Blood Song

“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.

“And so, while the villagers returned to their homes and tried best they could to survive the coming winter, the witch sought out a hiding place in the dark reaches of the forest, a place where no foot had stepped before, and began to teach her spawn the ways of the Dark.