Simohe day away. He luxuriated in the feeling of having his armor off for the first time in days, ae how much he hated looking at his chubby body when he was stripped down to his boxers, he wouldn’t have ehose scratchy lines anymore if they were made of silk.

  It was only when the sun was close to setting that he finally decided to stop being zy a his act together. He made his way downstairs without his armor or his sword and inquired about where a man might be able to get a bath. He would o do some undry tomorrow to get the salt and the sand out of his clothes, and he would definitely o take a whetstoo his ons sometime after that before he went to the level because the rust spotting was growing worse.

  Still, all of that could wait until he’d wasted a few coppers on a soak. While he was ihhouse, he learned he was iown of Esmiran and that he was somewhere to the east of Mietere.

  The only time he’d heard the name of that city before, he was dealing with that locust-leech storm at Millen’s farm. He wondered if that meant he was close or not but decided not to ask.

  He was definitely in another try ion, though. People’s skin was slightly darker than he was used to, and their clothes were just a little bit different from his. When one of the other meiohat he looked like a sailor, Simon ughed and said, “I haven’t spent much time on a ship since Abrese.”

  That got him some dark looks, and though no one expined, Simon quickly found himself aloer that. He made a mental to mention random pces he’d been without uanding why the popuce might hate them.

  Fortunately, nothing bad came of it, and as he reehe inn, he found no lynch mobs waiting for him. Instead, he ordered a beer and some food and listened more thaalked as he waited for his food to arrive.

  All in all, he would have called the fare in this ply det. The meat was toy, the bread was too coarse, but the beer was det enough. He didn’t pin, though. At least it was new, and the part of him that feared he’d be stuck eating that same wedge of cheese and loaf of bread forever. So that was okay.

  It was only ter when he had joined some strangers in a friendly game of dice, that they arrived. Simon had been on a winning streak and mao win almost a whole silver after seven straight rounds of guessing whether the dice would e up even or odds.

  Normally, that wouldn’t have been much moo him, but his purse was getting pretty low. He might have only been on this run for a few weeks, but he’d been to a lot of pces in that time, and traveling was a lot more expehan just hanging out in a siown aing to know the locals for a year or two.

  So, he wasn’t paying much attention to anything but the growing pile of coppers that were the stakes, and he didn’t even notice the strangers and their white robes e in until the bar went silent.

  “ I help you, gentlemen?” the proprietor asked. “We don’t want no trouble.”

  “Peace, brother,” the apparent leader of the group said, raising a leather-gloved hand to show he was unarmed. “We only seek heretics. The worthy and the righteous have nothing to hide.”

  This gave Benjamin pause as he looked over the 6 men and women who wore white cloaks and robes that did little to hide their armor and ons. Only the one wearing gray from head to toe seemed unarmed, but that probably just meant that they were even more trouble.

  Suddenly, he felt naked without his sword, and he cursed himself for being in this on room with nothing but a dagger now that these weirdos were here. It smelled like trouble. This was almost certainly the reason he was here, which seemed strange, given that he’d been here for almost a day. Things usually happened quicker than that.

  Still, he didn’t let that distract him as he tried to feign disi while he studied these strangers and tried to determine what the threat was going to be. The leader walked slowly around the room, studying each fae at a time, and even the men who seemed most likely to bluster or pick a fight over something like this were quiet and still.

  They know what’s going on here, even if I don’t, Simon thought to himself. That, as much as the cool deliberation that was going on, was enough to keep him right where he was even as the man slowly made his way across the bar toward him.

  Simon was certain he’d be picked out of the crowd for whatever aura it was he had about him. He’d been told so many times, but that didn’t happen. Instead, only a few people before him, the man reached out and grabbed a hooded woman sitting by the other side of the fire and pulled her to her feet.

  “Here you are, Carelyn,” the man smiled cruelly. “Did you really think you could hide from us so—”

  He stopped speaking as she shed out with a knife instead of words, but it didn’t pee the mail that was hidden underh the man’s robes, and he only smirked as he twisted her arm so hard that she dropped the knife even as he started t her off.

  “No! No!!!” she screamed. “I’m not going back. You ’t make me!”

  “No, you’re not,” the cult leader agreed. “That bridge has been burned.”

  Some small part of Simohed a sigh of relief right then. He’d been sure this dude had some mystical power to seek out people like Simon, but in the end, this was just some wacky cult thing. These guys were here to collee runaway. Now, things fell into pce a little more.

  He wasly about to let that happen, though, and even as the group began to dense and move toward the door, he got up and followed them outside. One of the men he ying dice with shook his head almost imperceptibly, urging Simon not to, while the other just smiled. He was obviously looking forward to taking Simon’s money as soon as these men struck him down, but he wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “There’s no point iing us, Carelyn,” Simon heard the leader say as soon as he stepped outside, “The auguries were quite clear. You could have been one of the chosen, but now you are hopelessly tainted by this… I help you?”

  The man’s focus shifted to Simon as soon as he stepped out of the front door. The front yard of the inn was full of horses and men, and the group’s size had almost doubled to 10 warriors in white, but Simon still wasn’t ed.

  “If the dy doesn’t want to go with you, then you’re not taking her anywhere,” he said simply.

  “Oh?” the leader of the group smiled as his men began to fan out. It was clear to Simon that they knew what they were doing, unlike most of the people he’d fought on other levels. “Those are big words, but unless you ght baside, I’m afraid my men are going to have to dirty their ons on—”

  “Oo,” Simon muttered, using a word of force to knock everyone in front of him backward except the girl as he walked forward and grabbed her by the arm.

  That was enough to knock most of them off their feet, including the leader. Simon’s eyes weren’t on him, though. One of the other men, a younger warrior to the leader’s left, looked familiar to Simon somehow. He had no idea who the man was or where he might have seen him, but her that uainty nor the fact that Simon had just knocked him off his feet was enough to shake the look nition on his face.

  He’d clearly done something to piss that guy off. Before Simon could figure out what that was, though, the leader of these zealots was ba his feet. Simon had expected to knoe seo them with that, but it wasn’t fear iher man’s eyes. It was hunger. “Allying with actual warloow, Carelyn,” the man growled, drawing his sword. “Now things finally make sense.”

  “I…” Carelyn started speaking, but Simon already knew what she was going to say. He could see it in the fear in her eyes even before she shook free of his grip. “I’m not… I would never…”

  She backed away, and once she was a few feet from Simon, she turned and ran, but he didn’t take it personally. He’d known from the momearted using magio one was going to be on his team. That’s just the way it was. He o be pitted against a literal zombie apocalypse for people to think he was the good guy, and apparently, religious zealots didn’t rise to that level.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Simon said, not yet drawing his dagger. “If you just leave now, we …”

  “Oo,” he barked for a sed time as the three of the soldiers broke from their ranks and began to chase down the girl.

  Strangely, though, nothing happened. Simon was still processing that and w what he did wrong when their leader yelled out, “Don’t worry about her; she won’t get far. We have a higher calling now. We must se this warlock.”

  Between the level of fiden the man’s eyes and the way his magic had fizzled, Simon knew he should run. He might have, too, if he had any idea where it was he was supposed to run to.

  If he did, though, they’d just go after that woman again, and he wasn’t about to trade his life for hers. Even if they killed him, he would buy her the time she o get away. He could always e back here. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the way.

  He could do that a lot easier if he had his sword, though, he thought to himself as he pulled his dagger and dropped into a fighting stanbsp;

  No on, no armor, and apparently no magic was really going to limit his options, though.

  “Gervuul Meiren,” he said, trying one more time as the men came cautiously closer.

  Simohe words e to life as he pronouhem as always, and he felt the power flow out of him, but for some reason, instead of the torrent of fire he visualized, only a few sparks appeared.

  “Rage as much as you like,” the other man tau that. “As long as we have a whisperer here, your tricks are useless!”

  Simon had no idea what this asshole was talking about, but as soon as he and his men charged Simon, he no longer had time to think about it. Instead, he made a fightireat from the vilge square until he could use the wall of the inn to keep one of his fnks safe.

  It was a losing battle, though. Not only was he nearly defenseless, but he wasn’t as strong or as fast as he would like to be, so without magic, he retty much screwed. It took only a couple of mio realize that the person in gray, who stayed close to them but well behind the line of bat, was to bme for that. They were the whisperer, whatever that was, and if he wahe power to take these weirdos down, that was the person he had to take down.

  He could have do, too, if he had a bow. Sadly, he didn’t. So, he was going to have to improvise.