why the ship would be firing its guns. He wondered if it was some sort of salute.
The stable had windows on both sides of the building, allowing for the flow of fresh air through the stalls. Brother Barnaby walked over to the window and looked out. He could not see the naval cutter. The abbey wall blocked his view.
The cannon fire continued unabated and now even someone as naive about naval warfare as Brother Barnaby realized this was no salute. The ship was engaged in battle. The wyverns were on their feet, tails twitching. Their nostrils flared. They turned their heads this way and that, sniffing the air and not liking what they smelled, apparently, for their lips rolled back in snarls, exposing sharp fangs.
Green fire suddenly lit the night. The fire came from the other side of the abbey wall in the direction of the Retribution. Brother Barnaby could hear shrill, ear-piercing shrieks mingled with the sound of crackling explosions. He heard a bang, the report of a pistol.
Green fire-the demons.
Father Jacob and Sir Ander were under attack by the same demons who had slaughtered the nuns. Brother Barnaby’s first reaction was to go to the aid of his friends, do what he could to help. He was turning from the window when he heard whirring sounds. He bat wings blotting out the stars and the glowing orange eyes of their demon riders.
The orange eyes saw him.
Shocked and appalled, Brother Barnaby sprang back from the window. He now knew what had been upsetting his wyverns, who were crazed with fear, flapping their wings and stomping their feet and lashing out with their tails. Trapped inside, they might break bones or tear the membrane of their wings. Brother Barnaby flung open the gate to the stall and tried to drive the wyverns out.
The panicked beasts were flustered and afraid. He shouted and waved his arms and finally they obeyed him and ran from the stall. Still shouting, he drove the wyverns down the long aisle toward the large stable doors that were standing wide open.
A ball of green fire flew through a window into one of the stalls. The timber posts and straw burst into flames. The fire and smoke spurred on the wyverns. They shrieked in terror and made a dash for it. Running out of the stable door, the wyverns spread their wings and were about to take to the air when they were attacked by the bats and their demons riders.
Brutish, sullen, and not very smart, wyverns are notorious bullies and cowards. They will kill deer, sheep, horses, cows, or humans-any prey not likely to put up a fight. Confronted by a dragon, a griffin, or even a good-size eagle, wyverns will turn tail and run for their lives.
The wyverns had never encountered such creatures as these gigantic bats, which dove and darted at their heads in an attempt to claw out their eyes. The wyverns had no intention of fighting this strange and terrifying foe. Shrieking in terror and pain, the wyverns kept trying frantically to escape by taking to the air. The bats clustered thick around them, striking at their wings, preventing them from getting off the ground.
Green fireballs burst in the stables. The building was now fully engulfed in flame. Half-blinded by smoke, Brother Barnaby heard his wyverns’ frightened screams and saw them surrounded by the darting bats. He grabbed a length of flaming timber and ran out of the stables.
The bats had no riders. Brother Barnaby did not stop to think about what that might mean. His one thought was to save his wyverns. He waved the flaming brand at one of the bats. The bat snarled and shrieked at him, but the creature did not like the fire and veered off.
Heartened, Brother Barnaby drove away two more bats and one of the wyverns managed spread his wings and fly off the ground. A bat clung to the neck of the second wyvern, biting at the wyvern’s head and trying to dig its claws into the scales. The wyvern was frantic with pain and terror, shrieking and flinging its head about, trying to dislodge the bat. Brother Barnaby struck the bat with the flaming timber. Burning cinders set the bat’s hair ablaze. The bat snarled and let go its hold on the wyvern and flew off, trailing smoke.
Barnaby slapped the wyvern on its flank and yelled at it, urging it to fly. The wyvern at last managed to leap into the air. Now that the wyverns were airborne, they could attack with their claws. The bats hung back, wary.
“Fly!” Barnaby yelled at the wyverns. “Fly away!”
Something caused him to turn around. He did not know what. Perhaps he heard something. Perhaps it was nothing more than primal instinct, the prickling of the hair on the back of his neck. Brother Barnaby felt the foe behind him and whipped around. He saw glaring orange eyes and the reflection of their hideous light on the blade of an ax poised to strike him.
Brother Barnaby had never received martial training. The monk was a healer and had vowed to never take a human life. He acted out of instinct, thrusting the flaming wood straight at the glowing eyes, striking the demon in the face. The glowing orange light went out. The demon dropped the ax and clasped its hands over its face. Three more pairs of orange eyes emerged from the stables. The demons were closing in on him.
He saw suddenly these same fiends attacking the helpless nuns, their axes cutting off their limbs, chopping up the bodies, feeding them to their bats. Anger blazed inside Brother Barnaby, anger such as he had never known before. He had read about the wrath of God. He knew then how God felt.
Yelling wildly, he flung himself at the demons, battering them with his timber, hitting them on the head, shoulder, back, whatever was near. He startled them with the ferocity and suddenness of his attack and for a moment he actually drove the demons back. Then the demons saw that he was armed with nothing but a wooden stick, and they fell on him. He was bleeding and crying out in rage, knowing he was bound to fall before his foes, for he was outnumbered with no weapons now except his fists. All he wanted before death came was to make these fiends suffer.
Shrill shrieks came from above him and the demon standing in front of Barnaby disappeared, hit by a lashing wyvern tail that lifted the fiend off his feet and flung him into the stable wall. The same wyvern lit on top of another demon, flattening it beneath its claws. The second wyvern caught up a demon in its mouth and shook it like a sheep, breaking its neck.
Brother Barnaby fell to the ground. The fire of his fury had died down as suddenly as it had blazed up. A wound in his arm was bleeding profusely. His head ached from a blow. He could taste blood in his mouth. He felt unbearable cold steal through him and knew he was going into shock.
Dawn was gray in the heavens. Looking up, he saw silhouetted against the sky, more bats and more demons with their orange glowing eyes. They were hurling green fire down on the wyverns, his beloved wyverns, who, instead of flying off to save themselves, had come back to fight for him.
The fire hit the wyverns on the neck and back and wings. Wherever the fire touched, flames bubbled and boiled like acid, eating away their scales and burning through to their flesh. The wyverns screamed and flailed about in agony. They tried to fly away, but the green fire was burning holes in their wings. Barnaby tried to go to their aid, but he was too weak. He heard himself shouting curses at the demons. He heard himself shouting curses at God.
The wyverns’ screams changed to gurgling gasps and they sank feebly to the ground and lay there, thrashing about in their death throes. Barnaby managed to drag himself over to the head of one of his wyverns. The wyvern saw him and gave a pitiful moan. Barnaby gathered the wyvern’s head in his arms and held the dying beast close to his breast, rocking and murmuring until he felt the head droop in death.
The demons were coming for him now. Barnaby closed his eyes and gave himself into God’s hands.
Chapter Twenty-One
Trundler tradition says approach your destination from the west whenever possible. This way you greet the sun in the morning. And always keep your eye on the Breath. Her moods are reflected in the color of the mist.
– The Story of the Trundlers by Miri McPike
“STEPHANO!” THE BOOMING VOICE SHATTERED dreams of battle.
Hearing the urgency in the voice, Stephano rolled out of his bunk
… only to find that he hadn’t been in a bunk. He had been in a hammock suspended from a beam overhead and he was now lying on the deck, swearing at the pain in his injured shoulder.
