The Demon Awakens (31 page)

Elbryan immediately swung about, realizing he was vulnerable. Predictably, another dagger was on its way, and the ranger just got Hawkwing up in time to block its flight. He loosened his grip on his staff as the dagger connected so that it wouldn’t bounce far away. As fortune would have it, the dagger went straight up, and Elbryan seized it, catching it by the tip.

In the blink of an eye, the ranger stood, staff in one hand out before him, his other hand holding a dagger cocked behind his ear, ready to throw.

The skinny man, two daggers in hand, blanched and let his blades drop to the floor.

Elbryan fought hard to restrain the rage that called for him to put that dagger right into the foul man’s chest, a rage that only intensified when the ranger thought of what these three had done to the bear and of the potentially devastating consequences of their foolhardy actions.

With a growl, he let fly, the dagger slamming hard into the wall right beside the man’s head. Never taking his eyes from Elbryan, whimpering all the way, the skinny man slumped to a sitting position in the corner.

Elbryan looked about; the other two were staggering to their feet, neither holding a weapon.

“What are your names?” the ranger demanded.

The men looked curiously at one another.

“Your names!”

“Paulson,” the burly man answered, “Cric, and Chipmunk,” he finished, indicating first the tall man, then the dagger thrower.

“Chipmunk?” Elbryan inquired.

“Skittery type,” Paulson explained.

The ranger shook his head. “Know this, Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk: you share the forest with me, and I will be watching your every move. Another prank, another cruelty, as with the bear, will bring you more harm than this, I promise. And I will be watching your trap lines—no longer shall you use the jaw traps—”

Paulson started to complain, but Elbryan glared so fiercely at him that he seemed to melt.

“Nor any other traps that inflict suffering on your prey.”

“We’ve to earn our money,” Chipmunk remarked in a shaky voice.

“There are better ways,” Elbryan answered evenly. “And in the hopes that you will find those ways, I’ll demand no coins from you for compensation . . . this time.” He looked at each of them, meeting their stares, his own showing clearly that he was not speaking empty threats.

“And who might ye be?” Paulson dared to ask.

Elbryan shifted back on his heels, considering the question. “I am Nightbird,” he answered.

Cric snickered, but Paulson, locked with that intense gaze, held a hand up in his companion’s face.

“A name you would do well to remember,” Elbryan finished, and he headed for the door, boldly turning his back on the dangerous threesome.

They didn’t begin to entertain any thoughts of attacking.

The ranger went around to the back and dumped out the cauldron of poison. As he left, he took a few of the jaw traps, nasty pieces of toothy iron hinged and set with heavy springs so that they would clamp hard on the leg of any passing animal.

His next stop was the tavern, the Howling Sheila, in Dundalis. A dozen men and women were in the common room, boisterous until the stranger entered. Elbryan went to the bar first, nodding to Belster O’Comely, the closest thing he had to a friend in the area.

“Just water,” the ranger said, and Belster mouthed the predictable words right along with him, then pushed a glass out to him.

“Word of the bear?” the jolly innkeeper asked.

“The bear is dead,” Elbryan replied grimly, and he walked to the far side of the room, taking a seat at the corner table, his back to the wall.

He noted that several other patrons shifted their seats, one woman even bluntly turning her back on him.

Elbryan brought the tip of his triangular cap down low and smiled. He understood that it would be like this. He was not much like these folk; no longer was he much like any human, except for those rare few who had ventured to the valley of the elves, who had spent years beside the likes of Belli’mar Juraviel and Tuntun. Elbryan missed those friends now—even Tuntun. It was true that he had been out of place in Caer’alfar, but in many ways the ranger felt even more out of place here among folk who looked so much like him but who saw the world through very different eyes.

Still, despite the prominent reminders of his position, Elbryan’s smile was genuine. He had done well this day, though he regretted having to slay the bear. His solace came in duty, in his vow that this Dundalis and the two neighboring villages would not share the fate that had befallen his own village.

He remained in the Howling Sheila for nearly an hour, but not a person, save Belster on Elbryan’s way out, offered him so much as a glance.

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CHAPTER 24

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The Mad Friar

“Tinson,” Warder Miklos Barmine said to Jill as she walked her watch along the sea wall of Pireth Tulme.

Jill regarded the short, stout man curiously. She recognized the name Tinson as that of the small hamlet some dozen miles inland from the fortress. The place was no more than a score of houses and a tavern, a place of rogues and whores servicing the soldiers of Pireth Tulme.

“The Waylaid Traveler,” Barmine added in his typically curt manner.

“Another fight?” Jill asked.

“And something more,” replied the warder, walking away. “Gather ten and go.”

Jill watched the man depart. She didn’t like Miklos Barmine, not at all. He had replaced Constantine Presso only three months before, the previous warder sent north to command Pireth Danard. At first, Jill thought the new warder more her style, a stickler for detail and duty. But he was a letch, a drooling, grabby slob, who took it personally when Jill refused his advances. Even his strict rules for duty had relaxed within the week, Pireth Tulme reverting to its typical partying ways. Also, it had surprised Jill how much she missed Constantine Presso, a decent man—by Pireth Tulme’s standards, at least. She had served under Presso for more than a year, and he had always been a gentleman to her, always respected her decision not to partake in the unending festivities. Now, with Presso gone and the brooding Miklos Barmine in command, Jill feared that the pressure on her would only increase.

She shook that dark thought away, turning her attention to the task at hand. Barmine’s punishment for her refusal to bed with him was always work—little did the fool understand that his punishment was more like a reward to Jill! There had been another fight, the fourth in less than two weeks, at the Waylaid Traveler, the apparently appropriately named tavern in Tinson. What this “something more,” that Barmine had hinted at might be, Jill could not guess, though she suspected it to be nothing extraordinary. The woman shrugged; at least there was something to do now besides walking the wall.

She collected ten of Pireth Tulme’s Coastpoint Guards, using their hangovers as a tool for rejecting more of the others, then set out, double-timing the march down the dirt path. They arrived in dirty Tinson late that afternoon. The town square was empty and quiet—it was always quiet, Jill noted, for on the three previous occasions she had visited the place, she hadn’t seen a single child. The majority of Tinson’s residents slept the day through, preferring the revelry of the night.

A shout from the Waylaid Traveler caught Jill’s attention.

“We must prepare!” came a bellow, a tremendous voice, clear even out here at a distance and with a wall between the speaker and Jill. “Oh, evil, what a foothold you have found! What fools are we to sleep as darkness rises!”

The group of soldiers entered the tavern openly through the front door, doubling the number of patrons. The first thing Jill noticed was a huge, fat man standing atop a table, waving an empty mug, sometimes in a threatening manner to keep at bay the closer patrons, all obviously intent on knocking him from his perch. Jill ordered her troop to filter about, then went to see the man behind the serving bar.

“The mad friar,” the barkeep explained. “He was in all the night, then came back just a short while ago. Has no shortage of money, I can assure you! They say he bartered jewels with merchants on the road, and though he didn’t get a fair price—not even close—he left with pouches full of gold.”

Jill regarded the fat friar curiously. He wore the thick brown robes of the Abellican Church, though they were old and threadbare in many places and weathered, as if he had been out on the open road for a long, long time. His black beard was thick and bushy, and he was tall, half a foot above six feet, and had to weigh near to three hundred pounds. His shoulders were wide, his bones thick and solid, but Jill got the feeling that the extra weight, most of which was centered about his belly, was something fairly recent.

What struck Jill most about him was his almost feverish intensity, his brown eyes showing a luster, a life, beyond anything she had seen in many years.

“Piety, dignity, poverty!” he yelled, and then he snorted derisively. “Ho, ho, what!”

Jill recognized the litany—piety, dignity, poverty—the same one Abbot Dobrinion Calislas had uttered on the fateful day of her wedding.

“Hah!” the huge man bellowed. “What piety is there in whoring? What dignity in foolhardiness? And what poverty? Gold leaf and jewels—ah, the jewels!”

“His song is not for changing,” the barkeep said dryly. Then he yelled out to the guards, “Will you get him down?”

Jill wasn’t sure that they should move in so straightforward a manner against the friar. The man’s remark about whoring, in particular, had seemed to stir more than a few angry grumbles, and she feared that any overt action, a physical assault rather than trying to calm the man, would bring about a general row. She could do little to stop her soldiers, though, given the lax chain of command and the barkeep’s permission.

She started across the room to try and keep things calm, stopping, though, when she heard the barkeep add, too low for any others to hear, “And take care, for he has a bit of magic about him.”

“Damn,” Jill muttered, turning back to see two of her soldiers, one of them Gofflaw, reach up to grab the monk.

“Hah, preparedness training!” the fat man howled joyfully, and he grabbed Gofflaw by the wrist and hoisted the surprised man into the air. Before the soldier could begin to react, the powerful friar lifted him above his head, spun him twice, then tossed him across the room.

A third soldier drew sword and swiped out one of the table legs, bringing the friar tumbling down atop the poor second man who had been reaching for him. The monk hit the ground in a roll, showing surprising agility for one his size, and came right back to his feet, shouting at the top of his lungs and barreling over the next two closest people, one a soldier, one a townsman.

The fight was on in full.

The sheer power of the friar astounded Jill. The man ran every which way, bowling over all who would stand before him, laughing maniacally all the while, even when one of those dodging his charge landed a solid punch about his face or neck. “Prepare!” he roared over and over, and he cried something about a dactyl and then about a demon.

Jill watched him for a few moments, honestly intrigued. The man was obviously out of his mind, or at least he appeared so, but to Jill, who had spent a year and a half in the Coastpoint Guards, a cry for preparedness and virtue did not seem like such a bad thing.

A group of soldiers encircled the friar, one man quickly putting his sword in line and calling for the monk to yield. There came a sudden, sharp flash of blue, and all the soldiers were flying, their hair standing on end. The friar laughed wildly.

And he charged on. He rushed to one terrified woman and picked her up by the shoulders. “Do not lay down for them!” he cried earnestly, and Jill had the feeling that the man had some personal stake in his plea. “I beg of you, do not, for you are part of the encroachment, do you not see? You are part of the dactyl’s gain!”

A soldier jumped on the friar from behind, and he was forced to let go of the woman. He merely howled, though, and shrugged the man away, then charged on.

Jill cut in front of him; he recognized her as a woman and again slowed and softened his approach.

Jill dove at his legs, rolling and sweeping with her own legs, sending the burly friar tumbling headlong. Five men were atop him in an instant, grabbing and twisting. Somehow, the huge friar managed to get back up to his feet, but more soldiers and several of the townsfolk rushed in, finally subduing him. They ushered the man to the door and unceremoniously threw him out.

Jill noted that Gofflaw drew out his sword and moved to follow.

“Let him be!” she commanded.

Gofflaw growled at her, but under Jill’s unyielding glare, he replaced his sword in its sheath.

“And if ye show yerself again,” another of the soldiers yelled, “then know ye’ll feel the bite of a sword!”

“Hear you the words of truth!” the mad friar yelled back at him. “Know me for what I am, and not for the insulting names you give to me. I am the hound of ill omen, the messenger of disaster!”

“Ye’re a drunk,” roared the soldier.

The fat man sputtered something unintelligible and turned away, waving his hand dismissively. “You will learn,” he promised grimly. “You will learn.”

Jill turned to the barkeep, the man merely shaking his head. “He’s a dangerous one,” the man said.

Jill nodded, but she wasn’t sure she agreed. The fat friar had made no move to finish any of his attacks. He had tackled and punched, had thrown Gofflaw halfway across the room, but no one, not even the friar, had been badly injured. To frustrated Jill’s thinking, Gofflaw could use a throw or two across a room. She moved to the door to see the friar shuffling down the muddy lane, weeping and crying out for the “sins of men” and the woeful state of preparation.

He swung about, some score of yards from the tavern entrance, and launched into a diatribe on the coming dark days, about a world unprepared to face the forces of evil, about a darkness being fed by the internal rot of the land.

“The man’s crazy,” one of the soldiers remarked.

“The mad friar,” the barkeep replied.

Jill wasn’t so sure of that. Not at all.