The Well of Desire
Chapter 1
Into the Fire
The horse clopped along the dirt trading path that led to the city of Salkalten near the Ostland coast. The massive beast bore a rider on the dark evening into the tiny Ostland village of Windhaven. The village of Windhaven was small, even by Imperial standards. Staying within the Forest of Shadows, it was off the main road that connected Salkalten to Ferlangen, and did little in the way of trade except for supplying lumber for new building projects whenever a decree was issued by the Grand Prince, Valmir von Raukov. The man that rode into the sleepy little town of Windhaven that evening was dressed in a long black duster with a wide brimmed black hat, tugged low over his features to keep the sun from his eyes. Jutting from the back of his duster, the scabbard of a rapier pointed that this was no simple pilgrim or traveler. When he rode up to the only inn in the village, he tied his horse off to a hitching post and quietly moved inside, brown military boots tapping on the floorboards of the inn as he opened the door. The typical noisome tavern grew silent as the townsmen who took their supper there turned to see who was joining them and none recognized him.
He moved quietly to the bar. The innkeep gave a wary look to several of the men who seemed ready to throw this dark stranger out, but shook his head for now before approaching the man.
"What can I get you stranger?" Asked the innkeeper.
"Water and some of the mutton you have roasting." The man said in a gravelly voice. He tipped his head up to regard the innkeeper as he slipped two silver coins across the bar. More than enough to pay for the simple fare that he'd asked for. The innkeeper looked at the coins for a moment and then nodded slowly, taking them.
"You uh... come in from Salkalten?" The innkeeper asked, returning a minute later with the water.
"Yes." The stranger stated quietly. He accepted the water and sipped it as he waited. The innkeeper's wife came from the back, a metal platter in hand as she set it along with a knife and two tined fork before the man. She gave him a fearful look before retreating to the kitchen.
"We uh... don't get many visitors from Salkalten. Heh." Said the innkeeper, giving a small nervous laugh. By now the inn had mostly gone back to their own conversations, though at a much lower volume so they could still overhear.
"I am not from Salkalten. I am only most recently departed from there." The man said quietly.
"Well uh... what's your business in Windhaven then? We don't exactly get many travelers here." The innkeeper asked, trying to keep his voice level. The stranger cocked an eyebrow under the brim of his hat.
"My business is my own, suffice to say, I am looking for someone... or something. I do not know which yet." He said quietly.
Whispers darted around from table to table. 'Witch.' 'Heretic.' 'Chaos.' 'Cultist.' were all thrown around hurriedly in a hushed tone.
"Well... we uh.. we don't have what you're looking for here I'll wager. So I will ask you to kindly finish your meal and be on your way." The innkeeper said, setting his chin in a show of bravado.
"I'll finish and leave when I have completed my duty and my search. Neither you, nor any of the men in this village will stop me either." The stranger said cooly, quietly cutting up his mutton and eating a piece at a time.
"Well how do you figure that? There's only one of you and a whole village of us." The innkeeper said. Wood slid over wood as stools and chairs were pushed aside and men rose to their feet in preparation for throwing this wanderer out.
"Because it is a crime to interfere with the work of the Grand Theogonist, on whose orders I am operating. And even if you were heretics one and all, I would be forced by my office to kill you. If you managed to drag me down, I am reasonably sure that the Grand Theogonist would order a purge of the entire village of Windhaven that soldiers from Ostland would be glad to carry out. So you see, interfering with my mission is to warrant your own deaths. Now or later is merely a matter of semantics." The stranger said, sliding his duster aside. The long overcoat shifted and attached to his shoulder were twin purity seals. The mark of a witch hunter.
The innkeeper blanched and several men, overhearing the small speech, took a step back. The stranger raised a rather thin hand and tugged his hat down a bit once more as he returned to eating his mutton. The tavern slowly returned to its previous level of noise, but everyone kept an eye on the Witch Hunter. He was there hunting for someone, and all in the little village of Windhaven had a suspicion of who it was.
Isolde beat the hot iron bar. Slowly bending it into a U-shape. When it was bent right, the female blacksmith stuck it in the forgefire. While it reheated, the dark haired woman pumped the bellows , the red glow lighting the dim smithy. Taking the white hot bar out of the fire, she moved to the anvil, laying the bar over a chistle shaped piece of metal. Several swift blows to the bar and the hot iron fell to the floor, where she picked it up with tongs.
Examining it with a critical eye, she straightened it with a few blows on the anvil before tossing it in a large barrel of water with a hissing cloud of steam. She shoved the rest of the bar in the forge, pumping the bellow several times before walking to the entrance of the shop where she took a tin cup, filled it with water and drank. Sighing as she cool liquid ran down her partched throat.
She looked out over the village, watching the sun in the distant sky. After awhile, she turned with a sigh, wiping her sooty face with a grimy glove and walked back inside. The young woman pumped the bellows again, the renewed firelight illuminating her pretty, but dirty face and broad shoulders. Muscle rippled in her arms as she took a broader piece of iron from the forge and taking it to the anvil, began to beat on it again. Filling the shop with the iron clang of a blacksmith.
His meal finished, the Witch Hunter stood and left the inn without another word. Eyes kept after him cautiously, and more than a few men left behind him, curious as to where he was going in the next part of his search. He unhitched his horse and handed it off to a boy who looked related to the innkeeper, ordering that the animal be stabled and fed. He gave the boy a few brass coins before walking off through the town. The claning of iron against iron rang through the town like a toll of a bell. It led the dark cloaked stranger toward the smithy.
"May Sigmar bless you." He said loudly by way of a greeting.
The sun shone in, illuminating her. She was strongly built, dressed in simple leather pants and apron, both grimy and scarred from forgework. The young woman strode to him, taking off her gloves. "Be with you in a moment." she said, steppeing outside to dunk her head in the rainbarrel. Coming back up, she wiped her face, pressing the water from her hair as she turns to dry her face with an old towel. "How can I help you? Need to have your horse shoed?" she asked, wiping off face and arms. The brand of a heretic dark on her shoulder.
The man shook his head. "I am here searching for Isolde von Kessler. I believe that is you." He stated casually as he stood before her.
Narrowing her eyes slightly, she looked closer at him. "I'm Isolde. Who are you?" She asked, walking past him to begin pumping the bellows.
"I am Carsten van der Kerk. And I am here to inquire about your father and his associates." The stranger said, identifying himself with a cant of his head.
She stiffened, shot him a hard look before taking the glowing piece of iron from the forge. Taking it to the anvil she began beating it, forming it into a broad axe like blade. "Ask away. I'm sure if you asked anyone in the village, they'd be more than willing to talk about the heretic and her family." She said, slamming the hammer into the metal with a steady beat.
Carsten raised his gaze toward her, finally staring at her. One crystal blue eye stared at her, the other covered with a patch, a ragged scar running down the side of his face and crossing his left eye. "You bear no taint of the dark powers. You are no more a heretic than the piece of metal you're hammering at. But your father most certainly was, and unfortunately the Sigmarite priest who condemned your father and his conspirators failed to clean up after them properly. That is why I am here." He said firmly.
She stopped hammering, turning to face him. With the hammer, she touched the brand on her shoulder. "That says I am tainted, or suspected to be." She met his gaze with more than a little bitterness. "Ask anyone around here. I'm lucky I wasn't killed as a heretic. Instead they were nice enough to brand me and let me live." Isolde spat into the forge as she put the metal back in it.
"I am not interested in the opinion of peasants. I have work to be done and it requires your aid. Now will you give it voluntarily or will I have to force the issue?" Carsten asked politely and calmly. He wasn't above threats of force, mostly because they weren't empty.
Isolde sighed, turning to the forge and pumping the bellows. "What do you want to know? Dadda did not tell me much of his.. thing. For which I am glad, thank Sigmar," she looked at him, removing the partially made axehead to resume shaping it with skillful blows of the hammer.
"No, but I need someone who can give me a clear picture of what happened, and more importantly where it happened. All without constantly twisting the facts to point to you. I doubt you'd incriminate yourself and I do not doubt that everyone else in this village would waste any time doing exactly that." He said with a cocked eyebrow. "So, I need your help specifically." He said.
She sighed, stopping, the hammer on the metal. "Sigmar's balls... " Sighing again, she turned to face him. "Can you talk over a hammer for ten minutes? I'd like to finish roughing it out before I stop for the night. I get little enough work as it is here."
He nodded. "Very well, it is a small price to pay for gaining your help, and I do not believe that you have heard the full tale of what is going on here." He said with a sharp nod. He moved toward a small bench, meant for setting out finished pieces awaiting pickup. He pulled a rather large pipe from a pocket inside of his jacket and stuffed a bit of tobacco into it. With that, he pulled out a small taper and stuck it to the hot coals, just enough to light it before sticking it into the end of his pipe to light it. Relaxing, he puffed the pipe and sat down on the bench. "Your father was a confirmed heretic. As were his conspirators. That much is certain and attested to by the Priest of Sigmar that tends to this village from Ferlangen." He started and puffed out a small smoke ring.
Isolde resumed hammering the iron. Shaping it into an axe. Between the ringing blows, she glanced up at him. When the metal cooled, she stuck it in the forge, pumping the bellows. When the metal was hot, she took it out and resumed pounding it.
"What is not certain or at all attested to is that they were all rounded up, or that they were caught before finishing whatever work they began. Tell me. Did you father keep a journal?" He asked her over the occasional ringing of the hammer as he sat back and puffed another smoke ring.
She shook her head. The hammer ringing on the iron. "Dadda couldn't read. Neither could Mamma. Dadda's brother could though," she said, holding up the metal for a closer examination. Nodding, she set it down and hit it several more times before returning it to the forge. "Not many read, other than simple letters and numbers. 'Life's too hard to waste time on fripperies', Mamma always said."
"One of the conspirators. And did your uncle keep a journal?" He asked her over the constant rythmic smash of hammer on iron.
Isolde shrugged, removing the axe head, setting it on the anvil, she swung the hammer, shaping the edge. Each blow spreading the hot metal into the shape she desired. "I don't know. Uncle was closed mouthed. He never liked talking unless he was telling someone what to do" Holding the axe up, she examined it, turning it this way and that. She struck the iron several more times before plunging it in the quenching barrel. Sending up a hissing cloud of steam.
When she pulled it out, the outline of a beared axe was recognizable. The young woman nodded in satisfaction as she set the piece aside. She took the horseshoe from the tub as well. Dropping both on the table beside the Witch Hunter.
"The Sigmar priest searched his house, you can look if you want. No one's been in it snce they were condemned and burned," she said, stripping off her gloves as she walked outside to the barrel and washed her face and arms. Once clean of soot and sweat, her fresh face shown in the sun as she walked back into her shop.
"Then you will help me look." He said with a nod as she returned. "And if we find something you will help me interpret any clues that can be gleaned from it." He said with a sharp nod.
"Now?" Isolde asked, pouring water carefully around the edge of the forgefire. She looked at the Witch Hunter with a dubious gaze as she cleaned up the smithy. Setting the hammers and tongs on the benches or by the anvil.
He nodded. "Heresy does not wait. Nor do the dark powers of Chaos. We must pursue them as quickly as possible. It is regrettable that it has gone this long before being investigated, and I can only pray to Sigmar that the trail has not gone cold already." He said, standing as he stepped outside of the smithy and waited for her. He exhaled smoke into the dark evening air, the sun finally having set behind the trees and casting the long eerie shadows of twilight.
Isolde sighed. "Let me change first. Walking around in the dark in my apron and pants isn't suitible," she replied. Quickly washing hands, arms and face, she vanished into a small room above the forge. Only to reappear several minutes later dressed in a rough linen tunic covered by a leather vest, leather pants and worn but sturdy boots. Her hair had been combed out and braided and the ends of the braids touched just below her shoulders. In her hands she held an axe. The head wide and curved. A knife and hammer hung from a belt wrapped around her waist. "Let's go." She said, closing the smithy doors behind her. "Might as well ruin what's left of my reputaton," the girl muttered.
"I assure you, doing the work of the Grand Theogonist can only enhance your reputation." He said with a firm nod as the strode across the village and found the house of her uncle. It was still marked by the heresy order nailed to the door and sealed with the red wax impressed seal of the priest of Sigmar that ministered to Windhaven. Carsten ignored the order to never open the door to the home and stepped inside, looking around. From under his duster he produced a pistol, moving around from room to room in the rather small village house. Satisfied that the house was unoccupied, he proceeded to find a lamp, lighting it with a taper lit from his pipe.
Holding the axe on one hand, the well built young woman followed him. She paused at the threshold of the door, swallowing nervously before entering. Feeling the eyes of the villagers on her back.
Inside, she pointed out a few lamps. The villagers having never ransacked the house after heresy had been declared on the occupants.
In fact, more than a few villagers, similarly armed, stepped forward, forming a semi-circle around the home. The light of the lantern illuminated the small cottage. "Now we have to search. Look for anything out of the ordinary. You'll likely find something before me." He told her.
Isolde looked out a window, tapping the Witch Hunter's arm and pointed. "Sir. They're watching," she said before startng a search of the house. Figuring they obvious places had been looked through, she began at the fireplace, tapping and prying at the flagstones and mantle, and then inside the fireplace itself.
"Let them watch. If they try to interfere, I'll execute them for interfering with the Grand Theogonist's work. I warned them of that already." He said as he moved near the bed and got down on all fours, searching underneath.
The girl shivered as a chill ran along her spine. "I don't think they will unless somethng bad happens in here. You're safe.. You don't live here. I do," she said in a quiet voice, tapping the hilt of her knife against each stone in the fireplace she could reach.
"Well never mind them, keep looking." He said, looking under tables to see if perhaps there was a cabinet concealed under the table or the chairs in the small section where her uncle must have eaten.
She frowned as a stone moved fractionally at a tap, the mortar seeming to be loose. In the back of the fireplace. Digging the point of her knife nto it, she pried the stone out, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter. Inside the hole, Isolde found several rolled up sheets of paper. Which she carefully pulled out and unrolled."Sir!" She said, turning and holding the sheets up. "I found something."
He turned and jerked upright, crossing toward the fireplace. He stretched out his hand to take the sheets, his eyes scanning them as he read them over. Some contained diagrams, one seemed to be a crude map. "Yes... As I feared, your family did not plan this entirely by themselves and did not conduct their business here in the village. They must have been very overconfident when they were finally apprehended and brought to the gallows. Or drunk." He said as he read over one particular journal entry. He blinked as he found embedded in the text a small symbol. "My saddlebags. Come. I must study this in further detail." He said, finding no more use for searching the house.
She handed them to him as soon as he reached for them. Glad to have them out of her grasp. At his words, she nodded. Grabbing her axe, she headed outside, taking a lamp with her for the light. Outside she stopped, holding the lamp high. "I'm with the Witch Hunter. He opened the door. In Sigmar's name. He requested me to help him look in the house," she said in a loud clear voice as several men raised their axes and hammers.
"Well the priest o' Sigmar put up that there decree that nobody is supposed to be goin' in that house. You goin' in there and messin' about is going to bring down problems on this village. Problems we don't need." Sneered one of the men, holding a large two headed axe. A large black beard dominated his face as the lumberjack stepped forward. "Guess the call o' yer blood was just too much wasn't it heretic?" He snarled at her.
Carsten stepped out after her, closing the door behind him. He held his pistol in one hand and the papers in the other as he moved out and fixed a steely glare at the crowd.
"Disperse. On the authority of the Grand Theogonist, I order it." He narrowed his eyes as he gave the order.
Isolde glared at the man. "Olaf, you ass! You know I had nothing to do with that. The Witch Hunter asked me to help and you don't refuse a Witch Hunter, idiot!" She shouted, shaking a fist at the man. "You know that! All of you know that.
"Do we girl? Do we know this is really a witch hunter? Do we know that you had nothin' to do with it? You got a mark on you. Now you know what I think? I think you've just waited for things to die down. For the priest to go away and for night to fall so you can sneak into your uncle's old house and pick up where he and that bastard heretic, your father, left off. Well we're gonna keep you here, ya see? Keep you nice and cozy while we wait for the priest to come back next season and then HE'LL tell us what to do." The large bear of a man said with a nod. The small crowd of villagers grunted and voiced their consent with that plan.
With a swift motion and a click, Carsten leveled the barrel of his pistol aimed at the man's head. "I warned you once. If you do not disperse, I will have to execute you for hindering the work of the Grand Theogonist and ensure that your friends, your kin, are killed or investigated for heresy and treason." Carsten said with a cold tone in his voice. His ice blue eye glared at Olaf's dark bearded face.
Isolde's hands clenched and she trembled with rage. "You.. pig sucking... whoreson! It's been six cursed months since that happened. I wasn't there! Sigmar's balls Olaf! Get the keeper of the shrine. He can vouch for the Witch Hunter. If I was going to do that, I'd have done it long ago rather than stay in this village." She snarled, face red with surpressed anger at the mistrust and suspicion.
"Oh we'll get the keeper. After we drag you two into irons and lock you in root cellar until the priest of Sigmar comes back." Olaf snarled menacingly and moved another step forward. Carsten's pistol discharged with a crack. Olaf staggered for a moment, and then fell backward as he died. The rest of the group looked stunned as Carsten glared down at the corpse and his gun let smoke drift out of the barrel from the discharge.
"I find you guilty of interfering with the work of a Witch Hunter on his mission to destroy the powers of Chaos. For this, Olaf of the village of Windhaven, you are executed. May Sigmar have mercy on your soul that we cannot afford to show you here on earth." Carsten said darkly before turning to the remaining villagers. He drew his rapier. "Who's next?" He asked.
They all jumped at the crack of the pistol. Isolde's face went white as Olaf staggered then fell. She looked back at the Witch hunter, then ran to Olaf, dropping her axe to roll the big man over. Only to fall back with a gasp at the red hole in his face. Covering her mouth with a shakey hand, she backed up , scrapng her backside on the ground., "You killed him..." She whispered. the men surged back in shock, some glaring, others in shock, but slowly they left until it was just the girl, the Witch Hunter and the body on the street.
"The Dark Powers of Chaos will not delay themselves. His ignorance and pride killed him for standing in the way of a hunter. I am tasked with rooting out heresy and destroying Chaos wherever it exists. I do not have time to waste only for a priest of Sigmar to arrive and set us free sometime in the middle of next season. It is bad enough that this has waited this long. We do not need to wait months just for a priest to verify my identity." He said with a sharp tone. "Pick up your axe and let us move on. We have work to do and so do the villagers preparing a funeral for their friend here." Carsten said without remorse as he strode forward and walked toward the livery stables, intent on retrieving his reference books from his saddlebags.
Slowly she picked up her axe as she got to her feet to follow him. Catching up to him near the inn, she tugged at his coar sleeve. "Sir, I cannot stay here any more. Not after.. " She visibly shied away from mentioning the death. "I have to leave, with you or without. This village is no longer safe for me."
"Don't concern yourself with that." He said over his shoulder. They reached the stable and Carsten went straight for his saddle and saddlebags, opening the left bag and pulling out a book. Thumbing over the pages, he beckoned her closer with the lantern. "Bring it here so I can see." He said.
Frowning, she held the lantern higher, the yellow light spilling over the pages. "I have several lamps in my shop if you want more light."
"This is sufficient." He said as he flipped pages and finally came to an entry that caught his attention. "Ah... Here..." He said, reading over the High Gothic text. He held the book against the saddle and brought up the paper from her uncle's house with the symbol on it. The symbol was strange. A crescent moon with a disgustingly cruel smile on the end of a long stake. The stake proceeded down to a semi circle facing the opposite way as the crescent moon, which was just above a circular base of a grinning face of a beastman. Carsten narrowed his eyes. "We need to find out exactly what your uncle and your father were up to." He said with a grunt before he set the book back into the saddlebag. "I need to know where this map takes us. Can you decipher it?" He asked her, turning back to her and shuffling the papers to the one which seemed like a crude map.
The girl shuddered and turned her head at the sight of the Chaos symbols, swallowing again, her face as pale as fresh cream. "I uuhh.. ," Isolde murmured, taking the map to look at it.
"Yes. That's an old logging trail. It hasn't been used in twenty years. Not since the Emperor, Sigmar keep him, levied a tax for wood. There's a large clearng here and here." she pointed on the crude map. "The youth of the villlage used to go there for fun. Nowdays no one goes there. The rumors of vile creatures in the forest keeps people close to home." She shrugged. "It's about five miles past the farthest farm."
"Then let us be on our way. Come." He said with a nod as he opened the stall and began to saddle up his horse. "I hope you can navigate the way by night." He said with a nod.
"Huh? Wait a minute." She grabbed him by the sleeve. "Give me a few minutes to get some things. I have to leave now, thanks to you," she scowled at him, anger flickering over her face. "I want to have some things with me. I don't have much."
"Very well. Meet me by your smithy." He said with a sharp nod as he finished saddling the horse and mounted up, riding past her out of the stable and moving through town on the beast.
She hurried out of the stables and ran to the smithy, throwing open the doors, she raced up to her room to throw the few items of clothing she had into a leathe rucksack. The blanket, she rolled up and pulled on a old cloak her father had given her before his death. She paused to look around the room for a last time, throwing a few more things into the sack before heading downstairs to put some of her tools in a leather back. Files, a few hammers, chisels, punches and pieces of metal she'd been working on. Lastly, she gathered the food she had, wrapping them in burlap to stuff in her pack. Throwing it over her shoulder, Isolde walked to the door, stopped and turned to look at the dark shop.
The place she'd spent so much time. After a minute, she firmed her jaw and hefting the oil lamp in her hand. threw it at the far wall. The glass shattered, spreading oil over the stone and wooden walls. Quickly it caught fire, illuminating her back as she turned and walked out without a backward look.
The men of the village rushed past to put out the flames even as she stole away to the other end of town. Carsten reached down as she approached and hefted her up onto the horse behind his saddle. "Come on... We haven't time to lose." He said with a frown as they rode on into the woods along the lumber trails. The Forest of Shadows was true to its namesake, and almost immediately, the two were out of sight as the Forest claimed two more in the darkness of its embrace.