DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (8 page)

Then her hand broke through into an open area. She reached deeper, perhaps a foot and a half down, and her hand met cold, wet ground. Olwan had used large slabs for the base, and, as Pony suspected, the house hadn't completely settled.

The smoke grew thick about Pony; Olwan's house, too, went up in flames.

Still she dug, widening the hole, trying desperately to squeeze under the slab.

The angry young man didn't have long to wait. The goblin band, sentries apparently and not part of the attacking force, did not continue down toward Dundalis but split ranks and filtered left and right into the trees.

Elbryan went left, shadowing a group of three. He heard the continuing screams in Dundalis, more of a pitiful weeping now than any cries of resistance.

He saw the houses burning, was close enough to realize that his own house was among them.

That only fueled the young man's outrage. He stalked quietly from tree to tree, and when one of the goblins paused and fell behind the others, he was quickly to the spot.

The kill was swift, a single thrust through the creature's ribs, but not quiet, for the goblin managed to let out a dying cry.

Elbryan tore free his sword and started to run, but too late. He swiped left and right, picking off a pair of thrusting spears as the two other goblins bore down on him, howling and shouting. Their eyes — so full of glee, so uncaring for their fallen comrade — unnerved Elbryan, and he tried hard not to look at them, tried to concentrate on their stabbing spears.

All the while he was backtracking, realizing he had to flee before the other group answered the howling, call. The goblin on his left came in hard and straight. Elbryan snapped his sword over and around the spear, angling it past on his right, and he skittered out to the left, up the slope, gaining the higher ground.

All advantage was lost as the young man stumbled, the loose earth slipping out from under his foot. The other goblin ran around the back of its companion and moved higher, coming in at Elbryan from above.

Desperately, he threw himself backward, put a foot under him, and kicked off, flying past the turning spear of the first goblin and rushing to get out of range of the second. He slashed out with his sword as he careened past, gaining hope as he felt it connect with something solid.

Then the world was spinning as Elbryan bounced and rolled. He finally controlled his slide and tried to angle himself so he could stop his roll and come up in a defensive posture. He expected the goblin — perhaps both of the creatures — to be right behind him.

They weren't. The one Elbryan had slashed lay very still on the ground — 
apparently he had hit it harder than he'd believed. The other was also on the ground, squirming and groaning.

The only explanation Elbryan could think of was that it had charged at him as he had leaped away and had slammed hard against the ground or against a tree trunk. Not one to argue with good fortune, Elbryan scrambled to his feet.

Something tapped him on the shoulder, not hard at first, but then he was flying once more, sidelong this time. He hit the ground in a roll but slammed hard against a tree trunk as he came around. Confused and dazed, Elbryan staggered to his feet.

And all hope flew from him as a fomorian giant, holding a club as large as Elbryan's entire body, casually walked toward him. And Elbryan heard hoots from behind him and knew the other four goblins were on the way.

The young man glanced all around. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He braced himself, used the solid tree as support. When the giant was within one huge stride, Elbryan leaped out, trying to confuse it with sheer savagery. He stabbed and slashed, came in close to the monster's knees and stabbed again, then rolled right between the giant's legs.

But the giant had seen the move dozens of times in its battles with little folk. Elbryan got halfway through before the giant clamped his knees together, holding the youth so securely he could barely draw breath. Elbryan tried to stab the monster again, but the giant squeezed even tighter, and all the young man could do was groan. He managed to turn sideways, and from that perspective could see the giant's club rise up over its head.

A sickening feeling washed over Elbryan. Stubborn to the end, he stabbed again as hard as he could, then closed his eyes.

The air came alive with a strange humming sound. The giant released its grip and Elbryan fell to the ground. He scrambled out, running on for several steps. He heard the continuing whistles and thought for a moment that a swarm of bees had flown up around him. Instinctively he whipped out his band, and then he cried out for the sudden sting and pulled it back in close.

He turned about, regarding the giant, which was dancing and slapping at the air. Beyond it he could see a pair of the four goblins that were coming in, both of them jerking weirdly and then falling to the ground.

"What?" Elbryan asked in "utter confusion. Dots of red, like grotesque chicken pox, covered the giant's face and arms. Looking closer, and then at his own injured hand; Elbryan realized that these were not caused by bees, but were bolts, small arrows, the likes of which he had never seen.

Scores and scores of small arrows, filling the air all about him!

But they hardly seemed to stop the behemoth. The fomorian charged ahead with a tremendous, hideous howl, its cudgel going high. Elbryan, puny and helpless beneath it, held aloft his short sword, though he could not possibly deflect such a mighty blow.

The next volley was concentrated, sixty arrows flying fast for the giant's face and throat, sixty bolts that looked indeed like a swarm of bees. The fomorian staggered once, twice, and then again, as the bolts burrowed in, one on top of the other, a dozen on top of the previous dozen. Finally, the stinging ended, and the fomorian tried to move forward, back toward its prey. But before it could get anywhere near to the young man, the giant went down, choking in its own blood.

Elbryan never saw it; he had fainted dead away.

Brother Avelyn turned hard on the crank, both wood and man groaning with each rotation. When would that bucket finally appear? the young novice wondered.

"Faster," insisted Quintall, Aveyln's work partner and classmate. The class had been divided by birth dates; Avelyn and Quintall had been put, together solely because they had been born in the same week, and not for compatibility, either physical or emotional. Indeed, the two seemed obviously mismatched. Quintall was the shortest man in the class of twenty-five, while Avelyn was among the tallest. Both were large boned, but Avelyn was gawky and awkward, whereas Quintall was muscular, a fine athlete.

They were opposites in temperament, as well: Avelyn calm and reverent, always in control, and Quintall a "firework," as Master Siherton, the class overseer, often appropriately referred to him.

"Is it near?" Avelyn asked after a few more unrewarded turns.

"Halfway," Quintall answered coldly, "if that."

Avelyn sighed deeply and put his aching arms into motion.

Quintall offered a disgusted snort; he would have had the bucket up by this time and the pair could have gone off and gotten their midday meal. But it was Avelyn's turn to crank, and the taskmasters were particular about such things. If Quintall tried to sneak in and push that crank, it would likely cost them both their meal.

"He is an impatient one," noted Master Jojonah, a portly man of about fifty, with soft brown eyes and rich brown hair that showed not a speck of gray.

Jojonah's skin was tanned and smooth, except for a fan of lines spreading out from each of his eyes — "credibility wrinkles," he called them.

"Firework," explained Master Siherton, tall and angular and thin, though his shoulders were wide, protruding many inches from either side of his skinny neck. Siherton's features befit his rank of class overseer, the disciplinarian of the newest brothers. His face was sharp and hawkish, his eyes small and dark 
— and smaller still on those many occasions that he squinted ominously at his young students. "Quintall is full of passion," he added with obvious admiration.

Jojonah regarded the man curiously. They were inside the abbey's highest chamber, a long, narrow room with windows overlooking the rough ocean breakers on one side and the abbey courtyard on the other. All twenty-four-one novice had been forced to leave because of illness — brothers of the newest class were out in the courtyard, tending their chores, but the focus of the two masters was Avelyn and Quintall, considered the exceptional novices.

"Avelyn is the best of the class," Jojonah remarked, mostly to gauge Siherton's reaction.

The taller man shrugged noncommittally.

"Some say that he is the best in many years," Jojonah pressed. It was true enough; Avelyn's incredible dedication was fast becoming the talk of St.-Mere-Abelle.

Again, the shrug. "He is without passion," Siherton replied.

"Without human passion because he is closer to God?" Jojonah replied, thinking that he had finally caught Siherton.

"Perhaps because he is already dead," the tall man said dryly, and he turned to glare at his counterpart.

Master Jojonah settled back on his heels but met the penetrating stare firmly. It was no secret that Siherton favored Quintall among this most important class, but the man's overt insult of Avelyn, the choice of every other master — and reportedly of Father Abbot Markwart as well — surprised him.

"We received news this day that his mother died," Siherton said evenly.

Jojonah looked back at the courtyard, to Avelyn at work as always as though nothing was amiss. "You have told him?"

"I did not bother."

"What macabre game do you play?"

Again came that annoying shrug. "Would he care?" Siherton replied. "He would say that she is with God now, and so she is happy; and then he would go on."

"Do you mock his faith?" Jojonah asked rather sharply.

"I despise his inhumanity," replied Siherton. "His mother has died, yet will he care? I think not. Brother Avelyn is so smug within the cocoon of his beliefs that nothing can unbalance him."

"That is the glory of faith," Jojonah said evenly.

"That is a waste of life," Siherton retorted as he leaned out the window.

"You, Brother Quintall!" he called.

Both the novices stopped their work and looked up at the window. "Go to your meal," Master Siherton instructed. "And you, Brother Avelyn, do come and join with me at my — at Master Jojonah's chambers." Siherton pulled back into the hall and eyed Jojonah.

"Let us see if our young hero has any heart at all;" Siherton remarked coldly, and he stalked off toward the stairwell that would lead him down to the master's quarters.

Jojonah watched him for a long moment, wondering which of them it was, Siherton or Avelyn, who was truly lacking in heart.

"You are using this loss for a most unworthy point," Jojonah insisted when he caught up to Siherton three levels below.

"He must be told," Siherton replied. "Let us not miss the opportunity to measure this man in whom we may soon put so much trust."

Jojonah caught Siherton by the shoulder, stopping him in mid-stride.

"Avelyn has spent eight years proving himself worthy," he reminded the taller man. "Unbeknownst to him, he has been under constant scrutiny these last four years. What more would Siherton demand?"

"He must prove that he is a man," the hawkish master growled. "He must prove that he can feel. There is more to spirituality than piety, my friend.

There is emotion, anger, passion."

"Eight years," Jojonah repeated.

"Perhaps the next class —"

"Too late," Master Jojonah said quietly. "The Preparers must be selected from this class, or from one of the three previous, and not a man among the seventy-five admitted in the last three years has shown the promise of Avelyn Desbris." Jojonah paused and spent a long while studying the other man. Siherton knew the truth of Jojonah's words, and seemed now caught within that truth, helpless in the face of reality. His arguments against Avelyn would be duly noted, but they rang hollow in light of the choices before the abbey. And even with any credible arguments, Siherton's posture, bordering on anger, on outrage, seemed so out of place.

"Why, my dear Siherton," Jojonah said a moment later, figuring it out, 
"you are jealous!"

Master Siherton growled and turned away, heading for the door to Jojonah's private room.

"Our misfortune to be born between the showers," Jojonah said, sincerely sympathetic to Siherton's frustration. "But we have our duty. Brother Avelyn is the best of the lot."

The words stung Siherton profoundly. He stopped at the door, bowed his head; and closed his eyes, conjuring images of the young Avelyn. Always working or praying; there were no other recollections of Avelyn to be found. Strength, or weakness? Siherton wondered, and he wondered, too, about the potential danger of having one so devout getting involved with the precious stones. There were pragmatic matters concerning the magic which might not sit well in a man so deep in faith, in a man so obviously convinced that he understood the desires of God.