The two monks returned from the western wall, trotting, but with no apparent sense of urgency. “Nothing,” each reported. “No signs of any gathering army.”
“Several villagers came in just minutes ago,” one of them added, “reporting that a large force of powries was spotted moving west of St.-Mere-Abelle village, heading west.”
Jojonah and Markwart exchanged curious looks.
“A ruse,” Brother Francis warned. “Moving west, away from us, that we might not be prepared for the sudden assault over land.”
“Your reasoning is sound,” Master Jojonah offered. “But I wonder if we might not turn their ruse, if that is what it is, back against them.”
“Explain,” said an intrigued Markwart.
“The fleet might indeed be waiting for the ground assault,” Jojonah said. “And that assault might indeed be delayed so that we might lower our guard. But our powrie friends in the harbor cannot see St.-Mere-Abelle’s western walls, nor the grounds beyond them.”
“They will hear the sounds of battle,” another monk reasoned.
“Or they will hear what they believe to be the sounds of battle,” Master Jojonah replied slyly.
“I will see to it!” cried Brother Francis, running off even before the Father Abbot gave his consent
Markwart ordered every second man off the wall and out of sight.
Moments later the commotion began, with cries of “Attack! Attack!” and the swooshing sound of ballistae firing. Then a tremendous explosion shook the ground and a fireball rose into the air, the magical blast of a ruby.
“Authentic,” Master Jojonah said dryly. “But our exuberant Francis should conserve his magical energy.”
“He has powries to convince,” Markwart retorted sharply.
“Here they come,” came a call before Jojonah could reply, and sure enough the powrie craft began gliding across the bay, right on schedule. The tumult continued in the west, the cries, the ballistae firing, even another fireball from excited Francis. The powries, spurred on by the sight and sound, came in hard, their barrelboats bobbing.
Markwart passed the word to let them in close, though more than one catapult let fly its payload prematurely. But the ships came on fast and were soon in range, and with the Father Abbot’s eager blessing, the monastery’s two dozen seaward catapults began their barrage, throwing stones and pitch. One powrie catapult barge went up in flames; a barrelboat got hit on its rounded side, the force of the boulder rolling the craft right over in the water. Another barrelboat took a hit squarely on its prow, the heavy stone driving the front of the craft under the water, its stern reaching skyward, its pedal-driven propeller spinning uselessly in the empty air. Soon many of the evil dwarves were in the water, screaming, thrashing.
But the cheering on the abbey’s wall did not hold, for soon enough the lead powrie ships were right below the Father Abbot’s position, right at the base of the seawall, and now their catapults went into action, launching dozens of weighted, knotted ropes tipped with cunning, many-pronged grapnels. The hooked instruments came down on targeted areas as thick as hail, sending the monks scrambling. Several monks were caught by a hooked tip, then pulled in screaming to the wall, the grapnel digging right through an arm or shoulder.
A group of seven immaculates stood in a circle to Jojonah’s right, chanting in unison, joining their power, six with their hands locked, the seventh in their center, holding forth a piece of graphite. A sheet of blue electricity crackled over the bay, sparking off the metallic cranks of powrie catapults, laying low the dozens of exposed powries on the barge decks.
But the burst lasted only a split second, and dozens more powries rushed to take the places of the fallen. Up the ropes they came, hanging under, climbing hand over hand with tremendous speed.
Monks attacked with conventional bows and with gemstones, loosing lightning bolts, springing fire from their fingertips to burn the ropes, while others went at the grapnels with heavy hammers or at the ropes with swords. Dozens of ropes went down, sending powries diving into the bay, but scores more came flying up as more craft crowded into the base of the cliff.
With still no sign of any approaching ground force, all of the monks came to the seawall, all of St.-Mere-Abelle’s power focused on the thousand powrie vessels that had swarmed into All Saints Bay. The air came alive with the tingling of magical energy, with the stench of burning pitch, with the screams of freezing, drowning powries. And with the screams of dying monks, for as soon as all the ropes were up, the powrie catapult barges began hurling huge baskets of pinballs, wooden balls an inch in diameter set with a multitude of metal, often poison-tipped needles.
Despite all the talk of Pireth Tulme, all the warnings of the older, more studied monks, the defenders of St.-Mere-Abelle were indeed taken aback at the sheer ferocity and boldness of the assault. And of the skill, for the powries were as efficient and disciplined a fighting army as any in all the world. Not a monk, not even stubborn Brother Francis, doubted for a moment that ifthe enemy ground force had made its appearance then, St.-Mere-Abelle, the most ancient and defensible bastion in all of Honce-the-Bear, would have fallen.
Even without that ground force, Father Abbot Markwart appreciated the danger of the situation.
“You!” he called to the monk who had fired the first catapult shot. “Now is the chance to redeem yourself!”
The young brother, eager to regain the Father Abbot’s favor, rushed to Markwart’s side and was presented with three stones: a malachite, a ruby, and a serpentine.
“Do not use the malachite until you descend near to the ship,” the Father Abbot explained hastily.
The young monk’s eyes went wide as he discerned the intent. The Father Abbot wanted him to leap from the cliff, plummet to one particularly large tangle of powrie ships, enact the levitational malachite and the fire-shield serpentine, and then loose a fireball across the vessels.
“He’ll not get close,” Jojonah started to protest, but Markwart turned on him with such ferocity that the portly master abruptly backed away. Markwart was wrong in sending this young monk, Jojonah maintained privately, for the three-stone usage was more suited to an older and more experienced monk, an immaculate at least, or even a master. Even ifthe young man managed the difficult feat, the explosion would not be extreme, a puff of flame, perhaps, and nothing to deter the powries.
“We have no options,” Markwart said to the young monk. “That group of ships must be dealt with, and immediately, or our walls will be lost!”
Even as he spoke, a pair of powries came over the wall to the side. The immaculates fell over them at once, beating them down before they could get in defensive posture and then cutting free the ropes in the area. But still, Markwart’s point had been clearly reinforced.
“They’ll not notice you coming, except to think you were thrown over by one of their own,” he explained. “By the time they realize the truth, they will be burning and you will be ascending.”
The monk nodded, clutched the stones tightly and leaped up to the top of the wall. With a look back, he jumped far and high, plummeting down the cliff face. Markwart, Jojonah, and several others rushed to the wall to watch his descent, and the Father Abbot cursed loudly when the malachite turned that plummet into the gentle fall of a feather in a stiff breezewith the monk still many yards above the deck level.
“Fool!” Markwart roared as the powries focused on the man, throwing spears and hammers, raising their small crossbows. To the young monk’s creditor perhaps because of his sudden terror, or perhaps because he simply did not possess the magical knowledge and strengthhe did not reverse direction and begin floating back up the cliff, but continued down, down.
A crossbow bolt dove into his arm; a stone tumbled from his hand.
“The serpentine!” Jojonah cried.
The young monk, clutching his arm, twitching and turning in a futile effort to dodge the growing barrage, was obviously trying to float back up.
“No!” Markwart yelled at him.
“He has no shield against the fireball!” Jojonah yelled at the Father Abbot.
The young monk jerked spasmodically, hit by a crossbow bolt, then another, men a third, in rapid succession. His magical energy left him along with his life force, and his limp body dropped the rest of the way, bouncing off a powrie barge and into the dark waters of All Saints Bay.
“Fetch me one of our peasant guests!” Markwart yelled at Brother Francis.
“He was not strong enough,” Jojonah said to the Father Abbot. “That was no task for a mere novice. An immaculate might not complete such a feat!”
“I would send you, and be glad to be rid of you,” Markwart screamed in his face, stunning him into silence. “But you are needed.”
Brother Francis returned with a young villager, a man of about twenty, looking sheepish. “I can use a bow,” the man said, trying to appear brave. “I have hunted deer”
“Take this instead,” Father Abbot Markwart instructed, handing him a ruby.
The man’s eyes widened at the sight and smooth feel of the sacred stone. “I cannot…” he stammered, not understanding.
“But I can,” snarled Markwart, and he held forth another stone, his mighty hematite, the soul stone.
The man looked at him blankly; Brother Francis, understanding enough to know that he should distract the peasant, smacked him hard across the face, knocking him to the ground.
Master Jojonah looked away.
Francis closed on the man, meaning to strike him again.
“It is done,” the man announced, and Francis held back the blow and reverently helped him to his feet.
“Possession,” Jojonah spat distastefully. He could hardly believe that Markwart had done this wicked thing, which was normally considered the absolute darkest side of the hematite. By all edicts, possessing another’s body was an act to be avoidedindeed, an act that monks spirit-walking with hematite often guarded against by preparing other protective stones. And when he thought about what he had just seen, Jojonah could hardly believe that the possession, perhaps the most difficult of any known task for the gemstones, had been completed so easily!
The Father Abbot in the peasant’s body walked calmly to the wall, glanced out over the edge to locate the greatest tangle of powrie vessels, then, without a moment’s hesitation, calmly leaped over the side. No malachite this time, no screaming, no fear. The Father Abbot focused on the ruby as he plunged the hundred feet, bringing the stone’s energy to a peak and loosing a tremendous, concussive fireball just before he slammed the deck. His spirit deserted the peasant body immediately, flying through the flames, away from the agony and back to his own waiting form atop the seawall.
He blinked his tired old eyes open, acclimating to his own body and fighting past that instant of sheer terror when he had neared the powrie decks, when he consumed his own borrowed form in magical fires. All the monks around him, with the notable exception of Master Jojonah, were cheering wildly, many looking over the wall at the burning mass of powrie vessels, uttering praises of disbelief that anyone could ignite so tremendous a fireball.
“It had to be done,” Markwart said curtly to Jojonah.
The master didn’t blink.
“To sacrifice one for the sake of others is the highest precept of our Order,” Markwart reminded.
“To sacrifice oneself,” Master Jojonah corrected.
“Go from this place, to the catapult crews,” a disgusted Markwart ordered dismissively.
Though Jojonah realized that his stone skills were still needed up on the roof, he was glad to comply. He glanced back at Markwart many times as he departed, for while others were purely awestruck by the magical display, Jojonah, who had known Markwart for more than forty years, was simply confused, and more than a little suspicious.
There was one entrance to St.-Mere-Abelle from the wharf area at the level of All Saints Bay, but so great were the doors down thereoak wood, two feet thick and reinforced with metal banding, backed by a portcullis with pegs as thick as a man’s thigh, and that backed by another falling wall, as thick and strong as the outer doorsthat no powries, not even the huge fomorian giants, could have broken through them if they had spent a week at it.
That was assuming, however, that the doors were closed.
If they could have seen over the cliff well enough to spot the doors, neither Father Abbot Markwart nor Master Jojonah would have been surprised to see those great portals swing open in invitation to the groups of powries that had managed to escape the blast and drag themselves onto the rocky shore. In fact, both men had expected this very thing when Master De’Unnero had volunteered, indeed insisted, that he be the one heading the contingent of twelve at the low station guard post. That group had two ballistae, one on either side of the great doors, but their firing range was severely limited by the narrow scope of their shooting slits, and Markwart had known full well that De’Unnero would never be satisfied with launching a few, usually ineffective bolts.
So the young and fiery master had opened the doors, and now he stood exposed in the corridor just inside, laughing hysterically, daring the powries to enter.
A group of nearly a score of the bloody caps, battered already but never afraid, did come roaring in, brandishing hammers and axes and cruel short swords.
As the last of them passed under the portcullis, it fell with a resounding crash, its vibrations reaching all through the abbey, all the way up to the seawall.
Startled but not stopped, the bloody caps yelled all the louder and charged on. A dozen crossbow bolts whipped out into their ranks, taking down a few but hardly slowing the charge.
There stood De’Unnero, alone, laughing, his honed muscles straining so tightly against his skin that it seemed they might tear right through. Other monks, principally Master Jojonah, had often voiced their belief that De’Unnero’s heart would simply explode, for the young master was too intense for the wrappings of any human coil. He seemed to fit that image now, verily trembling with inner energy. He held no weapon that the powries could see, only a single stone, a tiger’s paw, smooth brown and with black streaks.