Chapter One

The air was dank. Shae threw a log onto the fire. It crackled as moisture evaporated from the wood, leaving the scent of char thick in the air. Shae barely noticed. She was listening. She thought she’d lost them in the woods, but now she isn’t so sure; she can hear whispers. The first arrow misses her by a hairsbreadth. She rolled past the fire, grabbing her own bow.

“Enzo, you’re losing your touch!” She gloated. Shae often gloats. She has that way about her, a confidence that shines even when peril is at its highest. Some would call her brave. She knows she’s just lucky.

Bear was the name of her horse. He snorted loudly as Shae parried a second arrow with the moon-kissed silver dagger that never leaves her hip. Three low whistles and Bear charged off to her left. The unnamed assailant sneaking up behind her never saw him coming.

Shae laughed again. “Oh Enzo, where are you? Best stop this charade before someone gets hurt.”

Enzo knew the ambush was reckless. He’d told his patron to wait until Shae was asleep, then perhaps they’d have even odds, but they didn’t listen. ‘Now!’ They’d demanded, it had to be now, this hour. He’d lost count of the times she’d slipped through his fingers. She was a witch; of this, he was certain. Still, she was on the back foot, and he hoped that one of the three men encircling her would get lucky. That was all he needed: one lucky shot to land. Hope evaporated as Bear rounded on them, knocking each down, never slowing. The horse was a demon, or a ghost. None saw him coming. By the time they were on their feet, Shae had taken to the horse’s back. Enzo lined up a final shot before residing himself to another failure. As he took aim, ready to fire, the moonlight failed, ducking behind a thick sheet of cloud. Only the firelight remained. Captivated, he watched the shadow of the woman take down his three men, all giants compared to her, all tiny as they lay defeated on the floor. He didn’t wait for her to find him. When the last man fell, he ran. Shae did not follow. He knew she wouldn’t, she never did. He feared the day she found him first. Perhaps she would come in the daylight, brandishing nothing but her hands and that haunting smile. Perhaps she would never come at all. She would take him in his dreams. A knife slipped between the fears he had concocted for himself. It didn’t matter. This was the last time, he vowed. The last time he’d take a bounty on the witch of the Western Rise.

Shae buried the men and placed markers on their graves. ‘Fools,’ she thought, as she gathered up the coin from their pouches. Then she froze. Nothing scared Shae, not a knife to her throat or the pull of a fierce ocean, but now she was afraid. In one of the coin pouches there was a necklace, a crescent moon, crafted from moon-silver. The necklace was unique, forged many years passed by her father. He had made only two, and one hung around her neck. This belonged to Ana, her sister. She had never seen her without it.

Shae did not stamp the fire. She did not roll her sleeping mat, or take the half roasted rabbit from the spit. She took to Bear before the moon had emerged from the passing cloud, and in a haze of dust, she headed home.

Chapter Two

Shae arrived at dawn, red sky spilling blood across the small cottage far off the beaten path. It was silent, so silent. Bear stopped at the gate, breathless. He wouldn’t go further, wouldn’t pass the boundary. Shae couldn’t waste the time to calm him. She pushed the gate and ran.

“Ana!” Panic was in her voice. She knew this was rash. Her training told her to scout the building, to scope the perimeter, but there wasn’t time. “Ana!”

No reply came, and as she approached the front door, broken at the hinges, her heart hammered.

To her left she noted the dead chickens. Not a single living bird had escaped the slaughter. No pigs sounded, no sheep or cows. Dead. She knew she didn’t need to see the bodies; the silence was enough.

Inside, the floor was slick, blood coating floorboards like carpet. She moved deeper, breath held. Her knife found its home in her hand.

“Ana?” She breathed her name, searched every room. The living room first, then the kitchen, finally both their bedrooms. Ana wasn’t there. She went back downstairs, frantic to find a clue, to the back door a note was pinned, inked in red, a single word, midnight.

It was a time. But where? She ripped the note from the door and headed back to Bear.

Bear was where she left him, distressed but fine. She stroked his nose and slipped a carrot from a side pocket; he refused to eat, lips nestling into her hand rather than the treat.

“Come on, love,” she whispered. “We’re going to talk to Bart.”

The horse was happy to leave, and Shae rode with a heavy heart. She was tired; she hadn’t slept in nearly two days because of Enzo’s antics. She should have just killed him, a game she’d let run for too long. It always felt so wasteful to kill for the sake of killing. Strange, perhaps, for a bounty hunter, but Shae had a code. Her code mattered little now, not with her sister in danger. Somehow, this was connected. She knew it. The note in her hand crumpled in her fist. Bart would know what to do. He always did.

The Tavern was closed. Shae tied Bear round the back, and he drank greedily from the barrel of water Bart left out for the horses. He took the carrot now and chewed it enthusiastically. 

“I won’t be long, rest, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Shae looked up at the building. The doors were all locked. Bart would be on the second floor, sleeping in a room that was too small for any man. A roll mat instead of a bed would be his comfort. His wife would be at home, draped in all the finery he could afford. Bart didn’t love her. He wasn’t sure if he ever had, but he wouldn’t leave her either. So, on nights when he ran the bar, he slept above the Tavern. He worked every night now. Shae wondered if he’d ever be happy. Today was not the day for questions like that. His self pity would be an obstacle. 

Shae used Bear as a lift, leaping up to the second story with the ease of a trained burglar. She slipped the firm tip of her blade beneath the window and prised it open.

“Bart?” she called into the building.

No answer.

“Bart, I need you now,” she said. “You better not still be drunk.”

When still no reply came, she slid in through the window. It was a small room, but not the room Bart would sleep in. She’d stay here sometimes, her things still sat on the sides. It had been nearly three months, but he left them there, always assuming her return.

She did not hide her footsteps, but walked with purpose, till finally she came to the room that would be his. She knocked four times. His snoring was the only response.

Chapter Three

“Bart, wake up.” Shae yelled.

Nothing.

Impatient and driven by her panic, she pushed the door open. He was just as she had imagined, asleep on the roll, whiskey bottle leaking the last drops of its contents across the floor. Some of it had seeped into the mat where he was sleeping. She gave him a kick. Nothing so hard it would hurt, but hopefully enough to jolt him out of his self-inflicted coma.

His eyes opened, his drunken haze lingering.

“Bart, they’ve taken Ana.”

“Shae?” Sleep was still rolling around his mind. It bled across his tan face, and wrinkled in the crow’s feet that stalked the sides of his dark green eyes.

“They’ve taken Ana!”

The fog seemed to lift from him for a moment.

“Ana?”

Shae threw the piece of paper at him.

“Have you seen anything to do with this?”

Bart’s eyes focused and refocused as he tried to concentrate on the scrap of paper.

“Is this written in blood?”

“Bart!”

“I thought you were dead,” he said, standing. He wiped his face and tucked the paper into his pocket, kicked the whiskey bottle to the wall. Then he was moving, walking down the stairs into the Tavern. He took a bottle of booze off the shelf and swigged the bottle. Shae said nothing. She just followed. Looking away as he removed his shirt and replaced it with a cleaner one that was tucked under the bar. He took a glass off the shelf and poured some brandy into it, pushing it to her.

Shae downed it. She wasn’t much of a drinker, not really, but when Bart poured her one, she always took it. The familiar warmth was soothing.

He smoothed the piece of paper on the bar.

“They took Ana?”

“They killed all the animals.”

“Who have you got mixed up with this time?” he sighed.

Shae frowned.

“I was hunting out a cult, but that was months ago. I couldn’t find them.”

“Well, looks like they’ve found you.”

“They’ll regret that.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking at here Shae,” He lifted it up to a shaft of light coming through the window above the Tavern door. “We don’t have any cults here.”

“Haven’t you heard anything? Whispers? These people didn’t just come through and murder everything on the farm without a single trace.”

Bart rubbed his head.

“There was something, but this was last month. This guy, scrawny fella, he was asking about you. Of course, no-one told him anything. The moon witch, he called you. He had this burn… on his right hand, seven prongs twisted. And in each of the spaces was a number. Three, Seven and Thirteen are the ones I remember. I told him to get out. His kind wasn’t welcome here. Creepy little man.”

“Can you draw it for me?”

Bart took a piece of paper from under the bar, sketched the image out with a piece of charcoal.

“What if you can’t find her?”

“I’ll find her.”

“It’s no lead.”

“I have one more to follow.”

Bart stared at the ceiling.

“Want me to come with you?”

Shae laughed.

“And have your blood on my hand’s too? Sophie would never forgive me.”

Bart’s face darkened.

“I thought you were dead.”