The magic that triggered the amulet was so powerful, Reynevan didn’t have the slightest difficulty in determining the direction from which it was emanating. Taking both Schaff and his men by surprise, he ran across the track through some juniper bushes, cleared a hollow and without a second thought fell on a man in a hood crouching behind a fallen tree. Reynevan knocked a box resembling a small reliquary out of his hands with a sweeping punch, kicked it, punched him in the nape and again in the ear. The hood fell and a tonsure shone. Reynevan would have punched the priest again, but Schaff’s men caught him and seized him in an iron grip.

“What the Devil are you playing at?” yelled Schaff. “Are you insane? Or demented?”

“Look what he had,” yelled Reynevan even louder. “Ask him what he was doing!”

“What are you talking about? That’s Father Zwicker, my chaplain!”

“He’s a traitor! That casket is a magical communicator! He was sending a signal, trying to contact somebody and summon them here using magic! And I know who!”

Schaff bent down to the box lying on the ground, but stepped back suddenly on hearing a buzzing sound. Without thinking twice, he crushed the box with a mighty blow of his boot, grinding it into the sand with his heel. The chaplain uttered a stifled cry at the sight.

“Would you like to explain this to me, Zwicker,” said Schaff, approaching him. “Eh?”

“I can explain,” Reynevan shouted, still being held by the soldiers. “The damned priest has betrayed me! He has brought tormentors down on me—it was owing to him that they almost caught me yesterday! Ask him about the sorcerer Birkart Grellenort! Ask him how long he has served Grellenort, how long he has informed for him! How long he has been betraying you, too!”

“Birkart Grellenort,” Janko Schaff repeated ominously, seizing the chaplain by the collar of his vestments. “The bishop’s confidant. Is that so? Is it? You’re his spy? You use magic to report to the bishop? Telling him everything I say, do and think? Are you betraying me?”

The chaplain pursed his lips and turned his head away.

“Answer the accusation, wretched priest. Defend yourself. Swear you are innocent. That you are my obedient servant. That you pay with loyalty for the bread you eat thanks to my grace, and for the money I graciously permit you to steal!”

The priest still said nothing. Schaff pulled the priest towards him. And then shoved him away, casting him down onto the ground.

“Bind the scum,” he ordered. “The executioner will have words with him.”