Chapter 12
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 11
In the gathering dusk, Darcy is starting to feel more like herself again and her night friends know that, too. While petting the owl Darcy does keep an eye out for the ruin. Villains, she’s hunting a villain? Why is she hunting him? Oh, right, she’s a dhampir, strong and fearsome, sure. Not that she doesn’t nearly feel it a bit. With the owl on her shoulder and the beautiful forest all around her, she feels like a heroine in one of her fairytales.
For a second her look goes to Gregory, bumbling hero yet to grow into himself to become worthy of courting her included. Strange, she always thought that would be her favourite part but somehow she wishes she was alone instead.
Oh? Yes, she’d feel better hunting this villain alone, then it would be her and her night friends and that feels right. Then she thinks she could be one with all this gorgeous gloom around her, enjoy the rays of the moon overhead. The sun has sunken and with it part of her agitation, it’s dark in the forest, this forest filled with a myriad smells and she finds herself smiling into the little hidey holes that she can see everywhere. The hidey holes where her smaller night friends dare to peek out at her but heed the owl. She wishes she could sit with them and forget the mask from earlier, because to her, this feels safer than the village with all its people and light.
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For a bit, it gets really, really dark- Arthur is mostly following the pale splotch of the owl on Darcy’s shoulder. They splash through some water, and he hopes that’s Dunsley Beck- because otherwise, they’re lost. Darcy and Gregory don’t seem to be bothered by how dark it is, but Arthur is glad when silver light floods through the trees- somewhere above, the moon has risen. It means he can see the path again as a pale ribbon with dark patches of debris and bumps, and the trunks of individual trees. From somewhere ahead, he hears the lowing of a cow.
Soon after, moonlight forms a silver arch out of the trees, and when they step through, they find themselves at the edge of the forest, a sturdy wooden fence on their right, fields and hedges a bright sprawl in the dark embrace of the trees. Over in the distance, there is a cluster of houses and yellow lights- Dunsley, presumably.
The path runs between the trees and the fence for about twenty yards, and then dives back into the dark.
Arthur would have much rather stayed out in the open. And even more rather, headed towards those lights.
Only a few minutes later, he hears the cow again- this time, it’s joined by others. And he’s no expert on cows, but he thinks they sound upset.
Then, as ghostly as it came, the owl takes off from Darcy’s shoulder.
Arthur doesn’t think that’s a good sign.
And then he hears something. A sort of shuffle-thump.
He freezes in his tracks, because he’s pretty sure it came from in front of them. Darcy and Gregory are in front of him. He bites his lips to keep in a whimper of fear, and stares into the silver-speckled darkness of the forest.
A pale shape moves a ways down the path, and he desperately hopes it’s another owl, or the same owl- even while he knows it’s not.
Moonlight highlights bits and pieces, but it takes Arthur a moment to make sense of them. The pale shape is long and triangular, but in a flowing, organic way, and there’s a dark curve either side- horns, he realizes, those are horns, and that’s a cow’s skull, black eye sockets turned their way. Behind it, a dark hump rises- his mind flashes to a drawing of an American bison he’s seen in a book somewhere.
But this is bigger. And thick, dark shapes are flexing on the ground where it’s legs should be.
Before Arthur can make out any more details, Gregory charges- changes to that big tigerman form that he’s only showed Arthur that one time, the second day after the ritual, but that he’s hinted at he turns into now when he’s angry.
Except, next to that thing, it doesn’t look nearly as big.
It happens fast- one moment, Gregory is charging with a roar, the next some of those dark shapes lash out, and more from that humped back, like ropes or whips or striking snakes, and they smash into Gregory and send him flying into the forest. Arthur can hear the meaty sound of their impact, and then the crash and snap and crackle of breaking branches.
And then it’s just him and Darcy and that thing- which launches itself at them. Those dark ropes grasp onto the ground and tree branches and it hurls towards them like a stone from a sling, so fast, and so big and Arthur does the only thing he can think of: Tries to set it on fire.
It won’t do any good, of course- he can barely light a candle on a good day. That’s not going to even distract it.
Except there’s a big, fiery explosion, on the thing’s shoulder, not quite where he was aiming, but one of the rope things snaps, and it tumbles- not a rope, he sees in the brief flare and reddish smoulders. A vine, bristling with jagged thorns, and he thinks of that torn flesh and fabric.
There are more, coiling on the surface of that thing, and Arthur, desperately, casts again- misses, and sets a bush by the side of the path on fire instead.
At least that provides some light. Rationally, he knows seeing better is good, more information is good, but the quiver in his knees and the sour burn in his stomach say otherwise.
The light gleams red on the skull, is swallowed by the vines and rough, spongy stuff (…moss?) covering the thing’s form. And there are two pale shapes reaching from it’s chest, beneath the skull, like arms- no, not like, they are arms, human arms- the right size and shape for a young man. Arthur thinks of the body in the root cellar and swallows hard.
He forces himself to look at the rest of the creature- there is the gleam of bone sticking out of that mossy darkness here and there, and as it regains its balance, he sees the back end is skeletal- bones strapped together with dark bands of some sort, assembled into something like a huge cow or horse skeleton. But it’s back feet are dark and gnarled and splayed like no animal he knows, and the tail is a long, jagged assembly of bone spurs that ends in a vicious harpoon-shaped tip.
It’s a construct. It’s obviously a construct, he tells himself. Like the skeleton in the prison, it isn’t a person, a being, but really a thing.
A big, dangerous thing that isn’t going to be stopped by fear or pain.
A big, dangerous thing that’s regained its balance, pushed itself back upright with those vines it’s using instead of front legs- a bit like a snail or something.
It lashes out again, back legs crouching, and Arthur reaches as deep as he can, and casts more fire- concentrate, got to hit it this time, keep his mind full on the target, can’t allow his thoughts and focus to be scattered by fear.
Bones and plants- necromancy and something else, he thinks, but flammable, fire is good against necromancy, right, all those ideas of how it’s purifying.
The magic flows and surges through him like he’s never felt before- no, wrong, like he’s only felt once before, that day, when he did the ritual. But this time it’s not bursting out and bucking him off, running out of control. This time it’s smooth, it goes where he directs it, floods the patterns he sets for it and manifests in a big flare among those vines that hold the thing upright, stagger it again.
And then, branches snap and there’s a roar and Gregory is back, tiger mouth wide open to show big, yellow fangs, ears pinned back, and he jumps on the thing and starts tearing at it with clawed hands. Vines come at him, thick as a man’s arm, all bristling with thorns, but he bites and claws and tears and throws them in the surrounding forest, wriggling for moments like decapitated snakes.
Arthur takes a deep breath, and throws more fire, more fire, yellow blooms into the plants and bones, more and more spots smouldering with the red glow of embers, while Gregory seems intent on digging a hole into the thing’s side, bits of plant matter and bones and one human arm flying into the night.
Arthur can smell it now- like a mouldy cellar and spoiled milk and meat gone bad, damp and rot and acrid smoke scratching at the back of his throat.
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Darcy stares, has been staring for she doesn’t know how long, has been staring as the thing first appeared, ghastly pale and dark and what a monster should be. Not like her, strong dhampir, she can’t even be a good monster. She can’t be like that, impressive and dark and so beautifully wrong! She’s just a girl out here alone in the world… and then Arthur’s fire seems to actually do something to it, and Gregory is back, in his lovely demon form, and he can do something, too.
She can’t she just can’t, the stink of rotting and burning flesh fills her nostrils. She’s scared! Scared of being useless, scared of being out here, scared of never being a good monster, and scared of it being wrong to destroy something like that. She doesn’t want to be here. Instead of running she finds herself suddenly close to the ground, staring down at a set of wolf paws. Her wolf paws. Why does she have wolf paws?! Why does she feel safer like this? Still, she’s scared, she wants her room, she wants her papa, and she knows she can’t have either so she cowers down and puts her paws over her snout in protest of the world.
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Arthur notices some kind of movement out of the corner of his eyes from where Darcy is standing- and when has he stepped up to stand next to her? But that question is knocked right out of his mind as he can’t see her, looks around, down- and sees the wolf.
His heart jumps- it’s only an arm’s length from him!
It’s also cowering on the ground with its paws over its nose, and all in all looking much less scary than the monster, and… is where Darcy was standing, and he can’t see properly in this light, but he thinks it’s the wrong colour for a wolf, the fur too pale in hue.
A heavy, sliding sound draws his attention back to where it should be- the monster, still fighting, still trying to drag itself towards him despite a lot of vine-tentacles now missing, and Gregory up past his elbows in whatever makes up the inside of the thing, and patches and bits smouldering.
Arthur takes aim at the back legs as best he can- bone isn’t really flammable, but maybe he can burn what’s holding them together, because those legs are where it could still maybe get the leverage to move from.
His first cast doesn’t do much, leaves soot smudges but goes out, but on his second, one of those gnarled feet catches in a smoky glow- it looks like the feet are made from roots or something. It’s staggering, and wavering, and yes, they’re doing something, they’re, miraculously, incomprehensibly, bringing it down when there’s a scream- a scream from behind him.