Darkwell - Douglas Niles [147]
Bhaal again smashed a statue, but this time he hurled the pieces over the king and into the clearing beyond. Robyn dodged one that seemed directed at her, but another fragment of stone smashed into Tavish's chest, crushing the lute with a discordant twang. The bard flew backward, sprawling on the ground and gasping for breath.
Sobbing, Tavish sat up and looked at the shattered ruin of her instrument. Suddenly she pressed one hand to her face and realized that the spectacles had again fallen from her nose. The bard scrambled to her knees and desperately sought the crystal glasses on the muddy ground. Not knowing how else to help, Robyn joined her.
Bhaal smashed yet another statue, throwing the pieces at Tristan this time, but the king parried each with the blade, which moved more quickly than the eye could follow. He fought on pure instinct now, trusting the sword to parry blows that came too fast for his own reactions.
He saw an opening as the god bent to crush the last statue. Suddenly Tristan leaped forward and swung the Sword of Cymrych Hugh in a great slashing arc. He had never delivered a more powerful blow. His sword seemed to sing through the air with the speed of its flight, and the keen blade bit deep into the god's leg.
Bhaal roared in pain and rage, sinking to one knee as the wounded leg collapsed beneath him. Even as Tristan pulled back to strike another blow, however, the wound closed and the god again reared to his full height.
Robyn finally located the wire frames amid the trampled mud of the field. "Here… your spectacles!" Quickly she handed them to Tavish.
Frantically the bard wiped the mud from the glasses and perched them on her nose. One lens, the one that had been cracked, was gone entirely, smashed by the force of the god's blow. But the other one, smeared as it was, allowed her to see Bhaal in all his festering horror. She saw a body as raw as an open sore, surrounded in the black stuff of death. Only at the center of the body could she see a glow of vitality.
There, as Bhaal twisted away, she saw a curious thing. The pulsating might of the god's life force came to him through a long, silvery cord attached to the middle of his back! Tavish saw that the cord twisted its way down toward the Darkwell, winding its way across the surface of the water to touch a point near the middle of the well.
Surprised, she removed the glasses and saw simply the form of a giant beside the pond. Only when she placed the lens over her eye did she see the true vile nature of his body, and the cord that connected it to its soul, or life essence, or whatever source from which it drew its fiendish vitality.
"Come here!" she called to Robyn. "Can you see that?"
Tavish handed Robyn the spectacles, and she looked toward the giant figure. She saw past the king, past the form of the god, following with her eyes the silver cord leading to his root in the well. Quickly she moved closer to get a better view, stifling her revulsion, for she looked directly into the dark soul of Bhaal.
There in the middle of the well it floated, a pulsating bulb of dark evil. It glowed a hellish crimson, like liquid coal, as it slowly throbbed beneath the surface of the water. It looked much like a human heart, but huge and unmistakably perverted.
Gasping with strain, she at last turned away from the horrible beating of the great organ. The sight of the thing was an affront to her eyes, its image sending waves of disgust through her.
But at last, she thought, she may have discovered a way to harm the beast-god.
* * * * *
Grunnarch's arms grew numb with the strain of raising and lowering his axe. His valiant band of warriors had formed a great circle, their backs against the rocky knoll of Caer Corwell. Beside him fought the Ffolk in a similar circle, but from all sides pressed