by Drew Hayes
“A small child who aided enchanted creatures and was taken against her will escaping with spoils is a happy ending for one who deserved it,” Frank said. “But the rest of the townsfolk would just be robbing a stranger; the Narrative wouldn’t offer them any protection. The only question is: were they killed or captured?”
Scarlett looked at Frank for several seconds, stepping over stones in her path with a fluid grace that almost resembled Jack’s. “You’re rather quick on the uptake. According to the few scouts who’ve entered the woods and returned, the ones who went to rob the witch are only captured for the moment, strung up in cages hanging all around her house. We’re guessing they’re fated for some kind of ritual, or she’s using them as bait to lure the rest of the town. Either way, with their friends missing and unknown sums of gold up for the taking, Jacobsville sent out word to every nearby town. Whoever slays the witch and frees the prisoners can keep as much of the gold as they can carry.”
“I think they’d regret that phrasing if they knew how much Marie can haul when she sets her mind to it.” Jack grinned at Marie, who met his expression with a scowl. She didn’t like when he tipped their hand on surprises, even if he did trust this woman. “This situation is somewhat muddled, though. The little girl was clearly in the right, but once people started trying to rob the witch she had some moral ground as well. Not having the Narrative’s protection is one thing, we almost never do, but actively going against it is a whole different matter entirely. Those kinds of jobs require very heavy pay, more than some nebulous amount that may or may not be up a chimney.”
“A nebulous amount that we would have to split with anyone else involved in the rescue effort,” Frank added. “Which looks like quite a crowd from what I can see.”
Now that Jack was looking at the scene with context, he understood it better. It was not just fear driving the people to chaos; greed was in the mix, too. They’d probably come from neighboring villages, eagerly seeking their fortune. How hard could killing a witch be if a little girl managed to escape her grasp, after all? These simpletons had no idea what they’d be really dealing with, but Jack didn’t have the time or energy to properly caution them.
“With no guaranteed money and the murkiness of the Narrative, I think we should skip this one,” Jack said. “I’m fine with hard work, but only if there’s a proper amount of gold due at the end. Let’s take a day to resupply and rest then get back on the road. Something tells me we won’t get much information out of these people.”
“I’m surprised, Jack. There was a time you’d have gone off and tried to kill a dragon if there was even the hint of gold at the end of the job.” Scarlett chuckled softly under her breath. “Have you gone soft?”
“I like to think of it as going prudent. My time is valuable, as is that of my colleagues. We can’t afford to waste it on potential paydays when real ones are waiting down the road. Besides, I thought you’d be glad to hear I was backing out. Less competition for whatever is really up that chimney.”
“Less competition is nice, but none would be better.” A sour expression crept across Scarlett’s face, pinching her forehead and eyes in an unbecoming manner. “I got word that Hans and Greta are coming for this bounty, too, not that I’m surprised. Those two always go for the witches.”
Jack stopped in his tracks, a halt so sudden it jarred the rest of the group. His smile didn’t dim, as one might have expected, but rather grew wider, a glimmer of what dwelled beneath his constant facade rising briefly to the surface. “Hans and Greta? They’re coming for this witch?”
“I imagine they’ll be here today, if they haven’t arrived already,” Scarlett replied.
“Well now, that changes things.” Jack looked to Frank and Marie, who were standing stone-faced. They knew where this was going and refused to give him any emotional angles to play against them. “What would you two say about taking this job after all? There’s bound to be a lot of gold up there. We can even take some of the pressure off ourselves by partnering with Scarlett. A four-way split isn’t that bad.”
Frank’s jaw fell open and Marie looked as if someone had slapped her with a singing carp, all efforts at stoicism gone. Jack, their Jack, was advocating for less gold? True, it was prudent given that they were going up against a witch, one of the most notoriously difficult opponents one could face, but prudence virtually never topped greed in Jack’s mind. Something was up. Something big.
“Hey now, I never said I wanted to work with you,” Scarlett protested.
“It’s an unknown witch in unfamiliar terrain, and we’ve got competition hot on our heels. You know it’s the smart move. Plus, if we work together instead of against one another we have a better chance of succeeding, and I know you want to stick it to those two as much as I do.” Jack was so certain it seemed as if the discussion had already ended, and after a brief moment of consideration Scarlett relented.
“Fine, I’ll join up with you. But it’s a five-way split, not four. Peter gets a share, too.”
“I’m sorry; did you say your wolf gets a share?” Marie asked.
Scarlett nodded. “He’s smart enough to spend money, so it’s only fair he gets paid for his work. Take it or leave it, I’m not budging on that any more than you’d cut your friends out of the deal.”
Sure that this would be the end of the discussion, Frank and Marie readied themselves to watch Jack disagree and storm off. Instead, his head slowly inched forward in agreement. “Five-way split it is.”
If the initial idea had shocked them, this revelation nearly knocked Frank and Marie to the ground. Exchanging a single look between themselves, the two came to a wordless understanding. Frank stepped forward, clearing his throat to make sure this came out succinctly. It was important to pick one’s words carefully when negotiating with Jack.
“Despite this being an unfavorable situation, Marie and I are willing to follow your lead and go after the witch. There is one condition though. You must tell us the whole story, to our satisfaction not yours, of what this Hans and Greta did to incur so much of your hatred. If you’re willing to split the gold with more people just to keep them from success, then we’d like to know why. It’s the least you can do, given what you’re asking of us.”
Jack was one of the few people Frank had ever met who could scowl with a smirk still on his face, a skill he was utilizing at that very moment. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“Say you agree to my terms, Jack. Don’t just tell me that they’re reasonable.”
The scowl deepened, even as the smile widened. “I regret teaching you the art of negotiation, Frank, even though I am proud of how much better you’ve gotten. Very well, I agree to your terms on the condition that we set out as soon as possible. I don’t want those two getting any more of a head start than they might already have.”
Another brief look passed between Frank and Marie before Frank responded. “Well then, it sounds like we should get some pitchforks. I believe that’s customary when one is hunting a witch.”
“Torches, too,” Scarlett added. “If we’re being proper about it.”
“No. No torches.” Frank turned away from her, looking out to forest. “I’m not a fan of torches unless they are absolutely necessary.”
Scarlett waited for someone to say something, expecting this to be some manner of joke. When Jack and Marie both stood silent, she took the message and decided to move on. “Pitchforks it is then. Grab whatever you need and meet me by the eastern edge of town. Peter should already have a scent for us to track by then.”
“Showoff,” Marie muttered, heading down the road again before Scarlett had a chance to ask what in the kingdoms that meant.
* * *
Of all the terrible things people could say about Jack, and there were quite a number of them, he was at least a man who kept his word. So it was that they’d no sooner begun their trek through the woods than he started recounting his previous encounter with Hans and Greta. It had been many years earlier, when he and Scarlett were
still under their mysterious teacher’s tutelage. They’d been sent to a nearby kingdom under orders to hunt down a witch doling out poison apples. The bounty on her head was sizable, and the risk was great, so he and Scarlett had worked as a team rather than at odds with one another. But that much gold drew more than just them to the task. It also enticed Hans and Greta, or the Witch-Killing Twins as they were known. . It wasn’t a particularly flashy or creative name, but it got the point across, and that right there summed up Hans and Greta in a nutshell. No flash, no panache, no fun, just hard-nosed and stone-faced work. Jack had disliked them from the minute they first met, and the feeling had been visibly mutual, Scarlett was happy to add.
In the end, Jack and Scarlett had tracked the witch down first. It was a hard fight, one that had drained and wounded them, but in the end they were able to defeat her. While that should have been the end of things, it sadly wasn’t. No sooner had the witch been bested than Hans and Greta appeared, striking at the two in an ambush. Jack quite proudly noted that he’d managed to put a scar on Hans’s cheek before the altercation was over, but in the end even he couldn’t recover fast enough from the witch fight to claim victory. Hans and Greta managed to escape with the witch’s body, leaving Jack and Scarlett with nothing to show for their efforts save for an abundance of wounds.
“It would have gone differently if Master had allowed me to bring Peter along,” Scarlett said. Several sets of eyes involuntarily darted to deeper into the woods, where a lumbering shape could just barely be seen trailing them. “We were supposed to be learning to rely on just our blades, though, so Jack and I were on our own.”
“Jack got robbed? I can’t believe it.” Marie gave a fake swoon, as though she might fall over at any minute. “I genuinely always thought he’d rather die fighting than part with so much as a single coin.”
For the barest of moments, Scarlett’s face turned toward the ground. “He very well might have, actually, but I’m ashamed to say that Greta scored a deeper wound on me than Jack is letting on. I was hurt in a bad way, and he broke off pursuit to lend me aid.”
“Self-preservation at its finest,” Jack said immediately. “If I’d brought you back as a corpse, our teacher would have cut me into pieces and scattered them to far kingdoms. You were always his favorite; he’d never forgive me for letting you die.”
While everyone nodded, neither Frank nor Marie particularly swallowed the excuse. Loyalty was one of the founding principles of their team, loyalty to the deals they made, and to one another above all else. Given the number of perilous situations they ended up in, it was vital they could trust each other, if no one else. Since Jack had founded the Bastard Champions, the fact that loyalty was baked into its structure belied how devoted Jack could really be when he managed to care about someone. Not that any of them would ever point out such a thing. He was entitled to his pride, after all.
“Interesting.” Frank held up a hand, indicating for everyone to slow their pace.
“Really? It was a decent story, I suppose, although I feel I’ve told far better ones,” Jack said.
“Not you. That.” Frank pointed ahead, deeper into the woods. Everyone else leaned forward, straining their eyes and squinting. Some ways off, barely visible through the foliage, was what looked like some object made of dark metal. That was all they could manage to make out, for while they each had good vision, no one could match what Frank’s eye managed to see.
Marie was the first one to break, because she knew Jack wouldn’t and Scarlett seemed the prideful sort as well. “I give up, what is it?”
“An oven,” Frank replied.
“An oven in the forest?” Marie didn’t doubt him; Frank knew what he saw and he wouldn’t lie in a time like this. Still, that was a rather strange thing to stumble upon. She lifted her head and gave a deep sniff, searching for the scent of a metal, ash, or burning wood. Remnants of those smells lingered in the air, but now that she was paying attention she caught another as well, coming from the same direction.
“The girl who found the witch mentioned an enchanted oven,” Scarlett reminded them. “She said it begged her to take some bread from it, then hid her and ultimately swallowed the witch as thanks. Guess it didn’t hold her for long.”
Another sniff, just to make sure, and this time Marie had no doubts. “We should be wary. I don’t know if it was only the Narrative keeping that girl safe or the witch messed with the enchantment on the talking oven, but I don’t think it’s on our side anymore. I smell blood coming from that direction. Fresh blood.”
“Maybe we could go around?” Scarlett suggested.
All three of the others shook their heads, nearly in unison. It was Frank who bothered to explain their dissent. “We can’t. That’s not the way these things work. We’re on the witch’s grounds now, so we have to face her trials. If we try to avoid it, at best we’ll never find the witch’s lair and at worst we’ll run into something far more perilous than an evil oven.”
With a long, annoyed sigh, Scarlett began trudging forward once more. “This is why Master told us to never fight witches unless we had to.”
“Yet he sent you to hunt one down?” Marie asked.
“Our teacher was a fan of prudence and preparation,” Jack replied. “Just because he didn’t want us going after witches didn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to protect ourselves from them. The one we went after was comparatively weak; she’d even stolen the apple bit from some witch-queen to the west.”
It was hard not to think about the fact that, while Jack and Scarlett had clearly survived, a “weak” witch was able to wound them enough for someone else to steal their prize. Who knew what sort of challenge this one would present? Then again, it wasn’t as if Jack and Scarlett were on their own. They had allies now, powerful ones, and this wasn’t the first time the Bastard Champions had tangled with a witch. Granted, they rarely did it intentionally, more often taking on a job without realizing a witch was at the heart of it, but they’d survived every encounter so far. Even if some of them were a little closer than the trio might have liked.
Reaching the oven didn’t take long; it was almost as if the forest was leading them toward it. As they drew near, it became more and more apparent that something was wrong with the enchanted object. Rust and stains coated its dark exterior, and the door to its inner fires was warped and bloated. No sooner had they stepped into the clearing then that door swung open, allowing a deep, weary voice to speak.
“Halt, travelers. I am the first of the witch’s guardians. You may not go deeper into these woods without my permission. Try, and you will find yourselves here over and over, until your bellies grow empty and your throats crack from thirst. I can only let you past if you feed me. Flesh or novelty, these are your choices.”
Jack stepped forward, seemingly unbothered by the idea of bartering with an inanimate object. “Flesh or novelty? Can you expand upon that?”
“Ten pounds of flesh for each person who wishes to pass, or something I have never tasted before. Put one of those into my belly, and the way will clear for you.”
Now that they were this close, the smell of blood was thick enough for even those without Marie’s nose to pick up. They could also see bits of bone and blood on the ground, as well as a few swords and saws that had apparently broken midway through the process.
“Judging from all the blood around here, I’m guessing more than a few folk have taken the flesh option,” Jack surmised. “Does that mean it’s hard to find something you’ve never tasted?”
“Yes. I was once a stove in a royal palace, made by a talented wizard for a king with great appetites. All things I cooked were made better in my belly, and the chefs filled me every day to prepare great and exotic feasts for the palace.” The warped door drooped a few inches, as if it were frowning. “Those were splendid days, before the war came and the castle burned.”
Jack tapped a finger on his chin for several second, then turned to Frank. “What do you think? If we took off you
r legs that would probably be enough, and I’m sure we’ll find some corpses you can butcher for replacements. But you’d be unable to help much until then, and we’d have to drag you around.”
“It’s not an ideal scenario,” Frank agreed. “Perhaps there is another way. Oven, tell me this, does the novelty we feed you have to be considered food?”
“Nay. The witch didn’t put such a requirement on me when she laid her curse, so anything untasted would work. However, I have lived many centuries and been used for more than my true purpose. More times than I care to admit, I’ve had my dignity sullied by being used as storage. And over the past days many have come, using their materials to gain passage. I have tasted much, so novelty is quite a rare thing.”
“One more question then.” Frank stepped closer, overtaking Jack, and hunkered down a few inches from the oven’s door. “Are you happy like this? As a being created to serve others and abandoned, do you find value in this life, or would you prefer to be freed from it?”
“No axe or blade can destroy me, my shell is too powerful, and my insides burn too hot to strike; they melt any weapon before it can make contact.”
“I can handle the logistics. Just tell me what it is you would like.” Frank’s voice was gentle, more caring than they usually heard from him. For the oven, he’d made an exception, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The two of them were kindred spirits, in a way. Made for a purpose that was long-since past, trying to find their way in the world.
The oven’s door wobbled, as if it were uncertain, before finally responding. “I felt good helping that child, and she told me my bread was delicious. If that were my last memory, I would be happy. But now, what the witch has turned me into… I am an old oven. If there is an afterlife for things such as me, I would like to see my chefs and king once more.”
Carefully, Frank reached into his bag and pulled out a red pouch. Immediately, Jack and Marie took several steps back, with Scarlett quickly taking the hint and following suit. With delicate precision, Frank tied the pouch’s strings to the front of the oven’s door, making sure it would be thrust into the center of the fire once the door shut.
