When Silas returned to the room, he was nursing aching ribs and had one son-of-a-b***h headache. Monks had been clearing the wounded and the dead from the hall; it looked as though the battle was over. The bodies of the creatures had disappeared.
“What happened to the ones we killed?” Silas asked a monk helping with the injured.
“They retreated shortly after the lights flared, but they took the time to grab their dead before leaving,” the monk answered in a thin voice, his face pale. He was still in shock from the combat.
“Which way did they retreat?”
“We saw them head down to the first floor, but none of us followed. We were in no condition to chase after them. If they hadn’t retreated…”
The monk left the rest hanging. He didn’t have to finish. That any monks had survived was a
