"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 Qorgg 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.