And the key to the living forces of the runes, he emphasized, lay in the proper pronunciation and vibration of the sound that each rune represented. “You must practice each patiently. And know that the ritual formula prescribed herein must be followed to the last letter and sound. There is no room for error. Do you understand?”
She had promised him that she did. And now she wished that his ancient strength were here with her. Old Balor, her mentor and foster father since her mother’s death, had been wise in the ways of all things. He had been tortured and his eyes burned out when Suetonius, during the rebellion, had destroyed the druid sanctuary on Mona.
Taking in a deep breath, Bunduica unraveled the blanket. As the cold autumn air hit the baby, he began to cry. Bunduica clenched her teeth and reached for the athame at her belt. The dagger had a black handle that looked as though it could have been fashioned from the same material that the altar was hewn from. She paused as her hand touched that handle, and her green eyes burned with an unholy light. If those who had known her mother could have seen her at this moment, they would have sworn that Bunduica was Boadicea returned.
She began chanting the incantation in a whisper. The sonorous rhythm of the rune sounds lifted above the trees to pierce the silvery moon and grip the sky of the late October night. The sounds grew louder, and louder still. Even in the chill of the cold autumn night, sweat poured down Bunduica’s face and drenched her back and her breasts as she intoned the malefic words over and over, calling louder each time. At last her chant built to a crescendo, and she screamed in a language that had never been intended for human organs to resonate: “Tree-Micalazoda Yom-Gurd! Deesmees! Jeshet! Bonedose! Feduvema! Enttemoss!” Then, “Open wide the Gates! Manifest Rune Thorn!”
Down her fist slammed, driving the dagger into the crying baby’s heart. The thrust made a thumping sound like that of a bursting melon. Blood spurted in jets, landing on the surface of the black stone altar. Bunduica wiped a dripping stream of blood from her eyes and grinned. She dipped the fingers of her right hand into the blood and drew the Thorn rune on her forehead, then smiled.
Before her on the darkened slab running with crimson lay her own dead child—the bastard son of Catus Decanius.
Chapter II
The Horned God
Bunduica lifted her hands and, in answer to her, the sky split with a crack of thunder that shook the floor of the forest. It was then that she heard the boys break and run.
The people of this land had seen many cruelties and torments visited on human beings, and even for children, such things were common. But the two boys, Tow and Red, had never witnessed such savagery in the context of a ceremony—a ceremony that immediately answered prayers with an earth-shaking retort.
They felt evil coming. They felt it in their bones. They ran screaming in fear of their lives from the blood-spattered witch as rain started to fall in heavy drops.
Bunduica laughed hysterically at them, shouting, “Run, little piggies, run!” She snatched the torch from the altar, wheeled with the ritual dagger in her other hand, and gave chase.
The breathless boys now regretted following the young woman, but they had been lost; that was all, and trying to find their way out of the woods. Seeing a woman going into the deep trees alone on this night, of all nights, was an uncommon thing and could mean only mischief. A fellow Briton who was certainly up to no good—the Roman officials would surely pay a nice little reward to them if the boys had just a little more information on this woman.
Just as Bunduica was gaining on the two, she heard a crashing through the trees to her left. Immediately she stopped and, panting, hid herself behind a thick birch. Peering carefully from behind the tree, she saw a hunting party going by. Because her vision was partly obscured by the trees, she only caught a glimpse of the leader of the hunt.
He was a giant. He had long red hair and wore some sort of helmet with horns that dipped and pointed upward. His upper torso was bare and seemed to be inhumanly white although, after he had passed by, Bunduica reflected that the giant’s skin might actually have been a funereal greyish-blue. Was he dead? Dying?
Behind him loped a band of hunters with the heads—not of human beings—but of boars and horses and of beasts that Bunduica did not recognize. Most were men, but there were a few women. The strange animals that came behind these hunters, sniffing the ground as they went, looked like giant dogs, but their brilliant red eyes cut through the darkness. These demonic animals, all lean and athirst, made loud panting noises. More of them came then; the hounds seemed to materialize from cracks in the shadows or from the misty air that formed sharp angles and opened suddenly, bringing them forth.
Bunduica herself saw through one of the angled openings only briefly. Close to the opening, just inside it, a goat-legged satyr approached. He was standing inside a scarlet circle that rolled like the rim of a wheel. This rolling circle stopped short just of the opening, and the goat-man pointed a finger at the strange hunting party. He said, “There it is.” The abhorrent hound beside him shot out of the angled crack in the atmosphere and joined the hunting party.
The last figure to ride by was a woman with a lizard-like head. She gripped her horse’s reins with the clawed pincers of a large crustacean. As she passed by the birch tree, she turned her head with a sly grin, as though knowing that Bunduica was hidden there. Bunduica saw the lizard woman’s horse open its mouth in a saber-toothed snarl as the woman’s forked tongue flicked in and out of her mouth. They rode on.
Powerful visions, nether-worldly scenes, images from nightmares and dreams. Bunduica judged that these powerful visions were the effects of the shamanistic potion of the druids that Balor had given her. But she now realized that what she had just seen go past was no vision or dream but rather a manifestation in this world, this level of existence, of what she had seen earlier in visions. The visions were as real as she was.
For there surely are such other worlds beside ours.
Bunduica recalled the tales told about this one night of the year. Throughout the warm months of spring and summer, the Goddess would walk the earth. It was then that life was given, and all things thrived. Tonight, however, was the night that the Goddess went away. Now the Horned God of the Hunt would rule, for it was the winter of the world, and death incarnate walked the earth tonight, reaping the harvest—the Wild Hunt. Here was the reason why Balor had chosen the night of Samhain for her to call on the force of the Thorn rune in the name of revenge. The angry dead gods, the vengeful spirits and creatures of the other world—this was their night to pass into our world if they could, forcing their way through and taking whatever they might to carry with them when they returned to the dead land of everlasting storms and shadows.
When the Horned God and his party had passed by and were out sight, Bunduica left her hiding place. She realized that her two young spies were well away from here, probably on their way back to their village with a worthwhile bit of information—which may or may not be believed by the Roman officials. It began to rain hard now, and she decided it were best to be on her way, back to the secret catacombs of the druids, deep underground, where the Romans would never find her again.
After an hour had passed, however, in the deep of the chill night, Bunduica realized that she still had not been able to retrace her steps to the path she had first taken into the forest. Losing her focus by chasing the two spying youngsters had been a foolish act. The rain was now beating down in torrents. She needed to find shelter quickly, but she was unable even to find her way back to the black stone altar, which at least offered the cover of its oaken roof.
Panic was beginning to overtake her. Was she dying? Or had she died somehow already, and was she now between the worlds, or in the world of the Hunt? None, she had been told, who witness the Hunt, its dead gods and its memories and angry spirits, survives to speak of it. Suddenly, the same voice from deep within that had helped her find the altar said, “Look to your left! Shelter!”
Bunduica saw
it. There, in the depths of the forest, was a house, all alone. It was a tiny, rustic stone cottage with latticed windows, no two of the same size, and a thatched roof. Vines had climbed all over it, and a stone path before it led straight to a thick oaken door. The door, Bunduica saw through the heavy downpour, was arched and had some sort of hide nailed to it. As she drew nearer, she saw by the light of the crackling sky that the hide resembled the form of a small human being.
If the hide were a warning meant to dissuade visitors, Bunduica was not convinced. She reached the door and lifted a hand to knock on it, but then it opened on its own. Bunduica looked into the single room of the cottage and saw an old woman, a crone as ancient as the trees themselves, stooped before a bright, snapping fire and stirring at a great black cauldron with a large spoon fashioned from a gourd. The woman was dressed in a black cowled robe made from some type of coarse material. Bent as she was, stirring her brew, the old woman turned her head to meet Bunduica’s gaze.
“Come in,” she said. “I have been expecting company.” She then let out a loud laugh, a high cackle, and returned to her work, mumbling about company and chanting under her breath.
Bunduica was fearful but, as in a dream, she eased forward. Behind her, the great oak door fell closed.
Perhaps the wind of the storm had pulled it shut.
Chapter III
Thorn
Bunduica sensed something familiar about the old woman—but what? As she came closer, she recognized that the old woman was working particular spells, turning the ladle around and around, dragging the bottom of the cauldron as though stirring a hearty soup. When Bunduica was sufficiently close to see what was in the great pot, she saw strange skulls floating near the top, bobbing up and down. One head still had strings of flesh on it, although its eyes were hollowed out. One skull was human in shape but displayed the fangs of a vampire. Bunduica could also see the occasional arm swirling in the cauldron’s liquid and, as big as the pot was, once thought she even saw a torso lift to the steaming surface and sink again.
The crone again turned her head to Bunduica and said to the young woman, as though she were annoyed at the interruption of her chanting, “The chair on the other side of the table—sit and wait. Soon there will be a rendezvous at the little cottage in the woods.” Then she laughed, cackling, as though she had amused herself.
The table and chairs were set against a wall just beyond the witch. Bunduica carefully looked around the cottage as she moved to her seat. The wall opposite the one where the witch worked had an enormous, cobwebbed bookshelf filled with a host of dusty tomes. Bunduica surmised most of them to be grimoires that dealt with the very darkest of the black arts. As Bunduica settled uneasily in the creaking old chair, she tried to look away from the bubbling morass of slimy, green liquid in the witch’s cauldron, although she wondered, Have I created this with Balor’s spell? Did I open a gate to welcome this crone into the world?
To her right was a fireplace. The crackling logs in the grate kept the room moderately warm and also served to illuminate the dim cottage. At each end of the stone mantle of the fireplace was a candle. Each candle was made from the withered left hand of a hanged man and encased in wax. The hand on the farther end of the mantle had a silver ring on each finger. Bunduica saw that the four rings appeared to be identical except each had a different blackened rune engraved on the front of it.
The remainder of the cottage room was dimly lit by candles of various sizes, shapes, and colors. Where it was dark, the darkness in the room was profound and drank the light like a succubus taking her lover’s fluids.
Now Bunduica noticed a little girl in one dim corner. She was dirty, wearing a dress made from a sack, and had only whites for eyes. Her mouth had been sewn shut, and her neck craned back so that she could look at the ceiling. But she didn’t move at all. She was dead. As Bunduica’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw where the girl’s head had been severed from the neck and sewn back on. Bunduica wasn’t even sure that it was the child’s own head because it did seem rather large in proportion to the small body.
Bunduica saw two old broken chairs and others that, although not damaged, were situated in impractical positions for furniture. What things came into the cottage to be seated at such odd angles, leaning against walls or lying on the floor? The wall directly opposite the table where Bunduica sat, on either side of the cottage door, contained more shelves, these lined with the many instruments of witchery. There were a mortar and pestle for crushing herbs, and all sorts of cups and beakers for mixing potions, as well as jars filled with human and animal fetuses embalmed in green liquid that resembled that in the cauldron. Bunduica thought she saw one of the fetuses move, as though it still retained some measure of life. There were dolls on the shelves, both male and female. Most of them looked like actual miniature human beings, and she saw that the heads of all of them had been sewn on. One person had a dog’s head in place of a human head; a small figure of a dog kneeled beside him with a human head in place of its own.
The hag turned from her infernal broth and brought a dish of some sort of meat to Bunduica. “Eat!” she commanded the young woman. “This will give you strength!” She set down a large foaming jack of some pleasant-smelling libation and said, “Drink! This will steady you for what is to come.”
Bunduica pushed away the dish. She didn’t know what was in it, but she could guess. She hauled up the drink, however, and quaffed deeply.
As she set the cup down, the door to the cottage slammed open. Bunduica started at the figure stepping through the arched doorway. It was the giant she had seen earlier, or dreamed that she had seen. He must have been seven pedes in height; he had to crouch deeply to make his way inside, he was so tall. His skin was alabaster, startlingly white in contrast with his long, red hair. In shape he looked human, except for his face, which was fixed in a rictus of evil. The curved horns that Bunduica remembered protruded from his head - they dipped toward the ground, and thrust back up in defiance of the heavens. His eyes burned a horrible red. Bunduica couldn’t stand to look into them. Two dark bundles hung from his wide belt.
The stranger opened his mouth, showing the elongated fangs of the vampire, and said in a deep, resonating voice, “I don’t suppose these two will be troubling you anymore.” He reached to his belt and lifted the decapitated heads of the two boys, Tow and Red.
Bunduica almost felt pity for the two young spies.
The demonic stranger tossed their heads onto the floor at her feet. They were nothing more than garbage to him.
Bunduica became dizzy; the room tilted away from her, then toward her, the deep shadows and the candlelight blurring to her vision. Seized in the grip of vertigo, Bunduica tried to look away from the creature’s red eyes. They burned. They were awful. She turned to look at the old witch, and saw that the old witch was now gone. But where could she have gone?
The horned man came across the floor and sat at the table directly across from Bunduica; the chair was small for him, and she wondered that it hadn’t broken beneath his weight. Perhaps it had changed shape in the same way that the witch had disappeared. He asked Bunduica in a booming voice, “Don’t like the sight of what you have wrought, woman?”
She summoned the courage to look upon him. Slowly she felt her head begin turning toward him, but against her will. To Bunduica’s astonishment, a handsome man with long red hair and a well-groomed beard and mustache now sat across from her. He seemed to have shrunk in size, and horns no longer protruded from his head.
But his eyes were still horrible to look upon. The moment Bunduica looked into them, the red orbs shifted into several pairs of burning slits, and abruptly, a sort of hazy field floated in the air before the creature’s eyes. To Bunduica, it looked like a miniature ocean in which demonic eyes awoke and pierced a cosmic veil to penetrate this plane.
She looked away, still facing him, but not staring at those red eyes.
He smiled at her then—and gone were the fangs of the vampire
. Remarkably, he was now clad in a black silken tunic and breeches fit for a nobleman. He again spoke in a voice that resonated with a more human timbre. “Is this better? We have much to discuss and little time to do so.”
Bunduica felt her heart racing and thumping. Her mouth was dry. Trying to speak, in a quavering voice she managed to ask, “W-who are you? What do you want of me?”
“I think it is my place to ask you those questions, woman. It was you who summoned me.”
Bunduica’s eyes went wide. “You are the demon sent by the rune? How—?”
”I am the rune. I am Thorn. I am king of Hel-Valha—and anywhere else I care to tread. The spirit of the child you dispatched to me now screams in agony, awaiting my return. When dawn comes in this world, woman, I must be away to my kingdom. You have offered me a most precious gift with this child you have damned. Now it is I, by my own law, who must give you a gift of vengeance in return. Name your price!”
Bunduica gained strength, then, looking at Thorn, as though he had lent it to her in some fashion, guiding her. She said to him, “This is my price—the torture and death of him who raped and impregnated me, Catus Decanius.”
Thorn again took on his original demonic form. From somewhere below Bunduica’s line of vision, blocked by the edge of the table, he drew forth a human heart that, she understood, had once belonged to the spying red-haired boy in the woods. In his claw-like grip, he showed it to her and squeezed it. As it dripped blood, the heart formed into a glowing round orb.
Bunduica looked in amazement as a scene inside the glowing ball unfolded before her. Catus Decanius was in his chambers lying in bed. He was not alone. With him were a mother and her son. The mother wore a collar about her throat; attached to it was a leash that hung down one side of her—a leash, as though she were no better than a dog. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten years old.
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