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

by R. A. Salvatore

  “It is not,” Pagonel answered curtly.

  “You were defending me!”

  The mystic chuckled. “The fight outside of Dharyan has nothing to do with this,” he explained. “It is an excuse, and nothing more, to begin a battle that has been ongoing for centuries, before Brynn Dharielle ever saw her first sunrise, and one that will continue long after you have viewed your last sunset.”

  “I can fight as well as most …” she started to protest.

  “As well as any, excepting myself, Cheyes, and Dasa,” the mystic conceded with a smile.

  But that smile did not disarm Brynn, not at that time. “Then let me go and fight beside you,” she said. “I have studied here through the weeks.”

  “You are not Jhesta Tu,” Pagonel replied. “You could be—perhaps someday you will desire to be. But you are only a visitor here at this time, and so this fight is not your own. And, I fear, any engagement that you have in it will likely hamper your own goals. Have you so forgotten those that you will willingly go down against are the mightiest adversaries that the Chezru Chieftain can offer?”

  Brynn stiffened her jaw, wanting so badly to defy that simple logic.

  Seventy-five mystics did leave the Walk of Clouds soon after, led by Master Cheyes and Master Pagonel, with Matron Dasa looking on from the bridge, Brynn Dharielle standing beside her.

  Brynn Dharielle moved off from Mistress Dasa, allowing her anger and frustration, and particularly her desire to be alone, to show clearly. She understood Pagonel’s reasoning for excluding her from the battle, and even agreed with it, based on that reasoning. But that gave her little solace, watching these friends she had recently come to know walking down into severe danger …

  And so the stubborn young lady, the same little girl who had so often found ways around the strict edicts of the Touel’alfar, took the literal meaning of Pagonel’s command to heart. This was not her battle, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t watch it! She kept her head down, seeming distressed, until the gathered mystics filtered away, then she took up her bow and her sword and gear, and rushed to the steps, running down from on high.

  By the time she neared the rocky valley floor, Brynn saw the two sides squaring off—and it seemed to her as if her friends were at a sore disadvantage indeed! For the Jhesta Tu stood in a long line, evenly spaced and each holding a long spear, while across from them loomed the Chezhou-Lei, armored as the mystics were not, and mounted! How could Pagonel offer so large an advantage to his deadly adversaries as to allow the battle to go forth with the invading warriors on horseback?

  Brynn started to mouth a few choice curses, but the words were lost in her throat as the Chezhou-Lei warriors erupted into their thunderous charge, a hundred strong steeds rumbling the valley floor. As one, the Jhesta Tu fell into a defensive crouch, setting their spears appropriately.

  Brynn just bit her lip and winced; any skilled rider could take his mount outside the reach of those spears, or take the spear out wide with a feint, veer suddenly, and simply run over the stationary mystic.

  In came the Chezhou-Lei, their fabulous swords of wrapped metal spinning up high.

  Brynn winced so much that she nearly closed her eyes and missed the spectacle as the Jhesta Tu mystics, again moving as if of a singular mind, exploded into a sudden, whirling motion, bringing their spears up, around, and over, reversing their grips as they firmly set the tips against the stone, even as the horses closed, then leaped up high, the spears bending under their weight, then straightening, lifting the mystics over the front of the charging line!

  A few Chezhou-Lei managed to alter their outstretched swords to bring them to bear, mostly ineffectively. A few more reacted quickly enough to veer their mounts out of the line of the flying, kicking mystics. But most caught a Jhesta Tu in the face, literally, and in a few chaotic moments, the valley floor became littered with Jhesta Tu mystics and fallen Chezhou-Lei warriors, with riderless horses milling all about.

  Then they were up, both sides, rushing about in sudden and furious battle. Brynn couldn’t even keep up with it, with the flash of a hundred swords, the swing of a hundred fists and a hundred kicks, the stab of a hundred spears. She tuned her vision more narrowly, picking Pagonel out of the crowd.

  He had taken his rider down cleanly and slid off the passing horse at precisely the correct angle to land with his knee firmly planted into the prostrated man’s throat. And then he came up hard, swinging a kick at another Chezhou-Lei as the man tried to rise, laying him low. He sprinted away suddenly, leaving the second fallen warrior to one of his brethren, for off to the side, another of the mystics was in dire need.

  Brynn winced, as did Pagonel, as that mystic fell away beneath a crimson spray of his own blood, taken down by the sword of a rider who had not been dismounted.

  Brynn knew that rider! She had seen him kill Ashwarawu!

  Pagonel charged straight in, leaping high in a full forward somersault, coming around and over with both legs kicking, one to deflect the warrior’s attempt to stab him, the other to kick the man hard in the side, nearly dislodging him. The mystic twisted as he followed through, and grabbed on, pulling himself in close to the man, too close for that sword to come to bear.

  But the warrior was no novice to battle, and any advantage that Brynn believed her friend had attained was whisked away almost immediately, as a heavy gauntlet smashed into Pagonel’s face.

  The horse reared under the confusing commands of the struggle, and leaped away, running opposite from Brynn, down the line of continuing battle.

  That melee held Brynn’s attention then, and her heart leaped, for the Jhesta Tu mystics, with that brilliant initial strike, were fast gaining an advantage.

  She looked back to the far end of the line, to see Pagonel and the Chezhou-Lei tumble from the mount, falling hard, out of her view behind a boulder. Despite her agreement to stay out of the fighting, Brynn sprinted away, circumventing the main battle to find her fallen friend.

  They stood opposite each other atop a chest-high flat boulder, far to the side of the main fighting.

  “I know you,” the Chezhou-Lei warrior sneered, his eyes narrowing to threatening slits. “We meet again, mystic.”

  Pagonel, his arm sorely stung from the fall to the rocks, backed away a step, then brought his hands up together before him, dipping a respectful bow. “I am Master Pagonel,” he said. “I would have your name.”

  “My name before you feel the sting of my sword,” his opponent promised. “I am Wan Atenn. Know that my eyes are the last thing you will ever see!” And with that, the fierce warrior came on, his sword spinning up above his head, then chopping suddenly, a shortened blow that Pagonel easily backed away from, and then a quick retraction back up, a short step forward, and a second, more deliberate strike coming in at a downward diagonal for Pagonel’s shoulder.

  The mystic, moving in perfect balance, could have backed away again, but he decided against that course in the blink of an eye. He found his life energy, that potent, unstoppable line, and focused it into his left arm, then snapped his arm up above him, blocking the blow as surely as if he had used a metal shield.

  He came forward inside the blow, firing off a right jab into Wan Atenn’s chest, his fist thudding hard against the overlapping armor. But the blow didn’t have any Chi behind it, for Pagonel’s energy had to hold firm against the powerful sword. While Wan Atenn did stagger back a step, he wasn’t really hurt.

  The fierce Chezhou-Lei came on again, slashing his sword across, and Pagonel flipped a somersault right over the blade, then skittered out to the side before the warrior could reverse with a deadly backhand.

  Or at least, he started to.

  Wan Atenn’s sword came flashing back, and Pagonel dropped suddenly, right below it, then came up fast, launching a series of punches at his adversary, and taking a left hook on the shoulder and a kick to the knee in response from the skilled Chezhou-Lei.

  The two fell back defensively, then came on again, lik
e powerful mountain rams crashing together, head to head. They exchanged hits and kicks, and Wan Atenn drew first real blood, scoring a minor hit across Pagonel’s upper arm with his fine sword, but taking a punch to the face in return that nearly dropped him to the stone.

  “You fight well,” Pagonel congratulated.

  “Spare me your worthless insults, dog!” the Chezhou-Lei cried, and in he crashed again.

  After another vicious flurry, the two fell back, and Pagonel looked on curiously as a wry grin spread over Wan Atenn’s dark face. The Chezhou-Lei started forward, but stopped suddenly.

  Pagonel sensed the movement behind him, and knowing his terrain perfectly, he instinctively leaped up, tucking his legs under him, spinning as he went.

  The slash from the second Chezhou-Lei, standing beside the boulder behind Pagonel, missed cleanly, but the mystic knew that it hardly mattered, that the distraction was a fatal turn against the imposing Wan Atenn.

  Indeed, as Pagonel came down, Wan Atenn leaped ahead, his sword held in two hands over his head, aimed for a strike that could not miss, that could not be blocked by the mystic, and that could not fail.

  The Chezhou-Lei roared in victory, coming in strong.

  And then he got hit, and hit hard, across that face, the blow staggering him to the side, dropping him headlong off the boulder. He thought it was a punch, and only realized as he fell away that he had been shot with an arrow.

  “Scold me not about honor!” Brynn Dharielle cried, drawing out her sword and leaping atop the boulder beside Pagonel.

  “Scold you?” the mystic yelled right back, leaping down onto the newest opponent, driving the Chezhou-Lei back with a series of snap kicks and short punches. “I was going to thank you! I will scold you for coming down here after all is through!”

  The Chezhou-Lei warrior turned and ran off, and Pagonel went in fast pursuit, back toward the main fighting.

  Brynn started to follow, but heard the movement behind her and realized that Wan Atenn, the man who had killed Ashwarawu, was not yet dead.

  So she waited, her back to him, baiting him up onto the rock.

  Then, as he leaped up at her, she spun about, Flamedancer slashing hard against his thrusting sword, turning it harmlessly aside. Brynn had to shake away her distraction, though, for her arrow remained in place, stuck through Wan Atenn’s cheek, half-buried into his face!

  “Do you remember me as well?” Brynn asked, falling into her proper bi’nelle dasada stance, her lead, right foot perpendicular to the anchoring left, her right arm extended, slightly bent at the elbow, and her left arm bent out and up behind her. Perfectly balanced.

  “Should I?” the Chezhou-Lei replied, his voice slurred and barely decipherable, for he could hardly move his torn jaw. “You are no Jhesta Tu, but merely a cowardly dog who shoots from afar!”

  “And stabs from in close!” Brynn corrected, coming forward with a suddenness that surely surprised the warrior. He spun his sword in to intercept, but was too late, and fell back a step at the end of Brynn’s vicious blade.

  Wan Atenn tried to keep the growl of pain from his throat. He wanted to hurl another insult the diminutive woman’s way, but he didn’t dare to speak, didn’t dare show her how profoundly her stinging thrust had stolen away his breath.

  He found his balance, though, and his breath, and came on with sudden ferocity, his sword working marvelous circles side to side, up over his head, even around his back, working from hand to hand, stabbing out and retracting suddenly, only to flash back in at a different angle.

  But Brynn, with her forward-and-back balance of the elven sword dance, stayed out of reach, and realized almost immediately that her style was superior, that the Chezhou-Lei, for all his skill, was moving in ways that bi’nelle dasada could surely defeat. He was better than Dee’Dahk, but he fought in the exact same style. And that style, with weapons spinning up high and to the side, had little defense against the snap thrusts of bi’nelle dasada.

  The ranger held her countering thrusts, wanting to find the best opportunity to score a single, fatal hit.

  “You would be less impressive without an arrow sticking through your jaw,” she did say, if only to spur the already wild warrior on even more viciously.

  Let him make one mistake …

  The scene before him was surely one of misery, of men and women writhing in agony or clashing together like rabid animals, but Pagonel was neither surprised nor deterred.

  He kept up the chase of the Chezhou-Lei, and when that man crossed past a comrade, who turned to engage the charging mystic, Pagonel simply leaped over the two of them, spinning as he descended to catch his primary opponent in a headlock, landing and snapping his arms down hard.

  The crunch of bone in the man’s neck did bring a grimace to Pagonel’s face, but hardly distracted him. He stepped back suddenly, ahead of the other’s thrusting blade, and that second Chezhou-Lei, knowing he was overmatched against this supreme Jhesta Tu master, backed steadily.

  Pagonel did not follow. He turned and sprinted to the side, to join Master Cheyes, to anchor the Jhesta Tu line. A score of mystics were down, some obviously dead, but more than fifty were still fighting, against only around half that number of Chezhou-Lei.

  The battle seemed in hand, and the Jhesta Tu masters nodded to each other grimly, with satisfaction.

  But then the teeyodel horns began to blow, and the charge of soldiers, hundreds of soldiers, began—the Jacintha garrison moving hard to encircle the mystics, and to cut off the escape route to the stairs.

  Pagonel and Cheyes saw it immediately, and called for a retreat to those stairs, with each going to a nearby wounded companion, scooping him up, and starting the retreat.

  But Pagonel looked all about and knew the truth: they wouldn’t make it.

  To an onlooker, their movements would seem nothing more than a furious blur of wild energy, with the Chezhou-Lei’s sword spinning like the fans of a favored Behrenese toy, rocking back and forth in front of him, warding away the sudden, and ultimately efficient, thrusts from the elven-trained warrior.

  Brynn kept every strike measured, confident that she could defeat the man, that he, with his heavier blade and more exaggerated movements, would have to tire before she did. As soon as that magnificent curving blade of his slowed, she would find her opening, thrusting her fine and slender sword through to a seam in his armor, and into his chest.

  But not yet, not until she had him worn down enough that she could be certain he would not, in the last moments of his life when her sword was inside of him, score a wicked hit against her. She thrust in measured strikes and skittered back, always turning, turning, to keep enough of the large and flat boulder behind her for her next retreat.

  She scored a stinging hit on Wan Atenn’s forearm, then another into the opposite shoulder, but those strikes only seemed to spur the man on even more ferociously.

  Yes, it was moving along exactly as Brynn desired.

  And Wan Atenn recognized that, as well, and then he surprised the young warrior woman, for as she retracted her blade after one teasing thrust, beginning yet another short retreat, the Chezhou-Lei performed a brilliant spinning charge, his feet stepping and turning in perfect balance, his sword going around in a complete circuit along with his torso.

  Brynn saw an open stab at the man’s back, and knew she could inflict a serious, perhaps even fatal, wound. But she knew, too, that Wan Atenn accepted that inevitability, and that she was out of room to retreat, so suddenly. As hard as she might stick him, that terrible Chezhou-Lei blade, worn from years of battle—and that wearing only making the remaining wrapped metal even sharper—would come around, and hard!

  So Brynn stayed her hand, refusing the opening, and brought her blade in front of her vertically instead.

  Around and ahead came the warrior, his rushing, horizontal sword meeting Brynn’s weapon at midblade, forcing Brynn’s sword backward, forcing Brynn to bend backward. With the new angle, Wan Atenn’s blade slid up above Br
ynn’s head, locking both swords.

  But Wan Atenn, heavier than Brynn by a hundred pounds, was more than willing to force the contest into a close-in battle of strength. He bulled ahead, holding back her sword with his own, his left hand coming up to launch a devastating punch.

  But then Brynn’s blade erupted into blazing fire, and the Chezhou-Lei warrior halted, even fell back a bit as he threw the punch.

  And Brynn came forward and down, lifting her left hand up and around to grab the hilt beside her right, and to get her pulsing powrie shield up to block the punch.

  The woman went forward more, pressing hard against the unyielding Chezhou-Lei blade, and then she dipped, just a bit, and her blade tip slipped free, and all the momentum from the hold shot it forward and down, creasing the helm of Wan Atenn, splitting the man’s skull and driving down deeper. She even felt it crack through the shaft of the arrow that was still stuck in the stubborn warrior’s face.

  Brynn let the sword’s fires flicker out, and saw the Chezhou-Lei’s hateful eyes staring back at her, from either side of her blade.

  The light disappeared from those dark orbs.

  Before she could even consider how she might extract her blade from the split skull, Brynn heard movement behind her, and knew she was helpless.

  The remaining Chezhou-Lei were more than happy to pull back from the slaughter, stumbling and scrambling to the waiting ranks of the circling Jacintha soldiers.

  Pagonel and Master Cheyes worked furiously to organize their remaining fighters in defensive positions about the wounded. There was no way they could hope to get to the stairs, no way they could hope to get out of the tightening ring of spears and swords.

  “And so the Chezhou-Lei refuse to do battle fairly,” Master Cheyes remarked with obvious disgust. “And so I am not surprised! But history is written by the victors,” he lamented, “and so our fall will be spoken of as a grand Chezhou-Lei victory!”