6: Witch Hunt

 After a night of fitful sleep, especially I would think for Solvej, who didn’t seem to be able to handle stressful situations very well, we were keen to see Captain Pfeffer and get her to release us from our watch duties. Deep down I knew it would never be as easy as that, especially as Ilse was now deceased in mysterious circumstances.

Pfeffer told us she would certainly look at our petition to leave the watch favourably, especially as it was backed by the late Ilse Fassenwuetend who had been a good and loyal officer, but first she required us to do one more job. As it was a job outside the city and far beyond our jurisdiction as city watch she would regard it as a personal favour. We were in no position to refuse this, but in any case, a few days away from our waterfront beat and a quick jaunt beyond the city walls did appeal.

Pfeffer explained that there were stories of witchcraft in the village of Gostforden a couple of miles to the north of the city, and she wanted us to look into it. This was a bit surprising as there were any number of official channels in place to investigate witches and the city watch was not one of them. We asked why we were required but she seemed, for about the first time we had known her, to be unsure of herself and evasive. And so we took the request at face value and prepared to travel up to Gostforden.

It was an uneventful journey, but then, we’d only gone a couple of miles from home. Even so it felt somehow dangerous, not being within the city walls. Solvej may have felt at home in the wilds of the woods but none of the rest of us did. Kurtis had decided not to make the journey. I don’t know whether he was moping around like usual, pining after some girl or other, or he was looking for more gigs. After what Solvej had told us, perhaps he was hanging around the Exploding Pig, trying to enter the music business, or whatever her name was. I hope he appreciated that we were doing all the work while he would presumably benefit from our deeds, if it all went well.

On our way to the village, we bumped into an old shepherd on his way there, too, on his wool cart (very comfortable way to travel). He gave us a lift and told us a bit about what was going on in the area. He said some fields nearby, between the villages of Gostforden and Erenberg had been blighted suddenly the day before. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for it, but a witch hunter, Jonas Kellerman of Edelstadt (we’d never heard of him), had turned up and put the blame on an old woman who lived in Gostforden. She was due to be burned the next day. He also said the villagers were getting jumpy because there had been plague reported in Erenberg, and perhaps that was caused by the witch, too.

The village was typical of many in the area, being surrounded by a palisade and having a watchtower on each gate, with the lowly buildings inside huddled around a temple to Sigmar. When we got there we could see the place was not as welcoming as it might be and the guard on the gate wanted to know our business. We managed to convince him to let us in, though.

On the green in the middle of the village we could see the witch hunter had set up his tent next to his cart. And under the cart in a wooden cage, a pitiful old lady was imprisoned. I approached the cage but before I could get close one of the witch hunter’s henchmen shouted at me to withdraw in the name of Sigmar. As it is the duty of every Shallyan to tend to those in need I continued and the guard moved to stop me, giving me more spiel about Sigmar. I could tell he wasn’t a trained theologian and I managed to baffle him with a few theological points about the life of Sigmar (not entire sound ones, I admit) and he had little choice but to let me continue.

The woman was in a bad way, clearly very weak and I wondered how long she had been forced to lie in the cage with little shelter. It was getting cold and I worried she might not even survive until her burning. She looked tired and confused but managed to tell me her name was Estara. I gave her Shallya’s blessing, and some food, but there was little else I could do. I resolved that we would get her out of the cage and away from Gostforden if we possibly could.

We all went to the bar and arranged to sleep in the common room for the night. The barman filled us in on lots of local gossip. There was to have been a pit fight at the inn that night but the visiting fighter had not turned up to face the village champion. Gulgad’s eyes suddenly lit up and he eagerly offered to fight instead. I was a bit annoyed we had to interrupt an important mercy mission just so the Dwarf could smack someone in the face again. We were introduced to ‘the Tank’ who was  rather large and muscly, and presumably named after the big water tanks that you get, sometimes. Despite his size and strength Gulgad was confident he could win this one.

Then the witch hunter arrived. He walked into the inn and sat at a table like he owned the place. We certainly knew better than to antagonise such a person, but we did say a few words to him about Estara. Everything he said just sounded swaggering and arrogant and I resolved, even more, that we should rescue her.

The landlord said he feared that the plague had already come to Gostforden as there was a family that was unwell, so I offered to visit them. Erhardt asked about the blighted crops and was directed to the north of the village so he and Solvej headed up through the north gate to check out the crops. Sure enough they were blighted (whatever that entails). Erhardt studied the scene, concentrating as hard as he could on perceiving the winds of magic as they flowed around the dead corn, but weirdly could not get any sign at all of a magical presence except his own. This was strange as he had not been to Gostforden before and so how could his magical signature possibly get onto the blighted crops about three miles from Ubersreik which had mysteriously rotted overnight?

I visited the sick family in their hovel and they all looked very ill indeed, the parents and their three children all certainly looked like they were going down with the plague. I prayed with them and implored Shallya to relieve them of their illness, and I would like to think they soon got better.

Solvej was having a chat to Roland the guard in the north gate. He said he would get off guard duty soon and asked Solvej if she would like to come to the pit fight with him. She could not turn down such a romantic invitation. The men of Gostforden certainly knew how to treat a lady (not that Solvej was much of a lady).

So, we agreed that we should try to free Estara despite the witch hunter’s presence as we didn’t trust his expertise and we felt she was probably innocent. We hatched a plan to use Gulgad’s pit fight as a distraction, as the entire village would be watching it and Gulgad should make sure that he didn’t end the fight too quickly.

So when the fight began, Solvej led the cheering for Gulgad but was heavily outnumbered by the Tank’s fans. Erhardt and I took the opportunity to slink off out the back and stake out the witch hunter’s cart. When the witch hunter and his henchman decided to go and see the fight, we rushed over to Estara and Erhardt used his powers to unlock the cage.

We hadn’t really thought the rest of the plan, through. We needed to get Estara out of the village and as far down the Ubersreik road as we could before the fight finished. Solvej’s boyfriend was already at the fight so we couldn’t use her influence as planned, so we decided to disguise Estara as another priest and just walk through the main gate. For this we needed some long flowing robes, and Erhardt obliged. He slipped back into the inn mostly naked, but fortunately all eyes were on the fight, where Gulgad was soundly beating the local champion, and stretching it out for us.

I escorted Estara to the main gate. She was heavily shrouded in Erhardt’s oversize robes, and I told the guard we had to return to Ubersreik on Shallya’s merciful business. I put all my effort into making this particularly holy and convincing, and after a few moments’ trepidation, the guard waved us through and we were free.

We made our way back to town as quickly as we could, although Estara was weak and slow, and I feared at any moment the witch hunter would be on our tail. On the journey I learned that Estara’s surname was Pfeffer. She was actually Captain Pfeffer’s aunt. It suddenly made sense that the captain had sent us on this mission. It was satisfying to have helped Estara in this way, but it was also very encouraging that Pfeffer now owed us a bigger favour than we thought she did. We could see that our time in the watch might be coming to an end.