The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

Kurt tapped the remnant of the camp fire with a stick. Nearby, the horses whinnied as Janus moved about the edge of the site.

“They’ve definitely split up!” the runner called to him, his voice coming from some rustling bushes to the human’s left. He emerged a moment later, coming to stand by the embers, which he quickly held an open palm over, his face tight with concentration. “No more than a couple hours ahead of us, there’s still some heat in these coals. One horse has gone off to the road, a couple of miles east of us. The rest continued after our quarry.”

“Any idea why they did that?” Kurt asked.

The runner shrugged. “It could be that they want to spread the word about what happened back at your farm, or at that house,” Janus suggested, rising slowly. He rubbed his chin for a moment, his free hand playing with the head of his axe. “There are a few towns between here and the Dead Lands, and that could be where these people Eisengrim is hunting might be headed.”

Memories from an idle youth rose up within Kurt then as his guide shuffled about the camp, doing God knew what. His grandfather had warned him about the Dead Lands when he had grown up in the Capital. His father had done the same when Kurt and Sabine had signed up for a grant from the King to build their farm and business beyond the safety of the curtain wall. The fertile fields and forests that lay closer to the faded Old World lay fallow and unproductive, overgrown as much with the wilderness as folklore about the horrors that lay beyond them, in the former kingdom of the long-dead elves.

“No good will come of it, boy! You’re heading out there to build a life says ye, but sorrow and death are all you’ll be earning!”

“Why would they take Martin out there?” Kurt asked, looking to his companion and banishing his father’s ghost.

“They could hide out there, Kurt. I’ve never been there, but Klara would read from peoples’ books about what it was like. Some people go out there to explore and loot what they can. Not all of them come back.”

“I’ve met a runner in the market,” Kurt countered. “He claimed he went out there. He came back.”

“Did he come back with all his wits?”

Kurt shrugged. “He came back with this,” he replied, fingering the star stone that bore no star. “Are you certain they’re going that way? To the Dead Lands, I mean.”

Janus drew himself up, so that he appeared nearly as tall as his current employer. “I’d be willing to bet my wages on it!”

“Would we overtake them all if we go by the roads?” Bauer asked, thinking this out aloud. “If we did, do you think you could figure out just where they might try and cross over to the Old World?”

“If you can get me a map of the area, then yes, Kurt, I think I can. A river goes along part of the border. Klara told me some of the bridges are down, but not all of them.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

They struck out quickly, weaving through the trees with Janus in the lead. Kurt kept as close as he could to the runner. It was not long before they were on the Grun road, an ancient highway of stone that was struggling to stay atop the weeds and trees that were trying to force their way through the cracks. It had been built by the elves, and because of that maintaining it was yet one more headache for the King. Everyone used it, no one liked it, and not many were willing to linger on it long enough to maintain it, regardless of what wages His Majesty offered. There were plenty of stones with symbols on them still that the wind and rain had not washed away. Some heretics, it was said, still kept it sanctified with bizarre elven rites performed in secret when the moon was right. Kurt had briefly thought of taking a job working the road, but even Sabine had not felt comfortable with him being out here on the relic so long, her assurances that nothing was wrong aside. Would his life had been better if he had taken the work out here, instead of building the farm with his wife? It was useless to dwell on such things, but Kurt couldn’t help himself. There had been so many roads before him once, and now there was only the Grun, and whatever uncertain future that lay at the end of it. He wanted to think of Martin, then. He thought of Sabine instead.

“They probably sent Siegfried off,” Janus said to him, as they rode down the road.

“What makes you so certain?”

“He’s the King’s nephew, Bauer! Klara hates him, and near all the other hunters I met do, too. They all think Eisengrim should have been made head of the Order.”

“What do you think about him?” The human asked, curious.

“He’s just another human,” the runner said then, turning his head slightly to wink at Kurt, and grin. “No offence.”

“None taken.” There were far more pressing things to be concerned with than feelings just then. “What direction do you think he took?”

“Probably headed towards the same town we are.”

“Is there any chance we might run into him?”

Janus laughed, and then spat in disgust onto the road. “Not a chance, Bauer! He’s a royal! He’s a pampered pup that should never have been brought along in the first place!”

“He didn’t seem that bad to me,” Kurt replied. He felt as if he should say something in defence of the man. Whatever politics were involved in putting him in charge of the rest of the hunters, Prince Siegfried seemed like a good, honourable person. He said as much to Janus, which naturally provoked a knowing, almost superior smile on the wolf man.

“You would say that though, wouldn’t you, human? You’re all alike at the end of the day. At any rate, Siegfried will probably stay at the most expensive house at Eichen, if he doesn’t just roll into the mayor’s palace there. We won’t run into him. We’ll stay there a day, see if we can get a few things that might even the odds, and find a map.”

They rode for most of the day, only stopping briefly once for lunch, to rest the horses, and so Janus could force Kurt to go through the basic stances and strikes with his sword again. Kurt was weary from riding, and from the half hour the runner had made him do with the sword that morning, but he did not complain. Martin was finally in his thoughts then, and drove his father to push himself for the first time in years.

“Those bastards we’re after don’t stand a chance!” Janus laughed, patting him on the back when they were finished. The mockery in his smile was still there, but Kurt swore it wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. The runner even helped him mount up.

“Do you think you might like to stay with us when this is over?” Kurt asked at one point during the ride.

“Where, Bauer? On your farm?”

“Yes. We’ll need to rebuild, and you’re not a hunter any more. Would you like a job with us? You could be our new foreman.”

“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes. What do you say?”

Janus looked at him then with real pity on his features. “Kurt, that’s not going to happen. If we get your boy away from everyone, then you can’t stay here any more. You’ll need to leave the country. You and your boy will be hunted for the rest of your lives. If you want…I can take you both through the woods and get you to a port somewhere out of the way. You’ll have to build a new life somewhere else. Your one here’s as dead as your workers.”

Kurt looked away. They said little for the next hour, until Janus leaned over to pat his knee. Kurt stirred suddenly, a jolt running through his body at the unexpected contact. Had he fallen asleep?

“Look alive,” the runner said, gesturing down the road with his head to ivy covered walls and a formidable stone gate guarded by several bored looking men-at-arms. “We’re here.”

They showed their papers at the gate, and were let inside with little trouble after paying the toll. Nearby, in a wooden office, Kurt thought he saw a man in civilian clothes marking a register. The instruction was clear: if they wanted business, then they would have to follow the signs. It would be wise to avoid taking any side streets, or detours of any other sort, under any circumstances. Many of the buildings looked solid, but there was no guarantee they wouldn’t come crashing down upon them at the slightest provocation. If someone called to them from off the main road, they must ignore it. They agreed to follow the regulations, and rode slowly into the streets then, passing by houses and larger buildings that hinted at wealth and power long lost. Holes, rather than windows, watched them from every angle. Hints of wooden balconies marred the stone construction of several of the more generously laid out ruins. Rickety wooden arrows gave hints at where they should go, while graffiti here and there suggested salvation outside of the King’s Quarter, and other things.

“I’ve heard of this place,” Kurt said, more because the silence and emptiness of what should have been a bustling street was grating on his nerves, than because he wanted conversation. “Never thought I’d ever come here.”

“I figured I would have to, sooner or later,” the runner replied quickly. “I’m glad I didn’t until now. Eichen is a corpse you humans keep trying to revive. You should just let it be. It belongs to the gods now.”

“Your teacher’s been here?”

Janus nodded. “Yeah, a couple of times when she was being taught by the old bull. She hated this place. She said the King was wasting his time trying to bring life back here. I think it’s one of the few things we ever agreed on.”

The arrows took them deeper into the geometrically laid out streets and avenues. They passed a wood that must have been a public park once, the trees and bushes having long escaped the confines of the original green, now patiently destroying their way through the stone that could no longer contain them.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Janus said as they rode past. “Nothing holds the trees back. You cut them down, but they return, in time. Perhaps that is the truth the elves thought they were looking for?”

Kurt nodded. High above them, an eagle landed on the branch of a formidable oak tree. Its pitiless eyes met the human’s, and they regarded each other silently until Kurt’s mount took him to the edge of the green and the influence of the wood within the city. Then he disappeared from view.

“Deer are supposed to be wandering around somewhere in the city parks,” Janus said. “Rabbits, and foxes too. If the trees have their way, in time wolves will stalk these streets, and the stone buildings of man and the wooden homes of the elves will be dragged back to the earth.”

“You don’t like cities at all?”

“Maybe I left home too early,” Janus said with a shrug. “Do you really like places like this?”

“I lived near an old tanner when I was growing up in Gozer,” Kurt answered, feeling his nose shrivel up a little as he recalled his old life. “I was apprenticed there for a little while. All I could think about among all that stink and death was getting out of the city, and never coming back.”

“Your farm was a beautiful place, Bauer. It would have been a good place to raise a family. I’m sorry that couldn’t happen. The gods give us happiness, so we suffer more when they take all we love away.”

The arrows led them to the King’s Quarter. As the sky darkened above, they saw the palisade wall that separated the living quarters of the colonists from the rest of the silent necropolis. Men-at-arms were lighting braziers, and an old man was sitting near the gate playing a flute. Kurt reached into his purse to give the old fellow a few coppers, but Janus beat him to the punch, leaning down gracefully from his saddle to slip a silver coin into the astonished man’s hat.

“The tune reminds me of home,” the runner said, when he pulled himself back up, and caught his employer staring at him. “We never had much comfort, but we always had music.”

“Was your girl Nyx any good with a flute?”

Janus grinned wickedly. “Let’s just say she knew how to use her mouth and leave it at that, Kurt.”

They passed through the wooden gate. Before them, rising up into the air were the spires of the St. Vincent Cathedral, and beyond that, outlined in the purple sky were the oblong blocks that must have made up the mayor’s residence and the garrison, where Janus was confident Prince Siegfried would be. It was there, within three fortified barracks buildings, that nearly a third of the population of the settlement lived. For lesser mortals, or those not serving their King, there was the only remaining inn, which was near the new market and the settled streets within the inner wall. It was named the Totenkopf Inn, and even Kurt had heard of it. The King had allegedly disliked the name, but no one else was willing to take on the position of innkeeper at the edge of civilisation, so the name, and the cheeky owner, had remained.

“Why do they collect the toll at the stone gate?” Kurt asked Janus as they dismounted.

“To try and keep track of how many people are here,” the runner explained as they brought their mounts around to the inn’s stables and handed them over to the inn’s lone waiting stable hand. “There are a lot of places to hide in the ruins, and it helps to have an idea of who is coming and going. There are brothels and gambling dens out among the old buildings that keep moving about, so the guards don’t find them. Wild preachers too, and other rough sorts of people. It might be a good idea to have a word with the fellows at the gates, see if any large body of people on mounts passed through recently, but only during the daylight hours. I wouldn’t like to be out between the walls in the dark. Who knows what you might run in to?”

The inn itself had clearly been built as something else in a previous life. Kurt wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been told that it might have once been a palace or residence of a very minor noble, before Sturmwatch or any of the other human nations had been created, and all had bowed to the elves. It was two storeys, built of solid stone and was wide enough to dominate the two men’s horizon as they walked up the steps that led inside. Despite the worn grey of the exterior, the inside reminded Kurt of most inns that he had stayed in throughout his life, except there was a great deal more space, and far less people. The big man at the bar welcomed them in, smiling and laughing at the new faces in town. Drinks were poured, and the routine questions asked as heavy orders of food were made.

“Have you got any girls here?” Janus asked the innkeeper. He looked nervous as he enquired about this, instinctively checking over his shoulder as he waited for an answer. “I’d like one of my kind, if possible. I’ve had a human girl, and one of the scaled, but if there are any around…I’d like to spend some time with one of my own kind.”

The innkeeper’s demeanour changed somewhat, a hint of disdain flickering across his face that was quickly hidden before a customer. “No bitches here,” he said. “There’s a whorehouse down the street a little that serves some of the garrison. They stock all sorts there. I think I’ve seen a couple of your kind there, sir. Here, we just got human and dwarf girls. Sorry.”

“I’ll go after we eat,” Janus said, eyes narrowing.

“We’ll go,” Kurt said, offering the runner a smile. He needed the distraction, and if he started drinking now there was a real danger he might not stop. Janus was company, and he needed that. “My treat.”

“Are you sure, Kurt? There are girls here for you. I haven’t had a chance to be with one of my own since I left my tribe.”

“All the more reason why I’d like to come along,” the big human said, patting the wolf man on the back. “I’ve only ever had human girls, and if what you say is true, I might not have much time left to be adventurous.”

The runner looked uncertain and suspicious for a moment. He yielded quickly, however. “You can come,” he said, a grateful smile forming. “But let me pay, will you? That way you can’t complain if you walk out with claw marks on your arse cheeks.”