Chapter 40

Indigo had been in the valley for a week, and she felt stretched thin. Her days were filled with scrounging for food, gnawing on tubers and roots and vainly trying to find animals to hunt. If there were any, they were long gone before she showed up. Every night she lay next to her fire, curled up like a grub in her bedroll, struggling to stay asleep as her body racked with shivers.

When she'd begun her training in Darnell, she'd initially wanted nothing more than to go home. Her classmates were idiots and overwhelmingly patronizing. Her instructors weren't bad. Cyrillus was sort of scary, Nadette was terrifying, and while she'd just met Alayne, she could immediately tell the woman was immensely formidable. She didn't warm to the idea of becoming a Witch Hunter until her instructors started telling the stories of Katarina Pavlenko, and at first she passed the stories off as legends of old. She was shocked to discover that not only were the stories real, but Katarina herself was alive and marching all over the continent of Hesperia, kicking down doors and slaying Witches. From that moment she became obsessed. She would earn her place at Katarina's side. She wasn't deterred by the fact that Katarina hadn't taken an apprentice in the ten years of her career; Indigo would be the one.

She'd woken up this morning, feeling weak and exhausted. The clouds were back, but at least it hadn't rained. She was going to forage some more, and hopefully, if she was lucky, something had blundered into one of her snares overnight.

She finished her morning prayers when she heard something out of place, the rough, clattering sound of a cart. She didn't think, she didn't hesitate; she faded into the woods, hatchet at the ready.

A figure rode in a cart pulled by a horse that didn't look used to pulling things. Frankly, the horse didn't look like a draft horse at all, more like the kind of horse you'd see on the battlefield, a warhorse. Whoever they were, they wore a huge coat and hat. After a moment, Indigo heard the figure break out into song, a hymn from the Church of the Golden Lady. The figure was definitely a woman.

"Hello, stranger." The woman called out. She was in a horrible state. She was pale except for high flush marks on her cheeks. There were bruised-looking crescents under her eyes, and she listed in the cart.

"Why don't you come on out where I can see you?" she offered, and she fumbled with something on her lap. Indigo's eyes narrowed. Was it a sword? She called out an appropriately cheeky response, and shifted her position. The woman shouldn't have been able to see her, but she tracked Indigo's movement effortlessly.

"I am Katarina, a Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady." The woman announced, and Indigo's jaw dropped. She hurried out into the clearing, gushing her greeting, and watched as her idol, her goal slowly tumbled off the cart gracelessly.

An older man lay in the dirt, lines of age etched into his face. He was thin and wiry, with tangled white hair and long mustaches that drooped past his chin. His clothing had been charred and seared, hemmed and patched. A massive hat lay near his hand.

Katarina approached him warily.

"Wearing trousers like a man?" He growled. "You've got the Goddesses' own luck that I can't whale your hide for your heresy."

She was still numb with shock, but she still managed to sneer and made an obscene gesture at him. "I was given permission and I don't need yours." She replied impudently. "Who are you?" She asked curiously, and he rolled his eyes at her sardonically.

"That's my question, girl." He wheezed, voice cracking with authority. "Don't need my permission? By the Goddess you're pert." He let out a short sardonic laugh and immediately groaned, clutching his belly. "I'm the ranking authority from the Church of the Golden Lady here, which means you do." He replied and stopped, panting with exertion. "Though I suspect my authority will be quit from this world soon enough." He allowed reluctantly.

"I should help you." She offered, but he shook his head. "Not... not yet. First things first." he replied stubbornly. "Answer my questions." he finished, and Katarina nodded slowly, wondering if she would be able to carry him back to her camp.

"You've got Darnell on your tongue, but white hair? Cheekbones like that? Are you from Nauders? What're you even doing out here?" he demanded querulously. Katarina frowned at him. What was he doing out here?

"My name is Katarina." She replied. "I'm a-" She paused, trying to frame her answer. "I'm a Witch Hunter Initiate." She finished awkwardly. The old man surprised her by gaping at her in undisguised astonishment.

"Is this your answer, Lily of the Dawn?" He demanded of the air. "Is this why I'm here? This slip of a girl?" He asked.

"Are you all right?" Katarina asked, taking an uncertain step towards him.

The old man sneered. "I'm far from all right, girl. That bear had my guts for garters, near enough. Now answer my question. Where were you born?"

Katarina shook her head at him. "I'm from Begierde." She replied.

He nodded then. "Ah, that makes sense, then." He replied cryptically and tried to adjust his position, but discovered he couldn't. Sweat stood out on his forehead in great watery drops. "At least something makes sense." He slumped limply, and Katarina hurried to him. Concealed in his side was a gaping, ragged gash from which she could peek his entrails slithering about.

A girl with dusky purplish-blue hair stared down at her. She had a light olive skin and pale green eyes and a pretty, bow-shaped mouth. That hair wasn't natural; a mutant? Katarina tried to lash out, but her right arm still wasn't moving. She lashed out with her left instead, grazing the woman's cheekbone.

"Mutant!" Katarina snarled, struggling.

"I'm not!" Indigo snarled back, and shoved down on Katarina's shoulders. The pain was immediate and huge and she blacked out.

Katarina woke, feeling weak, drained and cold. She opened her eyes; everything was a blurry pastel smear. Her mouth was bitter with the taste of bile; had she vomited again?

A feeling of movement near her.

"Who's there?" She tried to demand, but instead she let out a feeble gurgle.

"My name is Yasmine Moldovan." a voice replied. "I'm-I'm a Witch Hunter Initiate."

"By the Goddess." Katarina whispered. "Have you earned your Shield?" She asked, and there was some movement in her vision. When Katarina didn't reply, the girl added, "No, my lady."

"No, of course not." Katarina replied.

"My Lady, you look like... you look like you were shot."

Katarina debated on telling this initiate the truth. "It does look that way." She replied evasively.

"Your hair isn't natural." Katarina challenged, her brows drawing down.

"I fell into a dye vat when I was younger." She replied. "It's been that way ever since. I have permission from the Church."

"I'm the ranking Church authority here, and I say it's offensive." Katarina retorted, and squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them. She could see a little better. "You should cut your hair until it grows back properly."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I did that for six years. I'm stuck with it, I'm afraid."

"You sound like you're from Begierde, but your skin, your face..." Katarina shook her head. Yasmine nodded. "That's right. My mother was from Tassili. She met my father when she relocated, and here I am." She summarized quickly.

"Do you know first aid?" Katarina asked, and Indigo nodded. "I know a bit." She replied.

"I have first aid kits in the cart." Katarina indicated. "I need treatment. A lot of treatment, and you're going to help me."

"I don't know how effective I can be." Indigo warned.

Katarina tried to struggle to a sitting position. "Get the kits and we'll see what we've got." She decided, and Indigo nodded.

A jolt of fear spiked through Katarina's heart from her belly.

"Goddess, please don't let these be my last days, like with my Master." She prayed in a rush. Yasmine eyed her curiously as she prayed.

"Do you always pray like that?" Yasmine asked curiously.

Katarina blinked and nodded. "Something like that." She replied evasively. "The Church teaches that we have to use the Invocations and Benedictions and such, but..." She trailed off. "In the heat of a fight, or in the struggle to start a campfire in the blowing snow or..." She trailed off. "It's just not practical." She finished. "It's my hope... no, it's my belief that She hears my prayers even if I don't use them, because She knows I'm praying from the heart."

The girl nodded. "I understand." She replied. "I do it that way sometimes, too." She added.

"Witch Hunter Initiate Katarina of House Pavlenko, I am Lord Donald of House Christensen, Witch Hunter in service to the Church of the Golden Lady." He gestured weakly at his pack. "My Writ and Warrant is in my pack."

She nodded again, and after several long moments he frowned and his eyes blazed in anger. "Don't just stare at me, girl!" he snarled. "Get my Writ and confirm it!" He swore and grimaced in pain. "If you're truly to be a Witch Hunter, you need to confirm the facts. That's your job!" He cursed again.

Katarina scrambled for his pack and pulled out a long leather and wood scrollcase. She opened it and shook out the papers within. They identified him as a Witch Hunter, though his papers were decades out of date.

She eyed him carefully, comparing him against the drawing. "This barely looks like you." She offered, and he grimaced. "I came here some thirty or forty years ago." he allowed. "Foll-following after a mage. Archibald the Heartsbane."

Her mouth dropped open in shock. Archibald Heartsbane was listed as a runaway mage that had evaded capture for nearly a half century. He left a trail of death in his wake, including a Witch Hunter that had been elevated to the realm of legend.

"You're the Wolf of Alastor." She breathed in shock and he sneered. "A name." He invested the title with as much disdain as he could. "Fat good a name does in the trash of the woods." He spat thickly, hate curdling his speech. "Names are nothing. Worse than nothing, because they accomplish nothing but are a pointless chain 'round the neck of the foolish that take pride in such things." He sneered. "'ware you don't get a name yourself, that it doesn't strangle you in your sleep someday."

He rolled his eyes at her again, and after a moment he sighed. "There's no doing for it, I guess. If you're to be a Witch Hunter, then I suppose allowances would need to be made. I suppose you can't hike or traipse through the woods or even properly sit a horse in a dress." He allowed begrudgingly. "Which means I've no choice but to do this."

He spat a dark clot off to the side. "Listen, because my time is short: By my authority as Witch Hunter, by my authority as a Lord of the Land, by my authority as last of the Rubin Rytsar, and by my authority as a true and faithful servant of the Lily of Spring, Goddess of the Dawn, the Golden Shield of the Defender, the Light which cradles and protects us all, I appropriate you into my service." He intoned formally, and then trailed off into a series of weak, bubbling coughs that brought blood -flecked spittle to his lips. "You are elevated to the exalted and honorable position of Apprentice." He whispered and rolled his eyes ostentatiously.

Indigo washed and bathed Katarina's shoulder after helping her remove her coat, vest, and shirt. Her arm was an angry red, the wound was clotted and edged in bruised tissue. Now that Katarina was on her back, she could feel the bullet grating on some bone inside her- perhaps her shoulder blade, but who knew? Katarina had passed out several times as Indigo undressed her. Twice she'd thrown up because of the sickening blasts of pain that had wracked her body.

Indigo either hadn't known what to look for, or she was just being thorough, Katarina observed. The girl had grabbed just about everything off of the cart.

"Okay." Katarina instructed. "My tools. Get my gun kit." Indigo opened one of the Witch Hunter's saddlebags and pulled out the gun kit, which held a number of tools, including her bullet-making kit.

What followed was ghastly. Katarina took a metal rod and had Indigo boil it in water and bend it almost double. Katarina grimly used it to dig into her shoulder to where the bullet was inside. The pain was huge and Katarina helplessly threw up all over herself in agony over and over again as she tried to tweeze the offending chunk of metal out of her body. Indigo was silent, shocked, horrified, and awestruck as Katarina attempted this brutal surgery on herself.

After Katarina ineffectually tried to pull the chunk of metal from the tunnel in her arm, she took a vial of liquid that came with a healer's kit. These potions were alchemical mixtures of herbs that were supposed to aid in healing and fight infection. Katarina grimly poured the mixture into the wound and promptly passed out.

When Katarina came to, her shoulder had been bound in bandages. She glared at her arm and willed her fingers to move. Surprisingly, they opened and closed a little. Katarina let out a huge sigh of relief.

"So you're here for your wilderness test." Katarina observed. It wasn't a question. Indigo nodded on the other side of the fire. Propped over the fire was Katarina's cookpot, and she could smell Traveller's stew bubbling.

"Did you add my jerky to the stew?" Katarina asked, and Indigo nodded. "I've been scooping out the grease, too." She remarked with a grimace.

"What did you call me back then?" Katarina asked curiously. "Katarina... something-or-other." She struggled to remember.

"Katarina Magebane." Indigo said with a certain eager satisfaction. "Surely you've heard the stories told about you."

Katarina chuckled a little. "Oh, I'm sure there are all sorts of stories about me." She remarked with no small amount of irony. If Indigo picked up on the sarcasm, she made no mention of it, she simply nodded in agreement. "They call you Katarina Magebane, Katarina the Relentless, Katarina the Bloodhound, and Katarina the Veiled."

Katarina shook her head, mystified. Katarina the Veiled? What was that supposed to mean?

"Names." Katarina spat with a grimace, and struggled to a sitting position. Treating her wound with the potion had apparently improved her health considerably. "What good is a name?" She mocked. "I never cared about that. If I did, you can damn well believe I would be in Darnell along with the rest of the sycophantic sops, chivvying and jostling for authority." She spat again. "I care about one thing, Yasmine." She advised, and stirred the soup. "I care about hunting the Witch." She glanced at the sky. "Titles and names and all that bullshit don't mean anything. They don't help my gun to shoot. They don't help me survive in the forest. They don't help me to track mages."

Indigo shook her head. "I care." She remarked shortly. "I would have failed out already if it weren't for you." She explained. "I want to be strong like you. Fearless. Cyrillus told me about you. Nadette told me about you. Alayne told me about you. Jennah doesn't like to talk about you, but even a child can see she knows about you."

"Jennah? I don't know that name." Katarina mused.

"She's in charge of magical education." Indigo replied.

"Ah. that explains it." Katarina replied with a bitter twist to her mouth. "The magical teacher before her was a Witch. When I returned from my survival test, I killed him." she replied shortly. Indigo's mouth dropped open.

"What-" She blurted. "How?" She asked, and Katarina shook her head. "I was only able to because the Goddess of the Dawn heard my prayer and came to my aid." Katarina replied.

"Please." Indigo begged quietly. "Please tell me the story."

Katarina raised an eyebrow. "It's not all that exciting." She replied shortly, but Indigo wouldn't be dissuaded. "Please."

Katarina nodded and lay back.

"I had my own survival test in this very valley." She began. "I lasted a week or so on vegetables. Every morning I would go through my prayers." She chuckled a little. "The Church teaches that you're not supposed to pray for yourself. That it's the lowest form of selfishness: begging the Goddess for favor." Yasmine nodded to show she understood. Katarina rolled her eyes. "Believe me, after a week of eating nothing but cattails and carrots, sweetgrass, and catching tadpoles, you're willing to sacrifice your dignity to pray for meat." She added. "I prayed to the Goddess for meat, and a deer, a yearling stumbled right into my snares down by the river's edge."

She barked a laugh. "Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was happenstance. Or maybe it was the Goddess, answering the prayer of a sixteen-year old woman and providing food. I don't know, but-" SHe paused, and then shook her head. "No. That cheapens it." She decided. "It was her."

Indigo's eyes widened at this simple declaration.

"I also met some people that occasionally wander through this valley. They're honest, simple folk. They've left the cities behind to live simple lives, worshipping the Goddess." She paused. "And I met my Master."

There was a long moment of silence. "A bear got him. A gut wound." She explained. "A terrible way to die. He took me under his wing. He'd tracked a mage to these lands, a mage that had taken up with that tribe I mentioned."

"I prayed for the Goddess to save him. I went through every Invocation, every Entreaty, every Supplication I knew." Indigo nodded. "Finally, I just simply begged the Goddess to keep him alive. When I woke up the next morning, he was still with me."

"He'd expected to die." Katarina explained. "I told him what I'd done, and I thought he would hit me. Instead, he laughed, and he taught me the great secret." She added fondly, tears welling in her eyes.

"The Goddess doesn't listen to Invocations, or Supplications, or any of that." She began, and caught herself. "It's not the delivery that's important." She added. "It's the message." She emphasised. "You have to tell her what you want, from the heart." She insisted. "You have to know what it is that you need and speak it from the heart." She added. "After that, it's up to her."

Indigo eyed her askance. This went against everything she'd been taught. Katarina eyed her. "I know what you're thinking." She observed.

"What you're saying is wrong." Indigo said warningly.

Katarina shook her head. "Our Goddess is a Goddess of love, Yasmine." She replied simply. "She wants us to love each other. She wants us to love her. She wants to love and know us." She smiled. "Would you want to receive the same letter from someone you loved, the same letter they'd been taught to write, over and over and over again... or would you want to know what lay in their hearts?" She asked simply.

"Our Goddess knows all, Lady Katarina." Indigo replied. "She knows what we ask when we use the Invocations. We don't have to ask. She knows." Katarina nodded at that.

"Besides, if that were true, then you could just, i don't know, pray to her right now for healing." Indigo argued hotly.

"I won't." Katarina replied simply.

"Why not?" Indigo demanded angrily. "Do it. Show it to me, this 'favor' you speak of." She dared hotly.

Katarina shook her head. "She wanted me to learn something. Something that I could only learn through this." She replied. "She knows I only learn things the hard way." She added simply. "If it becomes necessary, I'll ask for healing, but..." She glanced at her arm and experimentally moved her fingers. "I think I can get better on my own." She replied. "I don't need to ask her for everything if I can do most of it myself."

Katarina took a breath, held it, and let it out. "Lord Donald taught me how to be a real Witch Hunter. He made me his apprentice, because he knew he was going to die. He held Archibald Heartsbane in his magic-cancelling field so that I could shoot him, and I did." She added. "When it came time to return, I brought my Master's body with me, and because I had been his Apprentice, I took his gun, his coat, his hat, and his things." She added simply. "Devon didn't like that. He came for me after that, and I learned the depths of his evil."

"So you killed him." Indigo finished, and Katarina shook her head.

"It wasn't that easy." She replied. "He had some power... It wasn't magic. Some malignant power that allowed him to manipulate your mind. He could say, 'You're so tired you can't move.' and just like that you'd be so exhausted you'd fall over." She paused. "I don't know what he intended. I- he had complete mastery over everything." She paused again. "I prayed to the Goddess to save me." She paused. It was something she'd kept close to her breast for so long. Did she dare speak it?

"I felt her presence." Katarina added in a much quieter voice. "She spoke to me. That was enough to break his hold over me, and I killed him for Her." Indigo's eyes were wide as Katarina revealed this.

"Nobody's ever said anything about that!" She exclaimed, and Katarina nodded. "This is the first I've spoken of it." She replied reluctantly.

"What did she say?!" Indigo demanded excitedly, and Katarina instantly regretted telling the girl, but she had to continue.

"You are a torchbearer, bringing the holy light of the Goddess to the dark corners of the world to banish shadows. When you have no strength left in your limbs, you speak the word. The Light of the Goddess is a blessing to the righteous and a bane to the iniquitous. When you have no breath left with which to speak you spit in the eye of darkness in defiance." Katarina repeated. "I've tried to live to that goal since. I have brought the truth of the sword to Her enemies."

Indigo nodded at that. Katarina gestured at the soup. "Serve up. Tomorrow I'll help you hunt."