Blood Magic

by Matthew Cook

  I looked about. The cottage was simple and sturdy, but if I were to play the part, I should look it. Still smiling at my own cleverness, I rose to make my preparations.

  Chapter Eleven

  Almost an hour passes before I hear them. Footsteps and quiet conversation from the road. Of boots splashing through the mud. I check the undergrowth and nod, satisfied that I cannot be seen.

  A few moments later, they emerge from the endless green, one form swaddled in browns and grays, a hooked staff held before him, the other clad in shining white silks under a rich cloak of sky blue.

  "Really, Lia, you should put this behind you,” Ato insists, his words perfectly clear. “You saw what she called—what she consorts with. Women like her will pay for their transgressions one day, in this world if not the next. When that happens, you do not want to be there to witness it."

  I see the other form nod, but she does not speak. Ato waits for a moment, then when no reply is forthcoming, sighs. The pair walk on, past my concealing spot. I can still hear their footfalls long after they disappear around a curve in the road.

  When the sounds of their passage have faded, I rise and move to follow. I send out a call to my sweetlings, then wait. Soon, they emerge from the wet greenery.

  Of the children I summoned at Fort Azure, only two remain. One was called from the body of Laru, a quiet soldier I seldom spoke to. A Mor hammer ended his first life, staving in his ribs like a strong man would crush a wicker basket, and this injury shows in his reborn form, ribs protruding from his leathery flesh.

  The other is none other than Hollern, the man who nearly lead me to my death. The man that, through his incompetence, killed Jazen Tor.

  The sweetling I have summoned from his body is larger than most, almost four feet tall, if it ever managed the trick of standing erect. The face is unmarked; Hollern died with a Mor blade in his heart, his life blood boiling from within. The eyes, however, are not the placid opal that I am accustomed to, but rather are a rusty black, filmed with hemorrhaged, congealed blood. It was this one that showed such surprising skill in the wood, earlier. That has somehow managed the trick of moving quietly thorough the green rather than blundering.

  The thing that was Hollern watches me, awaiting my pleasure, its mouth half open. The gums have retreated, their tissues already drying and hardening, turning the teeth into yellowed fangs. It shuffles forward a bit, heavy claws dragging in the mud.

  "They should be far enough ahead by now,” I tell them. I know that words are not necessary, but speaking to them makes me feel a bit less lonely.

  I start down the road, the children falling in behind me.

  I follow for the better part of the day, ears and eyes alert for signs. Of them, or something else. It would not do to blunder into a Mor patrol.

  By midafternoon the trees are thinning; we are coming to the end of the forest. I know this road descends to the rolling foothills that lead to the edge of the great cliff and wall of the Armitage, still three days away. Between here and there, the road passes Fort Jasper.

  The last time I passed this way, almost two years ago, this was a fertile land, dotted with settlements and farm holds, the road well patrolled and maintained. Every crossroad hosted an inn, their courtyards always crowded with horses and carriages, their rooms filled with travelers.

  Now, looking down across the land, I see the destruction the Mor have wrought.

  The rainy air is filled with the smell of burning. Columns of weary smoke rise from a score of places, each marking the location of a burning farmhouse or granary.

  I stop at the edge of the trees, eyes scanning for movement, and eventually I see them. Two forms moving along the road, one dark, one light. I wonder if I should just move along behind them and see if Ato and Lia would chose to flee or stand lest they spot me.

  I choose to wait for distance to make me invisible. I do not fear Brother Ato's power, nor that of his goddess. I do not even fear Lia's command of the Elementals. All they can do is kill me; I do not know why I hesitate.

  Eventually, I lose sight of them amongst the rolling foothills, and break cover. I trot down the road, my children pacing me easily. We could run for days like this. My life, first as a wise woman and later as a trapper and scout, has hardened me in ways I could never have imagined.

  The road is a quagmire, little more than parallel wagon ruts filled with rainwater. Without the trees to shelter me from the misting rain, my cloak grows sodden and heavy. My leathers keep the worst of the wet off my skin, but I am glad for the warmth imparted by my continued movement.

  Hours later, night darkens the western sky. I hear the sound of many voices ahead. The cries of children, the helpless keening of women newly widowed and the angry shouts of men, make me wary. I command my sweetlings to leave the road, and lie in the ditch beside it, amongst a tangle of fallen bodies.

  Hollern, or what he has become, looks at me for a long moment, ignoring the command. His fearsome head cocks as he regards me, his rusty black eyes placid, but somehow challenging. I frown; my children have never disobeyed me before.

  I repeat the command, whispering it aloud this time. For a moment, I fear he will disregard me again, but then he drops his gaze, moves to join his brother in the ditch.

  When they are settled, I move along the road. The glow of many campfires is bright in the newly minted dark. I look around, wondering if the Mor are nearby, praying that they are not. The glow can be seen for miles, reflecting from the bellies of the overhanging clouds.

  I reach the encampment. Refugees. Dozens of them. An impromptu tent city has sprung up around the ruins of a burned-out farmstead.

  Many of the inhabitants are women. Women alone, red-eyed and hopeless. Women carrying children, faces haggard, pleading for them to be still, to please, please be quiet. Young women and middle-aged. Very few are old. The old, I know, cannot run very fast, and so are easy prey.

  There are only a few men folk in evidence, no more than a dozen, all told. They stand near the fire, talking loudly.

  Many bear improvised weapons, implements that were farm tools just yesterday, less than useless.

  These men must have run away before the Mor reached their homes, choosing to abandon their homes and fields rather than fight. Doubtless, the ones that fought lie, unburied and burnt, where they fell.

  Stragglers are still arriving, survivors drawn by the light of the fires. I slip into camp, head bent inside my hood. In the darkness, my deformity will not be noticeable, I hope.

  Soon, I come to a tent. Moans of pain and sobbing float out through the open flaps. All around lie the bodies of the sick and hurt, sprawled on the muddy ground. Some lie perfectly still. Others have covered faces.

  I peer through the open flap and see Ato inside, hard at work. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing thick hairy forearms. The priest is spattered with crimson from chest to belly, his gore-smeared apron as red as a butcher's. I wonder why he does not just invoke his goddess's power. Why he does not dispel the pain and the terrible injuries with a wave of his crosier. Is he not charged with healing all sickness and injury that come into his sight?

  A moment later he moves deeper into the tent, and I cannot see him. I cast about, searching for Lia, but she is nowhere to be found.

  Fingers pluck at my leg, and I look down, into the bloodshot eyes of a child. A little girl lies in the mud, her head swaddled in dark-stained bandages. One eye is covered, and on that side I see that her mouth is a split ruin. Her arm lies beside her, twisted.

  "Please...” she whispers, the word barely heard over the surrounding din. “Water."

  Her mother sits beside her, looking at me with empty, hopeless eyes. I move to the table beside the tent, where a bucket sits, ladle out a portion of the water within, then carry it back. She raises herself, grimacing in pain, and sips.

  "We need to set that arm, dear heart,” I say, setting the ladle aside. “It will make you feel better. Do you trust me?"

  The little girl's
pain-filmed eye meets mine. I wait for her to flinch away, but a moment later she nods. A ghost of a smile touches those pain-wracked lips.

  Delicately, I explore the injury, my wise fingers telling me the story. No bones have been shattered, but her shoulder has separated, the bone floating free from its socket. It must be put back in, and soon, lest the injury swell further and make repair impossible.

  I take a blanket from a dead man, exposing his ruined face, cleft in twain by a Mor's burning blade. He will not need it.

  "I need your help,” I say to the mother. “You have to help me help her.” She ignores me, staring at the ground, her face impassive, empty.

  My slap fills the air, the sharp sound drawing the eyes of those nearby. I grab her shoulders. “You have to help me hold her. Can you hear me?” The others turn away, lost in their own troubles.

  The mother's eyes clear, as she returns from wherever she has been. She puts her hand on her reddened cheek, and frowns. “I hear you,” she says.

  I wrap the blanket, twisted into a cylinder like a rope, around the girl's chest, and hand the mother the ends. “You must hold her tight. Don't let go, and don't stop, even if she screams. This will hurt her, but it will all turn out all right, I promise. Lean back, and pull as hard as you can."

  Mother nods, and grasps the blanket. I wrap the girl's wrist in my hands, gripping it tight. A moment later, it is done. The girl utters one piercing shriek and then falls unconscious.

  I rotate the arm, feeling the play of bone and muscle. There will be much swelling, and the tendons feel a bit torn, but she is young, and the injury should heal.

  The head wound is another story. Something cut her scalp deeply, the flap of hair falling down in a freshet of blood when I unwrap the bandage. I know that cautery is called for, that the heat will help to drive out the infection already beginning to grow inside her flesh, but I do not think she would survive it.

  I settle for stitching the wound closed. I do the best I can, bathing the gash in boiled wine before sewing the angry lips together. I do not have anything I can use as bandages, must content myself with boiling her soiled one in the remains of the wine before winding it back around her head.

  Ato might have fresh supplies in the tent, but I dare not enter, dare not ask.

  When I have done all I can, I move to the next of the wounded, a woman, blind eyes turned up to the heavens, whispering prayers. A Mor blade has carved a tremendous chunk from her side and belly, the concavity burned black. I do not know how she is still alive. My healing knowledge is useless here.

  I help her pass over, my hands covering her mouth and nose, gripping tightly as her body clings to the last shreds of its life. Then she is still, at peace. I open my secret eye, and see her, standing beside her body. She was lovely. Young. Sweet. Like Kirin. Like I used to be. She meets my gaze and nods, smiling, then drifts away like smoke.

  The night is hours old when I finally stop to rest. Many have been taken into the Mercy tent, there to be tended by Brother Ato, but many more remain outside, lying in the cold and wet. Some are dead before I can get to them. Others are too far gone for my skills to help. These, I make as comfortable as possible, or help pass over as painlessly as I can.

  I am kneeling beside a man, stitching shut the cut on his forehead, when she speaks.

  "Kirin ... why?"

  I turn, and there, behind me is Lia.

  "Because I can help,” I say, turning back to my work.

  "No, I mean ... what you did. In the woods—"

  "Is not unnatural, no matter what Brother Ato says. I told you that."

  Lia fidgets behind me. Her uncertainty is nearly a physical thing. When I am done sewing the wound, she is still there. I rise, sighing, trying to massage the stiffness out of my shoulders. Dawn is near.

  "Where is he?” I ask, and point to the tent.

  Lia nods. “He has been tending to the worst of the wounded since we arrived. I helped as best I could, but ... I tried to ... there was a woman, holding her child. They were burned. Burned. She died. Before he could even start a prayer;

  she was probably dead before they brought her in. Her and the child. When I tried to take the babe ... it ... their skin ... it tore away when I...” She shudders, her mouth puckering.

  Then she is kneeling in the mud, her blood-spattered silks becoming even further grimed, retching. I move to her, automatically, and rest my hand on her shoulder.

  She rolls into the embrace, pressing her befouled mouth to my chest. Her sobs deepen into a keening as the last shreds of her innocence float away with her breath. I hold her tight; I know what this feels like.

  I wait out the storm. When she has regained a measure of composure, I move back, look into her eyes. They are red-rimmed, sparkling with tears. I brush one aside with my thumb.

  "It's hard, I know. But you're strong. You're helping and that's all that matters."

  She laughs, the sound harsh, bitter. “Strong,” she repeats, her tone disbelieving. Her eyes search the mud, as if some answer might be writ there. I raise her chin, until she is looking at me again.

  "Yes, you are."

  Lia is looking at me, trying to see if I am lying, perhaps. Her eyes catch the firelight, throwing back highlights that are almost violet. Her brows draw down, as if she is remembering a question she wanted to ask me.

  "Bright Lady, be merciful!” I hear a voice cry out. “Lia, get away from her! Guards! To arms! Hold that woman, and, by all that's holy, get her away from the bodies!"

  Ato has arrived.

  Chapter Twelve

  My roof, completed in a single day by Leah's husband and two of his friends, kept me dry all the rest of the winter. There was some grumbling about stolen thatch, but my story about dead squatters seemed to hold fast. The false cairn I raised over the thief's body I had claimed to have stumbled upon doubtless helped.

  The men spent a great deal of time staring, open-mouthed, at the trinkets and amulets I had spent the last few nights fashioning. Acorns and beads; a mouse skull strung alongside the teeth of the boar my sweetling had killed; garlands of drying, pungent fall flowers. They were mere decorations, powerless save for their very real influence over the superstitious.

  Because they thought me blind, they allowed their eyes to roam over my possessions and my body freely, unabashedly. I was glad to see they did not desire me; I had gone to great lengths to appear decrepit, even going so far as to rub dark black river mud into my hair, lest its sheen betray my youth.

  Shortly after they completed the job and departed, one returned, as I knew he would. As he approached, I hailed him from my rocking chair, watching him from behind the thin material covering my eyes.

  With much stammering and blushing, he began to ask me about each amulet's power. I smiled, close-mouthed, as he hinted around what he wanted. I let him twist on the hook, enjoying his clumsy attempts to dissemble, then decided to take pity on him.

  "What is the girl's name, Nils?” I asked, groping about for his hand. He moved it beneath mine and I patted it.

  "Greta,” he breathed, his shoulders dropping with relief.

  "And why would a strapping man such as yourself need a love amulet?” I asked. “Surely Mistress Greta would be flattered by your attentions?"

  "She might, if she knew about them,” he admitted, a hot flush making his ears into crimson moons. “I've ... that is, I haven't..."

  "You long for her from afar?” I asked, and he nodded, enthusiastically. “Well, then, I've just the thing. A philter of courage. Wear it against your heart, and it will surely help."

  Nils stammered his thanks, and I disengaged my hand from his. I opened one of the splintered chests left behind by the former residents, and rummaged inside. A moment later, I drew forth a necklace, formed from crimson holly berries. The cord passed through the center hole of a coin, a hexagonal Imperial farthing. The metal was dull, coated in traces of darkened blood.

  "This medallion was soaked in the blood of a mountain prowle
r,” I intoned, slipping the trinket over his bowed head. “Keep it with you always, against the skin over your heart. Let no eye see it, lest its power flee forever. When your true love is near, rub the coin ‘twixt forefinger and thumb, and repeat her name seven times. You will feel it working then."

  "It ... it will make her love me?” he said, staring at the bit of junk. He had no way to know that the blood, in fact, came from a hare, caught in one of my snares and cooked up for supper. The symbolism seemed oddly appropriate.

  "Love you? Of course not,” I scoffed, and nearly laughed as his hopeful expression crumbled. “Such charms can be made, to be sure, but not without great risk. And cost,” I said, smiling to myself as his face fell. Thank the gods for men who lusted after women less than they desired coin.

  "Start with this,” I suggested, tapping my nail against the farthing. “Rare is the woman who can resist a man of your presence, especially when his spirit is bolstered by the fierce courage of the prowler. You'll do fine."

  "How much...?” he began. I waved my hands, silencing him with a hiss.

  "Such things cannot be bought and sold,” I said. “You have done me a great service today, and for that I shall make a gift of the medallion, along with my deepest thanks. If you find it effective, then return, and bring me what little you can spare. A spot of milk, perhaps, or eggs, if you can. We shall help each other, yes?"

  I knew from my nocturnal ramblings that Nils's family owned more than three score of dairy cows and their chicken coops were full to bursting. They produced more than enough milk to not only supply them throughout the winter, but to also share with one little old wise woman. I just hoped Greta, whoever she was, would react favorably to Nils's ash-blond good looks and strong chin, once he worked up the nerve to finally speak with her.