There were no carrion birds. The use of magic had seen to that. It could sometimes take weeks for animals to be willing to return to an area where spells had been cast. This had been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they would not have to fight off vast murders of crows. On the other, they could not make any horse, regardless of force or threat used, pass the threshold of the gates of Alte Eichen. This, in turn, made the immediate task ahead far more unpleasant. For three centuries, the Kings of Sturmwatch had tried to resurrect this city, which had sat upon a strategic crossroad in the time of the Elves. This would never happen now. What had happened three days ago had finally slain this place, and any future it might have had.

Theo coughed as he lifted a stiff corpse up from the pile. It was one of many hundreds in an awkward, horrible line he was aware of, yet could not see any more. His eyes seemed glazed, like glass smudged by dirty fingers, and for that he was thankful. A cloth soaked in brandy covered his muzzle, its powerful scent valiantly trying to hold back the growing stench of death. Dozens more worked alongside him, human men, many half out of their armour and clothes. They kept their faces covered, too, as they tried to separate the tangled mass of bodies that had been so callously slaughtered by the witch dubbed Volkard the Damned ,after Theo had beheaded him with his own sword. They were the king’s men, soldiers sent here under the command of the recently slain duke of Hortiz. The duke was one of many whose bodies they were still searching for among the slain. These corpses on top, all naked and covered in dust and dirt, piled upon one another as if they had been crawling to escape the death that claimed them, were all Ashen. These heretical elf worshippers had been Volkard’s followers. They had died on the surface.

The duke’s men, however, had died as the earth opened up and swallowed them. Theo had watched it happen, and would give anything to forget the sight. Not two weeks ago, the young minotaur had been ignorant of the cost of magic in all but theoretical terms. Now, he desperately wished to return to such ignorance. This was the second mass slaughter he’d seen in that span of time, both of them perpetrated by Volkard. The first had been a farmstead near the Capital. As horrible as that had been, it felt like a dream now, though its dead still haunted him. Now Eichen’s would join them, staring in silence at him through crumbling windows in darkened streets as he drifted in the dreaming dark. Theo wanted escape, but there was none. These people were gone, and there were few fit to help them even in this smallest of ways.

He laid the body on the cart nearest to him. It was nearly full. Lacking any horses to drag its gruesome contents out of the shattered square, it would fall to Theo the Oak, witch hunter of the sacred Order of St. Heinrich, to play the beast of burden once more. It had been his role since the gruesome workday began at dawn. Over the last two days, the young bull had played the roles of burglar, cook, apothecary, barber, gravedigger and priest. He had desperately wanted to avail himself of the free alcohol now plentiful in Alte Eichen, but had feared that if he crawled into the bottle, he’d never come out again. Even stronger than the desire to drink away the days was his desire to leave this place, but the same horror that had repelled him kept him here as well. These people, Volkard’s victims, deserved the dignity of a burial, even if that burial was to be in a mass grave.

Three men struggled to disentangle an old woman and young man that might have been her grandson as Theo watched. The way they had died had left them a tangled mess, and the crowbar the three men were using to wedge them apart was causing noises that might have earned an embarrassed smile at another time and place. The minotaur waved them off and scooped the pair up with ease. He laid them atop the last body he had loaded on the cart and realized that, once again, it was full. Wordlessly, he circled around to the front and slipped between the pull bars. Someone passed him the crossbar, which he slipped into the steel rings on the ends of the pull bars. Theo leaned into it and the wood creaked from his effort and the weight of the cart. He grit his teeth in agony as his cracked ribs and wounded shoulder began to burn. The three men he had helped began to push from behind. With a rattle, it finally lurched forward and began to roll. They were heading to the old park that was not so far away, where other soldiers of the king were digging the pit.

*

The sun was setting when Theo passed through the wooden gate that led to what had once been the only inhabited part of the city. His shirt was scrunched up in his fist as he walked stiffly towards an old palace that had become an inn whose name right then escaped him. He was caked in mud. A thick column of smoke rose above the twilight skyline of Eichen behind him. He did not look back at it once. Before he could escape, he had been forced to play the role of priest again. It was remarkable how much more hollow the words grew with their repetition. He would be repeating them again, of that there could be no doubt. They had not even finished with the Ashen, yet. After that, it would be their own people, buried underneath them which they would have to find. Gerda…

Theo walked around the back of the inn and found the empty stables waited for mounts that would never come, empty of all life. He sat on the ground, his back to the cold stone of the building, waiting for his head to clear, and the stubborn burning in his chest to abate. It had taken some searching, but the minotaur had found a proper graveyard on the second day after Volkard’s defeat. Theo had dug prince Siegfried’s and Dietrich’s graves himself. Klara had accompanied him, the only surviving witch hunter still ambulatory, but her broken arm had left her unable to do more than pass him water. They had prayed and wept over their fallen friends, but Gerda the Knife had been swallowed by the restless earth. Theo would have to find her body, trapped in the soil that had killed her, before she could be brought to lie at the side of her fallen comrades. It was a task that filled the young bull with sickening horror to think about it, and yet it was impossible for him to envision anyone else but he doing it. The dwarf had been his friend. She was one of them. It shouldn’t be a stranger to find her, and bring her to rest.

The inn crawled with people. Most were soldiers, but a few were merchants returning to the town they’d been forced to evacuate to claim what was left of their property. What talk Theo heard was in whispers, as if everyone were afraid of disturbing anyone else. The young bull walked through the ground floor, finding the guest quarters that had become the billets for most of the men until some better arrangement could be made for the operation here. He pulled off the cloth that had long since dried and ceased smelling of brandy, only just remembering he had it on as he found the door he was looking for. He knocked as he pushed it open.

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“Still alive?” he asked the occupants.

Klara Graf Saddler was sitting in the corner nearest to the closed window, staring at the ground. For a second the young bull wondered if she had heard him at all, until he noticed her head tilting forward in just the slightest of nods. A bottle lay open on the table beside her. Theo said nothing, his attention drawn to the bed, and the prone form there.

“For the moment,” answered Eisengrim the Hammer. The old bull’s body was covered up to his bandaged waist in blankets. His bare yet powerful chest rose and fell with blessed regularity. The wound in his belly might still kill him, but only if he was not careful. It should have killed him, but Dietrich had died instead.

The old bull offered his hand. Theo did his best to banish unfair thoughts, and took it.

“What is your report?” the old bull asked.

“The men are clearing the bodies from the Temple Square. We’re burning them in a park nearby. Less than half of them came back.”

“I’m grateful any did,” sighed Eisengrim. “Any sign of Bauer?”

“Father, or son?” The Oak asked.

“Either will do.”

Theo could only shake his head. The father’s name was Kurt. It had been his farm Theo had found. Martin Bauer was his son, and he was the reason for that first slaughter, but not the cause.

“Janus probably saved the older Bauer,” Klara interjected. She looked tired, her skin pale, her red hair seemed to have lost its lustre. She had little sleep these last few days. Theo could only guess how bad he looked.

“Do you think he was able to save the younger, too?” asked the old bull.

Klara offered a one-armed shrug. “It’s not impossible. Between the battle and the dust storm, there was plenty of opportunity to escape this city.”

“Rahm could have him,” Theo suggested. He hoped he had kept his voice level at the mention of the name of Volkard’s one surviving lackey. He was another minotaur: an archer that wielded a great bow. The terrible arrow that had been meant for Eisengrim had taken Dietrich instead, as the old human who’d taught Theo threw himself in front of Eisengrim, his own tutor of long years passed.

“Another possibility,” the old bull sighed, nodding. He looked frustrated, as if he wanted to stamp about the room, slamming doors with far too much force. Instead he spoke then with a level of self-control that left Theo wondering if the old bull could feel at all.

“If Martin Bauer escaped on his own, then he will not get far. If he died with the other Ashen, then we could yet find him and dispose of him here. If Rahm was able to make off with him, then they would be heading south to the Dead Lands, to get the boy to whatever monster pulled that hellish fiend’s leash. If Janus was able to collect the boy though, as he did the father…what would they do next? Where might they go?”

“They wouldn’t be safe here,” offered Klara. Something in her seemed to stir, as if she were beginning to rouse herself from a restless slumber. “Bauer won’t let his son go to the Sanctum. As long as they remain here, that could still happen. He knows people will be looking for them. He’d flee the country.”

“He’d take ship?” Eisengrim said.

Klara nodded to the old bull.

“Hafenstrand is the nearest port from here that is guaranteed to have ships in its harbour, almost regardless of day or season,” the old bull muttered thoughtfully. “It’s…what, forty miles west?”

“Something like that,” agreed Klara with a nod.

“Where are the horses being kept?”

“They’re being kept outside of the North Gate,” Theo answered. “Down the road, where the dead trees end. They couldn’t be kept quiet any closer. Our horses are all there with them. There’s a few men looking after them.”

“Very well,” nodded the Hammer. “Here are your orders: Klara, I want you to ride south. Take some of the men with you. Search for Rahm, but do not cross into the Dead Lands. If you find him, then kill him and apprehend Martin Bauer if he is in the beast’s company. Whether you find Rahm or not, I want you then to make for The Hold. Many of Volkard’s party came from there, and their people were old vassals of the Elves. If there is a connection, you must find it, and report back. You understand?”

Klara the Shield stood as her orders were given her. She nodded, looking something of her old self then.

Eisengrim’s gaze turned to the other bull. “Theo.”

Theo felt his belly tighten, and his spine stiffen uncomfortably. “Yes, sir?”

“You will ride west,” Eisengrim commanded. “Search the road. Search Hafenstrand. If the Bauers are together, and making for the sea, then it’s possible Rahm may be chasing after them. You will find help in the port for your search. One of our number is there, acting as resident hunter.”

“You mean Orel?” Theo said, surprised. He knew of Orel the Spark. The Order was not as large as it might once have been, and Orel the Spark had been Dietrich’s first apprentice. The old man had little to say of his first pupil. When words did come, they had always been full of disappointment.

“Yes,” the old bull said, drawing Theo back to the now. “I’m trapped here until I can recover from this damned wound. I’ll write to the king, and have some of his men here take the letter to him. He needs to know what his happening here. He needs to know what happened to his nephew. He must issue a call to all the hunters that are left, and bid them gather in the Capital. The Sanctum needs to be checked and secured. We must amass what forces we can and range into the Dead Lands. If Volkard’s master is out there, and he is collecting witches, then he must be found, and destroyed.”

Neither Theo nor Klara said anything as Eisengrim made his intentions clear. With prince Siegfried gone, the old bull was now at last the only real Master of the Order. The idea of going into the Dead Lands, the terrible place that had once been the homeland of the Elves, seemed like sheer madness to Theo. If the old bull intended going himself, then it could be months before such an expedition could leave, given his grave injury. There was time to talk him out of it, once the matter at hand was concluded.

“When do we leave?” Klara asked.

“With the dawn,” instructed the Hammer. “Eat and sleep, if you can. You will both need your strength. I fear that more rests on your shoulders now than we might realise.”