DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (270 page)

“You are all afraid,” he said bluntly. “And why should you not be? We have struck out boldly from Ursal, and thus far our road has been an easy one to walk. Only Palmaris has offered any real resistance, and even that …” He paused and chuckled easily.

“And now we face a dangerous sail to the north, and potential battle in the south,” he went on. “And Midalis is always there, in waiting.” He looked at De’Unnero. “And St.-Mere-Abelle is there, waiting. The greatest fortress in all the world, manned by more than seven hundred brothers trained in battle and mighty in gemstone magic. You are all wary, as well you should be.

“And now I tell you of a new foe, one which most of you never even knew existed. Your doubts are justified, except …”

He paused and looked around, to make sure that every set of eyes was looking his way, that every ear was tuned to his every word.

“Except that I am your king,” Aydrian went on. “And I know this enemy, intimately so. And I know how to eradicate this enemy. And so I shall.”

There were no whispers, and no responses, not even from Duke Kalas or Marcalo De’Unnero.

“You are dismissed,” Aydrian said to them. “Go to your duties. Winter is fast approaching and we have much to accomplish before the turn of spring and the greater battles that season will bring.”

With many glances to each other, and much nervous shuffling, the gathered nobles began to filter out.

All except one.

Marcalo De’Unnero remained in his seat with his back-leaning, almost amused posture, his arms still crossed over his muscular chest. Slowly, his eyes never blinking and never leaving Aydrian, he unfolded those arms and began to slowly clap his hands.

“You handled them as if they were children,” he congratulated. “Yet most of them have been in positions of authority longer than you have been alive. So tell me, my onetime student, where have you come to know such politic?”

Aydrian gave a little shrug. “It is an extension of confidence, my friend.”

“You are so certain that you are above them?”

“Beyond anything they could ever dream,” Aydrian replied. “And you know that I am. If I treat them as children, it is because—beside me—that is all that they are.”

De’Unnero’s expression became somewhat incredulous. “You are simply amazing.”

“More than you can imagine.”

De’Unnero paused and looked away for a moment, then chuckled and turned back. “And you truly mean to march against Lady Dasslerond and her band?”

“It is a prize I covet as dearly as you covet St.-Mere-Abelle, and one far more easily attained.”

De’Unnero’s expression became very serious. “Do not underestimate the diminutive folk,” he warned. “It was they who orchestrated the rise of your father. It was they who facilitated the downfall of Father Abbot Markwart and the previous Abellican Church. Those were no minor feats.”

“If Lady Dasslerond is able to work from the shadows, she is formidable,” Aydrian agreed. “But I intend to light those shadows with flames. She will not stand against me—this will not be our first encounter. Even then, when I was so much younger and inexperienced, Dasslerond was not the one who walked away victorious.”

“I should go with you,” De’Unnero said, and Aydrian was shaking his head before the predictable words ever came forth.

“Our hold on St. Precious is not so strong, and converting the brothers will prove far more valuable than merely eliminating them.”

“Then wait until the spring, or until the next season, when the kingdom is secured.”

“You believe that Dasslerond will not involve herself in our conquest? You do not understand her hatred of me, and her fear. She knows that I will come for her, as the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle know that the wrongs they perpetrated upon Marcalo De’Unnero will lead you back to them, at the head of an army mighty enough to topple them. If we wait for Dasslerond, she will become many times more dangerous to us.”

“The winter in the Wilderlands will be difficult for so large a force.”

“That is why I choose not to take twenty thousand,” said Aydrian. “I have the full measure of Andur’Blough Inninness and Lady Dasslerond. Four hundred will suffice.

“I will return to you within three months’ time,” Aydrian went on when it seemed as if De’Unnero had run out of doubts to express. “And the threat to the west will be no more. If Duke Kalas is successful in his march across the southland, we will be well on our way. Then we might focus more fully on the march of Midalis, and when that inconvenience is eliminated, we will turn our attention to the greatest prize of all.”

“While Abbot Olin continues his conquest of Behren,” De’Unnero replied.
“While our new commanders in Vanguard—the eager DePaunch, perhaps—draw up battle plans for the conquest of Alpinador. What then, my former student? Do we sail to the Weathered Isles and conquer the powries, as well?”

It was meant sarcastically, but Aydrian gave a look to show that the possibility did intrigue him.

“But let us not forget about Brynn Dharielle, this ‘Dragon of To-gai’ who sent Behren into such turmoil,” De’Unnero went on undaunted.

“What is your point?” Aydrian asked, all signs of his previous amusement flown.

“Take care that we do not stretch too far, else more than you believe will slip through your widespread fingers,” De’Unnero warned. “You have made many enemies out there, more formidable than you apparently believe.”

“Or perhaps you merely underestimate Aydrian,” the young king said.

“It always comes back to that.”

Aydrian smiled.

“And if you are killed in the Wilderlands?” the monk asked. “What then for all of us?”

“There is no return for the noblemen and the Allhearts,” Aydrian was quick to answer. “They have taken an open stand against Midalis, and so if they are to hold their coveted power, the prince cannot rise as king. There is no stepping back from this war. I will not be killed, but if that were to come to pass, then the gain to Marcalo De’Unnero would be even greater. You would win the war without me, of course, and then how much stronger would your Church become when the kingdom is truly leaderless? Duke Kalas will be appointed as Steward of the State, no doubt, but a steward is not a king.”

De’Unnero was tapping his fingers before his face by then, his every movement showing that he was not about to disagree.

“So take heart, my friend, and hold faith in your”—he paused to flash a smile—“former student.”

Chapter 20
 

T
HE NIGHT WAS SO DARK THAT WHEN SHE OPENED HER EYES
,
SHE WAS NOT CERTAIN
that she had. Or perhaps, if her eyes were indeed open once more, she had passed from the world she had known to a place of darkness, a place of shadows—to a place that did not know the light of life.

She closed her eyes once more and consciously tuned herself in to the sensations about her: the cold, wet clay beneath her face and bare arms; the numbness in her legs; the dull ache that permeated her side; the hot fire of pain burning brightly in her belly. She knew at once that she was very near to death, for a coldness crept up her legs, one so profound that it seemed as if her flesh was disappearing beneath its deathly touch.

She tried to lift her head, but could not. She wanted to turn to the side, to get the cold, gritty clay away from her mouth, but she could not.

She wondered then why she had stirred, why death had not simply taken her in her unconscious state.

She got jostled—again, she realized—by something hard pushing against her shoulder.

With tremendous effort, Pony slid her head along the clay enough to change her angle of view. At first she saw nothing except the darkness, but gradually, she made out a darker silhouette.

She got pushed again.

A horse’s hoof.

“Symphony?” the woman mouthed, but silently, for she had not the strength to draw enough breath for audible words. She saw the silhouette rear up and kick its forelegs, and she felt the connection, intimate through the powers of the turquoise gemstone that Brother Avelyn had set into Symphony’s breast.

“Symphony,” she said again, this time whispering through the clay.

The horse nickered and pawed the ground anxiously, prompting her to movement.

But Pony had not the strength.

More insistent, Symphony pushed at her again, shifting her to the side. Waves of pain rolled up and down her side, but with them came the sensation of feeling, at least, a temporary reprieve from death. Pony wasn’t sure that she wanted that reprieve, though. Wouldn’t it be easier just to close her eyes and let the nether realm take her? To go to Elbryan? To escape the pain of goblin spears and the more profound agony that was Aydrian?

For there before her, hovering like a black wall against her willpower, against her very instinct to survive, was the specter of Aydrian, the mark of true despair.
She had seen his power and the blackness within his heart. In looking into his blue eyes—so much akin to her own—Pony had understood the waste of what might have been and the terror of what he had become. She could not defeat him, nor could she bear to watch his rise.

And in the end, for her, there would be only death.

Symphony whinnied and stomped at the ground. The stallion pranced about Pony, snorted with every stride, kicking and bucking insistently. The sheer power of the old horse brought Pony forth from the dark contemplations, made her instead regard the resilience and determination that was Symphony.

In light of that, the broken woman was surely shamed.

In light of that, Pony suddenly felt foolish, lying there in the muddy clay awaiting death with a healing stone somewhere nearby!

She brought her hands up by the sides of her chest and tried to lift herself up. But it was too late, she was too far gone, and she fell back to the mud.

“Symphony,” she whispered.

The horse moved very near to her and bent his head down, his lips nibbling at her ear and hair.

“Gemstone,” Pony tried to say, but more important than the word that would hardly come, the woman projected her thoughts at the stallion, calling for the hematite, trying to make him understand.

But such communication was not possible without the soul stone, she knew.

Stubbornly, Pony considered Oracle, the gift Andacanavar had given to her so that she could reach out for Elbryan’s spirit. She had not used the meditative process nearly enough over the last few years. Instead of finding a connection to Elbryan at those times when she sat in front of the darkened mirror, Pony had found only despair at the stinging pain of her loss. But now she went there, fell into that meditative state as surely as if she were sitting in a dimly lit room, staring into a mirror. She felt a presence about her, the shadow in the mirror.

Symphony sensed it, too, she knew, from the way in which the horse began snorting and pawing again, obviously agitated.

Pony sent her thoughts forth again, to the shadow that she knew was Elbryan. She replayed the goblin battle, from the time she had begun splashing across the lake, but she was watching it from a different perspective, as if she was looking on at her own actions from the side. She had been holding the soul stone at the pause in the middle of the pond, obviously, for there she had gone south and north, possessing the goblins and turning them against each other. And then she had come out on the bank, to face the charge from the south, and she had thrown her blanket at the goblin and had dived to the sand at the feet of a charging goblin …

A moment later, Symphony leaped about and rushed away. Exhausted, the shadow fast dissipating, Pony slumped back into the mud and closed her eyes. She heard some splashing, and then some more a bit later, and followed Symphony’s snorts along the bank to the south.

But the cold and empty darkness invited her …

A rough push against her shoulder roused Pony once more a few moments later. She resisted the call, and got pushed again and then a third time by the insistent and indomitable stallion. Finally, she opened her eyes, to see a small piece of deeper blackness upon the ground right before her face. With a grunt and a sudden burst, Pony brought her hand up over that spot, over the soul stone.

She ran away from the inviting cold, and into the warm gray swirl of the hematite, freeing her spirit from the weariness and the pain. She felt something full of strength move up against her hand and hardly recognized it as Symphony’s leg. But she pressed against it instinctively, the soul stone set firmly between her cold and half-numb hand and the great stallion’s hoof.

Her spirit found the fugue area between those two corporeal forms, connecting with Symphony. She understood then what the stallion was offering, but her generous spirit instinctively recoiled.

Symphony pressed in closer and gave a great and insistent cry into the dark night.

Pony joined with his spirit, and pulled back strength from his spirit, infusing herself with the power of the horse. She instinctively recoiled, knowing that this was among the most profane types of possession, which in itself struck her as horrible. But Symphony wouldn’t let her go. She recognized that the horse understood what she was doing and willingly lent her part of his own life force.