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the great city to dutifully pay for his deeds.
    But the butchery Uldyssian had witnessed had not been due to strong drink. This looked more the work of some madman or beast. Surely an outsider, some brigand passing through the region.
    Growing more certain of this with each breath, Uldyssian vowed to bring it up the moment that he spoke with the headman and the Guard commander. The men of Seram would be more than willing to volunteer to search the area for the bastard. This time, the crime would be handled locally; a good strong rope would end the matter as it should. It was all such a fiend deserved.
    He opened the back door and slipped out—
    “There! That is the man of whom I speak!”
    Uldyssian retreated into the doorway, startled. Before him stood Tiberius—a beefy man against whom the farmer had wrestled during festival events and lost to more than he had won—and gray-haired, vulpine Dorius, who was staring at Uldyssian as if never having seen him before. Behind them stood more than a dozen other men, most of them from the Guard, but also Achilios…and the two other acolytes of the Temple. The older male was, in fact, the one who had spoken and now stood pointing accusingly at the perplexed farmer.
    Recovering, he looked to the hunter. “Did you tell them everything?”
    Before Achilios could answer, Dorius interjected, “You’re not to speak to him, hunter. Not yet. Not until all the facts be known.”
    “The facts are known!” declared the Triune’s emissary. His female companion nodded over and over as he spoke. At the moment, there seemed nothing pious or peaceful about the pointing figure. “You are the one responsible! Your own words brand you! Confess for the sake of your soul!”
    Uldyssian fought to keep his distaste for the acolyte from overcoming his reason. If he understood the man correctly, then the farmer had just been accused of the very murder he had been trying to warn them about.
    “Me? You think I did it? By the stars, I should take you and—”
    “Uldyssian…” murmured Achilios anxiously.
    The son of Diomedes regained control. To the archer, he said, “Achilios! I told you where to find the body! You saw my expression and—” He halted, not wishing to draw in Lylia. “—and you know me! Dorius! You were friends with my father! I swear by his grave that I’m not the fiend who so foully slew this jabbering fool’s comrade!”
    He would have gone on, but the headman waved him silent. His expression stern, Dorius replied, “’Tis not him we speak about at the moment, Uldyssian. Nay, we speak of the other…though it might very well be that we’ll need to be returning to that before long, as I don’t believe in no coincidence.”
    “‘Other’? What other?”
    Captain Tiberius snapped his fingers. Instantly, half a dozen men—half a dozen men whom Uldyssian had known from childhood on—moved to surround the farmer.
    Achilios tried to intercede. “Dorius, is this necessary? This is Uldyssian.”
    “Your word’s respected, young Achilios, but this is duty.” The headman nodded to the man in the circle. “I’m certain that it’ll all be working out, Uldyssian. Just let us do what the situation demands!”
    “But for what?”
    “For possibly murdering a man,” grunted Captain Tiberius, one hand on the sword at his side. Uldyssian had seen the Guard commander carry the weapon only a few times in all the years he had known him, with all but one of those being for the aforementioned festivals and other special events.
    The lone exception had involved the murder of Gemmel.
    Shaking his head, the farmer roared, “But I told you that I didn’t slay his companion!”
    “’Tis not him we’re talking about,” Dorius declared. “But it’s one of a similar calling, which makes this worse, young Uldyssian. It’s the one hailing from the Cathedral of Light who’s been found slain…”
    “The one…” Uldyssian trailed off, his thoughts in turmoil. But I just spoke