DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Read Online Free PDF

meal.
    His keen senses soon discerned the sounds of others approaching—horsemen and cursing dwarves—so he bit into the dead powrie’s shoulder and dragged the meal away.
    “Y e kilt them to death in battle!” Dalump Keedump accused, spitting with every word, waggling his stubby finger at Duke Kalas, who sat tall astride his brown-and-white To-gai-ru pony, seeming unconcerned.
    “I told you that several might die,” Kalas replied.
    “Too many!” grumbled another dwarf, the same one who had challenged Kalas in the dungeons of Chasewind Manor those days before. “Ye’re a lyin’ bastard dog.”
    A single urging kick sent the Duke’s well-trained pony into a leap that brought him right by the powrie; and with a single fluid motion, Kalas, as fine a warrior as Honce-the-Bear had to offer, brought his shining sword out and swiped down, lopping off the powrie’s head.
    “You think this a game?” the Duke cried at Dalump, at all the remaining powries. “Shall we cut you all down here and now and make our victory complete?”
    Dalump Keedump, hardly frightened by the death of several of his kinfolk—in fact, a bit relieved that Kalas had finally disposed of the loudmouth—hooked his stubby thumbs under the edges of his sleeveless tunic and tilted his head, staring hard at the Duke. “I’m thinkin’ that our blood just bought us a boat fer home,” he said.
    Duke Kalas calmed, stared long at the dwarf, and then nodded his head. “In the spring,” he agreed, “as soon as the weather permits. And you will be treated well until then, with warm blankets and extra food.”
    “Keep yer blankets and get us some human women for warmin’,” Dalump pressed.
    Kalas nearly gave the command to slaughter the rest of the powries then and there. He’d keep his word to let this group go free, back to their distant homeland, and he would make sure that they fared better in the dungeons over the winter, with more supplies. But if he ever saw a grubby powrie hand anywhere near a human woman, even a lowly peasant whore, he’d surely cut it off and then take the powrie’s head, as well.
    “Drag them back in chains tonight,” he instructed one of his knights, “as quietly as possible. Tell any city guards that the captured dwarves will be interrogated and summarily executed, then put them back in their cell.”
    Kalas spun his pony and started away, his closest commanders hurrying to get their mounts at his side. The Duke stopped, and turned back. “Count the dead and the living and scour the field,” he instructed. “Every powrie is to be accounted for.”
    “Ye think we’d stay in yer miserable land any longer than we’re havin’ to?” Dalump Keedump asked, but Kalas simply ignored him.
    His triumphant return into the city awaited.
    T hey came out of the mist more gloriously than they had entered, the Duke and his men, and the grime and blood of battle only made their armor seem all the more brilliant.
    Duke Kalas drew out his bloodstained sword and lifted it high into the air. “Honor in battle, victory to the King!” he cried, the motto of the mighty Allheart Brigade. Nearly every person on or near the western wall was cheering wildly, and most were crying.
    Duke Kalas soaked it all in, reveling in the glory of the moment, in the triumph that would strengthen his, and thus, King Danube’s, grasp upon this fragile frontier city. He swept his gaze along the wall, taking in the relieved and appreciative expressions but then lingering on one figure who was neither crying nor cheering.
    Still, Kalas was thrilled to see that beautiful and dangerous Jilseponie had witnessed his glorious moment.

Chapter 2

 
Distant Voices
    “W E MUST STAND UNITED ON THIS ,” THE ALWAYS EXCITABLE B ROTHER V ISCENTI loudly insisted to Abbot Je’howith. “Would you prefer that King Danube insinuated himself into affairs of the Church?”
    The way Brother Viscenti changed his inflection at the end of that question altered it from