We gathered again at St. Peter’s as the snows began to fall heavily again. We could scarcely see across the market square, much less anything beyond it. I considered it a blessing that we could not glimpse the imposing presence of Moel Famau. The white veil that swirled around us that afternoon gave us the comforting illusion that we were separated from this chaotic and terrible world.

I had chosen to leave Doctor Yeoman’s remains in his office for the time being. The reason why I made this unorthodox choice was to see if Cael would demonstrate any apparent knowledge about what had happened. It was unlikely he would visit Doctor Yeoman’s offices that particular day, but there might be other opportunities to gauge the man’s response. In any case, with Doctor Yeoman’s fluids so thoroughly drained, there was little risk of the foulness of putrefaction. It was as though he had been mummified where he sat. That would reduce the pressure to move the body immediately. Beyond that, I had not the heart to bury yet another man so soon.

Our sources of information had badly dwindled between the losses of Adam Jones and Noah Yeoman. Father James was a useful font of information on those subjects about which he had studied. However, for town gossip and the comings and goings of various people around Ruthin, he was not the most ideal person. This was especially true when it came to Cael Powys, who was apparently inactive in the local church and therefore Father James knew little. We also had learned that Mayor Cooper had taken another journey far away from Ruthin, likely owing to his town’s considerable troubles. Separating himself from those frightening evens was hardly something for which I could blame him.

“Well, it would seem that we have one clear option open to us,” Robert offered after perhaps an hour of our ruminations had led us nowhere. He stood up proudly, taking to the pulpit. My other two boys rolled their eyes and sighed in tandem. “Moel Famau has been looming over us this whole time. We saw where that fire spitter descended. We know what the locals have said about it. I believe that we’ll find that this red banshee and her minions, however many of them there are, reside there.”

All of the rest of us sat in the pews in silence. I had Robert’s idea myself, but I had been too timid to bring it forward. Everything we had heard about Moel Famau suggested that lurking around it after sundown would likely seal our dooms. I knew that at some point we would have venture up the small mountain and see what secrets could be unearthed, but I also had consciously avoided it.

“You’re free to go there,” Thomas chuckled back it him. “Once the weather clears up, it should be a nice little walk.”

“Thomas,” I scolded, “please approach this with the seriousness it requires.”

John stood from his pew to call the nave’s attention to him.

“I agree with Robert,” he boomed. “We have three choices. We stay in town milling about, slowly getting slaughtered. We can head back to Kew in defeat and accept whatever becomes of the King. Or, finally, we can head to the mountain and see what lies there.”

“Hear hear!” Sir Lucas cheered, slapping his hand upon his thigh.

Father James looked wearily toward me.

“I leave this decision entirely to you, Doctor Willis,” he said. “After all, I still need to prepare my Christmas sermon and all of the festivities in and around the church. I will not be able to join you.”

I wanted to protest that this was rather more important, but, in truth, there was little more value that Father James could provide. Yes, he was another warm body that could brandish a sword or hurl blessed water at our foes but it was clear to me that he would not be strictly necessary.

“I understand, Father,” I said in conciliation. “If we need—”

Three strong knocks on the church’s front door interrupted me. Thomas sprang from his pew and walked cheerily toward the vestibule to open the door.

“Thomas! We have no idea what it is,” I shouted toward him.

“If it was bad, they wouldn’t have knocked,” he shrugged as he turned back around at me.

Before I could say anything else, he pulled the doors open and in came Mayor Cooper, covered in a heavy sheet of snow, flanked on either side by ten red-clad soldiers carrying muskets.

“I’d come to understand that you might need some help here,” the mayor said, glancing to either side at the men he had brought with him. “These two squads were not easy to come by. Please use them well. I would hate to explain to Colonel Fitzherbert anything too peculiar.”

I walked forward and offered a stiff bow to the mayor. I was so surprised by what he offered us that I was struck speechless for several seconds.

“This is most unexpected, Your Honour,” I gasped. “We are very thankful!”

“Save your thanks for later. Solve this damn problem in my town!” he both shouted and laughed.

“Well, if there is one more thing you could do for us,” I sheepishly began.

“Absolutely,” Mayor Cooper replied with sarcasm. “What is it? Anything.”

“Cael Powys has been a bit of a mystery to us and—”

“Cael?” Mayor Cooper interrupted me. “Saw that fat loaf trudging up to the northeast on my way in with the men. He said he had something he had to do, but he wouldn’t be long. God help me if I know what he meant.”

That he was heading to the northeast was not at all a shock to me. That would take him straight toward Moel Famau.

“Was he carrying anything?” I asked.

“Big bundle of stuff under his right arm,” Mayor Cooper recalled. “I didn’t get a good look at it. Were you expecting him to carry something with him?

“I’m not sure,” I murmured. “In any case, we’ll try to follow him. Weather permitting. Boys, Sir Lucas, ready yourselves.”

We gathered still more implements of holy provenance before setting out for Moel Famau. By the time we were all ready, it was perhaps slightly after four in the afternoon and the sun had already largely set. The soldiers with us asked almost no questions about where we were going or what we were doing. They readied themselves with drills outside the church, led by their sergeant. Father James blessed their bayonets and musket balls with blessed water. He told us he was unsure that it would do any good against our particular foes, but that it was worth an effort.

He also approached me with a strangely wrapped object and held it before me.

“This is an old golden spike,” he announced, unsheathing it. It was certainly golden, though it had been warped and distorted over some years by the look of it. “I have records about it dating back to the 10th Century. It’s very likely older than that.”

“And it’s gotten some use, I can see,” I mumbled, touching it lightly with my fingers.

“Our Dullahan is not the first to roam these lands. Nor, I fear, will it be the last,” he said mournfully as he handed over the implement. “What matters is that we deal with this one so that we are alive to continue the fight. It will never fully end.”

I grasped the heavy spike and wrapped my fingers around its strange contours.

“With God’s grace, we shall prevail.”

“Amen,” Father James said, offering me a sign of the cross. “Bless you, your sons, your friends, and our soldiers. You will need every ounce of strength God grants you.”

I believe we set off around half past four, the soldiers flanking my boys, myself, and Sir Lucas as we trudged up toward the north, toward Moel Famau. From windows of the houses bracketing the street, the citizens of Ruthin gazed at us like gargoyles on a cathedral. Whether they were hostile or benevolent still eludes me. Other than the handful of citizens I spoke to, I never managed to get a good sense of the people of Ruthin and I dare not ascribe motivations to them that I cannot confirm. Suffice it to say, I felt unnerved by those inquiring eyes. They certainly had not offered assistance.

The only road headed to Moel Famau was the better part of three miles long, meaning that, in the snow and attempting to be careful to be on the lookout for potential threats, we would be approaching the mountain for the better part of an hour, perhaps more. None of us spoke to one another as we did not want to distract the soldiers from their vigilant watch over our surroundings. All of them had their muskets held out in front of them while they scanned their eyes back and forth across the darkness that lay on either side of the road. I suspected that they would be unable to respond to any threat that was not already almost upon us. It still provided some sense of comfort.

Just as it is in Lincolnshire, the country roads at night are places of abyssal blackness. Our lanterns provided the faintest illumination. The moon, a thin crescent that night to begin with, was obscured behind a wreath of thick snow-laden clouds. Any time I looked into the lanterns’ light, I was blinded when I looked out back into the blackness surrounding us. I readily confess that I was relying on the keener eyes and ears of others as we walked.

Already the air had a frightful chill that only worsened as we approached the mountain. Blistering winds swept down from Moel Famau, carrying with them a truly deathly chill, causing my skin to burn and then turn numb. The mountain and its surroundings were largely barren with only the most meager smattering of trees to blunt any of the winds’ fury. On those trees were a couple of owls who intermittently hooted at our party, likely mocking us in our venture.

As we approached the mountain’s base, we caught sight of a trail of footprints leading up the mountain. They had appeared well off the road, indicating to me that whoever it was tried to avoid making their trail obvious. Of course, based on what Mayor Cooper had told us, we had a single suspect in mind.

“These must be Cael’s,” Robert muttered, his teeth chattering. “I presume we should follow.”

I nodded and pointed for us to continue up the slope. Beneath the snow was a thin layer of ice that made its presence felt every ten steps. I regularly lost my balance and wobbled uncomfortably in the air before usually regaining my footing. Usually. More than once I tumbled backwards or forwards. My boys, walking along side me, were good enough to catch me. The soldiers with us had boots better suited for the climb and did not suffer as I did. Sir Lucas, poor man, had the most difficult time. No fewer than four times he fell face first into the snow. At some point, he lost his glasses.

“I hope I don’t have to read anything up here,” he laughed nervously.

All of us stopped in place when we heard a furious burst of hooves beating against the snow. My heart leapt into my throat. Silence. Some of the soldiers raised their muskets, almost taking them to a firing position. Others maneuvered to form a tighter circle around our position. As those with lanterns scanned them about, I saw a set of horse hoofprints in the snow some feet to my right.

“Dewch i ddringo, dewch i ddioddef,” a wispy voice called out on the wind. I gasped in shock. “Dewch i sgrechian, dewch i farw.”

Robert, standing next me, breathed so rapidly I thought he would fall over.

“Come to climb, come to suffer. Come to scream, come to die,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

Hooves beat against the snow behind us. I gripped the golden spike that Father James had granted me.

“Dewch i ddringo, dewch i ddioddef. Dewch i sgrechian, dewch i farw.”

Again the hooves pounded against the snow. Then there was the distinct clacking and clicking of a familiar foe. The Dullahan was prepared to strike. My heart quivered and my legs felt weak. Even with as frigid as it was, I sweated such that my face became drenched.

“DEWCH I DDRINGO, DEWCH I DDIODDEF. DEWCH I SGRECHIAN, DEWCH I FARW.”

The air to my left felt as though it was all being pulled toward the whip as it swept across the abyssal void and into the head of a soldier. The soldier said nothing. Only the sickening sound of cleaving bones and brains punctuated the air. I followed the whip back to its source. From the darkness emerged the headless rider. Under its right arm, the eyes of its withered head flashed an iridescent red.

I held out the golden spike, the sight of which caused the rider to recoil back. Its horse stood on its hind legs, kicking into the air.

“To oblivion with you!” I shouted.

“REEEEEEEGGGGHHHH!” the Dullahan’s head shrieked at me. It raised its whip into the air to lash out at me.

“FIRE!” the soldiers’ sergeant shouted.

Thunderous blasts and puffs of flame and smoke came from all around. The air reeked of gunpowder and, as the smoke hung in the air, I could scarcely see anything. The Dullahan had shrieked again, but it took some seconds until I could see it. By then it was too late. The whip came forward right at me, but a twist providence placed a soldier between that deathly device and my skull. It broke through the soldier’s neck, loosing a torrent of blood at me. Some of the blood hit me in the eyes, forcing me to wipe it away. As I did, the Dullahan struck again, this time at a soldier who had stabbed the horse on its left side. The whip came across and severed the soldier’s hand. The soldier held the bloody squirting stump where his hand had been and screamed in agony. His pains did not last long, however. The Dullahan bucked his horse back up on to its hind legs and brought them down upon the soldier’s head. It was crushed like a rotted pumpkin, forming a mess of blood, brain, and bones upon the ground.

I lunged forward with the golden spike in my hand. I could not reach the Dullahan himself as his horse angrily turned about and snapped at me. I saw for the first time that the horse had something like a wolf’s teeth, sharp and numerous. The Dullahan did not hesitate to try to crack its whip at me again.

In desperation, I jabbed the spike into the horse’s face, which caused the beast to buck back and hurl the rider to the ground. As it descended back toward the ground, the black steed molted away, turning into naught but ash and the ash itself collapsed into oblivion, leaving nothing behind. Once the horse dissipated, I saw that the rider’s head had fallen out of its hands.

John ran forward and tackled the rider’s body, holding his whip hand to the ground. The rider’s body writhed violently, trying as much as it could to shake John off.

“Now, father!” he shouted to me.

I scurried over to the withered head, which was facing up on its backside. Its fiery red eyes stared back at me and its jaw opened, letting out a mortifying screech. I answered it by drive the golden spike straight through its right eye and other the other side of its skull. As soon as the opposite side of its skull cracked, the rider stopped resisting and both its skull and body collapsed into ash. I collapsed over where the Dullahan’s head had been, my legs no longer able to keep me standing.

John and I both took some time to get off the ground, our bodies depleted by the ordeal. Thomas walked over to us and put his sword away. He looked up the mountain in front of us and shook his head.

“To think we’re only halfway up this damn thing,” he chuckled.

“Can your mood ever match the moment, Thomas?” I queried, my voice dripping with fatigued irritation.

“Not if I can help it, no,” he said.

The soldier’s sergeant came up to us and bowed his head in respect.

“I ordered my men to bury their comrades under mounds of snow for the time being. It should at least keep the bodies from spoiling until they can get a proper burial,” he said.

I looked down the slope where his men were doing precisely that. Sir Lucas helped them, though only incompetently. He was a man who had clearly gone some years between doing actually physical labour.

“After they are finished, we continue on,” I said.

“There’s something that bothers me,” Thomas added. “If the Dullahan was merely a protector of this red banshee, how strong must the banshee be?”

“I would rather not think about that,” I groaned in response. “Whatever it is, we will vanquish it.”

Our final ascent up Moel Famau become increasingly difficult with ever more ice covering the ground as we approached the summit. Our pace of ascent slowed as a result. I found myself repeatedly gasping for air as I continued to exert myself. I felt as though I had suddenly come down with some wretched illness. It was possible that some foul aura from the dying Dullahan had afflicted me, or that the summit of Moel Famau was simply cursed.

When we reached the summit, the first thing that I noticed were the deteriorating ruins of some ancient fortress. Even with the snows burying a good portion of the stonework, the walls were still somewhat visible. I judged from how little was left that it had been some centuries since the fortress had fallen. Doubtlessly, some portion of the stones had been taken by those in Ruthin and a handful of smaller settlements in Clwyd to build their own structures.

“I read about this,” Robert said as he walked about the summit’s rim. “Celtic tribes built a great citadel here to protect their lands long ago. It fell in about the seventh century, allowing for some margin of error. Its captors committed a horrible atrocity, slaughtering the entire garrison and their families in cold blood. Hundreds were slaughtered right here and then the fortress was torn down.”

“Strange that a castle or even a watchtower was never rebuilt here, yes?” Sir Lucas asked.

The sergeant with us concurred.

“It’s a prime defensive position,” he said, surveying the ground around us. We could see Ruthin to the south and a few smaller towns to the north. “And yet when a castle was built, it was built in Ruthin, on the low ground. Why?”

Robert coughed and raised a hand to gain our attention.

“This is cursed ground. The slaughters inflicted here put a blight upon the land, unleashing horrors from Celtic myth and legend that have haunted us ever since,” Robert declared, his voice taking on a sinister air as if he was telling a story meant to frighten small children. “What we’ve found around here probably scared them off.”

“But there’s really nothing here!” Thomas shouted in frustration, throwing up his arms. “Just some old rocks and bad memories.”

“We just got here,” I snapped at him. “Everyone, take a look around and see what we can find. There may be a crypt or barrow or something of that nature.”

“Oh, Father, you mean a passage grave or burial mound,” Robert corrected me, drawing scornful glances from those around us. “Like the tumuli in eastern England. Those are more of Saxon origin, but there are Welsh and Irish analogs.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Yes, one of those,” I grudgingly acknowledged. “See what we can find.”

I spent some time on the northern end of the ruin, trudging around a circular pattern of stones that pointed toward the Irish Sea. It seemed like it might have been important, but then John shouted to draw our attention to something that truly mattered.

“Everyone! Over here!” he shouted, calling us toward the ruins’ center.

John had scraped away the snow, revealing a rectangular pattern of thin stones around a larger one that was an amazingly smooth white stone slab. It almost had a metallic sheen to it, one that actually led me to tap on it to determine its composition. Robert took a lantern from one of the soldiers as they arrived and bent down to read some lettering etched into it.

“O waed, bywyd. O fywyd, atebion,” he muttered. “From blood, life. From life, answers. That’s the simplest riddle I have ever read.”

“I don’t follow…” John grumbled.

“You wouldn’t,” Robert sighed in condescension. “It’s written like a simple transitive mathematical property. Blood is life, life is answers. Therefore, blood is an answer. Drop some blood on this and the door should open.”

“That’s a door?” Thomas chuckled. “Not like any door I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh my, yes. Yes, yes,” Sir Lucas chirped. “Probably down some stairs into a dank nasty crypt, I should think.”

“Exactly,” Robert puffed. “Now someone put out your hand and we’ll slice it open with a bayonet.”

Not surprisingly, none readily volunteered when presented with such wording. Being the oldest member of the party, I stepped forward and motioned for one of the soldiers to put out their bayonet as Robert had instructed.

“Father, what are you—” Robert protested.

“Doing my duty for God, King, and Country,” I interrupted, tapping my finger on the tip of the bayonet. “You’ve done a good job keeping it nice and sharp.”

“T—Thank you, sir!” the soldier happily answered.

“Well, let’s get on with it,” I declared. “God help us all.”

With my glove off, I ran my bare palm across the blade, allowing for a deep cut. It did not hurt much more than a slight burn at first. Blood immediately flowed freely and fell upon the stones, both what we surmised was the door and the stone above it. I stood back and withdrew a clean handkerchief to tie around the wound. Nothing happened with the door at first, leading us all to anxiously look at one another. I feared that I had grievously injured my hand for no good reason.

Then, I felt a rumbling beneath my feet. Sounds of stones crashing against one another echoed up through the soil. All of us leapt back from the opening door. The massive smooth slab swung downward and then upward, becoming a part of the ceiling of the passage down. Crudely hewn stone stairs led us down into an abyssal maw where we knew not what we would find.

“Huh. Look at that,” Thomas gasped. Then he looked to his younger brother and grinned. “I say, Robert. Well done.”

“I’ll lead the way,” John announced, drawing his sword and holding a lantern out in front of him.

Two soldiers followed right behind him and I followed behind them. I found myself calm as in the next moments we would either succeed in our mission or meet with a swift and terrible end. When ambiguity is removed, the mind can be at peace and I was at peace with either of those.