R. Salvatore - The Ancient

“Justified does not mean that it is not misplaced,” said Gwydre. “I see that you have forged a friendship with Brother Jond and some others.”

Bransen shrugged.

“If I granted you your freedom right now, with no recourse should you decide to leave, would you?” she asked. “Would you collect your wife and her mother and be gone from Vanguard?”

“Yes,” Bransen said without hesitation and with as much conviction as he could flood into his voice.

“Would you really?” Dame Gwydre pressed. “You would leave Brother Jond and the others? You would allow the troll hordes of the Samhaists to overrun Vanguard and slaughter innocent men, women, and children?”

“This is not my fight!” Bransen retorted, somewhat less convincingly.

“It is now.”

“By deception alone!”

Gwydre paused, and held up her hand to silence the agitated Bransen. “As you will,” she conceded.

“You will let me leave?”

“No, I cannot, though surely I would like to-for you and for all of the soldiers,” she said. “There is too much at stake, and so I insist that you remain.”

“Dawson McKeege would be proud of you,” Bransen replied, his sarcasm unrelenting.

“I do not wish to allow this war to go through the winter,” Dame Gwydre said and turned and started off yet again, Bransen in tow. “The cold favors my enemies.”

“Please, end it.”

“I am considering creating a select team of warriors to strike deep into our enemy’s ranks, perhaps to decapitate the beast. The hordes are held together by the sheer will and maliciousness of Ancient Badden, a most unpleasant Samhaist.”

“A redundant description, from what I have seen.”

“Indeed,” Dame Gwydre agreed. “Do you agree with my reasoning?”

“You’re asking me to join your attack force.”

“I am tasking you with exactly that.”

Bransen stopped, and Gwydre did as well, glancing back and allowing him all the time he needed to think it through.

“How far and how long?” he asked.

“Somewhere in the North,” she replied. “Probably a journey of more than two weeks-and that if the enemy is oblivious to your passing.”

“If I go, and if this beast, Ancient Badden, is killed, I would have my freedom,” Bransen said. “Even if this assault does not end your war, as you hope. I would have my freedom with your blessing and imprimatur to return unhindered to the lands of southern Honce? And you will provide a ship to sail my family home.”

“You are in no position to bargain,” she said.

“And yet, bargain I do. Even if killing Ancient Badden does nothing to end this war, I will have my freedom.”

“You will not walk away,” Dame Gwydre said.

“If you believe that, then you have nothing to lose.”

“Agreed, then,” she said. “Bring me the head of Badden and I will have Dawson McKeege take you back to Chapel Abelle, along with my insistence that you be forgiven your past indiscretions, though I cannot guarantee that the Southern lairds and Church will heed that imprimatur.”

“Allow me to worry about that.”

Dame Gwydre stared at him a moment longer as she gathered her cloak up tight against her neck, and with a slight nod, she walked away.

Bransen stood there for a long while watching her go, and thinking that at least he had a direction before him now, a place to go with the hope that it might indeed end in the near future.

It did not occur to him that Ancient Badden would prove to be the most formidable foe he had ever faced.

The Cost of Conscience

They repelled the assault but not without cost, for this last attack by the determined Alpinadorans had left several brothers seriously wounded, one critically. The cost to the Alpinadorans had been even more grievous, with many carried from the field.

“Fools, all!” Father De Guilbe scolded, shaking his fist at the departing horde. None of the monks around him dared utter a word in response, for never had they seen their leader so obviously flummoxed. “Will we kill you all? Is this the choice you force upon us, fool Teydru? If you are concerned for your flock, why do you throw it to the hungry wolves?”

By that point, almost all of the Alpinadorans were back at their beachfront encampment, and though De Guilbe was yelling at the top of his lungs, it was fairly obvious that they could not hear him well enough to make out his words. Still, he ranted for several minutes, his diatribe turning mostly against Teydru, before he at last turned to face his own brethren.

“Idiots!” he said with a snarl, and many brothers nodded their heads in agreement, and one whispered, “They will not break through our walls,” in support of the father’s general thesis.

Father De Guilbe took a deep breath then and settled back against the stone parapet, letting the tension drain from his battle-weary body. “We will be working the soul stones long into the night,” he said, mostly to Giavno. “Determine a rotation and be certain that our wounded brethren are tended dusk to dawn.”

“Of course,” Brother Giavno replied with a respectful bow.

“And if they come on again this day, conserve your magical powers,” De Guilbe told them all. “Let us ensure that we have the energy to heal our wounded. Repel the fools with stones and hot water.”

With that he took his leave, moving to the ladder that would take him to the courtyard. He had just started down when one of the brothers up high on the main keep yelled out, “They break camp!”

Father De Guilbe stood there for a moment looking up at the man, as did all the others, before they rushed wholesale to the wall to view the spectacle.

As the lookout had reported, they watched tents being struck, the distant barbarian encampment bustling with activity.

“Where are they moving their supplies?” Father De Guilbe yelled up to the lookout.

“To the boats!” he yelled back excitedly. “To the boats! They are taking to their boats!”

Father De Guilbe paused for a moment, then spun back to the wall to stare out at the distant camp. “Did we break their will at long last?” he quietly asked, and all of those around him murmured their hopeful agreement.

Soon after, all the brothers of Chapel Isle, save those already working the soul-stone magic on the wounded, gathered at the highest points on the southern battlements, staring out hopefully. Within an hour of the battle’s end, the first sails rose up on the Alpinadoran boats and the first paddles hit the warm waters of Mithranidoon, and a great cheer erupted across the chapel.

“Perhaps they are not as foolish as we believed,” Father De Guilbe said to Brother Giavno, both men smiling with the expectation that they had come through their dark trials.

That sense of victory was soon enough shattered, however, when a breathless young monk rushed into Father De Guilbe’s audience chambers.

“They are gone!” he stammered.

“They?” Brother Giavno asked before De Guilbe could.

“The barbarians!” the young man explained.

“Yes, we watched them break camp,” Giavno said.

“No, no,” the man stuttered, trying to catch his breath long enough to explain. “The barbarians in our dungeon. They are gone!”

“Gone?” This time it was Father De Guilbe asking.

“Out of their chamber and down the tunnel. The door to the pond was open and the grate has been dislodged,” the monk reported. “They are gone! Through the water and out, I am sure.”

De Guilbe and Giavno exchanged concerned looks.

“Now we understand why our enemies broke camp and departed,” Brother Giavno said.

Father De Guilbe was already moving, out to the hall and down the stairs. As they came out of the keep, rushing around to the entryway to the lower levels, Giavno spotted Brother Cormack and waved at him to join them.