I just barely managed to stop shaking by the time Clara came rushing back. “Was that the same spirit that was watching us at the creek?” she asked hurriedly.

  “Probably,” I replied as calmly as possible. “Although we won’t know until we go down there and check.”

  “You want to go down there? Now?” Clara asked cautiously.

  I hesitated for several seconds before replying. “Do I want to? No. Am I going to? Yes. If that spirit wanted us dead, it could have killed us back at the stream, and someone needs to check on those girls.”

  Raising my fingers to my lips I whistled for Nightmare before I lost my nerve. It only took a couple seconds for the horse to come rushing forward, Kaylee sitting in the saddle.

  Ears pinned back and eyes narrowed, Kaylee looked at me suspiciously. “Mew?”

  “Yeah, it was here. Killed a Graves Hunter then disappeared again,” I replied. The cat opened her mouth to ask a follow up question, so I cut her off. “I’ll explain everything later, but right now I need to get down this hill. It looked like the Graves goons were escorting a pair of prisoners, and I want to check on them.”

  Expression relaxing, just a little, the cat nodded.

  “Good girl,” I whispered before throwing my rifle over my shoulder and heading towards the horse.

  “I’m coming with you!” Clara suddenly declared, rushing for her own horse.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” I shouted at her back.

  Climbing into her saddle, Clara took a deep breath before answering. “No, but I’m not going to let you go down there by yourself. Plus, I want to check on those girls just as much as you do.”

  Nodding, I jumped up into my own saddle and gently directed Nightmare out of cover and down the hill. We couldn’t go straight down, it was a little too steep and covered in various smaller rocks, so we needed to wind our way down.

  Surprisingly, the girls hadn’t tried to run after the fight had started, or even ended. Instead they were sitting in the exact same position as before, having an animated conversation. Clara and I managed to get halfway down the hill before the blonde noticed us and shushed the native girl.

  The girls weren’t in the best of shape. They were skinny, not quite starved but they’d obviously not been well fed for a while now. In addition, both girls had a number of bruises poking out from their worn, ill fitting clothes.

  Once we were closer I could clearly see the collar bolted around both girl’s necks. They were ugly things, made of that magic resistant copper colored alloy and covered in various alchemical vials and wire coils. Crude work, compared to what the Witchhunters used, but apparently effective at keeping the girls in line.

  “Are you okay? We could hear you screaming from way up the hill everytime those assholes triggered those collars,” I called as I wound my horse down the hill.

  “We’re fine,” the blonde responded after a couple seconds, eyeing us suspiciously. “Are you two from the coven?”

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  “Sort of,” I replied non-committedly. “My friend is, at least.”

  Clara glanced at me for a moment, before addressing the girls. “I’m surprised you two are still here. You could have run off during the fight, or afterwards, without any problems.”

  “If we’d tried to get too far from those two, or tried to take off the collars, they’ll activate and continue shocking us until we die,” the blonde explained. “They made us watch it happen once, so no one would attempt to escape.”

  My eyes narrowed slightly. “There’s a lot to unpack from that sentence, and I’d like to circle back to that soon, but first let's get those collars off you.”

  The native girl spouted off a couple words in a language I didn’t recognize, and her friend nodded. “Why should we trust you?” the blonde asked.

  “Because we don’t mean any harm to you, we were just protecting the coven,” Clara explained quietly. She even raised her hands cautiously to show the girls she was unarmed. Which really meant next to nothing for a witch.

  “Look, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to, but the way I see it you’re in a bad place here. You can either allow me to remove those collars, you take those bodies with you wherever you go, and probably get arrested the instant you approach civilization, or you starve to death here,” I said, pulling Nightmare to a stop a few feet away from the girls. “I can give you a couple minutes to think about it if you want.”

  The two exchanged a quick glance, before the blonde turned back towards me. “Can you really remove them, without setting them off?” she asked. There was the faintest hint of both hope, and fear, in her voice.

  “Absolutely,” I said, jumping down from my saddle. As soon as I was on the ground, Kaylee jumped to my shoulders.

  The blonde immediately started to climb off her horse, only to have the native girl grab her arm. They had another quick conversation before the blonde girl finished climbing down. She walked right up to me, and raised her chin. “I’m ready,” she tried to declare confidently. I could still make out a slight tremor in her voice, but chose not to point it out.

  “What’s your name?” I asked quietly as I inspected the collar. I wasn’t an expert in technology, and didn’t have a clue what most of the components on the collar did, but I could tell the latch was booby trapped. I was going to have to avoid that area.

  “Mary,” the blonde replied, closing her eyes tightly.

  “Well, Mary, don’t worry. This’ll only take a second.” I carefully grabbed both sides of the collar, avoiding both the hinges and the obvious joint on the other side, and released my power. The collar just fell into two pieces, falling harmlessly to the ground.

  Both girls stared at the collar in disbelief. “How did you do that?” the blonde asked quietly.

  “Magic,” I grunted quietly. “Does your friend want her collar off too?”

  Mary animatedly waved the native girl over, talking excitedly in their shared language. The other girl hesitated for a few seconds, but did end up slowly climbing down and creeping over. “And what’s your name?” I asked the second girl quietly.

  She just shook her head, closed her eyes, and raised her chin, whimpering the entire time. “Plays-in-water doesn’t speak English,” Mary explained. “Those thugs grouped us together so I could teach her.”

  “And where did you learn?” I asked, as I slowly reached out and grasped Plays collar. As soon as I was sure I wasn’t going to trigger the failsafe I released my power, breaking the collar in two.

  As soon as it fell away, Plays sprinted back to her horse, ranting the entire way.

  “I’m guessing she still doesn’t trust us, huh?” I whispered as the girl clambered into the saddle and yelled at Mary.

  “I’d appreciate it if you two didn’t immediately run off,” Clara said, raising her voice so she could be heard over Plays. “We’d like to know more about how you two ended up in this situation.”

  “I’m not sure if Plays is willing to wait,” Mary replied quietly. “Ever since I met her all she’s talked about is getting back to her tribe. I’m not even sure that she knows where they are.”

  “Well, maybe someone in the coven can direct her in the right way. You could get some extra supplies at the very least,” Clara suggested. Mary relayed the request to her friend, who finally stopped ranting, and then the two fell into a quiet conversation.

  “Can you keep an eye on them for a couple minutes?” I whispered to Clara. “I want to check on those bodies really quickly.”

  “Sure, but don’t be long. I have a feeling that Plays won’t be very patient, no matter what they decide,” she whispered back.

  I slipped away from the small group and headed over to the two Hunters. Their horses had wandered off, just leaving the two mangled corpses.

  The one I had killed was almost unrecognizable, twisted and burned by the explosion. Nudging the body with my foot I managed to roll it over onto its back. It had the same coppery colored armor, and featureless mask that WitchHunters used, but something was different. It had the Graves insignia of course, but that wasn’t it, I was having trouble putting my finger on it.

  As I gently searched the man’s pockets, now that I was this close I could tell he was indeed a man, for any information he might have the armor shifted slightly. Grabbing the breast plate, and pulling slightly, caused the metal armor to pull away; Apparently the leather straps holding it on had all but disintegrated in the explosion. I didn’t find any papers underneath, but I did find something else. Etched into the metal on the inside of the breastplate was a tiny Graves emblem, and 103/200.

  “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think,” I whispered to Kaylee.

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