“Why would the patriarch of the gods be in Belgreig of all places? Wouldn’t that be Drome?”

Farilane couldn’t quite see the other speaker. He was on the far side of the first, and she could only catch glimpses when the drunk husband rocked forward or back.

“No, it was Erebus, they say. He saved this little village in a valley down there, a little piss-puddle called Tur.”

“Saved it from what?” one of the wives asked—not the one with the drunk husband, but the pretty one who held hands with her daughter as if afraid at any moment she might be stolen.

“Pirates, goblins, something like that. The West Echo coast is always being ravaged by something.”

None of them, Farilane noticed, ate food. This must be a celebration—a birthday party, or promotion for one of them—or perhaps just a weekly social event for a group of friends.

“How do you know any of this?” the hidden man asked, sounding suspicious, which instantly made Farilane like him more.

“Traders come up the river from Vernes with the stories.”

“And that’s all it is—stories.”

“How did the god save them?” the daughter asked this time.

Seemingly fed up with the man’s skepticism, the drunk husband turned and faced the girl, clutching his wet cup before him with both hands. “Well, dear, down that way, the wretches living along the coast are always suffering one plague or another. They’re out on the outer reach, you see. Used to be the dwarven king up in Linden Lott kept his realm safe, but the dwarven clans got divided with the death of the old king, and Rhinehart, the one everyone thought might unite the Belgric Kingdom . . . well, he embarrassed himself in Haston. The whole kingdom has withered and grown too weak to defend itself.”

“You were in Haston, weren’t you?” Kile asked Farilane.

“Shush,” she told him with a finger to her lips.

“Now this little village called Tur, well, it suffered the worst. A scourge of marauders took to visiting twice a year and taking nearly all their food. These invaders even made demands. Ordered the villagers to make them things, and if they weren’t done on time, the marauders would kill their sons. Even when the villagers made the deadline, the marauders took their daughters.”

“Clayton!” the ale-stained wife snapped. “Don’t frighten the girl.”

“Sorry. The point is, this village was helpless until a stranger arrived and moved into the old blacksmith shop, whose owner had been killed just a month before.”

“Is this the god?” the girl asked, her eyes widening.