Carrier

Carrier was a scrawny nine-year-old boy who lived in a village in the northeastern area of Seven Cities. He survived the virulent Bluetongue Plague unleashed upon the sub-continent by Poliel shortly after the end of the Whirlwind rebellion. 
==In The Bonehunters==
The plague killed huge multitudes and left the comparatively few survivors with various serious physical impairments. When the boy recovered after an unknown period of severe suffering, he found that he was the only person left alive in the village — his parents, two younger sisters, and fellow villagers had apparently all died or fled. The illness left him very thin with all of his joints thickened by strange but painless, purplish nodules. Wandering the empty village, he was soon joined by a dozen enthusiastic half-wild dogs who had fed on the villagers' corpses. At a crossroad on the outskirts of the village he found a cairn of stones placed by a shepherd indicating that sanctuary awaited further north for any survivors of the plague.
The boy and his dogs arrived at Hanar Ara where he was brought before Felisin Younger, the new Sha'ik Reborn chosen to be the head of a new religion of suffering and disfigurement by the God in Chains. The purple nodules still covering the boy's joints indicated that he was a rare "Carrier" of the plague, making him precious to the believers and acolytes at the sanctuary because he would be able to travel without suspicion and spread the plague among the still healthy inhabitants of the world. These future survivors would become potential additional adherents to the new faith. Surprisingly, however, the boy showed unmistakable signs of recovering completely from the taint of the plague — which meant that he would, in time, cease to be a Carrier — thereby losing his usefulness. Sha'ik Reborn decided that despite this, she would adopt the boy who she would then cherish as he grew into manhood. As a mark of this adoption, Sha'ik Reborn gave the boy a new name, Crokus (presumably after Crokus Younghand).The Bonehunters, Chapter 14, US HC p.473-476
==Notes and references==
Category:Males
Category:Seven Cities natives