Page 3 of Bite of the Gargoyle

I’m well fed on a stew of lentil and rabbit meat, and my stomach is heartily growling with the process of digestion. It’s an encouraging sound, because it’s evidence of life, that steady gurgle, and I always long for evidence of life wherever I can find it, especially on cold nights like this when my family’s memory is as sharp as the autumn air. My life has already been touched by too much death. I can’t stand to spend more time thinking about it.

I sit up and shake the thoughts out of my head. There’s no reason to get mopey about a dead family at this hour. Emotions, memories, and feelings aren’t practical, and they won’t help me on my hunt.

Splitting my long black hair into two ebony curtains that fall down my shoulders, I start to braid them back sloppily, not caring much for how they look. It’s the hunt that matters and being as prepared for said hunt as I possibly can be.

I grab my knees and rock myself forward, standing up in a single fluid motion. Then I jog down the slight hill and slide to a muddy stop at the hill’s base. There’s a thicket of bushes and brambles where I’m standing, but they’re more of an annoyance than an actual encumbrance. I wade my way through them and run straight into the tree-line, running through two dying white trees that arch together like lovers resting their foreheads against one another.

I wonder briefly what sort of creature my senses will detect and my mind races with all the possibilities. I’ve fought a fair few aboleths in these parts, those water-dwelling nymphoids that harken back to the days of dark faeries and bog people. Speaking of bog people, the ankhegs could be good contenders for killing. I’ve had a basilisk or two, not to mention the blights and centaurs. I do hate to kill centaurs, as they remind me a bit of horses, naturally, but they have the absolute worst personalities of any forest dwelling creature I’ve encountered, but, still, there are worse things to kill.

It would be fun to get to take down a hell-hound or a grimlock—that would be a fight to the death that would certainly wake me up after a night of not sleeping much, but here in the Chimera Forest, I know my odds, and odds are, I’m getting a troll.

I wait a few minutes before moving deeper into the woods. I can feel the vibrations of the forest, the life within that ebbs and flows with every passing second. Despite my exhaustion, the hunt is undeniably invigorating. The blood in my body rushes to my limbs and extremities. My heart feels so full, it might actually burst, and that feeling can only mean one thing: one of them is drawing close.

Just when I’m about to take another crunching step through the woods, a piercing howl penetrates the darkness and knocks me flat on my ass. I scramble up and unsheathe the hunting knife strapped to my side.

The piercing howl comes again, this time much closer.

“Oh, damn,” I mutter, impressed by the speed of the thing. It doesn’t sound much like a troll, but I suppose it could simply be an undeveloped youngling with a strange pitch and yaw to its cry. It’s possible, but it’s not exactly probable.

This time when the thing cries out, my stomach drops. It’s close. Too close.

I feel the biting pressure on my legs before I even see the blurred shape of the plant’s roots coming up toward me from the rich top soil. The roots twirl around my calves in a split-second and pull me flat on my stomach. I clench the knife in my hand and saw haphazardly at the roots, successfully snipping the left one, and it retracts into the earth, but the other root twists up around my torso. I recognize the species on sight, or rather, onfeel. The blight tightens its grip and I lose what little air remains inside my lungs.

I know how blights work. These sentient plants, awakened likely by a hag or Druid, want nothing more than to feed, and if I don’t free myself from the blight’s tight clutches, I’ll be the thing’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the foreseeable future. Not wanting to be made a meal of, I double down with my knife, hacking and sawing, but this root is thicker, a much more formidable foe than its counterpart from the other side.

That shrieking cry is almost deafening now. It’s coming from the mouth of the source plant, and if I can get to it, I can cut off the root’s power at its nexus. Of course, that possibility isn’t exactly a front runner as far as likelihood is concerned. I’m better off slicing the root and going after the source plant with all my limbs free.

The root slithers up my front quickly. There’s a large knot in the root that’s currently placed just above my heart. Without a second thought, I take the hilt of the knife in both hands, and I plunge it into the space just above my chest. The root shrieks and hisses, flexing its muddy muscles in anger and pain. I pull the knife out and before it can make a move to reposition itself, I plunge the knife into the root once more.

Okay, maybetwicemore.

All right, thrice.

“Away with you, child!”

I can hear the blight’s voice now, garbly and hard to make out, but it’s clear enough that I can tell where the source plant is now, and I can see straight through the magical armor that would make it appear harmless and beautiful to unknowing passersby. I am no passerby. I’m a hunter, and I can see directly into the gnarled old ugly soul of the thing, and that wretched face can have no true fate but brutal death.

It’s simply the way of our world. Or, at least,myworld.

The tree has moved closer, and now that I’m free of the roots, I can take my shot. In a single motion, I get up and throw my blade right into the tree’s twisted face. The root, now aloft on its way back to me, falls dead in the air and smacks against the ground with a soft thump. The cry of the blight is deafening. I fall to my knees in the mud and cover my ears until the scream is quieted by its speedy death.

Once the sound clears, I get up and collect my knife. It’s wedged deeper into the bark than I thought it would be, but once I free it, I head deeper into the forest. This blight won’t be the only creature haunting the woods this night. And it won’t be the only one to meet its doom.

I sheath my knife against my thigh and brush the mud off my brown trousers as best as I can. In this area, I’m still most likely to come across trolls, and those buggers are a much easier kill than a blight. In fact, that might’ve been my first interaction with a blight in over a year. They’ve become rarities nowadays. Most of these monsters crop up in the dozens.

It didn’t used to be this way.

These attacks on the village, this wide breadth of carnivorous and dangerous creatures roaming the forest, it all came quite suddenly. There used to be peace, or at least, some semblance of it, in these woods. The villagers started receiving their monstrous torment from the woods about the same time the Lords D’Orsay disappeared from society. Some say it was their fault somehow, that they traded the curse of the monsters for eternal bliss promised from a powerful witch. Others say when the brothers disappeared, we simply traded one sort of monster for another, for the brothers who ruled these woods did so with warlike priorities and iron fists.

At least, that’s what’s been passed down about the D’Orsays, but it was all so long ago. As to whether or not they had anything to do with the monsters? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. Because it has nothing to do with me, I don’t bother thinking about it.

I didn’t think much about monsters until my eleventh birthday—the day I lost my family. And that was a day that will forever live in my memories—a day that has spurned my vengeance every day and night since.

Father was a burly man, large around the shoulders and strong. He had a thick mustache that moved with even the slightest twitch of his lip, and I remember his lip twitching often, especially when he was thinking hard. He always said thinking wasn’t his specialty, but I always knew he was much smarter than he let anyone know.

Mother was slight and nervous but happy as a clam whenever she was set to a task. She loved Father. Father loved her. He even forgave her for the affair that resulted in Kathleen. Father loved us both as his daughters, and he’d love my mother through anything, he said, even her occasional hysteria.

That day, Father, Kathleen, and I were at the river, taking out the canoe Father had made for me for my birthday. Father was behind us in the river, guiding the boat, submerged in the chilly water up to his thighs, not seeming to mind the cold one bit. He had a big smile plastered across his mustachioed face. We were winding our way back toward the house when we happened upon him.

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