The squire was pensive. As head Druid he had more faith than most. It wasn’t so much that he believed in the old ways, rather it was that he wanted to believe in them.
“Come along, then,” He addressed the group. “Let us get this over with. It is blasted perishing out here.” He hoisted one of the sacks of rotting fruit over his shoulder. Each of the other men followed suit, except Mr. Green.
“Come on, Fergal.” One of the others, Mr. Angove, nodded. “The quicker we get this done, the quicker we get indoors. I am freezing my spuds off out ‘ere.”
Fergal crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. He puckered his mouth, looking like a bulldog sucking a wasp. Squire Edwards rolled his eyes; they had to go through this nonsense every year.
“I am too pissed off to go along with this rubbish.” Green spat. “I am going to go and knock some ruddy sense into those two louts.” He walked over to his diminutive wife, who was shivering next to the fire, and grabbed her by the hand. “Come along, Lilly.”
Lilly Green tottered in the snow as she was frogmarched across the orchard towards the village. Edwards sighed in resignation, dragging the abandoned sack behind him as he led the procession towards the cemetery.
* * *
The snow danced in the pale light from the cloud-occluded moon. It had fallen sufficiently to eclipse any traces of blood around the trees, not that there was much left to hide. Their hungry roots had sucked up every last drop. The trees looked, to the casual, drunken observers, as though not a branch or root had been disturbed.
“Let us start with this one.” Edwards pointed to the tree on the left-hand side of the path. Sinister, in both senses of the word, it loomed above them as they emptied the first two sacks around the roots.
The tree shuddered as the wind roared. The gust was savage, almost unnatural, and whipped, powdery snow into the faces of the druids. The men were startled by a colossal crack, and they stumbled away out of fear of a falling branch. In a second the wind dropped, and as they rubbed vision back into their temporarily-blinded eyes Mr. Angove let out a yell of alarm.
“What is it?” Edwards asked, somewhat nervously.
“Look!” Angove pointed, his voice tremulous and cracking. “The other Twin! It is gone!”
“What!?” One of the others, Mr. Gillman, barked derisively as he spat snow from his puffy lips. “’ow can it be gone?”
“I do not know you, big oaf!” Angove retorted. “Look, it is just bloody vanished!”
He was right. The four men gazed in bewilderment at the gaping maw in the ground where the tree had, moments before, stood. The hole steamed and melted the snow in an ever-widening radius. As one the men gagged, for the wind blew a disgusting gust of foul, fetid air into their faces.
Cautiously they approached the maw, with Edwards in the lead. He held one of the oil-lamps the men carried over the hole, and gazed down into a vast abyss. The void seemed to stretch on forever. It appeared to have no end, as though it burrowed into the heart of the planet.
The men muttered anxiously in hushed tones. Each one had sobered up in a second, and panic-fuelled adrenaline kicked the alcohol into submission. Angove voiced the notion that they should get the Hell out of there. Not even the ever contrary Mr. Gillan argued, so they turned as one to retreat.
The ground shook as it tore asunder. The other Twin rose on its roots like a demonic spider. Possessed of unexpected agility, alarming in something so large, it sprung into the air. Edwards shrieked in terror as the vast trunk slammed into the forest floor, instantly flattening the other men into a bloody pulp.
‘More!’ The tree boomed. ‘Almost free!’
Edwards gibbered insanely and fell to his knees. The mind-blasting horror he had just witnessed had killed his fight or flight instinct. The tree righted itself, and its roots writhed in the gore hungrily. It trembled as the power from the blood coursed through it, loosening more of its ancient shackles. A moment later the shrieking form of Squire Edwards was dragged to his bloody demise by a hungry root.
* * *
Oblivious to what had transpired, the wives and children of the four men sat around the fire. They talked amongst themselves, blissfully unaware that their impending doom was currently scuttling across the orchard towards them. They didn’t even have time to panic as the second Twin slammed upon them in a feeding frenzy. Ripping and tearing, it reduced the villagers to puddles of meat and blood in seconds.
The first Twin joined its brother.
‘Not free.’ It scowled, ‘There must be more.’
The second Twin waved a root in the air as though it was searching for a scent.
‘There.’ It intoned after a moment. ‘The blacksmith’s heir.’
The Twins were regaining their godlike powers by the second, and their branches rippled with a powerful fluidity. They cloaked themselves in shadow and rode the wind towards the village.
Poor Lilly Green had been forced to listen to her husband rant and rave about what a good beating he was going to give his two wayward sons, and what made it worse was that she knew he was as good as his threats. Fergal was filled with a violent temper that could spill out over the slightest infraction.
As they passed through the gate to the forge, Fergal was so engrossed in cursing and kicking at the snow that he didn’t see what made his wife freeze.
“Lilly!” He bellowed. “This is no time for
