It would be difficult to reconstruct the entirety of my circuitous conversation with Mr. Jones in his shoddy abode, but I can summarize the key elements. He outlined how he had begun to notice the customers coming to his small tannery had become increasingly agitated and delusional over the space of some months during the past year. When he explained the precise circumstances of their maladies I was shocked. They were so staggeringly close to those afflicting His Majesty, whom I had not mentioned to Mr. Jones, that I could not help but assume a connection.

He also explained in some greater detail the known circumstances of disappearances in and around Ruthin. He particularly focused on what it was that Jack Walker, the gentleman to whom Constable Burnell, had referred in our conversation earlier in the day.

“Ol’ Jack, he always thought he’d find that one big treasure that’d set ‘im up for the rest o’ his life,” Jones explained as he paced aimlessly around his living room while drinking from a cup of pure gin. “So he finds this place in the ruins of the castle, right? He told me all ‘bout it, ‘ow he could feel this big horde of treasure coming up. I said to ‘im that he had better be careful with those banshees ‘round. ‘specially that red one. I’ve seen ‘er.”

“Pardon me, Sir Adam,” Sir Lucas said, clearing his throat with a light cough. “I am afraid I don’t understand. You say this red banshee is frequently around Ruthin?”

“Aye. She pops up at the damnedest times and places, sometimes doing that scream they do when someone’s ‘bout to die. Sometimes someone dies. Other times? No,” he said. “Also, Sir Lucas, I’m not a ‘Sir’ anything. Damn far from it.”

This discussion of the red banshee caused me to see once again the horrible twisted maw of that strange crimson figure from my nightmare. I tried, foolishly, to put it out of mind.

“Returning to Ruthin Castle for a moment,” I coughed, “Mr. Walker must have heard a rumour that drew him there. Otherwise, it is hard to imagine that anyone would just happen to start digging there.”

“Oh, there were some rumours alright,” Jones nodded fluidly. “It was from these damned crazy people I’ve been telling ya ‘bout.”

“What were they saying?”

“They kept sayin’ that ‘Gorwedd y goron o dan y ddaear mae'r addewid yn gorwedd o dan y cerrig mae'r cyfan o dan yr adfeilion.’ I’ll ‘member that line o’ nonsense ‘til the day I die,” he angrily spat. “Must ‘ave heard ‘em say it a thousand times.”

I turned to Sir Lucas. Not a word had to leave my lips before he provided his translation.

“The crown lies beneath the ground, the promise lies beneath the stones, all is beneath the ruins,” he muttered, though he appeared somewhat confused by how simple it seemed. “That does appear fairly straightforward. I can’t imagine it’s referring to something else.”

“That almost makes me wonder if we are missing something here. I also have no concept of what the ‘crown’ beneath the ground could be, nor this ‘promise’ spoken of. The location is not a mystery. The objects are a different matter,” I murmured. “Mr. Jones, can you provide us with one of these lunatics who is saying these things?”

“Ah, they said these things. They’re not still saying ‘em,” he grumbled, punctuated by a rancid and thunderous belch. “Can’t say exactly when they stopped. Maybe ‘round the time ol’ Jack disappeared.”

Sir Lucas and I exchanged worried glances. If that was true, then it implied that Mr. Walker had been lured to a likely demise. Worse, whatever else the circumstances of that demise, it had satiated the desires of the force drawing him there. Regardless, the ruins of Ruthin Castle had to be our next destination in order to fulfill our mission.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones,” I grudgingly offered my appreciation of that otherwise loathsome man. “Stay in good health.”

“I promise ya that I’ll stay as drunk as I need be to keep my mind sharp,” he said with a wink.

We returned to the constabulary where Mr. Burnell was receiving an old woman, short and withered, who screeched at him as we entered the building.

“An’ if ya find ‘im, tell me at once!” she screamed, bashing her cane against the ground.

Mr. Burnell strummed his fingers impatiently, but otherwise kept a polite demeanor. I respected his professionalism in the face of whatever it was that he had been dealing with.

“Ma’am, I assure ya, I’ll run to your house and tell ya,” he said. “Now, I have some other business with these gentlemen. We’ll speak tomorrow, yes?”

The old woman, whose face resembled old rotting wood with its innumerable crevasses and harsh ridges, gave us a deathly stare as she hobbled her way out. When she was gone, Mr. Burnell slumped in his chair and held his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair.

“Was that about another missing person?” I inquired.

“Cat,” he sighed. “Damned missing cat.”

I heard John chuckle over my shoulder, but did not join in myself. I empathized with the honourable constable’s predicament. He had far more important matters to concern himself with. He did not seem terribly pleased to see us, for that matter. I cannot say I blamed him.

“Did ya get a chance to talk to Adam?” he asked, his voice dampened a bit by the hand he held over his face.

“We did. He ultimately proved useful,” I said, pulling out the chair in front of the constable’s desk so that I could sit. “As it happens, your friend Mr. Walker may have been lured to Ruthin Castle by peculiar forces. Specifically, there were rumours being circulated around the town, spoken in Welsh, that alluded to some fantastic treasures to be had under the castle’s ruins.”

“I don’t speak much Welsh, so that’s news to me,” Burnell replied with a furrowed brow.

“You’re the constable of the largest town in the Vale of Clwyd and you don’t speak Welsh?” I inquired, exasperated.

“Not much. Just enough to get by. I hear people sayin’ things all the time that I don’t really understand, but I’m still able to do my job,” he defended himself.

I was unable to conjure any response to that. Thankfully, Sir Lucas did not miss his opportunity to continue communicating what we had learned.

“Mr. Burnell, it seems that there might be some use in exploring the ruins of Ruthin Castle, if we can arrange that?” Sir Lucas requested. “We’re strangers here and don’t know much of the town. No, not at all. I think it would be useful if you could guide us.”

Burnell scowled and shook his head.

“I can’t see what help I would be.”

“If we find information of some kind on the disappearance of Mr. Walker, I am sure you would be interested in it straight away,” I suggested.

A somewhat guilty look came over his face at that point. I could not determine why he felt that way, but I had my suspicions. To my surprise, he then stood up and nodded.

“Alright, very well. We’ll meet at five this evening and head on over there. Can’t say I like it,” he grumbled.

“Appreciated, Mr. Burnell,” I said, nodding to bid him a good afternoon.

Before I could leave, he shouted toward us.

“And if you ‘ave anything that’s useful against unholy things, now’d probably be the time to bring ‘em,” he yelled.

I simply turned about and nodded. That reminder was entirely unnecessary. I had carried Saint Augustine of Canterbury’s cudgel since I obtained it from Westminster Abbey. I had a fine interior pocket in my coat here I kept the blessed object and I sensed I would be needing it that night.

We gathered outside the constabulary at just after five, joined by my sons Thomas and Robert as well as the guards we had brought with us. Mr. Burnell wore a heavy black coat with a black tricorn hat that shimmered with a gold-threaded rim. He also had a stately cane that he leisurely swung alongside him while we walked toward the south end of town where the castle’s ruins lay.

It was a dreadfully cold evening with a stiff and howling wind sweeping down from the northeast. I had been sure to wear all of the wool I could plausibly muster and I still suffered in the piercing cold.

“Aye, it’s a right nasty bitch of a wind tonight,” Burnell said, his Scottish accent coming through especially strong.

Thomas, ever afflicted by terminal indolence, trailed at the rear of the group and complained endlessly to one of the soldiers who came along with us.

“I’m half-tempted to just turn around and go back,” he said, chuckling to the soldier, who did not respond. “It’s not like I’m of much use here.”

“Boy!” I shouted as I spun about. “Your uses elude even me sometimes. God has a plan for all of us and I’m sure He will make that clear soon enough.”

“Yes, father,” he replied with a sarcastic grumble.

Walking alongside Burnell, I heard the honourable constable chuckle.

“Do you have children, Mr. Burnell?” I asked.

“Me? Oh, no,” he laughed. “Never was the type ta do that.”

“It’s our duty to God to be fruitful,” I insisted.

“The King has thirteen living children, so I think he made up for me,” Burnell said through a smile. “I’m just too busy with my work.”

“Ah. I see,” I mumbled, deciding it was not profitable to pursue the matter any further.

We traveled down what I learned was called Castle Street, named for obvious and eponymous reasons, until we arrived at the castle’s ruins that lay on that south end of the town. They were largely by themselves and left to rot, for the most part. The remnants of the outer wall were a sad jagged and broken mess of stones. A structure that had the look of the armory was beyond those gaps in the walls. There was also what appeared to be the destroyed ruins of the barracks, though it was hard to tell for certain in that pale moonlight and weak torchlight aiding us.

To my right I saw the partially intact gatehouse that was a sturdy enough structure. It was obvious that was the key to the outer wall’s defense back in the day. What remained of the great hall was on the far side, but I would only learn that it was the great hall later when I read up on the castle some more. There was so little left there that one could have told me it was a house, a stables, or even a small church. It had been so reduced that one had to possess a more active imagination than I have.

As our party stood in the windswept ruins in heavy darkness that night, I felt from Burnell profound unease. I felt some remorse for dragging him along, but it could not be helped.

“What I understand is that Jack was looking on the far side, near where the moat is, or was,” he said. “We should probably start there, if I ‘ave to guess.”

With no dissent, we trudged through the snow and climbed over the outer wall as we headed toward opposite side. The castle’s husk was haunting even if I had not heard the Welsh invocations from Mr. Jones that indicated something more to the site. Loose stones presented a more immediate concern. Covered in heavy snowdrifts, I nearly tripped over them every few steps and one of our soldiers fell victim to a hidden stone. He fell over into such a deep pile of snow that he had to be pulled out by my three boys.

We pushed through in under one of the surviving archways, which was reduced to a couple spindly rows of stones held together by flaking and cracking mortar. I worried that even a few more snowflakes might cause this withered remnant to give way. Holes in the wall near the moat allowed the winds to whistle through, making the most haunting noises. It was all the worse because I knew I could not dismiss that they could in fact again be a banshee’s wails. I pined for the days of sweet ignorance when I felt I knew that such things did not exist.

There was before us a hole dug in the ground that had begun filling with snow. A shovel lay off to the side of the hole, as did a wooden box filled with other implements. I reasoned that the hole was perhaps eight feet deep and ten feet wide, though it was difficult to determine that at night. It had been dug well, with terraces to aid climbing in and out.

“This must’ve been Jack’s doing,” Burnell said, looking into the hole. He stared for a while as something appeared to catch his eye. “I think we should have a look down there.”

“John,” I immediately ordered my boy to do just that.

John did not hesitate for even a moment. He stepped down the terraces nimbly, though his feet slipped on a caked layer of dirt, snow, and ice on one of the steps. He regained his footing easily enough and reached the bottom. I saw him lifting snow-covered stones and tossing them aside as though they were nothing. Among my three sons, I have always marveled at John’s unmatched strength and I suspect he meant to demonstrate it to a wider audience that night.

In the process of moving those stones, he managed to uncover a strange chest that had already been opened and its contents clearly removed. Even John complained that it was heavier than it looked and made of something exceptionally strong. In the dark he could not recognize what it was. It clearly was not wood, but it was not metallic either.

“Pass me a lantern,” he said.

We only had three lanterns between the lot of us, but we lent him one, passing it down via a long pole that had been left alongside the shovel. When the light from the oil lantern fell upon the chest, it looked like it was woven together from a variety of different hard white objects of diverse shapes and sizes. They had been smoothed and polished to provide a sleek sheen. John knocked his fist against the chest n various locations. He backed away with a jolt.

“It’s bone. The whole chest is made of bone!” he exclaimed.

All of us standing around the hole gasped. We had expected something depraved, but that was altogether more than even I had feared. What precisely it meant was not important in that moment, though.

The sound of thundering horse hooves echoed near us, sounding out in bursts of perhaps eight quick strides. The silence. Then another burst. Hooves pounding against snow-covered ground were such a distinct sound that they could not be mistaken for anything else. The muffled thuds rang out passing around us from the north to the south.

“Were… were we expecting anyone else?” Thomas whispered.

“No,” I whispered back, scarcely able to hear myself.

A period of silence lasting some minutes, or what felt like some minutes, followed. We all listened carefully. The howling wintry winds continued to rise. Those winds whistled through every crack and crevasse of the ruins around us. An unnerving symphony. It became nigh impossible to hear anything else. I thought I could hear more of the muffled hooves beating against the snow. But I could not be sure. I held my breath and looked in every direction. Naught but darkness.

Winds subsided for a moment. Hooves beat the snow behind me. I spun about to look, but there was nothing. My boys Thomas and Robert stood closer to one another, pressing their backs against each other to ensure they could not be surprised from behind. I decided to join them, taking a view facing what I believed to be south. Mr. Burnell stood almost on the lip of the hole, his head flicking all around as he tried to get a look at what was making that noise.

Then I saw a strange flash of fiery red circles behind Mr. Burnell. I recalled my nightmare and assumed that they were eyes.

“Constable!” I shouted and pointed behind him as the eyes flashed again.

He spun about, but there was only darkness.

“Nothing. There’s nothing,” he said, his voice shaking. “Nothing’s here.”

Then I heard a set of clicks. They echoed eerily in the air, which had then grown very still. It was hard to tell from where they were coming as they were so loud. Mr. Burnell panted, palpably terrified. The clicks rose skyward.

The air itself sound as though it were being cleaved in two.

A blur of white clattering spikes came out of the darkness and split across Mr. Burnell’s head.

A sickening cracking and ripping sound caused my stomach to turn. Mr. Burnell’s head fell in half in line with his eyes, the top half sliding down and hitting the ground while his body tumbled backward toward us. It fell right at my feet. His mouth was unhinged, and the lower half of his face was covered in his own blood.

My two boys standing with me whimpered at this gruesome sight. The soldiers who had accompanied us attempted to take shots in the direction from which the assault had come, but their muskets fired off harmlessly into the air. The smell of musket smoke hung in the air for several seconds before another crack of that eerie white whip came out of the darkness. It wrapped around of the chest of one of the soldiers, causing him to screech in agony. I looked at the whip and saw that it was made of what appeared to be vertebrae from human spines. At once, the sounds of clacking we heard earlier had a grotesque explanation.

From the darkness emerged the headless rider, who himself wore all black leather atop an ebony steed. His head, wreathed in desiccated flesh and with flashing red orbs where his eyes had once been, rested awkwardly under his left arm while his right wielded the spine whip. He loosened his whip’s grip on the one soldier only to effortlessly bring the whip up into the air and crack it down atop the soldier’s head, cleaving straight to the ground. The soldier screamed momentarily before his body fell in twain, a torrent of blood pouring onto the ground between the segments of his body.

The other two soldiers and Sir Lucas coalesced around Robert, Thomas, and me while John struggled to rise out of the hole. Thomas, who began muttering uncontrollably, drew from his pocket a small gilded cross that his mother hand bought for him and held it toward the headless rider as he approached. Suddenly, the rider stopped in his tracks. His eyes flashed again, and his mouth drooped open to let loose a mortifying screech that shook all of us to our bones. No mortal being of any kind could possibly emit such a sound. It was the herald of another world.

With a flourish, the rider turned about and galloped off into the night. Those terrible hooves stamping in the snow became distant. Then they became nothing. All of us stood in stunned silence in the cold with the two mangled corpses of our erstwhile comrades continuing to bleed out onto the snow.