“We did not come in here to kill anyone,” Elbryan interrupted. “And so we shall not, on my word.”
Pony nodded her agreement, and so did Juraviel, though the elf wasn’t so sure that the ranger had spoken wisely.
“There may be a better way to the dungeons,” Jojonah said. “There are old tunnels off to the side, just a hundred feet in. Most are blocked, but we can pass those barriers.”
“And you will know your way along them?” the ranger asked.
“No,” Jojonah admitted. “But they all tie togetherthe oldestparts of the abbeyand I am certain that any course will lead us soon enough to a place I can recognize.”
Elbryan looked to his friends for confirmation, and they both nodded, preferring a trek down unused passageways to a course that would likely put them in contact with other monks. First, on Juraviel’s reasoning, they also closed the portcullis, preferring to leave no sign that the abbey’s security had been breached.
They found the old passageway soon after, and, as Jojonah predicted, had no trouble in getting through the barrier the monks had constructed. Soon they were walking along the most ancient corridors and rooms of St.-Mere-Abelle, sections that had not been used in centuries. The floors and walls were all broken, the uneven angles of stone casting ominous lengthened shadows in the torchlight. Water stood calf-deep in many places, and small lizards ran on padded feet along the walls and ceiling. At one point Elbryan had to draw out Tempest just to cut his way through a myriad of thick webs.
They were intruders here, as any person would be, for these regions had been left for the lizards and the spiders, for the damp and the greatest adversary, time. But the companions plodded on through the often narrow, always twisting corridors, spurred by thoughts of Bradwarden and the Chilichunks.
The tunnel was dark and without detail, just a swirling mass of gray and black. Fog drifted up about the spirit of wandering Markwart, and though his form was noncorporeal, in this place he felt the cold touch of that mist.
For the first time in a long, long while, Markwart considered his course and wondered if he was wandering too far from the light. He recalled that time when he was a young man, first entering St.-Mere-Abelle half a century before. He had been so full of idealism and faith, and those qualities had pushed him up through the ranks, attaining immaculate on the tenth anniversary of his entrance to the Order, and master only three short years later. Unlike so many of the previous Father Abbots, Markwart had never left St.-Mere-Abelle to serve as abbot of another abbey, had spent all of his years in the presence of the gemstones, in the most sacred of Abellican houses.
And now, he reasoned, the gemstones had shown him a new and greater path. He was beyond the limits of his predecessors, wandering into regions unexplored and unexploited. And so, after only a moment of doubt, it was with great pride, bolstered by his unwavering confidence in himself, that Markwart continued the descent along the dark and cold tunnel. He understood the perils here, but was certain he would be able to take whatever evils he found and twist them for the sake of good, the end justifying the means.
The tunnel widened to a black plane of swirling gray fog, and among its rolling mounds and stinking mists Markwart saw the huddled forms, blacker shadows among the darkness, hunched and twisted.
Several nearby sensed his spirit and approached hungrily, clawed hands extended.
Markwart held up his hand and ordered them back, and to his satisfaction, they did indeed retreat, forming a semicircle about him, red-glowing eyes staring at him hungrily.
“Would you like to see again the world of the living?” the spirit asked of the two closest.
They leaped forward, cold hands grasping Markwart’s ghostly wrists.
A sense of elation filled the Father Abbot’s spirit. So very easy! He turned and started back up the tunnel, the demon spirits in tow. He opened his eyes then, his physical eyes, blinking in the sudden candlelight, the twin flames flickering wildly. They were still burning black, but not for long, for they flared red and huge suddenly, great fires spouting up from the meager candles, swaying, dancing, filling all the room with their red-hued light, stinging Markwart’s eyes.
But he did not, could not, look away, mesmerized by the black shapes forming within those fires, humanoid shapes, hunched and twisted.
Out they stepped, side by side, the two hideous forms, their hungry, red-glowing eyes boring into the seated Father Abbot. Beside them the candles flared one last time and returned to normal, and all the room was hushed.
Markwart sensed that these demon creatures could spring upon him and rend him to pieces, but he was not afraid.
“Come,” he bade them, “I will show you to your new hosts.” He fell into the hematite and his spirit walked free of his body once more.
CHAPTER 32
Pony’s Nightmare
The ranger carefully marked the walls at every intersection, and there were many in this maze of ancient and unused corridors. The four wandered for more than an hour, at one point chopping their way through a door and dismantling a bricked barrier before finally happening upon an area that seemed familiar to Jojonah.
“We are near the center of the abbey,” the monk explained. “To the south is the quarry, and the ancient crypts and libraries; to the north, the corridors that used to serve as living quarters for the brothers, but now serve Markwart as dungeon cells.” Without any prompting, the master led the way, moving carefully and quietly.
Soon after, Elbryan doused the torch, for the flickering of firelight could be seen up ahead.
“Some of the cells are there,” Jojonah explained.
“Guarded?” asked the ranger.
“Possibly,” the monk replied. “And it could be that the Father Abbot himself, or one of his powerful lackeys, is nearby, interrogating the prisoners.”
Elbryan motioned for Juraviel to take up the point. The elf moved far ahead, returning a few moments later to report that two young men were indeed standing a calm guard in the area of torchlight.
“They are not wary,” Juraviel explained.
“They would expect no trouble down here,” Master Jojonah said with confidence.
“You stay here,” Elbryan said to the monk. “It would not be wise for you to be seen. Pony and I will clear the way.”
Jojonah dropped an anxious hand on the ranger’s forearm.
“We’ll not kill them,” Elbryan promised.
“They are trained fighters,” Jojonah warned, but the ranger hardly seemed to be listening, already moving ahead, Pony and Juraviel by his side.
As they neared the area, Elbryan moved in front, then went down low to one knee, peering around an earthen bend.
There stood the two young monks, one stretching and yawning, the other leaning heavily against the wall, half asleep.
Suddenly the ranger was between them, elbow lashing out at the leaning monk, slamming him hard into the wall. Up snapped Elbryan’s backhand the other way, dropping the yawning monk even as he opened wide his eyes and started to protest. The ranger turned back to the one now slumping even lower against the wall, wrapping the man, spinning him over and putting him facedown to the floor, while Pony and Juraviel came in on the other, who was too dazed from the heavy hit to offer any resistance. Using fine elven twine, they bound the men, and gagged them and blindfolded them using their own monk robes, and the ranger dragged them down a dark side passage.
By the time he returned, Jojonah was back with the group, and Pony was standing outside a wooden door, staring hard at it. As soon as Jojonah had identified it as Pettibwa’s cell, Pony started toward it as if she meant to burst right in. But now she could not.
The stench told her the truth, the same smell she had known in sacked Dundalis those many years before.
Elbryan was beside her in an instant, steadying her as she finally lifted the latch and pushed open the door.
The torchlight splayed into the filthy room, and there, amidst her own waste, lay Pettibwa, the skin on
her thick arms slack and hanging, her face so very pale and hugely bloated. Pony stumbled to her, fell to her knees beside the woman and moved to cradle Pettibwa’s head, but the body would not bend, and so the woman lowered her head to Pettibwa instead, her shoulders bobbing with sobs.
She had known nothing but love for this foster mother, the woman who had seen her into adulthood, who had taught her so much about life and love, and about generosity, for in those years long past, Pettibwa had no practical reason to take in the orphaned Pony. Yet she had accepted Pony into her family fully, shown the girl as much love and support as she gave to her own son, and that was considerable indeed.
And now she was dead, and in no small part because of that loving generosity. Pettibwa was dead because she had been kind to an orphaned child, because she had served as mother to the woman who became an outlaw of the Church.
Elbryan held Pony close and tried to hold together her emotionsso many whirling emotions: guilt and grief, sheer sadness and a great emptiness.
“I need to talk to her,” Pony said repeatedly, her words coming out over sobbing gasps. “I need”
Elbryan tried to comfort her, tried to hold her steady, and grabbed her arm when she reached for the soul stone.
“She has been gone too long,” the ranger said.
“I can find her spirit and say good-bye,” Pony reasoned.
“Not here, not now,” Elbryan softly replied.
Pony started to protest, but finally, with trembling hand, replaced the gem in her pouchthough she kept her hand close to it.
“I need to talk to her,” she said more firmly, and turned from her lover to the corpse once more, bending low and whispering farewells to her second mother.
Jojonah and Juraviel watched from the doorway, the monk horrified, though surely not surprised that the woman had not survived the wrath of Markwart. He was embarrassed as well that one of his Order, indeed the very leader of his Order, had done this to the innocent woman.
“Where is the other human?” Juraviel asked.
Jojonah nodded to the next cell in line, and they both went quicklyonly to find Graevis hanging dead, the chain still wrapped about his neck.
“He escaped the only way he could,” Jojonah said somberly.
Juraviel went right to the corpse, carefully turning it out of the chain choker. Graevis’ stiff form contorted weirdly as it fell to the length of the single shackle, but better for Pony to see him like that, the elf reasoned, than in his death pose.
“She needs to be alone,” Elbryan said to them, joining Jojonah in the doorway.
“A bitter blow,” Juraviel agreed.
“Where is Bradwarden?” the ranger asked Jojonah, his tone stern, forcing the guilt-ridden monk to retreat a step. Elbryan recognized Jojonah’s horror at once, though, and so he put a comforting hand on the monk’s broad shoulder. “It is a difficult time for us all,” he offered.
“The centaur is farther along the corridor,” Jojonah explained.
“If he lives,” Juraviel put in.
“We will go to him,” the ranger said to the elf, motioning for Jojonah to lead on. “You stay close to Pony. Protect her from enemies and from her own turmoil.”
Juraviel nodded and came out of the cell as Elbryan and Jojonah made their quiet way along the corridor. Juraviel went back to Pony then, telling her gently that Graevis, too, was dead, then embracing her as sobs of grief washed over her.
Jojonah followed the ranger farther down the low corridor, guiding Elbryan past intersections with soft whispers. They moved around a final bend into another shadowy, torchlit area, where they saw two doors, one on the left-hand wall and another at the very end of the corridor.
“You think this is ended, but it has only begun!” they heard a man cry, followed closely by the crack of a whip and a low, feral growl.
“Brother Francis,” Jojonah explained. “A lackey of the Father Abbot.”
The ranger started ahead, but stopped fast, and Jojonah faded into the shadows, as the door began to open.
The monk, a man of about the same years as Elbryan, stepped out, whip in hand and a very sour expression on his face. He froze in place, eyes going wide as he took note of Elbryan, this stranger standing impassively, sword still in its scabbard.
“Where are the guards?” the monk asked. “And who are you?”
“A friend of Avelyn Desbris,” Elbryan replied grimly, and loudly. “And a friend of Bradwarden.”
“Oh, by the gods, good show!” came a cry from within the cell, and it surely did Elbryan’s heart good to hear the booming voice of his centaur friend again. “Oh, but ye’re to get yer due, Francis the fool!”
“Silence!” Francis commanded the centaur. He rubbed his hands together and eased the whip out to its length as Elbryan advanced a stepthough the ranger still did not bother to draw his sword.
Francis lifted the whip threateningly. “Your friendships alone show you to be an outlaw,” he said, a nervous edge to his voice despite his best efforts to appear calm.
The ranger recognized those efforts, but hardly cared whether this man was confident or not. Bradwarden’s voice and the realization that this man had just used that whip on his centaur friend assaulted the ranger’s sensibilities, sent him spiraling into that warrior mentality. He continued his advance.
Francis pumped his arm but didn’t snap the whip. He shifted uncomfortably and glanced over his shoulder as often as forward.
On came Nightbird, Tempest still sheathed at his hip.
Now the panicking Francis did try to snap the whip, but Nightbird quick-stepped forward, inside its rolling length, and pushed it aside. The monk threw the weapon at him, turned and sprinted for the door at the end of the corridor. He grabbed at the handle and yanked hard, and the door opened about a foot before Nightbird’s hand was against it, stopping its momentum.
With frightening strength the ranger slammed the door closed.
Sensing an opening in the ranger’s defenses, Francis spun about and launched a straight right punch for the man’s exposed ribs.
But even as his right hand pushed the door, Nightbird stiffened his left hand, holding it fingers up and perpendicular to his body, a foot in front of him. A simple, slight shift, perfectly timed, brushed Francis’ hand out wide, and then Francis’ successive left was turned harmlessly under the ranger’s upraised right arm.
Francis tried yet another fast right, and again the ranger picked it off, brushing it out wide with the same blocking hand, only this time he followed it out, keeping the back of his fingers in contact with Francis’ arm. It all seemed too slow to Francis, and too easy, but suddenly the tempo changed, Nightbird rolling his hand fast over Francis’ forearm, grabbing hard and yanking back across his body. He caught Francis’ fist, covering it with his right hand and pulling hard, again with the frightful, undeniable strength.
Francis lurched to the side, his arm drawn right across his body and down, and his breath was blasted away by a short, straight left jab to his side, a punch incredibly jarring, given the mere five inches the ranger’s fist traveled. Francis bounced hard against the door and tried to recover, but Nightbird, holding fast the monk’s fist, drove his arm up and under Francis’, and the sudden movement at so strange an angle brought a loud, bone-jarring pop from Francis’ elbow. Waves of pain washed over him. His broken arm was thrown up high as he fell back squarely against the door, and the large ranger waded in, hitting him with a right to the stomach that doubled him over, followed by a left uppercut to the chest that lifted his feet right off the ground.
A devastating flurry followed, left and right in rapid succession, hammering away, jolting Francis against the door or up into the air.
It ended as abruptly as it had started, with Nightbird moving back a step, leaving Francis bent forward from the door, one hand holding his belly, the other hanging limply. He looked up at the ranger just in time to see the roundhouse left hook. It caught him on the side of the jaw, snapped his head
violently to the side, and flipped him right over to land on his back on the hard floor.
All the world was spinning into blackness for Francis as the large form moved over him. “Do not kill him!” he heard from far, far away.
Nightbird hushed Jojonah immediately, not wanting his voice to be recognized. He relaxed when he looked closer at his victim, to see that Francis was unconscious. Moving quickly, the ranger dropped a sack over the monk’s head and bade Jojonah to bind him, then went charging into Bradwarden’s cell.
“Taked ye long enough to find me,” the centaur said cheerily.
Elbryan was overcome by the sight, and thrilled, for Bradwarden was indeed very much alive, and looking healthier than the ranger could ever have hoped.
“The armband,” the centaur explained. “What a good bit o’ magic!”
Elbryan ran over and embraced his friend, then, remembering that time was not their ally, went right for the large shackles and chains.
“I’m hopin’ ye found a key,” the centaur remarked. “Ye’re not for breaking them!”
Elbryan reached into his pouch and produced the packet of red gel, the same substance he had used on the tree against the raiding goblins. He unfolded the packet, then smeared the reddish gel onto the four chains holding the centaur.
“Ah, but ye got more o’ the same stuff ye used in Aida,” the centaur said delightedly.
“We must be quick,” Jojonah remarked, coming into the room. The sight of him put Bradwarden into a fit, but Elbryan was quick to explain that this was no enemy.
“He was with them that took me from Aida,” Bradwarden explained. “With them that put me in chains.”
“And with them that mean to get you out of these chains,” the ranger was quick to add.
Bradwarden’s visage softened. “Ah, true enough,” he surrendered. “And he did give me me pipes on the long road.”
“I am no enemy of yours, noble Bradwarden,” Jojonah said with a bow.
The centaur nodded, then turned his head and blinked curiously as his right arm came down from the wall. There stood Elbryan, Tempest in hand, readying to strike at the chain that held the centaur’s right hind leg.
DemonWars Saga Volume 1 Page 129
