Free The Betrayed by Igor Ljubuncic Page A

out of control. The pain was agonizing. After an eternity, the fit ceased. He found himself sprawled on his back, his nails chipped from digging, his mouth awash in blood. Gingerly, he touched his bitten tongue and spat. As he smelled the contents of his mouth, he retched dryly, his stomach having nothing to give.
    Ashamed, he leaned back again, groaning, wiping threads of mucus and bile that marred his face. His body screamed at him, muscles burning, but at least he could feel them again.
    “What’s wrong with him?” Boris asked in a threatening voice. He looked afraid.
    Duvall grimaced. “We don’t know. His fits started a week ago. They had him confined to a bed in the monastery. We thought he had healed, but it seems we were wrong.”
    Ewan watched as people talked about him, like he was a piece of furniture worth commenting on.
    “It could be plague,” Rais hissed softly.
    “Don’t be a fool,” Adrian barked.
    “Keep your voices down, fools. We don’t know who’s in that convent!” The pale Boris looked like a man on the verge of panic. “We got company!” Sedric yelled.
    All of them, minus Ewan, spun to see a flock of women in purple robes leave through the vine-adorned gates of the little wall surrounding their abode, spreading about. Sedric stood with his sword raised, hesitant.
    “Put your sword down,” one of the women called.
    Boris hitched his crossbow up and aimed. Bojan was crying again, and so were the two other youngest boys, named Deron and Maximilian.
    “I will not warn you again, soldier. Put your weapon down,” the female said, her tone sharpening.
    “Who are you?” Sedric yelled back.
    “I’m Matriarch Elena of this convent to the goddess Lilith, praised be her name. Stand down, or you shall be hurt.” She turned toward the hysterical children. “Brothers, are you prisoners of these two men?”
    “No, no, put your weapons down.” It was Adrian. Duvall was silent. “We’re all together.”
    With abnormal powers he did not know he had, Ewan climbed up onto his wobbly feet. The world swam about him in a green vertigo.
    The matriarch seemed alarmed. “What’s with that boy?”
    Boris spat. “We don’t know. He looks possessed.” He still held the crossbow aloft. Sedric had turned the tip of his glaive down.
    “He has a fever, that’s all,” Adrian cut in.
    “Sisters, bring those children here,” the matriarch ordered. The girls headed for the three youngest. Bojan screamed and refused to budge, but Deron and Maximilian calmed.
    “Let him be,” Ewan rasped. The girl dragging Bojan released her grip. The boy catapulted toward Ewan and snaked his arms about his leg. Ewan almost fell again.
    “Were you attacked by the Caytoreans?” Duvall finally spoke, flakes of his courage returning.
    “We are in plain sight here,” Sedric whined. “Let’s go inside. There could be enemies out here.”
    Elena waved her hands in protest. “You cannot enter. Only the children.”
    “We are starved and exhausted, and there are thousands of Caytorean scum invaders in the fields all around us!” Sedric shouted.
    The woman shook her head. “You are an Outsider. You may not enter.”
    Sedric spat. “I have not given up my life for this! I am a soldier of the Cause.”
    The matriarch did not seem sympathetic. “Yes, you are. Behave like one.”
    A moment of silence stretched, thin and taut like a drawn bowstring. Then, Sedric lurched forward and grabbed Deron. The sister holding him fought back, but the man was much stronger. He yanked the boy away like a doll, then shoved the woman, hard.
    Boris had his crossbow up as the group of women hissed and moved forward.
    Ewan watched, bile rising in his throat. He no longer saw the world in color. Duvall was edging away. Adrian watched, confused. The other brothers all stood like stupid statues.
    “You’ll give us food and water and money. And if you have horses, them too.” Sedric held the boy in a tight clutch, the cold steel of his