Bone Witch (11 page)

T
hey wasted no further time in the glade. Whatever the women
wanted of Alaysha, they'd obviously got it. Both were careful to keep the
conversation light, and although Alaysha knew it was deliberate, she didn't
care. All she could think about was getting back to Yenic, Gael, and finding a
way to get out of this cursed village.

And to think at one time, Alaysha believed
the worst she had to concern herself with was Edulph finding the wind witch and
manipulating her much the same as Yuri had his water witch—his own daughter.
Now she knew the complexities of the elemental magic meant even more was at
stake.

According to Theron, it all had to do with
sibling gods from another time. Alaysha grinned at that one. If that was true,
it meant Alaysha was one of them, the sister god, and Aislin the twin brother
who wanted her finally, ultimately dead—so dead her very soul would cease to
exist.

But that was only if Theron was right and
in his right mind at all. She didn't doubt the power of the elemental legend to
move men to desperate acts, but she doubted the source. In truth, she didn't
really care; she had enough to concern herself with worrying about Aedus and
Saxa and all the others she'd come to love. She needed to see them safe, and if
it meant running a fool's errand for a mad shaman, so be it.

In the end, she only knew that if one
single person could control all the elements, then the result be more
catastrophic than some fairytale Etlantium gods using witches to threaten
others into subservience.

No. To control earth, wind, water, and fire
could mean the destruction of everything, and who had ever thought to wield
that power ever failed to use it unwisely?

So she needed to find the two unknown
witches: earth and air. Undoubtedly Thera was the earth temptress as Theron
called her, despite her sloppy tattaus. She snuck a look at Thera as they
strode back to the village proper, wondering why she would reveal herself in
the mud village by opening the earth to swallow the multitude of rain Alaysha
had unleashed, and why that same witch failed to recognize her now. It could be
that she didn't know her own power, but released it the same as Alaysha did,
without control when afraid or under threat.

Not for the first time, Alaysha cursed her
ignorance. Growing up alone without love or support, put to training by Corrin,
being separated from her own heritage by her father's decree that she live
outside his city walls—all compounded her ignorance. Discovering pieces of the
mosaic and putting them together without knowing the pattern, was exhausting.
It made her head hurt.

By now, they had entered the village proper,
where young boys kept busy, where girls fought beside huts and tents, where
stock women and Enyalia alike did everyday ordinary things like eating or
talking. It could look like a regular village except for the striking absence
of grown men.

"Has the remainder of your party
returned?" she asked Cai.

The warrior pursed her lips, tapping her
fingers on her bicep, but said nothing. She nodded briefly to Thera who headed
back toward her lodge.

"Cai? Have they brought Edulph
yet?"

The woman didn't answer.

"What is this Edulph?"

"A name. You know that by now."

Cai looked innocently surprised. "You
mean the third man?" she said again.

"Yes. The third man. Have they
returned yet?"

"They are here if they are here."

Alaysha crossed her arms, frustrated that
she wouldn't get a straight answer. "Then I want to see Gael."

Cai's face brightened. "Thera says he
heals almost as if by magic."

"She has no magic." Alaysha
thought to test her.

"Oh, but you're wrong, little
maga." Cai grinned. "She was made by magic, so the chalk witch before
her was and the chalk witch before her."

Alaysha's heart skipped. So it was true;
now Cai's easy acceptance of Alaysha's own power made sense. "You mean
Uta?" Alaysha scanned the village quickly. She saw young, very young, and
mature women. She did not see old.

"Yes. You saw her; she's old, for
sure, but she still lives." Cai noticed her scrutiny and interpreted it
correctly. "Our witches live as long as they like."

Strange statement, but useful in its way,
Alaysha thought. "I want to see Gael."

Cai shook her head and tucked her auburn
plait into one of her halters. "His warrior's mark is very distinct,
pretty maga. You saw how it upset Uta, but you can't know what it means to us,
and so Thera and Uta will be very busy deciphering this puzzle."

The warrior sniffed the air and a slow, a
languid sort of smile spread across her face. "Come with me."

They stopped at the fire pit, where a spit
had been stretched over the coals. Several hares, skinned and brown, were
impaled along the pole. The smell of honey and unknown spices made Alaysha's
stomach rumble.

"I thought you said you would take me
to Gael." Alaysha watched a young boy ladling broth into a copper bowl and
passed it to a stock woman, then pulled a strip of meat from a roasting hare.

"I said so?" Cai shrugged.
"I don't remember it." The warrior made a motion to the boy who
hurried over with a roasted leg and a savoury type of mush mixed with flatbread
and chestnuts.

He fell to his knees, head bowed, arms held
out to proffer the fare. Alaysha had this disquieting sense she was back on
campaign with her father, Bodicca roasting honeyed rabbit and chattel making
tables of themselves so Yuri could eat and sit. Her head swam and she lost
focus for a moment.

"You're hungry," Cai said.

The water in Alaysha's mouth kept her from
denying the truth of the statement. The Enyalian scooped a finger full of the
mush and pressed it against Alaysha's mouth. She opened without hesitation and
rolled the stuffing around her tongue, savouring the flavour.

"Good, isn't it?"

Alaysha nodded and discovered a strip of
meat pressed into her lips as well. "Eat," the woman said.

Alaysha's belly gurgled and she obliged Cai
happily, thinking how strangely intimate it was for this woman to be feeding
her this way, like a pet.

Or a lover.

She caught the woman's green eyes at the
same moment the thought struck. Her fingers went to her mouth, pressing in the
last of the meat, chewing quickly, swallowing, then she stepped abruptly
backwards.

"Gael," she said to Cai, doing her
best to tear her gaze away from the magnets that were the Enyalian's eyes. She
stammered a repeat of her order, hoping to cover over her fluster. "You
said –"

"I did not say, young maga."

"Well, perhaps if I see him, I can
help you solve this puzzle."

Cai looked over her shoulder where boys
were piling tinder and straw into an oddly familiar shape. "The moon will
come soon."

"You wanted to know about Gael's
mark."

The green magnets turned on Alaysha again.
"You said you know nothing, and so I believe you."

"I don't know, but perhaps if I met
with your witch, with Thera–"

"She will have nothing more to say to
you."

"How do you know?"

"She would have said it."

Alaysha watched the boys retreating into
the woods, presumably for more wood, and she felt the frustration so keenly she
couldn't stop herself from chewing her cheeks. "What are they collecting
for?" It was far too much tinder to be used for roasting fires.

"I told you, the quarter solstice is
coming."

"Do you celebrate it with fire?"

Cai looked surprised for an instant, but
then gathered herself and clapped a large hand on Alaysha's shoulder.
"You're clever, little maga."

"Will Thera harm him?" She
recalled Cai's coldness to him in the burnt lands and worried suddenly for his
safety.

"Oh no. He's meant for the solstice,
remember?"

Yes. She did remember. As were Yenic and
Edulph if he ever returned. The sole three grown men in the village. Even with
the few warriors she saw here, Alaysha couldn't see how they'd all escape
before the solstice. Watching the boys gather wood, thinking of the coming
foreign ceremony, Alaysha's stomach gurgled for entirely different reasons than
hunger.

"You said Gael would not be cast
for," she said.

"Indeed, I did."

"But that Yenic would be."

"Yes."

"And Edulph."

Cai's finger tapped against her bicep.
"When my sword sisters come, yes."

Alaysha watched the warrior's expression,
wondering if Cai could somehow follow the direction of her thoughts, but the
Enyalian face remained unchanged. So much like Yuri, Alaysha thought. No
betrayal of his thoughts or emotions through his body or face. None here
either. Alaysha had to believe the woman was so caught in the foregone
conclusion that Yenic and Edulph would enter and exit the ceremony as men
always did that she expected nothing amiss. Still, she was a soldier and
soldiers left little to chance.

She didn't care what happened to Edulph.
But she knew Aedus would.

Getting Gael out in his injured state would
be a tough feat. She'd need Yenic for that. And she'd need to distract the two
witches unless Alaysha could get to Thera and somehow make the kind of
connection she needed to, to gain her trust...

"Where are you, little maga?" Cai
said. There was a note of playfulness in her voice, but her eyes revealed
nothing.

"Thinking," Alaysha told her.

"A dangerous activity," Cai said.
"Best left to the witches."

Alaysha tilted her head provocatively and
Cai finally smiled. "Yes. As you are. Of course. So what does a witch
think about?"

"How to stay alive," Alaysha said
honestly.

"Oh, little maga," Cai gave a
soft chuckle. "Have you no fear. I will keep you from danger." She
put her arm out, gathering Alaysha in despite her hesitation. "Women have
nothing to fear from any Enyalian warrior."

Alaysha could smell the honeyed meat and
smoke on the warrior's skin; she made an effort to wrest herself from beneath
the warrior's arm and with a soft chuckle the woman let her go. They strode
side-by-side toward the Thera's lodge; Alaysha dared hope Cai would use her
influence to get her inside to check on Gael. They were a few paces away,
almost close enough to make out the noises coming from inside. She had begun to
unwind them from the clamour of actual language and further into words when
Enud came sprinting across the village from the trees. She made no shout nor
any noise of startlement as she sped, but the way she looked and the great,
rushed strides she took told Alaysha something was wrong.

Cai was off before Alaysha could think to
follow, and she watched as the two met mid-compound and went immediately into
focused conversation.

It was obvious this didn't happen often.
The boys, the stock woman, even the young girls halted whatever activity they
were involved in to watch. All of the few remaining Enyalia—a couple of
handfuls of them—took note of the exchange and hastened to where the two
warriors stood. Whatever it was that had set Enud into the village like a blaze
was at her back was not a common occurrence. Cai looked back toward Alaysha
once, perhaps to check that she was still there, Alaysha wasn't sure, but she
was certain she was close enough to Gael to take a chance while everyone was
occupied. She gave a brief thought to Yenic and where he might have gone when
Uta ordered him away, then she inhaled a bracing breath, knowing at least one
of the Enyalia witches was in with Gael. Without further deliberation, she
pushed open the leather flap.

She could have stepped into a past, not so
far long gone. She imagined three leathered crones hunched over a dead fire,
with their eyes dried seeds on the ground in front of them. The fragrance of
this room was the same as then. The spices, the brimstone. The tendrils of
smoke like fingers reached almost consciously to the ceiling. Alaysha could
have been back in the mud hut where she'd killed three powerful witches at her
father's command.

The breath she took seemed trapped in her
lungs. She didn't want to remember that battle, and besides the woman in this
lodge was very much alive.

And she was gaping at her in fury.

W
hen Thera spoke, there was no hint of the anger on her
face. Instead, she stepped sideways, seeming to block something from Alaysha's
view "He's there," she nodded toward a sleeping figure, nude, on top
of a bed made of rushes, and if Alaysha was right, softened by cattail seeds and
goose down. The fluff of them must have taken thousands of plants to harvest to
make such a bedding. Lucky Gael. Alaysha started toward him and stopped a few
paces from the bed. Gael was most definitely sleeping. The bruises on his ribs
were clearing and already turning yellow.

"He must be cold," she said to no
one in particular.

"In this heat?" Thera said,
taking the opportunity to work her way past the smouldering fire she'd been
knelt over when Alaysha had entered. "Don't be foolish."

Alaysha had the nearly irresistible desire
to cover Gael's hips. She had nothing but her own tunic to do so. "At
least cover him, give him some dignity."

"A man needs no such
consideration," Uta said, holding the flap of the door high enough to
enter. The breeze danced through the space, picking up scents of balsam and
wild onion. Thera stepped backwards again, moving so as to distract or attract
attention, close enough now that Alaysha could smell the myrrh on her. What had
she been doing, Alaysha wondered. And why didn't she want Uta to know.

Alaysha dared turn to examine the face of
the crone and was instantly sorry she did.

The woman's hair must have been white, but
it was too full of wet chalk blended into ropes that reached down to bare
sagging breasts with nipples coated in chalk residue. The face creased itself
in hundreds of wrinkles caked with the same chalk. It was almost as though
she'd painted her face so often into the same pattern that the wrinkles traced
the lines for her now. It was the eyes that frightened Alaysha the most. She
expected them to be filming with age but they snapped with life and vigour.
Vigorous they might be, but they were not good-humoured. They narrowed as they
bore into Alaysha.

"You and this large man came for the
boy Bodicca brought."

"We did."

"You know of her fate, then?"

Alaysha nodded, deciding she wouldn't think
of the mess Bodicca's back had been in, that this Uta had made of it.

The crone eased her way to a doddering
stand at Gael's bedside.  "Best to leave, young one," she said.
"We'll see you laden with beast and bounty."

Alaysha meant to push the woman away from
Gael, but when she moved, so too did Thera, side stepping as though there was
something behind her that she didn't want Alaysha to see, but there was nothing
but shadows in the gloom of the lodge. A few furs and covers on a cot at the
other end. Perhaps it moved, that pile, rising slowly, falling again like a
sleeper breathing during light dreams. She thought to take a step toward it but
caught Thera's eye; she could swear her legs had somehow got stuck in mud. Her
feet, always bare, had muck seeping out between the toes; she could actually
feel it squishing between them until she looked down to confirm it and nothing
was there.

She darted a look at Thera. Alaysha could
feel it already letting go, the sense of capture easing. Light flooded the
lodge and a current of air washed over her arms.

"Leave," Cai said to her as she
entered. "Find your young man and—do whatever it is you do with your
men."

Thera took an almost conscious step
forward; the look that passed between them earlier had returned. "The
party –"

Cai glared at Alaysha, but nothing short of
death could move her. The raiding party meant Edulph, and though he wasn't
exactly an ally, he was much too much of an enemy for Alaysha to be ignorant of
his welfare. Alaysha stiffened her back stubbornly.

The magnets never left Alaysha's face even
when she answered Thera. "Only one remains. The man is gone."

Gone? Only one?

"I don't understand," Alaysha
heard herself say."

Cai crossed her arms and the playfulness,
the flirtation, the easiness of before was gone. Back again was the impassive
stare, the trained face of the warrior. Oh how well Alaysha knew it.

"One Enyalian has returned," Cai
said. "The rest are dead. Your man is nowhere to be found."

Edulph couldn't have killed them. Alaysha
knew it; she also knew Cai didn't believe Edulph had killed them either. In
fact, she thought everyone in the room believed him completely innocent and
that left one very big problem.

Because no Enyalian she'd met so far seemed
the least bit worried about attack. Until now.