The soldiers shot the arrows again. This time, one arrow pierced through her back, and the other pierced her leg, and blood spilled from her mouth. Ivaan released himself from her hold as her hand got loose, she fell from the wall with teary eyes, gazing at him, and blood coming out of her mouth.

  Ivaan quickly turned away as she hit the ground.

  I can’t turn back now.

  He quickly climbed down the wall using rope and ran towards the town.

  Commander rushed towards her body lying on the ground, “Who’s the intruder?”

  “She’s a woman,” said the soldier crouching near her.

  “A woman,” said the commander, “is she alive?”

  “No, commander.”

  He was walking through the market after escaping from the palace.

  Will she be alive after falling from such a height? If she is alive, then she will tell the whole truth to the soldiers, and they will come after me, and my mother will also be in danger. Maybe I should have taken her with me; she was very useful to me, and I lost her.

  Anyway, she was a mere fool to think that I loved her. I should move my thoughts away from her; my mother will be waiting for the crystal to do the ritual.

  The whole market was empty.

  Where did everybody go? There’s no curfew, so why is nobody in the market? I should reach out to my mother. I’m not feeling good about this.

  He spotted a drunken man coming out of an alley into the market. As the drunken man was passing through, he grabbed his hand,

  “Why is the market empty? Where is everybody?” he asked

  “And who are you to ask that question?” he said, “king…commander…soldier or a worthless shit”.

  “As you are,” Ivaan said and grabbed his neck.

  “Hold on…hold on, I’m in no condition to fight, nor am I interested,” he said. “People have gone to kill the witch who has been living near the forest…many people say that she has killed many people for her rituals, so they wanted to get revenge against her”.

  He quickly released him and ran outside the market towards the forest across the farms.

  “I should reach home as fast as I can,” he said while running, “I need to tell mother that they are coming for her.”,

  The witch was preparing a potion in a cauldron, and a sound of knocking came from the main door.

  “He reached home so late again, I have told him many times, but he never listens to me.” She approached the main door.

  “Why are you so late?” she opened the door, and two men rushed inside the hut by grabbing both of her hands, followed by a crowd.

  “Who are you people?” asked the witch, “and what are you doing?” said the witch while struggling to get rid of the hands grabbing her.

  “You are a witch, aren’t you?” asked one man from the crowd.

  “No, I’m not,” she shouted.

  “So, what’s the stuff lying around here?” asked a man, grabbing her hand while watching all over the place, “all the stuff present in this hut is the stuff which only a witch can have”.

  All the crowd screamed in agreement.

  “I accept, I am a witch,” she said, “but I haven’t harmed anybody, so why are you people trying to harm me?”.

  “Oh, such a truthful and honorable witch,” said the other man, holding her by another arm with a laugh.

  “It’s true, believe me,” said the witch

  “Even if we believe your word,” said the man holding her arm, “what is the guarantee that you will harm no one in the future?” The Crowd cheered in agreement with him.

  “I swear I will not harm anybody. How can I make you people believe, tell me?” asked the witch with tearful eyes.

  “I didn’t know that witches also cry,” said the man from the crowd, and all the people started laughing.

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  “You could have made us believe if you weren’t a witch,” said the other man beside her, “but as you said that you are a witch, we cannot believe that you will not harm anyone in the future because being a witch is proof in itself that you will harm somebody.”

  “That’s why she needs to die,” a man screamed from the crowd

  The witch released her one arm from a man's hold, took out a knife from her back, and stabbed another man in the neck who was still holding her, and she ran for the main door. A man grabbed her leg from the crowd, pulled it, and made her fall on the ground.

  The whole crowd grabbed her and made her stand up.

  “By doing this, you did nothing but prove our point right,” a man said while coming out of the crowd. He grabbed her jaw, “We would have given you easy death, but now the cruelty seems deserved.”

  The whole crowd cheered, and some people started groping her from the crowd, and the witch started to cry,

  “Stop this,” shouted the man standing in front of the crowd, “what is this behavior, are we animals like her?”.

  “So, what should we do, release her?” said one man from the crowd, “she should be punished”.

  “She will be punished severely, but not in this way,” he said with a smirk, “disrobe her”.

  The crowd snatched the clothes from her body while she cried and screamed.

  “Put her hand on the table,” he said, “Oh no, her nails seem long, why don’t we make them short?”.

  The witch stared at him in fear.

  “Took out her nails from all the fingers”

  “Nooooo!!!!Noooooooo!!!” she kept screaming, and they pulled out all of her nails from her fingers while her fingers bled continuously.

  She kept crying while her body was trembling with pain, and she was lying on the floor with her hands held above the table.

  “Her fingers are heavily injured and I think they will be no longer of use and will only cause her more pain,” he said, “why don’t we release her from this misery…cut out her fingers as we usually remove the things which are no longer of use”.

  “Nooooooo!!!…please!!!! Noooo!!” She screamed while continuously crying, “Have mercy!!!!!”.

  “Did you have mercy while killing all those people for your damn rituals?” he said, “cut off her fingers, let the whole room get filled with the screams of her agony.

  Ivaan was running across the field towards his home,

  I have to reach my home fast. If the other people of the town reach my home before me, then even I don’t know what they will do to my mother.

  He reached near his home,

  “Mother!!!!... Mother!!!...where are you?” he shouted while running towards his house. He didn’t get any response in return.

  When he reached the front of his home, he found the front door open.

  “No! No! It can’t be,” he ran inside the door.

  When he entered the door, he found thick patches of blood all around the place. When he went inside, he found the burned, dead body of her mother tied to a wooden pillar of the house.

  He fell on his knees while staring at her mother’s body, the skin of her upper body was ripped out, and all the fingers from her hand were stuffed in her mouth.

  Ivaan was not moving at all; he was just sitting on his knees, constantly staring at her mother’s dead body. He stood up and went towards the wooden pillar. He untied her mother’s hand and legs from the pillar and laid her body on the ground.

  He glanced all around the house and gazed at her mother, “When you first bought me here, you told me that this would be my new home, but it no longer seems like it. When you have gone from this world, this place is no longer a home; it is just wood.”

  He took out a big cloth from the cupboard and covered her body, “Mother, you can rest for a while because you will have to live again with me, I will not let you die. I know how to bring you back, but before that, the whole city will burn in the return of the things they have done to you, and I promise you, Mother, that their agony will be far greater than the agony you have suffered.

  He took out another robe, covered his face, and went towards the town. It was nighttime, and as he approached closer and closer to the town, he caught the sound of a large crowd of people as if there was a festival.

  When he reached the center of the city, he found all the people drinking and singing.

  “The witch is no more! The witch is no more!” a man was shouting from the crowd.

  “When I took the nails off her fingers, did you see her naked body trembling with pain?” a man said to another sitting beside Ivaan on a wooden log, and they both laughed.

  “You did nothing, I was the one who cut off her fingers like vegetables,” said another man standing and drinking wine from his mug.

  Ivaan quickly went away from that place.

  These people did unspeakable things to my mother, and I wasn’t there to stop it, I wasn’t there! I wasn’t there!

  He started crying and slapping himself, and after a few slaps, he stopped.

  They are going to suffer for the things they have done to my mother; they’ll beg for mercy and will plead, but the suffering will not go away. They will ask for help, but they will not get any. I am going to make them suffer for eternity.

  He stood up and waited for the people to go back to their homes. When the people went back to their homes, he came to the market with a bullock cart and left the bullock cart in the same palace.

  He went near a house; he took out a potion from many and threw it inside the window. When the potion hit the ground inside the house, smoke emerged from it, and the house filled with smoke. After a few seconds, the smoke dispersed. Ivaan entered the house while covering his mouth with a cloth and found two men sleeping on the floor. He picked both of them up one by one and placed them in the cart.

  He did a similar thing in many houses and picked many men from their houses and placed them in the cart,

  These many lives will be enough.

  He took out some big jars placed on the cart filled with oil, and he spread oil all over the market and around the houses. Took out a stick with a cloth wrapped around one end, and he lit that one end with the fire,

  “This is a small reward from me in return for the things you people have done to my mother, and don’t worry, you will keep getting rewards for your deed. This is just a start,” he said, and he threw the lit torch into a shop in the market, and the shop started to burn.

  He climbed on the cart filled with unconscious men and rode away. All the shops were covered in oil, so the fire started spreading all around the market, and after some time, the houses around the marketplace also started burning.

  People came out of their houses in panic and started trying to extinguish the fire, but because of too much oil, the fire couldn’t be extinguished, so the people kept trying to save their houses. Ivaan was witnessing the flames of fire blazing out of the marketplace while standing in the farms,

  I still don’t think the reward was enough; I need to do more for them.