The Mongoliad: Book Two (The Foreworld Saga) Read Online Free PDF Page A

flights of arrows from the walls had done the rest. They had lost more than a hundred men.
    “The legate has a new idea,” Sir John said, shaking his head. “He claims to have proof of our victory.”
    “Proof? How?”
    “Prophecy,” Sir John said. “I know you have tried to suppress knowledge of your man’s addled visions, but the camp knows of his...peculiarity.”
    “It wasn’t me,” Raphael protested, suddenly alarmed at the reason he had been summoned to this meeting.
    “I have every confidence that it wasn’t,” Sir John said gently, “but no secret is safe in an army this large and this desperate for good news.”
    Calpurnius had already discerned the root of John’s concern. “Pelagius wants to create his own prophecy, doesn’t he?”
    Sir John nodded. “Aye, he does. Your man Eptor has given him a dangerous idea.” He looked at Raphael. “Will you have the strength to say ‘no’ to a holy man?”
    “Will I?” Raphael looked at Calpurnius for guidance.
    “This is a dangerous game,” Calpurnius said to Sir John after a few moments of thought.
    “It is far from a game,” Sir John replied sadly. “Pelagius seeks glory that only the sacrifice of others can grant him. He is—not unlike me—a king without a country. Or, in his case, a patriarch without a flock. If he cannot have Antioch, he will have Jerusalem and the Holy Lands, and it does not weigh on his soul in the slightest the number who must die to achieve this mad dream of his. But he knows he cannot be the recipient of a
message
from God. He needs an innocent to receive it.” He looked at Raphael.
    “Me?” Raphael asked.
    “No, the boy. Eptor. But more importantly, he needs a witness. Someone who will attest to what the boy has said; someone who will spread the word.”
    “He wants me to...” Raphael struggled with the idea of what was being suggested. “But he is the voice of Rome,” Raphael said. “He speaks on behalf of the Pope. If he commands that I serve him—in any way that I am capable—and I refuse...Am I not condemning myself? And the order too, for that matter.”
    Calpurnius let out a low chuckle. “This one thinks too much,” he said, jerking his thumb at Raphael. “It will always be his greatest flaw.”
    “I do not,” Raphael protested.
    Calpurnius made a face. “Ach, you are correct. I am exaggerating. There was that one instance where you did not think. Where you simply acted. And what a glorious moment that was.”
    Raphael felt his face get hot. “Any one of us would have done the same,” he mumbled.
    “Perhaps,” Calpurnius mused. “But you were the one who did.”
    “It...it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Raphael offered lamely, wishing the conversation would turn away from discussion about the tower assault a year ago. He and Eptor had made it to the ramparts and, in the crush of bodies, had gotten separated from the other Shield-Brethren. The Muslims had fought ferociously, and it had been here that Eptor had received a savage blow to the head that Raphael believed to be fatal. The farmer’s son had fallen, and the press of Muslims had threatened to overwhelm Raphael. His sword had been knocked from his hand, and having fallen to his knees, he waited tensely, anticipating the sharp edge of a Muslim sword against his neck.
    And then...Eptor’s body, lying nearby, and the flail, unused and forgotten.
    Raphael grabs the weapon, whirling it about his head as he turns to face his enemies. He snarls at them, defiant in this final moment. The chains chime and ring about his head as he swings the flail, and he feels the metal tear at the face of the nearest man. His heart thunders in his chest, a war drum that drives him forward. The Muslims hesitate, wary of his whirling chains, and he plunges into their midst, not caring who he strikes. They are all his enemy. He is alone and in battle—where he should be—and the flail is rising and falling. A wild abandon is surging through his