by Jasmine Walt
In the end, none of those early trainers did survive. As her prowess grew, they trained her harder, fiercer. It was only a matter of time before the trainer did something that brought her fear, and then he would just suddenly stop, fall like a limb cut from a tree, and turn to the dust. And Alaysha would pluck the eyes from the soil and hoard them in a pouch she hid in a hole in her room beneath the earth.
It was a memory she would rather not have recalled. Those days when her father was trying to help her learn control, when her power was still in its infancy and confined to a few short paces, Yuri quickly realized he couldn't keep expending his trainers or his warriors, and he soon sent in slaves. They were even fiercer than the warriors, and far less decisive. That made them more frightening.
Only later did she learn they were offered freedom for themselves and their families if they could just kill the witch.
And so they trained more desperately than any trainer or warrior ever could.
She never gained full control of the ever-growing power. She was able to project it, certainly, but not call it back, and if genuinely frightened, it sometimes came upon her unawares. But she did at least learn to become desensitized to fear of attack and death. Yuri had most definitely given her that.
Maybe too much so.
Yuri's threat of her death had no effect on her, but he did not know that. In truth, she thought she'd welcome it after all this time. She had nothing left to live for. Existence was not the same thing as living.
She reached her own campsite and began gathering her things. Better to live alone than to live as a piece of air no more useful than to be inhaled and expelled without thought.
Yuri would believe at first she was off to do his bidding, and that suited her. Later, when she didn't return, he would begin to suspect the truth, and he might send Drahl to search for her.
She would find no real pleasure in killing Drahl, and she might not enjoy killing the others who would certainly come after, but she knew by then her power would have grown enough that Yuri would need an army far larger than he could even dream of.
And how would he get it without the weapon he'd relied on all these years?
So no, she would not kill again for Yuri, but she would kill for herself if she needed to. One thing he had shown her was that she could bear taking lives—so it was time she used that complacency for herself.
She had all her possessions loaded into the two baskets that hung from Barruch's back. She would grieve the loss of her seed pouches, but there was nothing that could be done about that. She would need to find Barruch some oats or grain along the way; until then, he'd have to content himself with the bitter grass he could manage until she could find good plains lands.
His back was slick with rain, and her tunic had sopped up enough water that it felt heavy on her chest. She was mounted, reins in hand, ready to go, when she remembered the girl.
She'd said nothing the entire time and Alaysha had forgotten she was even there, so lost was she in her own thoughts and miseries. She looked to where the girl sat cross-legged on the same boulder number nineteen had stretched her sleeping skin upon earlier that morning. Alaysha couldn't see the girl's skin for the mud running down her face and onto her neck, released as it was, from the plaits. Now that the rain had washed the dirt from her hair, it had loosened into a thick curtain of soft cream.
"You can come or stay," she told the girl. "But if you come, I can't guarantee you food or shelter. I can't even guarantee you safety." She wasn't sure she wanted company, but she did know, now that someone had spent time with her, she felt less lonely.
The girl brightened at once and hopped down from the stone. "I don't have any of that now, so what's the difference?"
She ran to the horse and lifted a knee.
"What of your brother?"
The girl shrugged. "What is an absent brother to a present sister?"
Alaysha reached down, one hand under the girl's armpit, the other beneath the bent knee, and hauled her up. She settled the girl in front and gave Barruch's neck a gentle slap.
"I should call you something," Alaysha told the girl.
"I haven't used my birth name for so long, it wouldn't seem right."
"What did your captor call you?"
The girl leaned against Alaysha's chest; warmth from her back and Alaysha's stomach combined and warmed them both. Even though the rain kept up, neither shivered as Barruch plodded along. After a while, the girl answered her question without emotion and Alaysha's face burned when she heard the words.
"Commander Drahl called me Ferret," she said without emotion.
"Then I shall have to call you by a name you like."
"Let me think about it," the girl said. "It has to be the right one."
"Indeed it does," Alaysha murmured, but at the same time she was already turning over this new piece of information. No wonder the girl had disappeared each time Drahl was near. But in truth, she didn't think the man would even care if he knew his runaway was still close by. She doubted he had ever given thought to the girl and her brother. After all, they were nothing. Maybe less than nothing. Some captors were greedy for slaves, possessing them with a sense of entitlement. Some used their slaves well. Others didn't care one way or the other because to do so would be to place a value on them as a person. Drahl was that way.
Still, she hadn't the heart to hurt the girl, and so she didn't contradict her.
They rode in silence from camp, back in the direction of the village. She and the girl could easily overnight at the oasis for the days it took to dig the old women out from beneath the hut. She doubted Yuri would look for her too soon, and would only grow concerned that his best blade had gotten lost when she didn't return with reports. He would simply assume for a while he'd successfully bullied her once again into doing his bidding.
That meant she had one—maybe two—phases of the moon. She could be well away then and Sarum would be a bitter memory. She could forage as she always did for food for a while, but she hoped to come upon a space she could plant and hunt. She had a sword, but no bow. She didn't have a knife to skin any prey, but perhaps she could find a trader to swap the remaining garnet chips from her tunic.
She was beginning to feel optimistic when the girl interrupted her thoughts.
"Someone is following us."
"How do you know this when I don't?"
"Because I'm used to hiding. The person stays far enough in the trees that you wouldn't think to look, but he stops now and then when he thinks we'll see him. It's almost as though he wants you to know."
"And you know it's a him?"
"Yes."
"Is it Drahl?"
The girl shook her head. "It's the man from this morning."
Indeed. And what should she do, knowing number nineteen was so close? Acknowledge him, call him out, run away from him?
No. Best to stay the course. He'd come out when the time was right. For now, she felt it oddly comforting to have two other souls with her even if one was dodging through the trees. She felt connected in a way she hadn't enjoyed since her nohma died.
Nohma. Yuri had spoken of her as though she was a failure, but Alaysha knew it wasn't true. She'd been the only person who dared live with the witch, feeding her, teaching her. Loving her.
With Nohma's death began Alaysha's life of constant regret. After the only woman to love her succumbed to the power, Alaysha couldn't care who else it took. Until then, she'd done battle for her father half a dozen times. Nohma knew about the seeds and let her keep them. She said it was good and just to ponder over lives taken, that it should never be easy to kill. That each pair of eyes meant a dozen lives, grieving ones, seeping out enough water to flush the bodies back to rights. That Alaysha should never forget the person remaining who had lost loved ones to war.
She'd been six then, a young girl kept apart from her father's people and nursed by a woman who fed her from a garden she planted and fowl she'd raised herself. A goat supplied milk and ch
eese and at the end of the season, salted meat for the winter. They saw only each other except for the continual guard, the endless stream of trainers, and the people she killed when her father fetched her.
It had been the happiest Alaysha could ever remember being.
"What's got you so tense," the girl asked, sitting straighter. They were coming close enough to the village that Alaysha could see the smudge of the first body on the horizon. The vegetation had stopped like a line had been drawn, and the soil was wet from the rains. She noted the position of the sun. They had been traveling for hours, plodding along, and she was getting hungry.
"I was just thinking," Alaysha said.
"Nothing bad, I hope."
"There is no bad. There just is."
"Will he come out now?"
Alaysha did her best not to turn in the saddle to where she suspected number nineteen lurked. He had followed—Barruch's pace had been easy enough, but he'd not made any attempt to truly hide. She gauged him capable of being invisible when he wanted; and so he must have wanted her to know he was there.
Now she was close to the last stand as she'd begun to think of it, she wasn't sure she was ready to share it with her passenger. Not sure the girl would understand. Alaysha looked to the left and saw the wavering relief of the oasis.
"Looks like the perfect place for us to lie down for the night, what do you think?"
"It would have to be better than what's ahead."
So she had seen the desolation they were moving into. Smart girl. Alaysha kneed Barruch sideways and within moments, excited by the smell of fresh grass and water, he picked up his pace. It wasn't long before they were off his back and picking their way beneath tree limbs and between brambles that turned out to be blackberry bushes.
Alaysha reached into her basket and pulled out her wooden bowl. "Collect what you can," she told the girl. "I'm going to see about a fire and a good spot to set up."
The girl nodded at a tree over Alaysha's shoulder. "Peaches."
How had she missed that before? Already Alaysha's mouth was watering. She noticed more too, that she hadn't on her first visit: wild onions, hazelnut bushes, even a fair sized beehive with liquid gold oozing from the hole in a large beech tree.
"How lucky are we?"
The girl's mouth was filled with berries, her lips purple.
"Never mind answering." Alaysha couldn't help chuckling. They'd have roasted nut mash and onions for supper and honeyed fruit as a treat. Now. All they needed was water.
"Collect some nuts too," she told the girl. "And pull those onions." She pointed to a spiked patch of green, thready leaves. She plucked four peaches from the tree and tossed them to the girl. "Think you can collect some honey without getting stung?"
"Of course."
"Good. We'll eat wonderfully this eve."
The girl thumbed over her shoulder. "What about him?"
Number nineteen stood next to Barruch, his palm against the horse's flank. He wore his black hair tied back, slicked with mud.
Alaysha shook her head. "What is it with you people and dirt?"
He and the girl both shrugged in unison, but it was nineteen who spoke. "Keeps the hair out of my eyes."
Alaysha looked to her girl for confirmation, and the girl nodded. "Me, too. Don't have to worry about not seeing what you need to."
It made a sort of grudging sense, but something within made Alaysha shudder at the thought.
"Do you know where the water is?"
Nineteen grinned. "Of course."
Alaysha waited, but he said no more.
"Well, are you going to show me?"
He stepped into the clearing and bent to the bowl the girl had set on the ground, filled to the brim with berries. He popped two at a time into his mouth, and grimaced. "Got a sour one," he said.
"I'm glad to hear it. Now. The water?"
"Just behind you, through the bushes."
She grunted and stalked off, parting a few thorn bushes, and startling a garter snake that slithered across her instep. She heard a chuckle from behind. "Careful," he said. "There’re snakes."
She guessed he'd done the same when he was here. Rocks were plentiful on the faint path, perfect for nests and warmth. She wasn't scared of serpents, but neither was she overeager to step on one. She paid careful attention as she padded forward, once seeing a writhing mass that must have begun as a clutch of eggs. Well, if snakes chose to nest here, there must be plenty of game. Maybe she'd rouse a quail or two from some hatchlings and be able to roast a few tender chicks. Better yet, an entire family over a spit with some of that honey. More perfect still, two fat, large breasted partridge with meat to fill her belly for days. Her stomach again reminded her it had been at least a day since she'd had anything decent to eat.
She heard the sure sound of rushing water and pushed aside the last of the bracken. To her amazement, what showed itself was a narrow waterfall emptying into a large pool. Blue moss grew on the stones around the edge, and layered on the marsh edges were cattails; large and thick as her arm. Three ducks gurgled to each other in a shallow feeder pool just to the side. A large bullfrog jumped off the rock next to her and plopped into the water to swim and disappear in seconds within the grasses.
The nut mash and onion meal just upgraded to frog legs and roast duck. But first, water.
She lowered her face into the pool and slurped without using her hands. It was sweet and fresh and cold, enough to make her back teeth ache, and still she kept drinking ’til her belly was bloated.
No wonder nineteen had come here when his village was under attack. He had everything he needed to survive.
She scouted the edge of the pool for stray frogs and with each one she found, thwacked it solidly against the stone, then onto a pile while she could forage for the cattail roots. They'd be bitter if boiled alone, but if she could cut them up and mix them with peach slices, the fruit juice might cut the starch enough to make them palatable. She had seven dug and four frogs waiting when she realized number nineteen was foraging on the other side of the pond.
She watched him quietly for a few moments; he was focused as a scavenger, peering just beyond his feet for several seconds before stooping and rising with something in his hands. Then, absorbed in his task, and seeming to choose the spot with specific care, he placed his booty on the ground. She realized she enjoyed watching him, the lithe way his muscles moved as he bent and raised and reached. He had a powerful looking torso, one that held heat like the embers of a fire, if she remembered well. That night beneath her fur, she'd slept sounder than she could remember in ages, and she knew it was because he slept next to her, his legs thrown over hers at night, his palm possessive against her stomach. She touched her belly where his palm had been, and felt a flush fill her cheeks.
She gathered her own treasures and headed over to where he once again bent and straightened. When he caught sight of her, he smiled widely.
"We're in luck," he said.
"We are." She showed him her armload. He looked at it with something akin to tolerance. Not the delight she'd expected. She felt oddly deflated.
"You don't like roast frog legs?"
He shrugged. "In a pinch, maybe."
"And you've done better?"
He grinned again. "Best, not better." He indicated a hollowed gourd filled with writhing fat yellow worms.
The water filling her mouth had nothing to do with hunger. "You're greening me."
He shook his head. "They taste like roast boar and fowl both at the same time."
"You eat them?" She thought if he offered her a wriggling pit of pus, she'd have to end him. "Raw?"
"You can have yours raw, I like mine roasted. Get some of those cattail leaves." He pointed to the crop of tall leaves to her right at the marshy edge.
She trudged over and started pulling on them.
"No, no; not like that." He made a sweeping motion. "Cut them."
Cut them. Well, easy enough if you had a blade to hand, which s
he didn't. Rather than prolong the discussion, she simply tried to tear them across at the widest end. He clucked at her disapprovingly and came close enough to put his hand on hers. "Like this," he said, and guided her hand to twist as she peeled, and soon, she had the knack. He didn't move away from her, though, even when she got good at it. She could feel him close, hear his breathing. She wanted to turn and step into him. What she did was brandish a bunch of limp fronds at him.
"Good girl," he said, beaming. He touched her fingers when he reached for them and then she was in his arms. She hadn't meant to, just sort of stepped and there he was, his hands full of leaves, holding on to her back, pressing her even closer. He smelled of earth and old smoke. His mouth tasted of berries and she found herself wondering what he would taste like after honeyed peaches.
He broke away with reluctance. "Too bad you have but the one skin to keep us warm. Maybe we can find a way to share it."
She knew she'd like nothing better. "I'm not sure three would fit." She laughed and made to throw the leaves she still had in her hand onto the pile. "Oh no," she said. "Your worms are trying to wriggle away."
He spit out a few words she didn't understand and then was bobbing about, hunched over, weaving this way and that as he tried to catch them.
In the end, they both worked their way back to the clearing to set about preparing the meal. When Ferret saw the grubs, she exclaimed with such glee, Alaysha thought it must have been a silent conspiracy to trick her all along.
"You don't eat those," she said to the girl.
The girl shrugged much as Number Nineteen had. "Of course not."
"Then what's all the excitement for?"
"You've never heard of the magics of the Meroshi?"
Alaysha watched the youth standing beside her. He seemed pretty ignorant too.
"What is it?"
The girl reached for the bowl and set it down next to a prepared fire pit. "Meroshi was our people's shaman before I was born. He was said to be able to see at night and become invisible."
Alaysha set the cattail fronds next to the bowl and noticed a pile of berries and nuts as well. "And? I can see at night. What's so special?"