"Xorael, oh! Father of Light,

Lord of heaven, gods and men;

May your order last forever,

Upon heavens and upon land.

Bless your servants, lead our way,

And protect us with your might!"

An old priest chanted a prayer to Xorael, joined by the rest of the Hogwatch, and as his carved staff tapped the ground, a white glow appeared for a moment, filling the men with courage and warding off fear.

"We need to move on; who knows what waits ahead?" Garric ordered, and so they moved.

The road was completely silent, leaving no trace of any late travelers, and the forests were asleep, almost too silent, some would observe. Luthor glanced at the moon through the branches of nearby pines: "It is a horned moon, what some witch-hunters call the dark crescent."

"The dark crescent? Moon is almost full, except for..." Eldon was interrupted.

"The dark crescent," his mentor explained.

Eldon was lost in his thoughts for a couple of seconds, and he could hear a hum ringing in his ears and a faint sound of singing, almost the same as he experienced in a dream. He looked at the moon, and the heavenly body seemed to grow and shrink; it wobbled in his vision, and the skies seemed to get darker by the second as darkness engulfed all the stars. He could see nothing but the moon and hear nothing but the loud chants. The whole world seemed to disappear around him, and there was nothing but him and the moon, almost as if the moon itself was singing the chants he heard.

"What is it, boy?" Edgar pushed his shoulder, breaking him out of the trance.

"Ughh!" the acolyte yelled and unsheathed his sword, almost as if awakened from a nightmare. As he looked around, he could see magic again, this time even more intense than before. He saw auras around people and a pinnacle of light around the priest, and every person had a white glow, except Edgar, whose glow was dimmed by a dark void inside his chest.

"They must be performing a ritual again, this way!" Edgar yelled and started running in a certain direction.

"Follow him!" Luthor commanded, and everyone looked at Garric.

"You heard the witch-hunter!" the watchmaster commanded, and the men started chasing after Eldon.

He ran past the dark trees and dodged branches on each step as he dashed through the woodland and the dense pines. He ran uphill towards the nearby mountain. All traces of magic, this time shining white, poured into it, and as he approached it, the chants grew louder and louder. He was almost blinded by the magic and deafened by the chants. In a fraction of a second, he saw a glowing shape appear in front of him, with a glow far brighter than that of an average person. It was too late to dodge, so they collided and fell to the ground.

It was a young woman in dark robes, and she dropped something from her hands—a certain artifact that was overflowing with magic, a chalice of a sort. She had long, dark hair, clearly unkempt like her old linen robes, and her eyes were blue like two sapphires, almost glowing in the night. She seemed frightened, but she didn't say a word; instead, she stood up and grabbed the chalice. It was made of black iron and bloodstone, crimson, and the iron that held it in place was forged into the shapes of a demonic head, with two glowing ruby eyes.

"Wait!" he yelled and grabbed her by her coat. She stumbled again, this time holding tight onto the artifact.

"Let me go! They are coming!" the woman spoke and yanked her cloak out of Eldon's hand. Eldon could hear a group of people chasing after the woman, but as she turned around, she saw a swarm of torches approaching from the other side—clearly the Hogwatch that followed Eldon.

"Who are they?"

"The Cult of the Merciful Ones!"

"Come!" the acolyte commanded and grabbed the woman by her shoulder, running towards the Hogwatch, and surprisingly, she followed.

"Hah! You got one, a witch!" Garric proclaimed, and the men cheered. The young woman's face looked betrayed.

"You fooled me!"

But after catching his breath, Eldon proclaimed, "She is not one of them. They wanted to sacrifice her, but she escaped! A whole cult is coming!" Even he was surprised how quickly he made up that story, never mentioning the crimson goblet.

"Grab your weapons! I can hear them howling in the distance!" Garric yelled and pulled out his sword. It was clearly crudely forged, but it was made of witch-steel, a large two-handed weapon with three rings forged through its blade. As soon as the sword left its sheath, the voices in Eldon's head seemed to intensify, and in his eyes, the blade soaked the magic from the air.

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The men stood closely to each other in a crude formation, linking their improvised wooden shields and pointing out their weapons, from lighter pitchforks to scythes reforged into long weapons. Garric stood in the middle of the formation, holding his longsword tightly with both his hands, and both Luthor and Edgar stood behind the first row next to a priest, each on his own side.

"Come," Eldon pulled the woman by her arm and led her to Luthor. "Stay here."

As the cultists approached closer, the Hogwatch heard terrifying howls in the distance, inhuman sounds of screaming that sounded something between the human voice and the howl of a wolf, and they were coming closer. Soon enough they appeared out of the darkness, wearing black robes with pointy hoods and black masks that had the appearance of a skull. They screamed ungodly screams and sprinted towards the Hogwatch, hurling balls of green fire from their hands that flickered into many green sparks.

Father Theolyn lifted his staff and yelled in an unknown language, forming a glowing golden barrier in front of the peasants, and the magic bolts violently broke upon impact. After the barrier disappeared, many of the cultists threw knives at the Hogwatch, which stuck into their shields and sometimes bodies of those unlucky enough. Many more saved their witchfire bolts for a second barrage that wreaked havoc on the group.

"Charge!" Garric yelled and rushed with his blade towards the cult, and so did his followers. Clearly being outranged, they had no choice but to close the gap. When the two groups collided, many men were already found on the floor, toppled from the first impact—both cultists and the watchmen. Garric cleaved through one of the cloaked men, cutting him in half, before charging against the second. As his sword clashed against the cultist's serrated sabre, the rings rattled against the steel, and the sound silenced all the spells around, causing the cult to shriek in pain.

Many watchmen cleaved through the flesh with their weapons and tools, but their enemies were extremely resistant to pain, almost as if the ordinary weapons had only half the effect against them. They were vicious, fighting with their sabers and their curved knives, stabbing the watchmen on the floor in bloody duels. The butcher managed to block a saber swing from a cultist with a wooden shield, and his cleaver hacked into his opponent's chest, but the cultist seemed unfazed as he pulled his knife out and stabbed him in the ribs. The butcher bent in pain as the cultist kept stabbing his back in an ice pick grip, and the big man collapsed lifeless on the floor.

During that time, Luthor fought with his silver blade, fencing two opponents at the same time, dodging and parrying their attacks before he found an opening, severing one of the opponent's hands right off before returning his blade with a cut to his neck, and the cultist was dead. It was much easier to kill them with silver, it would seem, yet the ordinary weapons did their job too, as one of the watchmen managed to land a blow of his hatchet straight into the opponent's forehead, leaving him dead on the spot, his skull nearly split in half. Yet many of the men fell wounded by the knives in the bloody duels. The forest floor was covered with bodies of both cultists and the armed peasants, and red rivers of blood poured downwards.

Eldon protected the woman and the priest. As the old man prayed in the middle of the battlefield, one of the savage heretics rushed towards him with his sabre above his head. Eldon swung his blade at him, the two exchanged a couple of blows, both parrying each time, before Eldon managed to stab the man through his chest. But he just howled and rushed at him, landing a sabre cut against his chest, covered with leather armor; the wound was not very deep. Eldon pushed him off his blade, and before he was about to finish him with a sword cut from shoulder to chest, another one of the cult members rushed in with a knife behind the acolyte's back.

At that moment, a sudden burst of blue light in the form of a sphere blasted the screaming man and blew him off his feet. The blast echoed through the forest, illuminating the night like lightning. The acolyte landed a cut with his iron sword, killing his opponent instantly, and as he turned towards the other one, he realized he was already dead from the blast, his body completely blown open, as blue sparks flew from its sticking bones, hitting the ground and nearby branches.

He turned towards the cloaked woman and saw her holding her palm in front of her; she clearly cast the spell. Many cultists fell in that battle, and they started retreating, running away and disappearing in the darkness of the forest, about ten of them left, but the casualties inflicted upon the Hogwatch were extremely high.

"Don't chase! We can't lose more lives!" Tired and blood-soaked, Garric yelled, and the surviving men grouped around him.

"Carry the wounded to the village! Hurry up!" He commanded before lifting one of his wounded men up to his shoulders.

"We can't let this remain unsolved! We must pursue them!" Luthor clearly disagreed, "Who knows what kind of spell they can cast if we let them live? Let's put an end to this!"

"My men are going home; you can proceed with Edgar and your acolyte," Garric objected.

"We will take the girl; she may know the path once we are inside the mountains."

"She's a witch! We all saw her cast that spell; that man was turned into a mush!"

"I can handle witches, watchmaster Garric, for such is my profession."

"I'll trust that you won't do something stupid." Garric replied and grabbed the young woman by her shoulder and pushed towards Luthor. It was clear he had zero compassion for the users of any sort of magic.

"Lead your men home." Luthor proclaimed, leading the woman by her shoulder as Eldon and Edgar followed.

Once when two groups went apart, he asked; "You can still see the magic?"

"Yes," the young acolyte responded.

"Then show us the way."

"I Will." Eldon knew that he was leading the group straight towards the den of whoever was responsible for the affliction, but there was no time for fear now, so he went on.