“Now, you must be brave, and stay right here, and not make me worry about where you are,” she said. Her skin tingled; she knew she had to do something. She got out of the bed, pulling her gown on over her shift. In the passageway, the torch suddenly crackled up alive, and the red-orange light swam in and she saw the two girls sitting swathed in the blanket, their eyes wide with terror.
She heard Ulf’s throaty bellow outside again, shouting names. Euan called some answer and plunged out, taking the torch with him.
He had left behind his belt knife, which Arre found easily, even in the dark. She went into the doorway, the knife in her hand, and looked out.
The moon was full and bright; the house yard lay before her washed in its brilliance, the sky gleaming like a looking glass, the black shadow along the foot of the wall like an opening into the abyss. Through this radiance ran Euan, with some of Ulf’s men, heading down toward the wall, where already people rose up fighting, a thrashing shadowy mass.
Arre went a step outside the house, the knife gripped in her hand. She forced her pounding heart to slow; she calmed herself, seeing what was going on. Down there the wall swarmed with men. Their confused voices rose unintelligibly, like the crackling of a fire. The moonlight made everything strange, only half visible. A dark figure climbed up onto the top of the wall, a club in his upraised hand, and struck downward—struck toward her, he was facing her, he was an enemy. She flinched back, casting quickly around her, the knife no longer seeming much.
There beside the door, where Corban had cut wood for the fire, the axe stuck up from an old gray stump. She seized the haft, twisted the iron head up out of the hard wood, and backed into the doorway and waited.
Near the fire ring in the center of the yard, halfway between her and the wall, Ulf stood, a bow in his hands, nocking an arrow. Two others of his crew rushed up beside him with bows. Down along the wall more men were climbing over into the compound. Arre saw Euan down there, by the wall, wrestle one of the invaders to the ground.
Ulf shouted, his voice ringing clear, and shot.
On the wall one of the attackers stood straight up, hung a moment as if the arrow pinned him to the dark, and flopped back. Still they were scrambling over, and now Euan was staggering back away from them, one arm raised. The defenders around him were already running. The wall swarmed with attackers, who scrambled over and rushed straight across the yard at Ulf and other bowmen.
Arre started forward, a scream mounting in her chest; she saw Euan go down in the first charge, and then suddenly two of the enemy were running straight-toward her.
She saw them, in the moonlight, tilted forward toward her, their teeth bared, their faces streaked with white, and she saw them in that moment as completely as if she had stared at them for years—their skin polished with sweat, their arms pumping, their eyes already seizing on her, their hands grasping for her. She sprang backward, into the protection of the doorway; the first one, two steps ahead of the other, bounded toward her, and she swung up the axe and caught him hard across the knees.
He went down, the axe tangled in his legs, and she lost her balance and fell back into the low doorway behind her. The other man loomed over her. He shut out the moonlight. She smelled him, rank and hot. She scrabbled frantically for her footing, trying to get up, the axe heavy in her grip. The white-streaked face loomed above her, and he swung his club at her head.
She flinched down, but the club struck the top of the doorway. Arre stopped trying to get up. She crouched in the doorway and swung the axe again, aiming at his legs, and he dodged away, back out of the confines of the doorway.
The moonlight swept over her again. She leapt to her feet, gasping for breath, clutching the axe. The man she had struck down lay sprawled motionless on the ground; beyond him, the other attacker was fighting with Euan, who had come up behind him, the two of them locked together, their arms entwined, face to face, and then the dark man kicked out and Euan went down hard.
Arre screamed her husband’s name, scrambled up to her feet, hoisting the axe in her hands. The white-streaked dark face swiveled toward her, two blazing eyes met hers, and lunging toward him she launched the axe at his head. He dodged the awkward blow easily, but he darted away, out from between her and Euan. From his knees, Euan dove at him, grabbing for his ankles, and the dark man kicked him savagely in the head, knocking him back again.
“Euan!” Arre flung herself on her husband, to protect him, but the other man was no longer fighting. He bent over his fallen friend and hauled him up by the arm and dragged him away, the body dangling in his grasp.
Somewhere Ulf was shouting, hoarse, greedy, “Get them! Get them!” Arre wrapped her arms around Euan, panting and groaning on the ground.
“Jesus,” he said. “Sweet Jesus. I’m hurt.”
She sank down on her knees beside him, her breath like a bellows, her chest furnace hot. There was an immense pool of blood on the ground, not Euan’s. The man she had struck. A wave of nausea passed through her. She was still clutching the axe, but the fighting seemed over. Out there near the center of the compound, Ulf stood with his bow in his hand, shouting and waving his arms. The other men were all along the wall, yelling. The attackers had run off.
She laid the axe down and turned back to Euan, half sitting on the ground braced on his arms, his head hanging. She put her hands on his head and he twitched, moaning.
“Ssshhh.” She felt carefully along his head, feeling sticky blood in his hair. He gasped once, but to her relief he lifted his head and pushed himself to sit upright.
“Where else does it hurt?” She turned toward him, reaching for his hand. “You were so brave. You were wonderful, Euan.”
He put one hand to his head. “I am no fighter. When they came at us like that—what’s Ulf doing?” He began to try to get to his feet, pushing with his hands on the cold ground. “How many did we lose, Jesus have mercy—”
She stood and helped him up. She looked around the yard for bodies, for hurt people—saw something lying motionless just at the foot of the wall, and two men sitting down slumped near the fire ring, where Ulf still roared and waved his arms. Behind her, in the house, then, Miru wailed. She turned and went.in to the children.
Getting Ellioh’s body back across the water had cost Miska the last of his strength. With the dead boy over his shoulder he staggered up through the shallows, toward the glimmer of the fire on the beach. Epashti came to him at once, with a gourd of sweet water. Before he drank he lowered Ellioh down onto the ground and straightened the body; one of Ellioh’s legs was all but cut off at the knee, and Miska pushed the limb together again. Until Ellioh was properly buried he was like a living man, and Miska tipped a little of the water over him.
The rest of the men began to splash up from the water. Miska kept his back to them, drinking the water in the gourd. The muscles of his arms and legs shuddered with weakness. The other men clustered around the fire, bent over the flames, their heads down. Epashti went among them, speaking softly to them, giving them water, and nursing them.
They would not look at him. His heart contracted in his chest. He felt their anger like a hard wind that would blow him down. They had come all this way, enduring his scorns and prods, because he had promised them revenge, and now he had only given them another failure.
Even in his weariness, the fighting still buzzed in the back of his mind; if he gave himself to it, he could bring it all back, as if it were there before him again, the white glare of the moonlight and the howl of men fighting, howling himself, the feel of a man going down under his club. He sat beside Ellioh and watched Epashti going from one man to the next, speaking their names, touching them, and in spite of his cold dread of the other men, his soul rose up, swelling stronger on the memory of the fight.
He had nearly taken a woman—not the one he wanted, but another light-skinned woman. A woman of power, who had struck down Ellioh: Miska had almost taken her. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Not over, he th
ought. He felt that, very strong, like a hand on his shoulder. This was not over.
He got up and went around the fire. The other men watched him sullenly. He stiffened himself against them. He sat in the fire’s warm hold, ignoring their stares, and found roasted meat there on a flat rock: Epashti had not been idle while they were gone. His belly growled, and he began to eat. Under their stares like knives aimed at him, he tore at the meat with his teeth.
Lasicka thrust his face forward, his eyes bright in the fire. “You see what you’ve done, Miska. Poor Ellioh dead, who trusted you, Tiko dead, Hacoka—and we lost again. You and your revenge!” He lifted his hands and let them fall limp to his knees. From the others came a murmur of pain and self-pity.
Miska wiped his fingers across his mouth. “Bah. Don’t talk to me. You want to lose.”
Lasicka’s hand went to the knife in his belt. Miska fixed him with a steady stare. For a moment he said nothing, only put all his strength into the look. Lasicka stared back at him, through the smoke and rippling light of the fire. Miska remembered the fighting; he touched the medicine bag around his neck, and after a moment Lasicka looked down.
Miska said, “Did you think this would be easy? If it were easy, would not some lesser men have already done it?” He swept them with a look. “We were in their village. If we had taken down the men with the bows we would have beaten them.” He could not remember exactly why he had run, only that suddenly he had been alone, facing two enemies, with Ellioh dead at his feet, the rest of them running like deer in the moonlight. “The next time, we will do it.”
“The next time!” Lasicka turned his head from side to side, drawing in the others. “Are we going to let him do this? Kill us all, for some wild dream?” He faced Miska again. “You have Burns-His-Feet’s sickness. You want more than we can do. We are only ordinary men. We should go home, where we belong. Protect our hunting, and fight our enemies there.”
They murmured, watching Miska, their eyes dark as pits in the flickering shadowy light. Epashti came in by the fire and knelt down, her hands on her knees. Lasicka, the sachem’s nephew, the real sachem, faced Miska again with a sad face that barely concealed a sneer. “If you will not lead us, Miska, I will. I will take us home. You stay here. You kill the strangers.”
Miska put his hand to his amulet bag. His body rippled with exhaustion, and he could not think. He said, “Go, then. I don’t care.” He could feel the sharp edge of the little stone through the deerskin bag. He stared around him, to force them again to his will.
The others would not look at him. His stare glanced off their shoulders, the backs of their heads. They were already starting to lie down, going to sleep, Epashti moving among them bringing water and food and the consolation of her voice and touch. A lump of grief and fear and rage filled his throat. They were the Wolves. They could not lose. But they were giving up. He went down to the water’s edge, sat down on the sand, and turned his gaze out across the water at the island.
Ulf said, harsh, “You do what you want, Euan. I’m getting out of here.”
Euan was slumped on the ground, Arre beside him; his head was throbbing with pain so intense it was hard to think. He said,
“We ran them off. We can build fires at night, to see them coming. Post better guards.” Send out scouts. Find out what was really out there. His head felt swollen, too full to think.
Ulf grunted at him. The sun was rising, and the feeble light showed the old captain’s face seamed and wrinkled as an old apple beneath the shiny dome of his head. He said, “We lost three men this time. There’s two more hurt, and may die. That leaves seven of us, with you and her and the babies. If we lose any more, we won’t be able to sail the ship. We’ll be stuck here forever.”
“Until Corban comes back,” Euan said stubbornly. “We said we’d protect his home here.”
“Corban may never come back.”
Euan wiped his hand over his face. The vicious pounding in his head overwhelmed everything. Rich, he thought. This place, so rich. I could be master. And thinking that he saw himself in the center of a store of wealth. But then in his mind the place around him grew, and grew, and he himself shrank away in the middle of it, until he was just a little stone in the center of a vast unknown.
He faced his wife, sitting beside him with the baby in her arms, the little girl clinging to her side. He said, “Arre.” Pleading with her, who had always been by him.
She turned her face toward him, pale as a full moon. “I want to go home, Euan.”
He shut his mouth. He could feel it all slipping away from him His gaze rose, away from the frightened weakling people; he looked around him, the trees of the island appearing now like spikes against the brightening sky, the narrow water rushing with the incoming tide.
Ulf pressed him, merciless. “There’s a lot of food in the storehouse. We have casks for water. The ship’s sound. We can load it in a day. In a morning. We can go out when the tide ebbs.”
Arre said, “Euan, please.”
He sighed. It was his ship. But he had no strength to argue anymore. His head hurt like torture, and Arre was against him; the last of his resolve went out of him with the breath in his lungs. He said, “Very well.”
They stirred, suddenly vigorous again. The men all rose at once, in a babble of voices, and Ulf gave them a string of orders. Excited, eager, they hurried around, but Euan sat there on the ground and hung his head, defeated, until Arre came and led him like a child back to the house to rest.
Miska woke up with the sun bright in his eyes; he had fallen asleep on the beach. Epashti sat nearby him, suckling her baby, but none of the other men was anywhere in sight.
He looked out at the water, which had crawled down the beach away from him, uncovering low flat rocks furry with weed. He said, “Did they go?”
She smiled, her round face placid; with the baby in her arms, she was her own world, complete. She said, “Not yet—they will not leave without you, no matter what Lasicka says, Miska. They’re off hunting. But when they come back they will want to go.”
He stood up, stretching his arms over his head. His legs ached. He said, testing her, “Maybe we should.”
She only smiled again, her eyes narrowing. He turned to look at the island.
The breath stopped in his throat. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“A light—I saw a light—” Then, against his chest, something thumped like a drum.
He gasped. He put his hand to the amulet bag, and the rock inside jumped against his palm. He stretched his gaze out to the island again, and saw, again, on that far shore, the brief flash of a light, bright as a star, and then gone.
“It’s her,” he said. The stone was banging against his chest. His belly churned with a sudden mad excitement. “It’s her, out there, calling me—”
Epashti’s face fell open, and she plucked the baby from her breast and rose up to her feet. “What do you mean? Who?” She came toward him, her tongue licking her lips. “Where are you going?”
He started down toward the log boats on the shore. “She’s calling me—the woman I saw—once—”
Epashti said, “Wait—Miska—maybe this is a trick—what woman?”
He said, “She’s calling me.” He pushed the first of the logs out onto the water, wading in up to his thighs on the slippery hairy rocks.
“Miska! What about the others—”
“Send them after me,” he shouted, and lay down on the log, and with hands and feet paddled his way out onto the shifting water of the bay.
The water tugged him along toward the island. He paddled like a turtle, the log rolling and slipping under him, as if it would tip him off. He fixed his gaze on the island but saw no more of the light. But against his chest the stone was jumping so hard it hurt.
The water was uncertain; sometimes it drew him on, but sometimes it churned, and broke into contrary little waves that jerked and tumbled the log around. He rolled off once and climbed back on again.
No fish rose. No high overwhelming surge. He kept his gaze pinned steadily on that far shore. The contrary tugging of the currents was dragging him down toward the point of land; he would come ashore there almost at the feet of his enemies. He could not stop; he strained to kick harder, to paddle more strongly with his arms.
The log crunched against the shore, and he stood. His gaze swept the beach and the rising ground before him. No sign of her.
No sign of anybody.
His hair tingled up on his head. He walked up the shore, up the steep rise toward the rock wall, the strange huts. There was nobody here. Like the great fish leaping, his heart rose in his chest. He climbed over the rock wall where the night before the pale-skinned men had met them with arrows and slashing knives and this time no one stopped him. The circle inside the wall was empty. The strangers had gone.
He walked up toward the house, its tilted overgrown roof spangled with flowers, and stopped, and looked all around. A harsh laugh broke from him. He stood sweeping the whole place with his gaze, conquering it with his eyes. He had won. His chest swelled so tight with triumph that for a moment he could not draw a breath.
Off toward the trees there were four long humps of earth on the ground. He went that way and saw they were fresh-dug graves—three very new, within the day, and one older.
On the older one lay a flat rock with lines on it in black, smudged from the dew. He stooped, curious, and put his hand out to the rock. It was warm to his touch. The dew-washed lines melted when he drew his finger through them.
When he took his hand away, the black lines formed again, and he twitched, unnerved, seeing there somehow both the rock and a man and a woman, side by side.
He shrank away. This was an altar, he thought. Maybe they were still here. Something was still here. He stood, wary, looking around, and there, across the water, he saw the others coming, a stream of log boats, gliding toward him on the shining surface of the bay.
The Witches’ Kitchen Page 13