undeadrat
New Member
It started at around seven o’clock in the morning.
A rather strange morning at that, as the Principality of Teren had just begun to wake. Even the Sun seemed reluctant to raise Her head out Her clouded beddings and the village roosters had not yet called for their masters. A chill had captured the land in a silent spell; a spell that the village blacksmith found hard to break with his iron tools. There was no frost that usually accompanied such a morning and from each village a queer sense of fear crept way into their hearts and from this fear a single thought occupied each man, woman and child’s mind - witchcraft. Not publicly, mind you, for the prince Teren had previously banned such language from entering the public discourse, reasoning that the less time witchcraft spent in the public conscience, the less power it would lord over the populace. But bad omens such as these were by their nature self-sufficient and soon without any need for gossip, the citizens had already spent the good half of the morning still hidden in their beds.
Outside the castle, a shadowy figure skulked around in the dim light and when the castle guards did not give him leave to enter, decided to rest against the iron gate. He was a witch-hunter, already with an epithet of his own - the Tall Lady - though it had not been given out of respect due to his skill in that particular trade; he was an amateur, after all, and anyway he didn’t get along with the other bounty hunters who littered this land. His was more a form of demure mockery then renown, though his peers had denied it. He had found that one could never quite hide their disdain for him in their eyes; no matter how pleasing their smiles and greetings and laughter could be, there was always reserved for him a certain hardness in the pupils, the cold glint of bitter steel just barely hidden in the scabbard. He grasped his shawl tighter around him as if to hide from these sour memories.
It really was an unusually cold day, he thought, so much so that the guards posted on the walls were all sporting beaver fur coats and fur-lined helmets despite it being only a week or so after the festivities of Saint Marian. So cold, he thought, that if a giant had only taken a needle to the sky and poked it, the entire world would have frozen over in an instant. There had been a witch in his coven named Rinevee who had claimed to have known such a spell to change the weather in rather peculiar ways. Her burnt-black hair was such a result of one of these rituals, or so she liked to say. She had once escaped an execution in this manner by borrowing from the Sun’s powers and burning an entire village to the ground. He found it hard to believe. Rinevee had been killed in a raid by a bow-man who hadn’t even been using iron-tipped arrows. Still, he wondered. There were many covens still out there operating in secret, covens that would love nothing more then to hamper Prince Teren’s proclamation on the banning of all magics outside his inner court. A crop failure would rouse even the most dullard type of peasant, the type that cared nothing for the politics of the Principality of Teren save for how much grain he would be expected to deliver to the local magistrate, a type very useful for the plannings of witches.
For however much he looked down upon these simple village folk though, he found himself to be almost identical to them, just in different trappings. He too, did not care for the inner workings of the Principality of Teren. While the local brute cared only for however much food he could swindle and hide away from the local official in charge of collecting the taxed grains, he himself ignored all but his most wanton need for the spilled blood of the witches he had lived with. Patch-work shirts and shoes were disguised for a more elegant blue robe but it did little to clothe what beast inside lurked. He had gone days without eating for excitement of the kill, making his hollowed face even ghastlier, and what little sleep he let himself succumb to were filled with the blooded memories of witches with sucking wounds in their stomachs, bile and fat and blood leaking until he woke up from the smell of it, almost aroused in his anger and satisfaction.
“So,” spoke a guard. His face was wind-bitten to the bone with a very red nose and yet his voice had the deep complexion of someone fed well on castle scraps, of which there were many, judging by the bulk he had hidden underneath the fur coat.
“The Tall Lady, eh? Come to kill a witch for our Prince Teren.”
“That is indeed so.” He smiled, cradling his leather-wrapped arquebus. The thing was his most prized possession. It would not be amiss to say, indeed, that it was his life. He had acquired it from a travelling inventor three years ago and it was with this tool that he’d ended the lives of five witches. It was marvellously crafted with imported wood from the Kingdom of Alabastria and strong castle-forged iron. A weapon to revolutionize war, he’d said. To revolutionize witch-hunting.
“And how was the room?”
“A pleasant stay.”
“Ah. Pleasant! Well, I do suppose you’ve slept in worse places. But still, the rats in that inn… he was flogged for it, you know. A few years ago. He let the captain’s cousin sleep in one of those filthy rooms and when the poor boy woke he was missing half an arm! Rats nibbled it all off they say. And yet, that rotten innkeep's back to his old habits, I see.”
"He should have been hanged," added a wiry looking guard to the left. He had mismatched boots and a hungrier look in his eyes. This was a man rather new to the castle, still eager to perform all the daily routines and apprehend every visitor to the castle, no matter how benign. "Hanged, I say."
“They were of no consequence,” he smiled.
“Is that so? Well, I suppose being a bounty hunter’s good for the constitution. And even the rats know ‘nuff not to go near a cursed man, I suppose. ‘Though even the prince isn’t safe from them. God’s divine protection doesn’t seem protect against rats,” he snorted, “though it does arrows and spears fine enough. Funny how that works, eh?”
“Oh, don’t worry. The rats will like me just the same once I’m dead.”
“Well, so long as you don’t go on dying before killing that witch! Our Prince Teren gifted you quite a hefty sum, or so I’ve heard, ‘though for what reason he had on hiring you specifically I don’t know, don’t you know, and you wouldn’t want to waste that coin or you’d be twice cursed… and anyway, it can’t be that hard to kill a witch. My brother’s a witch-hunter as well, you see, only the more professional type. He’s well put out by it, why Prince Teren hired a foreigner, y’know, and he was wondering if it had anything to do with, well,” he gestured with the spear towards his general self, “all that.”
"Yes," added the skinny guard. "I heard that you were invited into the bed chamber. Not even the courtyard, or the great hall!"
“Ah,” he laughed. “I can assure you that your prince is quite the proper man.”
“Still! You’re the talk of the barracks, y’know. Of all the bounty hunters to hire… no offense meant! One can’t help but wonder… some wonder if there’s even a witch at all. After all, you do know our Prince Teren has the finest witch-hunters - not to say anything of your skill! - in his personal retinue. So why hire you? It’s a thinker alright. Some say that you’re not even a witch-hunter, y’know. More of an expensive travelling prostitute.” He held his hands up defensively. “You were involved in the baron’s arrest! Everyone knows it, or at least everyone worth knowing. He said he knew you… and of course you know what he was arrested for, the scoundrel… really, the public debauchery of that man. ‘Though you won’t hear it from me, of course… he was in prison for longer then you were, you know. That wife of his refused to pay the crown… Say, didn’t our Prince Teren spring you out early by royal command? See, that’s why we can’t help but wonder, y’know. You really can’t blame us.”
“I can see that you’re a very educated guard.”
“Everyone knows it.” He shrugged. “Say… are you really a man? The innkeep says otherwise.”
“Well,” he smiled, “I should like to think that I know myself better than a man who’s known me for a single night.”
He’d made a mistake by responding to the guard. Men like this would eagerly seize any opening to start conversation and even his silence would be a reluctant stopper to it, this he knew from experience. He answered with curt nods and forced smiles all the while growing ever more impatient for his partner to arrive. Where was he? Prince Teren had informed him the day earlier that he’d be appointing a man to accompany him to apprehend, not kill mind you, the witch that had been thwarting him for a year. He’d planned to sneak off during their journey to kill the witch himself but now he began to think that there would be no reason for that as his partner would never arrive in the first place! He was familiar with this witch that they had been appointed to track down - of course he was, for that is why he was hired in the first place - and he had no doubt that she was already covering up her tracks and securing her hideout, wherever she would be.
“Ah, there he is.” After what had seemed like hours, the guard broke off from his leering tirade. “Your partner. He’s there to keep you in tow, eh? Open the gate!”
Finally.
It was time to leave.
A rather strange morning at that, as the Principality of Teren had just begun to wake. Even the Sun seemed reluctant to raise Her head out Her clouded beddings and the village roosters had not yet called for their masters. A chill had captured the land in a silent spell; a spell that the village blacksmith found hard to break with his iron tools. There was no frost that usually accompanied such a morning and from each village a queer sense of fear crept way into their hearts and from this fear a single thought occupied each man, woman and child’s mind - witchcraft. Not publicly, mind you, for the prince Teren had previously banned such language from entering the public discourse, reasoning that the less time witchcraft spent in the public conscience, the less power it would lord over the populace. But bad omens such as these were by their nature self-sufficient and soon without any need for gossip, the citizens had already spent the good half of the morning still hidden in their beds.
Outside the castle, a shadowy figure skulked around in the dim light and when the castle guards did not give him leave to enter, decided to rest against the iron gate. He was a witch-hunter, already with an epithet of his own - the Tall Lady - though it had not been given out of respect due to his skill in that particular trade; he was an amateur, after all, and anyway he didn’t get along with the other bounty hunters who littered this land. His was more a form of demure mockery then renown, though his peers had denied it. He had found that one could never quite hide their disdain for him in their eyes; no matter how pleasing their smiles and greetings and laughter could be, there was always reserved for him a certain hardness in the pupils, the cold glint of bitter steel just barely hidden in the scabbard. He grasped his shawl tighter around him as if to hide from these sour memories.
It really was an unusually cold day, he thought, so much so that the guards posted on the walls were all sporting beaver fur coats and fur-lined helmets despite it being only a week or so after the festivities of Saint Marian. So cold, he thought, that if a giant had only taken a needle to the sky and poked it, the entire world would have frozen over in an instant. There had been a witch in his coven named Rinevee who had claimed to have known such a spell to change the weather in rather peculiar ways. Her burnt-black hair was such a result of one of these rituals, or so she liked to say. She had once escaped an execution in this manner by borrowing from the Sun’s powers and burning an entire village to the ground. He found it hard to believe. Rinevee had been killed in a raid by a bow-man who hadn’t even been using iron-tipped arrows. Still, he wondered. There were many covens still out there operating in secret, covens that would love nothing more then to hamper Prince Teren’s proclamation on the banning of all magics outside his inner court. A crop failure would rouse even the most dullard type of peasant, the type that cared nothing for the politics of the Principality of Teren save for how much grain he would be expected to deliver to the local magistrate, a type very useful for the plannings of witches.
For however much he looked down upon these simple village folk though, he found himself to be almost identical to them, just in different trappings. He too, did not care for the inner workings of the Principality of Teren. While the local brute cared only for however much food he could swindle and hide away from the local official in charge of collecting the taxed grains, he himself ignored all but his most wanton need for the spilled blood of the witches he had lived with. Patch-work shirts and shoes were disguised for a more elegant blue robe but it did little to clothe what beast inside lurked. He had gone days without eating for excitement of the kill, making his hollowed face even ghastlier, and what little sleep he let himself succumb to were filled with the blooded memories of witches with sucking wounds in their stomachs, bile and fat and blood leaking until he woke up from the smell of it, almost aroused in his anger and satisfaction.
“So,” spoke a guard. His face was wind-bitten to the bone with a very red nose and yet his voice had the deep complexion of someone fed well on castle scraps, of which there were many, judging by the bulk he had hidden underneath the fur coat.
“The Tall Lady, eh? Come to kill a witch for our Prince Teren.”
“That is indeed so.” He smiled, cradling his leather-wrapped arquebus. The thing was his most prized possession. It would not be amiss to say, indeed, that it was his life. He had acquired it from a travelling inventor three years ago and it was with this tool that he’d ended the lives of five witches. It was marvellously crafted with imported wood from the Kingdom of Alabastria and strong castle-forged iron. A weapon to revolutionize war, he’d said. To revolutionize witch-hunting.
“And how was the room?”
“A pleasant stay.”
“Ah. Pleasant! Well, I do suppose you’ve slept in worse places. But still, the rats in that inn… he was flogged for it, you know. A few years ago. He let the captain’s cousin sleep in one of those filthy rooms and when the poor boy woke he was missing half an arm! Rats nibbled it all off they say. And yet, that rotten innkeep's back to his old habits, I see.”
"He should have been hanged," added a wiry looking guard to the left. He had mismatched boots and a hungrier look in his eyes. This was a man rather new to the castle, still eager to perform all the daily routines and apprehend every visitor to the castle, no matter how benign. "Hanged, I say."
“They were of no consequence,” he smiled.
“Is that so? Well, I suppose being a bounty hunter’s good for the constitution. And even the rats know ‘nuff not to go near a cursed man, I suppose. ‘Though even the prince isn’t safe from them. God’s divine protection doesn’t seem protect against rats,” he snorted, “though it does arrows and spears fine enough. Funny how that works, eh?”
“Oh, don’t worry. The rats will like me just the same once I’m dead.”
“Well, so long as you don’t go on dying before killing that witch! Our Prince Teren gifted you quite a hefty sum, or so I’ve heard, ‘though for what reason he had on hiring you specifically I don’t know, don’t you know, and you wouldn’t want to waste that coin or you’d be twice cursed… and anyway, it can’t be that hard to kill a witch. My brother’s a witch-hunter as well, you see, only the more professional type. He’s well put out by it, why Prince Teren hired a foreigner, y’know, and he was wondering if it had anything to do with, well,” he gestured with the spear towards his general self, “all that.”
"Yes," added the skinny guard. "I heard that you were invited into the bed chamber. Not even the courtyard, or the great hall!"
“Ah,” he laughed. “I can assure you that your prince is quite the proper man.”
“Still! You’re the talk of the barracks, y’know. Of all the bounty hunters to hire… no offense meant! One can’t help but wonder… some wonder if there’s even a witch at all. After all, you do know our Prince Teren has the finest witch-hunters - not to say anything of your skill! - in his personal retinue. So why hire you? It’s a thinker alright. Some say that you’re not even a witch-hunter, y’know. More of an expensive travelling prostitute.” He held his hands up defensively. “You were involved in the baron’s arrest! Everyone knows it, or at least everyone worth knowing. He said he knew you… and of course you know what he was arrested for, the scoundrel… really, the public debauchery of that man. ‘Though you won’t hear it from me, of course… he was in prison for longer then you were, you know. That wife of his refused to pay the crown… Say, didn’t our Prince Teren spring you out early by royal command? See, that’s why we can’t help but wonder, y’know. You really can’t blame us.”
“I can see that you’re a very educated guard.”
“Everyone knows it.” He shrugged. “Say… are you really a man? The innkeep says otherwise.”
“Well,” he smiled, “I should like to think that I know myself better than a man who’s known me for a single night.”
He’d made a mistake by responding to the guard. Men like this would eagerly seize any opening to start conversation and even his silence would be a reluctant stopper to it, this he knew from experience. He answered with curt nods and forced smiles all the while growing ever more impatient for his partner to arrive. Where was he? Prince Teren had informed him the day earlier that he’d be appointing a man to accompany him to apprehend, not kill mind you, the witch that had been thwarting him for a year. He’d planned to sneak off during their journey to kill the witch himself but now he began to think that there would be no reason for that as his partner would never arrive in the first place! He was familiar with this witch that they had been appointed to track down - of course he was, for that is why he was hired in the first place - and he had no doubt that she was already covering up her tracks and securing her hideout, wherever she would be.
“Ah, there he is.” After what had seemed like hours, the guard broke off from his leering tirade. “Your partner. He’s there to keep you in tow, eh? Open the gate!”
Finally.
It was time to leave.
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