DemonWars Saga Volume 1

by R. A. Salvatore

  Nightbird worked hard to get down low as Symphony thundered around that same bend. As the path straightened, up came Hawkwing again, but right before the ranger let fly, the goblin ducked under a low branch that crossed the path and the shot was lost.

  Growling with frustration, the ranger, too, went under the branch. He feared that this would prove to be a long chase, though, for the path ahead was anything but straight. He did catch sight of the goblin at last, riding hard. It sat up straight for just a moment, glancing back.

  And then, suddenly, it was jerked free of its seat, sent flying back through the air as the horse galloped on.

  The creature's arms and legs flailed wildly for just a second, and then it hung limp in midair, twisting slowly. Nightbird understood as he neared and saw Belli'mar Juraviel perched on a branch above the goblin's head, one end of his elven cord fastened to the branch, the other around the goblin's skinny neck.

  "Saving your arrows?" the ranger asked sarcastically.

  Before Juraviel could answer, a commotion in the forest sent the elf fluttering higher up the tree. Even from the higher vantage point, he couldn't see much through the fog, but his keen ears brought him all the information he needed. "It would seem as if our moment of surprise is ended," he called down. "The goblins are regrouping."

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than another voice rang out strong and clear in the morning air. "So nice for ye to oblige," came Bradwarden's roar. "Gettin' yerselves all in one place for me!"

  And that, predictably, was soon followed by sounds of renewed fighting.

  "Bradwarden decided to regroup with them," Juraviel said dryly, and off the elf went, hopping and flying from branch to branch.

  Symphony leaped away at Nightbird's bidding, off the path, cutting a straight line through the brush, following the centaur's voice. Pressing for speed, neither rider nor mount could avoid much of the underbrush, and both got scratched by sharp branches and bushes. Turning one bend around a thick tree a bit too tightly, the horse crunched Nightbird's leg. The ranger didn't complain, though, just threw his arm up in front of his face to protect his eyes, held on more tightly, squeezed his legs in as close as possible to Symphony's sides, and lay low across the horse's neck.

  Sensing the urgency, intelligent enough to understand that a friend was in peril, Symphony, too, accepted the minor cuts and did not slow. In a few moments, they broke through the last of the underbrush, onto the rim of a bowl-shaped depression.

  One goblin was down, its head split wide. Another rolled about, howling in pain and clutching its smashed shoulder. But eight more of the creatures remained, surrounding Bradwarden, prodding at him with spears and swords, forcing the centaur to work furiously to keep the goblins at bay so that they couldn't follow through and stick him deep. Bradwarden kicked and spun, and swished his great club with mighty swings, roaring threats. He couldn't hope to maintain that frantic pace, though, and as each turn came a bit slower, the goblins managed to move a bit closer and stick him a bit deeper.

  On one such turn, the centaur spotted Nightbird and Symphony leaping down to join the fray. "Taked ye long enough!" Bradwarden roared; and with new hope came new energy. He spun back the other way and charged ahead, driving the goblins back and luring those behind, thus distracting them from the charge of the ranger.

  Nightbird threw his left leg over the saddle, pulled his right foot from the stirrup, and replaced it with the left, leaving him standing atop the running horse. As they neared the closest goblins, the creatures finally turning to meet the charge, the ranger dropped from the horse and Symphony dug in his hooves and veered hard to the left.

  His forward momentum unbroken, the ranger rushed ahead suddenly, stabbing Tempest out straight. The goblin made a fair attempt to block the thrust, but it couldn't comprehend how fast the weapon closed the space.

  Nightbird ran right by, tearing Tempest free of the goblin's chest. He dove into a roll to help slow his progress, and came up on one knee with a mighty slashing parry of the next goblin's thrusting spear.

  Overbalanced as the front half of its weapon got sheared away, the goblin stumbled toward the ranger, who stabbed straight out, sticking the goblin deep in the chest. With a powerful heave, Nightbird lifted the impaled creature and tossed it to the ground behind him, then rose quickly, slapping his blade against the sword of the next goblin as it came in at him. Deftly —this one was a fine warrior by goblin standards—the goblin sent its sword in repeatedly, once, twice, thrice, but each attack was neatly parried by the ranger's flashing sword. Its momentum lost, the goblin tried to retreat, but that gave the ranger the opportunity to attack.

  Now Tempest came in, once, twice, thrice. To the goblin's credit, it managed to parry the first two blows.

  Spurred by the appearance of his ally, Bradwarden had not been idle, though he hadn't scored any definitive blows. But neither had the goblins, obviously distracted by the appearance of the ranger, of Nightbird, whose name they had heard whispered in their worst nightmares. When the third fell to the slashing Tempest, the other five had seen enough, and they turned and scattered for the cover of the trees.

  Nightbird started to follow, but he pulled up short, startled, as something zipped past his face. He understood when the object —one of Juraviel's small arrows—buried itself deep into the hamstring of a goblin, turning its retreat into a slow stagger. Another arrow came flying past, catching the next goblin in line, but the elf's aim was a bit too high, and the creature only ran off all the faster with the arrow stuck into its buttocks.

  "Oh, don't ye be runnin', I'm tired o' runnin'!" Bradwarden wailed, and in frustration, the centaur threw his club at the closest fleeing creature. The weapon skipped past harmlessly, but the goblin did stop to notice, and then glanced back —noting that Nightbird had disappeared into the brush at the side, following the one Juraviel had crippled. Behind the goblin, Bradwarden's club settled into the brush.

  An evil grin spread across the goblin's ugly face. "Now yous got no weapon," it reasoned, lifting its sword and charging back at Bradwarden.

  "Dumb," the centaur mumbled. "Was that yer brother sittin' stupid on the horse?" With a great spinning leap, Bradwarden pivoted about, throwing his rump in line with the charging goblin. His hind legs touched down. Then he hopped and kicked, muscled legs shooting past the goblin's puny arm and puny weapon, one hoof catching the goblin's shoulder, the other its chest. Muscles extending, the centaur's kick hurled the goblin twenty feet backward, its arms and legs flailing wildly, to crash hard into the brush.

  The centaur calmly walked past the broken, dazed creature, to retrieve his club. Then he came back, towering over the goblin. "Got no weapon, eh?" he taunted, and the cudgel came crashing down.

  Back in the center of the bowl, Juraviel finished off those squirming on the ground, then moved out into the brush, to find the one he had hamstrung. It lay dead in a pool of blood, the result of a single, efficient sword thrust under the back of its skull.

  "Where's the ranger?" the centaur asked when Juraviel emerged. Symphony, standing beside the centaur, stamped the ground hard.

  "Hunting, I would guess," the elf replied casually.

  Bradwarden looked at the misty forest and smiled.

  The goblin leaned against a tree, slapping the side of its rump in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain, not daring to touch the arrow Juraviel had put into its butt. Then the creature froze at a nearby sound, eyes wide with terror, but it relaxed as two of its companions came skittering over.

  One grasped the arrow shaft and started to extract the bolt, but the goblin cried out in pain, and the other stopped and slapped a hand over its mouth.

  "Quiet!" said the third in a harsh whisper. "Yous wants to bring the Nightbird and the horse-man on us? Yous already left a line of blood...."

  The goblin's voice trailed off, and all three looked down at the unmistakably clear trail of the wounded goblin's passage.

  Three sets of eyes came up, the terrified go
blins staring at each other, none daring to speak.

  Nightbird dropped from a branch to land right in the midst of them. Out went his fist to strike one goblin, out went the pommel of his sword, then ahead came the flashing blade. A backhand strike took down the second goblin, slashing diagonally from shoulder to hip as it staggered from the force of the pommel, and then the ranger spun around, landing a powerful overhead chop on the first goblin as it tried to recover from the punch in the face and tried to bring its unwieldy spear to bear.

  It took the ranger longer to extract Tempest from the goblin's split head than it had to kill all three.

  Elbryan found his friends waiting for him back on the road a short while later, the two resting comfortably in the unseasonably warm sun, passing Bradwarden's heavy wineskin —which Elbryan knew to be filled with Questel ni'touel, the fine elvish wine more commonly known as boggle—back and forth.

  "Am I to hunt alone then?" the ranger said with feigned anger. "Three escape us, with three of us to give chase, and yet I find myself out alone in the forest."

  "And just how many did ye get, ranger?" the centaur asked.

  "They were all together," Elbryan explained.

  "Easy enough, then," reasoned Juraviel.

  "And still ye're whinin'," Bradwarden remarked, taking another swig of the potent liquor, then lifting it toward the ranger.

  Elbryan declined with a smile. "I do not drink much boggle," he said. "Every time I try to lift a flask of it to my lips, my arms ache with pain," he explained, an obvious reference to his early days of training with the Touel'alfar, when he had gone out to the bog every morning to collect the milk stones, then take them to the gathering trough where he had to squeeze the flavored juice out of them until his arms had ached.

  It was said as a joke, of course, but Bradwarden was ever the master at turning a joke back on the speaker. "Whinin' again," he moaned. "Ye know, elf, yerself and yer kin'd be better takin' in me own folk for yer ranger trainin'."

  "We have tried, good Bradwarden," said Juraviel, pulling back the wineskin. "And a fierce fighter indeed is an elven-trained centaur, though short on cunning, I fear."

  Bradwarden gave a low growl. "Insultin' me even as he steals me boggle," he said to Elbryan as the ranger moved to slide his sword back into its sheath on Symphony's saddle. That done, Elbryan checked the horse carefully, noting one especially painful-looking scratch along the side of Symphony's strong neck. The wound had already been tended, he was glad to see, by gentle elven hands. "Is this how I am to spend the rest of my life?" he asked suddenly, his serious tone drawing the complete attention of both centaur and elf. "Traveling forest paths, hunting down rogue monsters?"

  "At your present pace, you will clear all the region soon enough," Juraviel said with a smile, but those words brought a look of horror to the faces of the other two.

  "I certainly hope not!" Elbryan replied with a laugh, walking over and pulling the wineskin from Juraviel's grasp.

  The other two laughed as well, for when they thought about it, they understood the ranger's reasoning. The presence of goblins and giants and powries had certainly been a terrible thing for the folk of the region, a bitter war that had shattered homes and families, that had left many innocents dead. But there was something else that had come with the darkness and the tragedy, a sense of purpose and of camaraderie, a necessary joining of folk who might not even have been friends in peaceful circumstances. And also, undeniably, this phase of the war, the last hunting, the reclaiming of lands when all of the helpless, innocent folk were out of harm's way, proved truly exhilarating. Just as it had on that very morning, when riding point for Tomas Gingerwart's caravan, the three friends had spotted the encampment of a dozen or so goblins. They formed quick plans and the fight, and then the chase, was on.

  Elbryan, by far the youngest of the three, felt the excitement most keenly. At those times when he could put his elven training to use and become this other persona, Nightbird, he was most alive.

  "Gingerwart," Bradwarden remarked, seeing smoke rising down the road to the south. At last the fog was beginning to clear.

  Elbryan regarded the distant sign of approach. The way was clear for another day's travel; they would be in Dundalis, or in what remained of the place, in a matter of two or three days.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Humanist

  "I will bring the city in line," the new bishop determinedly said —with his mouth and not through the telepathic communication of spirit! And Markwart heard him, and clearly, though the Father Abbot's corporeal form was resting a hundred miles away in his private quarters in St.-Mere-Abelle.

  "I have already begun taking action in that very direction," De'Unnero went on, regaining the composure that had been shattered by the unexpected appearance of this so-solid apparition of the Father Abbot.

  Markwart nodded —and how strange it seemed to him that even such nonverbal language was crystal clear through this spiritual communication. The last time he had come to De'Unnero by means of the soul stone, he had only been able to manage rudimentary communication, imparting to the abbot of St. Precious that he should go get his soul stone that they might meet more fully in the spiritual state. This time, though, that extra step had proven unnecessary, for Markwart had so fully transported his spirit to Chasewind Manor that he could speak directly to the physical De'Unnero, a level of communication far beyond what they had achieved before, even though De'Unnero now held no complementing soul stone. It almost felt to Markwart as if he could simply step his own physical form through the connection, could fully transport himself to this distant place!

  And clearly De'Unnero, too, was impressed.

  Markwart watched him closely, noting the hunger on his face. Always had Marcalo De'Unnero been an intense man, especially when some measure of power was at stake. Always, though, he had maintained self-control. Even when jumping into the middle of a group of goblins, he had always kept his head clear, had always let his mind guide his body.

  "You must be careful not to overstep your bounds," Markwart explained. "The King will be watching closely, to see how well having a bishop replace one of his barons suits his needs."

  "Then I am to pay special care to any emissaries from Ursal," De'Unnero replied. "And I assure you that the King's soldiers, led by Captain Kilronney, shall be excluded from many of the more distasteful duties I must carry out to meet my ends. The city guard will suffice.

  "I intend to retrieve all the gemstones in the city," the Bishop explained, "and thus, if the friends of the heretic are about, I will have them."

  "The merchants will complain to the King," Markwart warned. But the Father Abbot was thinking of something else —was concentrating on De'Unnero's last statement and the man's nonverbal cues as he had spoken. Markwart had gotten the impression that the Bishop was playing him for the fool now, for he perceived De'Unnero did not really believe that confiscating the gemstones in the city would lead to the capture of Avelyn's former companions. No, Markwart realized, De'Unnero had only said this to placate him. However, the deception pleased Markwart, for if De'Unnero knew better than his false claim, he likely had a good idea where the fugitives might be.

  De'Unnero smiled widely, drawing the Father Abbot back into the present conversation. "The merchants will do as they are told," the Bishop explained. "They fear me too much already to plead to King Danube."

  Markwart knew De'Unnero was playing a dangerous game. He could not keep track of all the merchants and the many guards and scouts they employed. News of the Bishop's actions against the merchant class would surely be open gossip in Ursal before much time had passed, if it wasn't already. But still, the Father Abbot hesitated in demanding that his pawn cease. The possibilities here intrigued him. Suppose the Church reclaimed all the sacred gemstones, claiming it to be the divine order of God himself? As long as the King didn't oppose the move, the merchants would be powerless to resist.

  "And even if they do inform the King," De'Unnero went on, hi
s smile wider than ever, "we have an excuse for the action. King Danube knows of the stolen stones —was it not his own troops who took the traitor Jojonah to the pyre? So if we present the missing gems as a threat to him and his kingdom ..." The Bishop stopped and let the enticing thought hang in the air.

  And, indeed, it was enticing to Father Abbot Markwart. Perhaps it was time for the Abellican Church to repossess the gemstones, all the gemstones. Those taken back from the merchants would more than make up for the ones lost to the thief Avelyn. Perhaps it was time for the Church to assert itself, to follow the wake of war by again becoming the dominant force in the life of every person in the civilized world.

  What legacy would Dalebert Markwart then leave behind?

  "The Behrenese enclave in Palmaris is considerable," Markwart said on sudden inspiration.

  "Down by the river," De'Unnero confirmed.

  "Make life particularly difficult for them," Markwart instructed. "Let us create as many common enemies between Church and state as possible."

  De'Unnero's smile showed that the prospect did not displease him at all. "And what of the gemstones?" he asked. "May I continue?"

  Now it was Markwart's turn to smile, for he understood that the upstart Bishop would continue with or without his permission. "Yes, do," Markwart said. "But do not overstep. We can keep King Danube on our side, I am confident, but only if we do not anger the entire merchant class."

  Markwart let the connection lapse then, his spirit flying fast from Chasewind Manor back to his waiting body in St.-Mere-Abelle. In truth, he wasn't too worried about angering the merchants, or even the King. Markwart was beginning to gain a sense of his true power now. The war had changed the balance within the kingdom, he believed, in favor of the Church. This appointment of De'Unnero as bishop had opened so many intriguing corridors for the Father Abbot.

  Possibilities . . . possibilities. How far might he reach?