R. Salvatore - The Ancient

But the Alpinadorans didn’t hesitate in the least and charged right in, and Faldo got rammed hard as a shoulder slammed against his shield, sending him lurching back and nearly upending him.

To his credit, he maintained the serpentine barrier, but the jolt broke his grip with his companion just as Moorkris sent his energy through the ruby and conjured a tremendous fireball.

With the connection to Faldo broken, Moorkris had no protection from his own blast, and like the poor barbarians caught in the area of conflagration, he was engulfed in his own flames.

It was all screaming and burning and shouting then, and Brother Faldo, confused and dazed and having no idea of where to turn next, stumbled back through the smoke toward the door. He felt someone punch him in the back, but he managed to stagger through, and Giavno and the others quickly shut and secured the portal behind him.

“I held the barrier,” the devastated young brother started to explain, blubbering through his mounting guilt as he came to understand that his failure to hold on had immolated his friend Moorkris. He couldn’t finish the thought, though, as he just fell over, for that punch in the back was not a punch at all, but a spear that had driven deep into his kidney.

“Get him to Father De Guilbe,” Giavno yelled at the other two, and he rushed for a ladder that would take him up to the parapets. When he got there, he found that his comrades were no longer raining stones on the attackers, and when he peered over the wall, he understood.

For the Alpinadorans were running off, and just below Giavno no less than seven bodies-whether men or women, he could hardly tell-either lay very still or writhed on the ground in mortal agony, their clothing melted to their blistered and bubbling skin. He recognized the monk he had sent out there by the shape of the still-burning robes, and his instinct to run out and retrieve Brother Moorkris lasted only the heartbeat it took him to realize that the young and promising young Abellican was already dead.

With a heavy heart and a heavy sigh, Brother Giavno started for Father De Guilbe’s quarters, praying that Brother Faldo, at least, would survive.

He paused at a group of several brothers, all staring hard at the gruesome scene below. “Go out through the secret door and see if any of our enemies can be saved. Be quick about it, and return at first sign that their companions are coming after you.”

He thought that an insignificant command, easily followed and without consequence-other than perhaps the notion one or two of their charred enemies might be pulled from the grip of death. But he could not have been more wrong, for as soon as the brothers moved out to the writhing wounded, the barbarian forces from across the way howled and charged with fury beyond anything Giavno could have anticipated. The monks made it safely back inside, with one grievously wounded Alpinadoran warrior in tow, but they had to secure the door fast, and calls for renewed support along the parapets rang out almost immediately thereafter.

For the Alpinadorans came on with abandon, throwing themselves against the stone, smashing at it and seeming not to care about the rain of stones that came down upon them.

“Bolster that portal!” Giavno cried, and nearly as many brothers had to work at piling stones behind the battered secret door as were up on the walls trying to repel the attackers.

Of the three fights so far, that battle was the most lopsided, with another handful of barbarians dead, and several more badly wounded, and not a monk seriously injured.

But for Giavno, that last battle was the most unnerving of all, the one that told him in his heart of hearts that these enemies who had come against Chapel Isle were willing to die to a man and woman to retrieve their brethren.

He had never seen such ferocious dedication.

Nor had Cormack, who had watched it all-the fireball, the retrieval, the second wave of wild assault-with horror. “We cannot win,” Cormack muttered many times during and after that second battle, for only then did he understand, truly understand, what “winning” might mean.

He saw Brother Giavno hustling toward De Guilbe’s door shortly thereafter, and thought to follow and plead with them to abandon this madness.

But his feet would not move to the commands of his brain. He had no heart for another round of verbal battle with those two.

The three monks stood in a line, side by side, in De Guilbe’s office, facing the father and Brother Giavno, who stood before the first, demanding his report.

“They are not eating,” the young monk sheepishly replied to Giavno’s question.

At the other end of that short line, Brother Cormack winced at every word. He knew it to be true. Androosis and the others would not eat-not a morsel. The captured shaman had decreed that they would die before acceding to the wishes of their wretched captors.

“Then make them eat,” Giavno said to the man, who retreated a step from the sheer intensity of the senior brother’s angry tone.

“We have,” he stammered in reply. “We held them and forced food and water into their mouths. Most they spit back.”

“But they got some,” Giavno reasoned. “That is good. Their bodies will likely outlast their determination.”

“Likely,” Cormack mouthed under his breath.

“When we returned to them the next day, they were covered in vomit,” the young monk explained.

Giavno glanced back at Father De Guilbe and gave a disgusted sigh. “Bind them more tightly,” he ordered as he turned back to face the young monk. “That they cannot get their fingers down their throats.”

“Yes, Brother,” the young monk answered, lowering his gaze.

“The fourth has been placed with them?” Father De Guilbe asked, referring to the barbarian who had been caught in Brother Moorkris’s fireball. The man would carry horrible scars for the rest of his life, but through the miracle of the gemstone magic, his life had been saved.

“Not yet, Father,” the monk replied. “Brother Mn’Ache fears that his wounds will fester if he is laid in the dirt.”

“Then put a blanket under him,” Giavno intervened, and from Father De Guilbe’s nod, Cormack could see that the man was of like mind.

“He recovers well, and should be ready for the dungeon in…” the young monk tried to explain, but Giavno cut him short.

“He recovers in the dungeon or he recovers not at all. I will not have a dangerous enemy in our midst when again his people attack. Would you have him climb out of his cot and murder Brother Mn’Ache while he was distracted at tending one of us?”

“He is bound.”

“Now, Brother,” Giavno ordered. “To the dungeon with him. Be gone!”

The young monk hesitated for just a moment, then whirled about and sprinted away.

“It is an unpleasant business,” Father De Guilbe admitted. “Hold faith, all of you. Keep in mind that our Brother Mn’Ache was able to save two lives during the night, that of the burned barbarian and that of Brother Faldo.”

“Brother Faldo is not yet awake,” Giavno replied. “Nor is Brother Mn’Ache certain that he will recover.”

“He will,” said De Guilbe with a confident smile, and he motioned for Giavno to move along.

The next monk in the line, the one standing right beside Cormack, offered details on the work at shoring up the walls and cutting stones and the like to hurl down at the barbarians. With confidence he assured, “They will not breach our defenses.”

The assertion was ridiculous, of course, and spoken more as a cheer than a proper evaluation, but it seemed to satisfy the inquisitor brothers, for Giavno patted the monk on the shoulder and moved to stand before Brother Cormack.