‘I – uh – I have a sterner duty,’ the fellow declared. ‘I must seek out those who are absent without cause and deliver them up for judgement.’

‘Ah,’ Sparhawk said, ‘I see.’ He turned away, then turned back. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have me break your arm for you? It won’t take but a minute.’

The fanatic hurried away from them.

‘Must you threaten everyone you meet, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked.

‘He irritated me’

‘You irritate very easily, don’t you.’ He considered it. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘I suppose I do. Shall we go?’

They went through the dark streets of Dabour until they reached the tents pitched on the outskirts. Some distance towards the south a ruddy glow pulsed up towards the glittering stars. They moved quietly past the tents towards the light.

The flickering torches were set on tall poles surrounding a kind of natural amphitheatre on the southern edge of town, a sort of depression between two hills. The hollow was filled with Arasham’s followers, and the deranged holy man himself stood atop a large boulder halfway up the side of one of the hills. He was tall and gaunt with a long grey beard and bushy black eyebrows. His voice was strident as he harangued his followers, but his words were difficult to understand because of his lack of teeth. When Sparhawk and Sephrenia joined the crowd, the old man was in the middle of an extended and highly involuted proof of God’s special favour – which had, he declared, been bestowed upon him in a dream. There were huge logical gaps in his argument and great leaps of what passed for faith here in Rendor.

‘Is he making any sense at all?’ Sephrenia whispered to Sparhawk in a puzzled tone as she removed the splints and the sling.

‘Not that I can detect,’ he whispered back.

‘I didn’t think so. Does the Elene God actually encourage that sort of hysterical gibberish?’

‘He never has to me’

‘Can we get any closer?’

‘I don’t think so. The crowd’s pretty thick in front of where he’s standing.’

Arasham then turned to one of his favourite topics, a denunciation of the Church. The organized Elene religion, he maintained, was cursed by God for its failure to recognize his exalted status as the chosen and beloved spokesman of the Most High.

‘But the wicked shall be punished!’ he lisped in a toothless shriek with spittle flying from his lips. ‘My followers are invincible! Be patient for but a little more time, and I will raise my holy talisman and lead you into war against them! They will send their accursed Church Knights to do war upon us, but fear them not! The power of this holy relic will sweep them before us like chaff before the wind!’ He held something high over his head in his tightly clenched fist. ‘The spirit of the Blessed Eshand himself has confirmed this to me.’