Free Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle by E.C. Ambrose Page A

with it, then. I’ve no wish to hit you again. But how did you come to this?”
    “Look to yourself, Barber,” the stranger said, “if you plan to save any more witches. Mobs take no more kindly to the accomplice than to the accused.” Swiftly, he vanished into the night, leaving Elisha with neither cloak nor answer.

Chapter 7

    E lisha rose and went in search of his lost cloak, cursing the darkness when he found not a sign of it—nor of the silver coins he’d so carefully stitched into the hood. “Bloody Hell,” he muttered, making a second sweep down the road he had taken. Doubtless one of the townsfolk had collected it as a prize and would only feel the more blessed when he found the coins. The spring days were warm enough, but evenings grew chilly, and he felt it especially now that he was damp from his splash in pursuit of the witch. The cloak was a sore loss. When the wagons rumbled by a little later, Elisha dusted himself off and followed along, catching up with Malcolm and pulling himself up.
    “Did ye see the witch, then?” the carter asked, with an eager grin.
    “Only for a moment. I think the shrine just caught a spark from something—a candle most like. The poor man’s probably giving prayers of thanks right now that he got away.”
    Malcolm snorted. “Ye know nothing of the world, eh? These witches, they’ll set fire to ye soon as look at ye. Revenge for theirs, if ye catch the meaning. And I had a cousin as turned black when he looked at one the wrong ways at market.”
    Elisha left off rubbing his arms to keep warm. “Black?”
    “Aye, black’s your hair. Took a bath in mother’s milk to clean him up.”
    “Sounds expensive.”
    “Dunno, I wasn’t there, was I? But that’s the least mischief I’ve heard from a witch.”
    Hugging his arms close, Elisha laughed.
    “Ye don’t believe me,” Malcolm grunted. “Suit yerself, ye’ll see some doings around these parts, mark my words. I hear this duke’s been accused himself.”
    “Well, I’ll be looking forward to that,” Elisha said, then noticed the carter’s lowered gaze. “Just curious, that’s all.”
    “Don’t be too eager, Barber. These witches, they take blood in their rites and summon up devils to torment those as displease them. Oh, aye, that village we passed’s had more trouble than a bit, let me tell you.” He straightened and flicked the reins to encourage a quicker pace. “Course, we may be in for a burning, we stay long enough.” He grinned at this and nodded. “Not been to one in years.”
    This caught Elisha’s attention, and he asked, “Were you there, outside the city? Maybe twenty years ago?”
    “That I was. You’d have been little more than a lad, eh? I’s lucky to be a groom then, with one o’ the great houses. We had a spot not five rows from the stake.”
    “What did you see?” Elisha leaned forward, propping his chin on one hand to see what he could of Malcolm’s face.
    With a flash of that suspicious look, the carter said, “She cast a glamour at the end, she did. The devil himself come into her and raised his fiery wings. Cor, that were something to see. Yet the priests held him back, so the archers got off their shots. Might’a been an awful day for all of us if they hadna taken her down.” He crossed himself, staring into the distance as if he, too, could still see the scene before them. “It’s the sacrifice, ye see. They’re strongest at the very moment of death, when they’ve given themselves over to darkness.”
    “Like saints,” Elisha murmured, but into his hand, and the carter did not hear him.
    They reached the encampment shortly before dawn, led onward by the night watch. The bombards were silent all night, but Elisha saw movement on the battlements of the distant castle and doubted they would have peace for long. The vast camp stretched along the riverside, a motley assortment of common canvas tents and the brightly decorated bell tents and pavilions of the knights