When I found out about Megan I ran from the hut and up the steep slope of the valley, not stopping until I reached the woods where she and I had… well. I stopped when I could run no further, and then I bent over and was violently sick. I collapsed to the ground and lay there, curled up in a ball of self-hatred and self-pity, until the sun set and the cooling air sent me home again.
I will spare you the mundane details. We endured a cold winter, but there was little joy when spring finally arrived, for we all knew the babies would arrive with it. Megan was the first to give birth, maybe because she was the youngest. Even now I can hear her screams from the midwife’s hut when the child was delivered. Later I was to learn it had been born with mismatched eyes and six fingers and six toes.
I never saw it. Immediately when it was born they took it somewhere away from inquisitive eyes, a shepherd’s hut away in the hills, fully expecting it to die. Against the odds it survived, as did the other seven born that spring. All were deformed in one way or another.
I was not privy to the fierce argument that raged in the hall when the time came to decide what to do with them. Word gets around, though. Some wanted to smother them. Others said they should not be made to pay for the sins of their parents. Agreement could not be reached. Then Bronwyn the Crow stepped forward and told the assembled villagers: “I will take them into the mountains and look after them. They will live or die as fate decrees.”
Whatever had passed between her and Gwyn on the night of the barking dogs, she had borne no children, and she had never been well-disposed towards them anyway. So coming from her of all people, her offer immediately silenced the room. To cut to the chase, it was agreed that this was what should happen, and that Arwel, who would not become brehyrion after his father because he was too dim in the head, should stay with them. He could hunt for their food and protect them from the predators that stalked the high places.
And so it was that an expedition set out, taking the eight babies and their unlikely guardians into the mountains, to a valley where they could be hidden from the eyes of the world. They took with them basic comforts such as bedding and clothing, and weapons and tools for Arwel, who was good with his hands, to provide them with food and shelter. When the men who went with them returned after several days, a great weight seemed to lift from the village. The fruits of our sins were gone.
Life went back to how it used to be. When Megan went to the summer gathering and found a suitor I was not at all upset. When she married and moved to her husband’s village, I was, quite frankly, relieved. Every time I saw her I was reminded of what we had done that August afternoon. After her wedding, I never saw her again. I suppose she’s more than likely dead now.
All was well. To the surprise of all who knew me, I grew tall and strong. One autumn I went to the gathering with my parents and there I met the girl who would later become my wife. When we married, she came to live with me in the village. Soon afterwards she was pregnant, and in the spring of the following year, we had the first of our children.
Our eldest, a boy, had just turned ten when a girl around the same age went missing. A search was carried out, but the poor child was never found. It was assumed she had defied her parents, who had warned her never to leave the village alone, and had been taken by a wild animal. We had heard of such tragedies elsewhere, but for our village it was the first in living memory. The pain cut deep.
Several years passed, I forget exactly how many. It happened again. A little boy. Once more a search party set out. It returned in a hurry after finding mysterious tracks in the soft earth by the lake, heading north into the mountains. The men equipped themselves with provisions and weapons and set off in pursuit, Gwyn giving them his blessing but by now too old to travel with them.
They were never seen again. We could only assume they had fallen to their deaths in the treacherous mountains.
Our children grew up and raised families of their own. My wife died young and so the grandchildren were a welcome distraction. The missing children and the undiscovered fate of the search party gradually passed from memory. Gwyn went the way of all men and was returned to the earth, after which a new brehyrion was found. I got older but I kept my wits about me. People died, babies were born. The eternal cycle of life continued. Until the night the creatures came.
They must have been watching us for some time, because they knew what they wanted and where to get it. They waited until the early hours, when we were deep in sleep. Then they pounced, smashing down the doors of two huts, making off with two children.
You do not need me to tell you what happened that night. The terror that gripped the parents when they saw what foul things were stealing their children. The mad scramble for weapons as we tried in vain to stop them. The slaughter of those who stood in their way. By the time I had struggled up from bed and stumbled outside, bow primed in my trembling hands, they were already off and away with the young ones, leaving a trail of blood and broken bodies in their wake.
Men set off in pursuit, much as you have. They were gone all day. As the sun set we could hear screaming in the distance. The sound of it left us almost paralysed with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of what might happen once darkness fell. No one slept that night, I can tell you. Fathers and older sons waited with swords and spears, pitchforks and scythes, anything they could lay their hands on.
The creatures did not return. The next morning it was decided to send a party of volunteers into the mountains, to find out what fate had befallen our men. They had no sooner climbed out of the valley than the volunteers found all six of them, emasculated, their eyes torn out, their bodies horribly mutilated, laid out ready to be discovered.
We spent the nights that followed in constant fear of attack. Weeks dragged by. People became sick with anxiety. The mother of one of the two stolen children died asleep in her bed; it was said she died of a broken heart. Again, though, once many months had passed without incident, we buried the memories of what had happened. It was easier than trying to live with them. We lowered our guard so gradually that I don’t think we even realised we had done so. When, a year or so later, the creatures struck again, we were no more prepared than we had been the first time, and we had fewer warriors to protect us. Only now we offered no resistance. We let them take what they wanted.
We convinced ourselves it was better that way. They would take the children regardless and there would be no bloodshed if we did not try to stop them. They did not return for another five years, and when they did, again we made no attempt to stand in their way. We were doubly cursed; not just sinners, but cowards.
I cannot tell you what happened up in those cursed mountains after Crow and her idiot grandson were left to fend for themselves and the babies. But I can guess. I think they survived and the babies grew up and committed the same foul sin as their parents. Their offspring would have been born even more twisted than they. And as for their offspring… you’ve seen them with your own eyes. Less than human, more than wild beast. Ferocious, but clever with it.
The third time they raided us was to be the last. Who can say why they came when they did and why they stopped? Not I, not with any certainty. But there are villages beyond the mountains, beyond the valley where Crow raised them. I suspect they moved from place to place, plundering at random, letting time go by before they struck again, until there were no more children left to take.