The Dame
P R O L O G U E
Brother Pinower hooked a finger inside the collar of his brown woolen robe and jerked it back and forth, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm. And itchy, so itchy, as if a thousand little insects were crawling across his skin. But it wasn't the sun or the wind that had this young and healthy rising voice in the Abellican Church squirming. He knew that he should leave the wall immediately to report the dramatic and troubling sight before him, but he found that his legs would not answer his call. He couldn't turn away but was mesmerized, as were the other brothers of Chapel Abelle who were working on the main wall this day, by the long lines of ghastly wounded men.
Ghastly wounded and with many dead along the road behind the lines, no doubt.
"Someone inform Father," another dumbfounded monk managed to remark.
The sound seemed to break Pinower's paralysis. "Set them up in the courtyard," he instructed his many juniors. "Gather servants with blankets and fresh water and brothers with all the soul stones we can muster." He cast a pensive glance down the long slope to the southeast, to the seemingly endless line of casualties. He tried not to ... read full excerpt from: The Dame ebook
