Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [76]
And then he saw the garden. The map had it marked "cook's garden," but instead of herbs and vegetables, there was only corruption and despoilment. Twisted, cracked plants, identifiable as cabbage only because of the color and vaguely overlapping leaves, sapped the soil in one corner of the garden. A tangle of brown, contorted vines, abominable mockeries of thyme and spearmint and other herbs, blighted another. Raised and trained as a ranger, Ren admired natural beauty above all else. The sight of the gnolls' crude and intentionally vile parody of a garden caused something to snap inside of Ren. It was as though the defiled garden somehow signified the corruption that had led to Tempest's death. What was wrong with the assassin was the same thing that was wrong with this garden, was wrong with the gnolls that planted and neglected it. Ren was filled with rage of an intensity he hadn't known since Tempest's death.
"Look at that!" he said, pointing, fury contorting his face, and then louder, "It's sick! It's sick, like everything else in this parody of a world!"
Tarl could appreciate that the garden looked strange, ugly even, and Shal recognized that all of the plants were distorted, but when Ren stalked off toward the nearest open door, they had to assume that he had seen something they didn't. In his rage, he moved with a speed they couldn't match.
When they slipped through the doorway behind him, Ren had already crossed the room to the other side of an elaborate set of yellow curtains. He was in the process of strangling a robed gnoll in the crook of his big right arm. With his left hand, he clasped the creature's hyena jaws so tightly that it couldn't even scream. At the same time, he mashed the monster's body downward so it couldn't flail or struggle. They watched in awe as the body quivered one last time, and Ren silently lowered it to the floor.
Before they had time to react, Ren had passed between two incense stands and through a second yellow curtain and was slitting the throat of another one of the gangling hyena-men. As with the first, he muzzled it, then forced it to the floor so it made less sound in death than it had in life. Shal and Tarl stood dumbstruck. Having no idea what had caused such rage to possess their companion, they followed mutely and watched as he passed through yet another yellow curtain and dispatched a third robed gnoll in a similar fashion.
It wasn't until Ren had slipped through the fourth curtain that he finally stopped short, and so did Tarl and Shal when they entered the cavernous golden room. Four more robed gnollish priests were kneeling before the dais of a shrine. A fifth, more elaborately attired, stood behind the shrine grunting an incantation over and over, which Ren realized was the same he had heard at Sokol Keep: "Power to the pool! Power to the pool!"
When the fifth figure, who was apparently the head priest, first saw the three, he stood stock-still for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he let out a squeal of warning to the others. The four scrambled to their feet and turned with surprising alacrity for creatures of their awkward proportions. Each produced a short, contorted staff, almost like a cudgel. Their faces were strangely pinched and yellow, almost jaundiced-looking. But their yellow eyes gleamed with fervor, and they charged forward with the conviction of religious fanatics, snorting monosyllabic gnollish equivalents of words like "infidel" and "heretic."
The burst of crazed anger that had propelled Ren past the first three gnolls was spent as quickly as it had come, but as the snarling, slavering gnolls pressed closer, it returned. Ren rushed the nearest attacker, both short swords drawn. Confronted with a form of worship more corrupt than any he had imagined possible, Tarl responded with a pent-up rage of his own, meeting the swinging club of one gnoll with his shield and slamming another with the broad side of the hammer he had recovered from Sokol Keep.
Shal shared neither man's sense of purpose.