“Would your friend Aydrian be an unworthy leader? A tyrant?”
“He is not Behrenese,” Brynn answered. “And the Abellicans are not Chezru, nor do they completely understand the concept and faith of the Chezru people.”
“A faith that has been shattered.”
“But still, is conquest the answer to their suddenly unheeded prayers?” Brynn came back emphatically, and she could see by Pagonel’s expression that he had led her to this place purposefully. “Have I helped to push the Behrenese under the rule of a foreign army and church, as my own people were subjugated by the Behrenese?”
“Will the Behrenese be better off because of that?” the mystic asked.
“No,” Brynn answered without the slightest hesitation. “The same was said of the To-gai-ru, that the Behrenese were showing us a better way of living. They were teaching us to tame the land to our needs, rather than to live in accordance with the steppes.”
“And you do not believe that truth?”
“No, because they were stealing from us our very identity,” Brynn answered. “The old ways of the To-gai-ru were more than traditions, they were our very identity. To have that stolen away without choice …”
Pagonel’s soft expression told her that he had been hoping for that very answer.
“No, I will not be comfortable if Honce-the-Bear entrenches itself in power over Behren,” Brynn declared. “I will rue the part I played in such a course. Behren is for the Behrenese, and To-gai is for the To-gai-ru. If the people of Honce-the-Bear, even the Abellican priests, wish to aid Behren in this time of crisis, even if they wish to influence the wayward Chezru flock, that is acceptable. But using this crisis to conquer is not.”
“Perhaps the time is fast approaching for you to meet with your old friend Aydrian.”
“I have not dismissed Agradeleous,” Brynn replied.
“Nor should you. We will need the dragon for mobility, if not for war.”
“We?” Brynn loaded her voice with hope. She had thought that Pagonel would soon be on his way again to his southern home.
“The Walk of Clouds is an ancient place,” the mystic replied. “It will be there for me a year from now, or two.”
“Your place is at my side.”
The mystic draped a comforting arm about Brynn’s small but strong shoulders as the two of them stood there, staring out to the dark east.
“They wasted little time,” Brynn said to her scout when he returned to inform her that the army headed by Yatol De Hamman and marching under the banner of Jacintha was even then assaulting Avrou Eesa to the southeast. Avrou Eesa had been the home of Yatol Tohen Bardoh and was one of the most important Behrenese cities, the largest and strongest of all within the western stretches of the kingdom now that Dharyan-Dharielle was under To-gai-ru control.
The woman looked to Pagonel, who was seated at her side. “I must go there,” she said, and to her surprise, her advisor didn’t immediately disagree, and didn’t even look as if he wanted to. He sat there, staring ahead, holding a pensive pose and gently stroking his chin.
“I could get there and return in short order,” he replied. “I could fly Agradeleous about the city and learn much.”
“I wish to see for myself,” said Brynn. “The manner in which Jacintha treats the citizenry of Tohen Bardoh’s home city might tell us much about what to expect from the strange alliance that has formed in the east.”
A slight agreeing nod was all the answer Pagonel offered.
Within the hour, Brynn and Pagonel rode out from Dharyan-Dharielle, accompanied by two hundred To-gai-ru riders. The dragon Agradeleous, back in his huge reptilian form, circled overhead, flying lookout with his keen eyesight and ready to heed Brynn’s call.
She used the dragon a few times over the next couple of days as they made their way south along the base of the great plateau dividing To-gai and Behren. With Agradeleous’ great speed and strength, Brynn flew up to the plateau top and brought in more of her warriors, many of whom had been assembled along this divide. Thus, by the time the troupe approached Avrou Eesa, less than a week after setting out from Dharyan-Dharielle, they numbered closer to five hundred.
After reconnaissance from the high perch atop Agradeleous showed them that the city had already fallen to De Hamman, Brynn brought her warriors within sight of the western walls, then broke free with Pagonel and a group of a dozen, riding in under a flag of truce.
The Dragon of To-gai, who had conquered this city in the war only months before, knew that she would not be warmly welcomed if any of the original Avrou Eesa guardsmen were still at their posts. But they weren’t, for De Hamman had swept the city, and the guards greeting the To-gai-ru from the watchtowers on the western gate were men of Jacintha.
And, Brynn and Pagonel both noted, a few light-complexioned warriors wearing the heavier armor of Honce-the-Bear.
The To-gai-ru group was admitted openly into the conquered city, and even cheered by some of the soldiers—and why not? Brynn thought. Hadn’t she and her companions turned the tide in the battle for their home city? Had Bardoh prevailed, how many of these men would even still be alive?
“I will speak with Yatol De Hamman,” Brynn said to the commander of the watch, and he motioned a pair of soldiers front and center and ordered them to take her at once to the Chezru temple Yatol De Hamman had set up as his temporary palace.
Before even entering that battle-worn but still impressive place, Brynn had many of her questions answered.
For laid out on the square before the temple were dozens of wounded soldiers, all wearing the red-stitched turbans associated with Yatol Bardoh. Obviously injured in the battle, or after the battle, these poor souls had little in the way of comforts. Many onlookers lined that scene of suffering, but none dared approach within the ring of Jacintha soldiers. Women pleaded for their husbands, and children cried, but the sentries seemed impassive to it all, casually marching the perimeter and enthusiastically beating back any who attempted to move in toward the lines of wounded.
Even more telling, Abellican monks and Chezru students walked among the wounded, bending low and speaking with them.
Brynn walked Runtly, her brown-and-white pinto pony, aside and dismounted, moving to join in one such discussion.
“The pain will end,” a Chezru student was saying to one emaciated and grievously injured man. “We will bring your wife and daughter inside with us, and they will hold your hands as Master Mackaront here shows you the truth of St. Abelle and Chezru. You will learn the beauty of our joined hands, my friend.”
The wounded man looked away in obvious disdain and the Chezru student straightened, spat upon him, and moved to the next in line.
Or started to, until Brynn stopped him. “How long have they been out here?”
The men turned to her; Mackaront flashed a toothy smile. “It is good to see you,” he started to say, but Brynn stopped him with a severe look and an upraised hand.
“How long have they been out here?” she asked again.
“Three days,” the Chezru student offered. “There were many more, of course, but some succumbed to their wounds.” His face brightened. “But many more have come to see the truth, and are even now resting comfortably!”
Brynn turned her stern look over to the Abellican master. “You hold their families and their very lives up before them with your offer of relief?” she asked incredulously. “Is this how Abellicans spread the word of their god?”
“They must accept the possibility that they have been deceived all these long years by a tyrant,” Mackaront replied, and it seemed to Brynn that these were well-practiced words. “They must show some repentance, at least, to counter their years of blindness. We of St. Abelle are a generous and kind lot, but our God-given magic cannot be bestowed upon our enemies nor upon heretics.”
Brynn tightened her jaw but resisted the urge to scream at him. She knew that she wasn’t going to get anywhere, so she turned away, glancing back once to soak in the p
itiful image of the wretch on the ground, then moved more forcefully to catch up and pass her companions, striding with grim determination for the palace.
She was the first to stand before Yatol De Hamman, and neither offered nor waited for any formal greetings. “How can you accept this?” she asked.
The man put on a confused look, one that Brynn didn’t believe for a moment.
“You are forcing Behrenese to embrace the Abellican Church,” Brynn explained. “You wear the robes of a Yatol of Chezru, yet you deny those robes and tenets before this holy place.”
A commotion from behind turned Brynn, to see her companions standing calmly behind her, and to see litter-bearers taking in the same man she had seen lying before the feet of Master Mackaront outside the palace. A woman and a younger girl, the man’s wife and daughter, obviously, flanked him, holding his hands and crying, while Mackaront moved beside him as well, clutching one hand to his chest, the other set upon the wounded man’s injured side.
“Does your desecration know no bounds?” Brynn asked De Hamman.
“Desecration?” the Yatol replied skeptically. “Because we have come to understand the deception of Douan? Because we have embraced friends from the north?”
“Abellican friends,” Brynn reminded. “Men who follow a different God, and men who have never been true friends of Behren.” She did note a bit of a wince there, and suspected that maybe De Hamman’s feelings didn’t run quite as deep as his words seemed to indicate.
“Release the hatred from your soul, Brynn Dharielle,” De Hamman bade her. “We live in enlightened times. Better times.”
“You throw away everything that gave Behren its very soul!” Brynn argued, but then a hand on her shoulder calmed her, and she glanced over to see Pagonel standing beside her.
“As you embrace the heretic mystics of the Jhesta Tu?” De Hamman retorted.
Brynn let the comment go and forced herself to a place of calm. She understood the error of the analogy, of course—the Jhesta Tu weren’t making any claims within To-gai, after all—and in that understanding, she allowed herself to dismiss the remark out of hand.
“Who leads Behren, Yatol De Hamman?” she asked. “Is it Yatol Mado Wadon? Or has Abbot Olin of Honce-the-Bear stepped forward behind this screen of ‘enlightenment’?”
That, too, seemed to sting the man a bit, but then he shook it off visibly and regained his firm posture. “I would be dead now,” he replied. “Without the aid that Abbot Olin brought to Jacintha in her hour of need, I would lie dead amid the bodies of so many good Chezru.”
The simple statement did set Brynn back a bit.
“And dead to what heaven?” De Hamman went on. “The one promised by Chezru Douan? The same one that he was too afraid to face through all those centuries when he stole the souls of unborn children to perpetuate his own wretched existence?”
Brynn paused a long moment to digest that heavy remark, to consider the weight behind it. Yakim Douan’s deception had been so horrible that it had torn Behren apart and shattered the foundations of the Chezru religion. De Hamman was not unique among the Chezru clergy, obviously, and the weight of war and suffering could do much to convert those less learned in their ancient traditions. With that thought in mind, Brynn glanced back at the curtain behind which Mackaront and the others had disappeared, and noted that no more agonized screams were coming forth.
“Is this friendship?” the woman asked De Hamman. “Or conquest?”
The man’s response cut her to her heart, and warned her that great trouble might well be brewing in the kingdom to the east. “Does it matter?”
Chapter 26
Information Gathering
“WE HAVE AT LAST A KING WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT THE SACRED GEMSTONES, AS the gifts of God, are the province of the priests who represent that God,” Marcalo De’Unnero told an attentive gathering of monks one morning in St. Precious. “With King Aydrian’s blessing, we might go about the task of returning the gemstones to the Abellican Church.”
That announcement was received with many assenting nods and even a few cheers—although the brothers in attendance of course knew that De’Unnero and the monks he had brought out of St. Honce in Ursal had set about doing that very thing all along the march up the Masur Delaval.
However, one older brother, a master of St. Precious who had been in Palmaris for many years, seemed not so enthusiastic, and his expression was not lost on those around him nor on De’Unnero as he surveyed his brethren army.
“Master DeNauer?” he prompted.
The older man—older than De’Unnero, and appearing much older than the unnaturally aging weretiger—looked up with sleepy gray eyes. “Have you not tried this once before, Master De’Unnero?” DeNauer asked. “Was this not the mission of Bishop De’Unnero when he represented Father Abbot Markwart in Palmaris?”
Marcalo De’Unnero stared at the man, trying to place him, trying to remember him. Had this one been among the treacherous brothers surrounding Braumin Herde back in those days? A follower of Jojonah and Avelyn, perhaps? De’Unnero’s scrutiny turned into a scowl and he felt the stirring of the beast within in simply thinking such things. He fought that feral urge away, temporarily at least, by reminding himself that he and Aydrian had screened the brothers of the conquered abbey cautiously, and that only those showing an open mind toward Aydrian and this new incarnation of the Abellican Church had been allowed to see the light of day since the conquest. And Aydrian’s tactics in his interrogations, De’Unnero knew, went far beyond the insights of human perception. Aydrian had used gemstones to scour the thoughts of the surrendering brothers, to learn which among them were too far engrossed with the lies of Braumin Herde to be of use to De’Unnero’s Church.
“And do you believe that Father Abbot Markwart was errant in everything he proposed?” De’Unnero asked, narrowing his dark eyes.
Master DeNauer rested back in his chair and didn’t blink as he took in that threatening stare.
“Because you see, brother,” De’Unnero went on when it was apparent that no answer would be forthcoming, “it is my understanding, and that of our new king, that the followers of Avelyn Desbris, in their elation over the end of the rosy plague and in their confidence since the fall of Father Abbot Markwart, have seized the opportunity to press too far in their understanding of the generosity of the Abellican Church. Perhaps we should open the coffers of every abbey, and hand out gemstones to every peasant who desires one. Perhaps we should even train such peasants to use the stones!” He moved about as he spoke, waving his arms with dramatic flourish. “Perhaps Brother Avelyn’s belief that we of the Church are no different than those peasants whom we serve is the correct approach!”
“I have never heard such a thing attributed to Saint Avelyn,” Master DeNauer dared to say, and the man’s reference to Avelyn as a saint stung De’Unnero profoundly.
“Saint Avelyn?” De’Unnero echoed with great skepticism.
“All that remains is the formal declaration from St.-Mere-Abelle,” Master DeNauer replied. “The canonization process has been successfully concluded, has it not?”
“No proclamation from St.-Mere-Abelle at this time holds any weight, dear brother,” De’Unnero was quick to correct. “Not until, or unless, that body recognizes Aydrian as king.”
“And by extension, Marcalo De’Unnero as Father Abbot?”
The question sent a surge of anger running through De’Unnero’s body, one that awakened primal urges within him at every point. He needed Aydrian then, he realized. Or Sadye! Someone to tame the weretiger that was fast rising within him. He fought to reason with himself; if the beast came forth at this time and tore the bothersome DeNauer apart, then how would he ever hope to retain any semblance of control over the rest of the clergy? His credibility would be gone in the flash of a deadly tiger’s paw!
He fought hard and fell into the discipline that Aydrian had shown him. He closed his eyes, found a point of meditation, and gradually resisted those urges.
He tucked his right arm up under the wide sleeve of his robe, as well, and it was good that he had, for he knew that beneath the brown fabric was not the limb of a human, but the deadly tearing paw of a great cat.
But the mind controlling that paw, thanks to the teaching of Aydrian, was not the primal, instinctive brain of a great hunting cat.
De’Unnero opened his eyes and stared hard at the obstinate master. “When King Aydrian claimed Palmaris, an honest question of allegiance was asked of every brother,” he reminded.
“Aydrian is king,” DeNauer replied.
“And?”
“And the Abellican Church has veered from its course,” the master admitted. “Abbot Olin should have been elected Father Abbot those years ago when Master Fio Bou-raiy was given the mantle.”
“Even now, Abbot Olin shows us his worth as a great leader!” De’Unnero interrupted, seizing the moment. “He is expanding the Church beyond anything that has been done since the sixth century. His strides exceed everything that was attempted by all the Alpinadoran missionaries combined.” He moved about as he spoke, basking in the glow of admiring eyes. “But,” De’Unnero said, stopping suddenly and holding up his index finger to punctuate his words, “Abbot Olin’s duties will keep him away for many months, for many years, perhaps. In his absence, King Aydrian has other intentions for the Abellican Church within Honce-the-Bear, and we ignore the wishes of our wise young king at our peril.”
“Father Abbot De’Unnero!” one enthusiastic young brother cried out, and many others cheered their assent.
De’Unnero watched Master DeNauer as the applause grew, and noted that the man, though obviously less enthusiastic, was not openly disagreeing. Even his body posture hadn’t gone tight and defensive.
“Master DeNauer,” De’Unnero said when the cheering died away, “do you disagree with this premise?”
“If I did, then I would not be here at this time, brother,” the older monk replied, and De’Unnero did not miss the double entendre of his words.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 210
