DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (189 page)

"What got this one?" Colleen Kilronney asked incredulously as she examined the powrie lying at the base of the tree, a hole blasted right through its neck. Then she stood up to examine the hole in the tree, and shook her head in disbelief that anything could have been so deeply embedded in the hard wood of an old oak.

"A crossbow, I assume," one of her soldiers replied. "Powries oft carry them, and someone may have picked one from a body."

Colleen shrugged. Her fellow soldier had to be right, but she had never seen any crossbow that could hit this hard.

"Smoke in the forest," came the report of a scout, moving back to join the group.

Colleen was quick to her horse, kicking the mount to catch up to Shamus at the head of the column. They soon came into the clearing before the cave, and found Nightbird bending low to line up another shot through a smoking pile of wood and rock, Pony sitting calmly on her mount twenty feet to the side.

Colleen's gaze measured Pony. After Colleen had met Nightbird in her cousin's tent, she had learned that he was betrothed, or at least promised to, a woman called Pony. This had to be that woman, Colleen knew from the description the soldier had given her —a lengthy and detailed description, for the man had rambled on and on about how helpful and wonderful Pony had been after their battles.

Looking at Pony now, Colleen was hardly surprised by that soldier's attitude. Pony was undeniably beautiful, with thick hair and huge sparkling eyes. And now she was just sitting to the side, watching, like some waiting plaything for the heroic ranger. "Ornament," the warrior whispered under her breath, and she gave a snort.

"How did you ever start a fire in this rain?" Shamus asked Nightbird. The captain dropped from his saddle and moved beside the ranger.

Nightbird grinned. "I did not," he explained. "A lucky lightning strike, it would seem, took down both rock and wood from above the cave entrance, trapping most of the powries within. God is with us this day, lending us his thundering sword."

"I've seen no recent lightning strikes," Colleen interrupted doubtfully. "And did yer God then pile the brush neatly in all the cracks? Or have ye been that busy in the ten minutes ye came in ahead of us? "

"No, and no," the ranger started to answer, but Pony cut him short.

"Trapper friends," she explained. "They saw the lightning —more than an hour ago, I guess—and took the opportunity to stack the brush and feed the flames."

"And killed the bloody-cap guards in the forest?" Colleen went on.

Pony gave a noncommittal shrug. "We found the trappers here and heard a quick tale. When we told them you were approaching, they bade us to keep the powries in the hole."

"Us?" Colleen asked doubtfully, looking at Nightbird, then back to the woman.

Pony let the insult pass. "Two score of the wretches, they said, though we know not how many still survive."

"And they'll not stay in the hole for long," Nightbird put in, "no matter the odds. Form your archers in a line before the rocks," he bade the captain, "and we can pick them off as they exit."

Shamus Kilronney motioned his archers to take their positions. "This is all too easy," he remarked to the ranger.

"And is that not the preferred way?" Nightbird replied. Both he and Shamus glanced at Colleen as he said it, and neither was surprised to find the angry woman frowning.

And indeed, Colleen Kilronney was not pleased by this unexpected turn of events. When at last the leaders of Palmaris had decided to send someone north with news of the Baron's death, Colleen had volunteered, had insisted, on being a part of that team. She had come out for battle, eager to avenge Abbot Dobrinion, a personal friend whom she believed had been murdered by one of the bloody-cap dwarves. She jumped down from her horse and stormed past the two men, studying the rock pile. "Might be that they've another way out," she remarked —hopefully, it seemed. "Might already be gone, circled back and lookin' at us from behind, for all we're knowin'!"

"No other way out," Nightbird said firmly. "They are trapped within the cave, where the air grows fouler by the second."

"Unless the place's vented," Colleen said. She moved a step back, looking at the hill above the fallen stone.

"Easy enough to find and plug, if that were the case," Nightbird replied without missing a beat. "Though even if there were air holes, they would not clear enough of the heavy smoke in time. The dwarves are caught and choking. Some will try to come out and we will shoot them down. The others will die in the cave."

Colleen glared at Nightbird, not liking the blunt truth one bit.

"Perhaps not," Shamus said, wearing a thoughtful expression. "One telling feature of this war is the surprising lack of prisoners taken by either side."

"And who'd be wantin' a goblin prisoner?" Colleen asked incredulously. "Or a smelly bloody cap? Just stink up the place ye put 'em in."

"Powries have shown no mercy at all to humans," Nightbird added. As he spoke the words, he glanced at Colleen and found her looking back at him, both of them wearing the same blank expression, for both were surprised to find themselves on the same side of any debate.

"I speak not of mercy," Shamus was quick to add, "but of practicality. The powries in the cave are likely battered and hopeless. As reports from all corners of the kingdom have shown, they only want to get home now, and they might divulge important information concerning their former allies in exchange for passage."

"For passage that'd let 'em turn around and kill a few more folks for fun!" Colleen vehemently protested.

And again the ranger agreed. "Could we trust powries to stay away?" he asked. "Or even if they did not strike out in our lands again, wouldn't they prowl our coastal waters, preying on helpless ships? "

"But if these powries offered information that prevented even larger groups from wreaking suffering on the kingdom, then the risk would be worth the gain," Shamus replied.

Nightbird looked at Pony. The ranger's gaze drew others, Shamus and Colleen among them, and soon Pony found many pairs of eyes staring at her.

"I care nothing for the powries in the cave," Pony said quietly but firmly. "Kill them if you will, or take them prisoner if you will. They mean nothing to me."

"Suren there's a decisive answer," Colleen remarked sarcastically.

"I have seen too much fighting to be concerned with one small band of bloody-cap dwarves," Pony retorted.

Colleen Kilronney snorted derisively and turned away.

Pony looked at Elbryan and gave a weak but comforting smile, and he understood that she had sated her anger with this band already.

"Well, Nightbird," Captain Kilronney asked, "are we in agreement?"

"You agreed to help me rid the region of this band before you turned south," the ranger replied. "However you choose to do that is your own affair. This fight was over before you or I arrived here."

Shamus took that as the ranger's blessing. He moved to the rock pile, found what seemed to be the most open route to the darkness beyond, and called into the cave, offering to spare those dwarves that came out without a weapon.

For a while there came no answer, and Shamus set some of his men to the task of adding kindling to the smoky fire, while others stood behind the blaze, waving saddle blankets to fan the smoke more directly into the cave.

Suddenly the powries, screaming curses, charged the barricade, going at the stones furiously. Some opened passages too small for their stout bodies but perfectly suited to the archers' arrows. Others moved the wrong stone by mistake, only to start rockslides, while a couple did break clear. Arrow after arrow slammed into those freed powries, jolting them, slowing and then stopping their stubborn charge.

In a minute, the rock barricade was quiet again, save the continuing hiss and crackle of the fires, with several powries dead, and several others crawling wounded back into the cave, and with one unfortunate fellow stuck fast under some rocks, perilously close to a burning pile.

Captain Shamus Kilronney repeated his offer, identifying himself as an emissary of the King of Honce-the-Bear, with full power to bargain in the field.

This time, his offer was answered by a request for clarification, and then by a request for further assurances, before the remaining twenty-seven powries, faces blackened by smoke and many with wounds from stone and arrow and lightning bolts, crawled out of the cave, and were taken and securely bound.

Nightbird and Pony watched, the ranger leery, Pony ambivalent. Sitting not far from them astride her horse, Colleen Kilronney's feelings were more evident, her expression sour, low growls coming from her throat as each new bloody cap made its appearance at the narrow opening in the rock pile.

The group set off for Caer Tinella at once, the powries completely encircled by Kilronney's wary men. The captain rode at the head of the line, Nightbird beside him, while Pony followed behind, soon to be joined by Colleen Kilronney.

"Seems yer healin' arts won't be needed at all," the red-haired woman said to Pony, her tone condescending.

"I am always grateful when that is the case," Pony responded absently.

Colleen gave her horse a good kick and moved away.

Braumin Herde moved quickly and purposefully, slipping from chamber to chamber along the top floor of the abbey's northern wing. He was collecting candlesticks, of which there were a multitude in the dark stone abbey, but specific ones, ones from a list that Master Jojonah had begun and that he had spent the weeks since Jojonah's death finishing. All the candlesticks in this wing had a single sunstone set in them, with one in thirty of the gems enchanted. This was the testing area for young students, and the masters had devised the sunstone system to prevent any cheating with clear quartz, the stone of distance sight, or even hematite.

Master Engress, a gentle and calm elderly man, had shown Brother Braumin how to determine which candlesticks were enchanted —no easy task with sunstone! Brother Braumin had gone to Engress with a story about some students swapping candlesticks. The master had not questioned him and had gladly given Braumin the task of rearranging them each night after studies.

Master Engress had no idea of the extent of Brother Braumin's shuffling. With ten candlesticks in hand, the young monk descended to the area of the next meeting of the disciples of Avelyn, strategically placing the candlesticks in adjoining rooms to discourage any spiritually prying eyes. The only hope for his group was in secrecy, Braumin knew, for if the always-suspicious Markwart ever realized how subversive their rhetoric had become, they would likely share the fiery fate of Master Jojonah.

This night, Braumin collected the candlesticks in a hurry, rearranged the others to make it less obvious that some had been taken, then rushed away.

To Brother Francis, though, the altered count of candlesticks was obvious. He crept through the study rooms even as Brother Braumin moved down the little-used back stairway and along the empty, dusty corridors four levels down.

Francis did not immediately follow but moved south along the top level to the private quarters of Father Abbot Markwart. He knocked softly, afraid to disturb the Father Abbot. Then, hearing Markwart's call, he entered to find him at his desk, a jumble of papers before him and the remnants of his dinner off to the side.

"You should take more leisure time with your evening meal, Father Abbot," Francis offered. "I worry that you —" The young monk stopped short as the old man glared up at him.

"This list is more extensive than I would have thought," Markwart replied, shoving the papers about.

"St.-Mere-Abelle requires a large staff," Francis replied. "And many of those hired are derelicts by nature, vagabonds who leave as soon as they have collected enough money to see them through a few meals."

"A few drinks, more likely," Markwart said sourly. "If that is the case, then why did you not separate the various groups represented in this list in a more orderly fashion? Those who left before the invasion and escape on one page, perhaps. Those who left soon after on another, and those who remain on the third."

"You insisted that I hurry, Father Abbot," Francis meekly protested. "And many of those who left before the intrusion, returned soon after it. I found it almost impossible to categorize the workers unless I used many categories."

"Work on it, then!" Markwart roared, shoving the papers forward; many of them slipped off the desk and glided to the floor. "We must ensure that Jojonah and those others who invaded the abbey did not leave a spy behind. Discern likely suspects and watch them closely. If you decide that one, anyone, is possibly a spy, then arrest him secretly and bring him to me."

That you might torture him as you did the Chilichunks, Francis thought, but he wisely kept silent. Still, he realized that his sour expression betrayed his feelings when Markwart's glare intensified.

"Have you been watching Brother Braumin closely?" the Father Abbot asked.

Francis nodded.

"I do not trust him," Markwart said, rising and pacing around the corner of his desk, "though neither do I fear him. His sympathies remain with Jojonah, but that will change with time, particularly when he goes through the intensive training needed for the rank of master."

"You will promote him?" Francis blurted, eyes wide with shock —and more than a little anger, for Francis believed that he would be promoted because of loyalty to the Father Abbot. By that same reasoning, it seemed impossible that Brother Braumin Herde, friend of the heretic Jojonah, would also rate a promotion!

"It is the best course," Markwart replied without hesitation. "In De'Unnero and Je'howith I have strong allies, but many of the other abbots, and more than a few masters and immaculates, are watching closely to ensure that my actions against Jojonah were not personal."

"And were they?" Francis asked. He knew he had made a mistake as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

The Father Abbot stopped his pacing only a step from Francis, turning his wrinkled old head slowly, his eyes flaring with an intensity that frightened Francis and made him think that Markwart would strike him dead where he stood —and the old man's shaved head and pointed ears only accentuated that frightening visage. In that fleeting second while Markwart held his gaze, Francis believed that the man could do it, could simply strike him dead, and with hardly an effort!

"There are those who quietly question —
quietly
because they are cowards, you see," Markwart went on, going back to his pacing. "They wonder if the sudden turn against the heretic Jojonah was in the best interest of the Church, if the evidence of conspiracy was strong enough to so quickly convict and condemn. I have heard more than one who murmured that it would have been better if we had extracted a full confession from the man before we burned him."

Francis nodded, but he knew, as did Markwart, that Jojonah would never have confessed to anything evil. The brave man had admitted his complicity in freeing the prisoners, excusing his actions by trying to turn the accusation against Markwart. But the confession Markwart wanted —one in which Jojonah admitted that he had conspired with Brother Avelyn to steal the stones and murder Master Siherton those years ago—would never have happened. And they both knew that the conspiracy so envisioned had never actually happened.

"But enough of that," Markwart went on, waving his skinny arm briskly —and Francis understood then that something important was going on. "There has come a shift in the balance of power," Markwart explained.

"Among the Church leaders?"

"Between Church and state. King Danube needs help in restoring order to Palmaris. With the Baron and his sole heir dead, the city is in turmoil."

"And they are without their beloved Abbot Dobrinion," Francis added.

"You do test me this night, do you not?" Markwart hissed, again turning that awful glare on him. "The people of Palmaris have a stronger leader in Abbot De'Unnero than ever they realized in Dobrinion."

"They will come to love him," Francis remarked, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"They will come to respect him!" Markwart corrected. "To fear him. To understand that the Church, and not the King, is the true power in their lives, their hopes beyond this mortal coil, their only chance of redemption or true joy. Marcalo De'Unnero is the perfect man to teach them, or at least to cow them until they understand the truth."

"Abbot?"

"Bishop," Markwart corrected.

He could have knocked Brother Francis over with a feather. Francis was among the finest historians at St.-Mere-Abelle, a man whose studies had long centered on the geography and politics of the various regions of the known world. He knew what the title of bishop entailed, and knew, too, that such a title had not been bestowed in more than three hundred years.

"You seem surprised, Brother Francis," Markwart remarked. "You do not believe that Marcalo De'Unnero is fit for the task?"

"N-not that, Father Abbot," the monk stammered. "I am only surprised that the King would relinquish the second city of Honce-the-Bear to the Church."

Markwart's laughter mocked that notion. "Thus I need you to be my eyes and ears in St.-Mere-Abelle," the Father Abbot said.

"You will be leaving?"

"Not yet," Markwart replied, "but I will be looking elsewhere more often than not. So keep watch over troublesome Brother Braumin and search among these new additions and subtractions to the staff." He waved his skinny hand at Francis then, turning away to resume his pacing, and the younger monk bowed and quickly left.

The news had stunned Francis, and he tried hard to sort it out as he made his way back to the study rooms, taking the same route as Brother Braumin. Francis had never been a big supporter of Marcalo De'Unnero, mostly because he, like almost everyone else, was deathly afraid of the volatile and unpredictable man. A bishop would wield great power; might De'Unnero become too strong to be controlled by Father Abbot Markwart? Francis shook his head, trying to dismiss that disturbing notion. Markwart seemed pleased by the developments —indeed, the Father Abbot had no doubt played a huge role in facilitating them.

Still, Francis remembered the image of De'Unnero after the powrie attack against St.-Mere-Abelle, the man wild-eyed and covered in blood, most from his enemies, but more than a bit from a wound he had received in the fighting —in fighting that De'Unnero had invited, for no better reason than his desire to kill powries, by opening the lower wharf gates!

The monk shuddered. Had this new development put De'Unnero in line for the position of Father Abbot? And if it had, would Francis, or any of the others so loyal to Markwart, survive?

Those were questions for another time, Francis realized as he slipped among the shadows of the lower levels, and heard the whispered prayers.

It began, as always, with a prayer to Jojonah and one to Avelyn. The group went unusually quiet after that, four monks sitting nervously, attentively, waiting for Brother Braumin to begin again his detailing of the story of
Windrunner
and the voyage to Pimaninicuit.

Braumin understood their excitement and their fear. To speak openly of Pimaninicuit, even in terms favorable to the presiding Father Abbot, was a serious crime, an often fatal error. After the voyage to the island to collect the stones, Pellimar, one of the remaining three brothers, had rambled on about his adventures.

He had not survived the winter.

And now Braumin was telling these four of the voyage —was, in effect, placing upon them a writ of execution.

Braumin thought of Jojonah, viewing his stand against Markwart in much the same light as Avelyn's stand against the demon dactyl. Braumin conjured that memory of Mount Aida, of Avelyn's arm reaching heavenward through the devastation as if in defiance of death itself.

Then he began his tale, recounting the story in vivid detail, as Jojonah had told it to him. He started at the beginning of the voyage, elaborating on the teasing story he had given them at their last meeting. Braumin had prepared himself well for this most important speech, and he spoke with pride of the battle the crew —particularly the four men of St.-Mere-Abelle—had waged against a powrie barrelboat, focusing on Avelyn's heroics in that fight.

"The man took a ruby in hand," Braumin said dramatically, holding forth his clenched fist, "empowered it and tossed it —tossed it, I say—into the open hatch of the powrie vessel, only releasing its energies within the bowels of the craft!"

A gasp came back at him. There were accounts of a stone user separating himself from the gem at the time of magical release, but it was considered an almost impossible feat, particularly with a stone as powerful and demanding as a ruby.

"It is true," Braumin insisted. "And Brother Avelyn did not even understand the significance of his action. When he recounted the tale to Master Jojonah upon his return to St.-Mere-Abelle, the master bade him keep it quiet; for Jojonah knew, as we do, that the usage clearly illustrates Avelyn Desbris' powers."

"And why would Master Jojonah want that to remain a secret?" Brother Dellman asked.

"Because such a variation of stone use might also be construed as heretical, a demon-inspired burst of power," Braumin replied. "Master Jojonah was wise enough to understand that inertia guides the Abellican Church, that anything beyond the ordinary might be construed as a threat to those insecure in their power." He let the words settle in their thoughts, then went on to the rest of the journey, his voice softer now, all pride gone from his almost melancholy tone. He told them of the murder of a young man —his name had been lost over the years—by Brother Thagraine, at the behest of Brother Quintal, because that young man, beyond all reason, leaped from the
Windrunner
and swam to the sacred island. He told again of Thagraine's falling from faith on the island, a disastrous lapse that left him out in the open when the stone showers commenced, to be battered, and finally killed by a blow to the head —hit by the same stone that would eventually destroy the demon dactyl.