The afternoon sun was refreshing for Herbert as he closed the church door behind him. Though the voice of worry still stirred in the back of his head..

  Today's service went well. Herbert had spoken to the family of the girl who had gone missing most recently and reassured them that now the witch hunter was here, all would be well. He had answered the crowd's worry about the supernatural happenings and their worry about the witch hunter.

  Herbert fumbled about his robes for the large key as he closed the church door behind him. The sun was high in the sky, now beaming across all of scaybard, lighting the gloom that hung over the village. The cold, though, still lingered; Herbert felt it as he walked round the back of the church to where more graves resided. Though much of the gravestones looked the same as the others at the back towards the edge of the hill overlooking the hills stood a in a line 3 well kept grave stones.

  These stones were clean, the grass around them trimmed and kept at bay, the rocks themselves kept in good repair, no moss, no cracks. They stood upright, strong and tall, better than the rest around them. A symbol lay on each of the Elder gods, filled in with golden paint.

  Herbert approached the stones tentatively, careful not to step in the space of any of the commoner graves as he did so. His eyes were glued to the ground, watching every step he took. He made sure to hold his robes from touching the stones too or the resting places of the dead. The priest approached the three graves.

  These graves were those of the servants of the Elder gods that had come before him, the keepers of the church, the holy men who had protected the village before him. Here lay Herbert's father, his father's father and his father's father's father. It was his job to make sure the graves were well kept, that those who had come before him were respected still in death for their service to the gods.

  Herbert recalled the words of his father telling him the importance of keeping the dead priests respected. As they were so close to the magic of the world and the gods, their corpses were often the target for darker magic. Or if they should feel an unrest of evil in the church they had served, they may rise again to protect it. Even in death, they were servants, protectors of the people. The eternal service to the gods and the people.

  Herbert bent down to his father's grave and rested his hand on the top of the smooth stone.

  “May the light guide you still”, he prayed, eyes closed, head bent.

  Herbert stood and repeated the prayer two more times on each of the graves with just as much care and devotion as the last. He respected his legacy; he wanted to do them well and hoped to be buried next to his father someday.

  After he was done, the priest walked back past all the graves and round to the front of the church. His day was done. He wished to return home now and eat a good meal and then, when night came, lock himself in. He did not want to become the next victim of the dark.

  As he walked round the side of the church, Herbert spotted to his worry and dismay the witch hunter walking quickly up the hill, Martha grey in tow. Why were they approaching his church? Why was she with him?. At a slight loss as to what to do or expect, Herbert walked quickly back to the church door intending to question their intentions. The witch hunter, he could not deny entry that he knew, but Martha Grey, the so-called hebelist, he could refuse her entry. She had no right in his holy place.

  Bane approached the priest, walking purposefully right up to him, eyes locked onto the church door. The burning desire to understand how this church had been used for dark magic plagued his mind. The priest blocked his entry.

  “Move aside” Bane demanded sharply, his voice cold

  Herbert froze for a moment, conflicted, he wanted to say something, stop the woman from entering the churc,h the one he knew was to blame. On the other hand, the witch hunter scared him, there was no denying that.

  “For you, yes, but she is not allowed in”, Herbert blurted out, intending to sound assertive, instead an idiot

  Bane was prepared to push the priest aside, he needed to stop whatever was happening for the sake of fulfilling his job here and banishing the supernatural that terrorised the villagers. However before he could act, Martha spoke.

  “There are people dying, Herbert”, she spoke directly to the preist, looking him right in the eye no fear, no hate just intent

  Bane was slightly taken aback. Martha was a lot more than met the eye. Faced with a priest who could easily have burnt her at the stake, she meets him head on with fact, not malice or hate. She was strong he could sense that, an outsider like him, you had to be strong to survive alone.

  “I know that, we all know that but I will not have a suspected witch in my church” spat Herbert

  Martha's eyes narrowed This man had no right to accuse her of anything; it had been like this for as long as she could remember. Martha had moved to the village was she was just a little girl, all alone, abandoned in rags in one of the fields during harvest many cycles ago. No one was sure where she had come from or who had left her there. Some said she was a gift from the gods and would bring good luck. However, the priest had said she was a child of darkness and should be burnt right away to avoid cursing them all. Herbert held much influence and made sure no one took the baby's side except for an old woman who lived on the edge of the village, a witch she had been called by the villgers. She knew many spells and incantations, and the villagers were terrified of her and so did not make a fuss when she came, claimed the baby and told them they were all vermin for wanting to burn a innocent baby. That day on, whenever anything went wrong, Martha was blamed for it for as long as she could remember, not just by he villagers but by Hervert, who fueled their suspicions and hatred of her. Yet when they fell ill, or needed help, the priest could not provide, the villagers would come to her. Often offering sacrifices, gold and gifts for her services. None of which, of cours,e she accepted, she instead asked for a share in the harvest as this was hoe she survived. They needed her and her them. This is why she had always been safe.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “You have always hated me” she snalled “you hated how I was the one person who did not obay your every word” Martha felt the memories swell up inside her, how this man had made her an outcast, how none of the children had played with her because she was called a witch by them all. He had made her feel like something unnatural.

  Bane saw the priest's eyes move quickly away from Martha's stare and back the sings of a man being called out for his ways. Bane sensed it now, the priest was afraid of that which he could not control, being a priest gave Herbert much power over everything he had become acustomed to it. Meeting those above or simply ignoring his authority annoyed and scared the preist clearly.

  Martha walked forward now ,directly towards Herber, anger burning in her chest.

  “Open the door now” she said, teeth bared

  The priest had lost all power, he was here alone with two people he had no say over, a witch hunter bred with dark magic and a witch that cared not for his status. He had no choice. He must obey.

  Herbert reluctantly pulled the key from his robes. His eyes glued to the floor head bent in shame. His pride was wet now like mud. Stained. A moment he would never forget.

  “I will not open it to the likes of you” he muttered, letting the key drop to the ground

  Bane bent down to pick the key up as the priest moved round marther her eyes still locked on him. He moved to go down the path, back down the hill. He gazed on last time at the two of them.

  “The only ones to be shrouded in evil are the two of you” his anger apparent as he spoke, forged from the shame of being too scared to stand up to these two things. He had never felt so powerless.

  He quickly left, walking down the hill back to the village, careful not to slip on his robe or the slope he moved down.

  Marther turned to the witch hunter as the priest's head vanished with the rest of him down the hill. Eyes now locked on him, anger slowly dying, adrenaline gone.

  “You were no help”, she remarked in dry humour

  Bane felt something in his chest, like of a knot loosening, rising up to his face. He felt his lip shift ever so slightly into a twisted smile. Something he had not done or felt in a long time. Martha noticed this and gave a slight smile back. She unlocked the door to the church.

  As they entered (Bane stooping his head to get through the doorway), a cold chill went up Bane's back. He could feel the unease, it was a feeling of restlessnes,s not being able to stand still, legs tingling, almost hurting from standing in one place. It was a faint feeling, but one Bane knew resembled the effects of a broken place.

  Martha and he walked around the pews observing. Bane had said very little to Martha when they walked from the woods to the church, apart from one thing. He had said he suspected something here had been tampered with, or twisted to reverse the spell of protection and instead cast a spell to break any protection spells. That was why he through the shrine they had found had been released from the spell holding it at bay.

  Bane ran his hands along the church walls, feeling, sensing for anything that might suggest dark spells. Marther walked over towards the bell tower now, looking at the rope up into the rafters to see if she could sense anything. She took her talisman from her belt and held it up, letting it circle around.

  The crystal moved slowly on the chain at first, swinging anticlockwise. Marther watched it closely as it moved faster, the circle expanding back towards the church altar.

  Martha had been shown how to use these by her mother, the witch. Talisman were made with crystals blessed by magic, they could be used for many things, often locating dark magic, or finding the course of alignments that afflicted the ill. The talisman points to the truth; they were never wrong and powerful objects. Easy to make and use, hard to understand. They were used to great effectiveness in the Dark Days to weed out those who practised the dark arts.

  Martha followed the way the talimen pointed, as she passed the witch hunter, he looked up from the wall. Watching silently, the talisman continued leading Martha to the altar where the book lay.

  Bane walked over to the altar with the herbalist and watched as the crystal slowly stopped spinning and pointed right down at the book on top of the altar. Silent and still. It then started to spin clockwise but slowly, deliberately. It had found evil.

  “The book has been tampered with”, Bane said under his breath, for the feeling of unseas was stronger now as he lifted the book from its perch.

  He felt the weight of the book in his hand. He opened the pages, scanning them with his black eye, feeling them being written, smelling the ink as it was written, the magic words, the stories, the history of the Elder gods. Except for one page. A newer page. A page that was often updated with a more powerful version of the spell. The spell of protection.

  Bane locked his eye on the page and felt, became and saw nothing. But read the spell, the last line had been changed not to strengthen but to break, poison the spell of protection and any spell like it. A line that only the most trained eye would have spotted. Banes's heart stopped for a split second. Only a powerful user of the dark arts could create a spell like this. In fact, he only knew of one that could. The witch king.

  Bane turned slowly to Martha; she could sense something was wrong, his eyes wider than normal, his expression more grim. He had let himself slouch slightly.

  “The spell in here has been made to destroy any protection this village had; how it got here, I do not know. That altar we found, I believe it is a place for dark spirits to come from. This spell has opened the shrine again, and they are coming here. We must get everyone to leave before the sun goes down when the veil between light and dark is at its weakest,” Bane said, explaining it as quickly as he could to his companion. Holding nothing back.

  Martha's brows narrowed again, her mind racing as to how the priest had been so oblivious to the damage he was doing, how he had forsaken these people and they had in fact contributed to the downfall of their own settlement.

  “What can we do?” Martha asked in a shaky voice

  Bane thought for a moment, to cast a protection spell now would be useless; their power came from years of chanting and devotion. When a new village is founded, the first thing built is a place to chant the spell to begin protecting the settlement from day one. It would be no good now. There was only one option.

  “You must all leave” The witch hunter said, his voice low now almost a whisper, but deep