He had felt his castle shaking all around him, rousing him from his sleep, had felt a great disruption in the force, had felt instantly that someone had intruded in his sacred space. It was impossible. No one had ever before approached his castle—much less broken inside it. Not in a thousand millennia. At first, the Blood Lord assumed it had been a nightmare. But as the walls continued to shake and crumble all around him, deep underground, he soon realize that it was not. It was a disruption unlike anything he had ever felt. And as he sat up, at attention, he sensed immediately that the boy was gone. Guwayne. The Blood Lord let out a horrific shriek as he jumped to his feet then jumped straight up, raising a fist and shattering the stone. He flew up, through the floor, bursting out of the rock into the chambers above. As he stood there, in a room now filled with rubble, he was distraught. Around him, nearly all of his precious gargoyles lay dead, crushed, writhing. The few who remained were screeching and circling high above.
