Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1)

by Leonard Wilson

  When her audience waited expectantly for her to elaborate, Keely looked meaningfully into Ulric’s eyes and traced a finger up across her temple, following the red line that had been cut on Ulric’s head by the rock falling out of Clay’s grip and into the pool. Then Keely touched her arm where Ulric’s had just been injured. “Whatever’s lurking down there in these pits, it’s out for blood.”

  Tobias gave an incredulous cough, but before Keely could even thank him with a dark glare, Minda rushed in. “Don’t go there, city boy,” she said with a warning tone that dropped the air temperature several degrees. “You’re the one who came here chasing a witch who was chasing a book most people say doesn’t exist. And even if you weren’t, this is a woman I’ve personally seen march out to face the forces of the Inquisition all alone and armed with nothing but her wits.

  “Plus, you know, cat? With all the weird things I’ve encountered in this forest, I’m a whole lot more willing to believe there’s some monster lurking in mysterious graves than to believe Keely here’s suffering some sort of hysterical delusions.”

  “Sorry,” Tobias said ruefully. “Sorry. You’re right.”

  “Tell me you aren’t going to go back now and try to slay it,” Ulric said dryly.

  “Of course not,” Tobias answered, rolling his eyes. “We’ve got unfinished business. I’m going back to slay it some other time.”

  “Good to know you’ve got priorities,” Ulric said. “Killed a lot of monsters, have you?”

  “Not really, no.” Tobias shrugged. “They’re harder to find than you might think.”

  “How many, exactly?” Elissa asked.

  “Well…none. But all the more reason to start when the chance comes up, right?”

  “Right now I’d settle for knowing who or what filled the bone pits to begin with,” Keely said, uncertain she should encourage Tobias, no matter how much better she’d sleep knowing that whatever was able and willing to lurk in sunken graveyards waiting for blood had had its lurking days put to a permanent end. “I don’t care what these things are, hundreds of people don’t just wander into a hidden cave one at a time and accidentally spill blood into a pool to rouse them.”

  “Well, if the Tuatha using them as simple burial grounds isn’t far-fetched enough for you,” Minda said with a joyless little laugh, “there’s dozens of less-creditable stories to choose from.”

  “Are my ears playing tricks,” a woman’s voice asked a little creakily, “or did someone mention stories?”

  They looked up to find a gray-haired woman in a faded red cloak leaning heavily on a gnarled wooden staff and peering at them through the rain from under her hood.

  “Granny Rowena?!” Minda asked excitedly, hopping to her feet and scurrying the dozen yards down the hill to hug the woman warmly.

  “And what brings my little huntress out here with such a rabble of strangers in tow?” Rowena asked, patting Minda affectionately on the cheek.

  “Something much more sensible than whatever brings you out wandering in the rain,” Minda said, pulling the woman up toward their shelter.

  “You know I never waste time on good sense, dear,” Rowena said. “Good sense is like wasted rabbits. You never know one ‘til it’s bit you on the knee.”

  “Impeccable reasoning as always.” Minda nodded. “Come on and get out of the rain with us.”

  “I’d as soon invite you to my cottage over the hill,” Rowena said. “It’s a good sight warmer and dryer, and close enough for you to wake me with all your shouting and crashing about, despite these old ears.”

  No one argued against the invitation, and grabbing their packs and wet clothes, they scurried on over the hill ahead of their slow-moving host, trying to minimize their time out getting wet again. They soon came to a place where the general tangle of the forest had been replaced with an orchard of stout and strong apple trees that still managed to appear as stunted dwarfs next to the towering old growth that surrounded them.

  Though poorly tended and somewhat overgrown, to the extent that the line between orchard and forest tended to blur, the trees hung thick with lustrous red fruit grown impatient for the harvest.

  An old path, recognizable even if it was neither well-kept nor well-marked, led them through the orchard into a rocky hollow, where a weathered old shack presented itself as the only thing in the area that could pass for a cottage. There they waited on the covered porch as Rowena and her staff patiently made their way through the rain behind.

  “Much as I hate to say, you might want to douse your fire, Granny,” Minda said, observing the smoke rolling out of what was actually a rather splendid chimney for such a house. “The Inquisition’s back, and about in the forest. You know you’re the first sort they like to accuse of witchcraft.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that lot,” Rowena said, though she wrinkled up her nose and actually spit at the mention of the Inquisition before stepping up to open the door and usher them inside. “They’ve been poking about for a week or more, stirring up trouble, but they’ve got other things on their mind than witches for once. The fools are actually here looking for a…book.” At that last, she wrinkled up her nose again, as if she’d just bit into something truly ghastly.

  “All the same,” Ulric said. “It doesn’t pay to take chances.”

  “They should’ve thought of that before they started poking around in the forest,” Rowena said crossly. “If they want to get themselves killed, it’ll not be me standing in their way.” She pulled up a stool by the fire and eased down onto it carefully. “Spread your things out to dry, and I’ll tell you a story. I do believe I overheard someone asking about the bone pits?”

  “Yes,” Keely said. “I believe you did.”

  “There were bone pits in these woods long before there were Haywoods,” the old woman began, wanting for no further prompting. “When old Marcus Augustus first marched his armies this way to do battle with the Tuatha, there were bone pits. And when the Tuatha first came to these lands, there…was one little pit, sitting alone in a dark corner of the forest, filled as much with animal bones as the bones of human folk.” She paused a storyteller’s pause, allowing her words a moment to work on the imaginations of her audience before she took a deep breath and went on.

  “Once upon a time, at the edge of this very forest—though its edge has moved a great deal since then—a little girl lived with her mother and her sisters. Don’t ask about their fathers, for indeed each girl came of a different father, each man of whom was a right nasty little git, and no one gave fathers much thought in those days in any event. The mother raised her daughters on her own, and glad they all were for it.

  “The family was well-loved indeed, for they were all charming and pretty to a fault—and were hardly ever cross with anyone who didn’t vex them—but not one of them was more loved or more beautiful than the little girl herself.

  “The little girl had a favorite sister who was her best friend in the whole world. While their older siblings would venture out into the wider world and seek what trouble they could find there, the two sisters would retreat together into the shadows of the forest to play and explore and just generally be adorable. Many a secret and many an adventure they shared there, and it was during one of these adventures that her sister came by a fine, crimson cloak so brilliant that it glowed like fire. The sister wore it everywhere, and came to be known for it far and wide, which is why everyone called her…”

  “Scarlet?” Elissa ventured.

  “…Ruby,” Rowena finished, giving Elissa a dark look. “I’m sorry. Did you want to tell the story?”

  “No,” Elissa said hastily. “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, in those days, no one had even heard of the upstart goddess, and the most-feared spirit for leagues around was Cu Carraig, who haunted the spire of the Wolf’s Tooth. Cu Carraig would hoard precious stones like a dragon, and he would demand regular tribute of them and of other things from all the folk and all the lesser spirits who lived in the shado
w of the forest.

  “A cruel and petty lord, Cu Carraig was as despised as the girl and her family were loved, and one day it happened that he set his sights on acquiring the fairest gem of all—little Ruby—to add to his hoard. And the next time they were playing hide-and-seek in the forest, the little girl discovered her sister’s hiding place to be right out in a clearing by a lovely, still pool, frozen into a statue of pure, red crystal. She also found Cu Carraig, who had worked this evil magic, still standing there as a towering mastiff, fifteen feet at the shoulder and made out of rock.

  “When she discovered what had befallen her sister, the little girl fell down weeping. She begged and pleaded with Cu Carraig to restore her sister and set her free, but the wicked spirit would have none of that, until at last she offered to trade him any treasure he wanted if she would only return Ruby.

  “’Any treasure I want?’ rumbled the hound. ‘Fine. Go off and fetch me the best treasure you can find before the sun sets. If you’re not back here by then, I shall take your sister back to my rock. But if you bring a treasure that I like well enough, I will trade you for her.’

  “The little girl ran off, desperately searching for anything that Cu Carraig might value even more than her sister. In her adventures in the forest, she had come across many forgotten treasures, and she raided them all until she had a sack so full of actual rubies that she could barely lift it, and she had to drag it all the way through the forest back to the clearing. She barely made it before sunset, but make it she did, and she dropped the great sack at the feet of the hound, and she said, ‘There, Cu Carraig. That is what I shall trade you for my sister.’

  “Cu Carraig nosed into the sack, opening it, and the rubies spilled out, gleaming all the more red for the light of the setting sun. Clearly, the covetous spirit liked what he saw, but glancing back at his prize, he shook his head and growled, ‘No’. So saying, he grabbed up the sack in his teeth and callously tossed it into the pond, which was dreadfully deep, and the sack full of precious treasure sank quickly out of sight.

  “’I have so many cold stones already. I want a pretty, warm stone to keep me company. Bring me something warm and red and precious, and I will still consider a trade. You may have until the sunrise.’

  “So the poor, desperate little girl set out at once, cold and hungry and alone, into the dark forest. Had she not known the forest as well as she knew her own dear sister, she could never have gotten far. But she did know it, and she knew all the things that lived there, and so she arrived back by morning.

  “’Here is what I will trade you,’ the little girl stammered, blinking the tears out of her eyes. She held out in her hands the most adorable little rabbit you have ever seen, and it was as red as red could be, because its mother had been a rainbow. The little girl’s hand trembled as she held forth the little rabbit, because it was one of her dearest playmates in the forest, and she felt treacherous indeed for even offering it up. But she had to have her sister back. She simply had to.

  “The rabbit hopped out of the little girl’s hand, but that was all the courage it could muster, and it stared upward, frozen in terror as the great hound leaned down to carefully sniff at it. At last Cu Carraig cocked his head and sat back on his haunches. Then he brought one great stone foot down on top of the rabbit, turning it in an instant into a bloody mess of fur and bone.

  “’No,’ Cu Carraig growled, sweeping what remained of the rabbit away and into the pool. ‘How could such a little thing ever keep me company? Bring me a fair trade, or there will be no trade at all.

  “’I shall give you one last chance,’ Cu Carraig growled. ‘Bring me a fair trade. Bring it to me by sundown. And do not get it into your head that some other little girl can take her place, because she would be worth two or three at least. Bring me a real treasure!” And with that Cu Carraig chased the little girl away back into the forest with much growling and impatient snapping. She fled in despair, weeping uncontrollably until not a tear remained inside her to let out. She knew she would have only one more chance, and she hadn’t a clue where to begin. She also felt a wretched monster for what had happened to the little rabbit, though what she most regretted was that it had accomplished nothing. Though it hurt to think, she knew she would have done it again if only it would save her sister.

  “Something broke in the little girl that morning. Her fragile little heart cracked into a thousand pieces. What she replaced it with, I can’t say, but it was something made of sterner stuff. For when at last she returned to the pool, with the sun sinking low over the forest, she came leading a troop of little girls from the nearest village, all trailing along behind her in a chain with blindfolds on, for they thought they were playing a game.

  “’You said she was worth two or three,’ the little girl announced. ‘Here are nearly a dozen. Now give me back my sister!’

  “At this the girls all tore off their blindfolds, and looking upon the terrible countenance of Cu Carraig, they all fell to screaming and to running in terror. But with a growl from the great hound, rocks burst up from out of the forest floor, walling the girls in so that their only way to go was toward Cu Carraig himself. Rather than dare that, they cowered back against the wall in fear.

  “’Well, this certainly is a lovely treasure,’ Cu Carraig chuckled with satisfaction. ‘Quite lovely, and indeed large enough to keep me company. Nevertheless, I shall not trade you for them, for they’re clearly not yours to give. In fact, they’d be long gone already—and you with no means to hinder them—had I not trapped them myself. And as I trapped them myself, the entire claim on these girls is mine. You’ve nothing with which to trade.’

  “’Cheat!’ the little girl cried. ‘I could so have stopped them!’

  “The hound snorted in derision, then rumbled, ‘I think not. And I should choose my words carefully were I you.’

  “’I could too have stopped them,’ the girl howled. ‘You never gave me a chance, and that’s cheating!’

  “Cu Carraig narrowed his eyes at the little girl, a deep rumble like rocks grinding together rolling out of his throat. ‘Then prove it,’ he growled, ‘right now. Or I’ll break your body and cast it into the depths.’

  “The little girl had truly spoken in desperation and anger, without thinking, and truly had no plan in mind to prove her point. Suddenly more desperate still, she cast wildly around her for any inspiration. ’You think you’re the only one who can play tricks with rocks?!’ she cried at last and bent down to heft a rock from the edge of the pool that was nearly the size of her own head. It weighed even more than she’d expected, but with both hands and bent knees, she managed the trick.

  “For his part, Cu Carraig only snorted again, and rumbled, ‘And what will you do with that?’

  “The little girl just turned her back and walked away to the wall where the other girls cowered, then with all her strength she heaved the rock over her head and up onto a small ledge. Then she scrambled up after it, and again she heaved the rock up, ‘til she’d climbed up high enough to turn and look Cu Carraig in the eye.

  “’I’m waiting,’ Cu Carraig said impatiently.

  “Without saying a word, the little girl gave the hound a curt nod. She closed her eyes and she drew in a deep breath. Then she gave her great rock a shove. For a moment, it seemed to hang in the air. Then the pull of the world caught it, and it fell straight down upon the head of one of the cowering girls. For one endless moment, the screaming suddenly stopped, and the entire clearing went dead silent. ‘There,’ the little girl said coldly, without a glance down at what she’d wrought. ‘She’s not going anywhere now, is she?’

  “’Nor is she anyone’s treasure,’ Cu Carraig growled, and—with his patience quite exhausted—he launched himself at the little girl with a snarl. Now it was the little girl’s turn to scream. If she’d also been one to cower, that would have been the end of her, but instead she dove from the wall and narrowly escaped being crushed. The wall itself did not fare so well, and shards of rock
shattered in every direction. One of them collided with the little girl, who had aimed to land on the grass and flee for her life, and it carried her straight out over the deep pool instead. Down she plunged and down she sank, down, down, down under the weight of the stone, and she too stunned to even wriggle out from under it.

  “Down in the dark, even with her final breath fading, the little girl found the she was not alone, for there waited the little rabbit she had sacrificed to Cu Carraig. Now a luminous spirit swirling through the water, it would not speak to her, but only glared at her accusingly. The rubies she’d offered the hound waited there, too, glowing a dull, blood red as they floated lazily about her. The further she sank, the more of dead rose to join her. Fellow victims of Cu Carraig whose remains he’d been consigning to the pool for years, they’d felt nothing of the little girl’s treachery, and they watched over her in her final moments, welcoming her into their sunken realm. And the little girl spat in their faces.

  “’Is it me you want,’ she screamed in her head, her blood burning with hate, ‘or is it Cu Carraig?!’

  “Cu Carraig had turned one of the girls into a statue of emerald by the time the waters of the pool began to boil unnoticed. He’d turned another girl into a statue of sapphire before a small, muddy hand broke the surface of the pool, and the little girl clawed her way up onto the grass, clutching a single mud-caked skull to her breast. For her bedraggled state, you might have thought her already dead were she not gasping so loudly for breath, yet even that did not catch the hound’s notice beneath the screaming of all the other girls.

  “Finally, the little girl found her voice, and she yelled out at the top of it, challenging Cu Carraig. ‘Cheat!’ she repeated, holding aloft the skull. ‘Thief! Give me back my sister!’

  “Cu Carraig turned, mightily surprised to see the little girl, but only annoyed by her shouting. ‘Forget her,’ he told the little girl. ‘You have no sister.’

  “Then you have no life,” she hissed. And with that the eyes of the skull glowed red, and the entire pool lurched out of its pit and rose up in a great black mass of mud and bones and tortured souls. It engulfed Cu Carraig and dragged him howling back into the depths with it, never to be seen again. But if you stand beside the right pool deep in the heart of the forest and you listen carefully, you can still hear his tortured howls to this day.