DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (264 page)

The arrow dove into his side and he felt a burning explosion of pain.

But only for a second, and the young king didn’t swerve a step. He kept his breathing steady and focused his thoughts on the wound, visualizing the damage and sending waves of soul-stone healing power to the region.

Still keeping stride, the young king reached down and pulled forth the arrow, casually tossing it aside. He lost some blood, but not much, for the waves of healing magic had the wound closing almost immediately behind the withdrawing arrow.

Another archer popped up, straight in front of Aydrian.

But Aydrian didn’t want to feel that pain again and so he raised Tempest’s tip even as the man leveled his bow. And he reached into the graphite set into Tempest and sent forth a bolt of lightning even as the man loosed his arrow. The line of cracking energy blasted the arrow into harmless splinters, then slammed the archer, launching him into a short flight back into the smithy.

Aydrian changed the sword’s angle and loosed another stunning bolt, this one hitting the ground right before the hay bales with a thunderous report, shaking every building on that side of the town and blasting away the makeshift barricade, and a couple of hidden defenders, as well.

“You defy me?” Aydrian shouted as he calmly and confidently strode into the smithy.

A man came at him hard from the right, spear stabbing, but Aydrian casually reached Tempest out that way, rolled it about the man’s spear, over and inside, and shoved the thrusting weapon out wide. A quick retraction and sudden stab, and then again, and then again, had the spearman falling backward, a stunned expression on his face, his hands clutching at his chest in desperation.

But Aydrian hadn’t finished any of the three stabs, putting only superficial wounds into the rebellious Palmaris soldier. Enough to stop him, certainly, but not to kill him. Aydrian didn’t want to do any more of that than was necessary.

Another desperate man charged out from the shadows, and then another beside him, both brandishing swords. They came in hard and fast—too much so!—and Aydrian knew that they were terrified.

And Aydrian knew that they were right to be terrified.

Tempest slashed across hard to the left and down, taking the thrusting tip of one sword with it, then came back up and across in the blink of an eye, deflecting the second blade only an inch from Aydrian’s face, moving the sword up and out.

Falling into the stance of
bi’nelle dasada
, the young king moved back suddenly, out of range, and the pair of hastily retracted and then rethrust blades fell short of the mark. And both attackers were suddenly off balance from the unexpected and clean miss, with not even a parrying blade to counterbalance their desperate thrusts.

Now Tempest snapped right and left, tapping one blade and then the second just enough to open a lane between them. Before the two soldiers could even put their weapons back in any kind of defensive line, the perfectly balanced Aydrian
rushed ahead and stabbed the man on the right in the thigh, sending him howling to the floor. Aydrian retracted Tempest way back, then turned the tip over to the left and shot the blade that way, cutting under the second swordsman’s weapon as he tried to swing it Aydrian’s way.

Up went Tempest, lifting the swordsman’s blade and arm as it went, and Aydrian stepped in behind, moving right near the man, and hit him with a short and chopping left hand to the chin.

He went down hard.

Instinctively, Aydrian spun about, slashing his blade across, and picking off an arrow as he did!

The archer was in the loft, along with at least one other man.

Aydrian picked out a path to the ladder, but before he even started away, he heard a feral roar behind him.

De’Unnero, he knew before he even turned, and sure enough, the former monk, half in human form and half in the form of a great tiger, bounded past him and easily leaped the ten feet to the loft, bowling over the archer as the man frantically tried to fit another arrow to his bowstring.

Aydrian gnashed his teeth as he heard the monk’s devastating work up above, as blood began to run freely through the spaced planks of the loft.

One man came to the edge and moved as if to leap out, screaming wildly, but he barely got off the ledge before a great paw hooked his shoulder and brutally tore him back to the loft. His screams continued, even intensified, and Aydrian could see one arm flailing wildly.

And then it suddenly stopped.

Commotion from behind stole Aydrian’s focus and he turned about to see the Allheart and Kingsmen soldiers rushing into the smithy. With a sigh of frustration, Aydrian sheathed Tempest.

Before he put his soul stone away, the young king went back to work one last time on the wound from the arrow, just to make sure he had properly repaired it. A few moments later, satisfied that he had, he slipped back out of the trance of the stone. He heard Marcalo De’Unnero, who had come down from the loft and was standing over by the door, shouting at Duke Monmouth, scolding him for allowing Aydrian to walk into such danger.

Aydrian smiled, considering that Monmouth had been given no choice in the matter. Or maybe he was just smiling because he liked hearing De’Unnero so utterly outraged.

One of the rebels from the loft came forward then and pitched over, falling hard to the floor at Aydrian’s feet and splattering the young king with blood.

De’Unnero was there in an instant, lifting an arm that was still a tiger’s paw as if to finish off the man.

But Aydrian held him back, then reached down and grabbed the wounded Palmaris soldier with his right hand. He fell back into the soul stone and sent a burst of healing energy into the man, but the poor fool was too far gone, fast falling into
the realm of death.

Aydrian snarled and fell into a kneel beside him, and then, as he had done on the field with Duke Kalas so long ago, the young king’s spirit leaped through the portal of the soul stone and chased the spirit of the dying man into the dark realm.

A few moments later, Aydrian opened his eyes and fell back, and on the floor before him, the seemingly mortally wounded man coughed and sputtered and looked up, completely overwhelmed.

But very much alive.

Aydrian grinned and looked around at the many obviously impressed, obviously awed, onlookers.

Only Marcalo De’Unnero didn’t seem very pleased. He came forward to crouch before Aydrian and roughly pulled the young king to his feet.

“What folly is this?” the monk cried, then quickly lowered his voice.

“Less carnage and more manipulation, if you please,” Aydrian calmly replied, and De’Unnero could only stare at him in a stupor.

“You think this a game?” the monk asked.

“I think it an opportunity,” Aydrian answered, and he pushed De’Unnero aside—pleased to see Sadye standing there directly in his line of sight, watching closely.

Aydrian went to the man he had just saved and roughly pulled him up. “Do you not understand who I am?” he asked the man, who was trembling and obviously completely overwhelmed. “Do you not understand that I was born to be your king?” As he finished, Aydrian looked up, as if addressing them all.

“Ye … yes,” the healed man said, blinking, crying, trembling, and melting down to the floor.

“Clean this place, bury the dead, and bring the prisoners and wounded to Chasewind Manor,” Aydrian commanded his soldiers. “But do not mistreat them! We will learn much from them,” the young king declared. “And they will learn the truth of King Aydrian of Ursal. They will learn that we are not their enemies.”

The others began to filter off, giving Aydrian and De’Unnero a moment alone together.

“What are you …” De’Unnero started to ask, but then he just stopped and shook his head, clearly at a loss, clearly caught completely off his balance here—almost as much so as had been the man Aydrian had pulled from the realm of death.

Aydrian certainly understood that nearly blank expression. It was not easy for De’Unnero to see his former student step so far ahead of him!

With a snort and another helpless shake of his head, Marcalo De’Unnero walked away.

Sadye went up to Aydrian then, though she was looking back at her departing companion.

“He is only beginning to understand who I am,” Aydrian said to her, drawing her eyes to his own. “He is beginning to recognize that I am beyond him now.”

Sadye looked at him curiously, and a bit suspiciously.

“He fears that his own position will be compromised,” Aydrian went on. “He fears that I do not need him, perhaps that I will even begin to see him and his well-earned reputation as a detriment to my progress.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The truth,” Aydrian replied, and his blue eyes sparkled with intensity, boring into her. “And you know it. But Marcalo De’Unnero does not.”

“He has done so much for you,” Sadye reminded. “He found you in the Wilderlands and showed you the way—all the way, from the Timberlands, back south to Ursal, and all the way to Entel. The gemstones of Pimaninicuit were his doing, and those riches more than anything else have funded your ascension. Are you so quick to forget?”

“I have forgotten nothing,” Aydrian replied. “If I had, then I would have left De’Unnero in Ursal, for his true usefulness to me ended on the day King Danube died. Do you not believe that I would have found more acceptance here in Palmaris if I had not arrived beside the hated former bishop?

“But I’ll not forsake him,” Aydrian went on. “And I will grant him his Abellican Church, as he so desires.”

“You act as if everything from this point forward will be your doing alone.”

That wry grin returned, and it was a quite convincing and clear answer.

“I taught these rebels the truth of Aydrian this day—those who were not slaughtered to satisfy the blood thirst of Marcalo De’Unnero. That man who was so close to death will welcome Aydrian as king, and will tell others of rebellious disposition to lay down their arms and embrace the savior that is Aydrian.” He paused and tilted his head back, just a bit, so that he was looking down at Sadye more completely, and more suggestively. “When will Sadye come to accept that same truth, I wonder?”

Sadye brought a hand up to brush a strand of hair from in front of her gray eyes, a gesture that told Aydrian just how much he had rattled the normally unshakable woman. She held his stare for a short while longer, but then had to relent, and she turned and started away.

Aydrian touched her shoulder lightly and she stopped as surely as if the strong young man had grabbed her and tugged her back, and when she glanced back at him, he moved his hand from her shoulder to the side of her face, lightly running the back of his fingers down across her pretty cheek.

Sadye closed her eyes and her breathing deepened for just a moment, then she blinked her eyes open and walked away.

Aydrian knew that he had gotten into her soul in that moment. She was walking away from him, stubbornly defiant to the bitter end, but he knew beyond any doubt that she wanted to turn about and leap into his arms. He knew something else, too, and the knowledge rang sweetly in his thoughts: in many ways, Sadye almost hoped that he would kill De’Unnero and be done with it, alleviating any guilt or fears that she might harbor.

Oh yes, he had touched her soul.

P
ony pulled the blanket tight about her, never blinking as she stared at the elven Lady. She had no idea how Dasslerond had accomplished this feat, taking her from Dundalis so completely that she was still wrapped in the blanket she had thrown across her shoulders when she had sat on the floor of her room to meditate.

“Aydrian is my son,” she said.

“He is,” Lady Dasslerond answered, her tone flat and showing no emotion at all.

“You stole him from me, on the field outside of Palmaris.”

“I did.”

Pony felt her legs go weak for just an instant, and then felt a sudden surge of strength course through her body, imploring her to leap ahead and throttle the diminutive elf.

“And if I had not, then both mother and child would have died on that field, the victims of the demon dactyl,” Lady Dasslerond went on, stealing a bit of that urge. “The victims of the same demon dactyl who had defeated Jilseponie and was chased away by the rescue of the Touel’alfar.”

“That does not afford you the right—”

“The same demon dactyl that once found its way to Andur’Blough Inninness, after I had rescued yet another group of humans from its clutches. Once there, the beast placed its stain upon the ground, upon the lifeblood of our valley. Only the child taken from Jilseponie on the field, where she and he surely would have died, offered the promise of defeating that growing demon rot.”

Pony stammered and sputtered, recognizing the logic but denying the conclusion. “That does not give to you the right to steal my child!” the completely frustrated woman yelled at last.

Dasslerond’s reply came as an emotionless and distant stare, as if Pony’s words had meant nothing at all to the Lady of Caer’alfar.

Which of course, was true.

“How can you stand there and look at me like that?” Pony asked. “Do you care not at all what you have done to me? To Aydrian?”

“I saved your life, and his.”

“You stole a child!” Pony yelled at her, but her strength was going even as she finished the sentence, and she continued with a voice that was clearly wavering. “Could you not have come back for me? Could you not have brought me to him? Have told me at least that he was alive and well?”

Dasslerond did flinch, just a tiny bit, but it was stopped by a strong resumption of her icy visage. “Your life was saved at a price.”

“Never one that I agreed upon!”

“It does not matter,” the Lady of Caer’alfar said. “I acted as my people needed me to act, for the good of the Touel’alfar—indeed, for the very survival of the Touel’alfar. That was my concern, and not the broken heart of a human woman. You are no enemy of the Touel’alfar, Jilseponie. Do remember that our intervention
back in Dundalis those decades ago when the goblins overran the town allowed you to live. Do remember that our sacrifices were considerable in the war against the demon dactyl, and for the good of man as much as for the good of the Touel’alfar. You know
bi’nelle dasada
, and many other secrets of my people, and yet we have taken pity on you and allowed you to live. This is no small matter, Jilseponie. Release your anger toward us, here and now. Our days together are at their end.”