Wren the Fox Witch (Europa #3: A Dark Fantasy)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “Fourth what?”

  “My fourth siege. The fourth time that Eran has tried to take Constantia in my life time. But this time…” The major shook his head. “We’ve never had so little support from Athens. We’ve never had to go to Vlachia for help before. And now we have immortal people on every side, and an army of corpses attacking our rear, and huge ironclad steamers in the Strait, and a man being tortured to death right in front of our troops. It’s never been like this before. I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

  Salvator pressed his lips together for a moment. “The unique and hideous gravity of the situation has not escaped me. And under the circumstances, I don’t think a man would be faulted for thinking a bit more of his own welfare than that of his fellows. I have friends here, you know. I can leave whenever I want. Slip past the blockade. I could be in Rome in less than three days.”

  Tycho nodded. “Maybe you should leave. There’s no sense in you dying here, too.”

  “You little fool, I’d take you with me. I meant that both of us could escape. There’s no reason for you to die here, either.”

  Tycho looked at the older man. “Growing fond of me, are you?”

  Salvator stared back with eyes of cold steel. “Terrible things are going to happen here, Tycho. As you say, the dead are marching, immortals are screaming, war machines are churning, and the Sons of Osiris are out there as well. Constantia is going to fall, and I see little hope for anyone here when that happens. As for you, well, you’re clever and useful, and I trust you. If you came back to Rome with me, we could do great things for Italia. None of this insanity here, none of these monsters. In Rome, it’s all just lies and duels, clever insults and stabbings. Clean and simple.”

  Tycho waved the suggestion away. “I can’t leave. My father died to prepare for this war. I have to see it through.”

  The Italian frowned and looked out the opposite window. The carriage rolled into the Second Courtyard near the stables and carriage houses, and the two men stepped out.

  Tycho nodded at the doors of the Chamber of Petitions. “You should report what we’ve seen to the duchess and prince. I’m going to check on the girl, and make sure the witch hasn’t eaten her or something.”

  Salvator took several steps, and then looked back. “You don’t like her, do you?”

  “I don’t even know her,” he said.

  “That’s no answer,” the Italian called out. “And as I recall, you once told me that you preferred redheads.”

  No, I didn’t. Did I?

  Tycho ignored him and entered the Tower of Justice, and descended the stone steps into the underground chamber where the witch called Baba Yaga lived. He heard voices below, calm and civil voices, and he felt some small relief that at least here, for the moment, there was peace and sanity.

  When he stepped out of the alcove into the brightly lit room, he found Wren and the old witch sitting together on the mound of carpets, leaning together over something in the girl’s hand. Tycho cleared his throat and the two women looked up, both with a trace of annoyance in their eyes.

  “Yes?” Yaga frowned at him.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked. “Have you made any progress?”

  “You haven’t been gone an hour,” the witch snapped. “What progress do you think we’ve made?”

  Wren smiled at him. “A little. We’re still learning a bit about each other.”

  Tycho nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

  She’s in a good mood, more or less. Maybe this is the right time to tell her. And it’s better if she hears it from me than from some gossiping maid.

  He stepped farther into the room and cleared his throat again.

  “Madam, I’m afraid there’s some news of your son, and I thought it best if you heard it from me rather than some rumor. It’s bad news, I’m sorry to say. We’ve just seen Koschei on an Eranian warship in the Strait. And they’re… they’re torturing him.”

  Baba Yaga stood up so that she towered over the small man and said, “My son is immortal, and there is no punishment that any man could conceive of that would make him weep or cry for mercy. He is the very iron of Rus. He cannot be bent or broken by these cowardly Turks.”

  Tycho hesitated and looked at Wren.

  I’ve done my duty. I’ve told her. It’s not my duty to make her believe me. There’s no need to tell her everything. It wouldn’t do any good. It would only upset her. But, I suppose, whatever else she may be, she’s someone’s mother. She deserves to know.

  He said, “Madam, the Eranians cut off your son’s arms, and at this every moment he is growing new ones, while hanging over the deck of this warship in full view of our men on the wall. And he’s, well—”

  “He’s what, major?”

  Tycho swallowed. “He’s screaming.”

  Baba Yaga stepped back from him, her hand straying to her lips as she muttered to herself, her eyes darting across the floor. Then she dashed across the room, shoved Tycho aside, and bolted up the stairs. He fell to his hands and knees, but stood up and beckoned to Wren, who had already risen to her feet. “We have to follow her. I don’t know what she’ll do.”

  Idiot! Why did I tell her? Because like a moron, I thought it was the right thing to do!

  Together they ran up the stairs and when they reached the landing Tycho heard the echo of footsteps higher still above them, and they ran up into the Tower of Justice high above all of the other buildings in the palace grounds. When they reached the top, Tycho saw the witch standing at the railing and staring to the northeast, to the three warships in the Strait.

  She can’t possibly see anything from here.

  Then Baba Yaga reached out her hand draped in silver bracelets, and her necklace of bird skulls clattered on her breast as a violent wind rushed through the open tower and raced over the palace and the park and down the hill to the sea wall, and then over the waves to the ironclad ships. But only a soft puff of mist wafted over the decks, and as far as Tycho could tell, none of the ant-like sailors even noticed.

  Yaga screamed up to the heavens and then spun about to grab the Hellan major. “My son! My precious son is there, right there, I can see him! Where are your men? Where are your ships? Why have you abandoned him?”

  Tycho gasped as the two clawing hands pressed in against his throat. He grabbed her wrists, trying to pry her off as gently as possible. He wheezed out, “Salvator is telling Lady Nerissa right now. She’ll decide what’s to be done.”

  Yaga shoved him away and he stumbled back into Wren, who caught him and held him steady on his feet as he rubbed his neck.

  “I’m sure they’ll send someone to rescue him,” Wren said. “Now that they know where he is, and so close at that, I’m sure that’s what they’ll do.”

  Tycho grimaced. “Maybe. Those are powerful warships, stronger than anything we have. There’s little hope we could sink them. Even just to storm the deck and carry Koschei away would be a massive operation that would cost us both ships and men.”

  The tall witch whirled back to the railing to glare at the distant ships. “Damned Turks. They dare to invade the north, they dare to take my son, they dare to hurt him within my sight! These Turks dare too much. And for what? They want to frighten you, to give you nightmares resounding with Koschei’s screams. So be it. I will teach them something about nightmares.” She leaned forward and wrapped her bony fingers around the rail, and closed her eyes.

  Tycho glanced up at Wren. “What’s she doing?”

  But the girl with the fox ears only shrugged and shook her head.

  As he looked from the witch to the ships and back again, Tycho felt a sickening vertigo and he staggered against Wren and then against the rail, and then fell to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed rapidly to keep his breakfast down, and dimly he knew that Wren had fallen beside him, moaning and gasping. With shaking hands, Tycho reached for her but his fingers found only empty space. He tried to open his eyes and the world spun wildly
to one side and he toppled forward, and fell.

  The world went on spinning and he fell and fell, and something hard smashed his shoulders and back and legs, again and again, and when it finally stopped he peered out through squinting eyes to see that he had fallen all the way down the stairs to the ground floor of the tower. Still shaking and wobbling, he staggered up to his feet and shuffled away from the stairs toward the door that led out into the courtyard. But he paused and looked back at the entrance to the stairs, a black rectangle of stone that twisted and spun and warbled like water in the air.

  Wren… she’s still in… needs help…

  He took a step back toward the stairs, and a freezing white cloud billowed up from the cellar and poured into the vestibule. As it swirled around him, Tycho shivered and gasped as the cold air penetrated his lungs, and he saw his fingers growing long and thin, twisting away to pale strings in the breeze.

  “No!” He ran drunkenly through the whiteness and burst out onto the steps of the tower where the cloud abruptly ended and he fell again, rolling down the sharp marble stairs to the gravel road at the edge of the yard where he lay gasping, staring up at the sky. He held his hands in front of his face and saw his fingers were as short and solid as ever.

  What the devil just happened?

  He blinked and swallowed and balled his hands into fists until the nausea and dizziness faded. And then, as he sat up, he saw the mist again. It engulfed the Tower of Justice, clinging to the stones like white smoke, roiling and storming and rushing around and around as it spiraled up toward the distant clouds.

  Tycho stood up, staring at the unholy storm raging around the tower against the pale blue sky. “God save us all.”

  Chapter 10. Fear

  Wren lay on the cold floor in a ball, her arms wrapped around her head, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to imagine a calm grassy field that was quiet and solid and safe. But her body and mind continued to tell her that the world was spinning and tumbling and racing out of control, and her stomach churned with bile and her eyes burned with tears. She tightened her right hand into a fist, feeling the lump of the ring around her finger, and she cried out to the souls of the dead valas hidden within the ring.

  Gudrun! Brynhilda! Kara! Anyone! Help me!

  And after a moment, she heard over the blasting aether storm around her a shaking old woman’s voice. Gudrun’s voice.

  Help yourself, girl. It’s only aether.

  Wren blinked her eyes open for a brief moment and saw the white maelstrom around her, and she snapped her eyes closed again. The aether buffeted her body, her arms and legs and head, even her hair, but her lifeless clothing lay still and heavy on her skin. So she focused on that stillness, on the folds of her shiny new skirts and sleeves and ribbons.

  Still.

  Solid.

  Quiet.

  Slowly, the spinning sensation passed and Wren slowly unclenched the muscles in her belly and back. She could still feel the aether pushing and pulling on her body, but it was only the sensation of wind or water, or maybe soft hands. It was only physical and no longer inside her head, and so with one last deep breath, she opened her eyes.

  The world was still a whirling white storm of aether flying around and around, but through the wispy gaps in the chaos she could glimpse the pale stone walls and the dark vistas of the palace beyond the balcony, and the shadowy figure of the woman at the railing. Wren tried to stand up and the aether shoved her sideways into the wall. But she pushed away from it and staggered through the aether typhoon toward the tall woman.

  “Baba Yaga!”

  The woman did not move.

  “Yaga!”

  The dark figure shifted, though still vague and rippling through the veil of aether. Wren saw her turn and reach out. A pale bony hand shot through the mist and touched her forehead, and Wren felt the icy fingers of aether flood sharply into her nostrils and mouth, and she fell back to the floor, choking and gasping.

  The next thing she knew, Wren was lying on a bed of grass. The shadows stretched out around her into the distance in shapeless, formless darkness, and she peered in every direction, seeing nothing. No walls, no trees, no people. There were no stars overhead and the air hung perfectly still and cold around her. She exhaled and watched her breath curl away from her nose.

  “Hello?”

  There was no echo and no answer. She stood up, turning and turning, looking and looking.

  Where am I? What happened to the tower? Where is the witch? What happened to Tycho?

  She took a few steps in no particular direction and found only more dead grass underfoot and more darkness all around.

  “Hello? Yaga? Tycho?”

  “You.”

  Wren spun to see who had spoken, and saw the crumpled form of a little old woman standing behind her, clutching a moth eaten blanket around her shoulders. She was pale and shriveled and shrunken, with wrinkled translucent skin hanging from her cheekbones and watery yellow eyes under her snowy brows. Only a few thin scraps of gray hair clung to her spotted scalp, and a bright trail of spittle hung from her thin lips.

  Wren’s eyes widened. “Gudrun?”

  “You. Here. Heh.” The crone hobbled forward, peering up at the girl. “One of us now.”

  “One of…?” Wren covered her mouth. “This is the ring? Am I inside the Denveller ring too? Am I dead? I died? Yaga killed me?”

  Gudrun cackled and looked to her left, and Wren looked as well. Seven other bent and broken figures shuffled out of the shadows, some leaning on canes, some dragging crippled feet, and one crawling with her lifeless legs stretched out behind her on the ground.

  The dead valas of Denveller!

  She knew their faces well. In the long year since Gudrun had died and Wren had taken up the ring, she had communed with these women, seen their ghostly faces hovering in the darkness around her, heard their voices whispering and sneering in her mind. Sometimes they offered their wisdom and experience with herbs or animals to heal some injury, and sometimes they helped her to negotiate with the spirit world, seeking out lost souls and learning their secrets. But always with a look of contempt. Always with a smug or cruel laugh.

  “You’re not dead, girl,” said Brynhilda. She was a tall and gaunt figure, a woman of too much bone and too little skin. “You’re not in the ring, yet. We are in you.”

  “In me? In my soul?” Wren tried to let her arms hang calmly at her sides, but her hands leapt together to fidget and squirm in front of her. “Possessed?”

  Gudrun shuffled forward and her milky white eyes slowly darkened and came into focus as she wiped the drool from her lips. “Yes, little bird. Why? Don’t you like it here, with us? You should show some gratitude, after all we’ve done for you. All the answers we’ve handed you over the last year, all the work we’ve done for you. What a miserable excuse for a vala you would be without us.”

  “I-I know, and I’m grateful for everything,” Wren said. “But I shouldn’t be here, or you shouldn’t. This is wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Yet another woman came forward, one looking a bit younger and stronger than the others.

  Kara! Nine hells…

  The most ancient vala of Denveller took Wren’s hands and peered into her eyes. “Little Wren. Oh, little Wren. It might be a little early, yes, but there’s nothing wrong about being here. This is where you’re going, little Wren, this is home, this is where the long road will bring you in the end.”

  Wren glanced around at the endless darkness, the starless sky, the black void of a world resting on a tiny patch of dead grass and dry earth where eight dead women huddled together in the endless night, wheezing and shaking and spitting on each other.

  Wren looked back at Kara, a woman who died of old age at forty-two winters with a dozen gray claws in her raven hair, and then she looked down at their hands still clasped together. Kara’s hands were thin and wrinkled around the knuckles, and Wren’s…

  She blinked and shook her head.

  My hands!
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  Wren’s hands were as thin as chicken feet, like brittle twigs shaking in the wind. She could barely bend her fingers, barely lift her arms, they were so stiff and sore. Suddenly she was gasping for breath, wheezing through tiny wet lungs with a huge weight crushing her chest. Wren fell to her knees, her mouth hanging open as she struggled to breathe, and her hair fell forward around her face, thin strings of gray and white. Wren tried to raise her head, but her back was aching and her vision blurred.

  “Help me,” she wheezed. “Someone, help me…”

  She blinked.

  The shadow world of the Denveller ring was gone. The ghosts of the crones were gone. Now the world was blinding white and freezing cold, and she could breathe again. Wren stood up, squinting at the bright snowy hills and the distant snowy mountains. The pain in her back was gone, and her hands were her own again, and her hair was dark red again. She shivered as the wind blasted over the hill, pelting her with ice.

  “Hello?”

  She took a few more uncertain steps and heard the snow crunching underfoot. Huge white clouds sailed across the face of the sun in a pale blue sky.

  “Hello? Kara? Anyone?”

  The snow crunched behind her. Wren turned around and felt her bowels turn to frozen slush.

  A dark titan loomed over her, a giant covered in red fur and obsidian claws, with eyes that burned like molten gold, and in its maw stood a forest of white fangs dripping with venom. The beast roared.

  Wren stumbled back, her shaking hands reaching for her sling, but it was gone, reaching for her knife, but it was gone, summoning up the aether, but it wouldn’t answer.

  “No, no, stay back, stay away!” She turned to run and the giant fox demon roared again. Wren fell to her hands and knees in the freezing snow as a sharp cracking pain raced down her spine and erupted from her back. She twisted around and saw the dark red fur of her own tail writhing and flicking around her thighs.

  “No!”

  She lurched up to her feet and saw the fur on her hands, the black points of her nails as they sharpened into claws, and the dark tip of her nose as her face stretched forward into a canine muzzle.