The Witch Watch

by Shamus Young

  His view shifted, and he found himself looking up at the painting. He felt nothing. He couldn’t move, or even speak.

  “Did you think I brought you here so that I could beg for my own possessions?” the viscount asked coldly. “Did you think to make me grovel in my own house? I did not pass into death only to be outwitted by a blundering soldier. Did your time in the void blot out how you came into my service? Did you forget how you told my men of your history, and of your family relations? I cared nothing for your credentials and qualifications as a soldier. I only needed to know where to strike if you chose to betray me.”

  Gilbert felt himself becoming drowsy. The sound of the room seemed to come from a remote distance, and his view of the world was slowly darkening.

  “You remember Headmaster Graves? He’s on his way to visit Victoria Hiltman as we speak. Perhaps you passed him on your way here. I was going to spare her if you surrendered the vigor willingly. But since you thought you would slaughter my staff and burn down my house, I will repay in kind. Your words have earned her death in agony, after which your house will be reduced to cinders. Normally justice would require that I punish you directly, but that is not possible in your case, so Victoria must suffer in your stead. Now, leave this world knowing what reward your arrogance has brought your mother.” The room echoed with the booming of his voice.

  Simon entered his view. The boy looked down on him in sadness.

  “Now, mouse,” the master commanded. “Retrieve the vigor and bring it to my chamber at once. Then all will be forgiven.”

  Gilbert watched helplessly as Simon removed his crystal necklace. “I’m sorry,” he muttered as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. Then he reached out and held the necklace overhead. Light poured from Gilbert’s body. Dots of light, no bigger than motes of dust, gathered like a cloud of fireflies. They swirled like a vapor and flowed into the crystal, which began to glow brightly. Gilbert’s vision grew dimmer still, and soon the light of the crystal was the only thing he could see, like the flicker of a distant star.

  Gilbert walked along the line of trees, past the orchard and the barn, heading for home. Before he could reach the door, he found himself facing a young girl with dark braids. Her back was to him, yet he somehow knew what she would look like, even before she turned around. Her face was innocent, yet serious. He felt a sort of kinship with her.

  Her mouth moved quickly and soundlessly, like watching someone pray the rosary. She was disappointed. Somehow he apologized without speaking. She understood. Her mouth continued moving, and for a moment Gilbert almost thought he could hear her, as if they were drawing nearer. He felt like he was immersed in water, and all sounds seemed deep and remote. She smiled. Not happy, but accepting. He wanted to know what had happened, or how he had failed. Her lips stopped moving.

  They were pulled away from each other, and she vanished.

  “Fool! What have you done! Blood! You will pay in blood! You will never eat again!” Lord Mordaunt’s voice boomed through the room, abruptly sounding very near. Everything flashed into view, like a sudden flame in a dark room. Gilbert could feel the cold marble beneath him, and was surprised to find that he was drenched. Simon was standing over him, holding an empty pitcher.

  Steward slashed at the boy with his knife. Simon ducked, and the blade knocked the hat off his head. Gilbert struggled to his feet. He grabbed Steward from behind, lifting him into the air and throwing him down again. Steward lashed out with his knife, and Gilbert ran him through.

  The fireplace roared and Mordaunt cursed them with threats and evil words.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, your lordship,” Gilbert said with a bow. “But you should get back to being dead. Take comfort in the fact that I’m about to send some of your servants to keep you company,” Gilbert grabbed the silver bowl and tossed it into the fire, which silenced the screams. Looking down, he saw that Simon had dumped the pitcher of water onto the floor, which had erased the chalk lines of sorcery.

  Simon was standing nearby, breathing quickly and looking at Gilbert’s sword. He swallowed hard and nervously met Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert grabbed the boy and pulled him into a hug. “I told you courage would taste good once you had a drink!”

  Gilbert scooped up Simon’s hat and planted it on his head.

  “Thank you, but I’m not sure it was courage. It was just one fear overcoming another. When I heard what he planned to do to your mother, I...” he looked up at Gilbert and choked, “I never knew my mother, you see.”

  Gilbert clapped him on the shoulder. “You did the right thing, and that’s what’s important. But it will all be for nothing if we can’t catch Headmaster Graves and his men. I don’t know how we’ll overcome their head start.”

  “We? You’re taking me with you this time?” Simon asked with some relief.

  “It wouldn’t be right to leave you here.” Gilbert replied.

  “Miss White?”

  Alice looked up from her notebook. “Private Archer? I asked you to guard the entrance!”

  Archer looked down at the floor. “What happened here?” he asked in wonder.

  Alice looked at the muddy footprints and fresh chalk lines on the floor, “This is where Gilbert was revived a few days ago. More sorcery has been done since then, but this mud has obfuscated it.”

  “I heard gunshots outside,” Archer said.

  They were in the last chamber of the Mordaunt family tomb. The door to the chamber had been shut and locked when she arrived. The lock she had easily picked; the device was quite old and primitive. Besides this, there was no other protection on the room - no magic, no traps, and no guards.

  “Gunshots?” Alice said nervously. “Close? In our direction?”

  “No Miss. Near the manor.”

  “Well, it’s unfortunate. I know the captain was hoping we wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. I don’t think we need to worry, though. This sorcery here is proof enough to justify any level of violence on our part.”

  “I don’t think it was our rifles I heard.”

  Alice looked up, “How can you be sure?”

  “I heard four shots, close together. Then a pause. Then four more. We only have two rifles at the manor.”

  “The captain has his sidearm,” she reminded him. “And you might have miscounted.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t miscount. And I can tell the difference between a rifle and a revolver.”

  She looked towards the door, then down at the sorcery, then to her notebook. “I must finish making a copy of this circle. I’ve never seen this before. After that we’ll go and investigate things ourselves.”

  Alice worked as quickly as she could.

  “This circle is unlike the one I saw a few nights ago,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud. “The handwriting is much messier. Lots of erasing. The circle is almost egg-shaped. I’m surprised it worked at all.”

  “Egg shapes are bad?” Archer asked with genuine curiosity. He had stopped in the doorway, but was leaning into the room to get a better look.

  Alice waved her hand to shoo him out of the room. “Anything that’s not a circle is bad,” she replied. “The important thing is that the person who made this circle is not the same person that revived Gilbert. We have at least two sorcerers to catch.”

  Alice completed her copy and they made their way out of the tomb. She snuffed out her lantern and drew in a deep breath before they stepped outside.

  The night air was clammy and cold, filled with the smell of deep autumn. Even though it was early October, the surrounding trees had already turned brown and begun shedding their leaves.

  “Also, there’s this,” Archer said, pointing off into the darkness at the edge of the graveyard. “It looks like a new grave has been dug over there.”

  Alice crept over to investigate the uneven earth. She crouched and stared intently at the hole. “It’s far too wide to be a grave, and too shallow,” she whispered. She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment. “Unless it’s a mass grave
. I wonder who they intend to bury here? Oh, but I wish we had just a little more light!”

  “We could use the lantern.”

  Alice looked up towards the house, where dim light escaped the windows. “I don’t dare. If someone inside were to look out, they would spot us. Even a candle would be like a beacon in this darkness.”

  She decided that they should investigate the business at the house. If things proved safe, they could always come back here and investigate this site properly. They moved slowly, walking part way around the house so as to avoid approaching the main entrance. At length they reached the side of the house, and peeked around the corner.

  “Looks like two guards prowling around, going through our carts,” Archer said.

  “Four guards,” Alice corrected him. “The two at the carts, and two more guarding the lane.”

  “So there are! I mistook the other two for statues.”

  “Then I fear for your eyesight,” she said. “They are very animated. I should think they are drunk. But where is our captain? And the others? Surely they wouldn’t allow the guards to ransack-“

  At that moment, the guards hauled up a body from out of the cart, and threw it down onto the ground with a dreadful thud.

  Alice gasped. “No!”

  The men continued to rummage through the carts, occasionally showing off spoils and laughing. After a few minutes it became clear that they were not drunk, but simply loud and undisciplined.

  “They haven’t spotted us,” Archer said meekly.

  “Are you suggesting we run off?”

  “No,” he said uneasily. “Well, yes. You should run away, at any rate. Our job was to protect you, and that means not sending you into fights where we’re outnumbered like this.”

  “Your job isn’t to protect me only, but the royal family first, Great Britain second, and myself last. And sending me off into the darkness on foot without supplies or provisions while you martyr yourself in a hopeless fight is a dreadful way of protecting me. No, we must at least recover our horses.” Alice pulled her hair away from her face and bound it behind her head, “We’re going to need to fight these men, and we’re more likely to succeed together.”

  “With respect, Miss. You don’t have much in the way of training for warfare.”

  “If by ‘not much’ you mean, ‘none’, then you are right. But these men don’t look like they’ve had much more. We will have to take our chances. They don’t know we’re here. Let’s assail them from different sides, and hope for the best.”

  Archer gripped his rifle and nodded. “Good luck, Miss.”

  Alice snuck around to the other side of the carts, staying far away from the lantern light. She was careful to move while the men were talking, which was often. Finally she crouched in the hedges near the two men standing watch. A minute or two passed. She couldn’t see what the other men were doing from her vantage point, but she hoped Archer was simply waiting for an opportune moment.

  She considered withdrawing to find out what was delaying Archer. Then she realized that they hadn’t decided which of them should strike first. They were each waiting for the other.

  There came a sound from the house. Someone was screaming for help. It was the voice of a man. It was cut short. Then there was the sound of a great scuffle, and more men were shouting.

  The men looting the carts looked worried at this. They stood and took a few nervous steps towards the house. Suddenly Alice heard the crack of a rifle, followed by the sound of cursing.

  “I’m shot!” cried one of the men.

  The watchmen turned to the origin of the sound, and Alice stood up from her hiding place. She unleashed fire from each hand, turning the men into pillars of flame. The road was illuminated in brilliant orange light, and the night was filled with their screams. She staggered for a moment, disoriented; she had never unleashed two flames at once.

  Closer to the house, one of the guards had been wounded. He turned to see the flames, and fired at Alice in a panic. She flinched, but his shot went astray. Archer shot the man a second time, and he fell.

  The last guard saw the fight was against him. He began screaming for allies as he ran towards the house. He threw open the front door, and lunged through before Archer could silence him. A moment later he was shoved back out of the house on the tip of Gilbert’s sword. The guard’s screams became more shrill, and desperate. For a moment Alice forgot the joking and well-mannered Gilbert and saw him as he must appear to their foes: A titan, fearless of blades, wrapped in a shroud of flowing black, his face a horrifying grin of death.

  The guard’s cries were cut short with another stroke of Gilbert’s sword, and the manor fell silent again, save for the crackle of fire from the smoldering men on either side of her. She coughed at the smell of burning wool, and hurried away from her victims.

  “Gilbert!” she shouted.

  Gilbert rushed down the stairs and set to calming the horses. The fight had agitated them. Alice marveled at the skill he had with horses, and that they had no fear of him as an abomination.

  A young man had followed Gilbert out of the house and now stood by his side as he worked on the horse’s harness.

  “Gilbert?” she said again, more gently this time. “Who is this?”

  Gilbert seemed to ignore her. The young man stared at her, wide-eyed and silent. After a few moments Gilbert turned and nudged the boy. “Go on. Introduce yourself.”

  The boy snatched the hat from his head and stumbled over his words.

  Gilbert sighed. “Simon, this is Alice White. Miss White, this is Simon... I don’t know his surname.” Gilbert returned to work.

  “I don’t... have,” the boy said with a trembling voice.

  “Gilbert, what are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Freeing the horses from the cart,” he said flatly, without looking up from what he was doing.

  “What has come over you?”

  “I met Lord Mordaunt. Sort of. His men are on their way to Rothersby, to kill my mother.”

  “Your mother?” Alice said with incredulity.

  “He knew I wouldn’t be afraid of threats to my own body, so he struck where I would be vulnerable,” he replied. The horses were now free of the cart’s harness. Gilbert dug through their scattered supplies and retrieved one of the saddles.

  “And I suppose you mean to take this man with you,” she said, nodding at Simon. “And I will assume he’s the young man you spoke of before? The sorcerer in the service of Mordaunt?”

  “He’s recently betrayed the viscount, at the risk of his own life,” Gilbert said defensively.

  “Admirable, but redemption and forgiveness are not yours to distribute. You hold the life of the princess in your very body, and you are obligated by both word and duty to restore her.”

  “And leave my own mother to torment and death? No.”

  “You mean to break arrest and make off with a known sorcerer? I won’t allow it.”

  “You are no less a sorcerer, or.... sorceress,” he argued. “If you mean to stop me, you will need to use force.” His voice was grim and threatening.

  “Give the word, Miss White”, said Archer. He had approached Gilbert and Simon from behind, and was holding his rifle at the ready. Simon put up his hands immediately. Gilbert ignored him.

  “You know what I can do. You saw it yourself in the library,” she said with as much menace as she was able. “We’ve killed abominations before, and know where to strike.”

  “You’ve fought mindless or feral undead, from what you’ve told me. I doubt you’ve faced a soldier with all his wits intact,” Gilbert stepped forward, leading his horse. His sword was in his hand. “And if you destroy me, you might destroy the vigor, and Sophie will be doomed. If you want the best chance of helping her, then you’ll let me go. When I’ve settled things with Mordaunt’s men, I’ll be back to help you save the princess.”

  “Is that a promise? Your word is worth considerably less now than it was an hour ago,” she snapped
.

  “You don’t need to accept my word. I’m telling you my intentions. Make of it what you like. Slay me, or stand aside, only stop wasting my time.” When it was clear that she didn’t mean to assail him immediately, Gilbert turned and set to work saddling the other horse.

  “I am at a loss,” she said, throwing her arms into the air. “I can’t allow you to break arrest, or I do not deserve the office I hold. I can’t destroy you, or it will doom Sophie.”

  “You could always come with us, so we will still be under your arrest,” Gilbert suggested.

  “I can’t abandon our fallen companions and leave their bodies to rot.”

  “I’ll stay,” said Archer.

  Alice breathed a heavy sigh. “Perhaps that is an option. Actually, I think the important task is to gather up our fallen friends on the remaining cart and carry them back to London. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Archer nodded.

  “Poor Archer,” she said apologetically, “Always left behind. I am sorry this time, but this is the only way I can see to do things.”

  Gilbert handed the reins of one horse to Simon, and mounted the other himself.

  “I don’t know how to ride,” Simon stammered.

  “Then you’ll ride with me. There. Now we have a horse for Miss White. Hurry. The men we’re chasing were the ones we passed on our way here.”

  “Then they have half an hour on us. And their horses are fresh, while ours have worked for half a day. And yours is now doubly burdened.”

  “I still hold out hope of her rescue,” Gilbert said. “And if that fails, I will console myself with revenge.”

  “You’ll pay for that,” the man screamed.

  “So you said the last time I struck you,” replied Gilbert. “Either make good on your threats, or stop making them.”

  The man turned to one side and spat out some blood. “You’ve got no right hitting another guard, Maypole!”

  “Perhaps you should complain to a superior officer,” Gilbert shrugged. They both knew there was nobody that would hear his complaint. Headmaster Graves was the closest thing they had to a superior officer, and he was indifferent to the men as long as the posts were filled and the men looked presentable. He had a reputation for punishing the messenger, which encouraged the men to solve disputes among themselves.