Molin forced himself deeper into the blazing aureole until he could grab the
child and lift him from the floor.
“Gyskouras,” he bellowed countless times.
The boy fought with the determination of a street urchin: biting, kicking,
flailing with the straw-sword until Molin’s damp clothes began to steam. But
Molin persisted, imprisoning the child’s legs first, then trapping his arms
beneath his own.
“Gyskouras,” he said more gently, as the radiance flickered and the sword fell
from the child’s hand.
‘”Kouras?” the other child echoed, clinging now to both of them.
The light flared once and was gone. Gyskouras became only a frightened child
wracked with sobs. Molin stroked the boy’s hair, patted him between the
shoulders, and glanced down where one of his priests lay in a crumpled heap.
With a gesture and a nod of his head, Torchholder commanded the others to do
what had to be done. When he and the children were alone he sat down on a low
stool and stood the child in front of him.
“What happened, Gyskouras?”
“He brought porridge,” the boy said between sobs and sniffles. “Arton said he
had candy but he gave me porridge.”
“You are growing very fast, Gyskouras. When you don’t eat you don’t feel good.”
Since they’d brought Arton into the nursery some four months earlier, both
children had grown the length of a man’s hand from wrist to fingertips. Growing
pains were a living nightmare for all concerned. “If you had eaten the porridge
I’m sure Aldwist would have given you the candy.”
“I wished him dead,” Gyskouras said evenly, though when the words were safely