Bone Witch (5 page)

O
ne heartbeat, two. Before ten, and she knew the mist would
gather as it drained and psyched every bit of fluid it could detect. All the
tears and sweat from these women—Alaysha could already taste the salt.
Edulph's blood drying in his veins, Gael's. But first the most available: the
water skins filled and bloated on the beasts' backs. The water from the well as
it rose from the crack Gael had managed to create as he'd hefted the stone lid.

Fury had hold of her, and it wanted—no,
needed—to see the mist gather. She wanted these women to dry to leathered
husks and drift on the wind like dried brush at the weather's whim, and she
could care less what happened to their seeds as they fell from their sockets,
unliving forever, never to be released. Never to take root and inhabit any
other savage world ever again.

She thought she heard her name, but it
didn't matter. The woman standing next to her fell, not dead—not yet, but the
skin was already drying. Alaysha looked past her, thinking to let the rain
burst over Gael when it bloated to its limit, thinking she'd give him back the
fullness of his flesh after she'd taken it so he would still be beautiful, so
his eyes could stay where they belonged. His eyes. So gray green, so filled
with the soul of his body.

His eyes. Open. Staring at her, reminding
her he wasn't dead, that it wasn't time for vengeance.

Alive. Alive, Alaysha. Let it go, let the
power go. She forced herself to think of nohma again, the love she felt for the
gentle woman seep into her being and fill her hands, her feet, her moisture as
it raced through her veins. Nohma. Aedus. Saxa: all those she loved without
question or doubt or fear. She pictured their faces; reached out to them with
her mind.

And the power went. She felt it evaporate
and leave her panting, sobbing, from the effort to control it. The water she'd
psyched from the well, from the skins, the minute amount she'd gathered from
the dead around her, the living too, all burst with all the power of the fury
she'd used to drain it. She couldn't stop herself from weeping in relief. The
shivering made her thighs quake as she knelt, and she couldn't stop herself
from collapsing.

The leader squinted at her suspiciously and
motioned to the others next to her to truss up the man she'd scored with her
blade. The she stood to Alaysha and fell to her haunches, grabbing Alaysha's
chin and twisting her head this way and that. Her thumb pressed painfully into
the tattau.

“You are a witch,” she said flatly. Alaysha
sent the woman a scathing look.

The warrior seemed unaffected even with the
new flush of rain running down her cheeks and pooling on her breastbone.

“This man was yours?”

What did she mean 'was'? Surely Gael still
lived, she'd seen his eyes. She knew he was alive. He had to be.

“That man killed several of my best.” The
woman looked backwards over her shoulder, then she twisted back to face
Alaysha. The eyes she'd thought were black as mica stones were dark, deep
green. There was the unmistakable air of respect on the Enyalian's face. She
grunted thoughtfully.

“He will be well fought over, little maga,”
the Enyalian said. “We thank you.” She stood, then, and with a quick motion,
the rain sluicing down her body unheeded, she had the remaining warriors heft
Gael onto one of the strange beasts. Edulph was lifted and deposited onto
another.

Two women hoisted the cover of the well and
peered in. Alaysha could tell by their reaction that it was empty.

The leader glared at Alaysha. “It will take
at least three moons to refill even with all this rain.”

Alaysha shrugged but said nothing. She knew
the warrior understood what had happened to it by the way she'd called her
witch. There was no need to answer with words. The woman broke into a grin.

“I could leave you here to enjoy your
downpour, little maga.” Her gaze trailed to the horizon where Alaysha could
make out a huddled bulge on the horizon that she knew were the others lying
flat. She hoped the Enyalian would see it as a shadow and no more.

Alaysha tried not to let her face give away
her fear of losing Gael to these women, and as she worked to appear composed,
she realized what the woman meant by asking if Gael was hers.

Was
hers.

But no longer. He was theirs now,
and Alaysha understood all at once that the warrior knew she'd unleashed her
power only when she'd thought him as good as dead. This woman, this cunning
woman understood the crux of the power all at once, that she'd not use it if
the ones she wanted to protect were alive. She knew Alaysha posed no threat as long
as they had Gael.

It seemed once again she'd given herself
away. They knew how to manipulate her even as Edulph had, as Yuri had. And then
she understood the silent message in Gael's eyes—it wasn't for death or for
salvation. It was begging her not to use her power because then they'd
understand the most important thing about it, that she had a weakness that
could be exploited.

And now she'd done it—she'd shown these
warriors the same thing she'd shown Yuri, and in his turn, Edulph. That she
could be manipulated by her love for others.

I
t poured all night and Alaysha hoped that the steady
onslaught would at least rejuvenate the companions she'd had to leave behind
her. It also left her wondering just how deep the Enyalian well had been. Surely
to psych so much fluid that the heavens could drip for so long, the well had to
be leaguas deep, not hand spans as most were.

They plodded along for hours on the strange
beasts, the long necks of the things swaying in a rhythm that would put a weary
traveler to sleep. At times the ground quaked, stronger than before, but if the
warriors noted it, they said nothing to each other about it.  They stopped when
the sun met the lip of the horizon in a kiss so wet it seemed the entire world
had flooded. Alaysha's leather tunic was soaked through and her hair stuck
behind her ears, leaking water into the crevice between her breasts and
trickling down to her belly button.

The Enyalia seemed to take it in stride.
The one who had called her maga, the largest and the one who sat her beast at
the front of the queue, turned her face repeatedly toward the sky, letting the
rain pool into her open mouth. Her hair, a shade that resembled the kind of
reddish brown that dying leaves turned to in the more frigid lands past Sarum,
was twisted into lengths that sent the rain into miniature rivers down her
back. What water the woman didn't swallow, she spat into her water skin. Seeing
this, the others did the same. Alaysha made note not to share from those skins
unless she had nothing left to drink.

The leathers they wore, brief things on
their torsos that stretched up in separate halters to cover their breasts and
tie behind their necks also splayed downward into strips at the waist for easy
movement. All the skins must have been tanned in a way that made them supple,
and coated with grease because they had a way of sluicing the fluid into
rivulets that traveled the creases.  They all wore leather belts that hoarded
any number of tools and pouches, a blade, rope, even. Alaysha guessed the
weight of them alone was enough to keep their legs strong.

At one point, each of them pulled out some
sort of hollowed out root that they then tied to their waists and used to catch
the water that ran down their backs. They repeatedly upended this into their
skins. When the rain slackened, they pulled from their packs flax-woven
bedrolls and draped them over their backs, letting the material grow sopping
wet and collect in small narrow gourds they'd tied to a corner.

Resourceful women, women used to traveling
in the burnt lands, wasting no drop of precious fluid. Her heart sank thinking
it must mean they were still far off from the end.

As the sun began to set again, the Enyalia
halted the caravan and leapt from the beasts in nearly one fluid motion. They
pulled Edulph and Gael from the backs of the beasts and set them apart from
each other, then dropped dried apples and nuts onto their laps. The large
red-haired Enyalian passed some fruit to Alaysha, her green gaze flicking over
her in silent assessment.

"Eat," the woman said in a voice
that sounded loaded with the gritty earth beneath her feet. Too much time spent
in the dried lands, Alaysha supposed; her vocal cords were undoubtedly little
strings of baked sinew. "Walk. But don't wander."

Alaysha looked out over the distance they
still had yet to cover, at the ground that was cold but hard, without
vegetation or grazing beast to relieve the eye of earth. "Where would I
go?"

That seemed to satisfy the warrior and she
marched off, chewing a mouthful of nuts and apple. Alaysha edged her way over
to where Gael had been dumped. He slumped down into himself, and if his eyes
were open, he stared broodily off into the distance. She settled next to him,
touching him on the arm; she felt it tremor beneath her fingers and sensed an
echo in her own chest. He refused to look at her.

"I'm sorry, Gael," she whispered.
It was obvious that past his grievous injuries sustained in battle, she'd also
made him sick and weak from the power that leaked from her when she'd been
afraid. She wondered how much she had dehydrated him and whether he could
recover easily enough to make the rest of the journey safely. She recalled the
way she'd made Saxa sick when the power had unleashed itself because of fear,
nearly taking all the fluid from the healer as she'd nursed Alaysha back to
health. It seemed so long ago now that she'd nearly died of wounds to her side,
wounds inflicted by her father's favoured scout—a lifetime ago rather than a
few fortnights. Theron had to help replenish Saxa's fluids then, feeding them
to her constantly with additional herbs to help her body distribute it quickly.
There was no such help here. No herbs.

"Gael," she tried again.
"I'm sorry I hurt you. I thought—"

"You thought I was as good as dead. I know,"
he said. The normally strong voice was thready.

She let go her breath. At least he was
speaking, even if he sounded flat and morose. She tried again, not sure why she
needed his forgiveness, but realizing she did. "It came too quick, Gael. I
couldn't stop it."

"I know, Alaysha," he said in
dismissal and she could feel her cheeks burn.

She sought Edulph's form in the encroaching
darkness, making sure he wasn't within earshot just in case the brutal man
decided to take his revenge on them while they rested. He'd fought with them
against the Enyalia, but he still couldn't be trusted. He'd come along quietly
with them on the journey, happy enough to leave the well Aislin had left him in
deep in the mountains of Sarum. That didn't mean he wasn't planning something
with the fire witch. It wasn't but a few short days ago that she and Gael both
believed he was sent by Aislin to spy on them and to help her locate Yenic.

Alaysha found Edulph in short order. They'd
placed him next to the beasts, making him squeeze the bedrolls until the water
sopped into the fibres let go and streamed into the open water skins. Strange,
how the Enyalia had selected him to perform the menial task while they let Gael
rest. It made her wonder if the warrior could be forced to such tasks at all.

Perhaps the Enyalia were more discerning
than she'd given them credit for.

She studied the way the women strode about,
feeding the beasts, chewing their dried fruit without pause, never once sitting
down or taking a break. None seemed concerned about their captives escaping.
But then, where would they run to? And besides that, they needed the Enyalia to
help them get safely past the burnt lands. Surely the women knew that too.

Gael hunched too sullenly to appear a
threat to them anymore, she supposed.

She reached out to him. No leather bonds
about his wrists, nor on hers. The Enyalia were cocky, thinking once beaten,
the captives wouldn't dare rise again in vengeance. Alaysha had only to look at
the unmoving bundles lain reverently across several beasts to know they
could
be beaten.

"Gael," she whispered, hoping the
tension she felt in his forearm would ease. "Gael."

He said nothing, but at least his arm
snaked around her shoulders, and she felt at once reassured and something else
she couldn't name, but it sent her a quick flash of memory of the both of them
in the darkness of a close, hot tunnel, the sweetness of intimate touch
flushing her cheeks. She should have felt as though she was betraying Yenic,
but the truth was she still wasn't sure he hadn't already betrayed her to his
mother. It was something she had to know: if Yenic loved her enough, if he
would side with her to release Sarum from his mother's mad takeover, or from
whatever else she had in mind and according to Theron, there was plenty of it.

She didn't know how much of that she
believed either. Gods and goddesses fighting each other, following each other
to a garden created for the safety of a few children. Those things seemed
remote compared to the very real issue of the people she loved being murdered
by a woman who could control her power a little too well and who couldn't be
manipulated by anyone or anything. Except maybe Yenic.

There were so many things about Yenic that
she didn't know, and yet she loved him still. Deities help her, she doubted
whether it was the bond alone that drove her feelings for him. She looked
askance at the warrior who sat next her. So little did she know of herself and
of her own world, and yet she knew this one thing: that this man next to her
would die for her. And she'd nearly killed him.

"I thought you—I mean," she
floundered. "I thought –"

"You thought I'd given up." His
voice sounded tired. She didn't blame him. He'd fought like a madman. And now
his fluids were low. He must be struggling just to speak.

"I did. Sorry." She felt ashamed
that he was able to guess how she felt, that she remembered a day when he had
given up, when he'd admitted that he didn't want to live anymore. She'd nearly
killed him that day too, and brought the rain when she managed to pull back the
power. But that too was fortnights ago. So much had happened since then.

He chuckled. "No apology needed,
Witch," he said, and she almost gasped in pleasure at the return of his
mocking term for her, the one that had changed to endearment so subtly over the
weeks that she'd grown to miss it when he stopped. He pulled her in closer,
easing her head onto his chest, and sending a burst of warmth down her side. He
was terribly hot; too hot for even these lands.

"If I can fool you, think what these
women must think."

"So we'll beat them by being
docile?"

"Not beat," he said.
"There's no need to fight a warrior who believes he—I mean, she—has
already won. We'll use them."

"To get to Yenic if he still
lives."

"Yes, and through Yenic, Saxon."

Alaysha hadn't forgotten Gael's nephew—her
own half-brother, truth be told. Yuri's heir. The one he died to protect even
as he was confronted to make the choice to save Alaysha instead. But then it
hadn't really been Alaysha either that the fire witch planned to kill in front
of Yuri was it? No, it was Alaysha's twin, and her father had known that too
even if Alaysha had no idea she even had a sister.

She almost wished she hadn't let her mind
travel down that complex path of her father's devious machinations. There were
far too many pains from small thorns on the sides of those pathways, but she
couldn't stop the memories that flooded in. Memory. Curse of the temptress
bloodline, to remember so clearly and so lengthily. Her nohma had said it was
long memory that allowed the power to work so well through her, to find and
remember the fluid pathways so intimately it could pull the water in mere
heartbeats.

Except there were so many holes in that
memory, the very ordinary mechanism her mind put to use to protect her from the
tragedies she'd suffered—the pain of her mother's death, her nohma's, the
torture she'd suffered at Corrin's hand, the neglect of a father she loved.

Too many holes, and thank the deities she'd
been spared them so long. Now, though, things were different. She knew too
much, and that knowledge made her angry.

She heard her own sigh of frustration and
felt Gael's finger on her lips. A little shock tremored through her in
response.

"They're coming," he said and
resumed his previously sullen and defeated posture. It was such a good act that
Alaysha found herself doubting it was all feigned.

Two of the brutishly tall women towered
over them, their arms and leathers still slick from the rain that had stopped
by the time the group had. The small marbles around her legs clacked together
with each movement.

One of them kicked Gael's outstretched
foot, but he made no sound.

"Get up, man. Cai wants you to kneel
when she comes." The voice was almost too lyrical sounding for such a
large frame. Alaysha peered up at the face, trying to see what she looked like.

When Gael didn't move right away, the woman
reached down, and with a short grunt of effort pulled him to his feet. It took
Alaysha by surprise that even a woman of her size could force Gael to his feet.
At least until she remembered he was playing along. At least, she hoped that
was the case.

"What about me?" Alaysha asked
and the woman eyed her with some speculation. Even in the approaching gloom,
Alaysha could see the woman was thinking.

"You may stand or sit as you
please."

There was a sort of grudging respect in her
voice, Alaysha thought. She chose to stand. "Who is Cai?"

The woman's look of speculation
disappeared. In its place came annoyance. She gripped Gael by the arm and
twisted him toward where the sun was setting, facing away from the group, then
forced him to his knees. After that, both warriors took their places on either
side of him.

Alaysha noted that none of the others even
bothered to stop to watch what was happening; they merely went about their
business, collecting water skins, attaching them to the beasts, wrapping up
their food stores.

The ground had gone slick from the rain,
and Alaysha could see Edulph doing his best not to slip in the mud as he hefted
the skins and packed the bedrolls back onto the beasts. He was working without
complaint, Alaysha noticed, and she remembered Aedus's words when she'd first
met her, that her people were used to work, used to brutality. Not for the
first time, she wondered about the girl and her brother, their past, their
people. A tribe Yuri had obviously wanted to enslave for his own uses.

It was long moments before the woman
Alaysha assumed to be Cai came forward. The Enyalian, obviously their leader,
strode toward them without rushing. The same woman who had gripped her chin and
called her maga when she'd inspected the tattaus. The woman stopped in front of
Alaysha, rattling hazelnuts around in her palm.

The way the shadows crept across her face,
the aquiline nose, the speed her expression shifted, all looked vaguely
familiar. Despite her startling beauty, Alaysha shivered instinctively.