DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (4 page)

"A child's word," Olwan Wyndon promptly reminded them all, quieting nervous whispers before they could gain any momentum.

"Well, we've much work to do, and you've a tale to tell," Pony's mother intervened. "Better suited for the common house, after a supper of venison stew."

0lwan nodded and the crowd gradually dispersed, one person taking a last, long look at the goblin, which was indeed fast turning gray. Elbryan and Pony lingered long by the corpse, studying it intently. Pony didn't miss her companion's derisive snort.

"Small as an eight-year-old," the boy explained, waving a dismissive hand at the goblin. That was something of an exaggeration, but, indeed, the goblin wasn't much above four feet tall and couldn't have weighed more than Elbryan's ninety pounds.

"Perhaps it is a child," Pony offered.

"You heard Body Grabber," Elbryan countered. He screwed up his face, the ridiculous nickname sounding foolish in his ears. "He said it was a big one." He ended with another snort.

"It looks fierce," Pony insisted, bending low to study the creature more closely. She didn't miss Elbryan's third snort. "Remember the badger?" she asked quietly, stealing the boy's bluster. "Not a third the size of the goblin."

Elbryan blanched and looked away. Earlier that year, at the beginning of summer, some of the younger children had snagged a badger in a noose. When they came into the village with the news, Elbryan, the oldest of their group, had taken command, leading the way back to the spot. He approached the snared creature boldly, only to find that it had chewed right through the leather bindings. When it came around at him, teeth bared, Elbryan had, so the legend —
and among the children, it was indeed a legend — said, "run away so fast that he didn't even notice he was running straight up a tree, not even using his hands to grab a branch."

The rest of the children had fled, as well, but not so far that they could not witness Elbryan's ultimate humiliation, as the badger, like some vindictive enemy, had waited at the base of Elbryan's tree, keeping the boy up in the branches for more than an hour.

Stupid badger, Elbryan thought, and stupid Pony for opening that wound once again. He walked away without another word.

Pony couldn't sustain her smile as she watched him go, wondering if she had pushed him a little too hard.

Every villager was in the common house that night, though most had already heard the tale of the goblin fight by then. The hunting party had come upon a band of six creatures, or actually both groups had come upon each other, stepping out of the thick brush onto an open, rocky riverbank simultaneously, barely twenty paces apart. After a moment of shock, the goblins had thrown their spears, injuring one man. The ensuing fight had been brief and brutal, with many nicks and cuts to both sides and even a couple of bites to the humans, before the goblins, outnumbered two to one, had fled, disappearing into the brush as suddenly as they had appeared. The only serious wound to either side was the hit to the slain goblin — a spear thrust that had punctured the creature's lung. It had tried to flee with its companions but fell short of the brush for lack of breath and died soon after.

Olwan Wyndon told the tale again in full to the gathering, trying hard not to embellish it. "We spent three days looking but found no more sign of the other goblins," he finished.

Immediately a pair of mugs came up into the air from the side of the room.

"To Shane McMichael!" the two mug holders bellowed together. "Goblinslayer!"

The cheer went up, and Shane McMichael, a quiet, slender young man just a few years older than Elbryan, reluctantly came forward to stand beside Olwan in front of the blazing hearth: With much prodding, the man was prompted to tell of the fight, of the cunning twist and parry and the straightforward thrust that had come too soon for the goblin to completely dodge.

Elbryan savored every word, envisioning the battle clearly. How he envied Shane!

Afterward, the conversation turned into an exchange of what other people had recently seen, of the report of a goblin sighting in Weedy Meadow, and even a few wild tales from Dundalis folk claiming that they had noticed some huge tracks but just hadn't said anything about it. Elbryan at first listened intently to every word but, gradually taking the cue from his father's posture, came to understand that most of the talk was no more than individual efforts to grab a bit of attention. It surprised Elbryan that adults would act that way, especially considering the gravity of the situation.

Next came a discussion, led by Brody Gentle, of goblinkind in general, from the numerous small goblins to the rare and dangerous disfigured fomorian giants. Brody spoke with an air of expertise, but few in the room hung on his every word. Even young Elbryan soon came to realize that the old man knew little more than anyone else concerning goblins, and Elbryan doubted that Brody had ever seen a fomorian giant. Elbryan looked at Pony, who seemed to be growing quite bored by it all, and motioned to the door.

She was out into the night before he got out of his chair.

"Bluster," Elbryan insisted, joining her. The night was chill, and so the boy moved close to Pony, sharing their warmth.

"But we cannot deny the goblin," Pony replied, motioning to the shed where the creature had been placed. "Your father's tale was real enough."

"I meant Brody—"

"I know what you meant," said Pony, "and I do not believe him either —

not completely."

Elbryan's surprise at her qualification of the remark reflected clearly on his face.

"There are goblins," Pony explained. "We know that well enough. So perhaps those who first came to the edge of the Wilderlands to settle Dundalis did have a few fights on their hands."

"Fomorians?" Elbryan asked skeptically.

Pony shrugged, not willing to discount the possibility of giants, not after viewing a dead goblin.

Elbryan conceded the point, though he still thought Brody Gentle more bluster than truth. He couldn't hold that thought, though, or any other negative feelings, when Jilseponie turned to look him directly in the eye, when she, her face only a few inches from his own, locked his olive green eyes with her stare.

Elbryan found his breath hard to come by. Pony was close — too close —
and she wasn't backing away!

And she was coming closer, Elbryan realized, her head slowly drifting toward his, her lips, so soft, in line with his! Panic hit him, wrestling hard with a jumble of other emotions that Elbryan did not understand. A part of him wanted to turn away, but another part, a larger and surprising part, would not let him move.

The door to the common house opened with a crash, and both Pony and Elbryan immediately spun away from each other.

The younger children came out in a mob, swarming around the older pair.

"What are we going to do?" one of them asked.

Elbryan and Pony exchanged curious looks.

"We must be ready for when the goblins come back," another boy remarked.

"The goblins were never here," Pony interjected.

"But they will be!" claimed the boy. "Kristeena says so."

All eyes turned to Kristeena, a girl of ten who always seemed to be staring at Elbryan. "Goblins always come back for their dead," she explained eagerly.

"How do you know that?" Elbryan asked doubtfully, and his tone seemed to hurt the girl.

She looked. down and kicked the dirt with one foot. "My grandmother knows," she answered, her voice suddenly sheepish, and Elbryan felt a fool for making her so uncomfortable. All the gang was quiet, hanging on Elbryan's every word.

Pony nudged him hard. Pony had told him many times that Kristeena was sweet for him, and the older girl, not viewing a ten-year-old as competition, had been charmed by the thought.

"She probably does know," Elbryan said, and Kristeena looked up, suddenly beaming. "And it sounds right." He turned to the shed, and all the younger children flowed about him, following his gaze.

"And if the goblins do come back, we must be ready," Elbryan decided. He looked at Pony and winked, and was surprised when she returned the gesture with a serious frown.

Perhaps this was more than a game.

Twenty-five stood in a line, cloaked in thick brown robes with voluminous sleeves and large hoods that were pulled low to hide their faces. Quiet and humble, they kept their heads bowed, their shoulders stooped, and their hands folded before them, though not a digit showed from beneath the folds of cloth, not a flash of flesh in the whole of the line.

"Piety, dignity, poverty," the old father abbot, Dalebert Markwart, intoned in his nasal voice. He stood alone on the balcony above the main entrance of St.-Mere-Abelle, the most prominent monastery in all the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, in the northern temperate zone of Corona. Intertwined with the rocky cliffs of the southeastern coast, St.-Mere-Abelle had stood solemn and dark for nearly a millennium, with each generation of monks adding their toil and craftsmanship to the already huge structure. Its gray rock walls seemed to grow right from the solid stone, an extension of the earth's power. Squat towers anchored every turn in the wall; narrow windows showed that the place was built for somber reflection and defense. The visible parts of the monastery were impressive; the sea wall alone rose and melted back into the cliff face for more than a mile. But the bulk of the place could not be seen from beyond the walls; it was buried under the ground, in tunnels strong and square, in vast underground chambers — many smoky from the constant torchlight, others brightened by ways magical. Seven hundred monks lived here and another two hundred servants, many of them never leaving the place except to go on short visits, usually to market in the village of St.-Mere-Abelle, some three miles inland.

The new class of twenty-five stood one behind the other. As they were positioned according to height, Avelyn Desbris, tall and large-boned, was near the back, with twenty-two before him and only two behind. He could barely hear the Abbot above the constant groan of the wind, weaving always through the many rocks. But Avelyn hardly cared. For the majority of his twenty years, the young man had dreamed of this day, had set his sights on the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle as surely as any general would focus on his next conquest. Eight years of formal study, eight years of grueling testing, had brought Avelyn to this point, one of twenty-five remaining of the two thousand twelve-year-olds who had begun the process, each desperately vying to gain admittance in this class of God's Year 816.

Avelyn dared to peek out from under his hood at the handful of spectators lining the road before the monastery's. front gates. His mother, Annalisa, and father, Jayson, were among that small group, though his mother had taken ill and would not likely make it back to their home in the village of Youmaneff, some three hundred miles from the coast. Avelyn knew with near certainty that this would be the last time he saw her, and likely the last time he'd see his father, as well. Avelyn was the youngest of ten, and his parents had been well into their forties when he was born. His next youngest sibling was seven years his senior, and so he wasn't really close to any of them. By the time Avelyn was old enough to understand the concept of family, half the children had already moved out of the family house.

His life had been good, though, and he had been close to his parents, more so than any of his brothers or sisters had been. The bond had been particularly strong with Annalisa, a humble and spiritual woman, who had encouraged her youngest child to follow the path of God from his earliest recollections.

Avelyn dropped his gaze once more, fearful of discipline should he be caught peeking out from under his hood. Rumors hinted that students of St.-Mere-Abelle had been dismissed for less. He pictured his mother on that day many years before when he had announced that he would enter St.-Mere-Abelle: the tears that had come to her; the smile, gentle, even divine. That image, that confirmation, was burned into Avelyn's thoughts as clearly as if it had been painted and magically illuminated on the inside of his eyelids. How much younger and more vibrant Annalisa had seemed! The last few years had been hard on her, one illness after another. She was determined to see this day, though, and Avelyn understood that with its passing, with his entering St.-Mere-Abelle, the woman would no longer fight against mortality.

It was all right, to Avelyn and to Annalisa. Her goals had been met, her life lived in the spirit of generosity. Avelyn knew he would cry when word reached him of her passing, but he knew, too, that his tears would be selfish — 
tears for himself and his loss, and not for Annalisa, whom he knew would be in a better place.

A grinding sound, the great gates sliding open, brought the young man from his contemplations.