I turned to Cranton. “Sounds like you’ve been doing a pretty damn good job of bringing in converts to the Church of Necrosis, eh?”
He smiled shyly, a gesture that, unfortunately, only made his face more unattractive than it already was.
“I’ve been doing my best, Vance,” he answered. “But, like, I can’t take all the credit. There are a lot of people out there who are fed up with the Church of Light. The Church is forcing them to pay increased tithes and shit, and they get nothing for it. The priests are aloof and arrogant, prayers go unanswered, requests for help from the Church go ignored… People are looking for an alternative, man. Especially the, uh, the misfits of society, the ones that the Church doesn’t want.
“They like the fact that you don’t have any puritanical rules, that you actually fight for justice against true evil instead of just preaching one thing and then, like, going and doing the exact opposite behind closed doors.
“They respect the fact that you’re a powerful warrior who fears nobody, and who speaks his mind without sugarcoating things, unlike the effete, limp-wristed Church of Light priests who hide in their ivory towers and shit.
“But most of all, Vance, things are changing out there in the rest of Prand. There’s a real sense of… of fear among the common people. I think that they can, on some level, sense the power of the Blood God growing. And if that doesn’t half scare them.
“The Church of Light, man, most of those assholes in positions of power in the church, they’ve got their heads up their asses! The common people like, don’t feel like they’re going to get any protection or help from the Church if shit really starts getting bad. I mean sure, the Lord of Light is powerful, but it seems like he’s also… distant. Uncaring. At least to many people.
“I’ve had no problems getting people to flock to your banner, man. Especially, as I said, people from the fringes of society. Assassins, mercenaries, rogues, rangers… We’ve got all sorts in our growing band.”
“And I promised to reward each and every one of them,” I muttered. “I’m going to have to figure out just what kind of reward I can give them.”
“Well,” Cranton said, “for many of ‘em, just serving you is enough of a reward in itself. Their lives lack meaning or direction and shit like that, and the Church of Necrosis gives it to them. Many of them actually know about the rising threat of the Blood God—hell, I’ve managed to find people whose daughters, sisters, or lovers were abducted and slaughtered in evil rituals by people like Bishop Nabu and your uncle Rodrick and other followers of the Blood God. They’re fucking angry, Vance, and they’re lusting for vengeance, man. The only reward they’re after is seeing you utterly obliterate the Blood God and every single one of his followers.
“The Church of Light doesn’t give a shit about them, but you do. They’re never going to get revenge for their dead daughters or sisters or whatever from the Church, but they sure as hell will get it from you. And that’s the only thing they care about—seeing you kick the Blood God’s ass, and the asses of every one of his shithead followers.”
“Well, that certainly is something I can give them.”
“They know that.”
“You’ve done excellent work, both of you. Come on in, and welcome to Brakith! We’ll have a grand feast tonight. All of my followers are invited. But tomorrow, at first light, I’ll be leaving this place for a while. As you well know, the Blood God and his followers don’t rest, so neither can I. At dawn tomorrow, I’ll be heading off for the Wastes.”
“Ah, well, I’m glad we reached you before you left then,” Cranton said. “We don’t intend to stay, of course; I have no intention of stopping my quest either, man. Hell Vance, you’ve given me purpose and direction! I’ve never been this motivated in my life! Shit, I just want to grow the Church of Necrosis, man, make it huge, fucking massive, man!”
I clapped an appreciative hand onto his back.
“Excellent work, Cranton, excellent work. You too, Grast. All right, all right, enough of that bullshit now. Get your asses into my city, rest up from your travels for a while, and then tonight, we’ll have a damn good feast in my Great Hall, and we’ll have a good few tankards of Brakith’s finest ale and some laughs about our previous quests. Come on in, and, I say this from the bottom of my heart as ruler of this fine city: welcome to Brakith!”
I hadn’t intended to set off on my quest to the Wastes with a hangover, and a motherfucker of a headache throbbing with dull persistence behind my eyeballs, but hey, sometimes drinking until an hour before dawn when you’re supposed to leave with the rising sun just happens. Especially with someone like Grast around, along with a couple hundred people who literally worship you and want to drink toasts to you all night.
As it turned out, being a god had its perks when it came to alcohol; I was able to drink far more than I could in my pre-divinity days, and even then, I had always been able to drink even the most iron-stomached northern barbarians under the table. Now, I could do that many times over and would be able to out-drink a whole horde of the tough bastards. In my pre-god days, the amount of grog I’d slugged back the previous night would probably have put me into a permanent coma.
My hangover was relatively mild, all things considered. But it
