Ajacii and Demons: The Ingenairii Series (31 page)

“
It’s such a shame about those Black Crag losses,” Caitlen told Alec as they sat down to lunch together. “But they didn’t know how to fight properly, the way Stocker wanted them to.”

“
You mean retreat frantically, the way Stocker wanted them to,” Alec said, rising to take the bait. “Why is he your commanding officer, anyway? There have to be dozens of officers who would be better for you.”

“
He is from Valeriane, and he stayed on our side after you dispatched Abelard. Lots of other Valeriane forces threatened to leave, but he stayed and kept a fair number of soldiers on our side,” Caitlen replied. “And he did win battles on this campaign until the demons became part of the equation.”

Alec refrained from further dispute.

“
So what is the full story of your young protégé, Bauer?” Caitlen asked. Alec had been careful to conceal the fact that the boy had been raised as a sorcerer.

Alec took a deep breath. “When those crazy Black Crag forces and I fought through the rebel lines, we ended up going all the way to Cearche. We decided that there were two things we could do to stop the rebels: we could kill the sorcerers who were with the army, calling the demons to fight in battle, and we could go take hostages, to make the planters cease their rebellion. Then a small squad and I went back towards the front,” Alec explained, as Caitlen listened closely. She moved her chair closer to him to better hear his story, told in a low voice.

“
Our squad infiltrated the rebel camp. We found the tent where the sorcerers were staying, and we attacked. I went in and started fighting, and as I was ready to leave, the tent was burning, there was flame and heat and smoke, and I suddenly heard a voice speaking in my own language, a child calling his mother,” Alec said.

“
I saw the boy on the ground, injured and pitiful, and I head his language, and I just reached down and swooped him up without another thought, and brought him out,” Alec finished.

“
What did you plan to do with him?” Caitlen asked.

“
There was no plan. I saved him, and I healed him. Then I had this boy, who was my prisoner, and a sorcerer apprentice,” he answered. “So I thought I could at least try to communicate with him, learn about the sorcerers, maybe teach him about God. And he became a good person. We shared blood, the way you and I did,” Alec’s fingers stroked Caitlen’s forearm gently, without revealing the painful agony that Bauer’s tainted blood had delivered, “and traded a lot of information.

“
Now he’s here to help me try to find the last sorcerer involved in this war. The one who tried to kill us at our wedding is probably still here in Vincennes, and will probably try to call another demon, unless we can find him first,” Alec finished. “So Bauer and I have been out looking around.”

“
Well, that explains why you’ve been out prowling so much,” Caitlen said after Alec’s story concluded. She paused. “And what eventually happens to Bauer?” she asked carefully.

“
I don’t know,” Alec admitted. “His heart seems good. He’s being a help to me. He’s learning your language. Bauer never actually called a demon forth; he never killed anyone or made a sacrifice. He learned a lot about their ways, but he was only an apprentice, a child. There are more sorcerers down in the islands who aren’t part of this rebellion, and we may need him someday to help us go confront them to try to wipe sorcery out. I tried once, in Michian.

“
I thought I had put an end to it, but I only made it move, and somehow it’s moved all the way to this land now,” Alec said.

“
You don’t think it’s your fault these sorcerers are here do you?” Caitlen protested.

“
No, not precisely, but there’s no one who has a better chance of putting an end to them than I do,” Alec countered.

“
As for Bauer, he has picked up quite a bit of Spiritual ingenaire ability as a result of all our interaction. You should converse with him yourself sometime, to look into his heart,” Alec returned to the origin of the conversation.

“
I’ll trust you,” she replied with a smile, and the conversation moved on to the healing activities Alec was offering.

The next day another ship with hostages from the southern planters arrived, and the palace was busy providing them all with housing as it rearranged quarters for the previous hostages, and moved some of those who had been there the longest and seemed the most reliable, the hostages from the Dana uprising, out into other parts of the palace.

Alec helped set up a tutoring program for the benefit of all the younger hostages, and just a few days later the first messages from the rebel planters started to arrive. They were outraged at the taking of hostages, calling it barbarous. But most of them offered to lay down their arms in return for the return of their family members.

“
Accept the peace offer, but tell them the hostages will remain here until a replacement is sent or until you’re satisfied that the planters are going to remain loyal to you and Elisan,” Alec advised. “And keep the hostages here and make your court the kind of place that they want to remain, so that they are loyal to you.”

Caitlen protested at first, but her small circle of advisors joined Alec in support of the policy to retain the hostages at the court, and so her messages went forth. On their way out of the city they passed the inbound reports from Marshal Stocker that the rebel army was dissolving, as planters fell away from the core of the rebellion.

With victory in sight, the state of mind in the palace relaxed considerably. Alec decided one early autumn day shortly thereafter to take a group of the young hostages on a trip to the countryside. Along with Rahm and Bauer and a few additional guards the group left the palace early one morning to travel on the Krimshelm road into the mountain foothills. Alec wanted to look for plants to add to his pharmaceutical collection he was training healers to use, and the two dozen relatively well-behaved teenage hostages looked forward to the adventure of getting out of the city. And it was on that trip that a demon arose to attack again.

Chapter 18 – The Demon Appears

Late in the morning the group was already several miles from the palace; although it was early October with leaves changing colors and trees growing bare, the sun was shining and providing unseasonable warmth. They had left behind the last traces of the outskirts of the city’s sprawl and followed the road as it performed a winding climb up into the foot hills. Alec stopped the group at a stream crossing, and was sending the youths out along the stream banks to look for hydrophilic plants. As he gave them specific instructions, the group gathered around him to listen to his description of the number of leaves and the length of the stem, while a steady stream of regular traffic on the road moved past them.

Soon after he dismissed the gatherers to go off in small groups with bags, Alec suddenly felt a disturbing pain in his head. “Oh no,” he said softly to himself.
Bauer, do you feel pain?
He broadcast a silent message, as he looked along the roadway.

There were no evident sorcerers. A smattering of travelers were carrying on normal commerce, leading carts, riding horses, or carrying packs on their backs as they moved along the road. There was no sign of a sacrifice or a black-robed person carrying out the arcane actions needed to call a demon.

I have a headache, and I feel uneasy
, Bauer responded to Alec.

He’s here. Limbaw is calling a demon forth. I don’t see him anywhere yet,
Alec answered. We’ll
see a demon in the next few minutes
.

“
Back, everyone come back!” Alec called loudly. “Rahm, we’ll probably going to see a demon any minute now,” Alec told his guard as he pulled his sword from its sheath. “Get all our guests on horseback and ready to evacuate.” As puzzled teens came flocking back to the roadside, Alec stood in the center of the road, his sword held ready. “Send half the kids that way to block traffic from coming,” he motioned. “And do the same in that direction,” he pointed down the other direction, on the road back towards Vincennes.

There was a sudden roar behind Alec, and the demon came out of the forest. The hostages who Alec had taken out on a pleasant afternoon jaunt began screaming and panicking, most climbing onto their horses and bolting wildly away from the monster that had appeared.

Bauer, find the sorcerer for me
, Alec commanded the young former sorcerer. It was the last message he had time to send as the demon singled Alec out as its target and charged towards him.

Alec was ill-prepared. He had no bandolier of knives, just his own sword. And fighting in the forest was a different arena than he’d ever been in when fighting a demon; Alec was trying to evaluate whether the trees and obstructions would provide more help for him or the demon more as he backpedaled to draw the demon farther away from those youngsters who had not yet reached their horses or ridden out of danger’s way yet.

Without his knives he wouldn’t be able to try to blind the demon, and with only one sword he would be challenged to effectively decapitate it. He needed to find the sorcerer and kill him, Alec concluded. That would diminish the demon and help improve Alec’s odds of survival.

The monster was very close now and swiped at Alec as he ducked behind a tree for protection. The tree was effective, at least in the short term; the demon’s claws cut through most of the tree trunk with difficulty, saving Alec, and giving him time to leap around the demon to get behind it. But the trees were a hindrance to Alec in the respect of blocking his highest priority, finding a view of the sorcerer who had to be nearby.

He was back in the center of the road, and saw that many of his companions sat astride their horses nearby, watching his battle. As the demon emerged from the trees, Alec stood his ground, uncertain of how to proceed. He was using only his Warrior abilities, pulling the energy from the ingenairii realm at the fullest level he could muster, ready to respond to the least act by the demon.

The monster was not given to tiny actions at this point in the battle. It charged directly at Alec and confronted him with a number of efforts to swipe, snap and bite him, keeping Alec constantly using his sword to block attacks while he leapt and ducked rapidly. He managed to avoid harm for several moments, until a claw penetrated his defenses and raked his right arm.

In desperation, Alec sought a respite from the attack by running around and away from the demon. He ran to the tree the monster had shredded earlier, and leapt up onto its leaning trunk, ran three steps upward, then jumped again onto the lower branches of a neighboring tree. He was now thirty feet above the ground, and as he turned to look behind him he saw the demon bring down the damaged tree as it tried to emulate Alec and jump on the slanted trunk. Alec climbed higher, and moved over to a different tree, then stopped and looked again.

The demon was below him, watching him like a dog looking up at a treed cat. Relieved, Alec used his momentary refuge to switch to his Healer powers, and he treated the painful wounds on his arm. Looking down, Alec watched the demon try to climb another tree, its weight breaking the tree before the monster could rise far off the ground.

Alec jumped to another tree, one at the edge of the roadway opening, and glanced up and down the road. He saw the hostages in two clusters at either end of the vicinity of the battleground, and other traffic starting to build up behind them. In the gloom beneath the trees on the far side of the road he could barely register a light-colored blur that he thought might be Bauer.

Bauer, have you found the sorcerer?
Alec asked, and then grabbed onto the branch above his head as his tree shuddered violently.

The demon was deliberately trying to bring down the tree Alec was in. It shuddered again, and began to lean precipitously, causing Alec to scramble to the other side of the tree and leap into its neighbor. He hurried across it and into another tree, then jumped far outward into the open space of the road, landing beyond the middle of the dusty lanes, and sprinted into the forest on the far side.

He had heard no response from Bauer. Concerned, Alec ran towards where he had seen the boy’s white shirt in the woods. He could hear the demon behind, at no great distance, while ahead he saw the same white motionless spot on the ground, and as he approached he saw that it was Bauer, lying on the ground, a bloody stain spreading across his stomach. To his right he saw a motion, presumably the retreating sorcerer who had harmed the young former sorcerer apprentice.

Alec stood over Bauer’s body and turned to face the approaching demon, while trying to focus on the delicate maneuver of drawing upon the three streams of ingenairii energy simultaneously – Warrior, Healer, and Spiritual. With the demon’s arrival Alec crouched defensively, appreciating the use of the thick trees around him, which restricted the demon’s ability to quickly shift position around him. Alec’s sword flicked and struck repeatedly as he worked to effectively call upon the Spiritual energy and then the Healer energy, so that he had both received several cuts and scratches from the demon in the course of the skirmish before he had all three powers fully at his call.