DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (315 page)

“I will not need your thirty thousand to sack St.-Mere-Abelle,” Aydrian replied to the duke. “With my five thousand and the war engines, the abbey will quickly fall. That frees you up to begin the great march, to Palmaris and then to the north and east, to Vanguard itself. Prince Midalis cannot hope to oppose you, wherever he might land.”

“You take too great a risk,” Duke Kalas warned. “St.-Mere-Abelle is formidable beyond your expectations! Never has the abbey fallen in all its long history, and greater forces than yours have arrayed against it.”

“But never a force led by one as potent as I in the use of the gemstones,” Aydrian explained. “Nor as proficient in defeating the monks’ use of the stones. There are no more than seven hundred monks inside of St.-Mere-Abelle at this time.”

“And a like number of peasants, if not more,” Duke Kalas added, and Aydrian shrugged as if that hardly mattered.

“If I can minimize the monks’ gemstone use, we will get through the door, and once that has happened, the monastery will quickly fall,” Aydrian reasoned.

“The monks are well trained in conventional battle,” Kalas warned.

“Some are fine fighters,” De’Unnero agreed. “But most are nominal, at best. King Aydrian and I will find the leadership of St.-Mere-Abelle and decapitate the abbey. Many of the lesser monks will then likely come to see the truth of the new king and the new Church. To do otherwise would be disastrous for them, would it not?”

Duke Kalas continued to shake his head. “Let us overrun the monastery together, in the morning,” he offered. “Once that is done, we can better plan the downfall of Prince Midalis.”

“That has been our error all along,” Aydrian replied. “We have kept our forces too bunched. That is why Midalis has been able to find places at which to strike around our edges. No, it is time to sort our armies into mighty parts. And I am not ready to go against St.-Mere-Abelle quite yet. Even now, I am quietly spying on the brothers within, to learn how best I can exploit their weaknesses. I will destroy the remnants of Fio Bou-raiy’s Abellican Church in one week, I expect, but by then, I would have you storming north of Palmaris with twenty thousand warriors. Your other ten thousand are to be dispatched south and east, with three thousand strengthening the garrison of Entel and the other force to patrol the Mantis Arm and the Broken Coast. I doubt that Midalis will land again in the southland when
he learns of your march to crush his home, but if he does, we will be ready to meet him quickly and decisively.”

“My King …” Duke Kalas began to argue, but Aydrian was hearing none of it.

“That is my decision,” he said, ending the debate. “I and my five thousand will be rid of the brothers within St.-Mere-Abelle. Then I will instate Marcalo De’Unnero as the Father Abbot of all the Abellican Church and reposition my warriors as I see fit. I hope to join you in Vanguard, my friend, that I can share in our most glorious victory, but I bid you not to wait for me. Let us be done with this, all of it.”

“Yes, my King,” Duke Kalas replied.

Aydrian nodded and offered a smile, but mostly, he was smiling because he knew that To’el Dallia was likely already on her way to report the momentous happenings.

And the apparent hole in his defenses.

“Y
our son has erred, and greatly, it would seem,” Prince Midalis said to Pony and the others when Juraviel delivered the startling news of Aydrian’s redeployment the very next day.

“I have heard the details of the way he overran Palmaris,” Captain Al’u’met offered. “I doubt St.-Mere-Abelle will stand against him for long, even with his reduced force.”

“But he has exposed himself, and he alone is the source of opposition to my rule,” Prince Midalis explained.

“Five thousand,” Andacanavar said. “His force is still more than equal to that which you hold at your disposal, and it is headed by the powerful young king.”

“True enough,” said Midalis. “But we have a pair of rangers of our own.” He looked from Andacanavar to Brynn Dharielle. “To say nothing of Jilseponie and the dragon!”

“Forget not the Jhesta Tu who walks beside you, good Prince Midalis,” Brynn added after the mystic had translated the prince’s words to her.

Pagonel bowed to her before relaying her words to Prince Midalis.

“If we sail quickly and land ashore directly opposite the peninsula from St.-Mere-Abelle, we will arrive on the field before Aydrian’s attack,” Prince Midalis reasoned. “How much will our arrival bolster the confidence and effectiveness of Father Abbot Bou-raiy and his minions as they ward the assaults of the warrior king?”

“And if we fail, then all is lost,” Pony pointed out.

“And if we do not take this opportunity, will we ever again be presented with a chance as great?” Prince Midalis replied. “Duke Kalas marches with an army that is far beyond us. If we retreat now and continue to strike at lesser targets, then St.-Mere-Abelle will fall, as will Vanguard. What is then left to us? Are we to sail forever about the coastline, stinging the king? Certainly, he will build another fleet in time, and likely a stronger one; then even the waters of the Mirianic will no longer be a haven.”

The man paused and took a deep breath, then moved right before Pony, placing his hands on her shoulders and locking her gaze with his own. “He has erred,” the prince explained. “He underestimates us and our information gathering. He has left himself vulnerable before the gates of St.-Mere-Abelle. Let us strike at him even as he tries to topple the Abellican Church. If we can defeat him and ki …” He paused again and sighed.

“And kill him,” Pony finished.

“Or capture him,” Prince Midalis added. “Then will Duke Kalas continue to support him? Will any of the nobles? And more importantly, will the people of Honce-the-Bear be so eager to rush to his cause? We have already discussed at length that Aydrian’s greatest advantage in this has been his proximity to Ursal, while I was far away in distant Vanguard. The people didn’t oppose him because they saw no alternative to King Aydrian, and had no way to believe that they could do battle against Duke Kalas and his Allheart Knights. Without Aydrian, his entire false ‘kingdom’ crumbles. I will be accepted as the rightful king of Honce-the-Bear—even Duke Kalas will have no choice but to admit the truth of it.”

“With that many soldiers in his ranks, he might be thinking to make a try for the throne himself,” Bradwarden remarked.

Midalis turned to the centaur, shaking his head. “That is not in the character of Duke Kalas,” he explained. “He is an Allheart Knight, first and foremost. If we defeat Aydrian here and now, the war will be over and the kingdom will be returned to the line of Ursal.”

He stopped and looked around, his expression asking them all for opinions.

“We’ll not find a better chance, then,” Andacanavar said.

“Let us be done with this,” Pony added, eerily echoing the words her son had spoken only the day before.

With Pony’s support, not a word of argument came from any of those present.

Within the hour, the fleet of Prince Midalis was on the move once more, sailing west around the tip of the peninsula that held St.-Mere-Abelle along its eastern arm.

A
t that same time, Duke Kalas and his army of twenty thousand were fast-marching toward Palmaris. By then, however, Aydrian had let Kalas in on his little secret concerning the Touel’alfar spying.

The duke would move west for three days, then pivot back to the northwest.

For by then, Aydrian would know Prince Midalis’ intent and landing point.

Duke Kalas would close the vise.

A
ydrian spent the next days preparing his force for the attack on the abbey. In the nights, however, the young king went out spiritually to check on the movements.

He didn’t bother scouting to the east and south, for the redeployment of the ten thousand to those locations was an honest one, and any spies reporting in would only confirm what To’el Dallia had no doubt relayed to Prince Midalis.

Mostly, the young king scouted about the coast near to St.-Mere-Abelle, and when he found sunstone resistance to his spirit-walking presence in some areas, he had a fair idea of where the prince was heading.

The young king wasted no time in relaying the information to Marcalo De’Unnero, who, in weretiger form, had little trouble in catching up to Duke Kalas’ army with the news.

De’Unnero walked into Kalas’ tent the evening of the second day after Kalas’ departure from Aydrian’s ranks.

Before the break of the next dawn, the duke split his ranks and sent a group to the north, marching them fast for the coast, toward the region where Aydrian was now certain Midalis would land.

Midalis would beat Kalas’ expeditionary force to that spot, but that was the plan. Let the prince and his forces charge across the peninsula to do battle with Aydrian, while Duke Kalas quietly pursued him from behind.

Aydrian knew it, De’Unnero knew it, and Duke Kalas knew it. Once Prince Midalis came ashore and marched away from his boats, he had nowhere left to run and nowhere left to hide.

T
he great river hardly slowed the progress of the undead creature. Moving unerringly to Aydrian’s call, the zombie walked right into the Masur Delaval. It drew no breath, and so had no air within its form and was not lifted by the water. The currents did drag on it, but they were no match for the strength of the zombie.

Straight was its march.

Straight to Aydrian, its master, who ruled Honce-the-Bear and who ruled the netherworld.

Chapter 44
 

S
OMETHING FELT WRONG TO
P
ONY AS SHE CAME ASHORE THAT MIDSUMMER DAY
. All of this desperate plan didn’t seem to fit well in her designs for the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear. She had gone out spiritually with the soul stone even as
Saudi Jacintha
had rounded the peninsula’s tip, and everything she had been able to discern had seemed confirmation of the conclusions of Juraviel’s scouts.

And yet, something just didn’t
feel
right to her. It was more than her remorse at not being able to run right off to free Roger Lockless, she knew, and she was not the only one feeling this unease. Even Symphony, freed at last from his confinement aboard
Saudi Jacintha
, snorted and shook his head nervously, and seemed to jump at every touch.

“The great stallion fears this move,” Pony remarked to Bradwarden. “I feel it as well, a sense of dread.”

“I’m not for arguin’ with ye, girl,” the centaur replied. “But I’d be thinkin’ ye were daft if ye weren’t feeling that way. We’re taking a mighty gamble here and puttin’ all our money on the table.”

Pony listened and absorbed the truth of his words. This sortie was different, and more dangerous than anything they had previously attempted. When they had struck at Pireth Tulme and at St. Gwendolyn, even when they had gone to Jacintha to oppose Abbot Olin, they had never moved inland more than a couple of hours’ march from their ships and the safety of the Mirianic. Now, though, they were soon to be hard-marching away from the coast for three long days, opening more than fifty miles of ground between themselves and their boats.

“And now we’re to face him,” Bradwarden remarked a moment later, drawing the woman from her thoughts. “Yer son. Ye’re to go against him directly for the first time since he chased ye from Ursal. That’s got ye afraid, and rightly so.”

“So you believe that we must simply trust in Juraviel’s scouts?” Pony asked.

“I’m thinking that if they’re right, we’ve got ourselfs a better chance now than we might ever be seein’ again. If yer son’s grown too confident and has made a mistake, then we’d be fools not to charge in now.” The centaur gave a little chuckle, looking down at her from his full height, and finished, “How dark’s the world to be if St.-Mere-Abelle falls to him and to De’Unnero?”

His words were true enough, Pony knew, so she simply nodded and swallowed her uneasiness.

Soon after, she was right beside Prince Midalis, Bruinhelde, and Andacanavar, leading the march across the peninsula.

T
hey charged up the coast with a single purpose: to find the place where Prince
Midalis had come ashore. Led by Sir Blaxson of the Allhearts, this splinter group of three thousand warriors knew that they would not be a part of the glorious battle that would soon occur at St.-Mere-Abelle. But they knew, too, and to a man, that their mission here was vital to their king’s success. There must be no escape!

Sir Blaxson understood the great risks involved—his force was in many ways in more peril than Aydrian’s own army. Duke Kalas has explained the plans to him, and Sir Blaxson was a seasoned enough warrior to understand that in good part the strategy pivoted on timing and a guess.

Would Prince Midalis really take the bait King Aydrian had offered?

Would the prince come ashore as predicted, and in the time period predicted? For if that was not the case, Sir Blaxson and his soldiers might find themselves face-to-face with Midalis himself, along with an army larger than Blaxson’s own, and one that included Jilseponie Wyndon!

Sir Blaxson had warned his men of the potential battle they faced, and his pride had only multiplied ten times over and more when the warriors under his command had taken up the call of King Aydrian and had pressed on more urgently, double-timing their march throughout the day, from long before the dawn until long after the sunset.