Exmortus

By Todd Maternowski

The holy men of Exmortus Abbey have unearthed a terrible evil. To save their floundering faith, they dug up an artifact of immense power —and unleashed the demon avatar of long-dead gods.

Ash Xavier, a brilliant young knight-in-training, survives the avatar's brutal onslaught on the Abbey only to see his entire world crumble around him. With no weapons, no horse, no map and no chance, he must use his wits alone to take the artifact across hundreds of miles of hostile terrain to safety in the fabled city of Helios —provided he can survive that long.

EXMORTUS, BOOK I: TOWERS OF DAWN is a work of epic dark fantasy in the mold of George R.R. Martin or Gene Wolfe, with fresh angles on the classic literary problems of growing into adulthood, sword-and-sorcery adventure, love and sex, friendship and betrayal, guilt and innocence, murder and exile, battles on land and at sea, creepy demons and how to deal with unkillable beasts at the worst possible times.

EXMORTUS: TOWERS OF DAWN is followed by the second book of the trilogy, EXMORTUS BOOK II: TEMPLES DIABOLIC, and the third and final installment, EXMORTUS BOOK III: TOMBS OF HALF-GODS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Todd Maternowski
• Release date: Jul 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466016033

Todd Maternowski

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Todd studied Ancient Near Eastern religion and early Judeo-Christianity at the University of Chicago before heading into the real world. He has since worked as a ballroom dance instructor, bass player, mediator, credit specialist, art preparator, janitor, journalist, copy editor, armored car money counter, mambo dancer, and satirist. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his two tiny terrors.

Book preview

Book One: Towers of Dawn

by Todd Maternowski

Copyright 2011 Todd Maternowski

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles by Todd Maternowski at Smashwords.com:

Cultic - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/68616

Golem - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/70540

Exmortus Book 2: Temples Diabolic - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/241250

Exmortus Book 3: Tombs in Chorus - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/463587

Additional rants, raves, and other fun time-wasting pursuits are available on the official website: https://wild-ink.net/

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

What others are saying about EXMORTUS: TOWERS OF DAWN:

There are real night terrors in this world and they must be stopped at any cost... the action moves at a fast pace and for this reason Exmortus is an easy read, with the reader experiencing Ash’s journey with him and getting that sense of danger and urgency that reflects in his mission.

—Elloise Hopkins

It’s a fresh angle on the traveling story ... the dialogue felt genuine, the characters seemed real.

—Zen Cherry

The author's fantasy world is a harsh, brutal place where mistakes lead to death and trust is a commodity that's price may prove to be too high... The world is full of history and monuments that are interesting and bring to mind the vast scale and epic nature of Tolkien's works... If you like your fantasy brutal, then this is the book for you.

—Eric Swett

This is the perfect book for anyone who likes a good adventure story.

—A Bookish Affair

The characters are well developed, they grow on you, they make you laugh and add a solid amount of depth to an already deeply engaging story... This novel is hard to put down once the story kicks into high gear and never really lets up at any point.

—John Casanova

Dark fantasy literature with a sense of humor, which is not something you see all that often.

—Keith Riskey

A compelling and well written novel from a promising new author... For a debut novel, the growth process from start to finish is significant and given the end result, I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

—Matthieu Hausig

This is a great book for young readers, both male and female or anyone who loves a good book with believable characters.

—Night Owl Reviews

For Anna

Prologue

Star!

Yount looked up from the serrated blade biting into his wrist. The idiot was on the edge of his cart and pointing at something behind them. From the ground, Yount could not see what was making him so excited.

Star! Star!

Yount stared at the blade. Markov held it still, paying no attention to the idiot.

Are we doing this?

Hold on, Yount growled. What's he saying?

No point in delaying. It's gone.

I'm not delaying anything. What is he looking at?

Both knights looked up at the front of the wagon. The idiot bounced up and down in his seat, pointing back the way they had came. They followed his gaze and saw the source of the excitement: a brand new star hanging low in the night sky, a brilliant point of light that looked like a hole pierced in night's black veil and held to the sun. Dazzlingly bright, brighter by far than any known star. It hovered directly over the hellhole where they had lost two knights earlier that morning.

Yount, that... star. I could swear—

That it wasn't there before? I know.

And look where it is.

Yeah.

Markov opened his mouth but said nothing. Yount stroked the sandy bristles of his mustache with his good hand. After thirty-eight years in service to Exmortus Abbey, he had been in countless failed missions. But never anything this catastrophic. Never anything supernaturally catastrophic. What have we done?

Markov looked back at Yount and placed the blade back over the old knight's elbow. We'd better make this quick.

Yount looked down at his left arm. The wound from that morning had already taken the hand and wrist. Tendrils of grey, diseased flesh snaked up his forearm, spouting tiny droplets of blood over his lap while he rode. The coarse blonde hair that covered his forearms had fallen off. He tried balling his left hand into a fist, but could not. He had no control over the limb. Yount placed his lucky rag into his mouth and bit down hard. The unwelcome clop clop clop of a heavy horse came up behind him just as he gave Markov the signal to start sawing.

Aha, Yountie! What did I tell you? Do you see it too?

Yount chewed the rag in his mouth and stared at the stone-grey, pulsing thing that had been his left hand when he had woken up that morning. Markov, seeing Yount's eyes, drew back the blade.

"Yountie! Ah, ignore me if you will. But you can't deny that, blurted the Abbot, gesturing at the new star. A sign from Torain Himself!"

Markov lifted his head and fixed his glassy blue eyes on the Abbot. It could just be a planet, or a shooting star. We don't know.

The Abbot gargled in his throat. Oh, come now. Look where it is! There! Right over the hole.

Yount's still-intact right hand tensed into a fist. The Abbot saw this and ignored it. A blessing from Torain. Dale, Stratov, come here!

The other two knights quietly muttered to each other as they rode over. Yount felt shriveled and weak, crouched on the ground, surrounded by the three towering warhorses.

Knights of Torain! Today has been a day scribes will record in the history tomes of a thousand years from now. Scholars will debate over it. Bards will sing of it. The Abbot cleared his throat, then continued. "We've sacrificed much today. This morning we lost two good —two great knights. Brock was a mountain of a man, a giant in service of Torain, a peerless warrior who cannot be replaced. Fyodor was a tender guardian to his brothers, and a lioness defending her cubs to his enemies. Our enemies."

The Abbot shifted his bulk in his custom saddle. They had ridden hard that day and his backside was irritating him. But nothing worth gaining can be had without sacrifice. Sacrifice is the fire that burns out our impurities. The Abbot saw the flash of anger crossing the knights' faces, and decided to take his speech in a different direction. Know this. The blessed disciples of Torain have won a great victory today. The hard part is over. We've acquired the artifact. We are returning home. And now, Torain Himself has sent this, this shining beacon of hope, to help protect us, to guide our way across cursed ground.

The Abbot looked at Yount, who was muttering something under his breath. The old priest drew in a lungful of air for one final push and some dust irritants flew into his throat. He coughed, and felt he had lost his momentum. He gestured once more to the star with his right hand as the fingers of his left traced the outline of the object in his pocket. The Light of Torain will protect us. We will not be harmed on our journey back. He had hoped to have whipped the knights into a holy frenzy by now, but other than Dale, who was staring at him and scratching his bulbous nose, the other knights did not seem to be paying him any attention.

Slightly deflated, the Abbot turned to Yount. Take care of that soon, Yountie. Everyone else, let's ride, onward to Exmortus with the star of Torain at our backs! The Abbot's heavy destrier wheeled and bolted ahead. Dale and Stratov bent over and whispered words of encouragement to Yount before turning to follow the Abbot. The idiot driving the wagon soon departed, leaving Yount and Markov alone, crouching like rats in the dirt.

Yount took out the rag out of his mouth. Alright, old friend, let's do this. He placed the rag back, closed his eyes tightly and braced himself.

Markov removed the rag and gently placed a cold metal object into Yount's right hand. Here, drink this first.

Yount sipped from the flask, feeling the liquid fire trickle down his throat and spread its fingers into his empty stomach. The two men stared at each other, then at the strange new star. Yount looked back. Markov's eyes were tightly closed, his lips pursed and his head bowed. He was hardly breathing.

What's wrong?

Yount... Markov paused, a worried look flashing across his gentle face. For one of the most renowned warriors in all of Loross, Markov cut a disarmingly benign appearance. The man had fought and killed many score men and things that were less-than-men, yet never lost his gentle demeanor and soft, perpetually worried voice to the ravages of blood and battle.

And then he heard it, too. Faintly, no louder than the turning of a page in a library, as quiet as a scroll catching fire in another room. The sound of phantom laughter softly floated over the scorched plains of the Demon Wastes. They listened in silence, fascination and fear seeping into the cracks of their steely armor. Yount looked to Markov, who raised his eyes, first to Yount, then to the star.

Yount looked to Markov, closed his eyes, and nodded.

~~~~

Yount adjusted his crotch. His right leg had taken a heavy blow above the knee down in the hole and was in dire need of healing. Two weeks earlier, he had stripped down to his bare skin to look at the damage. The lean, hairy leg looked as if someone had spilled an entire inkwell down it. That was two weeks ago. He didn't want to picture what it looked like now.

A few days of rest had not helped his injuries heal. He had fallen behind the company three nights prior, deliberately disobeying the Abbot's direct commands. Drawing his sword and threatening the fat priest's neck. It was mostly for show —he would never have intentionally hurt the man— but he needed to fall back. He loved his men, and could see no other way. For thirty-eight years, he had treated every soldier as a brother, an equal. And they had loved him for it. He had loved each of them, too.

Markov knew what he was doing and why. He didn't need to tell him.

His sword, the one the blacksmith had named The Red Rage, almost turned the situation into a bloodbath. It was a fine weapon, but when wielded in anger it gave him a strange sensation, a slight heat that made the hairs on his forearm stand on end and the blood in his veins rush to his skin. The sword had brought him nothing but bad luck since the day he acquired it. Like any warrior old enough to be battling his own sons, he had hoped to never again draw it for the rest of his life. Small chance of that, with the path I have chosen.

As he held it up to the Abbot's throat, he had felt a change come over him. His good arm surged with an unexpected burst of brute strength, and he nearly followed through on his empty threat to cut the fat priest's head off. The look of abject terror on the Abbot's face seemed to fill his head with bloodthirst and rage. Had he not spurred Bessus and bolted off when he did, he would have slit the Abbot's throat. Opened up his windpipe with a single satisfying stroke. He had pictured it in his dreams for decades.

Yount stared straight at the oncoming ball of light in the distance, the bright orb haloed by the constant swirls of dust that had been choking his throat for three days. He wanted his old weapon, the Rain Blade —snapped at the hilt against a pack of northern dog-men years ago. He had wielded Rain for nearly two decades. Heavier, yes, couldn't hold an edge, yes, and, sometimes, prone to a little rust. The others gave him hell for it, every word of it true. But Rain never gave him pause. Not once. He could trust that weapon. Some days, Yount wished that his arm had snapped along with the Rain Blade.

He fingered Red Rage's hilt and felt the prickling heat shoot up his arm, through his neck and into his skull. It gave him a headache, as if the inside of his skull were simmering in a pan of oil. The fiery sensation trickled to his good arm, then to his legs as he shifted in his seat, but never to his missing left hand. Never past the elbow.

The star was getting nearer. Yount tugged on the point of his spear, to check it's make. Solid as stone. Sharp enough to shave.

We'll see if this matters, Yount half-chuckled to himself, his toothy smile poking through his bristling blonde mustache. That light, or star, or angel —only the Abbot was sure of what he was seeing, and Yount thought he was full of it— had followed them for four weeks of riding. Only at night, never during the day, and unmistakeably low in the horizon. Too low for a star.

The priest repeated himself endlessly. It's a sign, it's Torain's blessing, it's an angel of Torain sent to protect us. It did seem to bring some luck. They had not run into any trouble on the endless flat expanse of the Demon Wastes, nor on the twice-dead rocky badlands of the Kingdom of Shells. Down half their original number, the company could not afford another lethal encounter with forces they could not understand.

The Wastes were a blasted hellscape, but on the way to the hole they had been teeming with life. Snakes, beetles, frogs, rodents large and small. Once, they passed a nest of vipers sunning themselves on a flat rock and the Abbot mentioned that the Mere of Repose and the Kraken Mere had once jointly covered the Wastes, forming a great sea in the dawn of history. Dale had asked if the sea would have been deep enough for massive sea creatures and if so, whether the colossal ghosts of these behemoths still swam in the waterless skies above. The knights had all laughed. The Abbot didn't crack a smile. Yount had looked to the sky then, to the same bare patch of celestial ink where the new star now moved, straining his eyes to imagine what it would look like to ride along the floor of the ocean, titanic leviathans gliding silently through the dark waters above. He remembered finding the idea equal parts amusing and horrifying.

But when Dale had pointed out that they had not seen so much as a desert rat in the four weeks since leaving the hole, Yount made his decision.

Any detached amusement was dead now, hacked in half and dragged to its grisly death by the dark things they had glimpsed in the hole. The old knight looked at the bandaged stump on his left arm, and sighed.

As the ball of light came closer, Yount smiled in the darkness. He had pulled it off. He was here, concealed by mud and twigs and rain, while his men were no more than a few day's ride from the safety of the Abbey gates. He had no desire to challenge the star, but he had to get close enough to see what it was. Bessus was used to this forest —Yount was confident he could outrun the light and warn the others, perhaps even spot a weakness in the star's defenses, provided it had anything resembling armor or anatomy. Yount was confident that the full military might of the Abbey would stand up to any foe, supernatural or otherwise. Torain had seen them through far greater assaults over the past twenty centuries.

And if it were hostile, if it overwhelmed him, he was ready for that too. He had been ready for that for a long time. A long time.

Bessus' ears pricked up. The star was getting close now, less than a mile away. The soft, barely perceptible whispers that had tickled his ears for weeks were getting louder. Yount began the Chant of the Paladins under his breath to drown out the spectral noises, his sacred mumbling getting louder with each passing minute.

As the noise increased, so too the volume of his chanting until he was using his booming commander's voice. The white light from the star was now too bright to look at directly. Yount estimated that it would pass by his vantage point within a few minutes. He involuntarily tried clenching his left fist, and felt a slight vertigo when he remembered it was no longer there.

That's when both the distant cacophonies of the wind and his own chanting were drowned out by barking.

Hounds had discovered his scent. Bessus started, and his caved-in right leg greave roughly scraped against the chain mail underneath. The dogs began baying. The sound froze in the grizzled veteran's heart and filled his veins with icicles of cold iron.

Bessus responded with a frightened snort. Baying turned to deep, guttural snarling, a quarter-mile away or less.

Yount quickly wheeled around and headed toward the main road. His horse would outrun the dogs easily once on unbroken ground. As he rode he spotted a dozen or more hounds of immense size, almost as large as Bessus herself, bearing down at incredible speed over the roots and entangled twigs of the forest floor. He spurred her on, the hounds now in full pursuit.

Yount glanced behind him to his right and thought he saw the hounds' eyes glowing like orange embers in a dying fire. Have they been following us from the Wastes? Or from the Hole itself?

When he reached the road Bessus came to a dead stop. The star was flying towards them at incredible speed, swooping down hundreds of feet to their level in a span of a few breaths. Yount had no chance to outrun this enemy. He turned to the east. The muscles in the back of his neck stiffened and his feet pressed down hard in the stirrups as he palmed the shaft of his lance. Dust particles kicked up all around him, the wind whipping them into tiny sheets of swirling black chaos. The once-faint hints of phantom whispers he and Markov first heard so long ago howled and ripped through the air above and around him, battering his ears like an arctic wave against a shipwreck.

The closest of the hounds, a great brown-black beast with tiny bright orange eyes, bounded toward him. Yount hurled his spear and struck it cleanly, below the shoulder and through the neck. It let out a high-pitched whimper, then tumbled into the dirt, collecting pine cones and twigs in its matted black fur. Within seconds it rolled harmlessly to Bessus' front hooves, it's large, five-fingered claw twitching on the rocky ground, a hoarse wheeze struggling to escape both its fanged mouth and the spear-wound.

The old knight drew his sword and braced himself in the saddle. He squinted his eyes. The bright white thing flying towards him was no proper star, but a winged creature holding a massive greatsword, a blazing weapon as radiant as the being itself. Good. I can handle any enemy wielding a sword.

The white star came at him. He turned Bessus to the left and raised Red Rage high above his head. The long, thin shadows of the blades of grass around him strained and clawed along the ground away from the approaching star. As it came within earshot he filled his lungs with cold autumn air and dust and held both in his lungs for an instant before letting his baritone sweep over the closing gap of road between him and the star-being.

By the power of Torain, as the 47th Champion of the Clo—

Yount's battle cry was cut short by the tip of a massive white-light greatsword that passed through his breastplate as if it were made of smoke. The length of the colossal blade glided effortlessly through Yount's midsection in one continuous motion, interrupted only when the hilt of the blade and the being's huge hand slammed into the warrior's torso, ripping the old knight in two. A moment later and it was all over. The thing flew away without pausing as it sped towards the gates of Exmortus Abbey.

Yount opened his eyes and saw Bessus standing there looking back at him, his own legs still firm in her stirrups. He could not hear the hounds anymore, nor could he command Bessus to run. I need.. warn.. others.. all..

He could not feel his arms, his body, his neck, the hairs of his mustache. The only sound now was a repetitive wet thump thump thump that got louder and louder. Bessus slowly disappeared, fading into the dark.

Nothing was left now. Just darkness.

Part One

Chapter 1 – Exmortus Abbey

Ash watched in wonder as the new star, so low in the horizon, was swallowed by the rays of dawn. He had followed the new star all night, studying with increasing curiosity how it remained in a single spot while the rest of the celestia gradually made their way across the night sky. He noted its unusually low place in the heavens, just south of the Dream Draccus constellation, and the way it flickered rather than twinkled.

But all of that paled in comparison to the strange excitement Ash felt when he saw —when he thought he saw— the star crash to the earth like a vengeful meteor, only to rise just as fast to its proper position low in the horizon. That was several hours ago, and it had not happened since.

Ash had learned how to read the stars from his sea-faring father. He had given him precious little else: Ash's raven-black hair and violet eyes stood out from his father and five older brothers, all sun-blonde with piercing light blue eyes. The only thing that saved his mother from uncomfortable court gossip was Ash's striking resemblance to his grandfather, a war hero who had been granted a title of nobility for his bravery on a longship that had sunk in a battle he had lost. People talked of his late grandfather in hushed tones —they said that from birth it was obvious his grandfather, the seventh son of a lowly squid fisherman, was destined to be a great hero— and while Ash was now grown to the legendary captain's towering six-and-a-half-foot height, his lean, lanky, awkward frame was nothing like the thick slab of hairy-chested muscle his grandfather had been. Ash's twentieth name-day was approaching; by that time, his grandfather had already made a name for himself boarding enemy warships with a sword in his teeth and a crew of bearded warriors at his back.

His mother had been disappointed in him from the moment he emerged from her womb. She had wanted a girl.

Ash shuffled uncomfortably on the battlement. He rarely thought of his family anymore. They had never attempted to contact him. In all fairness, he had not tried to contact them either; it would be another two years and eight months before he would earn his entry into the Champions of the Chalice, his entry to knighthood. He promised himself he would send a letter then.

Ash tossed a small stone over the wall, losing sight of it before it hit the freshly-tilled wheat field below. One of the peasants had initially spotted the star eight or nine hours earlier, and Ash had joined in the rush from the mess hall to the top of the Snow Tower with everyone else to see it. Who could blame us? Nothing interesting has happened here since Yount and the Abbot left. Ash enjoyed his solitary nights up on the battlements, but with three-fourths of the Abbey on the roof, he had been shoulder-to-shoulder with people he normally avoided as they craned their necks and clucked their tongues at the new heavenly visitor. Everyone had a theory. A star. A comet. A sign from Torain. An angel. Fortunately for Ash, once everyone had argued their theory loud enough the roof emptied almost as quickly as it had swelled. He had contemplated many of his own theories in the lonely hours since, but had decided on nothing. Perhaps tomorrow night the true nature of the star will show itself. Become less of a mystery.

As the sky brightened, Ash's nighttime vigil came to a close. The mysterious new star faded into morning, and it was time to head downstairs to get some sleep before facing another dull, dismal day. With the Abbot and nearly all of the knights off on their secret mission out east, the past two months had been utterly intolerable. Basic discipline had disappeared, the training yard abandoned. Ash had been living like an oak leaf in a lazy wind, with no daily regimen to look forward to. Two months ago, Ash would never have dreamed of staying up all night atop the Snow Tower just to watch a tiny speck of light; now he was looking forward to doing it again. The Abbot will straighten this place out when he gets back.

Ash hopped off the battlement, pried open the heavy wooden trapdoor and shuffled down the winding staircase to the courtyard below. With most of the Abbey's knights gone, his assigned duties in the north stables could be done in less than an hour and a half —they only had three geldings and a pair of donkeys that belonged to a traveling merchant who had suffered a heart attack after dining with the monks months ago. Ash kept the stables spotlessly clean, the horses fed and watered, but it wasn't enough. Yesterday at dinner Ash had begged Zirev, the prior, for some additional work. Zirev had rolled his eyes and told him to clean out the old, abandoned bathhouse, took a rusty iron key off his belt and handed it to Ash. That's one building I've never been inside. I'll have to investigate it after lunch.

As he walked to the warm bunk waiting for him in the dormitory, Ash passed by Vard, Kris and some of the other trainees on their way out to their jobs in the brewery. With most of the farm work done by the peasants that lived around the Abbey, the brewery was one of the few places that offered any sort of stable, regular day-to-day manual labor. Zirev had offered him work there but Ash had declined, refusing to work with the 'yardlings,' as he called them. Few of the yardlings took their training seriously, and none of them save for Simon, the newest trainee, was his equal in their history and theology lessons. Ash had never gotten along with any of them —they were always making fun of his height, his eyes, his parents. There had been more split lips and bloodied noses than polite greetings between them.

Kris, the oldest and boldest of the yardlings, attempted to nonchalantly shove Ash's shoulder as they passed but Ash deftly swung his torso around to avoid the blow. So stupid. So predictable. Kris mumbled something to the Zanon brothers that made them laugh. Ash ignored them and went on his way. He had learned long ago to pick his battles. The Abbot had made sure of that.

When Ash arrived at his cell in the barracks —a small but comfy room, designed for two to four occupants— he chose the top bunk and scampered up. There were no windows in this room, which was just fine by him. He laid his head on the pillow, pulled up his bed sheet and within seconds was asleep.

Ash did not sleep well. He did not dream, but his sleep was filled with an unending chorus of distant, ghostly whispers. He woke up often and strained his ears to listen for them, but as soon as sleep overtook him the faint whispering returned. Stopping up his ears with the ends of the pillow didn't help. Filling the crack at the bottom of the room's door with his bed sheet had no effect either, other than leaving him slightly chilly. Trying the lower bunk only served to kick up enormous quantities of dust, which stuck to the inside of his throat and made him thirsty. After several hours of this, Ash reluctantly got up to go bother Smerdis.

With Yount and Markov gone, Smerdis was the eldest knight in the Abbey and in charge of Exmortus' military operations, including training. Unfortunately the old knight was not fond of training the yardlings, and after one ten-minute session of watching the yardlings wail on each other with blunted weapons Smerdis had proclaimed that he needed a day or two to design far-reaching, long-term improvements in the training curriculum. Ash had been hopeful at first —after all, Yount had said that a quarter-century ago Smerdis had been quite a soldier— but when the time came for the second training session, Smerdis was nowhere to be found. Ash caught up with him at dinner that evening. Smerdis excused himself and apologized, then promised to show up the next afternoon with a fresh perspective on improving their marital abilities.

That session came and went as well, without Smerdis. Ash was infuriated. The other yardlings laughed at him and went out the nearby South Gate to chase down animals in the surrounding forests. Ash dutifully showed up at noon the next day, and the next —the yardlings never showed up again, preferring to spend their training time loitering at the brewery. Before long Ash stopped showing up too. Occasionally he would pester Smerdis for training, almost as a game, just to see what excuses the fat knight would use next.

Ash walked up a flight of stone steps, down a well-lit hallway in the barracks and up two more flights up steps before he go to Smerdis' room. He knocked, once, twice, and waited.

No response. Perfect.

Ash went outside into the courtyard and saw Telly, a monastery hand, drawing water from the barracks' well.

Brother, have you seen Smerdis? He was supposed to train us this afternoon, Ash said, trying his best to sound ignorant.

No, Ashley, I haven't seen him since prayers this morning. You might want to ask Brother Gregg, after afternoon mass.

Thank you Telly, I will do that. Like hell I will.

Ash walked across the courtyard to the chapel, entered and kneeled. It was far too early for afternoon mass, but he could wait. He had nothing but time.

Ash, the Prior requests to see you in his quarters. Now.

Ash did not move. He had been deep in prayer, almost a trance, asking Torain to please bring the Abbot, Yount, Markov and the other knights back safely. Nothing irritated him more than being interrupted while praying. Zirev can wait another thirty minutes.

Ash clasped his hands together tightly, closed his eyes and bowed toward the marble statue of Torain that towered over him. The statue was beyond ancient, chipped and cracked in several places. Zirev had told him that the statue was even older than Exmortus itself, and that the Abbey was built around the statue thousands of years ago. When Ash had asked the Abbot about that, the old priest had smiled and told him that the Abbey had run into a bit of monetary luck recently, and he would be restoring the statue in gold leaf, as