Ortwin's Schemes
Ortwin took advantage of some welcoming farmers to sleep snugly, but did not waste time, getting back on the road shortly after dawn. Plans and plots shuffled in his mind like a deck of cards: he knew what to do, where to go. Howls and screams broke his reverie, and they came from the farm he had just left. His right hand unsheathed the hunting sword, and he wrapped the chain of his golden cross around the left. He backtracked under the dark green canopy of old oaks, whose branches made a murky tunnel out of the little country road; its end stood bright as a cave mouth. In that light stood a great black hound, and behind it the screams grew throat-wrenching. Ortwin was forcibly reminded of a distant day, when his father’s dogs had found a lame doe. They were scarcely hunting dogs, those three mutts, but they were quite the experts on the matter of violence and hunger. The shrill cries he heard today were human, though, no matter how beast-like they sounded, breaking like waves against the horrifying reality of being eaten alive. The black hound was pointing him, and this big fellow was indeed a hunting dog, no doubt about that. Ortwin ground his teeth and counted every move, each slash, how many paces… But dismayed himself by running away in a dash.
When he had struggled free from the clutches of cowardice, he found himself even more suprised by the simple fact of not being followed. He was alone in the hills, God alone knew where. From that point onwards, he took every possible precaution: he slept where he could, finding the most remote shelters, which he left quickly, avoiding any contact with humanity. He swept in circles through the countryside, he followed the river and crossed it twice. Wrung-out but satisfied, he finally met his informers. Where news had traveled faster than him, they spoke of carnage. Wherever he had walked past, people nearby had died in their blood. Tense, he probed about his future destinations. He learned of mauled corpses left on every crossroad he planned to pass, and about houses emptied, but for a mess of bloody canine footprints. Wherever his reasoning would take him, the dogs of the Devil had struck innocent souls off the Book of Life.
When Warner found him he was still shocked and trembling. His old friend eased him in the garden of a tavern. It was filled with undisciplined troops, and securing even a modest repast was difficult. With some food and drink in his body, though, Ortwin felt better, to the point of finally answering his colleague. By that time he also felt needle-pricks from those petulant twins, shame and pride.
“Warner, listen to me,” he said, “mere beasts can’t pre-empt my plans. It was silly of me to get dismayed. I am a son of Adam, God lent me a brain to think. Even if these dogs are of the Devil, they hold no such power, they are surely just following some wanton blood-lust.”
“Don’t trouble your day over their intelligence, Ortwin, worry about the schemes of their Master.”
Ortwin fell silent for a bit. “Nobody saw the Devil commanding them with a whistle. This is no Wild Hunt.”
Warner shook his head. “They are no less perilous, these Barghest. They know the smell of your fear.”
“Don’t you call me a coward!” Ortwin stood with an angry jolt, knowing well what he was.
But his old companion just smiled. “I’m sorry, it’s silly of me speak about petty, common fear. People like you or me should speak instead of insanity, which is its king. But Barghest are no sires to madness, they are but its brothers. Together they all are the Devil’s own get.”
“And our task is to thwart such an evil family.”
They were done with beer, by then. They exchanged their crosses, as a gesture of brotherhood.
Ortwin roamed for six days. His heart had changed: thrice he sought to ambush the Barghest and thrice he failed. Once he almost fell into an ambush himself. Who was prey? Who the Hunter? He broke the chase on a rainy day and he dashed for shelter in the city. He found the gates ajar and the dead littering the street, bloated with a plague which had beaten him in speed. He trudged under the weight of his sodden buffcoat, leaning heavily on his spontoon, which had since replaced the sword, until he found che chancellery of the Diocese. It was deserted and forlorn — the coffers were emptied, the papers strewn around or burned in the fireplace. Human faeces littered the desks, and the armory was as empty as his powder flask. He had wagered for an edge, and a friendly hand, and he had lost. The broken windows let in the pouring rain and wind, a just punishment for his dwindling faith. He ran outside laughing, trying to make out the Barghest howling in the rainstorm. He found the devil-dogs waiting for him in the courtyard just as he thought, but strangely enough, he had imagined the howling. Two of them were contending over the entrails of a rotting corpse, gorging themselves. Just one stood watching for him: a massive brute like the others, scarred and muscle-bound. His snout pointed at him, and his old crucifex dangled from his jaws, dripping rain. Ortwin could easily imagine it drenched in Warner’s blood. The dog let it fall in the mud, like his hopes to outwit the Devil. Desperation. Death. Folly. Each Barghest, just like each Witch, felt like a mirror of human misery. Ortwin was bereft of plans, but ready for anything, and he charged mingling his howl with the beast’s, and his spontoon found diabolic flesh soon enough.
A wretched prisoner had been led into a dark cell during the night. Come morning he had already kissed a cross and signed a confession, and found himself a Hunter. His wrists sported the marks of the irons, and Ortwin stared at the reddened flesh. His new colleague repaid him in kind, following with cold, fox-like eyes the long scars that disfigured his countenance.
“I know how to find that Witch,” said the new Hunter, “and how to make short work of her. Tell his Eminent Grace that I—”
Ortwin tossed him his new sword, and not gently. “Right,” he said. “I look forward to hearing your plan. Here’s mine: be as savage a beast as the one you are hunting. What is that, good fellow? Don’t you fancy some nice, honest scars like these? They are useful when you have to point out to some crafty jailbird that the Devil awaits beyond his wits’ end.”
Ortwin laughed, but the other Hunter looked quite sour.
He would learn, or he would not.
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