DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (309 page)

In an instant and with the green flash of an emerald, the two were gone.

The soldiers of Honce-the-Bear formed their ranks and began their charge, centered by a line of heavy cavalry that shook the ground.

With precision unmatched in all the world, the To-gai-ru waited until the last possible moment, until lightning bolts began to reach out and even take some down, then turned and rode off. As one, it seemed, they lifted legs over saddles and turned about, standing straight in one stirrup and facing backward, bows coming
to the ready.

Their first volleys flew away, perfectly aimed.

Not a Honce-the-Bear soldier, nor a Honce-the-Bear mount, was struck.

H
aving Pagonel, Brynn Dharielle’s closest advisor, stride from the shadows at the side of his audience chamber, was not something that Yatol Wadon could have expected at that moment.

The Yatols at Wadon’s side gave a communal shriek and the guards charged forward to their leader’s defense.

But Pagonel stopped far short of the throne and held up his hands in a sign of unthreatening greeting.

Old Yatol Wadon leaped up from his chair and ordered his guards to stop, but then turned an angry eye upon the mystic.

“The fires rage in Jacintha,” Yatol Wadon stated. “This is hardly the time for parley.”

“If I were still allied with Brynn Dharielle, I would agree with you,” the mystic replied. “But I have abandoned her cause, as I scorn the cause of Jacintha.”

That curious statement had Yatol Wadon squinting and shaking his head.

“Those causes are one and the same,” Pagonel insisted.

“Brynn attacked Jacintha last night,” Yatol Wadon argued.

“And brilliantly so,” the mystic replied, “following the specific instructions of Abbot Olin.”

Yatol Wadon fell back in his seat and those around him gasped and looked to each other in confusion. “You lie,” the old man said.

Pagonel dipped a low bow. “Only of late has Brynn Dharielle discovered that this was all a ruse,” the mystic explained. “And by that point, her land was too threatened for her to deny the call of Abbot Olin and King Aydrian, who was once her friend.

“Honce-the-Bear will have Behren, without opposition, when this is ended,” the mystic went on. “The reign of the Yatols and Chezru will be ended, buried beneath a version of the Abellican Church that will satisfy the needs of the desperate people. Abbot Olin of Behren will sign a treaty with To-gai, granting the To-gai-ru their sovereignty—though in truth, they will be subjugated under the will of King Aydrian.”

“This is impossible!” one of the other Yatols cried out.

“The Bearman army are being welcomed back into the city?” Pagonel asked.

“Yes, triumphantly so, after chasing the devil Rus away!” the Yatol answered.

“And in their charge out from Jacintha, how many were slain?”

That brought a curious look upon the face of the man, and several others. “Their fine armor …” the man began tentatively.

“Then how many horses were shot out from under them?” Pagonel asked, and the man went silent. The mystic turned to Yatol Wadon. “Have you ever known the To-gai-ru to shoot so poorly?”

Yatol Wadon considered it all for a moment, then stubbornly shook his head. “This is impossible!” he roared. “What you speak of is—”

“Even now a great fleet of Honce-the-Bear approaches your docks,” the mystic interrupted, and he motioned toward the room’s eastern-facing window.

Men bristled and turned about, several running over to view the harbor. Their cries of dismay were all the confirmation Yatol Wadon needed.

As luck would have it, Abbot Olin and Master Mackaront stormed into the room at that moment, followed by one of the guards who had slipped out at the appearance of Pagonel.

“What is the meaning of this?” the old abbot demanded.

Yatol Wadon, his eyes burning with fires of outrage, looked at Pagonel, then back to Olin. He motioned to his guards. “Arrest him!” he commanded.

Abbot Olin’s face twisted in confusion. “Are you mad?”

“If you mean angry, then know that I have never been so mad in all my life,” the Yatol replied, and his soldiers surrounded the pair and roughly grabbed them.

Abbot Olin cried out and his own soldiers charged into the room then, and Yatol Wadon’s remaining guards leaped upon them. As did Pagonel, the mystic flowing through the ranks, taking down soldier after soldier with devastating blows.

Soon enough, the room was secured for Yatol Wadon.

“Take that lying fool away,” Yatol Wadon instructed the men holding Olin. He turned to Master Mackaront. “Release him,” he instructed, and he walked forward to look the man in the eye even as the screaming and protesting Olin was dragged from the room.

“I will have your head on a stake!” the abbot shouted, the last words he said before the butt of a spear smashed him in the face, silencing him.

“Your plans are known to me,” Yatol Wadon said to Mackaront. “And they have failed.”

The man started to respond, but Wadon slapped him across the face. “You would sacrifice all of Behren in the name of your King Aydrian,” Yatol Wadon spat.

Mackaront glared at him.

“Go back to your foul king,” Yatol Wadon told him. “Turn your fleet aside.”

“My fleet?” Mackaront asked, and Yatol Wadon slapped him across the face again.

“Begone from Jacintha with all of those who would follow you!” Yatol Wadon yelled at him. “There is no room in Behren for your King Aydrian!”

Master Mackaront stiffened and continued to glare, but he said nothing. He gave the slightest of bows and turned away.

Word spread quickly from Chom Deiru, and fighting erupted throughout the city, Bearman against Behrenese and Behrenese against Behrenese. From the audience chamber, Pagonel and several of the Behrenese leaders watched it all. Yatol Wadon was there, as well, and in great distress.

At one point, as the great fleet neared the docks, Yatol Wadon turned to his
advisors and ordered them to secure against the invasion.

But Pagonel stopped him, pointing excitedly out the window. “They fly the flag of Ursal!” he cried, pointing out toward the armada. “And the Alpinadorans are beside them!”

Yatol Wadon stared at him incredulously.

“Prince Midalis has won out at sea!” the mystic cried, and he clapped the old Yatol on the shoulders—a movement that nearly incited the nearby guards to violence. “That was my one fleeting hope!”

Wadon’s expression became even more incredulous, like a man caught in a whirlpool that was beyond his comprehension.

“Do you not understand?” the mystic asked, becoming far more animated than usual—and in that arm-waving, he flashed a subtle and predetermined signal to Belli’mar Juraviel, who was still hiding in the shadows at the far end of the hall, to go out to Prince Midalis with news of the turn of events. “These are not enemies who sail into Jacintha, but allies!”

“How much of a fool do you take me to be?” Yatol Wadon demanded.

“Prince Midalis himself, the rightful king of Honce-the-Bear and the sworn enemy of Aydrian and Abbot Olin is on those ships, I do not doubt. The rescue of your city is at hand, Yatol Wadon, and by an outside force that will not remain to question your rule.”

So flabbergasted was Yatol Wadon that his knees buckled beneath him and he would have fallen to the floor had not Pagonel caught him by the arm. So many thoughts rushed through his mind. He knew that he had been badly deceived, but he wasn’t sure whether that deception had come from Abbot Olin or Pagonel!

He thought of retrieving Olin at that time, but he knew that it had already gone past that point. When the vicious man had claimed that he would see Yatol Wadon’s head on a stake, he had meant it.

“Chezru, what are we to do?” asked one of the confused Yatols at Wadon’s side.

Yatol Wadon looked down at the tumult that was sweeping across Jacintha. He had no idea.

Chapter 40
 

B
RYNN WALKED
R
UNTLY THROUGH THE BATTERED
J
ACINTHA STREETS
. F
IRES
burned in many places throughout the city, though the main conflagration at the stables and stockpiles was out now, burned down to a blackened and smoldering field of debris. There was still fighting in the city, though the sun was setting and every street was littered with dead. No one really knew who was fighting whom anymore, and even in flying over the breadth of the place on Agradeleous, Brynn had discovered no pattern to the small and vicious battles. All that she knew was that Jacintha was shocked and shattered, a place of complete chaos. Prince Midalis and his fleet had landed at the docks with little opposition, and now held that region secure. The formal Jacintha guard had set up a perimeter around Chom Deiru. And a contingent of the Bearman force had broken out of the city soon after returning from their futile chase of Brynn. They had marched into the foothills of the Belt-and-Buckle and showed no signs of planning to return.

Belli’mar Juraviel had assured Brynn that Lozan Duk and the other alfar would watch them all the way back to Entel.

The Bearman force that had escaped was not nearly as large as the one that had first marched to Jacintha, though. Perhaps a third of the warriors were running home, but that left somewhere around seven thousand remaining in the city.

In moving through now, winding Runtly around lines of heavily armored corpses, Brynn understood that most of them were dead. At one point, Brynn’s troupe passed a spot where five men hung by the neck from high windows, and four of them wore the brown robes of Abellican monks.

“You played on the city’s every fear,” Brynn remarked to Pagonel, who rode beside her.

“Yatol Wadon still has no idea what to believe,” the mystic agreed. “He suspects that I lied to him, I think, but his hatred of Abbot Olin made him an easy target for my words.”

“Did it not pain you to so deceive the man?” demanded Yatol De Hamman, who rode behind the pair, sandwiched by To-gai-ru guards, including Tanalk Grenk.

“All of this pains me,” Pagonel replied. “As your force pained me when you attacked Dharyan-Dharielle without provocation.”

That shrank the imperious Yatol back in his saddle. “What good can come from this?” he did manage to ask. “Jacintha is laid to waste. Without the calming strength of the city, rogue warlords of like mind to my old nemesis Peridan will tear Behren apart!”

“Two things will result,” Brynn answered, and she looked to Pagonel.

“Behren, whatever form the country takes, will again be for and of the Behrenese,”
the mystic said.

“And Behren will threaten To-gai no longer,” Brynn added. “Whatever happens within your country, Yatol, you and your peers will never convince your people to ride against me again—especially after I sign a treaty with Prince Midalis of Honce-the-Bear and the leaders of the Alpinadorans who have so unexpectedly come to Jacintha.”

“Honce-the-Bear is ruled by another,” Yatol De Hamman reminded.

“And if he returns with designs of conquest upon Behren, then know that To-gai will stand beside you to expel him.”

The Yatol started to answer, but just shook his head and spat upon the ground.

Brynn couldn’t really fault him for his attitude; his capital city was in shambles. This catastrophe seemed to her the physical equivalent of the emotional destruction wrought by the deception of Yakim Douan. Brynn wasn’t proud of the role she had played in this—every body lying along the street brought her great pain. But neither did she regret her decision to strike and strike hard in response to Abbot Olin’s advances against Dharyan-Dharielle and against Behren itself.

The many soldiers around Chom Deiru eyed Brynn’s group dangerously, but none made a move against her—since Agradeleous, in his still-imposing lizardman form, was walking beside the To-gai contingent.

Chom Deiru had not escaped the warring unscathed, obviously. Though cleared of bodies, the great steps leading up between the pillars that flanked the front entrance had been stained a deep crimson, the great doors of the palace had been sundered; one was somewhat back in place, but tilting badly. The polished stone walls showed the scorch marks of Abellican magic, and an entire area to the left of the doors had been crumbled and broken. Many ballista bolts lay about the corners of the square before Chom Deiru, and the remnants of pitch missiles marred the blasted ground, as the Behrenese had obviously turned their city artillery upon the palace attackers. Brynn had heard the reports of the vicious fighting here, as many of the warriors from Honce-the-Bear had gone in to try to rescue Abbot Olin. Brynn could only imagine the fighting that had occurred right on these steps, Chezhou-Lei against Allheart Knight.

Without slowing, the woman walked Runtly right up the steps and through the broken doorway into the palace’s grand foyer.

“Direct me to Yatol Wadon,” she instructed one of the startled guards inside.

“You cannot bring your horses in here!” the soldier cried, waving at all of them to turn about.

Brynn walked past him, brushing him hard enough with Runtly to send him stumbling aside. There would be no sign of weakness, the victorious woman decided. She looked at another guard, a younger man, who was trembling so hard that he seemed in danger of knocking himself unconscious with the long handle of his halberd.