by Ross Turner
It was as if he thought he owned them.
They were not for sale, but clearly he thought he was buying them, just as he was buying their trust.
However, as she glanced around, Marcii was repulsed by what she saw. Painted across the faces of her fellow townsfolk, clear as day, was a shared expression that could only be described as nothing short of ecstasy, developed yet even further beyond the rapture that had consumed them only the other day.
She ground her teeth silently together, grating them over one another until her jaw ached.
“There have been no more attacks!” He announced immediately, throwing his arms up as his voice boomed. He was greeted by a unified cheer from all the hundreds upon thousands in his wake.
Marcii made not a sound.
“But!” He interjected, forcing one hand forward and bringing rapt silence to his audience.
He had them literally in the palm of his hand and it made Marcii sick to the stomach. She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and glanced around briefly, setting her eyes unmistakeably on Tyran’s enforcers.
They were very difficult to miss, for now they numbered almost a hundred and were all garbed in the same uniformed manner.
They stood strong and proud and surrounded the crowds protectively.
Marcii laughed inwardly.
Protective in the same way wolves surround their prey, she thought.
“Our work is not yet finished!” Tyran continued. “Evil still lurks within our streets! And it could strike us down at any moment!”
Mumbling chatter shot through his ranks. His enforcers shifted their weight in turn, almost unnoticeably, and the subtle movement silenced his crowd yet again.
“I vowed to protect you! And protect you I shall!”
The masses cheered and roared but he pressed on, somehow raising his voice even louder than the vast numbers before him.
“I have identified another witch!” He proclaimed. “And she is the most powerful one yet!”
Undoubtedly, that was a lie, but it had the desired effect.
Shouts and cries came from his people, demanding to know who she was, demanding that he stop her, demanding her head.
However, this time it was not Tyran’s words that quietened the crowd’s cries. Instead, it was those of another.
They belonged, at least in Marcii’s eyes, to a much more revered man than their so called saviour.
When Francis Gold stepped forward from the sea of followers, refusing to yield to Tyran’s concealed demands, just as Marcii refused, the Mayor’s eyes grew not wide, but instead maddened by the sight that confronted him. An uncontrollable rage boiled up inside of him and all but consumed his portly, potbellied frame.
The head of the Priesthood threw back the hood of his robe and strode up to the centre of the square, facing off against Tyran even just in his approach.
Enforcers swarmed instantly around Tyran, brandishing swords and spears and axes, and Francis simply looked on at them with undisguised disgust.
The longstanding head of the Priesthood remained unflinching.
He was an elderly gentleman with an entirely bald head. Regardless of his age however, he was by no means weak. He was a thick set chap, though neither muscular nor scrawny.
He wore black, hooded Priesthood robes that fell all the way down to the floor. He had very dark skin and a thicker accent than most. As far as Marcii had ever been able to tell, certainly he wasn't from Newmarket.
He’d come from a place far away and rumour had always had it that he’d fled from the clutches slavery.
Whether the stories were true or not, Marcii had no idea. But, if they were, Tyran’s murderous accusations would surely have offended Francis’ morals beyond belief, and undoubtedly the old priest would fight the tyrant until his very last breath.
“Is this how you treat your people!?” Gold demanded, raising his voice so that everybody present could hear. “You herd us like cattle!? And then threaten us with our lives!? Based on nothing but your assumptions!?”
“Francis.” Tyran replied coldly. His voice was filled with malice and seething as, with a flick of his fingers, he waved his guards away and they dispersed back to their original sentry positions. “A pleasure, as always…” He lied, slowly spitting the words, accentuating every sound.
“This is insane, Tyran!” Gold rebuked. “It’s inhumane! You can’t just hunt people down because you deem them to be a witch! You don’t even have any proof!!”
“There haven’t been any more attacks.” Tyran countered, and his crowd, in the palm of his hand, cheered in support.
“This is not God’s work!!” Gold demanded. “It’s wrong!! It’s barbaric!!”
However, this time, Tyran did not reply, and the crowd before them both fell silent, caught on a knife edge.
The greasy, potbellied Mayor clasped his hands behind his back and took several, long, slow, wandering footsteps over to where Gold stood. Still the head of the Priesthood did not sway. He remained resolute in the face of evil, as he had so vowed right from his very first day in his vocation.
He would not stand by and allow for these monstrous acts to continue.
“Francis…” Tyran breathed, loud enough only for his single adversary to hear. “Oh Francis…” He warned. “What am I going to do with you…?”
“You are going to stop this madness!” Gold demanded, refusing to hush his voice in the same way Tyran had done. “You are going to stop murdering innocent people!”
“So!” Tyran responded in kind, raising his powerful, booming voice so that it carried for what felt like miles. “They’ve got you too have they!?” He questioned purposefully, smiling a cruel, sly grin that only Gold could see.
“Don’t be absurd…” Gold attempted, but Tyran cut him off, playing his crowd expertly.
“You’re in tow with the witches now, are you!?” He pressed, raising himself up menacingly and encroaching upon Gold victoriously.
His crowd gasped and shuddered visibly.
“There’s no such…” Gold attempted again, but, unfortunately, it seemed it would be his last challenge.
Without another word, driven by his vast, innate fury and lust for power, Tyran doubled his hand into a fist and struck the old priest in the chest. He drove his blow upwards and forced the breath from Gold’s body.
Francis doubled over in agony and crumpled to the floor in an instant.
But Tyran was not finished with the old man yet.
He grabbed Gold by the scruff of his robe, dragged him along the ground and prostrated him before his eager, on looking crowd.
“CONSPIRACY!” Tyran roared, driving his people into a frenzy of shouts and screams and curses and jeers.
Gold fought and gasped desperately for breath. No matter how hard she tried to force her way through the heaving masses, fraught with horror at what she saw, Marcii could not for the life of her reach Gold to aid him.
“He seeks to condemn us!!” Tyran bellowed.
And as he drove the people of Newmarket into yet an even greater craze, he casually kicked Gold repeatedly as he struggled upon the floor before them.
In the ribs.
In the back.
In the head.
Again and again and again.
The crowds cheered and roared.
Marcii screamed for him to stop.
She screamed for them all to stop.
But they did not hear her cries.
Tyran grabbed Gold by the scruff of his neck once more and dragged him up and onto his knees. He was so weak that his head hung back and his eyes rolled. He only just about managed to stay upright, swaying slowly left and right.
“We must fight this threat!!” Tyran ordered, and his people roared their agreement. “We must protect ourselves!!”
And with that, cheered on by virtually the entirety of Newmarket, Tyran drew a small, ivory handled blade from within his jacket.
He held it up for the people to see, perfectly cle
ar in his intention, and they revelled in his truth.
“KILL HIM!!” Came the roar from the square.
Tyran gladly complied, grinning evilly as he reached in and slid the perfect blade smoothly around the curve of Gold’s throat.
Gold spluttered and choked and gasped desperately, but Tyran held his robe firmly, keeping him still as his rich, red life sprayed out over the front row of the crowd.
But they did not recoil from it. Instead, as the hot, thick, frothing blood doused them, they revelled in it, bawling with the pleasure of satisfied hunger.
Tyran had set the example.
If fact, it was a threat just as much as it was an example.
Others would follow him now, and he knew it. If not through choice, they would follow him through fear.
“It is the witches who have summoned these evil spirits to plague us!!” He roared, raising his bloodied hands above his head in exultation, finally allowing Gold’s limp and drained body to crumple to the floor.
Marcii retched.
“We must protect ourselves!! We must fight them!!”
Tyran rejoiced as his people cheered in agreement and triumph.
All, it seemed, except for Marcii.
There must have been others, she hoped.
But, even if there were, they were likely only a mere handful.
And then began the sound that would haunt Marcii’s dreams for a lifetime and even longer.
She had no idea who started it, but that didn’t really matter.
The fact still remained: everybody loved it.
“HUNT THE WITCH!!” The crowds chanted, championing their saviour.
Tyran was driven on by the sound and, most terrifyingly of all for Marcii, he seemed in that mere, single, dreadful chant, to be exalted to the point of immortality.
And still, relentlessly, the chant continued.
Marcii could not bear it.
But, at the same time, neither could she escape it.
“HUNT THE WITCH!! HUNT THE WITCH!!”
Chapter Fourteen
Somewhere amidst the screaming and the shouting and the chanting, swept up and lost in the awful rush, Marcii became vaguely aware that the chant had changed.
No longer were the supposedly innocent people of Newmarket chanting for a hunt. It seemed that longing had already been fulfilled, for now at least.
All of a sudden, their cries lusted for blood and for death.
“KILL THE WITCH!! KILL THE WITCH!!” They chanted now. “KILL THE WITCH!!”
What in the world was happening?
Marcii could barely stay standing as the crowds surged and carried her to and fro. She was all but helpless to resist, for her strength waned more and more by the moment.
Suddenly though, for apparently no reason at all, or at least, for no reason that Marcii could see, the surging ceased.
Then, right before her eyes, almost as if it had been planned that way, the masses parted, opening up a trampled bloodied walkway before her.
A desperate, terrified scream echoed out over the market stalls and tents, filling the air with dread. Only seconds later, dragged by her jet black hair along the filthy ground, kicking and screaming, Malorie was thrown to the wolves.
The enforcers surrounded Marcii’s friend as they forced her through the jeering crowds and towards Tyran for retribution.
If she tried to fight or escape, she was kicked, punched, beaten, and anyone from the crowds who tried to harm her received the same treatment.
But none of that mattered.
Of course not.
The Mayor had his next victim.
It seemed that these days would be ones to remember, though they were filled with nothing but horror.
Tyran’s enforcers drew blood with every new strike and tore at Malorie’s clothes inhumanely, exposing her perfect, bruised, bloodied skin beneath them.
The innocents of Newmarket launched rocks and dirt and even faeces at her as she was dragged through the square. She screamed and cried out in anguish and denial, but, naturally, she was not heard.
Desperate to save her, desperate to do something at least, Marcii launched herself at one of Tyran’s enforcers.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, he presumed Marcii was simply trying to get to Malorie to throw a punch herself.
He struck her across the face with the back of his armour plated hand and Marcii was knocked unconscious and thrown to the ground, trampled beneath the masses.
How long she lay there for, she hadn’t a clue. But when she awoke, her head spinning and painful, the crowd that had been stood all about her, and upon her even, was gone.
In the distance she could still hear their cries and forced herself to her reluctant feet. Her face and her back and her every limb were in agony from being struck and trampled, but none of that mattered now.
She had to save Malorie.
The crowd had already reached the river when Marcii caught up to them, limping and stumbling as she went. And even then, when she finally fell into the back of the surging mob, she was forced to fight for every inch of ground that she made through their screaming, cheering masses.
By the time Marcii eventually fought far enough through the throngs of people so as to at last set eyes again upon Malorie, it was too late. The poor woman was already being strapped to the monstrous, seesaw like device that Tyran had ordered constructed upon the water’s edge.
The sight of it stole Marcii’s breath from her.
It was horrific.
Malorie was breathing heavily, her chest heaving. She was bleeding, beaten and battered.
But even still, as Tyran’s enforcers dragged her up from the floor and strapped her to one end of the long wooden beam that made the seesaw, resting upon a single pivot point, her eyes were full of defiant hatred for the man that was the Mayor.
She hated him for what he was doing.
But not for hunting her, no.
She hated him for what he was driving these people to do for the sake of his own greed and lust.
Once she was firmly secured to one end of the thick beam Tyran’s enforcers pushed it out over the pivot at the water’s edge so that Malorie was hanging precariously above the water.
Three of his enforcers remained rested upon the end of the beam that still touched solid ground, but Marcii could see that as soon as they shifted their weight, even just slightly, Malorie would lower into the water of the river.
This was barbaric.
But already, in barely a few moments, Tyran was there once again, unyielding.
“The witches will answer for their crimes!!” He shouted somehow above the roaring of his crowd. “They will know our pain and our suffering!! The pain and the suffering they have caused us!!”
As Marcii looked on, hatred and loathing filling every ounce of her body. The temperature dropped noticeably and a harsh wind cut across the rocky surface of the water. Clouds began to swarm and gather menacingly overhead and the day darkened ominously.
“SILENCE!!” Tyran suddenly bellowed, quietening his people in an instant.
He crept to the water’s edge beneath the blackened sky and looked out at Malorie, hanging helplessly above the face of the seething water, gazing down into its unforgiving face.
“Where is it?” He breathed at her, his quiet voice laced with cruelty, though somehow it still carried effortlessly out over the entire crowd.
“Where is what?” Malorie croaked, forcing the words from her tongue with all her might, though even that mere effort sent fresh pain coursing through her ruined body.
“THE DEMON!” Tyran roared brutally. “The demon you summoned to plague us! WHERE IS IT!?”
“There is no demon!” Malorie cried, and upon Tyran’s face spread a malicious smile.
Without a word he raised his hand.
On that silent command, lifting from where they rested, the three enforcers on the other end of the beam eased their weight and Malorie plung
ed into the freezing, raging water of the river.
“NO!!” Marcii screamed, but again, thankfully, her defiant cries were overborne by the cheers of the crowd all around her.
After a few more moments Tyran dropped his hand and the three enforcers pushed back down on the beam. Malorie rose from the water, coughing and spluttering as she came, but alive.
Marcii let out a long breath.
But this wasn’t over yet.
“WHERE IS IT!?” Tyran boomed again, and once more Malorie defied him.
“THERE IS NO DEMON!” She choked. “I’M NOT A WITCH!”
Tyran’s hand came up again and in turn so did his enforcers.
Down Malorie went.
She was under for much longer this time and Marcii’s eyes widened in horror, afraid that Tyran was going to kill her there and then.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, he relented and lowered his hand.
The poor woman rose from the water, shivering and spluttering, but her reprieve was short lived.
Again, and again, and again, Tyran submerged Malorie, for longer and longer every time.
But she gave him nothing, screaming and coughing and choking over and over and over that there was no demon.
Nonetheless, Tyran kept pressing, and the people of Newmarket kept yelling, and the enforcers kept dunking, all on the Mayor’s merest whim.
Malorie came back up yet again, by now ragged and limp from the cold and from lack of air.
“WE WILL FIND IT!” Tyran boomed at her. “AND WE WILL KILL IT!”
“No!” Malorie croaked, barely able to even breathe, let alone talk. “No! Please! You can’t!”
She sounded desperate. But not desperate for air, or for freedom, or even life, Marcii somehow realised.
It was something else.
All of a sudden Marcii felt her heart in her mouth and her whole body shuddered.
Malorie wasn’t denying it any more.
She was defending it, begging for it to be spared.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a thought flew into Marcii’s mind.
Without warning she spurred into action.
Only moments ago she had conceded that she could not save Malorie.
