Chilled exorcist - страница 26

There was a creak in response, one of the exorcists of the chill took out a knife and scraped it across the beautiful oak table, leaving deep nicks. Then he raised his weapon and looked at its sharpness.

"You don't need to tell us how to do our job. It will be done…better. As best as it can be, after this shitty oser...." he spat out.

"If that is all, then I dare not detain you any longer." The Count's response was a mass shifting of chairs and a clamor of black robes.

The whisperers-in-the-night, are a strange group of people, among them are assassins and hunters, witches and enchanters. More like castes, the ruling system can't tolerate one thing: a mute-born. This girl is born every time the previous one dies. To the whisperers-in-the-night, she is an outcast that must be banished, but to the Crown of Grave Mohawk, she is a valuable advisor. Because of this, when the mute-from-birth reappears among them, she is whisked away at the age of sixteen to the Emperor's court when she finishes her training.

Back in the era of Terressia's exploration, the mute-born ordered a settlement of sisters to be established in the Dark Forest. All because of what dwelt in those forests. Kostegrad's expedition threatened to simply end up in these parts if no one could confine the monsters of the eerie thicket that stretched as far north as the mountains and swamps to the south. It was only the help of the whisperers-in-the-night that remedied this situation. The Laughing Sisters had mysteriously subdued the wild beasts that had attacked the tiny outpost of Kostegrad, a piece of land that people had clung to with their teeth.

And now we were walking with my companion of the forest huntresses through the remnants of a once great oak forest. The last green spot on the maps, north after the endless swamps. Wild stunted trees sprouting in all directions had been replaced by noble giants with spreading crowns, and gullies with broad roots. I knew from the Castle Keeper's memories that Darkwood had lost much of its lands to the north and east. It had disappeared beyond Kostegrad and near the rebel lord's fortress, losing nine-tenths of its forests. And only in this place, where the Laughing Sisters live, did the oak tree mysteriously still stand and successfully resist the infestation.

The cliff lifted the small, forgotten village above the verdant sea of forest. Perhaps it would have been utterly wild, being in the depths of the Dark Forest, were it not for the ancient stone walls and equally ancient temple buildings at the very top. There was a fire burning in the middle of it, with an old witch sitting by it. When she saw us, she broke away from the hazy brew on the fire and, splashing her hands like a kind grandmother, sat down on a small bench.

"Come, child," she beckoned closer to the girl who had brought me to this place.

"Sister Huntress, you have brought a man into our camp..... A man," the Old Witch wagged her finger. Her voice creaked at the last word, and then she laughed with recognition, and realizing who I was, she continued in a softer tone. "You have brought us a hunter of the creatures of the canopy!"

The woman looked at me eagerly and even fidgeted on her stool like a frog, preparing to spit her tongue at me.

"All the old women in the camp have exhausted their strength. I'm the last one to keep the gray land from moving south of the Dark Forest for untold years. My domain, by the way!" The witch's eyes fixed on me with greed.