Merciless Hunter

6: Salvage work

"Oh, the poor, innocent thing!" she exclaims for the dozenth time as they near the pit. "And all because of me!"

"Dear Ardele," Herndel replies, also not for the first time, "you really mustn't take it all on your own head. It is the witch who is to blame."

"But if I hadn't been such a coward, I would have been there when you took her! I would have looked closer at her in the pit! I would have seen that it was the wrong woman!"

"You saw it now, did you not? That's the important thing." He sighs. "I still think it was rash of you to go back and look for your shawl. Yes, it was broad daylight, and no, you didn't know that the witch and the bear were still there. Even so it was rash, but since your rashness revealed the truth, we should thank the Herder for giving you the idea."

"Do you think the Herder gave me the idea?" That's a notion that suits Wrenne perfectly. "But why didn't He let me see clearly from the beginning?"

"Perhaps," Herndel muses, "the spell that made that girl appear in the witch's stead to be caught by us also fooled your eyes? You know what they say: Eyes of innocence are soon turned."

"Do you think so?" Wrenne shakes her head. "Well, maybe. But I still feel I have to make up for it. It's best that I go down and talk to her, spell or no spell."

Herndel frowns, puckers his lips. "It is a dangerous thing to deal with witchcraft. I am the hallowman, after all. I should talk to her."

Wrenne puts a hand on his shoulder, stopping him, and looks into his eyes. "You are a good man," she says, "but please let me do it. Not only for my peace of mind, but there is something..." She lets her gaze lose itself somewhere in the faraway sky beyond the leaf-stripped treetops as she delivers the carefully chosen words. "It is as if I hear a voice whispering to me, telling me what I must do. A soft, kind voice like my poor father's."

She brings up the memory of her father's voice, in the rare moments between labour, drink and starvation, when he had the time, peace and strength to let his love for his children shine through like a brief glimpse of stars on an ever-cloudy sky. Just enough to bring some honest grief to her eyes, before she stows it away again in the carefully locked coffer in the back of her mind along with the pang of guilt for using it in this way. "Have you ever heard such a voice, giving you advice and courage? If you have, then you know that there is naught but to heed its words. No, this is one thing I must do. Please don't hinder me."

Herndel sighs but desists and they walk on in silence. Twenty paces from the pit, Herndel stops again and calls the guard to him. Wrenne slowly walks on, heart pounding. Behind her, she can hear the guard's exclamations as the hallowman explains. Soon he marches past her, jangling his keys with a sidelong glance at her. Crouching down to open the padlock, he keeps ogling her as if she were a freak. Well, rather that than ogling her as if she were easy pickings, she thinks, keeping her eyes focused on the grate as the guard heaves it open and manhandles a ladder in place. Time to roll the dice again.

She offers the guard a nervous smile as he backs off and starts making his way back to Herndel. No need to pretend to be calm now, at least. "Wish me luck!" she says to him and he grunts and nods before leaving, still watching her over his shoulder in disbelief.

Straightening her back, Wrenne walks up to the pit and looks down. Linder cowers against one of the walls, arms still bound behind her, still blindfolded, turning her head this way and that, alerted to the noises, teeth bared, every muscle tensed.

Not my fault, Wrenne thinks in a vain attempt to convince herself, and anyway I will set it right now. Then she climbs gingerly down the ladder. As she reaches the ground and turns around, Linder scrambles into a crouch, her mouth defiantly set, battle-ready though helplessly bound. Wrenne looks around, makes sure no one watches from above, then gets to it.