abbot with a blow that dropped him to the stone, A pair of brothers rushed De'Unnero, but he dipped, thrust one leg out and tripped one, then pushed the tumbling man off the parapet and down to the courtyard; then he rolled under the lunge of the second, catching the scrambling man on his shoulder. De'Unnero's left hand snapped in with a sharp blow to the monk's throat and then, with hardly an effort, he flung the man right over the wall.
The unfortunate monk was still alive when he hit the ground outside the abbey. The peasants fell over him like a flock of ravenous carrion birds.
A third brother approached De'Unnero, loaded crossbow out before him.
De'Unnero locked his gaze, studied his eyes, and anticipated every movement, and even as the man squeezed the trigger, the powerful tiger legs twitched, launching De'Unnero skyward. The bolt crossed harmlessly beneath him.
De'Unnero came down, exploding into a charge that had the crossbowman helpless. He hit the man repeatedly, his fists smashing bone, and this monk was dead before he ever went over the wall.
Still more monks charged the savage warrior, heedless of their doom, thinking only to protect their fallen abbot. De'Unnero went for Braumin and rolled him over as he raised his fist for the killing blow, wanting Braumin to see it coming.
A lightning bolt hit the weretiger in midchest, sending him rolling over the wall. He landed lightly-miraculously to the stunned peasants! — and shook away the stinging pain.
He could not go right back up, for many monks had then converged on the area, many of them with crossbows and all of them aiming his way.
De'Unnero quickly melted back into the crowd.
Despite that setback, the rabble came on furiously, scaling the walls, pounding at the doors. The brothers responded with everything they possessed, but their magic was fast weakening and their numbers, though they took care to stay protected, continued to dwindle under the rain of arrows from Tetrafel's archers.
Abbot Braumin, dazed from the punch and bleeding from the nose-but refusing any help from a brother with a soul stone-looked around at the confusion, at the sheer mass of people coming at the abbey, at Tetrafel's deadly archers raining death from the back of the square, and he knew.
St. Precious would fall this day, and he and all of his brethren would be executed.
She 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 herself 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.
