Demon Wars 01 - The Demon Awakens

by The Demon Awakens [lit]

  Possession was never easily accomplished, a difficult and dangerous practice, but no one in all the world could summon the powers of the stones as thoroughly as Avelyn Desbris, and the monk was desperate now, for the safety of others and not for himself.

  He ejected the goblin's spirit almost immediately and continued barking out commands, but these did not concern the prisoners at all. "Flee!" he yelled to his charges. "Run to the trees, into the forest. Run away! Run away!"

  Many goblins did just that, more than eager to be gone since the furious ranger and the powerful centaur were crushing through their ranks.

  Others, though, meant to get their taste of human blood before they left.

  Pony saw them, two of them, ruining from the area of the fight but angling their course and their weapons to pound the prisoners as they passed. The woman's concentration was taxed to its limit as she tried to fall into her other stone while maintaining the weightlessness of the malachite, all the while, keeping her eyes on the monsters, measuring their progress.

  She was out of time. Her mind let go of the malachite and she dropped the ten feet to the ground, landing right between the surprised goblins.

  They screamed, Pony screamed, and they spun about bringing their weapons to bear, as the woman grabbed their shoulders.

  Pony was quicker, falling into the stone, the graphite.

  There came a sharp crack, a sudden black flash; and the two goblins fell to the ground, twitching violently as they died.

  "Forget the woman!" Avelyn the goblin chief cried to another monster that was swinging about to bear down on Pony, and the monk rushed to intercept. He tried something new then, connecting his mind back to his physical body and bringing in new magic from a second stone that his own form clutched, as he went.

  "Kill humans!" the goblin howled in Avelyn's face, but the monk reached up with an arm that more resembled that of a tiger than of a human or a goblin. He took away the creature's protest as he took away its face.

  "Ho, ho, what!" the monk-turned-goblin roared, eyeing the transformed arm. "It worked!"

  Indeed it had; Avelyn had reached out across the distance, had connected with his own physical being while holding control of the goblin's form. But the strain had been great, too great, and the monk felt himself losing control immediately, his spirit soaring back past the fighting, back to the birch trees. In his last effort of will, right before he lost consciousness, the monk reached back out to the goblin's body, and as the creature became aware of its physical form once more, it found its own arm - or at least an arm that was connected to its body - moving up to claw viciously at its own face.

  The surprised, confused creature stumbled backward, its other, normal appendage grabbing at its torn face. Surprise turned to horror, to agony, as it stumbled near Pony, and the woman drove her sword into its back, its tip poking right through the goblin's chest.

  Pony then turned her attention to the prisoners, bidding them to run off, out of harm's way. Most of the men and a few women would not go, however. Wearing masks of grief, no doubt for loved ones this monstrous band had slain, they charged the other way, into those monsters battling Elbryan and the others, fighting with weapons they snatched from goblin dead, with sticks or rocks found on the ground, or with their bare hands.

  It was over in a matter of minutes, with more than a score of goblins lying dead, the rest running, scattering into the forest. Several humans had been injured, as had Bradwarden - though the tough centaur thought little of his cuts and bruises - and Avelyn returned to them shortly, on unsteady legs, carrying the worst headache the monk had ever known. Still, without complaint, the good monk used his hematite once more, this time to lessen the wounds of the injured.

  Elbryan gathered up Paulson and Chipmunk and called to Juraviel, the four moving out from the gathering to ensure the goblins were not rallying for any counterattack.

  In more than an hour of searching, the foursome found only a pair of goblins hiding in one spot, and another running stupidly in circles.

  So the ambush had worked, near to perfection, and the prisoners were free, but that left the ranger with a new dilemma and a new and unasked for responsibility.

  "Belster is no doubt many miles to the south by now," Avelyn reasoned, "out of our reach. Even if I use the stones to contact him, we'll not easily get to him and hand off our new friends."

  "They are a tough lot," Pony added hopefully, "but inexperienced with goblins and the like."

  Paulson gave her a sidelong, incredulous glance.

  "With these goblins, at least," the woman corrected. "They've not battled the army of the dactyl before."

  Paulson conceded that point.

  "It would take us weeks to prepare them correctly, that they might have a chance of escaping on their own," the woman finished.

  Elbryan absorbed all their words, sifted through their suggestions. After a moment, his gaze settled on Paulson and Chipmunk.

  The big man understood that gaze well; Elbryan had never asked him and Chipmunk to come along, had, in fact absolved them of all responsibilities. But the ranger was about to place a new responsibility on the pair, Paulson realized. He wanted Paulson and Chipmunk to shoulder the burden of the new refugees and find a way to take them south. Paulson, full of anger at the loss of his dear friend, did not want to abandon this quest and neither did Chipmunk, but they would for the sake of the refugees. That realization struck the big man profoundly; for the first time in many years; he felt like a part of something larger, than himself, a cohesive circle of comrades, of friends.

  "There is another choice before us," Belli'mar Juraviel said from the low branches of a nearby tree. The elf had been keeping a low profile, not wanting to frighten the skittish refugees. The sight of Bradwarden had unnerved the folk almost as much as had the sight of the goblins, and the elf thought it better to hit them with one surprise at a time.

  The group looked up to the elf, resting easily, his legs crossed at the ankles, feet dangling a few yards above their heads.

  "There is a place where they might know shelter, not so far from here," the elf remarked.

  Hopeful nods came from every head, except for Elbryan. Juraviel's tone intimated something more profound to the ranger, that not only was there a mere place for shelter, but a very special place indeed. Elbryan remembered the run that had brought him to Dundalis, Nightbird's first journey. He had crossed the Moorlands, coming from the west. Now he and his troop were once again west of the Moorlands, though miles farther north.

  "We can get them there, then, and continue on our way," Pony reasoned.

  "Not we," Juraviel, replied, "but I alone. This place is not so far, but not so close, a week's march, perhaps."

  "In a week, we could bring them almost all the way back to Dundalis," Bradwarden reasoned.

  "To what end?" asked the elf. "No one remains to help them there, and all that area is full of monsters. The place I speak of holds many allies, and there are no monsters, of that I am sure."

  "You speak of Andur'Blough Inninness," Elbryan reasoned, and when the elf didn't immediately deny it, the ranger knew that his guess was correct. "But will your Lady accept so many humans into the elven home? The place is secret, its borders closed and well hidden."

  "The times are not normal," Juraviel replied. "Lady Dasslerond gave a score of us leave to join in your struggles, to go out and take stock of the happenings in the wider world. She will not refuse entry to the humans, not now, with darkness all about them." The elf gave a smile. "Oh, do not doubt that we shall put enchantments over them, a bit of boggle in their meals, perhaps, to keep them disoriented that our paths remain hidden when they are turned out into the wider world once more."

  "We should all go," reasoned Pony, who desperately wanted to view the elven home, who could sit for hours and hours to listen to Elbryan's tales of the magical place.

  Elbryan, too, was tempted, would have loved to see Andur'Blough Inninness again, especially now, to bolster hi
s resolve before he completed this all-important, perilous journey. The ranger knew better, though. "Every day we spend moving to the south, and every day it takes us to get back even to this spot, our enemies strike deeper into our homeland and more people die," he said calmly.

  "I shall take them alone," Juraviel announced. "As you recognized your destiny, Brother Avelyn, so I recognize my own. You will introduce me to the folk in the morning and I will lead them away to safety."

  Elbryan looked long and hard at his winged friend. He wanted Juraviel along on this journey, needed the elf's wisdom and courage to bolster his own. But Juraviel was right; he alone could take the refugees to safety, and though the quest to the Barbacan was paramount, the needs of so many innocents could not be ignored.

  In the morning came the second painful parting.

  "So there, you are at long last!" Tuntun cried to Symphony when she spotted the stallion trotting across a field north of Weedy Meadow. Most of the elves were long gone, some shadowing the human band that had gone to the south, but most on the road back to Andur'Blough Inninness. Tuntun and a couple of others had remained in the area, though, to continue their survey of the invading army.

  This wasn't the place where Tuntun wanted to be.

  The elf had been searching for Symphony, her desires formulating into a definite plan.

  She approached the horse tentatively, but soon found that she could indeed connect with the stallion. The turquoise was tuned to Elbryan, but Tuntun, with her elvish blood, could make some sense of it, could fathom the horse's greatest desires, at least, if not his actual thoughts.

  Symphony was apparently in complete agreement with her.

  Tuntun had little trouble getting the great stallion to accept her, and Symphony leaped away as soon as the elf climbed atop him, running fast for the north and west.

  CHAPTER 46

  The Fiend's Fiend

  He couldn't feel the stone beneath his feet, and he hated that fact of his existence more than anything else in all the world, more even than he hated this monster, this demon, his savior. For all the benefits of this wraithlike existence, Quintall missed the tangible sensations of his mortal form, the feel of grass or stone on his bare feet, the smell of dinner cooking, of brine when he looked out over All Saints Bay, the taste of shellfish or of the exotic herbs the Windrunner had taken on at Jacintha.

  He stood now, or rather floated, in the dactyl's great columned hall at Aida before the obsidian throne and the monstrosity that was his god.

  "We will be in Palmaris by midsummer," Bestesbulzibar explained, coming forward in his seat, the rough folds of its red hide shining in the orange glow of the lava rivers, pouring down through the walls and onto the floor at either side of the wide dais. "And Ursal shall be besieged when the season turns to autumn. Then the winter snows will not work against us as we roll on to the south, to Entel and the mountain range that separates the kingdoms."

  "And will we stop there?" the spirit asked.

  "Stop?" scoffed the dactyl. "We will entreaty with Behren's many chieftains; then find ways to use them against one another, and finally, when they do not expect war, we will sweep south. And all the world will be mine. Let humanity know its age of darkness."

  Quintall couldn't disagree with the dactyl's reasoning. There were minor points untouched, to be sure. Alpinador, despite the brutal border raids and the subsequent, determined march to the coast, remained intact, but the northern kingdom was not an organized place and was not populous enough to pose any real threat.

  "It is an age well earned," Bestesbulzibar said. "Your kin have only themselves to blame for the coming storm; their own weakness opened the way." The demon waved its wings and a rush of hot air passed through Quintall, a sensation the spirit somehow felt. And with that blow, Quintall remembered.

  He remembered in incredible detail all that he had been, all the promises of his mortal life. He remembered St.-Mere-Abelle, the journey to Pimaninicuit. He remembered Avelyn, damned Avelyn, and the rivalry. He heard again Avelyn's voice, his screams of protest when the Windrunner had been sunk, a voice touched, Quintall now knew, by God. He remembered chasing the rogue monk, the tales in town after town of the mad friar and his words of warning, words that rang all too true now.

  Quintall looked at his demon master; he knew the dactyl had shown him his mortal memories only to torment him. Since he had come to Aida, since the moment of his mortal death when the hematite broach had somehow transported his spirit to Bestesbulzibar Quintall had remembered only that last encounter and not the path that had led him to Avelyn and the monk's powerful friends.

  But now - now he remembered. Everything. And he knew that he was a doomed thing, knew the dactyl's claims were true, that Avelyn's warnings were true. The weakness of mankind, the impiety of the Abellican Church, the murders of the Windrunner's crew, his own jealousy of Brother Avelyn - all these things had fed the demon dactyl, had awakened the darkness that now encroached upon the world.

  Quintall loathed Bestesbulzibar but realized he was powerless against the fiend, realized he had fallen to the dactyl and that he could not escape.

  Bestesbulzibar extended its hand palm down and telepathically demanded that Quintall pay homage.

  The doomed spirit took the hand and kissed it.

  There could be no redemption.

  And Quintall knew the demon read his every thought, that his hopelessness only made the creature something more.

  "You are useful to me," Bestesbulzibar said suddenly, "as you visit the dreams of men such as the fool Yuganick, as you walk unnoticed among our enemies. But I can do all that, Quintall."

  The dactyl paused, and Quintall, in light of the last statement, expected that his time was at its end, that he would be blasted out of existence or thrown into a bottomless pit of eternal torment.

  "I need more from you," the dactyl decided. Bestesbulzibar looked from Quintall to one of the lava rivers. "Yes," the creature muttered, talking more to itself than to the ghost. It moved across the dais, dipped one arm into the molten flow, then looked back at Quintall.

  "Yes," the dactyl said again. "Do you not long to feel the sensations of the corporeal world once more?"

  Quintall did indeed.

  "I can do that, my stooge. I can give you life, real life, once more."

  Quintall felt his spirit drifting toward the creature, though it was surely an unconscious movement.

  "I can make you something greater," the demon whispered, and again the great black wings beat softly and a gust of hot wind passed through the spirit. After the gust, the heat remained.

  The heat remained, and Quintall understood he was feeling the warmth of the lava!

  Bestesbulzibar began a long, slow chant in a language the spirit did not understand, a guttural, cracking language of clicks and sounds that could only be equated with an old man clearing his phlegm-filled throat. Bestesbulzibar then spat upon Quintall, and the goo did not pass through the spirit, but struck him and stuck to him. Bestesbulzibar repeated the action over and over until Quintall was thoroughly slimed, then the fiend grabbed the spirit and, as Quintall screamed out in instinctive protest, plunged Quintall into the lava.

  All the world was blackness, was searing heat and unbearable agony, and Quintall knew no more.

  He awoke later, much later, though he was unaware of the passage of time. He was in the throne room still, standing, not floating, upon the solid floor.

  He was a creature of lava; shaped like a man, shaped roughly as he had once been with arms and legs, rock hard torso and head, and joints somehow fluid, molten and glowing bright orange but not dripping away. He felt awkward, but he felt! He looked on in amazement as he opened and closed his black, orange-striped hand, understood the unearthly strength in that grip, and knew he could crush a stone - or the head of an enemy.

  The head of Avelyn.

  Bestesbulzibar's wicked laughter drew Quintall from his contemplations.

  "Are you pleased?" the demon aske
d.

  Quintall did not know how to answer. He began to speak, but the sound of his own voice, of a voice that resonated like a rock slide, frightened him.

  "You will grow accustomed to your new body, my stooge, my general," the dactyl teased, "my assassin. No giant could stand before you, and no man. When Palmaris falls, you will lead my army into the city, and you will take the seat of Honce-the-Bear's deposed King when Ursal is mine."

  His power, sheer strength, was dizzying, overwhelming. Images of conquest flooded Quintall's every thought. He felt he could destroy Palmaris all by himself, that no weapon, that no man, could possibly stand before him.

  "Train your new body," Bestesbulzibar instructed. "Feel its powers and limitations and apply all that you once learned of the martial arts to this form. You area my general now, and my assassin. Let all men, let all creatures of Corona, tremble before you."

  The fiend ended with yet another hideous laugh, but this time, Quintall heard his own grating voice joining in.

  "The war goes well, my pet," the dactyl went on. "While you were asleep, your spirit binding to this gift I gave you, I viewed the southland, the unstoppable progress. Palmaris falls before midsummer, I say, and another powrie force sails to join us, makes fast for the Broken Coast. One army will march south, the other west, inland, until they join at the very gates of Ursal! Who will stand before them? The feeble King of Honce-the-Bear?"

  "I know nothing of kings," Quintall replied.

  "But you do!" the dactyl teased. "You know of your Father Abbot, the doddering old fool, and even he is a more worthy foe than the jester who sits on the throne of Honce-the-Bear. Who will stand before the beast then?"

  The answer seemed obvious to fallen Quintall. No one would stand before the beast, before his master, before his god. Suddenly, the man-turned-spirit-turned-lava monster wanted desperately to smash through the gates of Ursal, to take his place on the throne of Honce-the-Bear.