Legend of Danu Forest

 

 

 

Nightfall brought with it a chill that penetrated Bronwyn’s woolen shift. Clouds blotted out the stars, sending the pale rays of the moon reaching from between them in a piercing silvery glow. Her eyes lifted, the light blue of them washing to a pale grey as she stared up at the foreboding clouds, shivering at their promise of rain as she continued on her way toward the forest just outside her village.

                He mother’s destressed wails were what sent her out to discover her brother’s whereabouts. Deorsa was never gone more than a fortnight and the warriors he rode with had already returned home, spooked but in one piece, muttering about Gwyn ap Nudd and his Wild Hunt. The thought of the Wild Hunt struck fear in her heart, yet it wasn’t enough to stop her from seeking out the meadow the men claimed Deorsa stumbled into during an ambush. She wouldn’t be a coward and leave her brother to suffer at the hand of the Tylwyth Teg.

                The Fair Folk were only called such by her people for fear they would exact revenge for anything less flattering.

                The trees towering over her blacked out the moon, leaving her stumbling toward the lacelike patterns that managed to slice their way through to play on the moss and dirt of the forest floor. Mouth tugging into a frown at the sound of an owl hooting in the branches above her, she tugged her shawl around her shoulders, impossibly tighter, wondering if she was being spied upon by the scouts of Gwyn ap Nudd even as she stumbled blindly through the darkness.

                At the very least, she hoped she was moving in the right direction. Her brother could be hurt, dying because of the cowardice of superstitious Celts. She barked a shaky bout of humorless laughter, the noise blunt and loud, forcing its way through the silence like a war hammer. To think, she was one of those superstitious Celts, yet there she was. What a fool she was, frightened of the slice of shadow she threw in the smattering of light upon the ground as she walked.

                What felt like ages passed before she broke through the trees, staring in awe at the wild heather intermingled with grey grass so tall it bent under its own weight. Her body froze at the edge, the old warnings of her childhood holding her suspended, eyes scanning the field in hopes that Deorsa would be close enough that she could reach in and grab him, drag him from the field without ever setting foot in it herself.

                With no such luck, she took a deep breath, calling out a breathlessly thin, “Deorsa? Brother, are you here?” There was no answer save the whistling of the wind, which was beginning to pick up more as the night wore on, the moon lower in the sky. Again she called out, the outcome unchanged as she moved along the fronds and blooms, a shivering body in a sea of nature.

                Hands clutching at her elbows, both for comfort and warmth, she moved farther away from the safety of the forest. Better an animal attack her than the Spirits of Annwn, though without her brother home safe she would suffer all the more from their mother’s fraught behavior, so she had no choice but to face the Tylwyth Teg fiends that plagued her nightmares during her youth.

                If she didn’t move quickly, she feared she may well become one of them. “Brother?” she called, voice a trembling whisper as the first wicked clouds blew in with the whipping wind, dust under the heels of a hunting party. Her stomach clenched, eyes squinting against strands of hair that had come away from her loose chignon to slap into them ferociously.

                Vision impaired, she couldn’t tell where the equally quiet call of, “Bronwyn,” came from, only that it was her brother’s voice crying out to her in the night. “Bronwyn,” he repeated, sending her spinning in circles in search of him. “Run, little sister, run.”

                That was the moment she realized he wasn’t there in body, only in spirit, his voice spinning around her on the violent wind. Her brother was gone, a slave to Gwyn ap Nudd and his hunt. The cloud descended toward the ground sharply, making a line directly toward her. A scream burst from her lips at the first braying of the hounds, sending her turning, breaking into a run toward the protective trees of Danu Forest.

                Her eyes squeezed shut as she ran, some idiotic impulse that stole over her unbidden. Thundering hooves pounded behind her, hundreds of them smacking against the ground in tandem. The wildness of nature was no match for the Annwn, though it was more than enough of one for Bronwyn.

                Those same stalks of grass she found so beautiful moments before wrapped around her ankles, yanking her to the ground. Holding out her hands, she managed to hold herself up just enough to keep from slamming her face into the ground, plant fronds cutting into her palms as the thunder-clash of hooves drew closer, closer.

                Heart pounding, she shook her leg in an attempt to free herself, jerking it forward, ripping grass and clumps of dirt from the ground in her desperation. It was enough, her body rocketing up from the ground, shawl falling away from her shoulders to land on the damp earth behind her, long hair falling loose, whipping around behind her in her haste. “Please,” she panted in a mixture of exertion and breathless fear. “Please!”

                Tears streamed down her face. They were drawing closer still. Right behind her now, deep rumbles and threatening flashes broke away from the group behind her, circling around to block her in. Surrounded, she came to a shuddering standstill, staring forlornly at the figure front and center, antlers curving imposingly from his temples. She didn’t have to see him to know it was him, Gwyn ap Nudd, the vicious king of Avalon.

                Heaving silent sobs, she backed away only for an ethereal hunter’s hound to nip at her heels, more a creature of shadow and mist than an animal. Orange eyes burned back into hers as she turned, slapping black locks away to better see those who would bring about her demise. Dark hounds yipped excitedly, strings of silvery saliva dangling from their bared teeth. “Please,” she repeated, the word a breath that went unnoticed by the creatures jeering around her. Their voices were garbled, too intertwined to single out any one phrase.

                The steed Gwyn ap Nudd sat astride shifted uncomfortably, somehow less excited than the others. She stared in mild curiosity, a little hope filling her heart until she heard a familiar voice plead, “Bronwyn, why didn’t you run sooner?” and it all made sense. The steed was no horse at all, its orange eyes somehow strangely familiar though they were no longer pale blue. It was the soul inside that she recognized, her brother staring at her desperately from those blazing orbs. Black smoke curled from his nostrils, the moon coming out to play again in all its pallid glory, illuminating the meadow she was to meet her fate in.

                She screamed into the now still night, head turning in every direction as she searched for an out. With nothing in sight, no way to run, she backed directly into the center of the ring they formed around her. It was then that the Hunt became restless, impatient. A signal she missed from their king sent them rushing forward in a massive wave.

                Teeth and blades stabbed into her so quickly and fiercely that she was unsure which was which, tearing flesh away from bone, hot blood gushing from innumerable wounds. Her screams continued to slice through the night, answered by the shouts of the Spirits of Annwn. As she thrashed, she noted a single figure, sitting upon a midnight horse with its head drooped in shame, who didn’t join in on the slaughter.

                Her pause in horror came from a chilled numbness that overcame her. Red gleamed all around her, made more macabre by splashes of silver moonlight. Her eyes, as heavy as her limbs, drifted closed, ears shutting out the sound of the Hunt. The faltering thumping of her heart filled her ears. Thump thump…thump…thump…

                Silence.

                Pale eyes fluttered open, taking in the night around her. Blood stained the grass, dried to a dark rust color over the grey. Confusion drew her brows together.

                And then she heard it.

                The clash of thunder and the distant braying of hounds…coming for her as they would every night for eternity.

 

 

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