Brother Dellman sat there, gasping, for a long while. Then, no longer exhausted, he ran out to find Abbot Haney.
'They all must go,' Jilseponie said to Tetrafel and Braumin when they met later that day in St. Precious Abbey. 'The ill and the healthy, in coordinated fashion and with your soldiers to protect them.'
Duke Tetrafel, only then beginning to digest the overwhelming logistics of the proposition, hesitated. 'I will send some soldiers,' he agreed.
'All of them!' Jilseponie argued, her tone showing no room for debate. 'Every man and woman. And you must send word to Ursal, telling King Danube to open the roads to the north, to call out the entirety of his army to wage this war as completely as he would if the goblins had returned.
'And you, Abbot Braumin, must send all of your brothers, as quickly as possible, using all the magic available to you, to the Barbacan,' she continued. 'Once you have tasted the blood of Avelyn, then you, too, might begin to aid those making the journey to Aida without fear of becoming ill.'
'But you cannot cure me,' Duke Tetrafel argued, 'by your own words.'
'But I can help to battle the plague, to push it back long enough so that, perhaps, you will survive the journey to the mountaintop, and there be healed.'
'You are so certain of all of this?' Braumin asked somberly; and Jilseponie nodded, her expression serious and grim.
'We must have soldiers and monks lining the road, all the way from Palmaris to the Barbacan,' she explained, 'supply camps, with food and with bolstering healing, with fresh horses, and with soldiers to guide the newest group of pilgrims to the next site.'
'Do you understand the difficulties?' Duke Tetrafel asked skeptically.
'Do you understand the implications if we fail in this?' Jilseponie shot back, and that surely silenced the skeptical, plague-infected man.
' You went to Dellman? ' Braumin Herde asked.
Jilseponie nodded. 'Vanguard is alerted. For now, they must determine their course.'
'And you will similarly go to the Father Abbot at St.-Mere-Abelle?' Braumin asked.
Jilseponie thought on that for a few moments, then shook her head. 'I will go in body to St.-Mere-Abelle, along with Dainsey. I will face them directly.'
Braumin, too, paused and mulled it over, then nodded his agreement. 'They will not be easily convinced,' he said, remembering his previous meeting with Glendenhook and understanding well the doubting, cynical nature of powerful Fio Bou-raiy.
'We need them,' Jilseponie said. 'All of them. All of the brothers of your Church. They must go to Aida and protect themselves, then work tirelessly to aid those who will follow them to that holy place.'
'Palmaris first,' Duke Tetrafel demanded.
Jilseponie nodded. 'Let our work begin, now, out in the square.'
And so it did, with Jilseponie working with the soul stone, bolstering those sick plague victims who would head out that very day, while the soldiers and the other healthy pilgrims began readying the many horses and wagons.
While Braumin and the others, on Jilseponie's own orders, could not offer direct aid to the plague sufferers, they did work with soul stones, leeching their own strength into Jilseponie, bolstering her efforts.
She worked all the day and all the night. Several, she found, were beyond her help, were simply too thick with plague for her to offer any real relief. They would not make the journey, could not hope to survive the road, even if she went along with them, working on them all the way. She did not turn them away, though, and tried to enact some measure of relief, at least, upon them.
That very night, magically and physically exhausted but knowing that every minute she delayed likely meant the death of another unfortunate victim, Jilseponie and Dainsey Aucomb set out from Palmaris. Instead of taking the normal, slow ferry across the Masur Delaval, the pair were whisked across the great river by Captain Al'u'met on his Saudi']acintha.
Also that very same night, Abbot Braumin and every brother of St. Precious began their swift pilgrimage to the north, using gemstones to lighten the burden on their horses, using gemstones to illuminate the trail before them and to scout the area spiritually, using gemstones to leech the strength from nearby animals, as some of them had learned on their first trip to the Barbacan.
They meant to get there as quickly as possible and return, stretching their line along the road to offer aid to the pilgrims.
Braumin Herde remained doubtful, though he trusted Jilseponie implicitly, and marked well the seemingly miraculous image burned into the bell at St. Precious. But too much was at stake here for the gentle monk. He could not allow his hopes to soar so high, only to learn that Jilseponie had erred, that there was no miracle to be found or that it had been a onetime occurrence, a blessing for Dainsey Aucomb.
What would happen in that instance? the abbot had to worry. What might the peasants or the Duke and his soldiers do if they discovered that they had traveled all the way to the Barbacan, no doubt with many dying along the road, chasing a false hope?
He shuddered at the thought but reminded himself of the character of the messenger. When he had last seen Jilseponie before her return to St. Precious, he had given her an assortment of gemstones and had prayed that she would again prove the light against the darkness. Now she had returned to him with just that claim, and his own doubts of her had laid his cynicism bare before him.
What friend was he if he did not believe her?
What holy man was he if he could not see past his earthly cynicism and dare to believe in miracles?
Chapter 41
We cuts 'em, and that horsie-man leading them won'ts help 'em!' Kriskshnuck, the little goblin, said with a toothy sneer. 'Cuts 'em and eats 'em!'
His companions bobbed their heads eagerly, for down on the trail, in clear sight of them, came the line of folk from Dundalis and the other Timberland towns-the first pilgrim group that had set out for the Barbacan.
For the goblins who had swarmed back into the area just south of the mountainous ring, this seemed like an easy kill. The goblins knew this rugged land, where the humans did not. They'd hit the fools on the road, and repeatedly, whittling at their numbers and their resolve, setting them up for the final, overwhelming assault.
And as more and more goblins joined in, their numbers now swelling to over three hundred, it did indeed seem as if that assault would be overwhelming.
Kriskshnuck couldn't keep all of the eager drool in his mouth as he and his companions scrambled down from the ridge, excited to give their reports to their waiting kin. Halfway down the rocky outcropping, though, one of those other goblins cried out in pain.
'Ow!' the wretched little creature yelped. 'A bee stinged me.' And then, 'Ow! Ow!' over and over, and when Kriskshnuck looked back, he saw his companion swatting futilely at the air, waving and jerking spasmodically, before giving one final howl and falling over onto the stone.
Before Kriskshnuck could begin to ask, another of his companions began a similar dancing routine, and then the third of the group.
Kriskshnuck was smart, as goblins go, and so he asked no further questions but just turned and sprinted and scrambled to get out of the area. He got over one ridge, across the flat top of a huge boulder, then down a short cliff face. He turned and started to run, with only twenty feet of open ground separating him from the relative safety of a tree copse.
He felt the first burning sting on his thigh, and looked down to see a small shaft protruding from the muscle. He limped on and got hit again, on the hip, and again after that, in the belly.
Doubled over, clutching his belly with one hand, his thigh with the other, Kriskshnuck scrambled on.
'The trees,' he said hopefully, thinking his salvation was at hand. But then he saw them-small forms sitting
