The ragged man

PROLOGUE – PART 2

As the light began to fade in the Great Forest, miles east of the closest Farlan outpost, bloodlust broke the silence and an old woman ran through the rising shadows, then vanished. They pursued with eager abandon, spreading left and right to sight their prey once more and run her down. Orders were called; sharp and ugly syllables barked in an alien tongue. She crouched low behind a tangled briar for a while longer, hands pressed flat on the damp carpet of leaves, and listened to their confusion. Not waiting for one to chance upon her the woman broke cover, her feet kicking up a flurry of debris as she raced through the trees.

She plunged downslope, her ragged dress billowing in the wind as she skidded down a channel cut by the rain, then slewed left to drop over a rise flanked by a pair of tall beech trees. With a howl the rider in front recklessly followed, only to find the ground fall sharply away. Horse and rider pitched forward and dropped ten feet down the vertical bank. The creature's desperate kicks twisted it around and as it fell on its rider a brief scream pierced the air.

Their voices changed in an instant. The game had become serious and now they drove forward with mounting anger. Again the woman disappeared, melting into the shadows like a will o' the wisp, while they cursed and screamed threats at the empty forest. The flanking riders wheeled in a circle, furiously searching for a flash of movement until, finally, they were rewarded. Fifty yards downslope she broke from cover again and the chase was on again, the riders crouching low over the necks of their horses as they closed the gap.

They grinned when she darted over another rise and scrabbled down the slope on the other side, trying the same lure again, only to find herself penned in on three sides. The old woman lunged for the only escape route but one rider was quicker and cut her off. She headed in the opposite direction, but floundered in the soft, sodden earth that sank beneath her feet. She slithered down on her belly to the floor of the gully, ending up behind a long stone protruding from the bank, and there she cowered.

The riders approached at leisure, two with arrows nocked on the off-chance she might find the strength to try the slope again. Teeth bared and weapons raised, they formed a half-circle as the woman cringed behind the stone. Her face was covered by a tattered shawl and her fingers tapped the stone's surface, as if seeking reassurance in its strength.

At a guttural command from the leader one rider awkwardly dismounted and lurched towards her.

The Elf was more deformed than most of his kind, his shoulders twisted so that his shield almost dragged along the ground, but his spear was swept back, ready to stab. She flinched and peered up at him through a long tear in her shawl. Her fingers were still dancing over the stone. As he neared he heard a frantic whisper, too quiet and hurried to make sense of, but he guessed what it was.

'She prays,' he announced to his comrades, sharing a grin with the nearest. 'Do they hear, human?' he called out to her in poor Farlan, his malformed throat mangling the flowing sounds of each word. He switched back to Elvish. 'Where are your fucking Gods now?'

Abruptly she stopped.

He cocked his head at her, suddenly aware of eyes like pale blue ice shining up at him through the twilight gloom. Her hands flat against the stone, she pushed herself up with a strange, crab-like movement, stopping only when he levelled his spear and held it inches from her face.

'Where are my Gods?' she repeated softly, peering out through fronds of matted grey hair. 'I am more interested in your Gods now.'

He took a step back; she had replied in perfect Elvish, something he had never heard from a human before. The Elf glanced back at his commanders, the warleader and his sister, the mage. Sensing danger the mage wasted no time in summoning the spirits bound to her; three wispy forms like puffs of smoke, one black, two white, appeared in the air near her.

'And there they are,' the old woman announced with a smile. She offered the spirits a bent-backed bow.

'Kill her,' ordered the mage.

The soldier turned and lunged, but the old woman dodged his spear somehow. As the shaft slipped past she caught it and tugged it, jerking the soldier off-balance and within reach of a backhand slap that sent him crashing to the ground.

'We are not so different,' the crone mused as she turned to the others.

The two archers drew back their strings as she edged forward, grinning toothily. One bow shattered in the hands of its owner. The other managed to fire before his did likewise, but he snatched at the shot, and it skewed a yard wide. A spear was thrown, but she twitched it aside with a flick of her long fingers and it buried itself deep into the soft earth. When no more were thrown she took a step forward and grinned down at the dazed Elf at her feet.

'Not so different indeed,' she continued. 'Both once tied to the Gods, both now free to learn a new way.'

She hesitated, her tongue flicking out like a snake catching a scent on the breeze. The fallen Elf touched a grimy hand to his face then held it up for inspection. His eyes widened as a discoloration on the skin deepened before his eyes and swelled in an instant to become a bleeding sore.

'And how well have you learned!' she cackled, gesturing towards the spirits circling the mage. 'You have found new Gods, ones weak enough to be controlled and enslaved – and so you become the thing you hate most.'

The Elf at her feet began to keen in fear, pawing at his face as the disease spread, ravaging the skin faster than the eye could follow. He tried to howl, but his throat was already ruined and in moments he was unable to even whimper like a dying puppy.

None of the rest noticed; they were transfixed by the sight of the old woman shaking out her ragged clothes and straightening. Her appearance changed in seconds as she grew taller before their eyes. A thick stink of putrefaction filled the air and her skin paled to the chalk-white colouring of a corpse as her body juddered like a plague victim. Then the transformation was over and she looked up, her blue lips twisted into an uneven smile. A tarnished crown appeared in the tangled thicket of her hair.

'So I shall learn from you all,' the Wither Queen announced to the terrified Elves. The quickest-witted of them wrenched his horse around to flee, but the Wither Queen was faster. She raked her nails through the air in his direction and was rewarded with a scream from his horse. She followed it with a flurry of slashes directed at the remaining soldiers and in a heartbeat they were all lying on the ground, some crushed, others merely dazed. The Wither Queen spat on her palms and flung the spit out with an incantation and riders and horses alike coughed bloody foam. The horses reeled, sinking jerkily to their knees.

Only the mage was left, almost paralysed with terror as she cringed in her saddle. She was oblivious to the bound spirits darting frantically around her head. The Wither Queen stepped forward, a terrible hunger in her face. The mage's horse collapsed and she was tipped forward to sprawl flat in the dark forest mud, senseless for a moment. When she came to, she tried to scrabble away from the advancing Goddess, knowing it was far too late. Convulsions began to wrack her body.

Above her the spirits raced around in frenzied fear until the Wither Queen reached out a hand, fingers splayed as though to pluck them like fruit. The spirits stopped and hung in the air above the mage's corpse, their shapeless forms coalescing into vague shapes of smoke. They sank to the ground and submitted without a fight, offering obeisance until they were mere puddles of mist.

'They find themselves new Gods and bind them like slaves,' the Wither Queen whispered with cold tenderness to the spirits. 'That shall be their undoing. The dead one sought to use me, then leash me. I could smell his betrayal even as I could see Death's hand reaching for his shoulder, but I will be a slave no longer. He freed me. He forced me to learn new ways and now he is not there to limit me.'

She reached down and stroked her fingers through each of the spirits in turn, bringing a piece of each to her mouth to suck down eagerly.

'There are more of you, so many more – enough to carry my plagues to every corner of the Land,' she said to her new Aspects. With them following at her heel, the Wither Queen began to drift forward on an unseen breeze, her body fading like mist until it was barely an outline in the shadows. By nightfall the first Elven encampment had been scoured of life.