Water Witch (4 page)

"Acting unafraid. Acting as though you
have nothing to fear from me." She wasn't sure why, but this bothered her.

"Okay." He sobered and sat at
attention. So intent was his amber gaze on hers, so familiar, she had to turn
away to avoid the intensity, and the sense of pull it had on her.

She hoisted her sword and slid it back into
its sheath on Barruch's sidesaddle, then hoisted her leg onto his back. She
didn't care who he was anymore; he wasn't trying to kill her, and if he'd
escaped her "mission" so be it. Let him escape.

She was nudging Barruch forward when he
spoke again, but it was too late. She was already heading out of the grove, and
once her mount had his mind set, she knew there was no changing it.

"It's not everyone who calls her nurse
Nohma, though," he said to her back.

Nohma. Grandmother. He was right. She
called her nurse something her father's tribe did not use, and so it was
possible he did know her -- but for the small fact that her nohma was dead.
That was how she knew this man was just aiming his arrows into the shadows,
hoping to hit a target.

Nohma was dead. Never mind his present
tense. She was gone. Alaysha knew it was true because she was the one who had
killed her.

As it turned out, she left at just the
right time. She could see both Drahl on his black mount and her father on his
sturdy white one off in the distance, heading toward the decimated village.
Looking for her, she supposed, but not from concern. If her father was riding
with Drahl it could only be because he'd grown tired of waiting for a report,
and he hated waiting.

She trotted Barruch to meet him. They
didn't see her at first; they kept on such a straight trajectory for the
village, and by the time she'd started riding, they were already a breath ahead
of her. She came up from behind them and to their left.

"Ho," she hollered.

They reined up short. The village ruin was
a few hundred mount strides off yet, but she could easily make out the rubble
of the old mud hut. She shifted her gaze away from it and made for her father's
horse.

"I have the collection, Father,"
she told him and lowered her glance to his horse's hooves. No one could keep
the intensity of his blue-eyed gaze long -- least of all the witch he hated.

His horse snorted as it was forced closer,
he and Barruch had been sired by the same stallion and though the speed ran in
their veins, so too did the alpha streak. Neither horse could be corralled
together and this proximity made them both antsy. Barruch was wont to nip at
his brother, and stomp on a stray foot with his. Add to the fact that Alaysha
could drain the beast of all fluid and it sensed that danger. Add to the
tension the beast felt from her father's very real, but checked hostility. The
cipher made for dangerous territory.

Yuri reached across both mounts, stretching
toward the basket. "How many?"

She unleashed the basket from Barruch's
saddle and pulled out the pouch, handed it by its lashings to her father.
"Eighteen pairs."

Yuri's fair face flushed red.
"Eighteen?" He grabbed the handle and twisted to shake it at Drahl.
"Eighteen pairs."

Drahl hung his head but said nothing.
Alaysha wasn't sure what the trouble was.

"I collected them all, Father. Even
the children's."

He didn't sound as though he believed her.
"All, you say." He opened the top and rooted around within as though
he could tell one shriveled eye from another, as though the contents weren't
thirty-six eyes at all, but a benign collection of baubles. "All, you
say." He withdrew his hand and yanked the pouch closed, then tossed it to
Drahl.

"Tell her, Drahl."

"There were to be nineteen dead."

"Nineteen," Her father repeated.
"Now tell me, where is the last?"

She swallowed hard. "The last?"

"You counted eighteen and there were
to be nineteen. Where is the last?" He enunciated very clearly, very
slowly, almost as though he thought she was stupid. But she wasn't stupid.
Anxious, maybe. But not stupid.

"One woman was with child, but
eighteen is all I killed, Father."

"Don't call me that," he said so
matter-of-factly she wasn't aware of the venom in his tone at first. "I
may have stolen your mother for my pleasure, but that doesn't make me your
father. It makes me your Emir."

"Yes, Fa… yes, Yuri, Conqueror of the
Hordes." Best to use his formal name, the one he prided himself on.

"It makes you my tool."

She nodded. She wouldn't react. He was
angry, that was all. He always got this way when he was angry. Always trying to
hurt her, to goad her. To test her. She would not react.

"Yes, Yuri."

"Where is the nineteenth?"

She wouldn't look at him. He would know if
she showed him her eyes. "I killed only eighteen." It was true,
wasn't it? He couldn't accuse her of lying.

He swore and pressed his mount closer.
Barruch grew agitated. He stomped and writhed under her hold.

"I know you killed eighteen,"
Yuri said. "For if you had killed one more, I would have nineteen sets of
your seeds."

He pressed so close Alaysha could smell the
onions on his breath, the cactus wine he drank before each battle. She had to
work to keep Barruch from rearing.

He pressed his spur into her bare shin and
twisted. She gasped.

"There is no nineteen."

He glared at her, his blue eyes like chunks
of hail and for a second she thought she'd like to melt the ice, drain it from
him, taste the wet --

"Don't even think it, witch," her
father said and she lost the thirst so fast she could taste the desert on her
tongue.

"I'm sorry, Father."

He let the title slide, but he seemed to be
considering it. Finally, he addressed Drahl, who had dismounted and was
standing with his feet apart, the leather riding breeks buckled at the knees.

"Your scouts were wrong."

"I scouted the village myself."

"Then you were wrong."

Drahl kept the flint of his eyes cast
downward and his thick lips pressed firmly together, but his posture argued
with Yuri in ways his words would never dare. He opened his mouth once and then
clamped it shut, considering. Then, he changed tack. "Perhaps the
nineteenth was away during the attack."

Yuri rubbed his broad thigh in thought.
"Perhaps," he said after a while. "Then we need to find out who
was missing." He glanced at the basket of seeds. "That will be
useless."

He turned Alaysha. "What of the
bodies?"

She relayed what she could remember leaving
out the information of the tattaus and the man in the oasis.

"Three crones you say?" His face
lit up at the news. "Three?" He repeated, holding up his fingers.
"You're sure?"

She nodded.

It seemed as though his joy was temporary
if not tentative, as though he felt relief, but it was combined with wariness.

"And were these crones marked?"

She had to be careful; too much information
and he would know she suspected something, too little and he would know she was
lying. "There were some markings on the men, Father, but they meant
nothing to me."

He wasn't mollified. "What kind of
markings were they?"

He was baiting her, she knew. She wasn't
sure why. She sensed he knew exactly how the tattaus looked, that they were
very close to her own, but she wasn't sure if he understood just how similar
they were. She guessed, and made a stab he'd gotten reports but had not
actually seen the tattaus. She hoped as she spoke that he couldn't hear the
tremble in her voice.

"They were symbols of animals. All
across the chest and the backs of the hands." He'd know she was lying if
he went to look at the bodies, and she prayed to the Deities he wouldn't. She
wasn't sure why she had lied so blatantly when she could be checked up on so
easily.

He eyed her critically. "And the
crones?"

"The crones had no markings."

"None?"

She shook her head.

Yuri turned to Drahl. "You told me
--"

Drahl shrugged as it became obvious to
Alaysha that while he'd had been the one sent to do the scouting, he'd sent
someone else and so now he couldn't speculate. Thank The Deities for his
laziness.

"Markings are markings," he said
and nodded at Alaysha. "How would she know what to look for?" The
black look he gave her would have shriveled an apple.

"She tells me what she sees."

"Perhaps it is not the crones she
saw."

"Perhaps not, but then the number
would be wrong." Her father was beginning to lose patience, she could
tell; his white brows were furrowed and meeting together over the blue-pink of
his eyes. Drahl on the other hand, seemed oblivious.

"The count was correct." He
argued. He hoisted himself back onto his mount and spent considerable time
wrapping the end of the rein over his fleshy wrist. Alaysha thought he would
grow fat when he stopped riding and scouting.

Yuri's eyes narrowed. "Then you have
the wrong tribe."

"The crones must have escaped."

"If it's so and it is the correct
tribe minus the old women, then the number would be sixteen. If it's the right
tribe as you say, and the crones are the right ones, then the number would be
nineteen. Either you are right or you are wrong."

It was all terribly confusing. Alaysha cut
in. "The crones did not escape."

"But they have no markings."

"They were the only old women in the
village."

Yuri dismounted and grabbed the pouch
again, then spilled the seeds across the caked dirt. Pick them out," he
ordered.

Alaysha knew which were the crones. Each
seed had its shape even if that shape was no longer what it had been when it
was fully fluid, or if each seed lacked the color it wore in life. A witch does
not send her power through tear ducts and pores and not know each fluid membrane
it touches. By her very nature, she had a long, long memory, the better to
travel the fluid lines of each host and drain the living fluid away. She knew
each seed, yes. Intimately.

She sorted out seeds that in life she knew
had been bright blue and milky white. Each crone with a mixed set. These not
quite so desiccated as the others.

"These," she said, putting them
aside from the others.

Yuri inspected them. "And all are
buried beneath the mud?"

She nodded.

"And none were marked?"

It was her turn to examine the seeds, but
only so she could avoid his eye. "Yes," she said, and found the lie
came easier each time she spoke it.

He toed the dirt, flipping dry soil over
the seeds. Then he said to Drahl, "It's not the right tribe. Keep
looking."

"But the number is right."

Yuri didn't raise his voice, but the threat
was clear in the undertones. "The number is wrong. There were eighteen,
not the nineteen we're looking for. You counted wrong. The crones were
unmarked. It doesn't matter if the others were. Keep looking."

Despite the way Drahl glowered at her and
clenched his fat lips into a tight hateful line, Alaysha had to know. "Who
are these people, Father?"

He stared at her. "The wrong
people." He mounted up and nosed his stallion back towards the camp. Drahl
did the same, leaving Alaysha alone.

The wrong people. He thought she'd got it
wrong, but she hadn't, and now she needed to know exactly what was going on.

He wanted this village in particular
vanquished. That was nothing new, not really, except for the crones. He was
specific in asking about the markings too. Tattaus just like hers. But why?
What had these people done that set him out from his beloved Sarum hunting for
them?

She knew of at least one person besides her
father who could answer that.

Number nineteen.

Number nineteen was gone by the time
Alaysha had returned to the tree line, and in spite of his having wanted her to
accompany him, he'd undoubtedly left as soon as he'd seen the mighty Yuri and
Drahl ride up to her.

It was the smart thing for him to do, no
doubt, but the most frustrating for her. Now she'd never know what he wanted to
tell her, and she had the feeling it was the same thing her father didn't want
her to know. That meant she could never tell him the crones were actually the ones
he was seeking. If the village had been the right one, he'd know number
nineteen had escaped. Better he think they had the wrong village and that the
survivor was nowhere in the vicinity.

It had been a terribly long day. She was
hungry and tired, and worst of all, thirsty. That was never a good thing, but
so long as she wasn't afraid, and she was sufficiently exhausted, the power
could not creep on her unawares.