DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga)

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Of c-course you are welcome,” Midalis stuttered, only then realizing how ungrateful and unwelcoming he had sounded. “You and all of your warriors. I only thought … I mean, my friend, you do not wear the face of celebration but one of planning.”

  “There will be no mead hall tomorrow night,” Bruinhelde explained, rather gruffly. But since Midalis was certainly used to gruffness from the man, this did not alarm him greatly. “We leave with the morning light, for the northern trails back to our home.”

  Liam O’Blythe walked up beside the Prince then, bearing extra mugs of ale, which he offered to the guests.

  “You can understand Bruinhelde’s desire to be on the road as soon as possible,” Andacanavar stated. “He knows not whether any of our fleeing enemies have ventured into his homeland, though we left the passes into the region well guarded.”

  “Of course,” Midalis agreed, and he held his mug up in salute to Bruinhelde. The barbarian looked at the Prince for a moment, then responded in kind.

  “Tomorrow will be a sad day for the men of Vanguard,” Midalis went on.

  “For some,” Bruinhelde replied, and Midalis knew he was talking about the brothers of St. Belfour; for though Agronguerre had done well to secure the alliance, the barbarians had remained suspicious of the monks.

  “For all,” Midalis replied. “Vanguard has not forgotten what you and your warriors have done for us. All in St. Belfour would have perished had not Bruinhelde and his brethren come to the field. We remember.”

  “Well enough to follow us north?” the Alpinadoran leader asked bluntly.

  Midalis sighed. “I had meant to address that issue in detail with my warriors at sunrise,” he explained. “Thus, I had planned to speak with you at the mead hall tomorrow night.”

  “You will come or you will not,” Bruinhelde said.

  “You are the leader of the Vanguardsmen,” Andacanavar said. “Is not your word their law?”

  There it was, spoken baldly without any room for evasion. Midalis was indeed the leader, the ruler, was the man who had to make this decision. But Prince Midalis had never been an autocrat, preferring rather to build consensus for his decisions. He almost always sought out the advice of his fellows—Liam, Agronguerre, and others—and always listened carefully to that advice before acting. Now, though, it had been laid squarely upon his shoulders: a great weight, a great decision that could hold grave implications for his beloved fellow Vanguardsmen in the immediate future and for the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear for years to come.

  And Midalis had to respond now. Studying the Alpinadorans, he recognized that Bruinhelde had forced this decision as a test more of the man Midalis, than of the Vanguardsmen in general. Given that Bruinhelde and Midalis were about to go through the most intimate of ceremonies, where, according to Andacanavar, they would have to depend fully on each other or perish, the Prince could understand Bruinhelde’s desire to see his heart laid bare.

  “We shall come,” Midalis answered firmly. Liam gasped, but did well, Midalis thought, in quickly composing himself. “Of course we shall! What friends, what allies, would you have made, good Bruinhelde, if we accepted your blood to protect our homes but did not offer our own in return? I do not yet know, however, how many I can bring with me. Our farms and homes have been ravaged by the years of battle, and I must make sure that they are ready to supply us for the next winter.”

  “Make your plans, then,” Bruinhelde offered. “We will await your arrival at the mead hall tomorrow night.”

  “But ye just said—” a confused Liam started to protest. But Midalis, who understood well the test Bruinhelde had just put to him and was not the least bit surprised by the Alpinadoran leader’s reversal, stopped him with an upraised hand.

  “I will bring as many as can be spared,” Midalis replied. “Now, please join us in our celebration.” He turned and waved his hand across, an invitation for the two Alpinadorans, who, with their great height and massive bulk, stood out among the smaller Vanguardsmen.

  Bruinhelde looked to Andacanavar, and the ranger nodded and led the way into the host of revelers. Few joined the two barbarians, though many looked their way. After a while, Prince Midalis, fearing that their guests might feel insulted, bade Liam to gather a few friends and go and join them.

  “They’re all afraid o’ sayin’ the wrong thing,” Liam explained. “Ye do well with Bruinhelde and the ranger, but the rest of us don’t know ’em, and aren’t sure we’re wantin’ to know ’em!

  “I know what ye’re thinkin’ to say,” Liam quickly added, seeing that Midalis was about to protest. “And no, me lord, I’m not forgettin’ what Bruinhelde and his kin did for us on the field about St. Belfour and in all the fightin’ since.”

  “Then go and make our guests feel welcome,” Midalis instructed. Liam turned to do just that, but stopped short.

  “Seems another had the same way o’ thinkin’,” he said, leading Midalis’ gaze across to the two barbarians and to Abbot Agronguerre and Brother Haney, who were approaching them.

  Midalis set off quickly at once, Liam falling in step behind him.

  “Greetings, good Bruinhelde and good Andacanavar,” he heard the abbot say. “You remember Brother Haney, I trust.”

  A group of men cut across Midalis at that moment, stopping him short, and their discussion prevented him from hearing the barbarians’ response. He breathed a little easier when he finally managed to get around the group of Vanguardsmen, to find the two monks and the two barbarians seemingly at ease.

  “Twenty brothers,” Agronguerre was saying as Midalis approached. “I wish it could be more, as I wish that I could travel with you.”

  “You’re not so old,” Andacanavar offered to the abbot.

  “Closer to seventy than to sixty!” Agronguerre proudly replied, patting his belly under the drawstring of his brown robe.

  Andacanavar laughed and winked at that statement, a not-so-subtle reminder that he, too, had seen several decades of life, though he could outfight any man north of the gulf.

  “Me abbot’s got to stay in St. Belfour,” Brother Haney cut in. “Word’s that a messenger’s on the way from the south. We lost our Father Abbot—”

  “The leader of our Church,” Agronguerre explained. Andacanavar nodded, but Bruinhelde just held his stoic, unreadable expression. “And thus, I expect to be summoned to the south, where a new leader will be elected. But with Vanguard apparently secured, my brothers and I wish to help along the road to the north. I would not presume to send Abellican monks into Alpinador, though, without your permission.”

  “We came to your aid, you come to ours,” Bruinhelde remarked, cutting short Andacanavar, who seemed to be beginning another of his many diplomatic interventions. “It is fair and good. Your brothers are welcome, and with my thanks.”

  Prince Midalis could hardly believe his ears. He and Liam joined the group with a nod, and with the Prince patting Agronguerre on the shoulder.

  “They will take gemstones with them,” Agronguerre went on, “and will use them against our enemies and to aid the wounded Vanguardsmen. For your own wounded—” Bruinhelde stiffened and Midalis held his breath “—the choice remains yours to make, of course.” Agronguerre continued, “If you desire our healing magic, pray you simply ask.”

  “No,” said Bruinhelde.

  “As you will,” Agronguerre replied. “I feel that I would be derelict in our friendship if I did not make the offer.”

  “And a fine offer you’ve made,” Andacanavar put in.

  “You will watch over the brothers,” Bruinhelde said to Midalis.

  “Brother Haney will lead them,” Agronguerre remarked, but the barbarian leader wasn’t paying him any attention.

  “We welcome them as allies against our enemies,” Bruinhelde went on. “Not as …” He leaned over to Andacanavar and said something in the Alpinadoran tongue, and the ranger promptly translated.

  “Not as missionaries.”

  “Of course,” Abbot A
gronguerre said with a bow, and he turned to Midalis. “Let us know when you plan to depart. The brothers will be ready.” With another bow to the barbarians, he led Brother Haney away.

  “It is time for us to return to our own folk, as well,” Andacanavar said. “We await you at the mead hall tomorrow night.

  “And, Prince Midalis,” he added with a sly look, “name a second to command your force. If the opportunity presents itself, perhaps we can make this trip doubly profitable. And, my friend, you never can tell when the spirit shaggoth will win.”

  Midalis smiled at the remark, but he felt Liam O’Blythe tense at his side, and he knew that his friend was going to try to persuade him against accepting the blood-brothering, probably long into the night.

  Chapter 13

  Finding Sides

  “YOU CHOOSE YOUR ALLIES FOOLISHLY,” TARGON BREE KALAS FUMED AT ABBOT Braumin.

  “Choose?” Braumin echoed incredulously, and in truth, the churchman shared Kalas’ feelings more than the Duke could ever know.

  “Bishop De’Unnero is not well liked within the city,” Kalas went on.

  “Nor within the Church,” Braumin said under his breath. They had met by chance at the Palmaris market, but as soon as Braumin had seen Kalas coming, had seen the expression on the Duke’s face, he had guessed the source of the man’s ire.

  “They remember Aloysius Crump,” Kalas went on. “Who could forget the sight of the innocent man being roasted alive with your godly magic? They remember De’Unnero’s actions against their families and friends. And now you are fool enough to parade him before the people? Does your Church invite such disdain?”

  Abbot Braumin swallowed hard, forcing himself to calm down, reminding himself not to play into Kalas’ hands here in the open. For a brief moment, he had wondered why in the world Duke Kalas, with whom he had been fighting from the very beginning of their respective appointments, would go out of his way to point out the trouble with keeping De’Unnero around. But given the public nature of this place, given the multitude of spectators and the way the Duke had already couched the premise of the conversation, the answer seemed clear. Braumin had gone out of his way to keep De’Unnero’s return as secret as possible, though rumors had slipped out. He had begged the former Bishop to keep a low profile, and De’Unnero, apparently understanding the wisdom of Braumin’s suggestion, had done just that.

  “Am I to refuse the former Bishop entry to St. Precious?” Braumin asked innocently.

  “Expel him!” Duke Kalas returned. It struck Braumin then that there was more than political gain motivating Kalas here, there was true hatred for De’Unnero. “Excommunicate him! Why, I would not share the same church with the man!”

  “I have not seen you at service in St. Precious, your Grace,” Braumin pointed out.

  But Kalas snorted, shook his head, and walked away, with every member of his entourage pointedly speaking the name of De’Unnero, along with some unfavorable adjective, as they followed him.

  Abbot Braumin stood in the market for a long while, aware of the angry stares coming at him from every angle. De’Unnero had made too many enemies here, he understood, and he dropped the fruit he had picked back into the vendor’s cart and started away swiftly for St. Precious, hoping that he might use Kalas’ tirade and those angry stares of the peasants to persuade the former Bishop that it would be better for all if he left the city.

  Master Francis paused and stared long and hard at the cold walls of St.-Mere-Abelle, brown and gray stone stretching for more than a mile along the high cliff overlooking All Saints Bay. He remembered the first time he had entered the abbey, more than a decade before, a young novice walking through the Gauntlet of Willing Suffering, a row of older brothers armed with wooden paddles.

  Still, Francis would have preferred that treatment to what awaited him now within the foreboding place. His news was grim, all of it, from the disaster in Palmaris and the loss of brothers to the goblins outside Davon Dinnishire to, perhaps worst of all, the signs he had encountered of the rosy plague. But even more than that, Francis saw St.-Mere-Abelle now as a reminder of his errors. In that place, he had followed Father Abbot Markwart, had obeyed the man blindly, even when Markwart was torturing the innocent Chilichunks and the centaur, Bradwarden, in the dungeons. Here Francis had not spoken out against the murder—and it was indeed murder, he understood now—of Master Jojonah.

  St.-Mere-Abelle—with all its strong stone walls, its sense of majesty and power—reminded Master Francis of his own frailties. And he could not even enter secure in the knowledge that he had put those faults behind him. Oh, he was wiser now, he understood the evil that had possessed Father Abbot Markwart, but it seemed to him that his own courage remained an elusive thing. Perhaps he had been wrong in withdrawing his demand that Jilseponie take over the Abellican Church. He understood and still recognized the problems that such a nomination would have brought, but shouldn’t he have fought for it anyway? Shouldn’t he have stood up for the right course, whatever the potential troubles?

  And yet, Master Francis knew now, looking at the mighty St.-Mere-Abelle, that he could not have done it, could not have nominated Jilseponie. Not then and not now.

  With a sigh, resigned to his own sense of failure, Master Francis Dellacourt led the brothers, the living carrying the dead, across the mile of open field to the front gates of St.-Mere-Abelle.

  He was agitated, too much so, he knew, but Abbot Braumin could not contain his frustration. So many great dreams had followed him to this place within the hierarchy of the Church, so many hopes that Nightbird’s sacrifice would bolster him and his companions in their efforts to better the Church and better the world.

  Yet in the months he had been serving as abbot of St. Precious, Braumin Herde had known only frustration. And while the abbey had done much to aid the inhabitants of Palmaris, had expanded its prayer services considerably and had sent out brothers with soul stones on missions of healing, Braumin had made little, if any, progress on any institutional changes at St. Precious. Every one of his plans had run into Duke Kalas, and the man had forced a stalemate.

  And now De’Unnero!

  The word of the former Bishop’s arrival was general throughout the city now, after the public discussion at the market. The prayer services immediately following their meeting had been crowded, but the people had not come into St. Precious for blessings but rather to gossip, to see if they might catch a glimpse to confirm that the hated De’Unnero was back.

  Wisely, Marcalo De’Unnero had stayed away, as Braumin had advised. Protestors arrived daily and surrounded the abbey, calling for De’Unnero’s expulsion, excommunication, even execution. Braumin understood that Duke Kalas had likely put them up to it, but that hardly mattered—for others had fallen in with the plans, no doubt, and the rage would grow and grow along with the summer heat.

  The abbot paced about his office now, wringing his hands, muttering prayers for guidance.

  The door opened and Master Viscenti poked his head in, then swung the door wide so that De’Unnero could enter before him.

  Braumin held up his hand to Viscenti, motioning for him to leave.

  “Did you expect any different reaction when you returned to the city?” Braumin began curtly, when he and De’Unnero were alone.

  De’Unnero snorted, an unimpressed grin upon his face. “I have returned subservient,” he said quietly. Braumin noted that there was a tremor in his voice, and it seemed to the abbot as if De’Unnero was engaged in a tremendous inner struggle at that moment. “I have accepted your ascension to a position I once held, have I not? A position that I would likely have continued to hold—”

  “Master Francis replaced you as abbot long before the fight at Chasewind Manor,” Abbot Braumin reminded him.

  De’Unnero paused, a telling hesitation to the perceptive Braumin. He was trying to compose himself, the abbot knew, trying not to fly into a rage—and while Braumin surely feared such a rage from this dangerous man, he thought tha
t prodding De’Unnero along in that direction might not be a bad thing.

  “You need not recite me a chronology, Abbot Braumin,” De’Unnero said, his voice controlled once more. “I understand perfectly well—better than do you, I am sure—all that went on during the last days of Father Abbot Markwart. I understand perfectly well the role I was forced to play—”

  “That you eagerly played,” Braumin corrected. De’Unnero’s dark eyes flashed with anger, but again he paused and suppressed the rage.

  “As you will,” he said, his dark eyes narrowing. “You were not here, I remind you.”

  “Except when I was in your dungeons,” Braumin retorted. “Except when my friends and I were dragged from the Barbacan, from Mount Aida and Avelyn’s shrine, by De’Unnero and his henchmen.”

  “By Father Abbot Markwart, whom De’Unnero served,” the former Bishop corrected, “and by the King of Honce-the-Bear. Have you forgotten? Was not Kalas, the same Duke Kalas who now serves as baron of Palmaris, beside me on that plateau, demanding your surrender?”

  “I remember!” Abbot Braumin said loudly and firmly. “I remember, and so do they, Master De’Unnero, former Bishop of Palmaris,” he said, sweeping his arm out toward the window. “The people of Palmaris remember.”

  De’Unnero stiffened; Braumin noted that he clenched one fist at his side.

  “They hate you,” the abbot went on determinedly. “You represent to them everything that was wrong—”

  “They are idiots,” De’Unnero interrupted sharply, his tone, the strength of his voice, setting Braumin back on his heels. “Fools all. Cattle and sheep who flock into our pews in the hopes that their minor sacrifice of time will bring them absolution for the miserable ways in which they conduct their lives.”

  Braumin stuttered over that blunt proclamation for a few moments before coming up with any response at all. “They do not look upon your reign as bishop favorably,” he said. “As it was with Father Abbot Markwart—”