Bédenes/1st edition/13

AKARATA HORAB GERUND
While raiding the marches of Kanday as a young Haragki, Horab was grievously wounded and thought dead. He regained consciousness in an open grave, buried under cold corpses. For days, he survived on the remains of his fallen comrades, praying for release. In his deepest despair, a vision of Mamaka, the Holy Smith, appeared to the delirious knight. With preternatural strength, Horab threw aside the dead and climbed from the pit. Mamaka led him to a boy, Granek, the sole survivor of the raid, who helped him back to his comrades, where the passion of his vision turned defeat into a divinely inspired miracle. Horab never told of Granek's role, but his presence throughout Horab's rise has been a reminder of the Akarata's moment of divine inspiration and the Holy Smith's interest in him.

Horab's personal conviction is unyielding and his will yields to no man, yet he now fears the debacle on the Scarlet Ribbon is a sign that Mamaka has abandoned him. This feeds his growing paranoia, blinds him to the disquiet in the order, and leads him to rely more on Meketa Halan Uelasen.

Horab longs for another moment of divine inspiration, one that will bring him certainty that he is favored by the Holy Smith and that his place in the forges of Balgashang is assured. The desperate Akarata has corrupted Mamakan dogma into a degenerate parody of the faith's personal sacrifice of blood and pain. In a private ritual, he draws blood from young red-haired boys that Granek steals for him and drinks it while his sisters scourge him. When the boys eventually weaken, Granek cuts out their tongues and disposes of them, often in the slave markets of Golotha.