Tales of Ravenloft

The Freak

He burst from the dark forest, a twisted, ragtag figure frantically running along the rutted gullies of the old dirt road. A man fleeing for his very life.

In every direction, tremendous granite mountains dominated the horizon, looming large above the wooded valley. Sharply silhouetted by the star-filled sky and waning crescent moon, the somber, jagged monoliths stood silent and uncaring of what occurred below in the world of mortal men.

Though dressed in tattered clothes, the body of the running man was perfection: the limbs and chest of a young Adonis, strength and masculine beauty personified. But when a shaft of moonlight pierced the thick cover of trees and illuminated his face, it was clear that nature, which had so richly rewarded his body, had definitely not done so here. His grotesque features were the essence of nightmares.

Mottled, discolored skin. A flat, slit wound of a nose, like that of a rutting boar. One eye was three times too large, sans lashes and set above the other, with no regard for balance or function. His bulging forehead extended in irregular patterns as if the pressure inside was simply too much for the bones and his head was likely to burst apart at any moment. One ear was human enough, though of disproportionate size; the other was delicately pointed like that of an elfin child, a tiny pink flower growing on the side of the crumbling, moldy ruin of his face.

His hair, a dozen shabby hues, grew in tufts along his ragged widow's peak, and his crown was partially bald. He lacked a top lip entirely, and the bottom was too full by far, easily exposing his broken, gap-filled teeth. Even the jaw appeared to have been melted in a furnace, then randomly recast.

It was a face of horror, and that was what it radiated now. Raw horror.

Wheezing for breath, the grotesque mockery named Anatole the Freak glanced over a slim shoulder and stumbled into a rut in the hard-packed soil. Down he fell, gashing his lopsided chin on a sharp rock. The small pain went unnoticed as the deformed hermit scrambled to his feet, just in time for torches to appear over the low rise behind him.

They had found him. Now the panting hermit could clearly hear the loud crackling of the torches, the angry voices of his three hunters, the deadly pack of hounds — vicious, bloodthirsty brutes that liked to wound before eventually killing. The dogs were savage beasts, fit companions for the humans pursuing him. "There he is!" shouted the burly man, swinging his bare sword.

"Murdering freak!" screamed the tall one, brandishing an axe.

Bullwhip in left hand, rope in right, the fat man added," Sick 'im, boys!"

Anatole sprinted for the safety of the trees, but, released from their restraining ropes, the snarling dogs surged upon him in a instant. Seizing his bedraggled clothes in their teeth, they pulled the freak down to the ground, their great jaws snapping inches from fingers and eyes. Crying aloud in fear, Anatole covered his face with both hands, a meager protection from their lethal fangs.

"Why are you doing this?" he screamed in confusion. "I am innocent!"

"Liar!" stormed the overweight man, uncurling his weapon. In the darkness, his arm jerked, and a whip cracked across the back of the cowering recluse. His rag shirt split asunder under the stinging lash, and pain knifed into his flesh.

A shuddering gasp escaped his lips as the freak raised his hands in surrender. "Please!" Anatole begged, tears cascading down the twisted ravines of his cheeks. "I haven't left the swamp for weeks! I know nothing! Nothing! Tell me what was done. I'll prove my innocence!"

The bullwhip cracked again, and a sizzling and popping torch was thrust toward him, the flames nearly setting his stringy hair on fire.

"Shut up, monster!" screamed the man with the sword, flecks of foam staining his thick mouth. "We'll not listen to your lies anymore! You killed those people, and we know it!"

"Killed who?" he pleaded in bewilderment. "Who?"

Outraged by his refusal to confess, the workmen put weapons aside, and their fists pounded him mercilessly. Helpless beneath their iron blows, Anatole fell unconsciousness for awhile, lost in a red haze of pain. And when at last his mind cleared, he saw the three men standing tall above the slavering dogs, the rope leashes in their callused hands being knotted into a hangman's noose.

All the while screaming his innocence, the bloody hermit was kicked to his feet and shoved toward the woods. The night watchmen from the village had no intention of wasting time with a public trial or other legal foolishness. When the mayor and constable awoke in the morning, it would be over and done. A tree with a stout limb would be the judge tonight, and a dog's rope the jury.

Roughly, the laughing murderers hauled the weeping Anatole off the road. But as the stout boots of the killers stepped off the packed dirt, their leather soles crunched on loose gravel, the sound making the men pause. Lowering the torches, they saw an unknown road stretch out before them. What was this? The three men looked about in confusion. No other highway cut through the forest, and certainly none with crushed rock to stiffen the soil against the autumn rains. Theirs was but a poor village of farmers and fishermen.

With icy dread, the men watched thickening mists obscure the landscape, the ghostly fog moving with unnatural speed. A chill took them all as they saw a strange newborn cobblestone road physically stretch to the foggy horizon. And just below the crescent moon there loomed the black silhouette of a bizarre figure, the weird outline discernible by the complete lack of stars in the stygian sky.

At the sight, an awful hush engulfed the four, and even the dogs stopped panting in the eerie silence. It was as if all their ears had been stoppered shut with wax. Breath fogging from their open mouths, they saw the forest grow black as pitch, saw steaming mist rise from the ground everywhere. Rumbling storm clouds masked the moon, and a graveyard cold gripped them as, in growing horror, the would-be murderers realized that the far figure was coming their way at a full gallop.

Appearing and disappearing within the billowing tendrils of moving fog, the silhouette formed the familiar outline of a man on horseback, and the watchmen sighed in relief. . until the surging clouds parted and the shimmering moonlight bathed the oncoming rider with nightmarish clarity. A man on a horse, yes, but unlike any this side of hell.

The horrible horse was impossibly large, heavily muscled as if for war, and moving faster than any noble's racing steed. The flaring nostrils of the mighty beast emitted blasts of white steam into the cold air. Its hide was the shiny black of oiled metal, its eyes wild and white, its sharp teeth distended and bared in a hateful grin. A burning spray of bright sparks erupted from every loud strike of the powerful hooves on the stony road. It was a beast of the Apocalypse. Some dark and obscene thing from the very depths of the Abyss itself.

The rider, bent low against the wind, was dressed in elegant finery, the clean white shirt and spotless black velvet jacket of a rich nobleman. His fold-top boots were of an ancient style, long out of fashion, his ebony and scarlet cloak spreading out behind him to completely hide the road beyond, as if it no longer existed. Sparkling among the somber apparel were spurs and stirrups of gleaming, polished silver.

As the noble approached, the watchmen cried aloud: the evil figure possessed no head. None at all. His stiff white collar of fine starched linen encircled vacant air.

Misunderstanding, the watchmen waited for the newly dead body to fall from the saddle, waited for the victorious cry of the brigands who had slain him seconds ago beyond the rise. But with the reins held tight in his left glove, the decapitated man dutifully rode onward, ever onward with increasing speed. Then the empty shoulders turned a bit, and the stupefied villagers were pierced by the stare of eyes that were not there — or at least, eyes that were not in this land of the living.

In that same heartbeat, the ghastly rider drew a shining steel sickle from his voluminous cape. And in terrible clarity, the watchmen saw a single ruby-red droplet slide along the razor edge of the curved blade, cling to the needle-sharp tip, and then drop away, vanishing in the dark wind before striking the cold cobbles below.

The dogs cowering in terror, the would-be killers released their victim, who fell to his knees. Backing away, the watchmen moved with the restrained steps of shackled prisoners. The mounting cold had seized their joints with brutal force, congealing the blood that was so hot moments ago, making even the tiniest motion difficult. Panic-filled eyes were unwillingly pinned upon the approaching madness, this specter of death. Only their hearts moved freely, slamming inside their heaving chests.

"This. . is impossible," mouthed the portly owner of the whip, dropping his weapon from limp fingers. "Impossible!"

And with those soft words, their hearing violently returned. Strident thunder, like a never-ending avalanche, boomed from the maelstrom in the tumultuous sky, the concussions wildly shaking the bare winter trees. And yet the approaching hoofbeats overwhelmed the fury of nature, seeming to physically fill the frosty air. The fiery pounding hit their faces with stinging force like angry, invisible slaps.

No thought of battle occurred to the watchmen. Escape was their only wish. Flight and survival. But their will to act was as frozen as their shivering limbs. All they could do was stand trembling, helpless as children, and watch primordial death enter their world.

The leering horse looming larger, more solid than the surrounding granite peaks; the dire specter galloped straight toward them. The tall man with the axe attempted to throw himself backward, to fall off the cursed highway, but it was as if he was nailed into place. His magic charms and good luck pieces were still at home instead of in pockets where they might have done him good. He tried a desperate prayer to the gods, but none seemed to hear.

In somber ritual, the phantasmal rider raised the lethal sickle, perfectly blotting out the slim sliver of moon, casting the small group of men and dogs in a freezing shadow of doom.

And then he was amid them.

Frantic, the dogs went under the charging stallion and were ruthlessly trampled by the great hooves, helpless as wheat before a thresher. The horse and rider exploded between the shaking men, the deadly sickle swinging back and forth with the rhythm of a clock pendulum. Shivering in his bloody rags, Anatole heard a whistling pass and saw red-tainted silver flash in the harsh moonlight. The freak stared agape, drooling upon his lopsided chin, as the heads and bodies of his tormentors dropped separately to the roadway.

Now the slayer was upon him, and the hermit closed his mismatched eyes, throwing a perfect arm before his hated face. There was only a scant meter of road between them. Yet the pounding hooves seemed to take forever to reach him, the deafening noise growing until it shook the universe. His stomach heaved as, large and powerful, the sickle swept past him with tingling nearness. Braced for death, Anatole dementedly imagined that several somethings flew past him, moving all around him, brushing near enough to disturb his matted hair and tug on his tattered clothes.

But nothing else happened. As the nerve-wracking seconds wore on, the hoofbeats receded and the sounds of the forest slowly came again. Crickets. An owl hooting. The rustle of leaves. Fearful of what new horrors might assail him, Anatole managed to force his one good eye open a crack.

There was nobody in sight. Even the mist was gone. The trembling hermit stood alone in a grassy field surrounding by lush forest greenery. Collapsing to the dirt, Anatole wept, his body shaking with exhaustion and the sheer joy of living. Alive. He was still alive! Gods above, had it been only a dream? Some wild fever vision brought on by near starvation? Or perhaps he had been beaten insane by the villagers. Yes, that must be the answer.

But shakily rising to his feet, Anatole the Freak noticed dark shapes lying motionless in the green grass: the horribly mutilated dogs, the fresh human corpses. The scene telescoped before him, filling his mind, almost smashing his sanity, and in that instant of crystallized reality, deep in his heart, a new type of fear was born.

Shivering again in spite of the muggy summer warmth, Anatole lurched away from the dead watchmen, forcing himself to stumble toward the dirt road. Once on relatively flat ground, the hermit sprinted through the fearful darkness, heading for the village. The mayor must be told. The people warned! This had not been a dream, but a living nightmare. The dreaded headless horseman of myth had come to their valley! What could they do? How could any of them hope to survive?

And most importantly. . why had he?

Running. Running. A light flashed between the tree branches, then disappeared as the road rose and swept downward. A distant call of laughter was heard through the darkness, then the dirt road curved, and crackling torchlight washed over the panting hermit. Surrounded by a tall stone-block wall, the gates of the city stood wide and inviting, as if there were nothing to fear. The fools!

Dashing inside, Anatole glanced wildly about at the dim houses, their facades illuminated by the flickering of street torches. Who first? Anyone? A city guard? The mayor! Turning right at the fountain, the hermit scrambled down the brick side street.

Every shadow seemed to reach out for him; the sound of a passing horse and wagon almost made him scream; a bare tree branch swiped at him like a giant hand; eyes seemed to peer from every eave. Clutching his throbbing head in both hands, Anatole spun about in a mad circle, wasting precious minutes as sanity returned. Imagination. It was all in his mind. He hoped.

The wooden outline of a shoe hanging from an iron post marked a cobbler's house. Anatole rushed to the door and banged furiously on it, then yanked the cord for the upstairs bell. He could hear it clang within, but no one came and no lights appeared. Despite the summer warmth, cold sweat poured down his back. Anatole spun and started to bolt, but paused midstep. Where next? The city alarm bell for fires? Where was it? He had rarely come this far into town.

Memories of screaming women, laughing men, and children with stones rose to memory, but he forced those phantasms down. They all hated him for his ugliness. Mocked him! But it was still his village, his home, and he must warn them. A breeze scented with freshbaked bread wafted along the street, and the clouds parted, allowing the silvery light of the moon to bathe the city in an unearthly blue. Wiping his mouth with the back of a hand, Anatole thought of other nights, other midnight beatings. The city constable, of course! But he would be on his rounds, checking doors and locks. Was there no place where he could find. . the Dog 'n Bull. Yes! Perfect!

His lungs heaving for breath, the hermit once more lurched off and began racing deeper into the village. He passed a dog rooting in some garbage, and it stared curiously at him. A loving couple, arm in arm, strolled eastward as he went west crossing a small bridge, but they paid him no mind. Turning at the half-built library, Anatole saw a brightly lit section of street, illumination streaming from the windows of the Dog 'n Bull. Accordion music sounded from within, mixed with laughter and pounding boots. As he approached, the double doors burst open, and out staggered a singing man who walked as if on a storm-tossed ship. The hermit passed him, and the fellow doffed a hat he was not wearing and started to say something, then went pale and backed away, white-faced and trembling.

The oak doors were warm and smooth beneath his fingers as Anatole shoved them open. Bright light and music washed over him, and he blinked, tilting his head away from the smoke-filled air to protect his bad eye. Tables jammed with laughing people filled the central room, a wooden wheel made into a chandelier hung from the ceiling, and half a pig was roasting in the huge fireplace. He shuffled inside and across the sawduststrewn floor.

"Hey, stranger!" called out a man behind the bar, sliding a tankard of ale down the countertop to a waiting customer. "Welcome to the Dog 'n Bull! What can I. . good gods above!"

"It's the freak!" shrieked a woman, and the music stopped. In ragged stages, all talking ceased and every head turned to stare. More than one person spit upon the floor, and several drew their belt knives.

"The mayor," wheezed Anatole, his throat bone dry from panting. "I need to find. . "A half-filled container of ale was on a table near him, and impulsively the hermit grabbed the blackjack and drank deeply. The leather was warm to his touch. and the tar lining gave the ale a flavorful tang. Then the mug was painfully slapped from his grasp.

"Aye, and we don't want you drinking from our mugs!" cried the bartender, towering above the cringing man. "I'll have to burn the thing now. That's nine coppers you owe me, freak!"

Shoving aside their chairs, men moved toward the hermit, their faces menacing scowls.

"They're dead!" he shouted over the growing rumble. "I saw it! They're all dead!"

The mass advance stopped.

"Who's dead, ya murdling goon," barked a squat shepherd, shaking his blackjack until it sloshed over.

Fear tightening his belly, Anatole spoke fast. "Hans, Emile, and Angelo. He killed them all. Cut off their heads. I saw it! In the fields by the waterfall."

Cries of outrage and confusion.

"Cut off their heads? "

"Who did it? "

"Dead, ya say? "

"The horseman," he said, his voice a whisper.

The village tax collector pushed his way through the crowd, strode closer, and stood before the hermit, his thumbs jammed inside his wide leather belt. A belt Anatole's scarred back knew far too well. "What horseman? Speak fast, freak," growled the clerk.

"It was the headless horseman," said Anatole "He came out of the moonlight on a horse blacker than the night! And he had a silver sickle — "

But his words were drowned out by gales of laughter.

"The headless horseman of Hanover?" guffawed a serving wench. "Idiot, can't ya lie better 'n that?"

Another shouted," And he attacked you in the middle of a field? Poppycock!"

"Even a child knows he can't leave da road," growled an elderly man in soldier's livery. "Ya dang fool."

Anatole's eyes flicked from one disbelieving face to another. "But it's true! And there was a road! It just appeared under us and the horseman killed everyone!"

"But not you," spoke the city constable from the mezzanine above the room. The tavern quieted as the blubbery man waddled down the steps, tucking in his shirt. A gale of feminine laughter came from upstairs and was quickly cut off by the closing of a pink door.

Three times his size, Brad Thalmeyer stood before the hermit and scowled. "You say the headless horseman came and killed three armed men, but not you."

"Yes!"

"Why? "

"I. ."

"Well? "

"I don't know," Anatole said softly, lowering his head. Rough hands grabbed his clothing, tearing it from his body.

"Aye, but we know!" stormed Constable Thalmeyer. "Those three went to hang you for that gypsy killing. Now you return with this witless tale of galloping monsters and claim they be dead! If so, then you did it, not some children's ghost!"

"I swear!" began the hermit, but a hairy fist punched him to the floor. Something banged off his forehead, and ale splashed over his face, washing the wooden planks beneath him clear of sawdust. "Hold him," stated the constable, grinding a fist into the palm of his other hand. Til find the mayor and get us a writ of execution!"

"And a rope!" cried somebody else. "Truth, 'tis high time we got rid of this. . abomination!" stated the school teacher, adjusting his spectacles.

"Who'll come with me, lads?" called the constable standing in the doorway, one great hand on the metal latch. "To help protect me from the horseman?"

A scribe rose from his table and laughingly joined the constable. "Here, Brad! I'll even help the mayor sign it, if need be!"

"Aye!"

As the double doors closed behind the laughing men, the tavern once more turned its attention to their captive. "What shall we do to make sure he don't escape us, lads?" called out a lanky herdsman, undoing a bullwhip from about his waist.

Cruelly, the crowd roared suggestions, but Anatole went still when he saw that the breath of the herdsman was foggy here in the warm tavern. Others noticed a sudden chill, too, and many shivered, drawing their clothes tighter about them. "It's him!" cried Anatole, cowering on the floor. "Gods, save us!"

The table lanterns died. The overhead candles puffed out. The blaze in the fireplace dropped to a low crackle of icy blue flame.

Outside the tavern, the constable and his companion cried out in surprise and fear; a sudden pounding of iron hooves filled the air like winter thunder, the steady, savage pounding of a racing warhorse. Then a large shadow eclipsed the window beside the door. The two men screamed in terror, screams cut horribly short.

Then the sound of the hooves faded away.

Silence reigned for several minutes, until the flames in the fireplace blazed up to full fury once more, making everyone gasp and recoil, dropping whatever they were holding. But no one moved to relight the candles or lanterns. All eyes stayed on the closed front door, and the only sounds were muttered prayers and hard, rasping breath.

Then some thick reddish liquid began to flow underneath the door and into the tavern. Knives were drawn by a dozen men; women pulled amulets into view. With slow, hesitant steps, the bartender lifted an ancient battle mace into view from behind the counter and moved past the patrons to place a gnarled hand on the latch of the front door. He pulled it open, and two headless corpses fell onto the dirty sawdust. The rest of their remains stayed outside in the middle of the street, black lumps half-hidden by blessed moonshadow.

Women screamed in terror, men cursed, chairs were overturned, and the trembling hermit released. The bartender backed against the wall and splayed his arms as if seeking support. Somebody started to cry, and another began to retch.

Levering himself to his feet, Anatole said nothing, but he winced as he moved his wrenched right arm. In response, a young barmaid wordlessly drew a fresh blackjack of ale and placed it before the shuddering hermit. Anatole watched the action, not understanding for a moment. He glanced upward at her, and she shied her lovely face away, but made a wiggling motion with her fingers. Eagerly, he took the mug in both hands and carefully drank the frothy brew. It was wonderful, fresh from the barrel, not the bitter dregs he usually stole from the drained barrels in the alleyway. Still cold from the cellar, the ale chilled his empty stomach, and he shivered violently.

On impulse, he placed the empty on the counter and pushed it toward the woman. Without comment, she refilled the mug and slid it back to him. Reveling in his good fortune, Anatole sipped his drink and watched as the people in the tavern whispered to themselves and moved away from him.

Over the leather rim of his blackjack, Anatole saw it in their eyes. In the faces of every man and woman present. A new emotion. Not disgust, not contempt. But something he had never seen before. Fear. Fear of him!

Hmm.

A few hours later, the mechanical clock in the church tower struck midnight, the reverberations of the great bronze bells rolling in somber majesty over the little village. Everywhere, in every house and store, hushed voices spoke of the bizarre events that had occurred. Most prayed that the night of terror was over. Surely five dead was a bountiful enough harvest for any hellish minion. But a scant handful believed differently, and they gathered in secret at the house of the mayor, clustered around a hand-hewn table of forest oak to speak of death. And life.

"The two of them are obviously linked," growled Mayor Ceccion, pouring dollops into the glasses of his guests. The three men sipped the vintage, taking courage from the sweet English brandy made of cider and molasses.

"Some sort of weird connection here," added Franklin. Rising from his chair, the stonemason glanced nervously out the side window of the second-story room. The brick street, well lit by torches, was deserted. He allowed the lacy curtain to drop back into place. "That swamp freak with his bastard face and this monster without a head. Ye, gods! No head!"

"And five good men dead," added Hecthorpe. The fat cooper frowned at the full glass on the table before him. One sip had been enough. Wretched stuff. "Two in the very heart of our town!"

At the head of the table, a tall, lanky man removed his ancient fisherman's cap and stuffed it into a back pocket of his weathered pants. "Aye, but what be this thing wanting?" demanded Captain Emett, tossing off the homemade brandy as if it were weak tea. He took the bottle and gave himself a proper refill. "Tribute? Revenge? "

"The dead hate the living," said the mayor softly, over the crackling of the fire," because we can still hope and laugh. No other reason is necessary."

In silence, the men listened to the beating of their hearts and acknowledged the wisdom of the statement.

"Accepted. So, how do we stop this bedamned spook?" asked Franklin, rubbing his aching right wrist. The arthritis there usually pained him only with the coming of winter. "Can we kill the undead with pikes and axes? "

"Is he really a ghost?" pondered Hecthorpe, heavy brows lowered in thought. "Mayhaps it's only a magician's trick. A black bag over his head, something like that."

"A possibility," muttered Ceccion, taking his clay pipe from the mantle and lighting it from a candle. Now within a cloud of brackish smoke, he added," But anyone who can slay men faster than reaping wheat is still a problem we need to solve quickly."

"No living man can behead others from the back of a striding horse," snorted the stonemason. "It be impossible! Not even I am that strong!" To make his point, the bricklayer flexed his arms and chest, the seams of his shirt threatening to burst apart.

"Agreed," puffed the mayor dourly. "So that brings us back to why this monster is attacking our town. The freak?"

Muttered agreements. There seemed little doubt on that point.

"So what do we do? "

"Kill him," said Hecthorpe grimly. "We have five dead on account of that misshapen man-thing."

Captain Emett slammed his glass down. "Aye! Keelhaul the creature!" snapped the fisherman. "Draw and quarter him!"

"Burn him alive is probably best," advised Hecthorpe, scratching his cheek. "That way his screams will tell the world of his death."

"And with him gone, that headless horseman should leave also!"

"Aye."

"Makes sense."

Tapping out his pipe, the mayor warned caution. "We shall handle the killing ourselves, with no help from others. Speed and secrecy are our best chance. Remember, the last men who tried to hang that abomination are being buried even as we speak," he intoned, the breath fogging from his mouth.

All conversation abruptly stopped as a wave of arctic cold washed over the large room. In heart-pounding fear, the men glanced about and saw that the table and chairs where they gathered were no longer in the den of the mayor's house, but now in the middle of a dark forest. Mountains rose on each side, forming a valley for the starry night overhead. And beneath them the decorative carpet was gone, replaced by a gravel road that stretched from horizon to horizon, from crescent moon to sea.

And then a silhouetted figure appeared on the distant, silvery ridge. A cloaked human without a head sitting on a great warhorse. . which was galloping toward them down a cobblestone roadway.

Struggling to rise from their chairs, the village councilmen found that even the slightest motion was difficult, as if invisible chains bound them to the spot. Forcing hands into pockets, three of the four clutched their good-luck charms, and the men wrenched free of the paralysis and stood. Moving with slow desperation, Mayor Ceccion went to the corner where his weapons cabinet should have stood, and he fondled and fingered the empty air, searching for the wall rack with its steel sword and crossbow. But nothing met his urgent touch. Impossible! This must merely be an illusion. It must!

The strident pounding of iron hooves filled the frigid air, and faintly the terrified men could hear the ghostly rattle of plates and glasses somewhere else, far off in another place. Another world.

Cursing loudly, the river captain knocked over the table as a shield and the stonemason brandished a chair in one hand. In his mighty grip, even that simple stool should be a deadly weapon. Unable to rouse himself, the sweating coopersmith sat motionless, darting eyes betraying his terror.

Thundering ever closer, the leviathan horse bared its teeth in a ghastly rictus, and the dire horseman raised his sickle high, the curved blade eclipsing the moon, casting them all in soul-freezing shadow.

A scream trapped in his throat, Hecthorpe twitched helplessly in his seat. Franklin threw the chair, and it missed both man and horse. Captain Emett drew a belt knife, but it tumbled from spasming fingers. Choking on his rising gore, Mayor Ceccion dropped to his knees, praying for divine rescue. But in the lurid nightmare of black and silver, they all knew death was but moments away. Nothing could save them. Nothing.

The pounding hooves deafened them. The crimsonlined cape flared wide like blood-soaked dawn, and in a heartbeat, the protean pair was among them. The silvery blade flashed downward. The hardwood table exploded into splinters. Cries of anger were horribly terminated, and three grisly thuds sounded on the cobblestone road.

Standing at the edge of the roadway, unable to move back another step because of some unseen barrier that resisted his best efforts, Mayor Ceccion closed his eyes against the slaughter, and felt a white-hot pinprick on his throat. Tiny as the pain was, it shattered his silence.

"Forgive me, Lord!" he managed without moving his taut neck. "I beseech your mercy!"

Incredibly, astonishingly, he lived for another moment, two, three. The tiny prickling burned into his vulnerable flesh an impossibly long time. As painful seconds stretched into forever, all around him, Ceccion heard the gnashing and chattering of hundreds of teeth. The source of the feasting noise was unthinkable. Then the pressure of the sickle increased, warm blood trickled down his throat, and suddenly the mayor knew he was being asked a question. One for which the wrong answer meant instant death.

"On my honor," he wailed, tears flowing beneath his closed eyelids. "I swear none will be allowed to harm the f-frea. . Anatole!"

And miraculously, the stabbing agony was gone. Blessed relief washed over the man as he slumped to the gravel road. The stentorian hoofbeats faded away, along with the stomach-turning sounds of chewing.

A wave of warmth from the crackling fireplace shook him to the core, and, daring to open his eyes, the mayor saw that the room was in shambles. Everything was smashed and broken or splattered with fresh blood. Even the beheaded corpses of his friends, even their clothes, were torn to shreds as if wild dogs had savaged the bodies. Gingerly touching his stinging throat, Mayor Ceccion saw his fingertips were stained red. But he still lived. He lived!

Loud knocking on the door finally penetrated his joyous thoughts, and weakly he staggered across the wreckage to throw aside the locking bar. Instantly, his neighbors rushed in, almost knocking the mayor down. But then his well-intentioned rescuers jerked to a dead halt as they saw the brutal scene of murder. A man stuffed a fist into his mouth so as not to scream. Another backed out into the hallway and headed quickly for the stairs. A scarred young woman in soldier's livery scowled and tightened the grip on her sword pommel.

Weeping and sobbing, Ceccion told his tale to the dumbfounded villagers, and soon the story spread like wildfire throughout the no-longer-sleeping town. The horrid news went from house to house in frantic, fevered whispers. The shocking warning of the hysterical mayor galvanized the frightened citizenry, first in a panic, then in terrified immobility. The headless horseman had struck again. So if you wish to live. . do not harm the freak.

Sluggishly, Anatole stirred in his sleep, feeling oddly warm and comfortable. Something soft brushed his cheek, and the hermit sat upright in his bed to see that a nice new quilt of blue cloth and goose feathers was covering his rickety bedframe.

Swinging his legs to the floor, Anatole saw that the dirt floor of his sagging cabin had been swept tidy during the night. Arising, he blinked at the sight of actual cloth curtains on both of the windows of oiled paper. Incredible!

A tantalizing aroma caught his attention, and the hermit spun about to see that the upside-down barrel that served as his table was covered with an old linen cloth and piled high with a mound of food. Food! He rushed forward and dared to touch the unbelievable cornucopia, testing its reality. A loaf of bread not yet stale. An entire wheel of cheese with only a bit of mold on one side! A wicker basket of apples! A smoked roast of beef wrapped in waxed paper and greasy twine! A bottle of real wine! The smell of it all together was heady, almost narcotic. It was more and better food than he would normally eat in a year.

Wasting no time, Anatole sat himself down and began to feast, half afraid the bounty would vanish before his disbelieving eyes as he awoke from this delightful dream. After sampling everything, he settled in for a royal meal of bread and cheese, with an apple for desert. The beef he would save for a dinner celebration. He could barely remember what meat tasted like anymore.

Burping softly as fitting tribute to such a momentous feed, Anatole went to check on last night's fire and behold! next to his red-glowing, crude firepit was a rusty hatchet of steel. Wonders of wonders! It was a gift for a king! He owned nothing made of steel. It was impossibly expensive. Examining the tool, he marveled at its sharpness despite the thin layer of rust, and lightly cut a finger testing the edge. Amazing. He could probably shave with such a magical device.

Going outside to examine his prize in daylight, Anatole found a clean, dry suit of old patched clothes on a new clothesline. Placing the precious hatchet on the small wood pile, the delighted hermit stripped himself naked, washed with cold water from the trickling stream running through the bog alongside his ramshackle cabin, and dressed quickly. The grayish undergarments were soft as clouds. The mismatched socks thick and cushiony. Without any patches, the pants felt oddly smooth to his legs, and the oversized tunic was so loose and flexible that he wondered if he was wearing it correctly. The boots of stained brown leather rose to his calves, giving him a feeling of height and authority. They didn't fit very well, and the left heel was cracked, but who cared? They were infinitely better than his ancient sandals.

A plaintive moo sounded from his left. Behind some moss-covered scrub trees, the hermit discovered a scrawny cow tethered in the grassy clearing. Anatole was overwhelmed, tears of joy blurring his sight. How could all of this. . why would. . who. . Turning about in wonderment, he spied a parchment note tacked to his battered door. Rushing over, Anatole gingerly removed the piece of homemade paper and struggled to read the printed message. His only schooling had been received sitting outside the window of a classroom and listening until the teacher chased him away. It was difficult, but as memory sluggishly flared, the block lettering began to make sense and the awful words written there pierced him like an arrow. These things, this junk, was a gift from the villagers. And with them, he would have 'no need to visit the town again for supplies. Ever.

Casting aside the note like an unclean thing, Anatole felt a cold anger form in his belly, and his large hands closed into fists of rage. Damn them. Gods damn them all! So only their fear of death would earn him charity, eh? All he had ever wanted was to be left alone, to live a normal life. And all he ever received was beatings and starvation and hatred and scorn and. .

As a clear, reddish dawn crested the vine-encrusted trees of the swamp, bathing the cabin in bloody light, his breathing became deep and steady. Plainly, after last night, the townspeople were so incredibly afraid of the horseman that they had decided to appease the deadly lord of the roadway by bribing the hated freak. And this is how they decided to buy his favor? Keep him in the stinking swamp? With a dying cow, stale food, and discarded clothes? This was payment for all the wrongs done to him? As a gift from friends it was staggering, magnificent. As tribute it was rubbish. Worse. It was garbage! An insult.

The noxious smells of the muck and mire mixed freely with that of the food and his soap-clean clothes. Anatole suddenly felt violently i ll, and turned to retch in the bushes. Afterward, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his new shirt, the hermit stood and stared with unseeing eyes of hatred at the burning sun. Well, now he was in charge, holding their very lives in the palm of his hand. In bitter satisfaction, the freak closed that hand, crushing its imaginary contents, and dumped the remains onto the ground. Offend me, he thought in ill-restrained fury, and my mysterious friend shall slay you like cattle. Like sheep!

Hitching up his pants, Anatole started across the string of rocks that bridged the bubbling mud around his little island home. In broad daylight, without a mask, he was going to go to town and walk about. And bedamn anyone who tried to stop him. Let's see how they like tasting fear for a change. The horseman had presented a bill to the villagers, and it was up to Anatole to collect it. In full.

Sternly ambling into the village, feeling angrier with every step, Anatole was shaken to be greeted with cheery hellos from the gate guards. Stumbling from surprise, he waved to them in return. Once past the city wall, the freak was endlessly called to by strangers and enemies alike. Everybody gave a smile, and it took the hermit awhile to realize that these were false expressions — mouths lifted in grins, but eyes cold and hard, brimming with darker emotions.

Going boldly down the main street, he spied that many windows slammed closed before he could look at the inhabitants of the houses. But when he saw them first, the people beamed, and some even called his real name. Astonishing. He hadn't known that they even knew his name! Anatole had never been called anything but 'freak. 'At first the hermit hesitantly waved back, wondering if he had misunderstood the note. But slowly the duplicity of it all became clear, embittering his heart, and he stopped playing the fool in their game.

Some of the townsfolk halted dead in their tracks and openly stared at the hermit. Quietly, their neighbors pulled them aside and whispered into astonished ears, faces rapidly changing from disgusted surprise, to fear, and then to forced friendliness, neck muscles tight from the strain of cowardly grins.

In the center of town, the great square was jammed with people pushing heavily laden carts of produce, barrels of wine and fish and pickles, boxes of shoes, nails and bolts of cloth. It was market day. Everyone seemed to be yelling prices, and all arms were carrying parcels and packages of brown paper. As he moved among them, the shoppers parted, giving the youth a wide berth despite the fact that the market square was heavily packed.

Some youths lounging in an alleyway spied the disfigured freak, and one grabbed a stone, preparing to throw. With fearful cries, his companions wrestled the offender to the ground. "Are ye mad?" whispered one, straddling the chest of his struggling companion.

Another hissed," Aye, want to die, fool? "

"Want us all to?" quietly demanded a third, trembling hands pulling the stone free and hiding.

In the bustling market, a mustachioed green grocer offered Anatole a huge, delicious-looking red apple. The hermit accepted with thanks, but noted that the fellow secretly wiped his hands on his apron afterward. The hermit dropped the fruit to the ground, where dozens of uncaring shoes trampled it underfoot.

"Get a canvas bag, ya walking dung pile," softly muttered a busy clerk, ladling milk into a bucket for a waiting customer," and put it over that gruesome head before you sour my cream."

Somebody laughed, and a friend elbowed the fellow in the stomach, cutting the noise off.

Though the words had been whispered, Anatole heard them anyway, and he shied his disfigured head away in shame. Listening carefully, he could hear a hundred people talking at once in the square, all of them plainly, purposefully, ignoring him. Standing alone and isolated in the bustling crowd, the hermit sagged in defeat. Annoying the townspeople lacked the pleasure the original notion had offered, and with a sigh, the disfigured youth sadly turned to leave. This was not a good idea. Why should he act like them? Time to go back to the swamp where he belonged. At least they would never beat him again.

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.

His back against the invisible barrier, Anatole could do naught but watch this final tableau of horror unfold. As if sensing the futility of conflict, three of the townspeople threw away their weapons and ran down the road toward the sea. But the rest bravely raised their swords and axes, preparing for battle.

The reverberations of the hooves grew deafening, and then the horseman and his mount were among them. Swords stabbed, and axes swung, missing, always missing. But the silver sickle rose and fell with inhuman accuracy, and headless bodies toppled over, gushing life fluid and smashing apart the orderly ranks of the mob.

Then the things aft of the pair came out of the fog and into horrifying view. They were heads. Disembodied heads sailing through the air like nimble cannonballs. Hair whipping in the wind, the dead snarled at the living, exposing teeth yellowed with age and cracked to jagged stumps. One even grinned humorlessly as it bit a soldier's arm, exposing bone. Anatole gasped. It was Hans! These horrid things must be the amassed victims of the horseman, now serving as his unholy minions. Dead, they had become mute slaves of their killer.

A standing man sliced the flying head of a woman apart with his sword, and the rest of the aerial servants changed course to converge on him. The snapping and gnashing of the hundreds of teeth almost drowned out his piteous wails of agony.

Wheeling about, the headless horseman galloped inches away from the sweating Anatole, his sickle killing frozen villagers to the left and the right, but not touching the terrified hermit. In the manner of carrion birds, the flock of heads followed their diabolical leader, sailing around Anatole as if he were a rock in a river. And then the freak understood.

He was the bait for the trap! The horseman wanted the whole town out here on the main road during the eclipse, where he could slay them in one great battle. A bloody harvest of lives to feed his lust.

Whips cracked at heads and horse. Swords parried. Crossbows twanged. Axes slashed. The sickle flashed and bodies fell.

Then from the cloying mists a different head appeared out of the darkness, that of a silently laughing woman. Her countenance was fiendish: slanted cat-eyes with square goatlike pupils, no ears, fanged teeth, mottled reptilian skin, and hair a nest of wriggling, hissing snakes that spit in fury at everything!

Moving directly before a stevedore fumbling to reload his crossbow, the eyes of the hideous head glowed greenish, and the man froze abruptly. Anatole could see that his eyes jerked wildly about, and his muscles bunched and writhed beneath his leather apron. Yet he moved not a bit. And the hermit realized it was as if the fellow's very bones had been fused into a single mass. Trapped on his own immobile skeleton, the helpless man could only twitch as the other heads swarmed around him, their broken yellow teeth biting and tearing and ripping him to pieces.

With a high-pitched whinny, the great black stallion once more charged through the pandemonium. The ruby-dripping sickle of the horseman struck like deadly lightning. Arrows flew everywhere, striking nothing. Breath fogged. Torches flared blue. Clothing was ripped. Swords clanged. Screams. Oh, the screams! And the horrible animal growls of the flying heads. It was chaos! Madness!

Crying aloud in shame and fear, Anatole covered both ears and dropped to his knees, trying to blot out the massacre around him.

The slaughter seemed to last forever.

Eventually, Anatole roused from his stupor. Silence. Moving almost against his will, the hermit rose and faced the foggy roadway. It was a charnel house. Bent and broken weapons lay abandoned everywhere. Decapitated bodies were piled atop each other. Only partially obscured by the swirling mists, one stood directly across the roadway from him, supported by the unyielding barrier like some hideous scarecrow. The head was nowhere to be seen. Some of the villagers were torn limb from limb, others split asunder, and each was ravaged by endless bite marks, their tattered clothes in pieces, exposing the chewed flesh underneath. A sob of anguish wracking him, Anatole gulped a breath, and the coppery stench of fresh blood filled his lungs.

Turning to be sick, the freak leaned against the cold barrier still confining him to the death arena. His fault. It was all his fault! The horseman had used him like a worm on a hook, played him like a pawn. . but no, for he was still alive. He had not been sacrificed with the rest. Unharmed and alive! Why? Because he had unwittingly helped the midnight rider? Or perhaps, maybe, even this darklord of the road could feel some small measure of compassion and mercy for one such as he.

Then suddenly Anatole heard galloping iron hooves once more. Turning, he saw the silver blade flash downward. Hot pain took him as the sickle brutally struck, removing his good ear, gashing his normal eye, and slicing his disfigured face to bits.

Reeling from the attack, the youth vaguely saw a shaft of golden sunlight appear, dispelling the graveyard mists. The eclipse was over. Numb from shock, Anatole heard the leviathan horse neigh a taunting laugh and then canter away, taking its silent master back to whatever hell he had come from. Weeping aloud, the freak stood trembling amid the desecration, holding the bleeding ruin of his face in those perfect-perfect hands. He would survive, but made ten times more ugly than before, rendered unfit for even the lonely swamp by this departing 'gift'of his dark benefactor. Anatole would leave this place of death, leave his lonely swamp, find another dwelling somewhere…

But would the horseman follow him, use him to bait another town? Dare he go anywhere to find a home? And suddenly, the broken youth knew the answer to his earlier question. Did hell have compassion and mercy? Oh, yes. Most certainly.

But in its own dark way.