As the light approached, he saw a convoy of men appear from the mist, carrying torches and wooden shields; some had sickles, billhooks, and hatchets, and some had crude iron swords.
They also carried strange trinkets, short oak stakes at their hip, horseshoes, necklaces made of dried onions, vials of holy water, and other sorts of things of either superstition or magical properties.
It was clearly no professional army, for there was no uniform, not even the standardized equipment, and there was but a handful of them, around ten, led by a large man in chainmail armor and with animal fur on his shoulders.
The men wore ordinary peasant clothing, some bolstered by pieces of crude leather armor, and some wearing thick linen gambesons.
As the men approached the village walls, the witch-hunters watched from the saddles of their raven-black horses, and they could see that the men were leading two women in tattered linen dresses and tied in a rope, with their hands tied and their mouths covered.
The first woman was old; her face was wrinkled, and her hair was gray, and she had a strange birthmark on her face, and the second woman was younger, with long dark hair and brown eyes.
"This must be the Hogwatch."
"The Hogwatch?" Eldon asked, and his mentor answered,
"In some simpler times, peasants organized into groups to watch over the crops at night, to protect their land from wild boars and other sorts of creatures; however, as the times became grim, the role of Hogwatch shifted from the simple patrols that occasionally light fires to scare the animals to the people's first line of defense against the creatures of darkness."
"But aren't the guards from the village militia there to protect them?" Eldon asked.
"In the outer reaches of the kingdom, the kingsmen serve only one purpose: to keep order and make sure the taxes are paid accordingly, so the peasants often have to resort to protecting themselves."
The witch-hunters rode through the gate and entered the village's wooden walls, followed by the group of armed men.
As the men lined up in front of the large wooden door of the tavern, they stood in a half-circle around the witch-hunters as they dismounted, their deep, dark boots landing in the wet mud and gravel.
"Forgive the audacity of the kingsmen up in the towers; the Witch-Hunters are welcome to our humble village." The large man in armor spoke in a harsh accent as he leaned against his longsword that reached the height of his chest.
"The incident is forgiven," Luthor replied.
"As you may know, the vile curse was cast upon our lands; perhaps that would be the reason for your visit?"
"Indeed." Luthor replied.
Let me introduce myself; my name is Garric Thane, the watchmaster of our humble village, Brynmire," Garric continued. "The villagers are growing restless; the curse has to be stopped, unless we are all to go insane. Some of us haven't slept for days!"
Luthor looked upon the tired men that stood behind the torches, their eyes barely held open and their faces tortured by the sleeplessness.
"For how long has the curse lingered?"
"A couple of months at least, it all started with the dreadful feel, but nobody spoke about the curse until the farmhands started digging out eggs from the ground!"
"Yes! The village was frightened, but nobody gave it a second thought until one of the bulls disappeared!" The men started adding stories upon stories, but the witch-hunters were not concerned until one of them spoke,
"Soon after, the priest's boy disappeared! a young acolyte!"
"Of what age?" Luthor questioned.
"He was seventeen years old, master hunter!"
"Damn..." Luthor mumbled to his chin; his mood became clearly more concerned.
"We brought two suspects, accused of witchcraft! We are to burn them, but what we ask is for your confirmation if they are users of magic! Tales say the witch-hunter's eyes can see the vile powers like a faint glow!"
"The tales speak true," Luthor replied, and concerned Eldon rummaged through his pouch to find the crimson ruby, a dark ruby through which the flows of magic could be seen even by the mortal eyes.
"These women look innocent." He thought, and he decided to confirm it with the ruby, and no matter what the results are, before Luthor, a much more zealous witch-hunter could reveal the truth, Eldon was to let them go, by using lies if needed.
His mentor would not go against his word as to not damage the reputation of the temple, the young acolyte thought.
"Is the boy insane?" If he pulls out that ruby, the Hogwatch will surely check! for even the mere mortal's eyes could see the flows of magic through it!" Luthor thought as Eldon made a grave mistake pulling out the ruby.
Before Eldon was to lie and Hogwatch to catch him in his benevolent yet treacherous deed, Luthor's eyes shifted bloodily red with a faint glow. He looked at the faces of the accused, and everything around him seemed to turn dark; all living things shined with a white glow, and around the witches, he could see a shimmering white mist that indicates the presence of magic.
"They are witches," Luthor replied, his words condemning the accused to a horrible death.
"Burn them! Set our village free! Quickly, assemble the stakes in front of the church; tonight we'll bring them justice!" Watchmaster Garric proclaimed.
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The men pulled the accused by the rope and dragged them towards the churchyard, as the rest of them prepared the stakes, and the women, both young and old, screamed in terror as the watchmen threw the ropes tied around their wrists over the cross.
The younger woman managed to free her mouth and yell, "Don't do this! We are not the witches that you seek! We are nothing more than the herbalists, the users of nature's magic!"
"Pagan blood!" The watchmaster yelled, and the men continued with the rite, pulling on the ropes that were thrown over the cross and dragging the accused up to it's wooden arms.
A priest's apprentice, a dark-haired, middle-aged, pale man with tired eyes of a madman took the ladders from the logger's house and placed them against the cross before climbing up, pulling thick iron nails from his pouch and hammering them straight through the woman's wrist into the cold wood of the cross.
The screams of agony filled the air and rang through the village as the hammer blows rang against the nail, and the accused was nailed to the stake; the thick nail cracked her wrist bones and perforated her veins, and the blood poured down her arm, soaking the white dress.
"Hereby, for the use of magic, as well as rejection of one true god, Xorael the King of Gods, as well as the Monarch's rule, I sentence you to death by fire for the sin committed against the god and mankind!" The watchmaster proclaimed as the men hammered the nails into the wrists of the second accused and piled dry branches around the stakes before pouring thick black pitch on top of the heap and lighting it aflame. The women screamed as the flames grew higher, reaching their feet and painting them black as charcoal, engulfing their dresses, hair, and entire bodies, and as they burned, they let out the ungodly screams of suffering and agony, barely muffled by the ringing of the church bells in the middle of the night.
The Hogwatch formed a half-circle around them as they watched them burn, the wails ringing in their ears, speaking of immeasurable pain and an inhumane ending. The priest appeared among the crowd, chanting his own chants in some language not understood by the mortals, the language of the Alofyr perhaps, attempting to redeem their souls. Yet redemption never met those unwilling to take it.
The older of the accused witches was engulfed by the flames, and soon enough, she stopped screaming, her body burning violently, leaving only a black husk behind, a shape of human in the middle of flames that no longer responds to pain, as life has already left its body, and it's nothing more than charred remains.
On the other hand, the flames haven't caught so rigorously underneath the younger witch, yet her body was aflame as well, and her screams stopped too, not by the death but by her own resolve.
As her face slowly burned and the flames engulfed her facial features, she spoke in a calm voice:
"I cast a curse upon you! and may the Forest-Father hear my words; you'll forever be damned for your deeds!" The woman cursed her executors as the flames grew higher and higher and swallowed her, burning her body into a burned corpse.
The entire village smelled like burned hair, flesh, and sulfur as the fires slowly calmed and settled and the stakes collapsed into the ash and coal.
"That's it, boys; the witches are burned. Claim your well-deserved rest as kingsmen sit upon the towers and look over the village!" The watchmaster yelled, and the men, dismissed by his words, carried their weapons over their shoulders and walked towards their homes, much to the scorn of the guardsmen up in their wooden nests. It was clear that most of the men questioned Garric's deeds, yet none of them complained.
As everyone left the pile of ash that remained from the accused, so did the witch-hunter and his acolyte.
"Were they really witches?" Eldon asked with anger in his voice.
"No."
"So why did you condemn them to die?"
"Be wise boy." The old witch-hunter replied.
"Wise? What are you talking about? You could easily say they aren't guilty!" The furious acolyte spoke through his teeth as they walked towards the tavern, barely holding himself from yelling.
"You were about to pull out the crimson ruby," his mentor replied.
"I was! I wanted to do it only to save them! They are innocent! All I wanted to do was prove it with the trinket!"
"Fool." Luthor dismissed coldly. "What do you mean by that?"
"You just killed them." Luthor replied and added,
"If you pulled out that gem and declared them innocent, do you think nobody from the mob would take it from you to check with their own eyes? The men are tired; they want a solution, not a whimpering boy that lectures them!" Luthor replied, barely holding his anger back.
"So what?"In the worst case, they'd burn them as they already did!"
"They'd burn us too, fool! I'm hearing none of this! Next time think before you act! Justice is a luxury we can not afford!" The master witch-hunter yelled, as he couldn't hold himself much longer.
As they walked towards the tavern, a drunk stranger sat beside the road and leaned against the tavern, lowering his face behind the dark leather hat that hid it.