The Demon Spirit - Book 2 of the Demon Wars series

by R. A. Salvatore

  Francis let the thought hang. It was common knowledge that no survivors had been found among Pireth Tulme's elite Coastpoint Guards, and also that those remains found had been hor­ribly mutilated.

  "Do not underestimate them!" Francis yelled again, turning as he spoke to ensure that every monk in the area was paying attention.

  Master Jojonah watched Francis closely. He didn't like the man, not at all. Brother Francis' ambition was obviously large, as was his ability to take every word muttered by Father Abbot Markwart as though it had come straight from God. Jojonah did not believe that piety was the guiding force behind Brother Francis' devotion to Markwart, though, but rather, pragmatic ambition. Watching the man reveling in the attention now only reinforced that belief.

  The two monks returned from the western wall, trotting, but with no apparent sense of urgency. "Nothing," each reported. "No signs of any gathering army."

  "Several villagers came in just minutes ago," one of them added, "reporting that a large force of powries was spotted moving west of St.-Mere-Abelle village, heading west."

  Jojonah and Markwart exchanged curious looks.

  "A ruse," Brother Francis warned. "Moving west, away from us, that we might not be prepared for the sudden assault over land."

  "Your reasoning is sound," Master Jojonah offered. "But I wonder if we might not turn their ruse, if that is what it is, back against them."

  "Explain," said an intrigued Markwart.

  "The fleet might indeed be waiting for the ground assault," Jojo­nah said. "And that assault might indeed be delayed so that we might lower our guard. But our powrie friends in the harbor cannot see St.-Mere-Abelle's western walls, nor the grounds beyond them."

  "They will hear the sounds of battle," another monk reasoned.

  "Or they will hear what they believe to be the sounds of battle," Master Jojonah replied slyly.

  "I will see to it!" cried Brother Francis, running off even before the Father Abbot gave his consent

  Markwart ordered every second man off the wall and out of sight.

  Moments later the commotion began, with cries of "Attack! Attack!" and the swooshing sound of ballistae firing. Then a trem­endous explosion shook the ground and a fireball rose into the air, the magical blast of a ruby.

  "Authentic," Master Jojonah said dryly. "But our exuberant Francis should conserve his magical energy."

  "He has powries to convince," Markwart retorted sharply.

  "Here they come," came a call before Jojonah could reply, and sure enough the powrie craft began gliding across the bay, right on schedule. The tumult continued in the west, the cries, the ballistae firing, even another fireball from excited Francis. The powries, spurred on by the sight and sound, came in hard, their barrelboats bobbing.

  Markwart passed the word to let them in close, though more than one catapult let fly its payload prematurely. But the ships came on fast and were soon in range, and with the Father Abbot's eager blessing, the monastery's two dozen seaward catapults began their barrage, throwing stones and pitch. One powrie cata­pult barge went up in flames; a barrelboat got hit on its rounded side, the force of the boulder rolling the craft right over in the water. Another barrelboat took a hit squarely on its prow, the heavy stone driving the front of the craft under the water, its stern reaching sky­ward, its pedal-driven propeller spinning uselessly in the empty air. Soon many of the evil dwarves were in the water, screaming, thrashing.

  But the cheering on the abbey's wall did not hold, for soon enough the lead powrie ships were right below the Father Abbot's position, right at the base of the seawall, and now their catapults went into action, launching dozens of weighted, knotted ropes tipped with cunning, many-pronged grapnels. The hooked instru­ments came down on targeted areas as thick as hail, sending the monks scrambling. Several monks were caught by a hooked tip, then pulled in screaming to the wall, the grapnel digging right through an arm or shoulder.

  A group of seven immaculates stood in a circle to Jojonah's right, chanting in unison, joining their power, six with their hands locked, the seventh in their center, holding forth a piece of graphite. A sheet of blue electricity crackled over the bay, sparking off the metallic cranks of powrie catapults, laying low the dozens of ex­posed powries on the barge decks.

  But the burst lasted only a split second, and dozens more powries rushed to take the places of the fallen. Up the ropes they came, hanging under, climbing hand over hand with tremendous speed.

  Monks attacked with conventional bows and with gemstones, loosing lightning bolts, springing fire from their fingertips to burn the ropes, while others went at the grapnels with heavy hammers or at the ropes with swords. Dozens of ropes went down, sending powries diving into the bay, but scores more came flying up as more craft crowded into the base of the cliff.

  With still no sign of any approaching ground force, all of the monks came to the seawall, all of St.-Mere-Abelle's power fo­cused on the thousand powrie vessels that had swarmed into All Saints Bay. The air came alive with the tingling of magical energy, with the stench of burning pitch, with the screams of freezing, drowning powries. And with the screams of dying monks, for as soon as all the ropes were up, the powrie catapult barges began hurling huge baskets of pinballs, wooden balls an inch in diameter set with a multitude of metal, often poison-tipped needles.

  Despite all the talk of Pireth Tulme, all the warnings of the older, more studied monks, the defenders of St.-Mere-Abelle were in­deed taken aback at the sheer ferocity and boldness of the assault. And of the skill, for the powries were as efficient and disciplined a fighting army as any in all the world. Not a monk, not even stub­born Brother Francis, doubted for a moment that if the enemy ground force had made its appearance then, St.-Mere-Abelle, the most ancient and defensible bastion in all of Honce-the-Bear, would have fallen.

  Even without that ground force, Father Abbot Markwart appre­ciated the danger of the situation.

  "You!" he called to the monk who had fired the first catapult shot. "Now is the chance to redeem yourself!"

  The young brother, eager to regain the Father Abbot's favor, rushed to Markwart's side and was presented with three stones: a malachite, a ruby, and a serpentine.

  "Do not use the malachite until you descend near to the ship," the Father Abbot explained hastily.

  The young monk's eyes went wide as he discerned the intent. The Father Abbot wanted him to leap from the cliff, plummet to one particularly large tangle of powrie ships, enact the levitational malachite and the fire-shield serpentine, and then loose a fireball across the vessels.

  "He'll not get close," Jojonah started to protest, but Markwart turned on him with such ferocity that the portly master abruptly backed away. Markwart was wrong in sending this young monk, Jojonah maintained privately, for the three-stone usage was more suited to an older and more experienced monk, an immaculate at least, or even a master. Even if the young man managed the diffi­cult feat, the explosion would not be extreme, a puff of flame, per­haps, and nothing to deter the powries.

  "We have no options," Markwart said to the young monk. "That group of ships must be dealt with, and immediately, or our walls will be lost!"

  Even as he spoke, a pair of powries came over the wall to the side. The immaculates fell over them at once, beating them down before they could get in defensive posture and then cutting free the ropes in the area. But still, Markwart's point had been clearly reinforced.

  "They'll not notice you coming, except to think you were thrown over by one of their own," he explained. "By the time they realize the truth, they will be burning and you will be ascending."

  The monk nodded, clutched the stones tightly and leaped up to the top of the wall. With a look back, he jumped far and high, plum­meting down the cliff face. Markwart, Jojonah, and several others rushed to the wall to watch his descent, and the Father Abbot cursed loudly when the malachite turned that plummet into the gentle fall of a feather in a stiff breeze—with the monk still many yards above t
he deck level.

  "Fool!" Markwart roared as the powries focused on the man, throwing spears and hammers, raising their small crossbows. To the young monk's credit—or perhaps because of his sudden terror, or perhaps because he simply did not possess the magical knowl­edge and strength—he did not reverse direction and begin floating back up the cliff, but continued down, down.

  A crossbow bolt dove into his arm; a stone tumbled from his hand.

  "The serpentine!" Jojonah cried.

  The young monk, clutching his arm, twitching and turning in a futile effort to dodge the growing barrage, was obviously trying to float back up.

  "No!" Markwart yelled at him.

  "He has no shield against the fireball!" Jojonah yelled at the Father Abbot.

  The young monk jerked spasmodically, hit by a crossbow bolt, then another, men a third, in rapid succession. His magical energy left him along with his life force, and his limp body dropped the rest of the way, bouncing off a powrie barge and into the dark wa­ters of All Saints Bay.

  "Fetch me one of our peasant guests!" Markwart yelled at Brother Francis.

  "He was not strong enough," Jojonah said to the Father Abbot. "That was no task for a mere novice. An immaculate might not complete such a feat!"

  "I would send you, and be glad to be rid of you," Markwart screamed in his face, stunning him into silence. "But you are needed."

  Brother Francis returned with a young villager, a man of about twenty, looking sheepish. "I can use a bow," the man said, trying to appear brave. "I have hunted deer—"

  "Take this instead," Father Abbot Markwart instructed, handing him a ruby.

  The man's eyes widened at the sight and smooth feel of the sa­cred stone. "I cannot..." he stammered, not understanding.

  "But I can," snarled Markwart, and he held forth another stone, his mighty hematite, the soul stone.

  The man looked at him blankly; Brother Francis, understanding enough to know that he should distract the peasant, smacked him hard across the face, knocking him to the ground.

  Master Jojonah looked away.

  Francis closed on the man, meaning to strike him again.

  "It is done," the man announced, and Francis held back the blow and reverently helped him to his feet.

  "Possession," Jojonah spat distastefully. He could hardly believe that Markwart had done this wicked thing, which was normally con­sidered the absolute darkest side of the hematite. By all edicts, pos­sessing another's body was an act to be avoided—indeed, an act that monks spirit-walking with hematite often guarded against by preparing other protective stones. And when he thought about what he had just seen, Jojonah could hardly believe that the possession, perhaps the most difficult of any known task for the gemstones, had been completed so easily!

  The Father Abbot in the peasant's body walked calmly to the wall, glanced out over the edge to locate the greatest tangle of powrie vessels, then, without a moment's hesitation, calmly leaped over the side. No malachite this time, no screaming, no fear. The Father Abbot focused on the ruby as he plunged the hundred feet, bringing the stone's energy to a peak and loosing a tremendous, concussive fireball just before he slammed the deck. His spirit de­serted the peasant body immediately, flying through the flames, away from the agony and back to his own waiting form atop the seawall.

  He blinked his tired old eyes open, acclimating to his own body and fighting past that instant of sheer terror when he had neared the powrie decks, when he consumed his own borrowed form in magical fires. All the monks around him, with the notable excep­tion of Master Jojonah, were cheering wildly, many looking over the wall at the burning mass of powrie vessels, uttering praises of disbelief that anyone could ignite so tremendous a fireball.

  "It had to be done," Markwart said curtly to Jojonah.

  The master didn't blink.

  "To sacrifice one for the sake of others is the highest precept of our Order," Markwart reminded.

  "To sacrifice oneself," Master Jojonah corrected.

  "Go from this place, to the catapult crews," a disgusted Mark­wart ordered dismissively.

  Though Jojonah realized that his stone skills were still needed up on the roof, he was glad to comply. He glanced back at Mark­wart many times as he departed, for while others were purely awestruck by the magical display, Jojonah, who had known Mark­wart for more than forty years, was simply confused, and more than a little suspicious.

  There was one entrance to St.-Mere-Abelle from the wharf area at the level of All Saints Bay, but so great were the doors down there—oak wood, two feet thick and reinforced with metal banding, backed by a portcullis with pegs as thick as a man's thigh, and that backed by another falling wall, as thick and strong as the outer doors—that no powries, not even the huge fomorian giants, could have broken through them if they had spent a week at it.

  That was assuming, however, that the doors were closed.

  If they could have seen over the cliff well enough to spot the doors, neither Father Abbot Markwart nor Master Jojonah would have been surprised to see those great portals swing open in invita­tion to the groups of powries that had managed to escape the blast and drag themselves onto the rocky shore. In fact, both men had expected this very thing when Master De'Unnero had volunteered, indeed insisted, that he be the one heading the contingent of twelve at the low station guard post. That group had two ballistae, one on either side of the great doors, but their firing range was severely limited by the narrow scope of their shooting slits, and Markwart had known full well that De'Unnero would never be satisfied with launching a few, usually ineffective bolts.

  So the young and fiery master had opened the doors, and now he stood exposed in the corridor just inside, laughing hysterically, daring the powries to enter.

  A group of nearly a score of the bloody caps, battered already but never afraid, did come roaring in, brandishing hammers and axes and cruel short swords.

  As the last of them passed under the portcullis, it fell with a re­sounding crash, its vibrations reaching all through the abbey, all the way up to the seawall.

  Startled but not stopped, the bloody caps yelled all the louder and charged on. A dozen crossbow bolts whipped out into their ranks, taking down a few but hardly slowing the charge.

  There stood De'Unnero, alone, laughing, his honed muscles straining so tightly against his skin that it seemed they might tear right through. Other monks, principally Master Jojonah, had often voiced their belief that De'Unnero's heart would simply explode, for the young master was too intense for the wrappings of any human coil. He seemed to fit that image now, verily trembling with inner energy. He held no weapon that the powries could see, only a single stone, a tiger's paw, smooth brown and with black streaks.

  Now he brought forth the magic of that stone, and as the first powrie neared, De'Unnero's arms were transformed, taking the shape of the mighty forelegs of a tiger.

  "Yach!" the lead powrie cried, lifting its weapon defensively.

  De'Unnero was too quick for that, springing ahead like a hunting cat, slashing his right arm down across the powrie's face, tearing away its features.

  The master seemed to go into a frenzy then, but in truth, he was in perfect control, springing from side to side to prevent any powries from getting past him, though a dozen other monks stood in the corridor to meet their charge. The stone had stayed with his transformed paw, melding to the skin, and De'Unnero fell deeper into its grasp now, and though his outward appearance changed no more, his inner muscles became those of the cat.

  A swipe of his tiger arm sent one of the powries flying; with a flick of his leg muscles, he darted to the side, avoiding a smash from a hammer. Then a second muscular twitch brought him back in front of the attacking powrie before the startled dwarf had even lifted its hammer.

  The claws raked viciously, and that powrie's face disappeared, too.

  Those powries behind were giving ground now, but De'Un­nero's battle lust was far from sated. His legs twitched, launching him fu
lly twenty-five feet ahead, landing in the midst of the dwarves. He became a whirlwind of flailing claws and kicking feet. Powries were no minor enemy, but though they outnumbered this creature nine to one, they wanted nothing to do with him. They scrambled and rushed. Two went back for the portcullis, crying to their comrades who were still outside, while several others stag­gered past the fighting De'Unnero, stumbling down the corridor, where they were met by a second volley of crossbow quarrels.

  All but one of the monks dropped their crossbows and drew weapons for close melee, though a handful rushed forward to finish the dwarves with only their bare hands.

  Farther down the corridor, De'Unnero held the last powrie standing before him by the head, between his great paws. His claws had dug right through the powrie's skull, and he whipped the creature back and forth now as easily as if it was a down-filled child's doll. Then he threw it aside and started an advance on the two at the portcullis.

  Beyond them, a powrie leveled a blowgun and let fly, scoring a hit on De'Unnero's belly, just below his rib cage.

  The monk roared, a tiger's roar, and tore the dart free, along with a considerable amount of flesh, continuing his determined ad­vance. The powrie gunner popped another dart into place; the two dwarves at the portcullis screamed and tried to squeeze through.

  Then the inner sliding door fell, snapping the blowgun and squashing the two powries flat.

  De'Unnero skidded to a stop as a spray of blood washed over him. He turned about and roared again, a battle cry that became a call of frustration as he realized that his soldiers had efficiently dealt with the remaining dwarves. The fight was over.

  The fierce master came back fully to his human form, exhausted by the effort both physical and magical. He felt the profound sting in his belly then, a burning, washing sensation, and realized he had been poisoned. Most of that poison, a paralyzing and painful con­coction, had been defeated by the sheer energy of the magical transformations, but enough remained to bring such a fit of trem­bling to the monk that he was soon down on one knee.