DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (271 page)

Energized, the woman reached down to her wound and put the healing powers of the gemstone to work.

Like warm water, the waves of healing magic cascaded down across the prone woman, filling her with warmth and relief from the pain. Soon after, those areas that had long ago gone numb from the wounds began to tingle with renewed life.

As all of this went along, another sort of healing found its way, quite unexpectedly, into a different part of Pony, into the most profoundly wounded element of the woman: her heart. She lay there in the muddy clay, keeping her energies rolling through the gemstone, transforming into magical healing, but focusing her thoughts on the unexpected events that had led her to this point. She remembered again the fight against the demon-possessed Markwart on the field outside of Palmaris. She had been beaten, and surely would have died without rescue by Dasslerond’s elves.

That was when she had lost Aydrian to the Touel’alfar.

The woman managed to roll over then, to get her face out of the mud. She lay on her back, staring up at the stars, and then she saw …

The Halo.

Pony’s heart leaped at the multicolored rings, as if her spirit were reaching for them. She remembered a day long ago, when she and Elbryan were but children, rushing out of Dundalis up the northern slope. They had glanced back to see this same magical sight. This was the source of the gemstones, and seemed to her so perfect a gift from God. She felt such a connection here, between memory and present thought, between her spirit and those of ones who had passed from this
life before her. That ring told Pony that Elbryan was with her still, that the song of Nightbird lived on in more than just her own memories. It resonated in the trees and the birds, and in all that Elbryan had touched. It floated on the evening breeze as surely as Bradwarden’s haunting melody.

A great sense of calm came over her, as profound a relief to her soul as the waves of healing magic had been to her body. She did not try to halt the tears spilling out of her eyes as she lay there viewing the corona, as she felt her spirit touching that of Elbryan.

He was there with her—she could feel it so keenly! He stood beside her; he had helped to guide Symphony to her!

And he was telling her something.

Pony thought back to the day of King Danube’s death. She looked past the shock of the moment, past the horror of seeing the ghost of Constance Pemblebury, past the terror of watching her husband get pulled down to his death, past the sudden and brutal shock of the recognition of the son she did not know she had. In that moment in the mud, looking up at the corona, feeling the love of Elbryan all about her, Pony sought a different perspective. She forced away her rage at Lady Dasslerond and instead whispered a thanks to Dasslerond and the elves for saving her life and for saving Aydrian. She forced away the pain and resentment, pushed past her fear of the monster Dasslerond had created, and looked at Aydrian in a new context. He was her son. He was in great pain.

Great pain had brought him to this pinnacle of disaster. Great pain had fostered his resentment toward his mother. Great pain and Marcalo De’Unnero.

Pony let go of that name, as well, as soon as it had occurred to her. She had no room for rage at that moment.

And perhaps it was more than De’Unnero, the woman pondered, and a shiver ran up her spine. She considered again the circumstance under which she had lost Aydrian, in the midst of a spiritual battle with Father Abbot Markwart and with a creature quite beyond the scope of the frail old monk.

For the first time in so long, Pony felt that old spirit rising within her, the same fires that had carried her to Mount Aida to battle the dactyl demon, the same fires that had sustained her through her ordeal at the hands of Markwart and the loss of so many she had loved, the same fires that had bolstered her courage throughout the rosy plague and shown her the truth of community and the way to the shrine of Avelyn.

She considered Aydrian again, and the errant monster he had become, and she admitted to herself that she did not have the heart to fight against her own son.

But Pony pushed past that, and confirmed within her heart that she did indeed have the heart to battle Marcalo De’Unnero.

Without further ado, with the name of the false and discredited monk filling her body with determination, the woman pulled herself from the ground and moved beside the patient Symphony. She stroked the horse’s face lovingly, communicating her gratitude, then brought her face up against the side of the great stallion’s
neck, feeling his warmth. With a whisper in his ear for him to take her home, Pony climbed up on Symphony’s back and took hold of the thick black mane.

Off leaped the horse, running as no other animal in all the world could run.

He carried her tirelessly across the Moorlands and into the forests where the leaves had fallen thick upon the paths. He charged up every hillside and gracefully and carefully descended the back slopes, moving ever eastward.

In short days, Symphony galloped through fields of caribou moss, like white powder rising up the stallion’s hooves and muffling the sound of Symphony’s thunderous passage, and when she recognized the rolling moss-strewn fields about her, Pony knew that she was almost home.

She leaned forward over the horse and whispered a new instruction, and Symphony knew her desire and certainly knew the way. One day about twilight, the horse pulled up near a diamond-shaped grove.

Pony slid down, only then realizing that the song of Bradwarden was thick in the air about her, blending, as always, with the harmonies of nature. Bolstered by the music, and by the presence she felt in this special place, the woman moved into the copse of trees, to a place before two stone cairns.

“I’ll bring back your sword, Mather Wyndon,” she promised. “And Hawkwing for you, my love. All that we worked to achieve will not be lost in the wayward designs of our son.”

“Yer words’re music sweeter’n anything me pipes have ever blowed,” came the voice of Bradwarden behind her. Pony smiled and turned about. “Ye seen the elf lady?” the centaur asked.

“Dasslerond and I did not part as friends,” Pony admitted. “But we are allies in this, of circumstance and not choice.”

“Ye put yerself out to fix the errors o’ the Touel’alfar?”

Pony gave a resigned little shrug. “Someone has to.”

The centaur broke into a great bellylaugh then. “And once again, it falls to yerself. Ah, but what a life ye’ve known, Pony o’ Dundalis! Pony who fought the demon in its hole, and fought it again in the body o’ Markwart.”

“And who might yet do battle with Bestesbulzibar,” the woman said solemnly, and Bradwarden stopped his laughing and stared at her curiously.

“Prince Midalis will need me,” the woman went on, not wanting to elaborate upon her fears at that time. “And now that Symphony has returned to me, I will find him.”

“Ye can be thanking meself and Roger for springing that one from the stables o’ yer greedy little son,” the centaur remarked.

“There are no stables suitable for Symphony beyond the wide, unfenced fields of the world.”

“True enough.” Bradwarden let the conversation die for a moment, as Pony turned back to stare at the cairn of her beloved Elbryan. A profound sense of relief splayed across her beautiful face, as if her recent ordeal had shown her the truth of
her life now, and of her duty.

And it seemed to the centaur, that it was a duty she was ready to meet.

“Ye’re to ride out in the spring for Vanguard then?”

Pony turned back, shaking her head. “There can be no delay. I will ride into Dundalis this night and be on the road to Prince Midalis by mid-morning.”

“Ye’ll be running against the winter,” the centaur warned.

“As Symphony does every winter.”

“True enough,” the centaur admitted. “And it’s not like I’m needing any warm bed, for I ain’t found one yet that’ll hold me!”

Pony’s quizzical expression fast shifted to one of gratitude as she realized that Bradwarden meant to go with her every step of the way, and that nothing she could possibly say would dissuade her loyal friend from walking the road to war beside her.

“Ye don’t be goin’ in the morning, though,” Bradwarden said to her. “Ye spend the day with yer friend Dainsey. She’s frightfully worried about her Roger, and she’s needin’ ye now, I’m thinking.”

“Roger?” Pony asked with sudden alarm.

“He went with meself to get Symphony from yer son,” the centaur explained, and he didn’t seem overly worried. “He come out o’ the city, but turned back. Seems our friend Braumin’s got himself caught by Aydrian and De’Unnero, and Roger’s set on getting him free.”

Pony spent a moment digesting that, and the feeling of dread returned to her tenfold. She trusted in Roger—he was resourceful and clever. But he was no match for Marcalo De’Unnero! And neither was Braumin Herde.

Pony almost shifted her thinking then, almost broke and declared that she would ride for Palmaris. But she knew that her duty was to a greater cause than her personal friendships. As with the ride to the Barbacan to battle the demon incarnate, her duty now was to Honce-the-Bear, was to the society of man. Her course led north and east, to Midalis, and so she would put any of her personal needs aside and trust in her friends and follow that road.

She found Dainsey in Fellowship Way, staying with Belster—who seemed much improved now after Pony’s healing session. The bloom of life had returned to the large man’s cheeks as the strength had returned to his legs. She found him behind the bar, tending to the many patrons, and he cried a river of tears when she appeared before him, and rushed about the bar to crush her in a hug as great as any father had ever wrapped about his daughter.

His mirth did diminish when she asked about Dainsey.

“She’s in the back, worrying for her Roger.”

Pony pulled back from Belster, who nodded as he let go of her, then she slipped behind the bar and down the small corridor to the door of Dainsey’s room.

She knocked softly, and when she got no reply, she gently pushed the door open. Dainsey sat in a chair by the window, looking out into the dark night.

Pony crouched beside her, and it wasn’t until she put a hand on Dainsey’s
shoulder that the woman even seemed to notice her. Dainsey turned and leaned into Pony’s inviting hug.

“It’s always a fight, ain’t it?” Dainsey said. “Always one finding ye even if ye don’t go lookin’.”

“Roger does seem to find his battles,” Pony agreed, but her tone was much more lighthearted than Dainsey’s somber and fearful voice. “Not many have to come to him.”

That remark seemed to cheer Dainsey up a bit.

“No friend of Roger ever needs ask for help,” Pony went on. “Remember those days when you and he would come to visit me in Castle Ursal? Every look the snooty nobles offered my way was met by a look of challenge from Roger Lockless.”

“Aye, and though they were knights all and trained in the ways of battle, and though their armor alone outweighed me Roger, if it’d come to blows …”

“The noblemen would have spent many hours on the ground,” Pony finished for her, and now Dainsey did share her smile.

“He’s after Braumin.”

“So Bradwarden has told me,” Pony answered.

“He’s got the wretch De’Unnero between him and the bishop.”

“Pity De’Unnero then,” said Pony.

She stayed with Dainsey for several hours before retiring to her own room. She slept late—later than she had intended—but when she woke, she found Belster and Dainsey waiting for her, saddlebags full of supplies on the table before them.

“I spoke with Bradwarden last night,” Belster explained. “We know yer road.”

“We’re all needin’ ye now,” Dainsey agreed.

An hour later, Symphony carried Pony out of Dundalis, with Bradwarden charging along beside them.

Vanguard was a long ride, and winter’s bite was thick in the air.

But that was nothing compared to the enemy they would face soon enough, all three understood, and so they feared not the discomforts of the road.

For Pony, there were only the defeat of De’Unnero, the restoration of the crown, and the rescue of her son.

Chapter 21
 

“S
EASON
’
S END CATCH
!”
THE OLD FISH VENDOR CRIED IN A CACKLING VOICE
. “W
E
gots yer river cod and white bass! Season’s end!”

The figure bent low over the cart, pushing it with seemingly great effort along the cobblestoned street in Palmaris’ northeastern section, not far from the great abbey of St. Precious.

“Season’s end!” he called again, and he reached up and stroked his long gray beard—subtly shifting it back into proper place.

A pair of brothers wearing the brown Abellican robes moved up toward the cart.

“Season’s end, you say, good fishman vendor?” one remarked.

“Aye.”

The two monks moved right up beside the cart. “Master Lockless?” Brother Hoyet asked, his face a mask of curiosity.

Roger looked up, called out his fish once again, and gave the monks a wink.

“A grand disguise,” said the other brother, Tarin Destou by name. “So many times did I serve as Bishop Braumin’s second in the service at Chasewind Manor, and yet even standing here before you, it is hard for me to discern your true identity.”