Jonis by Rowan Erlking (manga ereader TXT) 📕

chopped straight through the lieutenant’s skull. There were screams, but not from the dead. The man stood at first, then his body fell, detaching from its head at the neck, leaving a strange black feathery lump that scattered tar like fluff into the air. One caw, then nothing.

Jonis’s sword clanged to the ground, pinning the bleeding feathery lump to the smooth marble. Jonis’s hand trembled. He stared down at the dead body of his old friend.

Stabbing the demon bird again and again until there was nothing left but feathers and black ooze, Jonis shouted at the stain. “And that is for Sergeant Hybiss too!”

Sisrik hopped out from the crowd and ran over to him. “He was infected with a bird demon? When did you find out?”

“Last night!” Jonis snapped. “He visited me to make sure I was dying! Merkam would never have done that. I should have known when I saw his bloody suit coat on the mountain. I should have known when he no longer flirted with that waitress. I should have known when he lied to me, telling me he had to remain up here to watch me by the Patriarch’s order. The Patriarch would not have hired all those hunters to kill me if Merkam was enough to control me. I remember the day we came here. The Patriarch was ready to send him off. Merkam could have been reassigned through the military organization. He didn’t need the Patriarch’s permission.”

Shaking his head and glaring at the ground, Jonis hissed, “That demon bird from Dalis Camp had been waiting for a time to get at me. He couldn’t kill me, so he went for my friend.”

His tears dropped, splatters raining on the tops of his boots and his gloves.

“This does not change things,” the Patriarrch said in a dark voice. “Last night you disobeyed a direct order. You let that Night Stalker wreak havoc in the capitol.”

Jonis lifted his head, glaring at the man that purported to lead their country. “And you hired hunters to kill me. I think that makes us even.”

“How dare you!” the Patriarch bellowed, rising up from his throne. “I am the ultimate Sovereign of the land! The Great Patriarch of Brein Amon!”

“And I am the deadliest, most skilled, demon hunter in Brein Amon,” Jonis replied, his chin now high and his head held at a height that fit his adult stature. “That still makes us even.”

“You never proved that,” one of the hunters on the sidelines said.

Jonis mildly turned his head and gazed on that particular man. “I was trying to play nice yesterday. Do you actually want me to kill you?”

The hunter bristled, but pulled back.

Jonis’s uncle stepped from his place in the crowd, lifting his sword. “I will oblige the Patriarch.”

Pulling back from the man, Jonis turned and lifted his father’s sword for defense. He set his feet. “Don’t do this. You are the last person I want to see dead.”

“Funny,” his uncle said, heaving up his blade, “You are the first!”

The hunter’s blade clanged once against the Cordril sword. Jonis shoved back, skidding against the smoothed white stone. He had to jump over his old friend’s body, to keep from tripping, giving him at least twenty feet between them. Swiping his sword point against the stone floor, Jonis shouted out the words to the spell: “North! East! South! West! Ward encircle and protect from hate!” He clapped his hands together as his uncle charged. “Shield!”

 Jonis jumped backward out of the circle.

“Yah!” His uncle ran at him, sword first.

Immediately he came to a halt. But instead of falling to the ground, he jolted upright as if shoved, still clenching his sword in his fist.

Panting to breathe normally again, Jonis bent over, holding a stitch in his side. “Now you can calm down.”

“Calm down?” His uncle pounded on the invisible wall that held him in. “What did you do to me?”

“You jumped into a hate ward,” Jonis said, glancing at the watching courtiers and nobles. Some faces were not so disapproving or as upset by what they saw. The story of the Night Stalkers passed through Jonis’s thoughts and made him secretly smile. He stood upright, squaring his shoudlers. “Now, you can only leave if you promise never to harm me again.”

“Never! You foul…!” but that only made the invisible walls electrify.

“Release him at once!” the Patriarch commanded, rising from his seat.

“I can’t.” Jonis smirked, propping his sword to the side on its tip like a cane. “Hate wards are conditional. Until he no longer hates me, that ward will confine him.”

“Now that’s not true,” Sisrik said crossing over too look at this ward. “You shut off that hate ward in Ladis.”

Shaking his head at the hunter, Jonis yawned. “That is only because I was in the ward. There is a difference.”

“Then can’t you go in that ward and shut if off?” the Patriarch demanded.

“It’s not like one of those electric lights,” Jonis snapped. “Besides, I can’t go in with him in there. Hate gives it power, like a heat reflector. The only way out is for him to take my hand and in the depths of his heart swear never to harm me again.”

“You disgust me!” his uncle shouted.

“I can make it easier for you,” Jonis said, turning to face the ward.

“Maybe if the demon died, the spell will die also,” someone suggested.

Jonis laughed, backing up to fight if he had to. “That is not the nature of that spell. In fact, that would condemn him forever since I could never bring him out.”

“Prove it,” a hunter stepped forth, ready to finish the back courtyard onslaught against him.

Lifting his hands in the same circle shape as the day before, thumb tips together and forefingers touching tip to tip, Jonis grinned deviously. “I won’t risk my uncle for that. I can wipe you all out with just a few words, powered by your own hate for me.”

The hunter lowered his sword, backing off.

“That’s the beauty of that spell,” Jonis said. “It only works against those that would harm me.”

The people seemed to pull back more.

“How did you survive that potion?” the hunter that had spilled it on him asked in a low, deadly voice. “It is impossible that you are standing here.”

Tilting his head, Jonis smiled with a decided confidence. “I am a magister. I had learned the remedy to your potion years ago. You cannot harm me.”

Murmurs filled the room. The hall that once amazed Jonis’s eyes now made him shake his head with disdain. What a waste of talent, money and skill. These people, so refined, and so far from the suffering below knew nothing of the world outside their city walls. The capitol itself filled him with indignation, a place atop a mountain so high that it could look down on everyone with a natural haughtiness.

Jonis barely glanced up at the Patriarch, walking back over to the headless body of his friend. With his father’s sword, Jonis drew an invisible line on the white stone around the dead demon bird and Lt. Gillway, solemnly uttering the words to the fire ward. He reached in his pocket and drew out the last of the hard liquor they used to set demon corpses aflame, pouring it on the bodies. Lighting a match, he tossed it in.

 

“Life is not just a thing for now. Never ending we’ll ascend,

Though the sweat upon our brow, beads as we reach our end.

Into the darkness, we’ll see light—a tunnel to the wider room—”

 

“Shut up! Shut up!” his uncle shouted from his invisible circle, tears rolling down his face. “Shut up you demon! Don’t pretend you care about us humans! My sister died because of you!”

Jonis did not bother to wipe his tears. He walked over to the hate ward and looked his uncle straight in the eye as a man. “My mother killed herself because of what my father did—yes. But she did not want me dead.”

“You lie! I’ll kill you!” The man pounded on the invisible wall.

But Jonis was too tired to argue. He looked away. “I remember the day she stabbed herself. She put me on the floor next to her, kissed me good bye, and then picked up the knife.”

“Shut up! Shut up! You don’t know anything! You were only a newborn.” The man was weeping, screaming, fighting the tears that poured down his cheeks.

“She could have killed me then, if she wanted,” Jonis said, not raising his voice. “But she saw in me a bit of herself, and her family.”

His uncle was on his knees, sobbing as he pounded on the ground. “Stop! I don’t want anymore! You have to die for her.”

“She loved you all very much. I think I can share that with you.” Jonis reached in the ward through the crackling vestige of hate and touched the man’s head. It was a different effect they saw. From Jonis’s fingers, blue white light crackled from the tips. As skin touched skin, Jonis’s eyes glowed blue. The contact struck his uncle hard, unable to pull away. The man stopped sobbing. Breathing in and out slowly, he stared into space as if seeing something that was not there.

Jonis pulled back his hand. “You are free.”

As evidence, his uncle collapsed to the ground, no longer restrained by invisible walls or anything else. Sisrik and two others darted over, lifting the man up and checking his eyes. They were still gray. They felt his pulse. His heart still beat, though faintly.

Jonis walked to the center of the room. He stood tall like a man rather than a cocky eighteen-year-old kid. He strode to the front of the long desk where Patriarch stood with consternation. “I must ask once again. Will you follow my proposal and set up magisters in every village?”

Grabbing his forehead, the Patriarch dropped into his throne. “For the last time! Lieutenant Jonis Macoy, I cannot do that! It would rob the existing magisters of their jobs!”

“And your cut of their profits also, no doubt,” Jonis said caustically.

He turned around and walked back past the burning corpse towards the doors, glancing once at his uncle who was barely waking from his experience.

“Ok, then. I will tell you what I am going to do. Since you only care about profit and not your people,” Jonis said as the Patriarch bristled, clenching the arms to his chair, “I will resign my post here in Danslik and go out as a hunter, the first real Cordril hunter in ages. It runs in my family.” He glanced at his sword. “And I have the training. If you want to hire me, I might consider it. Only I won’t do Night Stalkers—unless they have gone on a rampage. They level out the dirty leadership in our country where the peasant folk cannot touch.”

“How dare you!” the Patriarch shouted gain, nearly hopping to his feet once more but not quite strong enough to stand now that he had seen first hand how powerful Jonis really was.

Jonis just blinked at him. “What an absurd question! You asked it already, and I already gave a response when I first came in this morning. Please, Your Grace, don’t be repetitive.”

“You cannot do this!” the Patriarch bellowed, pounding his fist upon his table. Many from his council chimed in, making similar noise as a chorus of aged and somewhat constipated voices.

“The verb ‘can’ indicates ability,” Jonis said with a wry smirk, raising a finger. “And I have plenty of ability.”

He turned, heading towards the large front doors, waving away with his hand.

“I’ll be going to Dalis Camp for my things. They had better be there, or the thieves will pay dearly. If you want me, I’ll be found.” His foot falls echoed.

Everyone remained frozen, including the palace guards, watching him depart through the wide-open doorway.

“Won’t anyone stop him?” The Patriarch gasped, dropping to his seat.

All the hunters stood by, but did not budge from their places in the crowd.

Sisrik glanced at them and then bowed low to the Patriarch. “Your