DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (251 page)

It is in this knowledge and confidence that I am able to deny the screams of the dying. It is in this sense of destiny that I find my way along the road of life
.

There was another voice on the field outside of Palmaris that day. When I hesitated, there was one beside me, reminding me
.

Sadye has come to understand my march. Sadye, wise Sadye, knows the profound difference between mortality and immortality, between living and surviving, between invigorating excitement and deathly routine. She fears nothing. She shrinks from no challenge. She engaged Marcalo De’Unnero because he was the weretiger, not in spite of that fact. She exists on the very edge of disaster because she knows that only there can a person be truly alive. She is keeping me there, as well, herding my march along a straight and determined line. She is holding me on a precipice, and the stronger the wind that blows behind us, threatening to blow us over that cliff face, the wider is her smile
.

Sadye knows
.

—K
ING
A
YDRIAN
B
OUDABRAS

Chapter 10
 

F
OR AS LONG AS ANYONE COULD REMEMBER
,
THE PIPING OF THE
F
OREST
G
HOST
had haunted the forests of the Timberlands about the towns of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and End o’ the World. And so it was this night, the delicate melody drifting through the trees, seeming so much a part of the night that many of the folk of Dundalis did not even notice until a friend pointed it out.

The three visitors to the town surely marked the piping of the Forest Ghost as soon as it had drifted in on the evening breeze, though, for they had come here in the hopes of finding that very piper.

“Bradwarden,” Roger Lockless said with great reverence. “It is good to hear his music once again.”

“I’m thinking that Pony’s agreein’ with ye,” Dainsey remarked with a smirk. She stared at Pony, drawing Roger’s gaze there, as well.

There sat Pony, on the front porch of Fellowship Way, the town’s single tavern, her eyes closed and rocking gently in rhythm with the music.

Roger and Dainsey looked to each other and smiled wistfully, glad to see that a measure of calm had come to tortured Pony’s beautiful face. They let her sit there for a long, long while, basking in the moonlight and the melody, before Roger finally remarked, “Bradwarden is not far.”

Pony opened her eyes sleepily and looked over at the couple.

“Shall we go?” Roger asked her.

Pony hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “Not we,” she said. “I wish to speak with Bradwarden alone, at first.”

Roger hid the wounded look before it could blossom on his face.

“ ’Course ye do!” Dainsey said. “But ye best be goin’, then. Bradwarden’s not one to stay about for long, from all that I heard o’ him.”

“You heard right,” Pony agreed, and she pulled herself from the wooden chair and straightened her breeches and tunic, pointedly adjusting the pouch of gemstones hanging on her belt at her right hip. With a nod to her friends, she started away, skipping down the few steps to the main road of Dundalis village. With a look around at the quiet routines of the Dundalis night, she headed straight out to the north.

The forest night swallowed her in its profound blackness, but Pony was not the slightest bit afraid. These were the haunts of her childhood, where she and Elbryan had run the same trails that she moved along now. Far out of town, the music floating in the air all about her, she seemed no closer to finding Bradwarden than when she had been sitting on the porch. That was part of the centaur’s magic. His song was simply part of the night and never seemed to emanate from anywhere
specifically. It was just a general tune, filtering fully about the trees. Standing there, turning slowly, Pony could not begin to guess the direction of the piper.

With a determined nod, a reminder to herself of what Dasslerond had done to her, the woman reached into her gemstone pouch and brought forth a hematite, a soul stone. She moved it in close to her breast and closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts on the smooth feel of the gray stone. There was a depth to this one above all the other enchanted gemstones, an inviting richness, and into that gray swirl went Pony’s thoughts, and into that gray swirl went Pony.

She escaped her mortal coil and moved out, looking back at herself as she stood motionless, clutching the stone that had become the link between her body and her spirit.

Free of her mortal bonds, Pony soared out on the same night breezes that carried the centaur’s melody. She floated up high, above the canopy, and willed herself along at great speed, covering the distance more quickly than even mighty Symphony ever could.

When she found Bradwarden, she found, too, a warmth in her heart as profound as that she had felt when she had first seen Braumin and Roger again. There he was, eight hundred pounds of muscle. From a distance, an ignorant onlooker might have thought him a large rider on a small bay mount, but up close it became evident that the rider and mount were one and the same, for Bradwarden’s muscular human torso, waist up, rose where the neck of his horse body should have begun.

Intent on his music, the centaur’s eyes were closed as he held the bagpipes tucked under his powerful arm, while his hands worked the many openings along its neck. His hair was still black and wild, with a full beard and great curly locks, and though he was older now, no slackness had come into his corded muscles. The centaur looked as if he could crush stone under that powerful arm as easily as he was squeezing the air out of his musical pipes.

Pony’s spirit slipped down near to him and hovered about for a few moments, until the centaur, apparently sensing the presence, popped open wide his intense eyes. His song ended with a discordant shriek.

The centaur glanced all around, seeming on his guard and confused.

Pony didn’t move her spirit any closer. One of the great risks of spirit-walking was the ever-present instinct of the spirit to dive into a corporeal body. Spirit-walking was a prelude to possession, and possession, Pony knew, was nothing to be taken lightly. Still, the woman dared to reach out to Bradwarden, to impart to him a rush of warmth and friendship.

“Bah, but it can’no be,” he muttered, and then he blinked and looked about curiously, for the sensation was gone.

With Bradwarden located, Pony wasted no time in setting out as soon as her spirit rushed back through the soul stone and into her corporeal body. She had marked the way well and knew enough of the area to measure accurately the distance and the time it would take her to reach the piping centaur. When she heard
the song renewed, she gained confidence, and a bit of a smile, that she had reassured Bradwarden enough to keep him in place.

A short while later, the piping stopped again, but this time it wasn’t because Bradwarden had felt the presence of a ghost, but rather, that he had recognized the presence of a dear old friend.

“Ah, so many’re the times I’ve wondered if I might be seein’ ye again, Pony o’ Dundalis!” he said as she walked out of the shadows of the trees before him.

Pony’s lips began to move, but she couldn’t begin to get a word out at that moment, and so she just rushed across the small clearing and leaped up against the centaur, wrapping him in a tight hug.

“The queen is out without an army at her side?” Bradwarden asked, finally managing to push her back to arm’s length. “But yer husband’d not be happy by that …”

He stopped and looked at her curiously.

“My husband is no more,” Pony admitted. “King Danube has passed from this world.”

“Then ye’re on yer way to find Prince Midalis,” the centaur reasoned, but his tone was quite telling to Pony, revealing to her that he held more trepidation at her announcement than perhaps he should have.

“When Prince Midalis comes through here, it will be at the head of his army,” Pony replied. “And that army had better be a formidable one if he is to hold any hopes of taking the throne that is rightfully his.”

Bradwarden looked at her knowingly and slowly nodded.

“You knew of him,” Pony stated.

“Midalis?”

Pony shook her head and stepped back, out of the centaur’s reach. “Do not play coy with me, Bradwarden. For too long, we have been friends. How many enemies have we stood against, side by side? Was it not Bradwarden himself who saved me and Elbryan at the Barbacan after we did battle with the demon dactyl?”

“Oh, but don’t ye go reminding me o’ that!” the centaur wailed dramatically, his tone going lighter. “Ye got no way o’ knowin’ how much a mountain hurts when it falls on ye, woman! Ye got—”

He stopped short, for Pony stared at him hard, not letting him change the subject and wriggle away so easily.

“You knew of him,” Pony said again, sternly. “And I speak not of Prince Midalis. I speak of Aydrian, my son, and you knew of him!”

Bradwarden’s lips tightened and seemed to disappear beneath his thick beard and mustache.

“You did!” Pony accused. “And you did not tell me! Were you in league with Lady Dasslerond all along, then? Do you find it so easy to deceive someone you name as friend?”

“No!” the centaur shot back. “And no.” His voice softened, as did his expression. “I met yer boy two years ago, when winter began its turn to spring. He had Tempest
and Hawkwing, and had brought Symphony to his side.”

“So I have learned,” Pony said bitterly.

“Ah, but it’s a sad day for all the creatures o’ the world when Symphony’s at the side o’ that one,” the centaur lamented. “And no, woman, I was no party to Lady Dasslerond on this, and though I’ve e’er seen the wisdom o’ the Touel’alfar, never before has such a mistake been made.”

“You’ve known for years, and yet you did not come to me and tell me,” said Pony in the voice of a friend betrayed, a voice thick with sadness and disappointment.

“And how might I be doing that?” the centaur said. “Ye’re thinking I might be galloping into Ursal to talk to the queen?”

Pony looked at him and gave a sigh and a helpless shrug.

“Ah, but ye’re right,” the centaur admitted. “I should o’ done more, though I wasn’t knowing what I might be doing! But ye got to believe me on this, me Pony, me friend. Yer son’s got not the blessing o’ Bradwarden.”

Pony shrugged again, then came forward and wrapped Bradwarden in a hug, and though that embrace was supposed to show the centaur that all was forgiven, was in effect supposed to comfort Bradwarden, as the centaur wrapped his muscular arms about Pony and held her even closer, it was she who was most comforted. The tears began to flow, and she let them come forth. Her shoulders bobbed with sobs, but Bradwarden held her steady and tight.

Sometime later, Pony moved back from the centaur and gave a little self-deprecating laugh as she reached up to wipe her tears away.

“What a silly old woman I’ve become,” she said.

“Ye’re neither,” the centaur replied without hesitation. “If ye’re feeling a bit old now, then ye’ve the right, I’m guessing. Not many who’ve seen such pain as Pony.”

“And it is only beginning, I fear.”

“Bah, it’s one more thing for ye—for us—to go out and beat, don’t ye know?” Bradwarden said.

Pony looked at him skeptically. “You want me to fight against my own son?”

Bradwarden didn’t even bother to answer.

And Pony understood, and she gave another sigh of resignation.

“Prince Midalis will be riding hard to put things aright, and he’s to be needing Pony at his side,” the centaur said.

“And Pony’s to be needing Bradwarden at her side, to hold her on her feet,” the woman said.

The centaur flashed that typical grin of ultimate confidence and promised with a wink, “I’ll keep the mountain off o’ ye.”

“D
o not underestimate the Palmaris garrison,” Duke Kalas warned. “They have been hardened by many trials over the years. Their leaders are veterans of battles.”

“We can hunt them down and kill them, and quickly,” argued Marcalo De’Unnero. “Before they cross through Caer Tinella, if we are fast.”

Seated across the table from the two men, Aydrian leaned back in his chair. They were certain that Bishop Braumin had pulled a trick here in Palmaris, slipping a large portion of his trained militia out of Palmaris’ northern gate before Aydrian’s forces had arrived. Very shortly before, from what the young king and his men had learned in interrogating citizens of the conquered city. Now, a few days after the fall of St. Precious, they could assume that the escaped garrison was well on the way to Caer Tinella and Landsdown, the two largest towns north of Palmaris, halfway between the great city and the Timberlands region, where Aydrian’s parents had lived.

“We must move quickly,” De’Unnero implored Aydrian. “We have tarried too long already.”

“The securing of Palmaris is all-important,” remarked Duke Kalas. “Winter will fast descend upon this region and we must have complete control of the city, and have it in full operation.”

Aydrian nodded. They had already discussed this at length. The first priority for this stage in strengthening his hold on the kingdom was to secure Palmaris in good order. The people would tighten their ties to Aydrian only if he did not too greatly disturb their lives. Thus, after the conquest, when his soldiers had charged through the streets, he had held them in great restraint. Palmaris had been taken with minimum casualties, and with even fewer repercussions to the conquered folk. One by one, the prisoners taken in the conquest had been interrogated, and almost all had been released. Aydrian’s soldiers had told them to go home, to tend to their families, and to understand that the new and rightful king of Honce-the-Bear was a just and decent man who harbored no vengeance against those misinformed souls who had dared oppose him.