Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter VI - Epona

The sun had long since been swallowed by the sea and the veil of night shrouded the forest with a hallowed silence that hung thickly from the boughs of the sacred oaks they walked beneath. All was as it should be, she knew that; yet she was uneasy. 

Epona's lamplight faltered in her outstretched hand as she peered into the shadows. The wavering was such that even Fáelán noticed, glancing askance at her over his shoulder.

She shook her head and masked her worry with the phlegmatic calmness that was more befitting an ovate of her exalted lineage. Accepting her reassurance, he shifted his gaze forward again and continued on.  

Though her countenance evinced otherwise, she was not becalmed. Not really. Epona had awoken earlier with a cold stab of death in her heart; an impression of flames and blood had struck like a freak of lightning just before she'd been jolted to wakefulness. Perhaps tomorrow she would speak to the others about her vision, but not tonight.

Yet speak of it she would, for it was a pressing matter. A warning. She felt that much. Not like the other dream she'd been having of late. The one about the two couples: a red falcon and a grey bear; a black wolf and a white raven. The colors meant something. And so did the animal spirits to which the two men and two women were attached. 

Who they were, these four faceless creatures, she could not fathom, but they were important somehow. That she felt keenly too. The cursed ones, she'd begun to think of them. 

The flames and the blood, however, was what gnawed at her mind now. That vision had terrified her whereas the other was merely enigmatic and ephemeral. Something to be considered later. Not now.

The priestess continued along the ancient path carved out by those that had come before; their ancient progenitors. A route worn by time and purpose. This rite, perpetuated for millennia and ordained by the gods, was steeped in arcane magicks — now an indelible part of who they were as a people.

She moved as her companions did, with deliberate care and dilatoriness, like ethereal specters through the night. They were dressed in ceremonial shifts of white, their hair unbound and flowing behind them. There was no breeze, no sound save the night creatures and the grass whispering under their bare feet.

At length, the holy ones entered the clearing — nine druadhs, nine bards, and three powerful ovates — of which she was the last to cross the threshold. Before them, looming tall, stood the Great Circle: their sylvan temple. Each standing stone possessed a thrumming puissance that leavened the woods and thickened the air with its intensity. Epona was always struck by their magnitude, and the force of the circle itself, each time she came here.

But this time the ground vibrated with a different fervor to that which charged and stirred her companions. There was but one figure amongst them that could not claim communion with the gods and goddesses of the elements. The old woman, led by Fáelán himself, moved towards the bloodstone, the heart of the circle, and climbed atop its worn surface ere she lay down to await her beautiful sacrifice. 

Once the woman was settled on the stone, the priests and priestesses encircled her supine form, the bards evoking the gods in the old tongue. The evening was a propitious one for the silver eye of the moon god was unfettered by clouds; it presided over them with a resolute potency that almost eclipsed the stars with its brightness.

As the eerie texture of the chanting rent the night's quietude in single, melodic line, Epona was once again struck with a strange disquiet that seemed to presage death. The ritual was one of death as well as life, but that was not the causation of her rising hackles.

This is all wrong. Nevertheless, the rites would continue as they always had. She could give the others no reason why they shouldn't, save a restlessness she could not account for.

Once the chanting had subsided to where only the crickets were yet singing, the eldest druadh stepped purposefully towards the chosen one; he was the wisest of the assembled healers, seers, and teachers of the tribe. Taking his ceremonial dagger from his robe, he thanked the old woman reverently for her sacrifice. Then, awakening the great goddess, Earth, to partake of her life-force as they themselves would do, he pulled his blade effortlessly across her furrowed wrists, spilling her aged and venerable essence onto the bloodstone, and the hallowed ground beneath.

Erelong, the woman sighed her last and, with the contented smile of one that had lived a full and happy life, withdrew from the mortal realm, thence to join the spirits of the trees, the earth, and sky where her ancestors dwelled. It had been a worthy offering and she a respected elder of the tribe. Her death had been a peaceful one. But where there was death, life would invariably follow.

It was Fáelán who approached her, once the second bout of chanting had diminuendoed. She who was the most gifted of all the seers, would now join with him in celebration of that most basic glorification of life. She had always done so willingly, happily, but this night disturbed the ardor and fire from her flesh. She was cold with dread and knew not the reason. She watched as the other two women, with the mushroom-induced fervor still flickering through their blood, disappear between the trees, each with a druadh in tow. The rest of the priests withdrew quietly from the circle, ostensibly to return home.

It was not long before the distant sound of terrified screams erupted into the darkness, mingling with Fáelán's sated panting. He had lain atop her, flushed with his exertion, but at the first din of terror he had bolted from her warmth and scrambled into his robe.

"By the gods! What is going on?!" Once dressed, he grabbed the lamp and flew towards the village, leaving her where she lay in the grass yet dampened with the remnants of their ardor.

No! This cannot be happening! Her gut pooled with fear as she thought of the dream she'd had the night before. She had not remembered it till this moment, and wished fervently that she could still claim ignorance of it. She begged the goddess that she was wrong and that there might be another explanation for the pandemonium increasing in volume.

When she had covered her nakedness, she ran into the night with an agility that bespoke of her familiarity with the forest; she had no need of a light for her feet knew well where they trod. She first beheld the ominous glow atop the tree line before the sharp, minacious stench of smoke and charred flesh stabbed at her eyes and mouth.

As she cleared the edge of the woods, rushing into view of her devastated village, she fell to the ground keening, her eyes starting out of her head in horror. It was the image from her nightmare. The very earth was now imbued with the gore of her brethren, the flames consuming her home, while the blackened smoke coiled up like a foul brume to block the heavens.

The dragon ships had come from the sea just as she had predicted.

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