T. H. Lain

The Bloody Eye

Calmet’s Mine

1. Calmet’s Inner Sanctum; 2. Battle Pit; 3. Sanctuary of Gruumsh at Scaun; 4. Gargoyle; 5. Pit Trap; 6. Shrieker and Violet Fungi

1

A combination of stench and hollow percussion awoke Yddith. At first, she dreamed she was dancing to muted drums, accompanied by the gourds and bone rattles used in druid ceremonies. Then she realized there were hoofbeats in counterpoint with something else. Scrapes, knocks, clacks, clicks, bumps, thumps, and clatter vibrated through the night. It was a cacophony of bone instruments, but it was also more.

Underneath the eerie percussion was a low, pulsing murmur vacillating between a whistle and a worn organ pipe leaking air. It might have been the wind, but it seemed to offer uneven groans and whimpers in the midst of the mysterious percussion. Yddith grimaced. It might have been the wind, but the wind usually carried away the stench of the privies. Instead, this wind was permeated with the fetid, smothering perfume of decay. She had smelled nothing like this since the days of the fever.

Death!

The word fairly shouted itself within her mind and forced Yddith to sit up straight in bed, even as new sounds entered the macabre orchestration filling the air. She sensed the creak of axles and their grating protests added to her unease. Hearing the unmistakable hum of wagon wheels coming up the main road, she threw off the moth-eaten fur from her cot and glided silently to her window. Her motion blended seamlessly with the shadows.

Peering down the main road, she began piecing the images and sounds together. At the edge of town, shadowy shapes and movements shimmered into view as though the night itself was a black curtain drawing aside to reveal an artisan’s masterpiece. To Yddith, however, this was no masterpiece, but rather a monstrosity. To be sure, there were horses to match the hoofbeats and wagons to match the sounds of axle and wheel, but neither horses nor drivers had flesh. A caravan of skeletons was entering the town.

Yddith watched with fascination as Orthor, the town’s watchman, stepped to the middle of the road. “Halt!” he shouted. The former mercenary could assume the dignity of a foreign courtier when he swaggered to his duties. “What mean you, entering unannounced at such an ungodly hour?”

Normally, his formal speech and officious manner would have brought an amused smile to Yddith’s face. Now her face froze in horror as the caravan plodded numbly forward.

Orthor held his ground as the skeletal horses stomped toward him, their deadly percussion heavy and ominous as they neared the soldier. The veteran instinctively moved between the first pair of shambling, yellowed bones and sliced through the reins. Suddenly released from control, the undead equines galloped forward insanely, eyes glowing with the embers of hell while a brimstone steam escaped their nostrils in mockery of life’s breath.

Unfortunately for Orthor, the undead horses reacted to the loss of their lead team much as living horses would—by panicking. Yddith grimaced as one horse reared to smash Orthor with glowing iron hooves and the remaining three charged the guardsman. With experienced reflexes, Orthor dodged the fiery hooves and smashed his halberd into the brittle structure of the closest horse’s neck. Mold and splinters showered the ground from the halberd’s blow, but the undead frames of two large horses plowed over Orthor like a landslide. Yddith winced as she heard the crunching of bone and the sickening slosh of hooves embedded in Orthor’s ripping flesh.

Orthor’s brief scream awakened the entire town of Pergue. Lanterns and candles flickered and sputtered into light within moments of the shout, the blows, the clattering hooves, and the strangled cry of the guardsman. The entire town watched in horror as the procession plodded past the statue of St. Cuthbert to the square in the center of town. As though they, too, were statues, the mesmerized throng witnessed double doors swing outward from the black coach in the center of the caravan. The combined light from lanterns and candles was dimmed by the blood-red glow oozing from the coach.

All eyes followed the movement as a human figure in courtly garb shuffled down the creaking steps. Yddith thought she might have discerned squishing sounds rather than the echo of normal steps as the figure lumbered toward the center of town. She was certain she heard the figure’s mushy trod as a red glow formed an orb about him and revealed this mysterious figure to be a zombie. She felt certain that the zombie once served as a performing bard, the practiced grace of its profession apparent even through the stumbling motions made with decaying limbs. She was doubly certain when the undead figure lisped its announcement through lips that had succumbed to rot.

Through cracked and tattered lips, the zombie proclaimed the caravan to be the Black Carnival. With cadaverous breath it declared that the troupe would perform a play called The Maiden’s Blush on the following night. It paused dramatically and looked at every window in turn before continuing. In spite of muddy enunciation, the thing made clear that every townsperson would be required to attend the performance. The announcement was punctuated by a sanguine red aura that played across an assembled army of skeletal soldiers and zombie attendants.

As if the announcement had been a cue on stage, the skeletal soldiers dispersed and marched with a mixture of bone and metal percussion toward every building in the town. Yddith immediately saw their intent and threw her work dress quickly over her head. As she grabbed for her sandals, she saw that the undead army was bolstered by a squad of orcs complemented by three or four larger orc warriors riding on war boars.

Yddith rushed down the inner stair of the Boar’s Tusk tavern where she worked and lived. Barefoot, she dashed out the back door, intending to run to the nearest copse of trees and escape. She was too late. The decay-crusted form of a skeletal sentry was already in position at the corner of the back wall.

A bar wench doesn’t keep her virtue for long without being quick of wit, and Yddith’s virtue was well-protected. She immediately switched to a new plan, improvising on the fly as she had done on so many occasions when tavern patrons saw her as the prize. She looked directly at the undead guard and stopped in her tracks. Immediately she began hopping in place like a little girl who desperately needed to reach the latrine. Yddith curtsied quickly to the skeleton and gave it an embarrassed smile as she grabbed herself to indicate what she had to do. She knew an animated corpse whose organs had rotted away decades before was unlikely to understand references to bodily functions, but she hoped that acting naturally would keep the skeleton from sounding an alarm.

Still dancing in place, Yddith alternated between placing her sandals on her feet and pointing toward the latrine. When the skeleton registered no response whatsoever, she shrugged and started walking slowly toward the outhouse. The empty skull of the undead creature couldn’t comprehend what she was doing, but she didn’t appear to be trying to escape. So, it followed.

Yddith reached the rough building in the trees, opened the door, and entered. The skeleton’s bony fingers prevented her from closing the door, so she lifted her skirt and sat down. The red lights glowing dimly in the skeleton’s hollow eye sockets were focused directly at her.

The girl’s racing mind flashed on a remembered image and a plan took shape. An itinerant sorceress had once taught Yddith a small, magical trick behind the tavern. Yddith had since used it, rarely and when no one was looking, to tip mugs of ale into the laps of obnoxious tavern customers whose jokes and remarks grew too ribald. All it took was speaking a strange word and mimicking a small hand gesture.

Finishing her task in the outhouse, Yddith shrugged at her guard once more and stepped past it to get outside again. She motioned toward the latrine as though she expected the desiccated form to have use of it. The skeleton clacked forward, bending its empty skull to look down into the dark pit. With its attention occupied, the skeleton failed to see Yddith’s hand move, though it did hear her whispered prayer to Pelor for help in what she was about to do. It failed to see the log drift off the stack of firewood behind him. The log rose above the dirt-crusted skull, then smashed downward. For a moment, the skeleton tottered as though it might tumble into the outhouse. Crushed bone burst into powder as the falling log glanced off the skull but snapped through ribs. The monster regained its balance.

“So much for magic,” muttered Yddith.

With her gambit failed, she dropped all pretense and simply turned and ran into the trees. The skeleton, having been clobbered with the log and seeing its prisoner escaping, was no longer confused. It knew clearly what it must do. Unsheathing its broadsword, it stepped around the outhouse. As Yddith plunged through the trees, the skeleton pounded the flat of its sword against the rusted metal plate that served it as chest armor, raising the alarm that its voiceless throat could not.

As Yddith sped through the trees with tiny branches slapping at her face and punctuating her flight with stinging scratches, the skeleton marched at a doubled pace behind her. Where Yddith’s pace let the branches perform their tattooing at will, the skeleton hacked away any brush obstructing its march.

Yddith focused on the sound of the skeleton’s inexorable pursuit. Worse, she heard the occasional grunting of a boar and knew that one of the large orcs had joined the chase. At irregular intervals, she heard the skeleton pounding the flat of its sword against its armor and she knew others would be following. Worst of all, she felt herself tiring. Even the power of fear could not keep her moving all night.

“So much for running,” she gasped.

Then, she recognized where she was. She was near the cliff where so many shepherds lost sheep during the spring migration. The forest grew right up to the lip of the bluff and the edge itself was obscured by heavy brush. More importantly, there was a large mulberry tree with limbs that stretched up and over the cliff. She ran directly for it, but instead of tumbling over the edge like a confused sheep, she climbed the tree and winnowed her way up into its leafy canopy.

As the skeleton marched toward her position, Yddith found herself begging for Pelor’s intervention once again. She held her breath as the brittle soldier passed by. She prayed even more fervently as she heard others pass by, but gulped back fear involuntarily as she heard the war boar approaching. Remembering her sorceress mentor, Yddith recalled another trick. She picked and pulled at her cloak till she had a small ball of frayed wool yarn. She held it to the tip of her finger, spoke the power word as a harsh whisper, and blew the ball of wool in the direction where she wanted to hear the sound. All of her concentration was focused on creating the sound of a body running through the brush along the top of the cliff.

She heard the orc grunt in triumph and the hooves of the war boar pounding the dirt as her pursuer charged toward the cliff. She breathed a silent prayer of relief as the boar stumbled at the edge and plunged through the concealing brush into empty air. The magical sound invoked by Yddith was replaced by the crashing, cracking, and smashing of boar and rider tumbling to their deaths.

“Thank you, Pelor,” whispered Yddith as she climbed down the mulberry tree and disappeared into the forest ahead of the skeletons who would inevitably return to investigate the noise.

Confident that she was far enough ahead of the skeletons that she could use the woods to her advantage, Yddith began weaving through the forest toward Pelor’s temple. If anyone could save Pergue from this troupe of undead, it would be the priests of the benevolent sun god.

“Praise Pelor!” she intoned as she realized what she had already accomplished on behalf of her neighbors and friends.

2

The silver dagger’s edge glowed, reflecting the sickening aura of reddish-orange that permeated the cavern. Calmet felt a surge of power as he started his thrust toward the altar and its unwilling victim. His body fluctuated between feeling flushed with heat and trembling with chills as though he were fighting off a fever. His desire for power consumed him. The frightened eye of his victim winced involuntarily and Calmet hesitated.

He hesitated in a weakness he despised. This moment should have been a major triumph. He hesitated just as he observed within the victim’s frightened eye a small, inverted vision of himself—a tiny Calmet thrusting a ceremonial dagger toward the selfsame eye. He hesitated as his peripheral vision caught the smug grin of Archprelate Laud observing with approval. Calmet hated Laud. In spite of all his desire to please the archprelate and gain more power, Calmet still despised the powerful priest who had opened the passage to power for him.

As Calmet hesitated, he remembered. He recalled his island home, where he served as a missionary priest of Pelor, being invaded by Laud and his henchmen. The house, originally intended as the center of a new monastery, was burned to the ground. He suffered again the mocking of Laud as the evil one blasphemed the power of Pelor and denied the god’s power to save Calmet from the transformation that awaited him.

“If Pelor is provident,” he remembered the archprelate smirking, “he is not potent. If Pelor is potent, he is not provident.” Calmet remembered the pain of Laud removing his eye while the villain’s minions restrained him. “He who cannot see with two eyes,” the vile archprelate intoned, “must find the true sight of one eye.”

Laud showed no mercy as he plunged the dagger into Calmet’s eye, setting the priest on a cursed path of bitterness, cruelty, and destruction.

“Of course, Pelor is not provident,” Calmet observed to himself with fresh anger and resentment. “If Pelor cared about his followers, he would have protected me.”

With the same merciless stroke used by Laud against him, Calmet punctured the eye of his victim. He called upon Gruumsh the One-Eyed to share the raw power he was unleashing from his victim and offer true sight to him to compensate for the vision that was sacrificed.

The sickening umber glow intensified. Calmet’s mind fluttered with a sense of raw energy, as though a spiny tentacle had whipped through his brain. He sensed the presence of Gruumsh within his very being. The god’s power coursed through him and Calmet sensed that he was power. Calmet knew that he was born for power and that he would wield it forever. Even Laud’s smug expression could not destroy the moment. Calmet shrugged off the superior’s condescension with a sense of pity. If the archprelate was so tired that he would allow others to perform the rituals, the archprelate would eventually weaken to the point where the office and the power could be seized by someone worthy of holding them.

Exulting in the afterglow of the sacrifice, Calmet remembered the words from that fateful night when he was the victim. The archprelate’s words twisted pleasingly in Calmet’s mind.

If Gruumsh is great, sneered the priest to himself with unearned haughtiness, he is not gracious. If Gruumsh is gracious, he is not great!

He laughed to himself as he motioned for the half-blinded sacrifice to be carried back to the lower levels of the cavern.

Gracious? The very concept of a merciful god was no more than a joke. Giving and mercy have nothing to do with Gruumsh, he reflected. They have nothing to do with power! Leave grace to Pelor—if he ever bothers to pay attention!

Then, as he had done uncountable times since his own eye was removed, Calmet pledged to avenge himself on Laud by all the horrific resources of Gruumsh’s greatness. He placed his seething soul on simmer with this continuing resolution and reminded himself that his subservience to Laud was only a matter of time.

The archprelate motioned toward a mirrored plate forming the pupil of an unblinking eye etched in the center of the chamber’s floor, the unholy symbol of Gruumsh. Calmet carried the bloody eye from the sacrifice to the mirror and let some of the blood drop onto the shiny surface. The archprelate muttered a gutteral incantation that seemed to echo from the underworld itself. As during the sacrifice, Calmet saw another small figure in the mirrored surface. This time, however, the figure was not an inverted image of himself This figure was a priest of Pelor riding along a trail. Calmet couldn’t help but exude a renewed sense of confidence upon viewing his pursuer.

“So, Pelor sends my old student to recover his gold? Well, Jozan could never learn his language lessons. Maybe he’ll learn this one.”

Calmet motioned for one of his acolytes to bring the small pig to him. He nodded toward the mirrored surface and the helper placed the squirming animal on the unholy symbol. Again, Calmet stabbed with the silver dagger. Human eye and porcine eye mingled together in a bloody froth and a stream of blood splashed upon the mirror as a libation offering.

“Learn this lesson well, Jozan!” he muttered. “Gruumsh knows nothing of grace. If you cannot taste his power, you will feel his wrath!”

“Calmet!” cursed Jozan as the one-eyed boar charged.

Since the young priest started tracking his former tutor, one-eyed monstrosities kept appearing, and with increasing frequency. Jozan used the apostate priest’s name as his epithet of choice, so it leaped quickly to the young priest’s lips as the half-blind beast gored his mount. He knew he should have been more alert, but the beast’s gray fur provided deadly camouflage while it lay in ambush within the low-lying mist and underbrush along the trail.

Blood spewed and muscles tore as the filthy tusks ripped across the mare’s chest. The little horse shuddered from the blow and Jozan performed a minor miracle by dismounting before the mare counterattacked. She reared and screamed the tubercular wheeze common to her kind, intending to smash her tormentor with her front hooves. Pain tearing through her belly destroyed her aim so that the valiant effort looked more like a stumble than an attack. Fortunately, it gave Jozan enough time to draw his mace. He advanced as the mare limped away. The boar misjudged the horse’s position as it slung its head in another attack.

Jozan stepped behind the boar so that the beast was between himself and the retreating mare. He swung the mace in a well-aimed arc, but watched the weapon graze the quick-stepping boar’s thick fur harmlessly. The animal pinwheeled in an attempt to skewer the cleric, but Jozan was quick, too. He stepped back, dropped his mace, and ripped a small bag off his belt. The boar’s one good eye fairly glowed with a malevolent hatred and the empty socket made Jozan feel queasy and uncomfortable. Pulling a candle from the bag, he intoned a psalm to Pelor as Creator and envisioned two large hounds on each flank of the boar.

The boar snorted and charged, but Jozan sidestepped without missing a word of the summoning ritual or even compromising a sacred gesture. As smoothly as if he were speaking the sacred prayer at a dawn mass, he watched the words come to life. Alluvial-shaped lightning danced on the flanks of the boar and two celestial hounds appeared, lightning and thunder announcing their presence. Jozan immediately dropped the bag and candle and retrieved his mace as the boar charged half-heartedly. The priest gave thanks for the confusion provided by the two new and otherworldly scents.

This time, Jozan’s mace smashed across the snout of the boar. The familiar vibration assured the priest it was a solid blow. The enraged boar did not turn aside, however, and its tusk struck glancingly against Jozan’s armor. Then the beast learned the threat posed by the two newcomers. Both of the golden haired dogs snarled and bit at the boar, tearing away fur and blood but not distracting it as Jozan had hoped. Celestial hounds or not, the angry boar focused its single eye on Jozan and Jozan alone. When the cleric’s mace scraped across the animal’s matted hide, the beast retaliated so fiercely that one of its tusks wedged between pieces of the cleric’s leg armor. Jozan felt the flesh tear and knew his fresh blood would only arouse the beast more.

With measured relief, Jozan saw one of the summoned hounds rip past the boar’s hide. Canine fangs opened a portion of his foe’s neck as cleanly as would a butcher’s knife. Still the boar did not let up. Even with the second hound pestering it, Jozan felt the wedged tusk gouge deeper, causing his knee to give way. The man crumpled to the ground. In desperation he swung the mace and it smashed through the boar’s skull, driving shards of shattered bone deep into the primitive brain.

Even that terrific wound would not stop the boar. Blinded by pain, spattering blood and gray matter with every shake of its massive head, the beast fought on with a perverse, unearthly ferociousness.

The hounds pounced again. Their fangs slashed into the boar’s ribs and neck, opening new wounds and clamping down on bone and muscle. Still, the boar thrashed on. In spite of his awkward position and damaged leg, Jozan’s mace struck again, crunching sideways through the jaw to splatter brains and tusks against a nearby tree trunk. The deadly beast tumbled onto its side from the force of the blow. Jozan watched the carcass shiver with the last tremors of life and he exhaled heavily in relief. He lay on his back for several moments more until his celestial allies shimmered and returned to their home dimension.

“Calmet!” he cursed, telling himself that if it hadn’t been for that foul apostate, the pain would not be searing his thigh and he wouldn’t be on this reckless quest. “How am I supposed to face an evil priest who knows everything I know and more?”

In anguish he removed his armor and gingerly massaged the wound. Jozan breathed a prayer for healing. He even uttered an obligatory hope for Calmet’s redemption, though he sincerely doubted its likelihood. A glow mirroring the beams of the sun shone from the young priest’s hands and pulsed around the wound. The entire thigh glowed with the healing radiance of Pelor as Jozan breathed a psalm of gratitude.

He knew there was no chance of catching the mare. She would still be running in fear, her blood and panic making her a tempting target for wolves and other scavengers. He couldn’t help her. Worse, he couldn’t help himself very much. He had his weapons and a few pouches at his belt, but most of his equipment was in the pack strapped to the mare’s rump. Here he was without gold, bedroll potions, scrolls, or even his flint and steel.

With few other options, Jozan struck out on foot, a painful sting in his thigh reminding him that he needed more healing before continuing his quest. To date he’d found no specific evidence of Calmet’s location, but he know that the enemy was aware of his pursuit. Everywhere the cleric turned, he faced one-eyed monsters. They could only be coming from him.

Jozan plodded onward, hoping beyond hope to see signs of the little mare, or even bits of scattered equipment or a lost saddlebag. But the horse undoubtedly had plowed through the forest. The man needed to keep to the trail in hope of finding a settlement. The ache in his thigh grew worse with each furlong.

Fired by his imagination, the young priest trudged along the trail until he caught a glimpse of a temple. At least, he thought it was a temple. It was so dilapidated that Jozan thought for a moment it might be a barn.

“No,” he reasoned aloud, “no one builds ceremonial pillars in front of a barn.” Please let it be Pelor’s, he added silently as he turned up a footpath leading to the temple.

The old temple wasn’t dedicated to Pelor. The carving on the door portraying a fist holding a lightning bolt showed that clearly enough. Still, Jozan was relieved that the temple was consecrated to a good deity, even if he considered the priests of Heironeous the Invincible to be somewhat arrogant. He hesitated before entering, meditating upon Pelor’s goodness and asking for his guidance before seeking another deity’s aid.

The doors creaked as they opened, a mournful protest to their neglect that audibly interrupted the elderly priest praying before the altar. In one fluid motion, the priest raised the holy hammer from the altar and turned to face whatever bold intruder had entered the sanctuary. Jozan couldn’t help but be impressed. There was no flaw in the old priest’s martial technique. The intruder smiled, recognizing a fellow pilgrim who tried to practice what he preached.

The armed cleric immediately recognized the wooden sun symbol around Jozan’s neck and lowered the hammer. As calmly as though interrogating a novitiate in a familiar catechism, the priest queried Jozan. “Why does one who serves the sun seek the hammer?”

“My name is Jozan,” answered the young priest. “I serve the Soldiers of the Sun.” He paused, but when the old man said nothing, he felt uncomfortable and rushed to fill the disconcerting silence. “I haven’t actually attained full rank in my order.” When the old man merely waited for him to continue, Jozan tried to summarize his story. “My training was interrupted when King Ingemar the First heard of the wealth of our order. He declared us to be state criminals and commanded our gold to be confiscated.”

When the old man only nodded to inform Jozan that he was paying attention, Jozan explained how his Master General divided the treasury in half and sent the two groups in opposite directions. He spoke of their charge to establish new monasteries beyond the boundaries of their homeland, the Kingdom of the Schnai.

“And you were with such a group?” suggested the older priest.

Jozan shook his head. Then, feeling defensive, he hurried to explain himself. “I stayed with the Master General until he was arrested. When he knew that his death was imminent, I was sent here with messages for the Prior who had led the expedition to this land. I sought out this Prior, Augustin Calmet, my former tutor and chaplain, but learned that there was no new monastery. I was directed instead to the burned ashes of a house. Underneath the house was a cavern warded by malformed monsters and the twice-used skins on which Calmet had written a diatribe against Pelor.”

“Is that all you found?” queried the older man.

“No, your grace, but all of it was the work of a madman,” asserted the younger cleric. “The writings proclaimed that Calmet no longer serves Pelor and that he has tied himself to another apostate named Guillaume Laud. He has stolen our order’s gold and is apparently using it to rebuild the power of Gruumsh in the mountain settlements.”

“And what else?” asked the older priest, in his direct and simple manner.

“After I left the cavern, I tried to pick up the trail of Calmet. I’ve had no luck, but I have been assailed by monstrous creatures and mutilated animals. There is a bizarre sameness to all of them. All are missing their left eye, as the writings claimed Calmet and Laud do, and as did Gruumsh before them. Even the beast I fought this morning, and which drove off my horse and wounded my leg, was blinded in the same way. Its left eye was entirely gone.”

“Ah,” sighed the older cleric, “you are on a quest?” Jozan nodded. “Then do you seek revenge, restitution, or reputation?” asked the old priest.

Jozan was confused. When he paused, the old priest continued, “Think on it. Pelor’s radiance preserves the figs placed upon the rocks to dry, but the same heat rots the figs that fall to the ground. The anvil of Heironeous can temper a blade for battle or transform it into a shovel. Dried figs and rotten, shovels and swords, all have their place in this world. Still, I’d rather eat dried figs than rotten ones, and I’d rather carry a sword than a shovel into battle. So, again, I ask whether you seek revenge, restitution, or reputation?”

Jozan proudly responded that his quest was for justice.

“Justice?” beamed the older priest. “Then you’ve come to the right temple.” He smiled enigmatically and went on to ask, “Did you not mean to say Grace rather than Justice? After all, this fallen cleric is one of Pelor’s own. Are you not all children of Grace?”

“What do you mean?” retorted Jozan. “Even though Pelor chose Calmet, Calmet has chosen against Pelor.”

“But is it possible to choose against Pelor?”

Jozan’s head reeled. The old priest’s philosophy, the ache in his leg, and the heavy incense swirling near the altar pounded in the younger cleric’s brain. His vision blurred and he swayed slightly on his feet, then reached out a hand to steady himself against a pillar. When Jozan’s vision cleared, he was surprised to see that he and the priest of Heironeous were not alone. A third person rested within the much-neglected chapel. Whether she had been there all along, hidden in shadow, or had just entered, Jozan didn’t know. She reminded him of stories of the eternal warriors of Ysgard, a perfect blend of strength and well-toned beauty. Jozan couldn’t understand how he could have missed her. Had she been kneeling at the altar, or did she suddenly appear like a Celestial?

The cleric had a discomfiting feeling as the woman raised her eyes and moved her hands with palms facing up. Her outstretched arms formed a semicircle encompassing both priests. Jozan felt as if he were being scrutinized with waves of divine energy, as if someone or something was peering into his soul looking for evidence of goodness or evil intent. After a long minute of concentration, the woman seemed satisfied with her divination and spoke. Instead of the melodious chimes of the supernal voice he expected, he heard the quiet, confident voice of a human.

“I am Alhandra. I serve Heironeous.”

Jozan knew he should respond, but he felt his normal calm and confidence desert him. Any word would come out as a stammer.

Mercifully, the woman continued, “The one you seek may be nearby. The locals tell of a one-eyed cleric, sometimes seen in the hills beyond the village of Pergue. He is said to wear the solitary eye of Gruumsh, deliberately fashioned from what was once a silver sun symbol of Pelor.”

“That’s him,” shouted Jozan with excitement, “it must be!”

“Take caution, soldier of the sun,” warned the old priest. “You may be trained in the secrets of your order, but Calmet will bend the very brightness of Pelor into your eyes. He will blind you with questions against your own faith.”

Before Jozan could ask what the old priest meant, Alhandra spoke again. “I was journeying toward Pergue. Along with the tales of your tutor, I have heard rumors of orcs forming slaving bands and stories of mass mutilations. When I prayed to Heironeous for guidance, I was told that the source is ‘one who seeks that which shines like Pelor, but burdens like stone.’ I’ve seen with my own two eyes that an evil is spreading through the mountain towns and clans.”

“Something besides Calmet?” asked Jozan.

The woman nodded and continued speaking in a way that simultaneously aroused curiosity and slight embarrassment in the cleric. “The mountain clans have a fierce pride and a distrust of the civilization our lord sovereign has brought them. We think of it as civilization. They think of it as conquest. Gruumsh represents the old ways. Even with all of its abominations, with all of its evil and cruelty, it has become a rallying point for all who feel wronged.”

“Or powerless?” suggested Jozan.

“Or hopeless,” responded the woman. “The trouble is that the ointment is worse than the wound. This return to Gruumsh must be stopped before the people jump out of a cookfire and into the fires of Baator itself.”

“How can it be stopped?” asked Jozan, some of his evaporated confidence returning to his voice. For the first time, he noticed a spot of color on the woman’s cheek as she responded.

“I intend to recruit a citizen army to chase down the slavers. Heironeous is sure to help me trace the source through any slavers I capture.”

“Is that why you were praying, just now?” asked Jozan.

“I asked Heironeous for an ally. You appeared and spoke about the same source of evil that I want to destroy. It seems we have a common cause, Jozan. You can seek justice against this Calmet and I will seek justice on behalf of the enslaved. Together, we may save many from a hell of their own making.”

As Jozan listened with a combination of comprehension and bewilderment, the old priest slid into a prophetic rhythm and spoke louder, with even more assurance than before. “Take heart, soldier of the sun. Heironeous joins Pelor in seeking this justice, though justice may well be Grace.” The monk’s eyes rolled back and a voice as cold as steel recited, “The radiance shines upon cold metal. Judgment shall burn like molten metal and illuminate like the sun at midday. Revere the day, revere justice, and beware the Black Carnival!”

As Jozan pondered those words, the old priest stepped toward him. The cleric pounded his fist against his chest in a martial salute to the young cleric and began to sing, “Bound in faith, bound in blood, bound in power!”

In the midst of the hymn, Jozan found both healing and the assurance that Pelor could speak, even in the Temple of Heironeous.

3

Yddith felt safe with the four priests of Pelor beside her. The first time they were attacked by the skeletons, she’d gasped in panic, but Pere’ Doubert changed all that. He faced the five skeletal soldiers and fiercely castigated them in Pelor’s name. Three of them immediately shattered into dust, eerily dispersing in the wind. As though providing violent counterpoint, she watched the maces and warhammers of the other clerics accomplish the same result at a slower pace, pulverizing the remaining skeletons into a similar, moldy grist.

She was surprised when Pere’ Doubert believed her story without question, immediately recognizing the description of the undead caravan and calling it the “Black Carnival.” Doubert fed Yddith and gathered three brothers to make the journey back to Pergue with them. Only a few miles from Pergue, they were ambushed, but they fought their way through. Then, attacks came more frequently as the five neared the town. With the forest so crowded with undead, Pere’ Doubert ordered his colleagues to quit calling on the power of Pelor to turn or destroy the skeletons. He reasoned that the abominations were so thick that if the quartet of warrior clerics attempted to turn them all, they risked trying Pelor’s patience and using up his benevolence before reaching their goal. And Pere’ Doubert well knew that they would need all of Pelor’s benevolence when they reached the town and confronted the Black Carnival.

By sunset, the small group was on the outskirts of Pergue. They moved as silently as possible to a copse of trees with a relatively clear view of the town square. Quietly, they watched with a morbid curiosity as zombies and skeletons pushed wagons together to form a stage. They observed with horror as the foul, moldy fiends dragged unwilling victims to the town square, building a captive audience in every sense. Gradually the stage was illumined with the same sanguine glow as that surrounding the wagons on the previous night.

As darkness fell, the performance began. A hideous, pockmarked female zombie played the title role in the most famous forbidden play ever, The Maiden’s Blush.

Doubert whispered an explanation to Yddith, “Our priests banned this play over a century ago because it celebrates the worst of the old ways: human sacrifice and sadism.”

Yddith found herself becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the play progressed, especially during a scene in which a priest of Gruumsh disguises himself as a druid in order to seduce the maiden.

“The priest,” intoned Doubert in hushed tones, “believed that if the maiden conceived during the exact moment of the solstice, she would bear the avatar of Gruumsh.”

The faux druid spouted blasphemous aphorisms and capered lewdly, clumsily, across the stage. As the play progressed, the maiden was caught up in a succession of lusty dances and ritual tortures. Yddith winced as the lash tore bits of fetid flesh from the maiden’s back and flung them dripping across the stage or into the audience.

“The torture was necessary,” Pere’ Doubert gently explained, “to get Gruumsh aroused enough to pay attention to the ritual.” The priest paused solemnly. “I’d hate to believe that suffering was the only way to get my god’s attention.”

Suddenly, Pere’ Doubert could restrain himself no more. As a chorus of skeletal dancers gyrated with lurid, suggestive motions, the priests made their move. Casting Pelor’s daylight upon his sun symbol, Doubert rushed into the midst of the crowd with a glow like a miniature sun shining from his chest.

“In the name of Pelor,” he shouted, “stop this foul production!”

Yddith smiled with grim satisfaction as she watched half a dozen skeletons in the chorus and the guard shatter into calcium mist as the light from Doubert’s holy symbol played across them. The three other priests of Pelor emulated Doubert’s action and Yddith’s confidence soared as she watched more than a dozen skeleton sentries and zombie guards rush away from the square, routed as surely as the orcs at the Battle of Couredon.

Yddith knew better than to wade into the fray with the four clerics, but she couldn’t stand idle, either. With all of the furtiveness of a thief or assassin, she managed to slink closer behind the statue of St. Cuthbert. There, she watched and waited for her opportunity.

“They’re like lice!” shouted Doubert. “Kill one and the rest keep biting!”

He proclaimed aloud the goodness of Pelor once again, but it seemed that no matter how many skeletons collapsed or stumbled away, more closed in from the gloom beyond Doubert’s light. His long-handled hammer smashed them as they came on, until suddenly the brazen cleric found himself facing three onrushing skeletons at once. Yddith watched Doubert shatter I he weapon arm of the first to come within reach, but the second stepped up behind the cleric and sliced a rusty short sword through the armor guarding the cleric’s shoulder.

The barmaid racked her memory for a useful trick to turn against the undead. Maces and hammers could hardly miss as shambling, fleshless things closed in four rings around the four clerics.

A fierce backhand brought Yddith into the battle. A swipe from one of the younger clerics knocked a skeletal arm from its shoulder and sent it spinning toward the statue of St. Cuthbert. The rusted, notched weapon that clattered into the dust with the rattling bones seemed like a gift from Pelor to Yddith. She scrambled forward on her knees and grabbed the hilt. Mouthing a quiet prayer, she retreated again into the shadows and waited till a zombie shambled by. As swiftly and smoothly as a trained assassin, Yddith plunged the sword into the zombie’s back. All her weight pushed it downward, slicing through rotted ribs. The zombie crumbled into a heap at her feet.

“Not bad for an amateur,” she mumbled to herself.

She looked up just in time to see one of the priests trying to dislodge his weapon from the shattered cranium of a brainless foe. As the priest struggled, an axe-wielding zombie stepped behind him. Even as Yddith plunged her sword into another zombie, its axe sliced sideways between the priest’s ribs as neatly as an executioner’s stroke with a freshly sharpened blade. The human tried to turn defensively, but stumbled and barely managed to stay on his knees. As he tottered, Yddith sliced off the zombie’s axe arm, but she could plainly see that it was too late for the young priest of Pelor. Moments later he was torn apart by grasping, bony claws.

A second priest was smashing and cleaving against a ring of eight undead creatures, so the girl ran to relieve him. Again she buried her sword in the back of a zombie. The rotting flesh tore away as she used all of her strength to force the sword through the body. With difficult back-and-forth strokes she sawed the rusty blade sideways into corrupted organs. Trying to hold her breath against the stench, she worked the sword in the fetid corpse like a strong old woman churning butter.

By now, Yddith was beginning to feel despair. Doubert’s hammer rarely missed, but his two remaining acolytes were sorely pressed. The young man near Yddith was holding up with her help, but the third was swamped beneath an onrushing wave of skeletons despite the celestial hounds fighting by his side. Doubert hollered for them to gather round him and as one, they fought their way through the press until their backs were against a stout wall.

They might still have saved themselves had not Doubert stepped forward into the arc of a zombie’s sword. As he crumbled, the last priest leaped across the growing pile of bones to smash Doubert’s attacker into oblivion. He twisted slightly, shifting the hammer in his hands just enough to follow through and obliterate an oncoming skeleton in one graceful motion. Then, seeing no foes close enough to reach immediately, he knelt to call healing forth upon Doubert.

There was no time to take his attention away from the enemy, but he did it in a desperate bid to save his spiritual leader. He did not see the zombie approaching from behind. Doubert’s eyes were closed in pain. Only Yddith could see the danger and she had an idea. She tried her magic trick again, pointing her finger at a skull still spinning on the ground from Doubert’s fierce blow. Yddith mimicked the incantation used by the traveling sorceress those many months before. The skull was considerably easier to lift than the log had been the night before. She raised the skull high above the oncoming zombie and dropped it on the thing’s near-empty head.

She heard the crunch as the two skulls connected, but knew immediately that the improvised weapon was just too light to cause any damage. It bounced off the intended victim and fell harmlessly aside onto the kneeling priest’s back.

Fortunately, though she failed to stop the zombie, she still saved the cleric’s life. When the skull struck his back, his reaction was automatic. The cleric spun around with his hammer arcing in a deadly half-circle. The zombie burst and fell in two pieces.

New hope flooded into Yddith as the priest once again kneeled to apply healing to Doubert. But his solemn prayer to Pelor was echoed by breathy, indistinct syllables being uttered by the zombie thespian standing on the rude stage. The foul words were incomprehensible to Yddith, but she could feel their power sapping her will. She shook off their unnatural effect, but the young priest seemed to fall into torpor as the hideous rhyme droned on. His prayer turned to a mumble, then he slowly picked up the cadence and slurred tonality of the rhyme.

Yddith screamed at the priest as she watched the unthinkable happening. The same man who had risked his young life to reach Doubert’s stricken form, who had paused in the midst of a life and death struggle of his own in order to save his superior, numbly raised his hammer and performed a coup de grâce on his colleague, mentor, and friend. Bits of bone and flesh splattered the sacred armor of both priests. The gore-dripping hammer rose and fell a second time, and Yddith gagged at the monstrous sight. Wide-eyed with horror, she backed into an alley and out of sight as she tried to chase from her mind the awful memory of Doubert’s ruined face, but the continuing sound of the hammer rising and falling nailed the nightmare vision before her with each repeated blow.

Careening down the alley, Yddith heard the young priest’s scream as the skeletal bard released him from the spell. His tormented gaze fell on Doubert for only a moment, just long enough for him to realize what he had done before the surrounding skeletons fell on him with sword and nail. Yddith heard them chop and tear him into unrecognizable meat.

At the same time, she noticed, moving ahead of her in the alley, the bodies of townspeople who had tried to flee during the desperate battle with the undead. They were on their feet, bearing ghastly, mortal wounds, and moving toward her. Something touched her arm. Yddith smelled decay as she turned to face her abductor. She fainted into his fetid arms when she recognized Orthor, undead Orthor, picking her up and carrying her toward the stage.

Yddith awoke chained to a rock on the stage. She looked up into the eye of the zombie thespian. She saw him place a glowing emerald necklace around her neck. She dimly heard him spout lines from the play that identified him as Gruumsh incarnate. The couplets indicated that the necklace was an infernal wedding gift from this inhabitant of the underworld. She stiffened in abject terror as her vision focused on the bloodstained tip of a silver dagger mere inches from her left eye. Blessed unconsciousness carried her away from the horror and the pain and kept her from hearing the cries of her friends and neighbors as all fell victim to the same bizarre sacrifice.

6

The stalker moved silently. He was nearly invisible as he traveled parallel to the slavers. His gray skin blended into the rocks as effectively as a gargoyle hiding atop a castle tower. Krusk sniffed involuntarily as the familiar orc scent wafted its way unwelcome into his nostrils. The orc stench mixed with porcine spoor made Krusk glad that he was moving faster than the slave train. His memories and his hatred could not be so easily left behind.

Krusk considered himself human. Most humans considered him an animal, at best, a monster at worst. Orcs considered him a traitor. To them, he was a weak-willed, inferior traitor to a race that esteemed strength, power, and the sadistic use of both. Krusk was neither weak nor sadistic, neither human nor orc. He was a half-orc, tolerated by some but hated by most. A child of rape who adored his human mother, Krusk developed into a warrior of strength and confidence because he saw the price his mother paid to express her love for him.

Ostracized by family and alleged friends, Vanisa had never let Krusk doubt that he was loved. Though she lived deep in the woods far from any social contact besides each other, Vanisa had managed to teach Krusk to read, to think, and to value the ideals of human culture even when the humans failed to live up to those ideals, as they so often did. As Krusk grew and showed more of the legendary strength of his father’s race, he left his home in the woods, knowing that he could protect his mother only by separating himself from her. Eventually, bereft and wounded, Krusk was rescued by Captain Tahrain. The career soldier welcomed Krusk into his unit, nursed him back to health, and trained him in the use of weapons and the fine points of tactics. Since Tahrain’s death, Krusk had honed those lessons in a thousand mercenary jobs and adventures.

Today, Krusk was no one’s mercenary. This task was one of his own choosing. He’d crossed the trail of this group of orcs hours earlier, and they were leaving the unmistakable signs of an orc slave caravan. Following the trail, Krusk encountered many human corpses dumped at the sides of the road. Most of them were either very old or very young. They were the slow, the sick, the weak who could not keep up. Instead of simply killing them, the orcs crippled or maimed them, then left them to die alone of their wounds. If the orcs had known they were being pursued, their cruel knives would have cut with more precision to prolong the lives of the dying. Civilized pursuers, the weakest of the weak in the eyes of the orcs, would tend to the wounded and fall behind. Krusk was glad that everyone he’d found was dead already, sparing him the distasteful choice between leaving someone to linger in pain or ending his life with a merciful sweep of his blade. In either case, he would not slow down.

Still, he pondered the meaning of the missing eye from every victim. This was something new, even for orcs. Krusk guessed that it was not orc handiwork. Orcs might blind a captive to prevent his escape or simply to watch him stumble about in pain. This mutilation was systematic and deliberate. It hinted at something beyond orcs. It also resolved Krusk to see the captives set free.

Stalking the caravan, he moved silently ahead and watched the train move past. He crossed behind and cautiously moved up the other side, taking in every detail of guards and weapons, of which were leaders and which would crumble without leadership.

Krusk breathed deeply as he moved through the shadowed trees past the orc chief. The dire boars that the warriors rode explained the pig stench. The warriors themselves looked as though they lived in a swamp and never bathed. As soon as Krusk was certain he was ahead of the column, he picked up his pace. The caravan obviously considered itself to be in friendly territory, because no orcs scouted ahead of the train of unfortunates. Gray skin glistened as Krusk ran to get far enough ahead to gain the time he needed. He found what he hoped for where the road bent to follow the curve of the mountain. The slope shielded him from the sight of the leading warriors.

Better yet, it allowed Krusk to work in the center of the road without being seen. The barbarian pulled a fistful of small caltrops from his pouch and scattered them across the road. He threw handfuls of loose earth onto them until they were lightly buried, then sifted road dust through his fingers to conceal the darker dirt. Krusk chuckled harshly to himself, remembering the time he watched a line of mounted knights dissolve into a frenzy of rearing horses and frightened riders upon hitting a similar line of caltrops during the Battle of Iron Wood.

He quickly climbed the slope of the hill and plopped behind a convenient tree. Krusk strung his powerful longbow, a masterpiece of polished bone crafted especially for him as a gift from his great friend, Tahrain. Krusk ran his hand along the bone and remembered how Tahrain had shared a special secret about this bow. The bone came from a mighty one-eyed stag in the forests of the Phostwood, the largest such animal Tahrain ever saw. Tahrain insisted that the stag foretold Krusk’s destiny. Krusk didn’t understand then what Tahrain meant, but he wondered now. Until today, no animals, enemies, or monsters with only one eye had threatened the barbarian. Ultimately, Krusk cared little for prophecies and less for mysteries. The bow shot true and hard, and that was all that mattered.

Krusk breathed a small oath for the late Captain Tahrain. He nocked an arrow, its razor tip carefully blackened with soot to prevent telltale glints of light. He tentatively tested the pull of the string. The tension felt good against the taut muscles of fingers and arms. Krusk relaxed and rested against the bole of the sheltering tree until his well-trained ears again heard the snorts of the boars, the clanking of the slave chains, and the creaking wheels of the wagon loaded down with loot taken from the slaves themselves.

Krusk watched the caravan come around the curve. The slope of the mountain slowly revealed the riders in front. He quickly picked out the leader of the orcs by his size and prominence, as well as the valuable necklace swinging from his neck. The green stone glistened in the sunlight as though it had a life of its own. Krusk pulled back on the bowstring. He held the mighty bow in tension and waited for the leader to advance in front of the unwavering arrowhead. His muscles strained against the weapon’s pull. Slowly the leader’s dire boar plodded up the road until it stepped gracelessly upon the spike of a caltrop. The enraged monster reared in fury and panic. Finally, Krusk exhaled with a satisfied grunt and released the string. The feathered shaft winged toward the massive orc, even as the warlord struggled to control his angry, fighting beast. The arrow sailed past the sparkling necklace and sliced through the edge of the orc leader’s leather armor, nicking bone and cutting enough muscle that Krusk could see the warrior’s left shoulder sag immediately. Then, even as he nocked his second arrow, he smiled in grim satisfaction as the lieutenants on the leader’s right and left fought to control their suddenly, simultaneously rearing mounts.

Another arrow flew. This time, the hidden archer was truly gratified by the result. The shaft passed completely through the chief slaver’s neck. Even with blood spurting from the exit wound, the warlord bellowed orders and waved an axe one-handed. He might have survived had he not lost his balance and slipped from the boar’s back to be trampled under the slashing hooves of his own mount and those to either side of him.

Krusk didn’t have time to admire his handiwork or listen to the crunching of his victim’s bones through the enraged squeals of the boars. One of the lieutenants managed to maneuver his mount out of the caltrops and regain control of it and now was sending men up the hillside toward Krusk’s position. Krusk unleashed another arrow, but it missed its mark as the bellowing lieutenant thundered back down the line issuing commands to his underlings. Krusk was already striding toward the nearest pile of rocks, rapidly slinging his bow across his back in exchange for his greataxe.

He hurdled the rockpile easily, greataxe in hand, savoring the weapon’s perfect heft once again. He waited against the sheltering camouflage of the rock. His body tensed like that of a large cat, lacking only the impatient tail, as he watched five orc guards rush up the hill toward the tree where he’d been. One guard ordered the others to fan out and sweep the area. Before they could respond to the order, Krusk struck. He bounded from his hiding place in the rocks and felt the satisfying crunch as his greataxe hewed effortlessly through the midsection of one of his foes.

Three of the guards were so unnerved that Krusk easily evaded their feeble javelin thrusts and axe strokes. The more experienced sergeant stepped behind Krusk and hacked so fiercely with his axe that Krusk’s mail shirt cut into his back, but the hardened links held against the softer edge of the crude weapon.

A red mist clouded Krusk’s eyes. It was neither pain nor daze. Trees and rocks faded into the background so that only the bodies of his enemies stood out. The idea of danger dissipated, too. He was aware only that he needed to kill and that targets were all around. Krusk spun rapidly upon the orc behind him. The greataxe sounded a macabre dirge for its victim as it whistled through the air to rip through the orc’s ribcage and more vital areas.

Krusk wrenched the weapon from that victim and turned to face the others. One javelin nicked his hip and another whistled by his ear. The orc with a greataxe swung with all of his might, gouging Krusk’s side.

Krusk bellowed but didn’t stumble. The bellow was anger, not pain. His axe split the orc’s skull. The two survivors had tentatively pulled their own axes from their belts, but seeing their friends hewed down by single blows, they turned and ran for less treacherous environs. As they routed back down the hill, Krusk snatched his longbow and fired a missile. Death claimed one j more of the fleeing guards, but the other was well into cover before Krusk could nock another arrow.

The red mist subsided and suddenly Krusk felt the searing pain in his side. Already light-headed from loss of blood, he knew that he, too, must leave the battle. Though he had reduced the guards around the caravan and brought down their leader, he would have to finish the job later.

Krusk watched the orcs break camp from the safety of a tree j near the road. He was amused to observe that another guard had snatched the necklace off his former commander’s corpse and proudly wore it around his own neck as a symbol of power. The half-orc vowed that he would remove that necklace from the vain orc’s corpse before the day was over. Krusk admitted to himself that he didn’t know how much longer the slave train would follow the road, but he thought he’d have another day to continue harassing the caravan and thin down the ranks of the guards before they arrived at their destination. His side still plagued him, but he i knew he could move when he needed to.

It was a fresh day and the orcs moved with new confidence. They no longer risked having their mounts wounded by hidden caltrops. They drove some of the slaves up the road ahead of them to trigger any traps. The lieutenant who assumed leadership after his commander’s death still rode on his dire war boar. The other lieutenant rode in the cart with a scowl on his face. He had been forced to put down his war boar when it hit the caltrop and went berserk. Riding in the cart, he felt humiliated. His only source of pleasure was determining a myriad of situations where he might eventually slit the throat of his ambusher as surely as he had ended the life of his berserk mount.

Krusk wanted to leap from the tree into the cart and kill the lieutenant right then, but his aching side reminded him that an outnumbered warrior needed a better plan. He remained still until the last guard walked under the tree. The guard whipped stragglers among the slaves and forced them to pay for the humiliation of the day before. The orc was so busy working over the hacks of the unfortunate slaves that he didn’t immediately recognize the significance of the noose that dropped around his neck. He was so busy mouthing curses at his charges that he didn’t have an opportunity to shout a warning to anyone else before the noose tightened and jerked him off his feet.

Krusk yanked the rope with all his might. He knew that the guard would shout a warning if his air wasn’t cut off at once. The orc’s body shot upward toward Krusk with surprising ease. Krusk saw the orc’s eyes bugging out, but he knew the job wasn’t done. If he didn’t pull the guard up immediately, the powerful orc would reach up with his hands and loosen the deadly grip. Krusk jerked the guard up, punched the unfortunate into unconsciousness, and finished the job by strangling him. As Krusk squeezed, he remembered the pain inflicted on his mother and transferred his hatred for all orcs into his deadly grip. Krusk crushed the neck of the struggling guard as he watched the caravan move out of sight and felt no pangs of conscience. He nodded with satisfaction over the fact that the slaves hadn’t given away the game as soon as the whipping stopped. They were still moving on. Neither was Krusk bothered by hearing the gruesome crunch as he dropped the guard’s corpse to the ground and clambered down the bole of the tree. He didn’t even look back as he melted into the forest at the side of the road. Dead foes were defeated foes. He looked forward to turning more live foes into dead ones.

Krusk refused to think about the pain in his side as he increased his pace to bypass the slower moving slave train. He focused on each step as though it was a move in his daily martial exercises. Each step represented one of the repetitive maneuvers in that ritual wherein warriors learn moves and countermoves by rote and commit them to their subconscious as a life-saving instinct in battle.

After scores of repetitions, Krusk’s sensitive ears picked up the rattling of slave chains. As though it were a magical burst of energy, locating his prey gave Krusk the will to keep churning his legs until he outpaced his target by several minutes. He moved back to the road, crossed it and, once again, climbed a tree. He tied one end of his rope to a high branch and lassoed a bough of the tree across the road.

Next, he dropped to the ground and crossed the road once more. Again, he climbed a tree. This time, however, he shaped a small noose in the end of the rope, looping it around the neck of a small ceramic flask. He placed the flask gently in the small fork of a branch and carefully retraced his steps.

Krusk couldn’t believe how closely he had timed his work. He barely caught his breath before hearing the chains rattling in the distance. Watching for the caravan to come into view, he quietly calculated the position at which he could trigger his surprise. He breathed carefully, master of his body. He waited, poised for action.

The first group of slaves passed by, the ones being used by the orcs as road tasters-traveling equivalents of the food tasters in those tales of court Vanisa had once told Krusk in front of the fire at home. The snout of the leader’s war boar was directly between the tree with the flask and Krusk’s hiding place when Krusk tugged the rope. Freed from its precarious perch, the flask swung downward in a graceful arc. As the leaves of the tree rustled, all eyes turned to the opposite side of the road from Krusk’s position.

The deadly pendulum smashed into the boar’s neck and its contents splattered across the animal, another guard, and one of the slaves. Already jumpy from Krusk’s previous attacks, the guards reflexively hurled a volley of javelins at the tree where they thought the flask originated. Only then did they realize what the contents of the flask were. Alchemist’s fire erupted into flame. Boars squealed, slaves screamed, and a flaming guard rolled in the dirt. The boar reared, a mass of flames, as slaves cheered. The leader tried to rein in his skittish mount while slapping uselessly at his burning shoulder. His reins jerked the boar’s head around, the boar bit at its tormentor, and Krusk leaped unnoticed from the tree everyone was ignoring.

The half-orc landed beside the fighting boar. His greataxe chopped into the boar rider’s back with a force strong enough to slice the orc’s spine. The commander fell limply from the saddle. Freed of its burden and control, the boar charged forward and trampled the unfortunate guard who had just managed to quench the flames by rolling on the ground.

Krusk was so pleased with the success of his opening gambit that he almost waited too long to wrench his axe from the commander’s corpse. He pulled it free just as the other lieutenant jumped from the cart and came running to engage him. Krusk was barely able to parry the blow, handle to handle as the large orc attacked. Both warriors struck again. Krusk felt the axe blade bite into his own shoulder at the same moment that he watched his own blade hew through leather and orc alike. He winced as he realized how deep the cut was in his shoulder, but he turned to face any other, remaining guards.

At that point, Krusk himself was surprised. He turned to see a guard rushing toward him and he heard a woman’s voice shout, “Pergue.”

In a glance, he took in a sight he would cherish for the remainder of his life. The slaves had taken advantage of the confusion to spread across the road. As the guard charged toward Krusk, the woman shouted the name of their town. Hearing the name, the slaves reached down and grabbed their chains. They pulled the chains taut and the onrushing guard didn’t realize the danger until he sprawled at their feet, tripped by the very chains he had used to hold his captives in check.

It was obvious to Krusk that the woman had planned this. She must have been expecting Krusk to strike again and had prepared her fellow captives to make their move when the opportunity presented itself. Krusk liked that. She was smart enough and brave enough to remind him of his mother. Krusk knew no higher praise than that.

He placed his booted foot on the guard’s back and held his axe in readiness with one hand as he stripped the fallen warrior of his weapons with the other. Krusk glanced back to see what had become of the angry boar and was amazed to see the leading slaves with their chains wrapped around the boar’s neck and holding it relatively motionless until other slaves could gather fallen weapons and kill it.

“Good meat,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the dead boar before he shifted the axe to his wounded side and picked up the guard with one arm.

“Where go?” demanded the barbarian. The guard didn’t answer, so Krusk punctuated his question with a blow from the side of his axe. “Where go?”

The guard looked around and realized that there were no reinforcements to save him.

“Go to mine,” answered the guard. “Much gold!” he cried before he dropped to his knees like a supplicant in a temple.

“Good,” responded Krusk, “now, you’ll die fast!”

The guard’s gray skin paled visibly. His square jaw quavered as he searched for the words that would convince Krusk to spare him.

“Please don’t,” spoke a female voice.

Krusk turned toward the sound of the voice. It belonged to the brave and beautiful woman who had cried out the name of her town and initiated the snare that brought the guard down. Like all the slaves in the caravan, the woman was missing her left eye, but Krusk thought her courage and intelligence made her even more beautiful in spite of her disfiguration. Without trying, she could charm in a way that her deformity accentuated her beauty rather than detracting from it. Again, Krusk thought of his mother as the woman stood straight and looked at Krusk with her one good eye.

“There’s no need to kill him,” she explained, “We don’t have to be like him.”

Krusk stared at the woman. From her obsidian black hair to the caramel color of her skin, she mesmerized the barbarian. When he didn’t answer, she continued, “We could simply put the chains on him and let him go back to his village alone.”

“No good,” answered Krusk. “More come back.”

The woman grimaced as the look of fierceness came over Krusk’s face once again. Krusk noticed the change in her demeanor and realized that he needed to be more compassionate if he wanted to please this woman. He considered speaking like an ordinary man instead of in the gutteral patois used by orcs and troglodytes in the region. The distinct, heavy accent, as foreign to Krusk as it was to any human, was useful for intimidating primitive foes. Now it might be scaring the woman. He decided against it when he looked at the orc’s frightened face. For the time being, the prisoner was more important than the woman.

“Keep him,” announced Krusk with determination. “He knows mine. Can show us.” Krusk grabbed the guard by the throat and croaked another question. “Key?” he asked, rattling the chains.

The guard pointed toward the fallen commander and motioned that he could get the key. Krusk released his grip on the orc’s neck and shoved him toward the commander’s corpse.

Yddith breathed easier. She hadn’t known whether the barbarian could be reasoned with, but she was relieved that the half-orc hadn’t killed the surviving guard. Nervously, she studied the barbarian as he watched the guard return with the key. Thankfully, she saw him order the guard to unlock the shackles, beginning with her own. As relief rushed through her, she wondered how much she could trust their rescuer. Before she could return to Pergue with her fellow-survivors, she would have to know that there was more to Krusk than his apparent hatred for orcs. Still, for the first time since the Black Carnival invaded her life, she felt safe.

7

Jozan hadn’t been offended when the priest loaned him a mule to continue his quest, but he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with his virility as he kept having to look up to speak to this amazing woman. Alhandra’s magnificent gray stallion stood a full hand and a half taller than the mule beneath Jozan. That didn’t help him get over the preconceptions one gets as a cleric trained in an all-male order. He always thought of women as being either temptations or servants.

Alhandra certainly qualified as the former. At least, she would if you could get around her defense of pure competence. Or was that confidence? How would she not be a temptation, Jozan mused. Every time I try to speak to her I have to look up and see her auburn hair so brightly lit against the sky that it looks like she has a halo.

Jozan was beginning to think the female actually had a halo. After all, she appeared quite suddenly next to that altar. He still wasn’t certain she hadn’t come from another dimension, in spite of her story. She seemed so ready to face any eventuality. He’d always prided himself on his ability to look calm and strong on the outside, even when his insides were fluttering like the butterflies migrating in spring. He felt neither calm nor strong.

His meditation was disrupted by her disconcerting voice. “So,” mocked Alhandra, “are you praying, planning, or meditating? Or have I mistakenly joined forces with someone who has sworn a vow of silence?”

“No vow, lady,” mumbled Jozan, “just struggling with a personal demon.”

“A personal demon?” responded Alhandra with just a hint of mockery. “Your order must be very important to warrant personal demons. Aren’t there enough public demons to be exorcised without you choosing one for a pet?”

Again, Jozan found himself off-balance in his conversation with Alhandra. He didn’t feel like he expressed himself well in his answer. “I assure you, milady, I did not choose this inner struggle.”

Alhandra smiled. “Of course you didn’t. No one ever does. We do get to choose how much time we dwell on such struggles, though.” She saw the disconcerted look on the cleric’s face and took a modicum of pity on Jozan. “I beg your pardon, brother. I gave up fighting inner demons long ago. I choose to face outward evil. I don’t have much patience for those who indulge themselves.”

“You’re right, of course, but you don’t understand my dilemma,” he replied. “The man we seek was once my tutor. Calmet was supposed to help me succeed, yet even with his help, I failed. How can I succeed now without his help?”

Alhandra didn’t know how to respond. When she said nothing, the cleric continued, “I do know this. Now, more than anything, I want to see Calmet suffer.”

“Oh, my!” responded Alhandra. “You do have a demon to wrestle with. Of course, none of this will help us solve the immediate problem. What do you suppose the good father meant by the Black Carnival?”

Jozan wondered if the question was a test or if the paladin was baiting him. When he saw the quizzical look on her face he knew the question was sincere.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It sounds bizarre. Some troupe that paints their wagons with night shades instead of the garish colors we expect from companies of players? I doubt it. Someone would have heard of such a troupe. No company can survive long without word of mouth. It sounded…” He paused for a moment, gathering his courage lest his upcoming suggestion be perceived as silly. “It sounded…the way he said it, I mean, as if it were something supernatural, something like the endless hunt.”

Alhandra grimaced at the comparison with evil, supernatural spirits condemned to spend all eternity hunting for a prey they can never quite catch.

“I don’t think it’s supernatural,” she suggested. “I think it’s merely slaver argot for a slave caravan.”

Jozan became defensive. If the woman already knew, he thought, why did she ask? He tried to keep the acid out of his voice as he spoke. “Sorry. I never heard the term before.”

“I didn’t say I had heard of it,” she admitted. “I’m just guessing. It’s at least as likely as your endless tour theory. I’ve never heard of immoral performers sentenced to eternal…or maybe I should say, infernal performances.”

“No,” admitted Jozan with considerably less defensiveness, “but my theory does seem more poetic. If wicked warriors are forced into an endless hunt after they die, why not sinful thespians consigned to an eternity of unsatisfying performances and unappreciative audiences?”

Alhandra tilted her head back and laughed with genuine enjoyment. “I like that. The next thing you know, we’ll find that venal priests are forced to celebrate endless masses while congregations respond in blasphemy. Maybe debauched courtiers would be punished by an endless audience before an infernal monarch who natters incessantly about the most idiotic things—just like the real ones.”

The paladin rode on, feeling more relaxed and confident in her traveling companion. She turned to speak to him once more and, to her surprise, he wasn’t there.

Jozan had pulled up the mule three horse lengths behind Alhandra’s mount. He was staring intently at the roadway when Alhandra turned her mount and returned to where the mule stood.

“What did you find?” asked the paladin.

Jozan shook his head and pointed at recent wagon ruts in the soft ground of the road. “I’ve apparently found hard evidence that my theory is wrong,” he grunted.

“Slavers?” asked Alhandra.

“Wagons,” he responded, “a caravan, at least.”

“Think we can catch them?” challenged Alhandra.

“Depends on how fast this mule can move!” responded Jozan.

Both holy warriors kicked their mounts into a gallop. Alhandra’s horse moved with a smoothness like gentle, flowing waves. Jozan’s mule had a disjoined gait, but the cleric was determined to stay as close to the pounding hooves of Alhandra’s stallion as he could.

For Jozan, it was a challenge to stay within a few lengths of the big stallion. Even though the mule’s motion was uncomfortable, Jozan’s hand brushed against his mace for confidence and he smiled. He might be the poorest possible cleric when it came to reading holy writ, but he knew he had the blessing of Pelor when it came time for holy battle. Both righteous avengers rode with a sense that they were making a difference, that injustice would be redressed.

It wasn’t long before the squeals of dry axles and the rattle of old, poorly maintained wagons could be heard, even above the hoofbeats of the crusaders’ mounts. The holy fighters rounded a bend in the road, fully expecting to see a chain of human misery and wagons dedicated to some gruesome occult powers. Instead, they saw a string of three wagons adorned with gaudy paint jobs and the unmistakable signage of a circus troupe.

When the passengers observed the speed with which priest and paladin were closing upon them, the lead driver halted his wagon and the other two followed suit.

“We are Chakyik,” said the driver, raising his hand in a gesture of friendship. “We come in peace.”

“Slavers?” asked Alhandra bluntly.

“Do we look like slavers?” asked the driver with the familiar accent ridiculed by every bard looking for a cheap laugh or a free drink in a busy tavern. “We are performers, entertainers to the Unvanquishable Tiger Lord himself.”

Jozan was suspicious. “You’re a long way from the Tiger Lord,” he observed. “Why would you be here?”

A woman’s voice, as old as an ancient tomb and crackling as though it were as dry, responded from behind the holy warriors. “Absence makes the applause grow louder,” came the voice, a feminine version of the same much derided accent, “and the Tiger Lord was showing more claws than applause of late.”

Both Jozan and Alhandra turned to face a woman in the road who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Jozan noticed the open door to the second wagon, but before they could say anything, the woman continued, “Your destiny is not with us.” Her slate-gray eyes looked deeply into a rounded ball that seemed made of a rose quartz. “You seek the Black Carnival and those who half-see.”

Jozan shrugged and turned toward the paladin. “Why do I get the feeling that everyone knows about this but us?” he asked with minor disgust.

“You need not find the carnival to stop the source,” the old woman continued, unfazed by Jozan’s sarcastic comment. “To seek the Black Carnival, root out the black hearts of men.”

“Does everyone speak in riddles in your country?” asked Jozan, glancing at the paladin.

“Only the smart ones,” answered Alhandra. She flashed the smile at Jozan that always caused him self-doubt and brought fresh color to his cheeks. Then, she addressed the old woman. “We thank you for the oracle, wise one.”

But the old woman hadn’t finished. “Pergue is the key,” proclaimed the woman. “That is all I know,” she concluded. “I can tell you no more.” She fell silent and backed toward the wagon in the middle of the caravan.

“Do you trust her?” whispered Jozan.

“I don’t know. What does she gain by lying to us?” responded the paladin sotto voce. “She doesn’t even know us. Just a moment.” The paladin faced the retreating woman and lifted her eyes toward the heavens. She spread her hands with palms upward and meditated, just as she had done when she first met Jozan. In a moment, she turned to the cleric. “By Heironeous’s strength, I sense no evil auras here.”

“Then,” whispered Jozan, “I see no reason not to trust her. Pelor…and Heironeous, of course, work in strange ways.” When the paladin nodded in agreement, the cleric spoke up. “Well, if Pergue is the key, I’m more than ready to open this lock.”

His words stopped the old soothsayer in her slow retreat. She turned back to face Jozan and walked back toward him as though she were compelled by something inside her. She looked up from the orb and her gray eyes shone with the radiance of Pelor himself.

“One warning more. He who opens this lock must face the darkness in his own heart, as well.” Before she resumed her trek back toward her wagon, she added, “If we have served you well, remember us in the future.”

“Then, we’ll meet again?” queried the cleric.

“Your god knows,” responded the old woman, “but our own future is as murky to us as yours is clear. The one you seek is the source.”

The cleric thanked the soothsayer and the paladin dropped a gold piece in the old woman’s hand. Then the two warriors sidestepped their horses toward the road. Once out of sight and sound of the caravan, Jozan laughed robustly with a feeling of considerable relief.

“I should have studied harder on those ancient texts and languages. Everywhere I turn, I have to interpret prophecy.”

The paladin nodded, but said nothing. She kept running the prophecy over and over in her mind. Jozan interrupted her speculation by speaking aloud.

“I suppose you realize,” he chuckled, “this encounter leaves my supernatural theory in play.”

“It does at that,” admitted Alhandra with a trace of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, “at least until we get to Pergue.”

8

Augustin Calmet was not pleased. His one-eyed shadow mastiff growled menacingly from the mine entrance behind him, a vocal, lethal symbol of the displeasure felt by the apostate cleric himself. Today’s measure of gold orc retrieved was far below the quota, and the more important construction of the main shaft was suffering after last night’s unfortunate cave-in. To make Calmet even unhappier, his expected delivery of new slaves was late. He visualized Archprelate Laud’s reaction to both arrow points of bad news and his resentment of Laud boiled like a cauldron in the pit of his stomach. The shadow mastiff howled as if to punctuate Calmet’s feelings, sending a chill wind of fear along the chain of one-eyed slaves in front of the mine.

“That’s right, Balor,” spoke the one-eyed cleric softly and affectionately to the shadow mastiff, “such a failure deserves to be mourned. I don’t know what artifices his potency is planning with all this gold, but I know he’ll punish all of us if this tunnel isn’t finished before the solstice.” The apostate’s tone of voice with the monster was in surprising contrast to the scowl on his face.

The angry priest wandered down the chain of slaves and examined every cut and bruise to be found upon them, never showing the least compassion but reaching down to scratch the ears of his demonic dog with devoted regularity. As the vile cleric ambled along the line for his inspection, the slaves themselves watched with eyes wide in terror and dissipated the foul scent of fear, desperately trying to avoid the impulse of fleeing for their lives or falling on their knees in supplication. All of them had been at the mine long enough to know that either action would be in vain. They also knew that someone would pay for the cleric’s displeasure. That was certain.

Calmet focused on a thin slave with a bleeding calf. Dirt, grime, and dried blood intermingled on the man’s leg and drew Calmet’s attention as surely as the wound was drawing flies. The cleric who formerly brought goodness and healing stepped closer to the slave. Then, in vile contradiction of his early training, he stomped his booted foot onto the center of the cut. Weakened, the slave stumbled and fell to one knee. Swiftly, Calmet’s flail bashed the back of the misfortunate’s head and knocked him forward onto his face, pulling the next slave downward with him.

Calmet’s backhand smashed the second slave and his second forehand liberated some of the brain matter from the fallen one. With frightening speed, the cleric’s scowl changed to a smile.

He looked up and shouted with near insane devotion, “Honored are the weak. Early shall they find Gruumsh.” He opened his arms in that universal gesture common to clerics when they call for conversion and asked, “Who shall be honored next?”

No one dared to move, but the shadow mastiff leaped from the side of his master and pounced upon the body of the unfortunate slave. His ferocious incisors sliced through the man’s ankle, freeing the corpse from the chains of the other workers in a matter of moments, and pulled the bloody prize back into the shadows of the cave. There, the huge, black hound disappeared into the recesses of the mine, far from human sight.

“So be it, Balor!” Calmet called after his infernal pet. “Carry him away. Perhaps, Gruumsh may fill his weakness with power.”

Calmet turned again to the line of slaves. He sized up their fatigue and laughed. He watched overworked muscles shaking from fatigue. He sneered at dried blood and held his breath to avoid the foul odor of unwashed bodies and untreated infections. Then, he turned from the slaves and spat. He faced the taskmaster waiting alongside the slaves and pronounced the death sentence for others on the chain.

“Weakness is not real. Only power counts. Make them dig longer!” He accentuated his command with a flail blow across the shoulders of the unfortunate slave closest to him.

Fortunately for the slaves, Calmet’s attention was immediately diverted to a group of mounted riders coming up the hill toward the mine. Instinctively, the priest checked the sentry posts for his archers. He glimpsed two silhouettes in the trees to the right of the mine entrance and one with a longbow in the rocks atop the main entry. The heretic backed up a pace or two and sat on a rock in the shade near the mine’s main entrance. He called loudly for Balor and smiled menacingly as he observed the monster curl up in the cave entrance, still chewing on the fresh kill provided by his master.

Calmet waited while the forms of the mounted riders took shape. He recognized Narrgh, an orc chieftain riding on a huge war boar, flanked by two guards on their own boars. He shook his head at the careless way they wore their armor and how they had allowed some of the chain mail to rust.

Leave it to orcs to take pride in disarray, thought Calmet.

Calmet wasn’t surprised to see the orcs. He was surprised that they appeared with no slaves. As the priest waited, the rightmost guard hailed him. Calmet waved the trio forward.

“Where are my slaves?” demanded the priest.

Narrgh looked at the guard to his right. The guard responded. “Not good,” answered the guard with typical Orcish understatement. “Jaagh late,” he continued in the gruff patois used by the northern orcs when they attempted to speak the humans’ language.

Calmet’s response was a glare and a reiteration of the question about his missing slaves. Narrgh looked back at the guard.

“Hassq find,” assured the guard. Calmet stood, his body language expressing his annoyance. “Jaagh strong,” the guard continued, vainly hoping to reassure the cleric.

“Do you realize the power expended by the archprelate and myself to summon the Black Carnival?” complained Calmet. The priest knew that the orcs couldn’t comprehend anything about magical rituals and the expenditure of supernatural power, but he had to vent his frustration somehow, and lecturing these imbeciles was the easiest way to unload some of the fear within his bowels. “Do you understand the price that must be paid to beings from another plane?” Calmet knew they didn’t understand the price, but he shuddered within as he considered the potential cost of his failure. “Do you comprehend the magnitude of what they will exact if we do not finish restoring Gruumsh’s shrine?”

The blank stares from the orcs indicated that they understood nothing except for the fact that this evil priest, their employer and a man to be feared, was displeased.

“Not good!” suggested the guard in answer to Calmet’s rhetorical questions. The poor orc didn’t even understand that Calmet had expected no answer. When the priest looked at him disgustedly, he blurted out a few more syllables in his defense. “Jaagh come. Hassq find. Slaves here!” the orc guardsman protested.

“Fools!” lectured Calmet. “This isn’t just a matter of insufficient slave labor. Your incompetence, your indifference, and your indolence is putting us all at risk with the most powerful god—a god who doesn’t tolerate weakness.”

Calmet’s angry, cruel demeanor subsided for a moment as a brief memory of Pelor and teachings of grace flickered across his troubled mind. For a split-second, he wished he were still in Pelor’s service. Then, he remembered how the good god had allowed him to suffer.

No, he thought, I would rather serve a powerful god than a god who doesn’t pay attention.

“Imbeciles!” he continued aloud. “This is a precisely timed effort. Yet you have failed to bring a slave train even close to on time.” He spat in their direction to punctuate his position. “It has now been over a week since the full moon and I still have no slave train. My planar allies capture your slaves and weaken them for you, but you still fail to deliver them. I ought to destroy you for the glory of Gruumsh and revel in it.”

The orcs waited until Calmet’s thunderstorm of angry bile had passed over them. They knew Calmet was likely to be unhappy, but this went far beyond their expectations. They knew that Calmet was using the slaves to mine gold, but they didn’t care what he was doing with the gold—other than paying them. He was talking about Gruumsh, and they knew from experience that whenever Gruumsh was displeased—nearly anytime he came up in conversation, for that matter—bad things happened.

“Hassq find,” reiterated the guard in a last attempt to placate the angry priest.

“I know Hassq,” responded Calmet, almost spitting the words. “I know your pet druid. I know he’s supposed to be able to find anything in the known world. I know you have great confidence in your mighty druid, but that doesn’t provide me with any slaves, does it? I also know that Jaagh has the archprelate’s stone of summoning. If you don’t bring us that necklace and more slaves in a matter of days, Laud will unleash monsters on you like you’ve never seen before. If you can’t find the slaves we’ve given you on a spit, you’ll have to find others.”

The orcs failed to move, and the cleric prompted them, “Go! Get me slaves or face the wrath of Gruumsh.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

Narrgh growled and, speaking for the first time, demanded gold.

Calmet was exasperated. Not only had these arrogant orcs failed to bring the slaves, but they were clumsily negotiating for an advance. His patience exhausted, Calmet managed to spin in place and speak two words—“Oculis captus!”

A bright flash illumined Narrgh’s face and the orc shouted, “Scum! Cheat! Trick!”

The enraged orc drew his urgrosh, as did his bodyguards, but his allies had yet to discover that the vile cleric had blinded the warlord. Calmet’s archers fired from the copse of trees on the right. One arrow nicked the shoulder of the rightmost guard and the other sped by his ear. The guard above the tunnel entrance managed to bury his shaft deeply in Narrgh’s chest, and the orc warlord shouted once more in fury.

Despite his blindness, Narrgh charged Calmet, counting on the scent-driven fury of his mount as well as his own ability to hear Calmet’s infernal incantations to bring him to his target. Hearing his leftmost guard charging beside him, Narrgh had no doubt that he would skewer Calmet before the evil cleric could bring him down.

He failed to consider Balor. The hound, black as obsidian, leaped from the cave mouth and interposed itself between the two orcs and their target. The monstrous dog sunk its canines into the boar’s snout. The boar shook its head ferociously as it tried to dislodge Balor’s hold. Unaware of his position, Narrgh whipped his urgrosh around wildly, but he was too far away from Calmet to reach him with the weapon.

With amusement, Calmet watched the rightmost guard charge the copse of trees. As the boar ran uphill, it couldn’t maintain its initial speed and the well-hidden archers had plenty of time to fire and fire again. The finely fletched arrows penetrated the guard’s rusting chain mail and added a crimson spray to the tarnished brown armor. The guard cried out an obscenity in his native tongue and bravely spurred bis dire boar onward. Calmet watched another onslaught of arrows pepper the orc with lethal wounds, then he turned his attention back to Narrgh.

Calmet faced Narrgh, invoked the name of Gruumsh, and flashed his hand in an obscene gesture. Palpable waves pulsed outward from the cleric’s twisting hands and Narrgh’s war boar stood suddenly still. After a moment’s pause, the boar went berserk, forcing Narrgh to hang on fiercely.

Calmet laughed cruelly as he watched the boar react and observed Narrgh’s plight. His spell was designed to enlarge any of the vermin with which the boar might be infested. The lice grew from too small to see to the size of a human hand and glowed with a sickening green aura as though they were empowered by a force siphoned from every foul infection in the universe. The stylets of the lice were as large as arrowheads and each louse thrust them into the skin of orc and boar alike in order to draw blood. The claws and hooks of their legs were like fishhooks, gripping their victims fiercely as they bit, gnawed, and sucked their hosts’ blood. The boar squealed; Narrgh howled; Calmet guffawed.

Narrgh’s guard sinister charged toward Calmet’s right flank, determined to bury his urgrosh in the evil priest’s neck. Calmet reached for his flail just as the charging guard halted unexpectedly, then slowly tilted from the back of the war boar. One of the hidden archers had placed an arrow perfectly in the orc’s left ear, drilling straight through to the brain. As dead weight, the mighty orc warrior toppled in mid-swing and fell beneath the sharp, cloven feet of his own angry boar.

Narrgh’s plight slipped from critical to fatal in a matter of moments. His boar twisted wildly, trying to shake off the giant lice, but it succeeded only in depositing the orc at Calmet’s feet. Blinded, wildly shaking, and screaming from the ferocity of the lice, Narrgh received the only kind of grace Calmet dispensed—a death that ended his pain.

In less than a minute, the three orcs had fallen. Calmet motioned for the archers to loot the bodies and took a moment to cast a healing spell upon Balor. Only then did the cleric realize that Archprelate Laud was observing him without approval from inside the tunnel entrance. Calmet watched his master turn and walk away, realizing that if Hassq didn’t show up with more slaves and the stone of summoning very soon, he was damned as assuredly as the slave he’d petulantly killed earlier in the day.

9

The woods seemed as quiet as though a blanket of snow was muffling the natural symphony. The only sound to be heard was the harmony of hooves composed by the counterpoint between the disjointed gait of Jozan’s mule and the precise rhythm of the paladin’s stallion.

“Have you noticed how isolated this road is?” asked Alhandra. “We’re really too close to town for it to be this deserted.”

Jozan was worrying about precisely that fact as Alhandra spoke aloud. “And did you notice how quiet it is?” he responded with a question. “It’s almost too quiet.”

In spite of the seriousness of the moment and in spite of the implied danger of which the warriors were wary, Alhandra burst out laughing. Seeing Jozan’s confused expression, she pulled up her horse and offered an explanation for her behavior.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. At least half of the bard’s tales I’ve ever heard began like that. When you said it was too quiet, I found myself starting to look for some unspeakable danger pouncing suddenly out of the trees. I was overreacting. When I realized what I was doing, I couldn’t help but laugh.”

Jozan might have joined the paladin in her laughter except for one thing. As the paladin explained her risibility, he spotted a shadow moving alongside the road near Alhandra. He tried to reach for his light crossbow inconspicuously, but before his hand could close on it, a voice rang out, “Reach for your weapons and you’re dead!”

Alhandra would have laughed again at the cliché phrase if it had not been uttered in all seriousness. Jozan sat up in the saddle without grabbing his crossbow and Alhandra turned her destrier to face the roadside where she thought the speaker might be.

A cowled human stepped into view, garbed in greenery to match the woods. A well-crafted longbow made out of animal horn was pulled taut and a brightly fletched arrow was pointed directly at Alhandra.

“Pergue wants no strangers. Turn back. We’ve had enough trouble.”

Alhandra wished she could spread her arms and detect evil, but she didn’t think she could make any gesture without forcing the archer to let the arrow fly. She also worried that her compatriot might accomplish the same result by charging the woodsman in his verdant garb. Before she could think of what to say, she was surprised by the articulate words uttered by her companion.

“Pelor’s blessings upon you,” intoned the priest. “We have no wish to bring trouble. Indeed, we were sent here by the gods.”

“We’ve had enough supernatural infestations,” grumbled the archer. “We need no more.”

“Perhaps,” responded the cleric, “you don’t know what you need. Pelor’s providence oft exceeds our comprehension. His magnanimous provision oft exceeds our knowledge of our own danger.”

“Tell that to your dead brothers,” asserted the stranger in green.

Alhandra listened with amazement as the young cleric who seemed so tongue-tied in their debates along the trail was suddenly transformed into a font of eloquence.

“I may well do that,” suggested the cleric. “Since death is never the final chapter for one who serves the lord of life, I may well have that opportunity. We have no wish to compound your troubles, but Pelor has chosen me for this quest and my companion has been commissioned by Heironeous. We dare not ignore the will of the gods, even should you riddle us with arrows.” The cleric paused for a moment and apparently decided that a closing word of praise might not be amiss. “Judging from the perfect fletching of that arrow and the straightness of that shaft, I’ve no doubt you rarely miss.”

“Well-spoken,” the archer conceded. “The truth is that I’m just a hunter and I have no real authority in the town, but as Pelor is my witness, I vow that if I find you’ve caused more heartbreak in Pergue than we’ve already faced, I will turn your corpses into porcupines with these arrows.”

“And does Pergue always show such hospitality?” responded Alhandra. “Perhaps your ill-manners are the cause of your heartbreak!”

Obviously fearing an unnecessary battle, Jozan interposed his timing influence once more. “Please pardon my companion,” he pleaded, “I fear she sees all of life in light and darkness without a place for dawn or dusk. Your threat appears to her as rudeness and she cannot sense the pain beneath your hostility. I assure you that we will not add to your misery.”

“You had best not,” he countered firmly. Turning to Jozan, the hunter uttered his first civil remark. “You are right about the arrows, good brother” he said, replacing the arrow in his quiver. “They are my own work and they fetch the highest price in the kingdom. Even a mediocre shot rarely misses with these.” So speaking, he melted into the woods as quickly as he had emerged from them.

Alhandra turned to the cleric and scowled at him with annoyance. “Dusk and dawn, indeed! Where do you get such drivel?”

“Observation, Alhandra,” replied the cleric, “observation.”

“I still say it’s drivel,” responded Alhandra with only a bit of the annoyance leaving her voice. “But at least you were right about one thing. It was too quiet.”

She hid her amusement and turned to follow Jozan into Pergue.

The cleric led the way and surely heard her muttering behind him, “It’s hard to believe you have difficulty with language. You certainly weren’t at a loss for words back there.”

Jozan celebrated in his inner feelings. He didn’t know why he felt that what this woman thought about him was so important, but he knew it mattered to him and he knew he felt much better knowing that for one short moment, she had begrudgingly admired him. He hadn’t felt so good about himself since the Master General sent him on this mission.

The warriors walked their horses slowly, never knowing when another ambush might appear. The late afternoon gave way to the peculiar shadows of dusk and the odd isolation of the road continued until they found themselves in full view of the center of Pergue. Yet, oddity continued. The blacksmith had an eye patch over his left eye. Every woman on the street was covered with a veil or a cowl. A merchant covered the left side of his face with his hand and ducked down a side street away from the newcomers and many of the men wore hoods that shaded their faces. It had every appearance, Jozan thought, of what he imagined would be the attire at an assassin’s convocation. He was beginning to wonder what they were riding into.

The weary travelers dismounted at the Boar’s Tusk Tavern, a building that looked like it might be the busiest place in town. It was also one of the few two-story buildings in town, something that usually indicated an inn. Alhandra breathed deeply as they walked through the door and realized that everyone in the tavern was hooded. Everyone wore a hood, that was, except for a bartender with a patch over his eye, a serving girl with an emerald dangling in front of her empty left eye socket, and a large, gray-skinned half-orc who had no deformity beyond the savage appearance of such a half-breed.

Jozan motioned for Alhandra to take a seat at the one empty table in the tavern and stood at the bar to order wine. The serving girl took his order and poured the crimson liquid into two goblets, all the while offering her right profile to the cleric. Even so, it was hard not to notice the emptiness behind the emerald.

Turning to approach their table, Jozan got a better look at the half-orc. The barbarian slurped the last of his shepherd’s pie with the enthusiasm expected from one of the tavern’s namesakes at a feeding trough. The tavern crowd gave wide birth to this savage. That is, everyone in the tavern gave him plenty of room except for the serving girl and Alhandra, who sat near him as though she’d known him forever. The girl, who moved among the customers, kept glancing at the barbarian with such a nurturing, concerned look in her eye that Jozan wondered if she might not be in love with the monstrosity, or perhaps had been paid in advance for her company.

Jozan stepped back to the bar to ask the bartender about procuring two rooms for the night. Even while he waited for an answer, Jozan couldn’t help but stare at the woman with the emerald hiding her disfigurement. At times, when the light caught the gem just right, it sparkled like the woman’s remaining eye.

The bartender was laughing at something the old man in front of him said, so he barely acknowledged Jozan. He simply cleared his throat and flashed five fingers in front of the cleric. Jozan clawed five silver pieces out of his bag and placed them on the counter.

Having finished his hearty laugh, the bartender looked at the coins and grunted, “Five per room!”

It took Jozan a moment to realize what the tavern owner was saying because he had been staring at the serving girl again.

As Jozan hastily counted five more silver pieces onto the counter, the woman spoke, her voice sharp with hurt. “We wear the prizes from the Black Carnival, not the badges of choice!”

Before any other questions could be addressed to her, she ran crying from the room.

Jozan heard a stool scrape the floor, the unmistakable sound of the half-orc rising behind him. He started to turn, ready to defend himself, when he heard Alhandra speak in friendly but mocking tones.

“So, the dour Krusk is in love. How the mighty have fallen!”

Jozan turned to see Alhandra facing the half-orc with that wicked smile she wore when baiting the cleric. Krusk ignored her and pointed a menacing finger at Jozan.

“Not hurt one eye!” he growled.

“Look around you, Krusk!” commanded Alhandra. “Who are you trying to intimidate with that northern orc speech? Do you get better service pretending to be the big, bad barbarian?” She glanced in the direction of the back room and turned back to the half-orc. “Yes,” she answered her own question, “I see you do!”

The barbarian flashed one more stern look at the cleric before turning back to the paladin. “It never hurts to keep them guessing. Captain Tahrain taught me that.”

Alhandra introduced Krusk to Jozan and Jozan to Krusk. The cleric apologized for his bumbling approach toward Yddith and then suddenly realized that the entire crowd was listening to their conversation. Turning to the room, the cleric offered an olive branch.

“I beg Pelor’s forgiveness,” said the cleric soothingly, “and I beg forgiveness of all in hearing. My companion and I come in the names of our gods. We have a holy quest and do not wish to add to your suffering. In penance, I offer a drink to everyone here and pledge to tame my curious eye.”

The round on the house did much to allay any ill feelings within the tavern. Certainly, the additional coinage in trade loosened the bartender’s tongue. He told the story of how the Black Carnival had appeared in the middle of the night and announced the performance of the banned play. He shared how he and some other men tried to destroy the wagons on the day of the play, but how the wagons had shimmered as though they were an illusion or might have been winking back and forth from one plane to another. With the talent of a trained bard, this amateur raconteur told of the valiant fight led by the priests of Pelor. As tears from his one remaining eye threatened his proud visage, he explained how an enchanted priest had killed his own leader and how their own guardsman had returned as a zombie. He turned toward the doorway through which Yddith had disappeared and told of her courage as they walked in the slave caravan. He recounted the chain trick with relish and pointed to Krusk as their liberator.

Finally, his tale winding down, the tavern owner stared at the sun disk of Pelor around Jozan’s neck. “Have you come to staff the monastery of Pelor?” he asked, taking Jozan off-guard.

“I might,” he answered thoughtfully, “Pelor willing. Right now, we seek a certain one-eyed priest.”

Suddenly, Krusk touched the handle of his axe and spoke once more in the accentuated inflection common to the orcs within these environs.

“Gruumsh priest. Krusk kill!” grunted the barbarian.

“Oh you will, will you?” countered Alhandra. “If you do, you’ll have to travel with us. If you travel with us, you’ll need to speak naturally. Are we together on this?”

“Don’t you ever tire of being punctilious?” replied Krusk. “Count me in. After all, you saved my life, once. Maybe I can return the favor.”

Jozan responded carefully, not knowing how solid this rapidly forming alliance might be.

“I hope you do kill the priest, but we have to find him first. Do you have any clue where he might be?”

To his amazement, the half-orc responded by explaining about Calmet’s gold mine.

“Ah,” returned the cleric, “that explains the use of slaves, doesn’t it? Where is this gold mine? I’m sure there are plenty in these mountains.”

“I believe it’s near Scaun,” suggested the barbarian.

“I see,” stated Jozan. “Excuse my ignorance, but I think we need to be a little more precise. Where is the mine compared to Scaun?”

Krusk shrugged and sat down in disgust.

Jozan’s frustration was rising. He was certain that Krusk knew more about the situation than he was revealing, but he couldn’t figure out how to dredge any more information out of the barbarian. He decided to give him the classic clerical stare. Sometimes, Jozan knew, if a man of god looked at you as though he knew your thoughts, people would open up and confess nearly anything.

Just as the cleric readied to give Krusk “the stare,” Alhandra stood beside the half-orc, put her hand on his shoulder, and said, “Don’t lose patience, Jozan. Krusk is merely a little shy when he meets new people. He’ll open up a little later and you’ll see that he can be quite a help.”

“You mean you trust this…this… barbarian?” All of Jozan’s cache of eloquence disintegrated in an explosion of pure jealousy.

Alhandra didn’t seem to understand Jozan’s agitated demeanor, but she answered quickly and quietly, “I know Krusk as a very brave man who fights against evil at every opportunity. I’ve fought beside him and I even sought Heironeous’s guidance a moment ago to guarantee that this is the Krusk I know. There is no way I couldn’t trust him.”

At that moment, Jozan had the eerie experience of watching a past sermon come true. On several occasions, he had preached about the providential protection of Pelor and how evil has a tendency to overplay its hand.

Even before he could apologize to Krusk and Alhandra for his almost hostile behavior, a cloaked merchant crashed through the door shouting, “Orcs! Wolves! Boars!”

As one, the tavern regulars pulled knives, swords, and axes that seemed more recently scavenged than used. They certainly weren’t the well-honed weapons of even an active militia. As they started walking shakily but resolutely toward the door, Jozan saw the empty eye sockets within their hooded visages. He observed their resolve born of desperation and humiliation as they moved unenthusiastically toward the pending battle.

All these observations took only a moment and they were punctuated by an almost involuntary reaction. Krusk crashed out the front door and, with mace in hand, Jozan followed. Alhandra, he was not surprised to discover, was beside him. They heard the mob, Pergue’s makeshift militia, moving behind them, yet the main attraction was clearly before them.

A one-eyed orc priest adorned with bone necklaces and antlers in his hair was driving a two-wheeled cart pulled by the largest one-eyed dire wolf Jozan had ever seen. The cart’s wheels were augmented by radiating spikes oozing a sticky substance, and the druid was joined by a large eagle, two large, one-eyed orc warriors atop similarly deformed war boars, and six smaller orc soldiers. One of the orc soldiers pounded a crude cadence on a drum adorned with human skulls and stretched, Jozan suspiciously assumed, with human skin, as well.

Seeing the motley assemblage moving to meet him, the orc wrapped his reins around one arm and moved his other hand in small spirals descending from head and face to below the sides of the cart. Then, as the cart drew nearer, the orc’s gray skin began to glow with an eerie, green tinge followed by a brown crust that seemed to crawl from forehead downward. In only a few seconds, it seemed as if the orc had changed his skin to the texture of tree bark.

Jozan realized he faced a potent rival—a druid.

10

Yddith heard the drumming and the shouts. Even with tears forming a crystalline stream below her one good eye, she recognized the danger.

“Not again,” she said to herself and shuddered.

Even as the makeshift militia decided it was better to go down fighting than to be captured again, Yddith re-entered the common room and moved swiftly to the shuttered window where she could observe the action through its narrow slit.

“I am Hassq!” intoned the priest, speaking in the preferred mono-syllabics of the orcs but without the harsh accentuation and awkward grammar exhibited by most of the northern orcs. “Come, slaves! Come now or lose more eyes!”

“Not on your life!” shouted a blacksmith as he charged forward. This precipitated similar shouts from other townsfolk and a few angry syllables from Krusk. It also sparked considerable action.

Yddith saw Hassq’s eagle take to the air and launch itself against Dyffid, the wine merchant, as he charged the druid. She saw the bird rake a claw across the man’s face and peck frighteningly close to the merchant’s remaining good eye. She was encouraged to see Dyffid stab the bird with a rusty dagger stripped from a dead slaver’s body and she almost cheered as she watched him withdraw the blade with a new adornment of feathers and blood. Then the eagle squawked and flew upward to circle around for another attack.

Yddith was frightened. She couldn’t keep track of all the separate battles in the rapidly darkening street. She watched the dire wolf charge, pulling the cart directly toward the ragtag defenders. She saw Krusk and Alhandra closing on the two mounted orcs and even saw the town’s blacksmith join with Alhandra against the orc. All the while, the drum pounded. The orc soldiers continued advancing to the sound of the drum and Yddith knew that she needed to stop them before they entered the fray.

Yddith reached for the curtain nearest her and started slicing off some of the cloth with a greasy kitchen knife when she saw Jozan lift his mace and point its head at the drummer. She heard him summon the power of Pelor and watched the mace glow with the sun god’s blessing.

“Run!” commanded the cleric in a mellifluous tone that engulfed the orc percussionist with sound and tiny sparkles of sunlight that danced around his head.

The drummer missed a beat. Then, with panic in his yellow eyes, he turned to run. Jozan thanked Pelor aloud for intervening and smiled in grim satisfaction. As the drummer ran, the remaining orcs looked at each other in confusion.

Yddith intuitively grasped the young cleric’s intent. She took a portion of the woolen curtain she’d just chopped off and rolled it into a ball. Then, quietly summoning the power within her that had saved her life once before, Yddith breathed the power word. This time, as she invoked the grace of Pelor, Yddith concentrated on creating the sound of armor clanking behind the closest orc. The soldier spun around to face the non-existent threat behind him and received a meat cleaver wedged in his back as his reward. Yddith hadn’t realized that Imel the butcher was about to throw his cleaver just as she’d seen him do in every spring festival for five years running, but she was thankful for Imel’s prowess. The orc stumbled and his remaining compatriots looked even more confused.

Satisfied that she had helped throw the orc infantry squad into confusion, Yddith glanced quickly at the rest of the battle. She saw Lovan, the miller, joining in the melee alongside Krusk. The orc warrior they fought was shouting something in its own guttural language just as Lovan swung a rusty axe at the war boar and struck the orc’s knee by mistake. The cut wasn’t deep, but it got the attention of both the orc and the boar. The tusked mount shifted to slash at Lovan. The boar missed, but only because its tusk was partially broken off. Unfortunately, as Lovan stumbled backward, the animal sank its teeth into the miller’s leg and ripped away a large gouge of flesh and muscle.

Yddith winced as she saw the boar fear at Lovan’s leg, but she also recognized that the maneuver had brought the orc within range of Krusk’s axe. Krusk smashed the side of his weapon like a hammer across the orc’s shoulder blade, toppling the warrior backward. From this distance, Yddith couldn’t hear the bones cracking like dry firewood over the sounds of battle, but she saw the stain of blood splashing down the warrior’s weapon arm like ale pouring down a drunkard’s shirt. The orc’s shattered arm dropped but he kept his grip on his weapon. With the grit and concentrated effort of an experienced veteran, he reached across the saddle with his good arm and reclaimed the axe from the useless, blood-slickened right hand. In a moment he was trading blows with the half-orc, his handicap offset by the advantage of being seated on the giant boar.

Yddith’s attention was riveted on Krusk’s challenge. She didn’t see the eagle dive at Dyffid again and again, clawing and pecking until the poor wine merchant covered his remaining eye and fell exhausted and bleeding to the ground. She missed the brave intervention of Kix, the stable boy, as he impaled the bird on his pitchfork, saving Dyffid from further clawing and biting.

She was vaguely aware of the orc and war boar charging Alhandra but Yddith failed to see the paladin fall under the swine’s ferocious charge or Riedel, the blacksmith, hacking at the orc as he rode by. Riedel pounded the greataxe into the monster’s body with all the strength in his body, born of years spent pounding a hammer onto the anvil. Riedel’s blow was strong enough to split the orc’s armor, even as the orc’s own blow was deflected by the paladin’s enchanted armor.

Yddith did hear the piercing cry of the war boar as Alhandra slashed the boar’s underbelly with the tip of her long sword, but she couldn’t pinpoint the sound because the entire street was filled with blood and confusion. She saw the druid drive his cart through the midst of the armed townspeople, trying to slash them with the spikes on the wheels. She watched the townspeople wave their unfamiliar weapons valiantly at the onrushing cart, but sadly realized that none were able to score any damage on wolf, druid, or cart. The worst sight was Bisfel, the baker. His leg was sliced by one of the spikes and instantly he was paralyzed. The spikes were tipped with poison and it was readily apparent to anyone watching that the druid only needed to scratch his victims in order to incapacitate them.

Fortunately, Yddith was heartened to see that Krusk was winning his battle. Bleeding profusely and weakening by the moment, the ferocious orc simultaneously shouted syllables of praise to Gruumsh and tried to turn his mount and retreat. The boar refused, happily feasting on the poor miller’s leg as the miller struggled to slice through the boar’s hide with his axe. The distraction gave Krusk the opening he needed, and his greataxe sliced through the orc’s flesh and spine. The broken body toppled from the boar’s back in a spray of blood.

Yddith smiled coldly as Krusk pulled the huge axe free of the orc’s ribcage and smashed it like a hammer against the boar’s brainpan. The monster dropped in its tracks. The smile froze, however, as she saw the druid cut the harness from the dire wolf and order it to attack Krusk. Yellow fangs ripped away a hunk of both Krusk’s armor and thigh.

Yddith winced as the wolf ripped into Krusk. She knew she needed to do something, but she learned only two tricks from the traveling sorceress and she had already used one. Frantically she looked for anything on the street that she could levitate to distract the beast. She saw no weapon light enough and no debris that looked useful. Then a bizarre inspiration took hold. Yddith breathed a soft prayer to Pelor and pointed her finger at a wet pile of road apples left on the street by Jozan’s incontinent mule. She watched the lumps of manure rise into the air, then she waved her finger toward the wolf. Even Riedel sidestepped the floating stench with amazement as he advanced behind the other orc.

As Riedel maneuvered behind his enemy, Yddith dropped the mess on the wolf’s head. She had heard that even blind wolves could fight by scent alone, but she hoped that this trick would both temporarily blind Krusk’s foe and block its sense of smell. The manure plopped onto the wolf at the very moment that she saw the blacksmith bury his axe in the orc’s back and Jozan unleash another spell.

Jozan was furious. Not only had they knocked Alhandra onto the ground in an unchivalrous charge, but the orc druid was obviously using some kind of poison on his cart’s spikes. The cleric pulled a short, straight piece of iron from his pouch and lifted it toward the sun. He invoked the name of Pelor and brought the metal back down. Turning the iron piece horizontally, he grasped an end in both hands and thrust it in the direction of the last remaining orc warrior. The ceremonial gestures caused the orc to look up from his relentless hacking at the paladin and, for a moment, his eyes locked with Jozan’s. A blinding flash as brilliant as sunlight erupted from the iron piece. The illumination engulfed the orc’s sensitive eyes and snout, rendering the warrior helpless and unable to move.

Jozan was mesmerized by a combination of events. His flash held the monster, Riedel’s fierce assault caused the orc to topple, and Alhandra thrust upward from underneath the boar. The orc’s limp body landed face down in the street at the same moment as the boar’s stomach opened above the paladin, dumping a mixture of blood, bile, and partially digested food onto her. Jozan ran to help the paladin, but Alhandra proved his aid unnecessary. She rolled out from under the still biting, snorting boar and managed to shove the beast’s legs and throw it off-balance just as its tusks and snout burrowed into the spot where her head had been a moment before.

The rest of the townsfolk converged on the remaining orc soldiers. Though not very intelligent, the orcs were smart enough to realize that their leaders were dead. They were perceptive enough to know that their drummer no longer played the rhythm that made their blows effective. They were observant enough to see that one compatriot was retreating with a blade in his back and to realize that it wouldn’t be long before it was the druid and the animals against half of the town. Simultaneously, they made a tactical decision far beyond their military experience. When the first orc moved, the others followed—each trying to catch up with the fast retreating drummer and mortally wounded fellow before the others could.

Had the orcs remained a moment longer, they would have seen what might have been an amazing reversal of fortune. Though it was the last thing Jozan wanted to see, he watched in amazement as the druid waved his hands in a circle and the branches of trees swayed with his motion. The wind began circling with the same motion and, quickly, a dense mass of gray cloud descended on the half-orc.

Krusk felt beads of grease forming on his skin, armor, and weapon as though he had worked in a charnel house for days without bathing. The cloud’s sickening smell of mold and decay filled the barbarian’s nostrils and nearly choked him before he could respond to the druid’s approach. He doubled over briefly from the power of the stench and sensed that the presence of the greasy gray cloud had weakened him with some type of supernatural blight. Fortunately for the half-orc, the cloud’s nasty effect weakened the dire wolf as well. Its coat was beaded with the sickening mist and it also coughed up some of the foul cloud. The barbarian used all of his concentration to connect, albeit somewhat weakly, with his target. He injured the wolf slightly, but he didn’t kill it outright with one slice of the axe the way he expected to do. The partially blind wolf snapped at the air. The druid laughed.

Yddith could still hear the druid laughing when the cloud of unholy blight began dissipating. She no longer heard him laughing when the paladin charged. Yddith watched Alhandra run toward the druid waving her bloody, befouled sword in ferocious overhead circles. Yet, before the paladin reached him, Yddith observed an incredible transformation. The druid’s face quivered. His muscles rippled, his body contorted, and his bones cracked. Hair covered his body thickly at an impossibly fast pace. Where the druid had stood before, a large wolf stood in the cart. As Alhandra closed on the wolf, Yddith saw it leap from the cart and run away.

Before anyone could ready a bow or crossbow, the druid-turned-wolf fled into the forest and all that remained of the assault force was the angry, blind dire wolf that continued slashing and biting at Krusk. As the wolf snapped, Krusk stepped nimbly to the side and brought the axe down with enough force to separate the animal’s head from its body.

Yddith breathed a word of thanks as she saw Krusk’s life spared. She ran out the door and into Krusk’s arms as quickly as possible, paying no attention to the one-eyed citizens of Pergue dragging the boar carcasses to Imel’s butcher’s stand. She completely missed the healing miracle performed by Jozan.

Jozan had moved instantly to the fallen miller’s side. He pulled the flesh of the mangled leg together as well as he could and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. The basics completed, he quickly intoned his supplication to Pelor. The god’s golden glow surrounded the wounded flesh and anyone observing could easily see healthy flesh replacing the ravaged wound. Lovan’s eyes opened and he looked up gratefully into Jozan’s face.

“I dreamed I was headed for Pelor’s plane,” mumbled the miller.

“Quiet, now,” replied the cleric. “Drink this,” he commanded and poured a healing potion between the miller’s dry lips.

Lovan’s pale face gained color and the tear in his leg healed before the amazed eyes of the townsfolk. Jozan breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

Yet, Yddith did see a miracle. When she reached Krusk, the half-orc was bleeding from two wounds and his skin had taken on an unnatural hue from the dismal cloud. Hacking pieces of cloth from the curtains of the tavern, Yddith obviously intended to staunch the half-orc’s bleeding and wash the foul residue off his skin. When she started to touch the barbarian, however, she pulled up short. The paladin was waving a wand and softly singing a short chant. Jozan and Yddith saw one wound healing and observed the paladin repeat the ritual. Indignantly, Yddith turned on her heel and would have stormed back to the Boar’s Tusk in an angry fit if she hadn’t overheard the cleric speaking to the townsfolk.

“The druid spoke of you as slaves,” observed Jozan. “I wonder if he was taking you to Calmet?”

“Calmet?” asked some of the bystanders.

“The one-eyed priest we’re seeking,” answered Jozan.

The miller whispered so that only Jozan could hear. “I heard the orcs talk about someone they called ‘Bad One Eye’,” said Lovan. “He might be the one.”

Jozan nodded and assumed his best oratory posture. He raised his arms and spoke with such power that Alhandra turned to him in amazement, as did the townsfolk.

“People of Pergue,” he began, “I come in the name of Pelor. My companion and I seek the source of your troubles—an apostate, a heretic who has so twisted the loving message of Pelor that his insatiable lust for power is bringing havoc and horror both far and near. We pledge to find him, and in the name of all that is good, we pledge to end your living nightmare.”

The paladin’s mouth dropped open. Certainly, Alhandra preferred forceful action to strong words, but she seemed surprised at Jozan’s newfound confidence. She added her voice to Jozan’s pledge.

“As Heironeous is my witness,” responded the paladin in her battlefield voice, “we will see this through.”

Then, to the welcome surprise of cleric and paladin alike, a harsh voice rang out and offered additional assurance. “I’ll help,” growled the barbarian, “if it means killing that druid.”

“And I’ll kill that miserable cleric if it takes my dying action to do it!” asserted Yddith with a force and purpose she surely never knew she had.

11

Calmet was frightened. He was frightened more than he’d been since the night Laud removed his eye and introduced him to the Power. He didn’t feel like a priest who represented the Power, not right then. He felt weak, frightened, and angry.

Something had gone wrong. Both Naargh and Hassq had failed to deliver the new group of slaves. It had been weeks since the Black Carnival had performed the ritual. Why weren’t the slaves there?

The cleric looked again at the number of side tunnels that jutted off the main shaft. He’d once asked Laud why so much of their limited slave labor was used to dig so many tunnels away from the main vein, so many false passages and empty chambers. Laud had responded that there were other treasures in the earth, many of which could not be deemed natural. As Calmet passed one such junction, he decided he was grateful for all of Laud’s strange passageways. He wanted to stay as far away from Laud’s alchemical laboratory as possible.

He noticed two orc guards bringing an injured slave toward the surface. For a brief moment, he looked at the filthy wound so certain to become infected and was tempted to heal the limping slave. Then, he remembered his mantra of power: “Cull the weak to be the strong!”

Calmet motioned to the guards and told them to bring the slave and follow him deeper into the shaft instead of continuing toward the surface. The guards looked confused, but didn’t question the cleric’s order. That was one of the things Calmet liked about serving Gruumsh. No one questioned his orders. There were no philosophical debates among the servants of Gruumsh. Avenues to power were clearly established. If you performed the rituals, you gained the power. There were no mysteries associated with the nature of Gruumsh. He was raw power and he despised weakness. Of course, that was one of the things that was bothering Calmet at that very moment. The failure to complete the mine and finish the sanctuary would likely fall on his own head. He was the one responsible for dealing with the orcs, so their failure was ultimately his failure.

The shaft became steeper and Calmet smelled the difference between the moist earth of the deeper regions and the dryer dust near the top of the shaft. Oddly, he became aware of water dripping and the sounds of picks penetrating the obstinate rock lower down. He didn’t usually take time to notice scents and sounds. He must be avoiding the issue at hand.

How could they possibly complete the sanctuary before the solstice without adequate help?

Calmet and his followers approached a junction where a seldom-used passage jogged to the left. He motioned his strange entourage to follow him and turned into the smaller passage. After ten or fifteen paces, he pulled up abruptly. His eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness of the smaller passage, and he focused on the side of the wall where the passage twisted once more. Standing out slightly against the darker shadows, the small group saw a shadowy figure. Larger than a human, it made them uneasy. Their eyes could make out the winged monstrosity that seemed to guard the passage, but they didn’t quite understand why a stone statue would affect them in such a way.

Calmet lifted his amulet, a silver eye with a hole to represent Gruumsh’s missing eye, that a long-dead orc had fashioned for him from his sun symbol. He whispered an Orcish word of power across the top of the infernal symbol. The whisper gained in intensity as the very sound traversed the surface of the amulet until the gutteral word exploded on the statue with unexpected force, echoing back onto the small party with an even louder, eerier sound. As the echoes trailed back toward the main shaft, Calmet proceeded down the passageway. The guards looked at each other and followed. Neither one liked the uneasy feeling that energy was surrounding them, prodding them, and testing them as they turned to follow the cleric through the twisting passage.

Ten paces farther down the passage, Calmet performed another ritual. Pulling a piece of dried dung from one of the pouches tied to his belt, Calmet turned to the guard closest to him, growled another gutteral syllable in Orcish, and rubbed the dried substance on the guard’s bare skin. The dung quickly disintegrated into dust, but the guard exhaled with a triumphant grunt as his body tensed and he sensed a power he had never experienced before. His eyes grew wide and perspiration fairly flooded down his entire body. Where the cleric had touched him, the veins in his arms bulged and the muscles expanded to huge proportions. Moments later, the phenomenon coursed all the way through the guard’s body, vein after vein and muscle after muscle reaching phenomenal proportions.

Calmet ordered the transformed guard to take the slave by himself and follow him precisely. Calmet sidestepped to the extreme left of the small passage and took two steps with one foot carefully placed in front of the other. He sidestepped to the extreme right of the passage and took one step forward. The sideways motion was repeated several times more; then he stepped at an angle to the very center of the passage and turned to motion the guards forward.

Vurrgh was the guard affected by the spell. He easily grabbed the wounded human slave, pulled the unfortunate across his shoulders, and repeated the simple pattern.

Calmet heard the guards grunting behind him, but he continued to lead the small party in this odd pilgrimage without explaining himself or even looking to see if his fellow was successfully navigating the pattern. He assumed his compatriot could figure out the easy little dance and be able to avoid triggering the trap. If his minion happened to trigger some nasty snare, it must be the will of Gruumsh to cull the weak.

Calmet raised his amulet again and spoke another gutteral word, bringing forth a sickly green glow from the pendant. The glow pushed aside the deepening darkness in the passageway, and Calmet looked with amusement at the tunnel as it seemed to twist and turn for no obvious reason. He sensed, rather than heard Vurrgh and the other orc come up behind him, but he offered no acknowledgement of the minions’ presence.

The tunnel jogged briefly toward the left then back to the right. As the passage opened up into a small, natural cavern, Calmet ducked quickly through the opening. As if on cue, a horrendous scream pierced the quiet. The sonic force of the shriek caused dirt to sprinkle down from the tunnel’s ceiling, but Calmet knew exactly where to stand in order to be spared the earthen rain that dropped in clods atop the guards and the injured slave.

The shriek continued, sounding in every way like Calmet imagined a howling demon would sound. Yet, the evil priest stood watching and waiting for the inevitable movement that would follow the piercing shriek. One of the mushrooms, one with a more violet hue than its shrieking companion, moved toward the priest, crawling forward on a writhing root structure. It reached out with its four frantic tentacles flailing, but Calmet stepped back quickly enough to avoid the threat. He turned to Vurrgh and gestured for him to throw the wounded slave in front of the slowly moving violet fungi that was inching toward them.

The evil priest smiled grimly as Vurrgh used his bull’s strength to catapult the ill-fated slave within tentacle range of the fungus. The frightened slave tried to stand and limp to safety, but one of the tentacles tapped his bare back, causing the unwitting sacrifice to jerk in an involuntary spasm. The slave was immediately paralyzed. Calmet and the guards watched in fascination as the plant wrapped all four tentacles around the slave’s motionless body. The fungus pulled the body in and cradled it in a disturbing embrace of death as acid from the fungus began to devour it.

Immediately, Calmet intoned the liturgy of sacrifice. With his face lit by the frightening green glow of his amulet, he voiced the heartless words pronounced by priests of Gruumsh throughout the centuries.

“The powerless we give to the source of power,” recited the priest over this latest atrocity. “We sacrifice the powerless to partake of power. So be it!”

After speaking the infernal words, he motioned for the guards to follow and moved toward a second opening. He glanced disinterestedly at the violet fungi dragging the slave’s corpse next to the shrieker. As the parasitic fungi oozed onto their victim, the shrieker mercifully stopped its sonic assault, leaving Calmet and his followers with aching ears.

As they entered the second opening, Calmet casually informed his minions that the fungi would mulch around and over the slave’s corpse in a matter of weeks. He stared meaningfully into the eyes of both guards as though to underscore the fact that, should it serve his purpose, he would be willing to sacrifice them just as easily as he had sacrificed the unfortunate slave. He turned and led them forward once more.

Once past the cavern, Calmet turned again. He hugged the left wall of the narrow passageway, paying no attention to whether the guards followed suit. They had served their purpose and he needn’t worry about them triggering traps. He stepped through another natural opening and immediately voiced a gutteral syllable. The cavern was suddenly lit with torchlights placed in sconces throughout the cavern and a pair of braziers that flanked a small stone altar.

The priest walked swiftly toward a writing table piled high with quills, pots of ink, and a mixture of fresh parchment and used vellum. He glanced briefly at an old, leather chest in one corner of the room and noted that it seemed undisturbed. Then he picked up a piece of vellum and squinted at it when he sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. Vurrgh had grabbed his axe and was advancing swiftly toward a table filled with jars, bowls, bottles, and casks.

“Halt!” commanded the priest.

“Master! Something’s moving!” answered Vurrgh.

“Stop, you fool!” responded Calmet. “The creature is mine!”

Calmet waved Vurrgh off and called the small humanoid over to him. The one-eyed homunculus stopped grinding the black, moldy herb it had been smashing with a mortar and pestle and spread its small wingspan to full breadth. The wart-covered creature launched itself into the air and flew toward the priest, alighting on Calmet’s shoulder.

Having averted the unnecessary conflict, Calmet motioned for Vurrgh to approach the table. Calmet ordered him to take a seat. He passed his hand over a map spread upon the table. The priest always thought more clearly when he spoke aloud, so he took the opportunity to point out several geographical features between the mine and Scaun. He stretched a piece of vellum over the bottom half of the map and began explaining the plan in terms that even a troglodyte, much less a relatively intelligent orc like Vurrgh, could understand.

The new piece of vellum represented a map of the mine as well as the underground passages either constructed or discovered in the course of the mining operation. Calmet explained how Laud had dowsed for gold and how rich the main vein had been. He briefly spoke of the tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of ore that had been mined, refined, and melted into the ceremonial vessels that would be used in hallowing the ancient shrine at Scaun.

He pointed to a tunnel that diverged from the rich vein of gold ore and said, “Here is the key. If we attempt to excavate the shrine from the top of the mountain, the southerners will try to interfere and will cost us valuable time and resources. Instead, we will tunnel into the desecrated shrine and consecrate it anew before the southerners ever know that we’ve reopened it. By then, the avatar of Gruumsh will appear and it will be too late.”

When the priest saw Vurrgh nod in general understanding, he continued the lecture with all the fervency he had once shown in the pulpit.

“We will unleash the full power of Gruumsh from within the mountains. The southerners and their weak, civilizing ways will face the full, ferocious power of Gruumsh for the first time. Gruumsh will empower a new army of orcs, troglodytes, and half-orcs and we will conquer all-even the southern lands.”

“Conquer all?” asked the guard.

“Yes,” answered the priest, “we will conquer all. Your people lost to the southerners because they wandered from the old ways, the true ways. Gruumsh removed his power from the weak leaders and the southerners took control. This time, there will be no weak leaders!”

“Cull the weak!” responded Vurrgh with the ritual phrase, but the priest looked into his eyes with a hypnotic stare that instantly silenced him.

Calmet leaned over the table and said to the orc in the most malevolent whisper imaginable, “We must finish this tunnel on time, if we do nothing else.” He pointed to the passage on the map and looked back at Vurrgh. “If we don’t finish this tunnel on time,” he continued, “it will serve as your grave.”

Calmet didn’t express the next thought to pierce his own mind: If the tunnel wasn’t finished on time, it would be his grave, too.

12

Yddith needed to convince the three experienced warriors to let her join them. She didn’t want to admit out loud that she simply felt safer near the half-orc since he had dramatically rescued them from the orc slavers. After the most recent attack on Pergue, she felt like the only safe place was within reach of Krusk’s great axe.

Close to tears, she listened as the experienced fighters, none of whom really approved of taking a non-fighter, much less an inexperienced girl, in tow, voiced a thousand and one objections to Yddith accompanying them. She swallowed the lump in her throat and managed to stare determinedly into each warrior’s face. She looked deeply into Alhandra’s eyes and realized that there was a softening in the paladin’s resolve. She sensed Alhandra reading her intent as easily as one might read a tavern sign.

“It’ll be all right,” Alhandra assured the serving girl. “I needed someone to trust once, too.” Yet even as Yddith sensed that she had an ally in the paladin, the two men continued to raise their voices in objection. Then something strange happened. The paladin turned to the males and spat out her explanation. “In my case,” stated the paladin, “he wasn’t there when I needed him. I wouldn’t want this woman to experience the same sense of loss.” With a grateful smile, Yddith responded to the paladin’s firm expression of resolve, “If she wants to go with us, she’ll go with us!”

The debate ended. None of the men wanted to take up the paladin’s challenge. They were completely disarmed by the unspoken story combined with the determined glare shining from Alhandra’s eyes.

“Don’t gawk!” she commanded, “I don’t want to talk about it. At least, I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

The men shrugged and started off into the forest, but Yddith couldn’t help but wonder what the paladin’s secret might be.

Not being an experienced rider, Yddith was pleased when Krusk insisted that the group could make better time through the dense forest without their mounts. Alhandra hated to leave her horse behind, but even she agreed that they would be stealthier on foot. Yddith’s solitary eye glistened with admiration as she watched Krusk follow the trail of paw prints, broken brush, wolf dung, and occasional pieces of hair torn by prickly thorns. She fairly gleamed with pride when Krusk announced that the druid had resumed human form near the edges of the swamp, and she listened with rapturous attention when Krusk indicated the signs of an orc encampment.

The quartet stopped. In the eerie silence, even Yddith knew that a fight was inevitable. She fingered the sliced piece of curtain she had brought with her from the tavern and felt power building within her. She wondered if there was anything else the sorceress might have unwittingly taught her, and her mind began to wander through the catacombs of memory.

Her meditation was disrupted when Krusk snorted. She saw the half-orc look into a deep stretch of swamp and bare his fangs like an angry dog. She was also acutely aware that Alhandra had drawn her sword from its scabbard so quietly and effortlessly that some observers might have taken it for a spiritual weapon, a sword conjured by divine power alone. Though it was spiritual in a sense, dedicated to Heironeous, Yddith suspected that there was nothing supernatural about the blade. She had seen it in the tavern, as finely crafted as its bearer’s skills were honed. Then, as Jozan raised his mace in quiet defiance, Yddith side-stepped in order to be able to see the threat that the rest of the party was expecting to come into view.

She glanced at Krusk and followed the line of his gaze. She didn’t know what to think when the fins first broke the water’s surface. Five sets of fins sliced ominously toward the edge of the putrid pond where the heroes stood.

Before she could comprehend their significance, Yddith heard Krusk loudly proclaim, “Five heads!”

Immediately she understood as she saw the monstrous creature breach the scum-filled water.

Indeed, there were five heads on five long necks. Yddith had heard of hydras, as had the others, but hearing stories and seeing with your own eye were quite different.

Yddith impulsively reached for the wool and wondered what ghost sound she might use against the beast. At first, she thought she might create an eagle’s cry behind one of the heads. She felt inspired as she watched Jozan remove a candle from his pouch and immediately raise his voice in a psalm of Pelor. She heard his voice dance along the wind and it seemed as if the wind sang in harmony. She saw a small streak of alluvial lightning and, as it dissipated, a celestial eagle appeared.

Yddith failed to act. She was mesmerized by the frenzy of battle around her. She watched Alhandra slash out with her sword, miss the writhing hydra head nearest to her, and hastily retreat. The leftmost head of the hydra sank its teeth into Alhandra’s gauntleted left hand and tore the gauntlet off, scraping and slicing open the flesh with both the tortured metal from the gauntlet itself and the beast’s knifelike incisors. A rivulet of blood flowed from Alhandra’s wrist to her fingers, but it didn’t deter the paladin from stepping up to the writhing heads once again.

This time, as one of the heads plunged toward Alhandra in violent imitation of its fellow, it was intercepted by a bright flash of light that not only distracted the beast but astounded both it and the originator of the beam. Yddith was stunned. The flash had come from her. She realized with regret that her unexpected trick had failed to faze more than one head. Another fanged maw struck at Alhandra and its teeth raked the paladin’s armor, sending a painful screech through the air like fingernails on hardened slate.

Yddith couldn’t help but wonder how it had happened. She had once seen the sorceress discourage a drunkard by blinding him with a flash of light. As the hydra lunged toward Alhandra, Yddith had wished she remembered the power word used by the sorceress to activate her flare. When the celestial word for “brilliance” entered her mind, she’d spoken it without thinking of its meaning. Energy swelled inside her and shot from her empty eye socket, focusing through the emerald and flaring near the monster’s head.

As astounding as the spell was to Yddith, she realized that that moment was no time to dwell on it. The hydra’s center head snapped uselessly at Krusk, and its neighbor bit at Jozan without connecting. Another head, however, engulfed the body of the eagle. Feathers flew like a whirlwind from the bird before it shimmered and disappeared into the dimension from which Jozan had summoned it.

Yddith quickly realized that there were too many heads, and her companions were not inflicting enough damage to make a difference. Alhandra was merely taking small chunks out of the necks when she struck them, and even Krusk’s mightiest blows were barely making headway. Then Krusk sank his axe into the flesh behind the most central of the heads. The blade hewed cleanly through the monster’s neck. Krusk roared in barbarian triumph.

The triumph was minor, however, because Alhandra was swiping ineffectually and the monster’s sharp teeth had snapped through a weak joint in Jozan’s armor. The cleric tore himself free just before another head could grab him bodily as it had the eagle. Only Yddith was out of danger. She had to do something.

Grabbing a rope from their supplies, Yddith threw it into the air. Her initial hope was that she would distract the head that was attacking Jozan, but she quickly discovered that hydras are not easily distracted. Nonetheless, Yddith prayed softly that she could work her innate magic once again.

Krusk decapitated another opponent, transforming the long neck into a bloody stump with one powerful swing.

Energy built within Yddith once again. She lost track of how many times Alhandra hacked at the hydra’s neck and failed to penetrate the thick scales and muscular mass of flesh. She felt the force within her rising and building behind her empty eye socket.

As a green glow emanated from her emerald eye, Yddith breathed soft words of confidence and moved her finger in a delicate dance. The fallen rope leaped into the air at her command. She conducted its dance as though it were attached to the very tip of her finger. As a snarling head descended upon Jozan, Yddith looped the rope around the extended neck. The hydra’s mouth clamped on the cleric’s shoulder tightly and threatened to rip the arm from the priest’s body. The girl twisted the rope into a knot and kept twisting it ever tighter. As the beast tasted Jozan’s blood, Yddith pulled mentally on the rope, trying to jerk the head toward Krusk and his bloody blade. She wasn’t strong enough to force the head away from the cleric, but the hydra growled at the annoyance and forgot Jozan for a brief moment.

Unfortunately for Jozan, another head had no such distraction. The teeth punched through armor and into the soft flesh of the man’s neck. The cleric faltered, knees buckling, blood splashing down the bright metal. Even though he continued waving his mace at the beast, it was clear that his strength was gone. Mesmerized by the bright red rivulets streaming down from the severed joints of the cleric’s armor, Yddith cried aloud to Pelor in despair.

Yddith’s cry of panic and desperation caused two things to happen. First, Alhandra sliced her blade through the air with a new confidence. Instead of small, rapid cuts that were having no effect, the paladin raised her sword and stood poised for a mighty stroke. She seemed to be reciting something as she hewed the blade through the hydra’s neck.

“Be smooth, not strong!” echoed across the muddy bank of the swamp.

Alhandra’s blade cut through the swamp beast’s neck and nearly severed the attacking head so that it hung obscenely from the stump of its neck.

But Alhandra wasn’t finished with her deadly maneuver. The paladin had leaped forward into the attack, and she allowed the momentum of the blow to carry her past the other heads. The first to snap at her received a savage backhand slash that neatly sheared off its lower jaw, leaving it unable to bite and useless.

Before Yddith could so much as cheer, however, the unthinkable happened. The hydra’s remaining head clamped down on Krusk’s right shoulder and began pulling the half-orc toward the water. Krusk chopped at the beast again and again, but his arms were pinioned such that his blows were weak and only glanced off the muscled neck.

Not knowing what to do, Yddith yelled for Jozan and Alhandra to help the half-orc. The badly wounded cleric was staggering bravely toward the hydra’s head before the words had left Yddith’s lips. If matters hadn’t been so serious, she might have laughed at the cleric’s exaggerated, drunken movements. With his feet planted far apart, Jozan swung his mace unsteadily at the hydra’s head with all of his remaining might. The beast shrugged off the puny blow and dragged Krusk toward the murky, bloodstained water.

Foolishly, Yddith grabbed the kitchen knife at her belt and rushed toward the hydra. Fortunately, Alhandra stepped in front of her. The paladin’s blade fairly sang as she sliced a third time through the monster’s neck. With intense satisfaction, Yddith watched the hydra’s last remaining head fly into the putrid, green water of the swamp.

Then, before she could even join Jozan in a hymn of praise to Pelor, she looked up and realized that the battle wasn’t over. A group of orcs was approaching through the underbrush, drawn by the sounds of battle. Krusk grunted that more orcs were coming. Alhandra’s sword whistled down through the air, spattering hydra blood onto the ground. Jozan performed his healing ritual on himself as Yddith desperately hoped the troops weren’t as tough as their monstrous sentinel had been.

13

Calmet slumped in his chair with his head on his writing table. The one-eyed heretic was surrounded by scroll cases of every description stacked haphazardly to either side. Some of the cases were carved from human bone, others were silver, and some merely wood. Some had arcane markings on them, others had carvings of horrifying rituals, and others mere words. They ranged from staggeringly ancient to new. Some Calmet had stolen from the Soldiers of the Sun, the military and monastic order dedicated to Pelor from which Calmet had split.

The cleric had been scrutinizing every scroll, tome, and artifact he could assemble in his search for a solution. Between the gold he had embezzled from his former sect and the gold they had mined during the past few years, he had been able to purchase or commission more sacred, arcane, and damned artifacts than he had ever dreamed possible. Yet, he still couldn’t find the answer to his problem. He could find no plan, spell, source of power, or anything else that could help him meet the crushing deadline he faced.

If he didn’t figure out a way to finish tunneling into the sacred shrine by the solstice, he knew that the best he could hope for was that Laud would have him fed to the violet fungi and shrieker guarding his inner sanctum. He had walked by the disintegrating corpse of the last unfortunate sacrifice earlier in the day, and felt a flash of pity for the poor, dead slave. Laud could certainly think of more painful ways to express his displeasure if Calmet failed his unforgiving mentor.

“Where there is power, there is Gruumsh!” asserted the heretic, even though he and the homunculus were the only beings in the cavern, and the homunculus communicated with his master by telepathy rather than speech. He sat up and grabbed a piece of stretched skin with faded brown uncials painted onto it and read aloud.

The Eye that cannot see is the Eye that will comprehend.

The Eye with no feeling is the Eye that will judge.

The Eye that cannot move is the Eye that will rule.

Until the Eye that cannot see shall fill with light

And until the Eye that cannot move has been moved,

There shall no Power be.

He reflected on eyes, literal and figurative, of which he had known or heard. His troubled cogitation awakened memories of city gates, spies, narrow inlets, round openings, and gems. Calmet remembered when his own eye was sacrificed. Laud had pricked the eye with the silver dagger and said something like the first line. Perhaps, the ancient oracle referred to those who had given their left eyes, willingly or unwillingly, in Gruumsh’ service? That was a possible interpretation. Indeed, it was Laud’s preferred interpretation, but it didn’t ring true with Calmet. Feeling may have been reduced in his empty eye socket, but if it was touched deeply enough, there was still feeling. He knew that from the times that the cold had penetrated his deformity and caused icy headaches to clamp around his brain like one of the screwlike devices Laud used to torture unwilling informants. Physical sight may have been bartered for spiritual insight, as Laud had claimed, but there was still feeling, and that meant the oracle was not referring only to the servants of Gruumsh.

Calmet preferred to believe that the Eye was an artifact. It might be a carved eye of jade, reflecting the green glow that often accompanied manifestations of Gruumsh’s power. It might be a banner with Gruumsh’s eye depicted on the unfurled standard. Calmet doubted that. A banner with an eye depicted on it would not be known as an eye, but as the bearer of the eye or the symbol of an eye. Calmet’s theory was that the eye with no feeling was a necklace with a sacred stone that looked like an eye. After all, the prophecy stated that the eye could not see, but it would fill with light.

His concentration was diverted when someone spoke. It was not the telepathic warning often radiated by the homunculus, but as though someone had whispered his name. A shiver ran across the priest’s body like rivulets of cold perspiration and he clearly heard Laud whisper, “Meet me in the main passage, immediately.”

The apostate priest shuddered. Archprelate Laud was a significant distance away from him, but the elder priest had still managed to summon Calmet from his inner sanctum. Calmet felt stripped and violated as if he were one of the slaves being disciplined in front of the others. A sense of helplessness stirred through his mind and body and the once proud priest, the apostate who abandoned the sun god for the dark promise of power, slumped in despair.

He had hoped to solve his problem. He had hoped that somewhere in his pile of scroll cases, uncials, palimpsests, and manuscripts, he could find some magical substitute for his shortage of slave labor. If he could solve the oracle, he hoped he could determine what Laud planned to do. None of that had happened. He was neither sure that the archprelate’s interpretation of the oracle was correct, nor sure that his alternative interpretation could show him what needed to be done. Calmet hoped to find a key to the ancient secret that might finally enable him to accomplish his dual purpose—gaining revenge on Laud and learning to use Gruumsh’s power to create a stable society, one that he would rule benevolently but absolutely.

“Grant me Power,” breathed the apostate to the dark god he had substituted for Pelor. “Grant me Power that I may act in Power!”

Suddenly, he grasped at a fleeting inspiration and grabbed two scroll cases as he left the cavern. He passed the fungi, observing them as they continued to disintegrate the unfortunate slave. As the shrieker started its piercing song, he absent-mindedly passed a hand in front of his mouth and whispered the celestial word, “Pacis.”

The very air around the fungi and the victim melting away from their acids shimmered with a hint of translucency. The translucency fell like a thin membrane, forming a dome over the fungi. The membrane assumed the shape of a dome, and its circumference quickly touched the ground. Perfect silence replaced the shrill, sonic attack.

Calmet could still see the shrieker waving behind the nearly invisible dome of his spell, but he was glad to be rid of the irritating effect of the plant’s screaming. The shrieker had seemed an ideal guardian for his inner sanctum, but since Laud had penetrated Calmet’s privacy with some kind of whispering spell, the fungi seemed more nuisance than useful sentry.

The priest retraced his steps, carefully avoiding the traps that protected his chosen asylum and made his way past other perils to the main mine shaft. He was bothered by the fact that he didn’t hear many picks and shovels at work as he neared the expected end of the shaft. He became even more bothered by the fact that the dust was becoming thicker, almost alive, as he neared his destination.

He turned the last corner and stopped abruptly. His nightmare suddenly became worse. The shaft ended in a massive cave-in. Slaves were digging frantically to get their comrades out of the suffocating dust and rock that buried them alive. It was clear that many of the slaves, Calmet’s precious few slaves, had died in the accident. It was also clear that he was not the only one who realized what a setback this was to the plan. Laud stood, eyeing him, waiting to see how his underling would respond to the disaster.

Calmet took in the panic and devastation in one glance. He shuddered under Laud’s obvious disapproval. Finally, his fear of what the archprelate might do to him lit a tinder box of energy inside him. He came forward and touched both hands to the dislocated earth and began vocalizing sounds from deep within—a language unknown to anyone else within the tunnel. Energy pulsed outward from his hands and the soft earth and rock gyrated with motion, brown waves as though a gentle wind were blowing across a small body of water. The soil rippled and coalesced in the form of three creatures animated from the earth and stone of the landslide. Calmet felt a brief bit of warmth within as the formation of the creatures in the soil itself reminded him of a creation story he had taught as a priest of Pelor. The earth and stone whirled and rose from the mine shaft floor until there stood three creatures, roughly the height of dwarves. Slowly, each of the three earth elementals turned to face the apostate priest, torchlight glimmering off their feldspar eyes.

Calmet spoke again in the strange tongue, a language understood only by the summoned elementals who were to serve as Calmet’s temporary minions. He ordered the elementals to move enough earth and stone to free the slaves that were living and to clear the way for work to continue. At first, the apostate was pleased with his response to the crisis. Then, as he observed the dark frown on Laud’s face and realized how high the death toll would be, he slumped again in mounting depression.

The priest steeled himself and turned to face his mentor. Fortunately, his speech came out more confidently than he had expected it might.

“Never fear, Your Potency,” asserted Calmet, “the tunnel will be complete by solstice. We’ll make our way to Scaun in time for the ritual if my men and I must kidnap every traveler and every villager within leagues.”

The archprelate was furious. “Imbecile!” shouted the older man. “Peloran peasant! Were you so busy undoing the consequences of your idiocy that you failed to notice the source of your undoing?”

“What…” stammered Calmet, “I mean, what do you mean. Your Potency?”

“You fool!” continued the archprelate, “You meddling incompetent! The cave-in was caused by sympathetic vibration. Think about it—sympathetic vibration such as we use in some of our most powerful spells. Your slaves were trying to work their way through solid rock and it destabilized your entire construction. There could be more than a hundred feet of rock separating the sanctuary from us. No matter how much labor you enslave, we will be faced with the same problem. As they chip away at the rock, the vibration will destroy the tunnel.”

Calmet turned and faced the solid outcropping of rock at the end of the passage. Suddenly, he realized that all was not hopeless. He was aware, by Gruumsh’s power, of something that Laud, in his angry pessimism, had failed to consider. Indeed, it was something the former priest of Pelor’s own conscious mind had failed to consider before he grabbed those scroll cases prior to leaving his private cavern retreat. Fortunately, his subconscious was far ahead of his conscious mind.

Calmet walked deliberately to the tunnel’s dead end, ignoring the continuing imprecations and pejoratives being voiced by the angry archprelate. Standing next to the rock face at the end of the passage, the heretic bent down next to a bucket of recently excavated dirt. He ordered a guard to pour the contents of his waterskin into the bucket and using one hand, he reached down to massage the dirt into a moist clay. Opening one of the scroll cases he had brought with him, he began to simultaneously mold the mud into the wall and read the scroll in the echoing sing-song style of a holy, or perhaps unholy, ritual. The scroll disappeared with a hissing sound and an animated motion as if it were being rolled up into the atmosphere itself.

Continuing to chant the words he had just read, the evil cleric felt the hard rock ooze under his touch as though he could carve out a smaller passage with his bare hands. The colors of disparate minerals in the rock face receded to the dull brown of mud. He continued chanting and moving his hand through the stone like a potter shaping a water jug. In a few minutes, a new passageway roughly the height of an adult hill giant was formed. Its width was equal to its height and it was soon apparent that the depth was equivalent.

The archprelate was quiet. Sometime during the ritual, the elementals had returned to their plane of origin, but the slaves were quietly continuing to rescue their fellows who were still alive. Calmet was oblivious. He grabbed the other case and opened it. He performed the same ritual so that when the chanting was done, he had achieved a near identical result. In a remarkably short time, the cleric had drilled closer to the underground sanctuary at Scaun than his multitude of slaves could have excavated in days.

“Impressive,” complimented the archprelate softly and calmly, belying his surprise at Calmet’s overdue inspiration. “Now, we can have your slaves shore up your tunnel and continue working. Tomorrow, we’ll both pray for the use of that spell.”

It was Calmet’s turn to be surprised. The archprelate lifted his own unholy symbol of Gruumsh and sounded the most infernal syllables that had ever come to Calmet’s ears. The medallion melted in the hierarch’s hand and dripped to the ground with a sizzling hiss. The ground shook and a prodigious wind rushed past Laud and over the corpses of the lost slaves. Calmet watched in stunned amazement as the unnatural wind forced its way into the mouths of the dead, who rose as an undead army. Their living comrades shrank away from them as far as possible within the confines of a working gang’s chains and many simply sank to the ground in fear.

“See that they do a better job of building the tunnel this time,” commanded Laud, “I can’t do that again and I see no reason to chase after new slaves when there are plenty here.”

“Yes, Your Potency,” responded the priest.

“I realize you needed scrolls to get this far, but I’ll expect to see you repeat this progress in the morning,” Calmet’s demanding superior continued.

The older priest turned and left the tunnel with a dramatic and forceful stride, leaving his last instructions to be an indistinguishable combination of threat and command.

Calmet grimaced against the putrefaction of his new zombie slaves and gave orders to keep the construction moving. Then, he retraced his steps to appeal to his new god for more spell power than he’d ever had before. He supposed that fear was the mother of innovation. He’d never thought of a stone shape spell as an aid to the tunneling operation before. It seemed far too mundane to use divine power for something slaves could do. It was only when he contemplated the tunnel as an entrance to Gruumsh’s shrine and not as a simple mine that he thought of using the scroll. Then, when laud threatened him, it merely seemed natural to use the power to save his skin. Today, he used the power of a scroll. Tomorrow, he would petition Gruumsh for the spell itself.

14

Jozan hardly had time to step back out of the mud when he realized that the battle with the hydra had alerted not four or five orcs, but twice that many. The initial band was sloshing through the shallows of the swamp toward Alhandra. Another group of five was moving to flank the four heroes from the other side.

Jozan could immediately tell from the way Alhandra and Krusk were advancing that they only saw the first group, four warriors wearing masks made of bark and one with a mask adorned with bright plumage scavenged from birds that nested in the swamp. Jozan watched with some degree of envy as the paladin sidestepped to the left to give Krusk room to swing his mighty axe. Unlike Jozan, who had been somewhat unnerved by the battle with the hydra, Alhandra seemed to have gained confidence.

Jozan heard her cry out, “For valor and Heironeous!” and he prayed that her skill in fighting multiple enemies would prove ample in this battle, as well.

Of course, Jozan quickly realized that Alhandra’s hurry to rush into melee wasn’t the best opening gambit. He saw Krusk act on his combat experience and do what Alhandra should have done. Rather than waiting for the orcs to advance into melee range, the half-orc unleashed one of his arrows and watched the feathered shaft wing toward the closest orc warrior. The shaft flew true and punctured the orc’s right eye, driving the warrior to his knees in agony.

Since orcs joining in a conspiracy on behalf of Gruumsh and the old religion usually sacrificed their left eyes as part of their devotion, it seemed reasonable to blind their good eyes and deal with them at a more leisurely pace. As the cleric watched the point orc frenetically trying to pull the arrow from his eye, he judged Krusk’s tactical theory to be sound and decided to adopt it himself.

Jozan glanced briefly at the flanking group. They were still out of range, so he turned back to his friends just in time to see all of the remaining orcs, except for their leader, recklessly charging the paladin and half-orc. He saw Krusk drop his bow and grab his huge axe in one fluid motion. Alhandra deftly sliced her long sword between the first two orcs to reach her. The first blindingly fast slash crashed into her victim with so much speed that it appeared the paladin was using two swords instead of one.

Breathing easier as he saw his compatriots meeting the challenge, Jozan decided to invoke divine assistance before turning to face his own attackers. He lifted both hands toward the heavens and called for Pelor’s blessing upon his companions. Immediately, sunlight seemed to penetrate the shadows of the swamp and outline the forms of his comrades. As the highlighted warriors hacked and hewed at the oncoming orcs, Jozan felt certain that his friends could hold off that threat. He turned again to the opposite flank.

Unfortunately for Jozan, the masked orcs who were running toward him mistook his clerical gesture as a symbol of helplessness and charged all the more confidently. Jozan had intended to invoke another spell before they reached him, but they were now so close he could do nothing but draw his mace. The first orc to reach him was fairly slavering with combat frenzy as Jozan smashed into its face hard enough for half the skull to collapse like brittle pottery. The orc tottered briefly before falling, just long enough to impede the next charging orc, causing it to stumble.

As a result, Jozan was able to step past the stumbling orc and bash his mace into the orc’s chainmail with such force that some of the tiny, metal loops broke from the stress and began to tear the tunic below it. Quickly, Jozan twisted under the guard’s retaliatory stroke and thrust upward so that the head of his mace broke the soldier’s lower jaw. In reflex, the orc managed to hit Jozan with a half-swing, but Jozan twisted around once again and buried the blunt edge of the mace in the back of the orc’s skull.

With each solid blow, Jozan’s confidence soared. He swung his mace upward into one attacker’s crotch, and he used a sidearm swing to power into another attacker’s weapon arm. At one point, he sensed an orc attacking from behind and turned to bury the head of his weapon in the center of the orc’s chest. At first, he thought his reflexes must have been lightning fast in order to get in the blow before his opponent could retaliate. Then, he realized that a pale, green light had struck the orc full in the face, just before the debilitating blow landed. He quickly looked back at Yddith, recognizing that she was the source of the flash, and nodded his thanks. Then he parried a blow from the next orc.

The cleric’s peripheral vision confirmed that Alhandra, Krusk, and he were each faced with one remaining foe apiece. If he had not been locked in his own duel, Jozan would probably have noticed Alhandra’s dented armor and limited agility. He might have sensed from her reduced movement that the bent armor formed a sharp edge inside that was already slicing through padding and skin seriously enough to cause her to wince with each movement.

As he tripped his foe and brought the mace down in a fatal closing to this duel, Jozan couldn’t see Yddith touching her emerald pseudo-eye and wearing a confused expression on her face, as though she herself was wondering how she projected that green flash of light. Neither could he have seen the large eagle glide overhead and circle lazily back toward the combat.

None of the heroes heard the eagle’s gentle landing in the soft earth behind Yddith. No one saw the feathers recede and the crouched body transform into human form. Muscles enlarged, bones cracked, and skin stretched quickly and magically as Hassq appeared behind the unsuspecting young woman. His hand was over her mouth and a bone blade pointed at her throat before she even realized the danger. The druid dragged her silently away, even as the battle boiled over for the remaining trio.

Jozan stepped away from the orc he had just slain. He moved toward Krusk in time to see the orc thrust at Krusk’s chest and Krusk answer with a woodsman’s stroke that could have felled his foe like a small tree if not for the orc’s chain shirt. Jozan ran past the orc as Krusk ripped his blade from the torn armor and immediately plunged it right back into the red wound. Krusk obviously didn’t need the cleric’s help.

Alhandra didn’t appear to need his help, either. A wounded orc rested at her feet and, judging from the way it was bleeding, it wouldn’t live long without Jozan’s aid. The cleric knew that this sole survivor of the battle might be their best source of information about the strength and position of the enemy. So he knelt beside the wounded orc and used the basic training of his order to staunch the bleeding and apply ointments and binding. Then, realizing that it would take divine healing to stabilize the fallen orc, he prepared his healing supplication. Then he noticed Krusk coming toward them with murder in his eye.

The half-orc grabbed the invalid with one hand and looked into his eye. “Where girl?” growled the angry barbarian.

Jozan and Alhandra looked at each other, wondering what Krusk was talking about. As they glanced around the area, both realized that Yddith was missing and they understood why Krusk was so upset. Still, they begged Krusk not to kill the fallen soldier. All they received for their intercession was a warning snarl from the half-orc.

“Where girl?” repeated the barbarian, emphasizing his question by shaking the wounded orc’s body so severely that Jozan imagined the bandages must all have torn away from the wound.

The half-orc gripped his captive around the neck and began crushing the orc’s windpipe. Jozan and Alhandra quickly moved to pull the half-orc off his prey, but before they could grab him, the orc answered, spewing monosyllables and blood at his inquisitor

“Hassq has girl. Needs gem to get slaves!”

Krusk let the orc fall to the ground and motioned for Jozan to keep their captive alive while he paced around the clearing. After invoking Pelor’s power to heal the captive, Jozan walked to Krusk, who was bent over and studying the ground where Yddith had stood. Krusk pointed out the marks of the eagle’s claws and kept staring at the disturbed ground where the druid’s transformation had occurred. Jozan watched him trail the heavy footprints of the druid into a copse of bushes and trees, then return after he lost the trail.

To Jozan’s chagrin, Krusk immediately returned to the captive orc, grabbed him by the shoulders, and began interrogating him fiercely once more.

“Where Hassq?” he asked with an expression on his face that seemed tantamount to death itself. “Where Hassq?”

The captive looked to Jozan for assistance, but realized that there was little the cleric could do on his behalf, even if he were willing to intervene.

“Hassq take girl one eye!” the orc responded. Seeing that neither the half-orc nor the cleric quite understood, he continued, “Hassq take girl one eye! One-Eye need gem. Hassq get gold. Gold buy food for cold time.”

“Where One-Eye?” asked Krusk, softening his demeanor slightly since the captive was answering his questions.

“One-Eye at mine,” answered the captive, “gold mine.”

Krusk laughed grotesquely. He released the orc and stepped away from the prisoner’s prone body. He looked at Jozan as if to gauge the character of the priest of Pelor.

Satisfied, Krusk said, “That must be your answer. One-Eye is probably the priest you’re seeking and the gold mine must be where he is. With Pelor’s help, we should be able to foil the cleric’s plan and rescue Yddith. Assuming, that is, we can get this pond scum to show us where the mine is.”

Jozan was frozen in place. Alhandra only laughed.

“That has to be the most words I’ve ever heard you string together,” said the priest.

“Look,” replied the barbarian, “when you want these orcs to respond, you use their dialect. As they would say, ‘Make fear! Good trick!’ ” he explained.

Alhandra giggled as she turned to Jozan and said, “I told you he would open up once he knew you. I’ll wager he gets this orc to help us find both Hassq and Calmet before he’s through.”

15

Why? Yddith asked herself the question again and again. She still served Pelor long and faithfully. She was managing to maintain her chastity in a profession where most considered selling their bodies to be just another means of improving their tip revenue. She had faithfully sung the “Psalm of the Sun” at every dawn from the time of her earliest memories. She courageously escaped Pergue when the Black Carnival appeared, and she did her best to save the lives of Pelor’s heroic priests on the night when the carnival unveiled its horrors.

So she couldn’t help but wonder why Pelor allowed the dark clouds of circumstance to overshadow his presence? Why had Pelor failed to shine on her when the zombie thespian placed the emerald necklace upon her and ripped apart her clothing to expose her body to any who dared look? Where was Pelor’s radiance when the silver dagger plunged toward her eye? Where was Pelor’s protection when the putrid flesh of the zombie fell on her frightened face? Why had the necklace Krusk shaped into a false eye been taken from her when she’d just learned to use it?

Looming over all those questions was the biggest why of all; why was she taken away from Krusk when he was the only person in the entire world who made her feel safe? Yddith couldn’t stop torturing herself with those questions. They piled one atop another until the lovely, one-eyed barmaid felt she would shriek with frustration and anxiety. She couldn’t be satisfied with the heresy that assumed every person who suffered somehow brought it upon herself through sin. She wasn’t perfect, but she knew that Pelor was the giver of grace and that she had received full forgiveness whenever she asked for it.

“Why,” Yddith suddenly found herself asking aloud, “why didn’t you just kill me and take the gem? For that matter, why are you keeping me alive, now?”

The druid shifted a log in the fire and gazed at the frightened woman through the smoke. Even tied to a tree with ropes woven by Hassq himself, the one-eyed human looked beautiful. Hassq knew there was something special about her, something more than that naked eye socket.

Wanting to speak with her even though he owed her nothing, he said, “Need gem. Gem more than One-Eye knows. You use. Hassq saw. Hassq take you to One-Eye.”

Though the druid spoke Common in Orcish monosyllables, it unsettled Yddith to hear him speak without the exaggerated accent so typical of the orcs. She believed that “One-Eye” must be the name the orcs gave to the evil priest being hunted by Jozan and Alhandra. Her eyes widened with renewed horror as she considered Hassq’s intent to take her to that very priest. She couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to her. Would this Calmet remove her other eye, too?

“You use gem for one eye,” the druid continued. “You show use for gem. One eye not bad to orcs, not bad for Hassq.”

Yddith subconsciously glanced at the leather pouch where Hassq had hidden the necklace, and she winced in realization that her own empty eye socket was bare, a horror for all to see. The false, emerald eye had been a comfort to her, a gift from Krusk that made her feel unique instead of deformed. Without it she felt like the monstrosity she was.

“All right,” she responded to the druid, even though her tone expressed more than a hint of petulance, “since you’ve already stripped it off of me, I want to know. Why is this necklace so important?”

“Bring dead,” answered the druid. “Need gem bring dead. Does more.”

“I don’t understand,” she argued, her curiosity gradually conquering her fear and revulsion. “How did you know that I could use the gem’s magic?”

She needed to know. Up until then, she hadn’t been willing to admit even to herself that the stone was augmenting her inner power but she realized that she was casting spells she’d never experimented with, spells she had only seen the traveling sorceress perform once, or never at all. Either something inside her or something within the gem’s magic was teaching her how to cast magical spells.

“Green glow in flash,” grunted the orc, “mean Gruumsh in gem.”

Gruumsh was in the emerald? her psyche fairly shouted with horror. “If Gruumsh is in the emerald,” she asked, “then Gruumsh fought his own devotees?”

“Gruumsh strong,” muttered the druid. “Gruumsh like strong. You strong. You use gem. Show One-Eye.”

Yddith relaxed. She understood why she had been kidnapped instead of killed. Indeed, realizing it was in the druid’s interest to keep her alive, she felt considerably more relaxed. Comforted by this realization, it wasn’t long before she slept.

The night was short for the others. They rested briefly, but kept moving even in the hours of darkness so they could rescue Yddith before Hassq killed her. Of course, none of them could understand why Hassq hadn’t killed her outright to steal the necklace. It would have been easy to snatch the gem, place it around his own neck, transform into an eagle, and fly off to Calmet in a fraction of the time that the druid’s hike up the mountain was taking. Jozan believed that Yddith was chosen by Pelor to provide some kind of key to victory over Calmet, but Alhandra considered it unseemly to expect help from the gods when the gods had empowered you to do it yourself. She made it very clear that she didn’t think Yddith was any kind of key. She planned to rescue the barmaid because no woman should be carried into slavery and humiliation, not because Yddith was a key.

Krusk ventured no opinions. He kept his eyes on the prisoner and maintained position a pace behind their frightened orc guide. So far, the prisoner had proven to be an asset, but that didn’t mean the barbarian trusted him. The prisoner stopped and Krusk immediately reached for his axe. Before he could draw it, the orc turned and motioned to Krusk.

“Here close,” whispered the orc in his gruff dialect. “Give rope.”

Krusk offered his rope reluctantly, remembering that Yddith had been the last to touch it before he coiled it in his bag and headed off to rescue her. After a pause, Krusk acceded to the orc’s request and carefully scrutinized every motion that the prisoner made with the rope.

The orc shook out the rope in his hands and formed a noose with it. Looking to Krusk for reassurance, he carefully stepped into the underbrush and crouched. Krusk kept a keen eye on him, but the prisoner’s posture didn’t indicate any intent to escape. The prisoner surveyed the ground intently. After a while, the barbarian saw the orc pull back on the rope and hold up a squirming rodent. The noose was tight enough that the giant rat couldn’t squeal. The orc proudly returned to the rest of the group.

Krusk wasn’t at all sure what the prisoner was doing, so he signaled for the others to remain and followed the orc quietly and carefully along a lightly used game trail in the underbrush. The prisoner stopped, played out the slack on the rope, and threw the rat underhand to a spot slightly ahead on the path.

The barbarian could see that the rat was struggling to free itself, wriggling pathetically in the last throes of asphyxiation when it hit the ground. If it had looked like the unfortunate rodent was in trouble before, it was in double jeopardy when it touched down. A snare collapsed on the struggling vermin and snatched it up so that it hung from a spry tree limb. Krusk understood as he walked up beside the smiling orc and used his greataxe to slice the animal free. The orc hadn’t been certain where the trigger of the trap was; the struggling rat was meant to set off the trap, even if the orc’s aim missed the exact trip point. If the orc had picked up a rock or limb big enough to trigger the trap, Krusk would have assumed it was meant for a weapon.

He begrudgingly acknowledged the orc’s wisdom, but when the prisoner whispered, “Good trap. Clear now,” Krusk shoved him back down the trail.

It was still a murdering orc, he reminded himself.

The prisoner and the half-breed returned to the others and attempted to develop a plan. Krusk thought they could sneak up on the camp and have Jozan invoke an area of silence around the druid. Under that plan, Hassq wouldn’t be able to cast any spells that required power words or invocations, and Krusk felt certain he could put an arrow through any of the guards who might threaten Yddith once the orcs became aware of their attackers. While Jozan silenced the druid and Krusk provided cover, Alhandra would enter the camp and cut Yddith free. Once Yddith was clear, they would turn their attention to the druid himself.

The most surprising part of their deliberation was discovering that their prisoner also wanted a chance to strike at Hassq. Whether Qorrg, for so he introduced himself, had a long-term grudge against the druid, or merely wanted revenge for being placed in a situation where he became a prisoner of war was uncertain. All Krusk could be sure of was that the orc’s eye lit up with undisguised pleasure whenever they spoke of killing Hassq.

Certainly, the plan was simple. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean the enemy would cooperate. Indeed, the plan didn’t survive coming into proximity with the enemy. Qorrg was extremely capable of moving silently through the underbrush, and the barbarian was even better. Alhandra was slow, but competent. The problem was Jozan, who had never been called upon to be truly stealthy before. Krusk winced as Jozan clumsily stepped on every brittle branch and root. It was clear to the barbarian that they would never get near Hassq’s camp without the druid being forewarned.

When Krusk asked for alternate suggestions, Alhandra proposed a ruse. She anticipated having the orc tie Krusk’s rope loosely around Jozan’s hands. Then, pretending that the cleric was his prisoner, Qorrg would march Jozan straight up to the druid. Krusk and Alhandra would hide in the trees and be ready to attack when the moment was ripe or if anything went wrong. Krusk looked at Qorrg with plain mistrust, but he assured the orc that an arrow would be aimed at his back through the entire masquerade. If anything did go wrong, Qorrg would be the first to die.

Setting up the ploy required but a minute. Then Krusk and Alhandra faded into the trees with only seconds to spare before a group of Hassq’s henchmen appeared on the trail ahead of Qorrg and Jozan.

For a moment, Krusk thought the orc was tempted to throw in with his old team. He caressed the feathers of the nocked arrow’s fletching and drew the bow, ready to drop the orc where he stood. As though he was aware of Krusk’s intention, Qorrg insisted that Jozan was his prize only and that he was determined to take the cleric to Hassq personally.

“Qorrg find strong foe! Bring Hassq!” shouted the orc.

“Bring!” commanded the masked leader of the orcs, little realizing the charade in which he was a participant.

Qorrg quickly obeyed, shoving Jozan forward convincingly. The two followed their escort of four orcs straight back to Hassq’s camp, while Krusk and Alhandra stalked behind unseen.

The impromptu plan worked well enough against the orc guards, but Hassq had obviously not become their leader through luck alone. When he saw the bound priest approaching under guard, he immediately leapt to his feet and shouted for his minions.

“Trick! Fight!” screeched the druid, and confused warriors began converging on both Qorrg and Jozan.

Krusk grinned with satisfaction as his arrow burst from an orc’s chest. He had barely nocked another when, to his surprise, Qorrg sliced into an onrushing orc, giving Jozan the time he needed to invoke a holy membrane of silence over the druid. When Krusk let the arrow fly, it streaked across the clearing and vibrated obscenely in another orc’s neck, it’s bloody tip lodged in the orc’s shoulder armor. He also saw Hassq smirk menacingly at Jozan’s spell as if the druid could merely shrug off the priest’s effort.

By this time, Krusk was vaguely aware of the paladin fighting her way toward Yddith. He watched the paladin thrusting and slashing and deemed it most appropriate to aim his arrows at the main attraction. Just as Hassq reached for his leather bag and started pulling the emerald necklace out of it, Krusk’s arrow pierced the druid’s hand. The druid dropped the necklace in an involuntary spasm of pain, but Krusk cursed to himself as he saw the druid immediately tracing a pattern in the air. The arrow waved strangely from the impaled hand as he did so. Hassq seemed to be conjuring power out of the earth and trees themselves to throw at the barbarian.

With relief, Krusk observed Alhandra win her way to Yddith’s side and slice the barmaid’s bonds. Again, he sighted down the arrow shaft and straight into Hassq’s eyes. He paused for a moment as a rainbow of energy washed over him and was only a half-second away from releasing the arrow when he realized that he didn’t want to do so. After all, this Hassq wasn’t so very different from himself. They both preferred the woods to a comfortable tavern. They both revered nature. Both were misunderstood by civilized humans. Krusk removed his arrow from the bow, wondering how he could possibly have thought about harming Hassq.

Then he realized something that bothered him even more. Jozan, Alhandra, and the traitor, Qorrg, were advancing dangerously against the druid. Krusk saw the cleric strike an orc in the stomach with his mace. As the orc fought for breath, the cleric shoved him aside and raised his mace to strike the druid.

Only one option was open to Krusk. With a bellow, he dropped his bow and rushed forward, axe in hand. Jozan powered past another orc and praised Pelor with a mighty shout. Krusk’s anger rose. Jozan wasn’t thinking clearly, he misunderstood the situation and must be stopped.

Krusk paid little attention to Alhandra, Yddith, or Qorrg as he thundered past. His rush placed him squarely behind Jozan, who only then realized that Krusk was not hurtling toward the druid, but toward him. Jozan whirled to find himself trapped between the berserk half-orc and the druid. He raised his mace uncertainly, not sure which foe to face.

Krusk was oblivious to Alhandra’s startled cry from his right flank. Neither did he pay much heed to Hassq since Jozan had turned away from the druid. Hassq was crouched behind Jozan and was placing the necklace around his own neck. In his red rage, Krusk swung the axe in a great sideways arc toward his misguided cleric companion. He heard bones crunch and a massive release of breath, but he also felt something wrong. For some reason, the rope that had so recently bound Yddith was entangled around the handle of Krusk’s axe, as well as around his neck and torso. It hadn’t stopped the mighty blow from his axe or prevented Jozan from receiving a terrible gash in his side, but it had saved the cleric from being split wide open.

Krusk couldn’t comprehend why Yddith would interfere. For a moment, he considered confronting her but then he heard Qorrg yelling from behind him, “Hassq be bird! Has gem! Fly!”

Realizing that Hassq was still in danger, the barbarian focused on untangling the rope from his weapon. He noticed an eagle flapping to get airborne and thought he saw a flash of green as the eagle cleared Jozan’s shoulder and flew higher through a gap in the trees. A triumphant cry escaped from the druid’s beak as he gained altitude.

The eagle stalled in mid-air. The shaft of an arrow penetrated the bird’s breast. With horror, Krusk recognized the fletching on the arrow as his own before the thrashing eagle plummeted back through the branches.

Krusk turned away from Jozan and glared at Qorrg. The orc had used the barbarian’s own weapon to attack Hassq, and Krusk found that confusing. Hassq had wanted him to attack Jozan, yet, Qorrg had shot the druid and probably killed him. Should he attack Qorrg or Jozan?

While Krusk was torn by indecision, Alhandra shouted at Jozan to run. She ordered the cleric to stay away until the charm spell wore off, but that made no sense. Had everyone gone mad? Why couldn’t they see that Hassq was a worthy person? Krusk turned back to challenge Jozan and saw that the cleric had vanished into the woods. The barbarian knew that he could track the wounded cleric and catch him easily, even if Jozan had a hefty head start. Alhandra was more dangerous. It would be best to deal with her first. Krusk faced the paladin in a fighting stance, but then heard Yddith’s soothing voice calling out that she needed him. The half-orc hesitated.

“Krusk,” the barmaid purred, “please bring me my necklace.”

Krusk strode to the body of the eagle. The bird, or rather, the druid, was dead. Around its neck was looped the emerald on a slender chain. Krusk scooped it up and approached the one-eyed woman cautiously. When he was sure that she didn’t mean to trick him, he poured the necklace into her open hand with undisguised pleasure on his face.

16

Archprelate Laud stood to greet Calmet as the underling approached his evil mentor.

This is a change, thought Calmet as he bowed respectfully to the fanatical cult leader. He must have been pleased with the progress we’re making through the stone.

Calmet swallowed nervously as he realized that only his fortuitous snatching of the stone shape scrolls was likely to have saved him from becoming Laud’s next atrocity. As the cleric’s nimble mind raced, he realized that referring to Laud’s previous actions as atrocities was a euphemism. The cavern where he found himself could have been called the “Nave of Atrocities.”

The cleric looked around the large chamber chosen by the more powerful priest for his experiments, observing an assemblage of body parts from humans as well as monsters. The cavern’s walls were adorned by considerably more shelves than in Calmet’s sanctum de sanctorum, and these were filled with enough jars of dried herbs, dehydrated bones, desiccated creatures, and flasks of potions and liquids to stock an alchemist’s laboratory. Behind the archprelate’s writing table was an open chest. Calmet’s eyes were lured to its contents like some men’s attention would be diverted by a well-shaped bar wench. Laud’s chest was filled with scroll cases, perhaps four times as many as the huge amount Calmet had collected since first embezzling his order’s gold. In addition, the archprelate’s writing table was covered with nearly as many manuscripts and palimpsests as Calmet’s table, and to this was added a stock of musty, worm-eaten tomes on necromancy and transmutation that seemed more worthy of maggots’ nests than an honored place on a hierarch’s desk.

Again, the archprelate surprised his minion. Laud gestured broadly toward a pitcher and two goblets at the corner of his desk.

“Some wine, perhaps?” asked the authority

Laud didn’t wait for an answer. He poured a healthy amount into both goblets and handed one to Calmet. He lifted the other into the air and pronounced an unholy blessing on the libation.

“The strength of Gruumsh!” he proclaimed and sipped the fragrant ambrosia that tasted of blackberry, rhubarb, and just a hint of mint.

Calmet mirrored his mentor’s statement and actions, waiting for the hierarch to reveal his purpose in summoning his ally to the chamber.

“I owe you praise,” explained Laud.

The archprelate’s small black eye watched Calmet intently for the inevitable sigh of relief, the loss of tension that was bound to show when he released his inner fear. He smiled as he caught the signs of Calmet’s covert relaxation. Laud enjoyed manipulating people. Indeed, he enjoyed manipulating all of nature. That was, Calmet assumed, why he had turned to the worship of Gruumsh.

“I owe you praise,” the archprelate reiterated, “for your initiative and creativity in solving our problem.”

“It was nothing, Your Potency,” responded Calmet.

“No, it was something,” contradicted his mentor. Laud motioned for Calmet to be seated and he dropped into an overstuffed chair, as well. “Gruumsh abhors weakness and failure. That is why I worship him. I was tired of Pelor and his petty forgiveness. Sins washed away in the radiance of his sun! Bah! All I ever saw was the unworthy multitude of weak, sniveling rejects making their pilgrimages to his sanctuaries and whining for forgiveness. The poor, the weak, the infirm were all welcome in his temple, were they not?”

“You know, Your Potency,” deferred Calmet.

“Of course they were!” the hierarch answered his own question. “They were welcome to come and pray for the day of his appearing. They cried out for justice. They pleaded with their gracious Pelor to intervene on their behalf and overthrow their oppressors—the petty oppressors of one—forge mountain towns and the regal oppressors who conquered entire territories.” The archprelate’s voice ascended in volume and his waving hands matched the fevered pitch of his excitement as he preached his unholy sermon to a congregation of one. “And did he answer their pleas?”

“You know, Your Potency,” Calmet wisely deferred once more.

“Of course he didn’t!” shouted Archprelate Laud as if desperate to convince his own follower. “Pelor works in his own time. His work is as sure as the rising and setting of the sun. Those who wait for the dawn shall trade their strength to glide like eagles on high currents, to run indefatigably and continue their journeys beyond human capacity. You were taught this, as was I.”

“Yes, of course, Your Potency,” responded Calmet.

“And you tired of waiting, as did I?” asked Laud, his voice slowing and softening to a velvet gloved whisper.

“Yes. Yes, I did, Your Potency,” mumbled Calmet.

“Then,” continued the archprelate, “you understand why I turned to Gruumsh. He is not afraid of action. Unlike Pelor, Gruumsh isn’t afraid to use his power. He doesn’t tolerate failure and out of weakness comes his strength.”

“I know this, Your Potency,” ventured Calmet, tiring of the catechism and wondering where the hierarch’s sermon was headed.

“Gruumsh allowed the southerners to conquer us to show us our weakness,” asserted Laud.

Calmet found that he wasn’t brave enough to dispute the logical fallacy with his superior. If Gruumsh allowed his followers to be conquered, wasn’t Gruumsh as guilty of inaction as the archprelate had accused Pelor of being? If Gruumsh could allow trouble to strengthen his followers, might that not be part of the formula when Pelor allowed trouble to invade the lives of his own? The apostate’s empty eye socket itched. His own reasoning made him feel uncomfortable about following Laud. Everything had seemed so clear after Laud and his men overwhelmed him. Now, he was listening to his teacher’s lessons and finding that they didn’t match his own experience.

“So now,” the archprelate triumphantly reached his conclusion, “I am rebuilding the old religion, the faith of Power. Now we shall restore the sanctuary of Gruumsh and we shall show the southerners what true strength can be. When we restore the Eye of Gruumsh and herald the coming of the new kingdom, we shall know power beyond our most incredible desires.”

Laud paused for his proclamation to have appropriate effect and spoke quietly to Calmet. “For this also, you are to be commended,” suggested the archprelate.

“This?” asked Calmet with utter confusion.

Laud smiled a merciless, cold, patronizing smile. “Like Gruumsh, I must observe my servants.” Laud pointed to a shiny piece of metal that mirrored the room’s appearance on its surface and Calmet immediately knew that the archprelate had regularly scryed upon him while he was too busy with his research to notice. He mentally kicked himself while Laud continued. “I am aware that you have made progress on the oracle.”

Calmet gulped. The archprelate was far more perceptive than Calmet suspected.

“It’s really insignificant, Your Potency,” protested Calmet.

“So insignificant that you hide yourself for days at a time in that little cavern with your homunculus, reading the oracle aloud and delving into those ancient palimpsests like a miner seeking gold?” asked the archprelate.

“It’s not…I mean, it isn’t much, but I’m sure…that is, I think, it may mean that there are two different eyes,” responded the cleric with grave insecurity. Calmet was shocked and terrified that Laud knew about the homunculus and all of his research on the oracle.

“Ah, yes. I heard you repeat that stanza on numerous occasions. How does it go?

The Eye that cannot see is the Eye that will comprehend.

The Eye with no feeling is the Eye that will judge.

The Eye that cannot move is the Eye that will rule.

Until the Eye that cannot see shall fill with light,

And until the Eye that cannot move has been moved,

There shall no Power be.

“I suppose you think that the ‘Eye that cannot be moved’ cannot be the same as the one that ‘shall fill with light’?” Laud tested his student.

“I truly believe there may be up to four different eyes in the oracle, Your Potency. I didn’t want to air my suspicions until I had convincing evidence,” dissembled Calmet, fearful that his lord and master could see through his simple deception as easily as he could apparently see through rocky caverns and earthen passages. “What if one of the eyes of which the oracle speaks refers to one of our eyes, sacrificed in Gruumsh’s service so that we can see more clearly?”

Laud smiled patronizingly as though Calmet were a precocious child who had jumped to an erroneous conclusion. “I suppose that is an interpretation. It isn’t what I expect to find, however.”

“Expect to find, Your Potency?” asked Calmet a little too eagerly. Fortunately, he could tell from a brief, unguarded look on Laud’s face that the question had not displeased his superior.

“Yes, my curious Calmet,” lectured the hierarch. “I expect to find something in the former shrine at Scaun. I expect to find a disfigured, partially destroyed statue of Gruumsh sitting in the midst of a large, unholy symbol carved in the flooring of the chamber. The floor tiles will also be damaged. At least three different chronicles from the time of the original invasion tell of the dismantling of the statue and the destruction of the shrine. At least four ballads speak of the southerners bringing great magic to a cave in the mountain and closing off access to the shrine.”

As Laud paused, Calmet dared to comment on the archprelate’s revelation. “I knew we were opening up the shrine because it is a place of power. I knew we wanted to make it the center of a revolution, a chance to reinstate the old ways and give freedom to those who honor Gruumsh and all of the old ways. I didn’t know you expected to find anything.”

Archprelate Laud smiled anew with his patronizing smirk. “I not only expect to find that statue, but I expect to restore it using the very gold we’ve been mining here. I not only expect to find that unholy symbol carved into the floor and defaced by our southern conquerors, but I expect to use the same magic to restore that symbol that you are using to open the passageway through pure rock.”

“And the oracle?” asked Calmet, knowing that he was dancing on dangerous ground but unwilling to quit interrogating the hierarch until he found out everything he wanted to know.

“I expect to place the restored statue as a golden tribute to Gruumsh in the center of his symbol. On the day of the solstice, I will open the sanctuary to the sky and let the light fill its unseeing eye. The light will beam forth from the statue and Gruumsh will judge us his worthy servants and lead us to throw off these weak yokes of superstition and forgiveness.”

Calmet must have looked increasingly skeptical during the archprelate’s oration because Laud stood up swiftly at its conclusion and motioned for the cleric to follow him deeper into the cavern. The archprelate ducked down to traverse a passageway with a low ceiling and Calmet followed. When the passageway opened into a wider cavern, Calmet’s solitary eye took in a sunken pit in the center of the room and various forms of men or monsters chained around the circumference. His mouth dropped open in disbelief as he saw the body of a human onto which was grafted four tentacles, each looking like animated rock and adorned with thorny spikes. All four tentacles ended in a mass of thorns. The tentacles writhed and wriggled constantly as though in frantic search for prey. Another being had the body of an orc, but instead of the ugly and familiar gray visage, the torso was topped with a bright blue head that seemed to be nothing but mouth. Indeed, it was a huge, triangular maw formed by three spiny mandibles. When Calmet spotted the rows of shiny black teeth, he remembered similar descriptions of beasts from the ethereal plane, though he had never actually seen one.

Laud pointed to the monsters and said, “These creatures are the soldiers of the restored kingdom. You shall lead my Dark Pride. They were formed for strength and not beauty. You are groomed for leadership and revolution, not the passive docility of Pelor. They shall lead the way against the sun worshipers who stole our land and you shall command them as an unholy warrior plenipotentiary.”

Calmet tried not to look either startled or frightened, but Laud was sensitive to his lieutenant’s misgivings. “Power has many paths. Be certain you do not stand in the way of those who wield more of it than you. Such would be your undoing.” The archprelate’s smile quickly became menacing. “Yes, I know that power unseen is power doubted. Therefore, I have arranged a demonstration.”

17

At first, Yddith couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Krusk, her shield and safety, the sanctuary she’d refused to leave since he rescued her entire town from the slavers, had done the unthinkable by attacking a priest of Pelor! What’s more, he would certainly have killed Jozan if Alhandra hadn’t recognized that Hassq had charmed the barbarian and sent Jozan off to hide in the woods while the rest of the party distracted Krusk.

Yddith knew little about charms but she supposed that Hassq’s death must have weakened the spell. After they left the orcs’ camp, she, Alhandra, and the surprisingly helpful Qorrg kept asking questions of the barbarian until he simply forgot Hassq’s command to kill Jozan.

After an hour on the trail, Yddith begged the party to stop for rest and asked Krusk to sit by her on a fallen log a few paces off the sparse trail they followed.

Yddith didn’t know how or why, but she sensed that she had the power to help Krusk as she felt it building within her. She placed her hands in the barbarian’s and reveled in the strength as her slender palms and fingers were swallowed by his enormous grip. She held his gaze with her single eye and smiled so that her face sparkled like the emerald that served as her surrogate eye. She spoke in a tone as soothing as a court minstrel’s harp and a soft, green glow danced catlike between the emerald and Krusk’s coal-black eyes.

Yddith neither saw the worried look on Alhandra’s face when the green glow appeared nor observed the paladin reach toward the heavens for discernment. She didn’t know that Alhandra’s god had revealed a taint of evil in the pale, green aura. She merely spoke soothingly to the barbarian, caressing Krusk verbally with the idea that he was incredibly important to her and that she wanted to share the rest of her life with him. She hadn’t even admitted the latter to herself until she said it. For a moment, she wondered if it was true. Then, its rightness washed over her as surely as her words and the glow were washing over Krusk.

Yet, as soon as she was certain that Krusk was susceptible to her suggestions, she averred that Calmet, not Jozan, was the biggest danger to her, as well as the biggest threat to the emerald that Hassq had been trying to protect from Jozan. The last suggestion was an impromptu addition spurred by a glance at Alhandra’s disapproving face. Yddith was quickly becoming aware that the emerald had a power that could reach deep inside her and teach her the ways of sorcery. She could tell that the paladin didn’t approve of what she was doing, and she didn’t want any interference from Alhandra, no matter how well-intentioned.

As Yddith released Krusk’s hands, Alhandra stepped forward.

“I assume you realize that your emerald is evil,” asserted the paladin.

“Is it?” asked Yddith, innately aware that the paladin was correct.

“I’m afraid I detected a taint of evil, even as you worked that spell,” responded Alhandra.

“Glow green!” interrupted Qorrg, “Like Hassq! Bad spell! Qorrg hate Hassq!”

Sensing the conflict, as well as being captivated both by Yddith’s spell and the natural charms she wielded even when he wasn’t under an enchantment, Krusk interposed his big frame between the nascent sorceress and the unlikely duo of Alhandra and Qorrg. Yddith used the opportunity to express her intent.

“I know the gem is fueled by an evil power, but I’m not evil. By Pelor’s grace, I feel that I’m using evil for good.”

Yddith could see that her argument wasn’t convincing to the paladin as Alhandra shook her head and muttered, “Would that I had a gold piece for every soul who believed that!” The paladin backed away from the barbarian and continued, “I will not interfere, but I will tell you as the taint grows stronger. Perhaps, you’ll be wise enough to remove the cursed object before it’s too late.”

Still, Yddith could see that the paladin was not pleased, and she was relieved when Alhandra turned her attention to the half-orc. As she touched Krusk’s forearm, Yddith looked into the barbarian’s charmed eyes with an expression that exuded admiration and appreciation. She realized that some of her overt adoration was a disingenuous way of controlling her protector, but she also decided that much of it was real. She felt safe and content in his presence, something she’d never really experienced before.

She observed Alhandra raising her arms once more in supplication to Heironeous, knowing that the paladin was detecting evil on their prisoner. With amusement, she noticed Qorrg himself edging away from Alhandra when he realized that he was the target of the paladin’s spell.

The orc lifted up his hands and protested in a stream of northern orc Common, “Qorrg not bad. Hate Hassq. Hassq kill son. Give Gruumsh. Qorrg scared. Serve Hassq. Not like. Hate One-Eye, too!”

Yddith felt as if a forest of trees had been chopped down to reveal a new horizon. With twenty gutteral words of pidgin Common, the orc had explained his cooperative attitude and his previous service to Hassq. Hassq was evidently one of those legendary druids who practiced human sacrifice. Qorrg hated the druid for killing his son, but served the druid because he was frightened of him. It seemed the orc had gained a much-coveted revenge when he killed Hassq, but thirsted for still more if he could get in range of Calmet.

Yddith saw the paladin smile and drop her arms to her side.

“At least,” announced the paladin, “the evil within Qorrg isn’t gaining strength. It might even have lessened.”

The party picked up their belongings and started out anew on their quest. It seemed highly unlikely that Hassq’s enchantment of Krusk could last overnight, and Yddith felt confident that she could distract the barbarian for that long with her own charm. Her real concern was that her adamant refusal to abandon using the emerald’s power was creating a rift between herself and Alhandra. She decided to try a conversational gambit that would emphasize their common experience, if there was one.

“Before we left Pergue,” the one-eyed woman reminded the paladin, “you mentioned that you needed someone to trust once, but he wasn’t there.”

Alhandra looked uncomfortable. She turned her eyes to the ground and reddened slightly. She hesitated for an agonizingly long moment before responding.

“His name was Argyll Bruce, the eldest son of a highborn lord. He was the best rider, the finest swordsman, the most magnificent dancer and the most handsome man I’ve ever known.” She raised her chin to make eye contact with the one-eyed woman, and Yddith could see a trace of extra moisture in the paladin’s glistening eyes. “We were betrothed and I was in love,” Alhandra continued. “Commoner and noble alike said we were a perfect match. They were wrong.”

The paladin surprised Yddith by changing emotion with an incredible suddenness. She spat on the ground to punctuate the finality of her assessment. “They were wrong because horsemanship, weapon prowess, elegant grace, and exceeding good looks are no foundation for love. I saved myself for him and he betrayed me.”

Yddith sucked in her breath, nearly missing a twist on the knot she was tying. “He took advantage of you?”

In spite of the painful memory, Alhandra seemed amused at Yddith’s horrified reaction. The paladin obviously assumed that in spite of her naive demeanor, Yddith was not unfamiliar with the ways of men.

“No, not physically,” the paladin continued, “but he betrayed my love with churlish disregard. We were out riding, jumping fallen trees and earthen mounds. It was a beautiful day and we’d been racing and jumping like demons from Baator. We were leagues away from civilization when a downpour was unleashed upon us. We weren’t expecting the thunderstorm. There’d been no sign before we left, and we certainly risked catching the ague if we rode all the way back dressed as we were.”

As Yddith and the paladin walked along, she sensed that some of the chasm that had opened between the two women was closing again. There was nothing like sharing a heartbreak to re-ignite a sense of trust. She waited patiently for Alhandra to continue.

“We found a hunter’s lodge and built a fire. Argyll suggested we dry our clothes in front of the fire, but…uh…that’s an old gambit, and I wasn’t about to fall for it. I told him that I loved him and that I was saving myself for him. He made some half-hearted suggestion that that particular day was the rainy day for which I was always told to save. I told him that we were destined for connubial bliss, and I wasn’t going to trade it away for an afternoon’s ecstasy in a musty old lodge where he would probably have to share his love bites with the fleas in the sleeping furs.”

“And do you have regrets?” asked Yddith. “Do you think you drove him away?”

Alhandra breathed deeply before answering, “It was the right decision, little sister, though it came to even more of a foul end than you realize. I not only lost the man I thought I loved. I lost my reputation, also.”

“But you said,” interrupted Yddith, “that you told him you wouldn’t!”

“And I didn’t,” responded the paladin, “but we returned to town after the storm and the gossips were already telling their tales at Washerwoman’s Rock. His mates at the tavern couldn’t believe he could possibly be alone with such a beauty and keep his hands off. My love not only failed to defend his fair flower of womanhood, for such he had always called me, but he didn’t bother to tell them that the fair flower had kept every petal of her womanhood intact.”

“He lied?” asked Yddith in such refreshing disbelief that Alhandra couldn’t help but laugh.

“He lied,” answered the paladin. “He lied with words and he lied with silence. Not only did I lose the opportunity for that nuptial match, but I was considered a tainted woman. It wasn’t long before I joined the service of Heironeous, where actions speak louder than words, particularly louder than lies, spoken or unspoken. I guess that’s why I have no patience for those who choose to live between the darkness and the light as shadows.”

Yddith winced as Alhandra’s sermon came full circle back to her. She knew for certain that the paladin disapproved of the emerald’s power, but she also sensed that she would need the gem’s assistance to have any chance against the clerics of Gruumsh. She had heard it claimed many times in the tavern that it was necessary to fight fire with fire. Now that she was comprehending the nature of the gem, she vowed to fight evil with evil and trust the two negatives to bring a positive conclusion.

18

Archprelate Laud observed the uncertainty on Calmet’s face and lectured his star pupil once again. “I promise you a demonstration of power that you will never forget.” He escorted Calmet along the cavern walls and pointed out the characteristics of each hybrid warrior. “Here’s an interesting one,” the hierarch expounded. “I was planning to use these as shock troops.”

Laud snapped his fingers, and the chained orc soldier contorted its face until the skin pulled away from the skull, exposing bare bone.

No sooner had Laud revealed the purpose of the strange monstrosity than it unleashed a horrid screech. The archprelate watched with amusement as Calmet mustered every ounce of courage within himself to remain rooted beside Laud. Laud wanted his apostate apprentice to visualize how entire armies might run away upon seeing the death mask visage and hearing the preternatural wail of his monster. After all, Calmet was obviously growing in power and needed to be reeducated on the depth of his tutor’s ingenuity.

Laud pointed to the next specimen, a beefy human knight encased in a brown, crusty suit of armor. As Calmet looked closer, however, Laud pointed out the chitinous shoulders bulging out from the freakish human’s torso and the arms encased in an insect’s armored shell. The massive arms fairly dragged the ground like a troll’s, even though the mutated human was standing upright in the alcove. Laud seemed particularly anxious to demonstrate to Calmet that the chitinous arms ended in sharp, clawlike pincers instead of hands.

Laud couldn’t wait to explain how he formed these diabolical nightmares. He was proud of his accomplishments, and he gave no credence whatsoever to the Peloran admonition that pride presages a plunge. Laud wasn’t even sure he liked the proverb’s alliterative conceit, much less its philosophy that pandered to the weak.

As he led Calmet to the next monstrosity, he calmly explained that he had done considerable research in necromancy and transmutation since turning to the one-eyed god.

“Gruumsh honors the strong,” contended the archprelate, “and what is stronger than the victor? Every time I heard of a monster being slain, I sent my men to gather vital body parts. I took the combat ready portions of a monster’s body and sewed them onto amputated and decapitated humanoids.”

Laud amused himself by watching the Gruumshlike tinge of green that colored Calmet’s face as his pupil considered the implications behind Laud’s words.

“Decapitated?” the younger cleric asked.

“Decapitated,” affirmed Laud. “Of course, one must then raise the dead without destroying the transmutation magic and the potency of the necromancy. You saw my ethereal slaughterer, did you not?”

When Calmet’s face looked blank, Laud continued, “It’s an ethereal marauder, really, but I can’t wait to unleash it on southern troops. I hope it lives up to my new name.”

The next specimen would have looked human enough were it not for the blue-black tentacles protruding from his shoulder blades. The tentacles were long and curled menacingly in front of the abomination, each ending in a lighter, almost violet pad filled with thornlike protrusions.

“Strike him!” the archprelate commanded Calmet.

Calmet hesitated.

“Strike him!” ordered the hierarch once more.

Calmet brought his flail out and aimed the blow viciously at the unfortunate’s face. The priest nearly winced as the weapon struck unerringly, but he was glad he hadn’t. If he had winced, he wouldn’t have believed that the blow passed through the monster without causing any injury, or without actually striking anything whatsoever.

Laud cackled with pleasure. “Try again,” commanded the harsh taskmaster.

Calmet focused on his swing and prepared to bash the monster’s head in. He knew for certain that he would connect this time. He didn’t.

“Will I always miss?” Calmet asked his mentor.

“No, not always,” laughed Laud with a sinister chuckle. “I believe you’ll miss about half the time. That’s often enough for him to destroy his enemies by attrition. He keeps wounding and weakening them while they…” Laud couldn’t resist the pun as he glanced at Calmet’s weapon, “flail away aimlessly.”

“How do you know?” the younger priest queried.

“By testing them in battle, of course,” came Laud’s patronizing answer.

“You have them fight each other?” asked Calmet in amazement. “Aren’t they too rare to kill in experimentation?”

“Don’t be absurd,” scoffed Laud. “When you’re dealing with necromancy, you merely bring back the dead. But I tire of talk. Let me show you.”

The archprelate called out to several guards in a nearby passage and ordered them to take the chitinous atrocity to the pit in the adjoining cavern.

“Now, you’ll see a display of raw power such as you’ve never seen before.”

Laud watched without sympathy as one guard was injured and another killed in the process of moving the two monsters. After a time of inhuman growling and roaring, mixed with the shouts of the unfortunate handlers, the two clerics moved to the edge of the pit and observed two horrors squaring off beneath them. One was the fighter with insectoid armor. The other was a large humanoid with black scales and a head shaped like a bull’s.

“A minotaur?” Calmet guessed aloud before the archprelate pointed out that the long horns jutting from the bovine head were silver.

“No,” Laud corrected his pupil, “a gorgon. I think you’ll enjoy the results.”

The battle began. The gorgonoid charged the insectoid in an attempt to gore the longarmed foe. The insectoid twisted and brought its right claw down in a raking attack against the gorgonoid’s unprotected eyes. The claw drew an inhuman ichor from the exposed eye and caused the bull’s head to thrash from side to side until a horn contacted the insectoid’s torso and its sharp point plunged into the creature’s chest like a dagger.

The pincerlike claws of the punctured foe smashed against the scales of the gorgonoid, ripping loose some of the monster’s natural armor and spraying a fountain of stinking liquid from under the scales. Pained, the gorgonoid jumped back and breathed a noxious gas at the insectoid. Whatever the breath was, it seemed to do no damage to the insectoid, which didn’t slow its aggressive onslaught.

“Well done!” shouted Laud, his blood lust revealed in breathless excitement. “It often turns its foes to stone in the first attack. Now, it must hang on and regenerate that substance in its lungs!”

Calmet’s eyes widened as claw and horn continued ripping the opponents to shreds. Each new wound seemed to enthuse Laud with an almost sexual excitement until the gorgonoid stepped back and exhaled its noxious breath once more. The putrid looking cloud erupted from the gorgonoid’s mouth and enfolded itself around the insectoid warrior like a shroud, just as before. However, when the cloud cleared a moment later, a stone statue of the monstrosity stood in its place.

Laud clapped his hands like a child, and Calmet followed suit, afraid to do anything else. The cleric understood another vital element in the archprelate’s plan; how he intended to fuel the revolution once the shrine was restored. With these monsters at the forefront of his armies and the power of Gruumsh at his disposal, there was no doubt that Laud would rule the land. He might even invade the southern regions. Revenge was a savory morsel to the powerful.

19

Alhandra was troubled. Ever since she consecrated her life to Heironeous, she had been able to count on his guidance to help her know who to trust and who not to trust. Now, she was confused. She could perceive auras after she asked her god to assist her in detecting evil and she was relieved to see that the slime green aura of Gruumsh was becoming a pale green around Qorrg. The orc was undergoing a transformation, a conversion to good, or at least away from evil.

She couldn’t say quite the same thing about Yddith. The intriguing girl had once exuded the most incredibly pure aura. After the fight in the swamp and later, after her strange interaction with Krusk, her aura showed an emerald tint around the edges. To be sure, there wasn’t enough evidence to claim that the woman was becoming evil. It was just a shame to see such an innocent become tainted in any way. In fact, Alhandra was fairly sure she knew why Yddith showed signs of taint. She was certain that the emerald Yddith used as a replacement eye was an artifact of power, one with the potential to seduce the erstwhile barmaid into something quite different from the courageous woman she had become. Yddith was no longer the weak but courageous girl who began this trek with the three warriors. She was becoming powerful.

And Power, thought the champion of valor, corrupts. Let’s hope it doesn’t corrupt our Yddith too much.

Even though it was a new day and Jozan had been welcomed back into the group without a second glance from Krusk, Alhandra wasn’t comforted. She observed Yddith sitting on an overturned tree trunk, nibbling on a piece of pork rind. As always, Krusk stood near her as though the barbarian was drawing sustenance from her presence. Not too far away from the mismatched turtledoves, Jozan seemed to have his mind adrift in a celestial fog of soul-searching. Alhandra suspected that the young cleric doubted his worthiness, again. She wondered if she ought to give him a brief homily on being chosen to serve when Qorrg returned and motioned for Krusk and Alhandra to join him. The three melted into the trees, briefly leaving Yddith to her breakfast and Jozan to his doubt.

The three scouts climbed onto a large rock outcropping. Peering over the rock, Alhandra looked down on a pathetic sight. A fast-flowing stream raced down the side of the mountain. About a long bow shot from the stream was a dark opening in the side of the hill. To the right of the opening was forest. Beyond that was a clearing that had been deforested to build a low wooden barracks building or dormitory.

The pathetic sight was a group of bedraggled women and children on their hands and knees on both sides of the fast-moving stream. Though their hands were free to perform tasks in the stream, their legs were chained together. Their hair and clothes were filthy. Their left eye sockets were empty, an unholy mockery that testified to the ruthless devotion of Gruumsh’s servants. Many of the women and some of the children had the backs of their clothes torn open where they had obviously been whipped. Congealed blood and infected wounds were widespread, and the odor was noticeable, even where Alhandra crouched.

As the three watched, men who were chained together would exit the dark opening in the hillside carrying large sacks of loose gravel. They dumped the sacks beside the stream and shuffled back to the mine, but rarely departed before one or more were abused by the orcs guarding the women and children. The women and children then dug bowls into the debris extracted by the male slaves and returned to the stream. Kneeling beside the water, they dipped the bowls into the stream and swished them around with careful, practiced motions, all the while picking out larger chunks of rock and earth. Eventually, when the process was through, nothing but specks of gold remained in the bottoms of the bowls. The captives would then stand up and migrate to a table where at least three guards were always on watch. There they dumped their bowls into a larger one and repeated the process. If they failed to work fast enough, they were lashed on their way back to the stream.

Alhandra was barely aware of Krusk slipping back to the others and returning with Yddith. The paladin immediately observed Yddith placing her hand over her mouth in reaction to the horrors that the women and children were facing. The paladin realized that Yddith’s reaction must be all the more poignant once the barmaid realized that this was where she and the rest of her village had been headed after their capture by the slavers. Turning back to the clearing, Alhandra studied both the worn, flea-ridden hide tents of the slaves and the long, wooden barracks building from which she saw humans and orcs regularly emerge.

She didn’t like the place and breathed slightly easier as Qorrg, Krusk, and Yddith began making their way back to where Jozan waited impatiently. They compared observations and estimates, concluding that there were at least a dozen guards on the women and children, possibly twice that many, judging from the traffic going in and out of the barracks.

“I’d like to spring a surprise attack on them,” suggested Alhandra, “but there’s one big problem.” She looked meaningfully at Jozan. “I’ve been beside Jozan when he tried to be stealthy, and there is no possible way for him to succeed.”

She saw the cleric redden for a moment before he responded in protest. “I’ve actually thought about that,” Jozan admitted. “I think I can move part of the way up the hill and invoke silence before we clamber up the steepest part of that slope.”

Everyone nodded, realizing the wisdom in Jozan’s plan to create an area of silence around the five of them. They would watch from the outcropping and continue to reconnoiter the camp until they saw enough of a disruption in routine to allow for a full-scale ambush.

This time, the plan worked as the group anticipated. Alhandra watched Jozan mime the compass points of the sun and breathe the Celestial word, “Pacis.”

The sky shimmered and a translucent membrane was visible for a moment, descending around the group like a semi-visible dome. The silence spell covered their advance up the hill and they could see the camp and hillside clearly with very little chance of being seen themselves.

They watched three orc guards address the beefy orc in the center of the action, though they couldn’t hear anything that was said because of Jozan’s spell. They saw events unfolding in a bizarre pantomime. The orc in command sent the guards into the dark mineshaft. They returned shortly with a human prisoner and forced him to lie prone in front of their leader. The orc directed the guards to grab a human woman from beside the stream. They removed her from the chain of enslaved women and children and brought her to the leader, shoving her to her knees beside the prone human from from the cave. The orc stepped between the two, pushing them apart with his knees, then kicked the male on the side of the head. The blow forced the man’s face into the ground. The woman opened her mouth wide, though no sound could reach the heroes, and she crawled toward the orc in useless supplication.

In agonizing silence, the heroes watched the orc interrogate the woman, but they could only see her shake her head in the negative. Each denial from her caused a blow against the man. The orc kicked him, punched him, cut him, whipped him, and even struck him with a stout stick.

The sadistic sideshow was so infuriating that the five were tempted to rush in without agreeing on a plan. Alhandra sensed Krusk nearing the point of rage, but couldn’t speak with any of the others to coordinate the plan because of the silence invoked by Jozan. She spoke the words, but no one could hear them. Nor did they notice an object moving toward them that might have been a snake except for its rocklike skin. They failed to sense a writhing appendage approaching them, an ugly column of filth and flesh that resembled an elephant’s trunk with unnatural, hornlike protrusions thrusting out of the wiggling flesh.

The silence worked so well that when a second appendage joined its mate and wriggled around Qorrg’s legs and the triangular ends of the mysterious limbs punctured his ankles with their prickly spines of sharp cartilage, no one heard Qorrg’s cry of agony. Qorrg mouthed inaudible cries as the thorny, bonelike protuberances dug into his skin wherever they touched, and the tentacles began to drag the orc down the hill toward the semi-obscured entrance to a cave.

Alhandra had just decided to draw a battle plan in the dirt when Krusk lost all patience.

When the sadistic orc pulled the woman up by the hair and ripped away what was left of her torn clothing, the barbarian passed his limit. Krusk had already hurdled the rock and was racing toward the center of the camp when he saw the kneeling man try to stand and grapple the commander. One of the smaller orcs kicked the human below the belt, causing the man to double over and vomit. Then, while the man was still helpless, the running, charging, screaming Krusk watched the other guard smash the handle of his longspear over the man’s head. The spear cracked at the same time as the man’s skull. Both the broken shaft and the unconscious human dropped to the ground.

The orc commander didn’t even notice Krusk. He was holding the helpless woman in front of him and trying to kiss her. The terrified woman spat on her tormentor and tried to break free, filling Krusk’s mind with images of his mother being ravaged by the orc warlord who sired him. His eyes glowed with red rage. His greataxe danced through the bodies of the guards, spraying blood in wide arcs and leaving crumpled, howling victims in his wake.

The screams of his guards immediately drew the commander’s attention. The orc threw the woman aside without a thought. He grasped his urgrosh by the center handle and moved to intercept the barbarian.

Krusk heard Yddith yell a warning to watch out for the orcs approaching from each side, but he refused to pay attention to the stirgelike threats on his flanks. Instead, he stopped and ducked as the big orc thrust his double-headed axe at him with massive forehand and backhand moves. As soon as the second thrust passed over his head, Krusk rose to his full height and buried his own greataxe in the large orc’s midrift, yanking away flesh and entrails as he danced away from the expected counterattack. Instead of an attack, however, the large orc howled and dropped his prized weapon. With both hands trying to stuff his organs back into the wound, the powerful orc yelled for his subordinates to kill the intruder.

In response to the order, Krusk felt a longspear prick his right shoulder. At the same time he became aware of a spearhead entangled in his chain shirt. He tried to focus on the commander, but a fresh squad of soldiers rushed up to cover their commander’s flanks. Krusk also saw what was becoming a familiar green glow appear on the ground in front of them.

Krusk glanced behind him for a moment and saw Yddith rubbing a pork rind that she had removed from her provision bag. A green light washed over her hands and the pork rind as she stared malevolently at the orcs protecting their commander. When Krusk turned back to the guards, he saw them scrambling to find footing. The ground around them had become as slick as butter. One after another they fell and slipped away down the slope, one howling from the pain of a broken arm. The field was open for Krusk’s vengeful attack.

Krusk relaxed his arms, dropping the greataxe to a low angle. Then he took a sudden stride and swung the weapon with an underhand motion. The full width of the blade buried itself in the big orc’s rib cage. Krusk cursed joyously in the Orcish tongue as he felt the heavy blade crunch through bone and flesh. The large orc collapsed, nearly chopped through at the waist, and crumpled at the feet of the screaming woman he had assaulted.

With their commander dead, Krusk had no trouble picking off the remaining guards one by one. He motioned for Yddith to free the slaves. A moment later she was searching the dead guards for the key to the manacles. He briefly wondered where the others were, but was too busy slicing up guards to think about their absence.

Jozan and Alhandra had not abandoned Krusk intentionally. When Krusk first hurdled the rock, the movement caused them to turn their heads in his direction as though they were connected by string to the half-orc’s body. It was only as they watched Krusk leaping over the rock that they caught another movement in their peripheral vision. Turning to that movement, they were stunned to see Qorrg being dragged across the rocks toward the partially concealed cave entrance. At first, they thought a giant snake had snared him. Then, they realized that the rocky appendages trailed out of the mouth of the cave. Immediately they chased after Qorrg’s captor. When the silence spell dissipated, they could hear Qorrg’s screams as he struggled against the monstrous tentacles.

So much for stealth, thought Jozan as he clambered down the hill. A vinelike tendril stuck out of the cave entrance and Jozan immediately recognized that there were eyes on the end of the stalk. He smashed it with his mace and praised Pelor as some of the monster’s life-fluid splashed out.

Alhandra was right beside him. Her sword glistened and whistled toward the same spot where Jozan had just struck the monster, slicing away portions of flesh as neatly as a fishmonger might filet his catch. But she involuntarily took a step back as the bloated rock dweller lifted its great jaws out of the cave entrance.

“It’s an otyugh!” shouted Jozan. “These,” he said, pointing to the tendrils, “are just part of the monster!” He shook his head to clear the putrid smell of garbage and feces that permeated the air. “We have to cut Qorrg free!” he shouted.

The monster tightened its tentacles around Qorrg and caused the orc’s gray skin to take on a paler cast, like the color of white marble.

Jozan stood with mouth agape as he stared at the monster’s toothy jaws. He swung his mace at the vinelike appendage, but was so distracted by the size of the beast’s mouth that he might as well have been dancing as fighting. Indeed, he danced nimbly out of the way of a swiping tentacle.

The cleric was relieved to see Alhandra’s blade slash into the stalk once again. She leaped back and nearly retched from the horrid stench. He held his own breath and smashed his mace repeatedly against the otyugh’s limb. Still he heard the monster’s teeth scrape noisily down Alhandra’s armor.

Both Jozan and Alhandra fought with desperate speed. They were certain Qorrg was dying, and that added fury to their blows. Jozan smashed a protruding eyestalk at the same time that the creature’s tentacle raked across his face and ripped a bloody gash.

Through the blood running into his eyes, Jozan saw Alhandra launch a flurry of blows. She sliced off the remaining eyestalk, slashed a bloody V across the horrid lips, and plunged the tip of her sword through the roof of the obscene mouth when it opened wide to suck in air. At last the malodorous body collapsed, half inside and half outside its lair.

Jozan immediately knelt to tend Qorrg’s wounds and encouraged Alhandra to follow suit by laying on her hands. With bandages and prayers, the orc was brought back to a semblance of health. Only then did the three venture over the top of the hill to rejoin their comrades in arms.

As they crested the hill, they saw Krusk running toward Yddith with the wounded slave woman in his arms. Bounding after the barbarian, excited by the abundance of freshly spilled blood, was a shadow mastiff. Alhandra drew her longbow from off her back. She preferred fighting with the sword, but neither Krusk nor Yddith could wait for her to get that close.

With the arrow already nocked, Alhandra heard Jozan’s voice and felt a scintillating wave of well-being wash over her. She smiled, knowing that Jozan had blessed her, and she sent the arrow winging toward the mastiff. The tip buried itself in the creature’s haunch as the evil beast snapped at Krusk’s calf. The delay gave Krusk time to place the wounded slave in Yddith’s hands before turning himself to face the mastiff.

Alhandra let fly with another arrow and watched it narrowly miss the beast. But she had a third arrow on its way by the time Krusk drew blood with his axe. The mastiff howled as Krusk pulled back his axe, matted with blood and fur. Just as Alhandra’s arrow wedged itself in the hound’s ribs, it pounced on Krusk and knocked the barbarian down.

As the shadow mastiff tore into Krusk with fang and claw, Alhandra didn’t hesitate. She dropped the bow and sprinted toward the monster. Krusk tried to throw the creature off, but it bit onto his arm and held on tenaciously. With a single, powerful slash, Alhandra sliced the beast in half with her sword. Its body turned to shadows and shimmered into non-existence as it returned to its home in Baator.

“Well, well,” observed Jozan as he walked up to the paladin and returned her bow. The cleric looked at the ground where the shadow mastiff had fallen and continued his thought. “We’ve already bearded the lion. We might as well visit his den.”

“Are you sure that isn’t his den of iniquity?” asked Alhandra with a lightness in her voice that she hadn’t felt since they left Pergue.

20

Calmet’s sing-song chant echoed as he spread mud along the back wall of the tunnel and felt his fingers penetrate the rock as easily as if he were a potter working clay on his wheel. Calmet performed this ritual twice per day for the last few days and still they had not managed to open up the chamber that held the sacred shrine. Time was running out. The mineral walls gave way to mud and Calmet watched in rapt appreciation as he pushed his way through the stone. He savored the way his fingers felt as the power coursed through them and allowed him to shape the rock.

Then, something felt different. His fingers were no longer massaging the rock and shaping a passage. They had reached through the stone and touched nothing but air.

The cleric plunged forward. He chanted at a feverish pace. His hands moved as rapidly as possible and soon shaped a human-sized doorway. Calmet tried to motion to the guards that he had broken through into the sacred chamber, but he didn’t dare speak lest he unwittingly break the spell. The guards were too stupid to realize what he was indicating, or too unobservant to notice that he had broken through. Calmet continued to widen the passageway as he wondered what they would find on the other side of the tunnel. Eventually, he felt the cavern walls harden and noted that the mineral appearance had returned. He briefly admired the size of the entry he had sculpted, then turned to face the idiotic guards who ignored his gestures and his progress.

“Get the archprelate immediately,” ordered the cleric. “He’ll want to know. We’ve found the chamber. We’ve reached Scaun!”

The guard left immediately, loping up the passage in such a way that Calmet knew he would slow to a walk as soon as he turned a corner and was out of Calmet’s sight. The orcs were incredibly frustrating. Calmet and Laud had worked for almost two years to reach this point. Only a few days before it looked as if they might not reach the chamber before the solstice. It had taken brilliant inspiration on his part to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat, and Calmet couldn’t wait to share the triumph with his friends and colleagues.

Today is the solstice, he thought, and there is plenty of time to repair and prepare the sanctuary before sunset brings Gruumsh’s avatar to life.

Of course, there was only one thing wrong with Calmet’s desire to share the moment, to savor the triumph. There was really no one to share it with. Certainly, he could share the moment with Laud, but the archprelate was his superior. He expected success. Laud went through pupils like Balor went through slaves to satisfy his appetite for fresh blood. He might praise Calmet, but the apostate cleric’s achievement was really nothing more than Laud expected. That was the problem with the worship of Gruumsh. The one-eyed god taught only the imperative of power, the superiority of strength. Friendship was weakness. Weakness was to be purged.

Calmet had really never thought about it before, but at times he felt cheated. He had been so focused on gaining power and reaching this goal that he left behind the camaraderie of the order. He sacrificed human relationships, friendship, and love on the altar of power as surely as his eye had been sacrificed to Gruumsh. It almost gave credence to that Peloran passage…

“How did it go?” Calmet asked himself. “I think it was something like:

“Though I ascend the highest hill, my failure to touch those in the valley can leave me as a wisp of wind or fleeting breath.

“Though I rule the masses, failure to hear the lowest peasant gives me bombastic speech and meaningless stutter.

“Though I hold the gold of a thousand kingdoms in my hand, unwillingness to staunch the pangs of hunger makes me bile and sputum.

“If I command the use of all weapons such that I win every battle, and know arcana such that I comprehend all mysteries, yet lack compassion, I stand defeated.”

Calmet stood on the threshold of his greatest triumph. He had climbed the highest hill, handled the gold of a thousand kingdoms, and won a number of battles. Yet he stood alone. He stood alone and waited for his enemy and mentor to express his approval.

Oh, Pelor, thought Calmet, why did you forsake me?

Waiting on the threshold of his greatest triumph, Calmet almost thought that a voice answered him. A calm, soothing voice seemed to speak directly to his mind.

Why, dear Calmet, did you forsake me?

The apostate touched his empty eye socket and felt tears well up in his other eye. He had forsaken Pelor because the god of goodness, healing, and the sun allowed him to lose his eye. He had forsaken the god who taught love and compassion because that god showed no love and compassion for him. The tender moment passed and Calmet, like an emperor of long ago, hardened his heart.

Laud turned the corner surrounded by a retinue of slaves and the guards chosen to keep them in line. Behind the slaves was another group of guards and two familiar shapes. Laud had brought two of his monstrosities with him. He held his crosier before him, and the staff glowed with the mossy green light of Gruumsh. Laud nodded to Calmet as a token symbol of approval, but rushed quickly past him in order to take in the long-neglected shrine. His light shone around the chamber, and even the archprelate’s breath caught as he realized the severity of the desecration that had occurred within.

It looked as if one of the clerics associated with the southern kingdoms had invoked an earthquake in the chamber. A rockslide had destroyed the ceremonial door and filled the passageway that led upward to the little village of Scaun. The southerners had defaced a mural depicting the classic battle wherein the elf god, Corellon Larethian, mutilated Gruumsh’s left eye. A pile of colored shards rested on the cavern floor where they had been scraped off the mural. Only the portion showing the bloody eye remained, the desecrators’ not so subtle way of showing that the forces of good had once more injured the so-called god of strength. Looking around the carved cornices that once rimmed the top of the cavern, he quickly noticed two places where the desecrators smashed the stone into rubble. Since there was an admonition against weakness carved into the cornice, it didn’t take much effort to see that the damage had deliberately excised the name of Gruumsh himself from the carving.

The archprelate turned his attention to the rubble in the center of the room. He reached out with his hand and wiped away some of the loose sand and small rocks from what he suspected to be the statue’s head. Seeing the tip of Gruumsh’s center eye, he hurriedly brushed more dirt and stone aside. Satisfied, he turned around and shouted instructions to slaves and guards alike. With clean-up operations under way, he turned to speak to Calmet for the first time since the chamber was opened.

“Well done,” Laud said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “We’ll clean up the rubble immediately. You will climb onto those rocks over there and use your power to shape stone to replace Gruumsh’s name in the carving. I will clear the small passageway that opens to the sky.”

“As you wish, Your Potency,” responded Calmet.

“Then,” the archprelate said, glaring at his minion, “you will stand behind my creations and make sure that your pupil and his friends do not disrupt the ritual.”

“My pupil?” choked Calmet.

“Your pupil,” affirmed Laud. “Jozan and his companions have breached the mouth of the mine and found their way to your inner sanctum. You didn’t think I would begin such an important day without scrying the complex, did you? I have sent two of my creations to distract them. If they fail, you will need to hold them off till sunset.”

“Till sunset?” asked Calmet.

“Between now and sunset, these slaves will be melting more of the gold ore. My artisan, Fluhrn, will reshape the statue’s head to its original condition. At sunset, the light will shine through the center eye, the power of Gruumsh will flow through us, and we shall invoke his avatar. If you hold them off till sunset, we’ll let Gruumsh himself destroy the infidels. The revolution will begin.”

Calmet tuned out as Laud blathered on megalomaniacally. He was beginning to think that no amount of power could ever be enough for the archprelate. Worse, all of Laud’s concern about the defaced idol reminded Calmet of a parable preached by the clerics of Pelor. The Pelorans told a story of a man who carefully selected a tree and carved it into the image of his god. The man shaped it and worshiped it, praying for its protection. Eventually, a foreign army besieged the city where the man lived. Many people had to flee for their lives, hearing of atrocities committed by the army when it conquered elsewhere. The man packed his gold and fled the city in the dark of night. Calmet chuckled as he remembered the final line of the sermon: “Do you really want to seek protection from a god that needs you to protect him?”

Well, interrupted the calm, soft, inner voice he had heard before Laud appeared, do you?

21

While Laud celebrated his triumph in the shrine once dedicated to Gruumsh, the Peloran intruders imbibed healing potions and entered the gloom of the mine. They advanced only a few steps before Jozan gently whispered, “Lux!” and his sun symbol started to glow. “No sense walking in the dark. They’ve known we’re coming for days. The traps will be prepared.”

At first, the five companions were concerned that they heard no sounds. Then they realized that all of the work must be going on deeper in the mine. Eventually, they knew they would run into a work gang of slaves and would need to kill the guards before the slaves could be harmed, but the knowledge that it was likely to be later rather than sooner allowed them to breathe easier for the moment.

The tunnel floor sloped steeply and they soon entered into a rhythm as they traveled deeper into the mine.

The group came to a point where a side tunnel branched off the main passageway. Yddith pointed to a gray statue attached to the cavern wall and squeaked out a question, “What’s that?”

“It looks like a statue of a gargoyle,” answered Alhandra. “It’s probably here to mark this side tunnel as being significant.”

As the group huddled together and discussed their next move, no one spotted the gargoyle turning its head to observe them and eavesdrop on the conversation.

“If we explore the side tunnels,” observed Jozan, “we’ll probably find dead ends where they’ve already mined out the ore. If we stay in the main tunnel, we should be able to hear where they’re working and find everyone right away.”

“I’m not sure about that,” countered Alhandra. “What if Calmet and Laud are doing something down here besides mining?”

“Like what?” asked the young priest.

“Maybe they perform rituals with human sacrifice,” suggested Krusk. “They might have some alcoves far enough away from the other slaves that the slaves don’t hear the screams.”

Alhandra chimed in with another option. “What if they’re hiding powerful scrolls and artifacts down here? They would be easy to protect. I don’t see why this mine wouldn’t be as full of monsters as any dungeon or cave complex we’ve ever explored.”

“Well,” interrupted Yddith once again, “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be walking than talking. At some point, any guards left outside are going to figure out where we’ve gone, and we could be caught between two enemies.”

They all conceded Yddith’s point and agreed to take a side tunnel to test Krusk’s and Alhandra’s theories. Krusk led the way with Jozan following immediately behind him. Yddith followed Jozan, while Alhandra and Qorrg covered the rear. Everyone felt confident as they walked carefully through the auxiliary tunnel. Then, Krusk felt something give way beneath his feet. A cracking sound accompanied the movement of the flooring, followed by the sound of loose earth. A patchwork of bamboo that had been overlaid with dirt gave way. Krusk reached vainly for something to grab hold of and failed to find it. He slid to the bottom of a rough pit about ten feet deep. He landed on his feet, but realized that his fall must have broken a conduit made of pottery. Water was rushing over him and rapidly filling the narrow pit.

As Krusk considered his situation, he realized how diabolical was the trap. Water, probably from the stream, was diverted into the conduit. When someone fell through the bamboo covering and broke the pottery seal, a portion of the stream ran directly into the pit. The pit narrowed at the bottom so that Krusk’s legs were tightly wedged between the walls. With so little room to spare, the well was filling rapidly. Worse, Krusk couldn’t move his legs and could barely shift his arms.

It was with great relief that he observed a rope dangling in front of him. Remembering that Yddith had picked up the rope after Hassq’s death, Krusk grabbed it and pulled. It was a slow and difficult climb because he could use only his arms and shoulders to pull himself up. The pit was too slick and too narrow for his legs and feet to be much use. He looked up at the tunnel above and saw Jozan, Qorrg, and Yddith anchoring themselves to help him climb. They weren’t strong enough to pull him up, but if they could hang on long enough, he could do it himself.

Alhandra couldn’t help with Krusk’s problem. She had her own difficulty. The gargoyle was not a statue. It waited until Krusk fell into the pit to launch its attack, then it swooped down on Alhandra. She looked ahead to see what was happening and, satisfied that the others could help Krusk out of his situation, she turned back to watch the rear. She turned just in time to see the gargoyle hit her with its head down. She staggered back as neither claw managed to penetrate her plate armor. Still the gargoyle pressed in relentlessly. Alhandra slashed with the sword and forced the gargoyle back to the edge of her reach with the perfectly fashioned long sword.

The monster clawed and bit at the paladin, but wasn’t able to get past her active guard. The long sword danced in front of her and nicked chips of stonelike skin from the gargoyle’s arms. It bared its fangs menacingly and snapped uselessly at the woman. One claw scraped her metal armor but failed to do any damage. The other, however, shot past the blade and grasped Alhandra’s left forearm. The stony grip squeezed till the armor began to crush. In retaliation, Alhandra sliced down with the sword and neatly severed one of the gargoyle’s horns. The startled monster released its grip and leaped away.

Alhandra moved slowly backward to force the gargoyle to keep coming after her. Most savage attackers she’d fought were likely to leave themselves exposed when on the offense, so she bided her time and watched for an opening. When she sensed her compatriots immediately behind her, Alhandra realized that she’d run out of room to maneuver. With retreat no longer an option, she lashed out with the sword and caught her foe with a deep cut across its stony face. The gargoyle recoiled, entangled her sword with one claw, and flew against her. It bit her gauntleted right hand, puncturing the armor with granite teeth, drawing blood, but an immediate numbness covered the pain.

Alhandra pulled free and cut at the gargoyle again, using both hands on the sword hilt. The paladin wasted no effort on carefully aimed blows but simply hacked at the monster as quickly as possible. She sliced its left wing badly and saw with satisfaction that the beast pulled back from that blow. It tried another flurry of attacks with its claws, but its damaged, drooping wing hindered its movement. It was trying to turn and flap away when the paladin’s’ final stroke found the gargoyle’s neck and shattered her opponent into stonelike shards.

At about the same time Krusk climbed out of the pit. Jozan rushed to Alhandra’s side. Noticing the bloody wound on her forearm, he instantly beseeched Pelor to heal her. The golden glow affirmed Pelor’s healing and the adventurers huddled together once again.

“We must be on the right track,” suggested Alhandra. She pointed at the remains of the gargoyle. “You don’t guard something that isn’t valuable.”

When the others agreed, the barbarian led the way in circumnavigating the pit trap and they wandered down the man-made tunnel until they came to a natural cavern opening. The half-orc ducked into the opening and was immediately greeted by a high-pitched scream. Instinctively, he drew his dagger and threw it at the source of the sound. He was rewarded by the scream intensifying, as well as a satisfying, squishing sound that assured him the dagger was embedded in the target.

The barbarian charged the shrieker with axe in hand. A kitchen knife bounced off the back of the cavern wall. Krusk was pleased that Yddith wasn’t afraid to join in the fight, even though her magic was more effective than her knife-throwing. He heard a powerful squish beside him. Jozan was smashing a violet fungi that crawled across the cavern on its roots. Since the cleric seemed to be simultaneously smashing the mushroom with his mace and dodging the poisonous tentacles that flailed about from under the cap of the fungus, Krusk focused on the shrieker. He harvested the mushroom with one slice of his greataxe and turned back to assist his friends.

By the time he turned back, Alhandra had also attacked the mobile mushroom. Where Jozan’s mace smashed the plant into a foul-smelling pulp, she sliced it into small tidbits.

Alhandra then turned to Qorrg and said, “There’s no question that they know we’re here, now. We need to be more alert from here on. I want you to stand guard behind us, every time we enter a room. Don’t worry about what’s in front. Leave that to us. Just make sure no one sneaks up behind us.”

Turning away from Qorrg, Alhandra saw Jozan walk into the adjoining cavern. The light glowing from his sun symbol illuminated the room. It was filled with tables covered with books, alchemical materials, and scroll cases, obviously someone’s inner sanctum. The paladin hoped these materials were dear to Calmet, but she didn’t have a great deal of time to think about that. Something was attacking Krusk.

Calmet’s homunculus flew in front of the half-orc and tried to bite the barbarian’s face. The one-eyed homunculus flitted from one side to the other, trying to poison Krusk with its bite, but the half-orc kept shoving the tiny creature away. Seeing the situation, Alhandra deftly stepped through the cavern opening and speared the little monster with the very tip of her sword.

The homunculus screamed, then tried one more time to sink its vicious little fangs into Krusk, so Alhandra speared it again. This time, as it fluttered off the bloodied sword point, Jozan stepped up and smashed the creature to the floor with his mace. When Alhandra saw that the nasty creature was still breathing, she followed with a calculated coup de grâce.

They looked around the cavern with a sense of awe. Shelves of spell and alchemical components, piles of scroll cases, worn and mangled tomes, and a host of manuscripts were scattered into every available space. A few sleeping furs were piled in one corner.

Alhandra was cheerful as she announced their triumph, “We’ve found his inner sanctum!”

Searching the cavern revealed a host of scroll cases with symbols of necromancy on them. Once more, Jozan regretted his inability with language, for many of the manuscripts and scrolls seemed to bear the characters common to both celestial and infernal alphabets. The adventurers had located an immense repository of arcane armament and were unable to use any of it because of Jozan’s aborted education.

One item that they found, however, was most interesting. It was a map unrolled on the writing table that showed the local region. The village of Scaun was circled. Jozan thought that the map might indicate the next target of the Black Carnival. Then he noticed the half-scroll beside the map. He unrolled it and realized that it fit underneath the regional map.

“I think,” ventured the cleric, “that this smaller map shows the configuration of the mine tunnels. If so, we’re closer to the heart of this matter than I’d realized.”

“What is it?” asked Alhandra.

“It’s the abandoned shrine of Scaun, the so-called Eye of Gruumsh. They couldn’t open it from the top without attracting unwanted attention, so I think they’re opening it from below.”

“What’s so important about the shrine?” asked Yddith.

“It was the center of Gruumsh worship, the old religion,” responded Alhandra. “In the old days, even humans gave their due to Gruumsh—a human sacrifice here, a food offering there, or a gladiatorial combat at the base of the hill. It was just the way it was before the southerners came.”

“It was where the avatar appeared,” stated Krusk. “He appeared on the solstice and led the assembled armies into their next battles.”

“That’s right!” responded Alhandra. “If you wanted to start a military campaign or lead a revolution, this was the place to start it. I had forgotten about the solstice part.”

Jozan looked as pale as Qorrg had in the grip of the otyugh.

“What’s wrong?” asked Alhandra as solicitously as she knew how.

“Today…” gulped the cleric, “today is the solstice!”

22

Krusk was disappointed as he watched Jozan rummage through the scroll cases. The cleric found two scrolls for curing wounds, but nothing else that could be helpful. Jozan explained that he only recognized the characters for curing wounds. He was sure there were useful scrolls in the pile, but he had no idea of their uses. Krusk debated grabbing some of the unidentified scrolls as back-up resources, but decided against playing with power he didn’t understand.

The four retraced their steps past Qorrg’s sentry post at the cavern mouth and into the shrieker’s cavern. There, both Krusk and Yddith retrieved their knives. Krusk looked at the kitchen knife that Yddith had brought and shook his head. He had fought with mercenaries all over the known world, but he’d met few with the courage of this little tavern maid. He smiled with approval and gave his own dagger to her.

“If you’re going to use a blade,” the barbarian lectured, “you need the right kind. This one will fly truer than a tavern knife.”

Both barbarian and barmaid laughed nervously as though sharing a private joke, and the group resumed its line of march.

Krusk took the point and Jozan backed him up. Yddith and Alhandra walked behind them, and Qorrg watched the rear. They edged by the pit trap once again and passed the shards of the gargoyle that had ambushed them. They were on their way to confront Calmet; they were confident; they fully expected to win.

As they reached the main tunnel, Jozan’s sun symbol dimmed and darkened. Krusk quickly started to light a torch when he heard Yddith speaking. The cavern was bathed in a pale, green glow. The emerald faux eye was glowing and Yddith was smiling.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I can’t see out of that eye, anyway.”

As amusing as Yddith’s comment was, Krusk saw Jozan and Alhandra glance at each other with worried looks. Krusk was beginning to think the emerald necklace hadn’t been such a fine gift, after all.

As Jozan studied the map of the tunnel system etched on the half-scroll, Krusk led the party toward the unholy shrine of Gruumsh. The map told them when to turn left instead of right and which side of the forked intersections they should take. Since it did not indicate any traps like the pit trap that had almost claimed Krusk, the half-orc kept prodding ahead of his step with the end of his bow.

As he turned the next corner, Krusk also discovered that the map didn’t prepare them for the horrific creatures that awaited them.

Krusk faced one monstrosity with tentacles flailing from its head and another with claws like a gigantic crab. The monsters were waiting at the junction as though they expected the adventurers. Krusk didn’t even pause, but nocked an arrow and released it at the tentacled monster before the others even rounded the corner. The arrow flew as true as Krusk had ever shot. He was certain that it would pierce one of the creature’s eyes, but the arrow clattered against the wall on the far side of the creature as if the monstrosity had never been there.

As the barbarian fired the next arrow, Jozan stepped up beside him. The cleric’s crossbow bolt and Krusk’s arrow raced for the creature with the tentacles, and both missiles missed in exactly the same way. They were aimed precisely for the heart of the target one moment, then passed through it harmlessly the next.

“It has some sort of magical protection,” suggested Jozan. “We’ll have to move in.”

No sooner had Jozan finished speaking than Alhandra rushed between them and closed on the smaller monster. Krusk followed her and reached the creature just as Alhandra parried its hammer blow and nicked it with a thrust of her sword. Not realizing that Alhandra’s success had been a lucky shot, Krusk moved on to face the clawed monster. He didn’t know that when the paladin hit the displacer construct, the sword didn’t land where she aimed it.

Even when Jozan joined Krusk, the clawed monster showed no fear. The claws grabbed Jozan by the neck and squeezed until Jozan was bleeding and struggling to breathe. Seeing the danger, Krusk smashed his axe across the chitinous arms and cracked the thick, insectoid armor with the blow.

Krusk’s blow weakened the creature, but it was Yddith’s flare that saved Jozan. As Jozan pounded on the creature’s torso and Krusk hacked off pieces of its armor, Yddith reached within herself and focused a flare of verdant light through her faux eye. The flash distracted the crablike creature, causing it to snarl and open its pincers reflexively in response. As Jozan sagged to the ground, Krusk splintered more chitin off the creature’s arms.

Even blinded momentarily by the flare, the monster managed to grab Krusk and pinch the barbarian’s left shoulder until blood rolled down the half-orc’s arm. Desperately, Krusk sliced the blade of his greataxe into the thing’s shoulder with enough force to rip the crablike appendage from the monster’s torso. A moment later Jozan regained his feet and started hammering on the remaining arm, cracking open the exoskeleton and exposing the soft white flesh on the inside. The creature’s fate was sealed when Krusk split open the chest of the monstrosity with a final, massive blow. The crablike creature wobbled and toppled under the barrage of blows before falling to the floor of the tunnel as a splintered, dismembered ruin.

With one atrocity down, Krusk glanced back up the tunnel toward Alhandra’s battle. He saw Qorrg trying without luck to spear the monster. Alhandra’s blade flashed unerringly toward the monster but, in a bizarre deja vu, what should have been a lethal blow to the creature’s head barely nicked the monster’s shoulder. Krusk shook his head to clear it. He was certain that Alhandra’s swing was good, and he couldn’t comprehend how it became a glancing blow. It was as if the beast wasn’t entirely there, like one of Jozan’s celestial summonings that was blinking back to its home plane.

Krusk charged Alhandra’s foe just as she neatly sidestepped a blow and plunged her blade into the center of the monster’s body. At least, Krusk expected the blade to slice through the monster’s flesh. Instead, the sword slid past the hideous thing without touching it. One of the tentacles even managed to slice the paladin’s face through her face mask, even as Alhandra slashed at her foe, and missed, once again.

Krusk stepped behind the creature and plunged his axe into its back. No satisfying shudder vibrated down the handle. There was no vibration because the half-orc, too, had missed the foe by several paces. The barbarian felt that what he was seeing was completely impossible. He heard Alhandra shout something about a displacer beast and realized that all he could do was keep fighting and hope that his axe blade and the monster’s obscene body would eventually occupy the same place at the same time.

Krusk sensed Jozan at his side, but wasn’t surprised that the cleric’s mace only passed through empty air, even when it looked like it could not miss the atrocity. Barbarian, cleric, orc, and paladin all found that their efforts were ineffective. The target was rarely where it appeared to be.

Krusk felt his axe dig solidly into flesh. Wounding the monster won its attention, and the dark creation thrust both tentacles at the barbarian. They raked across his shoulders and chest so that he bled like a criminal at the whipping post. Yet, its attack against Krusk gave Alhandra the opportunity to slice neatly through one of the tentacles.

The dismemberment of the creature’s tentacle changed the momentum of the fight. When the creature turned its attention back to Alhandra, both Krusk and Jozan began landing blows more often. Finally, Krusk’s blade split the skull of the monster, and it fell forward onto the tip of Alhandra’s sword. The monstrosity collapsed to the stone floor and lay still.

Seeing no other foes, both Krusk and Alhandra dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Krusk looked up and saw Jozan breathing heavily and rummaging swiftly through his pack. Yddith watched the tunnel in one direction and Qorrg stood sentinel over the other. The cleric removed two vials and offered one to each of his suffering comrades. Krusk quickly downed the potion and watched his wounds knit together. A moment later Alhandra was back on her feet and speaking.

“I don’t suppose we need to wonder if they’re expecting us,” commented the paladin. “They wouldn’t have left two vicious creatures like those in the main corridor if they were only expecting a slave train.”

No one debated the issue. They merely readied their weapons and moved on.

23

Calmet finished etching Gruumsh’s name in the muddy transformation he had substituted for the damaged stone on the shrine’s cornices. When the mud dried, the powerful god’s effaced name would be artlessly restored to the inscription admonishing the strong not to spare the weak. He climbed down off the rock on which he stood and no sooner touched the floor than he saw Laud instructing a work crew to roll the boulder out of the sanctuary.

Calmet was glad to be finished with his work on the shrine. The fumes from the pots where the gold ore was melting were horrendous. He nervously watched as Fluhrn, the orc artisan, ladled molten gold into the cracks of the idol to restore the god’s misshapen visage. Instinctively, he glanced up to where Laud was pulling rocks and loose sand out of a natural chimney. It was bizarre to see the archprelate standing on nothing. Laud’s spell allowed him to walk on thin air, to climb up to the roof of the cavern at a sharp angle as though he walked up a low hill. When Laud first started clearing the chute, some of the larger rocks crashed down into the sanctuary and caused many of the slaves to run away in panic. The guards quickly intercepted the would-be runaways, whipping and beating them until they returned to work in the cavern. They looked up uneasily at Laud from time to time, but eventually focused on the task at hand.

With one, final tug, Laud dislodged the keystone jamming the hole in the ceiling. Rocks and debris tumbled into the chamber and rolled or bounced across the floor. When the cascade stopped, a shaft of light pierced the room, brightly outlined by the dust roiling in the air. Laud screamed at the slaves to haul away the stones and clear the floor.

Laud then moved adjacent to Fluhrn and began the process of casting a powerful spell on the idol itself. As Fluhrn sculpted and Laud imbued the idol with his magic, Calmet couldn’t help but notice the light from the ceiling creeping ever closer to the statue.

The archprelate finished his chanting. It seemed to Calmet that every cleft, hole, and worn spot on the statue had been made whole. It pulsed with energy.

But it’s false, thought Calmet. Laud propped up his god with his own power. It was a powerful spell, too, he concluded, judging from his superior’s pallor.

Laud looked at Calmet and grinned. There was no benevolence in his smile.

He pointed to the light easing across the floor of the shrine and said, “Behold, the light that shall fill the Eye of Gruumsh!”

It didn’t take a prophecy to realize that Laud would summon the avatar of Gruumsh as soon as the line of light was aligned with the statue’s eye.

Slaves still rolled some of the larger boulders away from the shrine and left them at the side of the tunnel to be broken apart into easily removed chunks on another day. Others carried heavy bags of dirt and gravel on their backs. All of the slaves walked nervously around the two hybrid soldiers, monsters placed by Laud in anticipation of the arrival of Jozan and his companions. The whips of the taskmasters gave even the most hesitant slaves a sense of urgency.

Calmet watched Laud’s preparations with a mixture of fascination and fright. Fluhrn stirred the molten gold with his ladle. Laud was consumed with lighting candles and placing them atop various runes scribed on the floor. With every hair’s breadth the line of light advanced, Laud either lit a candle next to a symbol or cut himself to spill blood into the indentations on the floor.

The preparations for the summoning ritual were disrupted by sounds of yelling and clanging from the tunnel. Five orc guards scuttled around the corner like rats being chased by a cat. The gorgonoid reacted immediately. It gored the first orc and shook the gray corpse off its horn to brace for the next attack. The other monstrosity, created with the head of a krenshar, emitted a heart-pounding scream and pulled the loose folds of skin back from its face. Two of the orcs, on seeing the Horrid visage, immediately turned around and ran back toward whatever was chasing them. Calmet winced as he heard the grunts, crunching, and muffled blows that indicated combat beyond the junction of two tunnels.

Two of the orcs remained in the temple, squared off against the soldier with the krenshar’s face. Their valiant efforts to defend themselves didn’t even strike the monster’s armor. It clawed the face from one screaming orc and grabbed the other’s axe. The vicious onslaught against their own mercenary orcs surprised Calmet, but he realized that Laud must have instructed the monstrosities to attack anyone or anything that rounded the corner from the main intersection of tunnels.

“If I’m right,” mused the apostate, “my former pupil will start his advanced lessons in a moment.”

Calmet was watching the tunnel when the half-orc stepped around the corner ready to swing his greataxe at anything within reach. The first target to present itself was the gorgonoid with its bloodied horn and ferocious appearance. The half-orc’s eyes were red with rage. He attacked Laud’s hybrid with animal ferocity. The greataxe sliced open the atrocity’s scaly belly, but Calmet knew that the gorgonoid could stand up to such punishment for a long time.

Of course, the half-orc wasn’t the hero Calmet awaited. The evil priest watched the paladin rush at the soldier with the krenshar head and lunge with her long sword at the fiend. The monster sidestepped nimbly.

Calmet removed a piece of coal from his component pouch and prepared a special surprise to inflict on Jozan as soon as his former pupil came into view. He waited expectantly, but instead of Jozan, he saw a crossbow bolt hammer into the krenshar hybrid’s eye. The nightmarish hybrid tottered for a brief moment on its human feet, then dropped soundlessly to lie in a motionless, lifeless heap.

That must be my former pupil, Calmet thought, firing a crossbow from around the corner.

He debated the options of unleashing his dark magic on a portion of the enemy or waiting for Jozan to appear. He waited, knowing full well that the gorgonoid alone would hold off the heroes for a bit longer.

Calmet chuckled cruelly when the gorgonoid gored the half-orc with its left horn and ripped through both chain and flesh. His amusement was stifled when the barbarian chopped viciously at the exposed back of the monster and sliced it open to its spine. Laud’s masterpiece couldn’t be so easily disposed of, even if such wounds eventually killed it. Calmet kept his spell in readiness.

The paladin turned her back on the few remaining orc guards and charged the gorgonoid. Calmet smiled with approval in spite of himself when she slashed at the wound just inflicted by the half-orc and flayed even more flesh off the monster’s back. The evil priest was doubly delighted to see the orc guards try to bury their axes in the paladin’s back. When the first axe clanged harmlessly off the woman’s armor, a dagger appeared in the guard’s back and it fell lifeless at the feet of its companion.

Calmet cursed quietly to himself. He’d thought that Jozan would still be reloading his crossbow, not switching to tossing daggers. The one-eyed cleric didn’t realize that the dagger had been thrown by a tavern girl—anymore than she realized what a lucky throw it had been.

The gorgonoid stepped back. Calmet knew what the monster was about to do, but none of its foes understood what was happening. The gorgonoid released a noxious cloud directly at the half-orc. The cloud widened as it passed the barbarian and the paladin, encompassing the remaining orc as well. The cloud coalesced around all three figures. The barbarian merely growled and kept on swinging. The half-orc hacked a bloody channel across the gorgonoid’s chest, making the monster howl loud enough to bring more rocks and dirt down around the battle zone.

As the cloud surrounded the paladin and the orc guard, however, it became a shroud. The skin of the orc turned a deeper shade of gray and the paladin assumed a dull hue beneath her armor. Both transformed into statues.

Jozan chose that moment to step around the corner with an iron rod in his hand. Seeing him, Calmet rubbed the coal over a rock he’d picked up from the tunnel floor and shouted, “Tenebrae!”

He tossed the rock toward the combatants and an unnatural darkness descended over the entire battle.

Calmet laughed. Clearly Jozan intended to use the iron rod to cast a common spell that would freeze Calmet in place. Calmet’s darkness aborted Jozan’s plan—he had to be able to see his target to invoke the spell.

“Interesting idea, young Jozan!” the older man mocked his pupil. “You might yet be able to hold me, if you’re strong enough, and if you can get out of the darkness without being impaled by our little creation. Think of it as one, final lesson!”

The gorgonoid sniffed loudly, trying to locate its victims by smell alone. Calmet heard the half-orc grunt and knew that the monster had struck the barbarian. He couldn’t know, however, that the horn had dug into the barbarian’s arm and scraped through flesh to the bone.

While Calmet listened to the sounds in the darkness, Jozan eased his way across the floor. The priest of Pelor knew that Calmet would be waiting for him when he reached the edge of the darkness and he hoped to withstand whatever assault his former teacher had prepared for him. He heard Yddith and Qorrg trying to find their way in the darkness, but ordered them back.

“Don’t come any farther,” he warned, hoping to keep them safe from the bull man.

Calmet looked back at the archprelate. He noticed the line of light moving closer to the eye of the statue and remembered the story of the craftsman who made his own god. The apostate almost laughed aloud, then he remembered the night that Laud took his left eye.

The man of power depends on a god of strength who is actually impotent, thought Calmet. I’ll believe in the avatar of Gruumsh when I see him!

“I know you can hear me,” shouted Jozan. “I know you’ll probably kill me before the battle is done. I just want to know why you did it. Why did you steal Pelor’s gold and give it to this abomination?”

“You wouldn’t understand!” sneered Calmet.

“Try me!” responded Jozan as he heard the gorgonoid slash Krusk another time. “You’ve taught me before.”

“And you’ve failed to comprehend…”

Calmet’s reply was interrupted by a roar and the whistling of Krusk’s axe through the air, followed by a wet, crunching sound and the bellow of the gorgonoid. There was a momentary silence, then they clearly heard the massive monstrosity hit the floor, accompanied by a loud crack as one of its horns snapped off against the unyielding stone.

“Pelor refused to protect me,” continued the apostate, as if the death of the gorgonoid meant nothing. “Pelor is weak. I sought power.”

“Power?” questioned Jozan, continuing to feel his way through the darkness, but also feeling a slick pool of warm blood spreading beneath his hands. “Is it power to pick on the weak? I say this power you long for is its own weakness. It’s the kind of power that leads you to smash a child’s skull with your mace, but never makes you a warrior.”

“Come forward out of your darkness, pupil, and I will teach you about power!” challenged the heretic.

“At least then,” responded Jozan, deriding his former teacher, “you would have taught me something!”

Calmet was prepared when Jozan stepped from the shroud of darkness and raised the bar of iron once more. Before the priest of Pelor could invoke the intervention of the sun god, however, Calmet shouted, “Pestis!”

A greasy cloud descended on Jozan, and he instantly took on a sickly pallor. Calmet thought Jozan would retch, but his former pupil maintained control and held up the iron rod, calling aloud to Pelor. Calmet laughed at the puny effort, confident in the power of his mind to resist. His mouth locked open in that laugh, and he realized he couldn’t move.

Calmet could watch, but not act. The pupil had bested the master—at least, for a time. Imprisoned in his body, the evil priest saw the half-orc step out of the darkness with blood seeping through his torn chain mail. The barbarian looked as if he couldn’t withstand much more, but Jozan pulled a familiar scroll case from his belt, unrolled the scroll, and read it aloud. A golden aura caressed the barbarian’s wounds even as the scroll parchment disintegrated into nothingness.

Calmet begrudgingly praised his former pupil to himself. He knew that the real test was about to begin for Jozan. Down in the sanctuary, Laud looked up from his ritual. Calmet saw the archprelate glance up the cleared chimney at the oncoming glow. Even frozen in place, Calmet could feel the tunnel shaking as the line of sunlight moved inexorably toward its alignment with the idol’s eye.

Apparently, Laud was satisfied that the ritual was progressing properly. The sanctuary and the tunnel were shaking, candles were flickering in a wind that should have been impossible, and an eerie green glow was growing ever stronger within the sanctuary itself. The archprelate stood and removed a scroll case from his pouch. Calmet could see the necromantic symbol on the case from where he stood. He knew that Laud was about to inflict pure destruction on the half-orc and Jozan. Gruumsh would triumph, yet Calmet felt strangely disappointed at the certain outcome.

As the evil priest ruminated, he realized that Jozan wasn’t surrendering. Jozan pointed a finger at the archprelate and shouted, “Lux eternis!”

No one could miss the golden beam flaring out from the good priest’s finger and shooting directly into the chest of the archprelate.

Before Calmet could even consider the scorched flesh on the archprelate’s chest, he saw three bodies rushing toward his master. The half-orc was the first to enter the circle and slash his greataxe across the hierarch. Calmet winced inside at the sound of the weapon sundering the mithril mail under the archprelate’s robe. He knew the blade penetrated flesh because he heard Laud cry out in agony.

Even in pain, Laud was strong enough to maintain his concentration. He still had the will to read the scroll that he held open, speaking the infernal words so rapidly that a scholar would have had trouble translating the cursed words. He tapped the half-orc with a devastating touch that pulled life and soul out of the barbarian.

Calmet watched the half-orc crumple to the ground. None of the remaining heroes could stand against Laud’s power. An orc who entered the chamber with them closed on the hierarch as though to prove Calmet’s assessment. Qorrg stabbed at Laud from the limit of his spear’s reach, but managed only to get his spearhead tangled in the broken strands of mithril armor. Laud would have killed the orc then and there had it not been for a green bolt of energy smashing into the archprelate’s chest and driving him backward.

As Laud reeled and stumbled, he looked for the source of the attack. He focused on a young woman who was surrounded by a green aura. Laud arced his hand through the air, invoking an infernal spell upon her. Before he could complete it, Jozan reached the hierarch.

He swung his mace at Laud’s head just as the archprelate cried out, “Calmet, save me. Dimitto magicum!”

Jozan’s swing went wide of its mark. The mace glanced against Laud’s shoulder as the archprelate’s spell extinguished the magic that held Calmet immobile. Calmet rushed toward the far end of the chamber just in time to see the one-eyed woman hang her emerald necklace on the statue.

With the emerald eye in place, the unnatural wind grew stronger in the sanctuary. Every candle blew out and the floor undulated like the deck of a ship at sea. As the room trembled, the ground opened up where Laud drew the ritual line. It seemed as if the statue of Gruumsh was moving its arms. A thunderclap roared outside the mountain and light from the chimney was only a hair’s breadth from the ritual line redrawn by Laud.

Something about the culmination of the ritual caused Calmet to see clearly for the first time since his conversion. The raw power and destructive force descending on the sanctuary wasn’t a force to be used for anyone’s good, including Calmet’s. He saw Jozan turn to face him and instantly chose a plan of action.

Pupil struck at teacher, but the older man sidestepped the fierce blow. Instead of counter-attacking, Calmet shoved Jozan aside with a quick kick and ran to the center of the circle. Before anyone knew what was happening, the evil priest smashed his flail down on the head of his master, cracking Laud’s skull, hammering the flesh, hair, and bone into shapeless gore until Jozan pulled him off the body.

At that moment, with loose rocks tumbling around them and the statue rocking back and forth with the violent movement of the earth, the heretic sorrowfully looked at Jozan and muttered, “The light…Gruumsh will be here when the light…”

His voice trailed off and everyone looked at the light that was just reaching the edge of the emerald.

Before his teacher could finish the lesson, Jozan passed the test. He grabbed the jewel from the idol’s head and placed it against the side of the statue. His mace struck unerringly. The blow smashed the emerald into minute shards and put another crack in the gold-plated idol.

“Well done,” the old teacher commended his pupil. “The light will not shine through the unseeing eye on this day and Gruumsh’s avatar cannot come to this plane unless he is invoked.”

“I don’t understand,” asked Jozan. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Calmet hesitated before he answered.

“No, it’s not what I wanted,” he replied with the authority one expects of a teacher. “I wanted power. I wanted power for revenge and, Pelor forgive me, I thought I could wield power better than Pelor himself.”

“But you were trying to stop us,” protested Jozan. “You nearly did stop us.”

“Yes,” responded the heretic, “but I didn’t know what I really should be doing. I already had doubts about a god who needed mortal protection. After you placed that magical hold on me, I saw your devotion. I realized that you were serious about fighting, even unto death. I decided that if Pelor could turn a miserable student like you into a heroic warrior priest, he must be powerful after all.”

Calmet surrendered his flail to Jozan and tossed his component pouch across the cavern.

“I’m your prisoner, now. All I ask is that you let me seek forgiveness before you give me the death I deserve. I ask only a few minutes of the grace I so despised in Pelor.”

Righteous indignation rose up in Jozan and he couldn’t hold back the castigation, “Do you have any idea how many lives you’ve ruined? How much agony you’ve caused?”

“To be honest,” answered the heretic, “I don’t. To care about such things would have been weak in the eye of Gruumsh.”

Jozan ordered Qorrg to watch Calmet, then he bent down and opened another scroll case. As Calmet heard his pupil reading the scroll aloud, he watched healing course over the half-orc’s body. His former charge invoked more healing, beyond the power of the scroll. The barbarian was not completely healed, but his wounds were no longer life-threatening.

As Calmet watched, the barbarian rose up and walked to the one-eyed woman, placing his arm around her as she whimpered that she might have destroyed them all. As if realizing simultaneously that they had forgotten someone, they looked back up the tunnel toward the courageous figure of the paladin. Jozan whispered a prayer for her soul, but his muttering was interrupted by Calmet’s touch.

“There are many evils I cannot undo,” suggested Calmet, “but this is not one of them. Take me to my sanctum. I have a scroll there that enables me to turn stone to flesh.”

“You must have,” responded Jozan. “I saw it happen to your heart, today.”

24

In Calmet’s inner sanctum, the heretic rummaged quickly through his scroll cases. As he did so, his mind sifted rapidly through a number of options. Was it possible that Jozan really did not intend to kill him? Might he really be able to re-enter the service of Pelor? He sincerely doubted it. Pelor was forgiving, but his people were far less so. Calmet grabbed one scroll case and looked up.

“I just need one more,” he told Jozan and Qorrg, who scrutinized every action.

The statue of the paladin Alhandra was propped behind the two observers, while the half-orc and the one-eyed woman—Krusk and Yddith—their heads pressed together like two lovers, spoke softly in the corner.

Will they ever admit their feelings to each other? wondered Calmet. What a pair of misfits they would make, he observed, but misfits often need each other.

Such thoughts were leading him down a path he didn’t want to pursue. He was a misfit himself. He no longer believed in the power of evil, but he wasn’t certain that he could serve Pelor with a calling as clear as Jozan’s. It was clear in his mind that no matter what he tried to do, every action would be scrutinized and second-guessed. That would be worse than being enslaved to laud’s designs.

His fingertips brushed across a familiar symbol and he lifted the scroll case off the table.

“This is the one,” he said to reassure his captors. “I’ll need both of these to restore your comrade.”

Calmet carried the two scroll cases close to Alhandra’s stony form. As he neared her, Jozan and Qorrg moved to flank him. Their suspicion, though well-placed, still annoyed Calmet. He wondered why they didn’t show a trifle more gratitude for his helping their companion.

“You’ll need to stand on each side of her,” cautioned Calmet. “She may be weak when she returns to her natural body. These transmutations take a lot out of a person.”

Calmet hoped that he had the right amount of concern and sincerity in his voice as he urged his two guardians to take their positions at Alhandra’s side. Krusk and Yddith looked up and were watching his preparations with great interest, so he opened the scroll case and prepared to read it with exaggerated fanfare.

“This is the basic spell to restore her,” he announced aloud. “Then, we’ll cure her wounds.”

The four adventurers nodded in agreement, and Calmet firmly proclaimed, “Lapis ad corpo!”

The words of the spell were no sooner read than the scroll disintegrated and the gray stone itself turned to sand, chalk, and finally, chalky flesh. Alhandra and Jozan embraced. Krusk and Yddith ran to greet her as Calmet hastened to read the second scroll.

“Abscindo!” was the word that echoed through the cave as the five adventurers savored their reunion. When they heard the power word and looked up, they realized that Calmet had disappeared.

Calmet found himself surrounded by ashes. His scroll had teleported him to the spot where his fall from Pelor began. There were the ashes of the mission house that Laud burned to the ground after Calmet’s eye was sacrificed. There was the stairway that opened into Calmet’s underground sanctuary. So much had happened since the last time he stood on that spot.

The heretic smiled as he thought of Jozan’s courage. In spite of having to trick the boy and escape, he was proud of his former pupil. And, in spite of being on the run and having to hide, he was delighted to be free—free of both Laud and Jozan. From now on, Calmet vowed, no man would be his master.

Content

T. H. Lain
The Bloody Eye

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