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Not all the creatures of dark fear fire and iron; those who dwell deep in the northern swamps, those who haunt the bogs, who lie dormant in peat lands under the water and turf and rustling reed – they fear no metal nor fire nor human hand.
They crawl sometimes out of their dark sleep, flesh and blood and bone of the mires: peat that gives birth to the hottest flames, sword iron from the deep marshes, and the dead ditch water in which so many little things live. Not the hounds of heather from the milder places, and not the wild spirits from the greener and brighter fenlands would stand up to them; those are creatures of an ancient age, crude and horrible. They know of no spells, and no magic would stop them; their minds have only two things in them – either the sleep under the bogs, or the terrible hunger when the time comes to hunt.
They are different kinds, all of the same design: too crude, too base, all equal in their ugliness. Long worms clad in steely scales, not grace nor greatness of their later kin; or the heavy built beasts that look as if they were born of the mud and stone; or the hissing and poisonous birds, giant and bald, blind as bats and relentless in their chase, who eat the dead and haunt the living.
They, in the night of the year, take rule over the wetland. The iron lock would fall down at their touch, the fires do not harm them, and all the tricks and tools would be useless. Against a blind force a force would win, and nothing else – and nothing less.
***
An old woman bent over the pot, threw a couple of skinny fishes into soup and began stirring it. It was dark, cloudy, and smelled of marsh water.
“Worst things happen in the autumn,” she muttered. “All the good ones fall asleep, and the bad ones rise up. The sun goes away, looks on the other side – ‘tis far now, the Gold One, on the other side of the winter. And all from the ice realm are sneaking back. They will stay until He comes back from his journey… then they’ll run.”
She laughed dry and wicked.
“They, bunch of cowards. Hunger got them, their place is cold and empty, and do they want to come here!.. oh, yes, them sly rats! I see them! I get them, old as I am.”
Her fur coat hung from the wall, long and black with silvery dapples on the sides.
“Where should I go, huh?” she says, “Not to the fog place, that one is a weak land, poor soil. Not to the high one of grey rocks. No, I shall stay and live where I belong.”
Dark, bitter triumph colors her face as she says it.
They crawl sometimes out of their dark sleep, flesh and blood and bone of the mires: peat that gives birth to the hottest flames, sword iron from the deep marshes, and the dead ditch water in which so many little things live. Not the hounds of heather from the milder places, and not the wild spirits from the greener and brighter fenlands would stand up to them; those are creatures of an ancient age, crude and horrible. They know of no spells, and no magic would stop them; their minds have only two things in them – either the sleep under the bogs, or the terrible hunger when the time comes to hunt.
They are different kinds, all of the same design: too crude, too base, all equal in their ugliness. Long worms clad in steely scales, not grace nor greatness of their later kin; or the heavy built beasts that look as if they were born of the mud and stone; or the hissing and poisonous birds, giant and bald, blind as bats and relentless in their chase, who eat the dead and haunt the living.
They, in the night of the year, take rule over the wetland. The iron lock would fall down at their touch, the fires do not harm them, and all the tricks and tools would be useless. Against a blind force a force would win, and nothing else – and nothing less.
***
An old woman bent over the pot, threw a couple of skinny fishes into soup and began stirring it. It was dark, cloudy, and smelled of marsh water.
“Worst things happen in the autumn,” she muttered. “All the good ones fall asleep, and the bad ones rise up. The sun goes away, looks on the other side – ‘tis far now, the Gold One, on the other side of the winter. And all from the ice realm are sneaking back. They will stay until He comes back from his journey… then they’ll run.”
She laughed dry and wicked.
“They, bunch of cowards. Hunger got them, their place is cold and empty, and do they want to come here!.. oh, yes, them sly rats! I see them! I get them, old as I am.”
Her fur coat hung from the wall, long and black with silvery dapples on the sides.
“Where should I go, huh?” she says, “Not to the fog place, that one is a weak land, poor soil. Not to the high one of grey rocks. No, I shall stay and live where I belong.”
Dark, bitter triumph colors her face as she says it.
