28. [Uicha] Gargoyles (Patreon)

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Uicha de Orak, a young man of no renown or loyalty, an expert on gargoyles apparently

Sara Free, Paladin of the 10th Renown, The Ministry of Sulk, sobering up in a hurry

Trick Longblossom, a man of no renown, village of Ambergran, a man with surgical aim

Erhan Teta, a man of no renown, and his two candles, all of the Magelab, worried about their horses

The innkeeper of the Briarbridge Tavern and his frightened assistant

30 Hazean, 61 AW

The Briarbridge Tavern, in the grasslands outside Cruxton

240 days until the next Granting

The patrons and staff of the Briarbridge Tavern stood crowded in the doorway, watching as the gargoyle dropped the severed horse's leg in the middle of the dirt road. The barrel-sized creature crouched over its meal, peeling meat away from the bone with its beak. With a sickly crunch, the gargoyle reached the tibia and began to gnaw excitedly, suggesting that the bone and not the flesh was the real delicacy. All the while, the gargoyle kept its hollow black eyes on the small crowd at the tavern, daring them to interrupt its feast. 

The second gargoyle—perched on the roof of the stable across the street—flexed its wings as it peered down at them. Uicha craned his neck to see around Sara. He thought he glimpsed two more gargoyles circling in the night sky, their boxy bodies straining the tenuous connection to their bat-like wings. 

Uicha jumped as Trick patted his shoulder. He handed Uicha his scimitar. Shifting awkwardly, Uicha hooked the sword to his belt and rested a sweaty hand on the hilt.

“Here you are, umbo,” Trick said as he next delivered Sara her broadsword. 

“My thanks,” Sara replied. “You seeing double?”

“Triple,” Trick replied with a smile. He held out his hand, which looked steadier than Uicha’s even after a mourner’s amount of drinks. “I’ll aim for the one in the middle.”

Sara put herself between the gargoyles and the rest of them, a few paces in front of the dead fiddler the gargoyles had dropped on the tavern’s doorstep. The paladin wasted no time unsheathing her sword and activating the Ink that coated the entire blade in flames. The innkeeper and his boy both gasped with awe. Meanwhile, the gargoyle in the road shied backward, snorting through nostrils slit into its clay-colored flesh. 

“On our left,” Trick said.

The fire from Sara’s sword revealed another gargoyle. This one had been edging closer via the shadows just outside the tavern’s lamplight. The creature froze when Trick noticed it, wings pinned back along its pig-sized body. Up close, the wings appeared made from gnarled tree branches with webs of rancid skin stretched between the limbs. The gargoyle looked so still that Uicha thought it could’ve been some creatively insane person’s decoration for a Long Night festival—a spooky statue of a hellish creature ready to pounce, scaring the local children away from playing pranks.  

Trick had retrieved his own crossbow when he grabbed the rest of their weapons. He took position a step behind Sara, his weapon trained on the third gargoyle. The crossbow was prepped to fire, but Trick didn't carry a quiver to reload from. Instead, a narrow box of bolts attached directly to the crossbow’s underside and fed into the weapon’s inner workings. The gear-shaped symbol of the Gadgeteers was impressed upon the crossbow’s shoulder stock. Briefly, Uicha wondered where Trick had acquired such a weapon. 

The mage Erhan Teta attempted to step into the road alongside Sara and Trick, but one of his candles dragged him backward. The other candle had scrambled back inside to retrieve the short swords the pair carried. 

“We must save the horses!” Teta shouted at his protector. “I’ve invested too much time into this research to see it squandered!”

The noises of terror from the stable—high-pitched neighing and hooves battering wooden stall walls—had not abated since the gargoyle emerged with its gruesome bounty. There must have been more of the creatures still inside and, by the sound of things, they were taking their time with the remaining animals. 

“That’s our fight, not yours,” the woman candle said to Teta as she drew her blade. “You'll just be in the way.”

Teta scowled at his minders, but didn't press the matter further. He glanced enviously at Uicha's sword, even though Uicha hadn't drawn it. Feeling like he had to contribute something, Uicha bent down to help the innkeeper as he pulled the fiddler's mangled body over the threshold and out of the way. 

“Thought he might still be alive,” the innkeeper mumbled. “The gods are supposed to protect us.”

Uicha tried not to look directly at the fiddler's clawed-open throat. “From men, not beasts,” Uicha said quietly. “Even if these creatures were made by men.”

“What do you mean by that?” The question came from Teta, who peered at Uicha with equal parts suspicion and curiosity.

“They're constructs,” Uicha said. The words came forth before he could stop them, before Uicha could really analyze their origin. “Someone created those things from stone and mud and animal corpses. That one is interested in the bones because the minerals will fortify its shape…”

Uicha trailed off. Kayenna Vezz had once unleashed an army of gargoyles in the land underneath Infinzel, knowing that the creatures would be drawn to the arcane vats of liquid stone that powered the city. Of course, Uicha had never been to Infinzel, and he wasn’t at all familiar with the history of the Final War. These facts came to him because they were part of Kayenna Vezz. He’d felt the spirit’s excitement upon seeing the gargoyles, but that had since faded. These gargoyles were shoddy work compared to the ones Kayenna had once breathed her spark into.

“If a beast is instilled with a purpose by man and kills in the course of that, the gods will intervene,” Teta told Uicha, still eying him. “So, these creatures must have been made and released purely for the joy of it. Disturbing.”

“Oh,” Uicha replied. He felt his gaze drawn to the gargoyle perched atop the stable. The creature was still, the hollows in its face hidden by shadow. Yet, Uicha couldn’t shake the feeling that it was staring at him.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Teta asked him. “Have you spent time in Besaden?”

Uicha ignored Teta—he’d wanted to escape the young horse mage’s attention, and now felt too much of it upon him—and leaned out the doorway to see what the others were doing.

“We’re going into that stable,” one of the candles told Sara as the two of them came to stand alongside her. “It might be little business of yours, champion, but we’d appreciate your support.”

Sara hadn’t donned her armor to come down for dinner. Although they all had their weapons handy, none of the Briarbridge’s patrons wore anything thicker than a tunic. The clawed feet of the gargoyles wouldn’t find much resistance.

Even so, Sara nodded. “Stay close. We advance slowly. Protect the archer.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You’re good with this, right, Trick?”

Trick shrugged. “I could be talked into barring the tavern doors and waiting for morning.”

Teta squeaked. “Absolutely not!”

The candles seemed to sigh in unison. “Not an option for us, I’m afraid,” one said.

“Well, I won’t see you torn to shreds by these things,” Sara replied. She glanced over her shoulder. “The rest of you, stay out of harm’s way.”

“Gladly,” the innkeeper muttered.

The innkeeper made to close the front door, but Teta still stood on the threshold. He wanted to watch as the small cadre of fighters advanced. Even under these circumstances, the innkeeper seemed reluctant to upset a guest—a sorcerer of Magelab, no less. The innkeeper shot Uicha an imploring look. Grimacing, Uicha stepped forward and put a light hand on Teta’s shoulder.

“Maybe we should step back,” Uicha said.

“You’ve got a sword to protect us,” Teta replied. “And those beasts don’t seem interested in us.”

Uicha swallowed. “All the same…”

“I’ve read how Orvesians used to love these creatures in the last age,” Teta said thoughtfully. “I heard they are once again making trouble in the south…”

“That’s far away from here,” Uicha said quietly.

 Teta tilted his head. “Do you get the sense these gargoyles are luring our people forward?”

Indeed, Uicha saw it now. The gargoyle that had been gnawing the bone was slowly backing away as the foursome advanced. The other gargoyle that had been slinking around from the side of the tavern now scuttled along behind, ever in the sights of Trick who found himself walking backward. Meanwhile, the third gargoyle remained perched unmoving atop the stable.

They were pack hunters, Uicha knew. And when they attacked, it would be as one and from all angles.

“Above!” Uicha shouted.

 Uicha’s cry, drawn from knowledge that shouldn’t have been in his head, might have saved the life of one of Teta’s candles.

The gargoyle fell from the sky balled-up like a boulder from a catapult. It landed on the candle with enough weight to lay her flat, a brittle crunch echoing as her leg bent beneath her. However, thanks to Uicha's warning, she had at least been able to raise her sword. The blade pierced the underside of the gargoyles jaw and slid clean through the top of its head. This didn't kill the gargoyle, but at least rendered it momentarily incapable of biting down on the woman's face. Instead, the beast thrashed around atop her, the candle doing everything she could to hang onto her sword.

At the same time, the gargoyles on the ground lunged forward. Trick shot one clean through the throat, but the bolt merely hung suspended in the thick muck of the gargoyle's body. Quickly, Trick cranked back on his crossbow and another bolt slid into place.

“Go for the hollow places!” Uicha yelled. “The eyes! The mouth! There's a bundle of rune-work inside them that needs to be destroyed!”

Uicha cringed as he sensed Teta staring at him again, but that hardly mattered now.

Trick fired a second bolt, holding his ground as the gargoyle leapt toward him with claws outstretched. The bolt drilled directly into the creature's open maw. A flash of green light erupted from within the gargoyle and, all at once, the thing began to crumble. It was as if a fire had been lit inside the beast and baked its body into dried mud.

“Damn,” Trick said, as pieces of the gargoyle pelted his boots. “That actually worked.”

Sara took a less precise approach. As the horse-eating gargoyle reached her, she swung her sword downward in a savage arc, decapitating the beast with a noise like a boot pulling loose from mud. However, the body kept charging, claws raised for Sara’s abdomen. She sidestepped the headless creature and brought her sword down again, the fiery blade incinerating the gargoyle’s wings and cleaving through its body until a similar flash of green burst from within. The rest of the gargoyle began to crumble.

The second candle had rushed to the aid of his partner, stabbing into the gargoyle’s side. His blade only became stuck in the creature’s mucky flesh, and the candle lost his grip as he tried to wrench it back.

“Eyes and mouth, the boy said!” Trick shouted as he went down on a knee to line up a shot. “Push up!”

Although she seemed to be fading fast, the candle beneath the gargoyle managed to shove her attacker’s head upward. As soon as she did, Trick’s crossbow ripped a shot through the creature’s eyehole. The bolt sheared through the hollow and into its body. Another explosion of green left the candle covered in dried bits of gargoyle.

“She don’t look good, umbo,” Trick said as he stared down at the mauled candle.

“Let me…” Sara said.

As the paladin started to lower her sword, three more gargoyles bounded through the door of the stable. They were joined by a half-dozen panicked and bloodied horses, including the massive stallion covered in runes.

“Bartremus!” Teta shouted. The young mage would’ve rushed toward his frothing and wild-eyed horse if Uicha hadn’t grabbed him around the waist and dragged him backward.

As chaos unfolded in the street below, the gargoyle perched atop the stable at last took flight. The creature’s wings were larger and more intricately designed than the others. The gargoyle sailed high and fast, clearing the scrum below, and then bringing its limbs and wings in tight to streak toward the tavern entrance.

“My horse!” Teta shouted, oblivious to the threat.

“Get the door closed!” Uicha yelled, shoving the mage backward.

By then, the innkeeper and his boy had long taken cover behind the tavern’s bar. It was Uicha alone who attempted to slam the tavern’s thick wooden door.

The gargoyle barreled through it with a splintering of wood. With a flex of one great wing, the beast flung Teta aside, the mage striking the back of his head on a table. Blood leaked from a prodigious gash and the young mage went still.

Uicha reached for his scimitar. He had it half free from the sheath when the gargoyle pounced on him, claws digging into him at the shoulders and hips. Uicha fell backward, his breath lost as all the gargoyle’s weight pressed down upon him.

Kayenna, Uicha pleaded in his mind. Do something.  

No, the spirit’s soft voice replied. I think we must let this happen.

Uicha did not feel the same way. He screamed and squirmed, doing everything he could to leverage his narrow body out from beneath the gargoyle.

As the gargoyle bore down on him, Uicha vaguely noted how much more detailed this creature’s face was, how much more care had gone into shaping and molding its stony form. Appreciating the finer points of his killer’s design—what a stupid way to spend his last moments.

The gargoyle opened its beak and a puff of fragrant breath blew across Uicha’s face. The smell was cloyingly sweet, almost like the strong cups of tea his mother used to force Uicha to drink when he was sick. Immediately, Uicha felt the fight drain from him. The pain where the gargoyle’s claws dug into his flesh felt very far away. His limbs were like jelly and his thoughts became disorganized. He couldn’t even hold onto his anger at Kayenna Vezz.

And then, Uicha was flying. The window that the gargoyle smashed through with his body in tow seemed abstracted, a portal into a dream. Distantly, he heard a woman screaming his name, and he sensed a moment of fear from the gargoyle as it twisted through the sky to avoid a bolt of stunning electricity. But all this noise and violence soon faded—soon there was nothing but the night sky, welcoming Uicha in.  

***

Sometime later, on a moonlit hilltop to the south, the gargoyle dropped the boy’s body unceremoniously into the grass. His wounds were bloody but superficial. His face was creaseless—a peaceful slumber having enveloped him entirely. With proper maintenance of the charm, the boy need never wake up again. This was a kindness, in a way. His suffering was over.

The gargoyle’s master snapped his fingers and the beast turned back into mud and carrion. The fearsome form would blow away by morning.  

The archmage Ahmed Roh bent low to brush some specks of mud from his wine-colored pants. He looked down at Uicha and nodded, pleased with himself.

“Good,” Roh said. “At last, we may begin.”