Once again, dawn broke, casting its light over the charred ruins of the Lower District.
The fire was out.
The frenzy had died with the flames, leaving only a bone-deep chill and wreckage everywhere.
The rioters who had still been "dragon-slaying heroes" last night now crouched in the shadows of shattered walls, hugging their knees like orphans abandoned in the wilderness.
They stared at the statues they had toppled-statues they had once regarded as their protectors, now reduced to fragments. Many of their heads had rolled into the filthy gutters, still wearing compassionate smiles.
"What... what have we done?"
Buck sat beside a smashed carriage, staring at the boning knife in his hand, still dripping blood.
It was a cleric's blood.
Last night, he had thought that blood meant glory.
This morning, it had become a noose about to strangle his entire family.
"It's over... it's all over." Beside him, an old carpenter with a broken leg trembled. "That was the Church... those were God's messengers... we killed God's servants..."
Fear spread through the crowd.
More terrifying than the Church's retaliation, however, was the strange sensation inside their bodies.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
A fit of violent coughing came from a corner of the crowd. A sallow-faced woman clutched her stomach, curled up on the ground in agony. "It hurts... my stomach... have those worms started biting me?"
Her words only heightened everyone's unease.
Yesterday's nauseating experiment, in which worms emerged in vinegar water, was still vivid in their minds. Without the Church, who would rid them of worms? Who would bless their feverish children? Who would conduct funerals for the dead?
They had smashed their only lifeline with their own hands.
"It's all that damned leaflet's fault!" someone broke down sobbing. "We never should have read it! If we hadn't