Brindar wielded Biter like a dervish. He spun through the mass of foes, the axe leaping out, and leaving a trail of blood and dying bodies behind. I saw what the power of his weapon was now. If it hit a monster, the cuts went deep, but if the blow landed on a neck, the axe sheared through completely, taking the head off in one fell swoop. Biter indeed.
For myself, I stood back, near Jasco, firing away with the gun. I watched, and whenever it looked as if one of my teammates was in peril, I aimed carefully and pulled the trigger. The metal ball did damage, although it didn’t kill. But it hurt enough that the monster would turn, or fall, or flee for a moment, giving my friend some needed space.
I was in position to witness the two things that happened next. The first was that I noticed the monsters were healing. Every wound, except for those caused by Biter or by the metal balls from my gun, was closing up. Limbs that were cut off were growing from the stumps. Bodies that were decapitated were starting to twitch and creep toward their heads.
The dawning horror of this revelation almost caused me to miss the second thing. Filene became surrounded. Several of the monsters crowded around, closing in on her despite the flashing blades of her knives. Jasco fired arrow after arrow, taking down several of them, but it wasn’t enough. I joined in, blasting away at the circle around her, and thought we scattered them. But two, on the far side of Filene from us, jumped in, horrible claws raking, and with a scream, she fell. The monsters fell on top of her, claws rending and fangs sinking in.
Jasco let out a terrible cry, the first sound I heard him make, dropped his bow and ran to his sister, pulling his own knife as he went. I yelled for him to stop, but it was too late. He didn’t make it more than a few steps, paying no attention to anything but his sister’s still form when he was pulled down also.
I was sick with the sight of this, and pulled my own sword, hacking and slashing, trying to reach MM. I could see that he also witnessed what happened to the twins and redoubled his efforts. I heard a cry from the edge of the room and saw Raven, his shirt sleeve ripped to shreds and blood streaming down his arm. His eyes blazed as he stepped out of the shadows, abandoning his stealth method of fighting, and worked his way toward us.
Brindar was succeeding better than any of us. He showed no signs of tiring, and Biter sung through the air. The monsters were quickly learning to avoid him, and would veer away to come at us instead. He also waded his way through the press to get to us, so that we stood back to back, all but Brindar panting with our efforts.
The monsters surrounded us, screeching loud enough to deafen and the odor enough to sicken. I readied myself for the last stand, wondering how it was that so many of them were here, all this time, and had never been noticed.
Then there was a new noise, which rose over the screeching. It was a long, high pitched tone, steady and strong. The monsters stopped their noise, and drew back from us, claws still bared.
The crowd parted and a new fiend approached. She was huge and bloated, much bigger than those around her. As with all of the others she was unclothed, and obviously female. She waddled forward, an expression of cunning on her bestial face. Around her waist was a chain, and at the end of it, she dragged along a man.
He still wore the remnants of clothes much like those worn by Magnus and the other priest we saw. His body was a mass of bruises and blood, and he shambled along with a vacant look on his face.
“Roderick,” Raven mumbled.
The female stepped closer to us, sniffing. Around her, the rest of them gathered, hanging back but still eager to get at us.
“Roderick,” I said loudly, hoping to pull his attention. It was no use. The man was broken and gone.
“Roderick!” I said again, even more loudly. This time, there might have been a flicker in his eyes.
The female made a strange noise, and I realized that she was laughing. She reached back, grabbed the chain and yanked Roderick forward. Her hands wrapped around his neck and she pulled him against her swollen belly. She unwrapped the chain from around her waist and then, looking directly at us, she drew one clawed finger across his neck, cutting deep. She pushed him at us and he stumbled into my arms, while she made that weird laughing noise again.
I fell with Roderick in my arms and the Queen, as I thought of her, stepped back, and made a different noise. The rest of the monsters flowed forward, attacking again. MM stepped in front of me, taking the brunt of the rush, and Brindar moved in a flash, cutting into the first ones to come near.
“Roderick,” I said, “can you still hear me?”
My friends fought fiercely above me, and they needed my help, but I needed information first. Then the monsters would pay dearly for the atrocities they committed.
Roderick’s eyes fluttered open.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I thought she was so beautiful…there on the side of the building…she talked to me…only to me.”
I started to understand, remembering a vague legend that I heard as a boy, but this was a twisted, perverted version of it.
“Gargoyles?” I asked him. “Roderick, is the Queen a gargoyle?”
“She was so beautiful…” he repeated. “And she sung so sweetly to me…”
When I was young my mother told me tales all the time. Well before the King opened the border, I heard of most of the other races and what they were like. Or at least what they were supposed to be like. One of the tales involved gargoyles, those stone faces and statues that adorned temples and palaces.
“Look Duke,” she would tell me as we looked up at them. “They’re there to protect the building, and at night they come alive and drive away the bad spirits.”
I would look up in wonder at them, trying so hard to see one move, but they never did. I grew up and remembered my mother’s tales, and knew them for what they were. Tales told to children. Or so I thought.
Roderick drew in a deep breath and the light went out of his eyes completely. I didn’t know what he had done to bring these things out of the stone, but I did know what they were now. That made all the difference. I pulled my gun, said “gargoyle” to it, and rose to my feet.
I started shooting and now it counted more. When the metal ball hit them now, the gargoyles died. It didn’t matter where it hit them, in the head, the torso, or even the wing. When the metal ball hit, they shuddered, turned back to stone, and crumbled to powder. Even Biter didn’t have a more dramatic effect on them. In fact, I never saw the gun have that effect on anything, but it worked.
The gargoyles died left and right. Brindar moved in, and chopped them apart, while I put them down with the gun. MM and Raven fell back, knowing that the weapons we used were better suited to the assault and watched our backs.
We chased them down through that stinking charnel house they turned the temple into. They fled before us, screeching that horrible sound. The Queen fled, moving surprisingly fast for such a grotesque creature, and made it to the bell tower. I followed behind her, while Brindar and the others stayed below, guarding the ladder and mopping up.
In the bell tower itself I saw several gargoyles push through the openings and fly away over the city. They would need to be hunted down later and utterly exterminated. The Queen was trying also, but she was too massive to fit through. She turned as she heard me come up, and tried to hide behind an old and cracked bell still hanging there. It did her no good.
I looked at her, and she saw the death in my eyes. Her own bulbous eyes narrowed in hatred and she sprang at me, claws reaching out to rend and tear. I didn’t hesitate, and shot her, one, two, three times, hitting her wherever the metal balls ended up.
She loosed a horrible scream, turned to stone and fell to the floor with a terrific crash. Below, I could hear a wail from those few that had yet escaped Brindar’s axe. It went on for a minute, and then all was quiet from below too.
I climbed back down the ladder and stood with the others, looking about. It was a slaughterhouse, with chunks of stone scattered throughout. The bodies of
their victims lay strewn about, and those gargoyles that Biter killed lay among them. We searched and found the bodies of the twins, and carried them to the stairs, and down.
“Don’t go up, Father,” I said to Magnus when he let us out. “Let someone else clean it up.”
“It’s my temple, Duke,” he said. “It’s my mess.”
We did get rewarded from the crown, the four of us who were left. It was a good sum of money too, paid directly to us from Lord Wellingsly. Somehow, it felt unclean.
I held on to it for a couple of days, during which Lilly did everything she could to bring me out of the funk I fell into.
Then, it hit me. I walked back across town, back to the temple of the Good God. I found Father Magnus and donated my reward to his temple. It had been desecrated in the worst sense of the word, due to no fault of this man, who still had worthy work left to do.
I learned that I wasn’t the first. Raven had been by, and given his reward to Father Magnus, as had MM. And while I was still there, Brindar came and did the same. We all had the same reaction to what we witnessed.
Again, I watched as Father Magnus greeted Brindar in the dwarven language, amazed at the man. When the donations were received, the two of us left together.
“Why?” I asked Brindar.
“A good man is a good man,” he replied. “I really don’t care what else he may be.”
“I have enough for an ale or two, left over from other jobs. Care to join me?”
Brindar looked at me.
“Can’t say I’ve ever drank with a human for fun before,” he said.
“I could say the same about a dwarf. It’s about time, don’t you think?”
He didn’t say anything else, but looked around and headed for the nearest tavern.
INTERLUDE 9
The two men sat quietly when the story was over, the sunshine seeming less bright than it had.
“I remember Father Magnus,” the young man said. “You took me to see him a couple of times when I was younger. He was a good man.”
“He was. It was a great loss to the city when he died. But he did a lot of good for a lot of people before he did.”
“Why him though? Why did those things decide to nest in his temple?”
“No idea. I don’t know if they chose it because he was a good man, and they were so evil, or if they just found a place that was convenient. I’m not even sure if Roderick first saw the Queen on the side of the temple of the Good God, or if it was on another building. Either way, Magnus didn’t deserve that.”
They fell into silence again and watched the world go by.
“Still,” Duke said, “he did help change things. Seeing the way he talked so easily with Brindar made me realize that maybe I wasn’t as unusual as I thought. Maybe others had the same thoughts and feelings that I came to. It made it a little easier for me to do something like go into that tavern with Brindar. Over time, that’s become less and less of a strange thing.”
“Don’t downplay your own part in that, Granddad. You took a lot of first steps yourself.”
“Maybe so. Anyway, it’s still cold out here, and the shadows have passed enough. Let’s go see what your grandmother is doing.”
Later on, Duke and Lilly sat by the fire.
“You’re not yourself tonight, Duke,” Lilly said. “What’s going on?”
“Ah, thinking back to that story I told today. It makes me think of Magnus, and I’m sorry for his loss.”
Lilly nodded, and the two shared a sad smile at the memory of lost friends.
The next day the young man returned, and he and Duke went into the trophy room again.
“Hey,” the young man said, “rather than looking around, why don’t you tell me about how you got…”
“Not yet,” Duke interrupted. “That’s a story for another time.”
The young man sighed, but moved off, looking over the shelves. He stopped in front of a dried white rose.
“What’s this? Is it from Grandmother’s and your wedding?”
“Actually, no, although it is from a wedding. But it wasn’t ours. How much do you know about your great-grandfather? This would be Lilly’s father.”
“Not much. From what Mom has said, I think he was in shipping or something…”
Duke smiled, looking at the rose.
“Let’s go. I need an ale, which you can get for me.”
THE WEDDING
One of the things about having a serious girlfriend is that you have to do things with them. Well, maybe “have to” is a little strong. If you truly don’t mind doing the stuff, then it’s not really that you “have to” and more that you “get to”. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m being dragged around a street market early on a weekend morning. I get to do that, rather than having to stay comfortably in bed asleep. It’s the natural progression of things.
But the relationship enters a whole new realm when family gets involved, which is what happened one evening when I was enjoying an otherwise perfectly nice dinner with Lilly.
“My sister’s getting married next week,” she said.
“Mmm. That’s nice.”
To be honest, I was in the middle of savoring a very good steak and an excellent mug of a new ale, Clodhopper’s Best. They said it was produced using ancient alchemy known only to the secretive order of orcs that brewed it. Who knows if that was true, but secret order of not, they knew how to brew a tasty beer.
“Sooo…you’re going with me, right?” Lilly asked.
“Sure. Wait. Where are we going?”
“To my sister’s wedding. Honestly Duke, were you even listening to me?”
“Of course, I was. I’d love to go!”
“Good. We’ll leave in a few days then.”
“Umm…where is it going to be?”
“At my parent’s place. She’s getting married there. It’s only a day away by coach, so it’s not too bad.”
Lilly said this in a matter of fact tone, as if it were no big deal. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a city boy, through and through, and have no use for venturing far outside the walls. To me, going a day’s journey by carriage was the same as going half way around the world.
“I must really have it bad for you,” I muttered, bending over my steak to cut a large piece out of it.
“What was that, dear?”
I could almost hear the lightning crackling in her voice as she said this.
“Nothing, nothing…”
“Okay, Grandfather,” she said. “Enough pussy-footing around. It’s not like either one of us. Here’s the deal. My sister’s getting married in a week and yes, she’s a pain in the butt a lot of the time, but she’s still my sister. I’m in the wedding, so I need to go help get things ready, so I need to go a few days early. I would really like you to come with me, and meet my family. Because I don’t want to go alone, but mostly because I want them to meet the man I’m in love with.”
I stopped paying attention to the steak, or even the ale, set my fork and knife down, and looked at her.
“Oh. In that case, of course I’ll go. I’m not thrilled about leaving the city behind, even for a few days, but this is important to you. So yes, I’ll go and I’ll meet your family, and I’ll be charming and personable. Because I want them to see that I’m worth being with you, the woman that I’m in love with.”
Then we sat there and mooned at each other. I’m sure the other patrons of the restaurant lost their appetites, but that was too bad. It turned out that I really would do anything for Lilly. Even leave Capital City for a little while.
“Ummm…Lilly? Is there something you want to tell me?”
I was looking out of the coach’s windows when we arrived a few days later. I should have known that something was up when we travelled in a private coach, rather than the local carriage that carried tourists and businessmen to and from the city.
The house we pulled up to fit that definition only in the loosest sense. It had walls, and a roof,
and doors. But so many walls, and roofs, and doors. It was made of stone, expertly cut and fit together, and soared into the sky higher than any other building, except for the Royal Palace and the Lock-ups. Mansion was more like it, or maybe palace, castle, fortress, or small city-state.
“What?” Lilly said, looking up from the tome she was reading as we bounced along. “Oh yeah. I guess I never mentioned. Mom and Dad are rich.”
This wasn’t just rich. This was the type of money that could buy up all of Silver Tree Road and not blink twice.
In all the time that I knew Lilly, it never once occurred to me that she came from money like this. She was so down-to-earth and unspoiled. She worked hard, never expected anything to be handed to her, and seemed perfectly happy with my less than sophisticated ways. Now, I was suddenly seeing her in a new light.
“Stop looking at me like that, Duke,” she said. “It’s just money, and it’s not even mine. Now come on. Mom and Dad are waiting.”
I looked out of the carriage window again, and sure enough, there were Mom and Dad. Or, Bryer and Iris Deerborne to be precise. Bryer was a tall, handsome man, dressed in black velvet, with graying hair and beard, and very dark eyes. His wife was almost as tall, her long, silver hair perfectly styled, and the deep red gown she wore brushing the tops of the grass. Looking at her, it was easy to see where Lilly’s looks came from.
Next to her parents, Lilly’s sister, Rose, the girl of the hour, was also waiting; along with the man I assumed was to become her husband in a few days. He was also tall and good looking, fitting in well with the rest of the family. Rose was a pretty girl too, although not in league with her big sister, if you asked me.
At first sight, I didn’t get a warm feeling from any of them. They stared at the coach as if it were beneath them to be out here, waiting by the side of the carriageway as if they were commoners. Of course, that could have been my misinterpreting their expressions, but it was still the impression I got. I readied myself for a few days of forced smiles and insincere pleasantries.
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 25