Winter Witch

by Elaine Cunningham

  “Sif, don’t!” Jadrek ran toward them, but he was too far away to stop her. All she had to do was strike once, and at least one of her betrayers would pay.

  Yet Ellasif hesitated. Something meaner than any trick she had ever used in battle growled up from the pit of her heart. She held the sword in both hands, the point inches from Olenka’s throat as she locked her gaze to Jadrek’s.

  “Stop,” she said, and he obeyed. “Go back, or I will kill her in front of you.”

  “Sif—”

  “Never call me that!” she yelled.

  His mouth moved, but he backed away, his eyes on Ellasif’s face until the last moment, when his gaze fell to Olenka, who lay staring at the sky, awaiting her death. He turned and ran back toward White Rook.

  When he was out of sight, Ellasif stepped away and sheathed her sword. Olenka could crawl back to the village, but with her wounded knee, she would not be able to follow her former friend. Ellasif turned and ran along the river.

  She ran no more than a quarter of a mile before she saw the marks beside river. For a moment she dared to hope Liv had not only survived the drowning but retained the strength to pull herself onto the bank, but no. She saw from the signs that someone had pulled Liv out of the water here. There were footprints approaching from the north, not so large as those left by the biggest of the Ulfen warriors, but probably those of a man rather than a woman. Here he had knelt beside a swath of wet grass that could only be where he had pulled Liv from the water.

  Could he have revived her? Was he a healer? It was a faint hope, but to Ellasif it felt like the sun appearing from behind winter clouds.

  The man’s tracks returned the way they had come, only this time they were accompanied by a trail of irregular gaps in the frost that Ellasif took for water dripping from Liv’s robe.

  She followed the trail a mile farther. How long had it been since they threw Liv in the river? Why had Ellasif not yet overtaken a man carrying a woman whose clothes were drenched in river water? He was not unduly large, judging from the footprints. Ellasif should have spied him already, but soon she found the reason. Liv’s rescuer had met something on his return.

  The newcomer’s tracks were clawed and four times larger than a man’s, each leaving an inch-deep depression in the hard spring soil.

  It could only be a troll.

  After an instant of despair, Ellasif realized there was no blood. She prayed that her sister was yet uneaten. Perhaps Liv’s rescuer had summoned the monster to convey her elsewhere—but of course one who could summon a troll was not likely to be a village healer.

  The man’s tracks had vanished, so Ellasif guessed that the monster carried him as well, or else he had some other means of travel. Perhaps flight, if he were a witch, as Ellasif was beginning to suspect and even to hope. How strange to hope for a witch, when all her kin were set on slaying witches, even those born to their own village.

  Ellasif ran after the troll’s footprints. If it came to a fight, she knew she was no match for such a monster, not without half a dozen warriors by her side. But she also knew she would rather die avenging her sister than return to beg for help.

  She traveled all day, running when she could, trudging along the river when she could not. When the edge of the sun touched the horizon, she fell to the ground. She lay there until long after the last of the reflected light evaporated from the western clouds, and then she rose and followed the tracks by moonlight. The morning sun had melted the last of the spring frost by the time Ellasif entered the easternmost reaches of the Grungir Forest and followed the troll’s path inside.

  She smelled the place before she saw it. The wholesome odor of roasting flesh mingled with the stench of an open grave. She spied the withered remains of butchered corpses impaled on pine stakes, each little more than a skeleton and a gauze of skin dancing on the breeze after cannibals harvested the meat. The gruesome totems formed a wide ring around a clearing.

  Around a central fire pit stood two massive tables, each stained with blood and scarred with axe-strokes. A pair of lean trolls crouched over a cauldron hanging above the fire. One of them peered inside, smacked his lips dismissively, and stalked away into the western woods in search of fresh prey. The other poked a long wooden spoon into the pot, stirred it once, and coughed before laying its misshapen head upon its crossed arms. Whatever lay within the vessel was unappealing even to such monsters.

  The smell of roast flesh came from a tight cluster of pine trees that lay on the far side of the clearing. Their trunks grew together in a rough oval that could not have been arranged by chance or nature. Some powerful druid or witch had commanded them into such an array, forming what Ellasif imagined was an enormous house, larger than the mead hall at White Rook. The trunks were bare of branches until a height of perhaps fifteen feet, where the boughs formed a continuous eave around the perimeter. The ground beneath the overhang was covered in a thick layer of bark harvested from other trees. If not for the bone wind chimes dangling from the high branches, Ellasif might have assumed it was the home of a druid or fey creature.

  Ellasif felt certain Liv was inside the house of pines, but there were no windows through which to spy the inhabitants. She prayed her sister was still alive. The thought that Liv might be the source of the savory odor emanating from the house made Ellasif feel sick to her stomach.

  A simple bell pull emerged near a crease on the side of the odd house nearest the fire pit. The trunks bulged to either side of the crease, like bruised lips just beginning to turn green at the edges. Ellasif had never witnessed any magic more spectacular than her own sister’s intuitions that one of the village girls was pregnant before the girl herself knew, but she knew this was a magic door. Some charm or magic phrase would open it. Perhaps it was simply a matter of pulling the bell, but she could not even do that before dealing with the troll that remained beside the fire.

  The scheme, such as it was, came to her in a flash. She crept as quickly as she dared around the grove, confirming her first impression that there were no obvious entrances to the house of pines. To the northeast the ground declined into a shallow gully that became a sharp ravine farther to the north. A huge, gnarled bristlecone pine gripped the edge of the embankment, its hollow bole forming an ideal hiding place. Ellasif picked up a few of the previous year’s cones from the ground, each as heavy as a stone. She slipped back to just within hearing of the grove.

  She grunted like a rooting pig.

  She paused to listen but heard nothing but distant birdsong. She repeated the guttural snort, adding a flourish of boar-like snuffling.

  The iron cauldron rang against the stones of the fire pit, and she heard the troll’s first heavy footfalls move in her direction.

  Ellasif ran along the gulley. There was no need to pause and listen, for the troll’s steps drummed the ground and shook the needles from the trees. As she reached the point where the gully sank into a ragged-edged crevasse, Ellasif uttered another loud porcine grunt and flung the first of the pine cones ten yards or so ahead of her. She darted inside the bole of the tree.

  The troll crashed into the ravine, landing just a few feet from Ellasif’s shelter. There it paused, sniffing the air. Ellasif wished she had bathed before attempting this ploy, but she resisted the urge to smell herself. She held her breath and thought a silent prayer to Desna: Lady Luck, please let this stupid monster run farther.

  And so it did, taking a few tentative steps along the ravine before stopping to sniff again. Ellasif knew it had to have caught a whiff of her. She watched as the brute’s squat head rotated left, then right as it scanned its surroundings. She leaned as far as she dared out of her shelter and lobbed the second pine cone high above the troll’s shoulder. It descended in a perfect arc, narrowly avoiding a bare pine branch to crash noisily in the ravine ahead.

  The troll lunged toward the sound, leaning forward to run four-limbed on its knuckles. Som
ething ahead bolted from cover and ran to the north. It did not sound like a boar, but the troll was past caring. The monster careened through the forest, knocking the younger trees aside in its reckless course.

  Ellasif ran back to the charnel grove. She struck the swollen crease in the tree with her hand. She kicked it. She drew her sword and thrust the point into the crack. She did not think these crude efforts would succeed, but she had to try something before trying the obvious, stupid option. She pulled the bell string.

  Seconds later, the pine trunks parted like a blossoming bud. A balding man dressed in rags put his face close to hers and smiled. His teeth were filed to perfectly triangular points, and his breath was rancid. He said something in a sibilant voice, but Ellasif looked past him. Inside his strange house of living pines, bound to the opposite wall by thick, finger-like branches, was Liv. Her gray gown had dried upon her, and she sagged helplessly in the grip of the enchanted wooden manacles, but her slender chest moved with respiration.

  Ellasif’s sword was in her hand, but before she could raise it to separate the warlock’s head from his body, a voice called out behind her. Not a voice, exactly, but the human-like cry of a bird. Against her better judgment, Ellasif turned to see the source of the cry.

  An enormous white raven perched at the edge of one of the butcher tables. Ellasif blinked. It was not a bird, but a white-haired woman of forty or fifty years. She wore a snow-white gown with pale blue bracers at each wrist. Bronze discs, each set with a blue gem, hung from a chain draped around her shoulders. On her hip hung a heavy dagger sheathed in thick blue hide, and she held a staff carved with the head of a bearded Ulfen warrior wearing a horned crown.

  “The sister,” she said in a tone of pleasant surprise. Her eyes were fixed on Ellasif’s face, her lips half parted as she smiled. She lifted her arm, and Ellasif’s sword was suddenly in the raven-woman's hand. She admired the blade as if she recognized it. “Ellasif Maritsdotter.”

  “You are free with my name,” said Ellasif. She tried not to let her astonishment show on her face. Before she could think of something else bold to say, she felt the warlock’s breath on her neck and kicked his insole. As he reached for his foot, she smashed his nose with her elbow. She grabbed his neck and threw him to the ground before him.

  “Mistress,” groaned the warlock, writhing on the bark floor. “I have captured the girl as you bade me.”

  The white witch threw back her head. Her laugh was the tinkle of shattering ice. “So I see,” she said. “You are pathetic, Szigo. But today you have served me.”

  “Served you how?” demanded Ellasif. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I am Mareshka Zarumina,” said the woman. “And what I want, your barbaric tribe casts away. Your sister belongs to me now.”

  “No,” Ellasif stated firmly. She heard Szigo whispering at her feet and kicked him in the belly, stifling whatever spell he had been trying to utter. “Let my sister go, and I’ll release this dog of yours.”

  Mareska laughed again. Despite the creases on her face, her voice was youthful. Then her blue eyes turned the color of frost, and she rapped her staff upon the ground. Thick antlers grew from her brow as the blank eyes of the staff’s head blazed white. Ellasif took a step toward her, but Mareshka uttered a single syllable, and Ellasif froze in place.

  A cold sheath of ice encased Ellasif’s body. She could not budge a muscle, and all the forest sounds were muted, as though she were submerged in water. She could still move her eyes, and she watched as Mareshka stroked Szigo’s balding head and stood him up beside her. The warlock leered at Ellasif, licking his lips as his eyes stroked her body not with lust, but with hunger.

  The witch whispered something in his ear, and the warlock’s expression changed from imminent satisfaction to horror and hurt.

  “But I’m hungry,” Szigo whined.

  Mareshka’s only answer was mocking laughter. She raised an arm above her head, and from the corner of her eye Ellasif saw—or thought she saw—the wing of an enormous white bird. She could not turn her head to see more.

  Ellasif felt herself pulled down into a cold and breathless darkness. She imagined this was how Liv had felt when she had been thrust into the icy currents of the river. The difference, Ellasif knew, was that no one would come to her own rescue. She would drown alone.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Charnel Grove

  Wake up, sent Skywing.

  Declan raised his head with a start. His chin had been on his shoulder, and without the dragon’s warning, he was certain he would have woken only after he’d slid off his saddle. That Skywing might have cast a spell to protect him from cracking open his skull was small consolation. Since he was the only one mounted after a full day’s hard travel, the humiliation alone might have killed him.

  Since they had left the Varisians, Declan had been riding Majeed Nores’ gray stallion, but the Ulfen warriors ran on either side of the horse, seemingly tireless. Declan marveled at their endurance, not to mention their size. Even Olenka was an inch or two taller than he, and the red-haired warrior woman was the shortest of the band. Ellasif must have felt like a gnome among these giants. No wonder she had become such a cunning warrior. What she lacked in mass, she more than made up in dirty tricks.

  The six Ulfen had remained with the survivors of the Varisian caravan only long enough to help bandage the injured. They ignored Viland Balev’s furious demands for an explanation until his anger dissolved into grudging thanks for their intervention. Only then did Jadrek speak to the captain in the common tongue, his words lilting with his Ulfen accent.

  “Now that Szigo has taken her, the trolls will trouble you no more,” he said. “Think no more of her. We will find her.”

  “What do you want with Ellasif?” Declan demanded before Balev could reply.

  Jadrek looked down at the Korvosan. He paused as if considering whether it was worth his breath to answer, but then he said, “To bring her home. To her people.”

  She doesn’t want to go home, thought Declan. She wants to find her sister. But he didn’t need another look at the stern faces of the Ulfen to realize it was better not to say so. Instead, he said, “I’m going with you.”

  One of the Ulfen warriors barked a laugh of disbelief, but Jadrek frowned and reappraised Declan with a hard stare. “Why?”

  “Because she needs rescue,” said Declan. “Because she is my friend.”

  Jadrek considered that answer while Declan said his goodbyes to the Varisians. Balev was as gracious as he could manage under the circumstances, but Declan sensed he was glad to be rid of the other stranger in his midst. If Ellasif had been the cause of the troll attack, he had to be wondering what trouble the Korvosan wizard might bring them.

  Life was much easier when he wasn’t a wizard. Declan wondered whether he could ever shed that name again, especially now that he planned to run into the northern woods in search of a warlock with trolls for minions. There was no way he could succeed without using every last spell he could cram into his brain.

  The seven Ulfen warriors were having a heated debate in their own language. Whatever its substance, the others reluctantly accepted Jadrek’s decision.

  “Try to keep up,” Jadrek said. He turned and ran toward the east.

  Declan mounted his horse and grasped the reins of Ellasif’s pony. He almost smiled at Jadrek’s challenge, but within moments he realized it was no boast. The Ulfen warriors traveled lightly, their packs half the size of one of his. They set a quick pace through the trees, loping away toward the east. Declan could barely keep them in sight as he guided the stallion and led the pony through the wood. Once they were clear, Declan urged the horse into a gallop across the rolling plains to catch up with them. Even afterward, he had to keep moving at a brisk trot for the rest of the day. He kept expecting the pony to balk, but the feisty thing seemed more than willing to come along.
All the while, the northerners ran steadily, their eyes fixed upon the edge of the Grungir Forest.

  When Declan asked where they were headed, the Ulfen threw him dark glances. They muttered prayers to Gorum, the Lord in Iron, as they touched the hafts of their weapons. One drew the wings of Desna over his heart, and Declan realized that one, at least, did not trust his battle prowess alone to overcome whatever it was they expected to find in the forest.

  Shortly before dusk, Jadrek made a sign, and the band veered north toward a creek trickling into the forest. Half of the Ulfen threw themselves prone to drink while the other three scanned the gloaming horizon. Declan slid down to stretch his legs.

  A squirrel ran up a nearby tree. Declan had seen plenty of wildlife throughout the afternoon. Geese had passed above them, honking as they rose from one pond to find another. Does and their fawns raised their heads as the humans crossed the fields where they grazed, never so close as to startle the beasts to flight. Far to the west, a trio of boars rooted for yams at the edge of the forest.

  Skywing flew down to perch on the saddle horn. Instantly, two blades sang out from their scabbards, and Jadrek lifted his warhammer above his head. The Ulfen that had been drinking leaped up into defensive crouches, their hands on their weapons. All were poised to strike the little drake.

  “It’s all right!” Declan called out, raising his hands to beg for peace. “This is Skywing. He’s my ...pet.”

  Nobody’s pet, sent Skywing with an emotion like indignation. Under different circumstances, it might have made Declan smile to have ruffled the drake’s pride, but something had held him back from repeating the ruse that Skywing was his familiar. Despite employing spells in defense of the caravan, he was not quite ready to go around introducing himself as a wizard.

  “What manner of beast is that?” asked Jadrek.

  “A little drake,” said Declan, avoiding the word “dragon.” He did not trust that the Ulfen would believe Skywing would grow no larger. “They are common in Korvosa.”