Page 43 of The Lost Reliquary
“Still no one out there.” I take the speaker to be the man I spotted. “This is ridiculous. We should be searching too.”
“There’s only so far he could have gotten.” This comes from a tall man, bald and built like an ox who never had to skip a meal. Real muscle. “Van and Remus will find him.”
Not if he’s dead.
“Not if he’s dead,” the first speaker practically squeals. “There was a lot of blood, we didn’t see clearly what happened, and the woods—”
“The sun is rising,” Baldy snaps. “We wait. No more surprises.”
Did they surprise Nolan or did Nolan surprise them? Or maybe it was a mutual surprising. Would explain the chaotic leavings I came across.
“Agreed.” For the second time in two days, I recognize a voice: the woman who was in Novena with Avery. Not exactly a surprise, but this just keeps getting better. “In the meantime, we need to make a decision about what to do with him.”
“I know exactly what to do.” The bald man jabs a finger at Nolan. “He’s already cost us our hound. We cut him into pieces before he has the chance to do the same to us.”
Hound?So, Nolan’s captors are the dead man’s captors as well. Which makes it highly likely that Nolan was the source of the dead man’s wound. The cut looked wild; maybe breaking his chains hadn’t been intentional. At least six against one—even Nolan might have gotten a little sloppy, if the “hound” had surprised him the way he did me.
“No.” The woman’s voice takes on an edge.
“He’s too dangerous!”
“This isn’t some cobwebbed skeleton dug out of a battlefield or a decrepit Prior. He’s young. He’sfresh.”
With that word, the last piece falls into place. A bilious sensation ripples beneath my breastbone, sinking into my guts. The “hound” with the altered sight, keeping Nolan alive…
These aren’t any ordinary—or even extraordinary—heretics.
These are Renderers.
We should have been picking off the Chosen by now… my crew and I were promised…That’s what the woman said, back in Novena. That was what would have followed a successful assignation—the methodical hunting of anyone touched by divine power. This “crew” must have been situated somewhere outside Novena, waiting for the woman, and come across Nolan. And here I thought I’d gotten the short straw; I’ll take a false cleric over Renderers any time.
“You’re right, he’s already cost us enough,” says the woman. “Taking him alive makes up for that. Or do you really want to slink back empty handed after all this, tail between your legs?”
“Fuck off.” Baldy seems like the charming type. But he goes quiet for a moment. “I want an extra cut once we get back to Sethane. For the trouble.”
Sethane? That’s nowhere near Carsaire, where the other heretic was headed. Did he have friends there waiting on him too? It’s possible. Even so, the math is simple: Renderers for sure in one direction, the reliquary and hopefully no Renderers in another. I shift to get a better view of Nolan. His attention is on his captors, a chilling level of abhorrence in his gaze. It’s a good bet this isn’t how he thought things would go after pushing me into that pit, and I hope there’s a few regrets stewing behind that revolted stare. I hope he’s imagining my body, twisted and broken in the dark, when it could have been watching his stupid, deceiving back. Then again, he was right about one thing, in his actions if not his words—this was always going to go badly for one of us.
And I know exactly what he’d do if our places were switched.
The sun is nearly up, and I haven’t forgotten the other two Renderers out there hunting for their dead “hound.” Maybe they’ll find the body, maybe they won’t. Either way, I need to move before they return and have a chance to spot my horse on the ridge.Avery’shorse. Shit. Maybe Ishouldhave killed him. If they find him and he tells them that Nolan isn’t the only one of the Goddess’s Chosen lurking around…
All the more reason for me to be on my way. I spare one last glance at Nolan, once again taking in the sight of him bound and helpless. It’s not quite as satisfying as it was a few minutes ago. Still… the edge of the pit, the look on his face in the moonlight… I turn away.
Sorry, Nolan, but you brought this on yourself.
Twenty
There is no fouler sort of heretic than a Renderer. More than judgement, they warrant nothing less than extermination. But despite all efforts, their kind—and more concerning, their knowledge—persists.
—FROM THE WRITINGS OF BELLATOR HADRIANA
THERE WERE THINGS THATwe were taught at the Cloisters, and things that we were told.
Renderer—a word I first heard on the foggy morning I found Jeziah cornered by a trio of older Potentiates while on my way to the kitchens to steal something to eat. I’d been there just over a year; him, a little less, and our training at the time had us testing our physical limits. Three days has passed since we’d been given anything other than tepid water, and my stomach ached almost as badly as during the forced march that carried me here. I kept my distance, pressed into a curve of wall, already having experienced my share of cornerings. Best not to interfere.
The fog softened their laughter, but it still carried the tang of amusement at another’s expense. Then one—an older girl named Galilea—grabbed Jeziah’s wrist and wrenched his arm up so sharply he was nearly lifted off the ground. “Always wondered what these were supposed to be,” she mocked, the undulating bands of Jeziah’s tattoos exposed. “Worms?”
No, rivers. To the north, there were hundreds of waterways that fed into the Great Meander river—one of which I had my own history with. And thousands of folks who traversed them in convoys of houseboats and barges. They would add a tattoo of each river they’d traveled the length of, filling their arms from wrist to collarbone. But I didn’t know any of that until later.
