DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (120 page)

“A haughty title,” Brother Francis remarked.

The ranger let the comment pass. He found it curious that though the other young monk was the one who had tried to steal his body, he liked that man, and certainly respected him, more than this one. “I am no spy,” he began, “for there is nothing sinister in my motives. I followed you from the valley for I have seen your strength and cannot be letting you walk the land free. Such power as you have shown could rain disaster on my people.”

“We are not enemies of Alpinador,” Master Jojonah replied.

“So I have learned,” said Andacanavar. “And so I have come to you openly, walking into your camp as a friend, perhaps an ally, with my weapon on my back.”

“We have asked for no help,” Brother Francis remarked in a stern tone, drawing a glare from Master Jojonah.

“I am Master Jojonah,” the older monk quickly interjected, wanting to shut up the troublesome Francis, “of St.-Mere-Abelle.”

“Your home is known to me,” the ranger said. “A great fortress, by all the tales.”

“The tales do not lie,” Brother Francis said grimly. “And each of us here is well-versed in the arts martial.”

“As you say,” the ranger conceded, again turning his focus to Master Jojonah, who seemed by far the more reasonable man. “You know I came among you, using his body,” he explained. “And in so doing, I learned that you mean to pass right through my land. I might be helping you on that matter. None knows the way better than Andacanavar.”

“Andacanavar the humble?” Brother Francis remarked. “Do you name that as one of your titles?”

“You know that you are offering insults a bit too freely,” the ranger replied. “Perhaps you should be careful, else those lips get ripped off.”

Too proud to stand for such a threat, Brother Francis steeled his gaze and took a bold stride forward.

The ranger exploded into motion, too quickly for any of the monks to even cry out. He pulled a small axe from his belt, then lurched to the side so he could throw it in an underhand motion.

The axe spun end over end, flying right between the legs of startled Brother Francis, then soared on, embedding itself deep into the sideboard of a wagon some twenty feet behind Francis.

The stunned monk, all the monks, turned about to regard the throw, then turned back to Andacanavar, every one of them wearing an expression of greater respect.

“I might have thrown it a bit higher,” the ranger said with a wink. “And then your voice’d be sounding a bit higher.”

Brother Francis did well to prevent himself from trembling, both from rage and fear. His face was white, though, revealing his true emotions.

“Move back, Brother Francis,” Master Jojonah scolded in no uncertain terms.

Francis looked at the older man, matched Andacanavar’s sly grin with an angry stare. Then he did move back in place, feigning a frustrated rage, though in truth—and everyone knew it—he was glad that Master Jojonah had intervened.

“You see, I have also had a bit of training in what you call the arts martial,” the ranger explained. “But I am hoping to keep my skills for powries and giants and the like. Your Church and my people have not been friends—and I am seeing no reason to change that now—but if your enemies are the powries, then name Andacanavar among your allies. If you want my help, then know I will get you through my land along the safest and swiftest path. If you do not want my help, then say it now and I leave you.” He gave Brother Braumin a sly look, and chuckled as he finished, “And know that I can walk myself far, far away, and am in need of no help from the lot of you.”

The young monk blushed deeply.

Master Jojonah looked to his two companions and, predictably, found two different silent messages coming back to him. He turned to the huge stranger, knowing that ultimately this was his own decision to make. “I am not at liberty to tell you our destination,” he explained.

“Who’s asking?” replied a grinning Andacanavar. “You are going north and west, and intending to leave my land. If you’re planning to hold that course, I can show you the swiftest and easiest way.”

“And if we do not mean to hold that course?” Brother Francis interjected. He glared at Master Jojonah as he spoke, making clear his position concerning the stranger.

“Oh, but you do,” the ranger replied, holding firm his grin. “You are heading for the Barbacan, for Mount Aida, by my guess.”

Supremely disciplined, none of the three monks standing before the ranger offered any hint concerning his blunt assumption, but the openmouthed expressions worn by many of the younger monks surely confirmed Andacanavar’s suspicions.

“That is only your guess?” Master Jojonah asked calmly, figuring the man must have heard as much while in Brother Braumin’s body. Andacanavar had just become a more dangerous person, the old monk realized, and lamented, for he feared that he might have to let Brother Francis have his way and kill this noble man. “And just a guess?”

“My reasoning,” Andacanavar clarified. “If you are meaning to strike at the backs of the monsters that are attacking your homeland, then you are too far to the north and east. You should have gone back to the west before you ever set foot in Alpinador. But you would not have made such a mistake, not with your magics as guide. And so you are heading for the Barbacan, it seems plain to me. You want to know about the explosion there, about the great cloud of gray smoke that covered the land for more than a week and even put some of its ash on my homeland.”

Jojonah’s fears fast shifted to curiosity. “Then there truly was an explosion?” he asked bluntly, despite his fears of giving away too much information.

Beside him, Brother Francis nearly choked.

“Oh, but the biggest explosion the world has known since I have been in it!” the ranger confirmed. “Shook the ground under my feet, though I was standing hundreds of miles away. And a mountain of clouds rolled up, debris from a whole mountain blown into the sky.”

Master Jojonah digested the confirmation, then found himself in a truly terrible dilemma. Father Abbot Markwart’s edicts on this matter were clear enough, but Jojonah knew in his heart that this man was no enemy, and might indeed prove to be of great assistance. The master looked around at his entire entourage—for all the monks were gathered about by that time—finally settling his gaze on Brother Francis, who, of course, would likely prove the most troublesome.

“I have seen into his heart,” Brother Braumin put in after a long, uncomfortable silence.

“Too much so for my own liking,” the ranger remarked dryly.

“And for my own,” the monk replied, managing a weak smile. He turned back to Jojonah and, putting aside his inner turmoil with the man, a conflict he knew to be illogical, said, “Let him lead us through Alpinador.”

“He knows too much!” Brother Francis argued.

“More than we know!” Brother Braumin shot back.

“The Father Abbot—” Brother Francis began in threatening tones.

“The Father Abbot could not have foreseen this,” Brother Braumin was quick to interrupt. “A good man is Andacanavar, a powerful ally, and one who knows the way. A way we could easily lose in this jagged terrain,” he added, speaking loudly so all could hear. “One errant turn in a mountain pass could defeat us, or cost us a week of backtracking.”

Brother Francis started to respond, but Master Jojonah held up his hand, indicating he had heard enough. The monk, feeling very old indeed, rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at his two companions, then at the ranger. “Dine with us, Andacanavar of Alpinador,” he bade the man. “I’ll not confirm our destination, but will tell you that we must indeed be out of your land to the north and west, and as soon as is possible.”

“A week of hard driving,” the ranger said.

Master Jojonah nodded, though he knew that with their magic they could cut that time by more than half.

By noon of the next day, Master Jojonah no longer held any doubts about the wisdom of letting Andacanavar lead the caravan. The road remained rough, for western Alpinador was an unforgiving place, a land of ice-broken stones and jagged mountains, but the ranger knew his way well, knew every trail and every obstacle. The monks, after their long rest, eased the trails with magic, lightening wagons with levitational malachite, clearing debris from the road with strokes of lightning, and of course they continued to bring in the wild animals.

It took Andacanavar a while to catch on to this subtle trick. At first he wondered what trickery the monks were using to hunt the game, but when the caravan left a pair of deer behind them on the trail, both animals nearly dead from exhaustion, the ranger was truly perplexed—and far from happy. He went back to the deer and examined them.

“What do you call this?” he asked of Brother Braumin when the monk, on Jojonah’s instructions, joined the curious ranger on the trail.

“We use the energy of the wild animals,” the monk explained honestly. “Like food for our horses.”

“And then you leave them to die?” the ranger asked.

Brother Braumin shrugged helplessly. “What are we to do?”

The ranger gave a great sigh, trying hard to sublimate his anger. He pulled a large and thick knife from a sheath on the back of his belt and methodically and efficiently killed both deer, then knelt in the dirt and offered a prayer for their spirits.

“Take that one,” he instructed Brother Braumin, while he lifted the larger animal by the hooves and slung it over his shoulder.

The two caught up to the wagons soon after, Andacanavar dropping his carcass right in front of Jojonah’s team. The master called for a halt and went out to the man.

“You take their life energy and leave them to die?” the ranger accused.

“An unpleasant necessity,” Master Jojonah admitted.

“Not so necessary,” the ranger came back. “If you have to kill them, then use them, all of them, else you are insulting the animal.”

“We are hardly huntsmen,” Master Jojonah replied. He gave a sidelong glance as Brother Francis moved up to join them.

“I will show you how to skin and dress them,” Andacanavar offered.

“We have no time for that!” Brother Francis protested.

Master Jojonah bit his lip, not knowing how to proceed. He wanted to berate Francis—they could not afford to lose this very valuable guide—but feared that the damage was already done.

“Either you find the time to do it or you kill no more of my animals,” the ranger replied.

“These are your animals?” asked a doubtful Brother Francis.

“You are on my land, that much I told you,” the ranger replied. “And so I am claiming guardianship on the animals.” He turned to face Jojonah squarely. “Now, I’ll not stop you from hunting; I have done as much myself. But if you are to take the animal, you cannot let it waste to death on the road. That’s an insult, and cruel by any measure of decency.”

“Lectured on cruelty by a barbarian,” Brother Francis remarked with a snort.

“If you need the lesson, take it where you find it,” Andacanavar replied without missing a beat.

“We need no food, or skins,” Master Jojonah said calmly. “But the energy is vital to our team. If these horses cannot get us to our destination and back again, then we are stranded.”

“And is it necessary for you to take so much from each animal that it hasn’t enough left to live?” the ranger asked.

“How are we to know when to stop?”

“Suppose I can show your men that?”

Master Jojonah smiled widely. He had never liked this killing of innocent animals. “My friend, Andacanavar,” he said, “if you could instruct us on how we might complete our most vital mission without leaving a single animal on the trail dead behind us, I would be forever grateful.”

“So would more than a few deer,” the ranger replied. “And as for these you have already killed, know that you will be eating well tonight, and you will find a use for the skins when you get more to the north, for even in high summer the night wind blows a bit chill up there.”

Andacanavar then showed the monks how to skin and dress the deer carcasses. A short while later the caravan was on the move again, and several more deer were brought in. The ranger monitored each animal carefully as the monks transferred the energy, and as soon as he saw the creature going into distress, he called a halt to the process, and then the animal, weary but very much alive, was allowed to wander back into the forest.

Only Brother Francis showed any signs of dissent, and it seemed to Master Jojonah and Brother Braumin that even pouting Francis was a bit relieved to be rid of the unpleasant practice.

“A fine trick if you do it right,” Andacanavar said to Master Jojonah as they rode along. “But finer it would be if you brought in a moose or two. That would get your horses running!”

“A moose?”

“Big deer,” the ranger explained with a wry smile.

“We have brought in some big—” Master Jojonah stared to say, but Andacanavar cut him short.

“Bigger,” he said, and hopped down from the wagon and ran off into the brush.

“He is an active old man,” Brother Braumin remarked.

The ranger returned to the wagons nearly an hour later. “You tell your spirit-walking friends to go and look down that way,” he said, indicating a shallow dell west of the trail. “Tell them to look for something big and dark, with a rack of antlers twice as wide as a man is tall.”

Both Jojonah and Braumin gave doubtful looks.

“Just you tell them,” Andacanavar insisted. “Then you will see if I am lying.”

A short while later, when a huge bull moose wandered onto the trail under the control of the soul stones, both monks offered silent apologies for their doubts.

And how the horses ran when they left the tired moose by the side of the road!

By day they rode, long and hard, and by night all of the monks gathered about their fires, listening to the ranger’s tales of the north. Andacanavar’s jovial manner and spirited stories won them all over, even Brother Francis, who did not even bother to carry through with his threat to contact the Father Abbot to lodge a complaint.