Darkwell - Douglas Niles [10]
The humans took sword and axe and crossbow and faced attack from the Claws of the Deep. These creatures, the sahuagin, they knew to be cruel and implacable foes. Still the fish-men rose from the sea, striking at the two ships while their brethren dealt a bloody end to the northmen still bobbing among the wreckage of the third.
* * * * *
The Darkwell grew even blacker with each killing. Hobarth sat and studied the pool, praying and meditating. He had seen a panther and an owl obliterated in the last day, joining the bear, eagle, and stag in giving their lifespark to Bhaal. Somehow, the god summoned these wretched creatures from the surrounding wasteland. Hobarth did not know why.
The fat cleric studied well the word of his god, and slowly he began to sense Bhaal's plan. At least, he began to understand his own substantial role in that plan.
He looked to Genna Moonsinger, sitting upon one of the crosspieces that had fallen from the ruined druidic arches around the Moonwell. She stared listlessly off into space, as if awaiting a command. The fat cleric wondered at the druid's docility.
She looked like the same implacable enemy he had faced a short month ago. The statue had become a being of flesh and blood when he pressed the Heart of Kazgoroth into it. She looked, sounded, and moved like the Great Druid of Gwynneth. Even the bear, Grunt, had been taken in.
But now she was unquestioningly obedient to the commands of Bhaal, and thus Hobarth. For several days, this had been but a pleasant diversion for Hobarth. He had not been with a woman in months, and so he had taken advantage of her willingness to follow his orders. Though she displayed no revulsion, neither did she exhibit any other emotion. Hobarth had eventually realized that her lack of passion turned the whole experience into rather a bore.
Then he commanded her to use her magic, wondering if that potent weapon had been lost upon her perversion to the will of Bhaal. The cleric was delighted when she called forth an inferno of fire from the ground itself, surrounding them with greedy flames. However, he noted a difference from her previous castings of the firewall. Now, as the flames licked across the ground, they left the earth tortured, blackened, and barren in their wake, whereas before the spell had made no mark whatsoever upon the land. This spell fascinated Hobarth particularly, for it was one that no cleric could perform. She had used it to telling effect when he had sent his army of undead against her, and now it was his to command!
Yet, if her body and mind remained that of the Great Druid, her soul was unquestionably altered. The heart beating within her breast was no longer her own. It was the foul organ of a black beast of chaos, and this was the thing that held her now in its thrall.
The difference was visible mainly in her eyes. Where once they had sparkled with vitality and wisdom, they now glowered darkly. At times, Hobarth imagined he saw a flash of red fire within them, not unlike the gaze of Kazgoroth itself. And her lack of emotion reminded him more of the zombies he had once commanded than of any human being he had known.
Now, knowing the will of Bhaal, he approached her.
"Druid!" he barked, and she looked dully at him. He realized that he had forgotten to order her to clothe herself after his latest indulgence. "Don your garments."
He waited as she pulled her tattered cloak about her, watching with interest. Though she was well along in years, her body had not succumbed to the flab of middle age. She was stout, but her flesh had a firmness that he found strangely attractive. Shrugging, he told himself that it was merely the lack of any younger woman that caused him to desire her.
"Bhaal has spoken. You are to go to Caer Corwell. There you will perform a certain task he has planned for you. Upon its completion, you will return here."
As he told her the plan, as Bhaal had told it to him, he watched her for some sign of reaction. After all, he was asking