The treeline thinned out considerably as we left the Coven’s boundaries, following the shallow slope downwards. It didn’t take long to find where the mysterious group crossed the creek. They weren’t exactly trying to be subtle. On both sides of the creek there was a clear path of trampled plant life and snapped branches. It looked like the group had taken a quick rest here before moving on.

  Hopping off Nightmare I crouched down to examine the numerous tracks left in the mud.

  “There are three to four of them. Two are on heavy horses, and carrying a lot of weight, the others are traveling light,” I muttered as I poked at the various hoof prints.

  “How can you know that? I thought you’d never been hunting before,” Clara asked, fidgeting nervously in her saddle.

  “I told you I’ve tracked people before,” I replied, as I rose to my feet. “And whoever this group is, they’re not trying to be subtle.”

  Kaylee hissed quietly, and nudged me with her paws. Hand resting lightly on my pistol, I casually glanced around.

  “Where?” I whispered.

  The cat didn’t answer, instead she stared straight ahead, further down the creek. I hadn’t felt anything, but Kaylee certainly had. My magical senses had dulled considerably ever since the attack, and animals were naturally sensitive to magic, so I trusted her senses.

  I glanced back towards Clara, who showed no indication she had felt anything either, before slowly creeping towards the magic Kaylee had sensed.

  “What are you doing?” Clara hissed after I’d moved about half a dozen paces away. I just gestured for her to keep back, eyes locked on the creek ahead of me.

  I couldn’t see it, or feel it in the traditional sense, but I knew something was there. We were being watched, judged. The power inside me screamed to be released, to consume something at the side of the creek, but I suppressed it, pushed it back deep inside.

  There was the slightest bit of movement, so subtle that I would have dismissed it as the wind, and whatever had been there vanished. I couldn’t tell what had happened, whether it ran away or dissipated, but it left behind a magical residue.

  Old, powerful, familiar.

  Clara must have felt it too. “Zoey, get back here this instant!”

  I didn’t argue. Jogging back I immediately mounted Nightmare and turned her to follow intruders.

  “What the hell was that? I’ve never felt anything like that,” Clara whispered from beside me.

  “A spirit. An ancient one if I had to guess, based upon how powerful it was. Probably benevolent,” I explained as I urged Nightmare across the creek.

  “Probably?”

  “A malevolent one wouldn’t have just sat there, watching us. It would try to rip us limb from limb. I guess it could have been a spirit of the land, but most of those have been driven out of the east so I don’t know much about them,” I spared the barest glance back before spurring Nightmare into a gallop. “Whatever it was, I don't want to be around if it decides to come back.”

  “You seem to know a lot about spirits, did you run into a lot of them back east?” Clara asked.

  “Only once, and that was more than enough,” I replied quietly.

  It didn’t take us long to find traces of our mysterious quarry again. From what I could tell from the tracks they weren’t moving too quickly, the horses were only walking, and they were stopping frequently.

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  Not suspicious, or worrying at all.

  Instead of just riding right into the back of them, I chose to instead turn Nightmare towards the Coven, deeper into the woods.

  As soon as I deviated from the path, Clara sat up in her saddle. “Where are we going? I thought we were following the group?”

  “We don’t know if the group is friendly or not, so I don’t want to just ride them down. If we go up and around we can find a good place to watch them without being seen. Do you know any good lookouts around here?”

  Clara chewed on her lip for a minute before answering. “I know one, but it’s only a couple miles ahead. I don’t know if that’s good enough.”

  “We’ll check it out, and if it doesn’t we’ll find somewhere else. Lead on,” I declared.

  The red mare jumped ahead, rapidly scaling the rough ground until we were almost back on Coven lands again. Clara then straightened out following the perimeter until we emerged from the woods, right next to a massive rocky ravine. Dozens of large rocky fingers poked out of the side of the hill, creating numerous outcroppings for us to hide behind.

  Leaping off Nightmare behind the nearest outcropping I quickly tied the horse off before creeping forward

  The easiest path would have been right at the bottom of the ravine. Flat ground, with a little bit of tree cover. One major downside of this perch was we were quite a way up the hill, to the point where I couldn’t quite tell if the other party had passed yet or not.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a spyglass on you, would you?” I asked Clara.

  The woman just raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Right you don’t need one, magic,” I grumbled. “Can you tell if they’ve passed through here yet or not?”

  The redhead stuck a finger into one of the numerous bags on her belt, mumbled something under her breath, then swiped the finger across her eyes. For a second, her eyes glowed extra brightly, the green shimmering even in the shade of the outcropping. She swept her gaze across the bottom of the valley for several seconds before answering. “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “Then this is where we set up,” I declared quietly, before heading back to the horses.

  First, I pulled Kaylee off my shoulder and carefully placed her on Nightmare’s saddle. The cat shot daggers at me.

  “Don’t give me that. If things go south I’ll need full freedom of movement, and I may need you to ride in and rescue me,” I explained.

  Kaylee stood up straight and smirked. “Mew”

  “Yes, ‘Like last time’,” I admitted before moving to the back of the saddle.

  It didn’t take me long to detach my rifle case, and the blanket below it, then drag them both back to cover. After spreading the thick blanket out over the rocks, to make the area comfortable enough to sit on for more than five minutes, I set down the case.

  Clara stared at me questioningly as I cracked open the case again. I’d taken all the weapons, but that wasn’t all there was inside. Underneath the rifle storage space, near the front of the barrel, was a long wooden panel. Pressing firmly down on the middle section caused the thing to click, and slowly swing open, revealing a scope.

  “Why the hell did you build a hidden compartment for your scope,” Clara asked in confusion.

  “It’s not hidden, it's just in a separate compartment to prevent it from getting bumped, or damaged,” I explained as I lined up the scope on the top of my rifle before hand tightening the screws to keep it in place.

  Shielding my eyes I glanced up towards the morning sun. “I’ll have to be careful to stay in the shade, so the sun doesn’t glint off the scope.”

  “Is all this necessary?” Clara asked. “They could just be travellers.”

  “They could also be outlaws, or diabolists, we just don’t know,” I countered. “If you ask any of the coven guardians they’ll tell you, better to take things slow, and show restraint, then rush into a situation.”

  After double checking the sun’s position I popped up and rested my rifle on the edge of the nearest rock and looked back towards the direction our guests were coming from. I only had to sweep the area for a few seconds before I caught sight of movement,

  “Got’em,” I whispered. “From what I can tell there’s four, two draft horses and two quarter horses.”

  “Can you tell who’s riding them?” Clara asked impatiently.

  “They’re still in the woods, I need to wait for them to get clear first,” I whispered back.

  I had to wait several long seconds, scope hovering over the first figure, until the group cleared the treeline.

  “What the fuck is this?” I growled.

  “What? What is it?” Clara asked expectantly.

  “Witchhunters, in full combat gear, traveling with two older girls. One blond, the other looks native. What the hell are they doing?”

  After a couple seconds the group stopped, and one of the Witchhunters turned and said something to the girls. The native girl shook her head, and less then a second later was clawing at her neck, screaming in pain.

  Clara flinched at the noise. The fact that we could hear her this far away was probably a bad sign. I swept my scope over the girl as she slumped in her saddle. From this distance I could barely make out the collar around her neck. A bronze ring that sparked occasionally.

  The Witchhunter said something else and the girl sat up, and raised her hands. Wind swirled around her, her eyes glowed white, and a pair of transparent wolves materialized next to her. The girl whispered something, and both wolves shot up the hill, heading towards the coven.

  “The hell is this? This isn't how Witchhunters operate,” I muttered ducking back behind the rock.

  “Do you think you can make out any more details with that spell of yours?” I asked Clara.

  The woman nodded, repeated her ritual and popped her head up for just a second before ducking back again. She was white as a sheet.

  “What? What did you see?” I prompted her gently.

  “On that person’s chest there was an emblem, one I recognized,” she mumbled quietly.

  “An emblem, not a star?” I asked confused for a second, until everything clicked together. “Graves.”

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