The trip to the Red Hills had gone without issue. The rains hadn’t affected their ride across the grasslands nearly as much as they’d affected the roads to the east, which had been brought to a halt by the river. For Todd, it was a thoroughly nostalgic experience, and he reveled in the half-remembered views of the distant mountains that could only occasionally be seen through the stormclouds.

The nights were miserable, so they stayed in the barns of righteous villagers where they could find them and in burned-out ruins or ghost towns that were still left over from the goblin war where they could not. One night, they even stayed in the overgrown remains of Todd’s old village so that he could pay his respects to the rough stone marker that had been erected after all the fighting was done. The inscription was the same as all the others he had seen, save only for the village's name. ‘The good people of Widinreach will be avenged.’ It was simple and a little trite after seeing so many similar monuments, but Todd appreciated it just the same.

His parents would never have a proper grave, of course, because only a single mass grave for the victims that had been found was erected, as was the case with all of the ghost towns they’d passed on the ride so far. Still, Todd left a bundle of wilting wildflowers and purple thistles he’d been able to find. He even said a prayer to guide them into the light, though he had no evidence that they were actually buried here.

Still, it gave him closure, which in turn gave him the confidence he’d never had when they finally arrived to rename Garvin’s Gift into something more appropriate. The templars had discussed it at length, and by the time they arrived to give the news of everything that had happened in Fallravea to the priest who ran the temple and orphanage, they’d chosen Gelhome’s Gift both because it sounded similar and because it was named for a saint as famous for being a pauper all of his life as for his good works.

There were plenty of memories there, too, for Todd, and even some old friends that he could share his adventures with, but there were shadows as well. They stayed in Gelhome’s Gift for only three days, and Todd spent half the time in the graveyard, thinking about all the awful things he’d done to the people who had been so cruel to him. He hadn’t killed anyone, of course, but still, every one of the boys that had made his life hell had managed to end up here because of his bad advice. Even if the goblins had been the ones that had killed the boys, Todd had still been the one to put them in harm’s way.

The fact that he knew for certain that he would have been the one to die if they hadn’t didn’t make him feel better, though, and that puzzled him. If he’d killed a man who was trying to kill him today, he wouldn’t have felt the least bit guilty about that, but this seemed more duplicitous somehow.

Todd thought about that on the long, rainy canal ride back to Blackwater. Even while the other templars worried about what they might find in such a den of villainy, he could really only focus on his own guilt and on helping priest-candidate Verdenin. The ride had been hard on the injured man, but in spite of all the exertion and the damp, his injuries hadn’t gotten reinfected and were slowly healing. The worst was definitely behind him, and he was gaining strength every day.

Todd helped him with writing his missives, but also more basic things like helping him to dress and changing his bandages. He also watched him, though, and wondered at the darkness he saw growing in the man. At first, he thought it was just rage and despair as a result of the horrific injury that had been inflicted on him while fighting Siddrim’s enemies, but as the days passed, he decided that there had to be more to it. So, the day after they arrived in Blackwater, he approached Brother Faerbar about it.

“Master, when should the darkness in the hearts of your allies worry you more than the darkness in the eyes of your enemy?” he asked while they sat alone under an awning, waiting for the rain to slacken so they could continue their sparring.

“And which of our allies troubles you so, Todd?” he asked patiently, as he always did.

“Can you not see? It has become so obvious that—” Todd protested.

“There will be some darkness in the heart of almost everyone you ever fight beside,” Brother Faerbar cautioned him. “You cannot fight evil for long and stay clean. No one can. Our priest candidate has only just regained his physical health after a grievous wound. Surely you can begrudge him some time for his soul to mend as well, can’t you?”

“Of course, Master,” Todd answered, feeling suddenly ashamed at the very gentle admonishment. It was natural, he knew that, but like so many other things, that didn’t stop him from worrying about it. “I’m not saying anyone is perfect or that they should be, except Siddrim, of course. Certainly, I’m as flawed as anyone.”

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“Well, maybe not anyone,” the paladin laughed. “But I wouldn’t let you serve me if you didn’t have a good heart. Knowing that makes me certain that whatever you’ve done to stain your own soul was done for the best of reasons, and with time and effort, you may yet wash that taint away, just as the Oroza is already recovering.”

“You noticed it too?” Todd asked, surprised by the sudden shift in topic.

“The spiritual poison seeping from Fallravea upstream will take years to be cleansed,” Brother Faerbar said, looking past the courtyard they were sparring in into the water of the flooding river beyond it. “But the healing has already begun. Do you see how the river floods? It is almost like it knows that the source of the poison has been removed and that, with enough water, it can flush it all away. It is nature healing itself as it should.”

Todd considered that as he watched the river flow by. It was high enough now that it was only a few feet from the top of its channel and was threatening to overtop the piers. The toll chain that was a landmark for the area had long since disappeared under the murky brown waters, and though it would be ridiculous to call the water clean now, it was certainly cleaner than it had been on their last visit.

Then, the water had been a clear blue-green color. Though not clear enough to see the bottom, there had also been a patchy grey oily slick of spiritual taint that clung to the water’s surface that was almost entirely absent now. If he stared hard, he could still see a spot now and then, but it would appear that purging that awful temple was already doing some good.

Uncomfortable with the lull in the conversation and the slowly building uncomfortable silence filled only by the drizzling rain, Todd finally said, “The whole city is cleaner than I thought it would be. Spiritually, I mean.”

“I agree,” Brother Faerbar answered. “For all the evil stories that center on this area, it seems no worse than any of the other parts of the kingdom I have been to and better than a great many of them. There are problems that need to be fixed, of course. The poverty and the prostitution most of all, but if there is hope for the country of Greshen, it likely lies here.”

“Not Fallravea?” Todd asked, surprised. “It’s the bigger city.”

“Fallravea existed as the seat of governance and culture for the region for decades,” he agreed, “but only because it was where the main sources of income met. The harvests traveled east to the city each fall, and all the trade traveled by it on the Oroza. Even if we hadn’t had to purge the city of half its leading lights for dealing with unclean spirits, Blackwater still would have eclipsed it in a decade or two.”

“Because of the gold?” Todd asked.

“The gold and the canal,” the paladin nodded. “What villages remain bring their goods south to the canal now instead of east to the capital. It’s a faster, safer route without a swamp and its foul creatures to threaten them.”

Todd opened his mouth to speak again, but his master interrupted. “Alright, lad, let’s work on your ripostes. I’m sick of waiting for the rain. It’s likely to drizzle like this for the rest of the day if we let it.”

It did rain the whole day, and the next one, too, but the Templars didn’t let that stop them from doing what they needed to do. They proceeded to round up the pimps and the pushers of vice and drink and then punished them publicly. Those who were the least tainted were invited to confess their sins publicly so that they could give testimony against the worst of the lot. Then they would be shriven and flogged before the true scum was hanged and left to dangle until they’d rotted enough that their neck would no longer support the weight of their torso.

Beyond busting up the brothels and the gambling dens, though, there was little for them to do. A review of the warehouses and the shipping records revealed little that was amiss, and even the tax collector, Jurgen, seemed like a man more obsessed with making sure the numbers were right than enriching himself in the process.

There weren’t even any rumors of evils or cults, and apparently, the zombies and the lizardmen that featured in so many stories about the swamp hadn’t been seen in almost two decades since Count Leo Garvin, the Third, had been the ruler of the area. While Todd didn’t doubt that the stories had a basis in reality, two decades without a monster, even before the swamp had been drained, made it difficult to believe that either one of those creatures had ever been a real threat.

Once all of that was done, and there was seemingly no one left to bring to the light, they made a show of burning a small shrine to the Oroza at priest-candidate Verdenin’s suggestion. It only had one full-time priestess. She was a kindly old woman who was full of light and did little more than cry as they shattered the shrine that she had spent years tending. They decided not to kill her or even to flog her since she was deemed to have been the part of the goddess’s cult that had worshiped the good and the true.

The decision didn’t save her, though, and a few days later, she was found dead in the river. Rumors said that she’d killed herself in grief for what the Templars had done to her goddess, and the town’s attitude toward their saviors soured a bit after that, but Todd didn’t care. Like everything else, he felt grief over her death just as keenly as if he’d caused it, and he spent the afternoon digging her grave by himself in the rain as penance for the tragedy.

The following day, Brother Faerbar announced that they would stay here the full month to root out evil as they were told to, but every man in the cadre agreed that there was little need for such thoroughness. Soon enough, they would be going back to the holy city to bury their dead and report the horrors they’d seen to their superiors.