The Spirit of the Stairwell

Here’s a chapter from my NaNoWriMo novel, so you can see what I’ve been doing all this time.

Hope you like it.

Will try to have a second draft manuscript done by early in the new year. Please leave a comment if you would like to receive a copy to participate in my highly exclusive Editors Circle feedback group. Maybe there will be T-shirts.

Chapter 6

The castle rises up before me out of the mist. Its battlements and spires loom above me, hung with tattered flags and broken standards. The remnants of knights who have dared challenge the beast before me. I urge my steed onwards, flying over the uneven mossy ground like an arrow, our destination the creaking drawbridge slung across the wide, evil looking moat that surrounds the castle.

We slow to a canter as we hit the rotten wood of the drawbridge. Before us rises the huge double doors of the castle itself, the portal into the depths of the beast’s lair. Details seem to pop into view as I look on, the grain of the ancient wood, the impossibly polished metal of the monstrous door fittings – a hideous door knocker twisted into the shape of a corpse screaming for death.

My horse bucks and snorts under me, somehow attuned to the evil that has been perpetrated in this place. I am almost thrown from my saddle and into the terrible stagnant ooze of the moat’s untended waters. Quickly, I dismount and stride with as much confidence as I can muster towards the entrance. When I look back my horse has gone, I can’t even see her retreating form in the distance. Everything looks smudged and indistinct as if painted on. The only thing real now is the castle.

I turn back and begin to walk across the drawbridge. It creaks ominously underneath me as if liable to rend at any moment. It is with a great sigh of gratitude that I reach the stone escarpment on the far side. In front of the oversized entrance, blackened and corrupted with age, the beast has helpfully left chests full of magical potions and life giving medicines. It seems a slightly flawed battle plan to me but I am willing to entertain its generosity if I can gain an advantage in my quest to wipe it from the face of the Earth. I eat and drink greedily, feeling the health and magical energy flow through me. Suddenly, I am in peak physical condition.

And able to throw fire balls.

It is with renewed hope and vigour that I approach the castle door. Using all my might, I raise the heavy metal of the door knocker and slam it back down against the wood. The noise is alarming, booming out in the dead silence of the castle but then the door slowly opens, revealing complete darkness beyond. As I walk into the belly of the accursed building the world fades around me.

I wait in the darkness.

I continue to wait.

Almost half a minute has passed in this enforced world of midnight.

Suddenly, I am in what must have once been a grand ballroom. It is lit by a thousand candles and the rays of sunlight that burst fitfully through the ornate stained glass skylight above. The room is perfectly circular with columns spaced at regular intervals around the periphery. The floor is a checkerboard of black and white squares though many of the stones are cracked and dirty. Everything from the candelabras to the banister of the half balcony above me is gold-plated, exquisitely decorated and covered in a thick layer of dust. It’s quiet. Perhaps a little too quiet. I take a single, tentative step forwards …

With a shrieking cry of rage and fear, the beast is upon me, crashing through the skylight above me in a shower of coloured glass and a cloud of choking dust. I am momentarily frozen in place, I can only watch as it lands heavily in the centre of the room. Shockwaves and fissures snake out from it in every direction, knocking me to the ground. As I clamber hastily to my feet, it roars it’s awful, all-consuming hatred, bearing several sets of needle sharp teeth and a black tongue that drips putrid green slime.

And then it attacks.

Instantly, I begin to run clockwise around the room, keeping one eye on its movements as I circle it, running at top speed, my bow and arrow drawn, loosing bolt after bolt into its thick hide. They bounce off harmlessly. The creature is lashing out in a repetitive series of movements – firstly with its claws, then its barbed tail, then, after a few seconds of rocking back on its haunches, a berserker leap that always seems to land just a few paces behind where I’m currently running. It then retreats to the middle of the room and the whole process begins again. There is never any variation in it’s movements, it seems locked in this attack pattern, forever doomed to be the aggressor. Either it dies or I do.

As I continue to run in a circle, every now and then executing a perfect forward roll to break up the monotony a little, I realise that whenever the beast rears up to attack, there is a portion of its chest, above its heart, that flashes a bright red. In my experience, such a display normally signifies a weak spot. Somehow monsters have evolved to telegraph these handicaps, allowing adventurers to confidently destroy horrors many times their own size and strength. Seizing my opportunity, I turn and fire, my arrow hammering home right in the centre of the target area. The beast falls backwards and huddles in the centre of the room, mewling and licking its wounds. Without hesitation I leap high into the air, bringing my blade down on top of the hunched form.

There is a flash of blue light. I am knocked back out to the edge of the room. The beast roars again and then begins it’s laborious attack pattern once more. I throw a few fireballs at it, amazingly they seem to have little or no effect, despite the fact that a single arrow had brought it to its knees but a few moments earlier. The beast is now even more angry, the attacks are faster and more vicious and shards of glass have begun to fall from the ceiling at an alarming rate. One jagged shards catches me on the arm, I am wounded, my momentum lost. The creature takes this opportunity to hit me with its tail.

The world fades to greys, I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, I continue to stumble around the room, holding my wounded arm with the flat palm of my good hand. Without thinking I lash out at an ornate vase set against one pillar, watching in amazement as it disintegrates and several bright red hearts bounce out. As I touch them my speed increases. I suddenly feel much better. The creature’s eyes have begun to flash so I aim an arrow into the centre of one of them, leaping on top of the resulting prone form in order to deliver the killer blow.

But the beast is not finished just yet. The blow hits home but again I am knocked back, clutching a gem stone that has suddenly appeared from thin air. I quickly pocket the treasure and turn to face my assailant one final time. Something tells me that at this point, it will take but a single blow to end this battle for good.

The beast has gone completely mental. It is breathing fire, stamping the ground, shooting spikes from its tail and laser beams from its one good eye. When it screams its vengeance at me I am knocked to the ground, carried across the room like a leaf on the wind. No part of it seems to be flashing particularly so I close the distance between us in a single roll and begin hacking away at its body, ducking the flames and spikes that whistle over my head. As it moves to block the blows raining down upon it, I notice one last weak spot, hidden where its wings meet the muscles of its back. With a howl of victory I plunge my blade into the soft skin there.

The beast roars a final time, carrying itself up to the balcony above with the last beat of its leathery wings. I cling on grimly to the hilt of my sword with both hands, rolling to safety as we hit the flagstones above. I turn just in time to see the creature’s demise – bathed in green flames and sparks it melts into nothingness, leaving nothing to mark its passing save a giant treasure chest filled with coins.

I breath a heavy sigh of relief, wiping the black blood from my hands and chest.

I love Xbox.