Hunter's Creed

Chapter 2

July the 5th; I'm sure of it this time.

         Yesterday was most enlightening. I met a farm girl beset by dogs that were obviously trained to hunt humans. And no, the irony isn't lost on me. But the girl I saved, and her mother, told me of the sort of evil that comes in the night to steal their food and their children, leaving them barely enough to subsist on, that they might return for more booty later. When I arrived at this village, D'Jeric, its name is, the vicar supported their story. Even though this isn't the sort of thing the hunters involve themselves in, I told him I would ask around town and see what I could learn. Imagine my surprise when I learned that all the vendors and shopkeepers agreed that the greedy farmers are selling their wares in another town where they are paid in silver.
         This seemed suspicious, as I saw no signs of wealth at the girl's farm, so I took a room here. Someone reported my presence to someone higher up, and three ruffians were sent to my room to deliver a message, a message that seemed to be, "Get out of town and keep your nose out of things that don't concern you." But during their attempt to deliver this message, they were interrupted by a certain ill-tempered ghost of my acquaintance, and I'm reasonably certain that they're still running.
         Rosalka was certain that the innkeeper sent for them while I had my back to him. I was skeptical at first, but this has proven to be the truth. This morning, with her able assistance, I asked the innkeeper who he reported me to. Despite nearly having his entrails frightened out of him by her sudden appearance, he could tell me little beyond their names, and the fact that they were sent here last autumn to act as the town's lawgivers in the name of a minister in Sentil, the county seat of this farm country. I have some concern that Rosalka has exposed herself, but it may have been an exposure that was needed. I have a feeling they've gotten far too comfortable lording it over the people in this region. The terrified innkeeper claimed not to know who the puppet master is, despite his fear of Rosa. I believe he knows, but if he is more terrified of him than he is of my companion, this may prove a difficult hunt indeed.

                             From the journal of Darion Valente

*          *          *

         Sentil on the Pesnica was the largest city in this fertile valley of farms and ranches, though calling it a city was stretching the word far thinner than it was ever meant to go. A damp, muddy squat along the bank of the Pesnica, it was the farthest upstream that the small, flat-bottomed barges could navigate. But the river stretched from the eastern shoulder of the Alps all the way to the Crimean Sea, and through those barges the city had access to the Mediterranean and major rivers including the Danube and the Volga. There was wealth here, to be sure, but move the whole thing to a city like Vienna, and it would be swallowed up by a single neighborhood. A large fish in a very small pond, and yet its very wealth served to attract darker denizens.
         One such was stirring now, Lady Ch'Vara, in her permanent quarters in the Guild Tower. No one, merchant nor minister, was supposed to maintain permanent quarters in the Guild Tower, but when those around you had learned the folly of offering challenge, you did what you pleased. Ch'Vara claimed no clan, for she had relieved herself of that encumbrance long years ago. She was a clan of one.
         Her hair was long and gone to gray, though she made an effort to keep it dyed a shiny black. It hung around her shoulders as she woke from her slumber, pulling the bell rope and stretching her slender form.
         "M'lady?" her maid said, pushing the door open as she answered the bell.
         "Lay out my clothes, Zenji. Something red. I'm feeling frivolous today."
         "Yes, M'lady," the girl replied with a curtsey, and moved to the wardrobe as Ch'Vara struggled to her feet, catching her balance over her arthritic hips, took her serpent-headed cane from its stand, and shuffled into the anteroom to begin her morning ablutions. She hadn't completed much when she was disturbed by a commotion in her bedchamber. Annoyed, she opened the door, still in her elegant sleeping gown, to find a guardsman in the doorway arguing with the maid. The guard dropped to one knee, lowered his head, and saluted, right fist over his heart. As an Advisor to the count, she wasn't entitled to a salute from his guard, but every member of that body was well aware of the difficulty she could cause if he didn't.
         "Rise," she said with a lofty wave of her hand. "What is so important that you must disturb my morning routine?"
         "M'lady, your retainers from D'Jeric are here. They say they have vital news for your ears alone. Apparently, there is a problem there that they cannot solve themselves."
         "And they expect me to do what from here?"
         "I could not say, M'lady, but they're in a frightful state. They seem..."
         "Yes? They seem what?"
         "Well... They look terrible, as one would expect. They've worn out their horses riding through the night. But it isn't just that. They look terrified. Broken."
         "All right. Have them wait in my anteroom. Offer them refreshment if they want it, and tell them I'll be with them shortly."
         "Ma'am," he said, saluted again, and closed the door as he left.
         "Never mind my hair and jewelry for now. Just get me into these clothes and let us see what has my agents in such a state."

*          *          *

         Ch'Vara opened the door from her bedchamber to find her three armsmen in various poses of nervous distraction. One paced like a caged tiger, one leaned, head down, on the back of a chair, and one stood looking out over the waterfront. They all stood up straight and saluted when she came into the room, and she noticed that all had a stiff drink in hand.
         "Bego," she addressed the leader, "what is the purpose of this visit?"
         "M'lady, the farmers of D'Jeric have hired a sellsword to protect them."
         "I doubt that," she said with a wave of her hand as she moved to the central seat in the room, a throne in everything but name. "If you are doing the job I sent you to do, they haven't enough left to hire a donkey. In any case, he is one, you are three. Why isn't he fertilizing a farmer's field right now."
         "M'lady, he travels with a demon."
         "Balderdash! A demon, indeed."
         "It is true, M'lady," the heavyset one, Luca by name, offered. "We went to settle with him last night, but his demon passed through a closed door and through me. She chilled me to the bone. I couldn't move for a minute or more. And what she did to Claudio doesn't bear remembering."
         "But remember you will, Claudio," she addressed the lightest of the group, a wiry, shifty-eyed fellow with three-day stubble. "What did this demon do to you?"
         "She forced me back onto the bed, M'lady, and when I couldn't move any further, she put her face right in mine. Her eyes were on fire and her hair became snakes, and she screamed. Never have I heard such a scream. I'm surprised it didn't rouse the bodies from the graveyard."
         "Are you sure that wasn't you screaming?" she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.
         "What he says is true, M'lady," Bego confirmed. "It was a specter of great power, and it came to the sellsword's rescue as we were about to deal with him."
         "And how do you know she was rescuing him?"
         "She avoided any injury to him, attacking only us. It was no coincidence."
         "How do you know this was truly a demon, and not your usual drunkenness giving a second warrior powers that she doesn't possess? How do you know it was a woman, for all of that?"
         "M'lady," Bego said, slowly and carefully, "it was no warrior. She wore the clothes and hair of a peasant woman, and floated above the floor. In fact, I could see no sign of any legs at all."
         "Plain, then, what you were looking at. All right, I see what has happened here. This sellsword, as you call him, has some sleight-of-hand skills, nothing more. You went to intimidate him, no doubt having taken a measure of courage from the bottle, and he used the dim light and your inebriated state to fool you. Not that difficult, by all appearances."
         "M'lady—"
         "Silence! I'm thinking... If I provide you fresh mounts, you can be back in D'Jeric by lunchtime. We need to draw this trickster out into the sunlight where his tricks will not be so effective. Yes. We'll see how he likes meeting you when you're sober. Return to D'Jeric. Who do you suppose hired this trickster?
         "We've no idea, M'lady."
         "But you suspect someone, yes?"
         "Well..." Bego drew out, "we've been having some difficulty with a few of the families of the western fields. Pushing back against us, trying to stir up resistance. Two nights ago, we loosed your hounds on them. One kill, to send a message. Only one returned, and its spirit is broken. It's afraid of its own shadow now."
         "As are you, apparently. When were you worms planning to tell me about the loss of my hounds?"
         "Uh..." Bego was visibly shaking now; those dog things had not come cheap. "Our report was about the man. He seemed like the first point we should raise with you."
         "I provided four hounds. What about the other three?"
         "K- killed, M'lady."
         "What?"
         Her voice set the stones ringing.
         "With a long blade, M'lady. We found them the next day. They lay right together, gutted."
         "So, your sellsword is more than just a trickster, is he? All right. It doesn't matter who hired him, these people need a lesson. Go to these farms that have been, what did you call it, pushing back against you? Put them to the torch."
         "And the people?"
         "Do as you will. Kill them, sell them to the Turks, whatever it takes. I don't want to hear anymore of this 'pushback' nonsense. I selected you three for a reason. Now, get down there and set those people straight."
         "And the sellsword?"
         "If he shows his face, kill him. If he doesn't, then he's likely taken their money and run. Now, get going, or have you lost your nerve as well?"
         "N-no, M'lady," Bego replied, "but begging M'lady's pardon, what about the revenue these farmers produce for you."
         "They're peasants, fool! Their replacements will be on the land within a fortnight, and glad to have it."
         "M'lady is wise," Bego acknowledged.
         "Yes. Now go to the dining hall. You can have a meal while the horses are being prepared, but be quick about it. I want this rabble dealt with by nightfall. And that sellsword especially. No one opposes my will and lives!"
         "As you command, M'lady," Bego replied. "It shall be done."
         And with a salute, the trio took their leave.

*          *          *

         Lunch had been filling if plain, and Tina now knelt on the ground not far from the house weeding the turnip patch. Her father had returned to the field to continue the harvest, and Janka was inside cleaning the cutlery. Weeding was boring, but kept her mind from wandering too far down the dark corridors that seemed to surround their lives since these new lawmen had come to town. Head down, humming a folk tune, enjoying the birdsongs that filled the air around her, it was a while before she noticed the smell of smoke.
         It wasn't wood, of that she could be sure. There was a sweetness to its unfamiliar aroma, but it wasn't pipe tobacco, either. Sitting up to look around, she immediately saw a thin column rising from just behind the copse of trees that bordered their north field.
         She shouldn't be able to smell that; the wind was wrong.
         And as she knew there would be, another rose in the west.
         "Mama," she called, headed back toward the house. "Ma."
         "What is it, child?" Janka answered from the kitchen window.
         "Mama, there's fires out here, two of them. And, and, there's a third one starting. The smoke just appeared."
         "Come back to the house, child. Where is your father?"
         "In the north field. He sees them, too."
         Indeed, a man could be clearly seen a quarter mile or so away. He had been cutting rows of barley and stacking the cuttings, but now he had stopped, sickle in hand, mopping his brow as he looked off to the west.
         "Bad fortune for three fires to start at once," her mother remarked, "especially during the harvest."
         As they stood together watching, a man clad in black rode out of the copse with a torch in his hand. Leaning down from the saddle, he set light to one of the sheaves and walked his horse toward the next one. Tina saw her her father start toward him, waving his free hand, probably shouting. His walk broke into a run. The man stopped his horse and waited, and as her father reached him, he struck him in the face with his torch. As her father fell to one knee in a shower of sparks, the rider drew his sword and cut him down.
         "Remzi!" her mother screamed, and started toward them. Tina moved to follow, but her mother rounded on her.
         "Get to the village and find your friend, that sellsword."
         "What can he do?"
         "More than we can. Take the horse. Fly, child!"
         And she started back across the field.

*          *          *

         "It has gone on for a year," the vicar said, "maybe more. But when these 'lawgivers' arrived with a writ from the count to administer this village and its surrounds, things became truly desperate. They are no better than common bandits, worse, perhaps, for they operate under the cover of law."
         "I had a run-in with three ruffians when I first arrived."
         "Almost certainly them. They are led by a man named Bego."
         "We didn't get around to exchanging pleasantries. If it hadn't been for my friend here, things might have gotten ugly."
         "Oh, Valente," Rosalka said with a wave, "you make things sound so dramatic."
         "Prove me wrong."
         When the ghost had nothing more to say, Darion returned his attention to the vicar.
         "I told you before, this is a civil matter. If you are being terrorized under cover of authority, then your proper recourse is to petition the duke for intervention."
         "Do you think we have not done that? We sent a petition to request an audience after the Mass of Christ."
         "And did you receive an answer?"
         "We were told that the duke is a busy man, but he might have time for us in the summer."
         "Well, it is summer. Have you heard further?"
         "From the duke? Nothing. In the meanwhile, I have resorted to prayer. I had thought God himself had forsaken us, and then you arrived, you and your... guide. A hunter. Exactly what we need."
         "I was not sent here to drive off some bandits. Hunters serve a higher calling."
         "Yes? Then why are you here? Who sent you, if not the Almighty?"
         "I was sent by the Holy Council in Munich."
         "On what mission? You don't think you can find Satan in a farmer's field?"
         "I was sent to confront evil. That is the only mission hunters are ever given."
         At that moment, Klementina, the girl that Darion had rescued from the hounds his first night here, burst through the door disheveled and out of breath, turned at the head of the aisle, did a quick genuflection, and ran to the front where the two men sat in conversation.
         "Thank God I've found you!" she gasped to Darion. "Men have come — gasp — They're burning our fields — gasp — You have to help!"
         "Calm yourself, girl," the vicar said in a soothing voice. "Who is burning your fields? No one would deliberately burn the food we all need to eat."
         "Who do you think?" Her breathing was returning to normal. "Bego and his dogs. One of them has murdered my father. My mother sent me to find you. You have to stop them!"
         "Do you still think you haven't found Satan, hunter?"
         "If they're killing farmers, they aren't going to leave witnesses," Rosalka said. "Her mother probably sent her here more to keep her alive than to find you."
         "Fly ahead. Do what you can."
         Rosalka darted up the aisle and through the wall; all Tina could see was her hero talking into an empty space where no one was or had been.
         "I'll come with you, girl," Darion said to her. "I'll just get my horse."

*          *          *

         Darion needed no guide, as the smoldering ruins still pumped pillars of smoke into a gray cloud that could be seen for leagues. As they rounded the woods that hid the fields, Tina, riding bareback, sobbed a barely intelligible no! and kicked her draft horse into a trot, likely its fastest gait. As Darion nudged Midnight into a walk to follow her, Rosalka floated up.
         "Her father is in the field, as she said," the ghost reported. "Her mother almost made it to his side. Don't let the child see her. It won't do her any good."
         "Did you see anything else?"
         "Death. Death has stalked this valley and left nothing in its wake. The crops are burned, and the people..."
         "All of it, Rosa. I'll need to know."
         "I counted eight houses sharing these fields. Eight houses, and close to fifty people, men, women, children, all dead."
         "Go on."
         "Go on? What else do you need to know?"
         "How did they die?"
         "Really, Valente? Are you truly such a ghoul?"
         "I need to recount these men's crimes to them before I cut their hearts out and feed them to the wolves."
         Can a ghost sigh? Rosalka performed a good imitation before continuing.
         "The men were killed as they tried to defend their fields, most with a single sword slash. The women who came out to support them were killed in the same fashion. Those who stayed in their homes with their children were burned with the houses or cut down as the tried to flee. Do you feel better now, knowing this?"
         "It is necessary. The vicar is right, these men are Satan's spawn, and this is what we were sent for."
         A wail of, "Noooooooo!" echoed across the field causing man and ghost to turn to its source. Tina knelt over the body of a woman, obviously her mother, before standing unsteadily and staggering on to the fallen man nearby."
         "Dammit, Rosalka, you should have prevented this!"
         "Me? Don't blame me! If you hadn't kept me yammering on about the state of the bodies..."
         But Darion had mounted his horse and was galloping toward the girl.
         "Tina," he called to her, dismounting before the horse had stopped and grasping her by her shoulders. "You should have waited."
         "For what?" she snarled, shrugging off his hands. "Would they be alive if I'd waited? Would there yet be hope? No, I needed to see this."
         She reached to her collar and pulled out a simple base-metal crucifix. Ripping the chain loose, she threw it into the dirt.
         "You shouldn't turn your back on God," Darion said.
         "The same way He didn't turn His back on me, on my family?" she asked with bitterness.
         "There may come a day when you need Him."
         "This was that day, but it seems He was too busy to be bothered. Now I am too busy to bother with Him."
         "What will you do, then?"
         She turned to her father's body, stooped, and picked up his sickle.
         "I'm going to kill them all," she announced with solemn finality.
         "What are you talking about?" Darion asked. "As you told me the night we met, you are no warrior."
         "That was then." She began walking back toward the burned out farmhouse, its ruins marked only by its stone chimney.
         "Seriously, what are your plans?" he asked, trotting to catch up. "You are the daughter of farmers, not one of the fabled Amazons. You have no place to sleep, no food, nothing. And that thing is hardly a proper weapon."
         "There'll be a little money in the ashes. Coins don't burn. And this will do fine for the purpose of removing their heads."
         "Tina, they'll cut you down before they finish laughing."
         "They sleep," she said. "I don't think I'll be doing much of that for a while."
         "Fine. And what about the rest of it? How are you going to find them?"
         "They live in D'Jeric. I'll find them. Anyway, are you not after them now?"
         "Very much so."
         "Good. Because I plan to come with you."
         "Out of the question!" both Darion and Rosalka said in unison.
         "Why, because I'm a child? I became an adult today. I have no trade beyond scrubbing or wenching, and I'll do neither. I have no one to go to, and no place to go, so I'll learn your trade. It is of great interest to me just now."
         Darion gave a deep sigh.
         "Find your coins," he told her. "I'll escort you back to town, but that's all. I'm sure the vicar will have a bed for you. You'll be safe with him."
         "I'll be safer with you."
         "Hardly!"
         "You know those men will have to kill me, and what good is that vicar going to be when they come? Do you think he can appeal to their better nature?"
         "She makes a strong point," Rosalka said.
         "Quiet!" he snapped at her.
         "I'll not be pushed aside." Tina said. "If I can't come with you, then I'll follow you. You'll not be rid of me so easily!"
         "Back to town," he repeated. "Well decide things further after a night's sleep."