R. Salvatore - The Ancient

Cormack nearly leaped out of his shoes when the man stirred.

“Yach, but he’s a tough one,” remarked Mcwigik, coming up behind Cormack.

After the shock wore off Cormack immediately went back to the man, bringing his ear close to the fallen one’s mouth to see if he could detect any sounds of breath.

“He is alive,” Cormack announced.

“Not for long,” Mcwigik chortled. “Better for him that the fall had snuffed out his lights for good.”

“Aye, that had to hurt,” Ruggirs said again.

Cormack continued to inspect the man, to try to determine the extent of his injuries. In truth, he was thinking that the most merciful thing he could do would be to smother this one and end his pain, but the more he looked, the more his estimate of injuries lessened. He pulled off his powrie cap and set it over the man’s head.

“It’s to take more than that,” Mcwigik grumbled, but Cormack ignored him and kept moving the fallen man, one leg or one arm, or rolling him up to a near-sitting position. Through it all, the injured man made not a sound.

“I don’t think he fell all the way,” Cormack announced.

“Yach, but he buried himself half into the mud!” Mcwigik argued.

“He could live,” Cormack replied. “His wounds are not as bad as we expected.”

“Ye’re not for knowing any such thing.”

“Nor are you for knowing that I’m wrong,” Cormack shot back. “This man can live. If I had a gemstone… We have to get him to Yossunfier. Help me now, without delay.” The powries all looked at Cormack incredulously, and none made a move.

“We cannot just let him die!” Cormack yelled at them, and all four burst into laughter.

Cormack took a deep breath to calm himself. Screaming at the powries now would likely just get him stranded here or worse and would do nothing to help this poor fellow. “Please,” he said quietly. “There is a chance I can save him. We humans don’t just bury hearts and pop out of the ground again.”

“Ye’d be smart to watch yer words,” Pergwick warned, but Cormack waved him away.

“I know, I know,” he said. “But it is important to me to try to save him.”

“Ye know him?” Mcwigik asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Then what do ye care?”

“I just do,” the increasingly impatient Cormack retorted. “Please, just get me to Yossunfier that I can at least try to save him.”

“Yach, but ye’re just wanting to take yer girl along with us-again,” Mcwigik argued.

“She already is coming with us by our agreement.”

“Then ye’re wanting her with us sooner, and we already telled ye…”

“She will be of great help to us,” Cormack admitted.

“All of her people will. Save this man and help ourselves, I say.”

“We get near to Yossunfier, and we’re to see the sky full o’ barbarian barbs,” Mcwigik grumbled. “Ye think it’s an easy thing, but ye’re a blind fool. Them barbarians see us coming, and we’ll all be dead before we step on their beach. Now, are ye thinking that’d be a good thing for your flat friend there?”

Cormack took another deep and steadying breath, and looked all around, feeling as if the answer was right there before him, waiting to be unveiled.

He smiled. “There may be another way.”

You wonder why I have allowed you to live this long,” Ancient Badden said to Brother Jond after having the monk beaten and dragged to him in the ice castle.

Brother Jond looked up at him blankly, trying to appear as impassive as possible. He was terrified, of course, but he didn’t want to give the wretched Samhaist the pleasure of seeing him squirm.

Ancient Badden stared at him for many heartbeats and nodded his chin as if prompting the man to respond, which Brother Jond would not do.

Badden’s visage melted into a profound scowl. “You would think that an Abellican monk would be my first victim, of course, since your Church has been the scourge of the land these last seven decades.” In fighting off the urge to respond, Brother Jond couldn’t suppress a slight smile, and that only made Badden scowl all the more.

The Ancient broke into a sudden giggle, cackled through a quick chant, and waggled his necklace at the monk. The floor beneath Brother Jond’s feet turned from ice to water suddenly, plunging him in.

But not deeply, for Ancient Badden cut the spell short and reversed it, freezing the floor around Brother Jond’s legs, up to mid-thigh. The contraction of the ice squeezed him so hard that he could feel the blood rushing up from his legs. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach and light-headed at the same time. His eyes bulged as if the rush of blood would simply launch them from their sockets. He tried to remain silent, but a soft groan escaped his lips. The ice tightened some more.

Now Ancient Badden towered over him. “Ah, but I would so love to tear your limbs from your torso.” He brought the side of Bransen’s sword against Jond’s cheek with a stinging slap, then turned the blade as he flashed it past, just enough to draw a deep cut across the monk’s face. “Or to open your belly, side to side, and slowly draw out your entrails. Have you ever seen the face of a man so tortured? It is the most exquisite mask of agony.”

“And you declare yourself a man of God!” Brother Jond blurted before he could reconsider his reaction.

“Ah, so he speaks,” Ancient Badden laughed at him. “I had thought you a mute, which would be an improvement for any Abellican, of course. I am not a man of your childish and benign creation, fool. I am a man of the Ancient Ones, of the truths of life and death. You are too cowardly to face those truths, so you cannot begin to comprehend the way of the Samhaist! I almost pity you and all the others born after Abelle, who were raised in the echoes of his lies and false hopes.”

Brother Jond narrowed his eyes, but his threat was so impotent as to be laughable, which of course, Ancient Badden did.

“I said “almost,’” Ancient Badden reminded. He waggled his necklace, and the ice gripped on Jond’s legs even more tightly.

“I keep you alive because you may be of use to me,” the Samhaist offered. “As my armies press-”

“Your hordes of monsters, you mean.”

Badden shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “They serve a greater purpose.”

“They are-”

Brother Jond stopped suddenly as Ancient Badden kicked him squarely in the face. His head snapped back and forward, and a couple of teeth flew from his mouth along with a gush of blood and spittle.

“If you interrupt me again I will hurt you more profoundly than you have ever experienced, more so than anything you could ever have imagined,” Ancient Badden warned.

Dazed, temples throbbing, legs aching, Brother Jond could not even bring a defiant stare to his face.

“As my armies press into Vanguard and drive Dame Gwydre to Pireth Vanguard, she will seek parlay,” Ancient Badden explained. “As her principal consort is one of your feeble Abellican associates, your presence among my prisoners will grant me a greater ante.” The Samhaist bent low and stared into Brother Jond’s face, and when Jond tried to turn away, Badden punched him hard, grabbed him by the chin, and forced him to lock stares.

“Does that please you? To know that you will help facilitate the downfall of your religion in the region of Vanguard? Nor will it end there, I promise. When the war in the southland is ended, so too will be the tricks of your kin that so enrapture the dueling lairds. The reality of the conflict will weigh heavily upon the grieving people, and we will be there. For the Samhaists know Death, while the Abellicans deny it. The Samhaists understand the inevitability, while the Abellicans offer false promises. That will be your downfall.”