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

by R. A. Salvatore

  Aydrian brought Hawkwing down.

  Or started to, until Symphony charged into him, knocking him to the floor.

  Prince Midalis recovered his wits quickly and went for his sword. Aydrian, too, rolled right back to his feet. He held his hematite out toward the great stallion even as Symphony started to turn to charge again, and sent a wave of dominating willpower at the horse, filtering it through the magical turquoise set in Symphony’s breast.

  Aydrian found that he couldn’t so easily dominate Symphony as he once had, but he had the beast stalled, at least, kicking and bucking and throwing its head in protest.

  Aydrian was ready for Midalis as the man stubbornly came at him again. He blocked a pair of weak attacks, and thrust his staff hard into the prince’s belly, taking his breath and sending him stumbling backward, clutching at his midsection.

  “It would have been so much easier and cleaner if the horse hadn’t come in,” Aydrian remarked, and he stalked in for the kill.

  In her rage, it was as if the energy of her youth had returned in full. Pony fought with fury, stabbing Defender all about De’Unnero to keep him off balance and constantly backing. Every time the monk tried to counter, Defender was there, stabbing hard and forcing him aside, and, every so often, Pony hit him with a lightning bolt, a minor sting to be sure. But these nicks and stings were starting to take their toll on the battered De’Unnero.

  And so he gathered up his strength and came at her hard and desperately, knowing that time was not on his side.

  But Pony knew that, too, so she was not taken by surprise as De’Unnero leaped forward over her extended sword, pouncing for her head.

  She smashed him with a lightning bolt, the force of it catching him in his descent and holding him aloft for just a moment—long enough for the woman to bring her sword above her!

  Defender slid in under the descending monk’s ribs, up into a lung.

  Pony spun out from under him, guiding him to the side with her blade. She pulled the sword free as De’Unnero tumbled down, and stabbed him again and again, gashing his arms, human hand and tiger paw, as he tried to fend her, stabbing his leg hard as he tried to scramble away.

  He tried to come up, suddenly, reversing direction, but the infuriated woman was ready for him again, bringing Defender down in a hard slash that tore through skin and smashed the monk’s collarbone. As his arm went weak under him, De’Unnero lost his balance and fell down flat on his back.

  Gasping for breath, he stared up at the victorious Pony.

  “And you think those wounds will heal,” she said, and she batted his one blocking arm aside and fell over him, thrusting her hand right into the monk’s deepest wound.

  De’Unnero gasped again, his mouth twisting in a silent question.

  “Do you feel it?” Pony asked him, and she drove her hand in harder. “Do you feel that stone, Marcalo De’Unnero?”

  She sent her energy into the stone she held inside the monk’s body.

  A sunstone.

  Pony felt the resistance of the healing magic that had sustained De’Unnero in health and youth for so many years, the magic that had allowed him to recover from the mortal wounds she had inflicted upon him in their fight in Palmaris those years before.

  De’Unnero’s one working arm, his human arm, snapped up and grabbed her by the wrist.

  “This time you are dead, Marcalo De’Unnero,” the woman promised, and she growled and drove on, the sunstone antimagic pushing through the monk’s healing magical shield.

  As if resigned to the truth of her words, De’Unnero let go of her and settled back.

  As if somehow pleased by this final ending, the monk looked up at her, his face showing acceptance. He looked her in the eye, nodded, and slumped back.

  Pony knew that she couldn’t stop there. She spun about, to see Juraviel crumpled against the wall, and Braumin lying on the floor, weeping and curled, and clutching at his many wounds.

  She heard the fighting down below, and knew that she had to press on. She moved to the stairs, past the sobbing Sadye, and looked down upon the spectacle—down upon her lost husband, Elbryan, brought forth by the abomination that was her son.

  There were still pockets of fighting on the field, and some of it was ferocious, but at the center of the lines, where Bruinhelde and Liam faced off against Duke Kalas himself, all had gone quiet. The dragon stood between the forces, eyeing the Alpinadoran warriors and Vanguardsmen almost as hungrily as he regarded Duke Kalas and his Allhearts.

  “There is no need of this,” Pagonel continued to insist. “Prince Midalis has joined in battle with Aydrian even now. How many must die?”

  “And of what intent are you, should Aydrian emerge from that conflict?” Duke Kalas shouted at the opposing leaders, particularly at great Bruinhelde.

  “My warriors have come as Prince Midalis’ allies,” the proud northman replied. “But if the battle is settled within, then our time here is ended.”

  “Tell them all to stop,” Pagonel shouted to the leaders. “I beg of you to save as many brave men as you can this terrible day!”

  Duke Kalas stared at him hard for a few moments, then turned to his leaders. “Tell them to stand down!”

  “My lord!” came a protest, but Kalas cut the man short by turning away and holding up a hand.

  “If you have deceived me, then know that none of Prince Midalis’ followers will leave this field alive,” he warned the mystic.

  Pagonel more than matched that stare.

  Right beside him, Agradeleous lowered his head and gave a low growl, smoke issuing forth from his nostrils.

  She started down the staircase, but Pony knew that she could not get to Brynn in time. With Bradwarden out of the fighting, Elbryan was dominating the ranger of To-gai. Tempest slapped once, twice, thrice against Flamedancer, pushing it out to the side, and when Brynn tried to bring it to bear, thinking the specter would take the opening and charge, Elbryan fooled her completely by stepping back instead.

  As Flamedancer came across, Elbryan worked Tempest over, down, and then under and up, wrapping the blade and powerfully throwing it out to the side, right from Brynn’s grasp.

  The woman cried out and charged ahead, knowing that she had to get inside the specter’s deadly blade. But Elbryan hardly hesitated, hitting her with a left hook that shattered her nose and sent her staggering to the side and to the floor.

  “Elbryan!” Pony yelled, coming down more quickly.

  The specter turned to regard her, and a light flared in its eyes as it came to recognize the woman. Abandoning the fallen Brynn, Elbryan stalked ahead for Pony, brandishing Tempest.

  Pony knew that she couldn’t possibly match this man, Nightbird, blade against blade. Even in life, those years ago, she was not his equal, but now …

  She went at him in a different manner, falling into her soul stone and sending her magical energy at his spirit with all her strength.

  She closed her physical eyes, but watched the approach of his shadowy form, and she knew that she was slowing him, at least.

  The woman plowed on, throwing all of her strength at the specter, denying his existence, damning him back to the netherworld. But on he came, and she knew that Aydrian had brought him forth too fully for any hope of dismissing him! She could not deny the strength of the creature, nor could she match it, physically or spiritually!

  On impulse, the desperate woman changed her tactics. Instead of fighting against Elbryan, she accepted him, with all of her heart. She searched that shadowy spirit, seeking a spark of light in the darkness.

  She felt cold as he came over her, felt the hard stairs against her back, though she didn’t even know that she had fallen.

  Pony opened her eyes and looked up at the man, his face twisted in rage, Tempest’s tip in close to her exposed throat.

  “Elbryan,” she said softly. “My love.”

  Tempest began to tremble; Pony sensed a struggle within the creature.

  “Fight it,” she implore
d him, and she fell deeper into the hematite and stepped from her body, as if to hug her lover spiritually. You must resist the call of Aydrian! she telepathically imparted. Elbryan, my love! Remember all that you were, all that we were. You know me.

  Tempest began to edge away, and when Pony opened her physical eyes once more, she nearly swooned. For the specter’s dark features lightened; its skin shed the gray hue and seemed to come alive! The light of life was coming back to him, undeniably so! Pony looked into Elbryan’s eyes, those dazzling green eyes that had so enthralled her from the time she was old enough to appreciate the differences between men and women.

  Elbryan pulled back his sword suddenly, instead extending his hand, and Pony took it gladly.

  “We have to stop our son,” she explained as Elbryan reached up and tenderly stroked her cheek.

  “What have you done?” came a shout from below, and the pair turned to see Aydrian standing by the throne. Prince Midalis, battered and bloody, crawled on the floor behind him, seeming senseless.

  “What have you done?” Pony shouted back.

  Aydrian closed his eyes and reached out to Elbryan’s hand through the lodestones set in his breastplate, and the ranger, still unsettled and confused, had Tempest torn from his grasp, the sword flying across the way, where Aydrian neatly caught it. “You see?” he boasted. “Nothing is beyond me!” He leveled the deadly sword their way.

  Pony desperately reached for her pouch, for her sunstone, but realized that she had left it above, with De’Unnero.

  “Now you die!” Aydrian promised, and he sent his great strength into the graphite.

  But a flaming sword flashed before him, smacking against his blade, turning it aside, and the tremendous lightning bolt split the marble of the floor and ricocheted about the room.

  “The second shadow in the mirror!” Elbryan cried to Pony. “He is as Markwart once was!” He grabbed her hand, then, clutching the hematite with her, and together they went through the gemstone portal, throwing themselves at Aydrian in the realm of the spirit even as Brynn battled him physically.

  But the duality that was Aydrian was more than up to the challenge, his sword parrying and countering Brynn’s attacks even as the darkness within him fended the spiritual assault of both his parents. Pony went at him physically, then, as well, and the three blades rang so quickly and loudly that it seemed like one long toll of a bell.

  Pony tried to stay with Elbryan as well, in that darker realm, but there was no break in the darkness that surrounded Aydrian, no opening for them to reach out to their lost son. Indeed, it was as Elbryan had said, so much like their battle with Markwart, but this time, the darkness seemed even more complete.

  They made no headway, with sword or with spirit, and gradually, it was the trio who began to tire, and not Aydrian. Tempest rang out with fury—Aydrian even managed a lightning blast that sent Brynn flying backward and to the floor, though she recovered quickly and rushed back in before the young king could gain an edge on Pony.

  Brynn pressed on with Flamedancer, Pony wielded Defender magnificently, and Elbryan, so familiar with that other shadow in the mirror, attacked the young king with all his spiritual sensibilities.

  But they were battling a fortress that had no weaknesses, a foe who remained ahead of them every step of the way. A foe who did not tire.

  They could not win.

  Up on the balcony, the battered Sadye, sobbing and limping badly, slid past De’Unnero and Juraviel, struggling for the stairs. She looked down on the titanic battle and cried out to Aydrian.

  “Win, my love!” she called. “Kill them all! Aydrian! Oh, my love!”

  Behind her, Marcalo De’Unnero heard her words. Aydrian. Her love.

  The monk’s eyes snapped open.

  Defender and Flamedancer came in side by side, angled so that Aydrian couldn’t possibly parry both.

  But he did, with a sudden snap and twist of Tempest, and he even managed a slight thrust that backed Pony up a step. The young king spun out of the clench and went at Brynn, driving her sword up and to the side.

  She turned a complete circuit in response, bringing Flamedancer back around, but Tempest was already there, ringing so hard against her blade that her arm went numb.

  Pony came back in hard, just in time to save her, but again Aydrian had little trouble in pushing Defender aside and countering the woman’s strikes.

  And behind Pony, Elbryan’s continuing efforts did little against the wall of darkness that encompassed Aydrian.

  Then they all heard Sadye’s call, and all but Elbryan glanced back at the stairs to see the battered woman stumbling down, to see a form rush up behind her.

  To see Sadye stiffen and arch her back as a sword plunged through her body.

  Sadye looked down, confused, her eyes wide with shock. And then she fell, facefirst, tumbling down the stairs, the sword, Pony’s discarded sword, still stuck through her.

  Standing behind her, his life finally fleeing his corporeal coil, Marcalo De’Unnero tumbled after.

  Despite himself, Aydrian could not suppress a cry. And in that moment of pain and shock, in that moment of very human loss, there shone a bright seam in the dark shroud that engulfed his spirit.

  Elbryan rushed for the light; Pony felt her lover’s spiritual tug and joined him, embracing the light, embracing their son. They called to him and pleaded with him. They offered him the love that only parents might know for their child.

  They heard the sneer from within the monster, heard the denial all too clearly.

  But they felt, too, the warmth that was within Aydrian, buried so far away by this demonic creature that had somehow found its way into his very being.

  And so they grabbed at the light that was not the demon, the light that was the humanity of Aydrian.

  Outside that spiritual realm, Brynn saw the young king freeze suddenly, his eyes wide in confusion.

  She didn’t hesitate, charging right up to him and plunging Flamedancer deep into his chest.

  Chapter 45

  Denial

  PONY AND ELBRYAN HELD ON TO THAT SPARK OF LIGHT AS THE DARK SHROUD DISSIPATED. But their joy at seeing their son freed of the demon’s grasp was short-lived, for almost immediately, Aydrian’s life force began to dissipate as well, sliding down, down to the realm of death.

  Pony had felt this loss before, when Elbryan had fallen before the demon within Markwart. She recognized it for what it was, and when she popped open her eyes in horror, she saw Aydrian lying on the floor, his chest gashed with a wound that was surely mortal.

  “No!” the woman cried and she fell back into her hematite even as she physically collapsed over her dying son. “No!”

  Pony cried for Elbryan to join her, and charged along the swirling gray corridor that descended to the realm of death. She saw Aydrian’s spirit drifting ahead of her, falling into death. Not again, the woman wailed. She had not saved Aydrian just to lose him now!

  But this was not a place of bargaining. This was the realm of death, the realm of finality.

  Pony didn’t slow, throwing herself down that corridor with abandon, crying out for Aydrian, yelling out in denial at death itself, telling the dark realm that it could not have her Aydrian! Not here and not now!

  She was more into the spirit realm than she had ever been, completely detached from her body and unsure that she could even find her way back to it! Might she have doomed herself by chasing Aydrian to this dark place?

  Pony didn’t care at all, didn’t give it a second thought. She chased Aydrian, she caught Aydrian, and she hugged her son close, imploring him to return with her to the realm of the living, and denying the shadowy fingers that grabbed for his spirit.

  And then Elbryan was there beside her, beside their son, pulling them both back along the winding gray trail, back to the light of life.

  As Aydrian had done with Duke Kalas that day on the field after the tournament, Pony now won out against the nether realm. She pulled Aydrian back to his body;
she breathed life into him once more, and even as he opened his eyes, she was there, attacking his wound with her soul stone, finding energy where she had none.

  Gasping, Pony again fell over the young man as he curled up, sobbing. His mother lifted her head and looked around the room, to Bradwarden, leaning against the wall for support, with Symphony standing before him, pawing the ground defiantly. To Brynn and Prince Midalis, battered and beaten, watching her with mouths agape. To the dead monks and the large and still form of Andacanavar. To dead Sadye and De’Unnero on the stairs.

  To Elbryan, standing passively, seeming so very much alive!

  A movement by the door turned them all, to see Pagonel, Bruinhelde, and Duke Kalas stride in.

  “Move away from him,” Prince Midalis said to Pony, his tone unmistakably grim. “This must be finished.”

  “It is finished!” the woman yelled back, and she held Aydrian all the tighter and shot the prince a warning glare. “You leave him alone! All of you!”

  “He has brought great misery to the world,” Prince Midalis went on. “You would have us forget?”

  “It wasn’t he!” Pony shouted. “It wasn’t Aydrian.”

  “The demon possessed him,” Elbryan said, and Pony noted that his voice seemed strained and weakened. “That day on the field when he was born, the demon found its way from Father Abbot Markwart into the boy. That demon is gone now.”

  “You cannot be certain!” Prince Midalis argued.

  “Agradeleous can tell us,” Pagonel offered. “The dragon will know at the sight of him.”

  “And when that dragon confirms what I have said, then you will leave him alone,” Pony demanded of the prince. “You will pardon him and you will forget him, and you will allow me to leave with him, to our home.”

  Prince Midalis started to respond, but merely sighed and stepped forward, offering Pony his hand and helping her to her feet.

  “The battle is ended?” he asked Duke Kalas.

  “Mostly,” the man replied. He stepped forward then, taking his helmet from his head and tucking it under one arm. Lowering his gaze to the floor, the proud duke dropped his sword to the ground at Midalis’ feet.