The Fickle Winds of Autumn
12. Witches Attack

Kira peered up again at the shifting silhouettes in the sky. As they drew closer, her startled eyes saw the terrifying truth of the surging living contours of a group of female forms who drifted effortlessly across the night sky.

Her heart raced with a cold panic. She glanced around, but everyone near her was still deep in the hypnotic resonance of the chant, oblivious to the menacing danger overhead.

The perimeter of the lay congregation crumbled and scattered from the warmth of the outlying braziers; the uproar of their shrieks pierced through the swell of the ceremonial harmonies; the screams of the women and bewildered sobs of the children, the shouting terror of the men, crashed against the rhythms of the spell as they dashed toward the Harmonist at the centre of the circle.

The sacred drums clanged and splintered horribly out of time and pattern, then floundered to a halt; a lingering discordant howl squealed out from the devotional horns, as the musicians were swept up and fled with the rest of the tumultuous crowd, sprinting for the hope of salvation beneath the glowing column of the Great Spell.

“They’re here! Save us!”

“Run!”

“Surrounder protect us!”

The shrill and desperate pleas for help tore into the troubled evening sky.

Kira’s mind flooded with an icy horror. She looked back at the Great Harmonist and the others around him, who all persisted with the Great Chant, oblivious to this disturbance, transfixed in another world, so deep was their focus, so completely immersed in the rich cadences of their sacred ritual.

Perhaps the Harmonist could still save them?

If the priests could just complete the chant; if the magikants could continue to weave their threads of the spell; surely they could still defeat the witches and banish them forever?

Her hair was suddenly ruffled by the tug of a chilling blast of damp air, and several dark shadows swooped down alarmingly low past her head.

She ducked instinctively, her thoughts and hopes disrupted by this unwelcome disturbance.

Close by, one of the magikants keeled over and dissolved to the ground, leaving only a horrified pile of smouldering ashes.

Several others swiftly shared his terrible fate, each still so absorbed in the Great Chant that they were lost without even a cry of surprise or pain.

But the Harmonist, at the very centre of the Grove, continued with the fervour of his chantings, his robes now incandescent with a glowing magikal pulse which illuminated the wide circle of the mossy plateau and the dome of sky above it.

The throbbing ribbons of radiant thought, which fed the fabric of his great tapestry, stuttered and dwindled and diminished. The great central column of blue energy began to narrow and falter; the Great Spell was failing and Kira could see that soon all would be lost.

She barely remembered to breathe; her heart thumped deep within her distressed body; her spine twitched with anxiety.

They were all in terrible danger. She must alert her classmates and get them away from this nightmare scene before it was too late.

Close by, Hettie sang out her harmony. She was the best student and the cleverest novicellae - surely she would know what to do and how to save them?

Kira grabbed at Hettie’s sleeve and shook it frantically, shouting hard in her ear, desperate to rouse her from the depths of her concentration, no longer concerned about the wrath of the nuns, or the beauty of the chant, or the vital importance of the ceremony.

Several more dark shadows swooped over her head and clustered above the Harmonist at the shimmering centre of the Grove. He began to falter and shake, straining to support the huge weight of his spell without the help and concentration of the others, as the numbers of magikants around him rapidly declined.

Helpless, open-mouthed, Kira stared on - willing him to be strong, desperate for him to save them all.

For a fleeting moment, he seemed to respond to her silent plea and struggled valiantly; his arms trembled with exertion as the sweat formed and glistened across his furrowed brow. He resisted the overwhelming gravity of the column of energy, but several more dark silhouettes gathered around him, and several more magikants fell, their blue luminescence extinguished forever.

The iridescent ribbons of thought and power snapped and dissolved.

The Harmonist’s legs shuddered and buckled below him; he cried out in exasperated exhaustion, unable to bear the oppressive burden of the spell any longer. The radiant column shifted and flickered; the Harmonist staggered and stumbled and fell, crushed beneath the weight of his own shock; his eyes startled into bewilderment that such a tragedy could possibly befall him and the majesty of the Church, as he crumpled into the ground leaving nothing behind but the magnificent aura of his robes.

The Grove immediately plunged into the shocking darkness of night; only the scattered embers of the braziers burned orange around the perimeter, while the sickening cinders of the priests and magikants still smoked in dotted piles across its mossy plain.

Even the glorious sweep of the moonlight and the faint mystery of the helpless stars could not penetrate the tragic inky gloom, or the anxious drifts of silent breathing fog which threatened to entomb the wide plateau.

A horrified despairing wail rang out from all directions as the shocking scale of the unfolding disaster gripped the terror-stricken congregation with the sudden extinction of this glowing symbol of hope and protection.

Kira’s knowing eyes revealed the depth of the hideous danger they now faced as the witches turned their remorseless attention to the crowds of ordinary Believers. Unable to summon the magik or defend themselves, they fell and withered; completely and awfully, helpless victims.

A frenzied hysteria swept through the mob; they stampeded and screamed in calamitous directions; priests and nuns and Believers, all scrambled in a jostling, crushing panic; a thronging herd of human terror, all desperate and frantic to save their own lives.

The stunned alarm of her frightened adrenaline forced Kira on. She shook Hettie hard by the shoulders with as much force as she could muster.

Hettie’s eyes fluttered open.

“Quick Hettie! The spell has failed! We’re being attacked by witches! You’ve got to help me! We’ve got to save the others! Help quickly!”

Hettie blinked back, roused from her distant meditation. She stared at Kira and then at the dire howling carnage that was unfolding all around them.

Her features glazed over in a cold horror and dissolved into an awed stupor.

“No!” she shouted: “There’s no time! Let me go! We’ve got to run! It’s too late for that! Save yourself! Run!”

A nauseous dread gripped Kira’s stomach as Hettie shook free of her rough grip and ran.

“No! We’ve got to save the others! Help me! Please!” Kira screamed after her.

But the reckless stampede of the panic-stricken crowd swallowed Hettie up, and she disappeared from view.

Kira’s best chance of help had deserted her. She knew she must fight through her gnawing swell of despair and self-doubt.

She dashed to her other classmates, still lost in the glory of their deep chant. Out in the centre of the Grove, they were certain to be an easy target for the witches.

She shouted at them to run, desperate to wake them from their absorbed concentration, but struggled to make her voice heard over the terrified din of the crowd.

In the midnight dark, several panicking, screaming bodies collided and thudded into her. She reached to grab Meg by the shoulders, but an almighty thump from behind sent her sprawling to the mossy ground.

Her winded ribs cried out in tender pain.

She tried to get up but was knocked and trampled in the calamitous hysteria of the crowd.

She fought her way to her feet, but the crushing swell of the distraught herd had barged her away from her fellow novicellae.

A dazzling swarm of screams and shouts engulfed her; a confused murmuration of bodies, dashing in a bewildering assortment of directions hemmed her in, buffeting and disorientating her, until she was hopelessly separated from her classmates, trapped and lost in the frantic tangle of horrified strangers; the crushing jumble of priests and nuns and onlookers and Believers.

For a second, her terrified mind froze in blind panic; all rational thoughts surrendered in the blizzard of human turmoil and despair which engulfed her, but her keen eyes scanned the dim midnight Grove, desperate for any possible means of escape.

Caught out and exposed in the flat open plateau, she was without any hope of shelter or protection.

The path back to the carriages was cut off by a crush of terrified people, and high across the skyline, the witches also seemed at their thickest in that direction.

Her only chance was to reach the cover of the forest which surrounded the Grove - at least there the trees might offer her a canopy of protection and some meagre hope of safety.

She dashed towards the nearest tree-line, crashing a pathway through the tumultuous chaos of the situation; through the raucous hysteria of the crowd; battered and jolted; knocked to the ground by several thudding impacts; but she did not - she dared not - lose sight of her goal; her one hope of sanctuary - the dark canopy of the forest.

She ran, hard and as fast as she could; the pounding of her heart drowned out the despairing screams which ripped through the darkness all around her; hardly daring to look left or right at those unfortunates who perished across her pathway; the charged rancid air choked her nostrils with the smoking stench of their dying miasma.

She battled against the soft boggy ground; the thick luxurious carpet of moss, which had seemed so dazzling and perfect, was now a spongy and cloying snare, clinging to her feet in a grasping web of velvet tendrils; denying her a passageway to safety; intent on preventing her escape.

But her scrambled brain barely had time to register any sensation as she fled; swept along by the forceful tide of her urgent adrenaline; knowing only the all-consuming lonely terror of her own survival.

Relentlessly, she fought on against the dizzying undercurrent of the crowd and the tiring ground, and wrestled against her own ungovernable panic.

The sanctuary of the trees was close, their sombre structures brooded up darkly just a short way in front of her.

Surely she would make it to the forest?

Surely she would be safe there?

Surely she would escape this terrible scene of carnage and live?

She dug her feet down into the absorbent ground and sprinted for the hope of shelter and for her very life.

A portly priest, his robes torn in a panic of disarray, loomed up before her, his eyes bulging with breathless disbelief as he careered across her pathway, her exit, her one hope of survival, and grabbed her roughly by the arm.

“This way!” he yelled, as he yanked her back in the direction she had just ran.

Kira opened her mouth to shout back at him, desperate for him to let her go; she jerked and shrugged her arm in an attempt to free it from his frenzied grasp.

But before she could speak, she was pummelled by a punishing violence of force, which crushed the breath out of her shocked lungs as it hurled her limp body into the air and flung her clear of the manic churchman.

For a few blurred, scrambled moments, she was aware of a fierce high pitched ringing which gripped her tightly behind her eyes and threatened to drown out the painful echo of the screams and shouts which rang out all around her and through her agitated mind.

The sour, metallic taste of her own conciousness darkened the back of her mouth; then all went black, and she was aware of no more.