Eve of the Hunter's Moon
I cannot sleep. The fire burns low, and my quill scratches against this page like claws on stone. Outside my window, Gotham broods in darkness, and somewhere beyond the walls, in the accursed mists of the Gloaming Vale, Cara breathes still. I must believe this.
Cara. Captainess of the Watch before they gave me the cloak. Commander of the Iron Hearts, that band of fierce women who patrolled the Marsh Gate when no man would. We were lovers once, in that brief season before duty tore us different paths. She laughed at my solemnity, and I marveled at her fire. When she kissed me farewell before riding into the Vale to find that damned princess, she promised she would return.
That was seventy-three days ago.
The Watch calls her dead. The Falcones whisper she sold herself to goblins. The Court says nothing, which is its own kind of answer. I alone refuse to believe.
I sought out the Batman tonight. Found him perched on the Gargoyle's Leap, staring into the mist as if he could pierce it by will alone. He does not speak of how he knows such things, but he knows.
"She lives," he said. No comfort in his voice. Never comfort. Only fact.
I asked him to help me find her. To ride into the Vale and tear Grimhollow apart stone by stone until she was free.
He turned those hollow eyes upon me. "She is not in Grimhollow as you imagine. She is in its deepest dark, and what they are doing to her is not merely pain."
I demanded he explain.
"The goblins do not torture for confession," he said. "They do not torture for cruelty, though cruelty follows. They torture for extraction. Not of information. Of something older, deeper."
He told me things I have transcribed here so I do not forget. So I do not flinch from the truth of what Cara endures.
On Goblin Torture: The Methods of the Bone-Seers
The Bone-Seers of Grimhollow practice what they call "Unmaking." They believe that every living soul contains a core of desire—the one thing that defines a being's existence. To unmake someone is to pull that desire out by the roots and consume it. The process includes pain, whippings, nail pulling, branding, waterboarding, arcane electric shocks, etc. This is where they learn about people, why it seems goblins know Gotham so well and how they know who to target. Here is where the information is extracted and everyone knows something of value.
The Whispering Cage: Captives are suspended in cages woven from a fungus that grows only in the deepest tunnels. This fungus exhales spores that induce wakefulness. Days pass. Then weeks. Sleep becomes impossible. The mind begins to fray, and through the cracks, the Bone-Seers can see what the captive desires most.
The Skull-Light: They place a carved skull before the captive's face, lit from within by rotting foxfire. The skull's empty eyes seem to watch. The Bone-Seers chant in rhythms that match the captive's heartbeat, then slowly alter the rhythm. The heart strains to follow. After hours, the captive's very pulse becomes a confession.
The Unmaking Touch: A senior Bone-Seer places pale fingers on the captive's temples and pulls. Victims describe it as every memory being dragged out through their eyes. They do not scream—they cannot. The sound that emerges is something else. A keening that carries the essence of what is being stolen.
The Binding: Once a desire is extracted, it must be stored. The Bone-Seers press clay tablets against the captive's skin during the Unmaking, and the desire seeps into the clay like sweat. These tablets are fired in peat kilns and hung in the shrine-cave. Each tablet contains a piece of someone's soul—a mother's love for her child, a warrior's pride in her name, a lover's memory of a last kiss.
The Batman told me this last part with something almost like pity in his voice.
"Your Cara was a captain of the Watch. She was beloved by her warriors, trusted by her commanders, admired by all who saw her fight. Her desire was not for gold or power, but for worth. For the knowledge that her life meant something."
He paused.
"The Bone-Seers will have extracted that by now. She will lie in the dark, unable to remember why she ever wanted to be worthy. They will have fed on that desire, and she will feel nothing but the absence of it—a hollow where her purpose used to be."
I asked if death would be kinder.
"She is too valuable to kill. They use her as a template now. When they capture new prisoners—Watchmen, soldiers, anyone who served with pride—they bring them to Cara. They point to her and say, 'See? This was a captain. This was worthy. Now she is nothing.' The prisoners see her emptiness and their own desire to be worthy begins to crack. The Bone-Seers feed on that cracking."
I write this by guttering candlelight, my hand shaking.
The princess who betrayed her—I remember her. A vain, spiteful creature even as a child, always watching Cara with eyes that burned. Jealous of Cara's ease with a blade, of the love the common folk showed her, of the way our king trusted her word above his own blood.
The goblins did not need to torture the princess. They simply showed her what she already was—a vessel of envy—and offered her the chance to become something more. She embraced their dark magic, allowed them to bind something inhuman to her soul. In return, she delivered Cara and her Iron Hearts into the Bone-Seers' hands.
The Batman says the princess now sits enthroned beside the goblin warlords, her humanity fading day by day. She wears a crown of fused bone and iron, and her eyes gleam with stolen desires—perhaps including pieces of Cara herself.
I have asked the Batman for help. Not as the Watch asks, with forms and petitions and waiting for council approval. I asked as a man begging.
He studied me for a long moment. "You would ride into Grimhollow? You would face the Bone-Seers, the princess, the entire goblin nation?"
"I would."
"For a woman who may not remember you? Who may not remember herself?"
I thought of Cara's laugh. Of the way she drew her sword and smiled at danger. Of the last kiss, warm and quick, before she rode into the mist.
"She would ride for me," I said. "If our positions were reversed, she would already be inside those walls."
The Batman said nothing. But before he vanished into the night, he left something on the gargoyle's stone foot. A small token—a bat carved from black iron, warm to the touch.
"Come to the North Gate at moonfall tomorrow," his voice drifted from the darkness. "Bring steel and silence. We ride for the Vale."
I do not know if I will survive. I do not know if Cara will thank me for finding her, or if she will look at me with empty eyes and ask who I am.
But I know this: she rode into the mist for her kingdom, for a princess who betrayed her, for all of us who stayed safe behind these walls. She deserves someone willing to ride into the mist for her.
Tomorrow, I go.
If this journal is found, send it to my sister in the Merchant's Quarter. Tell her I loved Cara. Tell her I did not forget.
And tell whoever reads these final words: the goblins of Grimhollow take more than lives. They take what makes life worth living. If you value your desires—your love, your pride, your purpose—guard them well. The Bone-Seers are always watching, always hungry, always reaching for the next soul to unmake.
Sir Gordon of the City Watch
Captain of the Marsh Gate (Acting)
Lover of Cara, now and always