Blood Witch

by Thea Atkinson

  "Quite ingenious," she said when she saw the hollowed out branch used as a blower and at least a dozen quills. All were translucent but one.

  Aedus apologized. "The beetles aren't easy to find."

  Alaysha glanced Gael's way. "Let's hope we can get in and out without too much hassle." She spent a few minutes looking over Aedus's hair and wondering if the girl's natural slinkiness could be of use enough to warrant letting her accompany them.

  Aedus seemed to know what was going on behind Alaysha's crumpled brow.

  "I'm coming," she said.

  "I didn't say you weren't."

  "You were thinking about it."

  "Only because I want you safe."

  "Safe means with you two."

  Alaysha waited to see what Gael would say, and when he nodded, she let go a breath of anxiety. She didn't like the thought of re-entering Sarum, even through the tunnels: she had no idea whether Yuri or Aislin would be in control of them, and she wasn't sure which one she rather run into. Gael pulled the sword from its scabbard across his back and inspected the edge.

  "If we encounter the witch," he said to Aedus. "You must dart her."

  Aedus jiggled her head up and down.

  "And if it's Yuri?" Alaysha asked as he studied her face.

  "If it is the Emir, she will dart you."

  Aedus started to protest, but Gael held up his hand. Alaysha knew he had seen her re-acquaintance with her sister.

  "I need to know you won't open up the heavens on him, and so us."

  Alaysha found her bare toes very interesting. "I won't. Not now."

  "But another time."

  She couldn't stop the nod. "I will kill him at some point."

  He said nothing in argument; she was grateful. When he started away without comment, she followed him with a sigh, knowing the entrance they took would bring them to the crystal cavern.

  "But you knew too, didn't you?" she asked him. "You knew my father has kept her all this time."

  "I did."

  She watched his back begin to disappear into the darkness ahead of her. "Why didn't you tell me, back at the well. Why didn't you say she was my sister?"

  "And what would you have done?"

  She didn't need to answer; he grunted then spoke over his shoulder. "I would not want to have known that pain for Saxa."

  "So you kept it from me to spare me."

  His shoulders moved in a short shrug. "There was nothing you could do."

  "I could have killed him," she said, meaning her father.

  "And so all of us." Was his response before he stepped faster and went ahead enough she realized he didn't want to speak about it anymore.

  The going was dark and wet. They fell into step together without thinking, and Alaysha found herself wondering what Gael's warrior training had been like, if he had suffered similar torments through Corrin as she had. Thinking about it made her recall the feel of his skin on hers and how the scars felt beneath her fingers as she traced them across his chest, over his shoulders, down his back. Her mind wandered to the feel of his hands on her skin and how delicious the calloused roughness of his palms felt. She wouldn't let herself think about what came next, but the memory at least eased her anxiety as they trudged through the dark.

  She could tell when they drew near to the cavern because the air went to a deathly quiet that something seemed to come beneath the air currents. She hadn't noticed it the first time, how it fairly vibrated with dignity. All thought dissipated like so much steam as she drew close. The hair on her arms stood to rapt attention and the back of her neck went cold.

  "Do you feel it?" she asked aloud, not sure who she was speaking to, but certain someone else would understand. It was Aedus who answered, the small voice drifting from her elbow.

  "It's the gods' place," she said and Alaysha felt herself nodding, unsure what that even meant.

  "Gael?" Alaysha heard herself murmur.

  "I'm here." His voice came from behind her; when she turned to it, she saw his broadsword held to the ready, what she could see of his face in the gloom and shadows of sputtering torchlight was guarded and pinched.

  "Do you feel it?"

  He nodded. "Death."

  Indeed. One word spoke of all the energy she couldn't name, and whether it was a death past or a death to come didn't matter.

  "Be ready," he said as he took deliberate steps to pass them, through the blackened maw of what proved to be the last round of turn. Beyond the darkness, Alaysha could make out the winking brightness of the smooth crystal within.

  She realized that none of them had thought beyond reaching Edulph to actually wresting him from the clutches of the pit, and then it struck her that Gael had no intention of milking Edulph for information and then pulling him to safety.

  He planned to extract the information and then kill him on the spot, leaving him useless to anyone afterwards. Assuming, of course, that Yuri's men hadn't already done so.

  She turned to Aedus. "Perhaps you should wait here."

  Gael made a sound that indicated he was not in agreement. "We need her. Come." He waggled the fingers of his left hand behind him and Aedus went forward obligingly.

  "Sneak forward. See if he's still there. If he's alone."

  The girl nodded. "I'll wave you in when it's clear."

  Alaysha waited with lungs full of air. She wasn't sure what the chances were that the guard Yuri had left with Edulph was still in the cave. She hadn't seen them in the courtyard, but she'd been preoccupied then. Whatever the chances, Aedus would be in full view of danger, yet here the girl was ready to accept such duty as though she was born to it.

  "I don't like this." Alaysha protested. "She might not be safe."

  Gael grunted. "She is safer than we are."

  Safer? How could that be? The small form had entered the cavern and already seemed as large within it as an ant on forage. If someone was indeed inside…

  Alaysha's breath let go in a noisy rush as she realized someone was lying in wait. Several men from all directions moved as one toward Aedus, and Alaysha's immediate thought to rush to her aid was thwarted by the hulking movement of a blur of black leather swooping through the entrance and swinging in one wide arc.

  The head of the first man rolled toward Alaysha's feet and the insane thought that she recognized the face rattling through her mind got chased away by an instinct so ingrained she forgot who had trained her to it. She grabbed the head and launched it toward the second man who had dodged Gael's sword and was feinting forward to take out the mountain at his knees.

  The mass struck the assailant's chest and Alaysha knew the fleeting emotion that crossed his face was one of revulsion. He didn't have time to shift expression; Gael lopped off his head and sent it flying sideways.

  She had only the time to think Gael had been right all along when he'd said Aedus had never been in danger. It was true that Gael was making such short work of the ambushing guards, that he'd sent her in fully expecting to kill, knowing he would do so down to the last man.

  She had a few moments to watch him swing, rest, step, swing again until she thought what she was witnessing was less a battle and more an orchestrated training session. He seemed to sense where each opponent would be before his opponent did. A dozen of them came at him, and a dozen fell, each taking a chance of leaving their mark on him.

  Some did, but even Alaysha could tell they were glancing blows at best.

  She came to understand how his height became his greatest weapon.

  Even as the last two fell, Alaysha could see Aedus running to the pit and realized Edulph was still inside, shouting at whoever was above him.

  The last man to stand against the tide of Gael's swinging blood rush was a sole, hooded man who stood paralysed on his feet. His hands clasped something in front of his thighs. Gael halted, panting in front of him, his chest moving from effort. The men faced each other for several heartbeats before Alaysha realized that the man facing Gael was Theron and that the thing
he held in front of him was Yuri's head.

  Chapter 25

  She wasn't certain how she ended up at Theron's feet, staring up into her father's lifeless eyes, a flood of tears captured in her own refusing to fall, but she was certain that Gael's hands were on her shoulders, pulling her away.

  She tried to shrug them off.

  "He was mine," was all she could say, whether she meant mine to kill or her father didn't matter.

  "We have to get out of here," he told her, and Theron dropped the head into her hands.

  "Take it," he said. "The witch needs it, yes, she does, more than the city does now."

  Gael's hold grew insistent. "She's coming. We have to get Edulph out."

  Alaysha stared down at the white hair turned pink from blood. "She can't harm us here. She hasn't the power." Even as she spoke, she remembered Aislin's quick hand streaking a macabre red grin across Corrin's throat.

  Theron pushed at her. "The witch can't be seen with us when she comes, oh no, she can't. And she's coming. Oh yes she is. With another dozen men."

  Gael snorted derisively, and Theron touched him on the shoulder. "Men afraid of death have no other fear. The death you offer will be swift, but we know, oh yes we do, that her deliverance will be one of agony. Spare them if you can."

  "They're ours, then?"

  Theron smiled humorously. "They were ours."

  Alaysha wanted to rid herself of Yuri's head, and discovered it had made its way to entanglement within her fingers.

  "Take it for us, witch," Theron said.

  She couldn't look him in the eye. He looked so aggrieved. She sought out Aedus and noticed the girl had already unclothed several of the men of their tunics and had begun tying them together. Gael caught the direction of her glance and followed it with his own.

  "Help get him out of there," he told her. "Then take Theron."

  Without further word, he pushed Alaysha towards the pit, and with one last lingering look, captured her eyes with his. He said nothing more, just stepped behind Theron into the darkness of the middle tunnel.

  She knew he would face Aislin and her men, and she knew he would meet each one with all the strength he could, until he could no more.

  The clump in her throat would not go down no matter how much she swallowed and she had to work around it to speak, even if the words came out as nothing more than a whisper.

  "Let's not waste the time he gives us," she said to no one, then grabbed the end of the tunic rope Aedus had begun stringing. She missed the end at first because she couldn't see through for the tears.

  Chapter 26

  The journey from the crystal cavern and to the tunnel seemed the longest of her life. It was a sober, silent track punctuated only periodically by Edulph's mad outbursts. Alaysha began to wonder if he had enough mind left to lead them to the wind witch when the time came.

  Her heart ached. Her belly ached. Her eyes stung from unshed tears. She wondered as they rushed through the semi dark, whether loving anyone was worth all the pain she felt. Gael. Her father. Nohma. Her mother and a sister she never knew. She felt for Aedus's hand in the gloom and when it fastened on the small fingers, everything seemed more pronounced. What was the point even of living when everything could end so quickly?

  Time passed painfully slow. Each time Edulph babbled about war coming on with blind speed, Alaysha had to stifle a shiver; Aedus squeezed her hand. Theron kept his counsel until they approached the exit.

  "We need a few things, oh yes." He didn't bother to listen for sounds on the other side, merely pushed the door open with a groan. Alaysha was relieved to see the dank inside still being pure dank and not a light filled room with a dozen guards waiting.

  "We need to get to Saxa," she said, realizing other people she loved were still in the city. She felt the weight of her father's head in her hand, the softness of Aedus's palm in the other. She told herself her father deserved his death. Still. The strange chirping her chest made told her she had always hoped for something different. She squashed the feeling and felt her heart drop when Theron shook his head.

  "We can't get to her now. It's too late."

  Too late now, and here she was with three powerless lives in her hands at the expense of one great, powerful life. She wanted to choke.

  Theron pushed the shelves closed again to create a tight seal. To look at it, no one would know it was even there.

  Without a single word, he bustled about the room, lifting vials and jars and dropping them into a leather pouch. He waved them toward a staircase that led to a further, darker, and danker tunnel.

  "We do know another way." He stepped in, expecting them to follow. They filed behind him, unsure where they would end up. Alaysha pressed the others forward, taking the flank, squinting ahead in readiness.

  Again, they traveled without speaking. Alaysha's relief for the silence was nearly palatable past the taste of must and mould and old soil.

  Even so, she felt the despair building and had to focus on her breathing. The tunnel had started to feel too close and confined with the others' hot breath pushing out any fresh air. She grew uncomfortably constricted, like someone had sat on her chest.

  They were a somber group that found the end. Alaysha dropped to her haunches in the evening light. They had been roaming the tunnels for hours and her tongue was nothing but a parched bit of dried out leather. Her legs on the other hand felt like water. She could smell her father's death.

  "Do we have anything to drink?"

  Theron sent a furtive glance to his sandals and the veiny toes that protruded beneath his cassock.

  "Nothing, then." Alaysha let her eyelids ease closed. No water. No food. Three renegades with precious little skill, and Barruch abandoned to the Emir's stables. She tried to quell the unease that flirted with her stomach. To quiet the commotion in her mind, she took stock of what she knew, as she'd been taught those years ago during her warrior's training. Her father was dead. So too a sister she'd not known existed until Aislin had sent her to a pile of ash. Aislin and Yuri had been at some sort of subtle warfare, both for different reasons. She didn't want to look at her father's now ripening head, but she found she couldn't stop herself from peeking her eyes open and looking at it. It lay with its mouth open, eyes staring blindly forward.

  What might this shaman want with this head anyway?

  "Theron, tell me about your people."

  He looked at her with curiosity at first, as though he discovered he'd been caught at something very much like telling an untruth.

  "We are nearly the last of our people, oh yes."

  "I assume so. You are one of Saxa's tribe, oh yes?" She tried to catch his eye even as she mocked him. "Gael told me as much."

  "We were a boy when the conqueror came. How are we supposed to remember?"

  She looked at him suspiciously. "But you do. Don't you old man?" Alaysha moved to stand, an unconscious move that would threaten him in to speech. "What is the truth?"

  He said nothing at first, but reached for Yuri's head with a covert movement, twisted something from it and then rolled the remains into the cavern.

  "We've seen you collect the eyes of the unfortunate. Yes. Yes we have. We have watched and we have studied." He held out his palms to show two round globes that he pressed toward her. "The Emir believed you were doing his bidding, finding the count of the dead."

  "I was," she said, inching away from the offering. They looked like they would talk to her if she kept looking, they looked like the expressionless within would shift into something that could tell of the shock of their death, the finality of it. She didn't want to hear that, see that, or think about that.

  He shook his head. "You lie." He pressed her. "Where are the others?"

  She squirmed, knowing where they were, almost all of them, lying buried in her secret place just behind her in her home. "They are hidden."

  "These are part of Etlantium."

  Etlantium. She knew the word. She had told it to Aislin in the villag
e before the fire, without knowing the source of meaning. He seemed to find something useful in her expression and smiled.

  "The witch has heard it. Knows it."

  She shrugged. "Neither of those things is true."

  "It is true," he said and his expression fell from one of suspicious query to one of near reverence. He stood and bowed so low, Alaysha's confusion swept over her like a breeze.

  "Save your bows for the rightful heir of Sarum when he's rescued."

  She heard Edulph chuckling behind his gag and wanted to deliver a solid kick to his ribs. Aedus had taken to creeping closer along the ground so that she rested very near to the shaman. She tugged on his sleeve.

  "With Saxon gone, and Yuri dead, does that make Alaysha Emiri of Sarum?"

  Theron looked to be considering the question. "Tell me of Etlantium."

  What Etlantium had to do with being the ruler of Sarum, Alaysha didn't understand. "I know nothing of Etlantium."

  "Nothing. The witch's nohma didn't speak of it?"

  "If my nohma spoke of it, I buried the memory along with countless others." She couldn't help the coldness in her tone, or the sense of dread in her voice.

  "But the witch knows the word, yes. Yes she does."

  "It's in my memory." She didn't want to say how she had pulled it out. "What does it mean? And what do my father's eyes have to do it?"

  Theron dodged the question by standing as well. He inclined his head toward Edulph and Aedus. "There are always better times."

  Alaysha turned her back to him. "You're right. We need to get out of here." She knew the old shaman was reluctant to speak in front of two, but it didn't mean she didn't want to hear the rest. She sighed, looking toward the mountain, knowing Barruch was still in the stables being tended to by someone else's hand. She hated having to leave him behind.

  "One question before we go," she said to Theron. "Who do you think I am?"

  "The shaman grinned, showing his copper covered tooth. "You're either our savior or the death of us all."

  Chapter 27

  The death of us all. That rang in Alaysha's ears as they trudged through the forest. Ever mindful, she stayed at the flank end, letting the others find their way ahead of her. She knew they wouldn't get far on foot, but she was relieved to be relieved of Yuri's head. His eyes now rested in the shaman's pouch that hung from his belt. The larger bag, filled with bottles and vials, he carried in his fist. She knew the baggage was heavy for the old man, but neither could she take it from him. She needed to be ready if they were set upon from the rear.