Knight of Slaughtaverty

Prologue

Slaughtaverty, 1745

Tearing the frayed material of her skirt loose from the clutches of a thorny bush, Mairead Doyle forces her tired body forward through the thickening forest. She wants nothing more than to go home, wash up, have her small share of bread and gruel, and curl up on the straw pallet in front of the fire, but she dares not return without the rogue sheep.

Personally, Merry is starting to develop a craving for mutton. She is sick of having to hunt the ram down night after night when she brings the sheep home from the meadow where they graze, and he makes a break for it. She has no idea why he is always trying to escape; she only knows that she bears the scars of each time she was forced to come home without him.

He always shows up again in the morning, but the danger of predators getting to him when he's out alone is too big just to let him be, and he is needed to ensure the next generation of wool sheep.

Merry's body still aches from her last beating; she has no desire to brave her father's wrath tonight, so deeper into the forest she goes. The footpath she started on is a vague memory by now. She jumps at the eerie cry of a fox somewhere in the dark, the chilling echo chasing shivers down her spine.

It is cold—too cold. She can see her breath leave her trembling lips in white puffs and the wild grass crunch like ice beneath the thin soles of her worn shoes. It is not winter; there shouldn't be any frost.

There shouldn't be any mist either, and yet it is progressively becoming more and more dense, hanging like white moss from the black tree branches sticking out around her like bony fingers, snagging in the material of her clothing and tangling in her unruly hair.

There is still no sign of the ram, yet she'd heard him bleating not far ahead only a few minutes ago. The moon is all but gone, swallowed by the mist and the shadows snaking around her, shifting restlessly in the breeze.

A branch cracks near her, and her heart leaps as she turns towards the sound, almost blindly thrashing through bracken and undergrowth now, hoping to find the bothersome animal and start her journey home. Seeing snatches of dirty white among the dense foliage only a few steps away, her determination rises, and she heads towards it.

"Roger, will ye come to me, ye wily ram?" she hisses, irritated that she'd lost sight of the animal again. It was just there a second ago. For a few moments, she flounders, uncertainly shuffling along, wrestling a path through the overgrown vegetation, and then her route is re-directed towards the rustling of leaves to her right.

He is very close!

Merry wraps her arms around herself, regretting she didn't bring a shawl, but it wasn't cold when she started this mission. She is trembling quite a bit now, no longer sure if she is tired, cold, or afraid. The forest is darker here; what's left of the moonlight is blocked by the canopy of trees towering unyielding above her, disorienting her. Cold fingers of dread claw at her heart when she realises she has no idea where she is; no discernible landmarks are pointing the way anymore. If it snowed, she would die out here.

It doesn't snow in summer, yet she can taste the threat of it in the air...

Looking down, trying to see where to place her feet, she realises with surprise that she can no longer see them; they are lost in the thick blanket of white wrapping itself around her skirt. She could so easily imagine that her feet were not there anymore, that the mist swallowed them, never to return them.

Three boys disappeared from Slaughtaverty, one after the other, just in the last two weeks, and four more before that. Did the mist swallow them too, not leaving behind even so much as a limb or a shred of clothing? The thought makes Merry's empty stomach clench in fear. She is not a nine-year-old boy like Timmy Collins or a boy of eight like Sam O'Neill. Her little brother, Uilliam Doyle, was only six...