Mantare: Bounty Hunting Epics

Evil Mother Spirit

Arthtos lifted the large water skin above his head as his body swayed with the steady walk of his horse.

"You are seriously going to pour that over yourself?"

Arthtos glared over at Garias.

"You got a better plan?"

"We aren't even Catholic..." informed Morthias with a bemused eye. "It could burn you."

"Having a priest bless water against a spirit so it can't stick its, whatever, inside me is better than having to travel thousands of leagues just to have water blessed and then come back."

Morthias held up the charm of his necklace from below his robe's collar. Arthtos looked at the stones black, then grey, and finally a white one strung on a cord, dangling in a vertical line at the center of the necklace. "Yeah, and last time you dunked those in water, we were still fighting that evil spirit and --"

"Aww, Morthias, He is still scared of that little boy..."

Arthtos yanked the water skin down to chest level, removing his other hand from the cork, and pointing it at Garias.

Arthtos shouted that no living child wants to play that religious slurred amount.

"He wasn't alive, now was he?"

"Both of you can eat it," snapped Arthtos, before he yanked the cork free to dangle on its line to the skin's neck, and then jerked the water skin up, and began pouring it over his head, then over his armor plates, and even in each joint.

"Don't start whining now that you are soggy from doing that. We don't need more of your whining."

Arthtos lifted a certain finger at Garias.

"It didn't work, because I had actually dangled the charm behind the skin and not in it," remarked Morthias with a chuckle.

Arthtos blinked at his younger triplet, turned forward in his seat, and then gave a light heel tap to his horse while yet staring forward.

Garias looked over at Morthias, and they both chuckled to one another.

They entered the town a bit later. A man stood at the gate, a wooden cross clutched tight as he waved it over them as if it could detect what it was he was searching for.

"She ain't with 'em!" shouted the man with sunken eyes of sleep exhaustion, and that signature sluggish stumbling step as he returned to his stool.

"Of course she isn't with me! I'm soaked in holy water." Arthtos motioned at his brothers on either side of himself. "I can't say the same for them though."

It was Morthias this time, catching Arthtos upside the back of his head with the bottom end of his staff.

"idiot," was hissed by Garias though as the man's eyes opened wide with leeriness. Garias motioned at himself and his brothers while they yet sat atop their horses, who were tapping their hooves impatiently in the heat of the sunlight high in the sky, and flies evading the snaps of their tails. "We are the hunter trio that was beckoned."

The man's eyes opened wider yet. Garias gave the man a bemused eye, his hand slipping to the sheath built into his saddle. The man jerked forward, toppling his stool. Garias' hand twitched, exposing an inch of polished blade.

"You came! You actually came! WE ARE SAVED!!!"

Garias looked to Arthtos who was giving a tap of his temple and an estranged eye at the man.

"Tell us what it is that we are hunting. We were told a haunting spirit," interjected Morthias.

The man looked at him with renewed wonder and respect.

"uh, Yes. Yes. She is a --" He looked around nervously and then back to Morthias. "-- a nasty thing. She used to be one of us, ya know. But then there was tha--"

"Gentlemen! How was the ride this hot and sticky day!?" shouted a man who gave the one they had been talking to a stern eye. "Why don't you men put your horses in the stable and I will ensure the stable boy takes good care of them and even wipes them down."

Garias shook his head.

"No. How about either you let the man finish what he was about to say, you tell us, or we turn around and leave you to this nasty business."

The man's face paled. He glanced at the two other brothers, with Arthtos leaned forward, crossing his armored arms on the pommel of his saddle. Morthias' horse was pawing fiercer* than ever as the flies buzzed around with the magician reigning it in.

"She, uh, she was a part of our town."

"And?" pushed Arthtos with a rolling hand gesture.

"She died in a fire," interjected the older man.

The mayor snapped a glare at the man who averted his eyes to the ground.

"Okay. Let's go," commanded Garias.

All three brothers turned their horses for the road again. THe mayor ran around them, blocking their way with a wave of his hands. none of the horses so much as twitched their ears at his antics.

"Okay! Okay! She died in a tragic fire accident!"

"See, was that so hard?" asked Arthtos leaning over his pommel again.

"Why hide that?" asked Morthias, eyeing the man.

He looked from Morthias to Garias, and finally back to Artthos.

"It isn't a proud moment for our town."

"So she did something stupid like knocked over a candle and you couldn't save her so you blame yourself."

"Exactly!" brightened the mayor.

"Where was this fire? the holy water is drying."

The man blinked for a moment at Arthtos, and then looked over to see both of the other brothers still staring at him.

"Uh. Yes. right to work for you boys?"

"I do believe I have a beard, which boys cannot grow, from what I recall," corrected Garias, his annoyance growing.

The mayor raised his hands.

"No offense meant. It is just a saying afterall."

He immediately turned and began walking into town. He paused a moment later and looked at the men in confusion.

"We do have a very good stable boy. he would take great care of your steeds and they look like they could use a good wiping down."

"It appears that we are meant to not only travel for weeks, but now walk tediously down roads."

The man blinked at Arthtos.

"No. Not at all. but towns must have their rules. without rules we are well... even the wolf bitch has rules for her pups."

"How far?" asked Garias.

"Just down the road yonder. She lived among us like I said."

"No. that information was given by the elder man you have placed on lookout," corrected Morthias.

"If she was one of you, why is there a man keeping a lookout for her tagging along with travelers?" asked Arthtos.

The mayor blushed.

"She has been doing some very, disruptive things."

"You are hiring us, so we need more information," charged Garias.

"And half down before we begin," added Arthtos.

The mayor looked to arthtos.

"Of course! I, um... I will get your first half payment immediately. Please sirs. Please take your horses to the stable and I will get that for you." The mayor motioned towards the stables. "Please."

"This is not part of our payment," demanded Garias

"Of course not, sirs. It is just us showing you hospitality," assured the mayor, with a nervous glance at Morthias.

Morthias smirked in amusement at the man's obvious unease around himself, but it did not trigger a mutual smile from the man. Instead it sent the man stammering, and walking backwards as he not only tripped over his own words, but his own two feet. He turned and hurried off.

A glance over brought the old man back to their attention, with him whispering a prayer over the wooden cross around his neck, and then him kissing it profuesly as they looked on.

Arthtos looked up and away with a slow blink, and then blinked a few more times.

"And with that, I'm going to go to the stables and have the stable boy expend all of his effort on Suride here."*

Garias handed off his horse to the boy who held all three sets of reigns in his hands and then walked off. He stood there still watching the boy.

"They mayor is hiding something."

"You don't say? I was thinking he went blabber mouth and just spat everything out, even the night he was conceived."

Morthias glared at Arthtos who gave him that rude gesture so many siblings give one another.

"Agreed," interjected Garias before a physical fight could break out. "We will find out everything before we officially accept this job."

"Like we can deny it? If it weren't for grasses being wild, our horses would have starved and we have lost a few pounds ourselves," scoffed Arthtos.

"Look at the scrawny, little Arthtos," jived Morthias with a mocking compassionate tap of his palm to his older triplet's belly of his chest plate.

Arthtos swatted him away with a gruff grunt.

"Come on you two," called Garias, slight ahead of them.

However stoic he had appeared, Garias gave a pat to his brother's plate when he fell in step, earning a sharp snap of Arthtos' scrunched face and grunt. Garias let out a hearty chuckle.

The mayor turned around, and let out a squeak of a start at the brothers at the doorway. Garias and Morthias both were staring at him with grave faces, while Arthtos sat in a chair taken from the council table and spun near the door, a knife in his hand first nonchalantly picking at his teeth, and then he began balancing the blade, tip on his index finger, and his hand waving this way and that as the hilt tilted before it. The treasurer wrung his hands, hunched over as he stood, with worried eyes glancing at the door behind the two brother's and even at a couple of the windows. The mayor cleared his throat and held out a purse. Morthias eyed it speculatively, while Garias glanced at Arthtos, and then Morthias.

"For no questions, this is your first half. Your second will be a bit smaller. Because of the added bonus," added the mayor hurriedly.

"Frank, may I call you Frank? You aren't being so with us, so it seems ironically fitting, don't you think?" Arthtos snorted and even Morthias smirked. Garias calmly turned and shut the door to the peering eyes of council building's front door. There was a squeal, and the hunched treasurer rushed forward, looked to shove past the two brothers standing, glanced up at the one with the ornate staff, squealed again and began stammering, begging. Arthtos smirked, and then began laughing loud, harder, and then maniacally. The treasurers simple beg for them to move turned to high pitched pleading after a glance at the still sitting brother. Garias shook his head, stepped aside, opening the door slightly for the man to slip through, and then cupped Arthtos upside the head after shutting the door behind the man. "Start talking about why everyone is --"

"-- like him," interjected Arthtos with a jut of his thumb.

"If you gentleman don't want--"

"What about us infers that we are gentleman if we hunt down all of the scary things normal folk run from?" Remarked Arthtos.

The mayor deigned a nervous smile with shifting eyes from elder brother to youngest.

"You look like honest and trustworthy folk."

Arthtos snorted. Garias again went to cup him upside the head, but this time Arthtos caught his wrist and gave an annoyed eye before throwing the hand away.

Morthias held his gaze on the mayor without blinking. The man glanced with twitching eyes around the room, but always darting back to the magician.

"So, their nervousness?"

"Does he have to do that?" Asked the mayor again glancing to the youngest before looking to Garias.

"He is merely debating on how many is his creatures he could feed with that fat belly of yours."

The man's horrified eyes darted to Arthtos, and then the eldest again, who this time gave a, 'meh... He could be onto something', squint of one eye and sideways wobble of his head.

"His flesh would be mere ash before my tormented one's hand could grip his wrist."

The mayor's face paled to make his veins visible.

"I-- I promise to pay you. Here... Here is half -- MORE THAN HALF!"

"We aren't looking to hurt you," reassured Garias. The mayor flicked an eye at the emotionless stare of Morthias, but then took a double take of the wild grin and hungry eyes of the bounty hunter in the chair. Garias sighed. "He won't hurt you. Isn't that right, Arthtos?"

Arthtos made a 'meh' face.

"I won't have to if he lies to us again and we leave. She will take care of that."

The mayors eyes gaped, showing their veins at the edge of their spheres and his jaw dropped, showing his dry tongue. "So it is a female," remarked Arthtos with an approving nod. "The anger of a woman." He studied the man further. "Of a mother..." The mayors mouth closed and he began to lick his lips. "Your child." The mayor blinked at him. Arthtos shrugged. "Two out of three." He looked to his eldest brother.

"How and why did she die?"

"It was a dishonor to us! I had no control over it!"

"Really?" Asked Garias with far too much interest in his tone.

The mayor didn't notice.

"I have a town to protect and its intersts to consider," whined the man.

"The needs of the many," hinted Arthtos.

The mayor spun to the middle brother.

"See! You understand!"

"I was being sarcastic. You governing types don't change. You choose things from your limited, biased observations."

"What else am I supposed to do? I have a governor to answer to!"

"So you thought it was a good idea to just kill a mother? What of the child?" Growled Garias, earning even a lifted brow from Arthtos.

"It wasn't the mother they meant to kill," spoke up Morthias.

The mayor began stammering and walking backward before bumping against his chair at the head of the table, and then awkwardly stumbling around it. Arthtos hadn't flipped his chair. He simply was before the mayor. He snatched an armor clad gauntlet's glove's worth of the mayors scrap hair that circled from ear to ear behind his head.

"I think my brother is misunderstanding the situation. Am I correct in this, or am I going to have to rearrange that ugly face of yours?"

The man let out a squeal, and Garias gripped Arthtos' shoulder.

"We need the whole story and all of the story, now..."

"It... It-- It was a bastard... Talk to the priests and they will tell you how much of a sin that is!"

"I don't give a damn about your sins!" Shouted Arthtos as his fist raised, only for his arm to be hooked by Garias, and then him go spinning and stumbling across the room.

Garias stepped forward. He snatched the mayor's shoulder if his garment, and jerked him over to be in front of his chair, and then shoved him stumbling backwards to sit in it with a great huff.

"Everything... Now..." Demanded Garias as the shadow of a scowl was engrossing his face.

The man's movements were now jittery, like a mouse trying to decide if it could chew a hole in the wall fast enough to evade the mouse. His eyes darted to the now pacing brother, as if he were a tiger held behind a fence, and then to a statue of a man, standing there with his staff in hand, a face that gave nothing away.

The door opened to the building and those who had been leaning on the door, transcribing* to the others what they heard, jumped away in an effort to pretend as if they weren't just doing what they were.

Everyone took a step back as the magician surveyed the crowd.

"You all know what you have done, I may appear calm, but my brothers are far from that. I suggest you make yourself scarce."

A moment later, a man burst, thrown, through the door. His official, governmental robes torn to rags and his face a bloody, swelling mess. He lay on the ground, whimpering in a blubbering mess.

Everyone shirked back as Garias and Arthtos walked out the door. Garias scowled at the gathered crowd, and Arthtos was cleaning blood from the armor plates of his gauntlet.

A burly man stepped forward, but halted when Arthtos smiled wide at him with hunger in his eyes further yet. It was Garias though who had been glanced at and halted the man's feet. The glint of his sword partially drawn.

"You all know what you have done here. Let this be a lesson that there are consequences to this filthy behavior that cannot be merely washed away with coin!”

"You have more than you are supposed to!" Shouted a woman at Garias holding bags in his off hand.

He held them up.

"The two are for full payment, and the third is payment for your sins."

"That's thievery!" Screeched an old man.

"I would be happy to discuss it," remarked Arthtos stepping towards the crowd.

"There is nothing more to discuss. We will be handling the issue as agreed," called Garias, yet holding his hilt while there was still blade exposed in the sunny, summer heat.

Arthtos turned smirking at the burly man over his shoulder even as the crowd began shouting at them. Morthias followed his brother without so much as a glance of interest at the crowd. Garias on the other hand walked backwards, at the ready until it was obvious that the crowd was only going to shout and snear at them with nothing done.

"Y--"

"They burned a child alive and stood by while a mother died, failing to rescue that child. They all should burn and endure the same fates," spat Arthtos.

"Their dreams will be heavy and their fears real tonight," remarked Morthias in a manner as if you had just asked him if he liked chicken leg or turkeg leg meat roasted over a fire more.

"We ne-"

"The horses have been cared for since we left them."

"Never a trusting moment with you is there?" Inquired Garias of his youngest brother.

The magician merely looked over at him through shadowed brows.

"-- I'll grind one of those town lover's faces into the dirt while his bitch watches on, and teach their kids what happens when you mess with a woman and her child," continued Arthtos, who had been grumbling the whole time.

They arrived at the building.

"There is the inn--" droned Garias as he was pointing out the landmarks that the mayor had given them.

"They didn't even have the decency to leave the charred ruins of the house! The greedy bastards built right over top of it!"

There was a dark smile.

"Their screams won't be heard except the echoes of their mind."

Arthtos glanced over at his brother whose grip wrenched on the staff.

"Father was a soldier, and was off training and at war, then mom was a widow. We were never bastards."

Merely his eyes flicked over to Garias and then glared at the building again.

"We didn't have to be bastards to have merely a mother and fatherless..."

Arthtos shrugged and stepped toward the building. The two other brothers followed. They entered the inn and looked around. There was no tavern on the ground floor, because there was already a tavern down the street. Here was a front desk that consisted of a plank of wood, forming a sort of table, blocking a wall of keys. To either side of said wall was a hallway with rooms adorning each side. Off to the side was a stairwell leading to the second story.

Morthias handed both of his brothers each a tied, small, leafy thicket of sage. They were already smoking, and the brothers headed off, with Garias heading upstairs and Arthtos walking down one of the halls. Morthias however remained at the door. He turned and ran his finger along the grains of wood that made up the plank table-top. He moved on to walking down the opposite ground level hall to his middle brother, with his hand sliding along the uneven surface of the clay plaster of the inn's inner walls.

People were not gathered. Shutters to homes were latched closed. The sun had set long ago and the brothers remained at the building.

"She's here," called Garias, with a gesture.

"Well the doors don't line up," interjected Arthtos with a gesture at the fact that the feminine figure appeared mid-wall, and obviously was holding a door partially closed while she leaned out it. She was looking at someone. both brothers glanced to see if it still existed in the living plain, but Morthais continued watching intently.

"She's giggling."

"Yeah. She's obviously flirting," agreed Arthtos again watching the specter intently.

She looked to the side surprised, and then hesitantly stepped aside.

"So, she let someone in."

She tentatively extended her hand out the door and was obviously led by it first out of the house and then down the street, with nervous glances every so often back at her home but each was washed away with a giggle and her speaking to whoever was with her.

"She's not a danger yet," called Arthtos.

"No. Merely a remnant of a beautiful moment," agreed Garias.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," reminded Morthias.

"Hey, just because you don't flirt with girls doesn't mean that you won't find some old hag with warts one day," jived Arthtos.

Morthias merely glanced over at his brother with lazy eyes and a slow blink. Arthtos burst out a chuckle, humoring himself.

It was a few hours before they heard the screams. Arthtos had fallen asleep with his helmet resting over his face, and Garias was leaned, sitting against a lamp pole at the street's edge. Morthias however had remained, as calm as he always appeared, with shifting, darting eyes.

There was a scream that pierced the air. A wailing that continued on.

The young woman appeared suddenly, running, dress flapping in the wind created by each of her own steps.

Arthtos had jerked to his feet, and watched her run past them.

"Her clothes are intact."

"You cannot see the flames she yet does," called a calm tone.

She twisted, and jerked to a halt.

"So the townsfolk tried to prevent her from entering the fire..." remarked Garias.

She fought with her captors, each movement becoming more vicious than the previous.

Finally, she broke free, and ran for the house that once stood there, nearing its ashen state it had become. She paused a the door in hesitation with arms raised, obviously blocking heat of the flames. she looked over her shoulder and screamed, but it was more of a screech than any words. she burst into the flamed house, and then her screams grew.

"She's not screaming from physical pain..." muttered Morthias.

"Those first are not hers," remarked Arthtos with his gloved gauntlets tightening into fists.

Her screams grew as the wailing ended. Wordless screeches of impending threat were clear as she remained in the flames.

Everything quieted, Arthtos poured holy water down his blade. His head jerked up at the sound of choking. Garias dangled in the air, his arm trying to dump a satchel of something on the apparition holding him with feet kicking. Arthtos roared as he charged forward, sword arcing behind himself and then for his target. She turned to face him, still holding Garias, and caught Arthtos' blade, only to scream, and it pass through her arm. He twisted and cut up through her other, still holding his brother.

"You will die for what you have done to my child!" she screamed at them as she now stood a ways off.

"You will remain. We have questions of your death," shouted Morthias as he threw a ringed collection of flowers and other leafed plants.

It landed and slid on the hard earth of the street to stop, nearly center of circling her feet.

she looked at Morthias and screamed at him. She went to step forward, but couldn't. She screamed again and was gone. Garias and Arthtos twisted this way and that, while Morthais' eyes cooly took in his surroundings.

She appeared directly before him. He pulled up an arm drawing a cloud of dust from a satchel in his other hand in the air between themselves. Her hand reached the cloud as it dropped and she shirked back. Then she dissappeared down the street.

"She's going after the man who took her on that date!"

"If he's not already dead."

"Why not after the mayor and the other townsleaders."

Arthtos glanced at his brother as they ran down the street after where she had fled.

"You obviously do not understand the vicious nature of women, Morthias."

Morthias gave an 'eh' glance at his brother as they yet ran.

"That building!" shouted Garias.

The brothers turned and burst, Arthtos kicking in the front door to the house. The specter was standing there inside of the house, screaming at the man, even as he poured water over his own head, quoting The Lord's Prayer in a terrified shout. Behind him cowered another young woman, and two small children.

The woman and children were already soaked to the bone, adding their own salty tears as they wailed and cried. Garias was able to get a handful of the salt this time and tossed it at the back of the specter. she screamed as the salt fell through her. She spun on them, and then jumped out the window.

The brothers spun for the door without so much as a hesitation to address the young family.

"She thinks she is still alive! She's using doors and windows!"

Garias snatched a rope from his waist made a slip knot, and then they heard another scream, this time from an older man.

"I don't know how many more times I can tell you! Child, your babe was baptized! God has accepted her spirit!"

"Stupid fucking priests," spat Arthtos as Garias again met the door with his boot a moment before he himself had.

It shuttered. Without hesitation, Garias ripped a thin dagger from his belt and slammed it into the gap of the door and drug it up. It caught, and he grunted as he heaved up. Arthtos pulled away and then slammed his shoulder into the door again. It burst open to find the priest on the floor on his knees, and older woman cowering in the corner atop their bed.

Arthtos swung his sword, slicing the blessed blade through her torso. She screamed out, and then lunged for Arthtos. Morthias lunged between them, even as his brother was twisting from his slice into seemingly empty air. Morthias muttered swiftly, and blew dust from his palm into her face.

She screamed, and fell backward, before disappearing again. Morthias would have fallen, if he'd not angled his staff to catch himself.

The brothers looked around the sparse one room house, and then were outside again.

"I have an idea!" called Arthtos.

They ran after him.

He ran back to the home of the young man. There was screaming as the brothers burst into the home again, but this time Arthtos snatched the collar of the man, and drug him out of the house, blade to his throat.

"Arthtos!" warned Garias.

"You are the fucker who thought it was a smart idea to give false advancements of security and provision to a single mother," Arthtos shouted in the man's face has he drug him to the street.

"She can't have him again! He is mine!" screamed the man's wife while shuttering and clinging to their two children.

The children were screaming for their father and fighting their mother even as she deathgripped them both, wriggling, biting, kicking and punching as they were.

"So, it was your bastard child everyone was ashamed of and instead of cutting off your balls as punishment, they decided to kill the child?!" roared Arthtos in the man's face as he twisted and tossed the man a few feet down the street, towards the inn.

"I did love her!"

"She had perkier tits than your wife, just admit the truth!" shouted Arthtos as he yet advanced on the man who was scambling backwards, the fear of death's nearness in his eyes while this armor clad man stormed towards him, sword pointed at him even as he walked.

"No! That wasn't it!"

"Arthtos! How is this going to find her peace?"

"Well, we can't salt and burn her bones, now can we?"

"Again, I ask how these actions will appease her."

"I'm going to feed him to her!"

"He's not the one who set the fire, offered to watch the child, or probably a dozen other reasons why she would want others of this town dead," reminded Morthias.

"No, but he'll draw her to us," informed Arthtos.

"Yeah? How so? She's already visited his house tonight," questioned Garias with a glance at the neighbors' homes, as both brothers merely looked on to Arthtos reach the man.

Arthtos snatched the man's collar.

"She repeats that start each night doesn't she? DOESN'T SHE?!"

The man's head nodded as if it might rip free of his shoulders on its own accord.

"He's been doused in holy water," reminded Morthias.

"Oh, that can be washed off," growled Arthtos with a false maniac grin, meant to achieve exactly what it did, the man twisting, and running down the road away from them. Arthtos gave chase after the man, and Garias turned the opposite direction. Morthias accompanied the older brother.

Arthtos chased the man, running only fast enough to be on his heels, fainting snatches and slipping grasps of the man's tunic.

Finally they reached the inn, and Arthtos snatched the man's collar and delivered a step on his heel's tendon, while pushing hard on his shoulder. The man let out a scream and fell to his knees. He slid a slight bit, kicking up some dust of the ground.

"No! Not here!"

"There. Was that so hard?" asked Arthtos, panting. He punched the man in the head, knocking him the rest of the way to the ground. "Oh, shut-up."

The two other brothers reached them each carrying a pail. They doused the man front and back.

"So, you have the bait here, wha--"

"Mary, your Joseph is here!"

"You are an idiot," muttered Morthias with a shake of his head.

Arthtos jerked the man to his feet.

A moment later and the specter appeared.

"Talk!"

The man hesitated but then Arthtos pushed the tip of his sword to the man's ribs, and twisted the tip slightly. He cried out, and then shouted.

"I was wrong for tricking you! I was scared!"

The specter stopped and looked at him.

"Keep going," growled Arthtos in the man's ear.

"I-- I didn't know what else to do than that. You were asked to leave town, but reminded everyone how your parents had owned that property and that you always paid your dues." A feverish glance at the scowl on Arthtos' face and the man squeezed his eyes shut. "I was in love with you, but I was already married! What was I supposed to do?" The specter kept her eyes intently upon him. She walked up to him, studying him even as he squeezed his own eyes shut. "I was unfaithful to my wife. That got you hurt, and --"

"Your baby, you moronic simp," hissed Arthtos into the man's ear.

The specter glanced at Arthtos and then back at the man.

"Uh... What was its name again?"

Arthtos rolled his eyes with a head shaking scowl.

The specter frowned at him, and then leaned in, appearing nose to nose and screamed in his face. The man's trousers further dampened. He yelled out as her hand actually connected with his cheek. She frowned, and then looked at her hand, before fury burst upon her face, and she drove her hand into his chest. He let out a scream.

The brothers all looked on.

"You not only tricked her, but you failed to protect her or your own child."

The specter was screaming in his face, even as her apparition shook with supposed effort. The man clawed at his own chest around where her hand was sunk in. He gasped for air. She continued to study him and stare into his eyes. Arthtos, just behind and to his side, watched on, while the two other brothers stood off a few paces.

Arthtos took a step back though, a moment later as the smell of burning flesh was in the air, and then his body slowly lit to licking flames. He screamed even as his body began to burn. His legs looked at if they wanted to give with him appearing only suspended on them by the arm in his chest.

She pulled away. When she turned back to him, she knelt and presented a babe in a blanket held in her arms. He shook now on his knees, gritting his teeth in pain.

"Rose. Her name is Rose. You are the reason for her name. Your love is pure like the beauty of the flower, and your vengeance is strong like the thorns on the stems," he spoke with shaking effort as the pain of his melted and burnt skin threatened to take him fully to the ground.

She smiled at him, stood up, and then walked back through the wall of the inn.

The brothers now looked from where she had gone, to the badly burnt man before them. His clothes remained untouched by the flame, but his entire body was covered in the burns. He knelt there, shaking as the pain racked his body so much that the movement of the scream that should be lifting the air, was trapped within his throat, even as his teeth threatened to crack one another.

There was the sound of children screaming in the distance, a mother's desperate begging scream to them, and then door's burst open to have people lurch from the safety of their homes after the children.

They ran past the brothers and collided with their father. That is when the scream overcame its obstacles. The little boy threw himself off of his father, scrambling to be snatched by Arthtos. The younger girl had leaned away, but then threw herself upon her father again, ignoring his screams.

The mother snatched her son as she ran past Arthtos, and then drug her daughter off of her husband.

"You are monsters!" she screamed at the brothers.

Arthtos coolly looked over at his brothers and then stepped over to the man on his side, kicking him solidly in the jaw. His body went still.

A dozen or so men and women were now in the street.

"The little girl's name is Rose." He yanked up his sword, pointing it at each person as he indicated them. "Remember her name! That is the name of the baby you burned, all because you feared what might happen to the reputation of this dismal and pitiful town."

"You need to salt his wound, or he will die," informed Morthias to the nearest person.

The man nodded. There were gasps as they reached the man.

"You gave him this great of a punishment?" asked a man with terror in his eyes of Morthias.

"If I had burned him, he would be dead, and his clothes would have been the first to burn. He was given the wounds he should have gotten when trying to save her and their child."

"She is appeased!" called Garias. "Now let it be a lesson to not turn your backs on your own people out of worry of what another might say."

Among the small crowd, there were gasps as they each tried to get a glimpse of the man.

The mother with her two children was screaming for them to seize the brothers. Morthias calmly looked to each of them, but none even so much as flinched to fulfil the woman's will.

The brothers did not say a word to one another, but instead walked to the stables and collected their horses, before saddling them, and then leaving the town behind.