DemonWars Saga Volume 1

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Still… inside,” Dellman replied.

  “Alive?”

  The young monk straightened and tilted his head back, gulping air, calming himself. When he looked back at Jojonah, the master’s fears lessened considerably. “Alive, yes,” he said calmly. “No danger in there, unless the rubble shifts again.”

  “Then why are you out here?” Jojonah asked. “And why are you so agitated?”

  “We found something … someone,” Brother Dellman replied. “A man, or half a man, and half horse.”

  “A centaur?” asked Brother Braumin.

  Brother Dellman shrugged, never having heard the term before.

  “A centaur wears the body of a man, torso, shoulders, arms and head,” Brother Francis explained. “But from the waist down it wears the coil of a horse, four legs and all.”

  “A centaur,” Brother Dellman agreed. “He was in the cave when the mountain fell in on him. Tons and tons of stone.”

  “You dug him out?” asked Master Jojonah.

  “We know not where to begin,” Brother Dellman replied.

  “Poor creature,” Brother Braumin remarked.

  “Then leave him to his grave,” Brother Francis said callously, seeming quite like the old Francis again. Neither Braumin nor Jojonah missed that fact, and they offered each other a resigned shrug.

  “But Brother Francis,” Brother Dellman protested, “he is not dead!”

  “But you said—” Master Jojonah started to reason.

  “Tons,” Brother Dellman finished for him. “Oh, he should be dead. He should! Nothing could have survived that crush. And surely, he looks as if he should be dead, all withered and broken. Yet the creature lives. He opened his eyes and begged me to kill him!”

  The three older monks stood openmouthed, while the younger men about them whispered excitedly.

  “And did you?” Master Jojonah asked at length.

  “I could not,” Brother Dellman replied, seeming horrified at the very thought. “His pain must be great, I do not doubt, but I could not end his life.”

  “God does not give us more than we can bear,” Brother Francis recited.

  Master Jojonah gave him a sour, sidelong glance. At times that old line sounded like nothing more than an excuse Church leaders used on common folk, the peasants wallowing in poverty while those same leaders lived in luxury.

  But that was an argument for another day, Jojonah realized, and so he made no comment on it. “You did well, and right,” he said to Dellman. “The others remained with this centaur?”

  “Bradwarden,” Brother Dellman replied.

  “What?”

  “Bradwarden,” the monk repeated. “That is his—the centaur’s— name. I left the others with him, offering what meager comfort they might.”

  “Let us go and see what we might do,” Master Jojonah said. To Brother Braumin, he instructed, “Gather all stones, except duplicates, and take them with us. Brother Francis,” he called loudly, so that all about heard clearly, “you will hold the defense of the wagons.”

  Now it was Francis’ turn to wear the sour look, but Master Jojonah wasn’t paying him any heed, the old monk already motioning Brother Dellman back the way he had come, back to see this Bradwarden creature, this somehow immortal being.

  The path was not long, and Dellman set a swift pace, so that Jojonah was huffing and puffing by the time they came in sight of the other torches. Jojonah walked by the younger monks reverently, to kneel before the twisted, emaciated body.

  “You should be dead,” Master Jojonah said matter-of-factly, doing well to hide his horror and his revulsion. Only the creature’s human torso and the front half of its equine part was exposed, with the rest of it buried, squashed, under a huge slab of rock that climbed right up out of the low corridor and into the collapsed mountain. The creature was bent weirdly, back in on itself, with its eyes facing the very stone that had crushed its lower half. Where once Bradwarden’s arms had bulged with strong muscles, they were slack now, withered, as though the centaur’s body Was consuming itself for lack of food. Master Jojonah moved very close and crouched as low as his portly form would allow, studying and sympathizing.

  “Oh, but be sure that I’m feeling like I am dead,” Bradwarden replied, his agony reflected clearly in his normally resonant but now shaky voice. “Or at least, heading that way. Ye canno’ know me pain.” He managed to turn his head about then, to glance upon the newcomer, and he tilted his head curiously at the sight, eyeing Jojonah closely, then gave a pained chuckle.

  “What do you see?” the master asked him.

  “Do ye have a son, then?” Bradwarden asked.

  Master Jojonah looked back over his shoulder to Brother Braumin, who held his hands out helplessly. Why this creature, at this time and in this predicament, would ever ask such a question was beyond his understanding.

  “No,” Master Jojonah answered simply. “Nor a daughter. My heart was given to God, and to no woman.”

  The centaur gave a chuckle. “Ah, but what ye’ve missed,” Bradwarden said with a sly wink.

  “Why should you ask that?” Master Jojonah inquired, for he wondered suddenly if it might be more than coincidence.

  “Ye remind me o’ one I knew,” Bradwarden replied, his tone revealing fond memories for the old friend.

  “A monk?” Jojonah pressed, more urgently now.

  “A mad friar, by his own admission,” the centaur replied. “A bit too friendly with the drink, but a good man he was—or is, if he found a way out of this cursed place.”

  “And did you know his name?” asked Master Jojonah.

  “Me own brother, he was,” the centaur went on, talking more to himself than to the others, and seeming as if he were in some distant place, delirious, perhaps. “By deed, if not by blood.”

  “His name?” Brother Braumin prompted loudly, moving close and bending near Bradwarden’s face.

  “Avelyn,” the centaur calmly replied. “Avelyn Desbris. A most excellent human.”

  “He must be saved at all cost,” came a voice behind them. All the monks turned about to see Brother Francis, a diamond glowing brightly in his palm, standing at the back of their line.

  “You were instructed to command the defense of the encampment,” Master Jojonah said to the man.

  “I take no orders from Master Jojonah,” came the reply, and Jojonah realized then that Father Abbot Markwart had taken Francis’ body and come among them. “We must extricate him from this place,” he continued, looking to the huge slab.

  “Ye’re not big enough to lift a mountain,” Bradwarden said dryly. “As I wasn’t big enough to hold it up while me friends ran off.”

  “Your friend Avelyn?” Markwart asked impatiently.

  “Me other friends,” the centaur replied. “I’m not for knowing—” He stopped and grimaced, for his movement in turning about to face the men had caused the rock to shift slightly. “No, ye’re not for lifting this,” he groaned.

  “We shall see,” said the Father Abbot. “Why are you still alive?”

  “Not for knowing.”

  “Unless you are no mortal creature,” Markwart went on, his tone sly and accusing. He moved past the others to crouch beside Master Jojonah.

  “An interesting thought,” Bradwarden replied. “Always was told I was a bit headstrong. Might be that I just refused to die.”

  Markwart was not amused.

  “Now me daddy, he died,” the centaur recounted. “And me mum, as well, a score and more years ago. She took a hit o’ the lightning—now that’s an odd way to die! So, no, I’d be guessing that I’m not immortal.”

  “Unless an immortal spirit has found its way into your body,” Markwart pressed,

  “Are not all spirits immortal?” Master Jojonah dared to interrupt.

  Markwart’s glare ended that discussion before it could begin. “Some spirits,” he said evenly, looking at Bradwarden, but offering the words as much to Jojonah, “can transcend physicality, can keep a body a
nimated, though it should be dead and still.”

  “Only spirit in me is me own, and a bit o’ the boggle,” the centaur assured him with a strained smile and a wink. “And a bit more o’ the boggle might be easing me pain, if ye got any.”

  Markwart’s expression didn’t change in the least.

  “I’m not for knowing why I’m not dead,” Bradwarden explained seriously. “Thought I was, when the rock bent me legs and slid down. And suren that me groaning stomach spent a week and more o’ tellin’ me to die.”

  Father Abbot Markwart was hardly listening then. He had slipped another stone into his hand, a small but effective garnet, a stone used to detect the subtle emanations of magic, and he was using it now to survey the trapped creature. He found his answer almost immediately.

  “You have magic about you,” he announced to Bradwarden.

  “That, or luck,” said Master Jojonah.

  “Bad luck,” the centaur remarked.

  “Magic,” the Father Abbot said again, forcefully. “About your right arm.”

  It took quite an effort for Bradwarden to turn his head enough so he could view his upper right arm. “Oh, by the damned dactyl and all its sisters,” he grumbled when he saw the red armband, the piece of cloth that Elbryan had tied about him. “And the ranger thought to be doing me a favor. Two months o’ suffering, two months o’ hunger, and the damned thing won’t let me die!”

  “What is it?” Master Jojonah asked.

  “Elven healing cloth,” Bradwarden replied. “Seems the damned thing is fixing me wounds as fast as the damned mountain’s giving them to me! And even the lack o’ food and drink won’t take me!”

  “Elven?” Brother Braumin gasped, reflecting the feelings of all in attendance. Bradwarden deciphered their expressions and was surprised to find that they were surprised.

  “Don’t ye be telling me that ye’re not for believing in elves?” he said. “Nor centaurs, I’m guessing? And how about powries, or maybe a giant or two?”

  “Enough,” Father Abbot Markwart bade him. “Your point is well-taken. But we have never encountered an elf, nor a centaur, until this time.”

  “Then yer world’s become a better place,” Bradwarden said, offering another wink, though it ended in a pained grimace.

  Markwart rose then and motioned for the others to follow him away from the centaur. “It will be no easy task in getting him out of there,” he said once they were out of the range of Bradwarden’s hearing.

  “Impossible, I’d say,” remarked Brother Braumin.

  “We can levitate the stone using malachite,” Master Jojonah reasoned. “Though I fear that all of our strength combined may not be enough to budge such an obstacle.”

  “I fear more that when we do lift the stone, the pressure will be relieved so that the centaur’s lifeblood will pour from him too fast for his elven armband, and our efforts, to compensate,” the Father Abbot pointed out.

  “But still, we must try,” said Brother Braumin.

  “Of course,” Markwart agreed. “He is too valuable a prisoner, too great a source of information—not only for what happened here, but for the fate of Brother Avelyn—for us to let him die.”

  “I was thinking more of compassion for his predicament,” Braumin dared to add.

  “I know you were,” Markwart replied without hesitation. “You will learn better.”

  The Father Abbot stormed away then, motioning for the others to follow. Brother Braumin and Master Jojonah exchanged sour looks, but had little choice in the matter.

  On orders from Markwart, who was tiring from the possession and needed a reprieve, they did not make the attempt until late the next day, when they were all rested and mentally prepared. Markwart came back into the body of Brother Francis then, and led the procession, clutching a malachite and a hematite.

  In position, all the monks of the caravan, except for Master Jojonah, who also held a hematite, joined in communion within the depths of the soul stone, then channeled their combined energy into the malachite, and when that energy had reached its apex, Father Abbot Markwart released it, aiming it at the slab over Bradwarden.

  Master Jojonah only then realized the great risk that Markwart had taken—for the monks of the caravan and not for his own body, which was safely back at St.-Mere-Abelle. As the stone slab groaned under the sudden release of pressure, many smaller stonesand clouds of dust fell down into the corridor, and Jojonah feared that all the tunnel might collapse. They should have taken a few days to shore it up, he realized, but that lack of preparedness only emphasized for him the sheer desperation of the Father Abbot to find Avelyn Desbris.

  The monks pressed on and the slab shifted again. Bradwarden cried out and went into convulsions, and Jojonah was fast to him, hooking his arms under the broad shoulders of the centaur and pulling with all his might.

  He found, to his horror, that he couldn’t budge the huge centaur. Even in his emaciated state, Bradwarden weighed well over four hundred pounds. Into the hematite went Jojonah, not to attack the centaur’s wounds, as they had planned, but to intercept the thoughts of the other monks, pleading with them to lend some of their energy to the centaur’s form that he might drag the huge creature free.

  It got tricky then, and Jojonah feared that the slab would tumble back down, but Markwart, so incredibly powerful with the stones now, led the monks in the effort, shifting some of the levitational forces onto the centaur.

  Jojonah pulled him free, then fell back into the hematite, going at the centaur’s wounds with fervor. He was hardly conscious of the movement as Markwart and the others grabbed both him and Bradwarden and dragged them on their way, rushing out of the unstable tunnel.

  And then Master Jojonah was no longer alone in his efforts to save the creature, as Markwart’s spirit, and Brother Braumin’s and several others, joined him, attacking Bradwarden’s every wound.

  More than five hours later Master Jojonah lay on the ground just outside Aida, thoroughly exhausted, with Brother Braumin beside him. There they slept, and only woke up late the next morning, to find Brother Francis—and it was indeed Francis— standing over them.

  “Where is the centaur?” Master Jojonah asked.

  “Resting, and more comfortable than we might have hoped,” Brother Francis replied. “We fed him—tentatively at first, but then he ate pounds of meat, half our store of venison, and drank gallons of water. Strong indeed must be the magic of that armband, for already he seems more solid.”

  Master Jojonah nodded, sincerely relieved.

  “And we have found a way up the mountain,” Brother Francis added.

  “Is there still a need?”

  “You will be interested in what we have there discovered among the ashes,” Brother Francis said sternly.

  Master Jojonah held his next question, instead pausing to take a measure of the man. Whatever progress Francis might have made seemed to have been erased now—probably by the visit of Father Abbot Markwart. The man’s expression was cold again; the laughter in his eyes was no more. All business.

  “I need to rest, I fear,” Master Jojonah said at length. “I will talk to Bradwarden this day; we can climb Aida tomorrow.”

  “No time,” Brother Francis replied. “And none are to speak to the centaur until we return to St.-Mere-Abelle.”

  Master Jojonah didn’t even need to ask where that order had come from. And he came to understand more clearly Brother Francis’ shift of mood. When they had first viewed the blasted Barbacan, Francis had proclaimed that the devastation was either the work of a godly man or an overextension of the demon dactyl’s magic. Now it seemed clear that Brother Avelyn had indeed been involved, and Master Jojonah did not doubt for a second that the Father Abbot had made it clear to Francis that Brother Avelyn was no godly man.

  “We go up the mountain this day,” Brother Francis went on. “If you cannot make it, then Brother Braumin will go in your stead. When that duty is finished, we are back on the road.”

  “It will b
e dark before you get back down,” Brother Braumin said.

  “We will ride day and night until we are returned to St.-Mere-Abelle,” Brother Francis answered.

  The course seemed quite silly to Master Jojonah. The answers were here, of course, or perhaps nearby. To go all the way back to St.-Mere-Abelle made no sense—unless he factored in Father Abbot Markwart’s profound distrust of him. The discovery of an eyewitness had changed everything, and Markwart wasn’t about to let him take control of this very delicate situation. Jojonah looked to Braumin then, both men wondering if the time had come to make a stand against the Father Abbot, against the Church itself.

  Master Jojonah shook his head slightly. They could not win.

  He was not surprised, but was surely pained, when he returned to the wagons to find Bradwarden in chains. Still, the centaur’s renewed vigor surprised him and gave him hope.

  “Ye might at least let them give me me pipes,” the centaur begged.

  Master Jojonah followed Bradwarden’s longing gaze to a set of dusty bagpipes lying on the seat of a nearby wagon. He started to say something, but Brother Francis cut him short.

  “He will have food, and he will have healing, and nothing more,” the monk explained. “And as soon as he seems fully recovered, the armband will be taken.”

  “Ah, but Avelyn was a far better man than the lot o’ ye put together,” Bradwarden remarked, and he closed his eyes and began humming a quiet tune, pausing once to offer a sly look and mutter, “Thieves.”

  Master Jojonah, eyeing Brother Francis all the while, walked over and took up the bagpipes, then handed them to the centaur.

  Bradwarden returned a respectful look and a nod, then took to playing, hauntingly beautiful music that had all the monks, except stubborn Francis, listening intently.

  Master Jojonah somehow found the strength to accompany Francis and six others up Aida that afternoon. The top of the mountain was now a wide black bowl, but the ash and molten stone had hardened enough for the monks to walk across it without much difficulty.

  Brother Francis led them directly to the spot: a petrified arm sticking from the black ground, fingers clutched as though they had held something.