A cry from below told him he was out of time.
With a sudden jerk, Nightbird brought the goblin back up to its feet, then twisted and threw, launching the creature out the open door to dive the ten feet to the ground. It landed hard and groaned, then tried to get back up, tried to call out. At the last instant it spotted Pony, the woman standing calm, hand extended.
A lodestone traveling many times the speed of a sling bullet blasted right through the metal amulet the creature had around its neck, a piece of jewelry it had stolen from a woman who futilely begged for her life.
Inside the barn, Nightbird set Hawkwing to deadly work, blasting goblins from the ladder as they tried to gain the loft. A moment later the startled ranger found out he was not alone, as a second archer joined him.
“Roger told me of your plans,” Belli’mar Juraviel explained. “A good start!” he added, plunking an arrow into a goblin that had foolishly scurried into view.
Recognizing that there was no way they could possibly get up that ladder, the remaining goblins went for the main door instead, pushing it wide and scrambling out into the daylight.
A bolt of streaking lightning laid most of them low.
Then the elf was above them, at the doors to the loft, firing down at those who continued to scramble.
The ranger did not join his friend, but took a different route, slipping down the ladder. He hit the ground in a roll, avoiding a spear throw by one creature, and was firing Hawkwing as he came around, taking the goblin right in the face, then again, taking out a second as it ran for the door.
Then all was quiet, inside at least, but Nightbird sensed he was not alone. He put his bow to the ground and drew out his sword, moving slowly, silently.
Outside, the cries diminished. Nightbird came to a bale of hay, put his back against it and listened hard.
Breathing.
Around he went suddenly, holding his swing just long enough to make sure that it was indeed another goblin and not some unfortunate prisoner, then lopping the creature’s ugly head from its shoulders with a single stroke. He came out into the daylight afterward, finding Pony and Juraviel walking Symphony toward the barn, their business finished.
The elf stayed with Elbryan, securing a new perimeter, while Pony galloped the stallion back to gather the group.
“I canno’ be turning back now,” the driver replied when Jojonah told him of the plans the next morning. “Though suren I’d love to be helping ye. But me business”
“Is important. Indeed,” Jojonah finished for him, excusing him.
“Yer best way back is with the ships,” the driver went on. “Most o’ them are heading up north and to the open sea for the summer season. I’d’ve come down on one meself, but few be coming south just now.”
Master Jojonah stroked his stubbly chin. He had no money, but perhaps he could find a way. “The nearest port, then,” he said to the driver.
“South and east,” the man replied. “Bristole by name. A town built for fixing and supplying the boats and not much else. She’s not too far outta me way.”
“I would be obliged,” the monk answered.
So they were off again, after a hearty breakfast, supplied for free by the goodly townsfolk. Only when the wagon began rambling down the road did Master Jojonah comprehend how much better he was feeling physically. Despite the bumpy nature of the ride, his breakfast had settled well. It was as if the news of the previous night, the implication that things were darker by far than he had ever imagined, had pumped strength back into his frail body. He simply could not afford to be weak now.
Bristole was as small a town as Jojonah had ever seen, and seemed strangely unbalanced to the monk. The dock areas were extensive, with long wharves that could accommodate ten large ships. Other than that, though, there were but a few buildings, including only a pair of small warehouses. It wasn’t until the wagon pulled into the center of the cluster of houses that Jojonah began to understand.
Ships going up-or downriver would need no supplies at this point, since the trip from Palmaris to Ursal was not a long one. However, the sailors might desire a bit of relief, and so the ships would put in here for restocking of a different nature.
Of the seven buildings clustered together, two were taverns and two were brothels.
Master Jojonah said a short prayer, but was not overly concerned. He was an accepting man, ever willing to forgive the weakness of the flesh. It was, after all, the strength of the soul that counted.
He bade farewell to the generous driver, wishing he could give the goodly man more than words for his efforts, and then turned to the business at hand. Three ships were in; another was approaching from the south. The monk walked down to the riverbank, his sandals clapping against the extensive boardwalk.
“Hail, good fellows,” he called as he neared the closest ship, seeing a pair of men bending low behind the taffrail, working hammers on some problem he could not see. Jojonah noted that this ship was in stern first, an oddity, and, he hoped, an omen that it would soon depart.
“Hail, good fellows!” Jojonah yelled more loudly, waving his arms to get their attention.
The hammering stopped and one old sea dog with wrinkled brown skin and no teeth looked up to regard the monk. “And to yourself, Father,” he said.
“Are you heading north?” Master Jojonah asked. “To Palmaris, perhaps?”
“Palmaris and the Gulf,” the man answered. “But we’re not heading anywhere at all anytime soon. Got an anchor line that won’t hold; chain’s all busted.”
Jojonah understood why the ship was in dock backward. He looked around, back at the town, searching for some solution that would get this ship sailing. Any worthy port would have held the proper equipmenteven the meager docks of St.-Mere-Abelle were supplied with such items as chains and anchors. But Bristole was no town for ship repairs, was more a place for “crew repairs.”
“Got a new one sailing up from Ursal,” the old seaman went on. “Should arrive in two days. Are you looking for passage, then?”
“Yes, but I cannot delay.”
“Well, we’ll take you, for five pieces of the King’s gold,” the old man said. “A fair price, Father.”
“Indeed it is, but I’ve not the gold to pay, I fear,” Jojonah replied. “Nor the time to delay.”
“Two days?” the sea dog balked.
“Two days more than I have to spare,” Jojonah answered.
“I do beg your pardon, Father,” came another voice, from the ship next in line, a wide and sturdy caravel. “We shall be sailing north this very day.”
Master Jojonah waved to the two on the damaged vessel and walked around to get a better view of the newest speaker. The man was tall and lean and dark-skinnednot from the sun, but from his heritage. He was Behrenese, and, given his complexion, likely from a region of southern Behren, far south of the Belt-and-Buckle.
“I am afraid that I have no gold to pay,” Jojonah replied.
The dark man flashed a pearly smile. “But Father,” he said, “why would you be needing the gold?”
“I’ll work for my passage, then,” Jojonah offered.
“All on my ship could use a good prayer, Father,” the Behrenese man replied. “More, I fear, after our little stop here. Come aboard, I beg you. We were not to leave until late in the day, but I’ve only one man out and he can be retrieved easily. If you are in a hurry, then we are in a hurry!”
“Very generous, good sir”
“Al’u’met,” the man answered. “Captain Al’u’met of the good shipSaudi Jacintha.”
Jojonah cocked his head at that curious name.
“It means Jewel of the Desert,” Al’u’met explained. “A bit of a joke on my father, who wished me to ride the dunes, not the waves.”
“As my own father wanted me to serve ale, not prayer,” Jojonah replied with a laugh. He was more than a bit surprised to find a dark-skinned Behrenese in command of an Ursal sailing ship, and even more surprised to see the man pay so much respect to one of the Abellican Order. Jojonah’s Church was not prominent in the southern kingdom; indeed, missionaries had many times been slaughtered for trying to impose their vision of divinity on the often intolerant priestsyatolsin the Behren tongueof the deserts.
Captain Al’u’met helped Jojonah over the last step of gangplank, then dispatched two of his crewmen to go and find the one missing sailor. “Have you bags to bring aboard?” he asked Jojonah.
“Only what I carry,” the monk replied.
“And how far north will you be sailing?”
“Palmaris,” Jojonah replied. “Or across the river, actually; I can ride the ferry. I am needed at St.-Mere-Abelle on most urgent matters.”
“We may be sailing past All Saints Bay,” Captain Al’u’met said. “Though you will lose a week at least traveling by sea.”
“Then Palmaris it is,” the monk said.
“Exactly where we were going,” Captain Al’u’met replied, and, smiling still, he pointed to the cabin door leading under the poop deck. “I have two rooms,” he explained. “Surely I can share one with you for a day or two.”
“You are Abellican?”
Al’u’met’s grin widened. “For three years,” he explained. “I found your God at St. Gwendolyn of the Sea, and as fine a catch as Al’u’met has ever known.”
“But another disappointment for your father,” Jojonah reasoned.
Al’u’met put a finger to pursed lips. “He does not need to know such things, Father,” he said slyly. “Out on the Mirianic, when the storms blow high and the waves break twice the height of a tall man above the forward rail, I choose my own God. Besides,” he added with a wink, “they are not so different, you know, the God of your land and the one of mine. A change in robes would make a priest ayatol.”
“So your conversion was one of convenience,” Jojonah teased.
Al’u’met shrugged. “I choose my own God.”
Jojonah nodded and returned the wide smile, then made his slow way toward the captain’s cabins.
“My boy will show you your quarters,” Al’u’met called after him.
The cabin boy was just within the shelter of the room, throwing bones, when Master Jojonah opened the door. The lad, no more than ten years of age, scrambled frantically, collecting his dice and looking very guiltyhe had been caught derelict from his chores, the monk knew.
“Set our friend up, Matthew,” Captain Al’u’met called. “See to his needs.”
Jojonah and Matthew stood staring at each other, sizing each other up for a long time. Matthew’s clothes were threadbare, as was the lot for anybody working aboard a ship. But they were a fine cut, better than the attire of most crewmen the monk had met. And the boy was cleaner than most cabin boys, his sun-bleached hair neatly trimmed, his skin golden tanned. There was one notable blemish, though, a black patch on the boy’s forearm.
Jojonah recognized the scar, and he imagined the pain the boy must have felt. The patch had been caused by the second of the three “medicinal” liquidsrum, tar, and urinekept on the sailing ships. The rum was used to kill the worms that inevitably found their way into foodstuffs, to kill the aftereffects of bad food, and simply to forget the long, long, empty hours. The urine was used for washing, clothes and hair, and as disgusting as that thought was, it paled in comparison to the liquid tar. This was used to patch torn skin. The boy, Matthew, had obviously gashed his arm, and so the sailors had applied tar to the wound to seal it.
“May I?” Jojonah quietly asked, reaching for the arm.
Matthew hesitated, but dared not disobey, cautiously holding the arm up for inspection.
A fine job, the monk noted. The tar had been sanded flat with the skin, a perfect patch of black. “Does it hurt?” Jojonah asked.
Matthew shook his head emphatically.
“He does not speak,” came Captain Al’u’met’s voice, the man having moved up right behind the distracted monk.
“Your work?” Jojonah asked, indicating the arm.
“Not mine, but Cody Bellaway’s,” Al’u’met answered. “He serves as healer when we are far from port.”
Master Jojonah nodded and let the issue dropopenly, at least, for in his mind the image of Matthew’s blackened arm would not so quickly fade. How many hematites were locked away in St.-Mere-Abelle? Five hundred? A thousand? The number was considerable, Jojonah knew, for when he was a younger monk, he had done an inventory of just that stone, easily the most common stone returned from Pimaninicuit over the years. Most of these soul stones were of far less power than the one the caravan to the Barbacan had taken along, but still, Jojonah had to wonder how much good might come of these if they were given to the sailing ships with one or two men on each vessel taught how to bring forth their healing powers. Matthew’s wound had been considerable, no doubt, but Jojonah could have easily sealed it with magic, not tar. With hardly an effort, much suffering could have been avoided.
That line of thinking made the master wonder on a grander scale. Why weren’t all the communities, or at least one community in each general region of the kingdom, given a hematite, with their chosen healers trained in its use?
He had never discussed such a thing with Avelyn, of course, but somehow Master Jojonah understood that Avelyn Desbris, if the choice had been his, would without hesitation have distributed the small hematites to the general populace, would have opened up St.-Mere-Abelle’s horde of magic for the betterment of all, or at least distributed the most minor hematites, stones too weak to be used for diabolical purposes such as possession, stones too weak to be used in any real malevolent way.
Yes, Jojonah knew, Avelyn would have done it if given the chance, but of course Father Abbot Markwart would never have given him the chance!
Jojonah patted the mop of Matthew’s blond hair and motioned for the lad to show him to his room. Al’u’met left them then, calling for his hands to ready the ship for departure.
Saudi Jacinthaslipped out of Bristole soon after, her sails fast filling with wind, pushing her against the considerable current. They would make good time, Al’u’met came and assured the monk, for the south winds were brisk, with no sign of storm, and as the Masur Delaval widened, the pull of the water was not so strong.