Water Witch (10 page)

And how would he get it without the weapon
he'd relied on all these years?

So no, she would not kill again for Yuri,
but she would kill for herself if she needed to. One thing he had shown her was
that she could bear taking lives -- so it was time she used that complacency
for herself.

She had all her possessions loaded into the
two baskets that hung from Barruch's back. She would grieve the loss of her
seed pouches, but there was nothing that could be done about that. She would
need to find Barruch some oats or grain along the way; until then, he'd have to
content himself with the bitter grass he could manage until she could find good
plains lands.

His back was slick with rain, and her tunic
had sopped up enough water that it felt heavy on her chest. She was mounted,
reins in hand, ready to go, when she remembered the girl.

She'd said nothing the entire time, and
Alaysha had forgotten she was even there, so lost was she in her own thoughts
and miseries. She looked to where the girl sat cross-legged on the same boulder
number nineteen had stretched her sleeping skin upon earlier that morning.
Alaysha couldn't see the girl's skin for the mud running down her face and onto
her neck, released as it was from the plaits. Now that the rain had washed the
dirt from her hair, it had unloosed into a thick curtain of soft cream.

"You can come or stay," she told
the girl. "But if you come, I can't guarantee you food or shelter. I can't
even guarantee you safety." She wasn't sure she wanted company, but she
did know that now someone had spent time with her, she felt less lonely.

The girl brightened at once and hopped down
from the stone. "I don't have any of that now, so what's the
difference?"

She ran to the horse and lifted a knee.

"What of your brother?"

The girl shrugged. "What is an absent
brother to a present sister?"

Alaysha reached down, one hand under the
girl's armpit, the other beneath the bent knee, and hauled her up. She settled
the girl in front and gave Barruch's neck a gentle slap.

"I should call you something,"
Alaysha told the girl.

"I haven't used my birth name for so
long, it wouldn't seem right."

"What did your captor call you?"

The girl leaned against Alaysha's chest she
warmth from her back and Alaysha's stomach combined and warmed them both. Even
though the rain kept up, neither shivered as Barruch plodded along. After a
while, the girl answered her question without emotion and Alaysha's face burned
when she heard the words.

"Commander Drahl called me
Ferret," she said without emotion.

"Then I shall have to call you by a
name you like."

"Let me think about it," the girl
said. "It has to be the right one."

"Indeed it does," Alaysha
murmured, but at the same time she was already turning over this new piece of
information. No wonder the girl had disappeared each time Drahl was near. But
in truth, she didn't think the man would even care if he knew his runaway was
still close by. She doubted he had ever given thought to the girl and her
brother. After all, they were nothing. Maybe less than nothing. Some captors
were greedy for slaves, possessing them with a sense of entitlement. Some used
their slaves well. Others didn't care one way or the other because to do so
would be to place a value on them as a person. Drahl was that way.

Still, she hadn't the heart to hurt the
girl, and so she didn't contradict her.

They rode in silence from camp, back in the
direction of the village. She and the girl could easily overnight at the oasis
for the days it took to dig the old women out from beneath the hut. She doubted
Yuri would look for her too soon, and would only grow concerned that his best
blade had got lost when she didn't return with reports. He would simply assume
for a while he'd successfully bullied her once again into doing his bidding.

That meant she had one -- maybe two --
phases of the moon. She could be well away then and Sarum would be a bitter
memory. She could forage as she always did for food for a while, but she hoped
to come upon a space she could plant and hunt. She had a sword, but no bow. She
didn't have a knife to skin any prey, but perhaps she could find a trader to
swap the remaining garnet chips from her tunic.

She was beginning to feel optimistic when
the girl interrupted her thoughts.

"Someone is following us."

"How do you know this when I don't?"

"Because I'm used to hiding. The
person stays far enough in the trees that you wouldn't think to look, but he
stops now and then when he thinks we'll see him. It's almost as though he wants
you to know."

"And you know it's a him?"

"Yes."

"Is it Drahl?"

The girl shook her head. "It's the man
from this morning."

Indeed. And what should she do, knowing
number nineteen was so close? Acknowledge him, call him out, run away from him?

No. Best to stay the course. He'd come out
when the time was right. For now, she felt it oddly comforting to have two
other souls with her even if one was dodging through the trees. She felt
connected in a way she hadn't enjoyed since her nohma died.

Nohma. Yuri had spoken of her as though she
was a failure, but Alaysha knew it wasn't true. She'd been the only person who
dared live with the witch, feeding her, teaching her. Loving her.

With Nohma's death went the life of
Alaysha's constant regret. After the only woman to love her succumbed to the
power, Alaysha couldn't care who else it took. Until then, she'd done battle
for her father half a dozen times. Nohma knew about the seeds and let her keep
them. She said it was good and just to ponder over lives taken, that it should
never be easy to kill. That each pair of eyes meant a dozen lives, grieving
ones, seeping out enough water to flush the bodies back to rights. That Alaysha
should never forget the person remaining who had lost loved ones to war.

She'd been six then, a young girl kept
apart from her father's people and nursed by a woman who fed her from a garden
she planted and fowl she'd raised herself. A goat supplied milk and cheese and
at the end of the season, salted meat for the winter. They saw only each other
except for the continual guard, the endless stream of trainers, and the people
she killed when her father fetched her.

It had been the happiest Alaysha could ever
remember being.

"What's got you so tense," the
girl asked, sitting straighter. They were coming close enough to the village
that Alaysha could see the smudge of the first body on the horizon. The
vegetation had stopped like a line had been drawn, and the soil was wet from
the rains. She noted the position of the sun. They had been traveling for
hours, plodding along, and she was getting hungry.

"I was just thinking," Alaysha
said.

"Nothing bad, I hope."

"There is no bad. There just is."

"Will he come out now?"

Alaysha did her best not to turn in the
saddle to where she suspected number nineteen lurked. He had followed--
Barruch's pace had been easy enough, but he'd not made any attempt to truly
hide. She gauged him capable of being invisible when he wanted; and so he must
have wanted her to know he was there.

Now she was close to the last stand as
she'd begun to think of it, she wasn't sure she was ready to share it with her
passenger. Not sure the girl would understand. Alaysha looked to the left and
saw the wavering relief of the oasis.

"Looks like the perfect place for us
to lay down for the night, what do you think?"

"It would have to be better than
what's ahead."

So she had seen the desolation they were
moving into. Smart girl. Alaysha kneed Barruch sideways and within moments,
excited by the smell of fresh grass and water, he picked up his pace. It wasn't
long before they were off his back and picking their way beneath tree limbs and
between brambles that turned out to be blackberry bushes.

Alaysha reached into her basket and pulled
out her wooden bowl. "Collect what you can," she told the girl.
"I'm going to see about a fire and a good spot to set up."

The girl nodded at a tree over Alaysha's
shoulder. "Peaches."

How had she missed that before? Already
Alaysha's mouth was watering. She noticed more too, that she hadn't on her
first visit: wild onions, hazelnut bushes, even a fair sized beehive with
liquid gold oozing from the hole in a large beech tree.

"How lucky are we?"

The girl's mouth was filled with berries,
her lips purple.

"Never mind answering." Alaysha
couldn't help chuckling. They'd have roasted nut mash and onions for supper and
honeyed fruit as a treat. Now. All they needed was water.

"Collect up some nuts too," she
told the girl. "And pull those onions." She pointed to a spiked patch
of green, thready leaves. She plucked four peaches from the tree and tossed
them to the girl. "Think you can collect some honey without getting
stung?"

"Of course."

"Good. We'll eat wonderfully this
eve."

The girl thumbed over her shoulder.
"What about him?"

Number nineteen stood next to Barruch, his
palm against the horse's flank. He wore his black hair tied back, slicked with
mud.

Alaysha shook her head. "What is it
with you people and dirt?"

He and the girl both shrugged in unison,
but it was nineteen who spoke. "Keeps the hair out of my eyes."

Alaysha looked to her girl for
confirmation, and the girl nodded. "Me too. Don't have to worry about not
seeing what you need to."

It made a sort of grudging sense, but
something within made Alaysha shudder at the thought.

"Do you know where the water is?"

Nineteen grinned. "Of course."

Alaysha waited, but he said no more.

"Well, are you going to show me?"

He stepped into the clearing and bent to
the bowl the girl had set on the ground, filled to the brim with berries. He
popped two at a time into his mouth, and grimaced. "Got a sour one,"
he said.

"I'm glad to hear it. Now. The
water?"

"Just behind you, through the
bushes."

She grunted and stalked off, parting a few
thorn bushes, and startling a garter snake that slithered across her instep.
She heard a chuckle from behind. "Careful," he said. "There's
snakes."

She guessed he'd done the same when he was
here. Rocks were plentiful on the faint path, perfect for nests and warmth. She
wasn't scared of serpents, but neither was she over eager to step on one. She
paid careful attention as she padded forward, once seeing a writhing mass that
must have begun as a clutch of eggs. Well, if snakes chose to nest here, there
must be plenty of game. Maybe she'd rouse a quail or two from some hatchlings
and be able to roast a few tender chicks. Better yet, an entire family over a
spit with some of that honey. Perfect still, two fat, large breasted partridge
with meat to fill her belly for days. Her stomach again reminded her it had
been at least a day since she'd had anything decent to eat.

She heard the sure sound of rushing water
and pushed aside the last of the bracken. To her amazement, what showed itself
was a narrow waterfall emptying into a large pool. Blue moss grew on the stones
around the edge, and layered on the marsh edges were cattails large and thick
as her arm. Three ducks gurgled to each other in a shallow feeder pool just to
the side. A large bullfrog jumped off the rock next to her and plopped into the
water to swim and disappear in seconds within the grasses.

The nut mash and onion meal just upgraded
to frog legs and roast duck. But first, water.

She lowered her face into the pool and
slurped without using her hands. It was sweet and fresh and cold, enough to
make her back teeth ache, and still she kept drinking till her belly was
bloated.

No wonder nineteen had come here when his
village was under attack. He had everything he needed to survive.

She scouted the edge of the pool for stray
frogs and with each one she found, thwhacked it solidly against the stone, then
onto a pile while she could forage for the cat tail roots. They'd be bitter if
boiled alone, but if she could cut them up and mix them with peach slices, the
fruit juice might cut the starch enough to make them palatable. She had seven
dug and four frogs waiting when she realized number nineteen was foraging on
the other side of the pond.

She watched him quietly for a few moments;
he was focused as a scavenger, peering just beyond his feet for several seconds
before stooping and rising with something in his hands. He proceeded backwards
to put his booty on the ground. She realized she enjoyed watching him, the
lithe way his muscles moved as he bent and raised and reached. He had a
powerful looking torso, one that held heat like the embers of a fire, if she
remembered well. That night beneath her fur, she'd slept sounder than she could
remember in ages, and she knew it was because he slept next to her, his legs
thrown over hers at night, his palm possessive against her stomach. She touched
her belly where his palm had been, and felt a flush fill her cheeks.