Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera does not belong to me, only my own characters do.
Author's Note:
To xXThAnKs-FoR-tHe-MeMoRiEsXx: Here's what happens, had to break up the chapters somewhere.
To Nonnihil Scelestus: You knew there had to be cliffhanger in this somewhere.
To xX-Crayola-Xx: I hope this is your new favorite chapter!
To foxgodess07: Is this soon enough for an update?
To LittleMargarita: Thanks so much for all the compliments. I'm not done with everyone's favorite fop yet and a certain soprano may also be making an appearance in future chapters.
This chapter is one of the reasons why this story is rated M. This chapter contains scenes of gory violence, death and necrophilia. If you are easily upset and can't stomach images like this, you have been warned and should skip this chapter. I'm not writing scenes like this just to shock, but to illustrate that the world of the supernatural is very brutal and gruesome.
I also want to thank everyone that has signed up for updates and marked it as a favorite; you also keep me writing and don't be afraid to write a review. I don't bite…well…not hard anyway ;-).
I've got the hint, I'm going to start working on a picture of S'ray and Erik, I can't guarantee when I'll finish it..
Thanks to all who have read and reviewed; the more you review, the more I write. Now, let's see we left Erik hanging in the last chapter.
Phantom of the Glen
Chapter 10
A Fitting Punishment?
"A fitting punishment don't you think?" Raoul mused. "You've killed so many like this and now you're going to die the same way. Any last words?"
"I should have finished you off in the cellars," Erik growled, his amber eyes blazing in fury.
"But you didn't, you loved Christine too much. Too bad she doesn't love you," Raoul smirked.
"And if I hadn't taught her how to sing you never would have noticed the orphan dancing in the ballet," Erik replied fighting against the men that dragged him toward his doom.
"We could go back and forth for hours over this, but nothing would change. You're still going to hang," Raoul stated.
"Then bravo Vicomte, you're no better than me in the end after all. And by all means don't forget to bring my ears back to your fiancé as a trophy," Erik said as the noose was placed around his neck.
"Ready men, on my mark pull that rope as hard as you can," Raoul snarled.
"Release that man!" a voice from the trees overhead demanded.
The men holding Erik froze and looked around.
"Ignore that, he can throw his voice," Raoul stated. "Ready on the rope."
The men pulled on the rope to remove the slack and Erik's head was jerked painfully up as the rope bit into his neck.
"I said to release him!" the voice said again and this time a figure dropped from the trees and onto the trail between Raoul and Erik. The figure stood and many of Raoul's men took several steps backward, including Jacques. "If I have to tell you again I shall become very angry," the figure said.
The newcomer was dressed in shining silver armor and carried a long spear. Erik immediately recognized this figure of legend as S'ray. The Vicomte was speechless and sat atop his horse gaping at her. She turned and glared at the men holding the rope. Their blood ran cold and they released the rope and backed away from the tree. Next her gaze landed on the men holding Erik, he felt them release his arms and he quickly pulled the noose off his neck. Not to be left defenseless, he pulled the rope from the tree and stood ready with it in his own hands.
"You don't listen very well," S'ray said turning back to the Vicomte. "I told you not to come back to this forest. You were told the same thing Jacques Renard; in fact I banished you from this forest."
Jacques paled beneath his beard. "A…a…apologies Guardian, but he forced me," Jacques stammered pointing a finger at the Vicomte.
The guardian whirled around on Jacques and the next thing that anyone saw was Jacques impaled on her spear. "You were told that to return to this forest was to earn your own death," she hissed and twisted the spear. "And here it is delivered unto you." She yanked the spear out and Jacques was left holding his own intestines. His eyes grew wide and he tried to speak, but only blood came from his mouth. He dropped to his knees and then with a last breath fell over dead, his lifeless eyes staring into the trees above him.
"If any of you value your lives and the lives of your families, leave now and never come back to this forest. If you do return I shall personally kill each of you slowly, I will kill your wives and your cattle, I will give your children to the Goblin King, and I will make sure your name is cursed for eternity," she all but growled at the assembled men.
Several men looked between the angry Guardian and the Vicomte, then looked at the body of Jacques Renard and left to go back to the village and their own homes.
"You blasted cowards, come back here," Raoul shouted at the retreating men, but it was too late, they were already out of earshot. He looked to his remaining men and said, "100 Francs to the man that kills this guardian and another 100 to the man that kills the phantom as well."
"Very well, if its blood you want, then blood you'll get," S'ray said to the advancing men.
S'ray and Erik stood back to back against Raoul's advancing men. Erik saw the man carrying his beloved sword and tossed the lasso at him. He caught the man around the neck and yanked him forward. The man fell and was dragged forward by his neck, crying out in pain.
Another man, hoping to claim the promised reward, took careful aim at the phantom with his rifle. He was about to pull the trigger and fire when he was suddenly pulled into the earth. His startled scream was cut short by guttural sound and replaced with a sickening gurgle. Then a second and third man was dragged down, the screams of each also cut short and ending with the same gurgle and then silence.
Suddenly, several creatures descended from the trees above the trail; they leapt upon the men and drove short, barbed spears deep within their backs. They were goblins; standing four feet tall and with thin, wiry limbs. Their faces were a terrible parody of a man's, looking almost more dog-like than human. The goblins snarled and snorted as they pulled their spears from dead and dying men; yellow eyes gleamed with cruel delight at the screams that were torn from the dying. The sight and sounds of such creatures caused these normally brave men to panic and fire wildly into the trees and attacking goblins. In the confusion, the rest of the goblins leapt out of the ground and onto men. Raoul's horse panicked at the scent of the goblins, it reared up and threw the Vicomte to the ground.
Erik continued pulling the lassoed man toward himself and claimed his sword again. The saber back in his right hand once more, he quickly finished off the man at his feet with a quick thrust to the heart. "Are those creatures what I think they are?" he asked.
"Goblins? Yes," she answered. "And no matter what happens, don't get sick."
"What do you mean 'don't get sick'? What could be so bad as to make me sick?" he asked puzzled.
"You'll see," S'ray warned.
Erik turned in time to see a goblin rip a man open from sternum to groin, reach in with a clawed hand and pull the man's intestines out. Then the creature brought the prize up to its misshapen mouth and began to devour them while the man screamed in pain and horror. The normally stoic phantom swallowed hard at the bile that threatened to rise at the gruesome sight and focused instead on the man approaching him.
S'ray swung her spear up and across the man in front of her, catching him under the jaw. The impact of the leaf-shaped blade shattered his jaw and then sliced his face open. He fell backward, unconscious or dead, she didn't know or care at the moment. She continued to swing the spear around to her right and in front of Erik, catching the man in front of him with the butt cap and shattering his kneecap. The man with the shattered knee stumbled forward and Erik impaled him on his blade, burying it to the hilt in his would-be attacker. Erik kicked at the man with a booted foot and pushed him off his gore-covered blade.
One of the men leveled his rifle at the tallest of the goblins. The creature rushed him and grabbed the barrel of the gun, swinging it upward. Then using his forward momentum, he drove his other forearm which was covered in a spiked vambrace, into the human's stomach. Releasing the gun barrel, the goblin spun to his left and pulled his arm from the man's middle, spilling his insides on the ground.
Another goblin leapt onto a man from the trees above him. It wrapped a thorny vine around his throat and pulled up and out with it's arms while standing upright on the man's shoulders. This action resulted in a messy decapitation of the man; his head flew across the trail and rolled to a stop where its dead eyes stared at Raoul de Changey with a horrified expression. The goblin leapt down and took a long drink of blood from the still fountaining stump.
As S'ray retrieved Erik's dagger from the man in front of her, another stepped on the haft of her spear and said, "Die demon," while pointing a pistol at her. Her now free right hand flew to her sword and in one swift motion she drew it and sliced the man's hand off just above the wrist. The point stopped at the base of his throat until she stood upright and drove the blade in to the hilt.
Wielding his empty rifle like a club, one of the remaining men charged Erik's blind side; suddenly he was hit by three tiny arrows. The first arrow hit him in the knee, causing him to stumble. The second arrow buried itself in his elbow making him drop the gun. The third missile hit him in his left eye, blinding him and sending him to his knees, hands clutching at his face. He was hit by another volley, one arrow found his throat and the other two lodged in the roof of his mouth. The man fell onto his side, a scream of agony reduced to a choke as he died.
The screams of men were dying down, replaced instead by the sounds of goblins feasting on man-flesh and arguing over the spoils of battle. Raoul lay on the ground, having just emptied the contents of his stomach. He shuddered again at the memory of one of the men, already dead, having new orifices cut into him and then penetrated by a goblin while two others urged him on. The Vicomte could still hear the sounds of the unholy act and knew that he would never forget the sounds of flesh slapping together and the horrid grunts of the beast defiling the corpse. But worst of all had been when the thing had started to devour the corpse it was still brutally raping.
He was bruised and covered in dirt. He wiped the spittle from his mouth on his torn sleeve and looked for his men; they were all either dead or dying. He bit back a scream of terror as he saw still living men being devoured and dismembered by the goblins. The sounds of bones being broken and limbs torn asunder was more than he could bear. He shuddered and moaned quietly, not knowing what was to become of him next.
He looked up fearfully as two shadows fell across him, but instead of goblins he saw the strange warrior and the phantom. "Maybe now you'll listen when an Alve tells you to stay out of the forest," the warrior said removing his helm to reveal the woman he'd met in the inn that night he'd lost the trail of the phantom. She was the same mysterious woman who had told him in no uncertain terms to not come back to this forest.
"You," he gasped, scooting backward.
"So now you recognize me," she said handing Erik her helm.
"Are…are you going to kill me?" he stammered.
"If I had wanted you dead, you'd be dead," she said planting her left foot on his chest and placing the point of her spear at his breast.
"What are you going to…to do to…to me then?" he stuttered shaking in abject fear beneath her.
"You are banished from this wood upon pain of death should you ever return," she said coldly, emphasizing death by pressing hard enough on the spear to draw a trickle of blood.
Raoul swallowed hard and nodded.
"Now leave before I change my mind and give you to them," she said gesturing in the direction of the goblins and the sounds of bodies being torn apart. "You'd best leave now boy before they start running out of man-flesh to ruin."
The vicomte swallowed again before getting to his feet and running down the trail away from the carnage and back to the safety of the village.
After he'd left they were approached by the tallest of the goblins. "He's the chief," S'ray whispered to Erik, "be polite, but not too polite."
"When should I collect my payment?" Druk the Disemboweler asked giving Erik a cursory glance.
"It will be ready in three weeks and three days from today," she replied.
"Then we will meet you here on that day Guardian," he said then turned to go back to his men. Druk gave Erik one more look, wrinkling his nose and snorting at him before leaving.
"Best we leave now," S'ray said touching Erik's arm, "and don't stare, it makes them angry."
They left the scene of slaughter then, walking back towards the glen. A short distance away from the battle and they were joined by Luniana and the brownies. "I'm glad to be away from that," Brandji said, "I was starting to get sick."
"I already was sick," Brule said miserably.
"I know, you almost puked on me," Brandji complained.
"Shut up! Shut up!" Luniana squeaked as she tried not to turn green herself.
"So those are true goblins?" Erik asked S'ray.
"Yes," Brandji answered. "Very nasty, lots of bad habits."
"And they stink," Luniana added.
They walked in silence for a while, Erik thinking about the goblins and what they had done to Raoul's men. "What they did back there, is that behavior I can look forward to in myself?" he asked.
"No, you're not a full goblin and like I explained a couple weeks ago, there's more than just human and goblin to you," S'ray replied.
"You'll have to forgive me, but I'm not completely following you on this," he admitted smoothing his hair back from his face.
"What she means is you have Elf blood in you too," Brandji said impatiently.
"Hold it," he said stopping in his tracks. "Elf blood?"
"That's just what the Alve call themselves," Brule said turning around.
"Did you really think you got that ability from the goblins?" S'ray asked with a smile.
"You never said anything about Alve blood though, I just assumed…"
"After what you've seen today, do you really think they're capable to creating music like you do?"
"Certainly not, but you said…"
"I said Faye blood."
"But goblins look nothing like you."
"Goblins are still Faye."
"I don't understand."
"Think of magic as a coin, every coin has two sides right?" she asked.
Erik nodded in agreement.
"Well, so does magic, it has a good and a bad or evil side. Now creatures like Brandji and Brule, Luniana and I are the good side of that magic," she explained as they continued walking. "And creatures like Goblins, Drow, and Red Caps are the dark or evil side."
"So what does that make me?" he asked.
"It depends on the choices you make, you're a half-blood so you can choose," she replied.
Erik was silent, pondering what she had just told him.
"And to tell the truth, even those that are supposed to be inherently evil can change. The main rule is there are exceptions to all the rules," she said.
"And if I choose evil?" he asked.
"I'll kill you," she replied. "I don't really want to do that, but if you decide to pursue evil I will. Besides, I saw your face when you saw what the goblins were doing to the corpses, you don't have the stomach for that life."
"Ohhh . . . you had to bring that up," Brule said clapping his hands over his mouth and dashing into the bushes to throw up again.
Author's End Note: Hope you liked this one, the next will be quite a bit lighter in tone.
Coming up in Chapter 11 – Healing New and Old Wounds