Water Witch (21 page)

Yenic tried to bolt for the bushes, but
Greetha made a grab for him.

Edulph pulled at Aedus's leash. "You
certainly smeared a lot of slime worm on him, sister. Thank you."

Alaysha thought she caught a blaze of anger
behind Aedus's eyes before her gaze was cast downward and she smirked.

Edulph motioned for Yenic to be released
and Alaysha crept over to him to touch his shoulder. "It's me, Yenic,
" she cooed. "It's Alaysha. We're back at the oasis, now. Can you see
it?"

It took a few seconds while he stared off
into the air before he nodded passively. "Meroshi is no longer here."

"Good," she soothed. "Good.
"Why don't we go gather some peaches for supper. The tree is full."
She led him gently away from the gang toward the lofty ditch in front of the
city walls, knowing the rest of the men would settle into the shadows of the
trees as they waited for dusk.

It would be a long wait before they knew
the result of Bronwyn's visit. She found a good-sized tree root to settle on
once they were a few kubits from the city's entrance. The rest of the men found
their own spots – a good distance from the witch, she noticed.

She smiled to herself.

"What are you doing here?" She
demanded of him once they were out of earshot.

He sat cross-legged beside her, making a
show of it being awkward and maddened, but she knew better. He smelled of
manure and mud and some other thing she couldn't name. Nothing ever smelled as
sweet.

"I am the Witch's Arm," he said.

She took him in: his ribcage was less
swollen and the cut above his brow had scabbed over, but the bruises were still
purple and his breathing was labored. "Some Arm," she said.
"How?"

"Barruch found me. I was…quite mad
when he did, but I recognized him. I let him bring me to you." He leaned
closer so his shoulder touched hers. "Alaysha. You can't kill Yuri."

"I can't now," she said. "If
I kill Yuri, I kill you too."

He shook his head and put his hand on hers.
She felt a tingle, like a charge of lightening had gone off beneath her skin.

"I mean you can't kill Yuri. He has
your blood. He's protected. Even if you killed everyone, Yuri would still live
and he would hunt you for betrayal."

She remembered all the times Yuri was not
afraid when she let loose the power. It all made sense now. Not that it
mattered.

"I'd have nothing to live for then
anyway."

"Alaysha, you are the most powerful
witch of your kind. You have the culmination of dying generations in your
blood."

"All the more reason for Yuri to end
me."

"You are young," he said.
"And ignorant."

She put her arm around him and squeezed,
but angrily. "Then tell me oh Great Arm. What bits of wisdom do you have
that can protect me, even from myself." Her tone and its fury surprised
her.

He ignored her anger. "You need to get
inside the walls and talk to Yuri."

"I thought Yuri was your enemy."

He gave her a queer look. "I am Yuri's
enemy. That's not the same thing."

"It still changes nothing. Aedus, my
sister, now you. To protect you, I must kill. To refuse to kill, means you
suffer harm. Either from Yuri or Edulph. One is the same as the other. War is
war."

"This is not war, Alaysha. It's
slaughter." His voice was pleading, and she didn't dare look at him for
fear they would give themselves away if she did.

"Who is your worst enemy right now,
Alaysha? Your father and his tribe or Edulph? Who is the worst?"

She thought about it. She remembered the
way her father touched the heir's head, the fact that he saved its mother from
a violent home and brought her to a place where she was revered. He was Yuri,
Conqueror of the Hordes: fierce, unapologetic, but he was not evil. Cruel, yes,
but not completely black-hearted.

Edulph would not spare his own sister pain
to get what he wanted. And that decided her.

"I need to get into the city before
dusk--before Edulph can find out what Yuri does to his emissary, Bronwyn or
no."

"Yuri would let her die?"

She shrugged. "If they even made it
past the gatekeepers and she still lives, Yuri would think first of the whole
city."

"Even if it works, Alaysha, Edulph
still won't let Aedus go."

"I know that."

He thought for a moment. "I'll get to
her then."

"By sunset. I think she marked Edulph;
I don’t know how she managed it, but I think she did and he should be about
ready to undergo the same hell you just did."

He chuckled. "I suppose everyone has
to sleep sometime. Maybe she convinced him to eat some and saved a few to grind
down while he wasn't looking."

Alaysha smiled to herself. The girl was
clever. She hoped the cleverness stuck with her for a while yet, but if it
didn't, and she was gone…

"If you can't get to her in time, run.
Don't linger, because I will loose all the power I can to reach to the very pit
of Edulph's soul. I swear it."

"I'll wait for you, Alaysha. Until the
end of it."

She couldn't kiss him there in front of
them all, but she could touch him, and she did. She grasped his hand and prayed
to The Deities he wouldn't let her go.

Sarum was the largest village within weeks
of a horse's full gallop, and it lay in a crevice against a mountain of white
stone with a broad river on one side and a dense forest on the other. The only
place left open was a funnel of land that was flat and open. The city itself
was surrounded by a reverse ditch with several small mottes stretching across
it at strategic places and a main gate in the middle. Yuri had designed the
village so the main keep lay in the center and wooden buildings created a maze
around it. The only reliable way in was through the gate and past the death
hole just behind it.

Alaysha found no resistance as she
approached the entrance. Any kind of reception she knew would be beyond the
wall within the death hole. Yuri had used the labor of captives over the last
decade to build a dwelling for himself of solid white stone from quarries across
his land. The stones were mortared together by a paste of clay mixed with the
starchy glue of a sticky grain they threshed in the fall. It wasn't solid so
much as it was flexible, letting the stone stand and move against battering
rams or scaling ladders. It also meant it was guarded heavily so that the
vertical slits could be re-manned by archers as quickly as they went down.

The question was whether Bronwyn had
delivered her message and what Yuri had done when she did. That would decide
what greeted her when she unwound the gate. There could be a hundred guards
ready to burst through, or the entire city could be retreating already through
the Southgate into the woods beyond. It was even possible Edulph's people were
lined up at the gate waiting to be loosed. Possible, but highly unlikely.

She looked up for signs of the guard.
Nothing. The sky was still blue, but turning to indigo at the edges. In a few
moments, it would begin to bleed to pink and then to crimson, and then the sun
would be gone.

She sent her thirst out ahead of her,
searching for water. She tasted stagnant well, skins filled with leathery
water, the odd bit of moisture within mushrooms hidden in parts of cellars. She
searched for sweat next, and tears. Blood. There was precious little of the
first two, quite a bit of the last.

She chewed her lip and looked for the
handle to open the door. She took a breath and grasped the lever, grunting at
the effort and only managing to swing the door open enough to squeeze inside.

What she expected was not what met her. At
first quick glance, the death hole was empty and obviously meant to appear so.
She turned just to the right where she knew a platform had been erected for
archers. It was empty of warriors save one.

Edulph's emissary was dangling by one foot
from the top. His eyes stared forward in death.

It was the low hum that really caught her
attention and when she looked to the left, there, all piled like refuse, lay
hundreds of bodies. All raggedly dressed, filthy. The dregs of the slave
quarters. The laborers. The ones who were used to cut trees and lug stones to
keep the wall fires fed. All would have been Edulph's people, she knew. Yuri
had elected to kill them rather than give in to the demands.

So. It was obvious his message had been
received and not been appreciated.

She scanned the area, holding her breath
against the smell of defecation and urine that had been the last living task of
self-preservation. She refused to look at the two dogs rooting in the pile of
bodies or the rat that scuttled from one corner of the wall to burrow beneath.
Instead, she turned to the sky. It was turning pink. She hoped Yenic got Edulph
by now and had managed to free Aedus. Whether or not he had, would not matter
soon enough.

"They say the witch cares for nothing."

Alaysha couldn't believe she was hearing
the voice. She whirled around to see Bronwyn standing next to the well, her
hand touching the pail.

"Thank The Deities," she said. It
took her a moment to realize the girl didn't seem afraid. "Are you
okay?"

Bronwyn nodded.

Alaysha was confused. "What happened
here?"

The girl looked at the man hanging from the
rafters of the platform. "It would seem our father does care for
daughters."

"He had him killed to save you?"
Alaysha had to know.

Bronwyn's expression softened. "Maybe.
But I think he died because he dared oppose Yuri."

Alaysha waved at the pile of dead laborers.
"And these?"

"To show Edulph how we feel about
being opposed."

"Where's Yuri?"

At that, Bronwyn cast a nervous glance to
her left. It was so quick, Alaysha might doubt she'd seen it except for the
shadow that moved in the portico and then stilled.

"Do you oppose your father,
Witch?"

Before Alaysha could answer the voice
behind her, she felt the air stir, and the hot feeling of wetness streaming
down her hip. She looked down at herself. Blood. So much of it. She placed her
hand on her waist, looking for the source, and then the pain came, and then the
fear came with it.

She thought she heard her father shout, and
Bronwyn let go a shriek. She thought she saw Drahl dance in front of her, his
sword held aloft, ready to strike again, but it was too late to see more or to
assess much else.

The thirst had already come, and her mouth
filled with the taste of his sweat. She saw the paths to his moisture and collected
it so fast he collapsed in front of her, stiff, hard, a leathered husk without
eyes to see what he'd done. She was already tasting the tears from Bronwyn's
face, the liquid in the blood that drove from her heart to her throat.

She tried to stop it. She tried to picture
her nohma, Aedus, Yenic, anyone she had any real connection to. She worked hard
to bring some memory of love to her mind, but all that came was the stagnant
water left in the leathered skins, the cold water from the well.

Her stomach was on fire, and all she could
think was that she had to put it out, and even as she fell to her knees, she
could see the droplets gathering above the well into a cloud of mist, ready to
come to her bidding.

She felt someone's hands on her belly,
pressing hard. She tried to focus on the face: Bronwyn. Her face working to
shed tears that had already been pulled from her. Yuri's stern mouth yelling,
his hands beneath her head.

"Stop it," he demanded.
"You're killing Bronwyn."

Bronwyn. Aedus. Yenic. Nohma. Nohma and her
stories. Nohma sewing garnets into her bridal tunic. Nohma kissing her forehead
and singing her to sleep after battle with songs of some place called Etlantium
that her mother loved. Her mother. Never known but for that one second when she
saw the sea green color of her eyes in that one instant before the memory went
black.

Finally, all she could taste was the blood
from her own mouth, and she knew she'd been able to stop the power. She hoped
it wasn't too late, that her struggles to contain it had at least kept it from
accelerating.

"It's over," she heard her father
say, and she looked up at the sky to see the crimson edged clouds block out the
last of the sun.

She couldn't help a weak smile. Yes. All
over soon.

The hands on her stomach had gone and she
could make out the scuffling sound of footsteps in the dirt. There was an
exclamation of surprise from Yuri and a demand to lower a weapon. Then: Yenic's
voice? Cocky. Saying he was not a mere number. Bronwyn begging for a poor
madman's life.

Someone pressed again on her stomach.

"She's gone for the shaman."
Yuri's voice. Bronwyn, he must mean.

"Don't you dare let her die," she
heard. Was it Yenic? Or Yuri? She couldn’t tell anymore, just feel hands on her
belly, pressing down hard. She wanted to tell them both it didn't matter. Soon
she couldn't be used anymore – not by her father, not by Edulph.
 
Balance could come when she was gone. She
couldn't speak and her eyelids felt so heavy, all she wanted to do was close
them. She thought of all the seeds she'd collected, hoping someday she could
find a way to grow them back into men. It was childish. A fantasy. She should
have known the only way she could undo what she'd done was to undo herself.