then scuttle out at great speed to seize their prey—usually fishermen or unwary travelers. The first scylla is said to have been one of the children of the first Lamia. It inherited its mother’s voracious appetite, which has been passed down to her descendants.
A Scylla
Skelts2
Skelts resemble huge insects, with long, thin, multi-jointed legs. Despite their size, they can fold themselves into very narrow spaces. Their segmented bodies are hard and ridged like a crustacean and usually barnacle encrusted. They live close to water, often in caves, and emerge to feed on the warm blood of mammals. They have snouts but are toothless, and their most notable feature is a long, narrow, sharp bone tube, which they insert into their prey in order to suck its blood.
A Skelt
A Water Witch Feasting on a Skelt
The skelt is greatly prized by water witches, who use it in their rituals. They allow it to drink the blood of a sacrificial victim over a period of days. Once the victim is dead, the witches then dismember the skelt alive and eat it raw. This triples the power of the blood magic gained.
Sirens
These female creatures use their powerful, enchanting voices to lure sailors to their deaths. In trying to reach the sirens, the mariners either plunge into the sea, where they are drowned, or sail their boats onto the rocks.3 It is believed that sirens feed upon the flesh of the drowned.
A Siren
A Wight
Wights
A wight is another creature created and used by witches, usually as the watery guardian of some secret place.4 Wights are created using dark magic. A drowned sailor’s soul is bound to his body, which then does not decay but becomes bloated and extremely strong. Although blind, their eyes having been devoured by fishes, wights have keen hearing and can locate their victims while still submerged. A victim may be totally unaware that a wight lies in wait in nearby water. The attack, when it comes, is swift. The wight seizes its prey and drags it down into deep water, where it drowns while being slowly dismembered.
Wights, like the witches who create them, can be repulsed and hurt by a staff of rowan wood. With a silver chain, they can also be dragged out of the water and finished off with salt and iron.
A Wight
Wormes
Wormes5 are dangerous creatures that range in size from that of a small dog to something as big as a house. Some have legs, most have tails, and all are vicious and bad tempered. Their bodies are sinuous and eel-like, but covered with tough green scales that are very difficult to penetrate with a blade. They have long jaws with a mouth full of fangs that can bite off a head or an arm in the twinkling of an eye. When on land, they can also spit a deadly poison that is quickly absorbed through the victim’s skin, with fatal results. Some wormes have short stubby wings, and because steam often erupts from their jaws, they are sometimes mistakenly believed to be fire-breathing dragons.
Wormes
They are mainly water dwellers, and although they prefer deep lakes, they occasionally make do with a marsh or river. Wormes are rare in the County but are to be found in its most northerly regions, ranging from the lakes down almost as far as Caster.
When they catch humans, they invariably squeeze their prey to death before eating them, bones and all, leaving hardly a trace. Sometimes they even swallow the clothes and shoes. But with animals such as cattle, they just bite deeply and drain them of blood.
Wormes are dangerous creatures to approach and are best dealt with by two people attacking the creature simultaneously.6
* * *
1At last I have trained an apprentice from that northern region of the County who wishes to return there and deal with things that come out of the water. His name is Bill Arkwright. —John Gregory
2Skelts are extremely rare. One day I hope to see one! —apprentice Bill Arkwright
Bill Arkwright got his wish! He had one trapped in a water pit below the mill. When it escaped, it attacked me and started draining my blood. Bill saved me, killing it with a rock. When he was a prisoner of water witches, they used a skelt to drink his blood. Once he was dead, the creature would have been ritually slain. —Tom Ward
3On the Greek coast, the crew of our ship, the Celeste, suddenly found themselves in thrall to sirens who waited on a headland of jagged rocks. These creatures,