The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 693: Kitcher’s Fell (Part One)

On the outskirts of Dunn Barony, a small hamlet perched atop a steep-sided hill that men had labeled Kitcher’s Fell. Local folklore varied about the name, with some claiming that Kitcher had been a hero of the people, leading a small army of farmers armed with nothing more than pitchforks and hand axes to repel demons from the lands humans had only begun to settle. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Other stories claimed that Kitcher had been little more than a bandit, on the run from Lothian City, who had chanced upon a demon camp and slaughtered them with his band of brigands in the hopes that it would clear their names. Given the sizeable bounties paid out by both the Lothian family and the Church for killing demons, it certainly felt plausible to people who rejected the myth of Kitcher as some kind of peasant folk hero.

Whatever Kitcher had been, he’d won the favor of the Dunn family, and the hamlet built on the site of his victory still bore his name. The man himself had died long ago, but his family still held some of the most coveted grazing land outside the hamlet’s wooden palisade walls, and his great-grandson, Keller, would likely inherit the family’s sprawling ranch when he came of age.

For now, however, the young man was barely fifteen years old, and the only thing he currently felt about his family’s ancestral home was that it was much, much warmer than the cold, wet autumn night outside with the cattle.

"Ah-choo," Keller sneezed, pulling his heavy wool cloak tighter around his shoulders and inching closer to the small fire that felt far too feeble to keep the evening chill at bay.

"You’d feel better if you drank some of the tea, young master," an aged voice said from the opposite side of the fire. "The real secret to keeping warm on nights like this is to use your fire to warm your drink and use a hot drink to warm yourself."

"How can you drink anything that comes off that fire, old man?" Keller asked, doing his best to take shallow breaths as he held his hands out toward the putrid fire. "Why do we have to burn dung to keep warm when a wood fire would be brighter and warmer?" he groused. "And it wouldn’t stink so much!"

"Haha, you’ll learn quickly how much better it is to burn dung than to burn wood when you have to haul your own fuel out here in the winter, young master," the old servant said with a hearty chuckle. "Dung is lighter once it’s dried, and a few bricks of dung will last you all night if you manage your fire well," he said over his shoulder, not bothering to look at the shivering young master who huddled near the fire.

Cabrin had served young master Keller’s family since he was even younger than the young master was and he knew his duties well. With a herd of nearly thirty head of cattle, it took a fair amount of minding to make sure as many of them as possible made it through the winter.

Even though Keller was unlikely to spend much of his life personally tending to the herd of cattle, the flock of hens, or the fields of marigold and goldenrod that had provided much of the family’s wealth over the years. It was far more likely that Keller would follow in his father’s footsteps, managing the whole of the family business and spending almost as much time in Dunn Township dealing with the merchants there as he spent at home.

But Keller’s father insisted that he spend a year doing the work of each of the family’s businesses before he would be allowed to accompany his father to learn how to manage the whole of the family business. It was an approach that Cabrin approved of, even if he had the misfortune to be young Keller’s first teacher.

"Dung still stinks," the young man complained as he eyed the kettle sitting next to the glowing coals of the campfire as he tried to decide whether or not he was really willing to drink something warmbed by burning cow manuer.

"Oi, did you see that?" Cabrin said, staring out into the darkness as he tried to find a trace of the flicker of light among the slumbering herd that had caught his attention. "Something moving out there..."

"There’s nothing out there but cows, old man," Keller said, glancing in the direction that the old man was looking and seeing nothing but the dark lumps of dozens of dull brown cows that were barely visible in the dark of the moonless night.

"Damn it, boy, I told you to keep your back to the fire," the old man hissed, momentarily forgetting to be polite as he cursed the young man’s foolishness. It might feel comforting to stare into the warm glow of the fire, but it spoiled a man’s ability to see in the dark, especially on a night like this! "Over there to the left, my left," he said, pointing where he’d seen the flash.

"I swear, there’s nothing," Keller started to say as he stood up from the putrid campfire to stand next to the old man. But when he looked, he saw the same thing the old man had seen, a brief flicker of movement, like the light of the campfire reflecting off of polished metal.

-MROOOO-

One of the cows made a startled noise, shuffling to the side and colliding with a neighbor who norted and tossed it’s head in response but other than a few spooked cows, nothing seemed to be moving among the herd.

"Just cows, old man," Keller said, turning away from the old man to look back at the kettle beside the campfire. What he saw, however, was something that would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his days.

The demon standing before him, and he was certain that it was a demon, stood half a head taller than a man with long, pointed horns growing out of its head like the horns of a bull. It’s body was twisted and misshapen, covered with reddish coppery scales that glittered in the light of the campfire.

The demon’s chest was large and broad but it’s legs were slender and spindly, as though it had been a figure made of clay that was pinched at the bottom to create piles upon piles of muscles for its broad chest and heavy arms.

It was a creature straight out of his nightmares, a being so twisted and evil that he silently cursed himself for ever doubting the words of the priests when they warned about the greater horrors lurking behind the common demons that the Dunn’s soldiers had proven so successful at defeating over the years.

The priests had given their warnings countless times that a life lived aimlessly by a man who refused to meet his struggle would invite disaster when demons arrived to exploit his weakness. At the time, he’d treated their words as no different than his mother’s dire warnings to eat his turnips or demons would gnaw away his belly in the night.

Now, however, he realized that he’d been very, very wrong to dismiss the warnings of the priests... only it was far too late to do anything with his regrets.

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