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there, quivering. “Stop, you idiot! This thing isn’t a toy. We must find out how it works!”
    Entreri laughed aloud and drew his sword. The stone turned a deep red, and the little assassin’s lips seemed to drip blood as he spoke. “It creates armies. Out of thin air.” He gestured to the carvings on the altar. “If you’re looking for an instruction manual, old man, you’ve got one right behind you. But I found it first, while you were all groping about in the dark back there. Now you won’t last long enough to use it.”
    Trandon matched Entreri’s maneuvering, his eyes flickering in the direction of the carvings that ringed the altar. He paused suddenly, his gaze narrowing. “So that’s it. That’s what shows you how to use it.”
    Entreri lifted his sword, the blade gleaming scarlet. He reached up and suddenly grasped the naked blade with his free hand, jerking the sword across it in a hard, sharp motion. He extended his hand, fist clenched tightly, over the stone.
    “It’s called the bloodforge. It needs blood. It feeds on blood.”
    There was a hiss as the assassin’s blood, squeezed from his slashed hand, dropped onto the stone’s surface. To Noph’s eyes, aching from the glow, the blood seemed to spread across the entire surface of the forge, shimmering, separating, and recombining in a series of ever more complex patterns. The humming that filled the cavern increased in volume, and from the forge stepped a man.
    Yet only half a man. His limbs were twisted and hideously distorted, his neck bent as if broken. One leg was shorter than the other, one arm a tiny withered appendage, while the other ended in a massive knotted fist.
    The creature moaned in pain and lunged at Trandon, lifting its good arm against the paladin. Trandon’s staff countered the blow, but he was driven back, and the forged creature followed after him, hacking furiously at his opponent with fist and feet.
    Kern’s warhammer rose again, only to be turned aside, this time by Sharessa’s blade. “No, paladin. A fair fight. Let them continue.” She grinned impishly at him. “Unless you think you can go through me—in a fight or in a bed. You’re welcome to try either.”
    Noph had drawn a dagger at the first sign of trouble, but now he stood silently looking at the developing conflict, unable to choose a side. Ingrar stood near the bloodforge, his arms dangling. His voice rose in an urgent shout. “Stop this! Stop it at once! There’s danger coming! Terrible danger!”
    The combatants ignored him. Trandon and the golem were hard at one another; the fighter tried to maneuver his opponent back toward the water, evidently hoping to push him in. Kern and Sharessa were still sparring with one another, only half-seriously but prepared to escalate the fight if need be.
    “In Tyr’s name!” shouted Kern.
    “In Tyr’s name,” came a mocking echo from the blackness, but not in Kern’s voice. There was the sound of running feet along the pillared way they’d come. Kern and Sharessa lowered their weapons and turned to face the noise. Trandon, with a vicious thrust of his iron-shod staff, laid low the forge golem and kicked its body into the underground lake. He joined Noph, who slowly backed up to put himself next to Sharessa.
    The glow of the forge showed a group of hooded figures, perhaps a dozen of them. They held swords in their hands, but their faces were in shadow. The foremost one, evidently the leader, stepped forward and addressed the company.
    “In the name of the temple of Tyr, I claim the bloodforge. Stand aside.”
    “Now, wait just a minute…” began Sharessa.
    At her side, Kern suddenly lifted his warhammer. “There is no temple of Holy Tyr in this land,” he said sternly. “You must be false worshipers to claim his name.”
    The hooded figure hesitated, then spoke. “We are the true temple of Tyr. The bloodforge is ours by right, with the fall of the despicable Aetheric, who suppressed our temple. We