The commander shoved the innkeeper back and turned fast, stabbing at Pagonel with a small serrated knife.
Pagonel’s right hand came across, lightning fast, to catch the inside of the commander’s wrist. The mystic’s left hand came across with equal speed, catching the back of the knife hand and bending it in forcefully and painfully, taking the knife away while hardly slowing.
Up went the knife, into the air, and Pagonel let go with his right and backhanded the commander with a stinging slap across the face, followed by a forehand, followed by a backhand from the returning left, and finishing with a fourth slap, an open forehand with the left.
Pagonel caught the knife as it dropped and snapped his hand across again, replacing the blade in the dazed commander’s hand.
“If you strike again, then do so with more precision,” Pagonel warned. “That was the one lesson I offer you for free.”
The commander’s face twisted in rage and he retracted his arm a bit, as if lining up a strike. He held there, though, and looked about at his soldiers, several on the ground and the others staring back with confusion and obvious fear. The leader collected himself and looked back to Pagonel. “I forgave you once,” he started, but he was interrupted almost immediately, the mystic whispering so that only he could hear.
“Be gone from this place and this village, and now,” Pagonel warned. “Do so immediately and save your pride and save your life.”
The commander looked around again, at the fallen and the stunned, then he looked down to his own hand, to the knife replaced, to the knife that had somehow been cleanly taken from his grasp.
“Gather your fellows!” he roared at his command, and he stormed past Pagonel, stomping right out of the common room.
The first man the mystic had felled had the misfortune of heading back into the tavern at that precise moment, and the commander smacked him aside and continued away. Appearing grudging, though all who had witnessed understood their profound relief, the other soldiers followed.
“Commander Aklai will not forgive you for this,” the innkeeper warned quietly. “He will see you dead.”
“Indeed,” Pagonel replied, and he accepted another glass of water and drained it quickly.
Then, after he heard the pounding hooves of Aklai’s departing forces, the mystic walked out of the common room for the second time, this time not stopping until he had put the village far behind him.
He continued to head north over the next few days, though the weather became colder and less hospitable. One day, with fine snow flying sidelong in the frigid wind, Pagonel found a comfortably sheltered perch beneath a rocky overhang. He sat cross-legged, hands on thighs, palms upward. He sent his consciousness through his body, one step at a time, inviting deep relaxation and also slowing the rhythms of his body, insulating it from the cold.
In that trancelike state, Pagonel’s mind replayed the events of the last weeks. Why had he come to To-gai? What role might he find there?
Also, in that trance, the Jhesta Tu mystic began honestly to examine his own feelings, toward his heritage, the To-gai-ru, and toward the Behrenese invaders. It wasn’t a matter of like or dislike—Pagonel understood well that such sweeping generalizations could not be leveled upon entire races of people—races comprised, ultimately, of individuals. But there was a matter of justice and implications. The Behrenese had attacked To-gai—unprovoked, by all accounts—and they were not acting the role of beneficent masters!
If the Chezru Chieftain, who continued the long line of his predecessors in declaring the Jhesta Tu heretics, could so simply conquer To-gai, then what of the Mountains of Fire? Everyone knew that the true motivation for the Behrenese invasion of To-gai was the lucrative trade in To-gai ponies, whatever front story concerning To-gai as a lost province of the Behrenese kingdom the Chezru and his cohorts had concocted. Given that willingness to conquer and murder for profit, might the Chezru Chieftain turn his sights to the region surrounding the Walk of Clouds, with all its riches in minerals?
“Is that the reason my vision has led me here?” Pagonel asked quietly, his voice drowned away by the howling wind. “Am I to view the precursor to the attack upon my order?”
He stayed in the sheltered nook throughout the rest of the day and the night, and when the next morning dawned clear, with but a dusting of snow on the tall grasses, the mystic set out again, walking north.
He passed through another town that day and managed to join up with a caravan of To-gai-ru, heading north. All through the journey, Pagonel sat quietly and listened to the tales of frustration, the anger, to tales of horror, where family members had been stolen away by Behrenese soldiers. In all that chatter, the only real measure of hope that the mystic heard came in the name of a rogue leader, Ashwarawu, who was apparently operating in the area.
Pagonel decided then and there that he would seek out this rogue leader.
Chapter 15
Expanding His Horizons
YATOL GRYSH WELCOMED THE TWENTY-SQUARE OF JACINTHA SOLDIERS TO DHARYAN with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was glad that Yakim Douan had finally provided him with the strength he needed to restore complete control to the region. But on the other hand, the proud Yatol priest hated having to ask for the assistance. Especially at a time when Chezru Chieftain Douan had hinted that the Transcendence might be nearing, Grysh did not want to appear weak to his fellow priests.
And why had Yakim Douan sent a twenty-square, four hundred soldiers, when Grysh had asked for only an eight-square? Did that signal the Chezru Chieftain’s lack of confidence in him?
He stood on his balcony, watching the procession as expected, his visage firm and strong—as much as it could be, considering his lack of any real chin—as the soldiers marched beneath in rows of five. Ten rows, twenty rows, eighty rows!
They passed the temple balcony and assembled in the square to Yatol Grysh’s right, lining up in the perfect twenty-by-twenty formation that gave them their name.
Grysh waited patiently for the formation to settle, then gave the many onlookers, including his own city brigade of two hundred soldiers and his war leader, Wan Atenn, time to soak in the spectacle. The Yatol focused on Wan Atenn for a moment, trying to read the proud man’s expression. Another Chezhou-Lei warrior had led the twenty-square into Dharyan. Might the war leader of Dharyan be feeling a bit insecure?
If he was, Wan Atenn gave no outward indication, but Grysh knew the stoic Chezhou-Lei well enough to recognize that he could read nothing from that blank look. He would speak with Wan Atenn privately a bit later, he decided, to assure the man that his position was quite secure.
All eyes, soldier and onlooker alike, were up at Yatol Grysh then, expecting him formally to welcome the newcomers.
Before he could begin, though, a horn blew out in the distance, beyond the city gates, a long and plaintive winding: the call for admittance.
Grysh, and Carwan Pestle at his side, and every other person about Dharyan’s main square that cold morning, turned to look out. But only Yatol Grysh and his immediate attendants, from their high perch, could see the cause of that horn.
A second contingent of soldiers—a second twenty-square!—stood on the field beyond Dharyan’s fortified gate, led by a second Chezhou-Lei warrior in his fine, overlapping armor.
A second twenty-square! Chezru Chieftain Yakim Douan had sent eight hundred warriors to Grysh’s call?
It took all the discipline the Yatol could muster to hide his shock. Eight hundred soldiers! That was more than a quarter of Jacintha’s standing garrison!
“Yatol,” Carwan Pestle breathed. “Are we to conquer To-gai all over again?”
Yatol Grysh snapped a cold look over the Shepherd, who lowered his eyes. In truth, though, Grysh couldn’t rightly disagree with his companion’s assessment, and understood that Pestle had blurted the words without thinking.
Perfectly excusable, Grysh realized, given the enormity of the surprise before them. Two twenty-squares!
As exci
ting as that prospect might be. For if these soldiers had come in to serve Grysh and not merely as an extension of Chezru Douan’s strong arm, then the Yatol of Dharyan had just become the second most powerful man south of the Belt-and-Buckle Mountains. Perhaps this was Chezru Douan’s way of showing complete confidence in Grysh, then, in so empowering him before the time of Transcendence.
Too many possibilities, too many questions, assaulted the surprised Yatol at that time, and so he took a deep breath, consciously forcing himself to relax, reminding himself that he had yet to meet with the Chezhou-Lei leaders of the twenty-squares to determine so many things.
Other questions invariably came to him, though. Suddenly, he had eight hundred new mouths to feed, and eight hundred new bodies to shelter, and with the fierce Dharyan winter already beginning to blow. It was a daunting prospect, to be sure, but Grysh knew that he could handle it.
He signaled to his gate guards to allow the latest arrivals on the field entry to Dharyan, and with the great curving teeyodel horns blowing, the city gates swung wide. So began the second procession of the morning, as disciplined and perfect in formation as had been the first, marching past the observing Yatol in eighty rows of five, and then assembling on the wide square beside the first group, opposite Wan Atenn and Grysh’s relatively minor forces.
While the second group was settling into place, Grysh felt the distant stare of Wan Atenn upon him. He looked down, studying his war leader, and he knew that the Chezhou-Lei warrior was troubled by this unexpected arrival. They had only asked for sixty-four men, after all, and had been sent eight hundred!
Yatol Grysh offered a reassuring nod to Wan Atenn, sincerely given. The Yatol had no idea what Chezru Douan might be thinking, but he was fairly confident that the God-Voice didn’t mean to usurp Grysh’s power in the region. Given that, Wan Atenn’s position as military leader remained secure, because Grysh trusted the Chezhou-Lei warrior implicitly.
The Yatol went through the remainder of the ceremony with an air of disconnection, looking over the procession dispassionately and from a great distance. His thoughts were on the meeting that would soon follow, and already he was formulating some ways in which he might make the best use of the new arrivals.
There was a particularly thorny renegade To-gai-ru that Grysh wanted to be rid of, one who was said to kill without mercy.
“Jilseponie Wyndon,” said Chezru Douan, and he was shaking his head as he spoke the name. “Who is this woman, to become a bishop in the Church ruled by men?”
Across from Douan’s desk, Merwan Ma held his tongue, for he knew the question to be much deeper than the obvious answer—an answer that both he and Chezru Douan knew well enough.
Jilseponie had been the one to deliver the miracle of Avelyn a decade before, rescuing Honce-the-Bear from the grip of the rosy plague. The companion of the dead Nightbird, Jilseponie was also credited, in part, with destroying the demon dactyl Bestesbulzibar and in helping to win Honce-the-Bear’s war against the demon’s goblin, giant, and powrie minions. But that was all long ago, and Jilseponie Wyndon was not a name that Yakim Douan and Merwan Ma had heard in several years.
Until this day, when Abbot Olin’s messenger had delivered a note, obviously written to convey a sense of distress, that Jilseponie Wyndon had been appointed bishop of the city of Palmaris, and more pointedly, that the woman was being openly courted by King Danube Brock Ursal.
“Abbot Olin fears that she may become queen of the kingdom,” Merwan Ma remarked. “Does he believe that this will propel her to the leadership of the Church, as well?”
“It would be unprecedented,” Yakim Douan replied gruffly, shaking his head yet again. He had no idea of the significance of any of this, but whatever might happen, the present news was more than a little distressing to the man. Could he risk Transcendence with apparent turmoil brewing in the north, not only with the Church, but with the kingdom itself? And if the worst-case scenario came to pass, with a new Honce-the-Bear that was hostile to Behren, might he be forced to delay Transcendence even more?
The Yatol bowed his head, hiding his frustration from his attendant. He wanted to be done with this body! He wanted to feel again the energy of youth, the excitement and enjoyment of lovemaking, even the thrill of the new relationships he would find with the same group of Yatols and Shepherds who now called him God-Voice.
But now it was obvious to Yakim Douan that all of his efforts, including sending the small army to Yatol Grysh, would be for naught. He could not and would not attempt Transcendence until the situation in To-gai and in Honce-the-Bear was resolved, and he could get an honest view of the dangers he might face in the vulnerable decade before he came to true power.
“We cannot be overly concerned with the situation in Honce-the Bear,” he announced to Merwan Ma a moment later. “Recall Ambassador Daween Kusaad, that we might discuss the situation at length. And ensure that a steady stream of messengers flows between Jacintha and Abbot Olin in Entel. A steady stream. I will know week to week what is transpiring within the kingdom and the Abellican Church.
“Yet there is little that we can do to influence the happenings in the north, other than continue to provide our friend Olin with the funds he needs to wage his campaign. Our attention, therefore, must be focused on settling the issues within To-gai.”
“Yatol Grysh has likely received our soldiers by now,” said Merwan Ma.
“Yatol Grysh is a wise man and a powerful leader. He will use them well, I do not doubt.” He ended nodding, instead of shaking his head some more, as satisfied as he could be that he was doing all that he could to facilitate the environment he needed for the desired Transcendence. He took a deep breath and considered the road before him. He would visit the hematite regularly from that day on, he decided, to ensure his health and his comfort.
“Soon enough,” he muttered, and when he caught Merwan Ma’s inquisitive look at the curious remark, he just waved the attendant away.
Three Chezhou-Lei warriors had assembled in his room in Dharyan. Unprecedented.
But while he was amused by the presence of Wan Atenn’s two peers, Yatol Grysh was not overwhelmed. These great warriors were his servants, after all, fiercely loyal to the Chezru Chieftain and to those Yatols serving under Yakim Douan.
“I am surprised by your appearance, Woh Lien and Dahmed Blie,” the Yatol said after Carwan Pestle had served drinks to the three and all had settled into the comfortable chairs in the audience chamber.
“By law, a twenty-square must be led by Chezhou-Lei, Yatol Grysh,” Wan Atenn put in.
“Yet I did not expect a twenty-square!” Grysh replied lightheartedly, and he looked right at the two visiting Chezhou-Lei warriors as he continued. “An eight-square would have allowed us to secure Dharyan throughout the winter and spring.”
As he finished, he looked to Carwan Pestle, who had been briefed on how Grysh wanted this meeting to proceed.
“Perhaps this is a sign that the God-Voice desires us to do more than secure Dharyan, Yatol,” Pestle suggested, and as he finished, he looked to Woh Lien, the older and more experienced of the two warriors.
“We were sent to Dharyan to serve under Yatol Grysh, as Yatol Grysh deemed fit,” the Chezhou-Lei warrior said, quite openly and without hesitation. “Whether the strength of the force is a signal to you, Yatol Grysh, is beyond my knowledge.”
Grysh nodded, appreciating the openness. A wry smile found its way onto his plump face. “We will see how far your forces will take us, Chezhou-Lei Woh Lien. Has Chezru Douan determined the date of your return to Jacintha?”
“He has not.”
Perfect, Grysh thought. “Then you are to return when I release you?”
The warrior nodded.
“You understand that, while here, you are both subject to the commands of Wan Atenn?”
The two visiting warriors looked to each other, then to the third Chezhou-Lei, offering deferential nods. “The hierarchies of our order are determined outside the boundaries of t
he Yatols,” Woh Lien explained. “In those hierarchies, noble Wan Atenn is already placed above the two of us. If that hierarchy was different, Wan Atenn would readily and gladly submit to my will.”
Grysh started to respond that he was glad of that, but he stopped and sat there smiling instead, realizing that these two had been selected by Douan specifically, and that the Chezru Chieftain had well understood the politics of the Chezhou-Lei. Well done, God-Voice, Yatol Grysh silently congratulated.
The Yatol of Dharyan was convinced then that Douan had sent him the forces along with a clear message: secure To-gai once and for all. Put down the pockets of insurgence swiftly and definitively.
“You carry with you supplies enough to get through the winter months?” he asked.
“And more,” Woh Lien replied. “We are trained to forage, Yatol, and to hunt. Chezru Douan was concerned that our numbers not strain the resources of Dharyan, and so they shall not.”
“That is good,” said Grysh. “Then let us put the word out that you have come delivering supplies to me, that we might help the outposters through the difficult season.”
“If that is what you deem necessary.”
“That is what I deem necessary to tell the people,” Grysh explained. “Our task will be much more difficult if the upstart Ru believe that I have eight hundred new warriors under my command. So, as far as the populace is concerned, I do not. Each of you will section thirty-two soldiers to Wan Atenn, that the eight-square I requested will be filled.”
“As you order, Yatol,” said Woh Lien, and Dahmed Blie echoed the thought.
“Has word of the massacre at Douan Cal been made public?” the Yatol asked Carwan Pestle.
“Limited, perhaps.”
“See that it does not spread. Allow the people to know that Douan Cal was attacked, but not that it was eliminated, else it will become common perception that the soldiers are in response to that attack.”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 140
