The old wagon clattered down the country lane, the ancient nag huffing and blowing as it strained at the traces. Daniel Crook resisted the urge to lash the beast with the reigns only with a supreme effort of will.The village of Popley-on-Stow was typical of many villages in the country, little more than an inn, a few crofts and an old mill. Even before the war it had been losing people as the young ones were inevitably drawn away to the cities and enclosure made it harder and harder for a man to make his way as a farmer. Crook scowled at the thought. Everywhere you looked the old ways were fading away to be replaced by bastardized new ideas which took men further from the Truth. The wagon creaked into the half ruined coach yard of the old inn. The ancient two story structure was beyond dilapidated and had developed an alarming lean. Cannon balls had blasted several holes in its ancient plaster walls during the recent war where partisans of one side or another had used the inn as a base of some kind. Crook smiled as he climbed down from his covered wagon and patted his horse. The war had been good for the Ancient and Honorable Order of Swine Butchers, the mendicant meat sellers who travelled the land in their red painted wagons. One the arrival of a swine butcher in any village had been a herald of the coming winter and their arrival would be greeted with fear and excitement. In those days people had recognized that the slaughter of animals was a sacred thing and believed that the butcher took the violence of an animal's death upon himself. Like so much else that truth had faded over the years and most Swine Butchers were little more than figures of fun at harvest carnivals. Crook strode through the door of the inn and past the ancient, faded, sign that proclaimed the Slaughtered Calf. Not for much longer.


The interior of the inn was every bit as dilapidated as the outside, dust and cobwebs eddied in the draught and the cold was kept at by only by a huge fire which had been kindled in the ancient stone fireplace. An evil looking tapster with one eye was laddeling sour smelling ale into wooden tankards for the dozen men that occupied the room. With the exception of the tapster each man wore a mask made of an animal skull, mostly pigs though several cows and horses were also present. The skull was the only unifying motif. They men gathered were young and old, some dressed in the simple attire of the country while others were unmistakable city men. The call of blood could be felt even in the cities, praise be to Old Night, and some of the most enthusiastic members of the Order plyed their trades in alleys and knackers yards. The other figure who stood out was a young man who hung suspended upside down naked save for a filthy hood and struggling feebly.	
“Brothers!” Crook called theatrically as he was framed by the doorway, “I bring you glad tidings, for old Night has whispered to me in my dreams! The long wait is over! The Days of Blood are at hand!”

“You dare speak to us with your face uncovered!” a cattle skulled man demanded, springing to his feet and moving towards Crook.

“You profane the…” the man’s objection ended in a choking gasp as Crook drove his hand through his chest. In place of fingers he now sported a trio of boney talons, six inches long and razor sharp.

“Look upon his blessingings and rejoice!” Crook howled, shoving the objectionable man back into the tap room. The stricken man’s mask tumbled to the ground with a crack as he tried frantically to staunch the flow of blood.

“Take him,” Crook directed holding up his unnatural appendage to emphasize his point. Cultists sprang forth and seized the dying man. A rope was looped around his legs and he was hoisted to the rafters beside the other victim. Blood pattered to the ground as his throat was cut, his blood dripping from his chin into waiting buckets. One of the butchers began to open his stomach, drawing forth his entrails with the practiced care of a craftsman.


“The Days of Blood are close brothers!” Crook repeated, flexing his fingers which seemed once again to be nothing more than the calloused digits of a man used to hard work.


“Old Night himself has returned to our shores and spoken to me in my dreams. He has work for us…” One of the butchers began peeling the skin from the unfortunate objector with a flensing knife.

“And we will discuss it while we eat…”

________________________________________________________________________

A hound brayed on the moor as Emmarelda led the way along the Old Road. It was still an hour or two until dawn and the darkness was alleviated only by the light of the city on the horizon.

“They will be sending patrols, we should get off the road,” Wil cautioned. Emmarelda nodded.

“It isn’t too much further,” she said with more confidence than she felt. Once upon a time the Gypsy clans had roamed the countryside, but since the war they had been forced to stay put in the relative safety of the city and Carnival Row. Emmarelda’s first instinct had been to return to her people, but with the Goats on the offensive and hunting her in particular she knew that would be the first place they would look. The vision of what she had seen in the crystal ball continued to trouble her. The strange man had seen her somehow, beheld her through the ball as clearly as if it had been him instead of Wil sitting across the table. She didn’t have a tarot deck to consult but she felt in her bones that he was the tip of something dark and terrible.

“Stand and deliver!” a voice shouted from the darkness. Wil shoved Emmarelda to the ground a heart beat ahead of a shattering boom. A second crack sounded almost simultaneously with the first and there was the thud of a body hitting the ground. Wil was still for a moment then helped her up, reloading his smoking pistol one handedly. A raggedly clad man with a mask over his face lay in the ditch by the side of the road, an ancient fowling piece still gripped in his dead hand.

“Bloody highwaymen,” Wil grumped. With the armies disbanded, the roads were awash with discharged veterans of both sides, and wise people did not travel by night or without strong guards.

A few minutes later they turned off the road and headed down a weed choked path that looked like it hadn’t been used in many years. After a half mile they came to a tumble down ruin of arched masonry which had once been a monastery. There had been many such buildings once before old Queen Kate had defied the Arch-Prelate and declared herself the head of the Church. Now a days the Old Church was proscribed and its few remaining adherents practiced in secret or had fled to the continent into the Imperial Territories. 

Emmarelda lead the way into a ruined chapel. Inside an old coat room she began to probe the stones with her fingertips till she found the stone she was looking for. She pressed it in and there was a long groan of grinding masonry as a section of wall withdrew revealing a steep narrow stairway. She gestured Wil inside then followed him, sealing the door behind them. At the bottom of the stair was a large room that might once have been a cellar. Several pallets lay against the wall and barrels of food and drink stood under a canvas tarp.

“What is this place?” Wil demanded.

“Followers of the Old Faith use it to hide their priests,” Emmarelda explained, “Despite the best efforts of the Protectorate, they still slip here and there to preach their gospel.”

“We will be safe here,” she added, “... at least while the sun is up, I have a sense that after sunset we would be wise not to trust anything.”