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 Narggh, 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 captusl"
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.