DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (96 page)

“He is,” Pony replied. “And every morning, I wake up to find that I know a bit more about the stones. Perhaps I dream about them, and in those dreams see new uses for any given stone, or new combinations between them.”

“Then it is not Avelyn, but Pony,” the ranger reasoned.

“It is Avelyn,” she said firmly. “He is with me, in me, a part of who I have become.”

She went quiet, and Elbryan did not respond, the two of them standing in silence, digesting the revelation—one that Pony had not made even to herself until this very moment. Then a smile spread across Elbryan’s face, and Pony gradually joined him, both taking comfort that their friend, the Mad Friar, the runaway monk from St.-Mere-Abelle, might still be with them.

“If your insight is true, then our business becomes easier,” Elbryan reasoned. He held his smile and offered a wink, then turned, moving to pack Symphony’s saddlebags.

Pony didn’t reply, just methodically went about closing down the campsite. They never stayed in a place more than a single night—often not more than half the night if Elbryan determined there were goblin patrols in the area. The ranger finished his task first, and with a look to the woman, to which she responded with an assenting nod, he took his sword belt and wandered away.

Pony hurriedly finished her task, then silently stalked after him. She knew his destination to be a clearing they had passed right before they set camp, and knew, too, that she would find ample cover in the thick blueberry bushes on its northeastern end. Stalking quietly, as Elbryan had taught her, she finally settled into place.

The ranger was well into the dance by then. He was naked, except for a green armband set about his left biceps, and was holding his great sword Tempest, which had been given by the Touel’alfar to his uncle, Mather Wyndon. Gracefully, Elbryan went through the precise movements, muscles flowing in perfect harmony, legs turning, body shifting, keeping him always in balance.

Pony watched, mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the dance, which the elves calledbi’nelle dasada, and her love’s perfection of form. As always when she spied on Elbryan’s dance—no, not Elbryan, for in this fighting form he was the one the elves had named Nightbird, and not Elbryan Wyndon—Pony had pangs of guilt, feeling quite the voyeur. But there was nothing sexual or prurient here, just appreciation of the art and beauty of the interplay between her love’s powerful muscles. More than anything, she wanted to learn that dance, to weave her own sword in graceful circles, to feel her bare feet become so attuned to the moist grass below them that they could feel every blade and every contour in the ground.

Pony was no minor warrior herself, having served with distinction in the Coastpoint Guards. She had battled many goblins and powries, even giants, and few could outfight her. But in looking at Elbryan, the Nightbird, she felt herself to be a mere amateur.

That dance,bi’nelle dasada, was perfection of the art form, and her lover was perfection ofbi’nelle dasada. The ranger continued his slashing, weaving maneuvers, feet turning, stepping to the side, front, back, body going down low and then rising in graceful sequences. This was the traditional fighting style of the day, the slashing routines of the heavy, edged swords.

But then, abruptly, the ranger shifted his stance, heels together, feet perpendicular to each other. He stepped ahead, toe-heel, and went into a balanced crouch, his knees bending out over his toes, front arm cocked, elbow down, and rear arm similarly bent except that his upper arm was level with his shoulder, his hand up high and hanging loose. He went forward then retreated in short, measured, but impossibly quick and balanced steps, and then suddenly, right from one such retreat, his front arm extended and seemed to pull him. It happened in the blink of Pony’s eye, and this morning, as with every such strike, it stunned her. So suddenly, Nightbird had come forward, the tip of Tempest covering at least two feet of ground, his back arm turning down so he made one long and balanced line.

A shudder coursed down Pony’s spine as she pictured an enemy impaled on that deadly blade, staring wide-eyed in disbelief at the suddenness of the attack.

And then the ranger retracted, again quickly and in balance—no opening in his defenses throughout the move—and went back to his weaving dance.

With a sigh of both appreciation and frustration, Pony snuck away, back to finish closing down the camp. Elbryan returned to her soon after, showing sweat on his exposed arms but looking revitalized and ready for the trials of another day on the road.

They set out soon after, both astride the great stallion, with Symphony easily carrying them along. Elbryan guided them north, away from the line of the three towns, and then west, toward End-o’-the-World, and before midday they had found the smaller goblin encampment. A quick survey of the area provided the information they needed, and they retreated to the deeper woods to unlade Symphony and prepare their assault.

By early afternoon the ranger was creeping through the woods with Hawkwing, his elven-crafted bow, in hand. He came upon a group of three goblin perimeter guards soon enough, and, as was usually the case, the slovenly creatures were not on their best guarding posture. They were clustered about a wide elm, one leaning on the tree, one pacing before it and grumbling about something, and the third sitting at the base, back against the trunk, apparently asleep. The ranger was somewhat surprised to see that one of these guards carried a bow. Goblins usually fought with club, sword, or spear, and the sight of the bow tipped him off that there might well be powries in the vicinity.

The ranger did a silent circuit of the area, ensuring that no others were about, then found his best angle of attack. Up came Hawkwing, so named for the three feathers set on its top end, which separated like the feathered “fingers” on the end of a hawk’s extended wing when he drew back the bowstring. Those feathers went widely apart now as Elbryan lined up his shot.

Hawkwing hummed; the ranger had a second arrow up and away almost immediately. He was the Nightbird now, the elven-trained warrior, and the mere mention of his name sent trembles through the hearts of even the sturdiest powries.

The first arrow nailed the leaning goblin to the tree. The second took out its pacing companion before the creature had time to cry out its surprise.

“Duh?” the third asked, coming from its slumber when Nightbird prodded it The goblin looked up just in time to see Tempest’s descent, the mighty sword cleaving its head in half.

The ranger retrieved his arrows, then took a couple from the goblin’s quiver. They weren’t well-crafted, hardly straight, but would suit his purposes well enough.

On he went, drawing a complete perimeter of the encampment He encountered two more guard positions, and dispatched the guards with equal efficiency. Then he went back to Pony and Symphony, better detailing the layout his attack plans already formulated. The goblin camp itself was well-placed on a low bluff amidst a tumble of boulders. There were only two apparent approaches: one on the southeast up a trail between shoulder-high walls of stone, a path that turned in from a thirty-foot sheer drop; the second up the gentler-sloping western side of the hillock, a wide track of empty grass.

Nightbird positioned himself in a copse of trees on the western side, where he could find clearer shooting, while Pony made her tentative way along the top of the cliff face.

The ranger moved to a higher position, climbing from Symphony’s back to one of the lower branches of an oak. That still left him below the level of the goblin camp, but with more than half of it exposed. Pony would wait for him, he trusted, and so he took his time in selecting his first target, trying to get a feel for the hierarchy of this patrol. No two groups of goblins were alike, the ranger had learned, for the smallish, yellow-green creatures were purely selfish and not devoted to any greater cause than fulfillment of their present desires. The demon dactyl had changed that—that sudden coordination of the monsters was the element that had made the darkness so complete—but now the dactyl was gone and the wretched creatures were fast reverting to their previous, chaotic nature.

This encampment reflected that clearly. All the place was a tumult, pushing and shoving, shouting and grumbling.

“We goes south for killing!” Nightbird heard one creature shout.

“We goes the way I says we goes!” replied one especially weasely little runt, a spindly-armed and bowlegged wretch, short even by goblin standards—which meant that it barely topped four feet—and with a nose and chin so narrow that they appeared to be arrow shafts protruding from its ugly face.

The ranger saw the larger goblin standing before the runt clench its hands in rage, saw the group of three goblins closest him—all carrying bows, he noted with disdain—put hands near their quivers. The tension held, silent for many seconds, just below an explosive level, and then another form rose up, a giant form, fifteen feet tall and more, two thousand pounds of muscle and bone.

The fomorian stretched away its sleepiness and ambled over to join the conversation. The giant beast said not a word, but stood right behind the weasely goblin—and how that creature puffed its skinny chest with its bodyguard so near!

“South,” the other said again, but in a calm and unthreatening manner. “Peoples to kill to the south.”

“We was told to stay here and guard,” the weasely goblin insisted.

“Guard from what?” the other whined. “From bears or boars?”

“Me bored,” offered another, from the side, drawing a few halfhearted snickers—laughter that died away quickly when the weasely goblin put an unrelenting stare on the jokester.

It was all taking shape perfectly from Nightbird’s perspective, except of course for the appearance of a fomorian giant. His first instinct told him to put an arrow into that behemoth’s face, but as he considered the general dynamics of the group, another, more insightful plan began to unfold.

The arguing continued, followed by more than a few loud threats by the weasely goblin, the creature gaining in confidence with the giant standing right behind it. The goblin ended by promising a cruel death to any that defied its commands, and then it turned about, walking away.

Nightbird, using one of the arrows he had taken from the goblins, nailed it in the back, at an angle that sent the missile right between two of the archers at the camp’s edge. The goblin went down hard, squirming and screaming, trying to reach about to grab the painful bolt, and all the gathering erupted in pushing and shoving, in accusations and cries of murder.

The three archers were the most confused, each yelling at the other two, each counting the arrows in their counterparts’ quivers. One cried for a check of the shaft of the arrow in their leader’s back, claiming that its own arrows had specific markings.

The enraged fomorian had no such patience for any investigation, though. The giant stalked over and slugged the protesting archer in the face, launching it head over heels down the grassy slope. The giant grabbed a second archer as the third scrambled away, lifting the unfortunate creature and squeezing the life out of it. All the rest of the camp fell upon the third, taking its flight as an admission of guilt. Their blood lust in full, they pounded and stomped long after the poor creature had stopped squirming.

For the ranger, watching the brutal spectacle was a confirmation of his belief in the absolutely irredeemable nature of the wretched beasts. The killing was over quickly, but the pushing and shoving and accusations did not relent. He had seen enough, though. There were perhaps a dozen goblins left in the camp, not counting the leader, who wouldn’t be up for any fighting anytime soon, and, of course, the one fomorian. Thirteen against three, counting Symphony.

The ranger liked the odds.

He hopped down from the tree, onto the back of waiting Symphony. The great stallion gave a snort and rushed away, out the back side of the copse. The last thing Nightbird wanted was to bring the goblins charging down the slope, where they could scatter. He went west, and then south, and then turned back to the east, coming in sight of Pony, who was in position at the end of the long and narrow trail. They shared a wave, and the ranger searched out a new vantage point. Now came his turn to wait.

The goblin camp remained astir, with accusations flying. The creatures seemed perfectly oblivious to the notion that an outsider, might have shot down their leader, until Pony struck hard.

A goblin appeared at the end of the trail, leaning on one wall of stone. It removed its metal helmet—another oddity for the crude creatures-—and scratched at its hair, then replaced the cap, talking all the while with another who remained out of Pony’s line of sight. She focused on the one goblin, on its helmet, as she held before her a black, rough-edged stone, magnetite, or lodestone, by name. Pony fell into the stone, saw through it, down the trail. Everything blurred and fogged over—everything except for that one helmet, the image of it sharpening to crystal clarity. Pony felt the energy building within the stone, energy she lent to it, combined with its own magical properties. She felt the attraction to that helmet growing, growing, the stone beginning to pull against her grasp.

As she reached the pinnacle, as it seemed the stone would verily explode with tingling magic, she let it go. In the blink of an eye it covered the distance and smashed against then through the helmet, and the goblin flipped over once and lay dead.

How its companion shrieked!

Pony was not surprised when the fomorian giant turned down the narrow trail, running full out and bellowing with rage. She held forth another stone, malachite, the stone of levitation, and before the behemoth had gone three strides, it found that its feet were no longer touching the ground. It was moving, though, its momentum propelling its suddenly weightless form in a straight line.

The trail curved slightly and the giant brushed the wall. It tried to reach down and find a hold, but the movement came too late and only sent the creature tumbling head over heels, twisting and turning, reaching desperately for any potential handhold.