Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  Now she had a foster sister. One who was in danger. Every instinct told Alaysha to stay and fight for the girl, but she knew to do so would put her in even greater risk.

  She didn't care if her father's tribe was a target. They'd no doubt make short work of Edulph's rogue band if they did attempt an attack alone. All the more reason for Alaysha to run; better she not tempt her father with her power. She wouldn't let herself be used as any man's blade ever again.

  If only she had the ability to control it completely, she'd not have nearly so much to worry her. In fact, if she could control the thirst, she'd immediately cease to be useful as another man's weapon. And it seemed the only link to her being able to do so, she'd left with that decrepit group of villains.

  "Bonded," she shouted to Barruch, just so she could hear her voice over the thunder of his hooves. "What could he mean?" In her father's tribe the word bond meant to vow allegiance. It meant above all others; a warrior would choose an emir to die for. She'd never sworn a bond oath to her father or any other.

  She let Barruch slow when she smelled water. He would need to drink and rest; she'd ridden him harder than she'd expected, and in truth, she needed food. The peaches in her pack were probably bruised by now, but that would just make them all the sweeter.

  She left off when they came in sight of the stream they'd stop at a day earlier on their way to Sarum. They'd filled their leather sacks there, and then drunk from them the rest of the days when the water within was musky and hot.

  The stream was refreshingly cool. She pulled off her tunic and splashed into the water, letting Barruch, who was more finicky, sample his refreshment from the edge. She would be cold for a while when she got out, but she'd be clean and the smell of cowardice would be well behind her.

  She hitched herself up on the bank so she could semi-float, semi-recline without the current taking her far. She looked up into the filigree of branches and leaves that made the encroaching dusk even gloomier. The moon brooded on the horizon of treetops, waiting for the sun to blink out and give night its rule.

  She supposed she could set up camp right here. There was a mound of earth covered in thatch and dead brush that she could crouch against. Her back would be protected while she slept, and to her front any encroaching enemies would have to splash through water to get to her. It was a forceful enough current she doubted anyone would try at night. That left her sides exposed, but Barruch would nicker and nudge her if he smelled anyone strange.

  She eased up out of the water and pulled her fur from beneath Barruch's saddle so she could wrap in it while it was still warm. It smelled of animal sweat but she didn't care; it stopped her shivering.

  Upon inspection, the area proved better equipped for an overnight stay than she'd originally thought. Tinder from dead branches littered the ground and stream bank. Probably from trees that drowned when heavy rains came and covered a few feet of their trunks with stream water. Moss too, was abundant, making her tinder bundle catch easily on the bits of scavenged brambles.

  Before long, she was sitting in front of a roaring flame, peach juice gathering on her chin, wrapped cozily in her animal fur while the darkness came alive with the sounds of courting frogs.

  Except that she missed Aedus and Yenic, she had never felt so content.

  "I hope you enjoyed your peach, old man," she said to Barruch, who had begun to break wind in a noisy manner. She resolved not to ever feed him another, even if she found a cache of them.

  She knew the oasis had enough on that one tree to fill her basket three times over, and she knew she was mere hours away from reaching it. Something kept her from going there, though. She wasn't even sure if she would stop there tomorrow. The way Yenic had looked at her; certain. The way he'd said they were bonded. Her belly squirmed in a pleasant way and that made her made her feel confused and anxious. She felt such longing that she couldn't identify it until she found herself reliving the way his lips felt against hers and the way she felt her heart tremor madly when it beat next to his.

  Better she stay away for a while.

  He knew more about her than she knew herself, and that was disconcerting. If he did manage to get Aedus away safely, and find his way back to the oasis, what would happen if no one was waiting?

  Aedus would be out of danger—there'd be no reason for her brother to use her. Yenic would probably even take care of her. They'd wait for a while for Alaysha to arrive, but eventually they would have to realize she wasn't coming and head for other ground. The weather would come, and even if the crones had magicked the place safe, they couldn't possibly protect it from snow and hail.

  And what of her and Barruch? She knew her father would send Drahl after her, hoping to talk her into returning. He'd die in the attempt, of course, no matter how many men he had with him. They couldn't take her by force, and her father knew by now that she cared about nothing enough to coerce her.

  Except for Aedus. But they didn't know about Aedus. No one in camp would have paid any attention to whether or not the witch had a companion. Bodicca wouldn't have seen the girl slinking around the fire, nor would the other warrior guards.

  And then she remembered her father did know. He'd even told Alaysha to take the little ferret with her. He might not have guessed they'd grown close, but he would know their first stop would be the oasis where her last battle had been laid.

  And he could have Drahl there now, waiting. Yuri knew as much as Yenic. Maybe more, and he was not afraid of her. He knew her weakness, he said.

  She assumed it was caring for someone, but what if it was something else?

  The night didn't seem so cozy anymore. She shifted within the fur and found no matter how she sat, she couldn't get comfortable.

  She tried to run her memory, letting her thoughts slip back through the last days to her final meeting with Yuri.

  She tried to conjure him in her mind, get a feel for the way he looked, and sat, and ate. She could smell again the fragrance of honey and roasted hare, taste the rain that fell when she left his tent, but she couldn't focus enough to bring it all clear.

  She was too mixed up with the worry over Yenic and Aedus, the memory of his mouth on hers, the way he sounded when he told her to think of her nohma.

  She was staring out into the darkness, letting all those images play in her mind, feeling the heat of the fire on her cheeks as it rose higher and blazed brighter, watching the fireflies play with each other through the trees.

  Except those fireflies were moving in unison. Except those fireflies were far too large to be a mating pair. Why wasn't Barruch alerting her, knowing a stranger had entered his camp.

  "Alaysha?"

  The voice was too familiar for her to question who it was. Her heart leapt and then thudded hard down to her stomach.

  Something was wrong.

  "Yenic."

  He came out of the shadows, stumbling awkwardly, feeling his way forward with his feet, his hands hanging down at his sides. Laden, she thought, with sacks: maybe filled with fruit or foodstuffs. At least she hoped so.

  "What have you brought?" It was a cautious question, the niggling feeling in the back of her neck that it was something more, something she didn't want to know, creeping to her hairline. She had a terrible feeling he was carrying pieces of Aedus back to be buried.

  "What is it? Why are you green again?" She was standing, though she couldn't remember getting to her feet. Barruch shuffled away, loathe, it seemed, to let Yenic near him.

  He managed to make his way into the light of the fire and Alaysha could see what he carried—what he had been carrying for what must have been a very long trek on foot. She tried to do the figuring: one hour on horseback for three on foot, tried to assess how long she'd been there, how far she'd come and how far he'd had to walk. But she couldn't make her mind move past his burden.

  They were dangling by their hair from his fingers like sacks, all three: two in one hand, one in the other. They all were bloody and ragged looking as though they had
been hacked at with an untempered blade. Their eyes stared forward, mouths gaping. But for one. His mouth was closed.

  "Who were they?"

  Yenic stared ahead as though he wasn't seeing. With effort, he lifted his load, biceps trembling from the weight. At that height, able to catch the fire light, Alaysha could see he wasn't actually holding them by their hair, but by the rope coiled around each wrist that his fingers were tangled within. Yenic's fingers grasped at the rope to keep some of the dead weight from cutting into his circulation.

  "What happened?" She dropped the fur and rushed to help him. She led him closer to the fire. "Sit," she said, easing him onto the ground. She tried to untangle the head whose mouth was shut, but Yenic pulled away from her. Instead he thrust his other hand forward.

  It was too tangled in the ropes and hair to get free without her blade. She had to get up and pull her tiny dirk from its pouch. "This'll do," she told him and with an awkward motion tried to saw her way through the ropes. It took some doing, but soon she had his first hand and wrist free. She was making for the other when he stopped her.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I'll do it." He took the knife from her and felt with his fingers for the ropes. Easing the blade beneath like a blind man would skewer his meat, he worked at it, taking great care to gingerly cut through the lashing.

  The head made a sickening thud when it met the earth.

  Alaysha tried her best to swallow the bile that rose. She wouldn't ask about Aedus. If she didn't ask, she wouldn't have to hear.

  "Who were these men?" she asked instead.

  Yenic chuckled in a way that made her skin crawl. "Don't you recognize them?" He kicked at one of the heads to his left. "This was the one Aedus was bound to on horseback."

  "And this one," he said, nodding at the other, "this one was Edulph's cousin."

  "You killed them?"

  He laughed. "I tried. It's tough even for a Witch's Arm to kill without a weapon." He winced as he moved.

  She studied him closer and saw he was bleeding, that his rib cage looked swollen, that beneath the green around his eyes, he was bruised purple and the swelling of his lids was obscenely close to shutting off all his vision.

  "You're hurt."

  "So were they before they were dead."

  Alaysha looked at the final head. "And this one?"

  He flopped over, his head between his knees, and took a few deep breaths before he lifted it up to look at her. "Spate."

  She saw it now. The ugly man who loved Greetha.

  "They were all close to Edulph. You saw them laugh together. They became lax once they saw you had gone, Aedus wasn't ill treated. I thought I could easily steal her away."

  "And?"

  He crossed his arms on his knees. "And when I tried, these three opposed me. I thought I was winning."

  "Until?"

  "Until Edulph shouted at me. He had Aedus by the hand. Even then, I thought at worst he'd get his lackeys to tie me up. I wasn't expecting what he did do."

  The niggling feeling made Alaysha's jaw clench. "Yes?"

  He reached for the third head and pried open the mouth. His fingers slipped in and extracted a long, phosphorescent length of flesh. It took a few seconds for Alaysha to realize it was a finger.

  "Edulph said each day you delay, he will take another. Tonight can be marked as the first day. These men—" he kicked at the head housing Aedus's index finger. "These men were punished for not fighting well enough. They were tied to me to slow me down."

  He put his hand on Alaysha's shoulder, and only then did she realize she was trembling and mostly because she realized the true depth of Edulph's nature. He wanted her to do his bidding, but he couldn't resist trying to make that difficult: and all so he could do further harm.

  Yenic held her gaze, and Alaysha wasn't sure what she saw in the depths of his amber eyes. "Aedus is not, nor will she ever be, safe with her brother."

  She turned her attention to the lumps of flesh so she wouldn't have to look at Yenic anymore. She knew his eyes were by now burning, that the swelling was keeping him from seeing clearly, that soon the only sight he would have would be terrors from his imagination. She quietly got up and dipped water from the stream, and returned to wash his eyes, hoping the coolness would ease the stinging. If Aedus was telling the truth, she might be able to wash away some of the effects, but the green would stay for days.

  He sighed each time she ran cool water over his face. And when the bowl was empty, she would get up and refill it, and return to him to pour more across his eyes.

  "You know it's her?"

  "Who do you think marked me?" His voice was pained.

  She reached out for him, so they could connect in some way that would ease the hurt she felt. He took her hand and they sat together silently for a while.

  "I didn't know," he said. "I didn't think."

  "I know."

  "I shouldn't have counseled you so."

  "It's not your fault." She was saying to him, but Alaysha wasn't entirely sure she wasn't trying to tell herself the same thing.

  "He's more dangerous than we thought, Alaysha. He's not simply out for revenge. He's lost his mind, and what he has left of it has no humanity." She got up and wrapped the fur around his shoulders, the kind of act a mother would do for a sick child. Or a lover.

  "Where you going?"

  "Where do you think?" She trudged over to Barruch and started saddling him. She'd leave the tinder bundle, the food.

  "You're not leaving me again."

  She glanced over at him. "You'll be of no use the way you are."

  She could see his anger from where she stood. With some effort, he found his feet. "You're young," he said. "You're making an unwise decision."

  "Young? You keep saying that. What kind of decision did you make? I listened to you and look where it got Aedus." She choked on the last words because she knew they weren't fair, and had to clamp her mouth shut so she wouldn't cry. She didn't care that her words stopped him dead.

  "I say you're young because you are. You need training yet."

  "Then teach me. But teach me while we ride. Aedus will not lose another finger."

  He nodded and gathered what he could of their provisions. He picked up the phosphorescent digit and tucked it into Barruch's basket. The heads, he kicked into the bushes for the wild cats or dogs.

  "I don't have the knowledge to show you much." He climbed up onto Barruch with her help, wincing as he settled. "But I can tell you one thing."

  She gathered the reins and kicked Barruch into slow, plodding movements around the fallen logs and bracken. "And that is?"

  "You can stop the power from accelerating by refocusing on someone you love."

  "That's it?"

  "There's more, but it can be that simple when you have nothing else. It's about balance."

  She grunted and braced herself for a flat out gallop. They didn't have time, but at least she had a tool. She needed at least that.

  12

  It must have been a painfully horrific ride for Yenic, and yet he slept. Alaysha could feel his head bounce against her back. She grabbed his arms and pulled them tight against her waist, holding them with one hand so he wouldn't fall. His body against hers felt fevered and while the heat felt good, she knew it also meant she'd have to look out for him when they reached Edulph's camp. She wasn't sure how he managed to reach her but to do so would have taken all his energy reserves. Laden with the heavy baggage and on foot, ravaged by battle, she wondered how he was even alive.

  In truth, she wasn't sure he would stay so. But she didn't want to think about that. She was losing all perspective. All complacency. She pulled him closer and told herself she shouldn't care about not caring.

  She couldn't ride Barruch for hours without resting and watering him, but she pushed the beast farther than she normally would, pulling Yenic down and easing him onto the fur after only a couple of hours. She knew they were close to Edulph's camp. She re
cognized the terrain.

  Barruch was sweating. Yenic was sweating. Alaysha's tunic was wet with perspiration. Thank the Deities she hadn't ridden all the way to the oasis. She looked up at the sky. Dawn was coming and she could easily rest for an hour and still slip into the camp by midmorning.

  "Rest, old man," she told Barruch. She stripped off her tunic and used it to wipe him down, and then set about gathering fern tops and sweet grass so he could eat without using the energy it took to forage. She needed him as fresh as he could get in a few hours.

  She pulled the stinking leather back down over her head and considered making a fire, then realized she was too tired. Yenic lay on the grass beside Barruch, wrapped in the fur. A few hours. No more. Surely she could catch some sleep. Maybe Yenic would feel better after an uninterrupted rest. She hoped so. Looking down at him, she thought she wasn't sure what she'd do if he didn't make it.

  She climbed in next to him. His arm went around her, pulling her close. Nestled there, his heated body next to hers, she was asleep in moments.

  Once during the night, Alaysha felt shaken awake. It was deep into the night, so dark, even the shadows slept. She peered groggily into the pit of black and tried to orient herself. Even as she was registering that she slept at the bank of a river and that Barruch was snoring somewhere to her left, she felt the tremors again.

  Yenic.

  She reached for him and touched fire. Her hand came away so wet and clammy, she was surprised when his irregular breathing felt hot and then deathly cold in between.