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claim it, and we shall take it by force if necessary.”
    Kern’s voice grew in power. “You are false worshipers,” he repeated. “You are the Fallen Temple, whose foundations I have sworn to destroy. Begone, or suffer the consequences.”
    The hooded figures circled slowly around the party, who stood with their backs to the bloodforge, save Artemis, who stared intently at the carvings on the altar. The leader of the cultists raised his blade, tinted red in the glow from the forge. “Let all perish who—”
    Artemis stepped forward. His outstretched hand, stained with blood, came down squarely on top of the forge. The keening of the bloodforge rose in pitch until it was almost deafening. Its light waxed brilliant, blinding, surrounding the figure of the assassin in a halo. In the sudden blaze of light, Noph could see beneath the cowls of the cultists. He could see their tattooed faces, their slavering mouths, their bloodshot eyes, desperate for a new sacrifice to their false god.
    A bolt of pure light surged from the stone, wrapping around Artemis’s arm. His mouth opened as if to command the energy, then turned into a wordless scream of agony. The flesh of his arm seemed to melt and dissolve. He pulled back from the forge and stared at white bones that still, horrifyingly, flexed and scraped in a parody of human action. Entreri stared at the arm for a moment, as if his brain refused the evidence of his eyes. Then his body went limp, and he collapsed by the forge in a heap.
    From within the forge came a deep-throated roar. A man emerged—or seemingly a man, though larger than any man could possibly be.
    Noph started back from the figure in horror. Like Artemis’s first creation, the forge-made man was only half finished. Veins and blood vessels twisted together with muscle uncloaked by flesh. Bones appeared in some places but were hidden in others. The figure screamed, a high-pitched yell of pain and horror, then lunged forward at one of the hooded figures and bore it to the floor. His massive hands, flesh and muscle shredding from them, locked around the false worshiper’s throat.
    The forge’s unholy light continued to blaze and flare. More creatures emerged, horrid mockeries of men and animals, their bodies twisted and crushed. Some could barely move, but crawled forward on knees or stumps of legs not fully grown. One, a mere head and torso, wriggled helplessly backward and fell into the lake with a splash. Another, a skeleton from the waist up but with the lower limbs of a man, seized a worshiper and bit cleanly through his neck before collapsing in a shapeless heap of bones. The cultists hacked and slashed at the deformed warriors, shouting encouragement to each other.
    The companions shrank back against the altar in horror at the force Entreri had unwittingly released. Shar knelt over the assassin’s body and wrapped his maimed arm in a scarf. She put her mouth against Kern’s ear and shouted, “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”
    “Where?” The paladin looked about, desperately seeking a means of exit. The forge was no longer spewing forth its mutated creatures, and most of those it had created were either cut to pieces or had lurched off into the darkness, wailing in inhuman voices. A number of the cultists were still on their feet and bearing down upon the company.
    “Now! Cut a way past them to the stairs.” Shar led the assault with a whoop, followed closely by Kern and Trandon. Noph bent and lifted the unconscious figure of Entreri, surprised at how light the body of the assassin was. Ingrar followed him, one hand on his shoulder, and together they made their way slowly back whence they had approached the forge, shielded by the sword of Shar, the warhammer of Kern, and Trandon’s whirling staff.
    It was clear that escape was hopeless. Burdened with Entreri’s body, the party moved too slowly, and the devotees of the Fallen Temple were too many.
    “I can’t … keep this … up,”