A bird shrieked as something drove it from its roost overhead. The frantic flapping of its wings sounded like rolling thunder as it took to the sky. Sweat poured down Duglin’s face as he walked backwards so that he could observe the dense jungle behind them, expecting their pursuer to burst through the trees at any moment.
“I see the river!” Marsel cried.
The boy felt heartened briefly. However, as he took a step back, he heard Kerma’s ragged breath in his ear. The girl’s grip across his chest was slipping, and he knew the girl was fading fast.
“How is she?”
Duglin turned around and found Marsel giving the witch a concerned look. Their eyes met and they both knew that their survival hinged on the girl.
“I’m fine,” Kerma insisted, but her voice was faint. So faint that even Duglin had difficulty hearing it even though her mouth was next to his ear. “Run…”
Without hesitation, Duglin took to his heels, charging past Marsel down the relatively clear river bank.
“Why is she chasing us?” Marsel panted as she caught up. “What does she want?”
“She has… been trained to hate… to hate her own kind…” Kerma managed. “By the Empire. She wants me…”
“How do you know this?” Marsel demanded. “How do you know how the Empire trains their witches?”
“Hunter told your Captain… As her sanity is eroded…. She will revert to her base… base instincts…”
“So, you were here as bait,” Marsel frowned.
“The Captain couldn’t leave her without the hunter on the ship either,” Duglin protested.
Marsel came to an abrupt halt. Duglin ran about twenty yards before realizing this and whirled around in surprise. “What are you doing? Come on!”
“Put her down,” the young woman ordered. “We’re leaving her behind.”
“What are you talking about?” Duglin cried.
“She’s the one the witch wants,” Marsel pointed out. “Leave her behind.”
“She saved our lives!” Duglin protested. “I won’t…”
“Then you’re on your own,” Marsel said. “I’m not dying for a witch.”
Without saying another word, the young woman disappeared into the trees further up the river bank. Something splashed in the water to his left, causing Duglin to jump. He turned to see a crocodile swimming downstream as quickly as it could. When he turned back to where Marsel had been, she had disappeared completely from view.
“Gods above,” he cursed before turning around.
“No,” Kerma whispered.
Duglin froze. “No?”
“The jungle gets thicker up ahead,” she said softly. “We will not outrun her. We need to stand and fight.”
“How?” Duglin asked.
“Your pistol… can you use it?”
“I’ve never…” the boy began.
“Shoot her when I tell you to, or we’re both dead!” Kerma hissed.
Duglin swallowed. “I’ll try.”
Before he could say any more, Duglin felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. Then, the undergrowth Marsel had carved a path through erupted into flame. Moments later, like something out of a nightmare, the outline of a woman came shambling through the fire. Her arms jerked around, and her head twitched as she looked around for her quarry. When she emerged from the flames, Duglin could see that her flesh was badly burned, and her face was contorted into a mask of agony.
“She’s lost her mind,” Kerma whispered. “She’s acting on pure instinct… This is bad.”
Duglin’s hand trembled as he drew his gun. “Why is this bad?”
“Look at her,” she hissed.
The witch cocked her head, and then she saw them. Raw hatred filled her eyes when she laid eyes on Kerma. Then, came another ear splitting shriek.
Duglin felt faint as he attempted to cover an ear with one hand and raise his gone with the other.
“Wait!” Kerma cried, screaming into his ear to be heard. “Wait for my signal!”
A ball of flame appeared in the witch’s hand. It grew from the size of an apple to the size of a man’s head in the blink of an eye. The witch then raised both hands and hurled it at the pair.
“Stand fast,” Kerma grunted as she raised her shackled hands towards the ball of fire. “Fire on my command.”
Feeling strangely compelled to obey Kerma, Duglin did as he was told. She began to chant, and the air around them began to crackle. A blue barrier suddenly shimmered as the fireball impacted it, mere feet away from them. Duglin felt searing heat against his face as the fireball exploded. As the barrier disappeared, Kerma went limp.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Fire,” she whispered as she tumbled to the floor.
Duglin took a deep breath, aimed and pulled the trigger. The witch let out a cry of pain as the bullet struck her in the chest. Her torso was thrown back, but her lower body remained upright, and the boy watched in horror as she slowly righted herself like a macabre puppet. He felt her hate directed at him and wanted to flee but fear rooted him to the spot. A ball of fire appeared in her hand.
Before she could fling it, a loud crack pierced the air. Moments later, a spurt of blood erupted from her skull, and the witch fell over, dead. Duglin could only stare at the witch’s body, dumbfounded, as he tried to figure out what happened until Marsel emerged from the jungle a minute later, keeping her musket trained on the witch’s prone form.
“You came back!” he cried.
“Never left,” she replied. “You didn’t think I’d abandon a shipmate, did you?”
“But you left!” Duglin protested.
“Thinking you would follow,” Marsel said. “You stuck to your guns, I’ll give you that.”
“Does that mean you have a newfound respect for me?” Duglin asked hopefully.
Marsel looked at the boy and made a face. Duglin followed her gaze, and his face turned red when he saw that he had soiled himself.
“I wouldn’t say that,” she remarked dryly. “I’ll just give you a kick up the arse next time you don’t do as I say.”
“You don’t get to order me around,” Duglin sniffed.
Marsel broke out into laughter. “Boy, there is no one on our ship who doesn’t get to order you around. You had best remember that.”
Duglin frowned and was about to protest when the young woman continued. “Now, what do we do about her?”
Duglin looked down at Kerma, who was lying unconscious on the ground. “She’s done so much for us… Perhaps we should just…”
Marsel raised a hand, silencing him. Duglin felt a wave of nausea before he could ask why and moments later, the witch hunter emerged from the charred path. Duglin breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Fultern and the Captain just behind him.
“Captain, you’re alright!” Marsel cried as the witch hunter inspected the fallen witch.
“As are the two of you,” Firch observed. “You did exceptionally well here.”
“Do I get a bonus for this, Captain?” Marsel beamed.
“I’d say it warrants one,” Firch remarked. He blinked when he saw Duglin. “Oh dear.”
“What is it?” Duglin asked as he looked at his torn tunic, worried that there were signs of Kerma’s magic still on him.
“What happened to your eyebrows?”
Duglin reached up and realized that they were gone. “Must have been singed off, Captain.”
“You gave her the ability to speak,” the witch hunter observed when he saw his prisoner. “That was dangerous.”
“We were separated and needed advice,” Marsel said quickly.
Duglin moved out of the way and joined Marsel by the Captain’s side as the witch hunter approached Kerma’s unconscious form. The witch hunter took another metal gag from his robe and quickly locked it around her mouth as she lay on the ground. “This is a serious offence...”
Marsel glanced at the Captain, who placed a hand on her musket to prevent her from raising it. He then addressed Andar. “I hope you can look the other way in light of what’s happened.”
Andar looked at the fallen witch and then Marsel and Duglin in turn before sighing. “Ordinarily, I would be loath to allow the ends to justify the means, but I suppose I can make an exception this one time.”
Firch bowed his head in gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Just don’t let it happen again,” Andar warned as he bore Kerma up and slung her over his shoulder as though she was a sack of potatoes.”
“Wait, are you going to just leave her body like that?” Duglin blurted as Andar stepped over the witch’s dead body.
“She’s no longer a threat,” the man replied. “Let the jungle claim her.”
“The way I understand it, she was a loyal Imperial servant for her entire life,” Firch remarked. “Seems a little cold…”
“She was a witch first and foremost,” Andar said without turning around. “A dangerous beast forged into a tool. That’s all she was, Captain. A tool.”
“He’s a tool,” Marsel sniffed softly.
“What do we do, Captain?” Fultern asked.
“We leave her here,” Firch sighed. “I’d wager the locals won’t take kindly to us burying her anywhere near the village.”
“It doesn’t seem right, Captain,” Duglin said softly.
“A lot of things in this world aren’t, Duglin,” Firch said softly. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to set things right when we have the chance to.”
“Captain?” Duglin asked.
“There’s a mountain of work waiting for us on the Vesper and not a lot of time to finish it,” Firch warned. “If you want to lay that poor woman to rest, thirty minutes is the most I can give you, and you’ll have to do it alone.”
“I’ll do it,” Duglin said without hesitation. “But how will I find my way back?”
“We’ll make sure we leave a path that’s clear enough for you to follow,” Firch promised. “But don’t be late. I want to make the evening tide, and I’ll leave you behind if you aren’t back by then.”
“Aye, Captain,” Duglin said. He attempted to look at the sky to get an idea of the time, but the sun was obscured by the trees.
“You have thirty minutes,” the Captain said before gesturing to the others. “Let’s go.”
“Wait Captain, I don’t have a shovel…” Duglin began.
“You’ll figure something out,” Firch said before leading the others back through the burnt out path.
Duglin watched them disappear from view before turning his attention to the witch’s body. Her eyes were rheumy as they gazed lifelessly in the distance, and her body was badly burned all over, leaving her face with no recognizable features. He ruled burial out almost straight away. The ground was covered in thick tree roots that were as tough as iron. A funeral pyre was also out. He wouldn’t be able to gather enough fuel in time. All he could think of was some sort of funeral raft that he could release down the river where the body would be consumed by wildlife like the crocodile he saw earlier.
“From earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he thought to himself as he moved the body.
It was lighter than he expected and moving it to the water’s edge was easy enough as he moved her, he noticed deep scars that were visible through her burnt flesh. Her life had not been an easy one and had come to a terrible and sudden end. Most people thought witches were abominations before the Gods, most of the crew included but as far as Duglin could tell, this poor woman and Kerma were people, just like him. He paused for a moment and frowned as he attempted to recall more of the prayer.
He tore off his shirt and covered the body’s torso with it before lifting it up and carrying it with him into the murky river. He held it in place and recited the words with as much gravity as he could. “And so we send this soul off in the hopes that the Gods will take her into their keeping from now until the end of times.”
With that, he cast the body off and watched it float a short distance before something in the water pulled it under. It took Duglin a moment to understand the implication of what he had seen and, in his rush to get out of the water, the boy stumbled on an exposed tree root, landing face first in the mud.
He groaned and looked up to see a gold brooch lying in the mud inches from his nose. It had been fashioned into the shame of a seven petalled flower and he deduced that it must have belonged to the witch. Perhaps it meant something to her loved ones and decided to keep it in the hopes of one day being able to return it to her family.
Then, sensing something was amiss, Duglin turned around to see the shape of a crocodile, slowly floating towards him, its cold reptilian eyes fixed on his. His heart began to race and Duglin scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as his legs could carry him down the burnt path.