Free DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) by R.A. Salvatore

structure, St. Belfour, on the small, bare hill amid the trees.
    The cowls of their cloaks pulled as low as they could go, the young Prince and his closest adviser and confidant, Liam O’Blythe, the Earl of Tir-Mattias, made their cautious way to the rocky ridgeline that afforded them a view of the abbey and of the monstrous army firmly encamped about it.
    “There’s two thousand o’ the skizzes if there’s a dozen,” Liam remarked, surveying the scene before them. He was a thin fellow, all gangly arms and legs, freckle faced with red hair and gray eyes, as was common among the Vanguardsmen. “They got us five to one, even countin’ that them monks’ll come out and give a hand.”
    “A bolt of lightning would be better welcome,” Midalis replied with just a hint of the Vanguard brogue creeping into his Ursal court–trained diction. His crystal blue eyes peeked out from under the edge of the hood, sparkling brightly despite the dullness of the day. When he stood in a room with native Vanguardsmen, it was obvious that Midalis was not from the region. He was of medium height and build, but with a darker complexion and dark brown hair. Anyone who saw Midalis standing beside the older Danube would guess that they were brothers.
    “If they got any o’ the magic left to ’em,” said Liam, and he pulled off his soaked hood and shook his unruly mop of red hair, running his hand through it to get it out of his eyes. “They ain’t tossed a bolt or a burst o’ fire out at the goblins in a fortnight.”
    “They’ve got it left,” Midalis answered with confidence. “But they know that if they use their magic, they’ll just bring the goblins on in full against them. The goblins understand how much the monks have got to throw, and if those in the abbey grow weary from using their magic, they will find a difficult task in holding back the horde.”
    Liam nodded, but his expression remained doubting and grim. “Well, they better have a bolt or two for throwin’ when we go against the horde, or we’ll be chasedoff or cut down.”
    Prince Midalis did not doubt the man’s observations. Vanguard was having a much harder time in the aftermath of the war than the rest of Honce-the-Bear, because in Vanguard, the war wasn’t over. The minions of the demon dactyl had hit the region hard, both along the rocky coast and with a force marching across the land. South and west of the Gulf of Corona, the lands were cultivated, and much more heavily populated; and there, the King’s army had been able to push the hordes away. But here, where the land was much wilder, where forests predominated over farmland and the population of humans was measured in hundreds instead of tens of thousands, the powries and goblins had not so readily retreated. Always, Vanguard had been the roughest region of Honce-the-Bear, its forests full of huge brown bears and hunting cats, its northern border continually crossed by the warlike barbarian tribesmen of Alpinador. The folk of Vanguard had known goblins and powries as more than fireside tales to scare children long before the demon dactyl had awakened to remind the more civilized regions that such monsters did exist.
    And though they were certainly outnumbered by their monstrous enemies in the region, the people of Vanguard knew how to fight such foes.
    Still, this was a battle that Midalis did not want; this particular army of goblins was too large and too skilled, and the ground around St. Belfour of Tir-Mattias was too rugged for the Prince’s troops to fully utilize their greatest advantage: horses. Thus, Midalis had hoped the dark clouds they had seen gathering over the gulf would bring a killer blizzard, a storm that would weaken the goblins’ resolve to continue their siege.
    “The weather won’t be holdin’ so warm much longer,” Liam remarked.
    Midalis shook his head, his expression grim. “The monks haven’t got much longer,” he explained. “The goblins have held them in there