Barry felt certain the priest had deliberately led his men into disaster for the psychological effect. He had been building hatred, and to one of Komso's mentality, seven deaths would be a negligible price for this crowning touch.
Drawn together by a spreading terror the people massed near the center of the city, each seeking company to stem their rising panic of helplessness. Their mutterings increased, their mood grew uglier.
But with dramatic suddenness Komso appeared in the doorway of his cave-temple and swam slowly forward. The murmuring died, then broke out again with a questioning undertone. The priest raised his arms so the sacred bracelets of office on his thick wrists flashed in the cold yellow light. Then slowly, deliberately he began to speak.
He expressed regret for the deaths of those who had followed him aloft. He had underestimated the malignancy of the demons, he admitted.
A shocked silence fell over the crowd, broken only by the grief stricken sobs of one of the widows. He glared at the woman, and his eyes made her cower.
The peril was dire, he warned. One demon had already penetrated the sacred boundaries of Tana and others were gathering in the Above. Soon they would descend and overwhelm the city unless the people of Tana followed his leadership unquestioningly.
But the mission had not been in vain. Komso had discovered the demons' plans—and their vulnerability.
"We killed one demon!" he boasted.
Barry gasped. Komso was too clever to tell an outright lie when there were three surviving witnesses to check his story.
"Kill the demons! Kill all the demons!" A Chosen One began the chant, and it was taken up and echoed by the crowd.