“Behind me you see the worst of you! The scum that walks your streets, those who would spit upon the good work you good people do! Fornicators! Reformers! Thieves! Traitors to the Crown! Would you have your homes, your streets, clogged with such sin? Would you have your children witness such degeneracy? Are we not entitled to cleanliness and class? Shall we purge this mortal realm of the filth and muck which has descended upon—”

“Gods! We’ve done nothing wrong!” said the man on his knees, his voice a shriek so high-pitched Anji had to wince. He sobbed, his fingers clenched into fists, and stared out at the crowd. “Why are you letting them do this?”

The man in the yellow robes flicked his fingers at the giant in red, who smashed his fist into the crying man’s mouth. Teeth clattered over the planks in a spray of blood. The giant whipped a strip of cloth out from inside his robes and tied it around the man’s mouth. Anji felt Kit stiffen at her side.

“There are no gods here,” said Escadora, turning back to the crowd. “Only the One, in whose benevolence you may choose to bask. Think me not an executioner,” said the yellow-robed man, pressing a spindly hand to his chest, “not a judge—no. I am a messenger, instructed by the One to shed this good city of its villainy, its idleness, as is Their design with all things. I am but one of you! One of you indignant citizens who has chosen to heed the One’s word and abolish and abort those who defile Their cosmic decree. For what are we without the rules set down in this good book?” He slapped at the leather and shook it over his head. “We are no better than the bugs you squash underfoot without order, without law! And these,” he gestured at the five figures behind him, “these sinners spit upon order. They make the streets you walk unsafe with their sin, their disgusting vice and vapidity and vagrancy. Laziness! Ingratitude! Shall we purge them from these streets?”

A few calls of agreement came from the crowd.

“Shall we make safe the city once more?”

The calls came a bit stronger.

“Shall we live not in black fear, but in the white light of grace bestowed only by the One On High?”

Claps and cheers now, though Anji noticed a few people at the back were making their way out of the square. She turned back to the platform.

“With ruination comes the dawn!”

The crowd chanted this back.

“With ruination comes the dawn!”

The crowd screamed this back.

“Squash these bugs!”

The red-robed giant grabbed the man on his knees by the hair and stood him up. The man squirmed and cried out through his gag. The others stood still, their ropes like dead snakes looped around their necks.

“Kill them!” someone screamed in the crowd.