CHAPTER 34

On an impulse, she decided to circle the town. There was no strict motivation to do so, there was only a sense in her heart that she should. She settled herself more comfortably in the saddle, and let her horse walk.

The first thing that became evident was that the town itself seemed almost divided evenly down the middle. On the eastern side of the town, facing the forest, all of the shops and homes were the red brick and clapboard buildings with false fronts and raised wooden boardwalks that were synonymous with frontier towns, whereas the western side had cobbled roads and the gothic architecture Katarina was so used to.

The market district did not seem to gather much traffic at this time of day. Children ran here and there, though they were as likely running errands as they were playing. Just the same as they were in other places, likely they were apprenticed to this shop or that tradesman and so times for play were likely limited.

Katarina, dressed as she was, drew the usual curious eyes and a fair share of double-takes. From the casual eye, Katarina was a stranger, a lone man on horseback wrapped in a giant leather duster and a tattered leather hat that obscured most of his features. Those that took a closer look realized with a jolt of shock and outrage that the one that rode the horse was a woman, and not a man.

She was almost wholly unaware of the glances and muttered invective, though. Just as she had been when she was on the road, her mind had turned inward, dwelling on the visions she'd had in Aston. She didn't normally have dreams or visions, and these were the result of influence from others. The Diviner had provoked visions in Katarina, and then later, the Chaplain Gared had invoked still others in her with his blasted incense.

Overall she felt husked out and traumatized by the whole thing. The Celestial of the Storm repeatedly warned her to love as the Goddess had commanded or face the overwhelming revelation that nothing awaited her but the endless Void of Oblivion. What was expected of her, then? To go and lie with everyone that happened across her path? She shook her head. That wasn't the right path, either. How was a Witch Hunter- a notorious harbinger of fear for the common layperson- supposed to find love, anyway?

There was that vision of herself and her sister, though. That bothered her. Her sister had gone rogue, and she had been called to hunt her down. What did the dream mean, however? Was Katarina's choice to become a Witch Hunter what provoked her sister to leave the Church and go rogue?

She closed her eyes and thought back. She stood at the foot of a long table. At the head of the table, there were three people. One on the left, one on the right, and one at the head. On the table itself between the three of them lay an unsheathed sword.

She could not see who they were. She squinted, peering in the gloom. The one on the left was her. The one on the right was her sister, her twin Alsabet that she had not seen for twenty years. Despite not seeing her for twenty years, she had no trouble at all recognizing her from the girl of six she'd been when they'd parted. Alsabet had always been cheerful, filled with a bubbling vitality that seemed to spill from her at every opportunity, where Katarina had been the tempestuous one.

The third woman that stood at the head of the table was a woman that seemed to have no face at all. The faceless woman pointed. "Take the sword, it's yours."

Her sister Alsabet slapped her hands on the table and stood, angrily looking down at the Katarina that was reaching to pick up the sword. "You have made your choice, and I have made mine, sister."

She opened her eyes, not seeing the dirt road in front of her. What choice had been made? She couldn't think of any decision she'd made in a month or so that could have possibly have caused Alsabet to respond by going rogue.

A Witch Hunter getting an assignment was dependent upon a couple of factors. First, a Witch Hunter needed to be free, not working another case. Second, the Witch Hunter had to be "reasonably close" to where the Witch had been spotted or reported, which was a bitter joke in and of itself; on this continent there was but one Witch Hunter school. Katarina was automatically deemed "reasonably close" simply because she was on the same continent. She was expected to canvas thousands of square miles for an ever-increasing number of rogue mages, Witches, heretics, beastmen, and anything in general that might threaten the Anglish Empire.

A Witch Hunter class typically starts with a size of fifty students. Over the course of five years, half of them are expected to die in training, and another half of the remainder die during the final tests. Finally, ten to twelve novice Witch Hunters are released into the world to hunt. Most of them never make it past their first year. As far as she could tell, there were only four Witch Hunters operating on the continent: Herself, Morgan Blackhand, and two others she never learned the names of.

In her opinion it was highly unlikely that Alejandro don Diego, the Witch Hunter from Toledo she'd met in Aston, was coming here to operate, though she never confirmed his reasons for doing so. She suspected instead that he had been called to Darnell, seat of the Anglish Empire to testify before the Book of the Golden Lady, the governing council that oversaw the entirety of the Empire itself.

She blinked a few times and raised her head. She'd no idea how many times she'd circled Norn, lost in her thoughts as she'd been. She still hadn't checked in with the Church, secured lodgings, or even considered that young Warden's request to go into the forest to look for his missing brother. Why'd his brother go missing in the first place? Ah, missing lumberjacks, she recalled. Could they be connected to her sister going rogue? She wondered. Tenuous assumption, she chided herself. She was still no closer to securing lodgings for the evening.

She spied one of the inns off to the side of what could be the city's green. She nudged her horse in that direction.

As she came inside, the innkeeper was castigating one of the waitresses, who was sobbing into her apron. He finished by ordering her into the kitchen with a smack. He was taller than her, balding with a face that was runneled with time and pockmarked with scars and grizzled with a coarse beard. He turned towards Katarina, and as she approached the bar, he slurred "keni getfer cha?"

She blinked. "I'm sorry?" She offered.

The man wiped his mouth on a rag, and tried again. What can I get fer ya?" She smiled warmly.

"Quite a bit, if you don't mind." She replied.

"If'n ya got the coin fer it, I can get you most of what you need." He replied, looking at her askance.

She nodded. "Of course. First, I need some basic supplies. Feed for the horse, extra blankets, the like. Second, if you could give me directions to the local Temple of the Golden Lady, I'd much appreciate it." She set her bulging saddlebags next to her feet. "Finally, I'd like a room, and if you happen to have a bathing room, I'll pay extra to use it, undisturbed."

He wiped his mouth again, and chewed over her requests. "Mmm. mayhap you're not from Norn. General Store is down the street 'bout a block, should get you what you need. Temple is down the second road," he pronounced this curtly, 'rud', "and we have bathtubs in ever' room on the first floor."

She smiled at that. Most places simply had one large common room with bathtubs. Out on the frontier, oftentimes men bathed with women and all sorts of things could happen. She preferred to avoid entanglements of that sort, and often paid a premium to rent the entire room to herself.

"I'll take one of those rooms, then." she said, reaching for her purse. He sneered a little, revealing the cause of his atrocious speech: most of the teeth in his lower jaw were simply gone.

"Can't. Rooms're all taken." He shrugged noncommittally.

"What about the second floor, then?" She asked, but he shook his head.

"Any available rooms at all?" She asked, wondering. He shook his head again.

She frowned. "I can see this was a waste of my time." She announced, and stood up to leave. He shrugged noncommittally again and went back to wiping down the bar.

Outside, she glanced around for another inn. Towns this large typically had several inns. A thought came to her; there was one out by the lumber mill. She mounted her horse, which gave her a sidelong glance that seemed loaded with a silent imprecation.

"Don't look at me like that." She murmured. "It's not my fault the inn's full up."

After a long minute of thought, and a few glares from her horse, she started out towards the large building she'd seen on the way in. It seemed like an inn, though there was no obvious sign that typically indicated one.

She rode her horse into the stable and brushed it down, attached the feedbag, picked up her saddlebags and headed for the front.

The saloon itself was the largest building out this way, both broad and wide, with two stories and what looked like fencing on the roof, perhaps creating a sort of open third floor. The tuneless piano was getting vigorously played, she could hear. Clearly they were playing for rhythm and not for tune, she decided.

As she approached the batwing doors of the saloon, there was a sudden sense of aversion that came over her. It seemed largely no different from any other tavern, though perhaps it was larger in construction. As she approached the batwing doors two men in red-checked flannel flew out of them, punching each other savagely. They fell off the boardwalk and landed in the dust where they tussled, punching and headbutting each other repeatedly.

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Somewhere inside the tavern, a woman's voice rang out, spouting bawdy lyrics that made Katarina's eyes open wide in shock.

"Someone's been diggin my potatoes

They've left em in my bin,

And now that someone's gone

And see the trouble I've got in."

Katarina shook her head. Scandalous. She stood there watching as the two rolled about in the dirt not far from her. One eventually got the better of the other, rising up to deliver three long strikes. He pushed up from the other man and staggered back to the bar, shaking his head and listing on his feet.

The second man struggled up from the dirt, touching his face and staring at the blood on his hand for a moment. He lay there in the dirt for the space of three or four breaths, and like the man he fought just a moment prior, wobbled and reeled back into the saloon. Neither of them appeared to have noticed her.

After a long moment of contemplation, Katarina drew her gun and loaded it, eyeing the batwing doors as they swung.

"Just in case." She decided, holstered her gun, and pushed her way inside.

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As Katarina stepped in, she glanced around quickly. The place was a nest of men in overalls and identical red-checked flannel shirts. They stood at the bar and drank, they sat around tables with cards and drinks, they stood in clusters, by themselves, and in twos and threes. There was a cluster of men hunkered down in the corner, and she could hear the rattle of dice on the floorboards. The woman that belted out the bawdy lyrics sat on a battered piano that was being played by a skinny man with a handlebar moustache.

As she cleared the batwing doors one of the men stood up and stepped right in front of her, pushing his bulk into her space. He was a burly man with thick moustaches that overtopped her by nearly a foot. She goggled at his proportions. He was so huge in fact that he looked about to split his clothes.

"Lissen buddy. Lumberjacks only." He growled, and raised a fist nearly as big as her head. She shoved him back a step and she tipped her hat back to look him in the eye.

"By the Goddess, yer a woman?" He blurted incredulously. She gave him a smile and ticked her finger off the brim of her hat in a saucy salute. She made a shooing gesture and bizarrely, he moved out of her way as if she had the plague. She headed for the bar.

She shouldered up to the bar and slapped a few copper bits on the bar. The bartender glanced at her, and sneered. "Take yer business elsewhere." He replied.

"You the owner?" She asked, and he shrugged dismissively and went back to wiping out the battered metal cups with marked and pointed disinterest.

She tucked the copper away and set a silver coin to spin on the bar. A dozen lumberjacks eyed the coin with slow lust as they drank.

"The owner?" She asked, and the bartender sighed and jerked his thumb towards the back of the bar.

Katarina glanced that way; there was an empty table, but aside from that, there were only more lumberjacks all studiously eyeing her and drinking and pretending not to eye her.

Katarina nodded and rapped the coin on the bar in acknowledgement, and then prepared to push her way through the crowd, but strangely, they all gave her a wide berth.

She sat down at the table, cocked one booted foot up on it arrogantly, and pulled her coat off her hip to show her saber in its scabbard. Everyone immediately ignored her with ostentatious disinterest.

As if by magic a woman appeared, coming down the stairs from the second floor. She was dressed in the latest fashion, though with a good deal more lace. She had deep red hair in a swept up hairdo that was held in place with a pair of long spikes. The bartender nodded at Katarina's table. The woman eyed the Witch Hunter, and smirked. She stepped over to the table.

"You're no 'jack." She declared simply. "Your kind aren't welcome here, period." she added flatly.

Katarina tipped her hat back with a fingertip.

"Figured that out all by yourself?" She asked with a lazy smile. "You here to take my order? I'll have an ale." She added imperiously. The woman laughed, and slipped a metal disk, larger than a coin by far, from her belt and set it on the table with a click. There was a discrete air about that, as if she didn't want the 'jacks to see what she did. She casually lifted her leg and set her hip on the table, a move that cunningly disguised her sliding the token towards Katarina slightly.

"We don't serve your kind here." She repeated, and slightly turned away. "Maybe if you went around back you'd find something more your taste." She said loud enough for the others to hear. The men in the bar burst into raucous laughter at that. She slid the metal disk across the table, and Katarina glanced at it.

The holy symbol of the Golden Lady was typically a palm-sized metal shield. On the back of the device were a pair of crossed swords; on the front of the shield, a fleur-de-lys. This disk that the lady had discreetly placed on the table was round, with the shield emblazoned on the upper face of the token, but over the Shield of the Golden Lady was a pair of crossed torches, the sigil of the Inquisition.

Katarina's eyes narrowed. She had one just like it, but she so rarely used it, it was tucked away in her saddlebags.

"Out back, with the garbage." The woman repeated. "We only serve 'jacks here."

Katarina pushed the medallion of the Inquisition back just as discretely and stood. "I'll be on our way, then." She replied, tipped her hat in the fashion of men, and pushed her way out of the bar. The woman's voice chased her.

"And you tell those wrinkled scrotes at the Church that we don't need no strongarms out this way none, either!"

This sally was rewarded by a chorus of raucous laughs. After a moment, the battered piano took up again.

As she was bid, Katarina stepped around back. There she met the woman, who gave her a disappointed look, lips compressed in a line, shaking her head.

"You'd think a Witch Hunter would have more tact." She said by way of introduction.

"What, you want me to dress up like them?" Katarina replied, and the woman laughed.

"It'd be worth it just to see the look on their faces." She replied, and tugged off one slim white glove and offered her hand to Katarina. "The boys call me 'Gretta."

"That your real name?" Katarina asked, taking her hand in the over and under style of lumberjacks and Gretta laughed. "Close enough. My real names' too 'city' for the likes of them." She replied casually.

"Katarina." She said by way of introduction, "Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady."

"Justicar, I hear." Gretta replied, sketching a curtsey, and Katarina raised her eyebrows.

"Oh don't give me that look." Gretta replied casually with a smirk and negligent flip of her hand. "We're not that far away from Darnell, you know. News gets out to those with an ear to hear. Besides, you're the only Witch Hunter on the continent. Kinda hard to miss the obvious when it's staring you in the face demanding ale."

Katarina froze at that. "What? What of Morgan Blackhand?" She asked, and Gretta shrugged, spreading her hands.

"Dunno. Darnell reported him lost about six or seven months back."

"Shit." Katarina cursed. Gretta nodded. "Barely lasted two year before someone or something did for him." She replied casually. "You ask me, they should have 'prenticed him to you, maybe he woulda learned to tell his ass from a hole in the ground."

Katarina rolled her eyes at that.

"What's an Inquisitor doing out here?" Katarina asked, and Gretta rolled her eyes ostentatiously. "The Golden Lady's work, o' course." She replied with an ostentatious shake of her head. "What's a Justicar Witch Hunter doing in my saloon?" She retorted.

Katarina shrugged. "No room at the inn."

Gretta gave her a suspicious glance. "You coulda stayed at the Church." She replied pointedly, and Katarina shook her head. "Fuck that." Gretta laughed at that.

"Bah." The woman replied contemptuously. "Old farts. Men." She added with a sarcastic sneer. "To answer your question though, I'm officially the foreman out at the lumber camp. I keep the boys in line, and make sure they're not up to anything heretical." She explained comfortably. "Someone's got to keep an eye on them."

"So you pose as their foreman?" Katarina asked, and the woman nodded. "Pose? What a silly idea. I am their foreman. And I own this saloon." She added. "And the mercantile across the street." She added self-importantly.

"We got three groups we rotate through: red, green, and brown. This time it's the Red's turn at town." She explained patiently. "I run the saloon, keep em drinking and spending their hard earned coin, which goes right back into the church coffers. In turn, the church sends clothes, new bits for the axes, whatever they need." She jerked her thumb up. "And the ladies keep their balls drained to keep 'em happy; it keeps 'em from stirring up trouble." She laughed, then, free and gay. "They don't bother the townfolk anymore." Katarina nodded, wondering about the "bother the townfolk anymore" part.

"Great! It's all settled, then. There are no Witches here." Gretta concluded with a brisk clap of her hands.

"Really? I hear a mage escaped the Church here." Katarina replied.

The redheaded woman sighed. "I could almost sympathize. Those old farts are a special brand of stupid. I almost don't begrudge them." She replied, and gave Katarina a significant look. "Almost." She licked her lips. "There was a team of 'jacks that went missing a week back. Four men. Mightn't have anything to do with your Witch, but it might. The Mayor sent his men out there not long after, an' they're gone too. You be careful out there, that forest is savage."

"Beastmen?" Katarina asked, and the woman shrugged. "Mayhap. I haven't seen for myself. But there are dark things, savage things in that forest." She added, glancing at the sky. Night was setting in. Katarina nodded absently.

"I did hear that some guards also disappeared in there." Katarina confirmed, and the woman nodded. "You see? Savage."

"You say that as if it's to be expected." Katarina replied, mouth tightening.

"Lady, we may not be out on the edge like the logging towns up north, but it's mean out there. There's a reason my boys are brutes, it takes a brute to survive out there." Gretta replied plainly.

After a second's thought, Katarina nodded.

"Would you like some advice, Lady Witch Hunter?" Gretta asked, and Katarina snorted. "Talking's free."

Gretta nodded at that, with a wry twist to her mouth. "My advice would be to be a bit less conspicuous." She warned. "There are all sorts of eyes on you." She added.

"Oh, it's to be one of those vague and ambiguous warnings, is it?" Katarina asked sardonically.

Gretta shook her head. "Not quite." She replied. Her voice deepened and her face stilled to seriousness. "Attend: There are those that would see you lauded for your successes, and they watch you, praying they have a chance to heap honors on your head before you fall." she advised, her casual accent sloughing off. "Keep up the good work." She added sardonically.

"Is that it?" Katarina asked. "Hardly a warning."

Gretta shook her head. "There are others that watch you with a jaundiced eye. They think your continued survival relies on... darker influences."

Katarina's eyes narrowed at this. "They suspect me of heresy?" She blurted hotly, hand falling to her gunbutt.

"Peace, Witch Hunter, peace." Gretta replied, hands raised innocently. "Don't shoot the messenger." She urged. "You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Tread carefully."

"You want to take advantage of my saloon?" Gretta offered suddenly. "I bet one of my boys would be happy to help scratch the itch. And I have a spare crib you could use, one of my girls got married two months back."

Katarina laughed at that. "Is that what it's called now? An itch?" She asked, and Gretta laughed.

"We're both women of the world, Witch Hunter, so let's not play games. You want to roll one of my boys or not? Goddess knows I'd go just mad without it for more than a week." She added with a roll of her eyes.

Katarina shook her head. "Sorry, not my type." She replied easily.

"Then how about a massage from one of my girls?" Gretta offered. "Sure they can't scratch the womanly itch, but trust me, a massage from time to time is worth it." She added in a conspiratorial tone.

"You know, I think I'll take you up on that offer." Katarina replied, thinking idly of Sasaki and her kneading thumbs. "Provided I can sleep here tonight."

Gretta nodded, and the two clasped hands to seal the bargain.