“What do you think this place is?” Erich asked.
“I don’t know,” Ariel replied. “But it does seem like the sort of place they might have gathered, if his story was accurate. Though it looks like years since anyone has been here.”
Erich walked up to the spring and knelt down. But when he reached for the water, Astrid spoke up.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Why?”
“Places like this . . . I have never seen such a thing before, though I have read about them . . . such springs are often said to be enchanted.”
“Can you tell?”
The girls looked at each other.
“Sensing enchantments is more divination than naturalism,” Ariel said.
“But the spring? The two of you have undine blood in your veins.”
“This not a river,” Astrid said.
“Water is water, is it not?”
“For the most part,” she replied. “That is, if this is a natural spring.”
“Then see what you can tell. I do not want to go further if we are heading into a witches’ den.”
“I suppose we can try.”
Ariel and Astrid joined hands and closed their eyes. Erich watched for a moment, then glanced around them into the woods. Though it was mid-morning, the forest beyond the clearing was tenebrous and gloomy.
Finally the girls looked up at him.
“There is a power here,” Astrid said.
“What do you mean?”
“There are places in the world where the Flow moves more strongly than elsewhere, where it is concentrated.”
“Much like a spring,” Ariel said. “Just as water can flow freely from the ground like this, there are spots the Flow emerges into the world in a pure stream.”
Erich looked around the clearing, then back down at the spring.
“And this is such a spot?”
“Again, we have only read about these things,” Astrid said. “I have never seen one in person.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Ariel shook her head. “It is simply the Flow. It could be used for good or evil. But whatever a mage might do here would be enhanced, perhaps significantly.”
“But you can sense no evil?”
“No.”
“Though that may mean nothing,” Astrid said.
“There are ways of concealing ill omens,” Ariel continued. “A skilled diviner could peer through them, but we cannot.”
Erich looked around again.
“Just the sort of place a group of witches would meet, it would seem.”
Astrid cringed. “Or any sort of mages. I told you I do not like that word.”
Erich rubbed her shoulder. “I am sorry. I am just thinking of the story.”
Ariel knelt down beside the ring of stones and looked into the water. The pool was clear and no more than two or three feet across, yet somehow she could not quite make out the bottom of it.
“Ariel . . .” Astrid said.
“I’m just looking.”
But she could sense something more here, something that seemed to call to her from the water. Before she even thought to do it, her hand was reaching out. Her fingers touched the surface—
—and the heat was sweltering. The trees, heavy with summer foliage, seemed to press down upon her. The damp smell of the humus and detritus of the forest was thick in her nostrils.
Around her were half a dozen spindly legged creatures, none more than three feet tall. Arms like the twigs of the branches overhead, eyes as dull and dead as the stones around the pool.
Killcrops all, soulless things of walking flesh. Her spirit children.
One held forth a squirming human babe, wrapped in a fine embroidered blanket. She realized with a shock that it was a girl with pale blonde hair.
For a moment, she stood there wondering if something had changed in the long enchantment. She extended her hands, drawing the Flow from the pool. Unlike all other mages, unlike any who were not mystics, she could see the Flow around her, see the bright swirling violet and indigo streams as they rose from the water.
She wove them together around the baby, hoping. But the weave failed to take shape. This was the wrong child.
“Fools,” she spat. “Vermin. This is not the one I sent you for.”
The killcrops staggered away from her in fear, each trying to hide behind the one beside it. The lone creature holding the babe struggled to hold its ground, unsure what to do.
“Return it! It is of no use to me.”
She spun away from them, her raven hair swirling around her face. The killcrops continued to murmur and chitter to each other. She realized the one with the babe was still standing behind her. Her green eyes flashed venomously at it.
“Return it! Get it out of my sight!”
“But where, Mother? Where shall we take it?”
Killcrops, being soulless, were fundamentally stupid, unable to follow any but the most simple of commands or remember anything they had been told more than a few hours before. This was why they could not find the child she sent them for.
“Back to its family. Anywhere! Leave it at the church if you cannot find your way!”
The killcrops scattered, disappearing into the forest. She sat on one of the stones beside the pool, rubbing her forehead in frustration.
The heat was overpowering her. She reached down, seeking water to cool her face—
—and she was being pulled backwards away from the pool, the sudden chill in the air shocking her. A tall man and a blonde woman were grappling with her, and she reached out for the Flow in the pool, preparing a deadly enchantment to drive them away.
Only to realize all at once it was Erich and her sister kneeling beside her.
“Ariel! Ariel!” Astrid cried. “What were you doing?”
She opened her mouth to answer them—and could not.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you all right?” Erich asked.
Ariel shook her head to clear the lingering effects of the vision.
“I think so.” She looked up at him. “What was I doing?”
“You were about to plunge your head under the water,” he said. “Only the look on your face . . . it was as if you were somewhere else.”
“This place is enchanted,” Astrid said. “I want to get out of here.”
Ariel struggled to her feet, managing a wary glance at the pool.
“So do I.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Erich asked again.
“Yes,” she lied. Ariel nodded, trying to convince herself. It almost worked.
Erich fetched the horses. He looked forward, where the path continued narrowly into the woods, then back the way they had come.
“I am wary of going on this direction. But if we turn back, we will have lost hours. Making it to Marburg before dark may be difficult, and I do not want to spent the night in these woods.”
Ariel stepped forward, looking down the path. Her head was still foggy, but there was something else here she wanted to see.
“We should go on,” she said.
Erich’s forehead creased. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Then Astrid gasped. “Ariel, your ring.”
She glanced down at her wedding ring. The sapphire Erich had given her, the mate to the one on Astrid’s hand—both of which had glowed weakly blue since their wedding—now displayed a distinct violet luminescence.
Ariel looked over at Astrid’s ring. Her stone had not changed. Astrid took her sister’s hand, looking back and forth between her ring and Ariel’s. Then she looked up.
“What happened to you in that spring?”
The memory of the vision was already fading, and it fought Ariel’s efforts to keep hold of it. There were—things. And a baby. And—
“I can’t remember now,” she said finally.
“That’s it,” Erich said. “We’re getting out of here. Forward or backward, but we’re getting out.”
“Bu
t which way?” Astrid asked.
Erich cursed under his breath, glancing back and forth between the two exits. Then he stepped across the clearing.
“Forward. Surely the main road cannot be much farther.”
8.
GIANCARLO AND HIS BAND—now increased by one—rode hard the first two days out from Weilburg, stopping in the town of Wetzlar the first night, where inquiries revealed that Erich and his wives had indeed passed through only two days before. At Hans’ suggestion, they had turned north along the trade road at Gießen; Hans had insisted this was the best route toward Wittenberg. Knowing Erich to be an experienced traveler and mercenary who would likely stick to the main roads, Giancarlo had agreed this seemed the most probable route.
But though a farmer they talked to north of Gießen recalled seeing a man riding with two beautiful, identical women two days before, the trail went cold soon afterward. The next person they spoke to, an innkeeper in a little village along the river a mile or so further on, claimed he had seen no riders matching that description, only a finely dressed older woman travelling in a carriage with three guards, who had passed through without stopping. Several others in the inn confirmed the innkeeper’s story. No one, it seemed, had seen Erich and the women.
“Could we have ridden past them somehow?” Hans asked when the four of them sat down to a round of ale.
Giancarlo shook his head, though more in frustration than disagreement. He wanted to say no, but this was becoming a pattern in chasing after Erich von Jülich-Berg.
“If they had reached this village,” Tomas said, “someone would have seen them. A group like that would draw eyes.”
Hans nodded. As new as all this was to him, he knew it would be difficult for Ariel and Astrid to travel anywhere without being noticed.
Giancarlo saw a toothless old man approaching their table nervously, mug in hand. A moment later, the others looked up, following his gaze.
“What do you need, friend?” Giancarlo asked.
The man looked down at his mug—it was empty—and shook it gently.
Hans (who would go to bed that night wondering where this remark had come from) spoke up. “Why should we refill your mug, old man?”
The other three glanced at him, then back at the other man, awaiting the answer.
“This man you seek,” he said, “was he a bold one? A man in a hurry, who might take shortcuts?”
Giancarlo’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps.”
The old man again extended his mug, and this time, Giancarlo motioned to the barmaid to refill it. When she had, the old man sat down.
“There is a forest trail,” he began, “which cuts across the bend in the river to the south of here. It is a shorter route than the main road, though a more dangerous one, I have heard. But perhaps your man took it.”
“Where does it rejoin the road?” Giancarlo asked.
“No more than a quarter of a mile north,” the man replied. “Look for where the river bends, you will see the path emerge in the dale between two hills to your right.”
“You said it was dangerous,” Hans said.
The old man grinned as best he could with no teeth. “Indeed, my impertinent young pup. Perhaps a bit too dangerous for one as smooth cheeked as you. I have heard many stories of those woods over the years, though I have been down that trail only once and only a short way. There are enchantments and darker things to be found there, so it is said.”
“A place mages might go?” Giancarlo asked.
“Mages?” the man asked. “Witches, you mean?”
“Mages. Of any sort.”
The old man regarded Giancarlo warily. “There are said to be witches in the woods hereabouts, yes.”
Giancarlo looked to his men.
Heinrich shrugged. “It’s worth a look.”
“Whatever you think, capo,” Tomas said.
Hans realized when the other three looked at him that his opinion was desired as well. He drew himself up in his chair.
“Someone would have seen them had they stayed to the road. Perhaps Ariel and Astrid wanted to explore the woods, if they are indeed enchanted as he says.”
Giancarlo nodded. “Let’s go.”
THEY FOUND the trail right where the old man told them to look, emerging from amongst the trees in a small valley where the Lahn went around a bend. There was another farm along the road here, and the farmer insisted he had seen no one emerge from the trail in a long time—and in fact seemed disturbed by the very question.
Bracing themselves, the four of them entered the trail. It soon turned south around a hill, and the forest rapidly became dense enough to blot out the sky above. Giancarlo rode in the lead, with Hans behind him and Tomas and Heinrich bringing up the rear.
After crossing a small stream, the trail climbed a hill, switching back and forth as it rose. Halfway up, they were forced to dismount and lead their horses, for the branches above had become too dense.
Hans felt his stomach knotting up in fear as they crested the hill and descended into a narrow valley. The dim light from overhead grew dimmer, and the normal forest sounds seemed to have vanished. The air here was cold and damp, and he tugged his fine coat—which was rapidly losing its fine appearance to snags against branches and thorns—tighter around his shoulders.
The trail turned down the valley, descending slowly along the ridge instead of switching back. Several times, Giancarlo stopped and looked around, frowning, then went on again.
In a few minutes, they reached the bottom of the valley where another narrow stream ran through a rocky defile. When Giancarlo stopped at the stream, Hans moved around him to get a better look. He stepped on a branch buried in the leaves, feeling it crack as he did so. He glanced down—and realized it was not a branch he had stepped on.
It was a bone.
A long bone, green with moss and decay.
Giancarlo heard his gasp and looked over. He stepped next to Hans and kicked at the macabre discovery.
“Is it an animal’s?” Hans asked.
Giancarlo shoved the leaves aside with the tip of his boot.
“That is a man’s leg bone, if ever I have seen one.”
He poked around further in the detritus. There were more bones hidden underneath. After a few moments, he uncovered the skull.
The other three circled around him. Hans did his best not to cringe.
“That has been here a while,” Tomas finally said.
“Yes,” Giancarlo answered. “But it could be anything. A farmer falling down that hill. Someone who became lost on this trail.”
Tomas rolled the skull over with his foot. Angled across the back was long, sharply defined split, one that the blade of an axe or sword would have fit neatly into.
“Or not,” Giancarlo said. He looked up, searching the woods around them.
“Be on your guard. Let’s keep moving.”
IN THE END, it was not they who found Erich and his wives, but Erich and the women who found them. And that was a good thing.
The creatures that attacked them were entirely silent. One moment Hans was walking behind Heinrich, and the next there was a thin-legged thing—almost like a fleshy spider with a child’s head—on the man’s back, cutting his throat with a slender knife.
As Heinrich fell, blood spurting from the gaping wound in his neck, Hans stood there frozen as if he were watching the scene on a stage. Up ahead of him, Giancarlo had drawn his sword and was slashing at two of the creatures that had dropped from the trees above.
As the horses scattered in alarm, Hans watched as the thing that had killed Heinrich rose from the body and turned in his direction. Still he could not seem to move.
Hans realized he was about to die.
At the last possible moment, his arm became unfrozen, and he drew his rapier just in time to impale the creature as it leapt at him. Snarling and clawing at him despite the blade through its chest, the thing tore a long gash on Hans’ arm. But then Hans thrust forward, pushing it away, an
d it was dead.
He spun around just in time to see three of the things finishing off Tomas, stabbing him repeatedly with their knives.
Hans froze again. He might have killed one, but he could not see how he could possibly take on three of them. Then one of the things rose and sprang at him, and he somehow caught this one as well, running his rapier through its neck.
With that, Hans could take no more. He turned and ran toward Giancarlo, who had killed the two small creatures before him but now faced something much larger. Hans was at first taken aback, thinking it was a tall, almost skeletal man, dressed in fine clothes more suited for court. Then he realized the thing’s skin was rough bark, and its fine breeches and waistcoat were leaves and moss woven to resemble human clothes. It was nearly seven feet tall, towering over Giancarlo, whose rapier was doing it no appreciable damage. It was all the mercenary captain could do to keep the thing at bay and avoid its slashing claws.
That was when a dark form appeared behind the wood-thing, and Giancarlo cried out in alarm.
PAST THE CLEARING, the trail climbed gently, though the forest grew even darker and denser, to the point that Ariel wondered if they had lost track of time and the sun was setting.
The ground was damp and thick with moss, mushrooms, and other fungi, the stones slick with moisture. More than once, she slipped briefly on the ground and had to grab at Erich or her horse for balance.
Erich’s face became grim, and he loosened his war knife in its scabbard as she had seen him do before when he expected trouble. She reached for her dagger at her belt, doing the same, though she was still not sure she would be able to use it if the time for that ever came.
The woods were silent. She saw nothing moving around them, neither birds nor animals. She reached behind her and took Astrid’s hand briefly.
“Can you sense anything?”
“Just the same power as in the clearing. It has spread through here as well.”
She felt the same thing. “Yes.”
Then Erich froze, stopping so suddenly that Ariel walked into his back.
“Listen.”
Ariel heard someone cry out ahead, then sounds of movement, metal striking wood.
The Witches' Covenant (Twin Magic Book 2) Page 6