The first thing Adarin saw was more blood—raining into a pool that began at the top of the temple stairs. Halfway through the tunnel the coppery tang hit him like a wall, thick in the still air.

  He walked around and joined a group of maybe two dozen horrified onlookers—gasping, gawking, grabbing at holy icons. He left the cover of the temple’s colonnade roof and saw it: a man bound by his feet, hanging down from the roof. Blood spilled from his slashed throat and wrists, a crimson, steaming stream.

  “This must be recent,” Adarin whispered. He looked up to the roof where the ropes disappeared. If I did this, they—

  For a second he considered screaming, sounding the general alarm in the hopes of finding the perpetrator. But he thought better of it. It’s the middle of the night. Can’t have a panic. There needs to be—

  Then he noticed what the woman had been going on about. The man had been flayed, his body a raw red mess, the skin hanging over his crotch like an obscene blanket.

  Adarin swallowed hard. I’ll get you fucking bastards.

  He reached out to Commodore Ashfield. “Commodore, set up a thermal scrying spell again. Someone is on the temple roof. I want to know where they are going.”

  The Commodore didn’t ask questions.

  “Three minutes—”

  Adarin stamped the ground hard, drawing stares. “Too long. Make it faster.”

  He went through the motions of mobilizing the guards, checking in with the sergeants, but deep down he knew what he was doing was futile. Nearly ten minutes later he led a search party up to the temple roof and found the ropes bound securely to the feet of another statue. Another statue with—of course—bleeding eyes, fresh blood running like all the others on the temple roof.

  They are taunting us, dancing on our roof. We should have had guards up here.

  Murmurs ran through the camp like wildfire, as Adarin returned and walked to the pagoda where he had summoned an impromptu war council. Through waves of whispers, furtive glances, and developing watchful paranoia, officers collected, and Adarin asked the most important question first.

  “Do we know who he is?”

  Silence and shaking heads were all the answers he got.

  He barely held back a curse. Duchess Viola stepped forward. “All but three patrol units have already checked in via noospheric link,” she said, opening her eyes and getting up from the chair she was sitting on.

  Adarin nodded at her. “Thank you, Duchess. That is well done. Where are those units supposed to be?”

  A non-magical map table was brought up; Adarin studied it. One was patrolling city streets; the other two had set up shop in distant, dilapidated buildings whose lower stories had been made from stone—guard posts.

  “Any reason why? Any good reason why either of those units isn’t checking in?”

  She nodded, her face a grimace as she gave an answer he didn’t want to hear. “No mages in the vicinity of those, and they’re commanded by corporals who are not connected to the general communication circuit.”

  Adarin pressed his jaws together. That is a problem of doctrine that we will have to fix.

  He had discovered during the journey on the river that he could grant someone else administrative authority, allowing them—given they had a minimum of experience using cantrips—the ability to add people to his communication network. It had been a godsend. But it wasn’t enough. I need more communication artifacts. I need to talk to Devon. How hard can it be to make radios if you have magic.

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  Adarin looked around the encampment and came to a decision. Need to be seen to do something even though it is pointless militarily.

  He turned to the order’s junior officers, “Mage-captains: I want a company-strength detachment going to each of those units. We’ll find them and we’ll find out what happened here. We march in five minutes.”

  He exhaled, looked over the map, and decided on the one most distant from the temple. “This one I’ll take personally. Duchess, you stay here. I’ll inform you of anything that happens. I want four more companies mobilized and patrolling the campground. Nothing happens here that we don’t know about. Is that clear?”

  Orders were acknowledged, and Adarin rendezvoused with his company at the temple gates. Diamondoid dagger as well as three incendiary grenades he had gotten from Gavin—who had finally shown up again and was in a very cheerful mood—at the ready. They marched under the bright light of arcane light spells, little stars orbiting above them. The light cast stark shadows, turning pale trunks, low ruins, and black slough into contrasts Adarin had only seen on airless worlds.

  Soon news came from the first unit—the patrol. Everything was fine. They had been quite surprised when suddenly a company-strength detachment had shown up and more or less detained them. The news brought nothing but tension to Adarin.

  They marched onward to the acrid smell of the rotting biomass through the ruins of the town. The night was as silent as the day had been. No animals dared enter the death zone, only the occasional howling of the patrolling undead wolves—wrong, wet, and throaty—could be heard in the distance. Two-thirds of the way there, the second company checked in. The first outpost had been fine. They had nearly been shot at by the surprised soldiers, but that wasn't surprising. Nonetheless Adarin’s gut twisted. What’s worse—finding them taken, or untouched?

  Ashfield had earlier reported a headcount from the ships. Everything was fine there.

  They closed in on the building and were greeted with complete silence. Adarin looked from side to side, considered sending his squad of scouts forward, but decided against it. Time might matter for the survivors.

  Without slowing, he marched into the building, a low square with one collapsed wall, and found four sleeping soldiers. The sergeant next to him was growing visibly angry, murmuring something about dereliction of duty and floggings, but Adarin touched his arm and held him back. He advanced and studied the bodies, finding it at once—red tooth marks on their throats. The men were cold, trembling.

  “Medics, on me,” Adarin ordered. “I think they have experienced severe blood loss.”

  One of the necromancers with a decent talent for Alteration magic stepped forward and confirmed Adarin’s fears. “They are not yet dead, but they will need transfusions.”

  Adarin observed with a boiling fury in his stomach as the men were put onto improvised stretchers made from pikes and uniform jackets. A new squad occupied the building, and they marched back.

  He was the last into the temple complex and closed the silent doors behind him. This isn’t over, you fucking monsters. You will fucking regret what you are doing to my men.

  Adarin spent the rest of the evening patrolling, brooding, and planning. Slowly the tent city fell into an uneasy sleep. Whenever he marched along the roads, fearful faces rose, and the glinting of steel ready at hand met him. So fucking tense. We’re going to have incidents soon.

  In the morning he had come to a decision. He walked up to the map table again with all his officers assembled and the communication artifacts binding in Commodore Ashfield.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, speaking to the audience of settlers as much as to his officers. He had considered his words—he hated addressing the settlers, but things needed to be said. “We are fighting an enemy who wants to play with us, wants to break our will, wants to break our morale. They want to terrorize us until we run, and when we run—flee into the wilderness—they will hunt us down like animals, one by one. Together”—Adarin curled a manipulator into a spiral—“we are strong. Alone”—he pointed around at the crowd—“you are prey. There is strange magic afoot. Be vigilant. Never be alone. Be ready to scream first and fight second. Others will come help you.”

  He gave out further rules and regulations about always letting someone know where you went, never going to the toilet alone. Then he sent the work crews and patrols off. Today they would be cutting wood and demolishing the temple walls in places to get watch points from higher windows and through the walls.

  Francesco, the enchanters, Devon, and other mages were already hard at work in the death-aspected level of the pagoda, establishing the new warding schema on a wooden floor that looked like a section of one gigantic tree trunk.

  Adarin’s own eyes fell onto the map again, and before dismissing his officers, he raised his voice. “There’s a location nearby where I believe there might be answers. I will personally lead a scouting expedition there. If the enemy is there, we will eradicate them. Work fast. Work precisely. Stay vigilant. We will win this.”