Hunter knew his pleasant borrowed time together with Fawkes came at an end a bit past the dusk of the second day of their trek, as they finally drew close to the village. The sky wasn’t dark yet, but the Brennai that were on guard duty at the west entrance of the village carried torches and had their spears at the ready.

“Who goes there?” shouted one of them the moment he spotted Hunter, Fawkes, and the direwolf padding next to them. “Stop right there and announce yourselves!”

“Is that you, Daeran?” Fawkes shouted back. “Hile. This is Fawkes, returning from the Vale. May your days be many and your nights serene!”

There was a brief exchange between the guards Hunter couldn’t hear, then one of them lowered his weapon and made a beckoning gesture.

The other, quite interestingly, did not.

“Hile, outlander. Approach.”

“I guess we’re back to it, then,” Hunter told Fawkes in a low voice. “See everything, hear everything, say nothing?”

“Good lad,” she nodded, not taking her eyes off the guards.

“Who’s that with you?” asked the other guard as they were walking closer.

“Hunter. My manservant.”

“And… is that a direwolf?” he added, his voice a mix of alarm and disbelief.

“A pup. He’s friendly. I thought I’d raise him as one does a hound.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am.”

“Winds take you, you outlanders and your outlandish ways! This beast will rip your throat out!”

“I told you,” Fawkes said, pointing at Fyodor - Fyodor, who was now cowering behind Hunter, his tail tucked between his legs. “He’s friendly and docile. He’s just a pup, sirrah. Don’t let his size fool you.”

“Be that as it may,” the other guard, Daeran, interjected, “I fear we can’t allow you to take a beast like this in the village.”

“My tent is over there, at the edge of the village. See? It’s the one away from all the others. I’ll tie him to a tree there, how about that?”

Daeran frowned, but nodded anyway.

“A word, if you may, Fawkes?”

“Speak freely.”

“You are a friend of the folken, true and true, but tempers are running hot. Mayhaps you want to not draw attention.”

“Why so? More killed?”

The man said nothing, but his grimace was answer enough.

“The folken are gathering at the longhouse as we speak,” he pointed towards the big wooden building at the center of the village. “You might want to attend too, see and listen for yourself.”

“Again?” Fawkes asked. “I thought the folken gathered every fortnight or so.”

“We gather every evening or so, now,” the other guard piped in. “As we do in times of war or famine.”

“As we do in times of fear,” Daeran agreed. “Go then, Fawkes. But in your stead, I might tread lightly. And mind your manservant, lest he gets into another row with the alderman’s son.”

***

Even before they stepped inside the longhouse, they could feel the weight of fear and foreboding in the air. A palpable tension hung like a heavy fog over the whole village. The atmosphere was already taut the first time Hunter had visited the village. Now it bordered on suffocating.

He and Fawkes had stopped by her tent and left Fyodor there, along with Biggs and Wedge to keep an eye on him, then had made a beeline for the longhouse.

“See everything, hear everything, say nothing?” Hunter asked Fawkes again.

“See everything, hear everything, say nothing.”

The longhouse was one of the few actual buildings in the village, a simple structure made of sturdy logs and decorated with intricate carvings. Hunter and Fawkes slipped in and hung around at the back, not wanting to draw attention.

Most of the folken, a good five hundred people, were already assembled inside. Torches lined the walls, filling the air with the smell of smoke and burning oil, casting painting the worried and frightened expressions of the people in orange hues and uneven shadows.

The leaders of the folken stood on a platform at the other end of the longhouse, their faces solemn and grave. Hunter recognized Vanchik, the village’s alderman, as well as Hallara, the old but well-respected medicine woman. There was another man there, too, standing a few feet away from the other two, one Hunter hadn’t seen before.

He was a man of smaller stature, with a narrow, weathered face full of angular features. His nose was long and slightly crooked, as if it had been broken before. Below his prominent brow, his deep-set eyes were midnight black and shone with a calculating intelligence. His hair was long and dark and lank, bound in a tight ponytail with a piece of leather string. He was dressed from head to toe in black garb and sable furs, and he carried himself with a sense of authority and an air of disdain.

All in all, the man looked like bad news. And judging from the way Vanchik was giving him the stink-eye, Hunter wasn’t the only one to think that.

“Who’s that?” Hunter asked.

“Shhh!” Fawkes shushed him. “Beats me.”

On the platform, Vanchik exchanged a few whispered words with the medicine woman, threw the man in black a suspicious glance, and turned to address the folken.

“Friends, folken, clansmen. Here speaks Vanchik of Clan Ashari, of the Hawk Nation, of the Brennai. May your days be many and your nights serene.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Hile, Vanchik,” came a sparse, deflated response from a few dozen voices here and there among the crowd. “May the ancestors will it.”

“The reason we have gathered here-”

“Pass the man the staff already!” came an angry voice from somewhere in the front. Hunter rose up onto the tips of his toes to get a better view. The man who had spoken was Tego, the portly merchant. “You’ve had more than your share of chances to speak your piece, now let us hear another!”

Waves of whispering rippled through the crowd. Some nodded their heads in agreement, while others sneered at Tego. Vanchik made a feeble attempt to ask for order, but to no avail. The murmurs grew louder, some rising to a near-shout.

“Shut your mouth, you fat hog!” one particularly angry-looking man shouted at the merchant.

“Your ancestors turn their faces away from you in shame, Fenned!” Tego shouted back, his face red.

“Quiet!” the alderman demanded with a sharp thud of his staff against the platform’s planks. Nothing came of it but jeers and boos. Visibly frustrated, he turned to the medicine woman, who sighed and gave him a nod.

“Since that is what the folken seem to want,” he tried to shout above the crowd’s rising uproar, “I pass the staff to Brother Marten.”

The man in black stepped up, took the staff from the hands of Vanchik, then addressed the crowd.

"My dear brethren, hear me! Here speaks Brother Marten, of the Brethren of the Cor, of your so-called Ghost Nation.”

His voice, a surprisingly rich baritone, resonated through the longhouse. He spoke that last part with thinly-veiled contempt. Presumably a jab at Vanchik, judging by how the alderman’s face hardened.

“Brethren!” Brother Marten went on. “Oh, lost children of the Weald! Let me not mince words. I see your struggles and feel your pain. A great curse has befallen you, a great enemy has cast its shadow over the folken, snatching your children and your loved ones! My heart goes out to you, because I, too, have felt the bitter sting of loss!”

As the man spoke, the crowd’s fussing and whispering slowly died down.

“As days come and go, more and more of your loved ones fall victim to this evil. You find your siblings, your spouses, your children butchered and flayed like animals, and what do you do?”

He made a long pause and swept the crowd with his gaze, making sure he held their attention. He did. Even the most unruly and vocal among the folken had stopped whispering amongst themselves and waited for him to go on.

Hunter had to check his HUD. Was this some kind of mind-affecting magic? Had the man dulled their tempers, like the medicine woman did before? No, it didn’t look like it.

“Nothing!” he raised his voice. “You do nothing but wait and tremble in fear. And who can blame you? The fault does not fall upon your shoulders. Too long have you wandered in the wilderness of fear, yet it is not you who have invited this dark shadow over our hearts. It is your elders who have failed you, those whom you turn to guidance for in times of strife and uncertainty.”

The alderman's face grew red with anger as he started to protest, but before he could speak, the medicine woman cut him short with a hard look. This Brother Marten chose his words carefully to taunt and incite, that was obvious. The alderman would be falling right into his trap if he spoke in anger.

“They tried to scare you with campfire tales and ghost stories about the Ghost Nation,” Brother Marten sneered. “Tricks of the light to keep your eyes from the truth, as if you were children! Well, look upon me! A man of that Ghost Nation! I stand before you, nothing but a man of flesh and blood, like you!”

His eyes scanned the crowd before him, assessing each one of them. If it was fear to play upon he was looking for, he found it. He spoke again, his voice low and menacing.

"Meanwhile, good folken, a darkness has taken hold of your village. I see it in your eyes, the fear that grips your hearts. And it is well founded, that fear, for a curse most vile has befallen you, and it's spreading like a disease. The true evil, my dear brothers and sisters, lies not in the shadows without, but within! I have seen the cause of this affliction! Others have, too, but their insight was only met with ridicule.”

He turned to Tego, the merchant, who was listening and watching with a mix of satisfaction and vindication.

“Is it the Ghost Nation preying on you? Skin-witches and shapechangers? Or have your elders led you astray, with their impiety and greed and folly?”

“It’s them!” Tego cried and pointed a finger at Vanchik. Many nodded in agreement. “They have forgotten the face of their fathers!”

“Your leaders, fat with complacency, have forgotten the Old Ways! And for this, you suffer!” Brother Marten exclaimed. “They have pulled the wool over your eyes and brought the curse of the Starved One at your thresholds, the Wendigo, the Hungerer, the Bad Wolf! It gnaws not just at your flesh, but at your faith! It is the void in your souls where hope should reside!”

As he spoke, the crowd murmured and shifted uneasily, their eyes flickering with fear and doubt. Some looked to each other for reassurance, their faces twisted with worry. Others seemed to be under Marten's spell, nodding at his every word, eyes wild with fervor. The atmosphere was thick with tension, the air heavy with the weight of the accusations. And when Marten spoke of the Wendigo, the very name seemed to send shivers down the spines of the folken.

“I told you!” Tego shouted, turning to the other folken, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical light. “I told you, again and again! What say you now, Fenned? What say you now, Vanchik? What say you now, o blind ones?”

The crowd exploded in murmurs once again, fear taking hold in their hearts. A woman in the crowd let out a cry of despair, and started praying at the spirits for mercy. Others joined in, too.

“Come, now!” Marten thundered, striking his staff on the ground. “You have all heard the truth, and now you must act! We must appease the spirits of the ancestors, or see our sons and daughters perish!”

His voice rose above the clamor of the crowd. In a breath or two, their attention was on him again. Hunter turned to Fawkes. Her eyes were fixed on the man too, her lips a hard line. She didn’t like what she was hearing.

“Despair not, my brothers and sisters,” Brother Marten went on, “for I have come among you with tidings of hope! I have walked the Path of Shadows, wrestled with demons, and emerged with the light of truth! The ancestors have sent me here to guide you, to help you resist the darkness that threatens to engulf us all! The Starved One is a powerful spirit, but it is not invincible! Its shadow can be driven from our hearts and hearths, but we must be united in our efforts!”

Again, his eyes went from face to face, scanning the crowd, probing, making sure he held their attention.

“We must cast out the sinners and the weak of spirit among us, for they are the ones who attract the Hungerer’s attention. We must strengthen our faith and renew our commitment to the spirits of the ancestors. We must cleanse ourselves from the greed and sin of the misguided among us. We must bring back the Old Ways. And we must be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, for the survival of our community. Our path is a difficult one, but fear not! For I am with you, and together we shall overcome this evil!”

He paused, letting the silence stretch, every heartbeat a drumroll of anticipation. Then, with a voice that boomed like a sacred gong, he spoke again.

“Choose this day which path to follow! The path of complacency, the same one that has led you to the jaws of the Starved One? Or the path of the ancestors, of the Old Ways, of true salvation? Who is with me?"

Hunter had to give it to the man in black. The people hung on his every word. They had been filled with uncertainty and fear, but now they were slowly being consumed by something else.

The longhouse erupted in a frenzy of emotion, a chorus of gasps, murmurs, and cries. The seeds of doubt had been sown, and in their place, the intoxicating bloom of a new faith began to take root. It was like a fire had been ignited within them, and their fear was being transformed into something more powerful: fervor.

Vanchik, the alderman, exchanged a worried glance with Halara, the medicine woman. She shook her head subtly, a warning in her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, to offer a counterpoint, a voice of reason, but Halara's hand on his arm stopped him. The crowd was too enraptured, too eager to grasp at the promises Brother Marten offered. They could not be reasoned with now. Across the longhouse, Tego, the corpulent merchant, basked in the uproar with a smug satisfaction blooming on his face.

“I guess this is our cue to get the hell out of Dodge,” Hunter whispered, leaning closer to Fawkes’s ear. “It’s starting to smell a bit too much like opium of the masses in here for my liking.”

Fawkes's lips thinned into a grim line as she watched the scene unfold. "Opium of the masses, is it?" she murmured, her voice a dry rasp. "More like snake oil for the soul. A bit of fearmongering, a dash of false promises, and suddenly everyone's forgetting the taste of their own piss. Same old story as ever."

She shifted her weight, her gloved hand resting on the pommel of her saber. "Mark my words, lad," she continued, her gaze fixed on Marten's silhouette, "this charlatan's tune will change once he's got them dancing to his beat. And when it does, this village will be singing a dirge, not a hymn."