Witch Crag (3 page)

Depression settled on Kita like a dark fog. Her grief for Nada opened up again, and threatened to engulf her. All she could think of was Nada, and Quainy going for good to the horsemen. Of never seeing her again. Sleeping alone in the huts, with no one to talk to. None of the other girls wanted a bond, a friendship – they kept to the sheepman creed. She had Raff, of course, but meetings with him were rare now they were no longer children. And she could only see bad things ahead for him.

Two days went by, and Kita worked mournfully in the kitchen, stripping meat from sheep bones and chopping the tough root vegetables they cultivated near the dung heap. One of the older women said how good it was that Kita had matured at last, settled to steady work, and stopped being so jumpy and fanciful. Then, with the air of someone bestowing a great honour, she told her she'd recommend her for work in the infants' pens. Kita thanked her, but her heart turned over. She remembered the pens as loss, as terror, a desolate space where she'd begged for Nada's fearfully rationed comfort. She dreaded revisiting them.

Later, when the next day's tasks were announced during the end-of-day meal, she learned she had to report there. The next morning, reluctantly, she made her way over. The pens consisted of a long hut, for sleeping and protection from the weather, and a series of interconnecting cages built from sturdy bamboo.

Nada had been a little girl when the cages were built. She'd told Kita that after the Great Havoc, some of the creatures who survived evolved fast. The crows who circled the hill fort in their murderous flocks grew bigger and bolder, perching on the great wooden walls and swooping in for lambs and carrion. Then one dreadful day a newborn baby, swaddled in wool and asleep on the ground, was carried off by a huge crow. Distraught, the women resolved to be more vigilant, but a few days later six or seven of the great birds soared in together, harrying a woman and the three little ones in her charge. The decision to build the cages was made that day. Small children would be kept safe like the lambs; bamboo bars would free their mothers for other work. And free them from the maternal bond, which was no help to survival, after all.

The heavy-set matron in charge of the pens opened the cage gate to Kita and Erin, the other girl on duty there that day, with one eye on the sky. “Quickly,” she barked. “See those buggers flapping over there? Oh, they don't miss a trick.” She ushered the girls in and slammed the gate to. “They'd be in here if I let 'em.”

“That's horrible,” grimaced Kita.

“Oh, they're
waiting
. To get their claws into something small enough to make away with. I came out here the other day, two of them perched on the roof bars, peering in.”

“The littlies must've been terrified.”

“Screaming fit to split, but the crows took no notice. Ugly evil buggers. Now. Erin, here's a broom, you sweep up. Kita, I want you on drilling. And none of your wordiness – just stick to what's needed. Then both of you – food duty. Follow me.”

Kita's heart sank further. “Drilling” was the only teaching the children got; an endlessly repeated series of dull commands (“Pick up the stick! Give the stick to the one on your left! March to the end of the pens!”) that had to be obeyed immediately. It was designed to make them biddable workers. Food duty was worse though. However rank the mutton broth or porridge, the children were made to eat it, so they'd grow too big for the crows to carry off.

As she walked through the pens, dark memories settled on her. There was no play here and only one dreary little song the children knew; she shivered when she heard them intoning it, remembering how much it had scared her as a child.

Don't look at the witches,

In trees or in ditches,

They'll grimly enchant you,

They'll gobble you up.

But somehow she got through the day. Few of the children reminded her of her younger self; most of them were well on the way to becoming stoical little sheep people, dull-eyed and obedient. She ached to pick up one crying toddler but was told “Leave her be – she's got to learn.”

Whenever she looked up, the sky was criss-crossed with cage bars. Overhead, black as her thoughts, the huge crows circled.

The matron in charge of the pens was pleased with Kita, said she had a way with the little ones, so she was sent there for the next day, too. Girls had to take a turn with all the tasks but if they showed a real aptitude for cooking, say, or spinning, they were sent to those tasks more often and, once adult, that would be all that they did. Kita thought about ending up like the matron, living her life in the pens, and decided death would be preferable.

The moon was waning; the footsoldiers and Quainy were due back that afternoon. Kita's longing to see her friend was made more desperate by knowing how brief a time they'd have together. She told herself not to be selfish; maybe a handsome young horseman had fallen for Quainy, and she for him, and she'd be happy. Maybe he'd be high up the ranks, with power, maybe he'd call for Kita to come and be Quainy's help and companion. . .

Maybe, maybe.

She heard the great gates grind open as she was feeding the babies their last mush before bed. It had to be Quainy and the men, returning home, but there was no sound other than the gates; no fuss was made of their homecoming.

As soon as she was released, Kita ran to the food hut and scanned the queue. Raff was there, too far away to speak to, head down and shoulders hunched as if warding off a thump or mockery. But Quainy wasn't there, nor did she come through the doors that Kita watched anxiously throughout her sparse meal.

She was there, though, in the sleeping hut when Kita ran to it, her blonde hair glowing above the stained old sheepskin wrapped tightly around her.

“Quainy!” Kita cried.

“
Shhhhh!
” went the hut.

“
Shhhh
yourselves! Dumb sheep!
Quainy!
”

Quainy turned, waved. Kita scrambled down beside her and Quainy pulled the sheepskin over them both. “You weren't at dinner,” Kita whispered.

“I ate with the headman,” Quainy muttered. “It was terrifying, I could hardly swallow. He
interrogated
me about how the visit had gone.”

“
Well?
” Kita demanded. “How did it go? Did you like any of the three possible husbands? Is the decision made?”

Quainy was silent for a moment, then she said, “I don't know. It's nothing to do with me. I don't get a choice. I don't get a say. I know I'm trade, but I thought they'd ask what I felt. But they didn't. I'm not even sure who the three men are. There were five of them who came in, all leering and laughing and prodding me. All of them are old, like our headman, old warriors who have ‘earned' me. All of them are disgusting.”

“Oh,
Quainy
,” Kita groaned. Devastated.

“The young footsoldiers who went with me – the ones who've never been before – I know they were shocked, though they tried not to show it. And a couple of the young horsemen – they tried to cheer me up, afterwards, but they got shouted away by one of my ‘bridegrooms'. After that I kind of – froze up, for the rest of the visit. And then – I couldn't stop crying on the walk back here, and one of our men – he said marriage was my duty and I just had to get on with it.”

“That's gross. And unfair.”

“He said we needed the horsemen's alliance to survive.”

“Survive, survive,” hissed Kita. “Why do we bother?”

“Don't talk like that, Kita.”

“I mean it. When I think of them treating you like that, I. . . Sometimes I. . .” She trailed off, a vision of death in her mind like a beckoning witch. Then, hopelessly, she said, “No wonder the headman wouldn't let Bray go with you.”

“Bray?”

“You like him, don't you. He likes you. If he'd seen you treated like that. . .”

“Maybe.”

“It was Arc who told me he'd been banned.
Arc
's been before. Getting their girls pregnant. He likes their ways.”

“Then I don't think he can have
seen
their ways!” Quainy burst out. “I think he just saw the surface. Kita, we were wrong about the horsemen. We thought they were better, more advanced, because they marry, and have fun and feasts and dancing. . .”

“Ánd they're democratic – they vote on things?”

“But not in any way that has meaning! One of the girls told me – it's only the men who vote, and they're told which
way
to vote by whichever old warrior is their protector, their
master
.”

“I don't understand.”

Quainy sighed, shakily. “The old warriors, the strong ones, who've fought countless battles – they rule the fort. The younger men and the weaker men – they have to ally themselves to one of the strong just to survive. And the old warriors strut and shout and backstab each other, constantly vying for power, and making and breaking alliances with each other, and there's a horrible atmosphere of fear everywhere.” She paused, then added, “The old warriors are the only ones allowed to have wives. And those wives are shut away, like prisoners.”

Even in the gloom in the hut, Kita could see how white Quainy was. She took hold of her hand, and squeezed it.

“Kita, I think. . . I think our way is best,” Quainy whispered. “Even if it's narrow, pinched. It's . . . safer. More predictable.”

Something in her voice made Kita go colder still. “Did they hurt you?” she choked out.

“No. No, dearling. It was just what I
saw
. What I sat through. They feasted on our sheep, ripping into the meat, wasting it – the children scavenged under the table. No order. They were drinking that stuff they brew from berries, it made them loud, frightening . . . and I was the only girl at their high table. Sat there like . . . like trade. But there were some girls fetching and carrying, and they. . .”

“What?” whispered Kita.

“The old men mauled them. As if they were
things
. And they made them dance to drums. That's how the women live, unless they marry and get shut away. They dance, and drudge, and mate with outsiders to strengthen the bloodline.”

A sad silence descended. Kita knew about mating. Rams tupped ewes to get lambs; babies were needed, too, for the tribe to survive. The sheepmen had a practical attitude to sex. During early spring, the rules were relaxed, and mating was encouraged. The sleeping huts were left open for this very purpose. If a girl and a boy were drawn to each other, they had sex. Pregnant girls worked through the summer and autumn and then gave birth in the winter, when there was less work to do. . . It was efficient. Basic.

But this . . . what Quainy had described. . .

“We always said our way was terrible,” Kita muttered, at last. “Bonds discouraged. Men just around for the stud. Children taken from their mothers and put in the pens. . .”

“It's better,” croaked Quainy. “Our way is harsh, theirs is
slavery.
And the boys suffer too. They got this boy . . . he was under the table, scavenging, but he was older than the other kids, just thin, nervous-looking. . .”

Like Raff
, Kita thought, knowing Quainy was thinking it too, but neither of them said it aloud.

“They . . . they dragged him out, and then they made him fight. With one of the warriors.”

“Oh, no.”

“No weapons, but he was . . . it was hateful, Kita. He was knocked down, right away, and then he was crawling, begging, while this posturing old . . .
ape
kicked him and . . . and
stamped
on him and all the big warriors shouted
get up and fight
.”

“Did . . . did he die? What happened?”

“I didn't see. I ran out. I threw up. But the girl I'd spoken to before, Lilly, she told me one of the younger horsemen intervened to stop it.”

“He risked his neck.”

“Yes. He was cunning, though, he made a big joke of it, Lilly said, insisted the boy wasn't worth the killing, then he picked the shattered boy up and carried him out.”

Kita sighed, exhausted by all she'd heard. “Quainy, you can't go back to the horsemen,” she murmured. “Not to live among that. Not to be some old man's slave.”

“I haven't got a choice, have I? Get some sleep.”

The days went by. The treacherous moon waned, then began to wax again. Soon it would be full and at the next big moon, Quainy would be taken to the horsemen's fort to be married.

They told Raff what had happened to Quainy there, but apart from that, they didn't talk about it. It was like stone inside them.

Then something happened.

It was at the start of the working day, and Kita was in the sheep pens. She disliked the rancid smell from the animals and the spitefulness of Ma Baa, the prime ewe, but the work was so simple no one was in overall charge to nag and watch over her, so she felt a certain freedom. And there was always the hope that she'd bump into Raff on a trip to the dung heap.

She was drearily sweeping up when she heard a drumming noise, growing louder. She stopped to listen. The noise grew louder still; it was hooves, horses, she was sure of it – then there was a thundering, heaving noise, the horses being reined in, it had to be, and a man bellowed, “
Open the gates! The horsemen ask it!
” Before she could feel afraid, she dropped her broom, raced out of the pens, ducked behind a bale of hay and peered out at the central yard to watch. The headman was striding across the yard, yelling orders; four young footsoldiers raced over, unbarred the gates and ran out in an arc, two to a gate, opening them wide.

Then six horsemen rode in, horses prancing, snorting, tossing their great, handsome heads. Kita was awestruck; she'd never been so close to horses before. They looked so wild and noble compared to sheep. The gates thudded shut behind them; the headman shouted greetings. Two cooks ran out from the kitchens with mugs of sweetened ewe's milk and water; the horsemen reached from their horses to take the drinks, and didn't dismount.

In her hiding place, Kita was seized by the terrible thought that they'd come to get Quainy and take her to her new home early. Then the leading horseman spoke. He had long grey hair tied back, and a great scar across his cheek.

“We ask your help,” he said, loudly. “And come to warn you. Two of our girls have gone missing. They took a horse. We discovered their loss first thing this morning. The gates were still barred; impossible to know how they got through our barricades, but get through they did. We set off, following the tracks. Which led us to Witch Crag.”

The horses shifted, stamped; the sheepmen were silent, listening, waiting.

“They were two fine girls,” the horseman went on. “Soon to be brides. One of them my bride. Some of us were for going back, but I led the men round the foot of the crag, searching the lower slopes, and found single horse tracks going higher. And found not our girls, but bones. Bleached skeletons, a dozen or more of them, shining white, arranged in a great circle, a wheel, skulls inward, legs and arms all overlapping in a great, grim wheel. And nearby, a few weapons, broken and useless. Some marauding gang's crude clubs and daggers, nothing we or you sheepmen use.”

“You turned back then,” the headman said. As if needing to be reassured.

“Yes. The whole place was rank with necromancy. And on the way back, we found the horse wandering.”

“But no riders.”

“No. Witches have taken our girls. Seduced them and called them; hexed the gate bars or bewitched the horse so it could clear the barricades. There is no other explanation.”

The headman glared at the ground. “It's years since anything like this has happened,” he growled.

“Long years. It's starting again, sheepman. The witches have got stronger. That obscene wheel gave news of their power and intent. So. We warn you, and we ask you to search and keep watch. If the girls escape the witches, like the horse did, you may find them.”

“We will search and watch,” said the headman, grimly.

“Open the gates,” said the horseman.

It was all anyone talked about that day. In muted, frightened voices, they discussed the witches. Witches getting stronger, luring young girls, boiling dead men to eat the flesh and make grisly patterns with the bones. Patterns that emanated evil into the land.

At night, in the hut, Quainy cuddled up to Kita and murmured, “In the kitchen, they were saying witches can fly with crows. Holding on to their wings, riding their backs. Imagine.”

“Nonsense,” said Kita. “If they could do that they'd've come for us long ago, over the walls.”

“H'm. I don't know. What I
do
know, though, is the horsewomen will suffer worse things now those two brides have gone. They'll be controlled, constrained, kept under tighter chains than ever, in case any more are seduced by sorcery. We will be, too. I heard that no girls are to be let out to watch the sheep in the spring.”

“Oh,
what
?” wailed Kita. She'd never once been outside the hill fort walls, apart from to the dung heap; she was longing for late spring, when she might be allowed to help mind the sheep driven out to the grasslands to graze. The space, the lack of barriers – she was longing for it.

“It's the headman's orders,” said Quainy. “We're in danger, outside.”

“I'd rather be in danger than kept in a bucket!” Kita exploded.

“Kita,
shhhh
!” Quainy murmured, looking around nervously. “Don't even
think
that. The witches are evil. They bewitch girls and steal them away so our tribes can't thrive, can't breed and multiply, everyone knows that. . .”

“Do they?” said Kita.

A party of young footsoldiers, led by Arc, was sent out from the hill fort early the next day to march the perimeter of the grasslands and look for the missing brides. No one had any real hope of finding the girls but it was vital that the sheepmen's obligation to the horsemen be fulfilled. At the same time (efficiency being central to the sheepman creed) the footsoldiers were to hack down the brush that was encroaching from the forest. The forest was dangerous – it sheltered savage dogs, maybe worse – and must not be allowed to creep closer. Especially as spring was coming and soon the sheep would be let out to pasture.

But the footsoldiers came back early, well before midday, the hacking only half done, and shouted excitedly for the headman as they approached the gates.

Kita was working in the spinning shack that day, and she was just crossing the deserted central yard with a fleece when she heard the shouting – urgent, triumphant shouting. She dumped the fleece behind a rock, swivelled her eyes to check no one was watching her, scrambled up the rock face and crawled on to her flint ledge to look out.

It was a serious matter, opening the gates. Instead, the headman ordered the parley ladder to be propped up against them, and climbed it. Kita, peering over her ledge, watched as the footsoldiers came to a halt on the steep, grassy slope.

Two of them were carrying something. The first thing she noticed was its colour – a glorious, russet red, like berries in autumn, glowing and rich.

Then its shape. Human shape.

Arc stepped forward and saluted the headman, who was now looming over the gates on the top rung of the parley ladder. “A witch!” Arc cried. “Sir, we caught a witch!”

The headman started. “Stay back!” he roared. “Are you mad? Bringing her here?”

“Sir, she has no power!” shouted Arc. “We saw her in the undergrowth, stooping, shuffling. She saw us, and tried to run. But Drell caught her a blow with his scythe end, and she went down.”

“She could have destroyed him – destroyed all of you!”

“But she didn't!” Arc yelled back, defiantly. “We overcame her!” Then he turned, and gestured to the two footsoldiers carrying the russet bundle, who dropped it on the ground.

A slender girl unfolded from the cloth, and scrambled to her feet. The red cloth billowed around her; a shower of bright-red flowers dropped from her hands. She had long, wild brown hair, a white pointed face, huge, terrified eyes. Kita stared; her mouth dropped open. Somehow the girl was more stirring to her even than the magnificent horses had been. The girl was beautiful.

And yet she was a witch.

“Sir, she has no power,” Arc yelled, again. “If she had power, she would have used it by now. Maybe she's too young. If we bring her in, we can work on her. We can find out how they make their necromancy. We can learn about the two missing girls. The horsemen will be pleased.”

There was a silence, as the headman glared down over the gates. Then he said, “It is too dangerous to bring her inside the gates. She is evil.” Then he said, “Slit her. Do it now.”

“But
sir
!” Arc erupted.

“
Now!
” roared the headman, but Arc still made no move, defying him.

Then Drell drew his knife. He knew how to slit a witch, all the young footsoldiers knew, though none of them had seen it done.

He planted himself in front of the swaying witch, then he thrust his knife into her throat, leaving it there as the blood spurted.

Soundlessly, weirdly, she spun, and then for a long instant she looked straight up at Kita, hidden on her ledge. Kita flinched back into the brambles, trembling.

Drell seized the witch by her arm, steadying her. He took hold of his knife again and dragged it down, down the witch's breastbone to her stomach, and the witch folded up, gushing more bright blood on to the ground.