Stormbringers (Order of Darkness) Read Online Free PDF Page A

for them, and the monastery is baking bread and the brothers will bring it down to the market to give to them.’
     
    ‘It seems to be a pilgrimage of children led by a young man,’ Luca said. ‘I thought we should question him.’
     
    Brother Peter nodded. ‘He might have a calling,’ he said cautiously. ‘Or he might have been tempted by Satan himself to steal these children from their parents. Either way, the Lord of our Order would want to know. This is something we should understand. We should inquire into it.’
     
    ‘He says that the dead will rise,’ Luca told Peter.
     
    The rising of the dead was a key sign of the end of days: when the graves would give up their dead and everyone would be judged.
     
    Brother Peter looked startled. ‘He is preaching of the end of days?’
     
    ‘Exactly,’ Luca said grimly.
     
    ‘Which one is he?’
     
    ‘That one, called Johann,’ Luca said, and started to make his way through the weary crowd to the boy who stood alone, his head bowed in prayer. ‘The little girl called him Johann the Good.’
     
    There were so many children coming through the gate and down to the quayside now, that Luca could only wait and watch as they passed. He thought there were seven hundred of them in all, most of them exhausted and hungry, but all of them looking hopeful, some of them even inspired, as though driven by a holy determination to press on. Luca saw Freize take the little girl called Rosa to the inn kitchen to bathe her feet, and thought that there must be many little girls like her on the march, barely able to keep up, with no-one looking after them, driven by an unchildlike conviction that they were called by God.
     
    ‘It could be a miracle,’ Brother Peter said uncertainly, struggling through the sea of young people to get to Luca’s side. ‘I have seen such a thing only once before. When God calls for a pilgrimage and His people answer, it is a miracle. But we have to know how many there are, where they are going, and what they hope to achieve. They may be healers, they may have the Sight, they may have the gift of tongues. Or they might be terribly misguided. Milord will want to know about their leader, and what he preaches.’
     
    ‘Johann the Good,’ Luca repeated. ‘From Switzerland, she said. That’s him there.’
     
    As if he felt their gaze upon him, the young boy waiting at the gate as his followers went past raised his head and gave them a brilliant smile. He was about fifteen years old, with long blond hair that fell in untidy ringlets down to his shoulders. He had piercing blue eyes and was dressed like a Swiss goatherd, with a short robe over thick leggings laced criss-cross, and strong sandals on his feet. In his hand he had a stick, like a shepherd’s crook, carved with a series of crucifixes. As they watched, he kissed a cross, whispered a prayer, and then turned to them.
     
    ‘God bless and keep you, Masters,’ he said.
     
    Brother Peter, who was more accustomed to dispensing blessings than receiving them, said stiffly, ‘And God bless you too. What brings you here?’
     
    ‘God brings me here,’ the youth answered. ‘And you?’
     
    Luca choked on a little laugh at Brother Peter’s surprise at being questioned by a boy. ‘We too are engaged on the work of God,’ he said. ‘Brother Peter and I are inquiring into the well-being of Christendom. We are commissioned by the Holy Father himself to inquire and report to him.’
     
    ‘The end of days is upon us,’ the boy said simply. ‘Christendom is over, the end of the world has begun. I have seen the signs. Does the Holy Father know that?’
     
    ‘What signs have you seen?’ Luca asked.
     
    ‘Enough to be sure,’ the lad replied. ‘That’s why we are on our journey.’
     
    ‘What have you seen?’ Luca repeated. ‘Exactly what?’
     
    Johann sighed, as if he were weary of miracles. ‘Many, many things. But now I must eat and rest and then pray with my family. These