Witch's Pyre

by Josephine Angelini

  “It’ll be a miracle if she’s there already,” Lily mumbled.

  “Maybe not,” Rowan replied. “The Woven are capable of incredible things.”

  Lily looked at him, surprised. “That almost sounded like respect,” she commented.

  “Don’t get carried away,” he said, pursing his lips around a smile. He bent down to build a small fire at Lily’s feet.

  She touched the speaking stone and reached out to Pale One. Her mind dove into the fast-moving river of the relay, whipping past thousands of miles of country, and finally rested inside one of the yellow-hued speaking stones on the Ocean of Grass. She called out to her claimed and felt her excitement. Pale One yipped and danced in circles.

  Lily pictured the Pack. Where are they?

  Close. Tending their meat.

  Lily saw the seemingly unending herds of bison. She asked Pale One if she could join her inside her skin again. Pale One allowed it.

  Lily felt the packed earth under her paws, and just below the surface she felt the gophers in their underground city. She telescoped out and felt the miles and miles of land pressed flat beneath its twin brother, the sky, and it dawned on her that once, long ago, water had covered this land as the sky now covered it. The pressure of the ancient inland sea had pushed the land down, muffling it. The Ocean of Grass still held on to that watery silence. Its vibration was a dull, sleepy thud.

  She gathered the heat of a fire as fuel, called out to Rowan’s willstone, and jumped them to Pale One’s location.

  She heard Rowan exhale a tensely held breath as he opened his eyes. “That is still unbelievably strange,” he told her, taking in their surroundings.

  Pale One let out a series of whines and yelps as she came toward Lily with her head down. Rowan jerked backward, but Lily held out her hands to Pale One and she was greeted with a flurry of licks and nuzzles. Lily could feel she was hungry. She fed Pale One’s willstone with energy, and while she did, Lily felt Lillian reach out to her.

  I did it! Lillian told her in mindspeak. I teleported to Salem and then I was able to bring someone back with me! I’m ready, Lily.

  Wait for me, Lily replied. I’m gathering more forces.

  From where?

  Lily hesitated. She thought of how deeply Lillian hated the Woven. You’ll see. Just trust me. Give me one more day, she asked.

  I may not have one more day, Lillian replied testily, and then cut contact.

  “Lillian is ready to jump her army now,” Lily told Rowan.

  “She knows she needs your army or she can’t win. She’ll wait for us,” Rowan said, but his tone was less than certain.

  “She doesn’t intend on winning,” Lily reminded him, keeping her voice lowered. “All she needs is to get close enough to detonate. Or so she thinks.”

  Lily looked at Pale One. Take us to the Pack, she asked.

  Pale One bounded forward, flooding Lily with images from her journey as she went. Her excitement was quickly curtailed as she caught a scent on the breeze. Pale One stopped right in front of Lily, blocking her way and forcing her to stop as well. She howled into the darkness and the lonely sound was answered from a source close by.

  They waited, Pale One tensing into the darkness at something the humans couldn’t see, until Lily felt Rowan stiffen. He unsheathed his long knife, thrust out an arm, and tried to put Lily behind him, but as he spun around in a circle she felt him deflating. They were already surrounded.

  It’s a trap, Rowan said in mindspeak.

  Then Lily saw them—dozens of pairs of softly reflective eyes staring at her. She didn’t know how far back into the gloom the Pack stretched, but Lily could feel that the darkness all around her was alive.

  Not hunting you, Pale One assured Lily. They are afraid. And angry.

  Lily wasn’t sure if that was any better. Can you tell them I mean no harm?

  Speak, and they will understand.

  Lily hesitated, not sure she understood Pale One correctly. Mindspeak was one thing, where concepts were passed along as much as words. The times when Lily had doubts that her Woven claimed could understand her all she’d had to do was picture what she wanted and pass the images along, as they did with her. Speaking aloud was different. Language, and the ability to understand it, was different. She hadn’t even attempted speaking aloud with Pale One yet, thinking it might be too complicated for her.

  Speak with sounds, Pale One urged. They lose trust for you.

  “I come to ask for your help,” Lily said, trying to sound confident. She heard growls as a response.

  “Lily, what are you doing?” Rowan asked. “They can’t understand you.”

  “We understand the witch,” said a low, raspy voice.

  Rowan said something in Cherokee that was no doubt a swear word, and then a different raspy voice said something in Cherokee back to him. Rowan went very still.

  I don’t believe it, he whispered inside Lily’s mind.

  “Have you always been able to talk?” Lily asked.

  She heard something like a bark and a laugh coming from the dark. “Of course,” growled another member of the Pack.

  A different voice picked up the dialogue. “We have always had language and the use of tools,” it said.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” asked a fourth voice.

  “We are more like you than we are like wolves,” purred a fifth.

  The Pack was circling them, passing the duty of responding from one member to another as if they were one mind with many voices.

  They are a coven, Rowan said, realizing it at the same time Lily did. They’re sharing mindspeak as they talk to you.

  They’re toying with us, Lily replied to both Rowan and Pale One, connecting them to each other through her.

  Circling closer and closer, Pale One added. Lily felt Rowan startle to hear the Woven in his mind, but he accepted it.

  Pale One, watch Lily’s flank, Rowan ordered, taking the defensive lead.

  Next thing: one will come inside circle and snap with teeth to show they are Biggers, Pale One said as she followed Rowan’s order.

  They may be Biggers, but they aren’t stronger, Lily replied.

  “Where is your witch?” Lily demanded, suddenly sick of playing this game for dominance. “Bring me to her.”

  “We need no witch,” hissed yet another voice from the dark. Lily felt Rowan count six in his mind.

  Many more, Pale One said, disagreeing. Many, many smells.

  “You have no fire, witch,” sneered a seventh.

  “You are meat,” said yet another.

  “I didn’t bring fire because I didn’t come here to fight you,” Lily said. “I came here to ask you to join us. In three days we go to destroy the Hive.”

  Yips and barks burst from the Pack. There were dozens of them out there in the dark. Maybe hundreds. Lily felt Rowan slump, knowing they didn’t stand a chance against so many.

  “My army is thirty thousand strong,” Lily said proudly, her voice ringing out in the darkness.

  “The Hive are millions,” said a softer voice, and all of the other Pack members fell silent at the sound of it. “Thirty thousand is not enough, not even for a witch.”

  Lily turned to face the soft voice. “I am not like other witches,” she said.

  The soft voice chuckled. “And yet you still need our help,” it taunted.

  “I need the Pack, the Pride, the raptors, the simians, and even the insect Woven, or I don’t stand a chance,” Lily admitted shamelessly. “And you need me or you don’t stand a chance. Because if I fail, the Hive will be coming for you next.”

  There was a momentary silence. “The Hive can’t reach this far. Their range—”

  “Their range will mean nothing in a few days,” Lily said, interrupting. “The witch who fuels them is going to learn how to appear anywhere she wants in the blink of eye. She’ll be able to be practically everywhere at once, and when she can do that, she’ll claim new Queens who will start new Hive colonies, spreading fa
rther and farther until she’s conquered the whole world. Unless we stop her.”

  Lily stared into the silent darkness, her heart in her throat, as the seconds ticked by. Finally, the soft voice spoke again.

  “Light a fire and let the witch see us,” it said.

  A spark was struck and torches flared. Lily tried not to show her reaction to the half-human, half-wolf figures that came to light. Their faces were snouted and fanged, and their arms were elongated to reach the ground in a sloped-back posture that had them hunkering over their dog-like hind legs. Their hands were clawed and padded with thick calluses like a canine’s, but still five fingered and mobile like a human’s, and their eyes had round pupils.

  “My name is Lily,” she told the one who sat on his haunches across from her.

  “We don’t have names like your kind,” he responded. “Who we are is more complicated than that.”

  “Who you are is a scent and a rank, both of which are always changing,” Lily said. She saw surprise flash across his eyes and knew she’d guessed right from what she’d gathered from sharing mindspace with Pale One and Blueback. “You’re the alpha. For now.”

  “You may call me Alpha.” He regarded Rowan and Pale One in turn. “The western witch only claims Woven,” he remarked, “but you claim all kinds.”

  “So you know about Grace,” Rowan said.

  Alpha’s eyes flicked over to Rowan. “We’ve always known. She created us to hunt and kill your kind, and your kind hunted and killed us in return. Many of us died. She was a bad alpha.” His eyes went back to Lily. “We would not be ruled by a witch. Not during my ancestors’ time. Not during mine.”

  Lily nodded understandingly. “I have no interest in controlling you or forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “We don’t want to go to war.”

  “Neither do we,” Lily rebutted.

  “Witches always want war,” Alpha said, a faint sneer on his lips.

  “Not Lily,” Rowan said. He and Alpha locked eyes. “I didn’t trust her at first, either, but you don’t have to trust her. You just have to decide what’s better—being claimed and having a chance at survival, or being free and getting wiped out by the Hive.”

  The Alpha stood, obviously done with this interview. Lily called after him.

  “You’ve seen them, haven’t you?” she asked, loud enough for the betas to hear. “You’ve seen the Hive flying through your territory, carrying humans back and forth. You’ve seen the Hive searching for someone. They enter your lands now without fear, and no matter how many of them you’ve tried to turn away at your borders, Grace sends more, doesn’t she?”

  The Alpha turned back around and glared at Lily. He gave one curt nod.

  “She’s not afraid of you,” Lily said. “Grace allowed the Pack to maintain this land after you defied her because she realized it was too far from her city for her to hold on to it remotely. She let you live, as long as you kept the eastern humans in the east, because she physically couldn’t be everywhere at once. That’s about to change. She’s coming back, and when she does it won’t be to claim you. It will be to exterminate you.”

  Toshi ran the last few blocks back to the Governor’s Villa. He tried to imagine that he was just out for a bit of healthy predawn exercise and that the adrenaline pumping through his body was from enjoyment, not fear. He envisioned a stress-reducing jog followed by a little tai chi, and gradually the Workers clinging to his arms lifted off.

  After spending the night going to every restaurant, tavern, nightclub and after-hours bar he could think of, looking for people who might want to be claimed by Lily, Toshi was running on fumes. He climbed the stairs two at a time, but stopped before he entered his apartment. He could tell that someone was in there.

  He backed away from the door. It burst open and two Warrior Sisters stalked out of his rooms, their whips wrapped around their waists. They grabbed him roughly, tearing his skin with their barbed hands, and even though he struggled against the iron strength of their arms, he knew it was useless. They dragged him to a window. His gut lurched as the Warrior Sisters jumped.

  This is it, he thought, and then it occurred to him. He wasn’t alone anymore. Lily! Help me!

  Toshi—what’s happening?

  The Warrior Sisters flew him around the building and into another set of rooms.

  I need strength, he answered as they threw him roughly onto a balcony. I think they’re going to kill me.

  Toshi staggered forward and tipped onto his hands and knees. When he looked up he saw Grace lying on the floor in front of him. Next to her was the shaman. They were immobile, barely breathing, and too pale and stiff to be simply sleeping.

  They’re spirit walking, Lily told him. You must stop them, Toshi. I have no fire ready—wait—

  One of the Warrior Sisters buzzed her wings in agitation and then she grabbed Toshi by the back of the head and dragged him by his hair to Grace’s side. All of the Warrior Sisters in the room seemed distraught. Their heads twitched and their hands grasped at their whips, unraveling them from their waists or from across their chests and then rewrapping again to no purpose. They weren’t attacking him, he realized, not intentionally.

  I think they want me to help her, Toshi said.

  You can’t, Lily insisted. Toshi felt a swell of fear overtake Lily and he briefly caught a glimpse of an enormous creature looming over her before he felt her leave him.

  Lily and Rowan left Pale One with the Pack—her new claimed—and jumped back to the speaking stone on the mountain. Pale One would be no help to them, and maybe even a hindrance, on their subsequent missions. They arrived as the sun was rising.

  “I’m running out of time,” Lily said. She looked around for the drake. “Here, boy,” she called, feeling like an idiot. She heard Rowan’s rumbling laugh.

  “Tame Woven aren’t boys or girls,” he said.

  “I can’t just say ‘here, it.’ Here, Spike,” she called again, figuring that was as good a name as any.

  As they searched the gloom for the wayward drake, Lily felt Toshi roaring into her mind in a panic. She stuck out an arm and grabbed Rowan’s hand.

  “It’s Toshi,” she said, her eyes far away. “The Hive has him.”

  “What about the rebels he was supposed to gather for you to claim?” Rowan asked urgently.

  “Shh—wait.” She gasped. “There’s Grace. And Red Leaf. She’s spirit walking.” Her face screwed up as she shared a rapid exchange with Toshi. “I think they want him to heal her?” she said uncertainly.

  The bush in front of Lily trembled. As a member of the Pride pounced on her, she vaguely wondered how it was possible that she could have overlooked a cat the size of a rhino. She felt Rowan’s weight coming down on top of her at the last moment, and then she saw the cat Woven jerk backward and lift off the ground. Behind the lion Woven’s outraged roar, Lily heard a sound like the flapping of a sheet in the wind.

  Rowan rolled with Lily under him. The two of them came up on their hands and knees to see Spike caging the armored cat to the ground under his talons.

  “Wait, Spike,” Lily shouted, holding her hands out in a stop gesture. Spike held the member of the Pride down, his eyes sliding off to the side.

  “There are more hidden out there somewhere,” Rowan said, watching the drake’s movements.

  Lily came forward and knelt down to look the member of the Pride in the eye. “I want to speak to your alpha,” she said. The Woven made a growling sound in the back of her throat. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to help.” The Woven did not respond. Lily looked up at Rowan and shrugged.

  “Maybe she doesn’t understand language,” Rowan suggested.

  Lily didn’t have many options. She reached out to find the Woven’s willstone, buried somewhere under the skin at her throat.

  “Witch,” the Pride member hissed.

  “You can speak,” Lily said, removing her hand. “I know the rest of your Pride is out there somewhere.
Tell your leader to come forward.”

  The Woven’s eyes skipped around in confusion. Rowan tried speaking to the Woven in Cherokee, but her eyes stayed clouded.

  “I don’t think she understands much,” Rowan surmised.

  “What do we do?” Lily asked. She looked up at the sun, already above the horizon, and remembered Toshi. She reached out to him.

  I’m okay, Toshi replied. The Hive is keeping me here to watch over Grace. I get the feeling that as long as she doesn’t die, neither do I.

  Wake her.

  I’ve been trying to. I’ll keep at it. Aren’t there a bunch of rebels you should be claiming right now?

  Are they ready for me?

  Ready, willing, and able. They’re waiting to hear your call.

  Lily smiled at Rowan. “Toshi’s people are waiting for me,” she said. She looked back down at the Woven. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Lily petted Spike’s talon. “Let her up,” she said.

  Spike cautiously lifted his claws. The lion was uninjured. She sat back on her haunches, glowering at Lily.

  “What do I do with you?” she asked, not sure if the Woven could understand her. “You’ve got too much will for me to claim you without your consent, but not enough to grasp any verbal argument I could make to convince you.”

  The lion cocked her head. Her nearly human eyes narrowed. Maybe she understood more than she could say.

  “I need your help,” Lily said. She moved closer to the lion and felt Rowan’s hand shoot out to pull her back. “Just let me try one thing,” she said, pleading with him.

  Rowan’s grip on her arm relaxed but he didn’t let Lily get more than an inch away as she moved in closer, holding out her hand for the lion to smell. Lily tried to ignore the fact that her hand was shaking violently as it hovered in front of the lion’s saber teeth, and she kept it outstretched by force of will alone. After a moment that was filled with the sound of Lily’s heart pounding in her ears, the Woven allowed Lily to touch the side of her hulking face. Lily moved her hand onto the big cat’s forehead and closed her eyes, concentrating. She thought about Grace’s face as hard as she could, willing the image into the Woven’s brain, and whispered her name. She heard the cat growl.