Water Witch (19 page)

"What's your name, girl?"

"Bronwyn."

"Well, Bronwyn, sleep if you can, but
if you can't, don't speak to me unless I speak to you first. I need to listen
to the night."

There was a short pause, and Alaysha
thought her bluntness had hurt the girl, but then her voice came and made
Alaysha's eyes sting.

"She was brave," Bronwyn said.
"When Edulph took her. She didn't cry at all."

"Thank you," Alaysha whispered.

They came when
Alaysha felt the weariness the most. They must have been watching her, waiting
for her head to nod, for her shoulders to slump. If she'd have been more
clever, she would have thought to fake the fatigue while she was still sour
enough to add the fury to her fight.

As it was, they got well within the light before
she jarred awake, and it took several awkward seconds to get her feet. She
swayed once before the adrenaline kicked in and the hesitation gave them the
time they needed to bound across the fire.

There were two to meet the attack. The
rest, the last seven or eight stood off in the shadows, moving and shuffling
there.

The first managed to get close enough to
Alaysha that she had to jump back to gain the distance to swing her sword. She
had to shout at the girl to find her feet and keep her back as close as she
could to Alaysha's.

To her credit, the girl's response was
instant and Alaysha could feel the heat of her, dancing with her, sidestepping
as she took the measures of the men.

Her mentors had taught her to say nothing
when she fought, not to waste a single breath on words. She kept her sword low,
but close so not waste the energy it took to hold aloft. She took long, slow
breaths; her skin hummed. She felt the air against the flesh of her eyes, so
wide were they, taking in everything she could. She could hear the breathing of
the man to her left. It was ragged. Excited. Too sure of his own confidence and
the outcome to be even. The other one was measuring his breaths, taking slow
inhales like she was.

The one to the left would be dead in
seconds; the other would try for her then, she knew. She had to find a way to
make both of those things unexpected so the second would not gain from the
stupidity of the first. That meant she had to strike and she'd have to strike
for the one who was prepared to use his comrade's misfortune to his advantage.

She made no sound, just filled her lungs as
best she could and lunged. And swung. And twisted in the circle, prepared to
make the loop even if she contacted nothing.

She aimed high. And stepped to the right.
The first swing connected with something that caught and held her blade. A stab
met pure air. A force struck her legs and rolled her over twice. She barely
held onto the hilt, and twisted awkwardly. Hot coppery liquid trailed down her
wrist.

So. She'd got the first, but the moron had
her on her back. She needed to find her feet or she'd be finished. And the girl
would be finished.

She felt a blade against her throat and a
clammy hand against the inside of her thigh. "I was glad to see you,"
he said. "We see so few women."

The blade was so hard against her throat,
she could smell her own blood, but she wasn't afraid. She knew he'd lose
interest in the knife soon enough. All she had to do was let go the sword where
she could grab it again. Let go. Let go. Her fingers finally obeyed her and
dropped the hilt noiselessly on the ground. She waited, so patiently, till he
pressed his hips closer to hers, all his weight going into working at pulling
down his breeks.

And she jammed her fingers as hard as she
could into his eyes. A scuffling sound came from her left where she'd dropped
the blade. She had to get him off her before whoever had the sword could use
it.

Too late. She heard the whistling sound of
it eating air, and she braced herself to feel it slicing into her.

There was a meaty thunk as his weight went
dead on her. Someone in the shadows cursed.

Alaysha pushed at the body atop her and
rolled to her side when it fell away. When she gained her feet, she saw Bronwyn
standing framed in firelight, the sword hanging at her side, tip pointing to
the ground.

"You did good, little one."

Bronwyn nodded, mute. Alaysha took the
sword from her. She held it high and shouted at the shadows, watched them
disperse.

"Careful, dogs. Yuri's daughters are
trained like men to be warriors. You would do well to remember your pitiful
lives when next you think they can be used for sport."

She put her hand on the girl's shoulder.
"We can sleep now."

The girl gave a lingering look at the
blanket. "I don't think I'll ever sleep again."

Alaysha suffered dreams that seemed more
memory than night visions. In them, she traveled like a drop of water through
fibres and muscles and tear ducts. She fell as dried fruit from eye sockets of
dying men, laid down roots into arid sand and waited for the whispering song of
rain. Once or twice she woke to the sounds of wolves snarling, and in her
drowsiness told herself they were just after the man Bronwyn had killed--that
they'd leave the camp alone.

When she felt the sun on her face and heard
squirrels chattering to each other, she got up and woke Bronwyn who had fallen
asleep after all.

None of the men spoke to them. She carried
the sword in plain sight anyway.

Alaysha had been given plenty to eat when
she and Yenic had traveled with them the first time; this last leg of the
journey found the stores wanting. The fire provided heat for those rousing
before dawn – and Alaysha watched them with wary eyes – even those men who kept
their distance but shot her hateful looks. Some of the men eventually came
forward with squirrels that they'd skinned and stuck to the ends of sticks.
These they poked into the hottest part of the embers, and Alaysha realized then
the full extent of the wear on the stores.

If they'd not been so gluttonous, they
might have more to eat among them than a few squirrels, snakes, and overripe
gooseberries.

She watched a few of them come and go at
the fire, some of them throwing in whole, un-skinned snakes, others large hairy
spiders that stank when they cooked. Most squatted and leaned in, avoiding her
eye. One man, a thin strip of leathered frame with so much hair she thought he
could stand to go a night without a cover, came within spitting distance and
threw a handful of yellow wriggling things onto a flat rock at the edge.

She immediately perked up.

"You eat those?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Never did before, but
Edulph said to try it."

"They taste like roast boar," she
said.

He watched them sizzle against the stone in
the juices from the dying bodies. Once, he even grimaced.

"That's not nearly enough to make a
meal," she said, trying on a sympathetic tone. Bronwyn was gagging
discreetly as she sat next to her.

He met her eye. "Edulph didn't want to
waste many if they weren't edible."

"Oh, they're edible." She tried
to smile her encouragement. The real truth was she'd left the entire mess for
Yenic back at the oasis because they were too disgusting to think about eating,
but if Edulph was down to eating his tribe's dreamer's worm, then she knew
their food supply was indeed gone. Not great planning for a potential leader.
Maybe not such a potential leader, then. She scanned his crew, who were all
either rummaging through the bushes, trying to catch and skin squirrels, or
beating the bushes for snakes.

Fierce fighters, maybe, but untried in true
campaign.

For the first time in days, she felt the
stirrings of hope.

The swarthy fellow scraped stiff grubs into
a wooden bowl and Alaysha caught him shivering in disgust.

"I can take that to him if you
like."

He gave her a patronizing look across the
short flame. "Who else do you think was going to bring it?" The man
nodded in the direction of two men who stood at the edge of the tree line.
"He's just beyond." He grinned and showed a broken front tooth.
"And leave the girl."

She pulled Bronwyn close. "I won't
leave her alone."

The man whistled and Greetha rose up from a
pile of furs. "Watch the girl," he said and Greetha groaned.
"Edulph wants to talk to the witch, and I don't think the witch trusts us
with her little girl."

Alaysha didn't trust the woman any more
than the men. "Here." She passed the sword to Bronwyn. "Don't be
afraid to give that one company." She nodded at the remains of the body
from the night before lying on the edge of camp.

Bronwyn clenched the sword in
white-knuckled hands and only then, did Alaysha make a move toward the trees.

The man grunted at her. "Don't forget
his breakfast."

She took the bowl to where the men waited.
Without a word, they ushered her past the pines and spruce into a small
clearing devoid of vegetation. The needles on the ground softened any noise.

"You're hungry," she said to the
lump at the base of the tree. He was wrapped in fur against the early morning
chill. Alaysha scanned the clearing for Aedus.

"She's safe."

Alaysha eased the bowl onto the ground at
the statement. There was a tension in the air that she could taste in the back
of her throat, and she wanted her hands free just in case.

"You say she's safe."

"If I say it, it must be true."
He unfolded from the blanket and got up. "She tells me you eat
these." He stabbed his finger at the bowl.

Alaysha lifted a shoulder. "Some
do."

He grunted and for the first time she
noticed his fingers were a wriggling mass of yellow. A handful of them in his
hand, come from a pile of roiling grubs on the ground next to his fur.

"Someone's been busy."

"There's a pond near my site," he
said. "Aedus and I have been fishing."

"But you caught nothing?"

He sighed. "Just these worms; she
seemed fairly excited to gobble them up."

"Have you been feeding her?"

"Of course. She's my sister."

Alaysha was tired of the game. "What
do you want?"

He slunk forward, dropping the grubs with a
pitter-pat to the earth and reached for a lock of her hair that he then trailed
across his fingers. He smelled of old sweat and sour dirt. "Feels
nice," he said. "If only you weren't ruined by that hideous
tattau." He grimaced in pity.

She jerked away and his expression
hardened. "Did you like my present?"

"Present? Those severed heads, Aedus's
finger, or Yenic's battered body?"

A smile slithered across his face.
"All of them were one large gift."

"I liked it as much as I like
you."

"Oh, you're harsh, even for a witch.
Do you know how you came to receive those heads?"

"I was there, wasn't I?"

"Not for the first of it, the wrapping
of the gift, so to speak."

She refused to encourage him by speaking.
He stepped away from her, letting a finger trail down her arm. She had to work
at not shuddering in revulsion.

"My best men," he said.
"Your Yenic shows such promise as a warrior. Spate – he was the first, my
good cousin – he caught the traitor stealing up to Aedus in the early hours
after our meal. We had drunk a fair bit, I must say, and it made us all a
little off our play."

"So you only thought it fair to pitch
him against three?"

He pooched his bottom lip into the top,
making it look like a slug had nestled in his beard.

"Wouldn't you think it fair? One
drunken man would never be able to hold his own against a sober one. Although,
I must admit also, that Spate kept his grog pretty well. Some have even said it
made him that much fiercer a fighter."

He settled down against a tree.
"Sit," he told her. "You will hear it all."

She didn't want to hear any of it, and yet
she wanted more than anything to. She wouldn't move closer, though, and
selected a rock with enough moss on it to add comfort, far enough away that she
didn't have to concern herself with accidentally touching him.

"So," she said. "Go
on."

He smiled then, and leaned forward as
though he were telling an exciting tale to a sleepy child. She thought him
completely mad.

"Your Yenic had no weapons at all,
poor thing. He had to weave and bob like some thief in the marketplace. He's
quite skilled in defense, even without a sword – even against one." He
smiled, but there was no humor in it. "Used his body like a battering ram,
knocking poor Spate down and crashing his forearms over and over onto his
face."

He cocked his head. "I heard his nose
break. That's when I knew Spate needed help."

"So you sent the others." She
forced her tone to sound unimpressed.
 
"I know this."