Silent and bright like a set of teeth in a glass by the bed, the moon rose quietly from behind the hills that were the crumpled bedsheets of the Earth's sleeping form. A dark-cloaked figure, thin and angular as a bicycle dredged from the bottom of a deep lake cold as a morgue, stared from the window cut – like a single diamond resting on a cloth so black that it might once have been worn by a priest – into the solid granite of the castle.

The man that was not a man turned from the window – his cloak swirling about him as the wings of a giant bird of prey would beat, gently at first, then stronger as it prepared itself for a long voyage towards its victim – and looked without seeing at the rest of the room as a hungry wolf might survey his lair before leaving for the ripping, snarling, tearing hunt.

In the bright sunlight that was reflected from the moon's rocky surface onto the darkened areas of the Earth like a torchlight is reflected in the single eye of a wild beast that has partaken in many vicious fights, the land – barren and impoverished as an old beggar's pockets in winter, and almost as dark – revealed nothing.

The cloaked man emerged from the castle gates, riding hunched forward in a weather-beaten brown leather saddle strapped onto the broad and strong back of a white stallion so large it could easily have carried two or even three such men as himself with no more difficulty than if it were carrying only one. Rich plumes of vapour from the horse's nostrils were left behind as the man and horse galloped away into the night, as fast as though they were the pursued and not the pursuer.

 

The old woodcutter would have stood by the storage shed, waiting for his four strong brave young sons to return from their day's work, as he normally did at that time of night when it was that time of year, but for some reason unknown to himself he felt it would be prudent to stand elsewhere that night. Perhaps it was an unprecedented sixth sense that gave caution to the old man, but he would never know. He stood inside the house, by the empty fireplace which was also waiting for the four strong brave young sons to return laden with wood to burn to provide heat for the sons and their father and also their mother who was resting in the other room on the feather mattress made from the down of a hundred ducks poached from the lake of the very castle from which the cloaked man on horseback was riding.

The sound of a noise outside caught the old man's attention. He reacted by peering out of the window onto the dirt track outside that served as a road in these parts. A figure on horseback rushed past, and was gone in an instant, quicker than the noise that preceded him and lingered after him like the smell of a wet dog lingers in a room long after he has been sent back out into the rain.

The old woodcutter's life had been spared, for the man on horseback was so fierce and dangerous that the sight of him charging along the track might have stopped the old man's heart as surely as a bullet will stop a clock. The old man knew nothing of the terrible danger he had avoided, and he never would know. He could no more suspect the evil lying in wait in the cloaked man's heart as a lion would lie in wait for an unwary traveller armed only with a map an a compass than a butterfly could suspect that the rusting canister it flew past with the three black triangles superimposed on a yellow circle meant “Danger.”

 

The huge white stallion galloped through the night like an overnight express train carrying urgent medical supplies to a plague-stricken town on a far-off coast, stopping only once when the cloaked man urged it to do so as he required a moment's thought in silence and without motion while he considered his thoughts on the night's mission.

Mounting the stallion once more, the cloaked man rode the beast in the direction of a nearby sleeping village which was quiet as death in the empty silent motionless air of the night. As the cloaked man reached the village, he dismounted the horse and left it to feed on the grasses and weeds that grew at the side of the road, unkempt by any gardener who might have spent more time weeding and planting than would have happened by the forces of nature alone.

The cloaked man strode through the village until he reached a tavern, where he stopped. He rapped on the door, and it was quickly answered by a fat ageing balding Innkeeper, stains of spilt beer on his tunic indicating that a busy day had passed, or perhaps an event such as a wedding or a birthday party had taken place.

“You!” the Innkeeper exclaimed. His face turned as white as the flour his wife used when she was making the bread for sandwiches which would be eaten in the tavern the following noon by a score of hungry young men who were skilled with axes and ploughshares but had scant understanding of the purpose of a packed lunch.

“Yes,” said the cloaked man in a deep gravely tombstone whisper, a hollow sound like the creaking of a huge old oak door behind which lay secrets unknown and unimagined by all but the most corrupt of minds. “It is I. The October month is near an end. All Hallow's Eve is here. Do you have what it is that you must give me?” He stepped back so that the yellow moonlight could fall upon his face more easily, and the Innkeeper gasped at the sight of this cloaked man's horrible visage.

“No! Please, no! I beg you!” The Innkeeper cried as though he was a young boy and not a full-grown man with a wife and three children to support and a tavern to run. “We have given you so much in previous years! My wife and I are poor, we cannot afford such sacrifices. Please, not this year! Can you not choose another from the village?”

The cloaked man was silent and said nothing. His eyes seemed to burn into the Innkeeper's as though they were twin hot pokers and the Innkeeper's eyes were small greasy lumps of butter that had been scraped from a knife and left on the inside rim of the butter dish coated with crumbs and faint traces of jam after sandwiches had been made for the young men who worked in the village.

The Innkeeper felt his will dissolve. He knew he had to give in to the cloaked man, or there would be no peace for them. The nights were long and dark and dangerous enough without the need for repeated visits by the cloaked man with eyes of fire and a heart of pure evil carved from the cindered souls of the damned that lay twitching and blackened on the floor of the lowest pit of the depths of Hell itself.

As if the cloaked man sensed the Innkeeper's weakening, he slowly reached inside his cloak and withdrew a large coal-black leather sack, tied to which were what appeared to be the withered remains of a human hand which hung limply like a piece of rotten fruit clinging to a tree after a long summer followed by a humid autumn, and several blood-encrusted feathers still attached to part of some luckless fowl which perhaps had strayed into the castle seeking shelter and food, and finding only death at the hands of a blood-crazed assailant.

The Innkeeper knew he had no choice but to give the cloaked man what he desired. “Wait,” he said. He closed over the door, but only part-way so as to indicate that he was not locking the stranger out, which would be a gross insult, but that he was keeping in the heat that reluctantly emerged from the meagre fire.

The Innkeeper walked slowly towards the small kitchen at the back on the inn, where his wife stood with their three nervous children – clothed only in cheap hand-me-down rags which were all the Innkeeper and his wife could afford to give them as the summer had not been good and there were few travellers passing who had a desire to stay in the inn – gathered around her for comfort.

“Is he gone? Have you convinced him to leave us alone?” she asked, staring into her husband's eyes searching for an answer to the question which she had asked of him.

In reply to his wife's question, the Innkeeper shook his head negatively. “I cannot say no to him. He must have that which he requires.”

The Innkeeper turned to his eldest daughter. She was no more than sixteen, barely entering the first stages of her womanhood, with clear blue eyes and long dark hair and fair white skin so pure that it almost demanded to be clothed in the finest of silks and satins, yet she was brave. “I know what must be done, father. For the good of the family.” Without looking at the crying form of her mother, she picked up her basket and walked to her father.

The Innkeeper and his daughter returned to the door, where the cloaked man was still waiting as one who knows he will receive what he requires will wait – with patience and an outward appearance of calmness. But the fire in his eyes burned greater as he saw the young woman, and he grinned hungrily and evilly as he anticipated what pleasures the night would hold for him.

“There is no other way, old man,” the cloaked man said, turning to the Innkeeper once more. His voice was croaked and rough, as though he had been in a desert for hours and had just tried to take his first swig from his water bottle and realised that he'd left it in the kitchen after he'd filled it.

The cloaked man turned once again to the girl, and licked his tongue over his bone-dry yellow teeth as though he was hungry and thirsty for something soft on which to bite. “I must have what is rightfully mine.” He reached his hands out to the girl.

She took a single step forward, and raised her basket to him. He took it greedily, and emptied the contents into his sack. With a last flourish of his cape, he stepped down from the porch and walked away into the night. Shortly there was the sound of the horse's hooves as it galloped away into the night.

The father and daughter returned to the kitchen, where the younger children were bobbing for apples.