The Demon Spirit - Book 2 of the Demon Wars series

by R. A. Salvatore

  She was a good lady, and Roger found it hard this day to shake his head and say, "Not my business."

  But what could he do? He was no fighter, and even if he were, there were a pair of huge fomorians in or about Caer Tinella, more than a hundred goblins, half that number of powries, and probably ten times that number of monsters running around in the forest and the neighboring villages. He had hoped to get Mrs. Kelso out of town before the dawn, but by the time he heard the grim plans for her, the prisoners had already been roused, lined up, and placed under heavy guard.

  One problem at a time, Roger repeatedly told himself. The pris­oners were chained to each other ankle-to-ankle, separated by five-foot lengths of chain, each person chained to two others. For added security, the shackles on each prisoner were not a matching pair and were finely made, with one chained to the shackle on the leg of a slave to the right, the other chained to a slave on the left. Roger es­timated he would need nearly a full minute to get through both locks, and that only if Mrs. Kelso and the two prisoners chained to her kept still and cooperated.

  A minute was a long time with powrie crossbowmen nearby.

  "Diversion, diversion, diversion," the young thief muttered re­peatedly, slipping from shadow to shadow about the occupied town. "A call to arms? No no no. A fire?"

  Roger paused, focusing his thoughts on a pair of goblins taking some rest on the piles of last season's hay just inside Yosi Hoosier's barn. One of them had a pipe stuck in its mouth and was blowing gigantic rings of noxious smoke.

  "Oh, but I love fire," Roger whispered. Off he went, silent and quick as a hunting cat, taking a wide circuit of the barn, slipping into the structure—as he had so often in the last few years— through a broken board far in the back. Soon he was crouched be­hind the hay within a few feet of the oblivious goblins. He waited patiently for nearly ten minutes, until the smoker tapped out his pipe and began loading fresh weed.

  Roger was good at making fires—another of his many talents. He moved back so he wouldn't be heard, then struck flint to steel over a few pieces of straw.

  Then he crept back and pushed the straw in carefully, in the gen­eral area where the smoker had tapped out his pipe.

  Then he was gone, back out of the barn before the first wisps of smoke tickled the noses of the goblin pair.

  The hay went up like a giant candle, and how the goblins howled!

  "Attack!" some yelled. "Enemies! Enemies!" cried others. But when they went to investigate and saw their comrades batting wildly at the flames, including one goblin with a lit pipe still stuck in its mouth, they changed their song.

  Those goblins out with the woodcutting prisoners did not go in to fight fire, but their attention was diverted enough for Roger to easily scamper around the back of the group, coming to a stop be­hind the large oak that Mrs. Kelso was halfheartedly chopping. She let out a chirp when he peeked around, but he quickly hushed her and those nearby.

  "Hear me quick," he whispered, crawling halfway around, his hands immediately going to work on her shackles while he locked Mrs. Kelso's gaze with his own. "Now stand still! They mean to kill you. I heard them."

  "You cannot take her out or they'll kill us all!" one man com­plained, his voice loud enough to draw a growl and an order to "Work!" from the goblin guards.

  "You must take us all, then," demanded another.

  "That I cannot do," Roger replied. "But they won't kill you, they won't even blame you."

  "But—" the first man started, before Roger hushed him with a look.

  "When I get her free, I will put her shackles about that sapling," he explained. "Give us a five-count to get away, then here is what you do..."

  "Stupid Grimy Snorts and that smelly pipe o' his," one of the goblin guards remarked, sorting out the mess in the town proper. "Ugly Kos-kosio ain't to be giving us extra food tonight."

  The other laughed. "Might that we'll be eating Grimy Snorts!"

  "Demon!" came a cry that sent the goblins spinning. They saw the prisoner line, tools thrown down, the people struggling mightily, trying to run away.

  " 'Ere now!" one of the goblins yelled, charging up to the nearest human and laying her low with a shield rush. " 'Ere now!"

  "Demon!" yelled the other humans, precisely as Roger had in­structed them. "Demon dactyl!"

  "He turned her into a tree!" one woman shrieked. The goblin guards looked on curiously, even scratched their heads, dumb­struck, for the two lines of prisoners—and there did seem to be two lines now—were stretched out to the length of the chains, and were both anchored by a small but sturdy sapling.

  "A tree?" one goblin croaked.

  "Blimey," said another.

  All the attention of the encampment shifted from the now dying fire in the barn to the bustle at the forest's edge. Many goblins ran over, along with the powrie host, led by their merciless leader, Kos-kosio Begulne.

  "What'd ye see?" the powrie demanded of the man who had been chained to Mrs. Kelso's right and was now closest to the sapling.

  "Demon," the man sputtered.

  "Demon?" Kos-kosio echoed skeptically. "And what'd the demon look like?"

  "Big and black," the man stammered. "Big winged shadow. I... I didn't stay nearby to watch. He... it turned poor Mrs. Kelso into a tree!"

  "Mrs. Kelso?" Kos-kosio Begulne repeated a couple of times, until he remembered the woman and the fate he had planned for her. Had Bestesbulzibar, the demon dactyl, the lord of the dark army, returned? Was this a signal from the dactyl that it was again with him, Kos-kosio, watching over his operation?

  A shudder coursed up the powrie's spine as he remembered the fate of a former leader of this band, a goblin named Gothra. In a fit of its all-too-typical rage, Bestesbulzibar had ripped the skin from the goblin while it remained alive to watch and to feel. That was when Kos-kosio had been put in charge, and the powrie had known from the beginning that this was a tentative command.

  The powrie studied the tree closely, trying to remember, with­out success, if the sapling had been there all along. Had Bestesbul­zibar really returned, or was it a trick? the ever-suspicious powrie wondered.

  "Search all the area!" Kos-kosio ordered his minions, and when they started out cautiously, eyes darting about, the powrie roared even louder, promising death to any who did not hustle.

  "And yerself, human dog," Kos-kosio said to the man nearest the tree. "Pick up yer stinking axe and cut Mrs. Kelso down!"

  The man's horrified expression was convincing enough to bring a smile to the ugly powrie's square-chinned face.

  Roger realized he was taking a chance in coming back near the town, but with Mrs. Kelso safely on her way to Tomas and the others, he simply couldn't resist the sport of it all. He relaxed com­fortably, his back against a tree, as two stupid goblins wandered right below him. When that patrol had moved farther along and no others were in the immediate area, he moved in even closer, climbing into the same oak he had slithered around to get to Mrs. Kelso in the first place.

  Then he watched contentedly. The humans were back to work— the two men who had been flanking Mrs. Kelso now shackled together—and the powries had returned to the town, leaving a handful of goblins to guard the humans, and another dozen or so of the nervous wretches searching the woods.

  Yes, it was a perfectly wonderful situation, Roger mused, for never in his young life had he found so much fun.

  CHAPTER 4

  At the Gates of Paradise

  Graceful and strong, Nightbird slipped down from Symphony's side while the horse was in mid-gallop. The ranger hit the ground running, stringing Hawkwing as he went, while Pony, who had been sitting behind him on the horse, hopped forward, took up the reins and kept Symphony's run true and in control, for the muddy ground was treacherous. She expertly veered the horse to the left, around the base of a wide mound, while Elbryan went right.

  Before Pony and Symphony were halfway around, they spotted the trio of goblins they had been chasing. Two were far ahead, run­ning
wildly for the cover of a copse of trees, but the third had doubled back and was going around the mound the other way. "Coming fast!" Pony yelled and bent low on Symphony, angling the horse more sharply about the hillock.

  Symphony broke stride as the goblin came staggering back out from behind the mound, clutching at the arrow lodged in its throat A second arrow hit it in the chest, dropping it to the mud.

  "They made for the trees," Pony said to the ranger as he came running into sight. "They will lay up in there," she reasoned.

  The ranger slowed and glanced at the copse, then, apparently agreeing, he went to the dead goblin and began extracting his ar­rows. That done, he stood again and scanned the landscape, a cu­rious expression crossing his handsome face.

  "We can do a circuit of the copse," Pony reasoned. "Find the best way to get in and strike at them."

  Nightbird seemed not to be listening.

  "Elbryan?"

  Still the ranger kept looking around, his mouth open now, his face full of wonderment.

  "Elbryan?" the woman said again, more insistent.

  "I know this place," he replied absently, his gaze darting from spot to spot.

  "The Moorlands?" Pony asked incredulously, her face scrunch­ing with disgust as she looked around at the desolate region. "How could you?"

  "I passed this very way on my road back to Dundalis," he ex­plained. "When I left the elves." He ran to a nearby birch tangle, bending low as if he expected his long-ago campsite to still be under there. "Yes," he said excitedly. "I slept here in this very place one quiet night. The gnats were horrific," he added with a chuckle.

  "The goblins?" Pony asked, nodding in the direction of the dis­tant copse.

  "I did find some goblins in here, but farther to the east, on the edges of the Moorlands," Elbryan replied.

  "I mean those goblins," Pony said firmly, pointing ahead.

  Elbryan waved his hand dismissively. The goblins were not im­portant to him at the moment, not with that long-ago-traveled road coming clearer and clearer in his mind. He scrambled to the side, past Pony and Symphony, and looked over the splotchy brush and the rolling clay to the black silhouette of mountaintops just visible far in the west, their outlines silver under the light of the de­scending sun.

  "Forget the goblins," Elbryan said suddenly, grabbing Sym­phony's bridle and leading horse and rider away, on a course that would bring them well to the side of the copse of trees and more di­rectly in line with the distant mountains.

  "Forget them?" Pony echoed. "We chased that tribe twenty miles, into the Moorlands and more than halfway through. I've got a thousand gnat bites swelling on every part of my body, and the smell of this place will follow us for a year to come! And you want me to just forget them?"

  "They are unimportant," Elbryan said without looking at her. "The last two out of thirty. With their score-and-eight companions slain, I doubt they'll head back toward End-o'-the-World for some time to come."

  "Do not underestimate goblin mischief," Pony replied.

  "Forget them," Elbryan said again.

  Pony lowered her head and growled softly. She could hardly believe that Elbryan was leading her farther west, away from the Timberlands, even if he meant to dismiss the goblin pair. But she trusted him, and if her guess was right, they were closer to the western edge of the Moorlands than the eastern. The sooner they got out of this wretched, bug-ridden place, the better she would like it.

  They went on for a short while, until the sun began to set over the distant mountains, then Elbryan went about the task of setting up camp. They were still in the Moorlands, still haunted by the buzzing insects, and, even more to Pony's dislike, they were still too close to the copse of trees wherein the goblins had disappeared. She repeatedly tried to point this out to her companion, but he would hear none of it. "I must go to Oracle," he announced.

  Pony followed his gaze to the base of a large tree, one root pulled up out of the soft ground to create a small hollow underneath. "A fine place to be sitting when the goblins come charging in," the woman replied sourly.

  "There were only two."

  "You doubt that they'll find friends in this wretched place?" Pony asked. "We could set our camp with thoughts of a quiet night, only to find that we are fighting half the entire goblin army before the dawn."

  Elbryan seemed to have run out of answers. He chewed his bottom lip for a bit, looking to the nearby tree, its hollowed base inviting him to Oracle. He had to go to Uncle Mather, he felt and soon, before the images of that long-lost trail faded from his thoughts.

  "Go and do what you must," Pony said to him, recognizing the true dilemma etched on his face. "But give me the cat's-eye. Sym­phony and I will scout about for any signs of enemies."

  Elbryan was genuinely relieved as he took the circlet from his head and handed it to the woman. It was a gift from Avelyn Desbris that he and Pony had been passing back and forth as needed. He couldn't use it in Oracle anyway; it would defeat the whole mood of the meditation, for the gemstone set in the front of the circlet, a chrysoberyl, more commonly known as cat's-eye, would allow the wearer of the circlet to see clearly in the darkest of nights, even in the darkest of caves.

  "You owe me for my indulgence," Pony informed him as she placed the circlet about her thick mop of blond hair. Her tone, and the sudden grin that lifted the edges of her mouth, told the ranger what she might have in mind, a notion reinforced when she hopped over to him a moment later and kissed him passionately.

  "Later," she said.

  "When we are not surrounded by goblins and insects," Elbryan agreed.

  Pony swung up onto Symphony's saddle. With a wink at Elbryan, she turned the horse about and trotted away into the growing gloom—but with the cat's-eye securely in place, the images before her remained distinct.

  Elbryan watched her go with the deepest affection and respect. This was a trying time for the young ranger, a time when all his skills, physical and mental, were being put to the absolute test every day. Every decision could prove tragic; every move he made could give his enemies the advantage. How glad he was to have Pony, so thoughtful, so skilled, so beautiful, at his side.

  He sighed when she passed out of sight, then turned to the busi­ness at hand: the construction of a proper sight for Oracle and a meeting with Uncle Mather.

  It didn't take Pony long to discern that the goblins had not given up the chase, and had in fact begun trailing her and Elbryan. And the tracks she found when she circled back indicated that the goblin pair had indeed found some friends, more goblins, per­haps as many as a dozen. Pony looked ahead, back toward her camp, which was now no more than a mile away. She would be hard-pressed to ride by the goblins and get to Elbryan in time, she realized.

  "Oracle," she said, shaking her head and giving a great sigh. She bade Symphony to stay put, then reached into her pouch for her malachite. She slipped her feet out of the stirrups as she put her thoughts into the gem, summoning its power. Then she began to rise, slowly, into the nighttime sky, hoping the darkness was com­plete enough to keep her hidden from sharp goblin eyes.

  She had only gone up about twenty feet when she spotted the creatures, gathered about a small, well-concealed fire in another copse of trees, barely a couple hundred yards from her position. They hadn't settled for the night, she knew, but were up and agi­tated, sketching in the dirt—probably approach routes or searching routes—pushing each other and arguing.

  Pony didn't want to expend too much of her magical energy, so she gradually released the malachite's levitational powers, drifting back down to land atop Symphony. "Are you ready to have some fun?" she asked the horse, replacing the malachite in her pouch and taking out two different stones.

  Symphony nickered softly and Pony patted his neck. She had never tried this particular trick before, and especially not while taking a horse in with her, but she was brimming with confidence. Avelyn had taught her well, and, given her newfound insights into the gemstones—an understanding that went b
eyond anything she had ever known—she believed with all her heart that she was ready.

  She started Symphony walking in the direction of the goblin camp, then took up a serpentine and began gathering its magic. In her other hand she held both bridle and a ruby, perhaps the most powerful stone in her possession.

  With the cat's-eye, Pony picked her path carefully, a trail that would take her and Symphony in fast and hard. Barely twenty yards away, Symphony's hoofbeats covered by the sounds of ar­guing goblins, the woman communicated her intentions to the horse via the turquoise, then kicked the powerful stallion into a dead gallop and let her own thoughts fall into the serpentine, bringing up a glowing white shield about her and the horse, making it look as though she and Symphony had fallen into a vat of a sticky, milky substance.

  Pony only had seconds to secure the shield about them both, to switch hands on the bridle and bring the ruby up high, dropping the serpentine shield about the ruby, then completing the protective bubble about her hand under the gemstone.

  Goblins howled and reached for their weapons, diving and rolling as horse and rider thundered into their midst. One ugly brute had a spear up and ready to throw.

  Pony paid it no heed, could see nothing but the red swirls within the ruby, could hear nothing but the wind in her ears and the sim­mering, mounting power of the gemstone.

  Symphony ran straight and true, right to the goblins' fire, then skidded to an abrupt halt and reared.

  Goblins shouted; some charged, some continued to scramble away.

  Not far enough away.

  Pony loosed the destructive power of the ruby, a tremendous, concussive fireball that exploded out from her hand, engulfing goblin and tree alike in a sudden blazing inferno.

  Symphony reared again and whinnied, pulling wildly. Pony held on and called comforting words to the horse, though she doubted that Symphony could even hear her through the tremen­dous roar of the blaze, or even sense her calming thoughts with the sheer commotion of the conflagration. Pony could hardly see, smoke rolling all about, but she urged Symphony forward, and so solid was her serpentine shield that neither she nor the great horse felt any heat whatsoever. They passed by one fallen goblin, the one who had raised its spear to throw, and Pony looked on in disgust as the blackened creature, still holding fast the charring spear, settled, its super-heated chest collapsing with a crackle.