In a meadow a score of miles east of the town of Landsdown, the caravan from St.-Mere-Abelle made its last exchange of horses. Friar Pembleton, who brought the fresh animals, also brought news that was not welcomed by the leaders of the caravan.
"We must go farther to the east, then," Brother Braumin Herde reasoned, looking to the northwest, their intended course, as if he expected a host of monsters to rush down upon them.
Brother Francis eyed Braumin dangerously, the young and am-bitious monk taking every little change to his itinerary personally.
"Be at ease, Brother Francis," Master Jojonah remarked, seeing the anxious man chewing hard on his lip. "You have heard good Friar Pembleton. All the lands between Landsdown and the Wilderlands are thick with our enemies."
"We can hide from them," Brother Francis argued.
"At what magical cost?" Master Jojonah asked. "And at what delay?" Jojonah gave a sigh, and Francis growled and spun away. That settled, for the moment at least, Jojonah turned back to Friar Pembleton, a large and round man with a thick black beard and bushy eyebrows. "Pray tell us, good Pembleton," he bade the man. "You know the region far better than we."
"Where are you going?" the friar asked.
"That I cannot say," Master Jojonah replied. "You need know only that we must get through the Timberlands, to the north."
The friar rubbed a hand over his bushy chin. "There is a road that will lead you to the north, though into and through the eastern sec-tions of the Timberlands, not the western reaches, as you had origi-nally planned. It is a good road, though little used."
"And what word of powries and goblins up there?" Brother Braumin asked.
The friar shrugged. "No word," he admitted. "It appears as though the monsters came from the northwest, sweeping through the Timberlands past the three towns of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and End-o'-the-World. From there they have extended south, but, as far as I have heard, not to the east.
"It seems a reasonable detour," the friar added hopefully, "for there is little in the east that would give the monsters sport. No towns, and very few, if any, homesteads."
A younger monk joined the group then, bearing a satchel full of rolled parchments, their ends sticking from the leather bag. Brother Francis moved immediately to intercept, and yanked the satchel away.
"Thank you, Brother Dellman," Master Jojonah said calmly to the young monk, and he made a gentle motion for the startled young man to go back to the others.
Brother Francis flipped through the various rolls, finally settling on one and pulling it forth. He unrolled it gingerly, spreading it on a tree stump as Master Jojonah, Brother Braumin, and Friar Pem-bleton huddled around him.
"Our path was right through Weedy Meadow," Brother Francis remarked, tracing the line on the map with his finger.
"Then expect to be fighting every step of the way," Friar Pem-bleton answered sincerely. "And Weedy Meadow, by all accounts, is now a powrie outpost. Lots of giants up there, too."
"Where is this more eastern road?" Master Jojonah asked.
The friar moved in close to the map, studied it for just a moment, then ran his finger to the east of their present position, and then north, cutting through the narrower region of the eastern Timberlands and right into southern Alpinador. "Of course, you can turn back to the west before you get through the Timberlands, circling north of the three Timberland towns."
"What terrain might we find?" Master Jojonah asked. "Have you ever been up there?"
"Once," the friar replied. "When they first rebuilt Dundalis after the goblin raid - that was several years ago, of course. It's all forest, settled on the hillsides, hence the name of the region."
"All forest, and thus not well-suited for wagon travel," Brother Braumin put in.
"Not so bad," the friar replied. "It's old forest, with great and dark trees, but not much undergrowth. Except of course for the caribou moss; you will encounter more than a bit of that."
"Caribou moss?" All eyes turned to the questioner, Brother Francis, his fellow monks surprised indeed that he did not recog-nize the name. Francis met Jojonah's curious gaze head-on, the younger man again narrowing his eyes threateningly. "No tomes told of it," he answered the master's unspoken question.
"A shrub, white and low to the ground," Friar Pembleton ex-plained. "Your horses should have no trouble pushing through, though it will grab at your wheels. Other than that, the canopy is too dark for much undergrowth. You will get through, no matter where you turn to the west."
"We will get through along the original course," Brother Francis replied sternly.
"I beg your pardon, good brother," Friar Pembleton said with a gracious bow. "I never said that you would not. I only warned you - "
"And for that, we are truly grateful," Master Jojonah said to the man, though he was looking directly at Francis as he spoke. "I ask you now, in good faith, which road would you, who are more fa-miliar with this terrain, select?"
Pembleton scratched his thick beard, mulling over the options. "I would go east," he said. "And then north, right up into Alpina-dor. The land is sparsely populated, but you'll find the barbarians living along the route to be cordial enough, though probably of not much assistance."
Master Jojonah nodded; Brother Francis started to protest.
"Will you go and speak with the drivers now, that you might guide them to the entrance of this eastern road?" Jojonah bade the friar. "We must be back on the trail at once."
The friar bowed again and walked away, glancing back several times.
"Father Abbot - " Brother Francis began.
"Is not here," Master Jojonah promptly interrupted. "And if he were here, he would agree with this new course. Sublimate your pride, brother. It is unfitting to one of your training and station."
Brother Francis started to argue, but the words were lost in a swirl of absolute rage before they ever got out of his mouth. He quickly gathered up the parchment, creasing it in many places with his rough handling - the first time the others had seen him treat one of the maps in that manner - and stormed away.
"He goes to contact Father Abbot," Brother Braumin reasoned.
Master Jojonah chuckled at the thought, confident that his choice was the correct one and that Francis was simply too blinded by his anger and wounded pride to see past the inconvenience.
The caravan was on its way soon after, moving onto the eastern road without incident. Brother Francis did not emerge from the back of his wagon all that day, though the monks riding with him were quick to get out and away from him. He was pouting, by their accounts.
"In some situations, Father Abbot Markwart can be counted on," Master Jojonah whispered to Brother Braumin, offering a sly wink.
The younger monk smiled widely, always thrilled to see the am-bitious Francis put in his proper place.
As Friar Pembleton had told them, the road was easy and clear. Those monks searching the area with the quartz reported no mon-strous activity at all, just the wild forest. Master Jojonah set the pace at steady and smooth. They couldn't afford to drive these horses beyond their limits, for they expected no replacements the rest of the way to the Barbacan and all the way back again, until they met with Friar Pembleton in the very same field they had just left behind, swapping these horses for the ones they had given into the man's care.
Of course, that was assuming that Pembleton's little hamlet would survive over the next few weeks, and given the reports of monsters just a score of miles away, the monks could only pray that would be the case.
They traveled late into the night, with Master Jojonah even daring to put up substantial diamond light to guide their way. They camped right on the road, circling the wagons for protection. Great care was given to the precious horses, with hooves cleaned and shoes carefully inspected. The animals were toweled down and brought to graze in a nearby meadow, and more guards were posted about them than about the wagon ring.
The going was easy again the next day, but their new track would be much longer, and there was no way they could meet the timetable without pushing the horses. Brother Francis ran up be-hind Master Jojonah's wagon and climbed in precisely to make that point.
"And if we drive them so hard that they cannot continue?" the master argued.
"There is a way," Brother Francis said evenly.
Master Jojonah knew what he was talking about: in the old tomes, Francis had stumbled upon a formula, a combination of magic stones, that could steal the life force from one animal and give it to another. Master Jojonah thought the process truly bar-baric, and had hoped they would find no cause to even discuss the matter. Or at least, he had hoped he could keep the caravan on schedule, thus giving him the ability to deny Francis, for he knew that the eager and ambitious brother would surely want to try this new combination of magics, if only to add a major footnote to his account of the journey. Now, facing the reality of a longer road, the master glanced to Brother Braumin, who could only shrug, for he, too, had no practical answers. Finally, Jojonah threw up his hands in defeat. "See to it," he instructed Brother Francis.
The monk nodded, couldn't hide his smile, and was gone.
Using turquoise and hematite, the monks under Brother Francis' charge brought the first few deer to the wagons within the hour. The unfortunate wild animals were lashed beside the horses, and again the hematite and turquoise combination was used upon them, this time to draw their very life force from them, transferring their strength and energy to the horse teams.
The deer were soon left behind in the road, two of them dead, the other three too exhausted to even stand. Master Jojonah looked back at them with sincere sympathy. He had to keep reminding himself of the urgency of the mission, of the fact that many, many more animals and people would suffer greatly if the answers were not found and the monsters not turned back.
Still, the sight of the drained animals on the road saddened him greatly. The Abellican Order should not be about such dark things as this, he thought.
More deer were brought in, and even, at one point, a large bear, the creature posing no threat, for it was overwhelmed by telepathic intrusions. Continually refreshed by the stolen energy, the horses crossed more than sixty miles before the sun was down, and again the caravan rolled on long into the night.
With the abundance of wildlife and absence of monsters, neither Jojonah nor Francis doubted they would be back on schedule within a couple of days, despite the roundabout detour.
"Just goblins!" one man declared, slamming his mug of ale down on the oaken table so forcefully that the metal handle broke apart at its top brace, sending the golden liquid flying about. The man was huge and powerful, with bulging arms and chest, thick hair and beard. He hardly stood out in this gathering of thirty adult men of Tol Hengor, hardy folk all, tall and strong from a life in the harsh climate of southern Alpinador.
"A hundred goblins, at the least," another man put in. "And with a giant or two, do not doubt."
"And them stupid little dwarf things," added another. "Ugly as an old dog's arse, but tougher than stewed boot!"
"Bah! But we'll smash them down, every one!" the first man promised, growling with every word.
The door to the town's mead hall opened then, and all eyes turned to see a man, tall even by Alpinadoran standards, enter. He had seen more than sixty winters, but stood as straight as any twenty-year-old, and there was nothing slack about his muscles or his posture. About the town, about all of Alpinador, it was often whispered that this one had been touched by "faerie magic," and in a sense, that was true enough. His hair was flaxen and long, well below his shoulders, and his face adorned with a well-trimmed golden beard, accentuating his eyes, which remained as sparkling and blue as a clear northern sky. All boasts ended at that moment, in deference to the great man.
"You have seen them?" one man asked, a perfectly silly question in the minds of all who knew this man, the ranger Andacanavar.
He walked up to the long table and nodded, then pulled his tremendous claymore over his shoulder and laid its bloodstained blade across the table.
"But is there any sport remaining for us?" a man said with a burst of laughter, which was joined by all in attendance.
All except for one.
"Too much sport," Andacanavar said grimly, and the room went silent.
"Just goblins!" the man who had spilled his mead repeated determinedly.
"Goblins and giants and powries," the ranger corrected.
"How many giants?" came a call from the far end of the great table.
"There were seven," the ranger replied, lifting his gleaming blade up before their eyes. "Now there are five."
"Bah, not so many," two men said in unison.
"Too many," Andacanavar said again, more forcefully. "With their smaller allies holding our warriors at bay, the five giants will destroy Tol Hengor."
Nervous glances met angry glares, the proud northlanders not knowing how to respond. They held Andacanavar in the greatest respect - never before had he led them astray. Over the last few months, with the invasion by sea and by land, all the towns of Alpinador had been sorely pressed, and many overrun. Whenever tireless Andacanavar was about, though, the odds were more even, and the Alpinadorans had fared well.
"What are we to do, then?" a bear of a man named Bruinhelde, the chieftain of Tol Hengor, asked, leaning forward over the table to stare the ranger in the eye. He motioned to a woman standing in waiting at the side of the tent, and she took up a cloth and ap-proached the great ranger.
"You will take your people out to the west," Andacanavar ex-plained, handing his claymore to the woman, who reverently began to clean it.
"And hide in the woods like women and children?" the ale-spiller roared, leaping up from his seat. Having had too many drinks, he wobbled on unsteady feet, and the man next to him promptly shoved him back down.
"I will try to keep striking at the giants," the ranger explained. "If I can defeat them, or lead them away, you and your warriors can strike back at the rest and reclaim Tol Hengor."
"I do not wish to leave my home," Bruinhelde replied, and then paused, and all the room hushed. Bruinhelde was the leader, a title won in battle, and the tribe would follow his words, whatever Andacanavar might suggest. "But I trust in you, my friend." he added, and reached out and dropped his hand on the ranger's shoulder. "Strike fast and strike hard. It would be better if these filthy creatures did not set foot in Tol Hengor. And if they do, I wish to have them out quickly. I do not enjoy weathering the open forest at my age." He said the last with a wink, for he was more than fif-teen years Andacanavar's junior, and it was well- known that the nomadic ranger lived almost exclusively in the deep forest.
The ranger nodded to the chieftain, then to all gathered. He took the cloth from the woman and finished wiping the giant blood from his blade, then lifted it up, gleaming for all to see. It was an elvish blade, Icebreaker by name, the largest item ever constructed of sil-verel. Icebreaker did not nick and did not dull, and in Anda-canavar's strong arms, it could cleave down small trees in a single swipe. The ranger slid the blade back into its sheath over his shoulder, nodded to Bruinhelde, and was gone.
Master Jojonah and Braumin Herde stood on the edge of a high ridge, looking down upon a small village of stone houses set in a wide and shallow vale. The sun was low in the west, sending long shadows along the valley.
"We have come farther than we believed," the brother reasoned.
"Alpinadoran," Master Jojonah agreed. "Either we have crossed through the Timberlands or these barbarians have settled beyond their accepted southern border."
"The former, I would guess," Brother Braumin replied. "Brother Baijuis, skilled in use of the sextant, agrees."
"The magic used on the wild animals is effective, however im-moral," the master said dryly.
Brother Braumin glanced sidelong, studying his companion. He, too, had not been thrilled by the life-draining of innocent wild animals, though it seemed he was not nearly as distressed by it as Jojonah.
"Even stubborn Francis agrees that we have made up the time lost by the detour," Master Jojonah went on. "Though he had little argument against us when Father Abbot Markwart agreed with our choice of the eastern road."
"Brother Francis rarely needs support, or even logic, when dis-agreeing," Braumin remarked, drawing a concurring chuckle from his superior. "He is plotting our new course now, and surprisingly, with the same fervor that he plotted our original course."
"Not so surprising," Master Jojonah replied, lowering his voice to a whisper when he noticed the approach of two younger monks. "Brother Francis will do anything to impress the Father Abbot."
Brother Braumin snickered, but lost his smile when he turned to regard the newcomers, their expressions grave.
"Pray you forgive our intrusion, Master Jojonah," said one of them, Brother Dellman. Both young monks began bowing repeatedly.
"Yes yes," the master prompted impatiently, for it was ob-vious to Jojonah, too, that something must be terribly wrong. "What is it?"
"A group of monsters," Brother Dellman explained. "Moving from the west, toward that village."
"Brother Francis insists that we can easily avoid them," the other monk interjected. "And so we can, but are we to let those vil-lagers be slaughtered?"
Master Jojonah turned to Braumin, who was shaking his head slowly, as if the very movement pained him profoundly. "Father Abbot Markwart's instructions were clear and uncompromising," the immaculate said uncomfortably. "We are not to engage any, enemy or friend, at least until we have completed our task at the Barbacan."
Jojonah looked down at the village, at the plumes of gray smoke drifting lazily from the chimneys. He imagined how dark that cloud might soon be, black smoke billowing from burning houses; people, children, running about, screaming, in terror and in pain.
And then dying, horribly.
"What is in your heart, Brother Dellman?" the master asked unexpectedly.
"I am loyal to Father Abbot Markwart," the young monk replied without hesitation, straightening his shoulders resolutely.
"I did not ask how you would proceed were the decision yours," Master Jojonah explained to him. "I only asked what was in your heart. What should the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle do when they come upon a situation such as the one before us?"
Dellman started to answer in favor of fighting beside the folk of the village, but stopped, confused. Then he started again, his rea-soning moving in a different direction, speaking of the larger goal, the greater good to all the world. But then he stopped again, grunt-ing in frustration.
"The Abellican Order has a long tradition of defending those who cannot defend themselves," the other young monk put in. "In our own region, we have oft welcomed the townsfolk into the safety of our abbey in times of peril, be it powrie invasion or im-pending storms."
"But what of the greater good?" Master Jojonah asked, stop-ping the young monk before he could gain too much momentum.
With no answer forthcoming, Jojonah took a different tack. "How many people do you estimate are down there?" he asked.
"Thirty," Brother Braumin replied. "Perhaps as many as fifty."
"And are fifty lives worth the price of defeating our most impor-tant mission, a risk that we surely assume if we intervene?"
Again there was only silence, with the two younger monks glancing repeatedly at each other, each wanting the other to seek out the proper answer.
"We know Father Abbot Markwart's position on that," Brother Braumin remarked.
"Father Abbot would insist that they are not worth the potential cost," Master Jojonah said bluntly. "And he would make a strong case for his point."
"And we are loyal to Father Abbot Markwart," Brother Dellman said, as though that simple fact ended the debate.
But Master Jojonah wasn't going to let him off that easily, wasn't going to let Dellman or any of the others hand off the re-sponsibility of this decision; a decision, he believed, that went to the very core of the Abellican Order, and to the very heart of his dispute with Markwart. "We are loyal to the tenets of the Church," he corrected. "Not to people."
"The Father Abbot represents those tenets," Brother Dellman argued.
"So we would hope," replied the master. He glanced at Braumin Herde again, and the man was visibly anxious about the course of Jojonah's questioning.
"What say you, Brother Braumin?" the master asked bluntly. "You have been in the service of the Church for more than ten years; what do your studies of the tenets of the Abellican Order tell you of our course now? By those tenets, are fifty lives, or a hundred lives, worth the risk of the greater good?"
Braumin straightened, honestly surprised that Master Jojonah had put him on the spot, had called him out to reveal publicly what was in his heart. His thoughts whirled back to the powrie battle at St.-Mere-Abelle, to the peasant Father Abbot had possessed, then leaping the body to its death. That act was for the greater good - many powries were destroyed in the action - and yet it still left a lingering foul taste in Braumin's mouth and a cold blackness in his heart.
"Are they?" Jojonah pressed.
"They are," Braumin answered sincerely. "One life is worth the risk. With so important a quest before us, we should not go out of our way to seek those in peril, but when God sees fit to present them before us, we have a sacred obligation to intervene."
The two younger monks gasped in unison, surprised by the words, but also somewhat relieved - an expression, particularly on the face of young Brother Dellman, that Master Jojonah marked well.
"And you two,", Jojonah asked of them, "what say you of our course?"
"I would like to save the village," Brother Dellman replied. "Or at least warn them of the impending invasion."
The other monk nodded his agreement.
Jojonah struck a pensive pose, weighing the risks. "Are there any other monsters in the area?" he asked.
The two young monks looked to each other curiously, then shrugged.
"And how strong is this coming force?" Master Jojonah went on.
Again, no answer.
"These are questions we must have answered, and quickly," Master Jojonah explained. "Else we must follow Father Abbot Markwart's decree and be on our way, leaving the villagers to their grim fate. Go then," he bade them both, shooing them away as if they were stray dogs. "Get you to those with the quartz stones. Find me my answers, and be quick about it"
The young monks bowed immediately, turned and sped away.
"You take a great risk," Brother Braumin remarked as soon as the pair were gone. "And more a risk for yourself than for our quest."
"What risk to my soul if I let this pass?" Jojonah asked, a point that temporarily stole Brother Braumin's argument.
"Still," the younger monk said at length, "if the Father Abbot - "
"The Father Abbot is not here," Master Jojonah reminded him.
"But he will be if Brother Francis discovers that you plan to in-tervene against these monsters."
"I will deal with Brother Francis," Master Jojonah assured him. "And with the Father Abbot, if he does indeed find his way into Francis' body." His tone showed that to be the end of the debate, and, despite his well-founded fears, Braumin Herde was smiling as Jojonah determinedly walked ahead of him. The master, his men-tor, was taking a stand, Braumin understood. Sometimes, when the heart called loudly enough, one just had to dig in his heels.
The night was dark; a full moon had risen early, but had been blotted out by thick and threatening storm clouds. A fitting night, given the monstrous force approaching Tol Hengor. Nearly two hundred strong, the vicious band had already overrun two villages, and had no reason to believe that this next one in line would prove any more difficult. They came into the western end of the valley in their customary semicircular battle formation, with goblins forming the frontal shield perimeter, every other one carrying a torch, and the powries and giants clustered in the middle, ready to support either flank or charge straight ahead. Though they were walking between two ridges, along lower, less defensible ground, they did not fear any ambush. The Alpinadoran humans were not bowmen, typically, and even if the warriors of this village had perfected the art of distance fighting, their number - reported by scouts at no more than three dozen - would not be sufficient to cause too much distress. In addition the giants, who could take many arrow hits, would respond to any flanking attack with a devastating boulder barrage, turning the ambush back on the ambushers. No, the powrie leaders knew, Alpinadoran humans were dangerous in close combat, fighting hand-to-hand with their great strength, and not in hit-and-run tactics. And so the monsters had chosen this head-on formation rather than risk breaking the band into smaller,more scattered lines by traveling over the rougher ground of the ridges.
Thus it was with supreme confidence that the powries moved their combined force through the wide vale, all of them itching for the taste of human blood, all of the powries wanting to brighten the crimson stain of their berets.
They couldn't comprehend the power that had come against them in the form of the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle. A dozen lay in wait on either side of the vale, Brother Francis leading those on the northern wall, Brother Braumin in command of those in the south. Master Jojonah sat far in back of Braumin's group, pressing a hematite, that most useful and versatile of stones, against his heart. He was the first to fall into the magic, releasing his soul from its corporeal bonds and drifting out into the night air.
His first task was easy enough. He willed his invisible spirit along at great speed, moving down to the west end of the valley, meeting the coming force, scouting out its strength and forma-tion. The spirit whisked back the way it had come, first to the northern ridge and Brother Francis, then across the way to Brother Braumin, relaying the information to both groups. Then, with a thought, Master Jojonah was gone again, back to the ap-proaching monsters.
Now came the master's more difficult assignment: to infiltrate the monstrous force. Invisible and silent, he glided past the front goblin line and into the central group, going after a powrie body, but wisely reconsidering. Powries, so the ancient tomes declared, were especially resistant to magic, and particularly to any form of possession. They were tough and intelligent and strong of will.
Still, Master Jojonah did not want to get into a goblin body. He could cause a bit of mischief in one, of course, but nothing substan-tial, likely. Goblins were always an unpredictable and traitorous type, so the powries and giants wouldn't even be caught too much by surprise when one of them suddenly turned against the group, and a frail goblin body wouldn't do much damage against the likes of a tough powrie, let alone a giant.
That left one option for Master Jojonah, who knew he was ven-turing into wholly unexplored territory. He had never read of any possession of a giant, and knew very little about the behemoths, ex-cept for their bad temperaments and tremendous battle prowess.
His spirit moved cautiously beside the handful of fomorians.
One in particular, a huge specimen indeed, seemed to be in control of the group, bullying the others and hurrying them along.
Jojonah thought out the different tactics he might use in this at-tempt, which led him to believe that one of the other behemoths might prove a better target. None of the group, not even the ap-parent leader, seemed overly intelligent, but one stood out at the other end of the spectrum, a big loping creature, wagging its head and giggling at the sound made by its flapping lips.
Jojonah's spirit slipped into the monster's subconscious.
Duh?the giant's will asked.
Give me your form!Jojonah telepathically demanded.
Duh?
Your body!the monk's will commanded.Give it to me! Get out!
"No!" the horrified giant roared aloud, and its will locked with Jojonah's, instinctively trying to expel the monk.
Do you know who I am?Jojonah explained, trying to calm the behemoth before its companions could catch on that something was suddenly very wrong.If you understood, fool, you would not deny me!
Duh?
I am your god,Jojonah's spirit coaxed.I am Bestesbulzibar, the demon dactyl, come to aid in the slaughter of the humans. You are not honored that I chose your body as my vessel?
Duh?the giant's spirit asked again, but this time the tone of the telepathic inquisition was markedly different.
Get out,Jojonah prompted, sensing the weakness,or I will find another vessel and use it to utterly destroy you!
"Yes, yes, my master," the giant blubbered aloud.
Silence!Jojonah demanded.
"Yes, yes, my master," the giant repeated in an even louder voice.
Jojonah, partially entrenched now, could hear the world through the behemoth's ears, could hear the sound of the other giants gath-ering about this one, asking questions. He felt it as if it were his own shoulder when the giant leader pushed the loud and confused behemoth.
The targeted giant, convinced that this was indeed the demon dactyl, was trying desperately to comply, though it had little idea how it might vacate its own body. Jojonah knew he had to work fast, for possession, even upon a willing vessel, was never an easy task. He fell deeper into the hematite, used its magic to infiltrate every aspect, every synapse, of the giant's brain. The giant's id in-stinctively recoiled and fought back, but without the giant's conscious will backing it, it had little power.
Jojonah felt the blow keenly when the biggest giant laid his new form low.
"Shut yer mouth!" the big brute demanded.
"Duh, yes, master," Jojonah responded. Truly, the heavy jowls and heavy limbs proved an awkward experience for the monk as he tried to talk and pull himself up from the ground.
The big giant hit him again and he lowered his head submis-sively. "I be quiet," he said softly.
That seemed to mollify the leader for the time being, and the group moved along, back into their place in the formation, oblivious to the fact that they had picked up an extra spirit in the process.
The dozen monks on each side of the valley stood in a line, hands joined, the fourth and tenth of each group holding a graphite, and Brother Francis, in a concession made by Jojonah to quiet the man's outrage, holding a small diamond. Francis was the guide-post to both groups, the one who would select the time. The monks had to strike hard and unerringly; any retaliation from the monsters could cost them dearly.
Francis let the front rim of the goblin semicircle pass below him. The key to victory, they had all agreed, was to destroy the powries quickly and to hurt the giants enough to steal their heart for the fight. With the leaders eliminated, the reasoning went, the cow-ardly goblins would show little desire for any battle.
Francis was the only one in his line with his eyes open, the rest falling into the magic of the two graphites. He saw the goblins passing, some less than twenty yards away, and he could make out the towering silhouettes of a handful of giants. Francis took a deep breath and called forth the power of the diamond, flashing a brief signal to waiting Brother Braumin across the way.
"Now, brethren," Francis whispered. "It is time." And then Francis, too, fell into the communal magic, transferring his energy through the line to the graphites.
Brother Braumin's words to his group were nearly identical.
A split second later the first thundering bolt erupted from the hand of the fourth monk in Francis' line, followed by a blast from across the way, and then from the tenth in Francis' line, and then again from across the way. Back and forth the lightning barrage went, each monk in sequence loosing his energy into the combined pool of power of his respective line. Many of the younger monks could not even use such stones on their own, but in their mental joining with Francis and Braumin and the older students, their en-ergy was tapped, each in turn.
The whole of the valley trembled with the thunderous report; each successive searing flash revealed fewer monsters scrambling about.
In the center of the enemy formation, powries scrambled and were thrown down repeatedly, staggered and jolted. The giants, larger targets by far, took even more hits, but their great forms withstood the assault much better, and four of the five were still standing after the first complete volley, with only one taken down - and that one by a falling tree, not by a direct hit of magical lightning.
The largest of the giant group, ignoring its trapped and scream-ing companion, pointed up the northern slope and called for a boulder retaliation. Its intent and its expression changed quickly, though, when the giant beside it lifted a huge rock high into the air and then smashed it down upon its head.
Master Jojonah felt the sudden protests of the possessed giant's true spirit.I kill him and we be leader! he telepathically impro-vised, and that calmed the stupid giant considerably. Still, for all the giant's efforts to remain in the background and let what it be-lieved to be the dactyl control its corporeal form, it simply didn't know how to let go. Thus, the giant was giggling louder than ever as Jojonah instructed the arms to hit the giant leader again and again, finally beating the dazed creature to the ground.
The two remaining giants howled and moved to restrain him.
Jojonah tucked the boulder into his chest, then flung it out into the face of the nearest attacker, staggering the giant. The other hit him with a flying tackle, though, the pair squashing one of the few remaining powries as they tumbled to the ground.
Hey,the possessed giant's spirit protested, and Jojonah sensed that the dim-witted creature was finally catching on.Hey!
The giant's will took up the struggle for dominance anew, at-tacking Jojonah. And then the second lightning volley began.
Jojonah forced the giant form to its feet and ran right in the path of the searing lightning. Then, as he felt the burning energy blast against his chest, he relinquished the battered body to its rightful owner and his spirit flew free, hovering in the empty air to regard the scene.
The largest giant, blood pouring from its head, somehow managed to stagger back to its feet - only to be hit by the next lightning bolt, and then another right after that. The behemoth tumbled to the ground again, all strength and resilience gone, and waited for death to take it.
The lightning continued to roll in, each blast weaker than the previous, as the monks expended their magical energy. But there would be no significant retaliation, Master Jojonah recognized, for all that remained of the monstrous force were less than half of the goblins, a dozen powries, and a single giant, and all of those were too frightened, too battered, and too surprised to even think of con-tinuing the fight. Scattered torches marked their flight back to the west, back out of the valley the way they had come in.
In their retreat, the monsters made their way past one other silent observer, a man who had thought to come in for quiet attacks at the rear of the formation. Any who inadvertently ventured too close to the ranger found death at the end of a huge sword. And when Andacanavar discovered that one of the giants remained alive, he moved in on the limping behemoth, hitting it a series of fierce blows that laid it low before it even realized that the man was there.
When at last the valley fell silent, Brother Francis led his monks quietly across the way to rejoin their peers. Then the whole of the group moved back from the southern ridge, back to the wagons and Master Jojonah, where they quickly formed up their train and started away, not wanting to be discovered by either monster or Alpinadoran.
Andacanavar watched it all with a mixture of hope and confusion.
