The Demon Awakens (20 page)

When the guests were excused, Connor took Jill across the town to the mansion of his uncle, the Baron Bildeborough. They entered quietly through a side door of the west wing, proceeding to the guest quarters, which were empty, save a pair of handmaidens Baron Bildeborough had put at Connor’s bidding. The two young women—younger than Jill even, though she had just passed eighteen—took Jill to the private chamber, a room that made her feel tiny indeed! The ceiling was high, the walls covered in grand tapestries, and both the bed and the hearth were of heroic proportions. For Jill, who had spent her life so simply, it seemed somehow obscene; a dozen people could sleep comfortably on that bed, and she needed a stepping stool to even get onto it!

She said nothing as the handmaidens helped her to get out of her great gown, making suggestions all the while as to how she should proceed, of this trick or that trick they had heard about. “A lady must be well practiced in the ways of lovemaking for royalty,” one of them remarked.

“Is there a girl in Palmaris that Connor Bildeborough could not bed?” the other added.

Jill thought she would throw up.

When the tittering pair finally left, Jill was sitting on the edge of the great cushiony bed, wearing only a simple silk nightgown that was too low cut, both front and back, and didn’t go nearly far enough down her legs. The night was chill for late August and the room drafty, but the handmaidens had lit a small fire in the hearth. Jill was just moving for it when the door swung open and Connor, dressed in the black pants and white shirt he had worn for the wedding and ball but without his boots, without his jacket, and without his belt, entered.

She started for the hearth; he cut her off and wrapped his arms about her.

“My Jilly,” he whispered, the word lost as his lips brushed against her neck.

Connor backed off almost immediately, his face crinkled in confusion. He could feel her tension, she knew, and that notion alone allowed her to relax a bit. Connor knew her so very well; he could sense her fear. He would be gentle with her, she believed, would give her all the time she needed. He loved her, after all!

Even as that thought cascaded down through Jill’s body, easing the muscles, Connor grabbed her and pulled her to him roughly, crushing his lips against hers. She hadn’t even time to consider the rush of passion, so surprised was she. She didn’t fight back, not at first, just stood there perfectly still.

She tasted his lips, felt his tongue brushing through.

In her mind, she heard a scream, agonized. The scream of a dying child, of her mother, of her village.

“No!” Jill growled, pushing him back.

She stood before him, panting.

“No?”

Jill could not find the breath to answer, to explain. She just stood there, shaking her head.

“No?” Connor yelled again, and he slapped her across the face.

Jill felt her knees buckle and she would have gone down, except Connor was on her again, squeezing her tight, kissing her all about the face and neck. “You cannot deny me,” he said.

Jill squirmed and twisted, not wanting to hurt him, even sympathetic to him, but simply unable to comply with his needs. Finally she worked her arm up under his and broke the hold enough so that she could move back a step.

“I am your husband,” Connor said evenly. “By law. I will do as I please with you.”

“I beg of you,” Jill said, her voice barely a whisper.

Connor threw up his arms and spun away from her. “You have kept me waiting all these months!” he roared. “I have dreamed about you, about this night. Nothing else in all the world matters but this night!” He spun back to face her, now several steps away.

Jill felt as if she must be the most horrible person in the world. She wanted to give in to Connor, to give him what he deserved for his patience. But those wings, those black wings, that distant scream!

Connor’s demeanor changed again, suddenly. “No more,” he declared, his voice low, even threatening. Jill watched helplessly as he tore open his shirt, leaving it back on his shoulders, then squirmed out of his pants.

She had never seen a nude man before, and certainly not like this! But whatever feelings the sight of Connor’s body—and he was indeed a beautiful man—might have inspired were washed away by the fear, by the black wings, by feelings that Jill could not understand.

Even worse, there was no love, no tenderness in his face as he stalked back to her, just heated desire, an almost angry passion. “Look at me!” he demanded, grabbing Jill by the shoulders and turning her roughly, forcing her to face him directly. “I am your husband. I will do as I please, when I please!” As if to accentuate his point, he reached over with one hand and tore down the side of Jill’s nightgown, pulling it low enough to reveal one of her breasts. The sight of it, round and firm and creamy white, seemed to calm him for a moment.

“You approve of my appearance,” he concluded.

Jill looked down. Her nipple stood hard, but it was not for love, not for excitement, just fear and a cold sensation that coursed through her entire body. Connor brought his hand to it and pinched it hard.

Jill winced and pulled away. “I beg of you,” she whispered again.

Her hesitance incited his rage once more. Connor grabbed her and pulled her down, and before she could move to protest, he was on top of her, his knee between her legs, forcing them apart.

“No!” she begged, and she could feel him prodding at her, tearing at her nightgown to get the material out of his way.

His passion seemed to mount, driving him on, forcing him closer, rougher.

Jill gasped for air that would not come. She heard the flapping wings, the screams, the dying. She pulled and turned, looking away as his hungry mouth descended, but he only pursued, pinning one of her arms, putting all of his weight atop her.

The screams, distant, agonized. Her mother dying!

Jill scraped her forearm on the sharp edge of the stone hearth. She looked up to see she was trapped by the raised hearth, no room to squirm, her head close to the stone. And Connor would not relent, prodding and pushing.

Her mind was lost to the swirl of the past—to the screams, to the sights, the smells of torn bodies swelling, growing thick with decay. She was there again, in that most horrible place, with no escape, with the death and the fire.

The fire.

She saw the ember fall from a log, orange glowing like the eye of some hideous night creature. She closed her hand on it and felt no pain, was beyond pain.

And then she turned and stuck it into the face of her attacker, into the face of this thing that was atop her, this thing that had killed her mother, had murdered all of her village. It howled and fell away, and Jill rolled out from under it and scrambled to the bed.

Her surroundings confused her. She saw the man—it was a man, it was Connor!—rise to his feet, clutch at his face, and run screaming out of the room.

Waves of pain, assaulted her suddenly; she threw the ember back into the fireplace.

What had she done?

She fell upon the bed, crying, clutching her burned hand in the other and pressing both of them under her, against her breasts. Her sobs did not relent for many minutes, for half an hour perhaps, for all of an hour. She did not stop, did not look up when she heard the door open, when she heard the sound of footsteps—more than one set—approaching.

She did not stop crying when she was grabbed roughly and turned about, her arms pinned out wide to the sides, her legs hooked under the knees and similarly pulled out wide.

The handmaidens had her securely, and Connor, the burns on his face mercifully not so bad, approached, wearing only his shirt, and with that garment open wide.

“You are my wife,” he said grimly

Jill had no more fight left in her. She looked up pleadingly at the two women that held her, but both seemed impassive, even somehow pleased by it all, by the sight of her, and of Connor—seemed pleased by her helplessness and their part in it.

She looked back as Connor climbed up onto the bed, moving right atop her.

She shook her head. “I beg,” she whispered.

Connor thrust against her, but she felt no stabbing point.

Connor lifted his head up from her, and he seemed to her truly hurt and saddened. He spun away in frustration, shifting off the bed right back to his feet.

“I cannot,” he admitted, looking back sharply, his eyes reflecting a simmering rage. “Take her out of here and lock her in a room,” he demanded of the handmaidens, who immediately and none too gently moved to comply. “We shall let the magistrate, Abbot Dobrinion, determine her fate in the morning. Take her!

“And then return to me,” Connor added, speaking to the handmaidens, but aiming the words at Jill’s heart. “Both of you.”

>
CHAPTER 18

>
The Test of Faith

Hour after endless hour, day after endless day, the
Windrunner
glided lazily across the sparkling glassy surface of the South Mirianic. The sun became the enemy; the air grew uncomfortably hot. All the time.

Avelyn thought his very skin would slip off his body, a great rag, and fall rumpled to the deck. He burned and blistered, then browned, darker and darker, taking on the leathery appearance of those seasoned sailors around him. He tried to keep clean shaven, as did his monk companions, but there was no blade fine enough, and soon all three had scraggly beards.

The worst of it was the boredom. All they could see in any direction was the flat bluish-gray line of the horizon. Moments of excitement—a whale spout, the flight of a dolphin beside the prow, a run of bluefish churning white the water—came all too rarely and lasted barely seconds, to be inevitably replaced by the emptiness of the open sea. All romantic notions Avelyn had held concerning sea voyages were long gone, washed away by the slow, creaking, rolling reality.

He visited Dansally often, and for hours at a time. She was forbidden to come out of her cabin and preferred it that way, both she and the captain fearing what might happen if the common sailors, men who had been away from women for great lengths of time, caught her sweet scent. Thus she kept her cabin door securely locked.

Avelyn also noted that his three monk companions, apparently tiring of Dansally, visited her far less often. He was glad of that, though he wasn’t certain why. Dansally didn’t seem to mind at all the duties of her profession, and Avelyn had come to accept her work as a part of who she was. As he had said to her on his initial visit, it was not his place to judge her.

He believed that with all his heart, and yet he couldn’t deny he was glad to see that the others, including Captain Adjonas, were spending less time with her. He came to know aspects of Dansally that his companions would never think to look for—her witty sense of humor, tenderness, and her regrettable resignation for her station in life. Avelyn came to hear her dreams and ambitions, uttered rarely and never to anyone else, and he, alone among all the men the woman had known, tried to encourage those dreams, to give the woman some respect for herself. The issue of physical intimacy did not come up between them during those weeks, for both of them had found a more special intimacy, far more satisfying.

And so the days went, the sun, the stars, the endless swells and sparkles. The one relief for the monks and crewmen alike came on cloudless nights, for the colors of the Halo were much clearer here than in the northern zones. Soft blues and purples, vivid oranges and sometimes a deep crimson lined the night sky, lifting hearts and spirits.

Even prosaic and gruff Quintall appreciated the beauty, saw the Halo as a sign of God, and took faith whenever those colors appeared.

“Starboard ho!” came the cry one bright morning the second week out of Jacintha.

Quintall peered at the horizon, hopeful, though he knew from his discussions with Adjonas that they were not near to halfway to Pimaninicuit, and any other land they might sight would only tell them that they were far off course.

“Whale to starboard!” the lookout cried a moment later. “Must be a dead one, ‘cause he’s not moving.”

Farther back along the deck, Avelyn was close enough to hear Captain Adjonas mutter, “Damnation.”

“Is it bad fortune to spot a dead whale?” the innocent monk asked.

“No whale,” Adjonas answered grimly. “No whale.” He headed forward, Avelyn in his wake, and Bunkus Smealy, Pellimar, and Thagraine falling in line. Quintall was already at the rail, pointing far out and down.

Adjonas took up his spyglass and peered in the direction. He shook his head almost immediately and handed the instrument to Quintall—a move that Bunkus Smealy apparently did not like.

“No whale,” Adjonas said again. “Powrie.”

“Powrie?” Avelyn said, confused. Powries were skinny dwarfs, barely four feet in height.

“Powrie vessel,” Adjonas explained. “Barrelboats, they’re called.”

“That is a boat out there?” Pellimar asked in amazement.

Quintall nodded, bringing down the glass. “And keeping fair time with us,” he added.

“They’ve no sail,” argued Pellimar, as if logic alone should dismiss the possibility that this was a powrie craft.

“Powries need no sail,” Adjonas answered. “They pedal, turning a shaft to a great fan aft of the ship.”

“Pedal?” Pellimar scoffed, thinking the notion ridiculous in so vast a sea, where distance was measured in hundreds of miles.

Adjonas’ voice was grim and unrelenting. “Powries do not tire.”

Avelyn had heard as much. Powries were not often seen, except in times of war when they were dealt with all too often. Their battle prowess was the stuff of legend, of terrifying fireside tales. Though diminutive in stature, they were said to be stronger than an average man and with incredible stamina. They could suffer brutal hits with club or sword and keep on fighting, and they could wage battle for hours at a stretch, even after a forced march of many miles.

“So far out,” Quintall remarked. “Surely there’s no land within ten days’ sail.”

“Who can know the minds of powries,” Adjonas replied. “They have been quite active of late, so my friends in Jacintha informed me. They slip into the shipping routes and take their fill, then move back to deep water, following the blues or the cod or other favored fish. A hardy and stoic type, do not doubt; powries have been said to be out on the open water for a year and a half at a stretch.”

“But what would they do with their booty?” Avelyn reasoned innocently, drawing looks from the other five. “If they waylay ships, what goods do they extract and where, then, do they drop off their newfound cargo?”

Adjonas and Bunkus Smealy exchanged grim glances, telling the four monks that they simply did not understand this enemy.

“They take lives,” Adjonas answered calmly. “They waylay ships simply to kill. They attack only to pillage enough stores to get them to the next ship and for the simple thrill of the hunt and torture.”

Avelyn blanched, so did Thagraine and Pellimar, but Quintall only let out a low growl and turned his gaze back in the direction of the distant powrie ship.

“But for us to pass so close to one of them,” Pellimar offered nervously. “What dumb luck is that? We’d not even have seen the craft if we were but a hundred more yards to port.”

“But they would have seen us,” Adjonas replied. “Our sails break the horizon for miles, and powries have magic of their own, do not doubt. It is said that they have friends that swim under the sea, returning to them with whispers of passing ships. This is not dumb luck, my good brother Pellimar.”

“What could they know of us?” Quintall demanded, not turning back to face the others.

“Only that we are a lone ship far from home,” Adjonas was quick to answer.

“Of our mission?” Quintall pressed.

“Nothing,” Adjonas assured him. “It is doubtful that any aboard the powrie craft would even recognize your abbey robes.”

Quintall nodded. “Then run away from them,” he instructed.

Avelyn and the others held their breath as they watched Captain Adjonas’ face tighten. Avelyn feared that Quintall, in issuing such a clear order, might have overstepped his bounds this time.

“Hard to port!” Adjonas screamed out, then he calmed and turned to his first hand. “Fill our sails, Mister Smealy,” he instructed. “I’ve no desire to do battle with powries.”

Smealy ran off. Adjonas let his dagger-throwing gaze linger on Quintall’s back for a long while, then calmly turned and, with a quick nod to the other three monks, walked away.

Avelyn moved to the rail and shaded his eyes with his hand, peering hard into the vast gray-blue expanse. He thought he caught sight of the barrelboat but couldn’t be sure—it might have been no more than the shadow of a wave.

The
Windrunner
veered hard to port, sails filling and pushing the square-rigged caravel on with tremendous speed. But the powries tailed her; the lookout called down repeatedly, his tone growing thick with frustration and fear, that the barrelboat was keeping pace, was even beginning to close a bit.

Now at the taffrail the four monks and Captain Adjonas watched the powries’ progress. Avelyn could see the craft clearly now; no longer did he confuse the strange barrelboat with any wave shadows.

Adjonas looked up at his sails, then at his crew, tacking frantically to keep them as full of wind as possible.

“An amazing design,” Quintall remarked of the closing craft. “Why is it that we humans have not copied it?”

“There is a human barrelboat in Freeport,” Adjonas replied, “and several were constructed in Ursal for use on the river. But men are not powries. The quarters within such a boat are tight—far tighter than even your small cabin on the
Windrunner.
And men have not the powrie endurance. The dwarves can pedal all day, while most men tire within the hour—or after a couple of hours, at most.”

Quintall nodded, his respect for the stoic, tireless enemy redoubled. “If the powries will not tire, then we cannot simply keep up the run,” he remarked.

“I will set bowmen firing flaming arrows upon the vessel when it closes a bit more,” Adjonas answered, his tone far from hopeful. “But most of the craft is underwater, with little above to aim at, and none of that critical. Hopefully we will be able to keep our pace swift enough so that the powries’ initial ram causes little damage. Then we will fight them—what choice do we have?—as they try to board us.”

Quintall was shaking his head before Adjonas even finished. “We cannot allow them to ram,” he argued. “Any damage would slow us, at the least, and that we cannot afford. We have less than a week of extra time—and that if our calculations to our destination are correct and the winds hold.”

“I see few options,” Adjonas remarked.

The other three monks were looking grimly at the distant barrelboat or at each other, shaking their heads, but Quintall had turned his thoughts in a different direction, digesting all the information that Adjonas had given him of the enemy.

“Tell me,” he said at length, “how swift will a barrelboat run if its great fan becomes entangled?”

Adjonas looked at him curiously.

“We have extra netting,” Quintall added.

“The fan is not so exposed,” Adjonas said. “Even if we placed the netting perfectly in the barrelboat’s path, it would not likely snag on anything except the catch hooks protecting the fan.”

“Suppose that we did not simply place the net but rather took it to its destination?” Quintall asked slyly, drawing a confused look from all but Thagraine, who had caught on and was more than eager.

“That would be foolhardy,” Adjonas began, but he stopped as the hatch of the barrelboat flipped open and a red-capped head popped into sight. Up came a skinny arm, holding a funnel-shaped tube.

“Humans!” the powrie shouted through the funnel. “Yach, trader, give her up! You cannot outrun us, yach you cannot, nor can you hope to give a fight. Give her up, I say, and some of you might be spared.”

Adjonas looked all around at his now-stationary crew. He saw the expressions there, the sudden faint hope in the powrie’s promise.

Bunkus Smealy spoke for many of them by Adjonas’ estimation. “Might that we should harken to his words, Captain,” the first hand said. “If we offer them no fight—”

Adjonas pushed him aside and walked in from the rail so that all on deck could see him. “They shall kill us, every one!” he shouted. “These are powries, bloody caps, looking to wet their berets in human blood. They’ll not let a ship sail from them, nor do they have room for prisoners! If we stop, or even slow, they’ll only ram us all the harder.”

Even as Adjonas spoke, a flaming quarrel arched over the taffrail of the
Windrunner
, slashing into the rear sail. Three crewmen ran to the small fire immediately, minimizing the damage.

“Yach, how long can you keep up the run, trader?” the powrie howled, and then he disappeared, closing the hatch behind him.

“Who are your best swimmers?” Quintall asked, moving up to the captain. Adjonas looked at him curiously.

“The
Windrunner
is a ship of cold northern waters,” he replied. “As a habit, we do not swim.”

Quintall nodded grimly and turned to his three brothers. He hated risking them all but realized the success of the mission hinged on their actions right now. Before he ever finished his motion, Avelyn, Pellimar, and Thagraine dropped their robes to the deck and began stretching their muscles and swinging their arms.

“We are swimmers,” Quintall explained. “Even in the cold northern waters. Fetch me a net.”

Adjonas motioned to Bunkus Smealy; this was Quintall’s operation now, and the
Windrunner
captain, with no other apparent options, was more than willing to give the sturdy monk his chance.

The four were at the port rail out of sight of the barrelboat soon after. Quintall tossed the net into the water, and Thagraine went in right behind it, taking hold.

Adjonas grabbed Quintall by the shoulder. He pulled a stone from his baldric, a small red ruby, and handed it over. “Only if you see a need,” he explained. “That stone is more valuable than all my ship.”

Quintall looked it over curiously. He could feel the magic within it, a faint pulsing of energy. He nodded to Adjonas, then unexpectedly handed the stone to Avelyn. “Not a man alive knows the power of the stones better,” he said to his companion. “Use it well if we find the need.”

Avelyn took it and fingered it for a few moments, feeling the energy clearly, understanding the purpose of the stone as surely as if it had spoken to him. He moved to put it in his loincloth but didn’t feel secure with that, so he popped it into his mouth instead, rolling it behind his teeth.

Then they went in, swimming fast to join Thagraine, who was still bobbing with the net, many yards behind the swift-running
Windrunner.