Witch Crag (2 page)

“I feel dreadful,” muttered Quainy, as they scrambled to their feet. “We've hardly had
any
sleep.”

“I know,” Kita murmured back. “It's ages till dawn.”

If the rain summons came early enough in the night, the headman would let them go back to the huts to sleep again afterwards. And then the soup didn't count as the start-of-day meal, and they got fed once more when they woke. But that was rare. Usually, they had to stay on their feet, and work right through until the midday meal.

Kita was on sheep work for that day. Quainy was spinning skeins of wool. The older women who drew up the rotas and read out the next day's tasks at the end-of-day meal rarely let them be together.

Kita risked reaching out her hand and squeezing Quainy's. “Tonight,” she whispered, and Quainy nodded. Lying side by side, whispering in the blackness – it was all they had to look forward to.

As Kita collected her bucket and rake, she saw Raff heading off in the direction of the latrine holes. It seemed to be his permanent job, shovelling out the latrines. Which was cruel, which was sad, but it meant she might see him later, when she emptied her bucket full of droppings on to the huge, stinking dung heap outside the rear stockades. Nothing was wasted. Once rotted, the manure nurtured the coarse grain that grew on the slopes at the back of the fort.

Kita let herself into the first sheep pen, where the mature ewes lived. Ma Baa trotted over, raised its blunt head and sneered at her, stamping its hard little feet.

“Sod off, you old bitch,” Kita muttered.

She'd named Ma Baa, and she hated it. Queen of the sheep, it had birthed countless lambs and seemed to be aware how valuable this made it – far more valuable than the girls who tended it. It would nip the carers, or back into them and tread on their feet.

Kita shook her rake at it, but it pranced closer. Then it turned around and urinated copiously, splashing her bare feet.

“You
wait
,” spat Kita, “you evil wool bag, you can't have many more lambs inside you, and once you're spent, we'll stew you up. . .”

But Ma Baa was oblivious to the threat. It swaggered over to the troughs, which were being filled with grain by two little girls, one on either side of the grain sack. Kita sighed, set her bucket down, and started raking up the dung and spent hay.

*

Kita was in luck. As she staggered along the narrow, steep-sided passage between the inner and outer barricades, heading for the dung-heap gate, Raff was just coming back. They put down their buckets, hers full, his empty, leant back against the barricade planks, and grinned at each other.

“Well met, mad one,” said Raff. “How's life?”

“What life?” said Kita.

“Complaining is futile,” Raff intoned. “Hope is futile.”

“Survive, survive, survive,” Kita chanted, giggling. They'd made it up in childhood – the game of the Sheepmen's Song – and played it still.

“Care for the sheep. Nourish the sheep. The sheep are our saviours.”

“Baaa . . . baaa . . . baaaaaa. . .”

“Watch out for marauders. Those who would gut us.”

“Survive, survive,
survive
!”

The dung passage was one of the very few private spaces where they couldn't be seen or overheard. Where they could indulge in the shocking game of mocking life on the hill fort, where the fortunate few had survived.

“You've been hit,” said Kita, and she reached out her hand and stroked his forehead just above the bruise. “Again.”

“Arc's mob. One tripped me up, the other put the boot in. I made out I was dead so I got off lightly.”

“I hate them.
God
, I hate them.”

“Hate is a waste of useful
energy
,” Raff intoned, trying to resurrect the song game, but Kita had tears in her eyes, and wouldn't join in.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I heard they took Nada out yesterday. I'm really sorry.”

Kita gulped. His voice was so beautiful, so unlike the other sheepmen, she wanted to fling herself into his arms and howl. . . She wanted to tell him about the weirdness of the crows and the dogs running from Nada's body.

But Raff was tactfully changing the subject. “Any news on Quainy's trade?” he asked.

Kita stiffened. She hated to think of Quainy going. “No,” she said. “She's safe while her hair's still short. If I could think of a way to make her bald. . .”

“Then they'd slit you as a witch. And think of
her
, Kita – she'll have a better life with the horsemen for sure. They're fierce but they're democratic – they vote on things! And she'll have more colour, and pleasure, and
fun. . .
”

Stories of the horsemen's lavish feasts had been brought back to the hill fort. Jumping to a drumbeat, strange berry juice that made you crazy and full of laughter . . . but Kita didn't want to think about it. “Can't you tell the headman?” she asked. “About the way the footsoldiers treat you?”

“Oh, he sees. And knows Arc won't let it go too far.”

Kita reached out and hugged him. She knew it would go too far, maybe already had gone too far – Raff's rare bright spirit crushed.

“Come on, mad one,” he said, gently disengaging himself. “We'd better go before we're missed.”

Kita sighed, and said goodbye, picked up her bucket and headed for the narrow gate in the outer barricades that led to the dung heap. There was always a guard on it, but they'd kept their voices low so he wouldn't hear them talking.

No one knew how long it had been since everything stopped, since the time of Great Havoc, of earthquakes, floods and wars. Five generations was the usual tally. Memory went back three generations, when the truce with the ferocious horsemen tribe was made, and life became safer. Vague myths circulated about how people had come to the hill, driving the sheep that were their main means of survival ahead of them, bringing basic tools and weapons, then building the fort, but storytelling was discouraged. What mattered was the here and now. Do the work, grinding work. Keep the sheep safe. Collect water. Guard the barricades. Survive.

The headman was not a cruel man, nor especially callous, but everything he ordered was about survival. A badly wounded footsoldier wasn't kept alive. A weak baby wasn't fed. The very old weren't cared for.

And no one challenged the headman, ever, because they knew he kept them from the terror that threatened to devour them. Terror of the past, that strange time of fevered plenty when people had given over their souls to things and let screens and machines do their living for them, ushering in the Great Havoc. Terror of the cannibals who lived across the wastelands in one of the foul, decaying cities of the past. Terror of roaming, scavenging marauders. Terror of nature, how it crept forward, engulfing the past, reclaiming the land, its trees hiding wild dogs and sheltering giant crows.

And most of all, terror of Witch Crag.

Witch Crag was always in view, from every part of the hill fort. Lowering, jagged, like a broken fingernail scraping the sky, its lower slopes thickly forested with dark pines that never changed whatever the season, its top harsh bare rock. Sometimes, at night, green and purple lights flickered on the summit. It was forbidden to look at them, because they were made by the witches who lived there, and could be part of how they lured girls to them.

The last girl to go to Witch Crag was many years ago, when the headman was a young man. Her name was Vild. Mystery surrounded her going, whether she was taken or had been bewitched and escaped. It was forbidden to talk about her.

But once, when Kita was a child, Nada had talked about Vild. It was spring, and Kita had found an abandoned fledgling bird cheeping desolately by the kitchens. She'd scooped it up and made a straw nest for it behind some old wooden staves; she fed it with crushed worms, and as it grew stronger it started to flutter from stave to stave. It started to call to Kita when she appeared with its food; then, one day, it flew to her and landed on her shoulder. Laughing in pleasure, she'd turned to find Nada standing there, white faced.

“I saved it, Nada! It knows me!” she'd cried in triumph. Then, “Why are you looking like that?”

Nada had glanced hurriedly behind her, then got hold of Kita's arm. “You must drive it off,” she said. “You're a kind girl to save it but you mustn't keep it tame.”

“I know. I know it's foolish, time wasting. Animals are here to feed us, not for our pleasure or to be our friends.
But
—”

“It's more than that,” said Nada, urgently. “They'll think you're a witch.”

“
What?
Why?”

“Because you befriend beasts. Vild. . . Vild could do that. She had a little wild dog, a puppy. The headman found her with it – he . . . crushed the life out of it. In front of her. She grew hysterical. She was screaming, cursing. They tied her up and left her in one of the storage huts while they decided what was to be done. But in the morning . . . she'd gone.”

“To the witches.”

“They were sure of it.”

Kita shuddered. “And you think I might be one.”

“No.
No
. It's what others think, dearling. If she hadn't gone . . . they'd've slit her for sure.”

*

Everyone knew the witches were evil. They had a fearful history. Abducting girls, or luring them with witchery; murdering any men who dared venture on to the crag slopes – there were sightings of their corpses hanging like grotesque puppets from the pine tree branches.

Not long after Vild disappeared, three witches had been discovered lurking in the woods near the hill fort. They'd been dragged out on to the plains and slit as they stood, the headman himself executing one of them.

Their bodies had been left for the dogs and crows, but that night their bloodstained garments had floated eerily down into the hill fort, causing panic and dismay among the sheep people, who were sure they were now under a curse.

Rumours of witches inside the hill fort grew with the panic and swarmed around two women skilled in healing, despite all the good they did. Then, one dawn, the women were discovered crushing and boiling herbs. The headman ordered them to be tied up while he decided their fate. Which was to be taken outside the hill fort walls the following dawn, and slit.

Soon afterwards, a marauding tribe intent on stealing sheep had besieged the hill fort. As their pact demanded, the horsemen had answered the bonfire summons and joined with the sheepmen; together they'd driven the marauders off. The fierce fighting had lasted until nightfall; the loss of life had been terrible.

But less terrible, somehow, than what they saw from the hill fort walls when the sun came up the next day.

Three great stakes had been driven into the ground on the edge of the battlefield, stakes with crossbars. On one side of each crossbar dangled a crazy bouquet of teasels, thistles and yellow flowering broom, all tangled up with ivy and vines. Beautiful in their way.

On the other side of the crossbars three dead footsoldiers swung, hanging by a foot. Naked but for more vines and ivy coiled over them.

A message from the witches.

The headman had let out a roar of rage and disgust. He ordered the gates open and limped at speed on to the grasslands, several of his best men following, all of them ignoring their battle wounds. The wild dogs and crows still gorging on the dead had scattered at their furious advance. The soldiers had tried to reach the vine ropes that tethered the boys, but they were too high. So they'd hacked at the stakes, felled them like trees with their tragic fruit, then left them for the crows and the dogs.

“I don't think you're a witch,” Nada had whispered, “but it's not me who matters.”

 

In the girls' sleeping hut, Kita snuggled up to Quainy under the heavy sheepskins. “Oh, at
last
,” she mumbled. “A bit of space at last. No one ordering you about. Quainy, pinch me if I doze off, if we don't
talk
this whole day will have been crap. . .”

“Shhhh,” said Quainy, stroking her hair sadly, “shhhhh.”

“I saw Raff today. In the dung tunnel. Fitting, isn't it, that the only place you can get a bit of privacy is in the dung tunnel. He's being so brave, Quainy, but this place is killing him, no one sees what he has. . .”

“No one wants what he has.”

“Apart from us! His creativity, his words, his
curiosity
– d'you remember how he used to try to get the oldies to tell him anything they knew about before the Great Havoc, and they'd cuff him aside?”

“Yes.”

“And when we were just kids, and he did that amazing picture, on the rocks, drawing with a burnt stick. . .”

“The headman hit him and locked him up in a storage shed.”

“And he told us he made a huge sculpture, out of the grain,” Kita giggled, “and knocked it down when he heard them coming to let him out. . . He
won
, he won in the end, they never knew.”

Quainy was silent, although usually she was happy to talk about Raff. “What's up?” asked Kita.

“I heard today,” Quainy murmured. “I'm to go on a visit. The horsemen are having a feast next big moon. Six of our footsoldiers are going, to renew the bond of our tribes. And . . . and I'm going, too.”

Panic seized Kita. “But you'll come
back
?”

“They say so. But not for long. There are three men who I might marry. Once we've all met, we decide who I wed. . . Then I go back for the marriage feast.”

“But your
hair
isn't grown!” Kita wailed . . . and was silent. She knew that didn't matter. Long hair, short hair, Quainy was beautiful. She'd be excellent trade with the horsemen, who seemed to value beauty. “Are you scared?” she whispered.

“Of course. I've felt sick all the time, since I heard. And I can't bear it that I won't see you again, or Raff. . .”

“But you'll have a better life there. Everyone says so. Especially as a
wife
. Maybe you'll fall for one of the bridegrooms, they say the young horsemen are gorgeous, and he'll fall for you too and love you. . . Oh, I wish I wasn't so skinny and odd-looking, Quainy, so they wanted me too!”

“I love how you look,” Quainy said, “but I'd change it if it meant we could be together.”

The night of the big moon came round fast. In its morning, six footsoldiers set off to walk the seven miles to the horsemen's fort, with Quainy and a sheep destined for the spit walking with them.

Kita had no chance to say goodbye to Quainy. She escaped from her work hauling water up from the well only in time to see the great gates swing shut behind her. She waited until the central yard was empty, then raced over to the rocky outcrop, clambered up it, and wriggled through the brambles to her ledge to watch her friend go. The footsoldiers surrounded Quainy and the sheep, two of them carrying a huge bale of woven wool, on poles – more trade. She was dressed in a fine, new woollen tunic, and her hair was washed. It fanned round her face in corn-yellow waves.

Kita watched until they were out of sight, a stone of grief inside her. The wind was up, and she had to lie flat to feel safe in it. The high rock and wooden barriers kept the wind out of the hill fort – it roared overhead as though you were in the bottom of a bucket. But up here, Kita liked to feel it on her body. She let it buffet her for a while, then she scrambled down and stood leaning against the wooden stockade to catch her breath. Forking her fingers through her dark spiky hair, she was suddenly aware of someone behind her. Then a hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

Shocked, she spun round. To face Arc, grinning at her. He squeezed her arm hard, then let it go. “You climb like a tree rat,” he said.

Her heart pounded in shock and fear. Had he seen where she'd come from? Was her flint ledge discovered?

“What the hell were you trying to do?” he demanded.

“They've taken Quainy,” she muttered. “I was trying to see her go. But I couldn't.”

“Course you couldn't. Unless you could fly, h'n? Like a witch?”

She hung her head, didn't answer. She thought she'd got away with it.

“You're not the only one sad to see Quainy go,” he sneered. “Bray was meant to be in that guard today, but he's fallen for her looks so bad the headman noticed. Said he had to stop behind in case he caused trouble.
Idiot
. Missing out on a feast with the horsemen. Over a
girl
.”

Everything in Kita wanted to get away from Arc. He exuded a kind of menace, a violence. But she wanted information more. “You went the winter before last, didn't you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “For a feast – the biggest feast of the year. We stayed three nights. I'd just been made footsoldier – they were the best nights of my life. The horsemen know how to live. Their staple food is the boar they hunt in the forests behind them, not stupid sheep. Their hall is decked with plunder from tribes they've battled with. And they honour their warriors.”

“You're honoured here,” Kita ventured.

“Not the same,” he scoffed. “Yes, we get fed the best, warmed first, wear leather . . . but just to make us fight better. There, they get proper respect. The warriors – they sat on a high table, above everyone else, and when the drums stopped, everyone shouted their names,
saluted
them. . .”

“For that feast – didn't some of our girls go?”

Kita hated the way Arc leered at her when she said that. “Three of them,” he said. “You know
why
, don't you?”

“I thought. . . I thought they went like Quainy's going. To be considered as wives. But none of them went back again. Did no one want to keep them?”

Arc threw back his head and laughed. “And you're hoping no one will want Quainy, and she'll stay here too? Forget it. Those three girls had a good time for a few nights. There was no plan for more. Remember the baby that was born, nine months later?”

Kita went pale. With shock – and at her own stupidity. Of course. Of
course
.

“We boys were put to work, too,” he said. “Two babies came from us. Don't look so sick. My father was a horseman, I'm sure of it. That's why I'm drawn to them. That's why I'm – like I am.”

“I never. . . I just never thought of it before.”

“Oh, Kita.
Dumb
. Why d'you think the headman's glad if someone brings in a wild sheep, found wandering? Fresh blood is good for breeding. Strengthens the strain. Better sheep, better men.”