Blood of War by Remi Michaud

stationary until the end of the year, the Salosians might be able to muster as many as four thousand troops. “Three thousand eight hundred ninety-three by autumn at the current rate of increase,” Garvus had reported, priggishly referring to the clipboard he carried with him everywhere. That was if everything stayed status quo. Plenty of reason, then, for three senior members of the Salosian Order to be sitting around a cluttered table silently brooding, silently drinking.
    “And how is our young charge?” Goromand asked, interrupting the solemn crackle of the small fire that did little to alleviate the gloom of the austere meeting room.
    Startled by the sudden sound, Jorge nearly dropped his cup, muttering a curse under his breath as brandy sloshed on his robe.
    Kurin sighed. “He's still having problems. Before Jurel so unceremoniously relieved him of his duties,” Kurin smirked wryly, “Andrus was working with him daily, but he still can't conjure so much as a lick of flame, let alone come close to what he achieved at the temple last spring.”
    “I don't understand,” Jorge said. “Explain again what happened.”
    Kurin's eyes rolled as he let out another sigh, this one much more theatric. “Haven't you heard it enough?”
    “No.”
    The even glare that Jorge shot at him made him swallow the sharper words that came to his tongue.
    “As you well know-” a pointed look which was resoundingly ignored “-when we were at the temple, we met Calen. A smug, insufferable fool if there ever was one. Jurel's adopted father, Daved, said some things which did not go over well with the fat bastard and he was executed-”
    “Murdered,” Gormand said quietly.
    “Same outcome. Fine, murdered then, on the spot. When that happened, Jurel snapped. His divinity flowed forth and a massacre the likes of which I have never before witnessed ensued.”
    His eyes darkened, turned inward at the memory of young Jurel, the God of War, suddenly displaying his power in such a spectacular fashion. He told his two friends again, haltingly, the tale of Jurel's rampage through the temple at Threimes, destroying any that stood in his way. Rivers of blood had flowed that day.
    He described how, being faced by a dozen and more priests who threw arcane fire at him, Jurel had stridden through the inferno, unscathed by the blazing balls that would have liquefied any other, to cut down most of the priests with a sword he had conjured that had seemed to be made of lightning.
    Then came the escape from the temple and from the city. The night that followed had been long indeed for Kurin; he had been ill and near death from his confinement in the dungeons under the temple. Mikal and Gaven had taken turns to support him lest he collapse to the road, where, he was certain, he never would have risen.
    Jurel had gotten them through it all and a long way toward the Abbey and safety before he had fallen unconscious from his exertions. At least Kurin thought it was only his exertions that had caused his collapse.
    When he had awakened, days later, there was no trace of the power that had held him in its grip. There had not been since.
    “I don't understand fully either,” Kurin said after an uncomfortable silence. He pushed away the terrible memories and looked across to the man he had considered a brother for so many years. “It's there. It's most definitely there. I felt it at Threimes. It was more—much more—than simple arcanum. It was...a feeling. A presence. Something. I can't explain it. But there seems to be some sort of mental block barring him from fully coming into his own.”
    “He needs to get past it,” Goromand muttered.
    “Thank you, O wise Abbot, for that epiphany,” Kurin replied, his lips twisting sardonically. “Yes, he needs to get past it, but to do so, he must discover what is causing it. Until then, I fear there is nothing to be done.”
    “We need him,” Jorge said. “The storm is coming gentlemen, and we need him to be