Page 9 of Night of the Witch
“Four, sir.”
“Gather five men,” I tell Wilhelm. “It will not take much to bring down the witch I have in mind, but she is crafty.” I don’t want the city left defenseless, nor can I risk facing a witch alone.
Especially this one.
Wilhelm salutes me, nodding once and then turning to gather the men I asked for.
“Fetch my horse,” I tell Johann. The boy takes off at a run toward the stables.
While they work, I step outside into the fresh air, blocking thewitches from my senses. That is, after all, the purpose of the walls. To let the foul evil remain unseen before it is scoured from this earth.
“Sir, your horse.” Johann arrives moments before Wilhelm returns with five men—four astride, one leading a horse cart with a cage built into the back. The wooden box has one narrow door off the rear with iron bars providing the only light and ventilation. An adult could not fully stand in such a cage, the rough wood and shoddy construction not even fit for animals.
I slowly cast my look across each of the waiting men. They’re loyal hexenjägers, among the best. Black cloaks cover broad shoulders; the gleaming enameled badge of the witch hunters provides the only spot of color.
I grab the reins of my horse’s bridle from Johann’s outstretched hands. “You ride on the cart,” I tell the boy.
His eyes widen with eagerness, and he scrambles up to sit on the rough bench.
“Where are we going, sir?” he asks as I mount my horse.
“Bernkastel,” I say.
There’s noise behind me as some of the men realize the weight of our mission. Johann is the only one willing to speak what the others are thinking. “Bernkastel?” he says. “Isn’t that the town where you are from?”
“Yes.” I bite off the word. Some of the guards from inside the basilica have stepped out to see what the commotion is, where the Kapitän is heading off to so soon after returning to the city, so near to the date of the mass solstice burning.
I feel their eyes on me. Most of the witches that the hexenjägers rooted out came from Trier itself, but as the witch hunt has stretched from a season to a year to a decade, the hexenjägers have cast their net broader and broader, into the surrounding villages and towns, dragging the evil back into the city for proper disposal.
Still, it’s rare these days for the home of a prominent hexenjäger to come under scrutiny.
I heave a sigh, my shoulders bowing to the weight of what must be said, what must be done.
I turn to the men. “We go to Bernkastel,” I say. “A day’s ride east. There is a witch there, living alone by the river. A young maid.” A muscle twitches in my jaw. “My sister is the witch. We go to arrest her.”
3
FRITZI
The forest’s undergrowth snags around my legs as I trudge forward, huddling deeper into my cloak. It’s too big—I stole it off a line two villages ago, along with a wide-brimmed hat to ward off the chill alongside my thick wool kirtle and linen shift. The cloak smells like horses.
Just keep walking. One step. Another.
I should have stayed in Birresborn long enough to get supplies.Realsupplies, warmer clothes and food and more than the handful of empty potion bottles in the leather pouches that hang from a belt around my hips.
But every moment I waste is another moment that the hexenjägers get Liesel closer to Trier.
So I walk. And I keep walking.
Another step.
Another.
“We should go to the forest folk,” Aunt Catrin begged my mother and the Elder council.
I hear the echo of her plea now.
We should have gone to the Black Forest. Why did we let it get this far?
