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

for near to two months now, and with all the folk who came running before the horde, they’ve not the food to hold on.” He paused there and stood staring long and hard at the windswept rain slashing against the abbey’s stone walls and at the dozens and dozens of sputtering, smoking campfires of the goblin army encircling the place.
    “Ye’re to go to him, ain’t ye?” Liam asked.
    Midalis turned to regard him. “I see no choice,” he answered. “Abbot Agronguerre came to me last night, in my dreams, begging for our help. They’ve a day more of food, and then they’ll be going hungry. We cannot wait any longer.”
    Liam’s expression showed that he was less than enthusiastic about the prospects.
    “I’m no more happy about the possibilities than you,” Midalis said to him. “In another time, we’d be fighting the barbarian savages, and now I am asking them for help.”
    “Help for the Abellican Church,” Liam reminded him, which only made the prospects darker still.
    “Aye, there’s no friendship between the barbarians of Alpinador and theChurch,” Midalis agreed; for indeed, the Church had made many forays into the wild northern kingdom, usually with disastrous results, particularly one not so distant memory of slaughter in a small town called Fuldebarrow. “But I’ve got to try, for the abbot and his brethren.”
    “And I’ll try with ye, me Prince,” Liam said with a nod. “And all yer men’ll fight beside the demon hisself, if Prince Midalis’ naming him an ally!”
    Midalis put his hand on Liam’s elbow, grateful, as always, for the unyielding loyalty of his hardy men and women. The folk of Vanguard had survived all the trials, the killer storms, and now the invasion, by standing united behind their beloved Prince Midalis, younger brother of King Danube Brock Ursal. And Midalis’ loyalty was no less heartfelt and intense. As Danube’s brother, he could have ruled whatever duchy he chose. He could have taken the Mantis Arm and its prosperous trade, or the Yorkey region between Ursal and Entel, with its gentle climate and rolling farmlands. He could have even been named Duke of Ursal, as was usual for a lone sibling prince, ruling the mighty city beside his brother in the luxury of Ursal’s bountiful court.
    But Vanguard had held Midalis’ heart ever since his childhood, when his father had sailed with him into the Coastpoint Guard fortress of Pireth Vanguard on a trip to hunt the huge northern elk. Something about the nature of the place—untamed, seemingly unconquerable—had touched a spiritual chord within young Midalis, had shown him an alternative to the bustle and the dirt of the cities. His brother had been leery about letting Midalis come up to this wild land—would the nearly autonomous people accept him? Or might he meet with an “accident” on a hunting trip?
    Those fears had been dispelled the moment Midalis had stepped off the boat onto the low dock of Pireth Vanguard, when a host of folk from all the neighboring communities had arrived to set out a huge feast of venison and fowl, with pipers playing tunes both melancholy and joyous all through the day, and all the young ladies of Vanguard taking turns dancing with their new Prince.
    Truly, Midalis had found his home, and so when the minions of the demon dactyl had arrived in force, Midalis had not only called out the militia and sent a message to his brother for aid but he had personally led the Vanguard forces. Never could it be said of Prince Midalis that he sat on a horse in safety at the back of the battlefield, commanding his troops into action.
    Thus, when the barbarian Andacanavar had come to Midalis’ camp that night a week before and Midalis had agreed to meet with him, other Vanguard men and women, traditional enemies of the barbarians, had deferred to the judgment of their heroic Prince without complaint.
    Still, it was with great trepidation that Midalis and Liam made their quiet way over the forested