When the fifth figure, who was apparently the head priest, first saw the three, he stood stock-still for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he let out a squeal of warning to the others. The four scrambled to their feet and turned with surprising alacrity for creatures of their awkward proportions. Each produced a short, contorted staff, almost like a cudgel. Their faces were strangely pinched and yellow, almost jaundiced-looking. But their yellow eyes gleamed with fervor, and they charged forward with the conviction of religious fanatics, snorting monosyllabic gnollish equivalents of words like “infidel” and “heretic.”
The burst of crazed anger that had propelled Ren past the first three gnolls was spent as quickly as it had come, but as the snarling, slavering gnolls pressed closer, it returned. Ren rushed the nearest attacker, both short swords drawn. Confronted with a form of worship more corrupt than any he had imagined possible, Tarl responded with a pent-up rage of his own, meeting the swinging club of one gnoll with his shield and slamming another with the broad side of the hammer he had recovered from Sokol Keep.
Shal shared neither man’s sense of purpose. She called for her staff out of fear and used it only when the fourth gnoll crashed through the melee and toward her. Hell-bent on claiming the life of an infidel, the gangling creature charged forward, oblivious to Shal’s extended staff. Even after it impaled itself, it continued to press forward, jaws snapping, club flailing, a yellow glaze burning in its eyes. It wasn’t until the gnoll had pushed forward almost the length of the staff, its entrails pushing out behind it, that it finally jerked in the spasms of death. Shal had never once even moved. Slowly the gnoll’s dead weight pulled the staff to the ground, and the monster started to slide back down the length of the staff. Shal dropped to her knees and covered her mouth to keep from gagging. Only when she heard Ren’s voice saying something in the guttural language of the humanoids did she collect the wherewithal to pull her staff from the body of the dead gnoll.
The three other priests lay dead not far away. Tarl was holding the high priest in a hammerlock while Ren asked it questions. Shal stepped past the bodies and walked numbly toward the shrine. An upside-down T shape, the altar stood a little taller than waist-high. Its mahogany surface was polished to a sheen that struck Shal as highly unusual among the disgustingly dirty gnolls. At the crux of the T was a rounded gray mound. On either side of the altar stood embossed silver chalices, the work of dwarves, if Shal was any judge, but they were dark with rust and somehow corrupt in appearance. At first Shal couldn’t grasp what made such carefully and ornately ornamented pieces seem repugnant, but as she came closer to one of them, she realized what was wrong. Its surface was covered with the contorted faces of the benevolent gods. The faces were those of the same gods carved in relief on Shal’s Staff of Power, but like everything else in the gnoll village, they represented a grotesque permutation of what was natural and beautiful. In a subtly gruesome way, the chalice made a mockery of the staff Shal carried and of everything that was good in the Realms.
She started to reach forward to dash the hideous piece and its companion to the floor, but then she stopped short. The dreadful stink of rancid meat bit into her nostrils before she could lay a hand on the chalice. Mixed with it was the sickening sweet smell of blood, and she saw now, with shock, that the gray lump she had seen earlier was actually the days-old head of a human being, its skin livid and its eyes bulging as if from strangulation. The body stretched out behind it, excoriated as if from repeated blows with some heavy, abrasive object.
Shal slapped one hand to her mouth and drew the other tight against her abdomen to stave off the new wave of nausea that gripped her. Through clenched teeth, she stifled what would otherwise have been an earsplitting scream of horror and revulsion. Unconsciously she tipped her head back, as if that would clear her nose of the fetid stench. When it didn’t help, she lurched forward wildly, slamming the gore-filled chalice nearest to her with the back of her hand and coming back deftly with her forehand to smash the other one. Blood splattered everywhere as the two chalices rocketed end-over-end into the golden walls on either side of the great room.
The captured priest shrieked hysterically and struggled in vain to free himself from Tarl’s viselike grip. “No blood, no power! No blood, no power!” Again and again he repeated the pained cry, failing to stop even when Ren backhanded him hard against his hyena jaws.
“Animal!” Shal screamed, her rage driving her voice to a level loud enough to be heard over the shrieking gnoll. “Animal!” she shouted once more, moving deliberately around the altar, her large hands outstretched toward the creature’s throat.
“No! Stop!” Tarl pushed the gnoll to the floor with one hand and held out the other to stop Shal. “He’s an abomination, and deserves to die, but we must not kill him.”
Shal screamed through her teeth again, then dropped to her knees and pointed up at the altar. When Tarl saw what he had not seen before, he began to pummel the groveling gnoll with his fists. Despite his outrage, he shouted: “We must not kill him! Not yet!”
“That’s right, Tarl … not yet,” Ren said, getting a hold on the gnoll and pushing Tarl gently away. “Both of you, take a few minutes to compose yourselves. I’ll take care of him.”
Tarl dropped down beside Shal and slipped an arm around her. Together they knelt, sobbing tearlessly as they stared at the appalling wreckage of a human being that lay on the altar before them. Tarl uttered a prayer to Tyr to put the unknown soul to rest.
Just then a piercing voice penetrated Shal’s consciousness. A cloth would cover the poor soul’s eyes, Mistress.
Yes, it would. Thank you, Shal thought silently. She called forth a cloth from her Cloth of Many Pockets, then covered the head and body beneath its rich violet folds. Tarl murmured one last prayer and stood beside her.
“Look there,” said Shal, pointing. Beyond the body, at the foot of the T-shaped altar, was a painstakingly detailed diorama of a scene so lifelike that Shal thought if she blinked she might become part of it. A sculpted wall of golden stone rose up like a backdrop for the scene, making it clear that the diorama’s setting was a cave, a mammoth cave with an airy, vaulted ceiling. A perfectly crescent-shaped pool, with waters that reflected off polished surfaces, was the focal point of the miniature scene. Centered along the inside curve of the crescent was an elegantly simple, raised hexagon, with tiny blue gems glittering from four of its six points. The hexagon looked pitiful and incomplete, like a once-magnificent broach with only empty sockets where gemstones should be. Though no more than two fingers wide, the hexagon, with its two missing gems, detracted from the perfection of the entire scene. Perhaps it was Shal’s imagination, but the glistening golden waters of the crescent even seemed at their darkest near the six-sided mounting.
Centered along the outside curve of the crescent was a tiny replica of the T-shaped altar. On it was a minute fountain that was spewing blood-red fluid into the pool. Where the dark fluid hit the golden waters, the pool should have been ocher or orange, but instead it radiated a staggeringly brilliant yellow gold. Like staring into the sun, it caused pain merely to look upon it.
“The focus of the shrine,” said Tarl, explaining the diorama. “It’s a replica of a sacred place—or at least a place sacred to the gnolls.”
“ ‘The Pool of Radiance,’ this guy calls it,” said Ren, moving closer to the altar, the yellow-faced gnoll still in the crook of his elbow. “He says they have to keep up a steady supply of sacrifices to keep the pool yellow and the Lord of the Ruins happy.”
“Sacrifices? This is worse than a sacrifice,” said Shal, pointing at the body that lay under the purple cloth.
“I’m afraid that’s probably the gnoll version of a pretty gruesome practice,” said Ren. “I don’t have any love for orcs or kobolds, but if they have similar altars, you’ll find equally dead bodies but less gruesome.”
Tarl’s face paled visibly, and his hands clutched the edge of the wooden altar. His usually clear, deep voice tremore
d noticeably as he spoke. “You don’t mean to suggest there are more altars like this? More of these sites of abomination?”
“I’m sorry,” said Ren. “But this priest says it was all done for the Lord of the Ruins. As I understand it, all the creatures in the uncivilized parts of the city worship him.”
“Worship?” Tarl spat and shook his hands as if to shake off some clinging coat of slime. “Worship a creature that is not of the gods? A creature that demands blood sacrifices? What powers does this abominable beast possess that it can demand such horrors?”
Half-Gnoll
“You’re the priest. You tell us.” Ren waved his free hand toward the altar, clamped the gnoll’s neck a little tighter, and began to question the creature again. The gnoll was obviously responding to Ren’s questions, but Shal and Tarl could only look on, uncomprehending.
“He says there’s temples like this everywhere the Lord of the Ruins’ power reigns. He says the pool makes him feel strong.”
Ren paused as the gnoll grunted and continued with its explanation.
“What was that? Why you—!” Ren slammed the top of the gnoll’s head with his free hand.
“What?” Tarl and Shal reacted in unison.
“The filthy piece of dog meat said we’d all become sacrifices to the pool.”
“I can’t stomach any more of this,” Tarl said firmly. “As I serve Tyr, let this be the first of many such temples to be destroyed by my hand.” Without waiting for the others to join him, Tarl raised his hammer up next to the diorama. The heavy end slammed powerfully into the crescent-shaped pool, sending a shower of gold droplets in all directions.
“Acid!” screamed Tarl, and he shook his hammer-hand where the flesh was searing from the contact with the drops.
Ren and Shal had leaped back instinctively as Tarl’s hammer came down. Mere inches from where they stood, shimmering acid was burning through every piece of wood and cloth it hit. Where the acid landed on stone, it was sizzling and spattering like water in hot grease.
Shal quickly summoned forth a skin of water from the Cloth of Many Pockets and poured it generously over Tarl’s right hand, which was already raw in two places, and then over his hair, which was smoking where a drop had landed.
Enraged, fury and agony blending in his screams, Tarl lashed out again and again at the blasphemous altar, hammering with all his might until the lower end splintered and collapsed. Still he wasn’t satisfied. He dropped to his knees and pounded at the miniature fountain, the hexagon, and the rest of the diorama till only splinters and fragments remained.
By then, the gnoll was screaming steadily in reaction to the destruction of the altar. Ren chopped down hard on its head again. This time, its body slumped and its hyena head lolled loosely from side to side. Unwittingly, Ren had snapped the creature’s neck. Remorseless, he pushed the dead gnoll to the ground beside him and moved to calm Tarl.
The cleric had not stopped hammering, even after the diorama was pulverized. Nor did he stop now in response to the coaxing of his friends. It was not until the cloth-covered corpse balancing on the crux of the altar slid down onto his arms that he finally dropped his head and stopped. Pulling his arms loose from underneath the body, Tarl turned and faced Ren and Shal. “I—I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”
As one, they spoke to comfort him.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’ve heard of altars to Bhaal and other gods whose worship I cannot fathom, but never have I seen anything so repugnant as this. I—” Tarl paused, distracted. “The priest—what happened?”
The gnoll’s body was lying on the ground behind Ren and Shal. Its jaundiced face looked even more pinched and grotesque in death than it had in life, and the fervent yellow of its eyes had been replaced by a dull umber glaze. “He’s dead,” Ren said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t mean to kill him, but I can’t say I’ll stay awake nights over it.”
“No,” said Tarl. “He would’ve killed us without a second thought.”
“He probably would have skinned us alive with one of those meat tenderizers,” added Shal, pointing to the row of torture implements that filled a wooden cabinet against the far wall of the big room.
“By Bane and Bhaal and all that’s perverse …” Ren’s curse came out almost in a whisper as he eyed the morbid array of tools. Despite his lifelong habit of quickly examining everything within eyeshot upon entry to a room, he had not seen what filled the cabinet. “Gnoll religion … You’re right, Tarl. It goes against nature. It’s an abomination.”
“Are you okay?” Shal asked suddenly, reaching for Tarl’s acid-marred hand. She didn’t want to think about gnoll religion or gnoll justice anymore. She’d seen enough of both, and she was worried about her friend. She poured more water over the burned spots. “What about your head? Does it hurt?”
Though Tarl had not been conscious of it until Shal brought it up, the spot on his head continued to sting, as did the two raw wounds on his hand. “I have a salve that should help.” Tarl met Shal’s gaze and spoke earnestly. “I’ll be all right. I’m sure I’d be worse off if you hadn’t reacted so quickly.”
Shal released Tarl’s hand and reached up and ran her fingers through his thick, silvery hair till she found the spot where the acid had splashed. He flinched as she located the jagged, finger-length depression where the hair and flesh were burned off. She poured a little more water on that spot and then on his burned hand. She completely missed the smile Tarl flashed at Ren as she asked him to give her the salve so she could apply it for him.
“Not here,” snapped Ren. “If your salve smells anything like that infernal poultice you put on me last night, the gnolls will pick up the scent in a minute.”
“He’s right,” said Tarl, sobered by Ren’s words. “In fact, we’re lucky they haven’t heard us. The walls here must be pretty thick—better insulated than the rest of this rat trap of a fort.”
“Don’t underestimate the gnolls.” Ren pointed back to the curtained hallway from which they’d come. “They probably did hear us. The lazy, bloodthirsty bastards are probably just waiting for us to come out. Fact is, I was hoping we’d find another way out of here. Let’s look behind those curtains.”
Ren’s instincts were good. There was a door behind the curtains, and it led to a covered crawlspace that apparently ran behind the temple, between it and the stockade. They remembered no such corridor from the map, but the temple hadn’t been on the map, either. They were pleased to find that the passageway skirted the full length of the temple. When they finally reached its end, they found themselves well beyond the entrance they had used when Ren first stormed inside. No party of gnolls lay in wait at either doorway, but the three didn’t feel any worse for having taken the precaution.
Ren whispered, “The gnolls are gonna be up and around just as soon as the midday heat has passed. We’ve got to find what we came for and get out of here before they discover the mess we left back there.” He pointed to their left and whispered again. “The bedroom should be that way. Stay close to the walls like we did when we came in.” The faintest hint of embarrassment showed in his expression when he added, “And don’t go looking for trouble!”
Ren moved like a shadow among the cartons and rubble that cluttered the way along the makeshift square. Shal followed, aware as always that she was no match for Ren in terms of stealth. She watched and admired his careful movements, realizing she admired even more his presence of mind and worldliness, especially his knowledge of things like gnolls, which she had never before encountered.
Tarl followed close behind Shal, conscious that he was even more distracted than usual by her catlike elegance. He could almost picture her as a shape-shifter, a powerful panther one moment, muscles rippling; the next, a powerful, sensual woman he felt so drawn to….
He paused just long enough to force his thoughts back to their mission. A single glance at the courtyard gate and the ghoulish display of heads posted there brought him quickly to the present. The guards
that had been slumbering earlier were beginning to stir.
As they approached one building, they could hear the grunts and growls of several young gnolls roughhousing inside. The three blurred past the open doorway and continued on their way.
Ren whispered back to them that the next building appeared to be their destination. When they reached it, he peeked through a small window. If Ren were alone, he would have felt challenged, invigorated by what he saw. With others to worry about, he felt annoyance, disgust, and a twinge of fear.
Though defiled with refuse like everything else in the gnoll encampment, the chambers were still used as private sleeping quarters—and a huge gnoll, no doubt the chieftain, was sleeping inside, with a sleeping female gnoll naked beside him, her gangly body all the more vulgar for its revealing posture. Lamps left burning in the room exposed elaborate, though tasteless, decorations. Eye-jarring combinations of gold-leaf-framed paintings and chartreuse and magenta embroideries covered the walls. All around the foot of the huge, overstuffed bed were slumbering female gnolls, their long, knobby, fur-covered legs protruding awkwardly from garish print wraps. Ren could see no way to get to the back of the chamber except to go right through the door and past all those sleeping gnolls. He gestured at the window and gave Shal and Tarl a moment to take in the situation.
Ren moved silently up to the door and tried it carefully. It was locked. Before Shal could even think of a spell to help, Ren had it open with his picks. He slipped inside with the ease and stealth of a mink. Shal and Tarl followed, their movements as close to Ren’s as they could make them, but Ren was already past the sleeping females and across the room when Shal was just beginning to tiptoe her way through and Tarl was still easing the door shut to avoid attracting attention.
The creatures snorted and grunted in their slumber. Occasionally one would stir, letting an arm slip to the floor or rolling over to a more comfortable position. One started pawing and writhing, apparently in the throes of a dream, and clipped Shal with a clawed foot as she tried to edge by. She sucked in a breath of air and then kept her teeth clamped shut to keep from crying out from the stinging pain. Behind her, Tarl dodged to one side to avoid the restless sleeper, and the two finished crossing the room without incident.
Pool of Radiance Page 18
