Depths of Madness

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

She sat there for a long time. Then, after what seemed days, or years, a shadow loomed at the door, making panting and wheezing sounds.

If the elf heard the shadow, she made no sign. She merely sat there, cradling her friend in silence. The blood had ceased to flow, and the places where it had drenched the elf's garments had hardened into a firm hold. They might have been bound together, she and the corpse, their blood and flesh and hearts linked.

Not that it would matter to the creature stalking her.

It was ravaged: battered, bruised, broken in arm, leg, and rib. A withered left arm, formerly muscular and sleek, flopped uselessly at its side. The cracked and poorly mended legs propelled it at a ponderous gait, half-limping, half-sliding. The once smooth body had been ruined beyond repair.

The thing loomed over Twilight where she sat, near the pit full of dying flames and beneath menacing, stained spikes. It reached for her shoulder with one arm.

"Gargan…" she murmured.

It growled low. She turned her head and looked up without comprehension.

"Kill you! Kill you, pretty elf!" the troll spat, showering the elf's face with ribbons of bile and spittle. His mad eyes streamed tears and blood in equal measure. The troll raised the splintered warhammer high in his spindly arm. "You no kill Tlork! Tlork kill you! Tlork kill you!"

A black blade burst from his chest and Tlork froze. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then blood and acid leaked from the wound, hissing down to the ground, where they spattered only a thumb's breadth from the elf's bare feet. She seemed not to notice.

Then, without a word, Tlork stumbled back, wrenched away.

The troll gave a shriek as he went, his slowly reknitting limbs flailing on all sides, but to no avail. The blade ripped free and scythed about, cutting Tlork's torso in two. Over the edge the halved troll went, shrugged from the blade, into the twin pits of Demogorgon's throats. The troll screamed and roared and babbled all the way down, until the beast thudded to a rest, shaking the chamber. There he lay coughing and retching, impaled on a dozen man-high spikes.

Foxdaughter blinked up at her savior.

"Should not," said Gargan, fighting for breath, "gloat."

At the lip of the tunnel that led out of Demogorgon's depths, Twilight shut her eyes against the fearsome desert wind. Gargan, bruised and bleeding from dozens of wounds, limped at her side, his arm wrapped protectively around her slim shoulders. His face, despite a single eye that had swollen shut, shone with serenity, as always.

How Twilight envied that, and always would.

"You pause," the goliath said, looking away. "Come."

"Where?" Twilight asked softly, tonelessly.

"I do not know," said Gargan. "But we must go."

Twilight's eyes closed. "Ever onward," she whispered. "Ever away."

Even when they had climbed the stones and stood at the edge of the desert, with nothing around them for as far as they could see, the elf could still feel him-still taste his lips, sense his fingers tracing her spine, hear his loving whisper. Twilight wanted to struggle, to break away from Gargan's grasp and run back down that tunnel.

"You set him free, Foxdaughter," said Gargan, as he embraced her tightly.

Twilight bit her lip, uncertain.

"Why did you come for me?" She looked at him. "Your pattern? Your fate?"

Gargan shrugged. "You are the Fox."

Then he began to hum-a song of goliaths, she realized- and sing. His voice carried her away, far from darkness and blood, toward the distant, white horizon.

He put out his hand.

She smiled.