Chương 162: The Cellar

I wanted to turn away. I could call that enough, right? I could just walk away and go back to the hall. But I didn't want to act without a full view of the situation, given what I was about to do. Even if I was almost one hundred percent certain about what they were doing, that was almost. Before I enacted my plan, I needed to be one hundred percent certain about what I was doing. People here were cunning. There was a possibility, no matter how small, that I wasn't seeing the full picture or was blinded.

I had to snuff that possibility out. Sure, Anchor would tell me to trust my gut. My gut was probably right. But my gut also told me that I wouldn't be able to sleep right ever again if I wasn't absolutely certain about what the cultists were doing. Besides, this was a chance to gather a little more information about what I was up against. Slipping between the burial mounds, I approached the ancient temple.

It was windy, and every so often, a gale tore through the valley, making the grass rustle and the temple's banners flutter. It was loud enough to mask even the chirping of the cicadas—and loud enough to mask my footsteps. In the dim light, most people wouldn't have seen the guards until it was too late, but I had just enough Perception to pick out their black garb from their surroundings. The planetlight reflected off the folds on their robes. Cultists stood between the temple's pillars. Keeping low, I drew closer.

When the burial mounds ended, I instead darted over to a pile of collapsed ancient stonework, hiding in its shadows. I could shoot one of the guards with my crossbow, but my aim wasn't perfect still. I'd have to get closer. Besides, no matter how close I got, I couldn't guarantee the dying guard would be quiet. He might yell loud enough that the wind wouldn't block it all out. I kept my spear in my grip and waited. When the wind gusted through the valley again, the guards swayed, looking away from the rushing gale.

I charged up to the edge of the temple, right toward a lone guard while he squinted away from the wind. Wrapping my spear's shaft in front of his neck, I choked him, pulling as tight as I could. I wrapped my elbow around one side of the spear, freeing a hand, which I clamped around the guard's mouth to stop him from crying out. He gasped and thrashed. His legs flailed, and eventually, he tried to use his drawing Art. The markings on his head burned blood red. He wasn't dying as quickly as a mortal man.

With a grunt, I gripped his neck, then with all the force I could muster, I twisted. It snapped with a crack of bone. Muscle ripped, and the cultist's markings went dark. For good measure, I set his body down gently, refusing to let it make a noise. On the way out, I would have to hide it. No one could know I infiltrated the cultist headquarters. Keeping my head down, I rushed between the old ring of pillars at the edge of the temple, then pressed my back against the central longhouse's walls.

The ritual inside the longhouse was still ongoing. Cultists chanted, drawing the energy out of the dead body. Something was different about this ritual than the cultists' regular ability to draw maegen out of living objects, though. It took longer and definitely took more of them. I peered through the windows as much as I dared, lifting my eyes over the sill. Ten men surrounded a table, with Jaruwain standing at the very head. The body lay crumpled on the table.

It had shrunk, and was far more emaciated than it had been moments ago, when they'd carried it inside. Limbs curled inward, like a dried leaf, and its skin was pulled tight to its bones. This ritual, though it took longer, must have been more efficient. It must have pulled more energy out. But not everyone inside was dressed like a cultist. There were only three of them in the black robes of the assassins. The rest wore simple salmon-coloured robes, like Jaruwain, except without the golden hem. Alone, this was bad.

They were torturing this city, killing off its people early to harvest energy from them, turning flesh into maegen. But I couldn't have been the only one who noticed this. What were they doing to the dissenters they caught? Tunmod had implied that those who questioned his agenda were killed in a brutal manner. I circled around the edge of the longhouse, staying low, keeping my footsteps light, and only breathing and moving during gusts of wind. The guards didn't look backward, so they didn't see me, either.

When I reached the back of the longhouse, I found a cellar door outside. It had been dug into the ancient temple's base plinth, carved hastily into the ancient stonework—like a child drawing on the Mona Lisa with crayons. It could have been a normal cellar. Considering the cultists, though, I doubted it. I waited for another strong gust of wind, my back up against the wall. The longer I waited, the more my skin began tingling.

Like when the cultist tried to draw on my flesh a few nights ago, my blood shifted, pulled toward the chanting. It wasn't as powerful, and I wasn't as close, but it couldn't have been good for me, either. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. When the gust finally came, I heaved open the hatch. The rushing wind fluttered in my ears, masking the creak of the hinges. I raced inside and pulled it shut behind me before the wind abated.

Once the hatch was closed, I could barely see. I was in a stairway, with only the light seeping through the cracks in the hatch to guide me. Keeping one hand on my spear and the other on the wall of the stairway, I descended, delving into a cellar beneath the longhouse. A faint orange light shone ahead, which I followed into the depths of the building. It had been carved directly into the ancient stone. The walls were rough, and there was no new brickwork to isolate it.

Every so often, there was a waterfall of gravel where the stone had collapsed, and I was careful not to slip on the loose pebbles. There was no way to stop my boots from crunching on the gravel, though. A copper and iron stench wafted out from in front of me, mixed in with the gut-churning reek of feces and bile. What were they doing down here? When I reached the bottom level, I stopped. The stairs ended, depositing me in front of an archway.

I pressed my back against the wall beside it, then leaned around the edge, checking for guards. There was only one of the men in salmon robes, tending to the embers of a fire. Compared to the darkness of the hallway outside, it was a relief, even if it still left massive shadows near the edge of the room and left everything in near-grayscale. I was about to rush in. With only one guard, I could question him. I could figure out how strong they were. But my eyes drifted to the dark edges.

Nearest to the door, three cattle hung by their legs, dripping blood into a basin, moaning slowly as they turned— The embers of the fire flared. I tucked back into the darkness, but not before catching a better glimpse of the bodies. Those weren't cattle. My blood ran cold. Three men, slowly dying, their blood trickling out. But they couldn't have been entirely dead yet. They moaned, lips parched, throats dry from begging for their lives. So this was what the cultists did with the civilians they captured.

They didn't just harvest all of them. When the fire died down, I peered back into the room. Other humanoid shapes lined the walls, in various states of disrepair. I didn't want to think about it any more than that after I saw the man with the cracked ribs and flayed open chest, or the woman with her bowels stretched out in front of her. How could humans do this to each other? I wanted to throw up. My stomach lurched, but I caught my throat, forcing the vomit back down.

"Is the ritual done already, Brother Scirheah?" the man tending the fire asked, glancing back at the doorway where I stood. He must've thought I was one of the other cultists. How was he so calm and casual in the presence of so much evil? Jaw tensed, I charged into the room and tackled the man to the ground, pointing my spear at his chin.

"Why?" was all I could gasp. The cultist blinked, trying to take me in.

"I won't talk—" I slammed his shoulders down into the ground, then pushed his head back as well.

"You're not dressed in black." The men in the salmon robes had a full head of hair and no carvings in their skin, same as Jaruwain.

"Something tells me you're not as loyal as the cultists. Who are you?" I wrenched his head closer to the fire, until I could feel the heat glimmering on the tips of my fingers. Still, I pushed him closer to the embers, twisting his head until his eye hovered over a crackling piece of wood.

"Talk, now!"

"We—we're Seerservers," the man sputtered.

"Workers at the temple who help the local seer!"

"How strong are you?"

"S—some Steels, some Titaniums." His eyes went wide, and he shouted, "Help! Help me! There's a—" I slammed his shoulder into the ground as hard as I could, making him bite his tongue.

"If they could hear screaming from down here, you guys would've been caught already. Now answer my questions. Why are you doing"—I motioned around the room—" this?"

"The cultists do it to learn and improve their Arts! Sometimes they refine potions to increase their maegen, I don't know! Sometimes they use it to refine their bodies! I don't ask too many questions!"

"Do you get anything out of it?"

"Th—the cultists let us partake, sometimes—""Is Jaruwain in charge?"

"He's the head of this branch of the Blood Tear Order!" the man hissed.

"Does everyone here… partake?" I hissed.

"I—I don't—" I pressed his head down on the hot stones at the edge of the fire pit, and he screeched.

"Don't lie to me. Have you laid hands on any of these prisoners?"

"Yes!" the man snarled.

"We all have. Jaruwain killed anyone who wouldn't join in when he took over! Yes, it's depraved, but we had no choice! He—he's strong! He's a Silver, and he's not actually a seer! He's a cultist druid! His transformation requires an immense sacrifice, but it's an immensely powerful beast. No one can stand up to him!"

"We'll see about that," I replied.

"How long will your prisoners live? Can they last one more day?"

"Most survive for a few weeks." I glanced at the very back of the cellar, where a few young civilians stood in a cage, eyes wide, but completely silent. Whatever they'd seen had scared the voices out of them. I needed to help. But if I pulled them all out now, I'd give away any advantage I had tomorrow. I'd reveal that I knew all their secrets. No matter how much it pained me, most would survive one more day. I just had to get out of here, hide the fallen guard's body. And this man's body as well.

He must've seen the look in my eyes.

"Please, spare me—""You didn't tell anyone about this. You joined in. You're…what? Forty-five? Fifty? Probably older, because Path-walkers slow down in their aging, don't they? You knew about the takeover. That's thirty years you could have done something to stop this, and you didn't. You're not making it out alive."