Creatures Caves

My artist's interpretation of the next chapter: (done in jest)

His parents were dead... It hadn't dawned on him before, but now the harsh reality punched him in the face...
wait... That wasn't the harsh reality! That was a Grendel!

The kid flew backwards into the arms of the mysterious hardman, who stepped forward and drew a small, customised sludge-gun from out of his coat.

He fired, but it had no affect on the grendel, who was advancing closer, and closer..

"Kid! Run!" shouted the enigmatic stranger. Talan turned and ran, the forest passed him by and he emerged into a clearing.

Whew, He thought; that was close!

but all feelings of relief washed from him as he realised that the mysterious norn had sacrificed himself so that Talan could escape.

He sat down, and yet again, the true reality of death struck him fully. Wait... That's not reality! That's an ettin! The ettin was pointing around the clearing. "look," it said "look closely at the shadows of the forest.

The young norn wheeled around, spotting dozens of pairs of red, vicious eyes revealing themselves in the shadows around them. An eerie silence was growing, and the ettin was calm, being some sick figure of death, a bystander of some other region, pulled startlingly into his own...

The ettin turned to him, and it's eyes went red. A hooded cowling rose up from its back and its face took on grendelish proportions. This was like nothing Talan had ever seen before, and he was meserised. He was transfixed as the once-average ettin morphed into a being of pure horror, and a word instinctively came to the sticken norn's lips. "Banshee."

"Yes, my child." The Banshee reached forward, the pinpoints of red light becoming more defined and horrifying, "And I have come for you."

Suddenly a yell filled the small space and the norn from before sprinted into the clearing, his arm was hanging limp, and he was being pursued by half a dozen grendels. The banshee vanished, and the lights disappeared as grendels emerged all around the clearing. These were different, though. Not like your usual grendel. They had a heirarchy. A leadership. Intelligence.

"What are they?!" Shouted the wounded norn. "They hit as hard as any grendel I know, and are twice as cunning.

"Banshee grendels" said Talan, almost in a trance.

"They're only a myth, and we have more pressing troubles to deal with." the rugged patron replied

A giant grendel, nearly twice the size of an ordinary grendel emerged from the forrest. He wore the skulls of a dozen slain treehuggers. Talan was sickened by this site, but more startled by the fact that this grendel was giving orders.

A hundred mean, green warriors started to advance.

"This can't be good." mumbled the norn. "my name's Sharn, by the way. It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise."

The grendels started to run.

Talan clutched the lucky charm his parents had given him, and closed his eyes, clasping the hand of Sharn in his final moments.

Seconds went by. Minutes, maybe. Nothing happened. Abbruptly, Sharn's voice filled his ears. "We're not dead! How is that possible? And why the HECK are we in a tree?"

Talan opened his eyes and almost fell over. They were in the Lucian Palace, home of the treehugger royalty. There was nothing left. The walls were covered in blood....

End part II.