“Aydrian is my son,” she said.
“He is,” Lady Dasslerond answered, her tone flat and showing no emotion at all.
“You stole him from me, on the field outside of Palmaris.”
“I did.”
Pony felt her legs go weak for just an instant, and then felt a sudden surge of strength course through her body, imploring her to leap ahead and throttle the diminutive elf.
“And if I had not, then both mother and child would have died on that field, the victims of the demon dactyl,” Lady Dasslerond went on, stealing a bit of that urge. “The victims of the same demon dactyl who had defeated Jilseponie and was chased away by the rescue of the Touel’alfar.”
“That does not afford you the right—”
“The same demon dactyl that once found its way to Andur’Blough Inninness, after I had rescued yet another group of humans from its clutches. Once there, the beast placed its stain upon the ground, upon the lifeblood of our valley. Only the child taken from Jilseponie on the field, where she and he surely would have died, offered the promise of defeating that growing demon rot.”
Pony stammered and sputtered, recognizing the logic but denying the conclusion. “That does not give to you the right to steal my child!” the completely frustrated woman yelled at last.
Dasslerond’s reply came as an emotionless and distant stare, as if Pony’s words had meant nothing at all to the Lady of Caer’alfar.
Which of course, was true.
“How can you stand there and look at me like that?” Pony asked. “Do you care not at all what you have done to me? To Aydrian?”
“I saved your life, and his.”
“You stole a child!” Pony yelled at her, but her strength was going even as she finished the sentence, and she continued with a voice that was clearly wavering. “Could you not have come back for me? Could you not have brought me to him? Have told me at least that he was alive and well?”
Dasslerond did flinch, just a tiny bit, but it was stopped by a strong resumption of her icy visage. “Your life was saved at a price.”
“Never one that I agreed upon!”
“It does not matter,” the Lady of Caer’alfar said. “I acted as my people needed me to act, for the good of the Touel’alfar—indeed, for the very survival of the Touel’alfar. That was my concern, and not the broken heart of a human woman. You are no enemy of the Touel’alfar, Jilseponie. Do remember that our intervention back in Dundalis those decades ago when the goblins overran the town allowed you to live. Do remember that our sacrifices were considerable in the war against the demon dactyl, and for the good of man as much as for the good of the Touel’alfar. You know bi’nelle dasada, and many other secrets of my people, and yet we have taken pity on you and allowed you to live. This is no small matter, Jilseponie. Release your anger toward us, here and now. Our days together are at their end.”
“We have never had any days together,” Pony spat back at her.
Dasslerond conceded the point. “My duty is to my people, as yours is to your own, first and foremost,” she said. “And your duty now demands that you do battle against the forces that have darkened your lands.”
“You ask me to wage war against my own son?”
“Do you believe that any of us have a choice?” asked Dasslerond. “You do not understand who he is. He is mightier with the gemstones than any who have come before, and greater with the blade, perhaps, than was Elbryan himself! He has Oracle—we thought that the gift would inspire him to follow his true path. But alas, he has found naught but ill counsel there!”
“And ill counsel from those humans closest about him,” Belli’mar Juraviel added, and neither Pony nor Dasslerond was about to disagree with that.
“Fear him,” Dasslerond warned the woman. “You cannot understand the truth of him until it is too late for you.”
“For you, you mean,” Pony accused.
Dasslerond didn’t flinch at all, didn’t even blink. “Return to your people,” she said, and she moved her hand holding the emerald up before her. “Defeat your son, for the good of the humans if not for the good of the Touel’alfar. Forget that we exist, Jilseponie, for your own sake …”
The elf’s voice began to waver and fade, and Jilseponie felt herself receding, back to Dundalis, she knew. But she lifted her own stone, too angry to let it go at that, with too much hatred for the superior-minded Lady of Caer’alfar. She dove into the hematite, releasing her spirit, and charged at Dasslerond.
She nearly overwhelmed the elven lady in that initial assault, nearly got through the iron willpower of Lady Dasslerond that had kept together the Touel’alfar and their enchanted valley for centuries.
But then there came a sudden distortion of distance, a spinning vision of landscapes, as Dasslerond, in her horror, abruptly retreated.
Pony felt as if she was falling from on high, as the spinning ground leaped up to swallow her.
And then it was over, suddenly, and she lay in a pool of cold water on a field of clay and soft mud. Her body aching from the hard landing, she pulled herself up to her knees and looked all about.
She was in the Moorlands, she realized. The desolate, goblin-infested wastelands far to the west of Dundalis. She glanced all around, though she knew that the elves were not with her. In that moment of confusion and attack, Dasslerond had retreated—likely back to Andur’Blough Inninness.
And Pony was left alone in a desolate and hostile region, without food and without a weapon.
She fell back and put her wet and muddy hands over her face, defeated.
Chapter 17
The Dragon Revealed
IT TOOK THE THUMP OF AGRADELEOUS LANDING BESIDE HER TO BREAK BRYNN from her trance. Seeing the headless body of Yatol Bardoh lying in the sand before her was almost too much for her. The image, the reality of having finally avenged her parents, made her think back to her childhood days on the steppes of To-gai. The circumstances around her childhood had not been happy: the Behrenese conquerors were a brutal lot; and her parents, both resisting the occupation, had been almost constantly on the run. Still, Brynn’s mother and father had nurtured her and loved her, taught her the old ways. They had taught Brynn that there was something bigger than she, something bigger than all of them, and that they were a part of it, living in harmony with the soil, the plants, and the animals. They had given so much to her in the few years they had known her.
And then they were gone, taken by the wickedness of this man, Tohen Bardoh—now a headless corpse bleeding into the dirt before her.
“The battle continues,” came a voice, and Brynn looked around to see Pagonel coming over the dune behind her.
Brynn moved to join him, and saw the Chezhou-Lei warrior sitting in the sand, rubbing his throat. She shook her head, confused, certain that her strike should have proven fatal. But then she figured it out and looked over at her companion.
“You healed him.”
“He will not fight us again,” said the mystic. “Was I to allow him to die?”
“He tried to kill us.”
“He protected his master, as his code of honor demanded.” The mystic glanced back at Bardoh’s corpse, drawing Brynn’s gaze with his own. “His master needs protecting no longer.”
Brynn considered the words and the logic. Ever was Pagonel tempering her fighting spirit, ever was he edging her toward mercy.
Ever was Pagonel making Brynn a better person and a better leader.
“The battle continues,” Pagonel remarked, and they both looked back toward Jacintha, where the sounds of metal ringing against metal and the screams of the wounded and victor alike echoed in the air.
“Where are the emissaries?”
“Hiding,” the mystic explained. “Come. Perhaps the sight of Brynn and Agradeleous will convince these warriors that nothing more is to be gained here.”
Brynn turned with him and started for the dragon, but she stopped and ran to the side instead, scooping up something from the sand. Pagonel wa
s already astride the dragon when she got there, offering her his arm to pull her up behind him.
A short run and but two flaps of Agradeleous’ great leathery wings had them up into the air, flying to the east and banking to the north. Spying ships out in the harbor, Pagonel bade the dragon to stay along the coast, in full view of whoever was out there, be it friend or foe.
The sounds of battle diminished almost as soon as the great shadow of Agradeleous rolled across the battlefield. Behrenese traitor, loyalist, and Bearman alike rushed out from before the terrible splendor of Agradeleous, forgetting their own battles in the face of this much more significant danger.
And there sat Brynn astride the beast, clutching with one hand as the dragon swerved left and right and with her other hand aloft and in clear view, holding the head of Yatol Bardoh.
The Jacintha loyalists cheered.
The Behrenese followers of Peridan and Bardoh cowered and begged for mercy.
The soldiers of Honce-the-Bear filtered back, tightening ranks defensively. Unsure of this new presence, stunned by the sight of a dragon, the men of the northern kingdom continued their well-disciplined retreat right through the southern slum of Jacintha and back to the city wall.
Out in the harbor, Abbot Olin, Master Mackaront, and Duke Bretherford found themselves drawn to the rail, along with the other crewmen, to view the spectacle of the great beast. They had heard of dragons, of course—mostly in old legends—but none of them had ever actually seen one.
“The Dragon of To-gai,” mumbled Mackaront. “Then she is more than a legend, more than the imaginings of frightened Jacintha soldiers.”
“Our soldiers are in retreat,” Abbot Olin realized. “What does this portend?”
“Wisdom?” Bretherford asked dryly.
“The cheering along the wall names the dragon as an ally,” answered Master Mackaront, who was well aware of the previous agreements between Brynn of To-gai and Yatol Wadon, and who better understood the significance of this unexpected arrival. “It is Brynn Dharielle, come to the aid of Yatol Wadon.”
Abbot Olin started to turn to face the man, but couldn’t take his eyes from the spectacle of the beast as it swooped about the battlefield south of the city. “Send couriers to the docks,” he instructed Mackaront. “Nay, go yourself! Find out what this means.”
“You fear the arrival of the beast will bring trouble for you with your new friend Yatol Wadon?” Duke Bretherford asked when Mackaront walked away.
“Not so,” said Abbot Olin. “It is Brynn, once a friend of Aydrian from what De’Unnero and Sadye have told me. It is possible that our new young king has just found a great ally.”
If Abbot Olin could have pried his eyes from the dragon at that moment, he would have noticed that Duke Bretherford didn’t seem altogether pleased by that prospect.
Agradeleous didn’t join Brynn and Pagonel as they entered Jacintha later that day. There was no need to send the populace running in fear, after all, as would have undoubtedly occurred even if the dragon had gone in using his lizardman form.
The pair was greeted warmly by the soldiers at the southern gate and taken through the streets of Jacintha to the palace of Chom Deiru. Neither missed the significance of the many soldiers in the streets that night, particularly the many soldiers of Honce-the-Bear.
“It would seem that Yatol Wadon found another ally when he learned that To-gai would not aid him,” Brynn remarked.
“Long before that,” Pagonel corrected. “Such an army as this could not have been pieced together so quickly. It would seem that your friend who now leads the northern kingdom had determined weeks ago that he would support Yatol Wadon.”
His reference to Aydrian drew a look from Brynn. She had hardly been thinking of the young ranger these last weeks, too engrossed was she in setting up her own kingdom and, of late, in rousing Agradeleous and plotting her moves in favor of Wadon.
“Or perhaps it was Abbot Olin of Entel,” Pagonel went on. “He has had a long relationship with Jacintha, by all accounts.”
Brynn had no idea of the situation, for she had little knowledge of Honce-the-Bear. She had heard that Aydrian was king soon after she had forged a truce with Behren and settled into Dharyan-Dharielle, but it had been a single courier with only vague information. Was it possible that Aydrian was here in Chom Deiru waiting for her?
She got her answer—that he was not—a few moments later, when she and Pagonel were escorted into a grand dining hall where a huge feast had been set out. Paroud was there, along with Pechter Dan Turk, who ran forward to greet Brynn warmly.
Pechter Dan Turk then led the pair about the long table, which bent in a semicircle about the tables piled with food. So much food! More than Brynn had ever seen! Enough to feed a To-gai-ru tribe for half the winter.
And yet, there were only about twoscore people assembled, stuffing their faces, spilling their drinks, tossing half-eaten racks of pork and lamb to the floor without regard.
Pechter Dan Turk showed Brynn and Pagonel to Yatol Wadon first, and the old Behrenese priest nearly leaped across the table to embrace Brynn.
“You have brought the head of Bardoh, yes?” asked the man beside him, Yatol De Hamman, as he looked down at the sack Brynn carried.
She lifted it and nodded. “It is given as a show of support to Yatol Wadon,” she said. “Though I wished to leave it outside of this place where you are feasting.”
“Your escorts insisted that we bring it in,” Pagonel added.
“Of course they did!” cried the exuberant De Hamman, and indeed, it was obvious that he was thrilled to see his enemies vanquished. He motioned to a guard, who rushed over to take the satchel, and then, to Brynn’s disgust, the soldier pulled forth Bardoh’s head and placed it upon the table of food, in a predetermined spot, raised and central, at the end of a headless pig body.
Immediately, all of the feasting Behrenese rose up and lifted their glasses of wine in toast to the death of the traitor Bardoh, and then in another to the arrival of the Dragon of To-gai.
Brynn hid her disgust well.
At a nod from Yatol Wadon, Pechter Dan Turk led Brynn along the table, introducing the various Behrenese lords and Yatols and the Jacintha garrison commander. Then he took her to the three foreigners in attendance, Bearmen all.
“I give you Abbot Olin of Entel,” Pechter Dan Turk said, and the old monk rose and extended a hand covered in bejeweled rings toward Brynn.
Not understanding that she was supposed to kiss the back of that hand, Brynn gave it a rather lame shake.
Abbot Olin only smiled at her, then turned to the two men standing on his right. “This is Master Mackaront, my emissary to Jacintha,” he said, indicating another monk. “And beside him is Duke Bretherford of the Mirianic, a lord in high standing with King Aydrian Boudabras.”
Brynn couldn’t help but reveal her interest in that name as it was unexpectedly spoken, her light brown eyes flashing as she looked from Bretherford back to Abbot Olin.
“Do you know of my king?” Abbot Olin asked her.
“It is possible,” Brynn replied. “But it was many years ago, good Abbot. I knew an Aydrian once.”
“Trained by the Touel’alfar in the Wilderlands beyond Honce-the-Bear,” the abbot agreed, and Brynn could only stare at the man. “The son of Elbryan the Nightbird and Jilseponie Wyndon Ursal, who was queen of Honce-the-Bear before him. Yes, I suspect that it is the same Aydrian you once knew, good lady. Could there be two such extraordinary young men with the same name?”
Abbot Olin looked past Brynn, as if only then noticing Pagonel standing beside her. “You have walked a strange and unexpected road, good lady,” he said, a bit too politely. “And find yourself in strange and unexpected company.”
Pagonel didn’t flinch at the obvious insult, both in words and in the smirking way that Abbot Olin was regarding him, but Brynn surely took up the defense of her friend. “Could any less be said of Aydrian?” she remarked.
Abbot Olin merely b
owed and lifted his glass of wine in a salute.
Sensing the sudden tension, Pechter Dan Turk ushered the pair along to the far end of the table and their two assigned seats.
The food was wonderful and plentiful, the drink potent and brilliant, and a constant stream of entertainment—singers, musicians, and amazing dancers and acrobats—came through the dining hall, but neither Brynn nor Pagonel ever really settled in comfortably. Around them, the talk centered mostly on the appropriate punishment for Yatol Peridan and his traitors, and for those Jacintha warriors, many killed, some captured, and others fleeing across the desert, who had joined with Yatol Bardoh.
It struck Brynn as curious that Abbot Olin was participating so greatly in the discussion, and in what seemed to be more than just an advisory role.
Pagonel caught it, too. “It would seem that your friend Aydrian has forged a strong alliance here, one that goes beyond lending aid to Yatol Wadon in his time of desperation.”
Brynn didn’t like the tone of Pagonel’s voice, one full of concern, but she wasn’t really a part of the general discussion about the table, nor did she seem welcome to be. At one point, she did inquire of the man seated on her other side, a lesser Yatol, of the arrival of Abbot Olin, but he only replied cryptically that the Jacintha garrison was stronger than ever before, and that all of Behren would soon enough be put back in order.
When at last the feasting subsided, and the music went quiet, Brynn and Pagonel rose to leave. The mystic motioned Pechter Dan Turk to them, and the emissary, one of the few men in the room who had not passed out on the floor beneath the table, escorted them away.
First they went over to say their farewells to Yatol Wadon, who was standing off to the side, conversing with the trio from Honce-the-Bear.
It was Abbot Olin, though, and not Wadon, who stepped forward to greet Brynn and the Jhesta Tu, and it was obvious that the old man had indulged himself quite heavily that night. “Your action this day was that of a friend, and it will not be forgotten,” the abbot said to her, his voice slurred.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 199
