managing to spew forth his breath at one leading group of soldiers, but then such a hail of arrows reached up at them that Brynn was forced to turn her beast about and fly fast away.
“Well disciplined,” Pony remarked to Midalis. “Let us see how they deal with me.” She reached forth her arm and jolted the nearest group of infantry with a blast of lightning, all of the men falling to the ground and jerking about wildly.
“Ride with us!”
Pagonel shouted to Prince Midalis as Brynn brought the dragon down beside him. “We cannot fight our way through the whole of King Aydrian’s army with any hope of stopping him!”
Prince Midalis looked around at the other leaders.
“Go!” Andacanavar shouted at him.
“Be quick!” Bruinhelde agreed. “We’ll give these attackers second thoughts!” The barbarian leader turned to his men, then, and shouted, “Fight well and die well!” And that cry was echoed enthusiastically all along the Alpinadoran line.
Prince Midalis scrambled up behind Pagonel. “Find Aydrian,” he bade the mystic and Brynn.
“I can smell him,” came the growling response from Agradeleous, and the dragon leaped away.
“Neither is our place here,” Belli’mar Juraviel said to Pony and Bradwarden. Even as he spoke, they heard Aydrian’s thunder, and the cries from inside the monastery’s walls. “He has found his way in!” Juraviel shouted. “We must stop him!”
Pony, on Symphony, and Bradwarden moved close to the elf, who lifted his open hand, showing the emerald of Andur’Blough Inninness. “You are ranger first,” he said to Andacanavar.
The big man hesitated and looked nervously to Bruinhelde.
“Go and kill him in battle!” Bruinhelde said without the slightest hesitation. “I’ll die singing your name, mighty Andacanavar!”
A moment later, Belli’mar Juraviel and his four companions took a gigantic step, right past the southern edge of Duke Kalas’ approaching forces, to appear near the broken gate of St.-Mere-Abelle.
They charged immediately for that gate, striking hard at the stragglers of Aydrian’s force. Behind them, they heard the concussion as Duke Kalas’ force collided with the warriors of Vanguard and Alpinador.
Pony tried hard not to hear those cries.
Braumin Herde left Father Abbot Bou-raiy and the others in the great hall of the main keep. The former bishop of Palmaris rushed up the wide stairway and ran along the balcony, then went up again, using a circular stair that would take him to the keep’s highest level, and up again along the same stairs to the flat and defended roof of the structure.
From there, he could see the sweep of Duke Kalas’ forces, locked in ferocious battle with Prince Midalis’ men outside the monastery’s walls. From there, he could see the great dragon, three figures atop it, soaring about the battlefield, apparently battling on Prince Midalis’ side. Braumin Herde had no idea what the fire-breathing beast was all about, or where it had come from, or why it might be allied with the prince, but he was surely thrilled to discern that it was an ally and not an enemy!
Any hope the dragon inspired could not hold for long, though, for Braumin’s gaze was inevitably drawn back within the abbey, where pockets of fighting had erupted in every building and all along the wall. Men were dying by the score, Braumin knew, and there was nothing he could do.
He continued his scan, then froze in place, his gaze settling on a group making its way across the courtyard from the broken gate.
“Who is that?” one younger brother asked of him, following his lead.
Braumin Herde couldn’t get the names of King Aydrian and Marcalo De’Unnero out of his mouth. “Our worst nightmare,” he did manage to whisper.
“What are we to do, master?” the young monk asked, and Braumin glanced over at him, to see several others staring at him for some guidance here.
“Pray, brothers,” he said. “Shoot straight and pray loudly.”
With a deep breath, Braumin steadied his feet under him and headed back for the stairway and back into the keep.
“The rat has retreated to his hole, it would seem,” Aydrian remarked, motioning toward the solid keep across the courtyard and overlooking All Saints Bay.
“Then let us go and kill the creature,” De’Unnero agreed.
Aydrian and Sadye paused then, hearing the pop of bone from their companion. De’Unnero was wearing his monk robe, and so they couldn’t see the details of the transformation. Under the folds of that robe, they did see the movement of his limbs, though, as his legs transformed into those of a mighty tiger.
“I will join with you inside,” De’Unnero explained, and he leaped gracefully away, sprinting across the rest of the courtyard to the base of the keep’s solid wall. With hardly an effort, it seemed, the weretiger leaped straight up, landing lightly on the sill of a second-story window.
With a glance back at Aydrian, De’Unnero slipped inside onto the balcony in the great hall. He moved across to the solid railing and peeked over, looking down upon Fio Bou-raiy, who was seated on the single throne and flanked by several of St.-Mere-Abelle’s masters.
De’Unnero glanced about, noting the statues set in alcoves at the back of the balcony. The railing was high and solid, providing good cover, and the monk figured that he could get to the stairs easily enough without being seen.
Looking at the stairs, or more particularly, at the huge circular window set in the wall above them, did give him pause, though. The morning light streamed through that window, that image of Avelyn’s upraised arm.
Before De’Unnero moved again, he heard the door in the room below crash open, and he knew that King Aydrian had arrived.
It pained Prince Midalis to leave his men. He wanted to stay, with the dragon and the mystic, and the woman with her devastating bow.
And Brynn was nothing short of amazing, up there on Agradeleous, flying cover for the soldiers battling below.
“I smell him!” Agradeleous cried over and over again.
“Then find him!” Pagonel demanded.
With a flap of his leathery wings, Agradeleous lifted higher into the air, then slowly turned about and fell into a dive past the northern edge of the monastery and down over the cliff facing, gathering speed as he went.
Prince Midalis watched the battle until the dragon dove low, the cliffs shutting him off from his warriors, from Liam O’Blythe and Bruinhelde and all the others.
He could still hear their battle cries, however.
He knew that he had to trust.
They plowed through the confusion at the broken gate. If two warriors trained in bi’nelle dasada weren’t enough to scatter Aydrian’s forces clustered there, the sheer s
trength of Bradwarden and the well-placed arrows of Belli’mar Juraviel surely were.
Pony rolled down from Symphony, falling into place beside the Alpinadoran ranger. As soon as they engaged a group of opponents together, it became apparent that she and Andacanavar couldn’t quite find the level of harmony that the woman had once enjoyed with Elbryan. For the barbarian’s sword dance had been adapted to fit his physical size and strength. When a soldier charged at him, he parried with a horizontal blade and quick-stepped back, typical of the dance. But then Andacanavar slid his back foot to the side and stepped out wide. Halting his progress, he reversed momentum, coming across with a devastating slash of his elven greatsword that laid low his foolishly pursuing opponent.
Andacanavar’s sidelong step left Pony out alone for a moment against two other warriors, but the woman worked her sword quickly and accurately, turning thrust after thrust with apparent ease.
Then Bradwarden stepped up to fill the void left by the Alpinadoran ranger. The centaur stabbed his huge bow out as if it were a spear, just as one of Pony’s opponents broke from her and charged at him. The tip of the bow caught the man just below his breastplate and the centaur drove ahead and up, lifting him right from the ground. Arms and legs flailing, he went tumbling back, and when he finally caught himself and tried to come back in, the centaur had that bow leveled his way, an arrow that seemed more like a heavy spear set on its bowstring!
The man screamed and turned and scrambled past a comrade who was charging in to join the fight.
A slight shift put the arrow in line with this newcomer, and the centaur’s arrow blasted through his metal breastplate, lifting him from his feet and throwing him back and to the ground.
Off to the side, Pony parried and retreated, then came back suddenly as her opponent lifted his sword above his shoulder. Her reversed movement, a brilliant execution of the sword dance, was too quick for her opponent even to register it. His eyes wide with sudden horror, the man could not hope to bring his sword down to deflect the thrust.
Pony struck true, her sword sliding into the Kingsman’s belly, and he fell away, howling and clutching at the wound.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 238