Witch Hunter
The woman in black fled through the forest, and the witch hunter followed. Twigs snapped in the underbrush with every hurried footfall. Deep purple light erupted in front of the witch hunter's path and gnarled roots shot towards him. He dove forward, tucking himself inwards for a low roll. Mud and rot covered bark flew above him as he impacted the reeking, damp earth. Using all fours, the hunter sprung upwards from the ground with a golden, arcane burst of energy. His gloved hand grabbed a twisted branch and he swung himself forward to run across the treetops. Don't lose her now, Dammon, he thought. You can't go back empty handed again!
Golden electricity crackled around his finger tips and two cobalt daggers flew out of his dark leather belt towards them. With a flourish, he plucked each of them out of the air and slung them towards the running figure. Twin blue blurs streaked through the night's radiance towards the witch but fell short when they ricocheted off of a magic barrier. The witch let out a shrill cackle at the failed attempt and continued to run. Dammon cursed to himself, sparking his fingers again to call the daggers back.
He knew that, if she kept up the chase, his efforts would only result in him stumbling into a trap; he had little other choice, though. The last time he returned to the Order without his contract's bounty, they took his left pinky as compensation. Huntmaster Terra warned him that, should he fail again, it would be a whole hand or worse. Shivers ran down his spine as he lept from branch to branch in his attempt to keep up with the hag. This is no ordinary speed; was she under the effects of some fell potion? Should I tap into my own magics to keep up?
Glass shattered on the ground below him and a mass of briars exploded from the muck. Whirling wires whipped upwards, slashing through the toughened Corup tree branches. One of the razor-like vines cut through the branch he was about to land on and he began his untimely descent. Instinctual motions took control and Dammon tucked inwards just before he landed, rolling to a stop in the mud. Echoing from the haze-filled woods was the witch's laughter once again; she had gotten away from him. For now.
Silence fell across the forest like a blanket. Distant hoots emanated from a tired owl somewhere in the distance as Dammon brushed the caked mud from his leathers. Her boot prints, once heavy and sunken into the earth, started to become lighter as he tracked them. Damn witch! Probably some odd concoction that lets her float, or... His train of thought dissipated as a crude arrow whizzed past his cheek, leaving a crimson trail in its wake. It would seem that mist elves had been tracking his movements the moment he stepped foot in the Grove.
Dammon's fingers sparked once more, and the two cobalt daggers shot up into his waiting hands. Two more arrows zipped towards him from the mist-filled treeline. One of them pierced the wide brim of his impractical, floppy hat before he could react. The second arrow glanced off his shoulder where it found a hardened patch of golden skin instead of soft flesh. Shimmering, yellow light flared from his feet and he launched himself towards his hidden assailants in the pre-dawn haze.
Pain shot through his thumbs as he pressed them into small spikes set in the center of the crossguard of his daggers. Both blades burned with a radiant fire, illuminating his would-be-assassins in the dim moon light. A pair of cold, pale eyes reflected his weapon's luster, painting the elf's face in golden hues. With a crackling shove, Dammon threw one of the blades at the closest elf. The dagger found its mark between the elf's beacon-like eyes, and his skin roiled around the burning magic. He dropped the heavy crossbow, following it to the forest floor soon after.
Some hundred feet away, the second elf let loose another arrow from behind a twisted tree. Pain exploded in Dammon's left shoulder as the missle struck true, driving itself to the bone. He launched his second dagger with a familiar magnetic push and screamed, breaking the deafening silence around them. Even the highly trained mist elves had their limits; his dagger found the back of the thigh of the fleeing elf. He tumbled into the mud, but betrayed no obvious signs of pain. He broke the arrow's shaft as he walked towards the now crawling elf.
“Who sent you, mistling?” Dammon asked, planting his boot on the prone elf's back. He ground his heel into the elf's spine and even then the pale elf did not speak nor make a noise. The mist elf fell limp, unresponsive and defeated. He knew that their people swore oaths of silence when they came of age, and he would be getting no answer from this one. He let out an annoyed sigh and sparked his fingers once again, calling the radiant daggers back to his hands. The one lodged in and burning the elf's leg arrived first, soon finding itself buried into his neck.
Dawn broke out over the horizon, hidden behind the thick cover of Corup trees. The dark, starry sky lost its pinpoints of light as the ether shifted in its coloration. Black melded to indigo, indigo melted to a dark blue which, in turn, broke into a faint orange as the Fadelight himself smiled down upon the world. His light, while present, was muted and dim which made shadows turn into a dark smear upon the ground. Between the retreating mists, blurred silhouettes, and a typically inviting dawn's radiance, Dammon couldn't help but feel unnerved about the abandoned village sprawling in front of him.
Holding his still bleeding shoulder, he stalked into the forlorn settlement. Doorways lied open or shattered, revealing ramshackle homes that had long since been looted. Only a handful of the buildings boasted windows, and even then most of those were boarded shut. There was a single house, no more than a small hovel, that had a column of smoke billowing from its clay chimney. Dammon readied his blood-stained daggers, no longer ablaze, as he approached the shut front door. She had lost me for hours, he thought. Yet makes a simple mistake like this?
“Solaurius, illuminate my path,” he whispered, creeping towards the house. He could feel every muscle in his body tense with every step. Aenwyn, the Shade Witch, had led him further from Barelight than any of his other bounties had; his legs felt sore and tired, despite his light weight. From the only window Dammon could see a small light flickered to life. In front of its source was a dancing silhouette with few discernible features. The figure moved away from the window allowing the faint candle light through, its luminescence shedding an almost tangible beam upon the dark ground. This may be more difficult than I thought; this has to be her trap!
His suspicions were proven correct moments later as several of the trees surrounding the hovel uprooted themselves. Heavy, bark-laden stumps of legs broke through the mud, sending half a dozen of the treetops another ten feet into the air. Dammon knew these creatures to be Treants; animated trees from a time and realm long gone. The nearest one hauled a massive arm upward and let its weight drop, slamming it into the ground no more than a few inches from Dammon. The witch hunter dodged, pressing scabbed thumbs into the spikes once more to spray blood over his cobalt daggers. Orange flames licked upwards from the crossguards, wreathing the blades in shimmering fire.
At full height, the Treants stood nearly fifteen feet taller than Dammon did. Their trunks split to reveal sunken in, carved faces; faces that were contorted in fear. He waved the short blades about in front of him, and the gargantuan tree beings took a thunderous step back. He remembered reading in one of the Order's libraries that many creatures had simple or exploitable weaknesses, and that the fabled Treant held both. They were deathly afraid of fire. The nearest creature to him, the one that tried squishing him beneath a trunk of an arm, said something in a language Dammon couldn't understand. It and the remaining host of Treant sunk their legs and roots back into the soft earth, contorting their limbs to resemble a natural tree once more. That worked! If I get out of this, the libraries and I have some catching up to do...
Rusty hinges squeaked as Dammon pushed open the few planks that acted as a door. The interior of the hovel was empty, save for the single candle left burning by the figure he saw in the window. It was a bare, single room with only scraps for furniture. Old, dark blood stains were on every surface in the home; streaks of crusty brown were painted across the walls, while a pool of it sat beneath a table with only three legs. A few frames that once held paintings hung broken and torn on the walls. There were several gash marks, all in sets of four, littered about the room. It looked like a small army had blown through there, slaughtering everything it found.
A single reclusive and ripped rug laid on its own on the other side of the room, but something caught Dammon's eye. There was a burnished, brass handle peeking out from the ruined cloth. He made his way to it, laying his still-burning weapons on the floor next to it. With a gentle pull, the handle revealed the rest of a trap door and what lied beyond it. Under the floor of the abandoned home, there was a tunnel that led downwards. He never did get to see what was down there, though, as right when he saw the ladder a heavy metallic *thunk* rang through his skull. The last thing he heard before his vision faded to darkness was the witch's haunting cackle looming over him. Shit.
He wasn't sure how long he had been knocked out, but it seemed to be night time once again. A trail of blood dripped down his face as his head throbbed in pain at being cudgeled. He felt that his arms were bound in heavy chains while his feet were shackled close together. His back was stiff and forced straight by a wodden pole pressed tight into his spine. As his eyes refocused in the dim light of the Sisters, he noticed that he was suspended high up in the air. Not just that, he was above a pile of loose thatch and broken branches! Panic exploded in his mind at the recognition of where he was and he began to struggle at his bindings. Shit!
“Not so keen to burn at the pyre, eh, hunter? Tell me, before I torch you, what's your name?” a haggard voice asked him. The voice, similar in pitch to the laughter that taunted him the previous night, seemed to match that of Aenwyn's. The Shade Witch hobbled out from behind him, presenting little more than her wart-covered face upwards to him. She wore black robes that revealed nothing and his own floppy hat that covered the top of her face. She smiled smugly beneath the brim of his hat, tipping it to him.
“Why should I tell you, Aenwyn?” he spat, still struggling against steel.
“Do you want your peepers to swim with the rest of the John Doe's, darling? I need it for your eye jar's label!” She let out another one of her shrill, callous cackles. “Think of it as my final courtesy to you, hunter.”
“I'd rather not damn my eternal soul, hag! I know what your kind does with names,” he said, venom dripping from his words. “Kill me if you must, but know there will be more after me!”
“Oh, I know, darling. You aren't the first to visit the old Shade Mother.” Aenwyn smiled wide, revealing crooked and broken teeth. “Guess I won't need your eyes; I have your hat as a memento!”
With that, the old hag snapped her fingers, conjuring an ember in her palm. With a gentle blow of air, the spark caught the thatch below Dammon. In moments the rest of the pile began to ignite. The heat spilled upwards towards him, bringing heavy smoke into his lungs. He felt as his feet began to boil, then his legs, and he shrieked in agony. In a last ditch effort Dammon reached deep inside of himself, tapping into the gilded, divine gift that coated his bones. An arc of lightning shot out of his shoulder, impacting the witch's chest. She stumbled at the force of the blast, but seemed to pay it little heed as she turned away from the burning hunter.
Despite the rapid rate at which it was fading, a tether made of crackling electricity connected the two. Dammon pulled this force as hard as he could, and to his surprise through the pain, through the smoke and embers, it gave out. Aenwyn's chest exploded in a plume of crimson as she was hobbling away towards the lone cottage. He couldn't hear if she cried anything as her limp corpse hit the sodden ground over the roar of the fire in his ears. He didn't need to, though; he completed his hunt, and would be meeting the Fadelight soon. For the final time, Dammon's vision gave out, and he died on the pyre.
Dammon was already standing the next time he awoke, though not in the same place in which he met his end. In his hand was a simple necklace with a small sun cresting the horizon - a holy symbol of Solaurius, the Fadelight. Looking around in this space, he found that he was back home. Some of the details seemed to be off to him, but he was back in his home in Barelight. The small kitchenette's candelabra burned the usual three, red-wax candles that smelled of cherry, and his daughter's drawings littered a small table. The windows were in the wrong places, and there was nothing outside of them. Most of the furniture was gone, except for two chairs facing each other. One of the two was occupied.
Sitting in his home was a man that wore dark leathers and a large, somewhat gaudy mantle covered in dark feathers. Many of them rippled in an opalescent sheen as the candle's light danced across their plumage. His head was covered by a heavy hood, and his face hid behind a mask that mimicked a sort of bird. Dammon recognized the shape to be that of a corvid's, or, more specifically, a raven's. The red-eyed Plumebearer of the Matron of Ravens was waiting for him. In his lap sat a thick, dusty tome that had a long and winding bookmark flowing from its pages. The mark seemed to supernaturally curl itself around the man's right foot, defying gravity. The man spoke in an unnaturally comforting tone for how grave the words he spoke were.
“Please, sit, Dammon. We have much to discuss.”
Awesome read. Thoroughly enjoyed this!
Thank you! I enjoyed writing it :)