Witch Sight

1. The Moon

‘Consider that Ye May be Wrong’ - Oliver Cromwell.

1649: The County of Leinster, Ireland.

The wind moves through the long bogland grass as their army had moved across this island. Pushing through any resistance, and so they had thought themselves invincible. The words of their General echoing in their ears, as they had done when they fought their brothers, friends and neighbours in the name of Parliament against the King. And now they fought the Papists who had taken control of this island to the west of their own.

A cloud crosses the moon as the three cavalrymen run across this open moor. The moon shining on the grey steel of their helmets as it shines on the sea beyond, the Irish Sea, between them and home. How now they wish they were at home beyond that shining sea. Here the moonlight dies on the black peat bog moor which surrounds them.

Their high cavalry boots sodden from running through this bog which had done for their horses. Or had it? Did their mounts really fall and break their legs in the giving ground, or was there a kind of weapon that brought down their warhorses?

Shadows of the clouds across the moon seem like enemy figures moving out there on the barren bog. It is a hunter’s moon, and they, for the first time in their short lives, are the hunted.

There is a sound carrying on the wind. The sound of a woman’s unsettling laughter echoing across the open country. Behind them? Beside them? Before them? They can’t tell. But it is driving them onwards towards the edge of the high ground that overlooks the old port town below. An ancient town, built by the Vikings to trade slaves, now the largest city on this damned Papist Island.

There is something ahead on the bog. Low. Dark. Like a crouching figure. Immediately in their paths. The clouds clear the moon and it is no longer a stooped figure. It is an ancient standing stone, squat and hunched in the middle of the moor. And there is movement before the stone. Something is huddled at its base, resting on the sodden earth.

The shape prostrate at the foot of the standing stone is a woman dressed in rags, face covered in dirt, laughing madly. Her voice seems to echo all around the three soldiers of The New Model Army who come to a halt and watch her in terror. Seen before them, heard all around them, her laughter surrounding them and encircling them in a noose of fear.

Suddenly her laughter stops. The very ground around her shakes sending ripples across the pool between her and the three soldiers. Something unseen moves past her, its heavy footfalls throwing up splashes of water near the old woman. She looks up, seeing whatever is there; something invisible to the soldiers. She whispers angrily, Kill them all!

The three soldiers stand still in the landscape, their helmets and breastplates shining like beacons, their red coats covered in mud, sweat and tears. Swords and muskets once drawn in defence against a thousand enemies unseen in this land; but here their enemy is truly unseen, raised by witchcraft, the devil himself. As the splashing footfalls move into the pool of water, the hint of a shape is revealed by the water which falls on the giant creature.

The soldiers are frozen in terror, watching as the woman rises to her feet, screaming at them. I’ll see you die! Then they see the shadow, the shape known as The Shannow come between them and the screaming woman.

The soldiers exchange glances and run. Back the way they came across the bog, slipping, knee deep in mud as The Shannow moves behind them like a devilish hound. The very land conspiring in their fate, grabbing at their legs and bogging them down. Making them fight for every foot of progress across the moor. Cavalry men fleeing on foot, small and alone in the expansive landscape with something unseen moving noisily through the heavy ground behind them. Large. Heavy. Pensive. Biding its time.

At the standing stone the woman smiles through her tears. She makes to cross herself but catches her thought and stops. She sees her blood shining in the moonlight on the rough stone before her. She wipes her tear-filled eyes. Patrick... my boy.

Suddenly a mud road appears before the soldiers, bisecting this bog. Two of the soldiers get onto the solid ground and run ahead. The third is hurt from when his horse was felled. Don’t leave me here brothers! In the name of God!

From the roadway his two comrades look back. Breathless from effort, and breathless from terror, they watch a shadow form in the mist that has like another magical act raised up on that part of the moor. The moor which held them down is now hiding them from the outside world. Hiding them from the eyes of those who do not yet believe. Hiding them in readiness for the moment when they will meet their divine fate.

The mist thickens. The lights of the port town below disappear. They are truly alone. Cold air grips them and hides their comrade in the marsh. His disembodied voice is distorted in the mist. Help me! The sound of heavy footfalls in wet ground behind him quicken. The man is whimpering. Please! For the love of God, don’t leave me to die here!

The sergeant pulls at his younger comrade. Come on, leave him. The two soldiers run onwards into the darkness. Their footfalls mercifully on solid ground. The ground begins to dip and beyond there is a small distant light on the horizon. There! Our prayers are answered! Run man!

Behind them, in the mist, stuck knee deep in the bog, their comrade pulls his feet free of the mud and water and tries to make it to the safety of the road which is disappearing from sight before his eyes. The sound of heavy footsteps in the wet ground, squelching nearby. Now behind him. Now beside him. Now in front of him. Reeking of the grave.

A shadowy shape unformed, creating a darkness in the white mist, cutting him off from his friends. Unformed but massive. Taller than a man. Heavier than a man, the same shape as a man. But no man has legs and arms that long. A head so large. The shape stands still as the mist rolls onwards around it.

It’s here! What should be a cry is broken to a whisper. Somewhere behind him the lone soldier hears more laughter dimly carrying across the moor. He looks around into the mist. No one behind him. He turns back around to face the creature. Nothing. It is gone. The lone soldier looks desperately around him; there is nothing to be seen.

Then a splash in a pool nearby and an unearthly growl. Something unseen is circling the lone soldier. The only sign of it is the sound of heavy footfalls in the boggy earth. Moving around and around and around. The soldier swipes out with his sword, making no contact. The creature stops. A sigh. Like a breath of death.

The soldier shakes in his sodden leaden boots. He has never been so afraid, even in those battles in his homeland. The cold and the wet of this cursed land gripping his lungs as the earth grips his feet and bogs him down. He can’t move. Another whisper from the mist. The soldier coughs tears as terror grips him. The smell of a thousand graves, the rot of time fills his lungs and takes away his breath. God help me! The soldier shakes in realisation that his time is over. Come and take me, fiend!

The Shannow looks down on its prey. The prey it has been summoned to kill by the gift of the blood of the wronged. As it has been summoned for centuries. The language of the call is changing but the blood sacrificed remains the same. It is always the blood of those who have lost their own bloodline which calls. A knowledge passed down from the days before The Shannow was cast into the ground by those holy men a thousand years ago. There it rests until called by the sacrifice of blood upon its stone; its answer is to bring the heads of those who have drawn innocent blood to the bereaved mothers of those who died.

The darkness of this night is nothing compared to the darkness beneath the earth where The Shannow was condemned and has been its home for centuries. That Otherworld where it has been banished with all of the others who have no more place in this world; with the older races, the fair folk, the old gods like itself and the dead. The Shannow and the other old Gods are only now welcome back into this world when they appear at a pained soul’s request, to wreak vengeance, before being released back to their underground homes to rest once more in that eternal darkness.

So this night time darkness is no hindrance. This darkness is so bright. The white mist illuminating this man who has crossed the sea to kill for a god he has never seen. A god The Shannow does not know, who it has never seen in the wastelands beneath the earth. What a fool this man is to call for that god’s assistance now.

The Shannow moves swiftly towards the solider who swings his sword around blindly. And brings it back swiftly, cutting The Shannow. Slicing its skin. The iron burning its flesh, but a mere wound, not as iron burns the fair folk. The Shannow is a god. The Shannow has felt this a hundred times, but it still fills its body with pain. The Shannow screams.

On the road, the two soldiers stop in their tracks. The younger turns to run back onto the bog. It can be hurt! We can kill it!

The sergeant grabs him. Bollocks! You saw what it did to the others. And how it butchered our horses. Come, on to that hovel ahead of us! We’ll be safe from this devil at daybreak.

Silence. The mist has killed all sound. No sound from the creature from hell somewhere out there in the bog. Now a slowly rising moan. Like the wind. Getting louder. The soldier realises he cannot feel wind on his face. The moan mutates into the sound of The Shannow breathing. This wind reaches the soldier’s face. The breath of the Shannow. Foul. The stench of the grave. Filling the soldier’s lungs. He coughs wildly. He opens his eyes. The mist is all he can see. Show yourself Satan!

The soldier swings his sword turning around the best he can with his legs buried to his thighs in the bog. He is struck from behind, his leg slashed from buttocks to knee. He falls and drops his sword onto the wet ground. An unseen foot drives the sword into the soft peat out of reach. An unseen hand grabs the soldier’s hair and pulls up his head. His neck extended, his voice strangled as he looks into the eyes of death visible thorough the haze. Burn in hell! Argh!!!

The cry turns to a gurgle, as the soldier’s head is ripped off. His spine snaps. Blood spurts into the black bog water, lapped up by the wet land as if an offering, swallowed by the bloody darkness of this land. The headless body drops forward into the mud, disappearing from sight as the unseen force of The Shannow drives the body down into the yielding ground.

The remaining two soldiers hear the sickening sound and start to run. The sergeant runs onwards. You hear that? It killed him too! Come, there is a sanctuary there in the mist. Ahead of him in the mist, a dim lamp can be seen from the window of a cottage.

A whooshing sound. Familiar from the battles of the last years. The younger soldier looks into the sky. Something is coming at them through the air. Like a cannon ball. He throws himself to the ground expecting the explosion which will end him. Instead there is a sound like an egg cracking. His comrade’s head bounces on the road beside him, and rolls to the sergeant’s feet. The sergeant vomits as the blood and brains spray all over him. Somewhere in the mist The Shannow roars.

The younger soldier gets to his feet. We’ll be safe at daybreak, my arse! It’s never going to stop until we’re all dead! Both men run towards the light up ahead.

Behind them, The Shannow steps onto the road. It moves quickly but stops when it reaches the severed head. It picks up the head looking into the dead eyes. The Shannow throws the head into the mist. At the standing stone the old woman sits listening for the sound of her vengeance in the mist. A huge splash in the pool before her drenches her with freezing black water. Breathless for a moment she rises to her feet. She steps into the water and picks up the soldier’s head, and places it with the others in a leather sack at the foot of the stone. A memory stirs her into action. She digs into the soft ground with her bare hands, and starts to bury the heads beside the stone. She awaits the remainder of the heads of the men who killed her only son.

The two soldiers run frantically towards the light in the window of the cottage, not questioning why there would be a light burning at this time, an hour before