by Ruth Nickle
“What do I look like?” Tatterhood whispered to Trygve.
“A death watcher, from the legends.”
Just as a nattmara fed on fears, a death watcher needed to feed. But it did not normally kill, feeding instead on that which was already dead.
But why would the lhoosh fear that Tatterhood was a death watcher, following her, a living soul? There were stories of death watchers pursuing other magical creatures of death, like death gobblers. Maybe the lhoosh had bonded with a death gobbler to gain access to its magic . . . Perhaps, because death gobblers fed on death, the lhoosh tortured people, consuming their life force in the days leading up to their deaths, in order to fuel her power.
Tatterhood dashed toward the malignant creature.
The lhoosh lunged toward the wall, and it trembled as it had before. Storm bit into her leg and held on even as she tried to kick her off.
The lhoosh tripped, falling partway through the wall. With a bang, the four stone walls around them turned to ash and drifted to the ground.
They were in what appeared to be the basement of the lhoosh’s fortress. It was part storage room, part series of traps.
The lhoosh snapped her fingers and a dozen furry creatures appeared. They were about the size of Storm, but moved like cats, with teeth the length of human hands. One attacked Storm, distracting her from the lhoosh, and the others rushed at Tatterhood and Trygve. Tatterhood switched the little spoon for her normal large spoon.
“It’s good to see you, friend,” she said to the spoon as she smacked the bowl against one of the toothy creatures, then the back end against the other. She jumped after the lhoosh—she would not be distracted, she would not lose her quarry.
The lhoosh leapt across piles of wood furniture, kicking chairs at Storm, tapping devices that threw rocks around the room as she headed toward a stone staircase. But Storm would not be deterred and jumped from one thing to another, dodging barriers, ducking beneath the saber, pursuing the lhoosh without faltering. People always underestimated goats.
Tatterhood took a different path to the stairs, trying to cut off the lhoosh’s escape. The creatures kept coming at her with their giant teeth, but she kept her spoon and her body in constant motion.
Trygve hollered in pain and Tatterhood glanced back at him. He was using his troll hand to defend himself against the creatures. One bit into the hand. He tightened his fist around its head, crushing it with an inhuman strength. He flung the creature away.
“I need my sword,” yelled Trygve.
Her stomach sank. How had she forgotten to give him a weapon? She took his comb out of her pocket and switched it for his sword. She hefted it and threw it across the room in Trygve’s direction. It was the best she could do.
She turned around in time to see the lhoosh kick Storm. The goat fell against the floor with a thud. Tatterhood yelled an awful yell. She charged the last few steps to the staircase, arriving at the same time as the lhoosh.
The lhoosh swung her saber. Tatterhood ducked, blocked, feinted with her wooden spoon.
Storm rose, shook her hair, and rejoined the fight. Her hooves pounded against the floor, making short, sharp sounds, and she screeched as she rammed her horns into the lhoosh’s back. Tatterhood stepped farther up the staircase, blocking the exit with her body. She smashed her wooden spoon against the sword. There was no reason for a pretty fight, a fair fight—no rules but winning against a magical creature like the lhoosh.
Tatterhood shoved her spoon forward, like a spear, into the lhoosh’s ribcage, and heard a rib crack. The lhoosh raised her non-sword hand, perhaps to cast a spell, but Tatterhood hit it with the spoon, and then blocked the saber. Storm pulled on the lhoosh’s leg, making the creature lose her balance.
She spared a glance a Trygve. He was fighting six of the creatures at once, keeping them away so Tatterhood could engage the lhoosh.
They parried. Tatterhood was better, especially with her wooden spoon and with Storm darting in between them, interfering with the lhoosh’s movements. But how to end the fight? Tatterhood needed to kill the lhoosh for the terrible things she had done to Trygve, for all the men she had tortured to death. She needed to kill the lhoosh to prevent her from harming others.
Tatterhood could bludgeon the lhoosh to death with the spoon, but it would be slow and brutal for both of them. Or she could switch the wooden spoon for her sword in the castle.
The lhoosh swung her saber and Tatterhood barely managed to block with her spoon. The strike had so much force behind it that Tatterhood lost her balance and fell backward onto the staircase. She lost hold of the magic making her look like a death watcher. She looked up at the lhoosh. Before, both of the lhoosh’s layers—creature and human—had been visible, but now she could hardly see the human at all, as if the creature had consumed it. Now there were only demon red eyes and fangs, fangs that could surely rip her apart.
The lhoosh struck her again and again, with a supernatural strength that could not be matched by a human. First Tatterhood rolled to the side, next she managed to block the saber, but only because Storm slammed her horns against the lhoosh at the same moment. Tatterhood’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. Now she could only defend, not attack, and the lhoosh was using her longer weapon to her advantage. Tatterhood swallowed, but her mouth was dry. Even with her wooden spoon, even with Storm’s help, she would lose. She was not good enough, not against whatever fed the lhoosh’s powers.
Tatterhood blocked the lhoosh again, but the effort caused her arms to shake with pain. The lhoosh kicked Storm off the stairs and Tatterhood drew in a ragged breath. She should have let the lhoosh escape and found a different way out of the dungeon. She should never have tried to fight her. Now she would die. Her baby would die. Storm would die. The lhoosh would kill Trygve—they would all perish today. And she could do nothing to stop it.
But maybe she didn’t have to do this alone.
“Trygve, I need you!” she shouted.
He slew another creature with his sword and jumped toward Tatterhood, over two more of the animals. At the same time, Storm shakily rose to her feet.
The lhoosh dropped her saber, raised her claws, and began muttering.
Tatterhood focused on a wisp of magic and turned it on her face, visualizing for herself what she desired to be. She changed her face to a troll. The lhoosh’s hands twitched, perhaps as part of her spell. Tatterhood switched her face in rapid succession—to a nattmara, to a death gobbler, to one of the big-teethed creatures, and then to mirror the lhoosh’s own face.
The lhoosh stopped muttering and stepped down one stair.
Tatterhood let go of the magic, allowing her face to return to its natural gray appearance. She jabbed her wooden spoon forward, into the lhoosh’s chest, and Storm rammed into the lhoosh’s legs, knocking her off balance.
The lhoosh muttered something and the saber rose through the air, to her hand.
Trygve hollered as he reached the bottom of the staircase. The lhoosh swung around to block his sword and Tatterhood bludgeoned her on the back. Trygve feinted, stepping to the side, and the lhoosh lost her balance for a moment. Tatterhood kicked her, forcing the creature the rest of the way down the staircase.
Tatterhood and Trygve fought as a team, coordinating their strikes against the lhoosh and her toothy animals. There was something intimate about fighting together like this. The human in the lhoosh appeared for short moments, but mostly, the creature layer blotted it out entirely. The lhoosh’s strikes were inhumanly strong, yet together, with the help of Storm, they gained ground.
Tatterhood smashed the lhoosh’s right wrist at the same time that Trygve slammed his sword against the lhoosh’s. The lhoosh lost her grip on the saber.
Tatterhood tackled the lhoosh, pinning the creature to the ground.
“What are you?” gasped the lhoosh. She looked more human now, less creature. The layers
on her face quivered back and forth.
“I’m a girl with a tattered hood. That’s all.”
Storm bleated.
“Watch out!” yelled Trygve.
Tatterhood kept holding the lhoosh down, but she shifted to give Trygve room.
He plunged his sword into the lhoosh’s heart.
The lhoosh’s magic fought back against him, pushing against the sword, swirling around it in a rage of wind, battering Trygve’s body. But he did not flinch, he did not falter. Tatterhood held the lhoosh’s body down with all her might as she watched her husband with admiration.
The lhoosh’s body went limp.
The death creature part of her fell away, dissolving into dust until all that was left was the corpse of a woman, a woman who had once been beautiful.
Trygve removed the sword and helped Tatterhood to her feet. “We did it!” he exclaimed.
The walls of the magic fortress began to crumble with an ear-thundering crash. The lhoosh must have bound it so strongly to her magic and her life force that when she died, it could not stand on its own. Storm bleated in alarm, then led them up the stairs and through cracks in the walls. Shimmering pockets of magic flashed through the air, destroying the fortress. Trygve sheathed his sword and took Tatterhood’s hand in his human one as they dashed out, into the shadows of the thousand-year oak.
Chapter 10
Too much wild magic flooded the area. Hopefully the tree could contain it, repurpose it for something good. If Tatterhood were a trained witch she might stay here and use the magic to make reattaching Trygve’s hand easier, but it was too volatile for someone with her limited skill and knowledge to handle.
She touched the chainmail Trygve wore and switched it with the black coat from their wedding day. Then they jogged upriver, using the same path she and Storm had taken in the night.
Once she judged they were far enough from the wild magic, Tatterhood stopped, panting. Trygve breathed deeply for a minute, then cleaned his sheath and sword while she filled her water pouches at the river. Storm wandered off, probably to eat something.
Tatterhood and Trygve sat on the ground, not quite touching as they drank their water. She studied his profile. She did not know what to say after an experience like theirs. In some ways she still hardly knew this man she called her husband.
Trygve reached with his troll hand to scratch his face, but stopped right before it touched his skin. He forced the hand down to the ground. It was already healing itself from the bite of the lhoosh’s toothy creatures, much faster and better than a human hand would. A look of disgust crossed his face as he considered the hand. “I suppose it’s a memento of the whole experience. A little worse than a scar, but nothing I can’t live with.”
“If you want to keep it, go ahead, but I did get your hand from the troll.”
“You rescued my hand?”
“I was trying to rescue you.”
“Can you reattach it? The same way you fixed Ingridr’s head?”
Tatterhood shivered, remembering how much it drained her to sew Ingridr back together. But it was a small price to pay—she could do this one more thing for her husband. “There might be a little scarring.” Tatterhood removed the flask from around her neck, switched a stone from the ground for her knife, and carefully cut open the goatskin. “Sorry about ruining your flask. But since it was a gift from your father, the bond between you two may have helped preserve your hand.”
“You put my hand in soup?”
Tatterhood shrugged. “It worked.” She lifted out his hand and rinsed it off in the river. It had kept quite well and did not smell of decay.
She refilled their water pouches. Then she made a pile of objects and switched them, one by one, for the additional things she needed: a sharp saw, a needle and thread, and a pile of clean cloths. Trygve did not stop pacing until Tatterhood told him she couldn’t do it unless he let her focus.
Storm wandered back and Tatterhood asked her to sit on top of Trygve’s legs. Tatterhood had him hold the wooden spoon in his human hand.
“This will hurt.” She wadded up a piece of fabric. “You may want to bite this.”
He studied her face. “You’re nervous.” The surprise in his voice was evident. “If you don’t want to do this, or if it’s too difficult, I will be fine as I am.”
“I will do it,” she said, forcing the fabric into his hand. He placed it in his mouth, then held on to the wooden spoon again.
Tatterhood set the saw on his skin, right at the edge between the troll hand and the arm. As she pressed, Trygve gasped. She sawed as quickly as she could, not looking at his face, afraid that his pain could undo her. When the troll hand finally came off, she gave it to Storm, who carried it away to dispose of it.
She poured water over the prince’s arm, preparing it to receive the hand. She was not a fine seamstress, and had ruined many of her mother’s embroidery projects. Of course, she always struggled to create beautiful things. Sewing someone back together was much more practical, so it was easier to focus on neat, even stitches.
She sang a little nonsense tune as she inserted the needle into the skin and muscle. A weight pressed against her chest but she kept stitching, kept singing. Her body got colder, slower, as she made her way around the wrist, but she willed herself not to shake as she put in the finishing stitches. A trained witch or enchantress could probably do such a thing without drawing so much from herself, but Tatterhood did not know how.
Tatterhood massaged Trygve’s arm, starting from the shoulder and moving down to his hand. She willed the arm to remember the hand, to accept it again. She willed the blood to flow between the two. She slowly bent each one of Trygve’s fingers. She was short of breath but she continued to sing until she could do so no longer.
She took back the wooden spoon and collapsed against a tree, completely spent. After reattaching Ingridr’s head it had taken several days for Tatterhood to recover.
Trygve only had eyes for his hand. He wiggled his fingers, then bent them carefully. He sat next to Tatterhood and used his reattached hand to caress her face. “You are a wonder.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek, but she was too tired to even muster a smile at his excitement. Instead, she focused on breathing.
Concern covered his face. “You’re so pale. Are you ill?”
“It wasn’t quite this bad when I fixed Ingridr’s head. Of course, I wasn’t pregnant.”
“If I had known what it would do to you, I would have kept the troll hand.” Trygve cupped his hands around her face. “How can I help you? What can I do?”
“I need food, and quickly.”
She closed her eyes, not even waiting for his response.
“Watch over her, Storm. Do not let anything disturb her,” she thought she heard him say.
The next thing she knew, his hands were on her arms. “Wake up, Tatterhood, wake up.”
He had killed and roasted a rabbit, and found some small wild carrots. He brought it to her, helped her eat and drink.
She had almost finished eating the rabbit when a growl came from Trygve’s stomach.
“Oh—I’m sorry,” she said, realizing he had not eaten any himself. “You must be starving.”
“I’ll eat later.”
“No, you can have the rest,” she protested.
“You have done so much for me. Let me do this one thing for you,” said her prince.
His sincerity stunned her, so she ate the rest of the rabbit.
“What else can I do?” he asked.
“Hold me.”
Trygve took her in his arms and suddenly the ground did not feel so hard. Storm nuzzled up to Tatterhood’s other side, and they slept.
When they woke, Tatterhood switched an ugly pebble for the cauldron and they prepared a meal together. They stayed in that spot, next to the river, for a full week, eating and sleepin
g and stretching their legs as they both regained their strength.
By the week’s end, they both agreed that a bath was long overdue. To clean themselves, they dipped rags in the cold river and scrubbed their bodies. Trygve’s skin had partially healed from the cuts and bruises inflicted by the lhoosh, and he would probably only acquire five or six scars from the experience.
After their makeshift baths, Tatterhood tried to brush her hair. She yanked and tugged at it with a comb, but it was filled with so many knots and snarls that she made no progress. She might need to cut it off near the roots and let it grow again.
“Can I help you?” asked Trygve.
Tatterhood paused and considered. Sometimes one of the maids would brush her hair, so it couldn’t hurt to let Trygve. “If you’d like to, you can.”
He combed slowly and methodically, starting at the bottom of her hair, and working with much more patience than she possessed. She liked the way his fingers brushed against her back and her neck.
After a few minutes, he asked how she had found him. She described the three-day journey to the lake, the trolls and the nattmara, and finally, unlocking the mystery of the tree. She left out her doubts about wanting to find him—after all, her desire to find him had been stronger than her doubts, or she would not have pressed forward—but she did explain how she had to seek all aspects of him, both the things that gave her annoyance and the things that gave her joy.
“When we finally got into the dungeon, Storm and I scared away the nattmaras and I removed your chains. You know the rest.” She turned to look at him. “Are you done with my hair yet?”
He chuckled. “You do realize there are snarls the size of my fist? I’m only halfway finished vanquishing the knots.”
She smiled. “I guess I shouldn’t rush epic battles against monsters. I’ll try to hold still.” She turned back around so he could continue.
They sat in silence and Tatterhood watched the tranquil trees as he combed and combed. A brown beetle climbed slowly up the nearest trunk and disappeared into the branches.