The dog wasn’t gorging on corpses, which he took for a good sign. There were no bodies in the streets, no stench of death, no carrion birds like he’d found in other towns before this. Still, if General Raske’s men had reached this town ahead of him, they might have rounded up the villagers rather than killed them where they stood.
Diamis’ soldiers, Kenton knew too well, liked to make examples, and these days it seemed the Lord General’s blood mages also had an unwitting spy in every town.
Kenton made his way down the road toward a plume of smoke rising from behind some trees. He could hear voices as he approached, but the tone didn’t seem like a soldier barking orders. One voice in particular—a man’s—rose above the others.
“—that the Banishment Chronicle has foretold,” the man said in a voice that sounded accustomed to speaking before crowds. “It may seem difficult to believe that Nerendal would choose a mere farmer, and yet, aren’t the bearers said to be ‘plucked from among the faithful?’”
Kenton sighed. So he had beaten the soldiers to the man who claimed to be the godbearer of Nerendal, though the voice alone—a reedy, clipped Andronish accent rather than a lilting Tirostaari one—cast serious doubt on this man’s legitimacy, as did his gender, since Nerendal favored his daughters over his sons.
If he was a bearer, he was in grave danger. If he was a charlatan, he was needlessly endangering the people here, who would pay the price for his blasphemy. Either way, he was a gods-damned fool.
Kenton emerged from behind the trees into a large grassy clearing, the type that a town like this would use for festivals and public meetings. The crowd was larger than Kenton had expected given the size of the town—more than a hundred men, women, and children surrounding a crackling fire. Kenton could barely see the man at the head of the group, and he edged through the crowd to get a better view, ignoring the irritated glances of those he pushed past.
The man wore plain russet breeches and a blue sleeveless vest, his skin bare beneath it. “You’ve come because you’ve heard from your neighbors of the miracles I can perform,” the man said. He swept his hands through the rising smoke, building suspense for the actual demonstration. Kenton noted the barrel beside him—probably a dousing barrel, a safety measure common among fire-dancers.
Kenton had seen all of this before—had chased down more than a dozen people who claimed to be the bearer of Nerendal, the one who would be able to touch the godstone of Tirostaar. None of the others had turned out to be more than con artists and performers, and this man seemed much the same.
Things had not ended well for many of them.
“You don’t look Tirostaari to me,” Kenton called out, and many in the crowd turned to look at him. He hated attracting attention, and while he saw no soldiers of Diamis in this bunch—not yet—Diamis’ secret army of mages might even now be looking at him through one of their eyes. It had happened before, and there was no way for him or anyone else in the crowd to know for certain who the puppet might be.
The man searched through his audience until he found Kenton. His congenial smile managed not to look forced. “Ah,” the man said. “But you must know your Chronicle. It breathes not a word of the bearer being Tirostaari.” He turned to the crowd. “What are the exact words in the Chronicle about the bearer of Nerendal? Can anyone here remember them?”
Kenton could practically recite the whole damn thing. But he kept his mouth shut, watching the reactions of the people around him. Most looked nervous, their eyes darting around the circle, waiting for someone else to speak up.
At least these people have some sense of self-preservation, he thought. Diamis hadn’t formally outlawed worship of the Four here in Andronim like he had in Foroclae, but it was strongly discouraged. Strongly enough that most of the chapels to Arkista he’d seen in his travels had been abandoned, home now to stray cats and spiders rather than priestesses in silver robes and crescent moon sigils.
The weighty silence dragged on a few moments, and then a young man with a chin dotted with patchy attempts at a new beard stepped forward. “It says Nerendal’s bearer will ‘come forth from the people of the sun, and the fire of the god will harm the bearer not.’”
“And are we not all people of the sun?” the man asked, flashing a look at Kenton. “Do we not all toil beneath Nerendal’s light?”
The young man gazed up at the so-called bearer with such open adoration that Kenton could tell he wasn’t from this village, but rather one of the man’s followers, a retinue growing from town to town. A retinue that had already attracted the Lord General’s attention, and if one of his spies had managed to get just a drop of blood from one of them—
They needed to get on with this. “Where are your miracles, then?” Kenton called.
The man spared him another glimpse, but kept his general attention on the crowd. He was experienced at dealing with hecklers; Kenton would give him that much.
“I see you are not all convinced,” he said. “But remember the scripture. Fire will harm the bearer not!”
And with that, he bent down and plunged his arms into the fire burning before him. Gasps sounded from the crowd, and several people cried out when he straightened and held his arms out to either side, flames licking along his hands and dancing on his bare skin.
The man stood exultantly, his face raised to the sun, letting the flames burn. And then, when he’d made his point, he doused his arms in the large barrel of water. Steam hissed from the barrel, and then he withdrew his arms to hold them up again before the crowd.
The skin looked as pale and unburnt as before. He turned his palms this way and that, spinning in a circle to show everyone in the awe-struck crowd. Kenton, however, noticed that the water beaded up on his arms and hands unnaturally. The man was using firedamp, a translucent cream that could protect skin against flames like this—a troupe of performers he’d witnessed years ago in northern Mortiche had rubbed their entire bodies in the stuff before leaping through hoops of flame. The potion was expensive, but Mortichean duchies loved a good acrobatic troupe, and the dukes paid handsomely for them to perform at festivals and tournaments. Rural farmers in western Andronim, however, were unlikely to have seen it before.
A short, balding man in a green tunic with a constable’s insignia appeared about to pass out. “Does this mean—If you are a bearer . . . does this mean that Maldorath has been released?” The man’s voice wavered.
A few more cries sounded from the crowd as the connection dawned belatedly on them. That if a godbearer had indeed been chosen, if the powers that signaled his identity had begun manifesting, then it must mean that the gods needed to be found again to prevent the release of Maldorath. As the Chronicle said, the bearers would come and bring them to the place where Maldorath was bound.
“Times are perilous,” the man said, stepping dangerously near the fire again. “Only the watchful will be able to anticipate his coming.”