DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (156 page)

“Keep your eyes ahead,” Juraviel remarked. “Andur’Blough Inninness is no more to you than a dream now.”

“A pleasant dream,” Brynn replied, and Juraviel grinned.

“They say that memories often leave out the more terrible scenes.”

Brynn looked at him hard for a moment, but when he started laughing, she understood his meaning well. Indeed, there had been many hard times for Brynn in Andur’Blough Inninness, under the tutelage of the often-stern elves, including Belli’mar Juraviel—though he was considered by his kin to be among the most kindhearted of the people. Particularly Brynn’s early years in the valley had been filled with seemingly impossible trials. The elves had pushed her to the very limits of her physical and emotional being, and often beyond those limits—not to break her, but to make her stronger.

And they had succeeded. Indeed they had! Brynn could fight with sword and bow, could ride as well as any of the people of To-gai, who were put on the back of the sturdy ponies before they could even walk. And more importantly, the
Touel’alfar had given her the mental toughness she would need to hold true to her course and see it through. Yes, she wanted revenge on Tohen Bardoh—indeed she did!—but she understood that such personal desires could not supersede the greater reason for this journey. She would hold fast to the course and the cause.

Juraviel left that part of the discussion right there, and so did Brynn, following the elf’s gaze to the sloping stone facing he had indicated. Brynn frowned, not thrilled with the angle.

“Diredusk will have trouble navigating that,” she stated. She looked back to her pinto pony, who stood calmly munching grass and seemed not to mind the saddlebags he carried, full of foodstuffs and bedrolls for the pair.

Juraviel nodded. “We will get him through. And once we cross under the canopy of the trees, the ground will be softer under his hooves and the trail will slope more gently.”

Brynn looked down to those trees, rows of evergreens neatly defined by elevation, and frowned again. The ground down there didn’t look very level to her.

“We will be out of the mountains soon enough,” Juraviel said, seeing her thoughts clearly reflected on her pretty face.

“Sooner if we had gone straight to the east, then turned south,” the irascible Brynn had to say, for she and Juraviel had spent the better part of the previous week arguing about this very topic. Considering what Brynn had been told about this mountain range, which ran more north–south than east–west, they certainly could have gotten to flatter ground more quickly by heading to the east.

“Yes, and then poor Diredusk would be running swiftly until he dropped from exhaustion, or until the goblin hordes caught up to us. Or until he mired down in the mud,” Juraviel said, again with a chuckle. That had been his argument from the beginning, for the lands immediately east of the mountains were far from hospitable, with goblins and swamps and great areas of muddy clay.

“A Touel’alfar and a ranger, afraid of goblins,” came Brynn’s huffing reply.

“A Touel’alfar wise enough to know that danger is best defeated by avoiding it altogether,” Juraviel corrected. “And a ranger too proud and too stubborn to recognize that her body, though hardened by our training, is not impervious to a goblin spear! You have heard of Mather, uncle of Elbryan, great-uncle of Aydrian. ’Twere goblins that struck him down.”

Juraviel started to turn away, and so Brynn took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at him. He looked back immediately, catching her in the act, and just sighed and shook his head, hardly surprised. For surely Belli’mar Juraviel was used to such playful behavior from this one, named by many of the Touel’alfar as the most irreverent—and irresistible—of any of the humans they had ever taken in for training. Brynn saw the world differently from most humans, and had done so even before falling under the demanding influences of the Touel’alfar. Despite the darkness that had found her at a young age, she remained the one with the brightest and most sincere smile, the one willing to solve any problem thrown her way through cunning and wit as much as through disciplined training.

That was the charm of Brynn Dharielle, and also, to Juraviel’s thinking, it was the strength that would carry her through this, her ultimate trial, where sadness and guilt loomed large in places unexpected.

If anything could.

I cannot begin to explain the tremendous shift that has come to Caer’alfar since the demon Bestesbulzibar left its stain, its growing rot, upon our fair valley. For centuries, we of the People have lived in relative seclusion, peaceful and content. Only the rangers knew of us, truly, and a select few of Honce-the-Bear’s ruling families. Our concern with the ways of the wider world ended with the potential impact any happenings might have upon us. Thus the rangers, while protectors of the human settlements on the outskirts of human civilization, were also our link to that world, our eyes in the field
.

That was enough
.

Bestesbulzibar has apparently changed all of that. During the time of the DemonWar, I was assaulted by that demon, while transporting some poor human refugees away from the goblin and powrie hordes. I would have perished in that battle—perhaps I should have!—except that Lady Dasslerond arrived and took up my battle. She, too, would have perished, but she used her magical emerald to take us back to the place of her greatest power, back to Andur’Blough Inninness, just outside of Caer’alfar. There, Dasslerond drove the demon away, but not before Bestesbulzibar had left its indelible stain upon our fair land, a mark enduring, and growing
.

I believe that if Dasslerond had understood the cost, she never would have brought us all back to the valley, that she and I would have died on the field that day
.

For then we would be gone, but Andur’Blough Inninness would live on
.

That rotting stain has done more than change the complexion of our fair valley, it has changed the perspective of Lady Dasslerond. The Touel’alfar have existed by remaining on the outskirts, passive observers in a world too frenzied for our tastes. We do not involve ourselves in the affairs of humans—how many times have I been chided by Lady Dasslerond and my peers for my friendship with Elbryan and Jilseponie?

Now, though, Lady Dasslerond has assumed a more active role outside of Andur’Blough Inninness. She sends Brynn south to free To-gai from the Behrenese, mostly because the nomads of To-gai will prove much more accommodating and friendly toward our people should the demon stain force us out of our home. In that event, we would go south, through the Belt-and-Buckle and across To-gai, to another of our ancient homelands, Caer’Towellan, where perhaps our brethren still reside
.

Still, despite the potential gains should that event occur, I am surprised that Dasslerond has sent Brynn Dharielle to begin a war, human against human. If we were
forced to journey southward, we could do so, I am certain, whether the To-gai-ru or the Yatol Chezru Chieftain ruled the steppes. But Lady Dasslerond insisted upon this, as much so as on anything I have ever witnessed. She is truly fearful of the demon stain
.

And so she undertakes her second unusual stance, and this one frightens me even more than the journey she has determined for Brynn. She took Jilseponie’s child, unbeknownst to the mother. She took the child of Elbryan and Jilseponie, right from its mother’s womb! True, her action saved the lives of both Jilseponie and Aydrian that dark night on the field outside of Palmaris, for had not Dasslerond intervened to drive away the demon-possessed Markwart, both humans would surely have perished
.

Still, to raise the child as her, as our, own …

And the manner of that upbringing scares me even more—perhaps as much as the reason for the upbringing. Lady Dasslerond has plans for Brynn, but they pale compared to her goals for young Aydrian. He will be the one to deliver Andur’Blough Inninness from the demon stain, at the sacrifice of his own blood and his own life. He will become the epitome of what it is to be a ranger, and then, when that is achieved, he will become Dasslerond’s sacrifice to the earth, that the demon stain be lifted
.

She has foreseen this, my Lady has told me, in no uncertain terms. She knows the potential of her plan. All that she must do is bring Aydrian to the required level of power and understanding
.

But there’s the rub, I fear. For Aydrian Wyndon, raised without the gentle touch of his mother or the love of his father, raised in near seclusion with harsh treatment and high standards from the moment he was old enough to understand them, will not be complete as a man, let alone as a ranger. There was a side to Elbryan, the Nightbird, beyond his abilities with the sword and his understanding of nature. The greatest gift of Nightbird, the greatest strength of the man Elbryan, was compassion, was a willingness to sacrifice everything for the greater good. Nightbird’s gift to the world was his death, when he threw his wounded form fully into Jilseponie’s final battle with the demon-possessed Markwart, knowing full well that he could not survive that conflict, that, in aiding Jilseponie, he would be giving his very life
.

He did that. He didn’t hesitate, because Nightbird was possessed of so much more than we of the Touel’alfar ever gave to him—because Elbryan the Nightbird was a man of true character and true community
.

Will the child raised alone and unloved be as much?

This is my fear
.

—B
ELLI
’
MAR
J
URAVIEL

Chapter 1
 

T
HEY WERE OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS NOW
,
AND THE GOING WAS SMOOTH AND EASY
. Diredusk most of all seemed to revel in the softer and flatter ground, the powerful pinto pony striding long and eagerly under Brynn’s expert handling. True to his noble To-gai heritage, the pony could trot for many miles before needing a break, and even then, he was quickly ready to be back on the trail, straining against Brynn’s hold to travel faster and faster.

For Brynn, riding along quiet forest trails on a late-spring or early-summer day was about as wonderful as things could get, and would have been perfect—except that with every passing mile the young ranger’s eyes turned back less and looked forward ever more eagerly. She couldn’t enjoy the ride as much when the destination was all-important.

Belli’mar Juraviel rode with the woman at times, Diredusk hardly feeling the extra weight of the diminutive creature. The elf typically sat in front of Brynn, turned to face the woman and lying back along the pony’s powerful neck. He didn’t speak to Brynn much along the trails, though, for he could see that the woman was falling deeper and deeper into thought about the destination awaiting them. That’s what Juraviel wanted from the young woman; that’s what the Touel’alfar demanded of the ranger. The goal was all-important, because Lady Dasslerond had said it was, and nothing else should clutter Brynn Dharielle’s mind—not the fragrance of the summer forest awakening fully, not the sounds of the songbirds, not even the sparkle of the morning sun on the dewy grasses and leaves.

And so they rode quietly, and sometimes Juraviel leaped from Diredusk’s back and fluttered up to the branches of the trees, moving to higher vantage points to scout the road ahead.

Their evenings, too, were for the most part quiet, sitting about a fire, enjoying their evening meal. In this setting, with little stimulation about them, Brynn would sometimes tell Juraviel stories of her homeland, of her parents and their small nomadic tribe, Kayleen Kek. On one such night, with Andur’Blough Inninness a hundred miles behind them, the woman became especially nostalgic.

“We always went to the higher ground in the summer,” she told her companion. “Up the sides of the great mountains in the range you call the Belt-and-Buckle, but that we called
Uleshon Twak
, the Dragon Spines. We’d camp so high sometimes that it was hard simply to draw in sufficient air. You’d always feel as if you couldn’t catch your breath. Every step seemed to take minutes to execute, and a tent in sight might take you an hour to walk to. I remember that at times blood would run from my nose, for no reason. My mother would fret over me, but my father would just say that the high-sickness could do that and it was nothing to bother about.”