The morning was spent in slaughter. My vestments are red with blood and my heart is heavy. When we entered once again the gates of Greensward, the Sorcerer gave no warning. The guards, previously smirking now peered cautiously over their battlements. The Sorcerer with sweeps of each hand cooked them alive.

Almost immediately, the peoples were out on the streets, running at us as if a bell had signaled the arrival of dinner. Yet they found no feast. These Cultists possess some magical prowess, even the meanest of them. They have learned in their secret, underground rites witchcraft. We were beset by spells and as the fight continued, manifest elemental beings of air and earth and — yes — even the fire with which the battle had begun.

They continued to engage our horses until Aldmaar insisted we dismount and free the beasts so that they might survive. So we joined the fray afoot. The Knight of Darkmoor, as ever, waded in, her shining armor and great axe glinting in the meager morning light. Aldmaar sent volley after volley into this black host until, his quiver empty, he unsheathed his twin swords and joined the Knight, nearly back-to-back, in a knot of the Cultists.

They fought like cornered animals, these Elementalists. They asked for no quarter. They were willing, even eager, it seemed, to die. As they rushed out of homes and shops, each with curved dagger in hand, they did not hesitate, despite the growing pile of their allies in the filthy streets of Greensward.

I did what I could manage, to keep the mob at bay, disoriented, and, when necessary, I imparted healing magics to my allies. And to myself. I gave a good accounting in the rolls of the downed, though the Knight and Aldmaar stained the registers crimson.

And the Sorcerer… I have rarely seen him smile, but he was grinning like a carved harvest pumpkin throughout, hurling spells into knots of Cultists. Moving through the fray, never staying still long enough for the foe to reach him. He toyed, it seemed, with the great stone beast the Cultists had summoned, like a kitten with a ball. I could not spare the attention to track him, nor did I take any joy in observing the glee he took in his wholesale butchery.

The Cultist throng dwindled. Aldmaar and the Knight, exhausted, unrecognizable in their gore-spattered state, cast about for any new foes. I fell to my knees, hoping for a moment’s respite.

“Where is the Sorcerer?” I heard Aldmaar call. I could only shake my head, not glancing up. I heard a final, crunching blow from the Knight on the Cultist before her, who, just as I, was on his knees, unable to rise. My pulse was a roar in my ears. I feared that my breathing would never compensate for the deficit of air in my blood. My vision had collapsed into a narrow tunnel directly in front of my nose.

There was a rumble — distant but surely loud — and I found myself on my side. For a moment or more, I suppose, I lost consciousness. Then Seralayne was there, stirring me gently. She looked ghastly, but concerned. “Pieter?”

“Was there… an explosion?” I managed after a second, able to rise on one elbow, the world oddly canted as if I were perched on its very edge.

She nodded. “The Sorcerer. The Thalass Engine.”

I just stared, uncomprehending.

“He destroyed it,” Aldmaar said, just entering the limited scope of my vision. “I suspect that’s what this was all about. For him.”

Among the many reasons I have come to like and love Aldmaar Wynnrowan is that when he arrives, he rarely fails to bring an Aldermane that I may ride. I am no great horseman, and these great beasts all appear the same to me, but I believe the one I rode today is the same as when last Aldmaar and I rode together. I have not asked Aldmaar out of embarrassment. He has no difficulty in distinguishing one horse from another. Nor one squirrel from another, I suspect.

Lady Sparrowhawk, of course, has her own mount, “Spears,” as she calls him. No Aldermane, but fine and fearless in his own right. As the three of us approached Greensward, astride these majestic beasts, riding side-by-side, I felt that we must have appeared like something out of myth arriving at the mud-and-stone walls of the small town.

Such foolishness is pride.

As we made our way through the gates, past the mean-faced guards in their wooden towers and through the slick alleys, the eyes that turned our way showed not awe but fear. And, perhaps, hate. We arrived at the village’s tavern. No one took our horses, though there were those reclining on the shoddy porch who might have. “I will stay with the horses,” Aldmaar offered. The Knight of Darkmoor and I entered the dark establishment.

Inside were half a dozen villagers, dirty, most drunk though it was not yet noon. They sneered at the mark of San Nicholas on my armor and leered at Lady Sparrowhawk. When I asked for rooms, I was told by the innkeeper, a corpulent woman who seemed to care little for her hygiene, that no rooms were available.

“You have other visitors in this shithole town?” the Knight asked.

“Not very kind there, lady,” the innkeeper responded.

“Just turn around and go back out the way you come,” one of the drunk men shouted to laughs and acclaim from his friends.

One, unfortunately, could not refrain from making a lewd suggestion to Lady Sparrowhawk. I imagine they could put his nose back into place, after she was through with him. But what about the scattered teeth? I might have helped him, coughing and vomiting in that broken chair. I did not.

When we returned to Aldmaar, it was to watch him firing arrow after arrow into the earth, inches behind the retreating heels of a young, shirtless man. The man, running for all he was worth skewed in the mud, and slid face-first. Aldmaar laughed with that whole-body mirth that so rarely makes an appearance.

“What did he do?” I asked.

“Thought I wouldn’t notice him slipping a hand in your saddlebag.”

“Goodness. What did he take?”

Aldmaar shrugged. I followed the line of fine-feathered missiles while the youth struggled to his feet. As he attempted to flee, I commanded that he stop. Weak of mind, he could not resist my order. I pulled the fingers of his right hand open while his eyes alone moved to follow my actions. Clutched in his filthy hand, still rolled up in a stout leaf for freshness, was a golden apple I had purchased from a vendor at Anthracite.

I bade him keep it.

I prised one arrow after another from the earth on my return and handed them to the ranger. “No rooms,” I reported.

“Just as well,” he responded. “But let us have a look about town before we seek lodging elsewhere. The Sorcerer said there was some secret here, did he not Lady Sparrowhawk?”

She nodded. We continued. We walked the horses through the small community, past the cemetery on the hill, past the several mills powered by a great machine that, with its promise of consistent work must have drawn many of these residents here. We made our way, almost to the shore itself, entering at last that great barn-like structure with steel tentacles snaking down into the water and a massive chute emerging from the front where torrents of water extracted from the depths fed the network of aqueducts known as the Seaspill.

The Engine itself is a mechanical wonder — awesome and terrible. It belches smoke and produces a noisome ooze like niter infused with lampblack. The racket of its many spinning wheels and clashing cogs is unbearable. Without a word — at least that I could make out, Aldmaar stopped in his approach. He would go no further. We entrusted our horses to him and the Lady and I continued.

We spoke to the Engine-master, a clever fellow from Anthracite name of Thoren Calthex. We shouted to each other, truth be told, over the clatter. Lady Sparrowhawk wasted no time with niceties. “We have spoken to REDACTED. We are investigating cult activity in this region. What can you tell us of this village?”

The man’s eyes narrowed and he cast about him. I nearly laughed from the theatrics. “You mean the Temple,” he replied. There was no hint of a question.

“What have you seen?”

He gestured back into town, in the direction of the cemetery. “There’s a shack, yonder. Past the gravedigger’s. Looks like the others but has this symbol cut into one of the posts..”

I described the symbol. His eyes widened again. Nodded. “Down inside, they do their… rituals. Used to keep it secret, months ago. Now they don’t seem to care who sees. Their robes and their masks. Their chants.”

“Mela torum, vena sela…” I recounted.

He hissed at me, made a slashing motion with his hand. “Don’t want to hear that! Stop it, I say!”

Lady Sparrowhawk calmed him. “You’ve seen them? The cultists? Do you know which of the villagers might be participating?”

He made a broad sweep with that self-same hand. He took in the entire town with that gesture.

The Knight of Darkmoor and I could only lock eyes.