The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

The last of the empty jars and other raw materials were unloaded from the wagon. This was the final task of the day. The horses had already been taken off to rest in the paddock. They'd counted the money and updated the ledgers. It had been a profitable, successful day.

“Would you mind seeing that everyone is paid?” Martin asked Bader. The boy yawned and slipped down from the stool he needed to sit upon, to actually work beside the old minotaur. He landed heavily and swayed a moment on his feet.

“Of course, young master,” Bader nodded, rising and bowing to the child. “Do you intend to retire?”

“Not yet,” Martin said, ambling unsteadily to the door. “What time is it?”

“Late,” the minotaur answered, looking out of the darkened window. The rippled glass reflected the candles that lit up Kurt’s office.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Martin asked, after he reached the door. He looked out into the dimly lit hall of the house his father and mother had built. There were more rooms than his father knew what to do with, and Martin didn’t know what to use them for, either. This place had been built as part of other plans. They had failed, and now this house was one more reminder of what might have been.

“Nothing he regrets,” Bader answered. A moment or two later, he added, “I hope.”

Martin sighed. He went downstairs silently, heading for the kitchen and the pantry. He hadn’t eaten anything since his lunch at the market, and now he was ravenous.

When he entered, he found the usual suspects crowded around the door to the pantry, fumbling around clumsily under the light of a single candle.

“You two are pigs,” Martin said, after he’d snuck up right behind them. There was a gasp of fear, and their spines went visibly stiff, until they turned and saw who had caught them.

“It was his idea,” said Andrej quickly, pointing a finger at his chubby, red scaled companion. The dragon-headed boy stuck a forked tongue out at the pudgy human before turning to the master’s son contritely.

“Father wouldn’t let me have a second helping at dinner,” he said, as way of explanation.

“Why not, Eckhart?”

The scaled shrugged dismally, suddenly finding the floor fascinating.

“You didn’t finish your sums again,” Martin said with a weary certainty.

“They’re stupid!” the boy whined, biting his ridged lip. “I’m never gonna need them!”

Martin ground his teeth in his jaw. He didn’t have to help the farmhands’ children with their education. It had been an idea his father had put in his head when he was younger, and Kurt could still do some of the work about the place. He could have stopped at any time, he knew, yet he kept putting himself through the unnecessary frustration. Martin wanted to be angry then, but it had been a long day, and his father had abandoned him, again. He was out frittering away the money Martin and his other employees had earned him that day on alcohol and whores.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Martin growled. He gently pushed his way past the farm’s miscreants and entered the pantry. He was feeling tired and bitter and hungry, so when he saw a large, freshly made cake on a shelf he could just about reach, he didn't hesitate. He ordered Andrej and Eckhart to get knives and forks. They scrambled to obey. When Andrej called across the tenebrous kitchen if Martin wanted him to make coffee, an impish, rebellious idea entered the boy’s head. Two could play at his father’s game. He set the cake down on a nearby barrel and slipped behind a shelf his father thought no one knew about. When he emerged from the pantry, it was with a heavy sweet cake on a platter in one hand, and a large bottle in the other.

“What’s that?” asked Eckhart.

“Cider,” grinned Martin.

“We’re not allowed that,” said Andrej, with little conviction.

“You’re not allowed this cake, either,” snapped Martin. “But that’s not gonna stop you, is it?”

“We’ll get in trouble if we drink that,” Eckhart said, looking a little afraid.

“No you won’t. Drink this with me and I’ll help you with your sums in the morning. Nobody will ever know. I promise. Now: get us some mugs. We’re gonna have a party!”

Martin cut the cake into three towering, absurdly large portions and doled them out. Andrej set a few more candles on the table and Eckhart showed off by breathing on the wicks to light them. Andrej and Eckhart stared in wonder as Martin poured generous amounts of the dark gold, sweet smelling liquid into their mugs. The three boys picked them up then, sniffing at the forbidden drink. Martin was suddenly uncertain, the edge of his rebellion being rendered blunt by the thought of what father might say when he inevitably found out what had happened to his hidden alcohol. A glance at Eckhart, and he knew the scaled felt the same.

Andrej broke the stalemate. He pressed the mug to his lips and tipped it back, loudly gulping down a mouthful before bending forward and coughing violently for several startling, frightful seconds. When he had recovered, Martin wanted to ask the chubby boy what it tasted like, but Andrej was already gulping down another mouthful. That settled the matter. Martin and Eckhart shrugged to one another and sipped their own drinks.

Within half an hour, Martin was carrying a second bottle unsteadily across the kitchen. He slammed it down upon the table amid empty mugs and the crumbs of a once massive cake. Eckhart followed slowly behind, giggling and trying not to spill a plate full of day old sausage rolls. Andrej watched them both from where he sat at the side of the table, giggling and finishing what little was left of the cake.

“Are we drunk?” Eckhart asked, wolfing down a sausage roll as he watched Martin try and climb back onto his seat.

“I don’t know,” Martin replied, fumbling with the seal on the bottle. “If we are…I like it.”

“So do I,” nodded Andrej. He pushed his empty mug forward, until he was almost lying prone across the table. He must have found this position very funny, as he began laughing and couldn’t stop. Martin watched him after finally securing his position on his seat and smiled.

“I can see why grown-ups do this all the time,” Eckhart said, climbing up onto the chair beside Martin. He offered the boy a sausage roll, which Martin started devouring.

“My father doesn’t,” said Andrej. “He says people who drink are fools.”

“More for us, then!” Martin declared, in between mouthfuls of sausage meat and thick, crusty pastry.

“Mother drinks when he is out working,” sighed Andrej.

“Why?” Martin asked.

Andrej shrugged. Martin looked to Eckhart then, as if expecting an answer.

“My mother and father drink together,” Eckhart said, instead. “They usually have some ale most nights. Once, he brought her this bottle of wine from the market. After they drank it all, they laughed and kissed a lot, and he carried her out into the trees. I wanted to follow them, but Granny said I had to stay and wait, because they were going out to get me a little brother or sister.”

“Did they?” Martin slurred. He had successfully decapitated the second bottle by this time.

“Nah,” Eckhart sighed. “They must have got lost in the dark and fallen in a hole, or something. Mother’s dress had mud all over it when they came back, and father had leaves inside his shirt and trousers.”

Despite his growing inebriation, Martin kept his mouth firmly shut as he poured them fresh dosages of cider. Eckhart and Andrej had maybe another year to wait before their fathers made Bader explain some of the more disgusting facts about nature to them. He filled their mugs from the new bottle, and tried not to think about his mother. They drank another round together, and devoured the sausage rolls with a fierceness one might associate with a pack of wolves. When they were done, Martin tried to pour more cider into their mugs. The damned things wouldn’t stay still on the table, though, so he wound up getting more on the table than in the mugs. He put the bottle down, closed his eyes, and tried to wish himself into some kind of sobriety so he might continue getting drunk without spilling anything. He succeeded, or thought he did. It was hard to tell. Harder to tell. No. What? Martin blinked, and had to fight to make his eyelids rise once more. There were more plates on the table than he remembered, with more crumbs. There were more bottles on the table, too. Where had they come from?

His joints felt stiff. As he stirred the pain only got worse. His skull was shrinking, crushing his brain. Martin let out a long, aching groan as consciousness and its consequences chased after him. He caught a glimpse of dim light from the window, cutting weakly into the room and pouring out onto the kitchen floor. The burning in his eyes was more than he could bear. He looked away, cursed, and felt the table tremble as his cry woke his companions. Was it truly morning? Martin heard heavy footfalls above, and knew at once it was Bader. The old bull was often up even before the cockerel that woke the rest of the farm.

“I think,” he heard Andrej say from somewhere very far away. “I’m gonna be sick…”

“Shut up,” said Martin. He instantly regretted it. Noises entered his ears, and caused agonising echoes all throughout his skull. Why in god’s name would anyone do this to themselves?

Things were only made worse by the sudden crowing outside. Martin and his friends squirmed and hissed. Half the farm would be up by now. Andrej and Eckhart‘s parents would be looking for them, and even the owner’s son would be in for a serious talking to for what he had just done. Martin cursed again, shut his eyes. The cockerel began another crow, but stopped suddenly. The young Bauer felt a moment of relief, until his shut eyes burned again. Was someone holding a lit candle to his face? It only lasted a second, but that moment was one of the oddest the boy had ever experienced in his short life. He had broken out in goose bumps, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. It was enough to drive him a little closer to sobriety, though he could not begin to guess why. Martin opened his eyes, and was about to ask his friends if they had noticed anything odd a second ago, when he heard a noise from upstairs.

He looked upwards. It had been a thud of some kind. Something heavy had fallen, and landed on the ceiling just above them. Martin struggled to keep his addled senses together. There had been more, he was certain. A brief, sharp jingling had mixed with it. He tried to understand what was happening, when he remembered that above the kitchen was his father’s office, and he had just heard Bader moving about up there. The old bull’s room was upstairs. Martin sat quietly for an icy second, waiting to hear some kind of sequel to the thud and the jingle, but there was nothing. A cold lump formed in his stomach, and he slid heavily off of his chair.

“Did you hear that?” he asked with a slur. When he got no response, he looked down to see Andrej and Eckhart slumped over the table. He cursed, and swayed a little, as he leaned over to shake Eckhart.

“Wake up, Eckhart. I think Bader fell down. We need to…”

Martin felt his voice trailing off as his hand pressed against his friend’s shoulder. Eckhart was cold to touch, and Martin felt a shiver run through him as he continued to try and shake his friend awake. He must have pressed too hard, for a panic he could not understand was welling up inside of him, and he dislodged the scaled boy from where he lay slumped on the table. Martin watched, paralysed, as Eckhart fell soundlessly from his chair, and crumpled onto the ground. Martin stared down at him. His friend’s eyes were wide open. Somehow, the young Bauer understood what he was seeing, but the hangover slowed his mind, which was struggling against what it saw anyway. He turned to Andrej, touched him with a wildly shaking hand. The boy did not move. He was ice cold to the touch.

Martin knew then, in that instant, that his friends were dead. He screamed and his legs and arms became stiff, unbending, useless. He was heading towards the door, screaming again as he toppled out into the hallway where he crashed into the stairs and started scrambling.

“BADER! BADER!”

Martin tripped as he scrambled up the final step. He landed heavily on the wooden floor. His heart was thundering in his chest. His lungs burned as his body tried to scream and breathe at the same time. He was blind with tears, but struggled towards where he knew the room was.

“BADER! BADER! Help them! Help them!”

The door was open. Bader was on the floor, the coins he had gathered to pay the hands scattered all about him. Martin collapsed beside him, clawing weakly at the old bull’s hair and upper body. He tried to roll the minotaur onto his back, but Bader was too heavy, and his ice cold hide was making Martin’s hands and fingers shake all the harder.

“Wake up, Bader! Please wake up!”

The old bull stayed silent. Martin knew Bader was dead, but too much was happening at once. This couldn’t be real. This had to be a nightmare.

A loud bang came from below. It seemed to shake the very house.

Martin stopped dead, falling silent in an instant as some primordial sense gripped him. A shiver went through his body. He felt intensely aware of everything around him. He could hear the kitchen door creaking below him. He was certain he could feel footsteps across the stone floor. In one mad second, Martin even thought he could hear breathing.

There were more footsteps below. Martin felt himself sinking onto his hands and knees. He could hear his heart, but could not tell if he was breathing anymore. Someone was on the other side of the floor. He could hear them moving around, and nothing on earth filled the boy with a greater dread than the idea that they might see the stairs out in the hall.

The sound of hard soled boots and heavy steps on the stone floor reached him. The child’s blood ran cold. They were in the hall. They had found the stairs. Slow, deliberate creeks reached the little boy’s ears then, and he was too afraid to do anything other than stay still.

Someone was in the hallway. He heard them ascend the last of the stairs. The doorway lay wide open, and was then filled. He saw the eyes first. In the shadows, teeth were bared into a devil’s smile.

Martin finally screamed.