The Witch Watch (2 page)

“Gilbert!” Simon shrieked, “The road!”

A party of some half-dozen men had arrived, riding on carts. Some bore lanterns and swords. Others bore rifles.

“I thought you said there were only four!” Gilbert snapped.

“These fellows are not from our order,” Simon hissed in a stage whisper.

“Halt!” One of the newcomers shouted, “In the name of the Ministry of Ethereal Affairs and Her Majesty the Queen, you are ordered to stand and declare yourselves!” They hurried up the hill, their gear clanking as they moved.

“Bloody hell. It’s the Witch Watch! We’ll hang for sure,” Simon said with despair.

“Don’t worry. We’re not with this lot,” Gilbert said as he prodded one of the horsemen with his foot, “Just be polite and explain that you were only working with them out of fear.” Gilbert threw back his hood and walked down to meet the Witch Watch.

“No, don’t!” Simon shouted.

Several things came to Gilbert’s mind in this moment. One was noting that his strange echoing voice - which he had attributed to being inside the tomb - was still strange and echoing, even outside. The second was remembering what his hands looked like, and how the rest of him was likely in similar condition. The third was that he was currently dressed in the black robes of this cult and carrying some sort of ornamental scepter, which would not only make him look like a member but might go so far as to suggest that he was the ringleader. The Witch Watch had found them in the countryside at night, and likely had news of what was supposed to be happening here. They would be expecting trouble, and everything about this scene would tell them that they had found it.

The lamp light fell on Gilbert and the captain of the group went wide-eyed. “ABOMINATION!” he screamed.

Gilbert wasn’t sure if he should hold onto the staff to defend himself, or surrender. In a panic, he tried to do both and raised the staff over his head.

“Spellcraft!” screamed the captain.

The men fell to the ground. At first Gilbert thought they were all cowering, but then the rifle shots came and he realized there would be no sorting this out tonight. He spun around and fled.

As he turned, he caught sight of the person at the rear of the Witch Watch. It was a woman. She looked thin, almost waif-like. She had stood at the back with a pistol in her hand, and now that the men had taken cover she was walking up the hill, heedless of the shooting and supposed danger of spellcraft. Shockingly, she seemed to be wearing trousers.

Gilbert saw no more of her. As curious as it was, he was more concerned with not being shot or (worse) captured. Great Britain prided herself on even justice and humane executions, but the Witch Watch was one of the last institutions that - if popular gossip was to be trusted - still wielded the older, harsher style of law enforcement.

Gilbert sprinted away from the watchmen, casting aside his staff as he did so. Simon had wisely begun running several seconds sooner, and thus had a good head start. Nevertheless, Gilbert’s great strides allowed him to catch up quickly. He was glad to discover that whatever strange things had befallen him, he was still as able-bodied as ever. He wanted to look back and see what his pursuers were doing. Gilbert wondered if the riflemen were giving chase or sharpshooting. He was also anxious to get another look at the woman, just because. But he didn’t dare take his eyes off the ground in front of him. They were running through a graveyard at night while being shot at. Tripping could be fatal.

The gunshots rang out surprisingly quickly, and at an even rate.

“They have very good rifles,” Gilbert commented as they ran.

“What?” Simon gasped. His steps were already faltering.

Gilbert grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him sideways, “This way. Into the trees.”

The shots fell silent as Gilbert and Simon dove into the shroud of the forest. The men shouted to each other, but Gilbert could not catch the words.

“We’ll never escape them all,” Simon gasped. He stopped and conscripted a tree to keep him from falling over.

“We don’t need to escape them all,” Gilbert pointed out. “They won’t all follow and leave the Four Horsemen unattended. I suspect no more than half of them will give chase. Come on. Walk if you can. The woods are big and lanterns can’t see far. We should be fine as long as we can get some distance before daybreak.”

It was dark here under the trees, and Gilbert could only barely make out Simon’s outline as he pulled himself upright. The bright moon was fortunate. There was just enough light for them to move without running face-first into a tree. Simon stumbled now and again on tree roots, but the shouts of their pursuers became increasingly distant.

“How many are there, do you think?” Simon asked as he struggled for breath. “I didn’t think to count them.” They had been fleeing for perhaps a quarter hour and had now stopped for another rest.

“There were six men,” Gilbert replied, “Four rifles. Two swords with lanterns, one of which was their captain. Plus the woman. They won’t send both lanterns away, which means we only have one lantern chasing us. Most likely not the leader. He’ll want to investigate the goings-on at the tomb, and leave the chase to his men.”

“You know a great deal about the Witch Watchers,” Simon marveled.

“No. I know a great deal about being a soldier. And the task of running around in the woods looking for a deadly wizard, at night, with one lantern, is
exactly
the sort of job that an officer would delegate.”

Simon slumped down against an old tree-trunk and hung his head between his knees. “I see. You’re right. They must be assuming you’re a wizard. Who ever heard of performing a revivification on a common soldier?”

“Who ever heard of reviving the wrong person?” Gilbert shot back.

Simon was quiet for some time. Gilbert waited patiently as the boy recovered his breath with much coughing and sighing. For his own part, Gilbert didn’t feel short of breath or even tired.

When Simon’s breathing had settled, he pushed himself upright. “You said there was a woman there. I hadn’t noticed her. I do wonder what that was all about. They’re wizard hunters. Well, wizard killers, really. I wonder why they would bring along a woman for grim work like that.”

“Let us make every effort to not find out,” Gilbert suggested.

“We need to find out where they ran off to. That was an abomination, for sure,” Alice insisted. She was standing with Captain Turpin in front of the tomb, looking off into the distance where the fugitives had vanished into the trees.

The captain nodded. “I’ve sent Lieutenant Stanway after it with the rifles.”

“Not all of them,” objected Private Archer, holding up his own rifle.

“All of the other rifles, then,” the captain said with irritation, obviously not appreciating the correction from a subordinate. Turning back to Alice he said, “Jack won’t give up the chase easily. You know how he is about the undead. You and I need to sort out things with these four.” He pointed at the old men gathered in a heap at the door of the tomb, “No good all of us running off and leaving them loose to make more trouble.”

Alice relented with a nod. Of course the captain was right. She wanted to chase after the abomination because it was the most interesting of the problems at hand, but interesting threats weren’t always the most dangerous.

She and the captain stooped down and searched the robed men while Private Archer stood with his rifle ready in case any of the men proved more dangerous than they seemed. The captain seized the swords and daggers the men had been carrying. All of the prisoners were alive. Two were conscious, although stunned and muttering incoherently. One of these had a broken nose.

“I wonder why the abomination attacked them?” the captain muttered.

“Perhaps it’s a feral. They might have botched the revivification,” Alice said, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. The question had been loitering in her mind as well.

“It didn’t look feral to me.”

“No, it didn’t,” she admitted. “It ran away, and not towards us when we started shooting. I suppose it could have been a betrayal. These foul sorts are always plotting, even against each other.”

The captain examined the tomb entrance. A door of iron bars hung open, and a broken chain was piled nearby. He lifted a padlock and held it up to the light for Alice to see. It had been covered with a wax seal. “Looks like the church sealed this place up, and this lot opened it again.”

“They didn’t have a key, or they would have used it instead of cutting the chain. And they were up to no good, or they would have called a locksmith. Let’s see what we can learn inside.”

“Archer, watch these men,” said the captain. “Keep them here. Shoot them if they give you any trouble. And watch out for spellcraft. They’re dazed now, but we don’t know how they’ll behave once they recover their senses.”

Private Archer sighed and assumed his post guarding four helpless old men.

Alice took the lantern and led the way in. She was very relieved that their working relationship had advanced to the point where the captain no longer insisted on marching out in front. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that he would follow her down the steps.

She was glad she’d chosen to wear trousers. She disliked showing off her legs like this, but practicality should always come before propriety. She was wearing a man’s trousers and jacket that had been tailored to her unusually narrow frame. She was wearing sturdy riding boots, which came up almost to her knees. She tried to offset the masculinity of her outfit by growing her hair long, and tying it up in many colorful ribbons.

“What does your device say, Miss White?” The captain asked.

Alice consulted her ethergram, which was mounted on her arm with rough leather straps. She flicked one of the dials a few times and watched the needle in silence. “Nothing. No spellcraft, at least. There’s a bit of activity, but I’d say that’s residual from the revivification.”

“That’s good. I’d hate to face a wizard in a tight place like this.” He looked back at the narrow passage behind them.

They examined several chambers and found nothing amiss. At the end of the hall they found the chamber of Lord Mordaunt.

“Bloody hell. They brought back the viscount, didn’t they?” Turpin grumbled as the light fell on the circle of charcoal in the middle of the room.

“Stop here,” she told the captain, “Don’t follow me into the room.” She walked carefully around the sorcery circle, examining it from every angle. Finally her light fell on the bare stone where one would normally expect to find a body.

“Yes,” she said bitterly, “His Lordship is up again.”

“Bloody hell,” the captain repeated.

She crouched and examined the sorcery on the floor. It was the span of a man’s arms, and nearly a perfect circle. “Such beautiful handwriting. Note how the lettering retains a constant size around the entire perimeter, and yet each stanza exactly fills the circumference without gaps. No sign of erasing, either. That takes practice.” She brushed her fingertips against the floor and quickly withdrew them. “It’s still quite cold to the touch. The revivification was done very recently.”

“So one of the gentlemen upstairs is the sorcerer,” Turpin said with a self-satisfied nod.

“Perhaps. But none of them made this. Their hands were clean.” She held up a wedge of charcoal that had been left beside the circle.

“Blast. So that must have been the sorcerer we saw running off with the abomination. Now we have an abomination and a sorcerer on the loose.”

“They left us a book to read!” Alice said with mock cheerfulness. She gently lifted the leather-bound volume and cradled it in one arm, and then pulled a ribbon out of her hair to mark the current page. She spent a minute or two leafing through it. “Looks like... another copy of the 1627 Werner Krauss book.”

“Looks bigger than the other 1627’s I’ve seen.”

“Yes. Some material has been added. And a good deal of it has been translated into English. At least, the German parts have. Lots of annotations. Looks like this began as a direct copy and evolved into a work of its own over the years. I can’t imagine why they would leave a treasure like this behind.”

Unable to contain his curiosity, the captain stepped into the room and peered over her shoulder. “Can you tell anything else about its lineage?” he asked.