Blood Witch

by Thea Atkinson

  Someone like Yenic.

  She felt a flood of shame hot enough to compare to the heat of the sun that had started to bake her bare head. That she'd given these people no more thought than to collect the eyes they'd discarded, shrivelled and disconnected under power. How many people had she left so, to the elements, to nature over the seasons of her warring. Too many. This one act must have taken him many turns of the sun to accomplish.

  She couldn't very well unburied his people to justify a few answers.

  "It seems as though we are thwarted, Barruch." She muttered.

  Barruch dug into the earth with a front hoof, seeming to show how little he cared about the predicament in light of the more critical lack of peaches. A whorl of dust came from the ground and Alaysha watched it thoughtfully.

  "You're right, old man." She glanced off in the direction of the oasis. "There's nothing for us but those things that come from the earth."

  The elders still lay beneath the mud, awaiting exhumation. It would be an arduous task to dig them out, taking more energy than Alaysha thought she had, but she would do it if she could.

  She had the thought that if she could tie something to the pommel, then tied that other end to the crone's leg, Barruch could move her from beneath the grave. Precious little energy from Alaysha would be spent and wasted.

  "You're one wise beast, old man," she patted his neck and he eyed her with an anxious gaze. He knew she was up to something – something he would most certainly not like in the least.

  "It's nothing. A little tug. Maybe just a little walk. That's all." She wasn't sure he was mollified.

  He slapped at her with his tail.

  "I don't care what you think. You have to do this."

  He twisted his neck away from her to indicate his refusal, but it was too late. She'd already decided.

  She rummaged through her saddlebags, knowing that Saxa had packed her a spare tunic and a linen sheet to stretch across herself at night to keep the bugs crawling and biting her. If she tied them together, she could make a strong enough rope. The leather thongs keeping her food basket closed would do to wrap the rope onto the pommel.

  "No sense wasting time," she mumbled aloud, more to set herself to the task than anything else. She found herself thinking about the peaches too. She was famished and the fruit and cheese Saxa had packed was long gone.

  It took more effort than she thought to get the material into some sort of rope, with a tear stressing the tunic. She ended up lying on Barruch's back, facing his tail holding onto the edge of the sheet.

  "Go for the peaches, old man," she shouted and in a heartbeat, he began to plod forward, leaning toward the oasis, sniffing the air. When he discovered he wasn't moving as easily as normal, he halted, frustrated.

  "Do you want those peaches or not?" Alaysha squeezed her knees against his belly.

  He leaned harder this time, so suddenly Alaysha thought she'd lose her hold on the sheet. Too quickly, she realized the crone had come loose of the dirt and Barruch had begun to run. She fell with a thud to the ground, her breath stuck somewhere between her rib cage and her heart. She gasped painfully, hoping to get it moving again. Dimly, she was aware that her head hurt too, but that was second to getting her breath.

  With effort, she tried to roll onto her back to make room for the breath she desperately tried to bring into her lungs. A sharp pain shot to her neck. So. She'd done something nasty to her shoulder too. Perfect.

  She thought she might as well rest. It'd been a long morning in the sun. The heat was aggressively persistent and her mount had abandoned her in favor of a grove of fruit, taking her waterskin with him. Sure. She could use a bit of a rest.

  Whether she wanted to or not, her eyes kept closing of their own accord. She'd even seen bright lights when she'd fallen, she realized that now. Must have hit her head.

  The fact that she saw bare feet just in front of her with hennaed toes and insteps, with nails dipped in ochre, confirmed it for her.

  Chapter 17

  She must have hit her head harder than she thought; she came to went out so often, and saw such strange things she doubted whether she was truly awake.

  She thought she saw the pile of earth over the crones tremble and shake loose of itself like a hound shaking itself free of water. Then she thought she saw the earth open up bit by bit beneath the elder women and close over them neatly. The rest could have been clouds or sun or rain for as much as she knew.

  The feet she didn't see again nor did she get to see their owner's face. No matter. She ended up beneath a small tent erected from the linen sheet tied earlier to the crone's leg. It afforded enough shade that she imagined she felt cool, cool enough to feel as though she would be just fine if only the night would come. She couldn't remember erecting the tent.

  Eventually, the sun blinked long enough that the moon saw its chance to shine. Alaysha was astounded to hear an owl hoot and the tentative chirpings of mice.

  She eased up on her elbows. Dizziness peered at her from the corner of her eye.

  "Oh no, you don't," she told the vertigo. "I've been lying here all day." She took the cloth from her forehead, damp and cool, and wondered when she thought to put one there. It was then that she realized the true nature of what was wrong. She had Sun Sickness. That happened to warriors who forgot to water themselves frequently or who worked too hard without eating. Made worse if the sun was strong like it had been, made worse because there was no shade in the desiccated plain.

  She had done all those things plus took a bad spill. Gone out of her mind apparently for a short spell. Thank the deities her warrior instincts took over and she'd done all the things necessary to get through the day and into the coolness of the evening.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could whistle for Barruch, but he'd be back no doubt when he'd forgiven her the slight to his warhorse ego.

  She heard him, actually, just off to her right, munching on something that crackled much like a roaring fire.

  Was it a fire?

  She tried to twist sideways and saw with some elation that a happy flame danced a short way off. The scent of roasting meat and charred flatbread met her, and she wondered how she had missed it before. Yenic, it must be.

  Perhaps she was still asleep.

  She peered as best she could in the darkness, trying to seek out a form that would undoubtedly be hunched next to the fire, waiting for her to wake.

  "Yenic?" She said.

  "Not Yenic."

  The voice, female with the rasp of a snake's rattle came from her other side.

  "Aislin." Alaysha scrabbled to rise, not pleased about appearing weak in front of Yenic's mother – a woman who could set her to cinder if she wanted, if she ached for the daughter buried beneath one of the Cairns just yonder.

  A soft chuckle met her movements.

  "Take your time, Alaysha."

  Alaysha gripped the damp cloth that had been lying on her forehead. "Thank you," she said holding it out.

  Aislin looked at it, but shook her head. "You might need it. Are you hungry?"

  Alaysha found herself nodding eagerly, the taste of the meat already on her palate. "Yenic told you I was here."

  Aislin swept her arm in the direction of the blaze as she walked toward the fire. The flames beneath a spitted hare fell flat while the rest of the fire blazed on. She reached for the handle of the spit and pulled it from the fire, laying the meat on a flat rock. As soon as the spit was removed, the flames leapt back into place.

  "That's wonderful," Alaysha said and the woman's grin came easily.

  "You don't have such control?"

  Alaysha shook her head, not trusting her mouth to form words over the flood of hunger.

  "No matter."

  The way Aislin said it sounded to Alaysha as though it almost carried a hint of relief. The sun sickness again, she supposed. She watched the woman tear a leg from the hare and wrap it in cloth, then she laid it on the ground for Alaysha to retrieve. Sh
e could swear as the cloth met earth that a spark shot from Aislin's fingers.

  The meat had just enough smoke within to make it succulent. The juices, hot and oily, ran down her chin. Aislin placed a few strips delicately into the middle of a flat of bread she'd baked on a stone, then wrapped the ends in and nibbled at it.

  Alaysha felt very much like a savage, and indeed the tender swelling of her head and the remains of sun sickness left her staring, docile and dumb, across the flames and into the depths of space beyond. She could swear she saw the bright gaze of an animal out there. Or was it a pair of fireflies? It was too hard to tell in the dark.

  She chewed sombrely, lost in her thoughts, and in the mesmerizing dance of flames, with the animal's gaze just beyond, she thought she could find peace. She tasted strange spices in the meat, spices that seemed more to do with rituals than cooking, spices her nohma had mixed for her and spread across her firepit every new moonphase. A moon very much like this one, torn into the blanket of night like a fingernail. And now she thought it, she smelled other things too.

  Things that took her into the grip of memory and made her walk there, choosing paths from the maze of images as though she were selecting choice nuts from a tree. Each path, though the images were different, seemed to lead to the same place, and that place was sitting right next to the fire with Aislin next to her, those eyes blinking at her from across the flames, her nohma's voice in her ear whispering of a place called Etlantium.

  She could have lulled herself to sleep as she sat there, wrapped in the miasma of smells and memories, but Aislin prodded her, commanding attention.

  "The fire has magic, does it not?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you see in the flames, Alaysha?"

  "My nohma's fire."

  "Nothing else?"

  "Myself."

  "As you are now?"

  "As I was."

  "And how were you, Alaysha?" Aislin's voice held a tension that reminded Alaysha of a panther set to strike. She knew she had to respond, she couldn't help but respond, but she found herself struggling for the words.

  They were in there somewhere that could explain what she saw, but she had to work to find them. She could see her nohma's fire pit so clearly, hear her voice telling her of Etlantium, weaving stories of old wars and heroes. Fairytales to set a young girl's fancies ablaze with excitement and wash them down with the sobering taste of heroines killed and lovers lost. How to distill that? How to distill all those images that came before it, of her wearing skin of a different shade, of hearing her name pronounced with different letters. How to capture it. She just didn't know how.

  "Etlantium," she said and felt Aislin move closer. She could smell myrrh on Aislin's skin and Alaysha's tattaus chin tingled as though they had been touched. Another scent came too, one that began to overtake that of myrrh, and yes, frankincense now she thought about it, brimstone. She smelled brimstone and the eyes from across the fire blazed brighter as she understood what the smell was. She was about to reach out to those eyes, one eye really, floating there in the darkness beyond the blaze, but a high-pitched whinny came from somewhere to her side and she realized Barruch finally decided to seek her out.

  She took a deep, cleansing breath and eased herself to her feet. Her side still ached where she'd fallen, and she was most assuredly still dizzy, but the food made her feel better.

  She turned to Aislin, feeling oddly refreshed.

  "I don't think I've tasted better fire roasted hare."

  Aislin's face looked guarded in the firelight, but then she smiled and the movement seemed to adjust the shadows.

  "Yenic always tells me the same."

  "He didn't come with you." Alaysha couldn't help the disappointment in her voice.

  "I only came to give you a message."

  "What is it?"

  "Don't come to Sarum until you can bring the rain with you."

  Alaysha felt her brow furrow in confusion. "Come?"

  Aislin moved closer to the fire, ignoring Alaysha's question. Beyond, the eyes still glowed, and Alaysha could swear they held Aislin mesmerized until she spoke again in a foreign tongue and the blinking of the gaze past the fire went dark. The brooding tension of the place lifted but Alaysha felt no less anxious.

  "Don't return." Aislin could have been chastising an errant child.

  "I won't."

  Aislin folded her arms across her chest and in the closeness of the flame she almost seemed hollow and faded. "Not until you can bring the water rather than take it."

  Taking was easy. Alaysha had never thought about bringing it; her father had repeatedly said she could, but she always thought the power did what it willed once it had left her.

  Recalling Yuri brought a sour taste to Alaysha's mouth. Would that she could control the power long enough to bring him the death he deserved. She couldn't take the water from him, but she could drown him with it if she brought enough. For the things he'd done, for the things he'd made her do, for what he owned because of her. She felt the hatred burning inside.

  "I will bring the rain," she said and Aislin moved closer still to the fire, stepping close enough that Alaysha thought to cry out in warning, but then the woman became flame and then smoke, and Alaysha's head hurt so much she had to hold onto it.

  She reached down for the damp cloth where she'd dropped it. It had cooled considerably and felt lovely against her skin. She pressed it against her eyes, thinking how decadent it felt to close them. How decadent it would feel to lie beneath the linen tent and sleep.

  The fire had died down anyway; it barely looked as though it had blazed at all.

  With heavy feet, she trudged to where she knew the bed waited in the dark. She felt her leg brush against it and climbed beneath, stretching out on the side that wasn't so sore. She took one last look into the shadows where the animal sat crouched in the darkness and decided if it had been a beast of prey, it would have struck by now.

  She listened for Barruch, who would sound the alarm of any dangerous scent. She heard him letting go wind and smiled to herself.

  She'd let herself sleep and come morning, she'd work to bring the rain. Yes. And then she would head back to Sarum and claim the teaching the fire witch offered. She had offered it, had she not? Alaysha couldn't remember, but she had the distinct impression that if she could bring rain rather than take it, that Aislin would know she was ready.

  Barruch's breathing fell to a steady rhythm that acted as a lullaby; Alaysha could no more keep her breath from matching hers than she could keep her heart from beating. She inhaled, content, and kept her gaze, mesmerized, at the eyes of the animal that blinked at her from across the darkness.

  Strange how it sounded as though it was weeping.

  Chapter 18

  A spray of water woke her and Alaysha opened her eyes to a wide, wet black nose in her face. Barruch's chin whiskers tickled her throat, and his eyes blinked impatiently at her.

  He blew another spray of spittle at her face.

  "There are better ways to wake a girl," she complained, but she rolled to her good side and made the attempt to get her feet. She wavered for a spell before she felt solid enough to take a few steps.

  The remains of a fire sat smoldering to her right. So. Aislin had been there. Alaysha was afraid the whole experience had been the result of too much sun and a good wallop on a soft skull.

  Bring the rain, Aislin had said. It seemed an insurmountable task, when it was too opposite the things she'd always done so naturally, the things she'd done to kill.

  She surveyed the area, walking barefoot across the packed earth, taking note were small clumps of grass dared take root. A cactus that had been once as large as a man had fallen over, but it sprouted a thin arm from the side that faced the sun. It seemed some life had managed to cling to existence when the flood came. The land still looked ruined, but at least it was coming back. Given time, perhaps three or four seasons, there might be enough life to support a thin tree, perhaps a bird or t
wo, but she doubted fruit bearing foliage would ever return. The soil was simply too parched.

  Barruch clomped along with her, avoiding the cairns and sidestepping neatly to the left when she bent to inspect the mounds of rock. She should have asked Aislin if Yenic had put his sister in a marked or unmarked pile, but then she supposed he would have no need of such markings to remember which was hers.

  To bring water to this landscape would require a witch with incredible power, she realized. If there was some liquid somewhere, perhaps she could manage it, but the amount she had pulled from it had been so great it had collected and released in a flash flood that ran across the land too fast to seep in.

  She glanced sidelong at Barruch.

  "I don't think it can be done, old man."

  He gave her a baleful stare that she thought could be a look of challenge.

  "You might be better off back at the oasis. Just in case."

  He pressed his nose beneath her hand and she stroked it affectionately, letting her palm linger on his white patch.

  "Go my man," she said, then slapped his rump. He whinnied in protest.

  "Go you stinking bag of wind. What are you waiting for?"

  He took a sidestep but didn't canter off. She placed her hands on her hips and faced him. "You can't stay. You know that."

  She slapped him harder and he reached around and nipped her on the arm. She yelped in surprise and smacked him again.

  "What was that for? You're acting so strange. Peaches. There's peaches. Go."

  This time he did go. He shot off as though he couldn't wait to get away. She knew she'd hurt his feelings; he was such a sensitive beast, that one. She watched the dust whorl behind him. Listened to the sound of his hooves beating earth. She told herself she'd make it up to him, take him for a good run in a soft plain when she could, when this was all over.

  She sucked in a bolstering draft of air. How should she go about it, should she try to think of the river that wound past her father's city, should she imagine the clouds pulling together into one large billowing mass?

  Giving to instead of taking from. That might not be something she could do. But she had to try.