Free Runaway Nun (Misbegotten) by Caesar Voghan Page B

Western provinces were roaming with tribes of diggers: men and
women dragging their shadows through the mounds of rubles, scavenging in the old
ruins, burrowing through their tunnels in search of the World Before. Was it
worth hunting them down, crushing their shafts leading to the underworld and
gambling on the lives of all these young monks day in and day out? The Holy See
had decreed, “Yes!” The Church’s re-education centers—the feared
coalmines in the Carolinas—were brimming with stubborn, unrepentant
diggers. For most of them Elano had already paid a price in blood—a price
he found harder and harder to bear with each Search, Capture & Destroy
mission. He’d thought more than once to ask the Holy Father to release him of
his assignment, but to what end? Lionheart’s sword was entrusted to him and him
alone; he had taken an oath before the entire Curia—it was bound on
Earth, as it was bound in Heaven.
    Elano glanced over to the back of
the cabin. Monk Ulf, a stern-looking boy found in the rubbles of a Las Vegas
casino and now a full-fledged man and choice fighter, was praying silently, his
fingers gently scrolling along the beads of a rosary. Ulf had been ordained to
priesthood only a week earlier, but Elano had already appointed him as his
second in command. It was Ulf’s first raid in that capacity, and he’d taken it
upon himself to prove he was worth every ounce of trust. He had asked the night
before to lead the first squad during the attack, and Elano had granted him the
wish.
    The young monk felt Elano’s
stare—he opened his eyes and turned his head toward his commander. Elano
nodded once, in a silent go-ahead.
    Ulf got up and panned his eyes
over his comrades, inspecting their fighting gear with a piercing stare. The airborne
monks raised their heads, waiting. When he had their attention, Ulf pointed two
fingers toward his heart and traced through the air a quick arc toward the
floor of the cabin.
    “Load the crossbows!” he shouted
loud enough to cover the blare of the engines.
    With fast movements betraying long
hours of practice, the monks loaded the clips, each filled with six four-inch
unforgiving steel bolts. Once they’d spanned the strings into the firing
position, they rested the crossbows between their legs.
    Elano followed Ulf with the corner
of his eye. As a young boy, Ulf had spent ten years in Beatus Lacrimae , the same
Franciscan orphanage in the Panhandle where Elano himself had grown up. All his
warriors were orphans, and all had put in their time at one orphanage or
another before entering the Jesuit cadet school at the age of seventeen. The
Franciscans raised the boys; the Jesuits turned them into men. On the training
grounds in Nova Scotia, spiritual disciplines were matched with intensive
training in swordsmanship, Aikido, flight lessons, and even firearms
instruction. Although the Gunpowder Ban had been strictly enforced by the
Church under the threat of anathema, the Jesuit monk warriors underwent
training in handling firearms, just in case they found themselves in situations
where firing an assault rifle or a .45 was their only recourse of defense.
    Reports from the scouts did
mention the presence of firearms inside the diggers’ compound they were headed
toward. As he rested the tip of his broadsword against one of the wooden
shields that lined the cabin’s floor, Elano prayed that death wouldn’t touch
his young men that day. He inspected the blade’s fresh sharpness with his thumb,
then he used a corner of his robe to wipe the sword’s hilt and coat of arms
cast into the cross-guard—the Three-Lion Crest, Lionheart’s heritage
passed through the ages from one generation of holy warriors to another. He
interlocked his fingers over the handle grip and bowed his head in a
consecration prayer.
    The nonstop grinding of the
chopper’s blades created a numbing rhythm to which Elano tried for a few long
seconds to align the words of his silent prayer, but