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By Root 931 0

She called for her staff out of fear and used it only when the fourth gnoll crashed through the melee and toward her. Hell-bent on claiming the life of an infidel, the gangling creature charged forward, oblivious to Shal's extended staff. Even after it impaled itself, it continued to press forward, jaws snapping, club flailing, a yellow glaze burning in its eyes. It wasn't until the gnoll had pushed forward almost the length of the staff, its entrails pushing out behind it, that it finally jerked in the spasms of death. Shal had never once even moved. Slowly the gnoll's dead weight pulled the staff to the ground, and the monster started to slide back down the length of the staff. Shal dropped to her knees and covered her mouth to keep from gagging. Only when she heard Ren's voice saying something in the guttural language of the humanoids did she collect the wherewithal to pull her staff from the body of the dead gnoll.

The three other priests lay dead not far away. Tarl was holding the high priest in a hammerlock while Ren asked it questions. Shal stepped past the bodies and walked numbly toward the shrine. An upside-down T shape, the altar stood a little taller than waist-high. Its mahogany surface was polished to a sheen that struck Shal as highly unusual among the disgustingly dirty gnolls. At the crux of the T was a rounded gray mound. On either side of the altar stood embossed silver chalices, the work of dwarves, if Shal was any judge, but they were dark with rust and somehow corrupt in appearance. At first Shal couldn't grasp what made such carefully and ornately ornamented pieces seem repugnant, but as she came closer to one of them, she realized what was wrong. Its surface was covered with the contorted faces of the benevolent gods. The faces were those of the same gods carved in relief on Shal's Staff of Power, but like everything else in the gnoll village, they represented a grotesque permutation of what was natural and beautiful. In a subtly gruesome way, the chalice made a mockery of the staff Shal carried and of everything that was good in the Realms.

She started to reach forward to dash the hideous piece and its companion to the floor, but then she stopped short. The dreadful stink of rancid meat bit into her nostrils before she could lay a hand on the chalice. Mixed with it was the sickening sweet smell of blood, and she saw now, with shock, that the gray lump she had seen earlier was actually the days-old head of a human being, its skin livid and its eyes bulging as if from strangulation. The body stretched out behind it, excoriated as if from repeated blows with some heavy, abrasive object.

Shal slapped one hand to her mouth and drew the other tight against her abdomen to stave off the new wave of nausea that gripped her. Through clenched teeth, she stifled what would otherwise have been an earsplitting scream of horror and revulsion. Unconsciously she tipped her head back, as if that would clear her nose of the fetid stench. When it didn't help, she lurched forward wildly, slamming the gore-filled chalice nearest to her with the back of her hand and coming back deftly with her forehand to smash the other one. Blood splattered everywhere as the two chalices rocketed end-over-end into the golden walls on either side of the great room.

The captured priest shrieked hysterically and struggled in vain to free himself from Tarl's viselike grip. "No blood, no power! No blood, no power!" Again and again he repeated the pained cry, failing to stop even when Ren backhanded him hard against his hyena jaws.

"Animal!" Shal screamed, her rage driving her voice to a level loud enough to be heard over the shrieking gnoll.

"Animal!" she shouted once more, moving deliberately around the altar, her large hands outstretched toward the creature's throat.

"No! Stop!" Tarl pushed the gnoll to the floor with one hand and held out the other to stop Shal. "He's an abomination, and deserves to die, but we must not kill him."

Shal screamed through her teeth again, then dropped to her knees and pointed up at the altar. When