The next day, while Arb was improvising a splint for Hela, Kate came outside the cabin holding a pair of holstered revolvers in each hand.

“Here, attach these to your belt. If we’re going to be traveling together, we might as well all have some firepower” she said.

“Not a bad thing to have when traveling through witch country,” said Arb.

“Witch country…?” asked Kate.

“Does this mean that I get one too?” squealed Hela, cutting off Kate’s question with an inappropriate amount of enthusiasm.

“I have enough of these for us each to carry two, but I’m not sure how you’ll be able to shoot from Arb’s back. We’ll need you on your feet again before we can make for the Junction.”

Hela, with a crutch under one arm, stood to test the newly minted splint. She cringed a bit at the pain in her ankle, but faked a convincing smile.

“Just like new!”

Arb held the shiny revolver in his hands, letting his eyes scrutinize the design. Although he was a staple at the annual Frognari Fly Hunt, he had always found the outlander peashooters to be clumsy and random, much preferring to do battle with his woodcutter’s axe, a more elegant weapon, perhaps for a more civilized age.

“I could have that you’d be keeping a secret in that chest of yours. If you don’t mind me asking what is your business at the Junction, Kate?” asked Arb.

“I’m not stopping at the Junction, I’ll be taking the chest and the guns to the Sanctum where I plan to sell off the designs in exchange for a vial of the alchemic waters.”

Arb gave a forlorn look of despair. “You’d be a waif amid the throngs of a maneater! Keep your guns and your plans. Come with me to Uz. I can see that you return to Ashvale with an entire gallon jug of the sacramentum.”

“I don’t have a year to spend pushing through the swamp and back.”

“Then, I can go on ahead, swimming the underwater byways. It takes a Frognari less than a week to get from Uz to the docks of Fishtown. You can wait for me there and I’ll make sure that you reach home safely.”

“Still too risky. Myself and the alchemic waters are needed back in Ashvale by the end of next month. The life of my mother depends on it.”

“Kate… I’ve seen bears the size of a train car, I’ve seen entire regiments wiped from the earth, I’ve seen cannons roar from the broadside of a pirate galleon. None of that scares me. The Sanctum and the people that control it, that’s the one thing in this world that keeps me awake at night. There’s a corruption to its power to which none are immune.”

“I’ve heard it all before and I know. Arb, I appreciate your offer and your perspective, but I’m not looking to join the,” Kate began to take on a mocking tone, ” ‘denizens of power gobbling fountain worshipers.’ That’s not why I’m going there.”

“But you’re not immune to it either! The naive think that they can tread that place with caution. The wise know it’s best to avoid altogether.”

Hela decided to jump into the conversation. “I don’t get what the big deal is… so people drink this stuff and it heals their sickness, gives them an extra couple years. It’s just another medicine. It doesn’t actually make anyone immortal, does it?”

“Right, Hela, no one can live forever and what life it does extend it wears thin… like a bowstring pulled too tight eventually it snaps and when it does those around suffer deep lacerations to their very souls. The balance once broken is not easily restored.” Unlike Cassius, Arb was one to wax poetic and this was becoming ever more evident to Kate.

Kate decided to make her intentions perfectly clear. “For now let’s just get safely to the Junction. You can keep the pistols as a token of my appreciation, Mr. Arbuck Miz, but don’t expect me to sacrifice my mother to appease your hokey New Age sensibilities.”

“Bah… young people! Think they got it all figured out.” Arb strapped the revolvers to his belt and walked away from the cabin, into the meadow, and off towards yonder treeline. They could still hear his curmudgeon grumblings as he wandered out of sight, “Nah! Nobody listen to the one with any experience! ‘Old granpa’ doesn’t know how the world works today, just a smelly, old froggy stuck in his ways!’ Idiots… gonna be the Calamity all over again!”

“Where are you going, you cantankerous old fool?” shouted Kate to no response.

The two young women looked at each other.

“Do you think he’s alright?” asked Hela.

“He just needs to blow off some steam, Hela. I think that he’s very wise and has a good heart, but I also think he’s afraid of a world that’s changing. Now tell me: what’s your plan for when we reach the Junction?”

“That’s an easy one! My contract with the guild runs through next year, so I’ll probably be assigned to another train. Torin and I signed on together for three years, so just one to go! Then we’ll have enough money saved to establish ourselves in Old Marianna. We’ve always had this silly dream of opening a little, eight-table restaurant—tommy-hawk steaks and holiday sauces, you know the way.”

“Torin was the fellow working the counter of the cafe car?”

“My husband, yes! Handsome devil isn’t he? Although I wish he’d shave off that hideous moustache. Just eww! Those things have a personality all their own, and I just can’t…”

“Hela, what if Torin isn’t there when we get to the Junction? Arb said…” Kate decided not to finish that sentence.

“He’ll be there Kate! We’ve gotten into scuffles with the Centaurs before and made it out just fine! My fella’s got a steel will and besides who’s gonna cook the steaks at Chez Hela if he’s not around to annoy me.”

The sound of gunshots rang out in the distance. The two women retreated into the cabin and hid behind the door frame. They waited, with guns in hand, until at last they saw Arb coming back through the meadow, carrying a string of rabbits from one shoulder.

He was still talking to himself, ” ‘What could a Frognari know about the sanctum?! It’s not like his people have lived in Valenaria for millennia’ Wait they have!? Nooooo! Really?! Oh in that case…”

“Arb?” called Kate. “Are you OK?”

He snapped from his self-aggravated trance to address the Crafter, “Pistol shoots pretty straight. Your design?”

“My father’s. Our family runs The Redrock Forge and Fabrication Company.”

“Ha… would you look at that: a Crafter crafting. Now would you let the Frognari do what we do best and listen to just a tid-bit of sage wisdom.”

“Go for it.” Kate knew what was coming next.

“Don’t go to the Sanctum.”

“I’m sorry, Arb, but I have to. There’s no suitable alternative.”

“Then, it’s decided. I’ll take you there myself, but don’t expect me to follow you all the way up to the Crystal Citadel. There’s nothing for a woodcutter at the Sanctum Celes; we cut things down to size, and it will be some time before those folks are ready for my particular set of skills.”

“I accept your offer, Arbuck Miz, and promise to make arrangements to compensate you for your service.”

“Don’t worry about payment. Thankfully, my station in Frognari society permits me to take on charitable work without risking a loss of income. Oh! Not that you’re a charity case. Well, then again…”

“Arb!” scolded Hela.

“I’m joking. Come on!” said Arb. “And I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m also starving. There’s a mess kit tucked in one of the cupboards and, look here, I’ve even scrounged some wild chives.”

Hela offered to cook, relating her dream of restauranteering to the Frognari. Sitting on the bench outside the cabin, she skinned the rabbits, prepping them with the bundle of fresh herbs. While Hela worked on the night’s meal, Kate gave Arb a tutorial on reloading the revolvers. He was impressed with the efficiency of the process, but also proposed that an even better system might somehow incorporate the powder and bullet into a single sort of “cartridge.”

Arb pulled a tinder box from his overalls and was able to get a fine fire going in the cast iron stove, a good thing considering that the breezy afternoon had given way to the chilly winds of dusk. From the mess bag, Arb was able to produce a roasting pan just small enough to fit inside the stove.

While eating the three of them sat outside, in a row, on the bench. It was Kate who had spotted a patch of dandelions. They were able to use the leaves for a sort of salad, and although it was no fine dining the meal did its job of filling their bellies with little room for complaint.

After they were finished eating and everything was cleaned up, they spent some hours exchanging little pieces of their lives’ stories.

Arb was, indeed, a grandfather, twenty times over. He absolutely reveled in listing-off the names and personalities of all his grand-frogs—in age order:

“Magpie, there’s a firecracker we’ll have have to keep our eye on that one. He’s sharp as my axe, but something better temper his curiosity fast, or he’ll find himself in hot water sooner or later. Oh! Then there’s Zeni, apple of my eye, so sweet and she’s the best flautist you’ve ever heard. Have either of you ever heard a Frognari symphony? You must and not in that stuffy Old Marianna opera house. You have to hear our music in its proper place: at the Conservatory of Uz. Something about the swamp water changes the acoustics. The pools exchange notes with the players, moving along to the beat. It’s truly wonderful, but I digress… Oh! Then, we’ve got Gobra. You’ve never met a more likable fellow, quick with a joke and such an empathetic ear. If I had a guess he’ll end up on the elders council when he’s my age…”

Hela revealed that she grew up poor and on the streets of Ilfindium, working as an entertainer for rich businessmen before meeting Torin.

“I knew instantly that I loved this man. He showed me things about myself that I thought I had lost, things I never thought I’d feel again.

“At the time we were both working at a Cheap-end saloon; he ran the kitchen, and I would sing at night, sit at the tables with the men… you can understand.” Kate knew what she meant but couldn’t truly understand, Arb, however, grimaced, bearing a fuller weight to Hela’s revelation—it was not a story he would share on this particular evening, but for seven years of his youth, he himself had been held captive at an Elven forced labor camp. He knew all too well the depravity that lived in the hearts of men.

Hela saw that she was losing her audience. “One day we made a pact: to leave Ilfindis and never come back. We saved what little pay we made, eating scraps for months, then bribed a team of longshoremen to hide us in a shipment of rice wine. We ran out of food with four days left in the two-week voyage, or at least that’s what we could guess from our darkened corner of steerage. Well, needless to say, we turned our appetites toward liquid calories. Gods! The amount of wine we must have drank. Combine that with the rocking of the boat. I’ve never been sicker in my life. We almost got caught too. When we arrived in Old Marianna, they knew something was up right away from the smell, but they opened the crate and we bolted. We kept running until we covered half the city. That was five years ago and we’ve haven’t looked back since.”

Kate felt like her stories didn’t have much to offer compared to the other two, but she shared anyways. She talked about her parents and how her and Toby would joke around in the showroom while Cassius was working down below.

“Once we even moved the top portal to the roof of the shop. Instead of paging him we just waited till the end of the day when he would send Toby back to his folks. Well we got him good, dang near fell off the roof. I can still hear him yelling. He was positively livid and suffice to say we never pulled that one again.” Hela and Arb got a good laugh at the image of Cassius clutching to a lightning rod for dear life.

“I think if one of my kids ever tried that, they would’ve been sent to live with their grandparents.”

“That’s just the thing, my grandparents lived with us too. It was my grandpa that set up the forge, my mom grew up there and Cassius was his apprentice. Mom and Dad were like me and Toby, and wouldn’t you know they fell madly in love. Bam! Then, I came along.”

The sun had long set when the women settled themselves under the burlap covers of the pallet beds. Arb stayed up, keeping watch over the cabin and continuously adding fuel to the already blazing fire. Sometime past midnight Kate woke from the excessive heat to see Arb crouched over the open door of the wood stove. He seemed to be pouring molten metal into crude clay molds.

“Arb, what are you doing?” asked Kate, visibly confused.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Casting silver bullets.”

“Why, might I ask?”

“We’re in witch country, Kate. Gotta use silver.”

“You keep saying that, and I don’t know what you mean. In all the Crafter stories witches are beautiful, benevolent protectors of women and children, but those are just stories. Witches are like faeries; they’re not real.”

“Well, Kate, it’s unfortunate for us that we don’t live in a Crafter fairy tale, because witches are very real and very, very far from benevolent. They’ll eat women and children just as readily any man—some even make it their preference. So, I’m going to sit here all night casting silver bullets until I run out of coins. Oh and by the way… faeries? Of course faeries are real. I’m actually surprised you’ve never seen one. What’d you grow up under a rock?”

“Sort of actually,” said Kate with a stroke of epiphany. “Are faeries evil too?”

“I wouldn’t mess with them. When they’re spooked they secrete a sort of powder that can kill an elephant if there’s enough of ’em around. But we’re not in faerie country, we’re in witch country which is immeasurably worse. Get some rest, Kate, I’ll make sure you make it to the Sanctum. You leave the details to me.”

“Arb, why are you helping me?”

“Somebody needs to, figures it might as well be me.” Arb could see that this simple explanation failed to satisfy Kate.

“When I was a young man a group of people, call ’em woodcutters, well, they helped me out of a real bad jam. They make it their business to help people, ensure the balance. You can find them on every continent, in every city, just have to know where to look. This cabin for instance belongs to them.

“Well, Kate, I learned something very special from them: I learned that so long as I spent my whole day through doing the most right thing, then everything else in life would fall into place. But if I see the right thing and choose not to commit myself to it, then everything comes tumbling down like a house of cards, and I’m in that bad place again. The way I see it helping you is the most right thing I could be doing right now, so I have no choice but to help.”

“I think I understand. Thank you, Arb, for everything you’ve done and are doing for me.”

“Get some rest, it’s going to be a couple days before Hela’s ankle is ready to walk on, and I’m going to need help feeding us. You’re a good shot as far as I can tell, but tomorrow I’ll be putting you to the test.”

Kate and Arb spent the next two days skulking around the woods in search of game. At one point a colossal buck, with twelve-points to his antlers, crossed their path, but Arb signaled Kate not to shoot. They wouldn’t be able to process or eat the deer, better not to waste the life. It was two rabbits and six geese later that Arb was certain they’d have enough food for the rest of the trek.

It was early when Arb boarded up the cabin door and the three of them set out on the path to Faria Junction. Still some some fifty-miles away from that hub town of the middle plains, they planned on taking three nights and a morning to make their destination.

The sun beat down on them as they passed through an area recently devastated by wildfire.

“What happened here?” asked Kate.

“Wildfire. There was a time when I would have said that it was just another part of the balance, ‘you need a little chaos for things to start new,’ but these days something doesn’t seem right. Been more and more fires these past twenty years, just another indicator that something’s going wrong with the natural order of things.” Arb reached out to one of the burned trunks, saying a short prayer.

That night they made camp in a grove of redwood trees. Arb called it a ‘thin place,’ claiming that it connected their world to the afterlife. In her sleep that night Kate thought she could here her mother’s voice calling out to her. She didn’t chastise Kate about the decision to leave home. She just kept saying, “I love you very, very, very much.”

Arb stayed up again to keep watch for most of the night, but in the early morning he did lie down for a few scant hours—enough time for him to remember his mentor, the selfless and fearless Elf who freed him from bondage and then again from his own self-pity. “Have you remembered your oath, Arbuck Miz?”

Hela dreamed of Torin. In her vision, Torin showed her through the doors of a grand restaurant. The ceilings seemed to go on forever and everything was white. He led her to a place setting for two with a fine meal set out for them. They sat in the candlelight of that place for hours, laughing at how far they had come from the gutters of Ilfindium. Then, the candle burnt away and it was morning.

They didn’t talk much that next day. A simple meal of goose meat and stream water for breakfast and lunch. The tireless strides of their legs dragging them forward. Arb made sure that all of the hiking was done at Hela’s speed. Her ankle had improved a great deal in the past week, but she still needed to rest most of her weight on a walking stick, and it was slow goings.

A sudden, torrential downpour forced them to seek shelter for the night in a cramped cave, tucked under an outcrop of piled boulders. Arb was able to get a fire going and they used the blazing heat to dry off their sodden garments. The women huddled together as the clothes dried, whereas the aquatic Frognari was unphased by the rain. They ate another bland meal of goose meat and rain water.

“Arb, were you serious last night about the redwood grove being some sort of magic place?” asked Hela.

”It is, indeed, a sacred place. The trees reach out to the heavens and spirits speak down through them.”

”I’m not sure I like that place, Arb.”

”No, I’m not sure I like it either. Happy memories are always bitter-sweet; sweet because they remind of the good times. Bitter because they’re gone. The best we can do is hold onto the good.”

The last day of hiking presented flat even terrain, they would soon be in the pastures at the far edge of civilization. Another flavorless meal for lunch: rabbit meat and more stream water.

It was a little after dusk that they started to see groups of people, lamps in hand, all walking in a certain direction along the road. Then, they came into view of at least a dozen massive, canvas tents, striped in every color of the rainbow. In time they could hear the sounds of a great brass band playing all manner of whimsical tune.

”I just love a carnival!” shouted Hela.

”Whoa, a real carnival?” said Kate, “I’ve never seen such a wondrous thing. Do I smell pie?! I would literally give anything for a pie right now. Ha… bet you wish you hadn’t melted down all your coins, ya’ old geezer.”

”Ladies, I don’t think it’s prudent we stop here. Did you forget the thing I said about…” Arb didn’t bother finishing his sentence. Kate had already found a spot deep in a bramble bush to hide the chest, grabbing her coins from a secret compartment and tucking them into a dress pocket. Soon she and Hela were skipping with joy down the road.

”Look, Hela, you can win a coonskin cap! All you got to do is land this ball in a milk jug, pshaw…”

”Wow… and it seems like everything is free too! This is just our luck! Do you see all the foods: toadstool pudding, newt burger, poysenberry jam! And you were right, my goodness, do you see those pies!”

“Oh my lord, just look at them!” exclaimed Kate.

“Good sir,” said Kate to the huddled Digger working the bakery. He lurched over to her without a word, “would it be possible for me to try a slice of the black-magic berry pie?”

The baker produced a small, wooden fork and napkin, taking a wide slice of the crisp oh-so-delicious looking pie and plopping it before her. She swore she recognized the man from somewhere, but couldn’t place him. A wisp of eerie mist drifted from the pitch-black filling, but Kate paid no mention to anything but the grumbling of her stomach. She promptly scarfed down the slice in two, massive bites.

“Kate, don’t eat that!” shouted Arb, who had been trailing behind. It was too late, though, and besides Kate wouldn’t have been able to control her appetite either way.

The pair of young women frolicked between the vendors while the Frognari kept one hand on his ax and the other on the leathery holster at his side. A stream of lanterns led the trio to the wide-entrance of the big top tent—some hundred feet tall and twice as wide.

Outside, a short, weird figure cajoled the crowd into attending the night’s main performance.

“HAAARK! Come one, come all—men, women, children of all ages—to Queen Mag’s Circus of the Moon—Be amazed by a troupe of flying goblins. Be awed by the spectacle of bottled lightning! Be shocked to see a spear pulled through the body of a man, and see—HE STILL WALKS!!! What oracular device of hermetic invention could possibly permit such violations of natural law?! Step inside and find out!”

The ringmaster was much too short to be even a gnome, standing only about four feet in height—and besides he had an eye-catching, purple-red skin color that was certainly well-beyond the full range of tones for any gnome, elf, goblin, or other!

“Shall we, Kate?,” squealed Hela.

“Ladies, we need to get out of here now!” shouted Arb, a shout that would fall upon deaf ears.

The grandstands were already most-full, but wouldn’t you know it, Kate and Hela were able to find seats front-and-center.

Arb continued to skulk around, scanning through the crowd for something or someone. “You got to be here somewhere, you god-forsaken hag.”

Soon, the lamps all went dim and the ringmaster stood at the center of the performance area waving a glowing red baton.

“Our first act will have your heads spinning, ladies and gentlemen, at least our performers heads will be! I PRESENT TO YOU… QUEEN MAG’S SQUADRON OF FLYING GOBBOS!”

A half-dozen goblins then descended onto trapeze swings, tossing one to another, and wouldn’t you know their heads spun round-and-round as they performed, making full rotations and continuing to go-and-go-and-go-and-go.

“How do you think they do that?” asked Hela.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” replied Kate, “Maybe there’s some hidden wires that we can’t see?”

Then the goblins began to toss each other’s heads back and forth, as they continued flying through the air from bar to bar.

“I don’t even think a hidden wire would make that possible,” commented Hela.

“You know, I think you’re right. Stumps me, pretty neat though, eh?”

When the act was over all six of them stood on the board at one end of the tent. The crowd clapped and clapped but without any hoots or hollers.

One of the goblins made a look of exaggerated confusion at one of his fellow trapezist, “HEY! That’s my body, bozo.”

The two exchanged heads and the crowd responded with an uproar of laughter.

“That was pretty funny,” said Kate to Hela.

The little fellow with purple-red skin came back to the forefront of the performance area. “Give it up one more time for… QUEEN MAG’S SQUADRON OF FLYING GOBBOS!” He made these overly expressive movements of his arms as talked.

The next act involved a troll clown riding on the back of a centaur, trying to catch bolts of lightning which formed in the ceiling and slammed against the ground with concussive thundering. He had what appeared to be a regular mason jar and would reach out to grab the bolts, but most of the time the bolts would miss the jar and hit the troll in the behind. He’d yelp in pain, but kept going round like he was under some kind of… spell. On the rare occasion that he was actually lucky enough to catch the lightning, he’d struggle with the lid and the bolt would burst out, bouncing off the ceiling, only to once again hit the troll somewhere on his body.

“Another round of applause for STINKY! Sheesh… just smell him!” shouted the little master of ceremonies.

“That one was actually pretty sick,” said Kate.

“It’s just a show. I’m sure that he’s just acting like he’s hurt. I wonder how they make the lightning appear out of thin-air like that,” said Hela.

Meanwhile, Arb was following a certain unholy cackling to the periphery of the grandstands. Then, he saw it. As he rounded the far corner of the benches, he saw the sharp-pointed steeple hat. It was a threadbare, pitch-black headgear and it was perched atop the head of none other than Queen Mag herself.

“Bingo!”

Back at center stage, the imp had started introducing the next act. “For our final performance we’ve got a man immune to pain, invulnerable to suffering!!! INVINCIBLE TO THE PIERCE OF THE SPEAR!!!?!! Give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for BRAAAAAAAD: THE SELF-IMPALER!”

A lithe-looking elf came front and center of the audience. He walked with the mechanical movements of a marionette puppet and, in his left hand, he gripped a long, fearsome goblin spear. His right arm didn’t seem to move at all. It wasn’t until he started to shove the spear through the small of his back that Hela recognized the pencil mustache and handsome face of Torin.

“Torin, sweety? What the heck are you doing out here?” asked Hela, getting up from her seat. “Sweety? Think you can just run off and join the carnival? Haha… Oh! Don’t do that. Looks painful. TOR-IN,” she screamed at the top of her lungs, “it’s me, Hela!” At this point she had walked to where he was performing. “Torin Smolfwick Renhart, why aren’t you answering me?! WHY CAN’T YOU ANSWER ME?!”

The stench of death filled her nostrils and she looked into the pale, empty eyes of her reanimated husband and knew he was gone. She fell to her knees, eyes gushing tears, while the crowd responded with uproarious laughter.

“Why are you all laughing?” hollered Kate. “What’s wrong with you people?” Then a deathly fear came over her, as she too, began to notice the peculiar emptiness to the eyes of everyone around her. This conspicuous lack of pupils sent her running towards Hela.

“I think we better get out of here,” said Kate, but Hela was too grief-stricken to listen.

Arb readied the pistol and was about to take his shot when Queen Mag turned to him, “You know I prefer elf liver for dinner, but tonight I’ll make an exception… because ESCARGOT is back on the menu!”

Bang!

Arb’s shot missed and the witch descended upon him in massive, grotesque form. He made a run for it and was able to reach the girls, but by then the entire crowd was descending upon them and he had to hack his way through with the axe.

The reanimated Torin was thrusting his spear at Kate. She took a shot at his face, but the bullet had no effect.

“You’re wasting your bullets. Needs to be silver. Here take this!” Arb tossed Kate one of the two pistols loaded with silver bullets. Lo-and-behold, one shot sent the reanimated Torin to the ground. “We need to get the witch!”

Hela, eyes ablaze with hatred, stood and faced Arb, “Which one of these fuckers is the witch?”

“That one!” shouted Arb as the grotesque form menacingly swooped for him. Bang! Another missed shot and the witch flew, bat-like to the ceiling of the tent.

“Gimme the gun, Arb, I’ve got important business with that witch” said Hela.

Arb tossed his remaining pistol to Hela. Then he was a whirlwind of fury hopping in all directions—an absolute wildman with the axe, crushing skulls, and taking names.

The witch made the fatal mistake of swooping for Hela.

“Burn in hell, you sadistic bitch!”

Let ‘er rip, Hela. Let ‘er rip.

Someday, you’re gonna be the greatest monster hunter in Valenaria and beyond. You might even get that little eight-table cafe in the city. Let ‘er rip, Hela. No stopping or flinching. You’ve got six shots. Send the soulless fiend to the merciless agony of the eternal flame, postage marked “No Return.” Let ‘er rip. Let ‘er rip. GODDAMNIT! LET ‘ER RIP!

When the smoke of the black powder cleared, the carnival had vanished and the three of them stood there shaking beneath the pale moonlight. Surrounding them were all the corpses of those who had died at the train attack. Goblins, Gnomes, Elves, Centaurs—all in varying states of decay. In death the witch had reverted to her genuine form—a meter-long, eight-limbed slug. A disgusting, yellow slime poured from the bullet holes.

“Not so beautiful, eh, Kate?” said Arb.

“No, not at all.”

Hela crouched over the body of her dead husband, once again overtaken with grief. She was reciting all the promises they made to each other back in the hull of that steamer some five years back. She remembered her dream from two night’s before and the restaurant with the white light.

“What do we do with him?” said Kate, pointing to the cowering form of an imp in the distance.

“That’s a good question,” responded Arb.

The two of them cautiously stepped over bodies on their way to examine the creature.

“Pleaseee… Sheee madee me do it.. the witchhh.” The imp ringleader shirked away as the pair approached. “Pleasse, I used to have a life, a family… we lived in the fire caves beyond the Northern Plains when one day the witch, she came and killed everyone,” he sobbed uncontrollably. “She put enchanted shackles on me and made me her slave…It’s over now. Just end it.”

Arb remembered his oath. “Maybe there’s some use for him.”

“If you say so.”

“What’s your name, imp?”

“Jibkup”

“On your feet, Jibkup. One of ours is among the dead and we need to carry them out of this mess for a proper burial. You’ll be doing the carrying. You drop the body, you decide on trying to steal from us, you so make as make a sudden movement, and we execute you on the spot. All three of us are accomplished witch hunters, outfitted with enough silver bullets to take on an entire coven. Got it?”

The imp nodded accordingly, averting his gaze from the new masters.

“And another thing, you’re our prisoner, not our slave. We don’t keep slaves. Give me your wrists.” With two graceful swings of his axe, Arb shattered the bonds that held Jibkup for ten-thousand years.

“Oh jubilee! I’m free at last!”

The click of a cocked revolver cut short the celebration. “You’re not free. You’re our prisoner. Now get carrying.”

Kate retrieved the chest from the bramble bush, and the four of them started on the path for Faria Junction. At the break of dawn, they held a funeral for Torin. Hela chose to bury him under a pile of rocks, atop a rolling hill where one could see nothing but plains and a glimpse of train track in the distance. She gave the traditional rites, then placed a crude marker on the spot. She said one last goodbye and the journey continued.

They didn’t stop again to rest until they reached the Junction in the dwindling twilight of dusk.