Authors: R.A. Salvatore
St. Precious would fall this day, and he and all of his brethren would be executed.
S
he heard the too-familiar sound of battle as she approached the northern wall of Palmaris, the cries of rage and of pain, the slash of steel, the thunder of magical lightning and a deeper, resonating sound: a battering ram thumping against a heavy gate.
Jilseponie urged Symphony into a faster trot, trying to get a bearing on it all. She noted that no soldiers manned the wall, that the gates were closed but apparently unguarded.
“Open!” she cried, now urging Symphony into a canter. “Open for Jilseponie!”
No response.
She knew then that it was St. Precious under attack, and the absence of city soldiers made it apparent to her that Shamus’ warning about Duke Tetrafel was on the mark.
“Come in with care, as you may,” she said to Dainsey, who rode Greystone beside her. Jilseponie slowed Symphony just enough so that she could fumble within her gemstone pouch, pulling forth several stones, and then she sent her thoughts to him, straight on, asking him for a full and flying gallop.
And flying it was indeed, for as they approached—the horse not slowing at all but taking confidence in his rider—Jilseponie activated the malachite. Squeezing her legs and urging Symphony into a great leap, they went up, up, lifting nearly weightlessly into the air, their great momentum keeping them flying forward, rather than merely levitating.
Over the wall they went, but Jilseponie didn’t then relinquish the magic. Her thoughts, her energy, flowed into the stone powerfully, keeping them aloft. She liked the vantage point, and the image she might bring this way to the battlefield.
But how to steer? And how to maintain speed if Symphony’s strong legs couldn’t contact the ground?
Another thought—Avelyn-inspired, she knew—came to her, and she reached into her pouch and took out another stone, a lodestone. Jilseponie fell into this one, as well, looking out across the city, to the raging battle she could now see over at St. Precious abbey. She focused on the abbey, on the great bell hanging in the central tower. She felt the metal distinctly through the stone, and while ordinarily she would have gathered that attraction into the lodestone, building energy until she could let it fly as a super-speeding missile, this time she used the attraction to bring the stone and the bell together; and as she was holding the stone, and she and her mount were nearly weightless, they flew off toward the tower.
Jilseponie saw the insanity clearly, and the image nearly had her turning herself right around and running off to the sanctuary of the northland. A wild mob
seethed about the base of the abbey walls. Up on the parapets, men were being hurled to their deaths, brothers pulled down and torn apart, lightning bolts and arrows and crossbow quarrels killing in numbers that would humble the total felled by the rosy plague!
She brought up a third stone then, her energies not diminishing in the least as the rage rose within her. She was fully into the magic—levitating, magnetically “flying”—and now both she and her great horse were limned in a bluish white glow, a serpentine fire shield.
Over the battleground she soared, reversing the lodestone energy to break her momentum to slow her, even to angle her out above the main square and the bulk of the fighting. Some heads turned up to regard her, but most, too engaged in the battle, didn’t notice.
But then everyone noticed indeed! For Jilseponie brought forth the powers of the ruby: a tremendous, concussive fireball that rocked the ground beneath their feet, that shook the walls of St. Precious more violently than the battering ram ever could. Then she loosed a tremendous lightning strike, angling it for the bell tower, the great gong immediately following the thunderous report.
Duke Tetrafel’s archers turned their bows toward her, but not one had the heart and courage to fire. On the abbey walls, the brothers of St. Precious stared in awe, knowing, as each came to recognize the rider, that their salvation was upon them.
Down went Jilseponie and Symphony, onto the square, the horse neighing and stomping the ground.
“What idiocy is this?” Jilseponie demanded, and the battlefield had gone so quiet that she was heard in every corner. “Is not the rosy plague a great enough enemy without us murdering each other? What fools are you who diminish yourselves to the level of powries and goblins?”
Men about the square shied away from her, some ducking, some falling to their knees in fear.
“They are to blame!” one of the Brothers Repentant cried.
“Silence!” Jilseponie roared, and she lifted her handful of gemstones in the man’s direction and he scrambled away.
But another brother did not similarly run, but rather came forward deliberately, slowly pulling back his hood, his intense gaze locked upon her. “They are to blame,” he said with perfect calm.
Jilseponie had to fight hard to maintain her seat in that moment of recognition, of painful memories and the purest hatred. For she knew him, indeed she did. Despite the long hair and the beard, she recognized Marcalo De’Unnero as clearly as if they had both suddenly been transported back to that fateful day in Chasewind Manor.
“They follow a demonic course,” De’Unnero added, still approaching.
“They follow Avelyn,” Jilseponie replied.
The man smiled and shrugged, as if she had just agreed with him.
Jilseponie growled and pulled her gaze from the man. “Hear me, all of you!” she
cried. “Avelyn was your savior in the time of Bestesbulzibar, and so he is again!”
“Avelyn brought the plague,” the leader of the Brothers Repentant, the self-proclaimed Brother Truth, declared.
Various shouts, of hope and of denial, came at her; but Jilseponie hardly heard them, as De’Unnero continued to approach. She understood then that she would not reach them with any effect as long as this figurehead stood before them, denying her every claim.
And at that moment, Jilseponie hardly cared. Suddenly, at that moment, the scene about her mattered not at all. Not the fighting, not even the suffering. No, all that mattered to Jilseponie at that moment was this figure coming toward her, this murderous monster who had begun the ultimate downfall of her dear Elbryan. She swung down from Symphony, dropping all but one of her gemstones back into her pouch, and in the same movement, drew Defender.
De’Unnero continued to smile, but slowed his approach. “Avelyn is a lie,” he said.
“Says Marcalo De’Unnero, former bishop of Palmaris,” Jilseponie returned. Many in the crowd gasped, telling her that she had guessed correctly: not many in attendance knew the true identity of the man.
“The same Marcalo De’Unnero who murdered Baron Rochefort Bildeborough, and his nephew, Connor,” Pony declared. This time, the gasps were even louder.
“Lies, all!” Brother Truth cried, holding his outward calm. “Baron Bildeborough was killed by a great cat, so say the witnesses and all those who investigated his death.”
“A creature that can be replicated through use of the gemstones.”
“No!” De’Unnero yelled back before that thought could gain any momentum. “The gemstone may replicate but a limb of the cat, perhaps two if the wielder is strong enough. But that is not the tale told by the scene of Baron Bildeborough’s death, and so your claim is the preposterous lie of a desperate fool!”
Pony looked around at the crowd, the uncertain and very afraid peasants. She could not begin any trial here, she realized, could not possibly slow all this down enough to turn the tide against De’Unnero.
“Let them decide their course later,” she said to the man. “Let us finish our private business here and now.” And she waved Defender before her, a motion for the dangerous monk to be on his guard.
With a laugh most sinister, De’Unnero shrugged off his robes and fell into a fighting stance, circling, circling to Pony’s left.
“Do not!” Jilseponie heard Abbot Braumin cry from behind. “You do not know the power of—” She held up her hand to silence the man; nothing would deter her from this fight. Not now. This was the man who had wounded Elbryan, who had, in fact, brought about his death in his subsequent battle with Markwart. This was the man who had brought the crowd against St. Precious, without doubt, the symbol of all that Jilseponie despised. This was the man, and no doubt, Jilseponie meant to wage this fight.
Quicker than she could believe, De’Unnero leaped forward, his left arm going under Defender, then coming up and out to keep the sword wide, while his other hand came straight in, a heavy punch aimed for Jilseponie’s face. She thought that he would measure her, would take some feinting strides and punches, and so she was caught somewhat off guard, and had to skitter back defensively, taking a clip on the face as he followed the punch through to the end.
The fight would have been over, then and there, for De’Unnero continued ahead, launching another right, then a straight left, then another right.
But Jilseponie knew
bi’nelle dasada
, had mastered much of the dance—particularly the straightforward charge-and-retreat routines—perfectly, and she managed to elude the charging monk long enough to get her sword in line and force him back.
Now she came forward, a sudden charge and thrust; but De’Unnero, so agile—too agile!—leaped into a sidelong roll that forced Jilseponie to turn. By the time she had, he had already come inside her sword reach, and she had to skitter into another desperate retreat.
Only for a moment, though, for she slid down to one knee, under a wild right hook, disengaging Defender from the blocking arm, then slashed the sword across.
Up went De’Unnero, tucking his legs. Jilseponie stopped and pulled the sword in, then thrust straight out, and De’Unnero had to throw his hips to the side to dodge.
He rolled right about that pivot, lifting one leg high, then stomping down; Pony threw her free arm out to block—and then fell back, tucking the bruised limb in against her side.
She didn’t let the pain deter her and retreated only a couple of steps before reversing and thrusting, charging ahead several fast strides, angled to keep up with De’Unnero, and thrusting again. Then it was the monk’s turn to clutch a wounded limb, a torn forearm.
But if Jilseponie thought that she had any advantage, then she didn’t understand the fiber of Marcalo De’Unnero. With a feral growl, he came on, his hands working a blur of circles in the air before him—a blur that Jilseponie didn’t dare thrust her sword into, for if she missed any mark, he would certainly disarm her or at least deflect Defender out too far to the side. On he came, hands working a defensive frenzy and every so often launching a straight jab; legs working furiously, keeping perfect balance, and every so often launching a kick for her face.
And Jilseponie was backing, backing, trying to sort out the blur, trying to find some opening. She called to Elbryan then, to guide her.
But he was not there or could not answer. It was only herself against this man, this monster, and she understood clearly at that moment that she was badly overmatched. How she wished she hadn’t so depleted her magical energies! How she wished she could activate serpentine and ruby and burn the skin from De’Unnero’s bones!
Out came a jab, and she had to slash Defender to turn the punch away, and only
then did Jilseponie realize that she had been duped.
Down went De’Unnero, throwing his leg out wide, sweeping it forward, catching the retreating woman on the ankle and tripping her.
She fell with enough balance to prevent any real injury, but again, the monk leaped ahead too quickly and stood towering over her.
She couldn’t get Defender in line this time. She noted then that the man’s arm had become that of a great tiger.
F
or Marcalo De’Unnero, this was the moment of complete triumph, of full circle. Jilseponie would die, there and then, and all threat that the followers of Avelyn would somehow push back his brethren would die with her.
For he was the victor, he was the one who would stand among the masses, sending them with renewed fury against the diminishing defenses of St. Precious Abbey.
He had sensed that, had sensed the kill, even as his foot connected with her ankle, sending her tumbling to the cobblestones. He had smelled her blood, had felt the tiger awakening within him. The woman was good—very good—and he knew that he would get only one strike in before she managed to come back on the defensive. But he had the great beast within him; his paw carried lethal claws.
He would need only one strike.
He started his swipe, her neck open to him. She could not possibly bring her sword in line, could not begin to roll out of death’s way.
But she opened her other hand and a missile fired out, a small gemstone homing in on the metal in the one piece of jewelry Brother Truth wore: an earring dangling the evergreen symbol of the Abellican Church.
The magic stone drove up against the side of De’Unnero’s head, tearing away his ear. His attack became a shriek as he brought his arm in reflexively to grab at the wound.
Jilseponie rolled back, setting her feet under her and coming up; and De’Unnero, too, retreated, howling with pain and outrage.
“Deceiver!” he cried.
“Tell me when I claimed to fight you fairly,” she spat back.
“Deceiver!” he cried again.
“I did not use magic until you did!” Jilseponie yelled back. She came forward with a thrust, and De’Unnero leaped aside.
It churned in him, boiling, boiling, the primal rage, the primal beast. His head burned with pain; his brain swirled with red rage. He had won! He had victory right in his grasp, his clawed, tiger’s grasp!
He hardly felt the transformation, the crackling and reshaping of bone, the beast overwhelming his control. He knew that he should not, must not, allow this! Not out here, in front of all the folk, not so soon after Jilseponie had just declared him the murderer of Baron Bildeborough!
But he couldn’t stop it, not with the blur of pain, the red wall of outrage.
His senses heightened; he saw Jilseponie, her horse behind her, rearing and neighing.
He heard them, all of them, gasping, and then crying out against him.