Chapter 6

The Horned King took a step away from the window, giving a small beckon-signal with his right hand. The gwythaint saw this and aimed for the hole in the wall.

The window was wide, as every castle's was, but the gwythaint was going much too fast to simply land on the thick stone sill of it. As its master stood back to give it room, the beast approached, calculating the distance with its eyes. Right at the last possible second, it folded its wings quickly to its sides, and streamlined itself through the space.

Opening them again the instant the creature and its "passenger" were through, the gwythaint flew once around the spacious room to regain its control before carefully perching on the back of a stone bench near the far wall, directly across from the window.

Folding its wings, the gwythaint promptly dropped its goblin cargo the five feet to the floor, before panting gently through its now-empty mouth, trying to regain its breath.

Creeper landed on his stomach, hitting the stone hard. He groaned at the impact, holding in a growl as his little cap slid over his eyes. He got to his knees, then his feet, dusting himself off and mumbling something obscene about gwythaint drool.

A long shadow fell the length of the room, stemming from the window, covering the goblin too. Creeper glanced up at the change and gasped loudly, falling back against the wide bench-leg in speechless terror.

The goblin stared, eyes wide and horror-stricken, his heart beating hard against his ribs, but he scarcely felt it.

'This can't be!'

Creeper thought as his former Master glared down at him, 'It can't! This has to be a nightmare, its not real! I watched him die. . .'

His Master growled in displeasure at the goblin, and Creeper came back to reality with a jolt, realizing he'd been staring.

"Master," he stammered, shock evident in every syllable, "Your. . .Your back! But. . .but ho. . .ach!"

Creeper yelped in pain and fear as his Master grabbed him by his throat and brought him up to slightly below his eye level.

"How long has it been?" The Horned King demanded, his voice cold.

Creeper struggled to breathe in panic, fear effectively clouding his mind and preventing him from giving any sort of coherent answer.

". . .Ach. . .Oc. . ."

When the goblin did not answer, his Master clenched his fist tighter around his slave's throat, making the goblin gag and struggle harder, although they both knew it was useless.

Creeper's world began to darken after a few moments of this, black spots dancing past his eyes and popping up again like mosquitoes. He vaguely felt his struggling get weaker, but all his panicked mind could process was a single thought, running through his head over and over. . .

'Please, no, not again! Please! This can't be happening to me!'

The Horned King watched expressionlessly as the Creeper choked and gagged in his grip, feebly attempting to loosen his Master's merciless hold. The Horned King did not know or care how many times he had done this in the past, but the sadistic satisfaction he got from watching the pathetic little creature struggle in vain never dulled.

"The answer to your question is about 6 weeks, Sire," a voice said from the doorway.

The Horned King turned his head and eyes only a fraction to look toward the voice, absorbing this information, ignoring the suffocating Creeper. After a moment the Horned King carelessly dropped the goblin, who was mere seconds away from passing out completely.

Creeper coughed and nearly gagged as fresh air entered his lungs again, allowing him to live once more. Gasping heavily, rubbing his throat, he glanced fearfully up at his Master, who had left him and was standing a few feet from the gwythaint, observing it.

It was still there where it had landed, perched on the back of the bench, leaving small scratch-marks in the stone. The gwythaint was still panting, though not as badly as before. Its head hung lower than usual from exhaustion, but it raised its neck briefly to make eye contact with its Master. No commands were given, and neither moved closer or farther from the other. One pair of eyes were calculating, the other's almost curious. When no orders were given after a few moments, the gwythaint lowered its head back to its original position, still trying to catch its breath after the lengthy flight.

"Take care of the gwythaint," The Horned King ordered, not bothering to look at Creeper as he deliberately left the room.

"Yes, Sire,"

The goblin rasped as he shakily got to his feet. Walking unsteadily over to the bench, he climbed laboriously up onto the gwythaint's back. Still unable to breathe properly, let alone speak, he bumped the beast's still-heaving ribcage with his feet in a signal.

The exhausted creature glided to the window, this time resting on the sill for a moment before leaping off. At the goblin's command, it spiraled down through the air to gracefully fly through the door of one of the barns in the massive courtyard.

If Creeper had been paying attention, he might have been surprised that the old stall the gwythaints had used before was there, exactly as before, (minus the filth) and that the gwythaint lit gently on the right side of the massive perch instead of the center.

But Creeper was not paying attention. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he slid numbly off the gwythaint's back to the floor, which was covered in fresh straw bedding. Never in his life had he felt this cold inside, not even when blizzards had whipped hard around the castle so hard the stones themselves actually shook. Never had he felt so completely empty, even when his Master had starved him for days on end as punishment. . .although the reasons behind the treatment were unclear.

The goblin slowly sank down into the straw, hardly conscious of what he was doing, staring blankly in front of him without seeing. The shock of seeing his Master alive again, and seeing everything here, as if the Cauldron incident had never taken place, after he had thought for so long that this horrible place was behind him for good, had taken his life and turned it inside out.

In Creeper's empty haze he was somewhat aware of the gwythaint leaning down from its perch to blow softly in his face and nuzzle his shoulder in an almost concerned way. Like a pet dog or pony would do when they wanted attention.

The act prompted the goblin to slowly rise and walk across the barn hall. Three stalls down on the opposite side was where the meat was stored.

Like a drunkard Creeper dragged a large haunch of something. . .it could have been beef. . .back down to the gwythaint's stall. The creature ruffled its wings slightly as it hopped off the aptly sized perch and onto the straw. After glancing around for a brief moment, as if searching for something, the gwythaint turned and immediately ripped off a piece of meat. Being a predator, a gwythaint never turned down food. Who knew when it would get the opportunity to eat again.

The sound of ripping flesh pulled Creeper's mind out of his shocked haze and harshly back into reality, with all its twisted wretchedness. Blinking, he stared for a moment, watching the gwythaint eat, before looking down at himself and realizing he was shaking uncontrollably. His teeth chattered in his mouth, and he leaned on the doorframe of the stall for support as his little legs nearly gave out on him again.

'So, he's really back,' Creeper thought numbly. 'I'm not having another nightmare. But how? How? How can this happen to me? Was his death and my freedom the dream, instead? Why must the Fates, if they even exist, torment me so? Hasn't my Master done enough of that himself without their help? Does everyone hate Creeper? Everyone?'

He stumbled over to the gwythaint's water bucket for a drink. The gwythaint hadn't used it yet, and although the goblin's eating habits could be considered a bit disgusting from a human's point of view, he did have limits. There was no way he was drinking after That thing, especially after it just finished eating.

After scooping some water up to his mouth to drink, he splashed a little on his face. It eased his headache somewhat. As the ripples subsided, the goblin could see his face in its depths.

He had looked at himself in a calm forest pool only yesterday, and he could vaguely remember the savage satisfaction he had gotten out of noticing the last blemishes from his Master's abuse finally fade after several weeks.

He stared blankly at himself now in the water, eyeing the fresh bruises that had formed almost immediately around his throat. Turning blue and black and purple. As if nothing had ever changed.

It could have been then that his little heart finally broke.

He glared down at his reflection with an anger so hot he shook from the force of it. A couple tears slipped dismally down his face. That angered him even more.

Creeper suddenly slapped the water so hard it stung his hand and made the gwythaint jump.

"I hate you!"

He snarled, so much hot poison in his voice that the gwythaint stopped chewing, eyes wider than usual, to stare at him.

"I hate you, I HATE you and I wish You'd DIE!"

Creeper screamed, as more tears streamed from his eyes, following the first two he had ever shed in his life.

Creeper had never cried before. It was something totally alien to him. He had seen a few prisoners the Horned King occasionally took (although these incidents were extremely rare) cry and plead for their lives, only to be killed anyway. Even some of the Horned King's men, when they irritated him too much, would grovel and beg for their lives, right before their heads were separated from their bodies. Creeper had learned by watching to associate crying with fear and weakness. And it burned him even more now to think that he was finally doing it. Something he'd never thought he'd do. He knew he was a coward, but he had learned by watching, too, that cowards sometimes survived. And he hated it.

As the little broken goblin curled up in the straw and sobbed, it wasn't all because of his abusive master being back from the dead and his freedom being wrenched away from him. Nearly all of it was, but a very small part of his pain came from the spiteful words he had just uttered, because he wasn't sure if he had meant them completely to the Horned King.

A part of him wondered if he had really meant it to himself.