around the table that held the warrior , the others had gathered : dante , rigid in his stoic observation of death ; rio , head bent down , fingers clutching a string of rosary beads as he moved his lips silently to the words of his mother 's human religion ; gideon , attending cloth in hand , dabbing carefully at one of the many savage lacerations that had torn open nearly every inch of conlan 's skin ; nikolai , who had been on patrol that night with conlan , his face paler than lucan had ever seen it , his wintry eyes stark , his skin marred with soot and cinder and small , bleeding cuts .