The Witch's Hunt by Misty Cogburn (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

Once again he was broke from his thoughts by the Queen’s voice.

"Trávn of Cornwell, the Red Wizard of Röth," she sung in a low key, "I wish you safe passage. –And bestow a gift. For we'll meet again.”

“Young friend of the Siren."

He wanted to ask what she meant. How did she know his name? His village? What did she mean 'Red Wizard of Roth'? What gift? Trávn was filled with so many questions, but as he listened to the Siren's he felt their magic on him.

"Train well young Wizard...," those beautiful eyes urged.

Trávn had so many questions he wanted to ask the Siren, yet his eyes were growing heavier. The world seemed to spin around him with no axis, until eventually he lost sight of the Sirens and his vision faded to black...

 Trávn groaned in pain as consciousness came to him in the gentle laps of chilling waters slicing away against his heated skin. His senses awoke one by one, first in his sense of touch. Then, gradually, in the soft murmurs of a crowd surrounding him...

Even before Trávn could open his eyes, he knew something was horribly wrong. He felt weak, he felt sore... and so very tired.

The last memory he had was of the Sirens and their promise to see him safely to the Devils' shore. Yet, had he known the pain he would feel from his slumbering travels, he would have refused such an obviously too generous offer.

What had the beautiful Sirens done to him as he lay out of sorts? He wondered pitifully with another pained moan passing between his cracked lips.

His body felt as if it had been beaten, and briefly he wondered if any visible damage had been done to his person. Yet, he was too weak to open his eyes, let alone to sit up and take inventory of his own form.

Just what had they done to him, he questioned tersely. Though his pain wasn’t stabbing, more of a dull ache, Trávn’s mind was consumed with different scenarios involving the Sirens’ claws and teeth.

His body felt as if it were numbed by ice, yet his head throbbed from what felt like a heated blow from a blacksmith's great hammer.

Wading through the pain, Trávn struggled to focus as the voices surrounding him steadily grew louder and even more agitated.

Mustering together what little strength he could gather, Trávn fought to wake himself fully. Finally able to crack open his eyes, Trávn winced as he met the sun. The very light of the day burned away at his eyes.

Only once before had he felt such agony upon awakening, he remembered it even still, it had been the aftereffects of a Carcadian brew much too strong for his liking.

However, this was much worse than the pain he could remember of a spirit's curse.

He squinted sorely into a sea of red, surrounding him in a blurring close knitting of moving faces. As his eyes slowly adjusted, Trávn saw the red to be hair, and the faces towering figures of people.

They were men of enormous sizes and girths, all leaning downwards to peer at Trávn.

In the light of the day, he saw the many blinking glares of murderous weapons and the threateningly sharp teeth of the Sea Devils. In appearance, the people were everything rumors had told, right down to the jutting lips of their snarling frowns.

He was obviously over taken with fever, to be surrounded by these beasts and pressed against their weapons, yet, to feel no fear. In fact, his first rational thought was only that he'd never seen a Devil before...

Yet, now he was surrounded by at least a hundred of the Sea Devils.

They were all large brawny men, stocky in size. Each had flaming red hair and long burly beards, braided in strange designs down their fronts. They were cloaked in thick furs of hunted game and colorful cloths made of many lines and shades.

The Devils were aweing to look at... Even when he knew he should fear them Trávn's battered mind did not comply. Instead he stared blankly at them, observing their strange appearance.

From what little skin their forearms showed, Trávn could distinctly make out the ancient designs of light blue, inked into their fleshy arms. They each had many different traits among their own, but all shared distinctive features that separated them from any race of people Trávn had ever seen.

Trávn laid reclined back in the rock gravel of the sea's chilling shore, his brown eyes absorbing all he saw of the strange new people with open awe. Half dazed, in pain and eyes heavy with exhaustion, it took him a while to realize his composed mood was only an aftereffect of the Sirens' spell.

His head throbbed painfully as he warred within himself to wake fully from the Sirens' influences. He looked at the people, at their weapons, and felt his hackles rise.

These people weren't awing, they were murders... each of them.

Each of them stood in an aggressive stance, seemingly ready to spear him through at any moment with their long curved knives.

He should fear them, not revere them... As his mind finally woke, Trávn could feel his horror grow to the point it was far ahead of what his body could manage in its current state. To move seemed near impossible, but as the crowd of Devils began to inch closer, Trávn's body finally reacted.

With a frightened whimper Trávn scrambled backwards, back into the sea.

In all those long moments he had blatantly stared, he had never once thought of how he was to escape them...

Now aware, he fled clumsily on awkward limbs. Ignoring the chill of the sea's icy waters against his fevered skin, he inched away, unconsciously shivering as the water rose up his back and along his legs.

Oh, how he wished to run, yet his body protested such actions. His head pounded hard enough to make him sway. Kalsilk was either gone or hiding... and he was laid supine, strangely powerless, before this dangerous crowd of Sea Devils.

All around him voices murmured in a language he had never heard. It wasn't beautiful, like that of the musical Elves or even the Sirens. It was thick with snorts and grunts, the very words seemed growled together by the Sea Devils' taunt snarling lips.

Somehow, in the repressed regions of his mind Trávn couldn't help but think how the rugged language fit the Sea Devils.

The language was like nothing Trávn had ever encountered before, even with his many travels across the nine kingdoms he had roamed. Even with his magic, Trávn was doubtful he could have understood any of the Devils' language.

Their words only seemed to blend together in Trávn's mind in a way that made the garble both painful and completely incomprehensible inside the pounding ache of his skull. As the crowds voices began to rise in anger directed towards him, Trávn flinched back. He couldn't answer their demanding questions...

He could barely hear their words. His head felt nearly full enough to explode under the pressure pulsing at his temple.

With a wordless cry he brought up his hands to clutch at his head, forgetting to think what the others may do at his sudden movement. Yet, he was pulled from his dire thoughts by the sudden inhalation of the Sea Devil's surprised intakes of air.

He warily looked up to them, and then down at his person to find what had captured their attention. For a moment, together, they all stared openly at the mark marring Trávn's arm. Then suddenly, each of the barbaric, bearded, men dropped their weapons into the sea… almost as if the Devils blades had somehow been cursed to burn the wielders' hand.

The men's once narrowed, distrustful, eyes widened into a look of alarm and reverence. Yet, Trávn couldn't begin to think about what it all meant... the mark... the people's strange behavior.

Trávn's mind went blank as his eyes drew closed. He sank deep enough to cover his ears in the sea's salty depths before his chilled body was wrapped in something warm and he was lifted from its waters.

The last thing he saw in the red sea of faces was the wide frightened eyes of the many Sea Devils... That beautiful shade of silver grey, surrounded in midnight rings of black ...such mesmerizing eyes, Trávn thought languidly. Even the stunning shade of their flame colored hair...

He'd seen such beautiful traits before... once somewhere before...

...in many of the Sirens he had seen.

~*~*~*~

He woke next to the sound of howling calls echoing in the late air of the night. At first Trávn thought it only wolves, something he had sadly grown accustomed to in his journey northward, but then he surged wide awake. With a sick twist deep in his gut he realized it to be the pitiful moans of something human.

How tortured the cries sounded, Trávn cringed in sympathy for the other's pain.

Who was it? He wondered briefly.

His eyes were still half cast and lids heavy from his worn sleep, yet he worried for the other’s sake. Where was the sound coming from? And, for that matter... 

"Where... am I?" Trávn’s cracked lips murmured the question aloud as he looked around him dazed, yet wary of any hint of flaming red hair. Wincing as he sat up, he flicked his dry tongue across the cracked edges of his lips.

Suddenly, he was completely awake and all too aware of his possible danger.

He'd been taken by the Sea Devils...

In a fearful rush he scanned his surroundings. Surprised to find himself unguarded and tucked inside a feathered bed of soft linen and many pelts... and not chained against a cold dungeon's wall.

Instead he was in a warm comfortable room. Something he admitted, he rarely had a chance to observe in his many travels of the kingdoms he had seen.

All around him light flickered off the room's stonewalls, reflecting its rays from the fireplace lit against the room's southern wall. Overall, the room was bare and modest yet clearly built for one of wealth.

That observation in itself left Trávn with a sense of unease. He slid from the soft linens and piled furs with great regret. Needing information on his current holdings rather than the sweet comfort the bedding provided his travel worn body.

Regardless of how his body protested any movement, Trávn stepped lightly onto the hard stone floor. Ignoring the stone's biting chill, he was shocked to find his current state of dress. To his own discomfort, he found himself clothed in a thick woolen nightshirt many sizes too large for his form.

It embarrassed him to think another had seen him in a state of undress. Even more that he had been bathed as well. Something he uneasily noted from the scent of floral soap coming off his skin; which in itself was suddenly many shades lighter.

Yet, Trávn ignored the feeling of dismay, as well as the mortified burn in his cheeks.

Instead he focused on searching for the cowardly dragon, Kalsilk. In an angry rush he threw back the warm pelts and fresh linens of his bed. To find the lazy creature there slumbering, he thought briefly about throttling the pitiful creature... Yet, his heart would never allow it.

Kalsilk