Demon Blade By Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © 1994 by Mark A. Garland & Charles G. McGraw All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, N.Y. 10471 ISBN: 0671876104 Cover art by Larry Elmore First printing, July 1994 Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, N.H. Printed in the United States of America Demon Blade “Let me,” Rosivok said. Abruptly he bent down and took up the Blade. He stood there holding it, examining its shimmering steel, the beads of moisture rolling off of it. After a moment he shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “No,” the wizard Frost agreed. “There should not be.” He took a very deep breath—deciding he would have to use his right hand, the left simply did not have the strength after the first disastrous try—and reached toward the Subartan warrior. “Let me try once more.” Rosivok held the Blade out. Briefly, Frost closed his eyes. He pushed all thoughts of the Blade's powers, as well as his own ideas about them, out of his mind, then spoke a minor spell to himself, one to keep his magical energies turned inward, turned off, for now. He looked at the Blade again and reached, and touched it. This time, after a moment, he gently smiled. Praise for Dorella “The magical confrontations are exciting. . . . It's an intriguing first novel, odd and interesting, with some wonderful and weird touches, a mix of fairy tale and sordid reality. . . .” —Carolyn Cushman, Locus “Nice touches throughout; I particularly enjoyed the indignant demon the protagonist persecutes briefly.” —Don D'Amassa, Science Fiction Chronicle Prologue Ergris stood close to the trunk of the massive old oak that marked the north edge of the clearing, watching. For many days there had been no sound or movement at the human's hut. No smoke rose from the earthen chimney despite the morning's chill. The Old One could have been out in the wood gathering herbs or getting his walk, but the hut itself had a slightly tattered look; a scattering of branches from the roof lay at the base of the walls, and bits of wall lay with them. Most of all, the aura of the man was gone. The Old One had always kept a tidy clearing. Now small seedlings grew everywhere about the yard and weeds choked the gardens. In all his years coming to visit here, with his elders or friends or even, in recent years, alone, Ergris had never seen this so. He felt a pang of sorrow as his thoughts came round. The Old One had made the forest bloom where fires had touched it, had saved the dying bog during the dry years tenfold and tenfold years ago. And he told the most wonderful stories! Too aged and frail to do any but the slightest physical tasks, it was the Old One's spellweavings that had kept his home and land from the steady press of the living forest, and kept him hidden from the eyes of hunters and fools who wandered near these past few decades. Indeed, it was this talent with spells that had brought about the deaths of the first leshy to approach the hut, so many years ago. . . . Ergris could not call out, leshy having neither the voice nor the disposition to allow such a thing in the quiet of the woods. He waited until the morning was nearly gone, eyeing every corner of the clearing, even circling it several times as he had done the day before, to be certain of things. Finally he made his way to the front door. He found it closed and boarded from the inside. As he stood scratching his belly, dragging long sharp nails through the thin fur there, he decided that a simple favor was needed. He twitched his short muzzle, thinking his plan out exactly, then he cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and felt for the presence of the stout oak board on the other side of the door. He remembered the piece well; he had even placed it in the wooden brackets himself more than once, during evenings when he and the Old One would speak of man and leshy, of worlds long past and others to come—together alone, the two of them. The oaken board was there, and Ergris began to woo it aside. Yet even as he did, the possibilities made him uneasy—magical traps, hidden deaths—humans had been known to lose their minds, or simply change them. Most of them were horrible creatures. He pressed on, caressing the wood with his mind. Ergris knew no fear in his own forest, unlike human kings, who feared to go beyond their own bedchambers without armor and weapons. And Ergris considered himself the wisest, strongest leshy king of all. The Old One—Ramins, as he called himself—was wise in many ways, and he had taught Ergris such things as no leshy king before him had been taught. But Ergris had initiated the talks knowing the risks were great. He still recalled the first two leshy who had tried to climb one on the other into the hut's only window, their petrified bodies lying piled up next to the wall for weeks, until Ergris had come with a party in the deepest depths of night to take them away. But it was not curiosity, posturing, or even lack of good sense that finally brought Ergris out of the forest to confront old Ramins at the stream one day. In part the attraction was the wizard's own potent aura, but more, Ergris was drawn to the other aura that came from within the human's dwelling, that of something made by the gods themselves—a blade of some kind, Ergris was certain. He had sensed it with his leshy spirit the way one might smell ripe cherries on the midsummer winds, incredibly sweet, alluring. He could not help his fascination any more than the leaves of plants could resist the sunlight. None of the leshy could, until two of them had been turned to stone. The Old One had finally shown Ergris the Blade, even let him touch it several times—out of respect for Ergris' bravery, his wisdom, and, Ramins explained, out of gratitude for his good company. The sword's short blade shined with a glow that persisted, if faintly, even in darkness, at least to Ergris' leshy eyes. Its hilt was thick and black and smooth, too thick in fact for a leshy's tiny hands to properly wrap around. Ergris had never known or imagined the like of that magical blade, or the Old One, or the visits they had had together. The brothers of the council had deemed the whole relationship utterly foolish and worthless—no good could ever come from contact with man, even this wizardman. And the wizard had raised a dampening spell outside his house soon enough, which kept even leshy from sensing the Blade beyond the four walls that kept it. Without that subtle lure many others had begun to question Ergris's strange conduct as well. But Ergris was King, and Ergris had proven them wrong. He cleared the past from his mind and focussed on the present as he leaned against the center of the cabin door. He smoothed his voice, adjusted his tone, caressing each band of the board's raw grain until it rose just high enough. Then he pushed the door open as the board dropped away; he picked it up, touching it gently with his hands now, then set the piece against the wall just inside the door. Ergris stood still a moment, his eyes adjusting to the dimly lit interior of the hut. The Old One was seated in his chair at his table, head slumped forward onto the pages of an open book, a quill clutched in his bony fingers. His short staff of birchwood lay on the floor beside him. The aura of power that had been Ramins' was gone, Ergris sensed, completely and forever. I have lost a great companion, he thought, forcing himself to think it, since thinking such things of creatures like men was strange and difficult even now. But the Old One had come to treat the forest and its rightful occupants with the favor and regard they deserved, and was the only human any leshy now living had ever shared thoughts and fruit with, so far as Ergris knew. . . . Ergris began to lose his thoughts, his nature overruling his mind as the sweetness of a very different aura, of something terrible and wonderful and potent, began pulling at him, growing stronger the longer he remained inside the hut. As he hurried to begin his search, his hide prickled with anticipation. I have come in time, he thought, following his senses, finding it at last. The Demon Blade is still here! Chapter I Brittle shrieks broke the silence, filling the still night air from the high rock walls to the moonlit mountain slopes beyond. Voices echoed down the pass in a cold and grating chorus, building, burrowing into the brain until the mind could no longer endure the agony: the cry of the banshee was the sound of death. Frost looked to his three Subartan warriors. In the deep shadows of the cliffs even the moon did not light their faces, but there was no doubt they understood. He watched their vague silhouettes move about him, forming a defensive triangle, leaving Frost at its center. This was the only arrangement possible; a big man by any measure, padded with far too much extra body fat and busy with his spells, he would make an easy target. Satisfied, he closed his eyes and drew on the strength of his body and his mind. With that, the death wails seemed to grow more distant and less numerous. The light from the moon seemed to find its way a little farther into the depths of the rocky pass. “Banshees can take no physical form,” Rosivok, the oldest, largest Subartan said. “But they can use others. It is said they can control any creature at hand.” “Only those whose lives they have already stolen,” Sharryl said, adjusting her stance just a bit, though s...
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