Pyre - A Novelette Featuring the Avebury Witches

Chapter 1

"Burn, burn, burn!"

The chant reverberated through the old market place like the throbbing of a dark heart. Smoke billowed, followed by a roar that slammed into the black and white walls of the surrounding houses. They could barely contain the densely-packed crowd whose hate mingled with the heated air that shimmered over the mass of coifs, hats and fists.

A greyish haze separated Rosy from the sweating horde, like ground fog rising on a winter's day. But this was the height of summer, and this mist travelled on the stinking fumes of the fire. It blocked the sight, but not the sound, and sent fingers of searing heat towards the heavens where swallows cavorted in the summer skies.

Their sapphire blue was mocking her. Not for her the freedom. Not for her the escape.

The hissing and spitting of the flames got louder, and the miasma of smoke was all around her now, choking a throat that was already parched.

Not much longer now, and it would be over. Thank the Woods for that!

She should leave, but her body was bound. By fear, by compassion, rather than by the ropes that trapped Enna, trussed to the stake like a chicken on a spit.

Enna, her childhood friend. Her fellow pupil in the lore. Enna, who had fallen in love with one of the Others.

Who had betrayed her when the witch-hunters came a-knocking, and now Enna was paying the price.

Ignoring all orders from the Keepers, Rosy had come to pay a last, sad tribute to her friend. So she wouldn't be alone. None of their folk had dared to join her. Instead, they were hiding back home, debating, fretting over the old scripts. If the constellations were right. If they could dare to risk it. As if there was an escape of from this hell, from a world gone mad!

The first flames licked at the stake, and Enna's scream shrilled from the swelling smoke, drawing a responding roar from the mob.

"Burn, witch, burn."

Oh sweet Green of the Woods, Enna hadn't foresworn on her beliefs. Not that Rosy had expected her to. How could she, when it was all she had? But did it matter in the end, when saying empty words and kissing a cross could spare you the pain? Could make it all—quicker?

Rosy wondered what she would do if—her moment came. She had no answer for that and pushed the thought aside as she watched oily smoke, fired by greedy flames

The Keepers should be here. They could end this. Right here and right now. But no, they were cowering with the others, hiding behind their precious treatises, reciting age-old wisdom.

Tears of rage trickled down her cheeks and dropped onto a kerchief that had been pristine white this morning. Grey now, it became a part of the haze, hiding her like a ghost.

Ash swirled through the marketplace, but the chanting had faded into the background. All Rosy noticed was the pyre—and the agony in her calves. But she didn't dare to move. The walls of the ruined stable she had climbed were broken, stones shifted under her feet if she twitched ever so slightly. Not a good place to be, yet it was the only place where she would look over the crowd and see Enna, without getting any closer to the inferno raging at the centre of the square.

Another scream, filled with high-pitched terror, echoed from the dark black clouds. Then another. And another.

The fire had her! Enna should have sworn off, the priest would have strangled her, saved her the pain.

The rabble shrieked and raged, their hate sweating from their bodies giving off an indescribable stench. Blown away by an unexpected breeze, the smoke parted, and Rosy saw Enna at the stake, the hems of her skirts on fire, red-rimmed eyes staring from a face contorted with pain, her wild stare crisscrossing the crowds.