David Wise - Tales of Ravenloft

To all nine hells with the village. He would never return.

Walking briskly around a corner, the hermit accidentally bumped into a woman and child hurrying along, making them drop their purchases. The woman gasped at the sight of him; the child went stock still and stared with perfectly round eyes.

Shyly giving his most pleasant smile, Anatole bent over and picked up one of the packages, offering it to the little girl.

"You dropped this, pretty one," he said politely.

Stuttering in fear, the mother attempted to smile and say thank you, but the child screamed in terror.

"Mommy! Mommy!" she shrieked, hiding in the fold of her parent's skirt. "Don't let the ugly monster eat me!"

The package dropped from his limp hand. "B-but, ma'am, I was only — "

"Leave us alone!" sobbed the woman, lifting the weeping girl into her arms. "Get away, you filthy beast! Don't you dare hurt my daughter!"

What? Stunned, the hermit could only gape as the two hurried frantically away down the street. Was he truly that repulsive, even now, in these good clothes? He glanced at the bright noon sun, his old enemy who so clearly displayed his flawed features. And only dimly did he hear the reactions of the growing crowd of onlookers.

"What happened? "

"The swamp freak tried to hurt a little girl!"

"Eh? He attacked a child? "

"The dirty scoundrel!"

"Monster!"

"He's as bad as that horseman!"

"They're probably brothers!" "Or his son!"

"Hear that? Da freak is the bastard son of the horseman!"

"What should we. ."

"I won't stand for. ."

"Never again. ."

"I don't care what the horseman can do. ."

"Kill the son of a bitch!"

On those words, Anatole went cold and quickly turned, just in time for a brick to strike him painfully in the chest. He staggered, and his shoulder smashed into a store window, breaking the glass. A glistening shard sliced into his arm, and a rivulet of blood flowed down his chest, marring his new clothes.

In absolute horror, the crowd gasped aloud and went motionless, an evilly grinning youth standing amid the terrorized adults. Pale faces looked everywhere, frightened eyes staring, every second increasing their panic as the whole town waited for galloping death to appear out of the thin air and strike them all. Stanching his wound, Anatole did not dare speak, also expecting the terrible slaughter to begin.

Oh, gods, not again. Not again!

But moments passed in silence, minutes, and nothing happened. Nothing at all.

Brandishing a meat cleaver, a butcher woman in a bloody apron snarled," Look, all of ye! The mayor was wrong! That blasted swamp-thing has no magical protector."

A dozen voices spoke in outrage and hate. "So it was all a lie!"

"A trick of the freak!"

"There be no horseman!"

"Aye!" loudly stated a burly stevedore, gloved fists bunched and shoulder's bent in a fighter's crouch. "An'I say we end this charade now!"

Countless people everywhere took up the cry. "Kill the freak! Hang 'im! Burn 'im!"

As the crowd surged forward, Anatole dashed through an alleyway, clambered over a wooden wall, and landed in a pile of garbage. Uncaring of soiling his clothes, the youth fought a path through a tangle of thorny rose bushes and managed to reach the next street. He ran on.

On the other side of the buildings he could hear the noise of a growing mob; shouts for weapons, rope and pitch, tar and feathers, boiling oil and dull axes. Their rabid cries fueled his feet to greater speed.

Sprinting through the city gates, Anatole pushed aside the yawning guards and jumped over a pile of hay fallen from the back of a two-wheel cart. There were woods on each side, but it was sparse greenery and offered no real protection from the mob. As he forced his muscular body onward, he laid his plan of escape. North along the king's road to the big bridge, then he would jump into the river and swim with the current until reaching the east end of his swamp. Once there, they would never find him. And in the night, he would leave this valley forever. And he privately hoped the horseman would come that evening and kill them, one and all. The whole damn town.

Soon, the bridge was in sight, and Anatole felt a twinge of success before he heard the galloping horses approaching from behind. Throwing himself to the right, he scrambled for the trees, but a dappled mare cut him off, the hooves just barely missing his feet. He heaved sideways, but a whip cracked across his sore shoulder, slicing open tunic and flesh. Pain! Grabbing hold of the knotted end, Anatole pulled with all of his strength, and the startled rider came flying off his mount. Sprawling, the man struck the road flat on his face and went still. Too still. Anatole dropped the whip in horror.

The mob gushed through the city gates, and another rider called out," Beware! He killed Raymond!"

Howling for vengeance, the crowd charged forward. Trying to flee, Anatole was cut off by the horsemen who now raced in a circle around him. The villagers rushed closer, and the hermit glanced everywhere, praying for a miracle.

That was when the sky turned purple, as if with twilight. Shouting their confusion, the crowd paused to stare at the dimming sky. This was impossible! It was but minutes after noon!

Anatole, too, looked upward and saw a slice of the blazing sun disappear into darkness, an encroaching black curve extending deeper and wider. What the. . an eclipse! The moon was coming between the sun and the earth, giving them night in the middle of the day. But that was impossible! The moon was only a crescent last night. How could. .

Ohmigodsno.

A few of the villagers turned to go back to the village, and staggered as they saw an empty road stretching out of sight to the distant sea. Ghostly echoes of crashing waves rose faintly.

Sensing this was his only chance, Anatole started to edge away, but could not step from the road. Something invisible, perhaps the air itself, forbid escape from the highway.

Now breath fogged from cursing mouths, and tendrils of thickening mist rose from the cobblestone road. As the lunar orb claimed the last of the sun, night enveloped the world. Stars appeared overhead, and mountains rose on each side of the dense, primordial forest. Clutching his misshapen head, Anatole felt his mind reel. Time and distance no longer seemed to have meaning. The world was warping around him like clay in the hands of a mad child.

And then the awful silhouette of the huge horse and its ghastly nonhuman rider blossomed on the high horizon, the savage pounding of the iron hooves rumbling the ground like an approaching earthquake, a descending avalanche.

As one, the crowd screamed in fear and fury. The horses bucked and threw their riders to the hard pavement, and one man cried out as he held his twisted leg, his mount charging off into the distance. Despite their terror, half the villagers stood motionless, watching death approach. The rest forced hands into pockets to grab good-luck charms or wards, and thus broke free of the paralysis.

Shouting orders, the village guards assumed a battle formation. Levers were cocked and a dozen crossbows twanged, sending a flurry of arrows through the cold air. Neat holes appeared in the billowing cloak of the horseman, one arrow striking him in the shoulder, the shaft sinking to the feathered fletching. One bolt, particularly well aimed, lanced straight through the collar, notching the stiff white linen at the back of the neck.

In response, the rider drew a hand-held sickle from within his cloak, and the horse bared its perfectly square teeth, grinning like an exhumed skull.

More arrows and bolts were unleashed, with the same useless results. Again the soldiers fired, making the horse their target this time. The barbed quarrels jammed into the ebony flesh of the animal, and ribbons of red blood trailed behind the galloping nightmare beast. Illuminated by starlight, the silver ornaments of the headless rider twinkled like the firmament itself. Whitish steam poured from the flared nostrils of the behemoth horse, the thunder of its approach shaking the very stones in the road. And now there was something moving behind the giant horseman and his bedamned stallion. Flying black globes, which bobbed and gamboled in wild abandonment.