by Jasmine Walt
Alaysha was headed to salvage the leftovers when a small girl bolted out from behind a stand of brush and made a grab for the griddle cakes with one hand and the bacon with the other.
Far be it for Alaysha to let a girl starve, but she was pretty hungry herself. She took after the scamp, hearing the unmistakable sounds of Cook chortling.
"Come back here," she yelled, trailing the girl past the brush and into the woods. "That's my breakfast."
The girl was fast the way a ferret is fast—she slunk through tiny gaps in trees, over the roots creeping along the forest floor, underneath the lowest hanging branches. She would have outdistanced Alaysha if she hadn't come up against the same hillside that had provided Alaysha a small cleft of sanctuary while they'd been out here.
She drew up to within a few feet of the girl and stopped, panting, as she decided what to do with her.
"That's mine," she decided on.
Up close, the girl looked even grubbier than she'd first seemed. Her long face had a gaunt, underfed appearance, and the smudges beneath her haunted eyes were black as the soot from the fire. The strings of her hair hung down in pigtails held together by mud—no lashing anywhere in sight. It was impossible to tell what color the tresses were through the dirt.
"Mine," Alaysha said again. She didn't care how starved looking this girl was, that food was well-earned spoils of war—her spoils—and she wasn't giving them up.
The girl was panting hard and her gaze never rested in one spot. It seemed as fidgety as a cornered ferret.
"Give it to me."
The girl shook her head and darted to the left, where Alaysha realized she'd tethered Barruch. They both started off at the same time, but Alaysha knew the girl would fetch up into a very large, very hungry, and very annoyed stallion. Sure enough, the sight of the black beast gave the child enough startled pause that Alaysha was able to make a grab for the girl's tunic—or what ragged pieces made up her tunic.
She gripped the edge of the coarse flax-spun as tightly as she could and simultaneously pressed the girl closer to Barruch.
"Give me my supper."
"I thought it was your breakfast," the girl taunted.
"It's both of those things."
The little ferret took one long look at the food still clenched in her hands.
"It's mine," Alaysha whispered, thinking the soft tone might soothe the savage expression on the child's face. "Please." She took hold of the girl's elbow, more to implore her than to hurt her.
And she was rewarded with teeth crunching into her tricep.
"Why you little—"
There was a flash of a dirty smile before the girl crammed the griddlecake into her mouth. Alaysha had to wrestle the bacon from her other hand even as the ferret chomped and swallowed convulsively, frantically. The girl's mouth and throat worked so hard, it was almost a thing of beauty—until, still fighting for the bacon, the girl started to choke.
"The Deities have mercy," Alaysha sputtered, watching the girl's eyes widen.
Instinct made the girl drop the bacon in favour of flailing at her throat.
Faced with a dying child or grabbing for a burnt piece of bacon, Alaysha let go the girl's tunic and made to help dislodge the stuffing of griddlecake that still puffed out the young cheeks and was obviously stuck in her throat.
"Maybe some water—" she started to say, and was frantically searching for a cup to dip some, when the girl whooped triumphantly, grabbed for the bacon, and in a flash tumbled under Barruch's belly and rolled to her feet on the other side.
Just like that, the little ferret was gone.
5
The bats came while she slept under the stars. Alaysha could hear their clicking noises as they navigated in the dark, foraging for gnats and mosquitos. She rolled over on her thatch mat, curled into a ball and shivered. Sometime between her lying down and now, the temperature had dropped, and she hadn't thought to pull a skin over herself before dropping off into the land of shadows.
It had been one long, incredibly long and exhausting day. And the battle—she couldn't call what she'd done to that tribe battle—best she call it what it was—assassination. Yes, after the assassination and the search and the subsequent fight over her supper, she'd been so fatigued when the camp set back on their way to Sarum that she'd fallen asleep on Barruch's back at least three times. When the queue of riders stopped for the night, she hadn't even bothered to find a decent shelter, just unrolled her mat a few sans-kubits from the rest of the camp and fell onto it.
She could see the fire pit from where she sat now, hear Barruch's heavy breaths, feel the heat coming off his flanks as he stood close. She could tell he was sleeping even though he rarely rested for more than a couple of hours. Today must have been equally as tiring for him with all the travel. She'd have to make sure to see the wrangler for oats in the morning to help him build his strength back. He was no friend of Alaysha's but he hated to see a mount suffer. For now she should try to find a skin in her pack. Maybe with warmth, she could sleep ’til morning.
She rubbed her bare arms, hoping to stimulate the circulation and bring a flush of heat to the skin. She got up and leaned against Barruch as she rooted in the pack beneath him. He woke when she touched it and glared at her through unblinking lids. He snorted and moved a step to his left. She had to dig deeper.
Strange; the pack felt empty. No spoon. No bowl. And most definitely, no furred skin.
Someone had undoubtedly stolen the few possessions she owned, and there was only one person she could think of worse off than the water witch. No doubt the little ferret was cozied up somewhere wrapped in the fur and clenching the spoon with hope morning would bring a few meager crumbs to fill the bowl.
Alaysha sighed heavily. It would be a long wait ’til morning. She'd either have to build a fire in the dark without her tinder bundle, or brave the fire in the middle of the camp and its few sentries who kept it fed through the night.
She didn't relish the thought, but she patted Barruch's rump anyway. "Go back to sleep, old man," she whispered and he sent a cloud of hot air in response.
Barefoot, she made her way toward the fire pit in the center of camp. She stumbled a few times on tree roots, and got a twig jammed between her toes, but she knew the shrubbery of the camp fringes would eventually give way to the even, open plain of the main camp, and the going would be easier. She was intent on staring at the ground, trying to discern the way of it when she felt a dry palm clamp over her mouth.
She was already struggling and fighting into the palm bed when a second arm went around her waist and pulled her hard into a muscled torso.
Instinct told her to thirst, and panic came with it, like a hard hit to the stomach. If she drew the water, it would come from everywhere—including the camp. She could already taste the moisture and moldy scent of wet earth. The fear of that made the psyching of the water even stronger.
"Think of your nohma." The command was a hoarse but firm whisper in her ear.
Even though she was pinioned in strange arms, Alaysha was so desperate to keep the power from thirsting the camp dry, she deliberately went still. Through the trees she could see the fire flicker and then blaze higher as whatever water still remaining in the wood hissed into the air. Somewhere, she knew a laundress's linens, hung on outstretched tree limbs, had dried so completely they took the shape of the branches and would be stiff when lifted off and inspected in the morning.
Then, sweet merciful Deities, there was Nohma: her hair hanging in two plaits on her shoulders; blonde, with streaks of white; her hands working Kasha dough into thin pancakes to stretch across the fire. It was such an ordinary image, and yet such a sweet one that Alaysha held onto it.
The taste of leaf mold disappeared and the hiss of water through living wood evaporated into silence. It was all so sudden, she nearly collapsed into the arms of her captor. Never before had she been able to stem the tide of power. It always took flight from her so quickly, did its work so fast, it was impossible to recall b
efore it killed.
She felt the relief, too, in the body of her assailant. His torso melded into her back.
"It's gone," he said to the dark. And because she couldn't speak she nodded.
"I'm going to take my hand away."
She knew the voice now. Number nineteen. He must have followed her to the camp.
"All right," he sounded unsure; she could still feel his body against hers, rigid, braced. She waited until she felt him relax before she eased out of his grip. He let her go in measures: first her mouth, then her waist. She spun around in the darkness, her hands outstretched, aiming for his throat.
There was no connection; just a band of thickened air meeting her grasp, and an amused chuckle in the dark.
"You really are young," he said. "Come with me."
He didn't wait for an answer. She felt him move away from her, heading back in the direction of her site. There was no waiting for her assent or her decision, and she knew she could easily make a break toward the fire and notify the sentries, shout, anything, and he must've known that too. Yet when she caught a glimpse of his back, it was already a good distance away, absorbing errant moonlight, and then it was swallowed by the shadows of trees and shrubs. She watched the blackness for some time before she followed, picking her way through the brush, wincing when she stuck the same toe as before on a rock she didn't see.
He was hunched over the beginnings of a fire when she made it back to her own site. She could just make out her tinder bundle as it rested on his lap, lit by the long, narrow light of a kindled flame. So it hadn't been the ferret after all who'd stolen her things. She wondered how long he'd lurked in the dark, waiting for her to sleep so he could ease the items from her pack. This thievery must have been what woke her, not the cold.
"Why didn't you just tie me up while I slept?"
He ignored the question in favor of blowing air onto the meager flame. It was being stubborn and seemed reluctant to catch. He mumbled a few foreign words at it and pulled the furred skin—her stolen skin—over his shoulders.
"Come," he said.
"You didn't answer me."
"I will, but first you need to sit with me under this fur."
She crossed her arms over her chest and edged closer to Barruch, who shambled nervously in the dark.
"Listen, it's only because you're cold," he said. "And so am I. Besides, if we are both under this, no one in the distance will think there is more than one of us here in the dark, even when the fire catches."
She turned her attention to the stubborn few tendrils of blaze teasing the few bits of wet sticks he'd piled together.
"It won't catch."
"It will."
"It won't last."
"It will last as long as we need it to."
"You sound certain."
"I am. Now, hurry up."
She wanted the heat, it was true. And she wanted more: the answers she hadn't been able to get from her father after the battle. And if she waited too long, someone just might take notice that the water witch had company—and such an oddity would undoubtedly draw attention.
She ran a palm over Barruch's neck and down his side. "All right," she said and made herself take the steps toward her mat and the hunkered-down form on it before she could change her mind.
Her visitor stretched his arms wide so the fur opened up, and she scooted beneath, between his knees, letting go a murmur of pleasure when the fur settled around her shoulders and the heat enveloped her.
"Better?" he asked, his breath against her nape.
"Better."
It was then the fire caught and she felt a flush of warmth on her cheeks.
"So, you followed me," she said, low enough that past their fire, no one would hear her speak.
"I did."
"How could I not have seen you?"
He chuckled, but said nothing.
"You won't tell me."
"I would be a fool to tell secrets to the enemy."
"And yet you cuddle beneath the furs with her as though you were a favored companion."
"You call this a cuddle, this shivering beneath a ragged skin with barely enough fur to hold the heat? You are indeed young."
She didn't like the way he said it. If he'd known how she'd lived these years, how many lives she'd taken, he'd not think her young. She was wise beyond most warriors' years.
"So it's true; we are enemies? It was you my father was searching for?"
"Yes. Me and the others."
"You mean the rest of the village."
"The rest of my tribe."
"So he's done it, then. Conquered your people?"
"Mere conquest is not what the great Yuri is after."
"What, then? What is he after if not the vanquishment of another tribe, the obedience of another horde to keep his boundaries safe?"
His tone turned chiding. "Is that what you think you're doing for him? Keeping his tribe safe?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"And my enemy, who never once thinks about what she's doing, is expecting answers?"
"You came to me, not the other way around."
"Fair enough."
"So what is my father after, if not conquest?"
"Annihilation. And he very nearly has it. There are only two left from my tribe."
It hit hard, this news that she had decimated almost an entire group of people. She thought of the last battles—no, not battles if she remembered correctly—more plain murder. Yes, some of the first ones, months and seasons ago had been truer battles than these last, with men coming at her with swords and axes and arrows, while the villages they fought for waited hundreds of leaguas away. But these last few had been less so, surprise attacks, even. She thought they were punishments or strategic blows. She'd never given thought to how many might be left.
"We've been travelling," she thought out loud. "Going far and wide to hit the targets."
"Because we're nomadic," he said.
"We've gone into the mountains."
"Our winter home."
"We've killed on the plains."
She felt him shrug. "Summer. Spring."
"I thought he was extending his borders."
"He was getting rid of us, and now he has nearly succeeded."
"But why? What did you do? Yuri is a fierce man, but to decimate an entire tribe—he must have a reason."
"Fear."
"The great Yuri does not fear." She snorted and Barruch clomped closer, trying to nuzzle beneath the blanket to investigate her sounds of derision.
"Yuri had reason to fear when he first conquered one of our villages twenty seasons ago."
"You can't know that."
"Why not?"
"Because you aren't twenty seasons old. How do you know what occurs in battle seasons before your birth—even war stories are filled with lies."
He laughed but there was no mirth in it. "You who are so young school me on age."
There was no sound in the darkness for a while. The fire, despite its meager fuel, burned hot with a blaze that made Alaysha think it was fed from beneath, from an infinite supply of the black sludge that sometimes gurgled to the surface.
She felt the wetness of Barruch's nose as he shoved his muzzle into the mound of blankets. She reached out to touch him.
"It's okay, old man," she whispered. "Everything is fine." In fact she was getting hot beneath the fur, and despite the excitement of being awake, of being with number nineteen, of being on the cusp of knowing things she'd always wondered about, the heat was like a shaman's drug. She had to fight against it. She felt his chin on her shoulder, and they sat for long moments before he spoke again. She had to force her eyes to stay open.
"I was six seasons old when your father came to our summer village."
"Then you do remember."
She felt his shiver against her back. "Yes. I remember."
She thought for a moment, wondering if she should press for more or let him be. She settled for asking the qu
estion he had instigated but not pursued.
"So who is this other? This second to last person in your tribe?"
"Haven't you guessed?" He pulled the fur tighter around them both, his right palm resting on her left shoulder. "It's you."
6
Alaysha woke only when she heard birdsong. She expected number nineteen to be long gone, but he was stretched on her mat beside her, curled beneath the fur so only the topmost part of his black hair was visible. She'd expected him to have slipped into the night as quietly as he'd arrived. She expected he'd delivered the news he was meant to, shocked her senseless, refused to say anymore until she wearied herself with protests and slept, finally, to the sound of frogs calling to each other in the trees, and then been off like a shadow disappearing with the sun.
But no. At the moment, he had his hot palm resting beneath her tunic on her bare stomach as though it belonged there.
Face burning, and the clutch of anxiety tightening her throat, she scrambled from beneath the warmth and onto her bare feet where the chill pinched at her skin. She stood looking down at him, arms crossed, thinking of his words from the night before, of his refusal to say more until she was ready to hear it. Ready. What did he think she was now if not prepared to hear the truth?
Young, he'd called her, and here he appeared to have come straight off the blade-sharp edge of new manhood. She'd dislodged the fur when she'd jumped up and now the side of his face was exposed to the newly rising sun. His lashes reminded her of the tendrils of old smoke that still wound about the fire, and his jaw had the same smudge of color. Asleep as he was, he had no arrogance, no sense of danger. She shouldn't have bolted like a hare.
"You didn't seem to mind my hand on you during the night," he said without opening his eyes. "Why run from it now?"
"I was cold last night, obviously."
He pulled the fur higher, covering his chin. "Cold. Right. Come back to the mat. I'm the one who's cold now."
She thought she could feel embarrassment flush her face straight down to her toenails.
"Shouldn't you be disappearing like you appeared?"