Elkenbrook was a village not unlike Dundalis or Weedy Meadow, except that, being on the western border of Alpinador, it was a colder place, with more hardy evergreens and fewer deciduous trees. Winter in Elkenbrook began in the eighth month of the year, Octenbrough, usually within a few weeks of the autumnal equinox, and lingered on until the month of Toumanay had passed, giving way to a short spring and shorter summer. The folk of Elkenbrook were. light skinned and light of eye and hair, as was true of most of their Alpinadoran brethren. And, again as befitted the race, they were undeniably hardy, tall and square shouldered, accustomed to hardship. Even the children of the Alpinadoran frontier -- and most of the still -- wild kingdom was considered frontier! -- could wield a weapon, for goblins and fomorian giants were much more common up north than in the more civilized southern kingdoms. The settlement, in attitude and posture, reflected this, for Elkenbrook, unlike the villages of northern Honce-the-Bear, was walled by an eight-foot fence of spiked logs.
Thus, when the scouts of Elkenbrook reported goblin sign, the hardy folk were not too concerned. Even when giant footsteps were noted mingled in with those of the wretched smaller humanoids, the village leaders only shrugged stoically and began sharpening their long broadswords and heavy axes.
It wasn't until the very moment before the attack, eight hours after the dawn, the pale sun already touching the western horizon, that Elkenbrook truly appreciated its enemy and understood its doom. Normally the goblins would have come in as a mob, a rushing horde, barreling past the trees and scrub, throwing themselves wildly against the pickets and barricades. This time, though, the wretches ringed the village, completely encircling it with ranks ten deep! And the goblin line was bolstered every twenty paces by a fomorian giant wrapped in layers and layers of thick furs.
The folk of Elkenbrook had never known such a huge gathering of goblins, could not conceive of the notion that the hateful, selfish creatures could ever band together in such numbers. Yet here they were, countless spearheads glistening in the last slanted rays of day, countless shields, emblazoned with the standards of many different tribes, standing side by side.
As one, the village folk held their breath, too overwhelmed to speak, to offer any new directives or strategies. Often marauding goblins would send in a messenger before the attack to ask for surrender, to barter for a bribe, warning that battle would otherwise be joined. The usual answer to such a request came in the form of the messenger's head staked before the village wall.
This time, though, more than a few of the village folk were considering their options should an emissary approach.
The goblins held their line for several minutes, then, on command, their ranks parted, doubled in depth as each warrior stepped left or right, a single, brisk movement.
Out from the gaps in the line came the next surprise, a goblin cavalry, the diminutive creatures astride shaggy ponies. Goblin riders were not unknown but were considered a rarity -- never had any of the folk of Elkenbrook imagined that so many could be together.
"Four hundred," one man estimated, and that guess put the goblin cavalry alone at twice the number of Elkenbrook's entire population.
Just as stunning to the hardy folk was the manner in which the goblin lines had parted. "Trained army," another man muttered.
"Disciplined," yet another agreed, his expression incredulous -- and desperate, for it was no secret among the Alpinadorans that the only thing that had kept the fierce and prolific goblins from overrunning the entire northland was their inability to band together. Goblins fought goblins more often than they fought humans -- or any other race, for that matter.
Directly before Elkenbrook's main gate, four creatures emerged from the ranks: a huge fomorian, nearly three times a tall man's height, wrapped in furs and the skin of a white bear and carrying the largest club any of the villagers had ever seen, an incredibly ugly goblin, its face scarred and disfigured, one arm chopped away just below the elbow; and two curious creatures, goblin sized but not goblin shaped, with barrel-like stout bodies and spindly arms and legs that seemed too skinny to support them. Most striking of all about these last two creatures were their berets, shining bright red in the fast-dimming light.
"Bloody Caps," one man offered, and there were nods of agreement, though none of Elkenbrook's folk had ever before actually seen one of the infamous powries.
Again, the enemy line held its formidable posture as the seconds slipped by. Then one of the powries motioned to the giant, and the fomorian, grinning wickedly, lifted the dwarf high into the air. His eyes locked firmly on Elkenbrook, the dwarf removed his beret and waved it about in the air, high above his head.
The folk recognized the dramatic movement as a signal and braced for the charge, determined to take their toll, whatever the final outcome. What they heard, though, was not the thunder of hooves or the howls of charging goblins but the creaking swish of powrie war engines. Great stones, twelve-foot spears, and balls of burning pitch soared through the air, turning the tensed, frozen town into a frenzy of screams and cries, splintering logs, and hissing flames.
Few folk remained on the wall when the second volley roared in, for they were engaged in tending wounded, in battling flames, and shoring up defensive barricades. Most did not see the charge then, a splendid thing indeed; but they heard it, the very ground shaking under their feet.
The third volley, more than two hundred spears hurled by the rushing infantry, flew in just before the cavalry arrived, and thus as the riders poured through the many openings in the walls, they found more dead villagers than remaining defenders. Those folk who had survived the bombardment soon envied their dead companions.
Elkenbrook was flattened before the sun dipped below the horizon. Maiyer Dek of the fomorians, Gothra of the goblins, and Ubba Banrock and Ulg Tik'narn of the powries stood at the center of the massacre, hands and eyes uplifted, crying out to their leader, their god-figure.
Far away, on its obsidian throne in Aida, the dactyl heard them and savored the kill, the first organized attack by its trained minions. The demon could smell the blood and taste the fury as surely as if it had been on the scene with its chieftains.
And this was but the first, the appetizer, the dactyl knew, for its army continued to grow, black masses swarming into the embrace of Aida's dark arms, and Alpinador's lonely villages were merely a testing ground. The real challenge lay in the south, in the most prosperous and populous kingdom, in Honce-the- Bear.
They would be ready as winter began to relinquish its grip on the land, when the snows receded enough to free up the higher passes.
They would be ready.
Jill meandered this way and that on the forested slope north of Dundalis. The first snows had fallen, a light and gentle blanket, and the air was chill, the sky above showing the richest blue hue. That air alone brought to the young woman familiarity, a crispness that she had not known in the city of Palmaris nor in Pireth Tulme, where the dull and damp fog seemed eternal. Jill had known this air, so crisp and so clean, in her youth, in this place; and images of that past life flitted past the edges of her consciousness now, brief glimpses of what had once been.
She knew that her life had been happy, her youth full of freedom and wild games. She knew that she had had many friends, coconspirators in one grand and mischievous scheme after another. Life had been somehow simpler and cleaner, hard work and hard play, good food fairly earned, and laughter that came from the belly, not from any sense of good manners.
Still, the details of that past existence escaped her, as did the actual names, though many of the faces returned. Such was her frustration that bright morning as she walked about the forested slope to the tip of the ridge, to a pair of twin pines overlooking the wide vale of ever-white mossy ground and squat trues, their dark branches dusted by the recent snow.
More images came rushing to her as soon as she sat in the nook of those pines. She pictured a line of hunters weaving in and out of the trees in the mossy vale. She envisioned shoulder poles, and recalled her excitement that the hunt had apparently been successful.
Then the images began to crowd back, of herself running to the group, losing sight of them as she entered the low vale, weaving in and out of the barrier pines and spruce, running with a friend. She remembered rushing through that last obstacle, the feel of the prickly pine branches on her arms, and coming face-to-face with the returning hunters -- yes, she could see their faces, and among them was her father!
She remembered! And their poles were laden with the deer they would need, and with . . . something else.
Jill's eyes opened wide, the memory suddenly too vivid, the recollection of that ugly, misshapen dead thing assaulting her, telling her mind to run away.
She held the image fast, though her breath would hardly come to her. She remembered that morning, that bright morning, so much like this one. She had seen the Halo, and then the hunters, including her father, had returned with the winter provisions -- and with the goblin.
"The goblin," Jill whispered aloud, the very name assuring her that this past event had been the foretelling of doom for Dundalis, for her home, her family, and her friends.
She fought hard to steady her breathing, to keep her hands from trembling.
"Are you well, my lady?"
She nearly jumped out of her boots, spinning fast to face the questioner: a monk of the Abellican Church, wearing the same style brown robe as Brother Avelyn, its hood pulled back to reveal a shaven head. He was much shorter than Avelyn, but with wide shoulders, obviously strong.
"Are you well?"
He asked the question softly, gently, but Jill sensed a hard edge to his voice and that his concern was merely for show. He studied her intently, she noted, staring long at her hair, at her eyes and lips, as if he were taking a measure of her.
Indeed he was. Brother Justice had heard many descriptions of the woman traveling beside the mad friar, and as he looked upon this woman now, upon her lips, so thick and full, her stunning blue eyes, and that thick mane of golden hair, he knew.
"You should not be up here all alone," he mentioned.
Jill scoffed and brushed her fingers across the hilt of her short sword, not to threaten but merely to display that she was not unarmed. "I served in the army of the King," she assured the monk, "in the Coastpoint Guards." The way the man's eyes narrowed in recognition suddenly caught Jill off guard and made her think that perhaps she had not been wise in mentioning that fact.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"What is your own?" Jill snapped back, growing ever more defensive. It struck her as curious that a brother of the Abellican Church should be this far to the north and should be out alone away from the village. She considered Avelyn's story then, his abandonment of the order. Might there be consequences for such an action? Might the mad friar's increasing reputation have brought unwanted recognition from the strict order?
"My name has never been important," the monk replied evenly, "except to one. To a man once of my order but who deserted the way and who stole from my abbey. Yes," he said, viewing clearly Jill's growing look of apprehension, "to Brother Avelyn Desbris, I am Brother Justice. To your companion, my girl, I am doom incarnate, sent from the church to retrieve what he stole."
Jill was up on her feet, backing steadily, sword drawn.
"You would attack a lawful emissary of the church?" the monk demanded. "One whose title as Brother Justice is fair and true, and who carries the punishment rightfully earned by the outlaw monk you name as your companion?"
"I will defend Avelyn," Jill assured the man. "He is no outlaw."
The monk scoffed, standing easily. Then suddenly, brutally, he leaped ahead, fell low in a spinning crouch, and kicked up hard at Jill's extended sword.
A deft twist by the woman turned the sword out of harm's way, allowing Brother Justice merely a glancing hit that forced Jill back a step.
Brother Justice squared himself, ready to spring again, his: respect for the woman growing. She was no novice to battle, this one, with finely honed reflexes.
"It is rumored that you, too, are an outlaw," he teased, edging closer, "a deserter from Pireth Tulme."
Jill didn't flinch, didn't blink.
"Perhaps the Coastpoint Guards will offer a bounty," the monk said, and he came on fiercely, spinning another kick, then turning straight and kicking out three time in rapid succession, his foot snapping hard at Jill from various heights. She dodged each, sidestepping, then came in hard with a thrust of her own.
Her conscience held her, forced her to realize that she was about to kill a human being.
She needn't have worried, for her sword would never have gotten close to striking the deadly monk. Brother Justice let it come in at him, turning subtly at the very last moment, his left arm rolling under, then up and out, against the flat of the blade. He stepped ahead as he parried, launching a heavy right cross.
Jill retreated immediately, but got stung on the ribs, her breath blasted away. She staggered backward, setting her feet as she went, ready to fend off the expected attack.
As her thoughts cleared, she saw that the monk was not pursuing, was not capitalizing on the advantage he had earned. He stood calmly, a dozen feet away, one hand in a pocket of his robe. To Jill's amazement, his eyes closed.
The woman's questions were lost suddenly in a dizzying rush, for though the monk had not physically moved, he came at her again, at her very spirit, and suddenly the woman was fighting, through sheer willpower, to retain control of her body!
Intense pain shot through Jill's body and soul, and through the monk's, as well, she knew -- though that thought gave her little comfort. She felt his obscene intrusion as a shadowy wall, pushing into her, pushing her away from her own body. At first, she felt overwhelmed, felt as if she could not possibly resist. But soon she came to understand that in this body -- in this, her home battleground -- she could indeed withstand the monk's wicked intrusion. The shadowy wall edged back as Jill pushed hard with all her considerable willpower. She envisioned herself as a light source, a blazing sun, rightful owner of this mortal coil, and she fought back.
Then the shadow was gone, and Jill staggered a step and opened her eyes.
He was right in her face, leering at her. She understood then that his mental attack had been but a ruse, a distraction from which he could recover much faster than she.
She knew that, in the split second of consciousness she had remaining. She knew all of it and yet that knowledge brought only despair, for he was too close, too ready, and she could not hope to defend.
Brother Justice knifed his hand into her throat, dropping her back to the snow and dirt. A single clean blow, but a punch pulled, for the monk did not want the woman dead. Her knowledge would be valuable in locating treacherous Avelyn, he presumed, and her presence as his prisoner would certainly aid in bringing the outlaw monk to him:
He did not want the woman dead, not yet, but the monk knew that when his business with Avelyn was finished, this woman, Jill, too, would have to die.
Brother Justice cared not at all.
