Gorinthians Read Online Free PDF Page A

and texture as the grass, and had slowly crept
along the ground until they wrapped themselves around each of the
students’ ankles. Feeling a rising panic, Celdic tried to jerk
back, but tripped and fell as the vines gave a sharp pull that
dragged him over to the wall. More and more vines began to wrap
themselves around him as he tried to fight the ones that fastened
themselves to his legs. He could hear the sounds of struggle from
either side of him, as well as Lendel blistering the air with
curses. He lost interest in what Lendel was saying as another vine
fastened around his neck and pulled his back tight against the
wall. Barely able to breathe, he felt another vine wrap around his
wrists as another formed a gag around his mouth. Then he felt a
pinprick in the small of his back and he began to lose
consciousness. Starting to panic in earnest, he began to flail
about with his waning strength. With a last desperate thought,
Celdic pushed with all of his might against the back of the wall.
Immediately he felt wide-awake, and with a loud detonation, the
vines around him burst apart.
    Jerking away from the wall,
he began searching frantically for Li. She lay unconscious next to
his sister and Lendel. Celdic realized that almost all of the vines
along the entire wall had been destroyed. The vines that remained
were withered and dead.
    As Celdic reached down to
shake Li and the others awake, the doors to the council opened and
through them flowed a stream of Elders. They stopped a few feet
from where Celdic and his unconscious companions lay at the foot of
the wall, eyeing the destruction grimly.
    “ Explain the meaning of
this!” demanded a very old and disheveled Elder. There were wisps
of white hair sticking out in different directions, making him
appear slightly mad.
    Celdic straightened
carefully, sure that all chances of him becoming a Guardian were
floating away with the morning wind.
    “ We came over here to
practice the sword and I knocked Lendel back into the wall, sir,"
Celdic lied, trying to sound earnest. "The vines tried to kill
us!”
    “ They didn’t try to kill
you; they did what they were supposed to do,” a second white-haired
Elder said in disgust. To his disappointment, Celdic saw that it
was Elder Tashon. Elder Tashon sat on the council that chose
Guardians.
    “ I want to know why you
were practicing the sword over here, when you know it is forbidden
to use this part of the Practice Field," Elder Tashon demanded, his
eyes narrowing.
    “ We didn’t realize we were
getting this close, sir,” Celdic answered, trying to sound
convincing.
    Tarya Selindria walked
around the upset Elders, intently examining the after-effects of
Celdic’s final burst of energy that had left the vines withered and
dead.
    “ What happened to the Snake
Vines?” she asked, gazing at him with the same intensity with which
she scrutinized the vines.
    “ I am not sure,” Celdic
replied with an uncomfortable shrug. “I must have killed them when
I finally broke free.”
    “ Impossible,” declared
Tarya Ontros flatly. He was the instructor in Rajan plant
properties. “A team of draft horses couldn’t even break one of
these vines.”
    Celdic looked at him
helplessly, at a loss for how to explain what happened. The stares
the teachers and Elders directed at him ranged from speculative to
alarmed. Glancing behind him, he saw his sister and friends still
lying unconscious on the ground.
    “ What about them?” Celdic
asked, gesturing at the comatose trio. “What is the matter with
them?”
    Tarya Ontros dismissed them
with a glance. “They are just unconscious. Snake Vine uses a small
thorn to inject venom that incapacitates the victim for a few
hours. The question I am interested in is why you are still
conscious. You should be lying among your friends dreaming of
prison cells. Why are you not?”
    Celdic felt sweat begin to
run down his back as the assembly of mostly white-haired Elders
stared at him unblinkingly.