7. Chapter Seven #2
Chans moved forward as if to start attacking those who remained, but Gunnar stopped him.
“Wait!” he said, his voice vibrating with unspent energy.
“I can feel them. Their panic! I can…” Gunnar focused on one of the witches who remained—a man closest to the dark woods on the far side, who seemed as if he were stuck between fleeing and holding his ground—concentrating on him as if he were trying to create a mind channel to use his metus. But that wasn’t…
The male witch clutched his head and screamed, his panic suddenly heightened to the extreme. “Run! Run! They’re going to kill us all, for the love of Gaia, run!” the man shrieked as he ran off into the woods.
Gunnar’s Power was working on him. But how was that possible?
The binding spell.
When it broke, it must have changed the balance, made it so witches and daemons’ magic worked against one another. That was the only explanation.
Fucking Iblis.
This was about to be a blood bath.
“Our Powers work on them,” Gunnar declared triumphantly, laughing sinisterly. “This changes everything.”
Without preamble, Gunnar took the dagger he held to the girl’s throat and drew it across. Blood poured from her wound, and the young woman collapsed to the ground, her life instantly forfeit.
A screaming wail drew Steig’s attention. The girl’s mother’s grief echoed through the woods, her sadness chilling Steig to the bone.
“Chans—have at them.” Gunnar grinned.
Chans acted now, his Power of maeror latching on to the closest male witch to them, his face in shock as he stared at the girl’s dead body on the ground.
His sadness quickly turned into despair as he collapsed in grief like the mother had, clutching his heart as if it pained him to feel it beating in his own chest.
Steig froze, not knowing whether to run or fight. He didn’t want to be a part of this, didn’t want to hurt them, but before he could decide, the witches fought back.
{Terra} an older female witch called—her voice strong and powerful as it permeated the grove.
A huge chasm opened in the forest floor, the soil ripping apart as if it was nothing but a piece of paper.
Its jagged path cut across the grove, parting the earth right between Steig, Chans, and Gunnar.
Steig felt the earth falling away under him and he nearly lost his balance.
He had just enough presence of mind to jump before the last solid foothold fell away.
Launching himself with all his strength, he just barely caught the edge of the chasm, his body dangling down into the nothingness below him.
Using his fingertips, he pulled himself up onto solid ground.
He turned around to see Gunnar and Chans had barely escaped the chasm, too, and were scrambling up onto the other side of it—but they had no time to rest.
{Ignis} another witch called, and across the chasm, he saw the pine needles on the ground in front of Chans burst into flame, quickly catching the man’s clothing on fire. He cried out in pain, beating wildly at the flames on his pants as they engulfed him.
Gunnar rushed forward towards the witches, focusing his Power on the closest witch in front of him—the one who’d spoken. Gunnar grabbed the man’s shirt as he screamed—panicking—and shielded himself with his arms as urine suddenly soaked the front of his pants.
“Where is Ena!? Where are her daemon companions!?” Gunnar yelled in the man’s face.
“I-I d-don’t—” the man tried to say, but Gunnar didn’t let him finish before he dragged his dagger across the man’s throat and dropped him on the ground like discarded trash.
{Spiritus} a red-haired witch called as the man hit the ground, and Gunnar froze where he stood. He bent over, gasping for breath. He clawed at his throat as if desperate for air—like somehow, all the air had been sucked from his lungs.
“Did you see that?” the young female witch with flaming-red hair shouted. “The spellword, it worked on him! Our magic works on them too!”
“Witches, do not hold back. Protect our Coven!” the matriarch called.
{Ignis} a witch yelled, just as another spoke {Aeris}
Wind stoked flames into a frenzy in front of Steig, blinding him and catching the trees surrounding him on fire. He shielded his eyes, stepping back.
To his left, he saw Chans on fire as vines and roots from the earth slowly crept up him, smothering him.
They covered his charred skin, dotted with fragments of his clothing stuck in it, until he became buried underneath them.
The last thing Steig saw of him was his blackened face, mouth gaping open as he fought for air, the vines and roots constricting him as they squeezed the life from him.
Through the flames in the distance, he saw Gunnar.
He had gotten ahold of the redheaded witch who had used the spellword against him and had two hands around her throat.
The man didn’t see the matriarch come up behind him, vengeance and determination on her face, as she placed a hand on his exposed forearm.
Before his very eyes, Gunnar began to age.
His skin withered, becoming wrinkled and saggy, and his hair grayed, falling out in clumps onto the forest floor.
His muscles weakened until he lost his grip on the woman’s throat as his legs buckled underneath him.
He shrank, his body dying slowly until he was nothing but skin and bones, his mouth gaping open and his eyes filled with the panic he so loved spreading.
He fell face-first into the dirt, the matriarch following him with her hand as his body decayed, muscles and internal organs rotting into the dirt until only bones, some skin, and clothing remained.
Fucking Iblis.
Steig stared at the remains of his body in awe and terror.
What Gift was that?
Then, suddenly, everything went silent in the grove.
No screaming, no sounds of any kind. It lingered for several seconds, just long enough for Steig to wonder if he was going mad, until all of a sudden it was as if all the sound that had been held back burst forth onto him.
Steig clutched his ears, feeling them begin to bleed from the deafening roar that met him—screaming, yelling, breaking, fire crackling, the rushing of the river.
He looked up to see a tall, thin man with brown hair part the flames, approaching him with a menacing look, concentrating on him as he fell to his knees from the pain in his ears.
Steig looked up with fear in his throat as the matriarch approached him next, joining the tall man who stood before him, holding him captive with the torturous sounds. He wanted to fight but the overwhelming cacophony that assaulted him was so painful he could barely think.
“Stop! Please! I’m Ena’s friend! I helped her in the Underworld!” he yelled. He repeated it, over and over, hoping they could hear him over the deafening sounds and believe him, when suddenly, the noises stopped.
“What did you say?” the tall man asked suspiciously.
He released his hands from over his ears, letting them fall to the ground as he steadied himself, the relief overwhelming.
He looked up to see the matriarch, her eyes shrewd and unconvinced, but he took the opportunity to keep talking.
He had no idea if Ty and Ena had been here, but chances were good that they’d made contact somehow, and if they knew of their goal with the amulet, then maybe she’d give Steig a chance.
“Please, I’m not with the other two. I’m Ty and Ena’s friend. My name is Steig, and I came here to warn them. Warn you,” he said breathlessly.
“Warn them of what?” she asked.
“That Cole, the king, is coming after them. But I won’t let them be taken. I swear I wanted none of this to happen.”
The matriarch and the tall man paused, the silence of their judgment deafening after the onslaught he’d experienced.
“I think he’s telling the truth,” the tall man said. “My Knowing says so.”
“Mine too,” the matriarch corroborated. “But we can’t rely on that alone.”
The flames had died down in the forest, and the other witches began to surround them now, watching.
“Greya, what do we do with him?” the one with flaming-red hair said, her voice rough from the injuries Gunnar had dealt her.
Greya sighed, clearly torn between murdering him outright in retribution and changing her course of action. At first, he thought she would order his death right then and there—no mercy, that was the daemonic way.
But instead, the next words she spoke brought him both relief and dread at the same time.
“If he is telling the truth, we’ll keep him,” she said, speaking evenly and decisively. “And hold him prisoner until we can decide what to do with him.”