Return of the Guardian-King by Karen Hancock Page B

wood, then brought a load up to the Great Room, the monastery’s all-purpose gathering place and communal sleeping chamber for most of the newcomers. Walled in rough-hewn stone with a high ceiling of stripped log beams, it boasted a huge multipaned window at its far end. A red-andgray wool rug covered the stone floor beneath an array of wooden chairs and worn couches, while overhead a rough-hewn wheel hung on a long cable stretched from the rafters, kelistars burning brightly in the glass-shaded pans dangling around its circumference. A misshapen stuffed elk’s head looked down from above the massive fireplace.
    Abramm stacked the wood in the hearth box, then went to stand before the great window, beyond which the shifting curtains of snow came down harder than ever. His anger bubbled unevenly, like a cauldron of heated mud. Trinley was insufferable. Arrogant, ignorant, stubborn, and small minded. It was unfair that Abramm should be stuck here the whole winter with him!
    Why have you done this to me, my Lord? It makes no sense .
    He drew a deep breath and let it out, fogging the windowpane before him.
    “I thought you were helping out in the hay barn, Alaric.”
    Abramm turned to find Arvil Laud standing in the Great Room doorway, regarding him with surprise. Thick, chin-length gray hair framed a narrow, weathered face with a short goatee and an ever-present pipe between his teeth. Once a university professor in Springerlan, Laud had been captured by Gadrielites over seven years ago and beaten for writing heretical tracts and articles, his right hand chopped off to ensure he never did it again. Now he served as leader and acting kohal to the community of permanent residents at Caerna’tha.
    Abramm shrugged. “They were about finished, so I came up to fill the woodboxes.”
    The kohal arched a gray brow. “Ah.”
    Abramm turned back to the window, hoping the man would go away. Instead Laud joined him, the sweet aroma of his pipe tobacco overlaying the smoke of the hearth fire.
    Together they stared at the storm, the older man puffing silently. “I’ve only been here six years,” he said presently, “but old Wolmer says it’s been decades since we’ve had a storm this heavy so early in the season.”
    Abramm watched the curtains of snow shift and undulate outside the window and said nothing.
    “Did you know,” Laud said presently, “that the number of your company is exactly the same as the number of those taken from us in the raid last week?”
    Abramm snorted. “How could I not? Your people have been crowing about that from the moment we arrived.” Two days before Abramm and his companions reached Caerna’tha, men from the village at the valley’s mouth had launched a late-season raid and taken all their able-bodied men, women—even the children—for the slave trade. It had been a bitter blow to those left behind, who, being old and weak, would have been unable to shovel snow off roofs and fix all that would need fixing during the winter. Upon first hearing of it, Abramm had suggested they launch a rescue and was told it was too late. The villagers had already left for the lowlands where they’d sell their captives and spend the winter.
    “It puzzles me you cannot find it in yourself to share our joy,” Laud said. “Your presence will save our lives this winter season.”
    “Yours are not the only lives needing to be saved.”
    The other man puffed on his pipe for a time, a cloud of fragrant smoke rising around him. Then, “You speak of the war to the south.”
    Abramm turned to him sharply. “A war for the very survival of the Terstan faith! I should be down there helping to win it.”
    “But instead you are here.” Laud shook his head, still staring at the storm. “Eidon simply must not understand how desperately he needs you to defend and protect him.”
    Abramm frowned, smitten by his mocking words.
    “From what your companions have told me of your actions the night of your arrival,” Laud