"This is the tale of Merlin." A female voice narrated as the shadows of the trees lengthened against the backdrop. "Or one of the Merlin's, for the master of magic was often more than one person." As the words echoed the shadow of a short man wearing ragged clothing, more befitting a woodsman than a wizard, and clutching a wood splitting axe emerged from the forest.
"This Merlin was a prophet and a warrior of the hills, brought down to the plains to fight for a Welsh king against the legions gathered under the eagle of Rome." The trees suddenly melted but Merlin remained fighting back to back with a nobleman against Roman legionaries. Eventually the king fell and only Merlin remained but the legionaries didn't advance on him, instead they fled as Merlin's form twisted becoming larger and stronger. "The madness of battle consumed Merlin and he slew all, friend and foe, until he was calm and alone in a field of corpses. Madness threatening to reclaim him, Merlin ran into the forest and lost his humanity, becoming savage, becoming a Wood Wose, a spirit of the trees."
"This is also the story of Mungo, a young Scottish priest destined for great things. He was a wanderer and had trespassed into the woods of the woses armed with nothing more than a walking stick and the clothes on his back." Peering out a gap in the trees the shadow figure of Merlin aspys Mungo walking down a forest path, begore emerging screaming in anger and easily dwarfing the priest.
While afraid of what Merlin had become, Mungo held his nerve and realised the magnificent power Merlin held, even as degraded as he was. He asked the wild man "What would you have of me today?"
Recoiling slightly the figure of Merlin grunted "Soon to be sainted Mungo, I ask only for the release of death. For many a century I have seen this coming, it will be your stave that kills me thrice." Mungo looked at his walking stick before looking at Merlin and felt shame of the act he was going to perform. Handing the stick to Merlin he watched as the shadows became light, the stick split into three, before being handed back to him. By the time he looked up, Merlin was gone.
So, Mungo continued his journey reaching a hamlet in the hills. As he arrived a shepherd was struggling to drive a post for stock fencing into the ground, so Mungo gave the herder the head of his staff to use as a club to get the job done. Heading down to the river inn, Mungo have the length of his staff to a carpenter to fix a step that was cracked and dangerous. On reaching the Tweed with a mere stake remaining of his walking stick, Mungo tossed it into the water, drunk and then retired.
It was then that Merlin came calling, snatching a lamb from the pen but alerting the shepherd who set upon the Wood Wose with the club he'd been given. Fearful and wounded, Merlin ran towards the Tweed but was unfamiliar with the repaired stair and tripped sending him falling into the river. Fighting the current he tripped again, the discarded stake stabbing through his heart, his body dead and his spirit contained within...
There was a sudden ringing sound and the shadowy imagery exploded outwards engulfing the room in darkness.
"This Merlin was a prophet and a warrior of the hills, brought down to the plains to fight for a Welsh king against the legions gathered under the eagle of Rome." The trees suddenly melted but Merlin remained fighting back to back with a nobleman against Roman legionaries. Eventually the king fell and only Merlin remained but the legionaries didn't advance on him, instead they fled as Merlin's form twisted becoming larger and stronger. "The madness of battle consumed Merlin and he slew all, friend and foe, until he was calm and alone in a field of corpses. Madness threatening to reclaim him, Merlin ran into the forest and lost his humanity, becoming savage, becoming a Wood Wose, a spirit of the trees."
"This is also the story of Mungo, a young Scottish priest destined for great things. He was a wanderer and had trespassed into the woods of the woses armed with nothing more than a walking stick and the clothes on his back." Peering out a gap in the trees the shadow figure of Merlin aspys Mungo walking down a forest path, begore emerging screaming in anger and easily dwarfing the priest.
While afraid of what Merlin had become, Mungo held his nerve and realised the magnificent power Merlin held, even as degraded as he was. He asked the wild man "What would you have of me today?"
Recoiling slightly the figure of Merlin grunted "Soon to be sainted Mungo, I ask only for the release of death. For many a century I have seen this coming, it will be your stave that kills me thrice." Mungo looked at his walking stick before looking at Merlin and felt shame of the act he was going to perform. Handing the stick to Merlin he watched as the shadows became light, the stick split into three, before being handed back to him. By the time he looked up, Merlin was gone.
So, Mungo continued his journey reaching a hamlet in the hills. As he arrived a shepherd was struggling to drive a post for stock fencing into the ground, so Mungo gave the herder the head of his staff to use as a club to get the job done. Heading down to the river inn, Mungo have the length of his staff to a carpenter to fix a step that was cracked and dangerous. On reaching the Tweed with a mere stake remaining of his walking stick, Mungo tossed it into the water, drunk and then retired.
It was then that Merlin came calling, snatching a lamb from the pen but alerting the shepherd who set upon the Wood Wose with the club he'd been given. Fearful and wounded, Merlin ran towards the Tweed but was unfamiliar with the repaired stair and tripped sending him falling into the river. Fighting the current he tripped again, the discarded stake stabbing through his heart, his body dead and his spirit contained within...
There was a sudden ringing sound and the shadowy imagery exploded outwards engulfing the room in darkness.
Issue #5
(October 2018) Written by John Cheese Featuring: The Enforcer
Zombie Master
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THE PHANTOM HOUND - PART TWO"Not that seeing that wasn't entertaining." Mike stated as the shadows slipped back to their normal locations, revealing him and Sarah sitting in a coffee shop, two cold cups of coffee and a crossword book sitting on the table between them. "But why did you do that?"
"You asked what skills I have, I told you about my researching abilities and that I knew story telling magic, which you asked to see. Hence the story about the death of Merlin." Sarah answered somewhat bitterly as she took a sip from her coffee and just about swallowed it. "Honestly it's not difficult magic, all you need to do is carve a sacred sign into something and let the narrative flow." "Simple magic is often the most powerful." Mike told her as he removed a sheet of paper from one of the pages of the book. "I took the words from the crossword and wrote them here, none of them are powerful on there own, but together they make up a spell." He announced as he handed Sarah the paper. "It's a metamorphosis incantation to Hecate, using her power to fuel the mystical transformation into a black dog." Sarah whispered as a waitress carrying two replacement cups of coffee arrived and placed them on the table. Waiting for her to leave, Sarah opened the book and looked at the black and white squares. "I reckon that a closer look at the symbol on the pavement and on the page will reveal a connection to Hecate." "What about the other magical name, the Wild Hunt is referenced as well." Mike stated as he took a sip from the new cup of coffee. "I think the Wild Hunt was disbanded in the mid-20th century." Sarah stated as she ran her hands over the pages. "Senor Magico has a biography of Falstaff, a fool who rode with the hunt, not to mention a book of sigils to compare the images with." "Plus, your iPod, you left it in my car after dealing with Hyrm and Paul." Mike told her as Sarah suddenly reached for her pockets in desperation before breathing a deep sigh of relief. "Then I guess that's the next stop on our list." Sarah answered as she took a sip from her new cup of coffee. Senor Magico had somewhat reluctantly closed his store fifteen minutes early after Sarah had convinced him to let them research the Wild Hunt on his premises. As Mike wrapped strands of Traveller's Joy round the arm guard of a gauntlet with attached bayonet and pair of single shot pistols, he noticed that Sarah seemed to be in her element, flicking through books and scribbling words and symbols down. "This is most troublesome indeed." Senor Magico stated as he finished rolling a stamp doused in holy water over the pages of the crossword book. "You said you saw at least eight more copies on the newsstand in addition to this one." "Yes." Mike replied as he held the time-lapse camera over the book, the lens flicking as the hidden seal appeared before returning to its invisible state. "Looks like we've got an image." "That is good, something you must be unaccustomed to hearing." Senor Magico sighed as he looked Mike up and down. "The partnership you've struck up with Sarah worries me." "I'm training her, nothing else." Mike replied as he removed the SD card from his camera and slotted it into a beaten-up old Toshiba laptop. "For what, surely not to be the New Enforcer?" Senor Magico asked as he closed the book. "You know that she is no Enforcer, that she is not meant to kill." "If I train her to kill what business is it to you?" Mike asked back as the photos appeared on the now forgotten laptop. "My uncle started my training when I was eight, by eleven I had slain things most men couldn't!" "You are not your uncle, and Sarah is not you." Senor Magico replied un-phased by Mike's sudden spurt of anger. "I mean both as a compliment, I met Charles Delanzy only once but I knew he was a man beyond saving. You are different, you are not yet consumed by darkness." "You knew him? Then you know that is how things must be!" Mike snapped, before sighing, " I don't want that to be my legacy but I have no choice." He added as Sarah covertly took the laptop off the counter, a sad sympathetic look on her face. "You have, a teacher is only successful if he learns. Sarah is no stranger to hardship, in many ways she is an equal to you in suffering. While your suffering made you hard, hers made her kind. Let her teach you as much as you teach her." Senor Magico stated as he fished out Sarah's iPod from under the desk as well as a soapstone carving of a two headed figure, one wearing the mask of the Enforcer, the other feminine. "Your uncle left this with me on his one visit, told me to store it for him until you came across my door." "I thought Scourge had taken this, well him or some dirty fingered cop." Mike gasped as he held the carving. "He never said where he brought it, only that it was during his time in Korea." "He told me more, but gave instruction on when to tell you." He added as Sarah slammed a heavy hook from the other end of the store. "Hey the Journal of Falstaff the Fool is old and fragile, be careful with it!" Magico yelled as Sarah gestured for Mike to join her. "Thank you." Mike whispered as he joined Sarah, a notebook sitting on her lap with a number of Pictish symbols and old English letters scrolled round a pictogram of a stag skull. "What do we know?" "It's the Wild Hunt's mark, the stag is the totem beast of Hern the Hunter, the former leader of the hunt." Sarah stated as she flicked the journal over to show a similar symbol engraved into the tanned deer leather bindings. "There is a problem, Hern was a monster hunter, and while black dogs were part of the hunt he led, they were spirits of noble hunting hounds not transformed people." "I know a little about Hern, how he helped the Allies push through Normandy to the Rhine, even took part in the last superhuman conflict of the war on the steps of the Reichstag." Mike answered as he looked at the skull. "Didn't he seek permission from Queen Elizabeth the Second and the Archbishop of Canterbury to disband the hunt in the 1950s?" "That's what Falstaff records in his journal. Hern retired to his lodge and his wife, the loving pair reunited transformed into deer and leapt into the cosmos never to be seen again." Sarah sighed as she stroked the book. "I think it's romantic." "Aye it is, but it doesn't tell us who's started the hunt up again." Mike told her as he looked out the window at the fog rolling in. "We could check out the paper mill the books were produced in, there may be clues there." Sarah suggested as four dark figures moved in the mist, encircling the Toyota Hilux parked on the road. "Sarah." Mike whispered as one of the figures stopped at the door, staring in through the glass with red eyes. "I mean the sigil must have been printed in there, it would be the only way to be sure." Sarah continued as Mark and Senor Magico watched on in horror as cold fog rolled under the door, the figure compressing itself into a beastly shadow and sliding under the door. "Sarah!" Mike yelled as he flipped the bayonet of his gauntlet open. "What?" Sarah hissed as she turned to see the shadow reforming into a massive black dog. "Oh sh..." Her cursing was cut short as the beast let out a howl that shook the store. Springing into action Mike lunged forward, stabbing the blade into the black dog, its spirit flesh erupting into smoke as its skin came into contact with the Traveller's Joy wrapped round the gauntlet. "Go!" Senor Magico yelled as Sarah got up from the table just as the glass of the shop front fogged up and a second black dog leapt in. Grabbing the chair Sarah threw it at the beast, the piece of furniture phasing through the phantom hound as it charged her. Refusing to scream Sarah grabbed a dip pot of holy water and threw it in her assailant’s face, the beast recoiling as the blessed liquid melted its shadow skin like acid. "How do we kill these things?" Sarah screamed as Mike unholstered a pistol from under his arm and threw it to her. "They are spirits so you can't!" Mike called as the black dog he'd been facing reformed this time slipping to the side as its human prey lashed out. "You find the alpha and banish that, the pack disappears. If we can get out the store and away from the junction then they can't appear!" He added as Sarah fired a wild shot into the book shelf next to the hound advancing on her, its face still steaming. "Let me help with that!" Senor Magico stated as he brought a yellow page onto the counter and began chanting in Basque, his finger on one particular entry. Suddenly the room went black and the floor felt like it had done a loop de loop before normal viability returned. "The store moved!" Sarah gasped as Mike looked out the window and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that his pick-up truck had been included in the translocation spell. "You said something about the paper mill." Mike stated as he cautiously opened the door, looking up and down the street at the banks of fog sitting on the intersections up and down the street. Propping open the boot of the Hilux, he removed a gnarled old staff and handed it to Sarah when she joined him. "It's made from the wood of a Wayfarer's Tree, like Traveller's Joy it can temporarily hold back a black dog. "They make up two of the three parts of the wandering ward that can banish roadside spirits, including black dogs, along with the seeds of a field maple." The Toyota scythed through the mist across the junction northwards toward the old mill. Looking back over shoulders Sarah saw the black dogs charge after them, their bodies disappearing as they left the crossroads, only re-emerging as they ran through a light pool on the asphalt or the beams of an oncoming car. "We need to go faster Mike." Sarah stated as she held onto the staff. Nodding Mike gunned the engine beating the red light at the intersection but not their pursuers as the phantom hounds drew level with the truck as it crossed the junction before disappearing again. "How many are on our tail?" Mike asked as he caught sight of a dull white glow hanging back in the fog. "Five maybe six." Sarah replied as Mike turned left at a fork to avoid an oncoming bus, its sides advertising the upcoming Van Vile exhibition. The majority of the black dogs ran straight through the bus, but two lunged at the Toyota, one leaping onto the truck's flatbed and the other phasing through the passenger window. "Get out!" Sarah snapped as she struck the hound with her staff, the creature dissipating into smoke. Lunging from behind the second dog attacked, only to vanish as the truck left the junction. "Okay so what's going on there?" Sarah asked as Mike headed for an underpass, thick fog already swirling up from the ground, the low loping shapes of the waiting black dogs already there. "Black dogs can only exist in 'tween places' such as crossroads, shadows and doorways." Mike explained as the Toyota slammed into the waiting hounds, clawed paws and snapping jaws phasing through the windscreen and front console. "What about mirrors?'" Sarah asked as she fended the dogs off as the Toyota cleared the underpass and headed towards the derelict paper mill listed as the crossword books point of origin. "Shit!" Mike swore as a snapping jaw emerged from the rear-view mirror and clamped round his arm, piercing the metal gauntlet and ripping into his flesh. Sarah acted swiftly, but not swiftly enough as the Toyota skidded to a stop its back drivers tyre shredded by the maneuverer. "Looks like it's a sprint to the finish." Mike groaned as he looked at his ripped open arm. "Only place they can ambush us is the gate, right?" Sarah asked as the pair of them left the car and headed for the curiously mist free entrance. Mike was going to respond when the sound of hooves on asphalt rang out behind them. Trotting out the underpass was a black horse, it's eyes and mane aflame. Its rider wore bone white armour, his face covered with a mask that gave no indication of what the features behind the plate looked like. "Run!" Mike yelled as the figure lowered his lance tipped with glowing white flame, ready to charge. The huntsman cackled as its black dogs crowded round it, ready to flush their prey back to their master. "Is he still behind us!" Sarah asked as mist burst out of the paper mill's grounds. "No." Mike replied as he flicked the bayonet of his damaged gauntlet open and took two shots into the fog. "He's here!" He hissed as the Huntsman rode out the fog before dismounting. "My master, He Who Wanders, will not brook any interference from your investigation." The Huntsman stated in an eerie almost echoing voice, as if the speaker was far away. "You have two options, join the hunt or perish." "I prefer option three, the one where you and your animals go back to the lodge never to bother Earth again." Mike replied as he lunged forward with his bayonet, only for his foe to rip the gauntlet off and throw it to the floor. "Then perish you shall." The Huntsman stated as he unsheathed his sword and slashed it towards Mike's already bleeding arm. The blade struck wood rather than flesh as Sarah blocked the blow with her staff. "You have to go through me first!" Sarah hissed. Barely responding, the huntsman brought the sword down again, magics empowering the blow and cutting the stave in two, before backhanding Sarah to the floor, a massive cut across her cheek and a bloody nose the reward for her valiant efforts. "Rip her to shreds." The Huntsman ordered as the black dogs appeared, circling round Sarah. "Sarah no!" Mike yelled as he ran towards his partner, only for a wall of blackthorn briars, at least nine-foot-tall rose up to block his escape. "You go nowhere knave; the reborn Wild Hunt will have their first trophies this night." The Huntsman stated as Mike turned to face him, fists balled. "And they will be the heads of the Nero and Hannigan." |