The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

Theo broke off from Klara. As the woman surged up the stairs, the young minotaur began his sweep of the first floor. What doors he did not find lying open, he promptly kicked off of their hinges before entering. The first two doors yielded nothing. The whole place stank terribly. The sounds of conflict from below and above reached Theo’s ears. His comrades were in trouble. He needed to speed this up! He started running to the next door, at the end of the hallway where it branched out into an opening. Theo ran to it, and kicked it in without even thinking to check around the corner. Two human men were waiting for him on the other side of the door.

The one with the crossbow fired, hitting Theo in the left shoulder. The impact knocked the surprised minotaur backwards, sending him falling into the blue scaled man who had been waiting around the corner, and was sneaking up with a knife in his hand. They both let out a cry at the same time as Theo crashed into him. There was scrabbling, cursing. Theo felt something impact and then glance off of his back plate. The pain set in then, quickly followed by the rage.

The man with the axe was coming out of the room that they had been waiting for him in. Theo threw himself back as hard he could, driving himself and the scaled man who was trying desperately to stab him into the wall behind, the man with the axe just at their heels. He swung at Theo’s head, cutting the air just in front of the bull’s nostrils. There was no time to think. All that happened after that was pure instinct, and training.

First there came the crash, as Theo and the man trying to stab him slammed against the wall. As the wood buckled and splintered, the scaled man gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. He dropped the knife. As it hit the ground the man with the axe reached them. He swung again, aiming for the minotaur’s throat.

Theo deflected the blow with this armoured left arm. The adrenaline rush had been numbing the pain up to this point, but it surged now through the young bull’s wounded limb when steel deflected steel. As his left arm failed him, and started falling to his side, Theo’s grip on the knuckle duster in his right handed tightened painfully. He struck then, jabbing at his opponent in front of him with as much force as he could muster. The spiked tips hit the human’s forehead, and kept going, before Theo’s snapped his fist back.

One down.

The scaled man behind him was squirming, cursing. He tried stabbing his claws into the minotaur’s sides, but the breastplate Theo wore kept him safe. He slammed his full weight against his opponent then, before striking with his right elbow as hard as he could, into the other male’s ribs. They caved in. The blue scaled man made a noise that was impossible to describe as he started to go limp.

Theo whirled about, and punched the dying man in the jugular, nearly decapitating him from the force of the blow. He was panting. The agony on his left shoulder was making him dizzy. His left arm hung by his side. It felt warm and wet. He panted, grabbed the almost headless corpse by its tunic, dragged it noisily over to where the last man was still hiding. He knew what he should do, and some part of him wanted to call out for the last man to surrender, but his heart was hammering in his head, and the pain had killed his sympathy.

He held the dead man up, thrusting the corpse into the doorway with his right hand. There was a loud twang, the body jiggled and the tip of a crossbow bolt sprouted from the small of its back. Theo staggered into the room as the last man began screaming. He dropped the crossbow, reached for a sword in his belt.

Theo flung the corpse at him. Its limbs wheeled about like a rag doll being hurled by a child. It tore across the air, struck the man and lifted him off of the ground. They crashed in a heap on the other side of the room.

Theo stormed across the floor, reaching his last enemy as he was just pushing the weight of his friend’s body aside. He started screaming, scrabbling to get up, but Theo pinned him down, pressing his left hand on the man’s chest, resting a knee down on his legs to stop him from kicking. His grip on his duster tightened. He pulled his fist back again.

“I yield!” The man screamed, his eyes wide and his face paper white. “I yield!”

Theo brought his fist down. The skull resisted him as old twigs might a human’s fist. The plank beneath it shattered.

Theo stood up, his arms dripping, his face flecked with blood and things he would never quite wash away. He wanted to go downstairs, find Eisengrim and make his report, but his legs failed him after he threw up. He staggered a little further down the hallway, fell back and slid down into a sitting position against the wall. He felt, more than heard, the violence elsewhere, vibrating along the rotting structure he was trapped in. That was close. That had been so close…

Theo slipped his gory knuckle dusters off, and buried his face in his shaking, bloody hands.

*

Klara was halfway up the last set of stairs when something hard and heavy smashed against her shield. She gasped, staggered a step back, but was able to keep her balance. When the next item hit her, she was ready for it. The stool bounced off of her kite shield and started noisily tipping its way down the rickety steps.

“Cease and desist!” she screamed at the hairy, laughing man she saw waiting for her at the top of the stairs. He had a heavy, wicked looking mace in a loop on his belt that he drew then, while gesturing for her to come and get him.

Klara obliged. When she was in melee range the man, whose beard was filthy and had flecks of things in it, took his mace in a two handed grip before bringing it down at her with all his might, but Klara saw it coming a mile away. She stepped to the right, hugging her shield to her left flank. The mace cut air, its owner’s eyes growing wide as his balance was lost and he started tipping forward.

Klara gutted him like a fish. He flopped down upon the stairs in a bloody mess, his mace falling over the rail and crashing its way down to the lower floors. Saddler finished her ascent, her longsword wearing a red sheen in the dim light provided by cracks in the walls. She considered calling out, but decided against it. She was alone, and in no mood for wasting her time. From the sounds of crashing and screams below her, neither were Eisengrim and Theo.

There was a creak to her right. Klara turned just in time to see a female runner aiming a longbow at her. She twisted, raised her shield as the runner loosed. The impact of the arrow striking the wood sent a violent tremor up her arm. Splinters bounced off the visor of her helmet. She could just see the runner over the edge of her shield drawing a knife, and smiling, but why

Pain then, exploding at her right shoulder. Klara screamed. Her limb shook and the weight of her sword was gone. Instinct took over. She dodged to her left, crashing against the wall as the hammer narrowly missed striking her in the head. Another runner filled her vision, male and grinning, a work hammer in one clawed hand and a serrated dagger in the other. She sidled her way along the wall, keeping her shield to her left. Even as she drew closer to his female companion, the male wolf man followed after, a look of sadistic triumph on his face. She was trapped between them.

“You stupid pup!” The female runner yelled. “Why didn’t you go for her head?”

The male’s attention switched suddenly. He glared at the female, and looked like he wanted to say something, but by then Klara had drawn her knife and was lunging at him with it. He staggered back, narrowly dodging her blade and swinging blindly at her with his hammer, but Klara’s shield protected her. The female runner cursed, and the human could hear clawed feet rapidly coming upon her from behind. She turned, lashed out at the female with her knife while keeping the male on the other side of her shield. The female runner bared her fangs, growled at her.

Call for help, Klara’s mind screamed at her.

The female runner came at her, again. She could feel the male grabbing at her shield, trying to pry it out of her hand. Saddler’s mind raced, and in the second she had before she was mobbed she looked about wildly for an avenue of escape.

She saw the clawed toes of the male then, digging into the wooden floor. His left foot was protruding just under her shield, and he wasn’t wearing shoes, just like Janus never did.

Klara stamped on them, pressing her whole, armoured weight down onto the digits. She felt something break under her steel heel. The male let go of her shield. She turned, deflecting the thrust from the female runner’s blade with her kite before lashing out with her own dagger. With the male’s cries echoing behind her, Klara advanced, driving the archer back with her knife and shield, thrusting at her enemy with the fore, or pummelling her with the latter. The runner hissed in frustrating and growing panic, her own knife unable to get around the shield. Even when she did manage to work her arm around the barrier between them, her blade couldn’t get through the woman’s thick armour. She started calling for help when they had fought their way across the whole hallway, passing all the doors, leaving only a stone wall waiting for them.

Klara pressed on. The other runner must be up by now, and was probably limping after them as fast as he could. For all their size runner were remarkably light, their bodies built for dexterity rather than raw strength. Klara was not a small woman. When they reached the wall, Saddler smashed her enemy against it, bashing her whole body with the shield, forcing the runner into a corner where she could not escape. Klara’s knife made short work of her.

There was a loud, mournful scream behind her. Klara turned, and the female runner crumpled into the corner where she had died, the blood from her deep wounds pooling around her, dripping through the gaps in the floorboards.

The male had sheathed his knife. Klara’s sword was in his main hand, and the hammer in the other. He was leaning heavily against the wall, the toes of his left foot were spasming, and the pain in his face made his look of hate all the more unhinged.

Klara charged at him, her heart thundering in her chest. The male howled, and started hobbling towards her. When they were a foot apart he swung at her with the sword, but she caught it with her shield. She tried stabbing him with her blade, but he dodged to the right, getting partially around her shield. He lashed out at her with his hammer. He struck her helmet, and suddenly Klara was blind on her right side.

Shit!

The male cried out in pain. Klara could just see him stagger back a step, his fangs grit tight in his mouth as he tried to keep the weight off his left foot. Klara backed off a step, fighting a rising panic. She blinked. There was something digging into the side of her heard, and she felt warmth and wetness spreading down the right side of her face. Was she blind in her right eye, or was the visor of her helmet dented? The urge to sheath her knife and check was almost overwhelming. The male’s grunts drew her back to the now. Klara regarded him with utter hatred. She might be blind on her right, but her enemy couldn’t stand on his left.

“Come on you fucking mongrel!” she yelled, banging her knife against the metal edge of her shield.

The runner spat on the floor. He came at her, striking first with the hammer, aiming for her shield as he swung low with the sword, going for her ankles. Klara deflected the hammer. Her left ankle stung, but her leg held out. They were face to face then, shoving, swinging and screaming in each other’s’ faces. The runner finally got his hammer around her shield. He tried pulling it out of her grip again, putting his whole precariously balanced weight behind it.

Klara let the shield go. The runner gasped, dropping the heavy object as he struggled to stay aloft.

Klara thrust her knife into his belly. The hammer fell out of his hand. It took another thrust into his gut to finally put him on his back. Klara followed him down with a third thrust. A fourth was followed by a fifth, and then a sixth. The male’s mouth was moving, but no sound came out. Klara cut his throat, then.

Adrenaline brought her to her feet at once. It took three tries to pick up her sword. Her whole body shook. The stink of blood was all over her, and a strange feeling of awareness gripped her. For the briefest moment she felt as if she could hear everything in the house, and see the soul of her dead enemy escape out of the hole she had left below his head.

There was a creak from a distance down the corridor. It was followed by a scream.

Klara turned slowly, and saw a woman standing at the end of the hall. Her eyes were wide with horror, and a hand was covering her mouth. Klara’s hands tightened their grip on her knife and sword. Their eyes met and the old woman screamed and slammed the door she had been peeking out of. The ground itself seemed to shake for Klara Saddler as she followed after.

The door offered no resistance. The woman had fled to the balcony outside.

“You murderer!” the old woman screeched, her hands clinging to the rail. “You’ll pay for this! He’ll make you suffer for this!”

“Who will?” Klara asked, her pain and even her fears of disability forgotten. She approached the women slowly, keeping her guard up lest this was some kind of trap. “Who will make me pay, crone? Tell me!”

“He’ll come back,” the old woman hissed, shaking. Her eyes looked over the rail, at the ground several storeys below. “He said he’d send for us when he returned home with the boy.”

“What boy?” Klara pressed. She strode threateningly towards the old woman. “Martin Bauer? Was the boy’s name Martin? Answer me hag, is he alive?”

“Aye,” sighed the old woman. She turned away from Klara, begun to pull herself up onto the rail.

“Wait!” Klara yelled. She sheathed her blades, offering open palms to the withered, filthily clad woman. “Stay where you are! What are you doing?”

“You won’t take me,” the woman sighed. “I won’t go there. I’ve heard about it, and I’d rather die.”

“What are you talking about, crone? Who has Martin Bauer? What is his name? Where are they going? Tell me and we can help you.”

The old woman ignored her. She pulled herself up until she was balanced precariously on the unsteady wooden rail. “I won’t go,” she said then, looking back at Klara. “I won’t go…I won’t…”

“Go where?” Klara asked, only a couple of feet away.

“The Sanctum,” said the woman as she flung herself off of the balcony.

“No!”

Klara surged forward, instinct and humanity pushing to reach out, to hope, but all her hands found when she reached the spot where the old woman had been was air. Before she could stop herself, Klara Saddler looked down at the ground, knowing what she was about to see: a frail old woman plummeting to her death below. In her mind, even in the fraction of a second afforded her, Klara had already envisioned what it would look like. She had accepted a reality, and so when faced with what happened instead, her body’s first reaction was to gasp, while her mind struggled to comprehend what it saw, as the old woman floated down to the earth.