Jack of Ravens

18

The sun was setting in an angry red blaze when Church came to his senses. Niamh was long gone. He ran wildly down the slope, thoughts careering through his head: about how the gods of Celtic myth were diminished over the centuries until they were classed as fairies, their Otherworldly home became fairy mounds, their rituals dances under moonlight around a toadstool ring. But their random cruelty never diminished; the name of the Fair Folk was never taken in vain.

And Church recalled how they lured mortals to their fairy homes and forced them to dance for 200 years. And how their food and drink was enchanted — once tasted it could hold a man in thrall to the wishes of the Fair Folk for the rest of his days.

Not given freely. Not given without obligation.

Carn Euny was eerily deserted as Church skidded down the grass slope and dashed past the midden into the main street. He called out, but no one answered or came to investigate. No children played; no dogs barked. Instead, tasks were abandoned half-complete: the preparation of the evening meal, the water buckets being brought back from the spring.

Church made his way to the roundhouse given over to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons to see if Tannis or one of the others had left a message as to where everyone had gone. The house was as still as the rest of the village, but the moment he stepped across the threshold his entire world fell apart.

It was a charnel house. Blood had been splashed up the walls and pooled on the floor, and dripped in a sickening rhythm from the roof to sizzle on the embers of the fire. Amongst it lay the bodies of his friends, all slaughtered: Tannis, Owein, Branwen and Etain, the one that crushed his spirit the most.

Church grasped her in his arms so that her blood smeared across his face and clothes. He prayed that there was some flicker of life that the Pendragon Spirit could fan into a flame, but she was already cold, her consciousness long gone. He cried for her and for the others. He cried for himself.

For a long time he sat there, lost to the shock and the grief, until eventually he saw the mark of the murderer scrawled on the wall in blood. One word: SCUM.

An English word. A word from his own time.