The Devious Plots of Underwater Horses
A horse is implicated in the disappearance of local Rundellian officials. Sheriff Ratcliff investigates.
“And that’s when the horse grabbed him?” Sheriff Ratcliff asked, his right eyebrow rising on his face in the same manner that parents would at night to the sound of their crying children. With reluctance and unavoidability.
Sheriff Ratcliff was a man of refined appearance and poise. He was more tanned than most of his peers who held similar station - due to his belief that it was difficult to oversee the peaceful operations of a city if one did not actually ‘walk about it.’ And yet he enjoyed his station and the privileges that went with it, so had the distinct problem of sticking out like an over-pampered thumb.
He also sported a well oiled and refined mistletoe moustache that everyone agreed really suited his name. He was deeply observant. Just not of himself.
He shook his head and carefully re-arranged his face to a more neutral setting. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
“Aye, my Lord. So I was standing, err… over there.” The dockworker pointed towards the end of the dock. He was a brown haired, darkly tanned and scarred man in his late forties, looking well at home in this bustling dock.
As was frequent for the middle of the week, many barges from the farming communities up and down the river had been arriving all day to drop off their supplies to market. Many labourers, merchants and “opportunists” were about, practising their respective hustles, petty crimes, and creating a loud and boisterous environment. Fish hawkers were hawking their fish in the time honoured tradition of doing business where it was expected and not where it was most profitable.
Sheriff Ratcliff looked to where the man was pointing. It was the same as any other pier head with a built out landing. The import inspector was arguing with a barge captain over some manifest reports from his official inspections shelter. The argument seemed both heated and routine.
“And then you saw a horse… in the river.” Sheriff Ratcliff said, looking back at the man.
“Aye sir, a very large horse. With tentacles.” The man said, a look in his eyes that said, ‘Yes I know what I’m saying. I know what I saw. And I know you don’t believe me. But damnit that’s what I saw, and it’s either I saw that or I’ve gone mad. And I’m not prepared to go there - yet.’
“A horse.” The man nodded. “With Tentacles.” The man nodded again.
Sheriff Ratcliff sighed.
“Can you describe these tentacles?” Sheriff Ratcliff went on. One of his constables sniggered behind him. It’s not that the Sheriff didn’t BELIEVE the man. He knew better than to dismiss the strange sightings of the average dockworker describing his bizarre late night encounters.
It just usually… wasn’t… what they thought they saw. But it usually WAS something that Sheriff Ratcliff was very interested in getting to the bottom of.
“Uhhh… well it was under the water see. And kinda dark.” The man squirmed as he spoke, looking uncomfortable.
“Do your best.” Sheriff Ratcliff said patiently. He had started tugging at his moustache whiskers and forced himself to stop. It had become a nervous habit of late, over the last several months of strange events.
“They were dark… long… waving about… five feet? Six feet? Maybe?” the guy said, his voice rising in the tone of a man who was stabbing into the void looking for something plausible that would land.
“Oi, they was at LEAST 10 feet long tentacles,” said the far less scrupulous looking of the two men. “Black. And covered in weird red veins. Sinist’r as fack my lord.”
This man was the shorter of the two, also deeply tanned and much more scarred. He was missing a tooth, and smelled of cheap liquor. While he had an affable quality about him, it was the kind of affable that suggested he’d be oh so affable about selling you to a conscription officer if it would help him cover his debts to the local loanshark.
“A large horse, with 10 foot long black tentacles covered in ‘weird’ red veins.” Sheriff Ratcliff asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage.
“How… many of these tentacles did this horse have?”
When one of his constables muttered to his compatriot, “thats one hung fack’n horse.” Sheriff Ratcliff gave him the ‘slow turn and stare of disapproval’ to acknowledge the joke and make clear the instruction to ‘shut up.’ The two constables stiffened and tried to look professionally innocent.
Sheriff Ratcliff turned back to the two dockworkers with his eyebrow raised. They looked at each other and shrugged.
“Dunno my lord. Half a dozen? Eight? It was real hard to tell when it was under the water, and when it surfaced… well…” The man looked uncomfortable.
“What happened then?” Ratcliff asked.
“Well it grabbed Jenkins and Troy with two tentacles each, then screamed bloody murder and disappeared under the water with both of em in tow. They were screaming, we were screaming, it was screaming… there was a lot of screaming.”
The man looked flustered. The other man nodded enthusiastically, obviously not as traumatized by the murder… drowning… kidnapping? of his two co-dockworkers.
“Aye. And it was dark as fack. I was lookin’ for things to throw at it, on account of Jenkins being my fourth cousin three times removed. I couldn’t stand the thought of some cursed horse daemon drownin’ his arse. But it happened so quick, and now he’s gone! And his poor wife Jeni is all alone now.” The second man shook his head in a deeply theatrical fashion as he spoke.
The first man looked strangely confused by this addition to the story, but thought better of saying anything.
Sheriff Ratcliff eyed the second man. He wondered just how much of that was total horse shit, and if he needed to put a guard on ‘poor Jeni’s’ house in case of unwanted visitors. He filed that under ‘future Ratcliff’s problem’ and got back to his questioning.
“So the horse with tentacles came out of the water…” Sheriff Ratcliff said, the two men nodded. “Did it… climb out? Rise out? Float to the surface?” The two men looked at each other confused.
“Horses tend to be heavier than water. They mostly sink. How did it rise out of the water?” Sheriff Ratcliff said. The two men just looked at him and blinked.
“I dunno m’lord. It… looked like it was galloping out,” the first man said.
“Galloping?” Ratcliff said, slowly. One of his constables coughed.
“Yea… m’lord… like when one of the… uh… other lords comes riding into the docks in a hurry. Only… like… at an angle,” the second man said, making strange gestures with his hands implying a thirty degree upward trajectory.
Sheriff Ratcliff coughed. “It came… charging… at an angle… out of the water?” They nodded.
“And screaming too, Sir. It gave everyone a huge shock and we scattered. Well except Jenkins and Troy. They… well you know,” the First man said, looking uncomfortable. His eyes got that slightly glassy look that Ratcliff had begun to associate with men who had seen things that they shouldn’t, and now couldn’t stop seeing them on repeat.
He’d seen a lot of that look lately.
“What were Jenkins and Troy’s jobs here?” asked Ratcliff.
“Does that matter sir?” the first man said.
The second man didn’t bother to wait for an answer, “Troy was a shit scoundrel, Lord. Did odd jobs for pay. Was hired to help unload one of them barges that’d come in late last night. Jenkins, may Odin rest ‘is soul, was an import inspector who’d drawn the short stick for work’n that night. Right travesty. He wasn’t even supposed to be there.”
There it is, though Ratcliff. The pattern.
“Constable Brakes?” Ratcliff said, turning to the man who had cracked the horse cock joke.
“Sir?” said Constable Brakes, looking suddenly nervous.
“Go see Ms. Jeni to get her statement about her husband’s disappearance. See if she’s received any unwanted visitors over the last week, or if she’s aware if any of her husbands papers are missing. Take a couple extra guards with you and place her house under guard.” Ratcliff said authoritatively, while keeping his eyes on the second man. Disappointment. Check.
Brakes saluted and marched off.
“Sir?” said the first man, confused. Ratcliff waved his hand in dismissal.
“That’ll likely be all for now. If you see or hear of anything else… unusual… send word to the guard,” he said, his mind elsewhere, pulling at his moustache again. He was staring at the waters of the river, contemplating the unseen machinations of his invisible foes.
Disappearing inspectors. From the sewers, the merchant’s districts, the gates and now the river. Never witnesses. Just disappearances.
Until now… a tentacled and psychotic horse had just been exposed as the perpetrator. But… why would it reveal itself now? And… a horse? Well… not exactly a horse… and was the horse working alone… he wondered.
Ratcliff tugging hard on his whiskers, lost in his thoughts, oblivious to the fact that everyone around him was staring at him. To them, he looked very much like a pompous rat grooming itself. But a very handsome one.
But Ratcliff didn’t know. About that. About the horse though… he had a pretty strong suspicion the Fey had infiltrated his city. And this was a huge problem.
Inspectors were disappearing.
And taxes weren’t being collected.
Thanks for reading this latest short story in the Tales of the Godswood series. If you’ve enjoyed this, and want to see more like it, please subscribe to this newsletter. If you’ve already subscribed, please consider sharing this with a friend who likes fantasy and comedy, and thinks the world needs more bizarre mythical content.
And if you didn’t like it, well, fair, this isn’t likely to be everyone’s cup of tea. BUT - you probably have a friend who would like this! So please consider sharing it with them even as you drop my story in the trash bin.
Cheers!
Robin George