Read Online The Mongoliad: Book Two (The Foreworld Saga) by Mark Teppo - Free Book Online

the man’s other socket. Ferenc couldn’t reach it, nor could he pull himself free from the pile of dead men. He could only lie there, watching the rain sluice off the corpses in streams of pink and red, watching flies crawl in and out of his assailant’s gaping mouth.
    And then the priest had stumbled past, dirty and bloody. Ferenc had filled his chest as best he could under the crush of bodies and called out.
Holy man
, he had cried.
Can you help me, holy man?
In that moment their fates became bound.
    His mother had taught him about the endless cycle of the seasons.
Every year we start again
, she had told him. Before he was old enough to hunt, she would lead him by his small pink hand into the garden as the frost fled and the ground became soft. There, she taught him how to dig up what was dead.
This is what was
, she had said, shoving the twisted roots into his hand;
this is what will be
, as she planted the new crop and had him pat down the soft soil. When hewas older, he had asked her why she repeated the same phrase every year.
Because that is how we remember
, she had told him.
That is how we bind ourselves to the world
.
    Ferenc repeated his question one last time. He needed Father Rodrigo to remember that moment on the field of Mohi. It was how they were bound together.
    Father Rodrigo blinked, and his mouth slowed, articulating more clearly the words in his throat. “
In...intende in adjutorium meaum
,” he whispered. “
Deus salutis meae...
” He lifted his head and appeared to realize where they were. His fingers moving awkwardly, he fumbled with the drawstrings of the satchel tied to his waist. When he got it open, he shoved his hand inside and rooted around for a long time until he found what he sought. He thrust his hand toward Ferenc, nearly falling off his horse in the process; clutched between two fingers was the dull metal shape of a flat-topped ring. “
Educe me...
” He shook his head and tried again, this time in Ferenc’s native tongue. “Take me to the palace,” he said.
    Ferenc leaned toward him, reaching for the ring. His fingers brushed the cool metal.
    “
Caput orbis terrarum—
” A fresh bout of shivering overtook the priest, and he let go of the seal so that he could grab the pommel of his saddle. “Go to where St. Peter rests,” Father Rodrigo urged when he could speak again. “Show them. They will know what to do...”
    Ferenc examined the ring in his hands. He had seen it before. The priest had taken it out of his satchel occasionally and peered at it, but he had never explained its significance. The top was flat, inlaid with a cross, and raised letters ran along the outer edge. They meant nothing to Ferenc—other than the now familiar shape of the cross—but Father Rodrigo thought someone at the cathedral would know. Ferenc glanced around the bustling marketplace. Soldiers. The city’s militia. Perhaps the soldiers would know.
    Clutching both the ring and the reins of Father Rodrigo’s horse, Ferenc began to ride slowly through the square. He owed the priest his life, and his debt would only be repaid when they reached their destination. The chaos of the market frightened him, and he’d faltered. He had turned to the priest for aid, and even in his fevered state, the priest had responded with a message, a sign. This was how his God worked, after all. When you lose your way, you prayed to Him for guidance and He would send you aid. He would tell you what to do and where to go.
    Ferenc made the magic sign—forehead, sternum, left shoulder, right shoulder—and behind him, swaying drunkenly on his horse, Father Rodrigo did the same.
    * * *
    They were clearly foreigners, and not just because they were stones in the natural flow of the market. It was closing in on midday. The blockade surrounding the city had reduced most of the itinerant vendors to barely a trickle, and those farmers who were able to set up their stalls had already come and gone, their wagons picked clean