Chapter 13
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 12
He whirls, and sees the wolf up and fighting with… someone, not something, the wolf’s fur looks dark and matted around its face and wolves don’t scream…
Gregory roars, and when Arthur’s head shoots around again, Gregory is jumping off of the monster, backpaws sending it staggering, his claws and arms dark with whatever he’s dug out of it- his eyes fixed behind Arthur.
His lips are pulled back in a snarl still, bridge of the nose wrinkled and eyes slitted, ears pinned firmly back, and his fangs are very large.
Arthur’s moving even while part of his mind is yelling at him, asking what the hell he thinks he’s doing- but… that’s a person. Not a thing, a person, and he hates when people die.
So he jumps between the charging demon and the bloodied wolf and yells: “Stop!”- not at all sure whether Gregory will, whether he still recognizes him, whether he’s lost to rage- whether it’s even Gregory, maybe it isn’t and he doesn’t care.
Gregory does stop, with paws sliding and clawing at the ground, his breath panting hot into Arthur’s face.
“But Darcy…” he says in that rumbly growl that’s his voice in this form and that is just all sorts of wrong coming from a throat and a mouth that shouldn’t be able to form words.
“It’s not her who screamed,” Arthur points out, his heart hammering so fast- but he dares to turn his head to check on Darcy, to see that yes, she has the man on the ground, one of his wrists in her own very sharp teeth. “It’s not her blood, see?”
Gregory straightens from his crouch, which means Arthur’s eyes now come barely up to his chest and he can easily see over Arthur’s head.
Arthur turns again to look, sees a bottle on the ground next to the man’s trapped wrist. Gregory steps past Arthur with a growl, half-pounces on the man despite the fact that he’s lying bleeding on the ground.
Not that he seems to mind much, because he laughs, and there’s a malicious edge to it.
“Hello, children,” he says, and despite how his voice is wheezing, he’s mocking them. “Bravo, you caught me- too bad I’m just the apprentice.” He laughs again, which gives Arthur a squirmy feeling in the stomach, because… with a demon on top of you and a wolf clamped to your wrist, shouldn’t you be frightened?
“So where’s your master?” Gregory growls, and to Arthur’s surprise, the man answers:
“Old Mulgrave castle.” He smiles, and it’s toothy and unfriendly. “Run along, he’ll be ever so happy to see you.” His eyes flick from Gregory to Arthur. “Especially you. Well, especially you and the girl. There’s people who will be so glad we found you- and it’s rude to keep your elders and betters waiting, you know.”
Arthur’s stomach does a sickly flop- the man can only be talking about his father, and he very, very much wishes they were back behind the wards of the castle, instead of out here, with no protection.
Probably the man can see the thoughts on his face, because he laughs again.
Gregory gets off of him with a huff and a snarl into his face- not that it makes any impression- and then stalks back over to finish off the monster that is still trying to make its way towards them, pushing its bulk forward with one good back leg and the remains of its vine tentacles.
Arthur doesn’t really want to get close to the man, but he also doesn’t want him to bleed out, and… well, Gregory is taking care of the monster and Darcy is a wolf, so he’s the only one left to bind the man’s hands and feet- using the man’s clothing, because they didn’t really bring any rope. Also, his wrist looks pretty bad, blood welling thick and slow, so Arthur heals it a little, which gets him a mocking: “So sweet!”
Once sure that the man is secure, and Darcy is guarding him, and Gregory is finishing off the monster, Arthur carefully picks up and stores away the bottle the man had for later examination, and then staggers off into some bushes to succumb to the churning in his stomach and the pressure on his throat. The fear of the monster, and the smell of rot, and the memories of the dead young man, and seeing his limbs… used like that, and his father- his father is looking for him, and this man knows him, or knows of them, or… It’s just all too much, he can’t hold on to any sort of calm or rationality, he just wants to curl up somewhere and hide and be safe… But he can’t.
Because if that’s just the apprentice, then they can’t just leave that master sitting in that ruin, he’ll just build another monster and then they’ll have to come back…!
So he finds some leaves to wipe his mouth- hopes they’re not poisonous, hopes he didn’t hit his shoes or clothes while being sick, and then returns to Darcy.
~~~~
As Arthur comes back out from the woods Darcy finds herself looking at him for a very long moment, he looks tall from her vantage point, but she doesn’t think he feels very tall, he looks miserable and smells worse. Which, did she notice things like that before? She’s not sure, she’s not sure of anything any more. She’s a wolf now, and she really thinks that should freak her out more but then she would have to manage to stop licking at her own fur and get distracted at the sweet taste of the blood. And that should freak her out more, too, but, here she is, feeling secure and maybe even a bit proud of herself. She had heard the villain, noticed him getting ready to throw that ugly bottle at Arthur and she had reacted before she even knew what she was doing. It had felt so right to pounce and close her teeth over his wrist.
She’s a proper heroine now! And then her hero speaks up and she’s again not sure if that really is her hero or just the distraction, the setup for her real knight in shining armour.
~~~~
“I killed the monster!” Gregory announces, also walking up, no longer in his demon shape. His arms and front is covered in smelly gore, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. Arthur looks over to where the still heap of the monster lies, no longer moving. “We’ve got to find this master!” Arthur thinks he’s trying to sound grave, but there’s a thread of excitement under the words.
Unfortunately, he agrees, so nods, and that’s all it takes for Gregory to declare: “I’ll scout!”, bright and eager- no fear in evidence as he turns into his cat form and dashes off. Arthur slides his eyes sideways to Darcy, because… she saw that.
But she doesn’t look surprised, so apparently sometime between this morning and now she found out.
Since she doesn’t currently look inclined to be upset about it, he’s just as happy to move on and focus on where he’s going in the scant moonlight instead.
Of course, a part of him thinks that he should study the remains of that monster first, find out how it was made and what that could tell them about what they might be facing- but he doesn’t know enough, and he doesn’t know if he’ll have the nerve to continue if he lets himself stop now.
~~~~
The castle sits on top of a hill, of course, overlooking the woods below. Arthur has no idea where Gregory is, and he’d estimate it’s taken them another twenty minutes to reach this place.
There’s a big, square wall crowning the hilltop, with the remains of a tower still standing high and looming over the trees. Steps, their stone tops softly dipped from countless feet, lead up to a flat, grassy area on which the main part of the ruin sits. From where Arthur is craning his neck under the last of the trees, he can see what might’ve been a corner tower, and the top of a huge, high arch, like a completely oversized window. And there is a faint, dull glow like firelight that confirms there’s someone in that ruin who shouldn’t be.
Gregory’s scouting would really be far more useful if he came back to tell them what he found, Arthur thinks- then chides himself, because what if something actually happened to Gregory? (Or maybe he’s a demon and ran off to do what demons do… whatever that is.)
He glances at Darcy- still in wolf form, she can’t really talk to him, and he hopes she still understands him when he says “Let’s go?”
She just looks at him, so he takes a deep breath and sneaks out of the forest edge, across the path- the tower right above him seems empty, star-speckled sky visible through a narrow window high up. His feet are noiseless on the smooth stone steps.
The same can’t be said for Darcy, because there’s leaves and twigs crackling under her paws, and then her claws clicking on the stones in a way that sounds really loud to Arthur. But probably he’s imagining how far that sounds carries.
Or maybe not, because as he ducks down as far as he can cresting the top of the stairs, arriving on the open grass with the dubious shadow of the old battlements as his only cover, a small body comes flying out the bottom of that huge window.
He can only see it because it’s backlit against the fire glow inside- and because it trails sparks of its own.
There’s a snarl from behind him, and then a shape rushes past him- not a wolf, no, he can see Darcy’s pale skin in the moonlight, and her bared fangs, in that split second that she passes him by- straight for the ruin.
He doesn’t have time to react and stop her, and shouting would only alert anyone around more than necessary, so… he does the only thing he can think of, which is run after her.
Without a plan. To confront a necromancer of unknown power. Why doesn’t anyone around here ever plan anything??
He slows down after crossing the lawn, ducks into the night shadows by the walls, sneaks the rest of the way, because… because it’s the only element of surprise they have left.
He hears a strange swooshing, flapping sound from beyond the wall. His heart pounds fiercely as he sneaks to where the wall ends in a rocky tumble, and in around and through the low, horn-shaped protrusions of what was once the foundations of a round corner tower. From there, he can see a large opening, most of that side of the castle completely missing, except for a short, low stub of wall. Across, he can see a stone lattice of big windows (?) in maybe a story’s worth of wall.
He can smell burning wood, damp earth and grass and stone- normal castle-ruin scents. But there’s also a hint of that rot and sour milk he smelled on the monster.
The firelight lies orange on the grass from beyond the little stub of wall, and the flapping is sounding from ahead and above. Apprehension prickles at the back of Arthur’s neck, and he’s feeling terribly exposed- a monster like the one in the forest could easily jump over this little wall. Swallowing, he hurries forward to peek into what’s left of the castle.