Wit'ch War (v5)

by James Clemens

  A sudden ocean breeze gusted through the wood and scattered the leaves out onto the path. What manner of magick was this?

  Needing some proof that she had not slipped off into some world of phantoms, Mycelle called out. “Fardale!”

  The wolf proved his worth and appeared at her side, solid in muscle and dark fur. Mycelle climbed down from her horse, and the two of them sorted through the scattered leaves. Mycelle picked up a few: mountain oak, northern alder, western maple. Such trees grew nowhere near these lands. She let the strange leaves flutter from her fingers.

  Nearby, Fardale nosed through the pile and worried something forth from the heart of the leafy mound. He rolled it out onto the road. Staring at it with his head cocked to the side, an odd mournful whine escaped his throat.

  “What is it?” she asked, bending to inspect Fardale’s discovery. She could not fathom what had so upset the wolf. It was just a plain thumb-sized nut, much like many others found commonly littering forests. This one, though, had sprouted a tiny green shoot.

  Fardale gently picked up his treasure in his jaws and held it out toward Mycelle. She opened her palm to accept it. The wolf then nosed her pocket, indicating he wanted her to keep it safe.

  Perplexed at his odd behavior, Mycelle did what he asked, and with a final frown she remounted her horse. Tapping her gelding forward, she continued down the road and wondered about the pinch of magick demonstrated here. She had sensed no evil in the apparition, no touch of black magick. So what did it mean? She shook her head and dismissed it for now. She had a mission to finish and no time to dwell on this mystery. As she continued toward the hamlet of Graymarsh, Fardale followed, but Mycelle noted that he kept glancing back down the path toward where the singer had stood.

  Frowning at the wolf’s behavior, she patted her pocket and felt the hard, firm nut. What was so important about an ordinary acorn?

  THE SIXTH DRAK’IL slid from the surf and crawled across the still-warm sand of the midnight beach. With the sun long set, there were no eyes to watch as the last of the drak’ils joined the five others on the narrow strand between sea and cliff. He stood upon his clawed rear legs and stretched to his full height. Only slightly taller than their goblin brothers, the sea-dwelling drak’ils were a distant relation to their underground brethren, choosing instead to live among the sea caves of the remote Archipelago islands. Though crudely intelligent, the drak’il seldom had dealings with other creatures, preferring their isolation.

  But necessity warranted their journey here to the coastline—necessity and old goblin oaths. Word had reached their clan that near here hid a wit’ch who had murdered hundreds of rock’-goblins, their mountain brethren. She had brought the hungry light, the stealer of spirits. She was to be cobbled, blinded as the old ways spoke, and her magick taken back to their queen. It was the duty of the drak’il to seek vengeance for all the various goblin clans.

  The honor of the drak’il, the blood of the goblins, would be satisfied.

  It was the way.

  The sixth drak’il joined the others, tail twitching and coiling around his ankles, nervous at these foreign shores. He greeted the dominant female of their pod, touching his forked tongue to the poisoned barb at the tip of her tail, and stayed bowed. Only the female drak’ils bore the poisonous rhyst upon their tails, the shark killer, the bringer of burning death. The other four males were already bowed before their leader, awaiting her bidding.

  The female, larger and more massively muscled than the males, growled and hissed her orders. Her fangs reflected the moonlight, and her red eyes shone with the fire of her hatred. The males trembled at her words. None dared disobey one of the she-lords.

  Once instructed, they hurried to the cliff wall and scurried up to take their positions, each male digging claws into rock, locking himself into place. The female still waited below. The male drak’ils could feel her burning eyes pass over them; none dared even to tremble, lest he draw her attention further. A low growl rose like steam from below.

  In response, a familiar fire excited the skin of the five males. Soon each form blended perfectly with the rock face, disappearing so thoroughly that even the coming light of day would not reveal them from the surrounding reddish orange sandstone.

  The males were to be the eyes and ears of the drak’il war party. Other pods and other she-lords were spread up and down the shoreline for hundreds of leagues. The coast would be watched by thousands of slitted black eyes, and thousands of sharp ears would listen for word of the wit’ch. Once this she-demon was found, the drak’il clan would move and claim their enemy. Her hungry light would die, and the magick would be theirs to wield and draw upon.

  Even from his place on the cliff’s face, the male drak’il sensed the lust for magick in the female below. His nose caught the scent of her excitement, a wisp of musk and spoor. It made him want to grovel before her, beg for her touch. So he kept himself perfectly still; only by obedience did a male win the favor of a female. He would show her how motionless he could remain. Even when the hot sun came to sear his skin and dry his flesh, he would not move.

  Below, he heard the female return to the surf’s edge. He cracked one eye open and rotated it back to watch the thick-muscled she-lord scrabble across the rock. Her back was arched so seductively, and her full rump moved so invitingly. He imagined she displayed herself so handsomely just for him, but he knew better. The male drak’il knew who came next. It was the one who had first brought them word of the wit’ch’s atrocities among the rock’goblins, he who walked with dread magicks in his heart. His power incited all the she-lords to flaunt for him, their flinty rhysts tapping the stone caverns hungrily, their eyes alight with lust. Even the drak’il queen could not resist the allure of this stranger’s magicks. The foreigner had been assigned as war leader by their queen and was due to inspect their pod as he passed along the coast.

  As the male drak’il hung on the sandstone wall, an ember of rage smoldered in his heart. It was wrong that a male not of their clan—not even of their heritage!—should lead them. Still, he knew better than to disobey.

  Below, the female suddenly became even more excited. Her scent moistened the air with her thickening musk. The leader must be close.

  The male’s insight proved correct. A silvery bubble rose from the surf and rolled to shore, opening to reveal the man in its empty heart. Dry as if he had never been in the waters, he stepped onto the rocky shore. He ignored the squirming female at his knee, not even noticing the eager invitation of the she-lord’s drumming rhyst. Instead, he stepped past the female to inspect the sandstone wall.

  “She’s close,” the man said in the common tongue.

  Just hearing this language hurt the male drak’il’s ears. How foul and twisted a language! The man opened his loose, billowing shirt and revealed his magickal heart. His pale chest was split open like a burst seapod, skin puckered and raw at its edge, cracked ribs poking forth. It was not the man that inspired the groveling female, but what lurked inside that dark chest—a thing of pure dire magicks.

  From inside the dank cave of the ruptured chest, bloodred eyes stared out into the night. Magick flowed forth from the old wound, rich and twisted like the tangled tentacles of a deep-sea octopus. It quested up the cliff face. So powerful, so fetid.

  A voice of the blackest, coldest seas echoed out from the chest wound. “Be prepared. My ill’guard soldier, the one I named Legion, will flush her into our snare. Be ready, or suffer my wrath.”

  The man suddenly convulsed with inner fires, gasping like a fish on hot sands. His tongue fought out words of renewed allegiance. “I . . . I will not fail you . . . again.”

  Then suddenly the magick was gone. The male drak’il glanced to the beach.

  The man moaned and clutched his shirt closed and stumbled back to the sea. As his feet touched the surf, the bubble of dire magicks flowed up to surround him once again.

  As it closed, the female drak’il made one last desperate attempt to attract the man. S
he spoke his name, using the foul common tongue. Her voice was rough with lust, and the split tongue of their people complicated the attempt. As the bubble and the man vanished below the waves, she struggled out the single word, his name: “R-r-rockingham.”

  2

  “YOU’RE JUST GOING to have to grow accustomed to it,” Er’ril said as he led Elena down the stone-and-timber dock. The morning sun was just cresting the waves at the horizon, casting its meager light toward them.

  Ahead, the Seaswift rocked at the end of the stone quay. The winds had grown stiffer overnight, and the ship rolled back and forth in thick swells, its sternlines and bowlines creaking as oiled rope rubbed iron cleats. Sheltered in a shallow cove, the ship’s twin masts and reefed sails were all but hidden from sight by the tall walls of sandstone that circled the tiny bay. Only if another boat, traveling close to shore, passed by the narrow inlet would the Seaswift ever be discovered. It was a safe and secret harbor, one of hundreds that dotted the coastlines. In this region of pirates and brigands, such bays were carefully groomed and valued.

  With trepidation in her heart, Elena followed Er’ril down the long dock. While watching the ship tilt and rock, she again felt the queasy sensation that the dock was moving. The flow of bobbing waves past the stone pilings amplified this sensation. To further unsettle her belly, the reek of the dock’s oiled planks competed with the overpowering stench of salt and algae. Elena swallowed hard, and her cheeks paled.

  She had battled demons and monsters, wielded mighty magick, even traveled a poisonous swamp in a tiny punt, but she dreaded the coming sea voyage. Born and raised in the foothills of the mighty Teeth, lands built of granite and hard-packed soil, Elena had quickly learned during a short excursion to visit the sea-dragons that the rolling motion of the ocean swells sickened her stomach and weakened her balance. She had no defense against this assault, no magick to give her sea legs. Here was an obstacle she had to face on her own.

  To assist her, Er’ril had decided to move them both down to the boat and set Elena up in a neighboring cabin on board. He meant to get her over her sea weakness by simple exposure. “A few days belowdecks,” he had instructed her, “will harden your stomach against the sea’s motion.”

  She had reluctantly agreed.

  Aboard the Seaswift, a huge man dressed in a dark sealskin jacket, his skin the color of burnished mahogany, raised a hand in greeting as they approached the boat’s gangplank. As he turned to face them, his silver earring glinted in the first rays of the morning sun. It marked him as a member of Brother Flint’s order. But where Brother Flint spoke with wry humor and scolding jests, Brother Moris was taciturn and stoic. Elena had never felt completely comfortable around the brooding, dark-skinned stranger. His hulking size, his strange complexion, his perpetually penetrating stare—all made Elena feel like shrinking and slipping away.

  Even now, as Er’ril waved her first onto the gangplank, Elena found Moris studying her intensely, as if he were trying to peer into her bones. Elena glanced away but only found her eyes settling on the surging swells. She stumbled a step as her balance was rocked. Er’ril caught her from a fall into the choppy waves.

  “Elena, what did I tell you?”

  Her cheeks reddened as she reached the deck. She raised a gloved palm and rested it on the oak rail. “Grip a firm handhold at all times.”

  Moris interrupted any further lecture from the plainsman. “Er’ril, I have two rooms in the foredeck aired out with fresh linens prepared. Once you’ve settled the child in, we must finalize the plans for the approaching new moon.”

  Er’ril nodded. “Where’s Flint?”

  “In the galley preparing porridge and cured potfish. We’re to meet down there when you’re ready.”

  Elena’s stomach churned at the thought of salty fish and thick porridge. Under her legs, the boat heaved in slow rolls; the two masts swung back and forth as if pointing out the sweep of seagulls overhead. Elena kept her grip on the ship’s port rail, but her palms grew clammy.

  Er’ril nudged her from her reverie of the ship’s movements. “Let’s get you to your bunk where you can lie down. Let your belly calm.”

  “That’s not very likely,” Elena mumbled, but she trudged after the plainsman across the middeck. Underfoot, coils of thick ropes threatened to betray her steps, but she followed Er’ril’s instructions and traveled from handhold to handhold.

  Once they reached the raised foredeck, Er’ril held open a heavy ironwood door. Lantern light beyond revealed a short passage leading to the upper cabins and a set of dark stairs descending steeply to the lower decks. As Er’ril nodded her inside, Elena noted there were no windows in the hatch, and three heavy iron crossbars lined the inner surface. It reminded Elena of a portal to some dank dungeon.

  Er’ril must have noted her nervous glance. “During storms, heavy waves can crash across the deck. The iron bars can be thrown to batten down the door and keep the lower decks dry.”

  Elena stared at how high the middeck sat above the waters. She could not imagine the size of waves that could crest tall enough to swamp the ship. With her heart beating in her throat, she ducked through the portal into the foredeck.

  Immediately, the sharp odor of kerosene and oak resins assaulted her senses. In the dim passage, the rocking lantern and tilting floor dizzied her further. Leaning on the wall for support, Elena followed Er’ril toward a small door near the passage’s end.

  “Here’s your cabin,” he said, pushing the door open. It bumped into the tiny bed bolted to the far wall.

  Elena’s heart sank. The room was no larger than a medium-sized wardrobe. Even with just a narrow bed, a small chest, and a single lantern, the cabin seemed cramped and crowded.

  “We’ll have your things brought up from the cottage this afternoon.”

  “Where would I put them?” she mumbled.

  Er’ril nodded to the bed. “Have a seat. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Elena dropped to the creaking bed. The lantern swung gently overhead, dancing their shadows on the walls. Though seated, the motion weakened her stomach. She concentrated on the tips of her sandals.

  Before her, Er’ril stood stooped, his head bowed away from the low rafters. He kept his legs slightly apart and used his knees to keep easy balance in the rocking cabin. “It’s about Joach,” he started. “Last night, he approached Flint again about accompanying us.”

  This news drew her eyes back up. Even though she had pulled Joach aside and had insisted that his dream had to be false, her brother obviously persisted in his belief and would not leave the matter be.

  Er’ril waved his hand at the room. “As you can see, the Seaswift is not generous of space. Flint has arranged for a handful of seamen loyal to our cause to man the boat’s rigging. Otherwise, the ship has no room to spare for a boy who’s worried about his sister.”

  “It’s more than that,” she mumbled, hesitant about betraying Joach’s trust concerning the dream.

  Er’ril knelt beside her and rested his hand on her knee. “Then what? Are you afraid to leave him behind? Are you encouraging him?”

  “No!” she said, aghast. “I’d rather he stayed at the cottage, too—well away from me.” She smiled wanly at the plainsman. “My family members don’t fare well around me.”

  Er’ril squeezed her knee. “So we’re agreed. Perhaps if you spoke to him.”

  She stared the plainsman in the eye. Though she knew Joach’s dream of betrayal could not be true, her brother believed it. His heart would not let him stay, and no words of hers would sway him and calm his fears. “I’ve already tried talking him out of coming,” she said in a tired voice. “He won’t listen, and I don’t think—”

  The boat suddenly lurched under a heavy wave, churning Elena’s stomach violently. She barely made it to the chamber pail before her belly emptied its contents in a sloppy splash. Still bent over the pail, Elena breathed heavily. Once her gut had calmed sufficiently, she pushed back, red cheeked an
d unable to meet Er’ril’s eyes.

  The plainsman had moved back a bit. “It’ll take time to get your sea legs,” he offered as consolation.

  “I don’t care about sea legs. I just hope the Mother above will soon grant me a sea belly.”

  “I’ll fetch you some water and bread crusts. It helps. We can talk more of Joach later.”

  Er’ril turned to leave, but Elena stopped him. “No, this worry of Joach’s has gone on long enough.” Elena was suddenly tired of all these secrets. Whom to trust? It was nonsense, and before the voyage started, she wanted this matter settled. With her stomach temporarily appeased, she firmed her resolve and spoke bluntly. “Er’ril, Joach doesn’t trust you. He had a dream in which you betrayed me.”

  Er’ril swung back to face her, a combination of anger and hurt flashing in his eyes. “What! What is this foolishness?”

  “He believes his dream was a weaving, a prophecy of the future.” Elena related all that Joach had told her the previous morning.

  “He called forth black magick from the staff?” Er’ril asked under black brows.

  “Using words from his dream,” Elena added. “So now you know why he is so convinced of his dream’s prophecy.”

  Er’ril shook his head. “The staff is a foul talisman. I would never trust black magick as proof of anything. Even the most able mind can be fooled by the dark art’s trickery.”

  “But how do we convince Joach of that?”

  “I don’t know. I know little of dreamweaving, but Flint and Moris are experts. We must let them know of your brother’s dream.”

  Elena winced. She had already betrayed her brother’s trust by telling Er’ril and was reluctant, but the truth of Joach’s dream must be tested by more than the use of black magick. She nodded her agreement.

  “I’ll have Moris fetch Joach to the ship this evening. We’ll settle this matter then,” Er’ril said and turned to the door. As he slipped out of the cabin, he added, “You were right to tell me, Elena.”