Raven's Shadow 01 - Blood Song

“First to fall under her spell was the village Factor, a good and kind man, grown wealthy through thrift and hard work, grown wealthy enough to arouse the witch’s lust. Every day she would wander past his place of business, flaunting herself in subtle ways, stoking the flames of his passion until they became a raging fire, burning away his reason, making him prey for her Dark whispered plan: kill your wife and take me in her place. And so, one fateful night, he sprinkled the poison known as Hunter’s Arrow into his wife’s supper and, come the morn, she breathed no more.

 

“Being a woman of middle years with a history of illness, the passing of the Factor’s wife was taken as simply an act of nature by the village. But of course the witch knew better, hiding her delight with tears when they gave the poor murdered woman to the fire, all the time calling to the Factor with her Dark power: “lavish gifts on me, and I will be yours.” And gifts he gave her, a fine horse, jewels and gold and silver, but the witch was clever and refused it all, making a great show of outrage at the impropriety of a man pressing his suit on so young a woman, and so soon after his wife’s passing at that. How she tormented him, calling to him and then rebuffing his every advance, it wasn’t long before her cruelty unhinged his reason and, seeking escape from the Dark enslavement of her lust, he stole away into the forest and stretched his neck from the high branch of a tall oak, leaving writ word of his ill deed and naming the witch as the cause of his madness.

 

“Of course the villagers wouldn’t believe it, so sweet she was, so kind. The Factor was clearly driven mad by his own delusion of love for a younger woman. They gave him to the fire and endeavoured to forget this dread episode. But, of course, the witch was not done, for her eye had alighted on the village blacksmith, a great handsome fellow, strong of arm and strong of heart, but even his heart could be twisted by her Dark power.

 

“She had taken to living apart from the villagers, all the better to practice her vile arts away from prying eyes. As she could turn a man’s heart this witch could also turn the wind, and as the blacksmith burned charcoal in the forest, she called a northern gale to whip snow down from the mountains, forcing him to seek shelter under her roof, and there, although he resisted with all his mighty strength, she forced him to lie with her, a black, evil union from which her dread bastard would be born.

 

“It was shame that broke her spell, shame of a good man forced to betray his wife, shame that made him deaf to her sweet enticements the next morn, and deaf to the threats she screamed as he fled back to the village where, foolishly, he told no one of what had transpired.

 

“And the witch, she waited. As the black seed grew in her belly, she waited. As winter gave way to spring and the crops grew tall, she waited. And then, when the scythes were sharpened for harvest and her foul creation clawed from between her legs, she acted.

 

“It was a storm unlike any seen before or since, heralded by ashen clouds that covered the whole sky from north to south, east to west, bringing wind and rain in terrible abundance. For three weeks the rain fell and the wind blew and the villagers huddled in fearful misery until, when at last it was over, they ventured into the fields to find every acre a wasted ruin. The only crop they would reap that year would be hunger.

 

“They looked to the forest, seeking game to fill their bellies, but finding all the beasts driven off by some Dark whisper of the witch. The children cried to be so hungry, the old people sickened and, one by one, began to pass into the Beyond, and all the time the witch kept to her small cottage in the woods, for she and her bastard always had plenty to eat, unwitting beasts could be easily snared by one so well versed in the Dark.

 

“It was the death of the blacksmith’s beloved mother that finally drove the truth from him. Confess he did to the gathered villagers, telling them all of the witch’s designs and how he had fallen under her spell to sire the well-fed bastard she carried through the forest, mocking their starving young with his happy laughter. The villagers voted and none disagreed: the witch must be driven out.

 

“At first she tried to use her power to assuage them, casting lies at the blacksmith, accusing him of the most terrible of crimes: rape. But her power had no effect now they could see the truth, now they could hear the venom that coloured every lie she told, the evil glint in her eye showing the vileness hidden behind her pretty face. And so with torches flaming they drove her forth, her cottage burned by their righteous anger as she fled into the forest, clutching her vile whelp to her breast, all pretence gone as she cursed them… and promised revenge.