2. Witches Of Knaresborough
"Hey Andy, come over here and help my friend out. He got his foot trapped and he can't get out from the woods. He's about your size so you could help lift him up easily." Aaron hustled Andy who was walking towards the destination of his first job — gong farmer.
Looking at the urgent look on Aaron's face, with sweat streaming down his forehead and sides of his jaw, Andy didn't feel anything amiss and turned back with Aaron towards the forested area that Aaron had been working on for some time now.
The morning sun had just broken through the foliage and it was casting its wonderfulness through, trying to shed light to the dense forest as they walked on unmarked paths.
There were a lot of stumps on the ground, indicating that work had been done as branches and its log had been ferried away by some ox or buffalo.
The deep grooves on the ground indicated that these poor animals had simply dragged the felled trees without being processed first. Judging by the size of the tree stumps, those trees would be at least 10 to 15 feet tall.
After walking for about half an hour, the duo had entered deeper into the forest when suddenly, Aaron stopped right in front of him. He did not turn around and just stood there looking straight ahead into the distance.
"Where's your injured friend, Aaron? Better not be pulling a prank on me. I hate being late for work, you know."
Andy spoke out and highlighted his displeasure when what he saw around them was just a clearing and a deep ravine beside it.
"Heh, my friend is around here alright and he should be arriving....." as soon as Aaron spoke out, Andy heard some rustling sounds from behind him as someone rushed and broke through the thicket. When Andy turned to look, he was suddenly in mid-air as a sharp, shocking pain was felt on the side of his ribs.
Andy was flung several feet in the air, his body like a rag doll as he looked somewhat surprised and shocked at what had befallen him.
He never knew that he would be in this state after being hit by something indescribable that made him shout out and grimaced in pain, clutching his injured ribs as he fell and rolled on the ground.
As he lay sprawled on the ground, he groaned loudly and was literally pulling his knees up to his chest and lay sideways, spewing out the dirt and dried leaves out from his mouth.
His side was hurting like hell and all he could see around him was blurry images of two people lumbering over his fetal positioned body.
He crunched his sides as close as possible and felt that it was about to split open, but there was no external wound, as the injury was caused by a single blow of a tree trunk that was hung and swung from an obscure angle.
If the tree trunk was slightly higher Andy's head would have turned into a pile of meat paste by now. Andy couldn't focus on the two shadowy figures before him as hot streams of tears flowed out incessantly despite him trying to stop and ease the pain.
That blunt force trauma had resulted in several broken hones from the right side of the ribs and Andy could taste the warm metallic taste of blood from his mouth. "I might have a punctured lung or something," the thoughts raged wildly inside his mind.
"Look here, you little shrimp. I have enough of your goody-two-shoes kind of attitude, yeah. Around the house, behaving like you're one godly child of theirs. Frankly, you are just like the dung that you have been hauling day in and out...! Pathetic little cow dung."
Andy heard Aaron bellowed out close to his ears, the hot stinky breathe of his, but Andy could still not being able to see clearly since his heart wanted to claw at the face that just breathed down on him, while his mind was simply protesting, telling him to endure the pain and get on with it.
Suddenly, just when he thought his ordeal was over, blows began to rain down on him. His head was kicked like a football, his sides and back were stomped whenever he tried to roll and evade the onslaught. His butt and legs were stomped too and he could feel every single jab of their pointy feet on him.
*SMACK* *BOOM* *POW*
The merciless blows continued for another minute or two before Andy lost his consciousness and thus lost part of his recollections of some events in his life. It was not amnesia but due to the trauma in his head, his brain had suffered a mild concussion.
"What a twat...! Hey Ron, we can leave his body in this woods. Why won't we threw him over the ravine and let the wild beasts take care of the rest of him." Aaron's accomplice pointed out to the ravine just a short distance away and they both were literally out of breath after they had done what they wished to do after planning for some time.
Aaron was bending over and uses his hands to support at his knees as he looked up and simply nodded. He licked his lips of the idea of taking his own brother's life once and for all and never wanting to see his face ever again.
"Heh heh... Yeah, let's do it. Grab one of his legs while I grab one of his arms. We are going to drag this sod over there. Phew...! Didn't know that this would really work us up..."
Aaron flashed his devilish grin as to finish up the deed that he had done with his accomplice. So when he got back home, he would just pretend that he didn't know about this matter and after a few days, the citizens would presume that Andy was dead and mauled by some wolves or beasts.
"Hahaha. Now there's only me. The only child in the family that they will dote on me. The hell with this prawn. I have nothing more of a little brother that I knew of." Aaron thought inwardly as he pulled Andy's limp arm and dragged his body over the dirt while his accomplice pulled one of the legs.
Andy was literally treated like a carcass from a game-hunting session and when the duo dragging Andy reached the brink of the ravine, Aaron can't help to peer over the sides and discovered that it was quite a long way down. Along the ravine were some overgrown brush, some saplings and small trunked trees and right below, they could see a small river.
If they threw Andy over, its either he would die due to the fall and tumble or drown in the river below. Whatever it is, the crux of the matter lies right now as Aaron's accomplice began to grab hold of Andy's ankles.
"Ron, grab his two hands as well, we swing him over and at the count of three, we let go and he would fly to heavens or sink to hell. Hahaha. You owe me big time, man. Hahaha." the accomplice suggested and when Aaron grabbed hold of the wrists, they began to slowly swing the body.
"One... Two... Three... Fly little birdie, fly... Hahahaha." the accomplice counted off and at the count of three, the swinging body was already over the brink of the ravine and the duo simultaneously let go of Andy's ankles and hands.
Right at that moment, Andy opened up his eyes and saw the duo over the ravine, and he felt something odd. He suddenly felt a sense of weightlessness, his body was somehow not in contact of the ground or anything as he tried to grope for something solid.
But soon, the feeling of weightlessness was replaced with an eerie sense of falling. His heart was somewhere in his throat, constricting him from making a single sound. He felt as if his soul was on the ends of his hair as he saw the edge disappeared as he flailed around, trying to clutch at anything in total vain.
He was in shock and in that moment, he fainted once again and his limp body bumped again some trees, bounded off a boulder or two and rolled a few times before coming to a stop, with parts of his legs and arm in the water.
Due to his limp and fainted condition, the impact when his body was flung across some tree trunks and boulders had somehow managed to absorb most of the serious impacts, that otherwise, a rigid and conscious body would not have attained.
The injuries that he had gotten through the tumble and fall was greatly minimised and even though the injuries may seem to be non life-threatening, but it left him with lots of bruises, bumps, scratches and some open wounds.
In fact, his face was greatly unrecognisable due to the injuries he had sustained, as it would take weeks before the swelling subsides and his features to return to normal.
The current of the river slowly edged around his arms and legs before he finally slides into the river, partly submerged in the knee-deep waters and his limp body slowly floated face-up downstream.
Fortunately, the coins that he had sewn around the hems of his tunic and sleeves didn't weigh him down and drown him as the soft currents slowly brought him to an unknown territory, far away from his current location where the currently slow-moving stream, River Nidd, joined with another river called River Ouse.
A group of 8 people was camping out and was about to break camp when they saw a body floating down the river. They were frightened but somehow a few brave ones waded through the water and found that Andy was breathing just fine.
Fortunately, he was floating along face-up along the stream when they discovered him if not they would have dragged the body to the riverbank and let it decompose naturally.
These 8 people were not nomads but were sort of healers that practise their craft near the Knaresborough cave on River Nidd. Some people may refer them as witches, while some referred them as sorcerers or even wizards for the men.
Although during that time, witchcraft knowledge and existence was not widespread, these 8 people decided to practise it within themselves as they split their professions such as diviners, healers and also perform acts to infertile lands with the help of some verses from the Bible et cetera.
Right now, they have an unconscious person, whose face was all swelled up, leaving his eyes and mouth looked like a pinprick with his puffy cheeks and forehead. The discovery of such find was God-send and they could finally experiment their crafts on a human body instead of animals.
They slowly dragged the body to the riverbank, checked his extremities for any internal or external injuries, before they made a makeshift stretcher to haul him closer to the camp that they were supposed to break earlier.
They discovered that the ribs on the right-hand side were tender and there was a huge bluish-black bruise which indicates that there was some kind of blunt trauma before and hematoma.
There were no other broken bones and it was a blessing to find that he had managed to survive a fall from that height.
The stretcher would also serve as a temporary bed and they made it as comfortable as possible for their 'patient'. After they had moved Andy to the small hearth, they quickly stripped his wet clothes off and covered him up with a blanket.
They noticed his body was covered with welts and bruises that had gone bluish-black and some parts were green too. His wet clothes were wrung dry and even if they did find some oddities about the tunic, they simply hung it dry along with his breeches.
That was where Andy's life turned about and started anew.