Water Witch (6 page)

"Think
of your nohma." The command was a hoarse but firm whisper in her ear.

Even
though she was pinioned in strange arms, Alaysha was so desperate to keep the
power from thirsting the camp dry, she deliberately went still. Through the
trees she could see the fire flicker and then blaze higher as whatever water
still remaining in the wood hissed into the air. Somewhere, she knew a
laundress's linens, hung on outstretched tree limbs, had dried so completely
they took the shape of the branches and would be stiff when lifted off and
inspected in the morning.

Then,
sweet merciful Deities, there was Nohma. Her hair hanging in two plaits onto
her shoulders. Blonde, with streaks of white. Her hands working Kasha dough
into thin pancakes to stretch across the fire. It was such an ordinary image,
and yet such a sweet one that Alaysha held onto it.

The taste
of leaf mold disappeared and the hiss of water through living wood evaporated
into silence. It was all so sudden, she nearly collapsed into the arms of her
captor. Never before had she been able to stem the tide of power. It always
took flight from her so quickly, did its work so fast, it was impossible to
recall before it killed.

She felt
the relief too, in the body of her assailant. His torso melded into her back.

"It's
gone," he said to the dark. And because she couldn't speak she nodded.

"I'm
going to take my hand away."

She knew
the voice now. Number nineteen. He must have followed her to the camp.

"All
right," he sounded unsure; she could still feel his body against hers,
rigid, braced. She waited until she felt him relax before she eased out of his
grip. He let her go in measures: first her mouth, then her waist. She spun
around in the darkness, her hands outstretched, aiming for his throat.

There was
no connection; just a band of thickened air meeting her grasp, and an amused
chuckle in the dark.

"You
really are young," he said. "Come with me."

He didn't
wait for an answer. She felt him move away from her, heading back in the
direction of her site. There was no waiting for her assent or her decision, and
she knew she could easily make a break toward the fire and notify the sentries,
shout, anything, and he must've known that too. Yet when she caught a glimpse
of his back, it was already a good distance away, absorbing errant moonlight,
and then it was swallowed by the shadows of trees and shrubs. She watched the
blackness for some time before she followed, picking her way through the brush,
wincing when she stuck the same toe as before on a rock she didn't see.

He was
hunched over the beginnings of a fire when she made it back to her own site.
She could just make out her tinder bundle, lit by the long, narrow light of a
kindled flame as it rested on his lap. So it hadn't been the ferret after all
who'd stolen her things. She wondered how long he'd lurked in the dark, waiting
for her to sleep so he could ease the items from her pack. This thievery must
have been what woke her, not the cold.

"Why
didn't you just tie me up while I slept?"

He
ignored the question in favor of blowing air onto the meager flame. It was
being stubborn and seemed reluctant to catch. He mumbled a few foreign words at
it and pulled the furred skin -- her stolen skin -- over his shoulders.

"Come,"
he said.

"You
didn't answer me."

"I
will, but first you need to sit with me under this fur."

She
crossed her arms over her chest and edged closer to Barruch, who shambled
nervously in the dark.

"Listen,
it's only because you're cold," he said. "And so am I. Besides, if we
are both under this, no one in the distance will be able to think there is more
than one of us here in the dark, even when the fire catches."

She
turned her attention to the stubborn few tendrils of blaze teasing the few bits
of wet sticks he'd piled together.

"It
won't catch."

"It
will."

"It
won't last."

"It
will last as long as we need it to."

"You
sound certain."

"I
am. Now, hurry up."

She
wanted the heat, it was true. And she wanted more: the answers she hadn't been
able to get from her father after the battle. And if she waited too long,
someone just might take notice that the water witch had company -- and such an
oddity would undoubtedly draw attention.

She ran a
palm over Barruch's neck and down his side. "All right," she said and
made herself take the steps toward her mat and the hunkered-down form on it
before she could change her mind.

Her
visitor stretched his arms wide so the fur opened up, and she scooted beneath,
between his knees, letting go a murmur of pleasure when the fur settled around
her shoulders and the heat enveloped her.

"Better?"
He asked, his breath against her nape.

"Better."

It was
then the fire caught and she felt a flush of warmth on her cheeks.

"So you followed me," she said,
low enough that past their fire, no one would hear her speak.

"I did."

"How could I not have seen you?"

He chuckled, but said nothing.

"You won't tell me."

"I would be a fool to tell secrets to
the enemy."

"And yet you cuddle beneath the furs
with her as though you were a favored companion."

"You call this a cuddle, this
shivering beneath a ragged skin with barely enough fur to hold the heat? You
are indeed young."

She didn't like the way he said it. If he'd
known how she'd lived these years, how many lives she'd taken, he'd not think
her young. She was wise beyond most warriors' years.

"So it's true; we are enemies? It was
you my father was searching for?"

"Yes. Me and the others."

"You mean the rest of the
village."

"The rest of my tribe."

"So he's done it, then. Conquered your
people?"

"Mere conquest is not with the great
Yuri is after."

"What, then? What is he after if not
the vanquishment of another tribe, the obedience of another horde to keep his
boundaries safe?"

His tone turned chiding. "Is that what
you think you're doing for him? Keeping his tribe safe?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

"And my enemy, who never once thinks
about what she's doing, is supposed to expect answers?"

"You came to me, not the other way
around."

"Fair enough."

"So what is my father after, if not
conquest?"

"Annihilation. And he very nearly has
it. There are only two left from my tribe."

It hit hard, this news that she had
decimated almost an entire group of people. She thought of the last battles --
no, not battles if she remembered correctly -- more plain murder. Yes, some of
the first ones, months and seasons ago had been truer battles than these last,
with men coming at her with swords and axes and arrows, while the villages they
fought for waited hundreds of leaguas away. But these last few had been less
so, surprise attacks, even. She thought they were punishments or strategic
blows. She'd never given thought to how many might be left.

"We've been traveling," she
thought out loud. "Going far and wide to hit the targets."

"Because we're nomadic," he said.

"We've gone into the mountains."

"Our winter home."

"We've killed on the plains."

She felt him shrug. "Summer.
Spring."

"I thought he was extending his
borders."

"He was getting rid of us, and now he
has nearly succeeded."

"But why? What did you do? Yuri is a
fierce man, but to decimate an entire tribe -- he must have a reason."

"Fear."

"The great Yuri does not fear."
She snorted and Barruch clomped closer, trying to nuzzle beneath the blanket to
investigate her sounds of derision.

"Yuri had reason to fear when he first
conquered one of our villages twenty seasons ago."

"You can't know that."

"Why not?"

"Because you aren't twenty seasons
old. How do you know what occurs in battle seasons before your birth -- even
war stories are filled with lies."

He laughed but there was no mirth in it.
"You who are so young school me on age."

There was no sound in the darkness for a
while. The fire, despite its meager fuel, burned hot with a blaze that made
Alaysha think it was fed from beneath, from an infinite supply of black sludge
that sometimes gurgled to the surface.

She felt the wetness of Barruch's nose as
he shoved his muzzle into the mound of blankets. She reached out to touch him.

"It's okay, old man," she
whispered. "Everything is fine." In fact she was getting hot beneath
the fur, and despite the excitement of being awake, of being with number
nineteen, of being on the cusp of knowing things she'd always wondered about,
the heat was like a shaman's drug. She had to fight against it. She felt his
chin on her shoulder, and they sat for long moments before he spoke again. She
had to force her eyes to stay open.

"I was six seasons old when your
father came to our summer village."

"Then you do remember."

She felt his shiver against her back.
"Yes. I remember."

She thought for a moment, wondering if she
should press for more or let him be. She settled for asking the question he had
instigated but not pursued.

"So who is this other? This second to
last person in your tribe?"

"Haven't you guessed?" He pulled
the fur tighter around them both, his right palm resting on her left shoulder.
"It's you."

Alaysha woke only when she heard birdsong.
She expected number nineteen to be long gone, but he was stretched on her mat
beside her, curled beneath the fur so only the topmost part of his black hair
was visible. She'd expected him to have slipped into the night as quietly as
he'd arrived. She expected he'd delivered the news he was meant to, shocked her
senseless, refused to say anymore until she wearied herself with protests and
slept, finally, to the sound of frogs calling to each other in the trees, and
then been off like a shadow disappearing with the sun.

But no. At the moment, he had his hot palm
resting beneath her tunic on her bare stomach as though it belonged there.

Face burning, and the clutch of anxiety
tightening her throat, she scrambled from beneath the warmth and onto her bare
feet where the chill pinched at her skin. She stood looking down at him, arms
crossed, thinking of his words from the night before, of his refusal to say more
until she was ready to hear it. Ready. What did he think she was now if not
prepared to hear the truth?

Young, he'd called her, and here he
appeared to have come straight off the blade-sharp edge of new manhood. She'd
dislodged the fur when she'd jumped up and now the side of his face was exposed
to the newly rising sun. His lashes reminded her of the tendrils of old smoke
that still wound about the fire, and his jaw had the same smudge of color.
Asleep as he was, he had no arrogance, no sense of danger. She shouldn't have
bolted like a hare.

"You didn't seem to mind my hand on
you during the night," he said without opening his eyes. "Why run
from it now?"

"I was cold last night,
obviously."

He pulled the fur higher, covering his
chin. "Cold. Right. Come back to the mat. I'm the one who's cold
now."

She thought she could feel embarrassment
flush her face straight down to her toenails.

"Shouldn't you be disappearing like
you appeared?"

"Why should I? I have a lovely mat. A
lovely mount to ride. A lovely..." he said no more, merely opened one eye
and lifted his hand to thumb his jaw. "Let's just say I find it lovely
here."

She threw a harassed glance over her
shoulder. The camp would be roused soon, about a quick breakfast and then back
onto the road for another day's journey. Three more before they reached Sarum.
She intended the camp make it there without discovering she harbored the enemy.

"You have to leave."

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"What's obvious is you favor Yuri to
your own kin." He sat up and wrapped the fur around his knees.

"Yuri is my kin."

He snorted. "Yuri is your
conqueror."

"He's my father."

"Is he?" The boulder shifted and
poked at the embers of the fire. To her surprise, it leapt to attention.

"You know he's my father."

"A father is more than blood,
Alaysha."

She squinted at him suspiciously. They
hadn't addressed each other all night. "You know my name."