A Covenant in Combustion

"If that is the case, then why did they take my sister?" Zorna asked, her voice carrying a mixture of confusion and anger. She had been listening carefully to Hans’s explanation, but something about it did not make sense to her. The witches were supposedly collecting children for a ritual, and Trauna was far too old to be considered one of them. If the witches needed a hundred children, there should have been no reason to waste their time kidnapping an adult wolf beastkin.

Hans looked toward her. "Is your sister a child?"

"Of course not."

"Then the only reason I can think of is that they couldn’t kill her themselves." His expression hardened as he glanced deeper into the forest. "She must have gotten in their way, so they decided to keep her alive until Walpurgis awakened. Once the ritual was complete, they could simply offer your sister to her."

Zorna’s ears flattened.

"The same thing happened to my sister," Hans added, and for the first time Helmut could see genuine anger burning beneath the witch hunter’s normally controlled expression. "They took Margaret because we were interfering with them."

Zorna clenched her fists.

"I won’t let that happen."

She suddenly turned her head and took a deep breath. Her nose moved slightly as she searched through the countless scents that surrounded them. The Dark Brocken Forest smelled of damp earth, smoke, blood, and something older that Helmut could not identify, but Zorna seemed capable of separating every scent individually. She breathed again, deeper this time, and then her eyes widened.

"My King," she said, looking toward Helmut. "Trauna is over there."

Before Helmut could answer, Zorna was already running.

Helmut and Hans immediately followed her through the trees, with the Kolossal Knight moving behind them. The deeper they went, the stranger the forest became. The trees grew twisted and unnaturally close together, their branches forming a ceiling so thick that almost no moonlight could reach the ground. Smoke drifted through the branches, carrying the smell of burning wood. Helmut could hear distant voices chanting somewhere ahead, their words indistinct but rhythmic, as though an entire congregation were performing some ancient ceremony.

The three of them stopped.

They had reached the center of the Dark Brocken Forest.

A massive circular clearing stretched before them, surrounded by dozens of blackened trees. At its center stood an enormous stone statue depicting a nun with her head lowered and both arms extended outward. Her expression was peaceful, almost gentle, and there was something unsettling about the way she appeared to be watching the ritual taking place beneath her.

A large fire burned directly in front of the statue.

Dozens of witches surrounded it.

They were dressed in the same dark robes as the witches Helmut had encountered throughout the forest, and all of them were kneeling, raising their hands toward the flames while chanting in unison. Their voices blended together into an unpleasant murmur that seemed to vibrate through the ground.

Helmut’s attention shifted beyond them.

Cages had been arranged around the clearing and the Children were trapped inside.

Some were crying. Others were too frightened to make a sound. Several clung to the bars while calling for their parents, while others simply sat in the corners of their cages with their knees pressed against their chests.

Then Helmut saw something else.

A mountain of bodies lay piled near the edge of the ritual circle.

They were also children.

Some were so badly decomposed that it was impossible to determine how long they had been there. Others had clearly been killed recently. Their small bodies had been discarded as though they were nothing more than disposable trash.

Helmut’s stomach twisted.

For a moment, he could only stare.

The sight filled him with disgust, but beneath that disgust came something colder. The witches had gathered all these children for a purpose, and the hundreds of empty cages and dead bodies made the truth impossible to ignore.

A witch suddenly grabbed one of the children.

The girl screamed as the witch dragged her toward a stone altar positioned beside the flames.

"Please! Don’t!"

The witch forced her onto the altar and raised a knife.

A gunshot shattered the chanting.

The witch’s head snapped backward.

She collapsed beside the altar before she could bring the blade down.

Hans stood with one flintlock raised, smoke drifting from its barrel.

Every witch in the clearing turned toward them.

Silence fell.

Hans slowly lowered the weapon.

Helmut looked at him and Hans looked back.

There was no hesitation in his expression.

He had seen this before.

He had fought these witches before.

And he was finished allowing them to continue.

Zorna suddenly looked across the clearing.

Her eyes widened.

"Trauna."

Helmut followed her gaze.

At the far side of the ritual circle, several prisoners had been tied to wooden structures. Trauna was among them, her hands bound above her head as she hung unconscious from the restraints. Beside her were eight other captives, including Margaret.

Hans froze when he saw her.

"Margaret…"

For the first time since Helmut had met him, the young witch hunter’s voice trembled.

The witches slowly rose from their positions.

There were too many of them to count.

Their eyes were fixed on the intruders, and Helmut could feel their hatred from across the clearing. Then the crowd began to separate.

Someone walked through them.

She was taller than the other witches and carried herself with an authority that immediately marked her as their leader. Helmut expected someone striking when she finally removed her hood, but there was nothing particularly unusual about her appearance. She looked like the other witches, perhaps older, perhaps simply more confident.

She stepped forward.

"My name is—"

Hans fired.

The flintlock exploded with a sharp crack.

The witch leader fell before she could finish introducing herself.

Helmut and Zorna stared at Hans.

The remaining witches stared at their fallen leader.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Hans calmly lowered his flintlock and began reloading.

Helmut could not help thinking that the young man had developed a very direct approach to introductions.

The witches suddenly screamed.

Their voices echoed through the clearing as they turned toward the statue.

Several rushed toward the central fire.

Then, one after another, they extinguished the flames.

The clearing became dark.

The statue began to move.

A crack appeared across its stone body.

Then another.

The peaceful face of the nun split apart, and pieces of stone began falling from her body. Something moved beneath the statue’s surface, something that had been sleeping within it for centuries. The remaining stone shattered outward, revealing a woman floating where the statue had once stood.

Helmut’s eyes widened.

The Walpurgis had awakened.

She was unlike the witches surrounding her.

Her long hair floated weightlessly around her body, moving despite the absence of wind. A white robe covered her figure, its color almost painfully bright against the black robes of the witches. A bandage covered her eyes, hiding them completely, while a strange magical sphere rested in her hands. She gently stroked it with one finger, almost as though she were petting a small animal.

She looked peaceful.

That was what made her frightening.

The party could only stare.

Hans slowly lowered his weapon.

"After one hundred children are sacrificed, Walpurgis awakens," he said. "Then why are they still kidnapping them?"

One of the witches answered from behind them.

"Because the sacrifice was already completed."

Helmut turned.

The witch smiled.

"We already gave her one hundred children.. Now we are feeding her so she can become stronger or maybe we just enjoy seeing little kids slaughtered."

The Walpurgis slowly raised her head and screamed.

The sound was unbearable.

The witches staggered backward, covering their ears. Hans dropped to one knee, while Zorna pressed her hands against the sides of her head. Even the Kolossal Knight stumbled beneath the force of the shriek.

Helmut felt the sound vibrating through his entire body.

Then the Walpurgis attacked.

Her hair suddenly shot outward like living tendrils, striking the ground and tearing through the air toward them. Zorna immediately moved to protect herself while Hans fired repeatedly into the surrounding witches. The Kolossal Knight charged forward, crushing several attackers beneath its enormous weapon.

Helmut looked toward Walpurgis.

He knew where his attention needed to be.

The witches surrounding him rushed forward.

Helmut allowed the Inferno to engulf him.

His body transformed beneath black armor, his skull ignited with flames, and the fire surrounding him burned brighter than the flames of the ritual. From the crest of his helmet, he pulled his Death Scythe, its enormous blade already engulfed in burning fire.

He began walking toward Walpurgis.

Several witches moved to intercept him.

Helmut killed the first without slowing down.

Another approached from the side.

His scythe swept through her before she could strike.

A third tried to attack him from behind, but Helmut turned and struck her down.

He continued forward.

Something felt different.

Helmut knew immediately.

His body seemed lighter.

His thoughts moved faster.

He was becoming more cunning, more confident, and far more willing to kill. The hesitation he once carried had begun disappearing somewhere along the path of the Inferno.

He remembered the battle in Wachterian.

This was different.

There, he had fought because he was desperate to survive.

Now he was walking toward his enemy with the certainty that he would kill her.

The Death Scythe moved almost by itself.

Helmut did not have to think about every strike. His body simply reacted, cutting through anyone who attempted to stand between him and Walpurgis. The witches screamed and attacked from every direction, but he moved through them as though he had been fighting like this for years.

Then Walpurgis turned toward him.

Her hair surged forward.

Helmut raised his scythe.

The strands wrapped around his body before he could strike.

With tremendous force, Walpurgis threw him across the clearing.

Helmut crashed into the ground near the ritual flames.

The impact shattered the earth beneath him.

He slowly stood.

The fire surrounding the ritual was still burning around his body.

Helmut reached toward it.

The flames began flowing into him.

His armor absorbed them.

The Inferno burned brighter.

He tightened his grip around the Death Scythe and began walking again.

Several witches tried to stop him.

But He killed them.

Another came from the left and he killed her.

Another attacked from behind, He simply turned and struck her down.

Helmut barely seemed aware of what he was doing anymore.

His body was moving on its own, like his mind was already calculating where to strike Walpurgis.

He raised the Death Scythe and ran toward her.

The killing blow was already forming in his mind.

Then something happened.

Pain suddenly exploded inside his chest.

Helmut’s burning skull tilted downward.

His heart felt as though an enormous hand had closed around it and begun squeezing.

His body stopped.

The Death Scythe slipped slightly in his grasp.

Helmut tried to take another step, until his legs failed him.

He collapsed in the middle of his charge.