Minu, p.1
Minu, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by S.K. Ehra
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To Florence
1
The Fen Witch
Taniel pressed a hand to his swelling jaw, wincing at the sting. His skull no longer throbbed from the heavy-handed blow, but the entire left side of his face was stiff beneath a blossoming bruise. The rest of him felt little better. He sat rigid to resist the rickety wagon’s bump and sway, aggravated by the wheels’ uncanny knack to catch every rut along the uneven country road. Farms bordered the hard-packed dirt, songbirds flitted through orchards of fig and apple growing in long, tidy rows, and goats grazed in fields rolling into woodland-shadowed hills unfurling with the soft gold-green of early spring.
The farmer driving the wagon whistled a cheerful tune, flicking the reins to encourage the dray horse’s steady plod. Taniel’s three companions crammed into the back of the cart were unaffected by the farmer’s light mood. They sat in silence, gazes hard and mouths thin.
The cart wheels caught another depression and Taniel stifled a grunt. The jolt rattled every bone-deep bruise covering his ribs and back—courtesy of being tossed down the street stairs inconveniently close to the Top Step Tavern’s entrance. The people of Chahich were friendly to strangers and tolerant of nosiness, but unforgiving of a nosy stranger who trespassed too far into taboo topics. Taniel had shown too much interest in the Fen Witch living in the marshes north of the rural town for the locals’ liking, and they were fiercely protective of their elusive enchantress.
“We got no need for strangers who don’t know to leave well enough alone,” one of the men who’d tossed him down the stone stairs had hollered after him.
Taniel had done his best to muster some dignity as he staggered to his feet, clothes torn and blood-spattered. He cursed the fiend who’d opened a drinking establishment so close to the steep steps as he limped away under the jeers and bottles thrown to hasten his leaving. There was no doubt he was far from the tavern’s first visitor to experience such unceremonious ejection. The men had been too well-practiced in their handling of an outsider asking too many of the wrong questions.
Suffering the shamed retreat, he better understood how Nesrin must have felt four years ago when his father had caught them together in his bed, returned from a job days earlier than Taniel anticipated. Her departure had been turned into a very public affair. His father shouting his disapproval of the relationship had drawn out the neighbors of the nearby flats. Curious heads had poked around doors and out windows to better witness the commotion.
Taniel and Nesrin had terrible luck as lovers; first discovered by his father, then her cousin Suri, two of Taniel’s university professors, and an elderly lady at Gohar’s Autumnal Festival who only nodded and went on her way. Seraphs bless the woman, as Nesrin had agreed to marry him despite their clumsy courtship. Saying marital vows had failed to grace them a lesser chance of being interrupted in intimacy, a consequence of Nesrin insisting Suri—who never remembered to knock—move in with them.
The wagon rocked, jarring the wooden edge into the knotted mass of bruising over Taniel’s right ribs. He cursed beneath his breath. No matter how he sat, there was no escaping the wagon’s eagerness to exaggerate the road’s every irregularity.
“We’ll get you some meat to slap on that eye once we get back,” Tiran said, his smooth baritone at odds with his grizzled appearance. His hair had gone grey early and stubbornly refused to soften to white. Four thick scars sliced through the deep lines creasing his brow to end above his right eye and he had the hollow-cheeked look of a starving man.
If Tiran had been sent to the tavern, no one would have manhandled him. But no one would have talked to him either. All the patrons would’ve gone silent, claimed ignorance, or outright refused to speak to the tall, gaunt man who was so obviously a Purger.
Purger. Burner. Witch-Hunter. They were known by an endless litany of names. Regardless of what they were called, or whether they were summoned to a sprawling city like Gohar, or a country town like Chahich at the doorstep to the northern mountains, Purgers like Tiran were recognized wherever they went. Reception ranged from admiration, to cool tolerance, to the open hostility Taniel had found in Chahich. Men who fought monsters, exorcised demons, and slew dark witches received a welcome as varied as the quarry they hunted. Even in the towns where folk were pleased to see them arrive, people were always happier to see them leave.
The wagon carried them past a wooden post with the top carved into a female figure. Inscriptions ran the wood’s length, asking blessing from the woman in the marshes for good health and harvest, and flower offerings were laid at the post’s base.
“These farmers are fond of their Fen Witch,” Aryeh said, cleaning one of the many knives lining his cloak. A rune marked each weapon; some allowed the blade to cut through magic, others revealed its presence. All could kill monster or man that had trespassed beyond the natural.
Aryeh bore striking resemblance to the blades he cared for—thin, sharp features, and a tongue as cutting as a knife’s edge. His black hair had begun to recede and the angular pattern of retreat emphasized his narrow face and the crow’s feet scratched into the corners of black, watchful eyes.
“If she’s what they claim her to be, they have every reason to be fond of her,” Sariel said. “And a simple hedgewitch is probably all she is.”
Taniel frowned. His father used that tone of forced casualness when he hid something. Five years of working together had Taniel well-trained to hear when his father lied or attempted to shelter him from darker truths. Aryeh’s stony expression and Tiran’s mirroring frown confirmed what Taniel suspected. They all thought Chahich’s Fen Witch a graver threat than rumor told.
There were over half a dozen dark witches his father had been hunting through the years. It was well-known to be Sariel Sushan’s specialty and there was no shortage of requests for his work. The question was, which did he believe Chahich’s Fen Witch to be?
For sixty years—a decade longer than his father’s memory—the Fen Witch, as the locals called her, had lived in the Beka Valley marshes at the northern mountain’s roots. For fifty years, her presence had been tolerated. The farmers quickly learned attempting to tame the wildlands too close to her home resulted in their livestock dead of sudden illness, their children too frightened of a nameless presence to play in the fields, and their nights haunted by living shade that crept beneath doors to breed fearful unease. The hardships drove the farmers and their families away. Their tales attracted a different sort of daring spirit. Young men had set out into the marshes, thirsting to prove their bravery and earn the offered bounty on the witch. The older men in their hard-learned wisdom moved homesteads farther from the marshes as the young men ventured forth. Those wizened farmers and woodsmen were the ones who went searching for the overeager young men. They always found them, wandering the woods and fields, naked, confused, and filthy, but otherwise unharmed.
In the following forty years, the fear and mystery surrounding the Fen Witch had dwindled. She went from an existential threat to a concern occasionally brought up in town halls and at the women’s circle. The menace of her presence diminished to little more than a topic for tavern gossip, and then a name to frighten children into behaving. The people of Chahich long ago decided she wasn’t a dark witch, just a reclusive one, and as long as she was left alone they found their valley blessed. Farmers’ fields established a comfortable distance from the marshes grew fertile and full. Sickness disappeared from Chahich and her sister towns. Lost travelers who strayed from the mountain roads told of a dancing light that led them through the forests, away from the marshes, and to the nearest homestead.
Chahich’s custom of offering the Fen Witch part of the harvest on the equinoxes had evolved to erecting a shrine for her at the marshes’ edge, directly imploring her favor. Local legend claimed if you left her an offering and did not trespass beyond the shrine, fortune awaited you in the coming year. Not everyone in Chahich worshipped her, but all agreed the Fen Witch was good to have around, if always at a safe distance.
That was until six months ago, when the fortunes of travelers changed. The ill-fated souls on the paths winding too close to the marshes were no longer guided away. They were discovered torn to bloody ribbons on the roadside, if they were found at all. Chahich’s quiet streets boasted a disquieting number of posters featuring missing persons last seen in or headed toward the town.
Taniel had asked the men at the Top Step Tavern about this, masking his inquiries as worry for what a traveler like him faced should he venture northward. The locals had defended their witch, claiming it wasn’t her behind the killings. She’d never harmed anyone before. Not like that. It was probably a karakin, an archura, or shurala. That no one bothered to pretend it was a natural predator was telling.
But karakins did not cause pale light to rise above marshes or send red-tinged fog creeping from the reeds to stalk farmers in their fields with disturbing intelligence. Archuras and shuralas were noisy creatures, their terrible cries turning the hardest of men cold with terror. The evil settled into the Beka Valley had turned it tomb-silent. The frogs, insects, and birds that had sung from the tall grasses and trees were gone, and no one remembered when they first noticed the deathly stillness.
Taniel pointing out it could be none of the suggested creatures spurred one man to accuse him of being a Witch-Hunter. At this, the tavern keeper’s ruddy face blanched. Tired of seeing the faces of travelers in his tavern end up on missing posters, he’d been the one to call the Purgers in.
Taniel ensured the patrons’ ire stayed on him, not wanting the well-intentioned keeper to suffer their wrath. He admitted he was a Purger and accused the townsfolk of sheltering a dark witch at the cost of who knew how many lives. The men who had chatted comfortably with him moments ago turned hostile gazes on him. The scuffle was brief; many hands made quick work of removing his unwanted voice from the tavern. One of the larger men grabbed him by the shirt collar, and Taniel’s refusal to cooperate under mob judgment earned him a stunning blow across the jaw from a second man, and a third man’s fist to the stomach before being flung down the stone steps.
The wagon bounced again and Taniel hissed. He’d be a mess of black and blue by tomorrow.
“The boy should sit this one out.” Aryeh gave Taniel a disapproving glance. “Should’ve left him at the town.”
Taniel had yet to earn the respect from Aryeh to be recognized by name. He was either “the boy” or “the whelp” depending on Aryeh’s mood. In a way, Taniel appreciated the thin man’s reserve. Being Sariel Sushan’s son was insufficient to convince him that Taniel deserved a place among them. Yet after five years, Taniel thought he’d earned at least a small bit of that elusive respect.
“I’m fine,” Taniel said, seeing his father considering Aryeh’s words.
“My missus can patch your boy up,” the farmer driving the wagon said. “Our last two boys went off to trade school last season so she’s achin’ for a young one to fuss over.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine,” Taniel repeated hotly. At twenty-three, he was hardly a “young one,” and a farmwife clucking over him promised to set him back months in getting his fellow Purgers to see him as more than Sariel’s son. That Tiran had known him since before he could walk did nothing to help in proving himself a man.
“You can scarce sit still without yelping,” Aryeh said. “What are you going to do when the Fen Witch—”
“Aryeh,” Sariel warned.
“Don’t see why any of you need go out to the marsh,” the farmer said. “The Fen Witch ain’t botherin’ no one so long as no one bothers her.”
“Our only interest in the Fen Witch is if she knows what’s plaguing the mountain passes,” Sariel said.
Again, Taniel heard the lie beneath his father’s soothing tone.
“It’s some man-wolf or the like,” the farmer said. “Somethin’ that’ll only take a bit of silver and a good shot with a rifle. Not a whole band of Witch-Hunters.”
Pulling on the horse’s reins, the farmer slowed the wagon to a stop at the lane’s end. A farmhouse sat nestled beside an orchard surrounded by fields speckled green with shoots of barley. The dirt road they traveled narrowed to a path cutting through untamed meadow before disappearing into a wilderness of ash and black sallow. Beneath the tree closest to the end of true road rested a shrine—an unremarkable stone piling in the semblance of a house where offerings were placed.
“Far as I go,” the farmer said. “They say she’s got a hut just beyond that ridge, but I don’t know how anyone knows that. No one’s made it through the marshes since before I was born.”
“Thank you.” Sariel swung out of the wagon, smooth in his movements despite having passed his fiftieth year. He tossed the farmer a bag of coins that jingled generously when caught.
“There’s no need for that,” the farmer said. “It was hardly a service and no sacrifice on my part.”
“I pay for any service given, whether it was sacrifice or not,” Sariel said.
Taniel hoped his father arguing the farmer into keeping the payment distracted him from seeing his limp when he clambered from the wagon. He fooled no one. Not even the farmer.
“Your boy’s welcome to stay ’til you return,” the farmer said. “Fair warning, I can’t promise you won’t come back to find him spoiled. My wife ruined three of our children through her dotin’.”
“Thank you, but I’m alright,” Taniel said. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Then I expect all of you back this evening,” the farmer said. “I won’t be goin’ to town ’til the morrow, so I’ll have the wife prepare a dinner, she always cooks too much anyway, and I’ll take you to town in the morning.”
“The gods bless you and your kindness, stranger,” Sariel said. “What name may I have to pray for you and your family?”
“Vardan,” the farmer said.
“Taniel, go with Vardan,” Sariel said.
“I said I’m—”
“This isn’t a discussion, son,” Sariel said, and there was a lot of warning loaded in the word “son.”
“But—”
“Talk back to me again and I’ll send you back to Gohar.”
Taniel bit his tongue. Since he began working as a Purger, his father had only threatened to send him home six times. Four of those had been in the first six months, and Taniel had learned the first time when his father saw the threat through not to push him. He hated how his father continued to treat him like a child. Almost as much as he hated Aryeh’s smirk—the closest the man ever came to smiling—at the silent exchange of glares between father and son.
“We’ll be back.” His father turned from Taniel in a final dismissal, and gave a farewell nod to Vardan.
The dust the men’s feet kicked up tasted bitter as Taniel stood at the roadside, watching them leave him behind like the child they thought he was.
2
Ill-Magic
Ash and sallow twined together, trapping mist in their leaves and sheltering the wisps of grey pooling over the ground. Sariel’s heart drummed in anticipation of the hunt, and his skin prickled under the faint traces of ill-magic hidden behind black boughs and hazy shroud.
“When will you admit Taniel’s not a boy anymore?” Tiran asked.
Aryeh snorted. “He’s certainly not a man. The whelp hardly needs to shave.”
“I’d leave either of you two behind if you were as bloodied as he is,” Sariel said.
“No,” Tiran said, “you wouldn’t.”
Sariel would never admit Tiran was right. No more than he’d admit how glad he was he’d left his son with Vardan, or admit the choice had been one of a father, not a Purger. He knew he’d made the right choice in sending his son away when tinges of red polluted the thickening mist.
“That is, you wouldn’t have ordered one of us to stay behind unless you thought we were facing more than a backwater hedgewitch.” Tiran spoke softer in acknowledgment of the unnatural presence festering in the marsh.
“Ah, stop being such a woman, skirting around what we all know,” Aryeh said. “We all think it’s Minu.”
“It does feel like her.” Sariel glanced at Aryeh who nodded, running his thumb over his lips as if to rub away a bad taste. While Sariel lacked Aryeh’s Sight—the ability to see sorcery and unnatural powers hidden from mortal eyes—he could still sense its presence. Decades of hunting dark witches and unholy creatures had sensitized him to the slightest prickle of ill-sorcery. The thrumming power soaked into the valley’s marshland was far fouler than that of a simple witch seeking solitude, and it was undeniably familiar. The way Sariel’s skin rose as if under a lover’s touch was too close to what Minu’s sorcery inspired to be coincidence.
“Sariel hopes every witch is Minu,” Tiran teased. “And Minu hopes just as much every Purger who comes after her is Sariel. Honestly, the two of you should hurry up and bed each other so we can end this game of chase.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Aryeh spat. “Taking a dark witch into your bed, might as well take a shurala.”
“Some people like the exotic,” Tiran said.
“Enough,” Sariel said. He had no patience for the black humor that preceded their hunts. None of them could afford distraction. The rising shroud of bloodied mist veiled more than sight; it felt eager to muffle all his senses, turning him deaf and dumb.
The willow and ash trees thinned, and the narrow trail was swallowed by a sea of high grass and cattail with thickets of gnarled swamp oak and bone-white aspen. The marsh was unbearably quiet, the silent space between a breath and scream. No wrens sang. No frogs croaked from the reeds. Not even insects hummed in the rushes or skittered across the black water. The soft earth sighing beneath his steps was too loud here where the slightest sound was an unwelcome affront against a baleful want for stillness.
