Water Witch (7 page)

"Of course. Know thy enemy my nohma
used to say. Well, until you killed her." There was something in his face
that made him look different, but then it was gone.

"I didn't --" she started to
protest, but realized it was pointless. Of course she'd killed his nohma. She'd
probably killed them all.

He grinned at her, and it was such a
knowing, patronizing look, she had to stifle the urge to strike him.

"I'm hungry," is what she said
instead and made to root out some early, unfolded fern tops and some grain
heads for her breakfast. A dove egg or two wouldn't be bad either. She'd use
the lovely fire he provided her with and roast them right in their shells.
Never mind what happened to him. No doubt he'd get found while she was away and
be taken for a thief and stoned right there.

She left him with a decided glare and
shuffled off into the underbrush. He knew her name, knew she was part of his
tribe, knew her father had ordered them killed...

She stopped short, a green fern clutched in
her hand, ready to yield when the thought settled into her psyche like a rat
bedding down for the day.

He knew she was part of his tribe. Oh dear
heaven. And Yuri knew it too. That was the secret her father kept. Yuri used
her to annihilate everyone of her own tribe right down to the last man.

The realization made her straighten so
fast, blackness threatened to overcome her. She felt dizzy. She's
systematically killed every one who had a connection to her. Ignorance was no
excuse. She'd been bid to do so, and she'd killed without question.

All but for one. Number nineteen.

And number nineteen, who knew what she
didn't, was even now lying exposed on her mat, exposed to view of the camp. If
they found him, they would kill him.

She darted back, through bracken and
crashing through spindly trees, back into the scented grass, and the light of
her camp. She rushed breathless toward Barruch and shoved him aside as hard as
she could so she could see her mat.

She should have known he'd be gone, but it
still deflated her. The mat was rolled up and propped against a tree. The fur
lay spread over a boulder.

The fire was blackened and dead.

She sighed.

"He said to tell you he's got a name
-- he isn't a number."

Alaysha whirled about to find the dirty
little ferret standing with her hand against a tree, balancing on one leg
uncertainly. Ready to take flight, she supposed.

She had to be careful.

"You spoke to him?"

The ferret nodded.

"Do you know who he is?"

A shake of the head, a short chew on the
bottom lip.

Alaysha relaxed.

"Have you come to steal something
else?"

The girl let down her foot, unshod, Alaysha
could see. Just like her. She glanced down at her own feet -- wiggled the toes.

"Have you eaten?" she asked the
girl.

"No."

"Me either. What say we try the camp
this morning?"

The girl fidgeted. "I don't think I
should."

Alaysha reached out her hand. "You
must be hungry."

The girl bobbed her head in agreement.
"But they won't like it."

"I know, but I'm too hungry to
care."

They set out, the ferret close at Alaysha's
heels but never quite abreast. Alaysha found she had to continually talk to her
over her shoulder.

"Have you no family?"

The ferret nearly trod on her heel went
Alaysha slowed her pace enough to hear the answer. "Careful," she
told the girl.

There was a quick, furtive shake of the
ferret's head, her muddied plaits leaving fresh trails of dirt on her tunic
front. It made Alaysha wonder if the dirt was applied fresh each morning rather
than just being the result of the girl's unwashed state.

"No relatives at all?"

Another shake. A few quick peeks over her
shoulder and to the sides. "I had a brother once."

"Once?"

"Yes. A few months ago he left."

Alaysha thought it over for a second. There
was something unsaid in the girl's tone. "Escaped, you mean."

The girl stopped a few paces away. She hung
her head.

"You're one of the captives of year
sixteen, aren't you?"

"Year fifteen by your timeline; we
don't -- we didn't--measure time the same way."

Alaysha nodded. "I don't
imagine." She sidestepped to dodge the round of dogs loosed for their
morning forage. The great Yuri never fed his warrior's dogs -- only his own--
and so each morning they were sent out to hunt for themselves. She watched them
run through the bracken and disappear into the underbrush. Their being awake
and loosed would mean the camp was up, awake, and setting about the packing
routine, ready to travel.

"If you were captured during year
fifteen, why are you free? Why aren't you serving in the scouts
households?"

Alaysha remembered that campaign, or rather
she remembered the smell of death, the taste of the water she thirsted from
every living thing within her killing zone. She thought of the pouch of seeds
from that battle, lying nestled in a dirt hole at the back of her room beneath
the ground in Sarum, covered over by thatch and then rocks on top of that. She
never tried to remember much more than those things. Remembering the people the
seeds belonged to was too painful. But that particular battle had been
difficult. The village had sent out wave after wave of men, trying to wear her
out little by little rather than sending them all at once. She'd had to send
the power out over and over again.

"Are you listening?"

Alaysha's gaze refocused. She must have
been lost in thought to have missed what the girl was saying. "I'm
listening."

The girl shuffled her feet through the
turf. "My master -- the one who -- the one who took us in after the
conquest, he worked us hard." She fleeted a look into Alaysha's eyes, and
there was a peculiar intelligence within, something pitiful to waste on manual
labor, which is what all those from that campaign were used for: kitchen
slaves, horse mockers, stone cutters.

"And?"

"Well we didn't mind hard work. Where
I come from, we work the earth just as hard, but it was the -- master -- of the
house more than the needs." The girl let her gaze drop to her feet.

It took a moment to sink in, and the
realization made Alaysha's stomach turn.

"You mean the master --"

The girl held up her hand as though she
couldn't bear to hear the words.

"Oh sweet Deities." Alaysha said.
"Sweet Deities, you poor thing." She reached out to touch the girl's
filthy plaits. "So you ran away. Are you all right. Do you need to see a
medicine woman?"

The girl seemed confused. "I'm
fine," she said. "Just hungry."

"But you said --"

"I said my brother couldn't take it
anymore and we ran away."

"Your brother?" The mosaic was
coming together a little tighter, and Alaysha couldn't say the picture was any
prettier than what she'd originally thought.

The girl nodded. "At first we went
together. But the master is on the trail a lot and we couldn't stay together
without fear one of us would be found, and so then, the other. He told me to stay
with the camp when it travels, on the fringes, stealing food, and then when we
were back in Sarum, to stay close to his dog's quarters. I could get more
scraps from them -- you know the dogs are so well fed, they often have most of
what's left."

"But how could he leave you like
that?"

The girl glanced up sharply and the look
she gave Alaysha sent a shiver down her spine. "He hasn't really left
forever -- he's coming back. And when he does it will be with an army."

Alaysha wanted to say something, but they'd
reached the beginnings of the camp and a horrible keening wail had begun that
replaced the shiver running down Alaysha's spine with goose pimples. She darted
to the left where a small animal skin tent had been erected amidst trees with
long horizontal branches. One of the laundresses, obviously. There were always
about half a dozen of them each time the camp struck out, always pitched their
sites closest to the outer edge so the warriors could strip off their
blood-soaked linen armor as soon as possible and leave it at those washes --
then pick it up on the way to battle.

Since Alaysha had been going on conquest
with her father, those laundresses had less blood-soaked linen and more sweaty
tunics to clean. Still, they clung to the old ways with a tenacity borne of
needfulness. Should they become extraneous, no doubt the great Yuri would find
some other use for them -- less favorable, if he found tasks at all. He had
said more than once how he hated having to feed an army.

Still, the pile of rags the woman moaned
over was so small, so insignificant, it made Alaysha wonder what could possibly
be so horrible. It was then she saw the true shape of the rags. Formed around a
tiny body. A little flaxspun cap atop its head.

She caught her breath and found she couldn't
exhale. She should have known. She should have known she couldn't stop the
power.

She cast harried glances around her.
Laundry stiff as it hung from branches, stretched-out spruce roots forming a
drying line. The ground beneath her feet was crackling moss -- dried to straw.
The woman herself was unstooped with age, but her lips were dry and her weeping
was horribly tearless.

Oh sweet Deities. They would know. They
would all know.

The strength nearly left her legs; she had
to force herself to back up. She fetched into the little ferret.

"And what could they do about it if
they did know?"

She hadn't expected the girl to speak. She
looked down at her, trying to focus on her mouth. "What?" she asked
her.

"I said what would they do?"

"You heard that?"

"I've ears, haven't I?"

"I thought I --"

"You thought you weren't
speaking." The girl shrugged. "They'll have figured it out by
now." She pointed to the water station where several warriors were tipping
clay jugs over and over, finding only puddles of water within to slake their
thirst.

"It's why they're afraid of you?"

Yes. It was why they were afraid. Still,
this was the tribe that had brought her up. She couldn't stand to see the
suffering. She had to do something. Surely she could bring rain. So what if she'd
only killed a few and thirsted out only surface water. It wasn't right.

"I have to do something." As much
as she wanted to go the other way, she forced her feet toward the laundresses
and her dead baby. How old must it have been? Weeks, surely, it was so small.

She stepped close enough to stand over the
woman who held the tiny corpse in her arms. Alaysha could tell it hadn't been
dried out completely. The eyes were closed, but they were still round beneath
the lids. The tiny hands hanging from the swaddling blanket were gray and
lifeless, but not brown and leathered.

Maybe she hadn't thirsted the life from it;
maybe she wasn't responsible for all of this.

The woman must have felt her presence. She
glanced up, pain streaking her features. Within a flash that pain transformed
to rage when she saw Alaysha standing there.

"You killed her." The lips, dry
and crackled as they were, had a hard time forming the words, but the tone was
unmistakable.

"I didn't mean --"

"What good can come from suffering a
witch in camp, in the Emir's reach? Living in fear you'll lose control. Well,
go on drink me too. Send me to my babe."

"I can't."

"You won't." The woman would have
spit at her, Alaysha knew, if she could have gathered the fluid.

"You think I don't know you? You think
I don't know what you are, about your kind?"

"My kind?"

The woman would say no more. She stared
ahead for countless minutes and then went about moaning aloud again, rocking
over the form she held. Her grief was so painful, so personal, Alaysha had to
hug her stomach to keep from vomiting.

A dry hand took hers, and she looked down
into a pair of muddy, concerned eyes.

"Come on," the girl said.
"We have to leave her."

A tug, and a deliberate pull so Alaysha's
arm stretched up and out.

"We can't do anything for her,"
the girl said.

Breaking her fast didn't seem appropriate
now. The two staggered to the camp, searching for, and finding subtle notices
that the power had indeed begun its work.

Thankfully, however, there were no more
deaths: only dry gazes from the tribe and desperate, futile searches for water.
The ground was dry -- no morning dew -- but other than that, it was clear the
camp had weathered the worst of the drought.