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The man who isn’t Balor just chuckles.
And with the troll tucking me under one of its muscular arms, it seems like I’m going wherever they wish to take me.
Chapter Twelve
It’s not a massively long walk to Shadow Dark, but it isn’t one I’m likely to forget in a hurry either.
Being carried under a troll’s arm is uncomfortable and unpleasant (they aren’t the most hygienic of creatures), and the road to Shadow Dark, even for as experienced a monster hunter as I am, is not one to be taken lightly.
The landscape seems to change as we walk. The Chimera forest around Derith’s castle is creepy and twisted but the closer we get to the abode of his brother, the more nightmarish it becomes, like the old-fashioned visions of Hell you see painted on church walls.
The trees move from twisted into tortured as the sky slides from dark into a swirling vortex of midnight blue and jet black. But it’s the sounds that I struggle most to block out; an eerie chorus of howls, grunts, and snarls, sometimes animal, sometimes sounding like a human in pain, sometimes baldly indescribable. The woods through which we pass are alive with creatures that ought not to exist, a parade of horrors summoned into unwilling existence by Balor to serve him, to wreak havoc, and to kill his brother once and for all. The sounds make cold shivers snake an unwelcome path up and down my spine, while from the corner of my eye I catch fleeting glimpses of shuffling movement, serpentine flashes, red eyes glaring from out of the darkness—mere hints of the horrors.
I should never have left Derith’s castle.
I’d heard of Shadow Dark, of course. It was one of those places talked of in soft whispers in the corners of taverns by weather-worn travelers who have been everywhere and seen it all. But none of them ever seemed to be describing the same place; some spoke of a tall tower on a craggy outcrop of rock, pointing blasphemously upwards as if it was accusing Heaven. Others spoke of a fortress burrowed into a forest, so old that the trees had grown up through its stones so it was now part of the forest itself, roots and branches clutching at crumbling masonry. Some called it a cave, some a pit, some said it was a normal house from the outside but from within a vast mansion. And so the rumor grew that Shadow Dark was formed by the nightmares of those who saw it, that it didn’t look any single way but took a form borrowed from the unconscious minds of those unlucky enough to pass it and live to speak the tale.
All very fanciful, but if you questioned any of those garrulous travelers for long enough, then it became painfully apparent that none of them had ever been anywhere near Shadow Dark and they were making it all up. Like fishermen telling tall tales, they’d spun the legend of Shadow Dark so often that the legend had become fact.
Now, I’m going to see it firsthand. I wonder if I’ll live to talk about it in a darkened tavern, and watch the wide-eyed faces hanging on my description of that storied place.
In the event, it doesn’t look so bad. Perhaps my expectations had been shaped by all the wild imaginations of the traveling storytellers but the castle we now approach is no worse than many I’ve entered on one mission or another. There are Gargoyles clinging to its towers and hunched beneath its battlements, but what else would you expect from the lair of a gargoyle-vampire? It’s dark and Gothic enough, squatted in the shadow of the forest, but it doesn’t make me shiver as much as the forest itself.
The heavy wooden gates creak as the troll pushes it back, carrying me over the threshold into the vaulted archway beyond. We pass through a door, down corridors, down flights of stairs all lit by flickering torches. This is a castle that exists in night, because by day its master can’t venture out, and so it lives in torchlight.
Finally, we come to a large hall. The troll’s footsteps are softened by rugs and a blazing fire burning in the massive stone fireplace, carved with yet more gargoyles.
“What are you doing?! Put her down!”
The voice is so like that of Derith that, for a moment, I wonder if he’s beaten me here and come to rescue me. But no such luck and I can’t help but feel disappointment.
As the troll sheepishly sets me right side up, back on my feet again, I recognize the man who springs athletically from the chair by the fire. His similarity to Derith is marked, but this is a face I know well. I know him from the ghostly vision summoned up by the witch, but I also know him as the face that has haunted my whole life, the face I’d seen as a child, killing my family.
“You!” There have been more inspiring war cries, but that’s all I can come up with in the moment as I hurl myself at Balor.
At the same time, he’s rushing towards me, but with a completely different attitude. “I apologize for the trolls. They don’t follow orders well unless the orders involve hitting someone over the hea…”
I cut him off by punching him in the face. If I had a weapon I’d have used that, but it is a pretty good punch. Too good really. It sends him reeling. Strangely, he puts up no defense. It’s only then that I really stop to register his words and realize something strange is going on.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Balor holds up one hand, clutching his cheek with the other where I hit him. “Good strike by the way.”
“Enough of the pleasantries!” I rail at him, still fuming so much that my shoulders are pumping up and down with the effort.
“I know you think I’m your enemy but if you just allow me to explain then you’ll understand that I am not.”
I am in no mood for this trite shit. But I also don’t have a weapon or a plan. If I make myself his enemy and he chooses to fight back, then the powerful gargoyle-vampire can probably do away with me in three seconds flat.
I glance at the grandfather clock that stands by the wall, measuring its ticks with funereal precision. “You have five minutes.”
Balor holds up his hands. “I promise.” He breathes in deeply. “First; whatever my brother has told you—he’s lied to you.”
“Well, you would say that!” I snap, wrapping my arms against my chest.
Balor makes a face. “If I only get five minutes you could at least not interrupt me.”
That seems fair enough. I nod to let him carry on.
“It was Derith who killed your family, not I,” he continues and I’m surprised to know he remembers the incident. I don’t imagine a killer like him remembers all his victims, especially from so long ago. Of course, I don’t believe him. “I can see you rolling your eyes,” he continues, his hands still splayed in a gesture of submission.
