Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (2 page)

Old Tassi hobbled into my room with the sun. I had dressed in white trousers, a scarlet jerkin, black sandals, and a black sash, but I still lay on the pallet with my eyes closed.

“Wake, good Rifkin!” She threw open the curtains and gave me her broadest toothless smile. “It’s a beautiful morning!”

“It’s grey and cold,” I said.

“Yes, good Rifkin,” she agreed with several nods. “Your daughter waits in the morning room. Cook has prepared your favorite breakfast, poached ostrich eggs in goat’s milk and—”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “And yesterday’s ship brought oranges, so—”

“I’ll have yogurt,” I said. “With a few nuts and raisins. And a glass of water. Served in the garden.”

“But—”

“Please, Tassi.”

“Very well.” She left shaking her head. “You’re going to hurt Cook’s feelings, you know.”

I went down to the gardens and ate my bowl of yogurt, nuts, and raisins while I watched the sea. Cook had added coconut and bananas to the yogurt, and a cup of green tea sat beside the water pitcher, but I did not complain. The waves rolled in under a windy, colorless sky. As I finished my breakfast, Feschiani joined me, carrying the scrolls of the latest census under her arm. I said, “I’m going wandering.”

“Oh?” she said. “Where?”

“Wandering, daughter. If I knew where, it would hardly be wandering.”

“For long?”

I stood and shrugged.

“Who’ll you take with you?”

“No one.”

“You have a duty,” she said, setting the scrolls aside to link my arm with hers.

I said, “No, Feschiani. You have duties now.”

She only shook her head, reminding me too much of her mother, and said, “You owe something to our people.”

“Fine. Pay them from the treasury.”

“That’s not funny, Pipa.”

I realized then that I should simply have left a note and gone. I kissed her forehead, an effect which is spoiled since I have to stand on tiptoe. “What do I owe them?”

“Your knowledge, Pipa.”

“No one’s ever thought much of it.”

“That’s not so, Pipa!”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But you rule now.”

She glanced at me from the corners of her eyes and said slyly, “Which means you obey me?”

No, I should have left without a note. “Well...”

“Please, Pipa.”

“You think I’m too old to travel?”

I expected her to answer
Not in body
, but she is not that much like her mother. Or perhaps she is subtler. She said immediately, “No, Pipa. I think, however, that you should write down your story before you go. For the people. And for me.”

“That’ll take months!”

She smiled, quite pleased with herself. “I know.”

“Write?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Pay a feast-singer for some lies. Pay the feast-singer well, and you’ll get very good lies.”

“Pipa, please. For me?”

Well, this is a cold winter. I’ll stay in the warmth of our villa with no worse enemies than pens and ink and virgin parchment. But when these foes have been broken, dispersed, and defiled, Rifkin Wanderer will wander again.

2

I PAUSED AT
a fork in the mountain road, wondering which branch would take me farther from Istviar and the sea. Both led north. Both were narrow tracks of half-frozen mud and slush. Neither appeared to have been used since winter fled these hills. A sign of bleached and broken wood was half hidden by a leafless bush. It said
Gromandiel
in the language of the Kond, but I did not know if this was a queen, a god, the nearest mountain, a village, an inn, or an obscene suggestion. When a sudden puff of wind sent a leaf racing to the left, I pretended that it was an omen and followed it.

Perhaps it was my weariness from three days of hiking without food or shelter, or perhaps it was the fault of the fading light of dusk, or perhaps I saw the clump of white in the path as a large patch of snow. I did not recognize the bear until it stood. Its coat was long and very clean. Its eyes were pale blue. My axe felt much heavier in my hands as we stared. When the bear growled softly and padded closer, I glanced around for refuge or aid. The woods were bleak in twilight. The oaks were naked and grey, almost malevolent. I could try to scale one before the bear charged, but try was all I would do.

The bear’s paws made soft sucking sounds on the muddy road. I shifted my axe to my left hand, letting my right settle on the hilt of my short sword. The bear growled loudest as it attacked. I stepped forward, drawing my short sword and sweeping the axe before me. The bear reared high overhead. A heavy paw descended toward my face. I threw myself to one side, thrusting the short sword at the bear’s stomach. My axe bit into its foreleg, but in the beast’s hunger or anger, it never noticed. Its other paw came down to rake my chest.

I had no time to note my wounds. I brought the back edge of my double-bladed axe up into the bear’s crotch. It shrieked, as I had expected, but it did not curl up as a human might. The bear, while it stood, was half again my height. My only hope of survival was to get close enough to pierce its heart or brain.

I feinted for its head, then chopped at its thigh. As my axe burrowed deep into its flesh, its paw came down on my helmet, scraping against leather and iron, then shredding my shoulder. I almost lost consciousness. Still, out of reflex or the many years of training, I slashed blindly with the short sword while I fell. I don’t know where I struck it, but my blow kept the bear from throwing itself on me. I rolled through the mud and came up standing.

The bear raced after me. I was past the point of conscious thought. My legs moved of their own accord, and I was running toward the bear as if to embrace it. At the moment when its forelegs would close around me, my right hand rose and I darted aside. The sword jarred home, though the shock wrenched it from my grip. I spun about, bringing my axe to my right hand, and with my left, slipped a dagger from its sheath on my belt. In my mind I rehearsed the death song, but when I looked at the bear, I saw that I would sing for it, not for myself. My short sword protruded from its left eye.

The bear lay in the road like a dirty, abandoned bale. A tremor shook it for an instant as its soul escaped, then it was only a bag of poor fur and stringy meat. I was cold and sad and my chest felt as though someone had sown it with hot coal. I wanted to collapse where I stood. My weapons fell from my numb hands into the half-frozen mud. I thought I would follow, but I managed to stumble the few, short steps to the bear’s side. “Forgive me, Brother Bear,” I whispered. “We shouldn’t have met here.” I thought I would die, and I was relieved.

Applause came from the woods behind me. “Soldier!” a woman called in Kondish. “Well done! Very well done!”

She watched from forty paces away in the shadow of an elm. As I jerked my short sword from the bear’s eye, I saw that the woman’s weapons were a pearl-handled dagger at her belt and a longbow of ash held casually by her side. The dim light had helped to hide her, as had her appearance. Her hair, clipped close above her shoulders, was as white as the bear. Her skin was little darker than cream. She wore a birchbark quiver on one shoulder, and her jacket and boots were of silver fox fur. Her pants were of some rare white leather. If a woman made of ice had died, this might be her ghost.

“Greetings, Lady.” I nodded politely and looked for hidden companions. “Are you...” I had to pause for breath, which made me wonder again about my wounds. “... separated from a hunting party?”

“You might say that.”

Her smile reminded me that I still held my short sword. Feeling foolish, I lowered its point and said, “I hear these hills aren’t safe to travel in alone.”

“As you begin to learn?”

I shrugged, though it cost me strength. “So it seems.”

“These woods are safe enough for me.”

“You’re lucky the bear didn’t catch your scent.”

“Old Avo wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“He was your pet?” I stared at her. “You might have called him off.”

“I didn’t see the need in time. I thought he would win.”

“And now?” I lifted the sword again.

“You’re afraid of me?” She laughed. “That’s rather flattering. Wise, too, but still flattering.” In spite of her white hair, her face was young. She might have seen twenty-five summers, but certainly no more. Ignoring my sword, she said, “Are you wounded badly?”

“I’ve never been wounded well.”

She smiled, baring bright teeth. The front two protruded slightly, like a rabbit’s. She said, “You’re amusing.”

“I’ll probably bleed to death soon,” I said, “if I don’t laugh myself to death first.” I let the tip of my sword drop again. If she intended to complete the bear’s work, she would have nocked an arrow to her bow and shot me before I saw her.

“Don’t worry, little warrior. I’ll help you.” She pointed at the grey corpse of a tree that had fallen across the road some years before and been dragged aside so a cart could pass. “Sit. And take off those rags.” She gestured at my shirt and jacket. I glanced at her to see what she intended, but I learned nothing from her face. She set aside her bow, slipped the quiver of arrows from her shoulder, and said, “Go on. I’ll heal you.”