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

Harshly shoving the boy away from him, Trávn broke the magic that bound them.

He snatched away his hand, clutching it to his chest as he scrambled backwards to distance himself from the other Wizard. To his credit, the boy did not seem offended in any sense by Trávn’s sudden actions. Instead the Wizard stared blankly down at his hands, then in a crystalline voice, he murmured in Trávn’s tongue.

“That was beautiful…”

In a manner all too familiar to Trávn, the Wizard slapped a hand over his mouth in surprise. His still blue eyes widened in apparent horror at the sound of what had escaped his mouth, before they cut into a deadly glare thrown in Trávn’s direction.

The boy leapt with a flash metal, to pin Trávn to the bed. With two blades held against his throat, Trávn gulped audibly in fear. Rage and accusation burned bright in the boy’s now d hazel eyes as he vilely cursed at Trávn. With such a colorful tongue, the boy shamed even the worst Merchant Trávn had encountered.

“Why do I speak in another’s tongue?” the boy spat out with fury, pausing from his ranting curses to question Trávn.

Trávn froze, unsure of how to answer the boy. Completely stunned, he stared wide eyed up at the smaller boy who sat upon him. Yet, in sight of Trávn’s confused look, the other Wizard’s face grew nearly as red as his hair.

“Undo the spell you have cast, or I shall slit you from navel to ear,” the Wizard threatened angrily, twisting a single knife before Trávn’s face in foul manner.

Showing his hands were clean in proof of his innocence, Trávn stuttered at the accusation.

“I-I… it was no spell of mine,” Trávn swore. Yet, instead of calming the Wizard, his denial of causation only sparked the other’s rage. As fast as a bolt of lightning the other Wizard pressed the blade beneath Trávn’s eye, stabbing him with the sharp tip of the blade.

“I will sever your shit-spewing tongue for your lies, you drinker of sheep’s piss… hrafnasueltir!” At the insult, the boy blinked. He seemed nearly as surprised to hear his own tongue, as he had been to hear Trávn’s on his lips.

Pushing the Wizard off him, Trávn scrambled back, clutching a hand at his eye thankful it was still in his socket. Suddenly wary of the deranged Devil, Trávn backed further from him, feeling the bed for Kalsilk, yet not surprised to find him missing.

“I swear I did nothing to you, our magic helps us learn,” Trávn rushed out with a large exhalation. Surely this Devil had come across another’s language in his pillaging travels, Trávn thought sourly.

Who was this Wizard to accuse him of enchanting another?

The boy’s eyes had lost their hard glint, yet he still held his duel knives closely.

Unable to take his eyes from the Wizard’s weapons, Trávn hurried to offer the boy an explanation. “Once you acquire a few words of another’s language, you need only think the words you wish to say in your mind. Then, your magic will supply them to your mouth. To revert to your own tongue you need only think in the words you wish to say in your own language…”

The boy seemed to think over what Trávn had said, his face crossing over between thoughtful and fearful all at once. Yet, soon the stony edges of the young Wizard’s face relaxed into a comforting grin.

Apprehensively, Trávn stared blankly as the boy tried a few words in each language, swapping back and forth between the two with swears and vulgar obscenities. Trávn could only cringe, even as the boy’s slight grin broke out unto a broad smile.

In only seconds the deadly knives disappeared to wherever the boy kept them behind his tunic, and once more the boy offered his hand to Trávn.

To say he was hesitant was an understatement…

Even still, Trávn still held out his hand, intending to shake the other’s hand. He was surprised when, instead, the boy gripped his forearm in a much more forceful shake. Following along, Trávn cast the boy an odd look.

Yet, the other paid no heed, with a broad ear-to-ear grin the Wizard smiled wide and invitingly as if he were welcoming Trávn. Then, in his native tongue, the Wizard spoke soundly, “Heil og sæl. Ek heiti, Fӧe. Hvað heitir þú?”

These words came easier to Trávn as the other’s pleasantly greeted him in his native tongue. Their meaning was simple, the Wizard had finally given him his name…

The boy’s name was Fӧe, which in the Devil’s tongue meant father.

However, the name left a sense of dread in Trávn’s gut, for in his language foe was meant to describe a close enemy.

Patiently, Trávn waited for his magic to react in warning to the ill-boding name, yet the response never came. Deciding to trust in his magic’s response, Trávn let go of his sudden alarm. It was only a name, he convinced himself, and instead he focused on answering the boy’s question.

“Kalsilk,” Trávn stated, pointing towards the creature who lay slumbering near the fireplace. Then, striking his chest thuddingly as his foster father had taught him to do, Trávn properly introduced himself to the boy and gave his lineage.

“Trávn, Blood Son of Wrath…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rvea gagged where she swung, hung by her feet from a willow tree’s branches, much like a broken doll. Her stomach rolled with the need to vomit, even as the echoing spells her sisters’ cast burned into his bare flesh with magical brands.

She had screamed herself hoarse for hours, begging for her sisters’ mercy. Yet, all around her, her sisters’ voices chimed, their figures obscured outside the veil of the weeping willow’s sagging cord-like vines.

Nude as day she swung, struggling in her binds. Sobbing as the magical knots of leather only tighten further around her limbs. Beside her a young child swung, endure the same maltreatment she had endured.

Yet, Rvea found she could not even eye the girl with sympathy…

After what her sisters’ had done to the child, Rvea could not face her.

Their torment had begun, when at Mersa’s request, Rvea was charged with the next task of the Coven. She was to acquire the Wizard who escaped their clutches…

To do so, the High Priestess, Mersa ordered that Rvea and the Siren child be bound by each other’s souls in completing the task. Yet, such a spell required a hefty price… If Rvea ever wished to return to her Coven, she would bring back the Wizard.

The thought of losing her Coven had filled Rvea with despair.

Yet, as she hung there beside the eerily silent child, Rvea knew what she had just temporarily lost was nothing compared to what the Siren girl now endured.

Together they had been stripped by the Coven, and bled opened. Their flesh carved into by jagged stones with magical runes meant to bind their souls. Their hair was then cropped and their bodies bound, before they were hung upside down on the willow’s thin, swaying, limbs.

The child had sobbed throughout the ordeal, yet her mouth was gaged to keep her protesting tongue at bay. Rvea had suffered through it all barely flinching under her sisters’ coarse care. Yet, as they began to cast the spell to complete the ritual, screams tore from her body…

How she had begged and cried for her sisters to stop the ritual… Yet, they paid no heed, instead she watched in misery as they ignored her for the struggling Siren.

Rvea had eyed the girl with hate, thinking her sisters were about to cut the girl down from the tree and end her torment. How lucky, she thought the girl was… even as they removed her gag and the Siren’s ear splitting scream was heard.

However, what happened next left Rvea horrified.

With brutal hands her sisters carved out the young Siren’s tongue, leaving the small child vomiting from her horror and gagging on her blood. As her sisters then approached her, Rvea’s eyes widened with terror.

“Sister no, please, please … No!” she begged, her small face blotchy with tears, yet her sister’s pried open her jaws as well. Rvea had clenched her eyes shut, sickened at the thought of watching as they remove her tongue.

Yet, instead, she was forced to swallow the Sirens severed tongue.

After that, Rvea found it was impossible for her to vomit. As the ritual painfully continued on, her heaving stomach seemed to be magically reinforced.

Their pain was excruciating, and long before the binding ritual was ever complete, Rvea was filled with a sense of betray and hate of her kind. Who were her sisters, to force such pain on herself and this child, she wondered hatefully.

She had been filled with despair at the thought of losing her Coven, yet with her soul now nearly entirely bound to the young Siren, Rvea was stricken. If they could not obtain the Wizard, Rvea would lose her Coven… yet be free to find another.

Yet, the young Siren… would lose her song forever.

With their souls bound, Rvea could feel the young girl’s pain and hopelessness.

She was eternally grateful when the Siren’s small body could take no more of the rituals agonizing binds. For, as the girl went limp with unconsciousness, Rvea’s pain was successfully cut in half.

She inwardly spat curses at her sisters. Deciding then and there, that no matter how the completion of the mission would bring her in high esteem of the Coven, she would no longer consider those of the Coven to be her sisters.

She would finish this mission solely for the young Siren, she would return the girl her voice and song, even if it sacrificed another’s life… She swore it, even as it was her last conscious thought, before she gratefully blacked out from the overwhelming pain of the ritual’s binding curses.

When the spell was finally completed, both the young Witch and Siren were cut down from the now withered willow’s branches. They were bathed and then both their wounds and bodies were dressed, before they were placed together nestled in the willow tree’s dying roots.

Beside them, the Coven’s Witches left two packed bags of traveling gear, and overtop the slumbering pair the High Priestess, Mersa, prayed. Calling on their God to protect their young follower in her journey, before motherly placing a warm blanket other the two and caressing Rvea’s cheeks with a delicate hand.

Around the three, the Coven’s Witches slowly disappeared. The nude women, turning to disappear into the creeping late-night fog. None witnessed the sudden yellow glow in Mersa’s eyes, or the sudden change in Mersa’s hand.

From a tender caress of Rvea’s cheek, the High Priestesses lowered to tightly clutch at the young Witch’s throat. The otherworldly glow of her yellow eyes darkened as she lowered her lips to Rvea’s own, kissing the sleeping Witch as she choked.

With her tongue deep inside the other’s mouth, the High Priestess heaved, gagging much like a cat trying to dislodge something trapped in it throat. Then, from her open mouth a serpent was slowly expelled directed by Mersa’s tongue to slither down Rvea’s now lax throat…

Mersa eyes rolled back as the last bit of the creature passed her through her lips.

She sucked in a hungry breath, watching with a cruel glint in her eye as the serpents tail snaked up the girl’s chin to disappear down Rvea’s throat. With trailing hands, she followed the serpents descend down Rvea’s throat to settle at her belly.

Within the girl’s stomach she could feel her familiar slither upwards to nudge at her hand, and at the show of fidelity, Mersa gave a cold smirk.

Lowering her cold lips against the young Witch’s own once again, Mersa roughly grabbed a handful of Rvea’s hair craning back the unconscious girl’s neck to an awkward angle. Then, with the same delicate hand that had petted her familiar Dålig, the High Priestess slipped her wrist beneath the young Witch’s blanket.

As she ravished the girl’s unresponsive mouth, Mersa steadily inched her way up Rvea’s skirts until she