A killing - Shrt1

"Kill to stop death, We have to kill to keep her back" She chanted to herself, using the melody she had made up. Her courage always left her as soon as she heard the trap do its job, flinging the lost individual into the tree trunk, hopefully knocking them out. She rushed through the darkness, familiar with the surroundings, ducking certain trees, jumping over bushes, avoiding holes and then.... slam! Into the ground. Head first. Dazed, she saw little birds around her head and through her aggressive brain fog she heard whispered

"Shhhh. Stop making so much noise. There is something terribly wrong."

Feeling a heavy wrinkled old hand on her back, pushing her into the ground, she was filled with a tiny pinch of security. Turning her head to be able to breathe she also heard a lot more movement than usual in this part of the forest.

For fruitful harvest, and security through the cold - send one ignorant teenager into the forest to collect the seeds. For with that seed will grow a wall around death. - the book of the harvest.

The town knows. And have known for so long, every three years. This is the third year. Why would they try messing with us now. Don't they know what could happen. - Yolga muttered under her breath. The old lady lived through the plague of the former years and was now worried it would start again. Gert slowly sat up, checking for any new injuries and when satisfied leaned into Yolgas ear "Did you trip me up old lady?" The old wrinkled hand was placed on Gerts neck to pull her even closer "I just saved your life you ungrateful rat, there's a group of men out there trying to resist the hold of death. And we only have the dark silence to protect us from their weapons. So quiet. We need to go get Old Brown Brown"

Unseen in the dark, Gerts eyes opened as wide as possible in shock. they largely left Old Brown Brown alone. He was too wild. And she assumed that Yolga would tell her to be the initial bait. "You need to go alarm the others. Take the long route. And run as soon as you pass the second path. I will signal with fire." And she disappeared silently into the darkness.

Nearer than she'd like, two mens voices quietly shared a short discussion. They had swapped into their local dialect, but the witches had learned it long ago. As the men discussed how they would wait all night until the forest women came to claim their victim, Gert began working her way toward to the edges of the long route around the forest. As soon as her feet felt the flattened earth, she ran as fast as she could. A life lived in these woods meant that she could do it very quietly. Recognising changes in the path, knowing which tree was where, and what parts the moonlight would shine through to allow her to run even faster.

To stop any unneeded screaming, Gerts put her hand around the first figure she found and whispered "The town is trying to avoid paying for death protection. Yolga goes to get Old Brown Brown. We need everyone up and circling. We need a body before Brown Brown takes them all. Go" She pushed the youngest of their group toward the other tents and bounded away toward the other watcher.

Within less than 10 minutes the witches of death, the old hags, the forest horrors - they had many names - were all up and moving toward the altar tree. The one that for 100 years or more had been the site of sacrifice and protection for this region. Keeping the Goddess of death satiated and out of their lives. They surrounded the area they knew contained the idiotic townspeople and their sacrifice, waiting for the signal that Old Brown Brown was on his way. But before that, Gerts had to find the original sacrifice or a young enough stand in.

She smelled the air slowly. Old, sweaty, farmers. She could smell them from a kilometre if she needed. But quietening her mind she found the different strains of odour. 6 of them. Most were of fatherhood age, but there were three other strains. Two younger men and a girl. The girl was surrounded but one of the younger men was close by. "Hoo Hoo" She cried up into a nearby tree to have it echo, spreading her noise. Echoing from the other side of the forest was a similar bird call. And that was her opening. Using a rock found at the bottom of a tree she punch through the young mans throat as accurately as possible. Which was hard to do in the dark, but, she did better than usual and broke a collar bone, shoved some bark in his mouth and dragged him away as quickly as possible with the help of Little Mary. They had practiced this a few times on the scarecrows.

This action of course made quite a large sound which was smoothed over by a large fire ball further into the forest in the opposite direction and a roar like a lion. Which is a beast none of these villagers had ever heard of, let alone heard.

Roar!!!!!

It came again. No fire this time though, for it was a signal mainly for the witches to get up some trees to safety. You see, Old Brown Brown was a monster. Not a very fit monster. But a very angry monster. He would go psycho on blood lust for 20 minutes and then get tired and go home to sleep. He was kept satiated by multiple hunters and left in his cave to sleep. But some of these hunters, knew how to manipulate Old Brown Brown with blood.

Gert and Little Mary carried thrashing body as far into the forest as possible before they had to take a moment to properly knock the boy out. This made carrying a little easier to a secondary trap that when set off, flung the dying body into the tree to hang. Satisfied, the two ladies climbed a nearby tree to sit and listen to the carnage.

In the morning, they all gathered to begin the ceremony. Using a wagon they carried the boys still bleeding body to the swamp. Now filled with the bones of over 50 young people. They added the 51st body said the words and felt the rush of wind sweep over them all like every other time as if death itself was smiling on them. That they once again protected the lives of 6000 strangers with the life of one.