This is part five of five in the story. In The Novice, Padre Tobias invites rambling rogue warrior Steve of Atlanta to join the citizens of The Monastery. In The Heretic, Tobias and his consort, Jaz the nun, are sentenced to death by the Bishop for heresy and carnal lust. Steve, now the executioner, allows the pair to escape into exile. In The Flock, Steve leads eight refugee orphans to the remote mountain where Jaz and Tobias struggle to survive. In The Oracle, the people stranded on a space station in a geosynchronous orbit contact Tobias. They inform him that the Monastery is under attack by marauding nomads. Tobias and the three oldest orphans rush northward across The Wasteland to assist Steve, or look for survivors of the raid. At moonset they camp in the Waste and sleep a little. Tobias resumes the story:

In the darkest hour of the night, just before the searing hatred of day appeared as a lie in the east, soft and silver and full of hope, the oldest orphan, Kick, shook me awake. "The star flashes."

We had nothing to build a fire and reply. I wrote the letters the star sent, in Morse Code, in the sand. Over and over the ancient code spelled out, caution  battle

The east began to glow, and we ran. The star hung as always near the zenith, and went out with the coming day, still flashing.

We met the Bishop and his Guard a half-hour from the Monastery, moving south. Three of the six big men led donkeys, laden with food and His Eminence's treasures.

One Guardsman knew me through my rags and bristles. "Padre Tobias!"

The bishop's heavy, jowly face looked strange somehow. The guardsmen looked confused. They stopped and we passed by at thirty yards distance.

"We go to join Steve of Atlanta," I said, not breaking stride. I was certain Steve was leading the defense of the community.

"A fearful legion indeed," the Bishop said, looking at my troops, none of whom was larger than a normal twelve-year-old.

"Steve is a tiger, or a devil. He is everywhere, and the old, the lame, they fight like lions at his side," The youngest of the Bishop's Guard said. "The barbarians will attack again at first light. Steve will not be able to stop them this time. The gate in the wall round the churchyard was burning."

Kick was off and running. The other two followed so I fell in behind.

My little midwife, Bink, growing fast into a pretty woman, panted, "That old fat yellowbellied son of a bitch running out like a rat on Steve and the rest!"

"Hey! A little common sense here!" I yelled, and finally caught up as they ran out of breath.

I knew the old people and kids were hiding in the church. What made Bink's words sting was that the biggest, strongest, best armed and trained fighters other than Steve were skeedaddling south with His Eminence.

The rubble that had been a layman's hut sheltered us as we paused a hundred paces from the Church to evaluate the situation. It was over. The wooden gate to the stone wall around the church grounds was burned and broken down. The yelling, blood-mad Traveler army, on foot, was swarming through. There must have been a hundred of them.

"Let's go!" Kick squalled like a beserk cat.

"No." I said, "Jaz, and the little ones need us..."

"And that damned Bishop is heading their way!" my little midwife sobbed.

We had dropped our guard. Heavy boots crunched on the gravel behind us. I whirled to make a stand, but it was not the Travelers. It was the Bishop's Guard, all six, puffing and blowing and waving their swords. It struck me then what had frozen the Bishop's face. Fear, fear of this- being left alone in his greed and cowardice when his Guard realized who The Maker would really want them to defend.

"Padre Tobias," that youngest Guardsman hefted his blade and said, "We are with you."

Then they just stood there, waiting, like bottles of piss, looking at me.

The last Travelers were inside the fortified churchyard. It was bedlam in there. It was now or never.

I lost my mind. Flipped. Went ballistic. I bawled Hoo-yah or something equally stupid, and tried to keep up with Kick and Bink as we charged hell for leather, like lambs frolicking over a cliff.

The Travelers had almost bitten off more than they could chew. They had taken half of the church grounds, but Steve and his Christians were making them take the rest at a terrible price. The Guard and my kids went through the shattered gate unopposed and the kids and I darted to the side drawing our bows and loosing arrows as fast as we could aim them. The Guard bored straight in and hit the Travelers in the ass. The four of us were out of arrows--we only had seven each--in half a minute. The Travelers, caught between mad dog Steve and a force of unknown strength, broke and whirled and made for the gate. The Guard blocked their way, and those big toughs had been practicing a lifetime for this. The legend being made up is wrong. They did not "stand like an iron rampart." Elbow to elbow, covering each other's flanks, they dipped, sidestepped, bobbed and weaved, and moved steadily forward. The left arm in the steel-ribbed gauntlet pushed, jabbed, distracted, and defended, while the massive two-edged sword in the right hand waited for any opening...

Steve and his handful of geriatric farmers saw the glint of hope and went beserk. I saw the fear dawning in the eyes of the Travelers.

I swept my brats to a corner of the wall with both arms and yelled, "Let them go! Let them go!"

Nobody was listening to the silly heretic. Who was wrong, of course. The Guards handled the situation well. The sounds of steel on steel and steel on flesh was the fabric of nightmares. A few, only a few, wounded bloody Travelers made it out through the gate. They didn't even try to herd along the mounts of their dead, they just forked their horses and made for the retreating night in the west, breaking and burning the wind.

The hot silence that fell was thick with the sickening sweet smell of blood. Jaz sometimes sang a song about flowers that were gone. I looked at the gory churchyard and shook my head. When would we ever learn?

The half-dozen or so unwounded laymen and friars who fought beside Steve were making a neat mound of heads, as they made sure no fallen Travelers were playing possum.

Steve was a mess, blood, dirt, sweat, Traveler chyme, you name it. He was conferring with the Guard. Policy was being made and history being formulated.

I motioned with my head to my three pups and started to ease out the gate.

"Freeze, Heretic," Steve bellowed.

His hug was weakened a little, but strong. "And now we are even,Tobias."

Epilogue

I woke near midnight, and slipped out of the cave without waking Jaz, who was sprawled naked as if blown there by an explosion. Out near the cave mouth the midwife was playing with Little Steve, who never seemed to sleep. She grinned in greeting as I went out to guard the fields.

I relieved the boy on watch, and started a fire. A horse nickered off in the shadows. The new Bishop had loaded us well with ropes, buckets, and a horse for each of the four who went to help him.

The old retired Bishop was lucky to get a hut at the edge of the Monastery, and he knew it.

I had invited the new Bishop to send mule trains to the sweet waterhole north of The Mountain to get water to drink and for cooking. They could use their old well's bitter water to irrigate the crops.

The star had been flashing since I assumed the watch.
well

I sent, we won

After a pause, the star flashed sos sos

Then it burned silent, steady as a rock as the other stars glided past it.

It wasn't a star. It was us. The challenge was laid down, the way was clear.

I lay back in the grass and began to plan how to drill an artesian well at the Monastery-then how to get water out of it, as requested by Bishop Steve. First things first. Later we could rescue those dummies in the Bernal sphere. I wondered if any of them knew anything about artesian wells.