DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (41 page)

“Ask yerself,” the centaur replied. “Ye’re so quick to be makin’ it Pony’s fight, and easy enough for ye, sittin’ up here in the Timberlands. Where’s Roger, then? I’m askin’. He’s lettin’ his friend go cold in the ground, and not doin’ a thing to bring a value to Elbryan’s death.”

“I was not offered the barony or the abbey.”

“Ye weren’t lookin’ for the offer,” Bradwarden said. “Ye could’ve ridden the last fight to some power, if ye so chose.”

“I came north with you,” Roger protested, “to bury Elbryan.”

“And ye could’ve been back in Palmaris before the summer was half finished,” Bradwarden scolded. “Are ye mad at Pony, boy? Are ye really? Or is it yerself that’s botherin’ yerself?”

Roger started to answer, but stopped short and stood staring out at the forest, wondering, wondering.

“Pony’s needin’ a friend now, and needin’ us to let her do all that she’s needin’ to do without our judgin’ her,” Bradwarden remarked sternly. “Ye think ye can do that?”

Roger looked him right in the eye, considered the question carefully and honestly, then nodded.

A
chill wind came up that evening, and Pony honestly wasn’t sure if it was a natural thing or a consequence of this cold place. In either case, how fitting it seemed to her as she stood before the two cairns in the grove north of Dundalis, a place that would have left her cold on the hottest of bright summer days.

She only glanced at the older of the graves, the resting place of Mather Wyndon, Elbryan’s uncle and the first Wyndon ranger. She couldn’t help but picture the body under those stones, disturbed first by Elbryan on that dark night when he had earned Tempest, the elven sword, and then again more recently by Bradwarden and Roger, when they reinterred the weapon beside its original owner.

And Pony couldn’t help but picture Elbryan, and the mere thought of her love lying cold in the ground nearly buckled her knees. He was there, under those rocks, with Hawkwing, the magnificent bow Belli’mar Juraviel’s father, Joycenevial, had crafted for him during his years of training with the Touel’alfar. He was there, with eyes unseeing and a mouth that could not draw breath. He, who had so often
warmed her in his gentle but strong embrace, was there, alone and cold, and there was nothing, nothing that she could do about it.

All of her young life had been marred by loss. First her family and friends—all of them save Elbryan—had been murdered by goblins and giants. Then her companions at Pireth Tulme—men and women she hadn’t considered friends but with whom she had forged a working relationship—had been slaughtered by the attacking powries. Then the Chilichunks, who had shown her only love, had perished in the dungeons of St.-Mere-Abelle.

Then Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk and Tuntun and Avelyn, dear Avelyn, all lost on the road to Mount Aida. And her child, torn from her womb by the demon Markwart. And finally—in an act that had saved her life, surely—she had lost Elbryan, her lover, her best friend, the man she had intended to grow old beside.

It didn’t get easier, these confrontations with death. Far from hardening her heart to future losses, each death seemed to amplify those that came before.

She pictured them now, all of them, from Elbryan to Avelyn to her father, walking past her as if in a dream, moving close in front of her but never seeing her or hearing her plaintive calls. Walking, walking away from her forever.

She reached out and tried to grab Elbryan, but he was an insubstantial thing, a formed mist and nothing more, and her hand passed right through him. He was an image, a memory, something lost.

Pony blinked open her eyes and didn’t even try to hold back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

Chapter 18
 

“I
HADN
’
T THOUGHT WE
’
D BE SEEIN
’
OUR HOME AGAIN SO SOON
,” L
IAM
O’B
LYTHE
remarked to Prince Midalis as they trotted their mounts at the lead of a long column making its way through the muggy air of the Vanguard forest. They had gone north with Bruinhelde and his clan only to be met by barbarian scouts reporting that southern Alpinador was clear of monsters, that not a sign of any goblins or powries had been seen in many, many weeks. And so, with Bruinhelde’s approval and a knowing wink and a nod from Andacanavar, the men of Vanguard had turned about, heading back to their homes to erase the scars of the demon war.

Andacanavar had come back to the south, as well, though he had taken a roundabout route and they hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. With Midalis’ blessing, the ranger had decided to haunt the region of Vanguard for the rest of the summer, to learn what he could about his southern neighbors in the hopes that he could further bridge the chasm between the two peoples. The ranger had also elicited from Midalis the Prince’s promise that, when he returned home in the autumn, Midalis would accompany him.

There remained the not so little matter of the blood-brothering.

“Pireth Vanguard!” the point scout called back.

“Well, she is still standing, then,” Midalis remarked. A few moments later, rounding a bend and cresting a rise in the trail, Liam and Midalis came in sight of the fortress, its towers stark against the heavy gray sky hanging over the Gulf of Corona behind it.

Before they entered the fortress, the pair noted that a trader was in port, but it wasn’t until Midalis saw Warder Presso running toward him that he realized something unusual was going on. The battle-weary Prince was relieved indeed to learn the Warder’s news, to learn that nothing sinister had happened in the days since their departure.

Still, a monk visiting from Palmaris, come to take Abbot Agronguerre back to St.-Mere-Abelle, was no small matter; and though he was tired and hot and dirty, Prince Midalis decided that he should go straight to St. Belfour to meet the man. Liam, of course, willingly followed; and the two were joined by Captain Al’u’met, who was riding Warder Presso’s own fine horse. On the trails to the abbey, Al’u’met told of the happenings in Palmaris yet again; and as they nodded, hanging on every word, both the Prince and his adviser came to understand why Midalis’ brother, the King, had not responded to their request for soldiers.

“I had heard rumors that the Father Abbot had died,” Midalis said when Al’u’met finished. “But never would I have believed that such turmoil and treacherous circumstance surrounded that tragic event.”

“The kingdom will be long in recovering from the scars of the demon dactyl,” Al’u’met said grimly. “Perhaps the Church will choose its next leader wisely, to the benefit of us all.”

“Ye’re seein’ benefit in anythin’ the Abellican Church’s doin’?” Liam O’Blythe asked the dark-skinned southerner bluntly.

“I am Abellican,” Al’u’met explained, “and have followed that path to God for many decades.”

“I only meant—”

Al’u’met stopped him with a smile and an upraised hand.

“When will they convene the College of Abbots?” Midalis asked.

“I am bid to transport Brother Dellman, Abbot Agronguerre, and any entourage the abbot chooses to bring, to St.-Mere-Abelle in the autumn,” Al’u’met explained. “They will convene in Calember, as they did last time.”

Midalis started to answer, but then paused and considered the words carefully. “This Brother Dellman,” he asked, “who sent him?”

“Abbot Braumin of St. Precious.”

“I do not know the man,” Midalis replied, “nor have I ever heard Abbot Agronguerre mention him. He is young?”

“For an abbot, very much so,” Al’u’met explained. “Abbot Braumin has earned his rank by deed, and not by mere age. He stood with Nightbird and Jilseponie, even under promise of torture by the Father Abbot. He would not renounce his beliefs, though his refusal seemed as if it would surely cost him his life. Brother Dellman, too. A fine young man, by my estimation.”

Al’u’met started to take the conversation that way, but Midalis would not let him, more concerned with the one thing that nagged at him, just below his consciousness, about this visit.

“Why have you come so early?” he asked plainly.

“It is a long voyage, and one unpredictable,” Al’u’met explained. “The weather was not so foul, and yet we had to put in at Dancard for repair.”

“You could still be in Palmaris dock,” Midalis countered, and he noticed the concerned expression come over Liam’s face, and realized then that he might be giving away his suspicions. “You could have waited out the rest of the month in the south and still have had more than enough time to come up here, fetch Agronguerre, and return to St.-Mere-Abelle.”

“I could not chance the weather,” Al’u’met answered, but Midalis saw right through that excuse. Every sailor along the gulf knew well that the late-spring weather was much more treacherous than that of late summer and early autumn. Not only had Al’u’met come up prematurely, but he had done so against the conventional wisdom of the gulf sailors.

What was it, then? Prince Midalis wondered. Why had this protégé of the new abbot come running all the way to Vanguard with an invitation that could have been delivered by any one of the many traders that would venture here over the next month and a half? And certainly a man as prominent as Abbot Agronguerre
would have had little trouble in finding his own passage south. Following that same line of thought, it struck Midalis that it made more sense for the abbot to use one of Midalis’ ships, and not go south with Al’u’met, that he might return before the winter season set in deep.

Unless Abbot Braumin and his cohorts weren’t expecting Agronguerre to return to Vanguard anytime soon, Midalis reasoned; and it occurred to him then that this was much more than an invitation. He had a difficult time holding his smile in check all the rest of the way to St. Belfour.

They arrived late in the afternoon, and met immediately with Brother Dellman, Abbot Agronguerre, and the ever-present Brother Haney. Dellman told his tale yet again, more quickly this time, since the Prince had already heard all of Al’u’met’s contributions. What most interested the Prince, and what he made Dellman repeat several times and elaborate on, were the parts concerning his brother’s actions in the city.

Brother Dellman took care to paint King Danube in a positive light, and it was not a hard task for the young monk. He explained that Danube had wisely held back to allow Elbryan and Jilseponie to settle their war with Markwart. “He understood that this fight was about the soul of the Church more than any threat to his secular kingdom,” Dellman explained. “It was the proper course for him to take.”

Midalis nodded, not surprised, for ever had his older brother been wise in the ways of diplomacy; and one of the primary lessons they both had learned at a young age was never to engage the kingdom in a fight that did not directly involve them.

“His wisdom after the battle was no less,” Brother Dellman went on, resisting the temptation to offer the glaring exception of Danube’s choice for the new baron, installing the hostile Duke Kalas instead of a more diplomatic soul. “He begged Jilseponie to take the barony.”

That raised Prince Midalis’ dark eyebrows and those of Liam O’Blythe, as well.

“If you knew the woman, you would better appreciate the correctness of that choice,” Captain Al’u’met put in.

“Then I will have to make it a point to meet this most remarkable woman,” Prince Midalis sincerely replied.

“You will not be disappointed,” said Warder Presso, which caught all of the Vanguardsmen by surprise. “If she is the same woman, Jill, who served with me at Pireth Tulme many years ago, then you will be duly impressed.”

“A pity that she’ll not be at the College of Abbots,” Agronguerre remarked.

“An invitation will surely be extended,” said Dellman. “And just as certainly, Jilseponie will refuse. She has gone north, back into the Timberlands, to heal her heart. Better will all the world be if that process is successful and Jilseponie returns to us soon!”

His obvious enthusiasm and sincerity had all the heads bobbing in agreement, and had all of those who had not met the woman—including Warder Presso, who had not seen her in years—anxious indeed to gaze upon this growing legend.

They talked long into the night, informally, mostly trading anecdotes of their experiences during the war. Abbot Agronguerre excused himself from vespers, and allowed Brothers Haney and Dellman to do likewise, so that they could continue this most productive and enjoyable meeting. When finally they ended, past midnight, there had been forged an honest friendship between them all, and all the secular guests were invited to remain at the abbey for as long as they desired.

Still, Brother Dellman was surprised indeed when Prince Midalis bade him to hold back a moment while all the others filed out of the abbot’s audience chamber.

“I find it curious that you have come up here so early,” the Prince explained.

“We simply wanted to make sure that the message of the College of Abbots was properly delivered and in a timely enough manner for Abbot Agronguerre to make his preparations,” Brother Dellman replied.

“That could have been done in an easier and more convenient manner,” the Prince observed.