Most of the confusion, Javert realized, came from the fact that the new Count’s position was unstable at best.  Most of the old count’s male relatives had been in attendance at Vorhold throughout the incident of his untimely death at the hands of his murderous mistress as well as the idiotic attempt by his former bodyguards to scam profits from the dead man’s family.  With the funeral out of the way, the question of the rightful heir became foremost in the minds of every male de Vors able to hold a sword and walk.

The deceased Count’s oldest brother, Rainier, had managed to put himself at the head of the pack by browbeating everyone else with his brother’s will, which clearly stated that “To my brother I leave over guardianship of the estate and all accompanying titles.” However, as the count had had four brothers there was still some debate raging as to which one he had really meant.

Rainer had, for the moment, managed to distract the rest of his bloodthirsty kin with the idea of vengeance upon the duo of rogues who had had the bad taste to attempt to collect their unearned pay in a grossly necrotic fashion.  Now there were at least ten members of the de Vors family running around the Hag wood in the rain with their personal arms men, attempting to catch two very unlucky would-be thieves as well as out plot each other.  The servants had no idea whose orders to follow anymore than they knew what direction to search in.

Javert growled as he watched the confusing panorama unfolding before him.  He could already tell this was going to be a bad day.

Svetch followed his large partner into the odd room a few moments later, not bothering to resheath his blade.  “What is this place?” he hissed in a low voice.

“My home,” came a thin, whispering growl, like the wings of a hundred bats.   A small figure fully encased in a much patched and faded cloak slowly arose from where it had been seated at the edge of the table furthest from the door.  Vash and Svetch started like scalded cats at the figure's sudden appearance.

Vash quickly regained his composure and bowed low, in the style of the arrogant nobles of the Southlands, regally extending his big hands forward in a placating manner.  “We do tender to you our most sincere apologies for coming upon you in this manner; I and my small friend were merely seeking to esca…” The Southerner stopped suddenly as the light of the torch he still clutched fell more fully upon the figure before him.  The flickering light caused the individual to give no shadow; indeed it seemed to cause the form to fade.

“What do you mean, entering my home uninvited?  Get out!” the figure hissed again, pointing a bony finger at a point somewhere in between the disturbed pair of rogues.

“As I was saying before, we were merely attempting to escape the storm raging outside…” Vash continued, attempting to overcome his awe of the mysterious form before him.  “ We meant no harm…”

“Erm...Vash?” Svetch tapped Vash upon the shoulder nervously.

“Hush, little man.  I’m attempting to explain our predicament to this unreasonable gentleman.”

“About that…I don’t think he’s talking to us.” Svetch grabbed his ally’s arm tightly and whirled him around to face the doorway.

“What’re you…” Vash stared at the new apparitions that crowded the doorway.  They were a rough looking bunch.  Bandits beyond any doubts of the duo, but what bandits had ever before appeared so less than substantial?  “Little man, can you see what I see?”

“If you are referring to the fact that we can see through these gentleman’s midriffs, armored though they be, then yes, I can see what you see, big man.  The question here is, just what are we seeing?”  Svetch snarled, bringing his sword to bear upon the advancing specters.  Vash too brought his blade up on guard; and so the twain faced the grim horde.  The selfsame grim horde, which, in the end, paid them utterly no mind, in fact passing them by utterly, to surround the first figure at the table.

“We’ve come for yer treasure, old hermit,” roared one of the bandits, a large gruesome individual bearing only one eye in his scar-ridden face.  The apparition waved a notched, thick bladed sword around, occasionally pointing it at the figure he had addressed as the hermit for emphasis.  “Give it to us, ye old wood witch, afore we take it’s location from outs yer hide.”

“There is no treasure here as you can plainly see.  Leave me in peace lest you feel the wrath of that which is truly hidden here!”  The hermit roared back.

“This won’t end well,” Svetch whispered as he and Vash slowly backed out of the room.  Moments later the ethereal shapes before them began to move in a macabre dance, proving Svetch’s comment correct.  The ghostly bandits gave tongue to wolfish howls of glee as they pounced upon the shrieking hermit, blades and clubs held high.  Vash and Svetch watched in sick fascination as the old man’s shade was beaten down and trampled into a bloody heap. Then, at a snarl from their leader, the bandits began to search the cave.  Though nothing moved that they could see, both men could hear crashes and the splintering of wood as the bandits ransacked the cavern with ferocious abandon.

Suddenly, the battered form of the spectral hermit arose, eyes burning with a baneful power.  With a voice full of blood and hate, the grim wight spat out a curse upon his attackers, before collapsing once more unmoving. “Wolves ye are, and wolves ye shall be, that is your doom fore’er more for daring to strike me…”

As the only two living men in the torch lit cavern looked on in horrified curiosity, the bandits screamed as one, falling to their knees to writhe and shriek in pain.  Svetch snarled and grasped his companion’s jerkin, dragging him back through the open doorway, the howls of ghostly wolves at their heels.

Svetch hurled Vash into the outer cavern, then turned to slam the door on the billowing horror that lurked back the way they had come.  As the huge wooden slab hammered shut, Svetch turned to find his companion facing the cave mouth, heavy blade in hand.  Vash growled deep in his thick throat like a wounded bear and, from out in the storm, something answered with a growl of its own.  The slender northerner loped forward and crouched beside his more massive partner, drawing his own blade.  Both men watched intently as several gaunt, gray shapes padded into the cavern out of the howling storm, red tongues dangling from fang studded maws.  Glittering eyes burned into their own, alight with a bestial cunning far removed from that of any normal beast of the forest or field.  “We in trouble?” Svetch hissed.

“What do you think?” Vash hissed back.  As he did so, a large form pushed through the beasts clustered about them.  The wolf was little more than a scarred block of lupine muscle blanketed in patchy gray fur.  It was double the size of its lesser cousins, a lord of beasts in all aspects.  Its muzzle was a mangled hunk of tissue and teeth, and but one evilly glittering eye pulsed in its thick brow.  “Aw shit!” Vash howled as the beast lunged forward, jaws wide and trailing foam.

As he stood, wiping ineffectually at the mud upon his leather jerkin, Javert kicked the writhing man in the head and spat on him. “Which one, you idiot?”

The big blade swept through the tightly packed wolves in a rush of crimson, lopping off paws and ears and any other protruding element of bestial flesh.  Vash battered two of the beasts aside and yanked his partner from the cavern floor with his free hand. Svetch gazed blearily about, his face dirty and bloodstained.  His clothes were ripped and torn and blood flowed sluggishly from several light cuts.  “Wench! Refill here!” he blared, swinging his head from side to side to clear it.

“Quiet or I’ll toss you back to the dogs, little man!” Vash growled, slinging the dazed Northerner over his shoulder.  Vash gazed in horror as the creatures he had mutilated began to stagger to their feet, fangs glinting in the torchlight.  Could nothing stop these creatures?   He reacted instantly as he saw the big leader getting to its paws, diving through the cave opening into the downpour outside. Better to take their chances in the storm than at the fangs of demon wolves. “Come on, we are leaving!”

“Remian merchants…what the hell do you think they were?!” Vash roared back, staggering to his feet in the knee high water.  Further conversation was lost amidst chilling howls that descended and slithered through the darkness of the storm becloaked night.  All around the gully and its shivering occupants, lupine shadows melted from the blackness.  The two outlaws stood back to back in the swiftly rising water, their naked blades facing outward into the red-eyed night.

“Demons…I hate demons.  Always smell like shit after I kills ‘em,” Svetch hissed between bared teeth.  Vash just grunted, his big war blade spinning slowly in his two handed grip.  “Why aren’t they attacking?” Svetch hissed again, after a few moments.  The demon-wolves paced uncertainly around the lip of the gully, or sat and snarled.  Occasionally, one would make as if to dive into the gully after its prey, but always stopped short, one black nailed paw held daintily over the swirling waters.

“The water.  Demons can’t cross running water.  Evidently the way this gully is filling up counts as well,” Vash crowed, snapping his fingers.

“It’s a ditch.  The water is rising, not running,” Svetch snarled.

“In a purely technical sense, it’s probably the same thing… Does it really matter as long as it works?” Vash snarled back. Svetch growled in reply and tossed his serrated blade from hand to hand, idly spitting at the nearest of the wolves.

“So how long til we drown?”

“Yes…and getting closer!”

Javert hacked brutally at any four footed form that came near, leaving several howling and writhing in the mud around the tree he had his back against.

“I do believe we should take our leave at this most opportune of times…” Vash whispered hoarsely.  Svetch nodded curtly.  The duo dodged through embattled knots of flashing iron and snapping jaws, striking out at any who came near, either man or wolf.  They fled blindly into the wood, hoping that they were heading back the way they had come, but not really caring.  As long as they managed to leave the wood alive they would be of good cheer.

Javert waved down the wagon, and gratefully clambered into the hay-filled back.  The driver snapped the reins after the huntsman had gained a position.  Amidst bouncing hay bales, Javert pondered his situation.  Remia was nice this time of year.  So was Bremen. Clasping his hands behind his back he sighed.  He would have to find those two outlaws and thank them.  This would be the first vacation he had had in years.

As the gray light of morning reared its head over the horizon, the Torch and the Curse staggered from the southern edge of the Hag wood, clothes and flesh torn by brambles, mud covering everything. The rain eased into a light drizzle.  Nearing the road, Vash turned and spat in the direction of the sinister wood.  “If any place deserves a good burning, it’s there. However, ugly and vicious though she may be…lady Hag wood has done us a service.  We no longer have to worry about angry lordlings on our tail.”