The Witch of Thornvale Chapter 6: A Village Without Light

The Witch of Thornvale is an allegory of Ludwig von Mises’ lesson on capitalism, one of the Six Lessons. Dive into Chapter 6.

In case you missed them, make sure you check out Chapters 1-4 of The Witch of Thornvale. Catch them below, and then dive into Chapter 5.

Chapter 6: A Village Without Light

The trees broke without warning.

One second, they walked beneath a ceiling of branches tight enough to block the sky. The next? Dull silver light spilled in, dragging mist into long sheets across open ground. Eirwyn stepped through the tree line like the land belonged to her. Drake followed with one hand brushing the damp bark of the last pine, jaw tight.

Beyond the trees, the land dropped into three levels of terraced farmland. Yellowing weeds choked the top ridge, curling over rows of raised earth. The second terrace slumped inward, where stone walls cracked down the center. A broken plow blade jutted from the dirt.

On the lowest level, past a crooked line of moss-covered fence posts, sat the village.

Drake’s sneakers slid through grass run wild, soft and damp from runoff leaking through shattered irrigation trenches. He stepped over a toppled barrel, the wood swollen and split, with black mold eating through its center. The path ahead forked. Brambles overran one trail. Half-buried stones worn smooth from generations of use lined the other.

They followed the stones.

Smoke curled in the distance. Not the thick black of fire, but the faint thread of a forge barely breathing. Rooflines hunched against the pale sky, wood sagged under the weight of rusted patchwork tin, and sheets of slate or what looked like flattened cooking pots nailed down in place repaired others.

Drake’s eyes followed the spine of the main road. Chimneys smoked, but doors stayed shut. Shutters angled half-open, more for watching than for light.

“This place used to trade everything,” Eirwyn said, stepping around a deep rut filled with stagnant rainwater. “Now they trade their time.”

Drake scanned the edges of the village square. Every shop front bore the same red crest painted above the lintel: a gear inside a triangle, bordered by three sharp runes. Each mark was burned into the wood. Even the awnings carried the symbol.

His eyes stopped on an old inn. The sign still swung from a rusted hook, but the letters had been scraped down to bare wood. Just below, stamped in black:

OFFICIAL LODGING – GUILD VERIFIED.

He pushed out a breath through clenched teeth. “This place looks gutted.”

“They left the walls standing,” Eirwyn said, stepping onto the flagstones ahead. “Walls don’t ask questions.”

They reached the center of the square. A dry fountain with a cracked basin and its stone edges dark with rot and lichen stood in the middle. A robed, headless figure with both arms raised like it was still praying for rain stood atop the fountain.

Around the edges, doors cracked open two fingers wide. Faces peeked through; a child’s eye blinked, then vanished. The metal tap of a blacksmith’s hammer echoed somewhere out of sight.

Drake stopped next to a tangle of broken cart wheels and straw bales turned black from rain.

His voice dropped. “This was somebody’s future.”

Eirwyn’s lips went thin and she looked away.

A breeze stirred the square again, carrying the scent of rust, ash, and something sour beneath it that used to be food.

Drake stared down a narrow side street that curved between rows of rundown homes. Every brick, every cracked window, and every boarded threshold spoke louder than words.

A civilization still standing, but only by force.

He looked toward Eirwyn. She stood with her back straight, arms folded. She kept her eyes glued to the far side of the square.

Drake glanced back at the burned-out houses, and the blank guild crests stamped above every shop. “Let me guess. This is what happens when you ask permission to live.”

Eirwyn’s mouth twitched. She started walking again, down the center of the village.

Another hammer strike cracked the silence like a warning shot.

Drake turned toward the sharp, rhythmic sound of metal on metal. Not the full-bodied clang of a private forge, but something thinner. Each strike followed the last with some kind of regularity.

They followed the noise toward a squat brick building tucked into the village’s north corner. Its chimney belched gray smoke that curled into the fog-thinned sky. The structure looked every bit as patched together as the rest of the village. Its base was stone, with warped wood above. The roof was covered with a sheet of hammered copper green from time and rain.

Two men with their shirts soaked through and arms covered in soot and black dust worked outside. One man with a back hunched over from repetition worked the bellows. The other with a face streaked with ash and a hammer in his hand stood over the anvil. The tool came down in steady intervals, each strike flattening a glowing iron strip until it bent into shape.

Behind them, a banner sagged from a horizontal post with that same insignia as the one on the other buildings. The edges of the fabric frayed in the wind, but the recently-repainted symbol held strong. Fresh, even if everything beneath it began to rot.

Eirwyn stopped beside a rusted cistern overrun with moss and broken pipe valves. Her chin lifted toward the hammering. “Guild quotas. Failure means punishment.”

Drake leaned on the cistern rim, scanning the space beyond. More workers moved behind narrow shopfronts. One at a loom, weaving cloth dyed in the same muted gray. Another scraped leather on a stretching frame.

Drake watched the man at the anvil. The metal glowed hot, but his eyes stayed dull, like he hadn’t seen anything but iron for years. “How do they choose who does what?”

“They assign your caste. Mainly from your family history. Then the quota follows. They measure your worth in kilograms per hour. The more precise your output, the more likely you’ll get your ration. Miss quota three times and you’re conscripted. That’s how it works.”

Drake shifted his stance and his sneaker scraped the stone. “How do you live like that?”

“You don’t.” Eirwyn kept her eyes on the blacksmith. The man dropped his hammer and reached for a ladle. Steam hissed as he poured water over the iron. He winced from the splash, his fingers red from past burns.

Another hammer strike followed, just as clean as the last. Behind it, the sound of the loom ticked in counterpoint. The whole square pulsed like a living factory.

Drake pushed away from the cistern. His hand trailed across the stone, warm from trapped forge heat. “They’ve got a whole village of people creating things. And no one owns a damn thing they make.”

Eirwyn stepped back into the street. “Malcor calls it efficiency.”

Drake followed her through the square. The air reeked of smoke and boiled dye.

He muttered, “Sounds like slavery dressed in paperwork.”

A wooden spoon clattered to the stone and Drake’s head snapped toward the sound.

An old woman stood frozen at a threshold, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other hovering in midair where the spoon slipped from her grip. Her eyes locked on Eirwyn before she stepped back inside and pulled the door closed with a slow creak, shutting out the street.

More doors hung ajar just wide enough to spy through. Faces peeked from gaps in curtains, windows, and angled shutters. Wrinkled foreheads and downcast eyes. Every pair of worn boots stayed inside lines drawn by fear.

The street opened slightly where two rows of homes collapsed inward—one from rot, the other from fire. Past them, a narrow alley bled into a garden choked with weeds and twisted iron trellises. A single potted plant stood on a windowsill nearby, its flowers drooped under the weight of ash.

A child stood just outside a laundry line, tugging at a woman’s sleeve. The boy’s finger pointed at Eirwyn. His eyes were too round for suspicion, watching the barefoot girl with flawless skin and the flowing blue cloak. The woman snatched the boy’s hand, spun him behind her skirt, and shuffled off across the lane, eyes locked on the ground as her pace quickened.

Eirwyn’s steps glided through the stillness. Her presence warped the air as though this village knew her kind.

Drake’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They look like they want to speak.”

“They’ve learned better.” Eirwyn walked through a patch of cracked flagstone where wild herbs tried to grow. “Words cost more than coin here.”

A man sat under a canopy of splintered beams across the street. His clothes were patched too many times to tell the original fabric. An unlit pipe sat between his fingers. He stared at the ground while his shadow stretched long behind him.

Eirwyn turned down a side path where moss crept over abandoned carts. Its wheels fused into the mud, and long since surrendered to stillness.

Drake slowed where the stone path fractured beneath a stairwell. Ivy spilled across the steps, thick with moss and sharp leaves that curled toward the sunless sky. A wide building hunched behind it, slouched under the weight of neglect. Wood planks warped in their frames. One shutter hung by a single hinge, creaking with every shift in the wind.

At the top of the steps, above a set of rusted double doors, a wooden placard in shining red letters clung to the wall.

MARKET HALL — CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE MALCOR TRADE AUTHORITY

Drake stepped closer. He reached out, brushed away a clump of tangled vine, then dragged his fingers across the carved wood.

Something etched beneath the sign caught his eye. It looked burned into the panel by hand.

TRADE WITHOUT TRIBUTE IS TREASON

The words curled along the wood’s natural split like they’d tried to stay hidden.

Drake ran his thumb along the last word. “Treason. What the hell kind of market needs tribute to exist?”

Eirwyn’s voice cut across the overgrowth. “One ruled by fear of prosperity.” She stepped over a crumbling boundary stone, cloak brushing ivy with each movement. Her eyes locked onto the old hall. “They traded everything you could think of here. No records, taxes, or permits.”

Drake looked back at the door.

A gleaming, well-maintained bolt rested across it.

“Malcor sent a seer,” Eirwyn said. “Declared the market subversive. Guild reps sealed the doors. Anyone caught trading after that lost their ration card.”

Drake’s hand dropped from the sign and his throat dried. “No permits. So they crushed it.”

“Not crushed. Reclaimed.”

The word hung between them, heavier than the door behind the vines as they ventured down the steps and back onto the path.

Two hunch-backed old men with their hands folded over knotting walking sticks sat in the shade beside a crumbling archway, their worn-out voices barely rising over the rustling wind. The bench beneath them sagged in the middle, its stone legs split with hairline fractures.

The second man tapped his stick twice against the bench. The sound echoed off the wall behind them.

Drake slowed his pace, his sneakers brushing loose gravel across the path. Every step pulled his gaze toward the men’s faces.

The one on the left looked up. His watery eyes framed by deep creases met Drake’s for a second. He turned toward Eirwyn next, squinting into the path behind them.

Recognition stiffened his shoulders.

The second man glanced too. His fingers clenched around the head of his walking stick, lips pulled tight as he drew a breath through his nose.

Their gazes dropped back to the stone under their worn shoes. The wind slipped through again, carrying the scent of ash, leather, and forge smoke.

Drake looked ahead as Eirwyn moved past them and their sticks tapped once more.

Ahead, wheels groaned over uneven stone.

Drake turned as a cart rolled into view. It was wide and iron-rimmed, stacked high with raw timber, iron ore, and tightly-bound sacks of grain. A pair of uniformed boys marched alongside, shoulders squared under leather armor branded with the red rune of the state guild. They kept their eyes forward; hands resting on sheathed batons. One scanned the rooftops, and the other kept pace with the cart.

The load clattered with each bump in the road, with horses’ hooves and the weight of forced harvest piercing the silence.

Around the square, heads bowed as if by instinct. A woman pulling laundry from a line dropped the cloth and vanished behind her door as a man by the smithy stepped back into shadow, his hammer still in mid-swing while the cart passed.

Drake’s jaw clenched as his fingers curled around the edge of his pocket.

Eirwyn turned off the path, her bare feet sliding through a rutted break in the stone. “Let’s get out of here before those boys recognize me. I’ve already drawn enough stares. We’ll take the back trail.”

Drake nodded and followed.

At the edge of the village, he glanced long enough to catch the outline of the square again.

Catch Chapter 7 and see what’s in store for Drake and Eirwyn next