The Demon Awakens (34 page)

The powrie immediately reversed direction, deftly turning about on the rope with sure, strong grips. Its three companions, with typical powrie loyalty, went to work at once on the grapnel and rope, caring not at all if they dropped a comrade along with the dangerous woman.

Jill had no time for a fight. She kicked out to the side, trying to keep the dwarf at bay, but her main focus was on getting her belt, held fast in her other hand, up over the rope. She looped it up on one try, but lost her grip on the rope and started to tumble.

Her free hand somehow caught hold of the other end of the belt. She was holding both ends now, hanging lower, and then she was sliding away from her enemy, sliding fast into the mist, toward the ship, which was holding steady more than a hundred feet from shore.

The other end of the rope was fixed to the yard of the mainmast. There were many powries on that deck, though none had, as yet, spotted her. She figured she’d let go as she came over the prow, in the hope that she would land on deck clear enough for her to roll a few times to absorb the impact. If she could get across the deck to the stern catapult or more particularly, to the cauldrons of pitch and the firepit near the catapult, then she might be able to cause more than a little havoc.

Her plan was moot, as it turned out, for as Jill approached the front of the craft, the rope gave way, and suddenly her descent was much sharper than her forward momentum. She let out a scream, thinking that she would slam headlong into the ship’s prow.

Luck was with her and she hit the cold sea short of the ship. She came up sputtering, her mouth full of water, her ears still filled with the sound of dying men ringing down from the fortress walls. Anger welled within her, directed at both the powries and her own comrades. Had they been prepared, this disaster would not have befallen them. Had they heeded their own code of conduct, the powries would have been repulsed.

She had lost her sword in the fall, but Jill didn’t care. Feral growls escaped her lips as she started to swim around the vessel, moving all the faster for fear that her limbs would soon be too numb to propel her. She got around to the stern and found the anchor line, a heavy rope down from the port side. Her arms aching from cold and weariness, she grabbed hold and pulled herself up the ten feet to the rail. She peeked over even as the catapult fired again, a ball of flaming pitch soaring up over Pireth Tulme’s wall. Jill noted that the missile was far more likely to burn a host of powries than any human, but the dwarves hardly seemed to care, howling with glee as they loaded the next ball.

Three of them had the ball, cradled in a heavy blanket, up above their heads near the basket when Jill hit them with a flying body block. They fell away toward the taffrail, but could not let go of their load. Over the rail the pitch ball went, taking the three powries with it.

A fourth was on Jill in a moment, grabbing for her throat She couldn’t believe the weight of the diminutive thing! Nor the strength! In an instant, the powrie had her on her back and was choking her hard.

She tried desperately to break its grip, locked her fingers about its thumbs and turned them outward.

She might as well have been pulling against iron shackles.

Jill changed tactics and began slugging the dwarf in the face instead, then poking for its eyes. It held on tight and even tried to bite her fingers.

Soon Jill’s hands were flapping inconsequentially at the powrie’s barrel-like torso, her strength fast deserting her. She would die as Pireth Tulme died, she realized, again silently cursing the unpreparedness, the slovenly men and women to whom she had been forced to entrust her life. She would die, not of any fault of her own, but because the Coastpoint Guards had grown weak.

Her hands flailed wildly; darkness crept into the edges of her vision. One hand banged against the powrie’s solid waist, against a metal ball above the dwarf’s belt.

The hilt of a dagger.

Jill had struck the dwarf four times before it realized that it was being stabbed. With a howl, it finally let go, scrambling about to evade the jabbing dagger.

Jill wounded it again, between its flailing arms and right in its chest, and then again, higher, in its throat. The dwarf rolled away, but Jill could hardly move to follow. She lay there for what seemed like minutes, then finally found the strength to come up to her elbows.

The powrie was near the rail, facedown.

Jill took in another blessed gulp of air and staggered to her feet. She turned to the catapult, its arm low and ready to fire, then looked at the vats of burning pitch, wondering what mischief she might cause.

The powrie slammed her hard from behind, driving her into the bent beam. Jill came about, dagger slashing, cutting a line across the dwarf’s face, just inches above the garish cut she had put in its throat. The dwarf fell back a couple of steps, but came on again.

Jill dropped to her knees and lowered her shoulder, accepting the impact. She curled her legs under her and lifted the dwarf high, stepping fast and shoving with all her strength, putting the creature into the catapult basket. Jill rolled away immediately, falling to the side, grabbing at the release pin and pulling hard.

The powrie was almost out of the basket when the catapult fired, launching the dwarf in a wild, spinning flight straight up, arms and legs out wide.

Many other dwarves heard the scream, took note of the curious missile, and turned to the stern deck; Jill was out of time. She kicked over the pitch barrels, spilling one onto the capstan that held the anchor line and knocking another down the stairs to the lower main deck. Then she turned to the taffrail, thinking her only escape to be the cold water.

Again sheer luck saved her, for she found a boat hanging from the stern. She had it falling free in an instant, then, with powries scrambling up to the stern deck, with fires growing all about her on the capstan and on the catapult, she leaped out as far as she could, taking care to avoid the burning pitch that was floating in the water and the three dwarves; bobbing low, barely keeping their heads above the waves. They made for the boat as did Jill, the woman overtaking one and easily dispatching it with her borrowed dagger.

Powries weren’t so tough in the water, she noted as she closed on the second. She swam right by that one, realizing if she delayed, the third would get to the boat before her. She caught that last floundering dwarf, stabbing it hard on the shoulder, then swimming right by it, grabbed desperately for the small craft.

A crossbow quarrel skimmed the water right beside her head.

Jill worked to get behind the boat, to use it as a barrier against the powrie archers on the deck. She knew that the angle was all wrong, though, that they were too high above her, the boat too close, and that they would get fairly clear shots no matter where she moved

And she knew from the profound numbness that was creeping into her limbs that she had to get out of the water, and quickly.

The groan of wood alerted her to the powries’ newest problem. She dared to peer over the small boat’s rail, and saw that the ship’s anchor line had burned through, and the ship, caught on a swell, had swung hard about. Suddenly, the archers had more on their minds than the woman in the water.

Jill started to climb into the boat, but had to stop and turn to strike again at the struggling powrie. Finally she was in the boat, setting the oars, then pulling away with all her strength, the third powrie frantically trying to catch up.

It got near enough for Jill to slam it on the head with one of the oars.

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CHAPTER 28

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Siblings

She dragged herself onto the beach, battered, cold, and angry. She looked back at the small boat, even then being dashed against the rocks, tossed about by the powerful surf. She had drifted all through the rest of that fateful day, all through the night and the better part of the next morning as well. She had meant to go right from the battle to the nearest spot she could find to land the boat, to then run off and find some help, and lead the charge back to Pireth Tulme. The powrie ship was barely out of sight when her wounds overtook her, pains and aches she didn’t even realize she had suffered. The heat of battle had left her body and unconsciousness had descended over her like some great hunting bird, wings out wide to block the light of day.

She had awakened that night, drifting somewhere in the gulf, praying that the currents had not pushed her out into the open Mirianic. Luck was with her, though, for the coastline remained in sight, towering black mountains marking the southern horizon. It had taken Jill hours to manage to row the craft near shore and then to find some place where she could put in. She had settled for a narrow inlet, but as soon as she entered, she found that many sharp rocks were in the water, lurking right below the surface. Jill worked the small boat hard, but understood the futility. So she shed her red Coastpoint jacket and her heavy boots and went over the side, fighting the undertow every inch of the way through the icy water.

The rocks took her boat.

She didn’t recognize any landmarks but figured she must be somewhere west of Pireth Tulme on the north coast of the Mantis Arm. Her suspicions were confirmed when she moved inland, found a road, and then, an hour of walking later, a signpost pointing the way, three miles hence, to Macomber.

Jill found herself circumventing the town and approaching it from the west, not from the east the way any stragglers fleeing Pireth Tulme would. She tried to straighten her still-damp clothes, but realized that she would be conspicuous indeed to any, walking as she was without boots, and without the dirtied, calloused feet of a peasant woman. And though she was not wearing the telltale red jacket, a woman dressed in a simple white shirt, tan pants, and bare feet was not a common sight. Jill wished that she had a cloak, at least, to gather closely about her.

She got more than a few curious looks from the townsfolk as she passed the fairly sizable settlement of more than three score buildings, some two stories high. Some folk pointed, all whispered, more than a few turned their shoulders and scurried away, and it seemed to the young woman that they were on edge. Perhaps word of the disaster had preceded her.

These suspicions were bolstered by the snatches of conversation Jill caught, words of a contingent of Kingsmen riding hard to the east. She nodded to herself; she should go out and join the force, should go to Pireth Tulme to avenge—

The thought hit Jill like a cold slap. To avenge what? Her comrades? The letch Miklos Barmine? Gofflaw, whom she’d imagined killing several times herself?

She found a tavern, its sign too worn for her even to make out the name, though the image of a foaming mug was clear enough. Before she entered, a familiar voice, raised in dire warning, assaulted her.

“What demons do we invite into our midst?” the man inside cried, and Jill knew before she saw him that he was surely standing atop a table, one finger pointed high into the air.

She went in expecting a brewing row, but found instead that the mad friar, this time, had a fairly attentive audience.

And a large one; there had to be forty people inside, filling the tavern from wall to wall. Jill sifted through the crowd to get to the bar, started to order a mug of ale, but then realized she had no money. She turned instead, put her elbows on the bar, and watched the monk and, more particularly, the reactions of his audience.

She heard whispers of a fight, of goblins, some said, though others more accurately named the enemy powries. Estimates of the enemy force ranged from a thousand warriors to a thousand ships full of warriors.

Jill wanted to tell them that it was but one captured sailing vessel and no more than five barrelboats, but she kept quiet, fearing to reveal too much of herself and also thinking it would do these folk good to be afraid.

The mad friar apparently shared her feelings, for his speech became more dire, more frantic, as if he envisioned an army of monsters marching down the road, right to the border of Macomber.

The fever reached a critical point, and then, all of a sudden, it broke. The barkeep came around the bar with a heavy club, moving pointedly for the fat monk. “Enough from you,” he warned, waving his weapon. “Whatever happened is the business of the Kingsmen, and not for the folk of Macomber!”

“All the world must prepare!” the fat man retorted, throwing his arms out wide, inviting the people to join.

But it was too late; he had pushed past the fear and into the realm of anger, and when the barkeep called for assistance, the man found no shortage of volunteers.

The mad friar put up a terrific fight, tossing men about, howling about his “preparedness training!” In the end, though, predictably, the monk was sailing out the door to land unceremoniously in the street.

Jill was beside him at once, on one knee as he sorted himself out. He reached into a pocket of his robe and produced a small flask, popping the top and sucking a huge swig. He did well to stifle his belch and looked at Jill as if embarrassed.

“Potion of courage,” he explained dryly. “Ho, ho, what!”

Jill regarded him sourly, then rose and offered an arm. “You are consistent,” she chided.

The friar looked at her more closely. He knew he had seen her before, but he could not place her. “Have we met?” he asked finally.

“Once,” Jill said, “in a place not so far away.”

“I would not forget so pretty a face,” the friar insisted.

Jill was too bedraggled to blush or even to care. “Perhaps if I were still wearing my red jacket,” she said, though she could hardly believe she had just admitted her position to this man.

He paused for a long moment, then his face brightened in recognition—and then it darkened immediately as he realized the implications. “Y-your home,” he stuttered, as if not knowing which direction to go. “Pireth Tulme.”

“Never would I call Pireth Tulme my home,” Jill retorted. The mad friar started to speak again, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “I was there,” she said grimly. “I saw.”

“The rumors?”

“Powries,” she confirmed. “Pireth Tulme is no more.”

The friar held out his flask, but Jill refused. He nodded and put it back under the folds of his weathered robes, his expression more serious. “Come with me,” he bade her. “I have an ear for what you might need to say.”

Jill considered the offer for a long moment, then moved away with the man to a room he had rented in a small inn on the outskirts of Macomber. He expected her to speak of desertion, but of course, her tale, spoken simply and truthfully, was far different. She saw respect mounting in the man’s brown eyes and knew that he was a friend, knew that he would not turn her in to the military authorities, that he held as little respect for them as did she.

When she finished, when she explained that she was glad again to hear his voice and could now appreciate his dire warnings, the friar smiled comfortingly and put his hand over hers.

“I am Brother Avelyn Desbris, formerly of St.-Mere-Abelle,” he confided, and Jill understood she was probably the first person he had told his true name in a long, long time. “It would seem that we are both dispossessed.”

“Disappointed would be a better word,” Jill replied.

A dark cloud passed over Avelyn’s face. He nodded. “Disappointed indeed,” he said softly.

“I have told you my tale,” Jill prompted.

It came out in a burst of emotion Avelyn had not known since that night he had cried for his dead mother. He told Jill much—more than he would have ever believed he could confide—holding back only the specifics of the Ring Stones, the secret island, the method and fatal result of his escape, and the fact that he carried with him a stolen cache of powerful magic. Those things did not seem paramount to Avelyn, anyway, not when weighed against the tragedy of the
Windrunner,
the loss of his dear Dansally Comerwick.

“She told you her name,” Jill put in quietly, and Avelyn’s brown eyes misted at the realization that this woman could understand the significance of that.

“But you have not,” Avelyn said to her.

“Jill,” she answered after a short hesitation.

“Jill?”

“Just Jill,” she assured him.

“Well, Just Jill,” Brother Avelyn said with a widening smile, “it would seem we are two lost lambs.”

“Yes, mad brother Avelyn Desbris,” she replied in the same singsong voice, “two lost lambs in a forest of wolves.”

“Pity the wolves, then!” Avelyn cried, “Ho, ho, what!”

They shared laughter, a relief of tension both of them so desperately needed—Jill for her recent trials and Avelyn because he had spoken openly at last of his dark past, had relit the candles about those desperate images and feelings that had driven him out on the road.

“Piety, dignity, poverty,” the monk said distastefully when he had caught his breath.

“The credo of the Abellican Church,” Jill replied.

“The lie,” Avelyn retorted. “I saw little piety beyond simple rituals, found little dignity in murder, and poverty is not a thing the masters of St.-Mere-Abelle tolerate.” He gave a snort, but Jill knew she had him beaten on this point.

“Ever vigilant, ever watchful,” she recited dryly, and Avelyn recognized her words as the motto of the Coastpoint Guards. “Tell that to the powries!”

They laughed again, all the louder, using the very sound of mirth as a shield against tears.

Jill spent the night in Avelyn’s room; the monk, of course, acting the part of a perfect gentlemen. He considered the tale he had told her, his life’s story, and then looked to regard himself, the extra hundred pounds, the battered appearance.

“Ah, Jill,” he lamented. “You should have seen me in my idealistic youth. What a different man I was then, before I saw the terrible truth of the world.”

His thoughts hung on those words for a long, long while, and then it struck him that if he were to truly call this woman his friend, he would have to search hard for a part of himself that he had thought long lost. To be a friend to Jill, to be a proper companion to anyone, would mean recovering some of that idealism, some of that belief that the world was not so dark and terrible and that, with effort, it might get even better.

“Yes,” the monk whispered over the sleeping woman, “we’ll find our way together.”

The next morning, they purchased some supplies, including a short sword, boots, and a warm cloak for Jill, and then they walked out of Macomber together, down the road to the west, ignoring the stares and whispers, feeling somehow as if they shared a secret and a wisdom the rest of the world, fools all, could never comprehend.

That bond alone held Jill together with Brother Avelyn over the first weeks of their journey; they were siblings, Avelyn insisted, two alone against the encroaching darkness. Jill accepted a large part of that argument, but hardly considered herself brother to the mad friar. The man drank almost constantly, and whatever town they entered, Avelyn found some way to get into a fight, often brutal. So it was in the town of Dusberry along the Masur Delaval halfway between Amvoy and Ursal. Avelyn was in the tavern, as usual, standing atop a table, spouting warnings and curses. Jill came in just as the fight broke out, two dozen men swinging at the closest body, not bothering to ask if it was enemy or ally. In these general rows, as opposed to the occasions when all in the bar teamed up against the monk, Avelyn more than held his ground. The huge bear of a man tossed his attackers with ease, punched and twisted deftly, hollering “Ho, ho, what!” every time he felled another.

Jill came in hard and fast, simply to defend herself as she made her way to her comrade. She, too, could handle the drunken townsfolk without much effort, turning easily as one man lunged for her, walking right past his lumbering reach, then kicking back hard on his instep, sending him down to the floor.

“Must you always?” she asked when she at last reached Avelyn’s side.

The monk replied with a wide grin. Then he quickly brushed Jill aside with his right hand, straightening the man who was charging in at her back with a stiff left jab, then knocking him flying with a heavy right cross.

“Ho, ho, what!” Avelyn boomed. “The town will be the better for it!”

He started away, but Jill kicked him hard in the rump. He turned to her, wounded emotionally at least, but she would not back down, pointing resolutely at the door.

It wasn’t until they had exited the tavern, the fight raging still, that Avelyn suddenly stopped and looked at his beautiful companion, a most curious expression on his face. Not even blinking, he reached under his robes, then quickly retracted his hand.

It was covered in blood.

“My dear Jill,” Avelyn said, “I do believe I have been stabbed.” His legs started to buckle under him, but Jill caught him and guided him off the main road to a porch in a nearby alley. She thought to leave him there, to run off and find Dusberry’s healer—every small town had one—but Avelyn caught her by the arm and would not let her go.

Then she saw it. Brother Avelyn produced a grayish-black stone, its polish so deep that it seemed almost liquid, so smooth that Jill felt as if she could slip right into it. Her gaze lingered on the stone for a long while, the young woman sensing there was something extraordinary, something magical about it.

“I need to borrow some of your strength, my friend,” Avelyn said, “else I shall soon perish.”

Jill, on her knees before him, nodded, eager to help in any way.

Avelyn wasn’t satisfied with that response, though, fearing that Jill did not understand the true measure of what he needed from her. “We shall become one,” he said, his voice growing ever more breathless, “more intimate than anything you have ever known. Are you prepared for such a joining?”