All he could think of was the taste of terror-seasoned blood tingling down his throat to fill him with euphoria. Not for release from hunger but for the pleasure of feeding.

He heard Welstiel's footfalls behind him, and the cracking of wood. When he pulled the last door shut, and shoved back a figure trying to emerge from the previous door, he was shaking with a wild appetite.

Welstiel carried shards of thick wood in his hands. He shoved one through each door's iron handle and braced its end against the stone frame. Anyone who tried to pull a door inward would need enormous brute strength. Welstiel passed his gaze over each door along the passage's sides.

"Seventeen candidates," he muttered, absorbed in thought. "Adequate… since we had no opportunity for a more studied selection." He lowered his head. "There are several still below, incapacitated. Drag them up and lock them away."

Chane wanted to snarl, but didn't. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel for the stairs, numbly following orders.

By his second trip down, only two priests remained in the entry room- the elderly woman and the young man Chane had thrown aside. Welstiel knelt on the floor by the latter, unpacking his little brass cup.

"Take the woman," he said. "Leave the man."

Welstiel refused to feed directly on blood, preferring his arcane methods to draw concentrated life force. He began chanting softly.

Chane snatched up the woman, dragging her limp body up the stairs.

By the time he returned, Welstiel had finished. The young priest was a desiccated husk, and the cup brimmed with red liquid so dark it looked black in the entry room's low hearth light. But Welstiel did not drink. He poured the cup's contents into a brown glass bottle and pressed a cork soundly into its neck.

"You will remain here, out of my way," he said.