“Like Bucks over a Doe in heat, the two Princes fought over the southern Princess,” Tulla sighed. “The Stag won, although his conduct proved he possesses little in the way of honor.”
“Some kind of foul tactics?” the Brood Sister seemed almost disappointed at the news.
Tulla sighed, and resigned herself to recounting more of the tales. Gossiping about the deeds of a pair of Invaders wasn’t her idea of an enjoyable time—not unless one or both of them were dead.
“The one known as William was soundly thrashed in the challenge ring, and then in a fit of pique, decided he’d rather send our people to the slaughter to avenge his damaged pride, rather than accept his losses with grace,” Tulla grunted.
“Thank you, Witch Tulla,” the other woman sounded satisfied, “I’ll attempt to form the chain now…” she paused before adding, “do ye happen to know the name of the final recipient?”
“I must be getting older than I thought,” Tulla scowled, “I would speak with the Witch Muirgheal, of the Wicks.”
“Of course, Sister Tulla,” Bonnie Bee replied, and began the ancient rites which would allow her to form a chain request.
Since Tulla was already in contact with Bonnie Bee, this meant the other woman was finally beginning to build the next link in the chain.
An hour later, and with more than a dozen links of the Witch Chain—although nearly half of them were side links—they finally reached Muirgheal. Side links were Witches and women that weren’t really needed to form the Chain, but had thought to snoop into whatever gossip was moving across the country at the speed of magic. Tulla was less than pleased to have her business spread all across the hamlets and shires between here and there, but there was little she could do about it.
“By Root and Thorn I greet you. This is Muirgheal,” the other Witch finally replied, her words relayed from Witches and Brood Sisters all up and down the length of the Witch Chain. “Am I speaking with the Witch known as Tulla? If so, I’ve never heard of you.”
Much of the emotional context that so easily bled through a direct connection was lost after more than a few links, so all that Tulla received through the link was a slight irritation from this contact.
“Root and Thorn. I seek the mother of Falon Rankin, out of Muirgheal by Justin, art thee she whom I seek?” Tulla promptly responded. She didn’t want to lose the other women through disinterest before she’d had time say her piece.
There was an extended pause—longer than the simple transfer through the Witch Chain would take.
“I am she. What do you know of my daughter?” Muirgheal finally replied. “Does she still live?”
“She lives,” Tulla said flatly, “although she was stricken by a Naanth through the belly, it missed her womb. Thanks to thy moonlight wards her blood flowed slowly and I was able reach her in time. She is now healed enough to live, and thou canst still hope for grandchildren.”
This time the pause was much shorter.
“My many thanks for your intervention, Sister Tulla,” Muirgheal responded, “and though the laws of this land make it difficult to raise a child in the Old Way, but I still bear that girl a mother’s love. I am in your debt for the saving of her life.”
“Thy daughter walks the Path of Thorns; is this because of circumstance, as the child believes, or because of the traditions thou and I share?” Tulla asked instead of acknowledging Muirgheal’s debt.
“I don’t see how that is any business of yours, Tulla,” Muirgheal rebuked, and even through their many links, Tulla felt Muirgheal’s displeasure.
“Yet thou dost not deny she walks the Thorns, Sister?” Tulla riposted carefully.
“You speak of an old tradition of our people—one many believe has lost its purpose,” Muirgheal replied, with a non-answer and even through the length and breadth of the Chain, Tulla could feel the other woman’s rising anger and concern.
“I have saved her life, dost thou dispute this?” Tulla demanded.
“I have no reason to doubt your words at this time,” Muirgheal responded after a pause.
“Then I intend to claim my rights to the life debt that this Falon owes me,” Tulla stated firmly.
“I have offered you a debt from me instead,” Muirgheal replied.
“She bears the mark of no other teacher, save only her mother’s moon wards. I will make her my apprentice for no less than two years,” Tulla retorted.
“She is my daughter, Old Witch! My firstborn and only daughter, and even for a life debt you have not the right,” Muirgheal cried, and Tulla could feel the intensity of a mother’s outrage echoing and easily picked up by every woman in the Witch Chain, until it was passed in all its full force to Tulla.
“I have the right,” Tulla said, not without some small modicum of sympathy for the mother.
“You are making a dangerous enemy, Tulla,” Muirgheal replied, and Tulla could feel the air begin to chill around her body, but she was not to be deterred.
“I cannot unmake what has happened even if I wanted to, which I do not,” Tulla said, struggling and failing to find the words for this distraught mother. She wondered if this was how her grandmother felt back in the days of yore, when the New Blood had not yet finished their conquests. “The girl is marked and bound. I will teach her.”
“Do not do this,” Muirgheal warned, “remove your bindings and release my daughter.”
“Even if that meant she would die?” Tulla snapped. “Her wounds are not yet healed.”
“Do not do this,” Muirgheal repeated, “my daughter may be in your power, but I am not. A daughter-theft will not go unavenged! Listen and listen well, Tulla-Witch: my womb is still fertile, and if I cannot find you then the line of Muirgheal shall hunt you and yours until the last bones of your line are put to the ground.”
“This is not kin-theft thou fool; stay thy mother’s urge to protect, and open thy ears,” Tulla sent her message snapping out with resounding force. “To save thy daughter, it was necessary to paint her. The Thorn has been bound to the Earth Root, and that which I have done cannot be undone! Dost thou hear me? The girl must be trained or she will die, most likely from the heat death when her tattoos blossom.”
Tulla heard a surprised gasp from Bonnie Bee, and several of the eavesdroppers whispered, “An Earth Witch!”
“This cannot be,” she heard Muirgheal whisper through the Witch Chain, “the secret of painting has been lost. The last of the Tattooed Thorns fell along with the Stars; their path is dead and barren.”
“I am a Branch, Brood Witch, and I am claiming thy daughter for the Witch Guard,” Tulla said with all her authority.
“The Witch Guard is gone, Old One,” Muirgheal retorted. “They no longer exist!”
“We are not gone; we are only in hiding. When we are finished gathering our strength, the Invaders shall rue the day attacked us. So sayeth Tulla, out of Queen Dina by Finobar-Tuatha.”
“My daughter was not meant to tread the warpaths of the Witch Queens,” Muirgheal relayed, and at this Tulla snorted in partial agreement; no mixed blood would ever make Queen. “She is as much New Blood as she is Old, Sister Tulla. Please, do only what you must to save her life, and then release her back to her mother — and the Brood, if that is her choice! If you are who you claim then you have that power, and you have that right,” Muirgheal urged, “please use it.”
Tulla took a moment to consider, before uttering a single word:
“No.”
The End
Sneak Peak
Chapter 1: Reunions can be Joyful or Full of Sorrow
Falon hadn’t taken three steps outside Madam Tulla’s tent when her side and abdomen started hurting. After that, each step seemed to send a jolt through her. She doggedly continued onward, preferring to suffer, pop her (her hand reached down to feel that, yes, her wound had actually been stitched) stitches, and pass out than head back inside Tulla’s tent for a seat.
At least my breathing is okay again, she thought, grateful for small
favors. No one paid her any mind as she limped past a very large, very green tent. Part of that might have been because of the cries that occasionally emanated from inside; clearly not everyone had been healed up from their injuries during the night. Still, the noises from inside were nothing compared to the screams she had heard on the field.
Shuddering, Falon tried to quicken her pace and leave the tent behind her, but she couldn’t even do that for more than a few steps. Seeing a wagon piled half full of corpses, she turned her head. Taking deep breaths through her mouth, she just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Feeling slightly nauseated but able to take slightly longer strides, Falon asked for directions as she went. Other than a few snorts at her lack of knowledge, the men she encountered kept pointing her in the right direction until she found the Fighting Swans’ encampment.
Even from a distance, she could tell the Company was smaller than before. Gritting her teeth with determination, she pressed onward. She forced herself to walk into camp under her own power, and eventually she did so, even if it was more of a stumbling gait than she would have liked. Looking up, she saw a number of men still in the back of her wagons, bandages on stumps of hands, feet, arms and entire legs. More injured were sprawled around the fire pits.
Pausing to catch her breath, Falon told herself it was more to get the lay of the land. Spurred back to doing something productive, even if she was still catching her breath and waiting for her side to stop hurting, Falon did a quick and dirty nose count.
Her head dropped and she placed a hand on her forehead. She counted roughly half as many men were in camp as had originally left from the Two Wicks, and that was including the amputees and wounded.
Her ears roaring as she realized the implication that roughly half her men—half her friends and neighbors—had died on the field, she stumbled over to the wagon she usually claimed for a sleeping spot under.
“Fal?” asked an incredulous voice.
Falon stopped and suddenly she wanted to weep.
“Is that you?” asked Ernest disbelievingly. “Is that really you?!”
“I thought you were dead,” Falon said thickly as she turned to face her friend. “I was sure—” she didn’t get any further before Ernest broke into a stiff-legged gait and crossed the few feet that still separated them.
“Oof,” she grunted as Ernest gave her a bear hug and picked her up off the ground, causing her flank and abdominal wounds to shriek in protest.
“It’s you, it really is,” Ernest half laughed, half cried. He started to turn with her still in his arms when he lost his balance. Almost as quickly as he had picked her up, Ernest released her, his arms waving in the air. He had to perform a one-legged hop before his arms stopped performing cartwheels in the air, and even then he landed on his knee, with the other leg at full extension off to the side.
Doubled over and clutching her belly, Falon dry heaved twice before her middle settled back down.
“Ye don’t look so good, Falon,” Ernest said, getting back to his feet with a wince and coming over to place a hand on her back while she was still bent over.
“It’s okay,” Falon smiled weakly, and through sheer force of will she straightened. Her stomach rolled again, and she quickly placed the back of her hand against her mouth to hide her grimace. Through all of this though, she still managed to see how stiff his left leg was when he moved.
She was about to comment when at least half a dozen men converged on the two of them.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant,” Aodhan greeted, clapping her on the shoulder and giving her a nod. Falon’s heart swelled with a pride she had never felt.
“Vance?” she asked searching his face.
Aodhan just shook his head and squeezed her shoulder before stepping back.
Falon started to close her eyes, but the next man arrived to chuck her on the shoulder and she needed her balance back. So her eyes popped back open, and having caught the man’s gaze she had no choice but to say, “Hi.”
“Good to see you, Mister Falon,” said Kerry, an East Wick Boy who used to go with Nyia. Kerry shook her hand and then moved on. Falon’s mouth opened in surprise at this treatment. She couldn’t understand what she had done to deserve it, but Kerry was soon followed by another East Wicker.
Then a pair of West Wick men game to express their regard and Glaisne stepped up, causing Falon to tense.
“Good job out there, Lieutenant. Everyone, including, Nyia, was worried about you,” he said seriously, and then clasped her arm at the elbow before stepping back. He met her gaze evenly, and she couldn’t see any of the old rancor still inside his eyes, and if his hand clenched a little bit harder than any of the rest of the men before he stepped back, Falon wasn’t about to complain.
More than half the remaining men including the majority of those who were still ambulatory came over to welcome her back. When the last of the villagers had come and gone, at the end of the line stood a shorter Imperial.
“Darius,” Falon greeted him, looking at him appraisingly. She was relieved to see that he still had both arms. After the last time she had seen him, she had been unsure if that would be the case.
Darius gave her a nod and, just like with Aodhan, that nod made her feel like she had actually done something worth recognition. She had stood in line and held her own with the best of the men—her, a sister, a girl, a woman!—had been to war. She had seen battle, and she hadn’t run. Not only had she not run, she had stood her ground! She could feel a sense of confidence within herself that she had never known.
“It’s good to see you again, Corporal,” she said, trying to keep her face as even and serious as everyone else—well, everyone else except for Ernest—when at that moment all she really wanted to do was throw her arms around each and every one and hug them until she could once again assure herself that they were still alive. They were alive when so many of them weren’t.
“Not a Corporal anymore, Mister Rankin,” Darius corrected, the corner of his mouth turning up.
“Really?” Falon asked, her brows rising in surprise. When Darius just nodded in response and didn’t look like he was going to immediately continue, Ernest butted in.
“Captain Smythe offered to make him a Sergeant, after…” Ernest started out enthusiastically, but trailed off abruptly.
Falon looked over at him curiously and Ernest looked embarrassed. “After what?” she prompted.
“After we figured you for dead on the battlefield,” Darius finished when it became apparent that Ernest was too embarrassed to continue.
“It wasn’t like that; ye were just missing and…” Ernest once again trailed off into an embarrassed silence.
“You were left for dead,” Darius said bluntly, “it was assumed that everyone who survived the stand against the Pink Princess had been accounted for.”
“You all thought I was dead,” Falon said nonplused.
“I lit a torch for ye during the mass burial service for the company, and threw it on the pyre,” Ernest said softly.
“But my body wasn’t here. Obviously?” Falon said, both confused and taken aback to discover they had already performed her funeral.
“It’s been two days, and everyone on our Wing that could be identified had already been taken to make the new battle hills,” Ernest explained.
“Two days!” Falon yelped.
“I thought ye knew,” Darius said, “ye must have been in one of the healing tents…although we checked them all for any member of the band,” he shot a sharp look over toward the Healing Wench and her apprentice.
“It doesn’t sound like it was anyone’s fault,” Falon said slowly. “My wounds,” she gestured to her midsection and flank, “didn’t want to heal up right away. So I was stuck in one of the…specialty tents, I guess it was, for two days—” she said, unable to stop herself from glancing at the two of them questioningly to make sure it really had been two days that she had been stuck inside that tent.
E
rnest nodded sympathetically, but she could see the relief that she was right here and still alive on his face.
“So a Sergeant, eh?” Falon asked Darius with a smile.
The Imperial just shrugged.
“Captain Smythe offered him a promotion to stay with the company,” Ernest quickly interjected, “but he said he’d have to think about it, now that ye were dead and all.”
“I actually think I’m feeling touched,” Falon said, taken aback by this information.
The Imperial splayed his hands. “It’s not exactly like that,” Darius said with a bemused look on his face as he met her gaze.
“What is it like then?” Falon asked curiously.
“Well…” the Imperial finally had the grace to look half way embarrassed, “the money’s better working as an out and out mercenary.”
Falon lowered her forehead and stared at him through narrowed eyes.
“Don’t look at me that way,” Darius said sharply, “this is your country, not mine. Besides, work as either an armsmen in service to some Lord or Knight, or an outright mercenary still makes double what that Smythe is offering for Sergeant’s wages. You and I had a deal, not me and Captain.”
“Your loyalty is touching,” Falon’s mouth twisted, “but I don’t see as it really matters what the wages are. We won, and that means we’re all going home. There won’t be a need for a Fighting Swans militia company just as soon as the Lords and Princes have made a deal. That means no more war, and no more battles; his Lordship won’t need warriors or Sergeants. I hate to say it, but maybe being a mercenary armsman is your best bet.”
“Perhaps,” Darius said, then bracing to his weird, Imperial version of attention, he gave her a salute, “it’s good to have you back, Lieutenant.”
“It’s good to be back,” Falon agreed with pleasure. She watched with a faint smile as the Imperial turned and walked away, no doubt to check on something in the camp. She had missed this interaction; without knowing that she’d missed it, she had. But still, what she’d missed the most was home. She ached to see her sisters.
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