With that, the monk scrambled off into the brush, and Elbryan nearly laughed aloud watching him go, watching the light step that had come over Brother Avelyn Desbris. The monk had found peace within himself, ironically, in the midst of a war, a battle that Avelyn knew justified the actions that had weighed so heavily on him these last years.
Elbryan turned his attention back to the scene before him, ten yards of trees, followed by a few yards of cleared brush, a dozen feet of river stones, and then the river itself, waters rushing fast with the beginning of the spring melt. He heard the rumble of the war engines above that watery voice and discerned, by the alternating sounds, both sharp and muffled, that the caravan was moving right along the edge of the riverbank.
The ranger motioned to his companions, who started slinking from tree to tree, setting up their shots. Elbryan held his place, behind the tangled branches of two close hemlocks. He glanced about for the elves, and hoped that they were nearby. None in all the world could better concentrate their shots, and even a giant, the ranger knew from personal experience, could be brought down by the small arrows.
Up in front, one of the women signaled that the caravan was nearly upon them.
Elbryan fitted an arrow to Hawkwing and eyed his course. He contacted Symphony telepathically, and the horse nickered softly.
The first of the giants came into sight, bending low, pulling hard, a heavy harness strapped across its torso. Two others were close behind, in similar posture.
Elbryan felt the anxious gazes of his companions upon him, waiting for him to start it all. He was somewhat concerned that no sounds of battle came to him from further south, from the lead group, but he and his companions were committed, he knew, and would have to trust that Pony would not let the goblins and giant get behind them, cutting off any quick retreat.
The ranger let fly his first arrow even as he kicked his heels against Symphony's ribs and the horse leaped forward.
The lead giant grunted, more in surprise than in pain, when the bolt dove into tiffs shoulder, and then all the air about the monster and its two companions erupted as a dozen arrows and nearly that many spears came slicing in.
Elbryan fired again and again, scoring a hit each time as Symphony guided him to the open ground before the caravan. By the time he got there, the lead giant was down and dead, the other two were scrambling to get out of their encumbering harnesses, while a score of powries and twice that number of goblins were hooting and rushing about, grabbing for weapons or diving for cover.
Out came several of Elbryan's companions, right behind him, and all of them, and the ranger too, breathed a sigh of relief to finally hear the sound of battle behind them.
One of the powries stood tall on the first catapult, barking out commands.
The ranger's next shot laid the dwarf low.
Pony charged in hard, running her horse right across the lead line of goblins, her sword slashing hard across the face of one, then darting out to stick a second in the throat. This was the easy part, she knew, for she and her companions had caught the monsters by surprise, and diminutive goblins couldn't take a solid hit. Before the woman had even swung her sword, half the small creatures lay dead or squirming in agony on the ground.
But then there was the not so little matter of a fomorian giant.
Pony tugged hard on her mare's mane, turning the horse when she saw the behemoth moving to intercept. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the galloping charge of Bradwarden, the centaur singing at the top of his considerable voice, waving a huge cudgel as easily as if it were a tiny baton.
The giant braced as the centaur came in, but Bradwarden skidded short and leaped about, putting his tall closest to the monster. Thinking that the centaur had changed his mind and was trying to flee, the giant lunged for that tail, but Bradwarden's haunches came up high, the centaur kicking out with both his hind legs, hard hooves perfectly aligned with the stooping monster's ugly face.
The giant staggered backward, its legs buckling under it.
Singing wildly, the centaur charged in, bashing the monster about the head with his heavy club.
Then Pony rushed by, her sword slashing a line across the side of the giant's neck.
"Hey, but ye're stealing me fun!" the centaur protested, leaping about again and snapping off a second mighty double kick, this one connecting on the giant's massive chest and throwing the monster flat to the ground.
Bradwarden smiled, seeing Pony run down another goblin, seeing all the wretched creatures falling fast before the deadly group. And seeing, most of all, the giant, dazed and helpless, up on its elbows, its head lolling about.
Perfect height for an underhand swing.
The second giant went down before it ever got out of the harness. The third did get out, but Elbryan put an arrow into its eye, and half a dozen other arrows hit it in the neck and face.
It, too, slumped to the ground.
Of mote concern, though, were the powries, taking up their weapons, and the giants from the second catapult, out of their harnesses and with hardly a scratch on them.
"Hurry, Avelyn," Elbryan muttered under his breath. "Do not delay."
"Here comes Jilly! Flying fast!" one man cried, and Elbryan was truly glad for the timing and for the much-needed boost to his group's tentative morale.
The monstrous troop in the south had been overrun, so it seemed.
"Concentrate your shots on the giants!" the ranger bellowed, and then under his voice, he repeated, "Hurry, Avelyn."
Bradwarden galloped off to catch the woman and her fast-flying roan, but the centaur skidded to a stop, seeing Chipmunk teasing free a pair of daggers from a dead goblin, but with tears streaming down his face.
"It's Cric!" the man wailed. "Oh, my Cric!"
Bradwarden followed his gaze to a tumble of a pair of goblins and, unmistakably, a bald-headed human lying among them.
"He's dead!" the small nervous man declared.
"Where is yer third?" the centaur asked. "The big one?"
"Paulson's running up ahead," Chipmunk explained. "Says he'll kill every goblin, every powrie, every giant."
"Get on me back, man, and hurry!" the centaur ordered, and Chipmunk did just that. On they charged, Bradwarden singing a rousing song and Chipmunk forcing away his tears, locking them behind a wall of sheer anger.
Avelyn crouched behind a tree, barely ten feet from the side of the trailing catapult. The monk's frustration mounted, for though two of the giants had run off toward the fighting up front, the third had remained defensively in place, with a host of powries staying up on the catapult, some of them with crossbows.
Avelyn would have to get closer, he knew, for his fireball to have any real effect, but if he went out in the open, he figured that he would be grabbed or shot down before he ever loosed the magical blast.
The monk understood the situation up front, understood that Elbryan could not buy him very much more time without endangering many lives. He called up his serpentine shield and, purely on instinct, he rushed out of the brush and dove to the ground, rolling right under the catapult.
He heard the. powries crying out, knew that he hadn't much time, and tried to focus on the ruby, on its mounting energy.
Then the giant was kneeling beside the catapult, its face down to the ground, its long arm reaching under for poor Avelyn.
He had to roll away, but then, stopped suddenly as a small crossbow bolt skipped off the ground right beside him. He glanced back to see a pair of powries crawling under the war engine, coming for him with prodding spears.
Avelyn closed his eyes and prayed with all his heart. He felt the tingling power of the ruby, as if it were begging for release; he imagined the sudden stabbing pain when the powries drew near.
Avelyn's eyes popped open, the man staring into the ugly face of the giant.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk howled in glee, and boom! a ball of flame engulfed the catapult, incinerated the powries crawling in behind the monk, and blinded the g
iant in front of him. The great wooden structure went up like a huge candle; those unsuspecting powries standing atop it cried out and dove for the ground, rolling to extinguish the flames. One unfortunate dwarf dove right in the path of the howling giant. The fire on that particular dwarf was indeed extinguished as a huge booted foot crushed the diminutive creature flat. The burning giant continued on with hardly a thought for the dwarf, running blindly, swatting futilely at the flames. It slammed into a young tree, snapping branches and stumbling, but held its balance — stupidly, for the ground offered its only chance of smothering the flames — and ran on.
Avelyn clutched the serpentine tightly as burning chips of wood sizzled down around him. The gem wouldn't protect him from smoke, he knew, and so he realized he had to get out from under the burning war engine. He started to work himself to one side, but then a wheel succumbed to the flames and the gigantic catapult creaked and rocked to the side, pinning the monk.
"Oh, help me," Avelyn breathed, trying to squeeze back the other way. "Ho, ho, what?"
Avelyn's blast did much to even the odds, leaving only two giants and a score of powries against Elbryan's thirty. The ranger could not accept such an even fight, though, for if he lost a fifth of his force, it would be too many for the gains of this one encounter. He started to call for a retreat, holding Pony back as she galloped up beside him on her strong roan, but then Bradwarden came by, singing again, a rowdy tune, with a growling Chipmunk on his back, daggers in hand.
"Halt!" Elbryan called to the centaur, but even as he spoke there came a sudden humming sound, a noise the ranger recognized as the thrumming of many delicate but deadly elvish bows.
Several powries tumbled from the lead catapult.
Bradwarden bore down on the closest giant, Chipmunk leading the way with a hurled dagger, then a second, third, and fourth in rapid succession, all aimed perfectly for the behemoth's face, all hitting the mark and digging in deeply with the strength of the man's rage driving them.
The giant howled in agony and clutched at its torn face with both hands, and Bradwarden hit it in full stride, bowling it to the ground.
Elbryan could not halt the flow of his furious forces then, certainly not wild-eyed Paulson, who dodged the thrust of a powrie spear, lifted the dwarf into the air, and tossed it a dozen feet, to crack its head against a tree trunk.
The remaining giant ran away into the woods; those powries out of the immediate rush scattered, wanting no more of this wild band.
"Take apart the second catapult!" Elbryan commanded his forces. "Feed its logs to Avelyn's fire."
"Where is Avelyn?" Pony asked as her roan trotted past Symphony.
"In the forest with the elves, likely," said Elbryan. "Perhaps in pursuit of the giant."
As if on cue, the burning catapult creaked again and slanted over farther.
Elbryan stared at it, sensed something amiss.
"No," the ranger murmured, slipping down from his horse. He started walking toward the burning thing, then began running, scrambling to the ground as close as he could get to the catapult's highest edge. Elbryan peered through the thick smoke. There were two bodies near him, and he was relieved to recognize them as powries.
"But what were the powries doing under the catapult?" the ranger asked with sudden horror.
"Bring a beam!" he shouted, standing tall and hopping excitedly. "A lever! And quickly!"
"Avelyn," Pony breathed, catching on to the source of her lover's distress.
Most of the fighting was finished — several men and the centaur had already begun taking apart the intact catapult. Bradwarden, working at the catapult's long arm and great counterweight, heard the ranger's desperate call.
Chipmunk popped out the last fastening peg, and, with the strength of a giant, the centaur lifted free the huge beam. Men scrambled to help him, but even with all of the hands, the best they could do was drag the beam to Elbryan and the burning catapult.
"Ropes to the other side," Elbryan commanded, as he and several others began setting one end of the long pole under the highest side of the burning catapult. "It must be pulled right over, and swiftly!"
They tugged, they lifted with all their strength. Pony got Symphony and her roan around the back, ropes looped about the war engine and tied to the tugging horses. Finally, with one great heave, the group uprighted the catapult, which fell over with a tremendous groan of protest and a huge shower of orange-yellow sparks.
There lay Avelyn, motionless and soot covered.
Elbryan rushed to him, as did all the others, Pony pushing her way through to be beside this man she had come to love as a brother.
"He does not breathe!" Elbryan cried, pushing hard on the man's chest, trying to force the air into him.
Pony took a different tack, going for the monk's pouch, fumbling with the stones until she at last brought forth the hematite. She had no idea how to proceed — Avelyn had not formally trained her with this most dangerous of stones — but she knew that she must try. She sent her thoughts into the stone, remembered that Avelyn had done as much for her, and indeed, for Elbryan.
She prayed to God, she begged for help, and then, though she did not believe that she had accessed the stone's power in the least, she felt a soothing hand above her own, and looked down to see the monk staring up at her, smiling faintly.
"Hot one," Avelyn said between coughs that brought forth black spittle.
"Ho, ho, what!"
"'The design was impressive," Elbryan admitted to Belli'mar Juraviel and Tuntun, the elves sitting with the ranger at Avelyn's bedside much later that night.
Avelyn opened a sleepy eye to regard his newest companions. He had known the elves were about, of course — everyone in the camp did — but he had never actually seen one of the Touel'alfar before. He stayed quiet and closed his eyes once more, not wanting to scare the sprites away.
Too late; Elbryan had noticed the movement.
"I fear that your prophecies of doom hold much truth," the ranger said, shaking Avelyn a bit to show that he was speaking to him.
Avelyn opened one eye, locked stares not with Elbryan but with the elven pair.
"I give you Belli'mar Juraviel and Tuntun," the ranger said politely, "two of my tutors, two of my dearest friends."
Avelyn opened wide his eyes. "Well met, what," he said boisterously, though he wound up coughing again, not yet ready for such exertion.
"And to you, good friar," said Juraviel. "Your power with the stones is encouraging."
"And great will that power need to be," added Tuntun. "For a darkness has come to the world."
Avelyn knew that all too well, had known it since the days immediately after his departure from St.-Mere-Abelle — had known it, in retrospect, since his journey to Pimaninicuit. He closed his eyes again and lay still, too weary to speak of such things.
"We know beyond doubt that these monsters are not simple raiders but a cohesive and organized force," Elbryan stated.
"They are guided," Tuntun agreed, "and held together."
"We need to speak of this another time," said Juraviel, indicating the monk, who seemed as if he had drifted off to sleep once more. "For now, we have the immediate battles before us."
Both elves nodded and slipped quietly out of the tent, past the sleeping soldiers and the alert guards without a whisper, seeming to all about as no more than windblown leaves or the shadow of a bird.
Elbryan sat with Avelyn for the rest of the night, but the monk did not stir. He was deep in thought, in sleep at times, recalling all that he had heard of the darkness that was on the land, of the demon dactyl and the blackness within men's hearts.
"Our master will not be pleased," Gothra the goblin whined, the one-handed creature hopping frantically about the small room.
Ulg Tik'narn regarded his fellow general sourly. The powrie had little love of goblins and found Gothra a pitiful whining creature. The powrie could not deny Gothra's statement, though, and gave the goblin more credit than he gave M
aiyer Dek, for the giant was perfectly oblivious of their increasingly desperate situation. The villages had been captured, that was true, but too few humans had been killed, and this mysterious Nightbird and his friends were wreaking havoc on every supply group that came down from the north, something the merciless dactyl had certainly noticed — the arrival of the spirit who called himself Brother Justice confirmed that fact.
And Ulg Tik'narn knew that he, most of all, would be blamed for the interfering humans. But the powrie was not without allies of its own, and was not without a plan.
CHAPTER 43
A Place of Particular Interest
"Tearing and scarring!" the centaur wailed, stomping about, splashing in the mud and puddles and smashing his heavy club against the ground. A drenching rain fell all about the region, turning the last of the snow to slush and softening the ground.
"They are cutting the evergreens in the vale north of Dundalis," Elbryan explained grimly to Pony. "All of them."
"Then the day is all the grayer," she replied, looking in the general direction of what had once been her home. Of alb the places in the area, only Elbryan's private grove was more beautiful than the pine vale and the caribou moss, and none elicited more wistful memories from the young woman.
"We can stop them," the ranger said suddenly, seeing the profound pain on Pony's fair features. He sighed as he finished, though, for he and Bradwarden had just concluded a similar conversation in which the centaur had called for an attack, but Elbryan had reasoned that the clear-cutting might be no more than a trap set for their band. They had become a large thorn in the side of the invading army, and no doubt the monstrous leaders in Dundalis and the other villages wanted to get the secretive band out in the open and deal with them once and for all. Goblins were stupid things, but powries were not, Elbryan knew, and he understood that these dwarvish generals would recognize the importance of beauty to the humans.
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