Fantastic Tales: Volume 2

The Dark Witch

Chief Jeffrey and his men set out to kill the Dark Witch, convinced she's murdering their children. Are they right, or are they about to make a grave mistake?

Dark Fantasy

Suzannah woke at the sound of a soft squeal. Half-asleep, she yawned, turned over and closed her eyes. At a second squeal, she sat up. There was a wail, high-pitched and terrible, raising the hairs on her arms and filling her heart with dread.

She leapt from her bed and raced over. 'Shara!'

It was deep into the night, moonlight creeping through the broken shutters in a thin stream. A shadow shifted over her baby daughter, squawked, batted its wings. There was a flash of eyes, of sharp teeth.

'Get off my baby!' She lashed out at the terror and threw herself over her daughter.

The creature hissed and shrieked, flapping its black wings as it took to the air and shot through the window, shrieking into the distance. Susannah cradled her baby, shaking her gently. 'Shara. Shara.'

But her baby didn't squirm, didn't cry, didn't even whimper. Something wet and warm soaked her wrapping.

Suzannah lifted away a hand. It was covered in something sticky, black in the moonlight. She stared at it, and it was several heartbeats before she realised it was blood.

She screamed.

                                                                          *

Chief Jeffrey pulled himself onto his horse with a grunt. There were at least forty men, almost all the men in the village, except the boys and elders. All mounted and armed, most with axes or clubs or cleavers, a few with swords, some with only a knife in their boot, but all harbouring the same rage, the same hatred of the Dark Witch.

After the death of Suzannah's baby, they had united. Gone were their petty annoyances, their disagreements over land and dowries and who cheated who. There were more important things to fight for. The witch had taken her last sacrifice. She would die today.

The baby's father, Ashwarth, glared into the woods, eyes puffy and red-rimmed, shoulders bunched against his neck, beard knotted and matted with dried snot.

Jeffrey pulled up beside him, sharing his anger. His own son had been attacked two weeks before, his tiny body almost sucked dry of blood. He remembered the horror of seeing that thing hovering over him, fangs bared, its demonic wings blacker than night. But his son had survived, and he had flung the bat into the flames.

Jeffrey tightened his grip on the reins. 'We will succeed.'

Ashwarth clenched his mouth and kicked his mount into a trot.

The Dark Woods was no place for any God-fearing man to tread. It stood like a black shadow over their village, instilling uncertainty in the bravest men and nightmares into their children.

The trees were ancient, seeded in a time before man's ken, so tall they disappeared into the heights, blocking out much of the sun, their trunks so thick four big men could barely encircle them with their fingertips touching. Thorny, ropey vines coiled along branches and hung over the witch's winding trail. Jeffrey flung one aside with a start when it brushed against his shoulder.

Snakes and lizards and slimy things slithered through the groundcover, hissing and croaking. Things flapped and squealed amidst the branches, and the men stiffened, gazing above, grips tightening on their weapons.

And there was poison, everywhere, Jeffrey knew. In some way or another every tree, every beast, every flower, every crawling thing, was out to kill. This was not God's creation, and anybody who would choose to live out here was no Godly person.