The flames of the torches lighting the chamber flickered. Someone was approaching from the darkness at the far end of the room. Large and inevitable. Two red lights appeared in the dark. They were drawing closer.
A large figure emerged from the darkness. Humanoid. A big head with thick hair. Enormous arms with long fingers and curved claws. The creature crawled along the side wall — the very one where the girls were chained.
When they saw it, the captives screamed in terror. They struggled against their chains.
Baring rows of sharp teeth, clad in gray, ancient rags, the creature rushed at them.
The Detective cut the chains of the first girl with his sword. She collapsed onto the stone floor. He drew his pistol and fired. The creature leapt to the opposite wall and avoided the shot. The Detective adjusted his aim and fired again. The creature sprang back to the left wall.
Then it struck the Detective with a powerful blow, hurling him aside, and tore through the line of captives behind him. It ripped them apart, leaving bloody pieces of bodies scattered across the floor.
Then it turned and lunged at the Cursed.
He dodged to the side and struck with his sword. The blade ran along the creature's massive body and tore open its side. Black blood sprayed.
The creature charged at the Detective — straight onto the sword he held out before him. It leapt, knocked him off his feet, and slammed him into the wall with a crash.
They both fell to the floor and did not rise again.
The Detective's body was torn in half. His entrails spilled out. From the creature's maw, up to the hilt, the Detective's blade protruded.
The massive creature was dead.
The Cursed approached the remains of his companion. Something incredible was happening to them. The parts of the body were coming back together, pulling toward each other.
At the sight of this, the only surviving girl let out a long, drawn-out wail. She screamed in hysteria and began smashing her head against the stone wall, unable to bear the reality of what was happening.
The Detective's body restored itself. Only his clothes remained torn where the creature had mangled him.
The Detective opened his eyes. He got to his feet.
"One life lost," he said. "A few lives remain."
He planted his boot on the creature's head and pulled the sword from its bloodied throat. The last girl was dead. She lay in a pool of blood that had gathered on the floor beside her head.
They broke down the barred door and went back upstairs.
In the great hall, the armored giant sat on the black throne. Black signs moved across his stern face.
When they entered, he rose and stood before them. Darkness swirled in his eyes. In his hands, he held a heavy two-handed sword with numerous teeth along the blade.
He said:
"Now you will learn what the castle's magic is!"
He delivered a wide strike with his two-handed sword. The Detective and the Cursed leapt back and attacked him from both sides.
He moved unnaturally fast for his size. The two-handed sword carved deadly arcs, and the blows of the two heroes shattered against invisible fields of protection.
The Warlord advanced like a colossal, relentless mill of death. If he had remained in that state for long enough, the heroes would not have survived. But each time his strength, governed by some incomprehensible process, gradually drained away, and then he vanished and reappeared by the black throne.
He sat on it, remained there for a while, then rose again, teleported back to the heroes, and engaged them in an even more ferocious fight.
The Cursed, noticing this, used demonic power, and a black stream of smoke carried his sword to the black throne and drove it up through the seat from below. Just as the Warlord was sitting down. The blade pierced him up to the throat.
The Warlord was left sitting on the black throne, pinned to it by the sword. Black fluid streamed from his eyes and mouth.
"You should sit there forever, you bastard," the Detective said. "But I need to make sure you're truly dead, so I can sleep easy after this."
He swung his sword in a wide arc and severed the head of the one sitting on the throne. It rolled across the floor.
As they left the castle, they saw that the masked warriors lay motionless and dead in different places.