The Last Witch Hunt

The Last Witch Hunt

This small world was his plaything. With outstretched fingers, he picked at oceans and continents like a child pointing at an insect. People and places flashed before his eyes. He dismissed them, flicking from one person to the next.

The dark chamber was unlit save for dull lanterns in each of the four corners. A soldier came walking in, squinting into the dimmed room at the silhouette of a man with his back turned, facing a globe floating at waist height. The man wore plain but clean clothes, with neat hair and finely polished shoes. He looked ready to prepare for a ceremony, but composure and posture he did not have. He hunched at times, crooked his elbows, and curled his fingers, grunting as his hands darted around the globe. The soldier did not know what to say. He could only wait. He saw nothing in this globe.

But to the highborn noble, the globe was alive and teeming with winds, tides, birds soaring, people running, tranquil moments then the crash of thunderstorm. The globe showed him the world as it was truly was, beyond what his own eyes could see, from the highest mountain peak to the deepest cavern. Talfred belonged to the caste that could use the Seeing Stones. His people had many gifts that only they could use, for they were blessed. They were Galorians, believing dominion over all Panerica was their birthright. Anyone who did not think they were descended from the gods was a heretic. He whirled around with bloodshot eyes that could not even meet those of the soldier’s, too tired to focus on conversing with the lowly, unblessed folk.

“I have found them, Galar!” he boomed triumphantly.

“They call themselves the Soul Stealers, and they have gathered in a forest in the Middle Wilderness, where the ancient kingdom of Tavildor once was. Go there now, before they elude us again!”

“Yes, Lord Talfred,” Galar said, clicking his heels together and walking away, the sound of Talfred’s cackling following him out of the chamber.

Galar breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the light again, rays of light lining the corridor in front of him. He was in combat gear, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. Galorians strode past, clutching books and artefacts, handed to them as heirlooms for hundreds, or even thousands of years. They believed that their hereditary gifts, their Seeing Stones, their ability to travel through Doors that spanned the world instantaneously, their metalworking and enchanting, was bestowed upon them by the gods. They all traced their lineage back to the island of Galoria, which in their tongue meant ‘Blessed Isle’. It was in the palace of this island that Galar found himself now, doing their bidding as one of their most loyal fighters. But was it out of loyalty for the gods? Or for his own honour? They milled around halls and libraries and laboratories, clad in gold and silver to show their fascination with the sun and stars, green to show their understanding of all that grew, blue and black for their boldness in exploring the deepest oceans and the inky vastness of the night sky. However, they never wore red. Red was blood, blood was violence and destruction, and most of all was the colour of heretical magic. Primitive rituals of barbarians who did not see the Galorians as the true heirs to the gods, instead they followed the path of Rebulon, the sorcerer from millennia ago who used foul magic to kill and enslave all in his path. The High Council of Galoria killed him at last, and saved Panerica, forever grateful to the people of Panerica. Centuries passed, and Galoria reworked and retold the stories of how they finally won. Rebulon’s defeat was the pretext for their entire kingdom.

A calm breeze blew over Galar Xavios as he stepped outside onto the hangar bay, his comrades packing their bags into their gunship. They were the Witch Hunters, sent to kill the heretics who practised magic in any form, and among the Witch Hunters Galar was their best, coldest and most cunning fighter. Dark hair tied back and a stern, thin face, with skin thinner too, and a dark brown uniform. He hefted his trident gun. “To Tavildor.”

Like the dragons thousands of years before, the gunship leapt off the landing bay and across the ocean, engines roaring, a beast in pursuit of prey.

The ocean rippled beneath the Witch Hunters. Galar stared into the abyss. He dove there once before, fighting horrors unimaginable in those waters. The foamy beach slid across his view. He had been here, too, standing on the shoreline, gazing at the boundaries of civilisation. Fields and trees sped by, each one sending him back to days he once prowled there, hunting his enemies. All his life, he fought and killed to build the dreams of people like Talfred, men and women who believed they were reshaping the world in the image of the four gods, whose names translated to the very essence of what they manifested: Strength, Truth, Justice, and Mortality. Every child in every land in Panerica was taught that only by mastering the first three could they begin to understand the last one. Galar and some of the older Witch Hunters laughed at that. The Galorians and their priests only knew death in their old age; if they wanted to learn more, they could ask the soldiers that did the killing for them.

Towns and cities bustled below, linked by road and rail tracks. Above, ships crisscrossed the sky, including Galar’s. At last, they were near to their destination, a blotch in the centre of the Forthracian continent, the Middle Wilderness. Once it was the breeding ground of monsters that now survived only in children’s stories. Creatures foul and fey; ugly and beautiful; brutish and honourable, all manner of things once flourished in the heart of Forthrax. They roamed elsewhere too, across all Panerica for that matter, but as the years flew by, they retreated here.

Forests, streams and fields, hills and caves, all rushed underneath them as they flew by. Each one brought back a memory of a battle Galar once fought. Ogres, minotaurs, faeries, witches, druids, he had seen his fair share of all of these, and worse. A black shape rose above the trees in the distance. It was the Black Keep. Humanity built this castle as the bastion of defence against the monsters. Legend said that the province had a champion, Gollodus Venhelm, who started out as a soldier and worked his way up to the personal protector of the steward of the Black Keep, then after that he became a much-loved king of all Forthrax after saving all peoples during a terrible war. Legend also said that before even Venhelm, there was a necromancer called Fulmenor who built a crypt here, and it was upon the site of this crypt that the Black Keep was built. That might have explained why these so-called Soul Stealers were here. All these stories were from a time so far past that not even the Seeing Stones could remember; even the children of the gods, it seemed, had limits. Talfred was madder than ever before when he sent the Witch Hunters on this particular mission. Of all the magics, Galorians hated necromancy the most. They respected mortality, the gift of life itself, and its eventual end, but they too yearned to defy it. Necromancy, on the other hand, made a mockery of life. No, if the Galorians were going to achieve immortality, it had to be a way of their making. They wanted to find a way, with their gifts from the gods, to elevate their minds above their fragile bodies, into a higher plane of consciousness. Galar wondered, as other Witch Hunters did, whether they would share this dream with the rest of humanity, if they ever discovered it. The Galorians insisted this would be for all humanity, and people mostly believed them. At least, they wanted to believe.

Galar recoiled and covered his ears as screeches pierced the ship and dug into his ears. Other Witch Hunters tried to do the same, looking this way and that.

“They know we’re coming!”

What was this? What was shrieking at them? Would it ever end?

The cacophony was no longer outside the gunship. Shadows danced across the deck. Strange yet somehow familiar shapes whirled from one window to another. The Witch Hunters brandished their knives. Even on the brink of insanity, they still knew not to use their guns inside their own ship. They went berserk. With every jab the howling swarm just grew louder and faster. Galar knew what these were. Faint outlines of people who once lived. The Soul Stealers had sent ghosts to infiltrate their ship and bring it down. The pilot was only using one hand to steer; he was hiding his face in the crook of the elbow of his other arm. Galar stopped trying to fight the tormented souls and ran to the medic kit. Once he got the syringe he was after, he sprinted to the cockpit and stuck it in the pilot’s arm.

“Sorry, Zareth.”

As Zareth grabbed the controls, Galar held on to a ceiling bar as the ship swerved and dived towards the Black Keep. A steady thump-thump-thump joined the chorus of shrieks. Galar’s left ear felt like it would burst. He turned his head and jolted back as he came face to face with one of the ghosts, its face locked in an expression of anger and pain, eyes wide open but completely lifeless. Galar lunged with his trident, but his adversary didn’t seem to be there; the visage still floated in front of him but seemed untouchable. It was closer, yet impossible to reach. The world around him was fading. Then suddenly the face was gone. The screams turned to echoes and were silenced.

“I think you got them, Zareth!”

“No, I haven’t!” Zareth screamed, still firing at the ruins of the old castle. Stone and foliage flew everywhere below.

“What did you give him, Galar?!”

Galar reached back into the kit and got another syringe. “Just a simple hallucinogen, Domas. The ghosts were messing with our minds, so I thought with the right drug I could cancel it out.”

“You’d better drug him back before we crash!”

“No time. You fly, Domas.”

Galar tranquilised Zareth and unstrapped him from the pilot’s seat. Domas threw himself in Zareth’s place and halted the ship.

“Now, then!” Galar said, opening the rear door of the ship. “Zareth must have killed whoever summoned the ghosts. Jetpacks, everyone! Let’s finish them off before they try anything else. Fly!” The voice recognition system sparked the jetpack into take-off upon hearing that last word. They all filed out and swooped down to the Black Keep. Freshly made debris and corpses lay strewn across the forest floor. The Soul Stealers clambered out of the rubble and gnarled branches of the ancient forest. They were a grim mix of black and grey robes, snarling feral chants at their killers. The Witch Hunters tilted their jetpacks up and lowered the thrust until they gently touched the ground. Time to start shooting.

Barrels flashed everywhere in the dark forest. Robes and flesh shredded under the crackling of the guns. But it would not be over as quickly as hoped. Skeletons and lifeless, rotting bodies sprung up latched onto the Witch Hunters. Galar kicked a one-armed corpse away and pinned it to a tree with his trident. A skeleton clattered behind him with a rusty blade. Galar released the zombie and swung his trident round, and with a smash he sent shards of bone into the air. The skull rolled silently into the mud.

“Don’t fight the dead! Kill the Soul Stealers!” He shouted, cursing. They should have stayed in the ship. Then again, they had to act cautiously if the ghosts were to return. Ten hunched decrepit Soul Stealers circled round a burial site and chanted the chorus of a ritual once thought forgotten. Galar lined up one in his sights and pulled the trigger. An acolyte jumped in the way. The bullet punched back his head and the hood flew up, revealing a bald and pale head. Galar shot again without batting an eyelid, but a throng of zombies clambered over the new corpse, flinching at the impacts but closing in on him. Howls and chants interlaced the air, and a mist descended upon the gnarled tendrils of the forest. He had heard these chants before; they were reciting from a text written in blood upon the Monoliths of the Rust Desert. Galar and the Witch Hunters had destroyed them, but their words survived in the tongues of madmen. In a cloud of dirt, a heaving crowd of bodies burst from the burial mound and descended upon the Witch Hunters. They had to act quickly. Galar’s footing brought him side by side with his fellow Witch Hunters. He emptied his gun into the swarm, slowing them down, but not by much. Wherever he saw scurrying feet or limbs through the crowd, he knew it to be too agile to be dead. They cried out as he crippled them, then disappeared behind the trampling of rotting flesh and bone. Suddenly a column of smoke and flame lanced through the middle of the horde, scattering bodies and mud in its path. A grenade.

One grey-robes was suspiciously running away.

Galar lined him in his sight.

A bloodied black-robes rushed him, his chest blown open from Zareth’s salvo, only recently reanimated. After a bang, black-robes jerked back, another hole, this time in his shoulder. Galar swung his trident and caught him under the chin, knocking him down. He swore. Grey-robes had gone. Time to act fast. He changed hands. Black-robes crawled for his legs and a zombie lurched at him at the same time. He stood on the Soul Stealer’s head and shoved the zombie away with his empty hand. There’s one. He quickly spun the trident round and primed the gun. One shot added to the melee of gunfire, and a Soul Stealer collapsed, slumping against a low wall. Galar sidestepped both dead adversaries and focused on another target. Another shot, another kill. Unfortunately, the dead kept rising. And like in the ship, the screams were getting closer and louder. Soon the ghosts would be upon them again. He wove through the battle, shooting and stopping only when necessary.

“Got you.”

Grey-robes was hiding at the edge of the site, spouting words foul and arcane. Galar sighted him and emptied his clips at him. The Soul Stealer held up his hands, and with a flash of un-light the bullets were diverted by the time they fired and flew harmlessly into the trees. Another word from him and Galar was dragged to his knees, unable to move any further, his gun crushed and twisted, never to fire again. Guns blazed around them, but nothing reached this Soul Stealer. He was the one behind it all. A crowd rose around them, then expanded outwards. A quarter of the Soul Stealers remained, forming a circle with them in the middle, their dead minions forming the outside ring. A zombie bent over; mouth wide open, ready to bite Galar. Grey-robes waved a hand, diverting the zombie back to the circle.

“Your soul is so sharp, so cunning,” the madman cackled, “One in a thousand. You are mine!”

His hood had fallen back, the last of his curly grey hair hanging pathetically from his gaunt face.

“Your reign ended long ago,” Galar snarled, leaping toward him. The spell would not allow him to go further, and he fell flat on his chest. The Soul Stealer laughed, reaching out with both hands. This was the beginning of the soul stealing. The wailing reached a deafening peak as the ghosts came back, the lost souls of countless warriors who had fallen in countless battles in Tavildor. This place was the site of battle and bloodshed across the millennia. Galar felt his very essence slipping away, strength and will in both body and mind fading away.

“Fly!”

His voice activated jetpack propelled him forward in a final burst, straight into the Soul Stealer.

“Be still-”

Grey-robes was knocked down from the impact, bruising them both. Galar’s head pounded as his blood came flooding back, the binding spell broken. With a cry of pain, relief and anger, he spun his trident round and rammed the prongs straight through the Soul Stealer’s chest. Blood rolled down his chin. The screams of the ghosts faded into the distance, dragged back to the eternity of the final, true death, replaced by cries of anguish and pain of the still-living Soul Stealers. Bones clattered and zombies flopped helplessly into the ground, bullets tearing flesh everywhere. Galar knelt down to avoid all the bullets, and to reiterate to his enemy, “Your reign ended long ago.”

The Soul Stealer beneath him choked for breath. “Take the last… of us… the Land of the Dead.”

The final shot was fired, and the guns fell silent. There was nobody left to shoot.

Galar hauled himself back up and pulled his trident away, leaving another trail of blood down his foe’s chest. “Land of the Dead?”

The Soul Stealer’s eyes rolled back and at last saw death in its truest form.

None of the cheers from the other Witch Hunters could warm Galar’s heart, nor could the triumphant roars of the gunships engines as it lowered to the ground to take them home. The only life he had known was a childhood devoted to study of technology and fighting, then he took this path of hunting and killing as a man. Witches and monsters grew more scarce year by year. He was happy the world was rid of them. And yet…

“Aren’t you coming back, Galar?” Zareth quipped, eliciting chuckles from the others.

Galar trudged lifelessly into the ship, his limbs numb, his senses dull. He felt no energy, but he didn’t feel weary either. By all the gods, what was wrong with him?

He hissed as he sat down in passenger seat. The mass of bruises reminded him of his recent encounter. The Witch Hunters beside him bore fresh scars that glistened in the setting sun. The cabin of the ship shone orange and red. Perhaps he could not bear to have his every movement and word observed from afar. Nor could he share the euphoria of the rulers that had sent him to fight. Surely, he felt at least a little bit of pride to serve the children of the gods?!

The ocean swept into view beneath him, the speck ahead beckoning them, back to the majesty and splendour of their masters’ palace. Shafts of sunset engulfed the Witch Hunters, but they had not the will to turn away. Were they truly serving humanity?