A Parish Darker: A Victorian Suspense Novella (11 page)

The Baron led the way, striding in the dark as if any danger lying in wait posed no threat to his welfare. The axe clasped tight in his right hand likewise did not appear to inhibit him in any manner perceivable to the eye. I followed some three paces behind, my hand gauchely clinging to the scabbard holstering the small blade he had gifted to me.

The main hall ahead offered few reprieves to its colorless void, especially given the state of the raging storm occurring on all sides of the castle. Fissures of lightning came quick and often, providing enough light for the purposes of navigation but little else.

The remaining von Savanberg trotted ahead, exiting the comfort of the corridor and into the expanse of the entrance hall. There, we waited in silence some steps from doorway for what seemed an inescapable eternity.

“Baron, what are we doing out here in the dark?” I whispered. “Should we not light at least a candle?”

With no hesitation, he exhaled with what I can only imagine was his forefinger pressed against his lips. “While we still have lay of the land,” said he, “we must make the most of it.”

His attempt to quiet me was successful and left me waiting in the darkness with no means of forecasting what was to come next. The Baron had no qualms with the wait, and in fact did not do so much as survey the area. His acuity appeared impeccable, demonstrating a sort of foresight that could quell the fears of any man fortunate to possess such a gift.

Our holiday in silence came to an end with the crackle of steps on glass nearby—an unmistakable sound that leaves no ambiguity. It repeated, beginning with considerable decibels before being reduced to a whimper as it continued.

Something was coming. Then, it began anew: More footsteps, cracking glass underfoot. Soon, the source was apparent, having certainly emanated from the broken window used by the intruder earlier in the night.

The Baron stood attentively without the slightest flinch. He faced the direction of the disturbance that seemed to have come to pass.

In that moment, the most extraordinary flash of lightning my eyes could fathom collided with the ground just outside the castle entrance. Its capacity for illumination was rivaled only by the deafening effect the booming sound caused on the ears.

The light lingered, revealing Baron Lechner von Savanberg studying what had emerged from behind the stairwell: two figures, each undoubtedly having twice the strength of myself. Their dress was that of vagabonds—ragged, discolored, soaked, and torn clothing that offered little protection from anything, least of all the storm outside.

The faces of both exhibited disfigurations of varying sorts—scars around the eyes of one, the other seemingly missing bone underneath the rugged, tight skin of his wide jaw.

Beyond the power suggested by their size was the length of the blades in their hands. The knives had been half the length of each man’s arm and pointed outward, with no concern for shielding anyone from the pointed edge at the tip of each.

The two men moved not in unison but with an embrace for chaotic disregard. One approached the Baron from the left and the other the right as he stepped forward to meet their advance. I expected the armed men to pose a threat that would require my aid, but I soon found I was greatly mistaken.

Reluctant to draw my blade, and before even my grasp could remove it from its sheath, the broad side of the Baron’s axe met the face of the intruder so unfortunate as to approach first. Undoubtedly discombobulated, his limbs tumbled to the floor before his torso.

My once unassuming host took up the blade of the man he had downed in his off-hand as the second intruder made his way forward at a quickened pace. The darkness veiled the finer and more discernible motions from the Baron and his opponent, but the brief illumination of their silhouettes made no mystery of the eventual victor.

The Baron swung the sword low with considerable strength, taking with his momentum the lower portion of the assailant’s leg. In one successive, experienced motion, the man fell in one direction while the severed portion of his leg went the other. The agony and despair of his condition was apparent but lasted only a moment as the Baron used the axe in his dominant hand to end the lives of both intruders.

A deep breath filled his lungs as he removed the axe from the jugular of the latter victim. “I apologize, my friend, for exposing you to such violence. I realize it is not for the weakest of hearts.” His words came as my hand still rested on the hilt of my blade that had not yet left its leather housing.

The patter of hasty footsteps soon met our attentive ears. Their source was undoubtedly from where the others had originated moments earlier. Without delay, the Baron deafened his steps and made his way to the column by the stairwell where the suspected intruder would emerge.

His bulk was highlighted by a faint glow as a growl emitted from his jowls. The Baron had left my sight, leaving only me to stare down the man nearly twice my own size in all apparent regards. I had little time to react as his weight brought him forward with great momentum toward my position. My mettle was tested, as were my reflexes, as I tightened my grip on the hilt of my only means of defense.

I found myself ready, for the first time in my years, to take the life of another being. The feeling was frightening and invigorating, if only momentarily, in equal measure. My body aches in all too familiar ways as I recount this for you now and reminisce of a state of mind in which I take no pride.

The mind in disbelief is a terrifying and fascinating prospect all the same. I watched in a dreamlike state as the man barreled toward me, raising a sizable blade above his head and readying to bring it down on my person.

No sooner did he fully raise the blade did it fall limp along with the arm that held it. Both met the ground below as the Baron’s blade severed it clean. There, before my eyes, the man fell with an unfamiliar sentiment in his demeanor. It had not been the rage from before but a certain call for mercy. This had not been the way he expected his life to end, and yet here he was, on his knees desperately using his remaining arm to feel for the one lost in the darkness.

As his head rose in some misguided eureka, an axe and sword came from opposite ends and left out the other side of his neck, leaving his head cleaved clean from the neck it had once found itself attached.

Any relief from being able to breathe once more found short life as the Baron turned to face the gala window by the main entrance. The moonlight made no secret of a man standing by it with a not inconsequential object held high in his hands. With one heave, the rock came through the window and created an entryway that would not be easily resealed.

“Edwin, stay back!” shouted the Baron, his words coming with some exasperation in a voice I once felt would never tire. “Do as I say! Do not come near!”

I heeded his words and retreated, fumbling my way into the dark, unsure of where I was to land. The footsteps increased in number, suggesting more than one intruder passing through the newfound opening.

The grunting and clinging of blades to one another suggested the fight had already begun anew as I found myself in the exit corridor at the rear of the house. Nonetheless, my exact positioning was a mystery to me. As if traversing a dream with too few colors, my steps in the dark felt as if they came on the tops of the dark clouds outside the castle. Reaching and tapping on the surfaces beside me gave no hint as to my location in that darkest of corners.

With that, the battle seemingly ceased. All that could be heard were sparse footsteps on the decorative carpets decorating much of the entrance hall. As I listened, I could not shed the feeling the steps were approaching me. I could see nothing but my hearing felt heightened in that moment.

“Baron?” I whispered, aware of the consequences. “Is that you?”

No response came, but the footsteps appeared to continue.

“Baron, are you there?” My whispers felt as if they echoed through every chamber and off every stone making up the castle’s foundation.

Before my ears or my eyes could compensate for what soon thereafter happened so suddenly, I felt an intense pressure on my throat and chest. A force had enveloped my upper body as shards of a sharp surface pricked my skin and drew from it a familiar oozing that was already alarming all its own.

The muddied soil and grass lashing upon my shirt left no mystery as to what had happened. The prickling sensation had been glass embedded in my skin when an unseen assailant pushed through the thin window with only their bare hands as tools and grabbed onto my person. The speed of the occurrence and the exhilaration my heart had already undergone left no time to react as I was pulled outside and began tumbling downhill in the throes of a figure whose bulk out-measured my own considerably.

What was most telling was the lack of concern for the assailant’s well-being. We had been locked in a brawl, grabbing at one another in violent spurts between rolls upon the hard surface below. It was only when our fall down the incline began to cease that I realized the true extent of my predicament.

Rain fell with incessant dedication, providing the only source of rhythm as haphazard bolts of lightning illuminated the back garden we had stumbled into.
The rear entrance to the house was still visible up the incline, but what stood in my way was the very exemplification of rage and malcontent.

Undoubtedly a man, comparable in size and brute strength to those the Baron had cut down just moments earlier, he gave no hint that he aimed for any retreat. While the Baron had been armed and possessed some familiarity with a weapon, I was now neither as I felt around in the grass for my sheath.

The man pressed his knee onto my chest as I heard and felt the simultaneous cracking of one rib or many. The anguish only grew in intensity as he applied more pressure and wrapped both his hands around my throat. My hands instinctively reached for his own neck, of which my reach was only barely enough.

Upon feeling my fingers squeezing on his neck, the man growled and it was then the ferocity in his eyes became apparent. He growled and grunted in tongues all too foreign to me. Despite his strength, I expected the air in my lungs to deplete at a slower rate than what occurred in that moment. The despair was immediate and my ability to fight back began to wane without any prior notice.

A bolt of lightning so close and so violent that it shook the ground beneath my back struck, revealing what my addled mind believed to be the full castle and its entire grounds. In that faintest of moments, I glimpsed my only grace just an arm’s reach away in the meadow to my side.

To give myself an opportunity—a chance, even—to rid myself of the monstrosity atop me, I gashed and gnawed with my nails at the man’s throat and face with animal-like brutality. When his grip relented for that one second, I reached with my left arm into the brush. My hand slipped and slid off the leather surface as I continued grasping with the greatest sense of desperation my mind and body had ever known.

My vision began to fade as my hand finally rested on the sheathe beside me. I began to see nothing and hear only the guttural utterings of a deranged voice greeting my ears between brief bouts of consciousness.

I dreamed for a moment, perhaps two, of belonging to a different place and time. Whether it was a coping mechanism that my mind had conjured in a moment of great suffering or just a hopeful reminder of what may have been, I could not know. I saw happiness and glimpses of a bright future—Emilia…

My eyes opened as if compelled when the man leaned forward to me, treating my neck as a vice and roaring just inches from my face. A renewed vigor offered me one moment of retaliation, and I took it.

The effect was instantaneous. The man’s grasp relented nearly entirely for that one second that the hilt still encased in the sheath connected with the side of his skull. Blunt a blow as it was, it was enough to discombobulate and unseat the assailant from my chest—if only momentarily.