The Bloody Eye

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.

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.