Monstrous Love Bites Back - Short Story Anthology

ONE NIGHT IN THE WOOD

written by MMicheleWilly

The howling of the hounds was growing ever louder.

Athrid's lungs burned with each ragged inhale of dusty air. Her arms burned under the weight of her daughter. Her feet burned. Everything burned.

But she could not stop. Not until they reached the Wood.

Finally, finally, the dense line of trunks came to rest before her. Salvation had come in the form of tangled trees draped with black mosses. She ran several feet past the tree line before setting Hildred down. She threw her pack off her back, desperately trying to catch her breath.

Hildred shook her head. "Mama, we can't go in here! This is where the headless riders live!"

"Don't be silly, darling," Athrid panted out, clutching at the cramp in her side. "The Dullahan are only in stories."

"They do live here and they eat little girls."

"How can they eat you if they haven't got a head?"

Shadows burst into her peripheral vision. The hunting party had reached the top of the nearest ridge, and it was there they stopped, far from the trees.

Their furious leader dismounted.

"Leave the girl!" he barked.

Standing there in his nightclothes, his golden curls askew, Keld didn't appear intimidating in the least. No stranger would ever look at this cherubic being and think to call him a warlord, but those who had underestimated him had done so at their own peril. All the world sat under his heel now.

But years of careful obedience and clever conversation had unearthed the Warbringer's weakness: a crippling fear of malevolent spirits like those who supposedly dwelt here.

All the world was under his heel, except for the Wood.

Athrid stepped further into the misty darkness and raised her chin in defiance, daring him to pursue her.

His jaw worked, but he didn't move.

"Coward!" Athrid called, grinning. She gathered Hildred and their things and set off again.

Behind them, his roar of anger echoed.

She laughed.

After twelve years, her heavy chains had crumbled. Freedom, so very sweet, buzzed in everything around her. The caress of fresh air against her skin. The crunch of the leaves and fresh soil underfoot. The song of the crickets and nightbirds.

A few miles passed, and she decided to set up camp. They came into a little clearing near a babbling stream. Hildred volunteered to look for ghosts while Athrid did all the work setting up their miniscule tent.

She shoved the final stake into the soil, and that was when the skin-crawling scream of a horse shook the air.

Her head flew up to see an unnaturally large body atop a monstrous stallion.

Well, fancy that.

The Dullahan were real.

The gargantuan figure, clad in a dark uniform and long black coat, slid from the saddle, landing with a hard thud. It stepped toward her with an uneven gait and pulled two long swords out of sheaths on its back. Only a bloody stump of a neck sat atop its shoulders.

Horror froze the blood in her veins. Her parched throat tried to remember how to scream but couldn't. She pulled out her little carving knife and backed up to block Hildred.