Chapter 2262

"Okay. That's good to know. Same plan asalways?”

"Sure, why not?"

"Lead on, my darling," said Roger, and gave hera low bow.

"Such cheek. See you inside."

Roger nodded and ducked behind the boulder and disappeared from her sight. Roger would be in position once she was ready. He always was.

Glenda walked toward the town and rummaged through her spell component bag. She found what she wanted by feel alone. Each ingredient fed her a little of their essence when she wanted them to. She selected what she needed and crushed the herbs and small bones into her palm. She lifted her hand and poured the mixture into her mouth and slowly chewed it, careful with the bones.

The taste was beyond bitter and foul. The mixture sucked the moisture from her mouth

with surprising quickness, but she chewed until the mixture was a soft mass in her mouth. She spat it into her hand and took a swig of water from her waterskin to wash away the taste and spat. She could sense no eyes on her as the gate approached, but the grimoire knew she was there. She felt its fear and smiled.

Through the gate she could see the start of the town buildings that had been hidden by the surrounding wall. Eastwold looked like any other coastal town. It had a port bristling with the masts of fishing boats. Near the boats would be the fishery and above that there would normally be dozens of circling and screeching gulls. Today the sky was empty, and she knew it was just another sign. Proof that witchcraft was being used. Animals have a sense about witchcraft. Far better than humans or even the fae. This was why Roger and she had made such a tremendous team. Glenda could sense witchcraft across miles. Roger could sense the reaction of animals in the area and pinpoint the source of disquiet.

And that bow of his sure helps, she chuckled to herself.

She passed through the town gate and walked down the deserted main street. She walked past empty shops and houses toward the centre of town. She could feel the presence of the grimoire now. Before it had merely been a sense of direction. Now she could sense the evil. The power of the tom e was gaining strength, and she knew that meant it had created yet another circle.

She didn't know who had created the book, but it was infused with part of the soul of a powerful spell caster. She knew it was partially sentient. What she had learned over the decades was that the tom e only allowed a witch to see what she needed to see when the time was right.

She had always been certain Gwydion had possessed it and kept it hidden from her scrying. She had questioned her repeatedly over the years about it. Since the Adventurer Academy events, the tom e had been exposed. Glenda had never laid eyes on the book but had learned much about it from other witches during interrogation. All Glenda knew was it was called Witch Circles:How to Control Your Spell Caster and Use His Power and it was supposedly bound with leather made from human skin.

Likely the skin from the spell caster whose soul was used to empower the damn thing.

She was a little apprehensive as she spied the town hall at the centre of the town. A large open square was in front of it, and empty stalls for selling food and items were placed haphazardly around it. Flies swarmed in thick clouds over rotting food and Glenda could smell the decay.

It's so unsettling to walk through such an empty town, she thought.

On that thought, she scanned the area looking for bodies. The town was empty, and she feared the worst but knew it was already far too late. Whatever circle had formed here had already done their damage. The first rituals witches used to claim power required human sacrifice. The more sacrifice the better.

Glenda stopped walking once she reached the centre of the square. She faced the double doors leading into the town hall and tried to guess how many people had lived here in Eastwold.

She didn't know it, but her lips moved when she counted in her head. She stopped at four

hundred.

It's at least four hundred people. Maybe more if they struck during a trading day. She shuddered. She fucking hated witches.

In her head, she stopped the other counting she had been doing from years of practice. She had reached six hundred marking the ten-minute mark. She looked around quickly for any arrows suddenly shooting into the air and seeing nothing she grimaced and walked directly to the town hall. She stopped before the two doors and reached for her magic. She could feel the grimoire's concern and smiled to herself.

She chanted softly under her breath and willed magic into the chewed mixture in her hand. When she reached the end, she tossed the mixture up onto the roof of the building. She felt her spell complete and wrap around the building. It was a simple spell, not requiring a ritual, but it was complex in the range and scope of it. Everything within the building could no longer escape without significant magic of their own and they would have to know exactly what the spell did.

It was her own spell, crafted and perfected over the years. All it did was cause confusion in the mind of someone trying to exit the building, either by door, or window.

And now by tunnel, she mentally added remembering that time up north so many years ago that caused her to modify the spell.

Her spit bound it to her and allowed her to pass freely. Roger was included in that by some miracle. Grace had once told her that they had shared so much bo dily fluid over the years that they were more or less considered one person by her magic. Despite her years of experience with magic, Glenda still felt like an amateur compared to the knowledge the fae possessed.

And Bitty and the gnomes seem to know even more than the fae.

The time spent at the Academy teaching Daniel and the witches had exposed a whole new element to magic to Glenda. Remaining foremost in her mind was what Daniel had spoken to her about quite a few times.

Daniel had said he could see the bond between

Roger and I, didn't he? mused Glenda. He said we were already connected. That I should bind him to me.

Her heart fluttered at the thought. To her it was an evil concept born of her years destroying the horror of witches and their bound spell casters and what evil they would always accomplish. And always willingly.

I could never subject Roger to that. I would become what I hate most. But still, Daniel proved it can be something different.

Glenda dismissed these thoughts, took a deep stabilising breath, and walked right up to the doors and pulled them both open wide with a bang and strode inside, her robes swirling behind her with the speed of her passage.

Roger climbed over the house closest to the town hall. He had kept an eye on Glenda when he could. He quickly searched the houses he passed and found no signs of life. Plates of rotten food and drink lay on tables half eaten. In places, small fires had started and thankfully hadn't spread before running out of fuel to burn. He had been in towns with a witch circle

before when all that had remained was one building surrounded by the ravages of fire. This town had been spared that fate.

Except the townsfolk are all dead now, he thought with anger. They had seen these signs before. It always turned out the same.

He watched Glenda enter the square and pause before the townhall. She looked around for any sign from him to stop, and when he failed to fire an arrow into the air she strode forward with purpose toward the main doors. He lost sight of her under the eaves of the building roof he stood on.

The town hall was unexceptional in that it looked like any other town hall in the realm. It was large enough to house most of the townsfolk for important meetings or celebrations. A small spire rose from the roof with a small bell inside it; rung to warn the townspeople or to gather them.

Roger ran lightly across a house rooftop closest to the townhall and leapt across the gap of fifteen feet. He landed without sound on the other roof and nimbly ran up to the spire and

found the small entrance at the back. The spire was a common design and he had expected nothing less.

He could feel the grimoire below him. He wasn't exactly sensitive to magic but years of being partnered with Glenda had somehow loaned her skills to him. But he had to be close. Like now.

He slipped inside the spire and placed his feet down on the narrow stairs used to service the bell and its spire. A thin rope descended into the town hall, and he could hear whispering female voices. Witches. He gingerly crept down the stairs and paused as they ended in a small, windowless, and empty room. He crossed the room to the only exit and pressed an ear to it. The whispering was louder and coming from the other side. Just then he heard the front doors bang open loudly.

That was his cue.

He pulled open the door, pulled out his bow, lifted a hand to the string to find an arrow there. He pulled back and surveyed the room. Hundreds of decaying bodies of all ages were

stacked up and discarded in the corners with cut throats. They were the sacrifices to the witches'magic. But his attention was only on the four young female adults who were standing on a stage around a lectern with the grimoire open and placed on top. They were glaring at the front doors and watching Glenda walk purposefully toward them. He always found it remarkable that witches looked like any other women. These girls were no exception. They could be mothers or daughters shopping in the square. Except their uncanny beauty was forged from their evil magic and from spells born of the grimoire.

But they were witches, and he knew intimately what they were capable of.

Glenda raised her hands and started chanting.

Glenda and Roger had long ago realised that words were not necessary in moments like these. They were witches. They needed to die. Words did nothing.