“If all the kingdom willingly joins with King Aydrian before Prince Midalis can move south out of Vanguard, the war will be over before it ever begins,” the duke reasoned. “Better for us all if—”
“Do you so fear a fight?” De’Unnero interrupted, cutting short the man’s argument. “Perhaps Palmaris will prove a valuable lesson for the rest of the kingdom. Perhaps it is time that we show the people of the land the price of denying the truth of Aydrian Boudabras.”
That brought a few nods from those close enough to hear, and Kalas let go of his argument and turned to Aydrian for his orders.
Aydrian’s blue eyes bored into the man, reminding him of his encounter with death, reminding him of his journey to the dark realm, when Aydrian had literally pulled him back to life. Those eyes told Kalas profoundly that this man, and not the pitiful Abellican Church, held the secret to life after death, held the secret to immortality itself.
“March to the wall, Duke Kalas,” Aydrian commanded. “If they do not open the gates, we will tear the gates down.”
The duke nodded his obedience, then spurred his pinto away, gathering up his commanders, organizing the first charge.
To the side, remaining quiet, but watching intently, Sadye took a good measure of Aydrian. She could see the strength of the young king. She could see the vision of the man. He was so beyond those around him, De’Unnero included, so enwrapped in a journey of greater glory that he feared nothing at all. Truly, he was king, of Honce-the-Bear and beyond. Truly, all the world should bow before him, for he was … above them.
Sadye caught herself with a deep breath, hardly believing the thoughts that had flooded through her. She studied Aydrian carefully, his intense blue eyes peeking out from the golden rims of his helm, his blond hair showing all about the edges. She looked at his armor, the most magnificent suit in all the world, and she knew even beyond that, that the man beneath those metal plates was more magnificent still.
She did step back from her own fluttering heart to note something else about young and strong Aydrian though, something that she could not miss in his eyes. A twinge of regret, perhaps?
Then the trumpets began to blare, and the thousands of Kingsmen infantry took up their determined march toward the city.
Sadye took up her lute and began to play, a song of battle.
Bishop Braumin watched the approach with a heavy heart. There was no turning back now, no more speeches to give. He had told the people of Palmaris the truth as he had honestly measured it, and they had made their decision to resist this young king. And now the resistance was put right before them.
The soldiers advanced methodically; behind the line, the Allheart Knights, nearly a hundred strong, assembled their ponies in the center of a larger line of cavalry.
A few arrows went out from Palmaris’ wall, falling far short of the still-distant force. Bishop Braumin began to call for a halt to the ineffective fire, but changed his mind. They were nervous, he knew.
A few balls of burning pitch soared out from Palmaris’ tower catapults, to more effect, but still falling far short of the needed defense to deter such an army as approached.
Braumin turned left and right, scanning the wall. The brothers of St. Precious who had remained behind had been given specific gemstones and specific tasks in aiding the defense. Braumin had strategically placed them for maximum effect.
To kill as many attackers as possible.
That realization brought with it tremendous guilt and regret, and old Braumin, no stranger to war and conflict, had to work hard to keep the waves of despair away.
The march progressed in orderly fashion, but then the soldiers entered the area close enough for effective fire. Lines of arrows reached out from Palmaris’ wall, slashing into the long ranks. The first blood stained the field outside the city that morning, and the first cries of agony rent the air, and tore at Bishop Braumin’s heart.
The march broke into a full charge, the Kingsmen roaring out their battle cries and coming on hard. But for all their pomp and presence, for all their glory and military strength, the group that had come to Palmaris was not really prepared to assault a walled city. They had no ladders with them, no ropes with grapnels, no siege towers or battering rams. They came on, shouting and cheering, and with their armor protecting them, the ranks were hardly thinned when they at last reached the city walls.
But then what?
Many spears went up over the walls, and volleys of arrows went at the city’s defenders, and many did fall.
But with the support of the magic-wielding monks, the return fire was far more effective, archers leaning over the walls to shoot down into the milling throng.
Kingsmen herded about the strong and fortified city gates, trying to press them open, to no avail!
The Allheart charge came on then, and was nothing short of spectacular, the thunder of hooves shaking the ground.
And Braumin’s gemstone-wielding monks replied with a barrage of lightning and fire, concentrating on the area about the gates, jolting the soldiers about.
One monk leaped out from the wall, calling the name of Avelyn, and as he landed amidst the throng, he released the power of his gemstone, a ruby, and blasted a fireball in the midst of the attackers, consuming himself and them.
Flaming men ran out of that conflagration, waving their arms and screaming pitifully.
Bishop Braumin turned away and blinked hard against his tears.
From across the field, Aydrian watched the events with growing trepidation. His conscience assailed him, demanding of him that he stop this battle, this march, this war—demanding of him that he find a way of peace.
They are the cattle! Screamed a voice in his head, so suddenly, the same voice that had guided him across the Mirianic to Pimaninicuit to retrieve the gemstones, the same voice that had led his way across Yorkey County to Ursal, the same voice that had shown him the way to destroy King Danube. It was the voice from the mirror, the voice of Oracle, the voice that had shown him the lie of Dasslerond and the promise of his inner strength. They stand before you because they fear you, it told him. They deny the truth of you because they fear the lie that is their ridiculous faith!
Aydrian unwittingly argued with that voice, feeling as if he was a second shadow in the same mirror, like one of the two blurry forms that he used to see at Oracle, which were always at odds. One had told him to listen to Dasslerond, to accept the wisdom of the elves as a gift, while the other had denied that course.
That latter voice, the voice that was now talking to him, had brought him so far from Andur’Blough Inninness, and at all but these crucial and painful moments, it seemed to hold Aydrian heart and soul.
But in light of the scene before him, against the assault of gruesome and horrific images, against the cries of pain, Aydrian’s other voice could not help but question his course and his desires.
That confusion held him in place for many seconds, and showed no sign of resolution. And then a third voice, a physical voice, entered the conversation suddenly and with surprising clarity and certainty.
“You outshine them,” Sadye said to Aydrian, moving her mount right up beside Symphony and putting her hand on his arm. “You are the path to glory and greatness! Let not the cries of the flock deter your course!”
Aydrian looked at her, surprised.
“The people, of Palmaris and of your own army, are already dead!” the woman insisted. “They have been dead for most of their lives, though they simply haven’t realized it!”
She held Aydrian’s gaze a few moments longer, then nodded toward the city walls and the continuing battle.
Aydrian spurred Symphony to leap ahead. He took up his sword, Tempest, with its set gemstones.
A blue-white glow surrounded rider and horse, and then it, and they, were lost in the sudden, explosive burst of fire. That fiery ball dissipated almost immediately, but the flames did not, and on charged Aydrian and Symphony, rider and horse aflame!
Bishop Braumin,
along with everyone else, defender and attacker alike, could not ignore the spectacle of the charging Aydrian Boudabras. Braumin wanted to call out for a general focus of the defense against Aydrian, wanted all of his archers and all of the brothers to concentrate their attacks on that single target. If Aydrian fell, would not all of this become moot, after all?
Before the bishop could begin that call, and with many arrows already reaching out toward Aydrian, he felt something, a buzzing in his head, something he could only describe as a white noise.
Confused, the bishop took up his graphite, holding it forth and reaching for its powers to loose a lightning blast at Aydrian.
But he couldn’t quite get there, couldn’t quite find his focus in the stone, against that buzzing white noise.
Braumin opened his eyes to see Aydrian, no longer aflame, astride Symphony behind the main tumult at the gates. The young pretender king held Tempest aloft and seemed deep in concentration.
Braumin understood. In Tempest’s hilt was set a sunstone, the stone of antimagic, and Aydrian was using it now to send out the white noise, the antimagic. Braumin had seen such things before, but what stunned him was the realization that Aydrian’s antimagic wave had not been targeted at him, but rather, at the length of Palmaris’ wall! The young man was denying all magic use by the defenders and was stealing the strongest advantage that he and his brethren held against the armored soldiers of the crown.
“It cannot be,” Braumin muttered. He glanced down the line, to note the confusion on the faces of his brethren as they stared at their gemstones as if they had been deceived.
Without the supporting magic, the tide soon turned against the defenders. The Kingsmen abandoned their tactics of trying to break through the gates, and turned into defensive squares, protecting their archers with their armored bodies and great shields, while those archers increased the barrage against the walls.
The more skilled soldiers, with their stronger bows, began to turn the tide.
And still the antimagic wave held strong. Another brother, apparently misunderstanding, leaped over the wall, ruby in hand, apparently with plans similar to his charred brother. He hit the ground hard, but no fireball erupted from his hand.
He was still working at the gemstone, still trying to bring forth its magic, when the soldiers fell over him and hacked him down.
“It is not possible,” Braumin muttered, and he looked from his gemstones to Aydrian, to the son of Jilseponie. The woman’s warning about his strength echoed in Braumin’s ears at that desperate moment. Jilseponie had told him that Aydrian’s power was beyond him, was beyond them all.
As if recognizing the amazement mounting within Braumin, Aydrian opened his eyes and looked up at the bishop, and even flashed a slight smile.
Then, suddenly, Aydrian started into motion, dropping Tempest in line with the city gates. The white noise disappeared from Braumin’s thoughts, but before he could even register that fact, a tremendous blast of lightning exploded from the gleaming shaft of the magnificent elven-forged sword that Aydrian held so deftly, bursting out in a sudden flash to smash against the Palmaris gates.
Metal melted under that searing heat, and supporting stone pillars split apart, and in the flash of an instant, the great city gates were gone, replaced by a pile of smoking rubble.
Braumin’s eyes widened in horror.
The Allhearts led the charge into the city.
The defense broke apart, the folk and brothers running for cover.
And in denial of any possible countering strike, the white noise returned.
Bishop Braumin stood in the front gatehouse of St. Precious Abbey, looking out over the main square of the city, now occupied by the army of Ursal. The fighting had gone on, in pockets of resistance, throughout the day and long into the night. But now, the morning after Aydrian’s assault, the city was quiet once more.
Braumin could only imagine how many had died out there in the fighting. He had heard that the Ursal soldiers were offering little quarter to the dark-skinned Behrenese. He felt profound guilt for retreating to his abbey, along with many of the remaining brothers. He should have been out there among the folk, fighting to his last.
No, he shouldn’t have, he reminded himself. When the gate had fallen, when the soldiers had charged into the city, the general battle was ended, the outcome a foregone conclusion. If all the folk of the city had taken up arms and charged back at the Allhearts and the Kingsmen, they would have been slaughtered to a man, woman, and child. And so Braumin had called for, and had followed to the letter, the predetermined plan. The defense of the city was never considered plausible for any length of time, and so the bishop had never called for that. If the wall was taken, so went the order, the people were to flee back to their homes.
The fight had come quickly to St. Precious, as Braumin had known it would. He had hoped that his resistance would be stubborn and very costly to the invaders. He had hoped that he would strike a profound and devastating blow to the ambitions of the young usurper Aydrian.
But now that the soldiers had finally closed about the abbey, now that they were at last within range of Braumin’s fury, the white noise had accompanied them, denying the magical response.
And they had come prepared, Braumin saw. They had taken the artillery from Palmaris’ wall, dragged it to the corners of the square, and reassembled it over the course of the night.
The bishop winced as the first bombs smashed against St. Precious’ wall. He looked across the square to Aydrian, who stood resolute with Tempest upraised. He looked to Aydrian’s side, to Marcalo De’Unnero, who stood calm, staring back at him.
“Braumin has ever been a stubborn one,” De’Unnero explained to Aydrian and Kalas, as the bombardment of St. Precious continued around them. “He will not surrender, and will willingly die for his cause. He was like that when he stood beside Elbryan, your father, against Father Abbot Markwart.”
“Is such strength of character not to be commended?” Aydrian asked.
De’Unnero nodded. “Braumin is a fool, and misguided,” the monk explained. “He followed Jojonah and Avelyn and helped to create this ridiculous imposter of a Church.”
“Nearly as ridiculous as its imposter predecessor Church,” Duke Kalas remarked.
De’Unnero shot him a glower. “The people here believe in Braumin, and deeply,” he went on, speaking to Aydrian and trying to keep his gaze away from Kalas. “If we tear down St. Precious and kill him in the process, they will remember, and it will not reflect favorably on the man who would be their king.”
“You just said that we could not turn him,” Duke Kalas remarked.
De’Unnero had no answer.
But between them, Aydrian merely smiled.
Bishop Braumin felt a sense of relief as he finally managed to loose a bolt of lightning at the attackers sometime later, as the white noise finally diminished somewhat. Apparently, there was a limit to Aydrian’s strength and stamina, though that limit seemed far beyond anything any other mortal man or woman had ever achieved!
So now the monks could use their magic again. But apparently the attackers had anticipated such a turn, for the square was all but abandoned, and the bombardment continued only from afar, with catapults launching their bombs from behind the cover of adjacent buildings.
Braumin knew that the end was fast approaching. St. Precious was in shambles, with fires burning in several places, and the integrity of the walls and the strong gates seemed in question. And Braumin understood that Aydrian, if he so chose, could smash down those gates as easily as he had breached the city itself.
But he had not, as yet.
Braumin had no answers. Only twenty brothers remained inside the abbey with him, and they had abandoned all futile efforts to bolster the failing defenses or even to put out the fires. They were assembled in the main chapel, praying, and, like Braumin, waiting for the end.
The bishop moved past them, offering reassurances that God was with them, and then continu
ed out of the room to the back side of the abbey.
At the back wall of the abbey, Bishop Braumin looked out over the rolling waters of the Masur Delaval, and across the towering masts of the Palmaris warships that had closed on the docks as Aydrian had taken the wall. His dear friend Viscenti was out there, he knew, looking back at him.
Braumin clutched his soul stone closer and fell into it. He sent his spirit out, rushing across the waters. St. Precious was lost, he knew. Palmaris had fallen. But there was a lesson here that had to get to St.-Mere-Abelle. There was a measure of Aydrian that would prove invaluable to the brothers who would defend that great abbey, that greatest fortress in all the world, when Aydrian Boudabras at last came against them.
Braumin’s spirit did find the weeping master. He went to the man, knowing that he could be no more than a warm feeling to the confused Viscenti. Markwart had once used the gemstones for actual communication across the miles; Jilseponie could do so, to a degree, as well—but not Braumin. He had never been very powerful with the stones, and so all he could do now was approach Viscenti and concentrate with all his heart and soul on that which he had witnessed, hoping to impart some sense to the master of the power of this enemy Aydrian.
Viscenti reacted to the presence of Braumin by standing up suddenly, his eyes going wide.
Braumin called out to him and focused on those images of Aydrian’s exploits.
He held the connection for as long as he could, though he had no idea of how much added information he had offered to Viscenti in the one-way exchange.
A voice broke his concentration.
Braumin turned suddenly, and then nearly fell over, for there before him stood Marcalo De’Unnero, wearing a wry smile, and wearing, as one arm, the limb of a tiger, its end bloody.
“And so we meet yet again, Brother Braumin,” De’Unnero said.
“Ever enduring is evil,” the bishop replied.
“Ever enduring is your folly,” De’Unnero replied with a laugh. “Need I tell you that the king of Honce-the-Bear has seen fit to relieve you of your duties as bishop of Palmaris?”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 187
