[ IP ] Witch Hunt

I would have burned the forest down. 
 
 It's safer that way. Witches can use the trees to their advantage, twist the furred children of the green to be their footsoldiers, make them rabid, crazed in tooth and claw. Even rabbits, twitching and jerking, can be driven mad by their befuddling smoke, and set to lunging at the arms and faces of men. 
 
 Assuming you would not simply run afoul of the witch herself, as they always seemed to find trespassers in their glade. They are always wreathed in that horrid mist of theirs, and God help the man who is caught by their spell. I have seen men cut out their own eyes, and I know from their screams it did nothing to stop the visions. And then, they would dangle the bodies of their soon-kills over the forest floor, cutting the vein carefully, so the men's terrified heartbeats would pump them dry. The lifesblood spattering down, watering and warming the frozen dirt beneath them. 
 
 Always, this is what witches do. Burning is best, for witches. 
 
 But the village headsman claimed they would not permit my use of the back-burn. Their fields of rye had been blighted that summer, their food supplies far too low to sustain them through the long cold dark that is a frontier winter. They said they needed the forage, to live. 
 
 I disagreed. No one needs to live *that badly*. 
 
 Yet, my order is new, untried, and we can not afford a feud with the local lord. And so I am sent out to cleanse them with steel. Damned foolishness. 
 
 I asked the elder if there were any who lived in the forest that were unaccounted for. He looked at his wife and children, his black eyes unreadable. Then, he looked back to me, and assured me, there were no others missing. 
 
 I repeated myself. 
 
 `` Any girls,'' I reiterated, my voice firm `` Of marrying age, or a scance beyond it. The fever only takes girls.'' 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 `` Then, any sick? Any with the visions, or shakes? Gums that bleed? Crackled skin?'' 
 
 `` No, witchhunter! There are a few here with the bleeding gums, but it's the winter sickness only, and a spoonful of preserves puts them right again!'' 
 
 `` You had better not lie to me, Village-man. One witch is dangerous. Two, is likely death. But three is a covey, and a covey is worst of all. There will be a fairy-ring in the summer if there is three, and then the children will be taken to the dance. God *save you then. * For I will not.'' 
 
 `` No, witchhunter. There was only the one. She lived in the forest, was herbwise, helped with the hard births, that is all!'' 
 
 `` Was she young? Fair skinned?'' It took the fair-skinned, more often than others. My own skin was fair. 
 
 Again, he glanced at his wife, then back to me. `` Young enough. And yes, pale as you.'' 
 
 I sucked my teeth. I had an obligation to denounce the herbwise, they often acted as unknowing hosts to many spiritual maladies, but out here, in the *Hinter*, physicians and apothecaries were thin to none, and I myself bore a few fine scars, proof of their skill with a needle and thread. 
 
 And there were the matter of the men taken. Too many for just one, I thought, unless she had gotten lucky, and caught a whole hunting party in a low hollow or dense thicket, where the wind could not blow through easily. Witches rarely lived long enough to catch so many, the devil animating them using them up fast as poppy sap in a smoker's den. 
 
 `` Well then. I will hunt this witch. But know the sickness often lingers, once it roots in an unburned forest. You may have two winters, perhaps three, of this unholiness yet. Prayers should be said. Take note of every wet brow. There is no earthly cause for a God-fearing woman to sweat, in this season.'' 
 
 I left them, and went to my crow's nest to gird myself for the red work. 
 
 I was set up in the steeple of the church. The cold does not bother me. As a child, I had gotten the fever. But, I was too young for the change, and so, my body threw it off. I was Blooded, as they said, for my blood could sometimes stop the fever, if given soon enough, though only the highest of the highborn could ask for such service. 
 
 It was a mighty advantage I had, but I was far from invulnerable. Though I never need fear the fever again, the witch-smoke could still overwhelm me with the mind-melting colors and shapes not found in God's earth. 
 
 I clenched my hand, looking at it, as I often did. I was not sure I would be welcome in Heaven, had not been sure ever since I had been taught what it meant to be a Blooded. What I did was certainly not a maiden's work. 
 
 The changes were with me forever. I had something of a witch's quickness. Something of their strength, though I had found I injured myself often. And, sitting here, looking out at the slate-grey clouds rolling in, I was glad that I had something of their heat as well. Otherwise, the cold would surely have cut through my thin furs and leather, stealing the grip from my fingers. 
 
 I needed my grip, for my sword-arm. 
 
 I watched the lord's pennant shift with the wind, the clear sign of the coming storm. It was what I was waiting for. My blade, coated with the bitter aromatic oil of the *Melaleuca* tree, was whetted and sharp. A shame that I would be fighting in the weather, but the wind and damp would keep back the witch-smoke. 
 
 I left the village, feeling their eyes peeking at me from the cracks of the closed shutters. The road mud was cut into ruts by wagon wheel, but was thankfully hard enough to not suck at my boots. 
 
 I journeyed into the dark of the trees. The forest is quiet in winter. Quieter, with the snow muffling everything. I trodded carefully. It was better to step on the soft fresh drifts, fallen through gaps in the branches overhead. I needed what little surprise I could get. 
 
 I stopped by an old oak, to look for witch-sign. Witches prefer their grove to be pine, instinctively, knowing that Oak will betray them, for Oak will always tell the truth to those who ask. And there was some. Black-brown rot, shot through with threads of white, eating at the wrestling tangle of tree roots. I frowned again. This was much too close to the edge of the forest, for such extensive damage. The oak would likely not survive the winter. 
 
 I thanked it quietly, then resumed. 
 
 I found the spoor of the deer first, then the deer-path. It was established, but had seen disuse recently. More witch-sign, the changing of the animals. Blooded like myself do not prick their familiars' noses in the same way as the untouched, but I could not afford to stay still. If this was where game was, then the hunters would not have been far from here... 
 
 And, here it was, a clear impression of a boot, crushed into a bed of brown moss. I had the trail. Here was a broken branch, and then another one... 
 
 As I followed, the signs became harder and harder to miss. I saw the evidence of panic setting in, as the hunters realized they were prey. A steel dagger, still in it's sheath, lay on the ground. Behind it, a limestone boulder, dusted with spilled drops of dark brown. 
 
 It was easy to tell where they went from here, from the dragging on the ground. 
 
 Here and there, I saw their cloaks and weapons, cast aside, to lessen the weight. 
 
 To my surprise, I found the path taking me past a hovel, the roof partially caved-in from uncleared snow. Uneaten provisions cluttered the outside, bags of grain and even the remains of a small wind-assisted millstone. An expensive item, for an herbwise to own for herself. And why use it, when the town had a fine mill itself? I glanced inside. I saw plates on a table, half buried by ice. A cold hearth. 
 
 The bloody rags told me what I needed to know. The hemorrhaging came last. 
 
 I continued to follow the trail. 
 
 I saw her before she saw me. 
 
 It was the creaking of the trees that had given her away. Had it not been for the branches, groaning at the weight of the dead men hanging from them, I would have thought her crouching figure was just a broken stump. The storm was reaching it's peak now, the flurries coming in thicker than ever... 
 
 I heard a noise directly above me, I looked up, and nearly cried out at the dead eyes staring down at me, from what was a man's face, now so much waxy-colored meat. There was a single, ruby icicle dangling from his heel. 
 
 I lost my footing, and regained it clumsily. A mistake. I had planted my foot on bare dirt, without noise, but I saw the fibers of witch-sign shot through it. Witches knew when man walked carelessly. She would sense me, in a moment... 
 
 She whirled on me, and I saw the circular trench she had been scratching into the ground a moment ago, barely deeper than a man's chest when lying down. 
 
 I drew my sword, but I felt the panic start, for I knew what she was doing. Her hands were just red tatters of flesh hanging from bonelike claws, skin bare, red streaks from her own ruined lips, exposing a ghastly grin... Despite this, I knew she had been beautiful, but... 
 
 She had been digging a fairy ring. She would lay the bodies in the wide circle, on the earth watered with their blood, thick with witch-sign, then sit by it, releasing a final gasp of smoke, perishing, the terrible ritual fulfilled, then, come summer, the massive crop of black-red puffball toadstools would erupt, eating the grisly larder of dead men until, after the third rain... The horrid mist. It would pour out of the forest, it's range ten thousand times greater than a witch's own. And without fail, all the children would come, bleeding from eyes and ears, but so *happily*, to dance about it, and die as well, guarded by a new, ferocious crop of damned brides of the Devil. 
 
 But... for the ritual to take hold... there had to be three. 
 
 From the darkness, I saw her covey emerge, flanking her. And seeing them, I understood. 
 
 Cursing bitterly, I charged. 
 
 ( Continued Below )
