Chapter 14

**Noch**

My staff glided through my hands as I used it to fight off the hunters around me. Its flame burned brightly with a fierce light of defiance as I smiled in this battle. It has been a long while since the Hunters had come out in such force, and I was relishing the opportunity to really do some serious damage. I had given up on hand to hand a small while back and was happy to unleash my staff upon the heads of the Hunters, literally...

Although, a few minutes into the renewed fight, it was getting a bit repetitive... every time I brought down one hunter another would jump up to take his place in a heartbeat, and I would repeat my scull crunching swing over and over again. This scenario was not the usual...

I fought and fought and fought some more but the more I fought the more I noticed that the hunter's numbers weren't dwindling in the slightest. The blasted hunters just kept piling in as if from nowhere! Curse it all! They had reinforcements hiding out somewhere!

Glancing down at my staff I gave a withering sigh. The poor thing would need a thorough cleaning once we got back home. There were bits of grey brain matter, hair and skull fragments stuck to its talons that were being burned within the flame.

From one side of the village I noticed a fluctuation of energy that pulsed rhythmically. Raising my eyebrows I looked over at where it was coming from and saw Merianna decimating the hunters.

For a second I nearly got hit by an incoming blow because of the shock of seeing her fighting. I quickly dodged and then went back to snatching glimpses.
That blasted demon child has been holding back!

I smirked and then quickly slipped out from underneath the hunters. Merging through their shadows I made my way to a tattered home that still had its roof attached. I swiftly glided up the side of the building and jumped the rest of the way onto the thatched roof.

Looking down at the scene in front of me I let out a low whistle of appreciation. Merianna was an army all to herself. It boggled my mind that she didn't fight even half this good against me. With the fighting that she was pulling out now, she might be able to land a hit. I saw her glimpse a member getting attacked from behind and I gaped.

In a flashing streak of light she moved from where she was to where the fallen member was. After dismembring the Hunter she helped the wounded member to the closest healers.

She literally flashed from the one end of the village to the other. As in, boom. She travelled through lightning...

What impressed me even more was the fact that she was killing the Hunters off so mercilessly. The issue with new Witches on the attacking front usually tends to be their morals leaning against snuffing out the light of another living being. Especially Humans (which the Hunters are), because we are essentially Human as well. Except for our obvious "otherworldly" talents.

Yet, Merianna was culling the Hunters like she was culling a grove of diseased trees. She didn't balk or pause to think about what she was doing. She knew what she was doing, and she was doing it well.

I knew back when we met her and her sister that they were special in a way, especially Merianna. The energy that surrounded that child was old to begin with, but to have it displayed to me so clearly was something worth documenting in the scrolls, let alone the grimoires.

I will have to speak to her about this when we get back to the Order. She looked as if she was unconsciously tapping into a deep seated power. Power that she had the most compatibility with it seemed. And if she didn't know what she was doing in the future, there might be some serious repercussions later on. Especially for her. The power she was playing with was too old and volatile to leave unchecked. Especially if she did not yet know how much she is able to handle.

With a frown I decided that it was time to take down the source of the hunter's reinforcements quickly, before something dangerous happened.

Scanning the area for anything unusual I noticed a big structure on the far western side of the village that resembled a place of worship. All I could see was hunter after hunter piling out from its doors. My eyes narrowed in suspicion. There was no way that all these hunters were hiding out inside that building, it was much too small for all of them to just sit and wait in there until they could pile out.

Something had changed in the patterns of the hunters. They are not fighting as they used to do in the past. They never used to be so sadistic when they went after a coven. Well, that was excluding a thousand years back or so where it was common for them to poison torture and maim us before they would finish us off. Now they just seemed to be erratic and fighting more with numbers than actual combat skills. It boggled my mind.

How in the sweet name of Hades did someone gather so many hunters in one area without anyone knowing in the first place?! I gripped my hair in frustration and let out a tired breath.

"This is going to turn into a big gruchiat storm, isn't it?" I asked myself while using an old word I picked up during my past travels that means the equivalent of a huge steaming stinking heap of utterly foul troll excrement. All bundled up into one nice word.

"I hope I didn't just hex myself."

Looking back to the battle I saw that Merianna had let out a pulse of energy that crackled all around her, and I noticed her eyes were blazing with an inner light that I had never seen before.

*Okay, yep. Time to go take out that building.*

I scanned the area until I saw a flurry of white hair and a dark green dress.

Cupping my hands over my mouth I called out. "FOG! ARASULE!"

When they both glanced up at me, Fog looked like the picture of calm as he deftly dodged blows and dealt them back twice as strong with his own sword. Ara, well, she was looking up at me like I was the rattlesnake that crawled into her undergarment drawer, and she would like to eat me for dinner...

"I know you are having fun, but it's time to take them out! Ara! I got a present for you!" She lifted her eyebrow at me as she swiftly kicked a hunter in the groin that came up behind her.

"Look at that building!" I yelled pointing towards the structure that all the hunters were streaming out of. "Time to plant some bombs my dear!" I yelled with a chortle as I jumped down to them.

Ara grinned like a maniacal crone and started to cackle as she ran towards the building I showed her.

"Fog! Let us head towards those doors and keep any more from coming out!" I instructed, he simply nodded followed me out to the building where other members had also started to get the idea as they overheard me yelling to Fog and Ara.

Soon all of the members were moving with us. We hit a wall of hunters as we got to the building. Arasule was deftly avoiding them as she moved from one side of the building to the other, placing big, menacing looking black pouches of liquid every few feet she moved. The pouches had strange flimsy looking patches on them that were all facing the building. The Nifty old hag also placed charms on the pouches to make them unnoticeable through the chaos. I smiled at her as she sprinted back to the front of the building to help us keep the hunters inside.

"All ready?!" I asked her through the chaos.

"All I have to do is spark them!" She said with an evil grin as she threw a different pouch at the hunters. It erupted and bathed them in a liquid that burned their flesh and seemed to burrow through their skin all the way down until, in a matter of seconds the bones were visible through the layers of skin and muscle.

"Urgh, did you really have to make a potion like that Ara?" I asked her with a grimace.

She just shrugged nonchalantly. "They deserve it." She said simply and ducked a fist that was meant for her face.

"Of course they did." Fog said through a heavy sigh as he hit said hunter with his own fist.

"COVER YOUR NOSES!" Arasule yelled and I foolishly took that as the cue. Sadly I missed the horrified look that Fog shot to Arasule.

"TAKE COVER!" I shouted to everyone that was around me and erected a barrier as Ara hunkered down with an evil grin while digging something out of her back pocket. She then clicked her right forefinger and thumb together in the direction of the pouches she had lain around the building.

In the moment that Ara's pouches exploded, I also saw a massive bolt of lighting light up the whole area to the East, just outside of the village's border. It was so bright that it lit up the area we were standing in with a thunderous roar that left my ears ringing and eyes stinging.

In-between the explosion of the pouches and the explosion of light from behind me I caught a glimpse of a fluctuating glow of energy deep inside the building. For a split second I saw a figure clad in a black cloak duck into the glowing energy and disappear completely. My gut twisted very uncomfortably.

In a second everything came crashing down in a cacophony of sound and debris and the hunters that were still inside all cried out in agony as they got crushed between the expositions and the falling building. The shield I threw up to protect myself and the members behind me held firmly as stones, pebbles and all manner of shredded body parts came propelling themselves in our direction.

My stomach suddenly heaved.

The body parts were not a problem, I could handle gore any day without any problem at all. What my senses could not handle, was that blasted stench that came wafting up from the source of the blasts. The pouches were expelling a massive amount of horrendous gasses.

"Arasule!" I yelled out in-between dry heaves as grey ash came floating through the air to land on our hair, clothes and skin, and gods be damned if the ash didn't smell even worse than the air did.

"Yes?" I heard her muffled voice say sweetly from below my elbow.

I jerked in surprise and glanced down at her in disbelief. Ara had a herbal cloth strapped around her head that covered her nose and mouth perfectly. By the looks of it she took the long herbal cloth and lined one half of it with something nice smelling, folded it in half and tied the ends behind her head. She was flat on her stomach on the ground with her elbows supporting her upper body weight as she looked at me with glee.

"You bat shit crazy old crone!" I exploded as my stomach gave another dry heave. "You knew that t-the explosion would have this-," heave "side e-ffect!" I fumed at her as I tried to get my mind to work again.

She gave me a droll stare. "What kind of Spells and Potions master would I be if I didn't?!" She snapped back and got up off of the floor with a huff. She looked around herself at everyone that had either already lost their breakfast, were stuffing their skirts or sleeves over their faces, were laying prone on the floor or were trying to get as far away from the abhorrent smell and ash as possible and smirked triumphantly.

"This is not funny Arasule." Fog said dully and cuffed her on the back of her head.

"Oi! All I did was destroy the building and the Hunters that were in it as asked, I didn't ask for your opinion nor am I hearing any thanks!" Ara said pointing a dainty finger in his face.

Fog pinned her with a piercing glare and her dainty digit faltered. "And all I did at the Order was fix the wards that you almost blasted to hell and gone with that same explosion of yours in that one little section of the whole damned castle. I warned you to inform us whenever you were going to use that detestable potion."

Ara perked up for a second until Fog talked right over whatever it was that she was going to say.

"And I didn't mean one second before you spark them up!" Fog yelled in Ara's face and she deflated.

"Oh but come on Fog," Ara whined and seemed to grovel a little. "You can't deny that it was spectacular!" she beamed.

"Being spectacular is not the issue here!" Fog retorted.

And before this argument could escalade even higher I quickly jumped in. "Why aren't you affected Fog?" I asked with a raised eyebrow while my hands were covering both my nose and mouth. Not that it helped...

He turned to me and shrugged helplessly. "Once she said 'cover your noses' I associated that with her newest experiment that went boom in the Order. So I quickly wrapped myself in a pocket of fresh air before she lit them."

I stared resentfully at him. "Curse your quick reflexes. I should have tried doing that the moment the smell hit me." I muttered miserably.

Fog laughed at me outright and stretched his hand out to me. I felt the hair around my head cool and I could suddenly breathe again!

"Bless your cursed soul Fog, you're a lifesaver." I said in a relieved sigh as Fog gave me an offended look, and I swore I heard him muttering something like 'My soul isn't cursed'.

"Now that I can think again, we can get everything cleared up!" I said and started drawing clean air from the east to push the smell of Ara's newest creation away. As I looked around me I was surprised to see some of the members even twitching in their immobile states on the ground because of the smell. One day I might just ask her to bring those bombs along on a difficult bounty.

With the new clean air I noticed droplets suddenly dropping from the sky and looked up to see a storm cloud expanding and dissipating as I drew the air along. Frowning, I remembered that Merianna was fighting in the same direction that I was pulling the cloud from.

I stretched my senses up to the cloud and noticed that it was saturated with Merianna's energy, and still rumbling contentedly with leftover charges of said energy.
I was going to have to have a talk with her once we get back to the Order. First I had to make sure that the brat didn't kill herself.

"For the love of all things cursed Nana! Did you really have to refine that potion?!"

Speak of the demon and you might step on her tail. I mumbled in my mind.

Merianna was walking towards us with one hand clutching the scythe to her chest while the other was finishing erecting a cocoon of fresh air around herself. And good gods did she look like she had just stepped out of a Wraith's nest.

She was wet from head to toe. Thick patches of blood and pieces of skin that did not belong to her were running down her face and arms. The dress on the other hand ... there was no hope of saving it this time.

She could scrub her fingers raw and poke as many needles with thread into it as she wanted, but it would not help improve its ragged state. The light blue that it might have been once upon a time was long gone and replaced with patches of deep red blood and splotches of deep tissue mixed with gore.

Yet, there she was, waltzing in without a care in the world.