Behind a massive stump, claw marks several inches deep dug into old oak, they all crouched as midnight arrived.
There were winds, uneasy gusts every so often, and the hell screams lingering above lasted for either minutes or over an hour.
Horns and trumpets sounded. The squire boy twitched, heartbeat racing with anticipation.
"His majesty's army! We could be saved!" Squire stuttered, eyes wide.
"Raul, calm yourself!" The elder barked, clouting the lad's ear. "Lest ye' want to be gargoyle food until morning!"
Raul shivered, tucked within a stiff cloak. "It's cold...so cold! Nothing like winter, this is somethin' of the demons' work..."
Though Larosa offered a hand, Raul shoved her away, and the elder cursed the boy.
"Bless the stars our lady's with us boy, show a little appreciation!"
Raul sighed, allowing Larosa to massage a muscle above his spine.
The lad's heartbeat slowed, though nothing stopped the shivering.
Alrieon's sword in hand, he kept watch, waiting for the beasts to swerve down any moment. Yet as the hour went on, nothing more than bickers from Raul and the others, along with horns following the gargoyles' cries.
"They're elsewhere," he decided, waving for everyone to follow him. "Be on your guard."
Raul and two of the others were the only ones skilled with a sword.
They carried dull rusty swords, axes, and pikes, scavenged from along the battlefield, though it was better than nothing. A warrior's spirit, little as it was, yet they were so thin from days of being fed maggots and grub, according to Raul.
Though not much a fighting man, the elder took up a dull bronze spear, keeping eyes on Raul.
"Lad might not last the night. He's losing himself," the elder said, a step behind him.
"It's not far. Maybe another day or so," he said, unsure in truth.
The elder sensed his uneasiness and crept back to keep watch over Raul.
Other lads were wide eyed as well, which would've been normal save for the chattering to themselves. As if someone were speaking within their heads, they spoke amongst one another, but not with each other. Madness, he knew it was, of the Burning Lands, a cursed land of warfare destined to be like the graves he hunted in for many nights.
Hell screams rang above.
There couldn't have been more than an hour left of darkness.
Eyes beamed, a hundred meters up within the foggy sky. Some appeared ahead and behind the party, snarls with taunts in the old language.
Nothing like a snake's hiss, but something crueler. Cold like the blistering winds, it made his skin crawl, and he couldn't imagine what must've been going through the runt faced pale lads' mind.
"Monsters! We're surrounded!" Raul shouted, hurrying to hide beneath a fallen tree. "Gods, we're going to die here!"
"Stop!" The elder shouted, helping him force the other lads to form a circle. "Come ba-."
Black wings with red stripes upon its torso, a gargoyle snatched up Raul.
While kicking and screaming, Raul dropped his sword. The gargoyle laughed, hissing as another joined it, grasping the other side of Raul. Bones snapped, blood rained, black organs splattered on the ground, and Raul fell silent.
In circles above, the gargoyles hollered and roared.
"Grimy fucking livestock!" One gargoyle howled, gnawing on Raul's leg.
"Aye," another growled, spitting out bones, "better than nothing!"
"Plenty to go around!" Another gloated, a thunder-like voice.
None took a dive yet, though the captives lost their will to fight, the few with swords trembling.
The elder beckoned them on, cursing for them to hold positions. "Gods be damned, ya' don't want to die out here! For gods and country, fuck these demons!"
He swapped Alrieon's sword for his flail. "Listen to the old one! We've little but a night to go to be free of these cursed woods!"
The deep voiced gargoyle laughed, landing before the party. "Livarza's killer? How the sky lords have blessed me!"
It was a head taller than most, though nowhere near what Livarza was.
Orange skin, three horns were atop it's head, it was wide as it was tall, and its wings span was almost that of a small dragon. Nothing was in its hand, which worried him the most, for its muscles were larger than any he'd seen, veins out like serpents along its arms.
He led with his flail. The brute gargoyle caught the spiked head like it was a feather, smiling, revealing razor blade-like teeth.
Gargoyles dove from above, and he cursed. While releasing his flail's hilt, he slung out Alrieon's blade. It was light, so light he didn't believe it would cut.
One swing proved him wrong.
Little more than a half step, he severed a gargoyle in two. Its innards spilled among the party, and even the other gargoyles beat their wings trying to soar back up.
He sliced off another's legs. It wailed, and the elder threw the rusty spear, tearing into its wings. After it fell to the ground, captives with swords regained their courage, and drove iron through its back.
The muscular gargoyle squeezed his flail head, still grinning. After heaving it away, dents and twisted steel upon its head, it lunged forward.
He thrusted, though it dove out the way, swatting him.
As if two, or even three Livarza's had struck him at once, he sailed across the ground.
The monster gargoyle closed in on him, slamming hammer fists into his shield. His helm cracked and blood leaked from his forehead. While the brute gargoyle raised its hands again, he sliced at its ankles.
Blood spewed, a scratch so small he couldn't believe so much poured out, and the gargoyle roared stumbling back, cursing at him.
"Ironite metal! And here I believed it to be your strength alone!" It growled, dropping to a knee.
On his feet, he spat, "You'll see plenty enough, demon spawn!"
It laughed, running a hand along its ankle, then drank the blood. "You're the hell spawn, soulless fuck!"
Shield up, he let it charge.
On all fours, the brute gargoyle stampeded like a dozen bulls. Then it turned, pivoting on its good ankle, and leaped into the sky.
He hurried to the party, all but two left, Larosa and the elder covering her with a rusty iron fireborne kite shield. The others were scattered dead or long gone into the sky.
Eyes beamed, the brute gargoyle dove for Larosa.
He leaped, swinging Alrieon's blade, severing the beasts arms off.
It roared, slamming into the ground, rolling for a few dozen paces. The rest of the gargoyles retreated, hissing until the sky fell silent.
Sword above the beast, pointed down, he demanded it to tell him its name.
The armless gargoyle smiled. "A name means nothing. Glory, is everything!"
"Aye," he said, the sun's light brightening the darkness.
It hardened, its arms turning to stone first, then the rest of its body followed.
He retrieved his flail, a dented hunk of metal chained to a hilt. Over the frozen stone gargoyle, he held it firm, listening to birds chirp within the morning.
"Don't, m' lord," the elder suggested, holding a shaking Larosa. "Gargoyles are vengeful creatures, especially to their slain defenseless kin."
"Fuck their kin," he said, lowering his flail. "This one would've taken your heads off, or fed on you alive like the others."
"M'lord," the old man pestered, "if you kill him now, his kin will return for us in the night. More than you could muster. Killing a stone gargoyle is among the most unforgivable sins."
As if he had any less to worry about, though only two of the original nine were still breathing.
He touched the brute's head, naming it Armless.
Larosa, speaking for the first time, told him a gargoyles wounds would be healed upon nightfall.
"Once it's flesh again it will be good as new," she explained, a coarse tight voice. "Even so, it will likely honor your mercy by staying away from us."
He stared at Armless for a bit longer.
Blood and death. Men were nothing but living sacks of flesh, lads with their whole lives ahead of them. He hated to see the slaughter of the defenseless, and the gargoyles had done little more than killed for sport.
One of the lads was still alive, dying, blood choked with swollen eyes. He cut the boy's head off, neither Larosa or the old man looking away.
Another look to cold stone Armless, and he sheathed the White Riders sword.
They gathered the dead, piling all the remains in a pile, bodies intact or not. After tossing in the last bit, intestines piled in his arms, he lit the pile ablaze.
Raul and the lads deserved better than a buzzard's breakfast.
Larosa said silent prayers with the elder, and he spoke to Armless, as if the fucker could hear him.
"Better be making the right choice," he said looking back to a weeping Larosa in the old man's arms, then back to Armless. "Next time, sunlight ain't saving you."
With the elder and a master apprentice behind him, he led the way into yet another valley.