But I forgot that I had lowered my hood, and by turning, I now faced her. She saw my mismatched eyes and hissed, “Cursed Witch.” I heard several more blades being drawn. I started to wonder if I had been gone from these hills so long that the valleyfolk had forgotten the stories.
I rocked forward onto my toes, ready to move, but I waited.
Instead of attacking, the woman simply gave the boy a hand up and bowed formally. She said, “We offer you no sanctuary, Witch.” Smart woman. “But we will not hinder your path.”
When the beastie first came after me, I’d stuck to the hills. I knew them, and I could circle back home every few months. After about a year, the usually hospitable hillfolk became suspicious, and some even turned me away to sleep on the dangerous hillside alone. That’s when I started hearing stories about a young woman traveling the hills. She seemed pleasant enough when invited into your home, but when she left, destruction rained your village. Some said she wasn’t human at all, but a wild dog or a great beast that took to the skies at night. It wasn’t long before they started calling her the Cursed Witch. And then, I realized the woman was me.
Several of the valleyfolk began talking at once. “But, Patrol Leader, if she’s the Cursed Witch—I’ve heard the stories—we’ll all be destroyed—our homes—we can’t—”
“Silence!” the leader snapped, sparing one sweeping glance at her patrol. She turned back to me and repeated firmly, “We have no quarrel with you.”
I simply stared at her. It was true; I had been gone for a long time. But were the valleyfolk’s memories so short that they had forgotten the danger? She knew not to offer me sanctuary, but still, the fact that she also did not threaten violence meant a great deal to me. It was stupid, but kind.
The collection of unfamiliar smells from the valleyfolk almost caused me to miss the rot of the beastie. The patrol leader had offered me kindness, so I returned it with advice. “When the monster arrives, do not fight it. Run.” Believing that they had no cause to do otherwise, I turned and threw myself off the path, shifting into my hound form as I did so. I was faster on four feet than two, and I hit the snow-dusted dirt running. The heavy cloak drifted to the ground behind me—usually my clothes and possessions changed with me, but sometimes the magic chose not to take something. I hoped I didn’t regret the loss later.
Behind me, a crash allowed me to think, Good, they took my advice, before the patrol leader shouted, “Stand your ground, Patrol! We stand between the creature and our homes.”
Idiots. But I couldn’t judge them too harshly. It was their duty to defend the valley from monsters. Still, if they stood against the beastie, it would deal with them before continuing the chase. I’d used the delay to escape before—and only later heard the tales of what the beast had done. But recently, I’d had the misfortune of experiencing the aftermath of the beast’s destruction. I wasn’t fool enough not to run, but I could choose the direction.
Circling the nearest tree, I doubled back. It only needed to catch my scent, and it would give chase. It always had.
The sounds of fighting increased as I reached the clearing, and I had to dodge to narrowly avoid missing one of the patrolmen tumbling through the air. Most of them were on the ground—the beastie made short work of those it had no use for. Similarities to another scene almost made me hesitate. But the beastie had sunk its teeth into the patrol leader’s leg. Still, she fought, stabbing it repeatedly with a small sharp blade to no effect. The smell of rotting copper was almost overwhelming—it must have fixated on her because she was the source of copper-scented magic.
Although it could be distracted by other magic, the beastie craved mine. I angled my path to take me into the beastie’s field of vision but never leave the relative safety offered by the trees. The wolf-like head did not acknowledge my presence or give any indication that it was willing to relinquish its prize. The patrol leader’s movements had weakened. Rot was slowly replacing the scent of copper in the clearing and I wondered what kind of magic the beastie used.
I altered my course once more, gathering my leg muscles to spring. Leaping straight for my nightmare, I cleared its head with the intention of springing off the leathery patch on its back between the wings and away. It would have to notice me.
But I miscalculated. Impossibly fast, the beastie dropped the patrol leader and whipped its wolf head around, clamping jaws onto my flank. My side exploded as its razor teeth sunk through fur into flesh. Instinctively, I tried to wriggle free, but it only tightened its grip until I could barely breathe. Winds swirled around me, as it took to the sky wings beating the air.
It had never caught me before, but I had always assumed it simply wanted to kill me, not to carry me off. As the pine trees faded into the pelting snow and we left the scent of copper behind, I resolved not to learn its intentions. I shifted back to human, hoping that the change would loosen its grip, but the powerful jaws held fast. Gray patches drifted in between the falling snow, and I thought I was passing out from the pain. Then, I realized the beastie was leeching my magic. My magic, in its various forms, was a part of me. If the beastie leeched it all, I would die.
Taking a deep breath to calm the panic rising in my mind, I told myself I just needed it to open its jaws. I’d outsmarted it before. It had dropped the patrol leader because I’d given it better prey. Maybe I could do that again.
Closing my eyes, I poured the remainder of my magic into the winds that buffeted our flight. I had no power left to direct them, but I hoped one found its way to the beastie.
With my eyes closed, I didn’t notice a change until the smell of rotting things dropped away. Opening my eyes, I found myself falling, rather than flying. Up and down the world was white—either the snow had increased or we had flown higher in the hills.
Mustering shreds of power, I pulled a scrap of wind beneath me, and when I hit the ground, it only felt like I’d been kicked by a horse, rather than buried by a landslide. As I struggled to get my feet under me—I couldn’t afford to stop running, even now—I vowed never to go back for anyone who was stupid enough to stand between the beastie and me again.
It ended in nothing good.
Spinning in a slow circle, I surveyed the whiteness. Not a pine in sight. I was lost.
I shivered without the cloak, but after a few tries, I decided I didn’t have enough power to shift back to hound. I pressed one gloved hand to my side, stumbling forward in the deep snow. My body bore the scars of years’ worth of dodging the beastie—I’d been running since I was a girl—but this was the first time it had ever gotten ahold of me.
I decided to head uphill so I didn’t backtrack. The incline seemed steeper—perhaps we had flown all the way to the mountains? With my free hand out to prevent unexpected encounters hidden by the sheet of snow, I pressed on. Another step sunk me waist deep, and I lost my balance, pitching forward. My outstretched hand connected with something soft but solid. Instead of waiting for the stench of the beastie’s magic to hit me, I pushed away from the fur beneath my gloved fingers and lurched to the side.
The snow under my feet vanished, and I fell with the snowflakes into empty air. A scream tore from my throat, already raw from the biting cold. My flailing hand caught, cutting the sound short and sending a jolt down my body. Pain seared up from my midsection as the motion pulled the wound, threatening to tear me in half.
Blinking upward against the black spots that began to overwhelm the falling snow, I saw another larger hand engulfing my own. My mind couldn’t make sense of that—the beastie had claws, not hands, and besides that, it could fly. I couldn’t see beyond the hand to determine to what manner of creature it belonged.
It hauled me back onto solid ground, where I lay gasping in snowflakes as they spiraled down from the sky. I couldn’t feel my wound anymore. In fact, I couldn’t feel much of anything. The outline of a shadowy figure started to become visible in the surrounding white. It looked vaguely human-shaped, but perhaps the beastie had only folded its wings
. Then again, these mountains were home to many a strange creature, and looking human didn’t always mean you were.
As the figure moved toward me, I closed my eyes, comforted by the fact that I didn’t smell the sharp rotten scent, which marked the beastie’s magic. I only caught a faint trace of woodsmoke, making my nose itch like a trapped sneeze, so perhaps my ability to sense magic simply wasn’t functioning properly. Whatever this creature was, it would eat me in truth, and I wouldn’t suffer having my life drained away slowly. Satisfied, I surrendered to the cold beyond pain as the creature lifted me from the ground and carried me away.
My eyes snapped open to relative darkness, so different from the white of the blizzard. I was shivering hot and shaking uncontrollably, although evidently not yet eaten. I could feel the bone-deep cold having it out with the knots of burning pain that raged on the left side of my body. Near my head, fire crackled. In the dim light, I saw a shape crouched over my feet. It appeared human, if on the large side. Pain stabbed through my toes. I panicked. If it ate my feet, I couldn’t run, and running was the only thing that kept others safe. Sometimes.
I heard a snap like a dry branch above my head. I could almost feel the beastie breathing down my neck with its oversized wolf’s jaws, stretching out claws, covered, much like the rest of it, in alternating patches of scales and fur. I tried to shift to hound, forgetting the beastie had drained my magic. Human, I remained.
I couldn’t run. I couldn’t fight. I’d proven on more than one occasion that I was no match for the beastie. Something wrapped itself around me, and I willed myself not to struggle in the embrace. But, still, no rotting things assaulted my nose. Instead, I was overwhelmed with sharp woodsmoke-drenched power, like a forest fire raging around me. Exhaustion pulled me down before I could sneeze.
The burning pain and bone chilling cold had melted into a nice pleasant warmth, and I wondered briefly if I was dead. Then I tried to move. Muscles screamed, informing me that I was very much alive. Puzzled, I opened my eyes. Rough rock arched over my head, and I could see the snow still coming down beyond the mouth of the cave. Someone obviously lived here, judging from the trunks, crates, and firewood stacked along one wall. A fire roared beyond the pile of furs and blankets wrapped around me. I imagined both combined to supply the warmth.
When I lifted my head to look around, the world tilted dangerously.
“Here.” The gruff sound originating behind me was little more than a grunt, not unlike the noises the beastie made.
Reflexes kicked in, and I scrambled across the dirt floor, putting the fire between me and it as I pulled up the blankets for the little protection they offered. My side began to throb in time with my pounding heart, but I had moved quickly enough to see the outstretched hand (no claws) pull back and the wingless shoulders slump. A resigned look crossed the rather human face of the man who had approached me from behind.
I breathed carefully, trying to slow my heart without aggravating my wounded side as I studied him. Even crouched down, I could tell he was a big man, built like a bear. His skin was as rough as his voice, from the harsh mountain weather or old scars, I couldn’t tell. He appeared to shave rarely, and this wasn’t one of those occasions. Dressed in furs with haunted eyes, he looked like someone who could survive a lonely life in a mountain cave. My mind was slow to connect the pieces—the form in the snow—the creature crouched over my feet—
He’d saved me from a chilly dive to my death, but I still asked softly, “Are you going to eat me?” After all, some predators liked to play with their food.
Murky black eyes narrowed, and I thought I saw a flicker of bluish light across his forehead, but in the dim cave, I couldn’t be sure. Anger flashed across those too dark eyes and was left to smolder as he straightened and turned, taking a few steps away.
Hoping his answer wasn’t complicated enough to require contemplation, I asked with concern, “Can you talk?”
“Yeh.” He didn’t turn and it could have been another grunt. I couldn’t be sure.
If he was playing games with his food, he wasn’t very good at it. He seemed more offended than anything, so I took a deep breath and started over, telling him, “I’m sorry. You startled me. I’m Sian.” It wasn’t like I could stop him from eating me.
He half turned back, but the angry resignation had not left his face. After giving me a long look, he finally responded, “I’m called Dagr.” His voice was deep and gruff, but this time, I could understand the words.
“Well met, Dagr.” With only a fraction of an instant of hesitation, I held out my hand and hoped he thought my fingers shook from the cold.
Turning the rest of the way, Dagr regarded me warily and didn’t move.
I did not withdraw my shaking hand, and finally, he approached me—cautiously, like a deer about to bolt. Only he was much too big to resemble a deer. As he shook my hand, I watched something between confusion and astonishment edge out the anger in the dark pools of his eyes.
The introduction ritual complete, he backed off a few steps and sat on his haunches. I made myself lean against the cave wall to appear relaxed. It was a mistake. My breath hissed through my teeth as cloth pressed into unhealed wound.
The sound did not escape unnoticed. “The thing that sunk its teeth in you had awful big jaws—what was it?” Dagr asked, watching me intently.
Shifting restlessly, I tried and failed to find a comfortable position. I realized he must be responsible for the bandages wrapped tightly around my middle because how else would he know the size and nature of the wound?
“A curse from my father—those who feared him fear me and send the beastie hunting.” I shuttered. I’d never encountered those responsible for the hunt, but my mother had told me stories of them and of my father and how I came to possess such a strange mixture of magic.
Dagr frowned before asking skeptically, “What is there to fear about you?”
I knew I was on the small side in human form, even for a hillwoman. The only thing distinct about me was my mismatched eyes—one soft brown and the other ice blue. But even so, with my unimpressive light brown hair and unremarkable features, I could imagine the difficulty Dagr was having in picturing me as dangerous, especially when I was in a shaking huddle on the ground. “You should know better than to believe everything you see,” I told him stubbornly. I hadn’t figured him out yet, but I had smelled magic in the cave. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t what I appeared.
At my words, his face drained of color, and I could make out the rune-ish symbols standing out starkly on his forehead. If they were runes, each was ruined by a jagged, slightly raised scar running through it. When I didn’t press the advantage (because I didn’t know what I had said to make him react like that), he asked, perhaps attempting to lighten the mood, “Are you telling me I invited the Cursed Witch into my home?”
It was my turn to feel like I had been punched in the gut. I hadn’t expected the stories to reach this lonely place, but I could have kicked myself for forgetting, even for a moment, the danger that followed me. I could not undo the aid he had already rendered, but he deserved to know what kind of a monster he had brought into his home.
Instead of answering his question—I could hardly tell him the answer was ‘yes’—I decided to show him. I wasn’t sure I had the strength, but some of my magic had replenished. “I’m hunted for this,” I said as I shifted, replacing the small woman with an oversized hound that filled a good portion of the cave. In this form, I was even bigger than the wolves that roamed these mountains, standing high enough to look the still-crouching Dagr in the face without tilting my head. My distinct salt-and-pepper coat and floppy ears further distinguished me from my four-footed kin. But if you plucked off the wings and filled in the patches of scale with fur, the beastie that hunted me would closely resemble my hound form. After all, it was designed to hunt my father’s bloodline.
When a widening around the eyes was the only reaction Dagr presented, I wagged my tail and shifted bac
k. I liked him for not running in terror when he met my hound form, especially when he must have confirmed my connection to the Cursed Witch by now, and I liked him even more for steadying me when my two feet decided not to support my weight right away. Close proximity allowed me to rest my fingers lightly on his arm as I said quietly, “And this.”
This close, I knew the sharp woodsmoke smell originated with him. Feeling for the hum just under my skin, I used it to tug at the power I could sense buried deep in him.
My pull on his magic spurred more of a reaction than my shifting. He couldn’t get away fast enough. Jerking backward as though he’d been burned, he stumbled and nearly landed in the fire. I took a step forward to help him, and he fended me off, whispering harshly, “Don’t come near me, leech.” That time, I clearly saw green spark through the vein in his temple.
I retreated, hot tears of fury blurring my vision. “You’re just like the hillfolk—” An old arrow wound in my leg ached in time with the new one on my side as I continued, “—and the people who cursed my father, afraid of what you don’t understand.” I surged to my feet, wrapping the blanket around me and clutching it with white-knuckled hands. “Thank you for your hospitality.” I half-bowed in his direction before spinning on bare heels and stomping toward the exit. I was prepared to march out into a blizzard half-clothed with the confidence that my rage would keep me warm.
Suddenly, Dagr filled the cave mouth and effectively blocked my way. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, towering over me.
His sudden hostility reawakened my ingrained fear of the beastie—just remove the wings—and it was too much. I backpedaled, tangling my feet in the blanket. I fell hard on my backside, causing involuntary tears to spring to my eyes as I yelped in pain.
Dagr looked as though I’d slapped him and remained rooted to the spot. His shoulders slumped and he mumbled something unintelligible before retreating to the other side of the cave.
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