Witchlanders (12 page)

It was true. As Ryder squinted through the trees, he could just make out a tight group of villagers standing in the river. They
had
listened. Maybe his mother was down there with them. Ryder was sure she would have saved herself. After all, she'd sent him to the safety of the river at the right time. She'd known.

“Here it comes!” Dassen warned, looking up at the sky.

Ryder had a moment to stumble out of the water and prepare himself. Then, like a heavy weight pressing down from above, the cold came. Ryder heard a hissing sound, like an intake of breath, as the water on his clothing froze stiff. He gasped, and Dassen let out a bellow of pain. Cold. Frigid cold.

“Hurry up!” said Dassen. “Keep moving.” His words were clouds in the air now, and his beard was white with ice. Above them the clouds, like purple fingers, seemed to reach out to grip the valley. Winter had arrived.

“The river will be frozen by tomorrow,” said Ryder. “What will we do about the creatures then?”

“We'll fight. And we'll pray to the Goddess. What else can we do? We don't even know what these things are or what magic made them.”

What magic. Out of the blue, Ryder remembered the singing he'd heard in his mind, and he remembered the conversation he'd had with his mother that morning. Something even colder than the chilling snaked its way around his heart and tightened its grip.

“Yes we do know, Dassen,” he said. “My mother told me. She said there was a Baen in the mountains. He must have made these things.”

Dassen's face hardened. Then he looked at Ryder and smiled grimly. “Well, we Witchlanders know how to kill a Baen, don't we?”

CHAPTER 9
THE COVEN

Pima's hair was damp with sweat, and her brow was creased. Even in her sleep, she looked troubled. Ryder knelt next to the small bed, feeling awkward in his borrowed clothes.

He didn't want to be here. Being inside in this too-warm witch's hut made him feel singled out, favored. He should be with the other villagers, standing on the outskirts of the coven in the bitter cold, warming his hands over the bonfires and waiting for word from the coven elders. All the way up the mountain, the villagers had talked of blood. There had been deaths in the valley—few because of Mabis's warning—but enough to give them all a taste for revenge. Soon, Ryder hoped, the witches would add to their number, and in the morning they would all swarm across the border like a tide.

Pima murmured in her sleep, and her eyes flickered open. “I thought you were gone.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“Are you going to kill a Baen?”

Ryder was taken aback. He and Skyla had decided not to tell her where he was going. “What makes you say that?”

“You've got the Baenkiller.”

Ryder's hand went to the sword poking up over his left shoulder. Dassen had done him a great honor by lending it to him. His knee had been too bad for him to come, but Ryder had seen the bitter regret in his eyes when the party of villagers left to go up the mountain.

Pima didn't seem interested in an answer to her question. Tears were seeping out of the corners of her eyes.

“Don't,” Ryder said softly.

“Why didn't Maba come too?” Pima asked. “I want her to come here.”

“I told you, she has things to do. Special things. She'll be back. . . .” He let his words trail off. His mother's body had not been found, though there had been a thorough search for her. Ryder believed she must have lived, must have saved herself, but when he talked about her, the questions started to float up to the surface of his mind. Questions like, Could she really survive in this cold? or, If she's alive, why doesn't she just show herself? “We have to be brave,” he said.

The witch Yulla poked her head into the room, and Ryder looked up, hoping the coven elders had finally
finished their endless deliberations. Somewhere in one of their secret mountain caves, witches were throwing the bones and discussing the attack. But Yulla only smiled and offered him another cup of tea.

“No, thank you,” he said, more sharply than he meant.

As much as he wanted to, Ryder couldn't find fault with Yulla, the distant cousin who had taken in Pima and Skyla. She was round and patient, always smiling. Her own husband and young children had died years ago of the scabbing disease. Sometimes Ryder thought she looked at Pima almost hungrily.
My sister's already got a mother,
he wanted to snap—but he knew he should be glad Skyla and Pima were so well cared for, and he kept his lips set tight. Yulla bobbed her head shyly, leaving them alone again.

“When you come back, we'll go to sea,” Pima said, her eyes closing again.

“All right,” he whispered. “When I get back.” He stroked her forehead, trying to smooth away the worry lines. “You'll be my little cabin girl.”

Next to the bed, a wooden chest spilled over with toys, enough for a rich man's child. Ryder had never given much thought to the way witches lived, but he found himself appalled by how much wood Yulla used on her fires, by how many useless little objects she had lying about, by the idea of a child with a bed of her own. He wanted to scoop
Pima up in his arms and take her home. But they didn't have a home anymore.

Pima had fallen back to sleep, but Ryder didn't want to rejoin Skyla and Yulla in the other room, didn't want to make conversation. Like Pima, he couldn't get Mabis out of his mind. She must have known the girls would be safe up here, just as she had known to send him to the river at the right time.
If it weren't for Mabis, Pima might be dead right now,
Ryder thought. The guilt he felt for not believing in her completely, the way Dassen did, wormed at his heart.

“I'll bring you that Baen's head,” he whispered to the sleeping girl. “I'll put the Baenkiller right through his eyes.” As if that could make up for anything.

“Ryder!” Skyla poked her head through the door. “Kef's here. The witches are back.”

Finally.

The coven was built into the side of the mountain. Tiered stone steps curved past little round huts, winding around mountain trees with roots like claws, disappearing into the darkness at the top of the settlement. Night had fallen, but high torches lined the steps, making pools of light.

Ryder had never been to this part of the coven before. Like most villagers, he had always left his tithe in the clearing below the huts and had never been asked to come any farther. Dassen used to boast that of all the covens in the
Witchlands, this one was the oldest, the most holy. Ryder had always doubted it, but now he saw the weather-worn pictographs carved into the stone torch holders, the deep depressions eroded into the stone steps, and he wondered if it might be true, after all.

Witches were arriving home from somewhere higher up toward the mountain's crooked spire. They walked together in groups of two and three as they came down the steps, swinging their glims—round glass lanterns that they carried on chains. Ryder had never seen glass lanterns before. They seemed miraculous, like fire wrapped in water, and he could see them glowing like firebugs all the way up the mountain.

He was surprised to see how many of the witches had darker hair or a hint of Baen features. He'd thought that the girl in white was something out of the ordinary, but there was more mixed blood here than in the village, though he couldn't think why. The witches murmured softly to one another, but conversations stopped when they saw Ryder, and without meeting his gaze they slipped into the round huts or disappeared along dirt paths that branched off from the coven steps. They seemed too calm, too subdued for people readying themselves for war. Kef steered him in the other direction, down the steps and toward the flat stretch of land beyond the last coven torch, the place where the villagers had set up camp.

“Do the witches want to attack tonight?” Ryder asked Kef. He could see the villagers moving in the dark ahead, putting out cooking fires and packing up their rough tents. It was probably a good idea; there was a smell of snow in the air.

“Visser has told the villagers to go home,” Kef said. “That the danger is over.”

“What!” Ryder stopped short.

“The monsters are gone. They're dead now—if you can call it dead—at least that's what you villagers have told us.”

It was true enough. By the time Ryder and Dassen had gotten back to the village, the creatures had already begun to slow. Perhaps it was the cold, or perhaps their lifespan was shorter than a jewelfly's, but by dawn the next morning, the earth men were stiff and still, and the bravest of the villagers were pushing them over, stomping their bodies back into the ground.

Ryder thought for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “This is a mistake. The Baen can make more of those creatures whenever he wants. The danger is
not
over. We'd be fools to think so!”

“I'm sorry, Ryder, I'm just telling you what Aata's Right Hand saw in her bones. If there is a Baen over the border, he has every right to be there. We have no reason to believe he is responsible for this magic.”

“No reason! What about my mother's prophecies?”

A pair of witches stared at Ryder as they passed, and Kef pulled him off the steps, leading him to a space between two of the witch huts. He lowered his voice. “Think, Ryder. Think what a serious thing it would be to cross the border. We don't want another war.”

“It's already a war, and the blackhairs have begun it! Help me convince them, Kef. Please. Help me convince the witches not to do this.”

“I can't.”

Ryder turned away in frustration. Inside one of the huts, he could see a man bending over a hearth, distorted by the warps and bubbles of a glass window. These witches were too comfortable, he thought, with their warm fires and their glass windows, untouched by the destruction the creatures had wreaked in the village.

“You're quite a lackey, aren't you?” Ryder hissed. “Go tell Ryder we're stealing his sisters. Go tell Ryder he should go back to the village. No wonder they took you into the coven. Do you empty their chamber pots, too?”

Kef's face hardened under his braided beard. “If they asked me to, I would. It is an honor to live here.” Ryder rolled his eyes. “Don't be angry. We were friends once, Ryder. And we should be now. Now, more than ever, after what we've lost.”

Kef was fingering the blue bead at his neck, still visible above the open collar of his coat. Ryder remembered it as
something Kef's mother used to wear. She'd been a pretty woman with arms blue to the elbow from dying cloth, who fed stray dogs and always kept her house tidy. How Kef's father had adored her. And what a terrible death she'd had to suffer. All at once Ryder regretted his harsh words.

“Kef,” he said gently, “just because the witches took you in doesn't mean you have to do everything they say. Where's the boy who dressed the village lucky man to look like the blacksmith's wife? Where's the boy—”

“Don't!” Kef said with a harshness Ryder didn't understand. “I hate to even think of those days, Ryder. I'm not that person.”

Kef's vehemence surprised Ryder, and hurt him a little too. Ryder had grown up too far from the village to make many friends. He and Kef hadn't had the chance to see each other very often, but Ryder remembered every occasion: a few islands of frivolous pleasure in a life that was otherwise a sea of hard work.

“Harmless fun, Kef,” he said.

“No. Not harmless. Listen, Ryder, the witches aren't just here to throw the bones and guard the border. They're here to guide us. They must be obeyed.”

“Without question?”

“Yes! You might not like Visser or Aata's Right Hand or even Sodan, but when they make a decision, their words are the voice of the Goddess. And trust me, the Goddess
does not look kindly on those who think her words are open to interpretation.”

Ryder was about to argue, but he had the feeling there was nothing he could say to change his friend's mind. Kef was right: He wasn't the boy Ryder had known anymore.

Skyla rounded the corner, her breath in clouds. She wore an elegant red coat that Yulla had given her.
Even the clothes people wear here are extravagant,
Ryder thought. A villager had loaned him the coat he was wearing; it was made from an old blanket.

“What's happening?” she asked, panting. “Why are the villagers leaving?”

“They're not,” Ryder said firmly.

He left them both and ran.

In the frozen meadow, men and women were saddling their pack animals and rolling up their gear. Ryder caught one of his neighbors by the sleeve. It was Raiken, who owned the farm nearest Ryder's. Raiken had six children and another on the way, but because of Mabis's warning the whole family had made it to the river in time.

“What can we do, Ryder?” Raiken said. Beside him, a gray mare shook her mane in the dark, blowing white breath out of her nose. “Our hands are tied. The witches won't agree to let us cross the border.”