"The Ghost Of The Storm" by Carolin Emily ´Dragoncat´ Southern

The Highwayman’s Ghost

The two girls shivered in the biting cold. They jumped back in fear as lightning split the skies like a knife through butter and thunder echoed in the lifeless valleys. They hurried down the road. They were freezing in the party outfits. It was just the night to get stuck out with no transport and just the place to ... The party had been good though; their friend had hired the ballroom in the hotel that was once Blounts Court, home of Lord and Lady Stonor.

They neared Widmere. They looked out over the watery expanse.“ This is where the Highwayman died” one told the other. “Yeah right” replied the other “Well here is how it happened” She retorted.

“Under the inky blackness the frozen wind rattled around the rolling hills. The driving rain ran sideways against the carriage roof. A sudden thunderclap tore apart the skies and reverberated through the valleys.  The horses reared and thrashed the air. The driver struggled with them. That was the second time that night that they had been entrapped in the squelching mud.

The driver was getting worried as the elusive highwayman that stalked the shadows of Blount’s Pass like a cat on the prowl had not been captured. They were like sitting ducks trapped in the mud.  He hurried as the biting winds tore through the fields and hills.

The lady looked out over the barren landscape; bare trees rose like ancient sentinels across distant hilltops, was that a shadow or did a black figure on horse back skitter across the valley bottom? She strained her eyes but blinked and rubbed them for the rain was stinging like a thousand angry wasps. Lady Stonor looked back to the valley bottom; no living soul could be seen disturbing the shimmering sea of swirling grass. Thunder tore apart the inky black sky once more, the horses bucked and thrashed.  The horses broke free of their harnesses and galloped wildly into the darkness.  The noble lady froze; light sparkled on the diamond earrings; was that four or five sets of hooves, or just the four carriage horses she could hear?

The highwayman skirted into the trees.  His mottled black coat melted into the very shadows themselves.  His figure vanished, there was no longer a mortal man upon a black horse; there was an array of moving shadows each twisting and turning as one.  He neared the carriage.  Luckily for him the thunder had spooked the horses on time and they had fled to a copse near by.  It was going just as planned.  He rode swiftly to them. Leaning close to his horse, he rode with the four carriage horses nearer to the carriage.  To anyone but the most keenly sighted cat, there was no highwayman, just a deeper shadow in the already pitch black shadow of the trees.  He led the horses nearer the carriage.  If his plan worked, he would have the fine lady, her treasures and a carriage, a fair haul for such a terrible night as this.

The driver leapt down and looked carefully looked at the horses’ harnesses.  They were not broken: the buckles were undone.  He swore that he had them secure but no they were not broken; they were undone.  He looked behind him, the horses were returning, he could hear their hooves and just make out their outline against the blackness.

The highwayman laughed internally, he had snuck up and loosened the buckles when the carriage had been entrapped in the clogging mud before. Yes, his returning with the horses was working, he lead one horse away from the others.

The driver looked: was that one horse fleeing back into the deep night, or two?  One, it had to be; there were three horses coming towards him.

The highwayman dismounted. Using his cloak to keep him as a moving mass of greys and blacks he took some rope from round his waist and, removing the harness, tied the carriage horse to the fence.  He fumbled with the rope, “drat” he muttered silently.  This was taking too long for his liking.  He swiftly remounted. As he was keeping low against the contour of his horse’ again it seemed there was no highwayman.  He spurred on his horse; it cantered until it rejoined the group.

The driver turned round his breath making swirling clouds of white around his head.  His fingers were numb and frozen and he was slowly freezing under his livery.  That was odd; was there a shadow on the horse that had rejoined the group; no; it must have been a trick of his eyes as the starred into the impermeable blackness.  The four horses walked warily up the hill towards the carriage.  He coaxed the horses back and re-harnessed the three real carriage horses.

The highwayman drew back. His timing had to be precise. He spurred forwards; and as he came beside the fumbling driver, rose and switched sides, simultaneously drawing his dagger.  The driver opened his mouth to yell, but no sound was made, for his breath had already been stolen by the highwayman’s dagger.  His body only made a slight thud and squelch as it tumbled into the all-consuming mud.  The sound was inaudible, drowned out by the rolling of thunder and rattling of the rain against the carriage.  The highwayman harnessed his horse into the carriage horse’s place and leapt with feline grace into the drivers’ seat.

The highwayman had not been the only figure in the rain.  One lonesome guard stood in the shadows of a near by copse.  This was the night he had been waiting for.  It would finally be his chance to capture the elusive highwayman of the Blount’s pass. Yes, the highwayman darted across his vision, no more than a mere outline, illuminated for a split second by the knife like bolt of lightning the shattered the inky black tumult that was the thunderous sky.  He turned and rode as fast as the very lightning. There were six more of the guards waiting at the crossroads. He would have him finally.  He rode on through bush and briar till he reached the guards.  He spoke his message in three short words, “He is here.”  The seven turned and sped towards the pass.

The highwayman gathered up his reins and urged the horses on into the night.  If he went fast enough, he would be past the old Widmere and be at the main road to Reading by midnight.  The horses sped on, their hooves churning up the clogging mud. They thundered out across the fields.  They neared the road and hurtled along at a tremendous speed.  The lady called out, and was answered by the highway man with the information that they were heading for a deserted farmhouse on the other side of Reading and that she was to be his wife.

 He turned round, there behind him were the seven guards on their seven bay horses each armed with sword and gun.  He spurred the horses on and they thundered on towards Widmere track.  A bullet whistled by the highwaymans ear, he ducked back and looked round behind him.  He looked ahead again, but it was too late; the unstoppable mass of the carriage, and its four horses hurtled on towards the shimmering expanse of water there was no chance of turning now.  The horses skidded and slipped on the wet slime that was the mud and careered through the old, flint wall and out over the shimmering water, trampling the air and with the carriage behind them.  The horses hit the murky depths with gigantic splash that threw green, cloudy water over the already rain soaked guard.

The horses vainly tried to swim, but were dragged under the murky, sludgy water that swirled around them.  Lady Stonor was doomed; she had no way out.

The highwayman was luckier: he jumped clear in a graceful, arcing dive as the carriage was in mid air. He hit the water, for a second there were only ripples to tell he had ever existed. He swam through the murky green swelling and swirling depths. There, ahead, through cloudy water he could just trace the shore. He swam with all the strength he had.  He broke the surface, gasping for air he looked around. One of the guards saw the ripples and traced the concentric circles back to their origin.  It was the highwayman.  He looked down the sights of his gun, took his deadly aimed and pulled the trigger.  The highwayman sank beneath the silver and green waters, staining them red with blood.”

“Ooo scary” the other girl replied, I’ve heard something like it, and doesn’t the highway-man’s ghost rise from….” She was cut short. The water rippled and shook.  Four silver horses leaped out of the water, closely followed by the carriage.  They hit the road in a shower of sparks.  The Highwayman stood atop the carriage.  He was as if cut from the very storm itself.  The cloak that was once as dark as deepest midnight was now a rippling sheet of silver stained with darker blood.  The Highwayman’s eyes glared and flickered with some internal flame of hate.  The carriage turned towards the girls.

The horses picked up speed and the wheels turned and sparked as the horses took the load. The girls ran down the hill, slipping and sliding on the icy road. They skidded to a halt.  A tree felled by the silver blade of lightning lay strewn across the road as an impassable wall of wood and leaves.  The girls turned and ran right past the highwayman and the carriage.  The groping hands of the Lady’s ghost pulled at their hair. They ran back up the hill as thunder rolled around. They ran back towards the pond back towards Blount’s Court to help, to safety.  Lightning tore the sky behind the pond and hit with a mighty explosion ripping a tree to shreds and throwing it across the path.  The force of the explosion sent two other trees across the road.

They were trapped. They ran towards the old flint wall and with one leap threw themselves into the murky depths. The horses galloped through the wall and the carriage careered straight through the wall without leaving even a scratch. The girls swam through the icy lake towards the shore.  They froze in fear and cold as the carriage hurtled across the surface of the water.  In some unknown and unexplainable way the Highwayman had gained a sword that was more like the tip of a lightning bolt than a steel blade.

He leapt from the carriage roof and as the lightning flashed and thunder roared he bore down on them.

The party host stopped.  A blood-curdling scream wrenched the skies like a lightning bolt.  Another quickly followed it.  She looked out across the storm from her window, nothing but the storm disturbed the inky night.

The Highwaymen leapt back atop the carriage.  The horses dived below the murky water and the whole carriage slowly surrendered to the icy depths and went back to its submerged grave.  The last thing to sink beneath the ripple-less water was the highwayman. He stood on the roof with the sword aloft above his head.  The silver blue blade was stained.  They all sank bellow the surface without even a ripple.  As lightning flashed once more it illuminated the spreading crimson in the water.