The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

The house was large, built for raising a family that never came. There was room enough for everyone to get comfortable and sleep, if they could. Kurt sat alone in his and Sabine’s bedroom, holding the stone in his hands that made him think of his lost love, and their son. It glittered weirdly in the flickering light of a lone candle.

“It wasn’t him,” Kurt said again, staring into the stone. His hands shook. The tears came. “It wasn’t him.”

There had been a plan once, long ago. It was all in ruins now. Everyone was gone. The love and light had ended. Kurt sat alone in the growing dark. He was lost now, truly and utterly lost. Except, perhaps, just perhaps…

“It wasn’t him.”

*

Eisengrim woke first. He roused Theo, and the two set about preparing breakfast for everyone else. The sun would be up in half an hour, by the veteran’s reckoning. They needed to be ready to leave soon after.

“Dietrich was right about you,” Eisengrim said to the younger male. “You kept your head, and did you job. Excellent work.”

“Thank you, sir,” Theo said, managing a weak smile. He went outside to the well to fetch water, while Eisengrim made a fire in the stove to begin frying ham and some eggs he found in the pantry. By the time he came back, there was just the beginning of a wonderful smell wafting around the room. Theo set the pales down. The sound of sizzling meat soon reached his ears. He began to feel sick.

“You need to eat,” Eisengrim said, his eyes locked on the task at hand. “If you can’t you’ll feel worse, and become weak. We need you strong.”

“Does this get easier?” Theo asked.

“No,” said Eisengrim. He flipped the eggs. “Part of me wishes it would. Maybe it does, after you have seen it enough. I haven’t, and I know now I don’t want to. This is the worst I have ever seen. Usually there are at least a few survivors, people that can run away and give us a hint of what happened. There were so many people living here, you would think at least some would have survived. But there’s no one. All the witnesses are dead.”

“What are you saying, sir? That this was deliberate?”

Eisengrim did not answer immediately. Theo felt a chill run down his back. He looked out of the kitchen window, and could just see the edge of the warehouse where he had laid so many innocent people in rows last night. There were more here, waiting to be collected and dealt with. He was not looking forward to that, and secretly hoped that there might be a way he could get out of the duty, somehow. Thinking of all the death reminded Theo of his new friend. He couldn’t imagine what Kurt was going through right now. His whole world had ended.

“What will happen to him?” he asked Eisengrim.

“Mr. Bauer?” Eisengrim shrugged, turned the ham. “I don’t know, Theo. He has the buildings, but the trees will be dying, and so will all the crops. The poor man’s ruined.”

“He still might have his son.”

Eisengrim sighed. He seemed to shrink before the younger male then. It suddenly hit Theo just how old the minotaur before him was.

“What, exactly, is your relationship to Mr. Bauer, Theo?”

Theo felt his throat become arid. Instinctively, he glanced at the doorway. His ears strained, trying to catch any hints of movements elsewhere in the house.

“He’s my friend, sir.”

“How close of a friend is he?”

Theo ran his fingers along the edge of the kitchen table. He felt unsteady on his legs.

“He’s just a friend, sir.”

“How long has he been your friend?”

“I met him yesterday. I mean…the night before yesterday.”

“In a whorehouse.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, sir. I had just won the championship. Some of the boys went with me to get drunk and enjoy the local fauna.”

“And Kurt was your fauna for the evening?”

Theo looked away. “No, sir.”

“What was the man’s name, then?”

Theo was silent. His whole body was trembling. Every cell in his body was urging him to flee, yet somehow, he was not aware of Eisengrim’s approach until the elder male put a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t care,” the elder said then. “I don’t, Theo. None of us do, but you need to be more careful. I don’t want to see you hang.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Does Bauer know? Did he see you with anyone? Did any of these men you were out with see you with anyone?”

Theo shook his head. He wiped away tears. “I’m sorry.”

“And the madam of the brothel?”

“I paid her well. She’ll keep her mouth shut.”

“Are you certain?”

Theo nodded. He was just able to hold back a sob.

Eisengrim sighed. He looked terribly old just then, worn out. He returned to cooking the breakfast. “Pull yourself together, Theo. Remember, you’re in mixed company for the next few days. Clean yourself up, then go wake the others.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

*

“This is an insult!”

“It is an order, Janus, and you will obey it.”

“All this time you’ve been training me for this, and now you’re sending me away? Why?!”

“You aren’t ready.”

The runner kicked a dead chicken across the yard and swore in own tongue. Klara felt her patience slipping away.

“We need someone to go back and alert the Palace.”

“You can send that worthless, spoilt brat back! You think he wants to be here?”

“He is the Master of the Order, Janus, and you will show him the proper respect.”

“You mean like you do when you know he isn’t looking?”

Klara said nothing. An angry smile spread across the runner’s lips. He approached her, and it became a jeering snarl.

“I’m not blind, human. I don’t just see your hate. I can smell it, too. You are such a fucking hypocrite!”

Klara lashed out before she could stop herself, slapping Janus across the mouth. “Never speak that way to me again, you filthy dog!”

The runner flashed his teeth. For a second it looked like he might lunge at her. Klara stared him down, her left hand gripping the scabbard of her sword, as her right moved slowly towards the pommel. She ground her teeth, felt the anger burn inside her as she waited for him to make the next move. Dear God, did she actually want him to go for her? Such madness might have frightened her yesterday, but this time yesterday she had seen death on such a senseless, horrifying scale as she had now. Her stature and her power felt hollow now, and she felt an edge to the world she had never noticed before. Perhaps her apprentice felt it too, for his clawed fingertips moved to reach for the axe in his belt. They stayed like that for far longer than should have been acceptable, before Janus finally backed down.

“I’m sorry, Janus.”

The runner didn’t seem to hear her. He looked around the farm, at the dead animals and at the warehouse that hid so many crushed lives.

“Take Mr. Bauer back with you,” Klara ordered him.

“The elders were right about you,” Janus said, turning to walk back to the house. “You only wanted me as your apprentice to show everyone else how much better you were than them. You’re not, Klara. If I’m not fit to wear the star, then it’s because of you.”

*

“You sure he went this way?”

Gerda nodded. They were standing by a fence at the edge of the farm. The woods loomed beyond them, shadowy and imperceptible. Dietrich rubbed his grubby chin nervously, before looking back at the farm at the bottom of the hill. Between them lay fields of rotten, dead strawberries. Theo had said something about collecting bodies from here, and the man was glad to have missed that. It had been difficult enough counting the corpses that had been collected into the warehouse. It had brought the bad days back to Dietrich. That had ended in the woods, too. Dietrich took out a flask from his backpack and knocked back a shot of heat and courage. He offered it to Gerda, who was only too happy to imbibe as well. She slipped back down onto her haunches immediately after, tracing her fingers along slight disruptions to the grass.

“He came this way, too. When he walked down into the farm.”

Dietrich took another shot from his flask. “You certain?”

“Of course I am. This is what I do for a living, little man. One came from the woods. Two went back in.”

Dietrich felt a chill run through him that had nothing to do with the autumn weather. Gerda stood up, and looked through the fence into the woods. The human followed the dwarf’s gaze.

“Someone survived this?”

Gerda nodded.

“The Bauer boy?”

Gerda nodded.

“There’s…there’s only one way he could still be alive.”

“I know,” Gerda said, becoming pale. She pulled the flask out of the man’s hands, took a long drag of liquid courage. Dietrich finished it off when she came up for air.

“We don’t tell Bauer,” Gerda said.

“I hate this job,” Dietrich said.