Silence stretched between the man and the boy, punctuated by the sounds of people shouting and moving in the courtyard below.
“Are you afraid?” Gorla asked conversationally.
“Of what?”
“Of pain. Injury. Death.”
“Isn’t everybody?”
“True. What of the Dark Rider? Does he instil fear in you?”
“How can I be afraid of something when I don’t even know what it is? What is he, a man?”
Gorla’s bristly eyebrows raised. “They told me truly when they said you had come from a far place. Very well. The Dark Rider is not a human man, no.”
Warren’s blood coursed colder. “Then what is he?”
“Perhaps he was a man once, in the old years at the beginning of the world, when all men were giants. He is not now. He is… an entity. He embodies evil. All of the spirits that pass on in this world without doing more good than bad… they are eaten by him. Or so the stories said when I was a child.”
“He is very old?”
“Ancient. But not feeble. His strength increases with age.”
The servant-boy rushed into the room, bowed to Gorla, gave Warren a hesitant nod, and held out the sword he was carrying, wrapped in oilskin.
“Take it,” Gorla advised, and Warren did so.
“Thanks.”
The boy gave a confused smile and withdrew.
“You thank your pages where you come from?” Gorla said. “Where do you come from, anyway?”
“Wales,” Warren said truthfully, unwrapping the sword. It was heavy. He had to lay it on the ground to uncover it, and when he did so, it was made of a dull, blackened material, blunt.
“You sound as if you come from Cymru. I have never heard of Wales… It needs to be sharpened, but it will do. You can use it as a club, should the hordes gain entry to the fortress.”
“Will they?”
“Oh, perhaps. I would not advise you to leave these halls, being vulnerable as you are, but I must warn you. This castle has a curse on it.”
“What curse?”
“It was placed on the stones used to build it, many years ago, by a witch. In comfortable times, it is as you see it now. In hard times, in times when evil is abroad… it changes. It becomes a different place. I call it the Castle Terrible, when that happens. It is likely that such a change will happen, if not tonight, then certainly tomorrow. Can I depend upon you?”
“To do what?” Warren said, his head whirling.
“If the need arises, defend Egrayne with your life. I mean it.”
Nightwalks 