It was guilt, he knew, that drove him. Guilt for the fact that he had failed them in life. Guilt for the fact that he hadn’t been there to save them from the savagery of their murderers, and his guilt was an ugly thing because once it had wormed its way into his head it refused to give up its hold. It ate away at his mind. It convinced him that there was something he could have done. That it was his fault that Lizbet and Leyna and all of the others were dead.
So he carried with him his own personal daemons and didn’t argue when he heard people cry: “The witch hunter is coming!”
They walked on a while in silence, both men locked in thoughts of the past, neither one needing to say a word.
After a while the wind picked up, and carried with it a smell they were painfully familiar with.
Burning flesh.
AT FIRST SKELLAN thought it was his mind playing tricks on him, bringing back old ghosts to torment him, but beside him Fischer stopped and sniffed suspiciously at the air as though trying to locate the source of the smell and he realised the burning wasn’t in his mind, it was here, now. There would be no burning without fire, and no fire without smoke. He scanned the trees looking for any hint of smoke, but it was impossible to see more than a few feet either way. The entire forest could have been on fire and without the press of heat from the conflagration he would never have known. The wind itself offered no clues. They had walked into a slight declivity that cut like a shallow U through the landscape. It meant that the wind was funnelled down through channel before folding back on itself. The tang of smoke and the sickly sweet stench of burned meat could have come from almost any direction. But it couldn’t have come from far away. The smell would have dissipated over any great distance.
Skellan turned in a slow circle.
There was no hint of smoke or fire to the right, or where the valley spread out before them, and the withered line of trees masked any hint of smoke to the left but the fart that there were trees to hide the fire where everywhere else was barren told Skellan all he needed to know.
“This way,” he said, and started to run into the trees.
Fischer set off after him but found it difficult to keep up with the younger man.
Branches clawed at his clothes and scratched at his face as he pushed his way through them. Brittle twigs snapped underfoot. The smell of burning grew stronger the deeper into the wood they went.
And still there were no sounds or signs of life apart from Fischer’s laboured breathing and bullish footsteps.
As he pushed on, Skellan realised that the press of the trees began to thin noticeably. He stumbled into the clearing without realising that was what he had found. It was a village, of sorts, in the wood. He pulled up short. There was a scattering of low houses made of wattle and daub, and a fire pit in what would be the small settlement’s meeting place. Early spring mist clung to the air. The fire was ablaze, dead wood banked high. A body had been laid out on top of the wood, wrapped in some kind of cloth that had all but burned away. A handful of mourners gathered around the pyre, their faces limned with soot and tears as they turned to look at the intruders. An old man with close-cropped white hair appeared to be officiating over the ceremony.
Skellan held up his hands in a sign of peace and backed up a step, not wanting to intrude further on their grief.
“Peculiar ritual,” Fischer muttered as he finally caught up. “Burning the dead instead of burying them.”
“But not unheard of,” Skellan agreed. “More common during times of strife, certainly. Soldiers will honour their dead on such a funeral pyre. But this, I fear, is done for a very different reason.”
“Plague?”
That would be my guess, though by rights an outbreak in a village this small would wipe the place out virtually overnight and burning the first victims won’t matter a damn. How many live here? One hundred? Less? It isn’t even a village, it’s a handful of houses. If it is the plague, I pity them because they’re doomed. I doubt very much whether this place will be here when we come back through these woods in a few months time. We should leave them in peace, but we’re not going to. Let’s give them some privacy to complete the ritual then I want to talk to some people. The burning of the dead has my curiosity piqued.”
“Aye, it is an odd thing, but then we are in an odd place. Who knows what these people think is normal?”
They waited just beyond the skirt of the tree line until the fire burned itself out. Despite their retreat out of sight the mourners were uncomfortably aware of their presence and cast occasional glances their way, trying to see them through the shadows. Skellan sat with his back against a tree. He whittled at a small piece of deadfall with his knife, shaping it into the petals of a crude flower. Beside him Fischer closed his eyes and fell into a light sleep. It always amazed the witch hunter how his friend seemed capable of sleeping at any time, in any place imaginable. It was a useful skill. He himself could never empty his mind enough to sleep. He worried about the smallest details. Obsessed about them.
Even this close to the small settlement the woods were disturbingly quiet. It was unnatural. He had no doubt about that. But what had caused the animals to abandon this place? That was the question that nagged away at the back of his mind. He knew full well that animals were sensitive to all kinds of danger; it was that survival instinct that kept them alive. Something had caused them to leave this part of Verhungern Wood.
Jon Skellan looked up at the sound of cautious footsteps approaching. Stefan Fischer’s eyes snapped open and his hand moved reflexively toward the knife on his belt. It was the old man who had been leading the funeral; only up close Skellan saw that it wasn’t a man at all. Her heavily lined features and close-cropped white hair had rendered the woman sexless over distance but close up there was no mistaking her femininity. There was a deep sadness in her eyes. She knew full well the fate awaiting her settlement. Death hung like a sword over her head. A heady mix of perfumes and scents clung to her clothing. She was trying to hold the sickness back with pungent smelling poultices and essences of plant extracts. It was useless of course. The plague would not be fooled or deterred by pretty smells.
“It isn’t safe for you here,” she said without preamble. Her voice was thickly accented, as though she were grating stones in her throat while she spoke.
Skellan nodded and pushed himself to his feet. He held out his hand in greeting. The old woman refused to take it. She looked at him as though he were insane to even contemplate touching her. Perhaps he was, but death held no fears for Jon Skellan. It hadn’t for a long time. If plague took him then so be it. He would not hide himself away from it.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said. “Plague?”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. She transferred her gaze to Fischer, and rather like a mother berating an errant child scolded. “And you can forget about your knife, young man. It isn’t that kind of death that haunts these trees.”
“I guessed as much,” Skellan said. “From the pyre. It brought back memories…”
“I can’t imagine what kind of memories a funeral pyre would bring back… oh,” she said. “I am sorry.”
Skellan nodded again. “Thank you. We are looking for a man. He goes by the name of Aigner. Sebastian Aigner. We know he crossed over the border into Sylvania two moons back, and that he is claiming to be hunting a cult, but the man is not what he seems.”
“I wish I could help you,” the old woman said ruefully, “but we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves here.”
“I understand.” Skellan bowed his head, as though beaten, the weight of the world dragging it down, and then he looked up as though something had just occurred to him. “The plague? When did it first show up here? The first death?”
The old woman was surprised by the bluntness of the question.
“A month back, perhaps a little more.”
“I see. And yet no strangers passed through?”
She looked him squarely in the eye, kn
owing full well the implication of what he was suggesting. “We keep ourselves to ourselves,” she repeated.
“You know, for some strange reason I am not inclined to believe you.” He looked to Fischer for confirmation.
“Something doesn’t smell right,” the older man agreed. Td be willing to wager our boy is tucked away in there somewhere.”
“No, he’s moved on,” Skellan said, watching the old woman’s face for any flicker of betrayal. It was difficult to lie well, and simple folk were more often than not appalling when it came to hiding the truth. It was in the eyes. It was always in the eyes. “But he was here.”
She blinked once and licked at her lower lip. It was all he needed to know. She was lying.
“Did he bring the sickness with him?”
The old woman said nothing.
“Why would you protect the man who had, by accident or design, condemned your entire village to death? That is what I don’t understand. Is it some sort of misguided loyalty?”
“Fear,” Fischer said.
“Fear,” Skellan said. “That would mean you expect him to return…”
Her eyes darted left and right, as though she expected the man to actually be close enough to overhear them.
“That’s it, isn’t it? He threatened to come back.”
“We keep to ourselves,” the old woman repeated but her eyes said: Yes he threatened to come back. He threatened to come back and kill us all if we told anyone about him. He damned us, either he kills us or the sickness he brought with him does… there is no justice in our world anymore.
“He has a month on us. The distance is closing. I wonder if he looks over his shoulder nervously, expecting the worst? He can run for his life. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t his life anymore. It is mine. One day he will wake up and I will be standing over him, waiting to collect my due. He knows that. It eats away at him the way it ate away at his friends, only now he is the last. He knows that, too. I can almost smell his fear on the wind. Now, the question is where would he go from here? What are the obvious places?”
“Do you really think Aigner would be that stupid, Jon?” Fischer asked. He was talking for the sake of it. He was looking over the old woman’s shoulder. The mourners were clearing away the ashes, gathering them into some kind of clay urn.
“Absolutely. Remember he is running for his life. That has a way of driving you forward without really thinking clearly. He sees limited choices. Always going forward, looking for shelter in the crush of people that civilisation offers. So,” he smiled at the old woman. “Where can we go from here? Are there any settlements nearby big enough for us to lose ourselves in?”
“Like I said, we keep to ourselves,” the old woman sniffed, “so we don’t have much call for visiting other towns, but there are places of course, back on the main track. You have Reuth Losa four days’ walk from here. It is a market town. With spring people will be gathering now. Beyond that you’ve got Leicheberg. It is the closest we have to a city.”
“Thank you,” Skellan said. He knew the lie of the land. The old woman had given them directions without having to betray her people. Sebastian Aigner had left here a month ago, heading for Leicheberg. It was a city, with all of the inherent distractions of a city: taverns, whores, gambling tables and the simplest things of life itself, food and a warm bed. Even running for his life it would slow him down. The press of people would give the illusion of safety.
Over her shoulder they were digging a small hole in the dirt for the urn.
“Might I?” Skellan asked, holding up the wooden flower he had carved while waiting for the funeral to end.
“It would be better if I did,” the old woman said.
“Perhaps, but it would be more personal if I laid it on her grave.”
She nodded.
Skellan took her nod as tacit agreement and walked across the small clearing. A few of the other villagers looked up as he approached. He felt their eyes on him but he didn’t alter his stride. It took him a full minute to approach the freshly dug grave.
“How old was she?” he asked, kneeling beside the churned soil. He didn’t look at anyone as he placed the delicate wooden flower on the dark soil.
“Fourteen,” someone said.
“My daughter’s age,” Skellan said. “I am truly sorry for your loss. May your god watch over her.”
He made the sign of the hammer as he rose to leave.
“I hope you kill the bastards that did this to my little girl” The man’s voice was full of bitterness. Skellan knew the emotion only too well. It was all that was left when the world collapsed around you.
He turned to face the speaker. When he spoke his voice was cold and hard. “I certainly intend to.”
Without another word he walked back to where Fischer and the old woman waited.
“That was a kind thing you did, thank you.”
“The loss of anyone so young is a tragedy we can ill afford to bear. It was only a token, and it cost me nothing.”
“Truly, but few would have taken the time to pay their respects to a stranger. It is the way of the world, I fear. We forget the suffering of others all too easily, especially those left behind.”
Skellan turned to Fischer. “Come, my friend. We should leave these good people to their grieving.”
Fischer nodded, and then cocked his head as though listening to some out of place sound in the silence of the forest. “Tell me,” he said, after a moment. “Has it always been this quiet here?”
“Quiet? Heavens, no,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “And at night it is far from quiet. There’s no denying that a lot of the creatures left with the coming of the wolves. They don’t bother us and we don’t bother them. They hunt at night, during the day they sleep.” She leaned in close, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “Be careful though, when you are walking at night. Keep to the paths. Don’t leave the paths. Never leave the paths. Verhungern isn’t a safe place at night.”
With that final warning she left them on the edge of the trees. They watched her shuffle towards the mourners at the graveside. Fischer turned to Skellan. “What on earth was that all about?”
“I’m not sure, but I am not in a hurry to find out, either.”
They kept well within the cover of the trees as they worked their way around the settlement until they came upon the narrow cotter’s path that led through the trees back towards the main road and would eventually arrive at the market town of Reuth Losa. They had no more than a few hours of walking before nightfall and he had no intention of sleeping in the forest. It was a godforsaken place. The old woman’s warning echoed in his mind. Keep to the paths. Skellan had his suspicions about what she meant. He was well aware of the horrors that walked abroad come nightfall.
They walked on awhile in silence, leaving the trees of Verhungern Wood behind. The road ran parallel to the forest for miles. The oppressive feeling that had been weighing the two men down since they entered the forest lifted almost as soon as they returned to the road. Neither man commented on it. Fischer dismissed it as nothing more than his nerves and imagination combining to play tricks on him. Skellan wasn’t quite so quick to dismiss the feeling.
In the distance a dark smudge of mountains came into view but quickly lost its definition to the falling night.
THEY MADE CAMP by the roadside, not far enough away from the menace of the dark trees for comfort. Normally they would have eaten fresh meat, caught and killed less than an hour before they ate it, but there was no game to be hunted so they had to make do with the dry bread they had carried with them for three days since crossing the River Stir, and a hunk of pungent cheese. It barely touched their hunger.
Sitting at the makeshift fire, Skellan scanned the brooding darkness of the trees. It was disturbing how the shadows seemed to shift as he stared at them, as though something inside them moved.
“Not the most hospitable place we’ve ever visited, is it?” Fischer said. He chewed on a mouthful of hard bread
and washed it down with a mouthful of water from his hip flask.
“No. What would make a man run into this blasted land? How could anyone choose to live here?”
The key word is live, Jon. Aigner is hoping we’ll lose him in this hellhole. And I can’t say that I blame him. I mean, only a fool would willingly march into the wastes of Sylvania with nothing but mouldy cheese and stale bread to keep him alive.”
In the distance, a wolf howled. It was the first sound of life they had heard in hours. It wasn’t a comforting one. It was answered moments later by another, then a third.
Skellan stared at the blackness beyond the trees, suddenly sure that he could see yellow eyes staring back at him. He shivered.
“They sound as hungry as I feel,” Fischer moaned, holding up what remained of his meal.
“Well, let’s just hope they don’t decide you’re fat enough for the main course.”
“Hope is the last thing to die, you know that,” Fischer said, suddenly serious for a moment.
“Yes, always the innocents go first, like that girl back there.”
“Do you think he killed her? I mean, it doesn’t seem like his style,” Fischer said, worrying at a string of cheese that had somehow gotten stuck in his teeth. The older man poked at it with his finger, digging it out.
“Who knows what depths the man is capable of stooping to. When you consort with the dead who knows what sicknesses you carry inside you? Aigner is the worst kind of monster; he wears a human face and yet he revels in depravity. He is sick to the core, yet he looks just like you or me. See him in a crowd and no one would be able to tell, but that sickness eats away at his humanity. An evil. He courts death. Is it any wonder he is drawn to the blackest arts? No, we will find our man, in Leicheberg or somewhere close, wherever the sickness of mankind is at its worst. That is where he will be. And then he will burn.”
Warhammer - [Von Carstein 01] - Inheritance Page 3