Chapter 130: They breathe fire?

“Ok, buy why? What is it about Crom that gives you that security?

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I'm not saying that the church, either of the churches that traditionally like to go into the woods and hunt down worshippers of, so-called, evil pagan Gods will come here and start hunting folk down. Mostly because they have bigger problems to think about. They are too busy fighting for their own survival against the South, Magic and all the people that are remembering how much they didn't enjoy being persecuted. But you said, “Even if” my Inquisition came here, that your God would prevail. How do you know that? Why do you know that?”

“It's....hard to....” He reached for the words.

“I don't need to understand.” I told him. “Just tell me your reasons.”

He thought about it for a moment or two, taking the time to have another drink. “Crom is not a thing that we have to believe in. He is not like Kreve where you see him in the lightening and hear him in the thunder. Crom is in the earth. He is in the trees and the leaves and the flowers. He runs with the animals and stands the watch with the shepherds. He helps us in the harvest and he works with us in the barns and the workshops. The smiths feel his strength in their arms and the farmers feel his company when they plant their crops. Woodcutters feel him guiding them to the right trees and the herbwomen look for their herbs where he points.”

It is not your imagination if you think that this discourse became more lyrical and poetic. I got the impression that he was saying words that he had learnt as a child or as a young man. The kind of phrases that you swear by and get spoken at your wedding.

“Tell me about him.” I prompted.

“How does a man tell another about a God? How do you explain colour to a blind man?” The first hints of dismissiveness came into his face and voice. I have seen it before in the faces of people that I speak to. They look at me and see a privileged son of the nobility pursuing a hobby rather than an equal. The first hints of scorn, superiority and pity. I've seen it on soldiers who think that no-one can truly understand what it's like to be a soldier unless they've fought alongside them and gone through the same struggles that they have.

In that example, the heavy cavalry disdain the footmen and vice versa. You can't be a footman until you've stood in the spear or shield wall and you can't be a cavalry man unless you've been part of a battlefield charge.

What was happening here was that I was an interloper, invading his space and asking about his things. He was still a little afraid of me but I was trying to probe into his way of thinking. The other problem was that, as I say, he was a clever man but he lacked the education. I guessed that he was struggling to think of the words that he needed in order to get his points across. The danger in this kind of thing is that if a person starts to feel this kind of anger and resentment,they can just dismiss you and shut you down. I find that you need to bring them out of it as soon as possible. You need to be on their level or show them that you know what you're talking about.

“Explaining colour to a blind man?” I asked. “You say that Yellow is like the sun on your face, Red is the heat of the forge, Green is the sound of wind in the leaves and blue is the feel of cool water over your skin on a hot day.”

I saw my point drive itself home but I also needed to bring him back on side. Alienating him was dangerous.

“Tell me what you know?” I asked carefully. “How did this worship start?”

It was a long time before he spoke again. I began to be afraid that I had driven him away and he was staring off into space when, almost as though someone else was speaking through him, he started to speak again.

“Crom has always been here. I don't know whether we brought him with us when we first came to these parts or whether he was already here. Some ancient kind of elven, dwarven or halfling spirit that took up residence here and stayed when the others moved on. Ancient he is. Old and terrible but with his age he learns new things. He watches us and supports us through all things.

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“We call him the crooked man, the man on the mound although I don't know why. They say that he hovers, just out of sight in the corner of your eyes as you walk through the path of life. You can only see him in those times when you are at your most tired because that's when he comes through as you need more of his help. Then, if you look carefully, for he is difficult to see, you will find him watching you. Waiting for you to do the next task of the day.

“That's his thing you see. He is a God of work, A God of toil in the fields. He won't do the tasks for you but at the same time, he will help you if you set to with a proper mind and a hand turned towards the work. A farmer will find his fields planted that much quicker, a woodcutter will find his axe cutting that much deeper and the tree falling sooner. But cross him.....Ah, then he will become angry.

“The tree will be rotten, the harvest will fail, the plants will die and there won't be enough to eat for the winter.

“You must keep him in your mind. All the time as you work. As you seek to provide for your people. Keep him remembered and he will help you in your tasks.”

“How do you worship him?”

“We go to our sacred places. Every village, every community has one.”

We were interrupted by a couple of the older women handing out the bowls of the stew. It was delicious. Yes, there were herbs in there that I didn't recognise, along with vegetables and other things but there were several sizeable chunks of meat as well as a large hunk of bread which was reassuringly solid in my hand. During the meal, Edward refused to carry on the conversation. He asked some questions about me and where I came from, things about my recent history and what I was doing.

We made small talk mostly. I met his wife. A pleasant enough woman with her hair wrapped up in a red scarf. Obviously a symbol of prominence within the village as most of the other woken wore their hair in braids or with more drab colourings to the cloth covering their hair. There was a nasty looking scar across her eye.

I suspected that I was being diverted but it rather seemed as though there was some kind of local thing about discussing business when you eat as the take was taken up immediately after the meal was finished.

“As I say, every village has their sacred place.” he said after the bowls had been cleared away. My bowl because I was a guest and his bowl because he was the head man and talking to a guest. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“We have a cave.” He told me. “You go through one of the houses that are up against the wall.” he gestured in the direction of the small stone cliff that the village nestled against. “There's a tunnel in there that leads you down a set of steps, deep into the depths of the earth. We've got a rope that you can hold on to now and there are torches on the wall. But as you go down there you come to a flat space in a cavern. It's huge under there, huge pillars of stone that come from the ceiling and rise up from the floor to meet it.

“There is a lake there and off, into the middle of the lake there is a small rock island. My Great Grand uncle once built a small raft and rowed out to the island to see if that's where the God lives.”

“Did he find the God?”

Edward laughed and I was pleased to see that he was able to laugh at himself as well.

“He would never say apparently. But isn't that the way of these things?” He chuckled again. “The truth is, though, that you would know it was holy even without those little stories. There is a feeling about the place, a sense of of....holiness. I don't know how to describe it.”

He shrugged.

“There is an alter there. You asked how we worship?”

I nodded.

“There is an altar there,” he repeated. “The oldest and hardest wood that I have ever seen. Definitely not stone because you can feel the grain in the wood, but it is so old, it is black. Even despite the damp from the lake, it has never rotted away and is slightly warm to the touch.

“Once every lunar cycle we go down there, light a big fire and have a little party. We take down the first products of the months work and lay them on the alter. If if It's lambing season we put a lamb on the alter, during the reaping we put bushels of corn up there. The offerings in autumn and during the harvest are often larger than they are elsewhere but even if all we've caught are some fish in the stream or some rabbits that have wandered into the snares. That is what we leave an the altar.”

“You sacrifice the animals?”

“You mean kill them?”

I nodded.

“Oh yes. It is by the aid of Crom that these things are produced. If we are using the lambs for food then he gets a slaughtered lamb. If we intend to grow the sheep and use it for it's wool then we would wait and gift Crom with the wool from that years shearing season. We also offer hide, firewood, metal ingots and some of the products of the trade that we have with other villages as well when it is warranted. It is his fair share you see?”

“I think so, but explain it for me.”

He made a face. As though he was being exasperated with my stupidity.

“Ok, think of it like this. We work to get the things out of the land that we need. We take the FRUITS from these things. He is part of that process so it's only fair that he gets some of the benefits as well. It's an offering but also, his just rewards.”

“What happens then?”

“To what?”

“Well, both the offerings but also, then what? DO you pray, ask for things, have a party? What?”

“Oh, I see. We have a little party in tune with the moons success. If we have lots of things to offer Crom then we have a big dance and a piss up. If it's winter and all we're offering is a few nuts and some firewood then we go down there, make our offerings, have a toast to Crom and to the future before leaving.”

“Do you do anything along with that? Funeral rites? Marriage rites, do children get presented to Crom or anything?”

“Marriage happens down there. We go down and offer our devotion, walk round the alter twice, once each and then once again, together, before the party starts. All of this happens in the new moon. Then, it's considered lucky to.....uh.....consummate the marriage on the alter.”

“Isn't that a bit uncomfortable?”

He shrugged. “Are you married?”

“Not yet. Betrothed.”

“Then let me say that by the time you get to that stage, it doesn't matter if you're on the softest bed or on the hardest stone floor. If the passion is there then you don't notice.”

I considered some of my previous exploits. “I suppose that there's some truth to that.”

“Anyway,” he continued. “It all happens at the same time. When the moon finally goes dark. That night we all go down there, preform any marriage ceremonies, present the children, make the offerings, have a party or a toast which is where we also ask for our boons....”

“What do you mean, you ask for your boons?”

“Well, we all stand in a circle. The entire village other than pregnant women or any of those too old, sick or young to properly offer their service.” He realised something “It's not that we think of the old as being lesser, or the sick for that matter but, this stuff can take it out of you. This is a situation of trade. We ask the God for something and we give him things in return. If you can't give anything then it seems impolite to make any requests for anything. In the case of those people then it is the duty of the parents to make requests and offerings on behalf of the children, husbands on behalf of the pregnant wives, the children and families of the old and the village as a whole to ask on behalf of the sick.

“But anyway, we stand in a circle and we pass around a large hunting horn of our strongest apple mead. Similar to what you are drinking yourself only much more potent.”

“More potent than this?” I was shocked.

“Oh yes. Don't ask me how it's made as the women take care of it. They also....add things to it. Herbs and such like.”

“What kind of herbs?”

He grinned.

“Let's just say that a lot of children are conceived on the night of these things. Especially during the spring and autumn festivals when people have more energy.”

I answered his grin with one of my own. “So you pass around this horn.”

“Yes. Then we each pour a bit of the apple mead on the floor before drinking a bit for ourselves. We say what we are thankful for over the last month which is anything from the birth of a child to the continued survival or a venerable old person, to the new and bountiful harvest that has been brought in. Then you make a request, something that you hope that the God will help you with.”

“Not for something that the God will do for you.”

“No, never that. But something that you hope for his help with. Bringing in a harvest, building a house, producing plenty of milk, that kind of thing.”

“Conceiving a child?”

“That too. It can be a private thing that you whisper quietly or a loud thing that you speak for everyone to hear. For instance, When I asked for help with asking my wife to marry me.....” He smiled at a private memory.

“I imagine that the party can get started after that.”

“Pretty much.”

“What happens to the offerings?”

“What?”

“The offerings that you leave on the altar. What happens to them?”

“The God takes them.”

“I see.” I took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling for some inspiration. “I'm going to ask a question that might be a bit offensive now.” I told him. “I don't want to upset you or make you angry, I just want to understand.”

He nodded, looking wary.

“What happens to the offerings?” I said. “I know that the God takes them,” I said quickly as I saw him stiffen, “but how does that happen? Does a physical manifestation of the God turn up and take them or does some priest or priestess turn up and take them off somewhere.”

“I see.” He said, smiling to show his understanding. “In truth I don't know. Again, this is something that differs from village to village. All I know is that the stuff is still down there when I leave the cave last thing at night and it's gone when I go back. It should be said though that it is not a man's job to look after such things. The women maintain the torches and the fires that are down there so they might do something with it.

“The only people that spend the night in the cave are those couples who consummate their wedding night down there and....when I consummated mine, the offerings were still there when my wife and I left in the morning.” He smiled at the memory again. “Although I will admit that I wasn't really paying attention to them at the time.”

“Is it the same for all the people that follow Crom?”

“No, some villages burn their offerings. Some cast their offerings into pits or into lakes and ponds and things. The method of offering isn't important. It just needs to happen in places that are important to the God.”

“How do you tell whether a place is important to Crom?”

“There are carvings if you know where to look. Mostly, they happen on stones or on the trunks of old, ancient and gnarled trees.”

“Can you tell me what the carvings look like?”

He thought about this for a moment before shrugging. “I can't see the harm.” He took a piece of charcoal from the fire and drew on the stone.

“The carvings look like a hill.” He said as he drew, “A very simple hill, surrounded by trees and mist.”

He drew a hill with wavy lines on either side which, presumably signified mist before drawing some stylised trees on either side of the hill.

“After that, the design varies. One of the names of Crom is “The man of the mound.” Sometimes “The man on the mound” and the carvings reflect this. Sometimes there is a stick figure of a man on top of the hill, sometimes as part of the hill itself or alongside the hill.”

He pointed to different places on his rough design. “But the hill, the mist and the trees are always the same. Apparently so anyway.”

He scuffed the drawing away with his foot.

“Would you let me down into the cave?”

He smirked. “No. No, the only time any of us go down into the caves are for these little parties and even then, I don't have that kind of power. But before you ask, it's the women of the village, led by my wife as she managed to marry the headman of the village so she's Crom's high priestess if you like.”

I looked over to the woman who was marshalling her troops towards clearing up after the communal meal. As I say, she wore a homespun dress and a red headscarf.

“She doesn't look like any kind of priestess that I've ever seen.”

“Well, that's part of the God isn't it. In our neck of the woods, the priests and priestesses work for their living. In working the fields, the land and the trades, they worship Crom.”

“Would she tell me more?”

“Not a chance,”

“Why not?”

He looked at me as though I was suffering from some kind of disease that spread stupidity as a symptom. “Because you're a man.” he said after a while. As though it should be obvious.

“Makes sense.”

We sat in silence for a while after that. “I have another question for you.” I told him. “Another question that might give offence but I need to ask it.”

“This is going to be about the human sacrifices isn't it.” It wasn't a question. He said it with a sigh.

“Yes.”

“I thought so. Father Gardan asked the same question when he first came here.” He offered me a top up from the clay bottle at his feet. I declined, I could just begin to feel the fuzziness at the edge of my brain that suggested that I was beginning to be affected by the alcohol and I didn't fancy the ride back to the castle while my vision was trying to rebel against me.

“Here it is. I'll tell you it, the same way as I told it to him. Life was hard when we first came here. Really hard. I can't tell you much because I don't know that much but the women folk tell us that life was hard when we came here. How did we survive?”

He shrugged expressively. “Crom saved us. As I say, we don't know if we brought him with us or if he was already here when we came. The things that we asked of Crom were vast, far reaching and were not......they were not small. So the things that he asked for us in return were also....not small. The more we give him, the more we get in return. We gave him blood and he repaid in kind. We gave him the lives of children and he repaid us with more births.

“But the most important, the most powerful thing that we could give him was the lives of our first born.”

He sighed and I thought I could hear some sadness and a little grief in the depths of the man's voice. “It is not something that we're proud of. It was certainly never done in my time or my Father's time. My Grandfather used to tell a story where they sacrificed a criminal to Crom at one point, only to be answered with storms. He claimed they were still sacrificing the children in his Grandfather's day. But eventually that kind of thing just....stopped. According to our traditions, it seemed that Crom started to object to the sacrifice of children and I suppose that that would follow.

“We were taking the easy way out rather than being prepared to work for it. “Just sacrifice a first-born son and the harvests'll be fine.” we told each other but that stopped working. Crom became angry with us and gradually, the practice just died out. I don't know if that's true or not. Certainly we don't do it and as far as I know, the other local villages don't do it either.”

I nodded. Saying that I was “pleased” is the wrong word for it. “Relieved” might be a bit better.

“I have more questions.”

He laughed. “M'lord if I may be so bold?”

He waited for me to give him permission to be bold.

“I've known you for a couple of hours and I already know that you would keep asking me questions until one or other of us died of old age if I gave you the chance. As it is, I think one of your men is going to have to pull you away from this place by the hair to get you home tonight.”

“It's possible.” I admitted. “But not set in stone.”

I sighed.

“So that's your religion?”

“Yes.”

“That's not the problem that's affecting this part of the country is it?”

It took him a long time to answer so I kept going.

“This feeling of dread.” I said. “The reason we keep being told to abandon this place. The way it seems to sit on our shoulders and I wake up after every night with a scream in my throat after having dreams so dark that they scare me. It's not because of Crom is it?”

“No,” he admitted in a quiet voice.

“What is it?”

He didn't answer.

“Is it the hounds?”

He stood abruptly and I grabbed his wrist. “I can help you.” I told him. But I need to know the answers to this if I'm going to do so. What are the hounds?”

There was a group of children playing some kind of game with a small ball of leather and some small bones over in the corner of the barn. Edward watched them for a moment.

“Let's talk outside.” He said.

I followed him out of the door and along a little way. I also noticed, much to my amusement that Sir Rickard had assigned Perkins to keep an eye on the two of us and spotted him on one of the rooftops of the village where he was keeping a lookout. Edward led me to a place, just outside of the village and leaned against a fence on the edge of the village. There was an old stump of a tree nearby and I perched on the edge of it.

I waited for a long time for Edward to start speaking. His eyes were moving this way and that.

“Tell me,” I prompted.

“It's because of them.” He said at almost the same time. I smiled at the embarrassment of the situation.

Edward did not.

“It's all because of them.” He said. “I don't know what they are, no-one does. No-one living anyway. They come in the early morning or last thing at night. When the mist comes and the sun turns the sky red. Then you can hear them riding this way and that in the darkness.

“They howl as they hunt.” He told me. His eyes were terrified. They goggled out of his skull and there was real fear there.

“What are they?” I asked again. “Who are they?”

“I don't know.” He said again. “I only know that when it comes to last thing at night, we leave a mixture of salt and sage outside the doors and along the window ledges and that that keeps them out.”

“Why?”

“Crom's breath but I don't know.” he snapped, throwing his hands up in the air. “I don't know.” He said again. “But they are killing us. Every so often they catch one of us. Sometimes a farmer gets caught too far from home and safety when he's out watching his sheep. Sometimes a trader or a peddler that's travelling between villages. Sometimes people just disappear and we don't know anything about why or what's happening. Then we find them. Two days, a week later. In a place where we know that we've searched and we find them. They've been torn apart. Tortured. There are....bits of them missing as though they've been ripped apart by animals but we also find signs that they've been tied up. That whatever it is that's done that thing had some form of intelligence. But that's better than when we never find out what happened. Oh I don't know.”

“So they keep you isolated.” I said. “You can't travel for fear that the hounds come and take you away. You don't travel too far from home in case the hounds catch you.”

“That's pretty much the size of it yes. We're a small village really but we're all closed in. They're killing us.” There were tears in his eyes. “My son has just married and he came to me the other day, in tears because he wanted to know what to do. Both he and his new wife want children but they are terrified of bringing a new life into the land when they might come for the child at any point. He was thinking of running for it. Taking his wife and just running for it. Run west, towards the road and safety. South, towards the river.

“But they won't make it. No-one ever does. These couples or families that try and go off. We find them, the children sometimes, sometimes the wife, in pieces. But we never find all of them. It's as though they're taunting us. That they know that we're here. That they know what we're planning on doing.

“So we take our precautions. We mark the children, we block the entrances with salt and we pray. We pray so hard.”

“Why do you mark the children.?” I asked. “What do you mean by “marking them”?”

“They take the pretty ones,” he said. “The pretty girls and boys. Children, teenagers and young women. For some reason, men are safer. Not safe, but safer. They take the girls so we mark them so that they look uglier.”

“What happens if they don't get marked?”

He smirked. “My uncle tried it with his eldest daughter. She made it to the age of twelve before she was taken. She was a pretty girl my cousin, blonde hair, always smiling. Would have married her myself if she wasn't too close for that.”

“You don't have a scar.” I pointed out.

“Oh, I do. It's one of the things that all of the men in this part of the world do. We all have beards to hide the scar. We have it done down the cheeks or along the chin. I'm lucky in that my beard colour doesn't tell a watcher where it is.”

I nodded. I felt the lack of Kerrass keenly. This was different to talking to Edward about his religion. There, he wanted to talk. He was.... not proud, proud is the wrong word, he was.... passionate about his religion. He wasn't afraid of it. These things, these....hounds. He was afraid of them. Deathly afraid of them. Kerrass would know what questions to ask. He would know what to say or how to put the man at his ease. I was left with the impression that I was beginning to outstay my welcome. That he had already answered all the questions that he intended to answer.

Time to break it down. Time to ask for some specifics.

“So,” I said. “They come in the early hours of the morning or last thing at night?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a pattern to it?”

“Eh?”

“Once a week, twice a week, once a fortnight?”

“No, they come when they come. Sometimes months will go by before we see them. Then, just when we're beginning to believe that they're never coming back we hear their howls on the wind and we realise that it's not over. That it will never be over.”

I nodded. Now was not the time to tell him that we were going to fix this for him. There was no way that he would believe me.

“When did they first start coming? When did they first start attacking?”

“They first came here, to this village in my grandfather's time, before I was born.”

“Did they come here from elsewhere?”

“They started off further to the North, or so I've been told. Then they would only come once or twice a year but then they came more and more often. We started to believe that we were being punished for something. That this was Crom's punishment for lessening our devotion to him but no, Crom's displeasure comes in the form of storms, disease and failed crops. He wouldn't send this kind of plague against us.”

“So they started in the North but they expanded south.” I was talking to myself in an effort to remember the answers. I was confident that Kerrass would be furious with me if I forgot any details.

“As far as I know, that's right yes.”

“Are they riders? Men? Creatures? Non-human?”

“They ride horses. But not like any kind of horse that I've ever seen before.”

“In what way.”

“They breathe fire.”

In case you, dear reader, aren't sure. There is no such thing as a fire breathing horse.

“They breathe fire?” I checked.

“I know how it sounds but you haven't seen them. You haven't seen the rippled in the air from the heat that spills out from their nostrils. You haven't had the awful stench of them in your nose. You haven't seen the green fire rippling across their skin as they move.”

He let his head fall into his hands and let out a sob.

“My people depend on me to keep them safe,” he moaned. “And these things come out of the mist to carry us off one by one. Every time, every fucking time we hope, we dare to hope that that was the last time and that maybe they will leave us alone after that. But every time they come back. Every time.”

I waited for his anguish to spend itself out.

“We're going to fix this.” I told him. “We are.”

“How?” He demanded. His pain and the pressure that he had been under for so long turned into rage and I was an easy target. “Do you think it hasn't been tried. No-one comes here. No-one, and they are right not to come here. The only reason my family is still here is because they will catch us if we run.”

I let him be angry with me, maybe it helped him.

It took him a while to calm down.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a bit of time. “I'm not angry at you, I'm just so very tired.”

“I know, I understand. I do, so don't be too hard on yourself. But I've got a Witcher, priests and soldiers who are just itching for something to hit.”

“Do you not think it's been tried?” He asked. “My father stood up to them once. He was a hunter, he would take his spear out into the woods and use it to hunt boar. Strong as an ox my father was. Easily winning any village wrestling match that we ever had and he got together with a couple of his friends and my older brother who felt the same way. That something needed to be done and the next time the hounds came through, they went out to face them.

“They screamed horribly.

“In the morning my father lay in the middle of the road having had his right arm hacked off by something. He'd tied it off with his belt and was delirious with the pain. One of the friends was dead, trampled underneath the horses. The other had made it to the safety of his house. We never found out what happened to my brother. Never found out.

“We tried to keep father alive but at the end of things, his wound quickly turned bad and he died soon afterwards. He died badly, ranting about how the wolves were coming for him and that he could hear the howling of wolves.”

He stared at me for a long time. “You can't fight them.” He said. “You can't do it. There's no fighting things like that. How do you fight things that can't be killed.”

“Who says that they can't be killed?”

“You can hear of hunters, good men, that have shot arrows at them. Traps have been laid. We are not cowards, we have fought back over the years, but not once, not once has anyone ever managed to hit one let alone kill one.”

“Why?”

“They say it can't be done.”

“What? Why?”

“Even the surest arrow goes astray. It's like the bodies of them ripple and the arrow passes straight through them. They know where the traps are and no weapon can pierce them.”

“I see,” and I did. That line of questioning was going nowhere.

What have I become. That I would listen to a man's anguish like this and pass comment on what he was saying.

“But what do they look like?” I tried, going for an alternative approach.

“I don't know,” he was getting frustrated now. “What can I tell you? They have wolf skulls for heads. They wear long flowing clothes but they clink when they move as though there was metal underneath. Their breath doesn't steam in the cold. They don't talk to each other except in howls. Is that what you want to hear?”

He shook his head.

“All of us try it. All of us disbelieve the stories at one point or another and, dared by our friends, we stay up at night and peer through the shutters to try and see what's happening. It's not an official thing but for many of us it's the difference between being a child and being an adult.”

He sighed in frustration again.