The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

There was laughter. Theo, his arm in a crudely made sling, was clutching his chest and guffawing. Klara was laughing, too. Gerda was standing between them and the fire, waving her hands about as she told some graphic story of an absurd sexual exploit, while Eisengrim sat just a little apart from them, sipping his coffee, smiling quietly.

Siegfried watched them all, and sighed. Whereas everyone was sitting near the fire tonight, he preferred being near the edge of the camp, resting his aching back against a tree. He wasn’t sure if he had pulled a muscle when rising, or had landed badly during their encounter that morning with…whatever that was, but his lower back was troubling him. It was this that had cost him his appetite, he told everyone else when food was ready. He had not spoken the truth. How could he? No one else seemed to have had any problems digging that pit...

“Coffee, your Grace?”

Siegfried’s eyes snapped open. Had he been sleeping? The light of the fire had been shielded from him by a cloaked figure which, even in the darkness seemed pale. Dietrich was holding a pair of steaming steel cups.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“No problem, sir,” Dietrich said, giving the Prince one. He then sat down beside him, without invitation. Siegfried did his best to conceal his irritation. He wanted to be alone for the moment. Was that really not obvious to the rest of these people?

“I’m sorry about this morning,” Dietrich said.

Siegfried sighed. He did not speak, instead drawing warmth from the hot, wonderful smelling beverage in his hands.

“I had no right to speak to you that way, your Grace. I apologise.”

“Forget it Dietrich,” Siegfried replied, at last. “I feel like I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I was useless.”

“Was it your first time seeing combat, your Grace?”

The Prince nodded.

Dietrich shrugged. “It happens to nearly everybody the first time. Adrenaline hits you, and you get scared. You ain’t ready for it, or most of us ain’t. You just have to work through, and do your best.”

“Does it get easier?”

“Only if you’re crazy, your Grace.”

They sat in silence for a moment. At the camp, Theo stood up then, and began to elaborate a story of his own, about his many adventures in his journey south, if what Siegfried could just pick up between the laughter was any clue.

“You’re an odd bunch,” he said then to Dietrich. The older man chuckled, and shrugged.

“I think it takes a certain kind of…eccentricity to do this, your Grace.”

“Were you ready for that, today?” The Prince asked, keeping his voice low, that that shouldn’t have been necessary given the noise from the rest of the group.

Dietrich shook his head.

“What about the one you killed?”

In the dim light, the Deathless somehow became paler. “The witch, your Grace? You’ve read the report.”

“I have, yes,” the Prince said with a nod. “But it doesn’t really say very much.”

“Says what it needs to,” Dietrich responded, as he looked away, back towards the others.

“How did you lose your stone?”

“Must have fallen off when I was chasing the child, your Grace.”

“You were lucky they didn’t kill you.”

“Aye,” Dietrich the Deathless said with a tired nod. He looked terribly old to the Prince just then, somehow even older than Eisengrim. “Didn’t feel that lucky when I killed that boy, though.”

Silence reigned again, awkward and tense. Siegfried focused his attention on the rest of their companions, and sipped his coffee. A thought occurred to him then, as he watched Theo pick Gerda up with his uninjured arm and begun to pretend to shake her, using the dwarf as a prop for his story. The usually sour, taciturn dwarf seemed completely at ease now, like all of them. Was it because they had all survived to fight another day, or because they forgot that he was here?

“Should I go back?” he asked Dietrich. “I don’t feel like I’m any use here.”

“No, your Grace. You’re fine. None of us were really ready today. But we will be next time.”

“I thought witches were always children?”

Dietrich shrugged. “They usually are, sir. I think I’ve only heard of one other case aside from today of a witch surviving until they grew up without their magic being discovered. Unless that lady today killed all the people who saw her, and did a runner. I can see that happening. They can hide among other people sir, just like anyone else if they can find the right crowd. Or maybe she came from the Dead Lands? She could have been hiding out there for years. Plenty of places out there to hide, and not many out looking. It’s perfect if you’re a witch and you’re looking to be alone.”

“Or find other witches,” Siegfried said then.

“Aye, your Grace. That too.”

“Gerda said the one at the farm was a minotaur.”

“Aye, your Grace.”

“If Martin Bauer is a witch, then that’s three of them at that house, along with their lackeys. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. Have you?”

Dietrich shook his head slowly. He did not sip his coffee, preferring instead it seemed to watch it slowly become cold.

“What does Eisengrim think about this?”

“Probably best to ask him yourself, your Grace. Me, I haven’t had the balls yet.”

*

Theo set Gerda down, finally. The dwarf punched him in the knee. Theo slumped back down onto the ground, laughing hard at his own jokes and stories. Gerda shimmed down beside him, offered him her flask.

“Put that away,” Eisengrim said. Gerda blanched at the sudden, sharp words from the old bull. She obeyed immediately. Eisengrim then turned his attention to Klara. “How’s your head?” he asked her.

Klara shrugged. She was holding tightly onto her own cup of coffee. Eisengrim had stopped her from picking at the stitches on the side of her head several times now, the last with a loud swat of his finger that had the rest of the camp roaring in laughter.

“It’ll get better,” she said, glancing over enviously at Theo and Gerda. “It stings. My head hurts.”

“Well, that’s to be expected,” the old bull said with a smile and a shrug. “How is your father?”

“He’s well, thank you.”

“And your mother?”

“Still disapproving, sir. Still judging me.”

This amused Eisengrim. There was a threat of a deep chuckle, until he got it under control. “That’s what parents do, Klara, and there’s no need to call me ‘sir’, anymore. We’re equals.”

“I don’t feel like that right now,” Klara answered, and wondered if she looked even half as miserable as she felt, just then.

“You think I don’t have scars along my hide?”

“I know you do,” Klara replied. She looked down at the detritus of the forest between her feet, as her bare fingers pressed against the warm metal of her cup. “It’s just, sir, I was nearly lost today.”

“Aside from the loss of a fine helmet, and some stitches along your temple, you don’t look very lost to me.”

“You know what I mean,” she muttered.

The old bull shrugged, and sipped his own coffee. “I wasn’t always old, Klara, and I wasn’t always wise. Do you know what you did wrong?”

Klara nodded.

“Then count yourself lucky to have learned a lesson, and not paid too dear a price for it. A ruined helmet, a headache, and some stitches are very cheap indeed for the sense you gained.”

“What about Janus?” Klara asked then.

Eisengrim sighed, shrugged again. “Do you want me to take over his training, assuming he’s still at the Palace, when we return?”

She thought seriously about this for a moment, before she answered. “I don’t know. I thought I could do this. I thought I could be as good a teacher as you. I wanted to make a name for myself.”

That threatened chuckle came at last. It was deep, and far more musical than anyone who did not know the Hammer would have expected, given his size, and power. “You were always an overachiever. That’s not a bad thing, Klara, if you can keep the need to shine in check. Perhaps Janus would have been a better choice as a pupil, after some more experience teaching others?”

Klara dwelt on this, or tried to. The frustration that she felt about the runner was intense. She felt his annoying presence now, as real as if he were right beside her, and not many miles away. Is he right? She wondered, bitterly. Isn’t he always right?

“Father wants me to come home,” she whispered to him, after making sure no one else had gotten within hearing distance. “He says our house needs an heir.”

The old bull was silent for a moment. Eventually, he set his coffee down. “What did you say, in return?”

“I’m open to the idea,” she admitted.

“Would you come back?”

“Yes,” Klara nodded, with real enthusiasm. She leaned back a little, as she spoke quickly, earnestly. “Of course. I love doing this. I can’t imagine doing anything else, but father’s right too. Our family needs an heir. Our tenants need to know everything is going to go on like always. It would only be for a few years: three at the most, until the child’s weened and doesn’t need his mother as much anymore.”

“Your father’s a good man,” Eisengrim said with a thoughtful nod. “Very wise. Very crafty.”

“You don’t approve, do you?”

“I’m not nobility, Klara,” the old bull answered with a shrug. “I don’t have tenants or anything like that. Not even our noble companion moping over there has anything like the security you do.”

“It has a price, Eisengrim,” the future Countess Saddler said with a slow, pained sigh. She held the cup tight in her hands, as if to get the last hint of warmth from it. “Everything does.”

“Do you want a child?”

“Did you want to be made head of the Order?” Klara shot back.

“Yes,” the greying minotaur replied immediately, real anger flashing for just a second across his face. “Yes, I did. But the King said otherwise, so I must do my duty, and wait.”

“Well, I have a duty to fulfil too, sir,” Klara said with a shrug of her own. She set her coffee down too, her attention drawn to the fire they sat beside.

“Do you have any idea what your father has planned?” Eisengrim asked quickly, looking to turn the conversation back to a place he felt he had more control. “Are you to be married?”

“I don’t think so. Not if I don’t want to be. He didn’t suggest any suitors, at least seriously.”

“If there won’t be a marriage, then some busybodies will be having opinions about the whole thing,” the old bull warned her. “I’ll have a word with the Legate, when the time comes, if it is necessary. He should be able to keep most of his serviles in line.”

“I appreciate that, and I’m sure my father will too. He thinks very highly of you, sir.”

“I think very highly of him, and his daughter.”

They sat together quietly then, returning to their coffee, and then getting refills from the steaming pot that hung over the fire by their cooking food. Theo and Gerda began to giggle, as they shared progressively more absurd and obscene stories together.

“What do you think is going on?” Klara asked, then.

“I don’t know, yet.”

“Do you have theories?” She pressed.

“Oh yes, my dear.”

“And are you going to share them?”

“Not just yet,” the old bull said, as he stared into the dancing flames. “I think it’s best if at least the majority of us can sleep at night for a little while longer.”

*

In time the hunters turned in, as the hour grew late. The dawn, eventually creeping its way over the canopy of leaves above, found Dietrich on watch. He stared in silence at the smouldering ashes, apathetic as the embers flickered and died. He was only half aware of his surroundings, his mind having begun to wander as he waited for the others to wake and the hunt to start again. Though he tried to keep an eye on the edge of their small, wooded camp, Dietrich’s gaze was always drawn back to the prone form of the old bull as he slept. Sitting here like this, in the company he was in, always stirred dormant notions in Dietrich’s head when he had a moment of silence and solitude. He felt the pommel of his sword, and the weight of the star he wore around his neck. It felt cold, and his sword much heavier than usual. Dietrich allowed himself a moment to indulge in the memories. For a few pleasant seconds his hair ceased to be grey, and the spark many said they could see in his eyes before his career began returned. Those had been good days that he had not appreciated when he was young. Before his father had given up on his boy being a knight, and sought noble employ for him elsewhere. The days before Eisengrim, and the Order had come into his life. There had been a girl he had taken a fancy to, but his father would not hear of it. If his boy was to marry, then it must be above the station he found himself in, and that meant a glorious career first. What folly! It was enough to make Dietrich smile.

Eisengrim stirred. Perhaps he had been awake for a while, and was just pretending to slumber? Dietrich could not tell, and would not have been surprised if it were the case. He watched placidly as the large minotaur slipped out from under his blanket and stood soundlessly, save for what seemed like an absurdly loud crack that came from the old bull’s back as he stretched. He approached the human, sat down beside him with far greater grace and quiet than one might expect from a creature so large, and powerful.

“No trouble?” Eisengrim asked him quietly.

“No. What’s wrong with you? You’ve got at least another half hour before we need to start waking everybody else.”

“I thought we should talk a little,” the Hammer whispered. “While everyone else is otherwise occupied.”

“I can already tell this is going to be a fun conversation,” Dietrich replied quietly, with a roll of his eyes.

Eisengrim offered an apologetic shrug, before his hand dug into his pocket. He drew out a number of grey stones with metallic streaks in them. They rested in his palm, between minotaur and man.

“Fuck me,” said Dietrich, quickly counting them. “There’s nine.”

“The boy I killed wore one as well. I left it on his grave.”

“I saw that. Everyone did. How’d you get your hands on them all without the rest of us noticing?”

“I didn’t,” Eisengrim confessed. “Gerda looted all of them. She was concerned, and gave them to me. I told her to keep a lid on this, for the moment.”

Dietrich looked over at where the dwarf rested. Gerda was hiding in a tree again, her crossbow in her lap and a knife half out of its scabbard. He watched her chest rise and fall rhythmically in the perfect imitation of sleep. She was a hodgepodge of contradictions and hypocrisies, but her loyalty to Eisengrim was absolute, as was Klara’s, and his.

“What does this mean?” Dietrich asked.

“I don’t know,” Eisengrim answered, angry in his quiet, dangerous way.

“Where the hell could they have gotten so many star stones?”

The old bull raised his hand up to the man then, bringing the pile of precious stones closer to Dietrich’s face. “Look at them.”

Dietrich picked a couple up, and felt their rough surface between his pale fingers. No, that wasn’t true. They weren’t all rough. Lifting the stones above his head, Dietrich stared at them intently as blades of light glanced off of their surfaces, parts of which were smooth, while others were sharp, rough. They were uneven, and of different sizes. Dietrich put the two stones back in Eisengrim’s palm, scooped up another pair and examined them as well.

“They’re not uniform,” he observed after a couple of minutes inspection. “They’ve got rough edges, and smooth, or at least most of them do.”

“What does that suggest to you?” the greying minotaur asked.

“I’m not sure,” the human was forced to admit. “Do you think they all came from one larger piece?”

Eisengrim selected one stone Dietrich had not checked yet. He handed it to the human, and Dietrich felt his jaw grow slack.

“Is that…part of an eye?” The Deathless asked, looking and feeling shocked

The minotaur nodded.

“A statue?” Dietrich asked, needing to hear a confirmation. This was insane. He had never considered such a thing could be. They were so rare, that only the most trusted servants of the King could have them.

“I think it’s a real possibility,” Eisengrim told him, quietly.

“Where on earth could someone find a statue made of star stone?”

“I can think of one place,” the old bull answered, and Dietrich felt his blood run cold.

“The Dead Lands,” the human said, his voice hushed, as if afraid of something evil hearing them.

“Aye,” nodded Eisengrim, his fist clenching around the stones. “The Dead Lands.”