Bone Witch (14 page)

I
t was Uta's command that saved them from certain death. The
chalk witch had stepped from behind Thera's lodge, her arms filled with herbs.
She shouted one word: no. Cai made a short motion with her head that indicated
the warriors were to bring the two of them forward, then she turned to Uta .

"You put the boar grease to her back
yourself, Uta. Why do you save her now?"

"It's not for her I wait."

Alaysha was surprised to see Cai gape at
the chalk witch. "The man? Surely not."

"You're too much of a young bitch yet
to understand." Uta shuffled forward the few steps to meet with the
warriors who brought both captives forward. Alaysha caught Theron's eye as they
drew closer, his expression was pinched and determined. Something in his black
eyes made her think he was forcing his feet to move step-by-step into what he
thought was certain danger. Indeed, it was. But there was something more behind
his gaze. Something that made Alaysha bite her tongue so that it wouldn't ask
the question that was right on her lips. She had to trust him.

He faced the chalk witch, pointing all the
while at Bodicca's still healing back. "Is such a horrible thing as this
what was done to Alkaia? Tell us you cruel woman."

"Careful, man."

He laughed with something almost akin to
true humour. "The woman knows our name, she does; oh we know she does
because Alkaia used it, and this woman heard her use it."

Alaysha could see that everyone was as
dumbfounded as she. Something was happening that rooted each set of feet to the
ground: some in disbelief, some in confusion. It seemed the mere mention of
Alkaia turned their backs to stone.

"I heard her use your name, man,"
Uta agreed. "What is that to me?"

"She knows who we are. A shaman such
as Theron is recalled after all and would have thought to find his death here
in this forsaken village. Why not let us die at your warrior's hands, woman, as
you would have let your own this sister of yours die."

"She is no sister of mine." Uta
made a show of turning away from Bodicca as though ashamed she knew her.
"But I thought you could see the fruits of your labours here before you
die, man."

She held her hand toward Thera and Theron's
black eyes flicked over the bone witch for the first time. Alaysha heard his
sharp intake of breath, watched him swallow repeatedly, either trying to get
water down or bring water to his mouth.

"You look like her," he finally
said and his words came out in a croak. "You have Alkaia's skin, her
mouth." He made a motion to reach out, but before his fingers touched her
face, Thera had pulled a blade from one of the warrior's hands and plunged
toward her father's neck. Cai reached out almost lazily and grabbed the woman
by her shoulder.

"Stand down," she said and turned
to Uta. "Why would you shame her like this in the face of her
sisters?"

Uta didn't flinch in the face of that
magnetic stare. "For the same reason I put those marks on her when she was
born. For the same reason her sisters wouldn't let her train to Enyalia."

"I
am
Enyalian," Thera
insisted. "I have the mark." She lifted her chin but Alaysha noted
that even Cai tried to avoid looking at it.

Instead, the komandiri nodded quietly and
then turned to Alaysha. "She was born of the only man freed from this
land. We can never forget."

"You said no one escaped."

Cai shrugged. "No one did."

Alaysha spun to face Cai, mustering all the
disgust she could onto her face to show the crone what she thought of her.
"You marked her?" Alaysha asked Uta in disbelief. "Why?"

"It's a mark of her shame."

"It's a mark of great power," Alaysha
argued, realizing for certain these women knew nothing of the clay witch and
her true power. "You have no idea."

"I do, witch," Uta said. "I
know very well." She turned to Theron again. "How do the marks look,
man? Are they correct?"

Theron wouldn't answer.

"I had only Alkaia's description to go
by you see."

Theron swallowed hard and shook his head.

Uta's voice was mocking. "Why do you
return? I thought you dead."

"This shaman very nearly died, but
then a witch such as this one would know that since despite the bargain Alkaia
made to keep me alive, it's the other that nearly took me."

Uta chuckled quietly. "So her pre-man
whelp didn't hold to his oath, then?"

"Oh, he tried; yes, yes he did. It
just took much longer than you expected for him to do his ugly deed."

Thera had pulled herself from Cai's hold
and stepped in front of Uta. "This small man is who you would have me
believe sired me?" She cast a disgusted look Theron's way. "He's
nothing. My madre would not have risked her back for such a one."

Uta didn't back away. "And yet she
did."

Alaysha was doing her best to make sense of
it all. Theron had been here before, she knew that. She also knew he had
somehow escaped. But to be a solstice mate of their most revered komandiri? It
seemed impossible the shaman had kept such a secret.

Cai flicked her wrist toward them,
initiating the warrior's clamping down on both of their arms. "He may live
for the moment, but he will have his time as will the others. Find a place to
put them for now."

Alaysha heard herself protest. "But
Bodicca needs treatment. She's hurt."

"She's hurt of her own accord even if
it is a generation later. Enyalia has a long memory. She knew that when she
entered the village again."

Alaysha thought there was nothing she could
do but let them go and was willing to lose the small battle to win the larger
war when Theron spoke up again.

"Ask them what they mean to do with
Yenic and Gael when they're finished with them. Ask them, young witch."

Uta spoke when Cai seemed reluctant to.
"It's no secret, man. They die. They always die."

Theron grinned broadly. "Ah, but men
don't always die. Sometimes they sire children and are then freed. Sometimes
men are born here and are similarly freed to do damage where they can. To
create an army. To gather the magics of witches the like you've never seen.
Sometimes they seek vengeance."

His words chilled Alaysha to the bone, not
just because of the threat, but because he was eerily clear for once. She could
tell that it disturbed the others as well. She turned to see Cai, whose face
had blanched. The woman tried her best to retain her composure but Alaysha
could see she was struggling.

"What is he talking about?"
Alaysha asked her.

"Yuri." Theron said. "Fierce
Leader of a thousand: he was the only man except for this poor shaman to escape
this place alive."

"No man escapes," Cai said,
turning to Alaysha with fresh eyes. Comprehension spread across her face in a
way that made Alaysha uncomfortable.

"The man you call Yuri, your
father," Cai said thoughtfully. "The pre-man Bodicca freed in her
youth, the reason she wears the boar grease and suffers the shame of exile.
These two are the same man. He lives?"

Alaysha shook her head. "No. He's
dead."

She thought she heard Bodicca sob, but she
couldn't be sure; the woman's face was as impassive as always.

"Then all is as it should be,"
Cai said decisively and clapped her hands together as though done with a
distasteful task. "The pre-man is dead despite the love of a foolish
would-be warrior who thought to save him, Alkaia's man will now die despite her
shameful act of granting him freedom. The natural order is restored." She
explored the shaman with scrutinous eyes. "I don't think any warrior will
cast for you, man, but you will do well to feed the fires."

Theron took to mumbling again and Alaysha
wouldn't have given his words credence except she caught a word that she
recognized, that normally wouldn't matter to her but for reasons of late made
her super sensitive.

"What about a twin, Theron?"

"The other man who lives." He eyed
Uta speculatively, waiting for a reaction. "And not that filthy urchin
Yuri bargained out of here. I see she has forgotten that one, hadn't she? Oh
yes, we see she did. How delightful to know she can forget some things. But
alas, he too, is dead, that vile creature." He grinned broadly.
"No." He nodded at Thera. "I'm talking about
her
twin."

"She has a brother?" Alaysha
couldn't keep the surprise from her tone and was relieved to see the others
were just as shocked. All but Uta. Uta merely seesawed her jaw back and forth.

"Uta?" Thera said, taking a step
backwards, nearly stumbling. She sent a quick glance toward her lodge and a
host of expressions ran across her face. Alaysha didn't have time to assess
them all, but they ended up with one bald look of seeming comprehension that
made her fidget nervously.

"The babe perished in the wild. The
man lies." Uta's chin set itself stubbornly.

Alaysha could see she'd have to press the
point to get the information; no one else seemed inclined or informed enough to
do so. "How do you know this, Theron? What does it have to do with my
father?"

Theron's black eyes met Alaysha's. "Oh
dear, this shaman named Theron does know things, though he keeps some secrets.
Yes. Yes, he does. But this one secret is too delicious to savour alone. That
babe the cruel woman sought to kill became my Neve's Arm. My Ellison."

Thera made a sound like a swallow and a
groan at the same time. Alaysha watched her, the beads of sweat forming on her
brow.

"Your Neve? Her Arm?" The pieces
were falling; Alaysha had only to assemble them.

He nodded. "Alkaia's son, yes, oh dear
me, yes. Ellison: named by my clay witch in the old tradition. For her. My
Ellissa." His voice broke and with it realization struck Alaysha. She'd
killed that old crone along with the others, and all this time Theron knew it.

"Your Ellissa was the witch?"
Alaysha felt sick.

He pressed his chest out, proudly, at Uta.
"She raised that infant as her own. Yuri brought him to us, thinking to
bargain for our knowledge. He was ever a greedy pup, that one."

Bodicca spun towards him impassioned.
"You know nothing, Shaman. Yuri loved that boy," she said, turning to
Alaysha. "We have a word for two sword sisters who share a madre, but none
for two males who do. Yet he felt for that boy the way a sister does to a
sister. He brought him to the shaman in promise."

"Whose promise, foolish girl?"
Uta asked, seeming to lay more shame on her with the term when Bodicca was
obviously anything but a girl.

"Komandiri Alkaia's promise. She
wanted him to live."

"Absurd. Our Alkaia wouldn't wrest
such a promise from a whelp she didn't speak to, for a whelp she cared nothing
for." Uta stepped menacingly in front of Bodicca, who met the woman's eye
just as menacingly. "What could you know of it?"

"You sent us to kill the boy, and then
to kill Theron. You
know
this."

"And yet you speak as though I've
forgotten it. Do you think the sisters will be shocked at such a thing? They
were but males." Uta shrugged.

"But Komandiri was our best. Was she
not?"

Uta had the grace to nod.

"Yuri killed her in the wild. That's
what I know. She begged him to take the infant to Theron and then she let Yuri
take her life."

There was a collective murmur that made
Alaysha's skin crawl.

"It can't be true" Uta murmured.
"I left her back unmarked. She would have lived. She wouldn't have let a
man take her life. "

"Yuri killed her. I know this. We
burned her the way a warrior should be, hot and high, and we collected her
ashes and he took her sword."

This time the murmur became straight out
shouting. Alaysha missed the reasoning and touched Cai on the arm for
explanation.

"Our swords," the warrior said.
"Our bone witch forges our swords—"

"With the ashes of your leaders. Oh my
God, Cai. It is true. He killed that woman."

"What makes you certain?"

"Gael's mark. Alkaia's sword. My
father must have used her ashes to mark his warriors and forge their
steel." She turned to search for Thera, thinking the bone witch would want
to know the truth, but Thera was gone. The leather flap of her lodge moved
quietly.

Theron chuckled and Alaysha wanted to
throttle him for his insensitivity. He shut off the chuckle, but kept Alaysha's
eye.  "The poor pup, never able to re-enter the bitch's den; how it pained
him."

She didn't feel sorry for him, then; she
felt afraid, wondering what else the man knew that he was keeping to himself.

I
n the fracas that followed, no one seemed to care that
Alaysha was present. In fact, with the amount of people hanging about, she was
able to slip in to the witch's lodge without being noticed, thinking to check
on Gael. Two other warriors stood next to his bed, holding the blanket away
from him, running their hands down his bare legs, cupping his calves and other
parts that made Alaysha's face burn with shame for him. They were clearly
inspecting goods, and when one of them tilted his chin and spied the mark, the
other noticed and made a curious sound of shocked pleasure.

He was so still. He'd been barely conscious
when they arrived, yes, but not this completely still. She would've thought him
dead except for the poking and prodding of the other two women that indicated
their interest in him. She waited until they were finished, both of them coming
to some agreement with each other as they left the dwelling. Neither of them
looked directly at her as they left. Alaysha moved close, laying her palm on
his chest. Heat came off of him and waves; his heart thrummed in his chest.
Alive, and most definitely drugged.

She did a careful inspection with her
fingers, testing behind his neck where he'd been struck by Cai, feeling for
scabs that might indicate a good amount of healing. What she felt at the base
of his skull was a small bandage that she slipped off and probed tenderly with
her fingers. The knot on the back of his head had gone down and in its place
was a hole about the size of her fingernail. When she touched it, he groaned
and tried to twist away. It must still be sensitive. She had the feeling
there'd been more to his healing than magic; she heard about shamans who
drilled holes in people skulls to make them docile, but she'd not heard of them
doing so to heal. A little flutter went through her chest. What if the bone
witch had done this to Gael so they could use him and then murder him without
trouble.

She watched his eyes roll about beneath his
lids, dreaming. She hoped they were pleasant, but the way his arms were
twitching, she doubted it. She ran her hands down his chest, holding the
blankets off of him with her forearms and peering beneath. Bruising where his ribs
were; so he had indeed broken at least one of them. His clavicle might have
been slipped as well; it showed a fair amount of bruising that had already
turned yellow. She didn't want to look at his back. She only hoped they'd put
some ointment on his contusions and scrapings.

She laid the blanket down gently and
reached for his jaw, letting her fingers trail to the back of his ear.
"I'll get you out of here, Gael," she said to him.

"I doubt you'll be able to," said
a voice from behind her.

Bodicca. She'd expected Cai or Thera.
Alaysha didn't bother to turn around. The reality of all she now knew was
almost too much to process. "You loved my father?"

"Always."

"And you knew of his connection to
this place?"

"Of course. It's both of our
connections."

It explained so much to Alaysha, Yuri's
cold manner, his brutal method of decision-making. "And Corrin?"
Alaysha's voice almost broke on the name.

She heard Bodicca moving, coming closer,
but with obvious effort. Theron had done a wonderful job of getting her mobile,
maybe even of healing her back to some degree, but it was obvious from the way
she moved that the only thing keeping her upright was incredible concentration.

"I know that's what he named him, but
I had no use for him. He had no honour."

Alaysha turned on her finally. "And
honour means something to you? You who helped my father kill his own mother,
who probably helped him murder mine, and my nohma, and how many others,
Bodicca? How many lives have you taken for my father?"

"I would have taken all I needed to
and no more. Same as you."

Alaysha grunted at that but the woman
wasn't satisfied.

"I would think after spending time in
this village, you would understand. It's obvious you know nothing."
Bodicca showed her a back still raw and weeping, but covered in honey to
contain the fluid within the sores. Theron hadn't even put linen on it to
protect it, but then where would he have gotten linen in the burnt lands? The
woman headed toward the door, but Alaysha wasn't done with her yet.

"You brought Yenic here to what I now
discover is certain death; Gael will die as well."

Bodicca spoke over her shoulder, twisting
just enough that Alaysha could see her face and the haggard tiredness that
ringed her eyes. "Bringing your lover here was the safest place for him.
In the end, you'll see that." She turned her attention to Gael. "A
warrior is a ready and willing sacrifice for the people they have committed
to." She shrugged. "Better to focus on Yenic. Leave that man's fate
to himself."

It was long moments before Alaysha could
breathe again, and when she could, she pulled the air of the lodge in slowly,
trying to gather strength from it. The fragrances of myrrh and sulphur mingled,
stinging her nostrils. She heard a sound behind her and turned to see Thera
laying yet another fur atop the mound on the cot. The witch said nothing,
merely strode toward her and cast another handful of rubble onto the
smouldering fire. More sulphur. The stink became unbearable.

She lifted the flap and went into the
sunshine. Alaysha could see the crowds of the Enyalia becoming more scattered
throughout the courtyard. Stock women pooled together, tapping their spoons
against their biceps. The sense of something coming, the tension in the air,
was palpable even from inside.

Yenic. He was probably even now being
brought the square. She inhaled deeply and reached down to kiss Gael on his
cheek. The prickle of new grown beard took her by surprise. He was always
clean-shaven. Her throat tightened up. And even if she wanted to say goodbye,
she couldn't.

She let Thera pass her by and said nothing.
The woman was preoccupied, even in her duty. But it wasn't the solstice that
had her mind; it was something Uta had said, something Theron had said. The
twin. Could Thera really care about a brother she'd never met? Could she be
concerned that she had a twin at all?

The entire village seemed to be more
focused on the youth standing on a broad stump that had been drug from the
forest and set to rest against the backdrop of luscious foliage. The flowers
that drooped from the stems called to mind a rainbow and a variety of leaves
with every color and shade from dark green to Moss, with every texture from
spongy to spiked, could have given a viewer pleasure. It might well offer
pleasure to the women of Enyalia, but for Alaysha it only brought anxiety.

Yenic himself was naked and she could see
someone had gone to the trouble of smudging the shadows of his muscles with
soot, making them stand out more plainly. He projected his usual arrogance, but
Alaysha could see in his features the shade of distaste. He would show them he
didn't care, but beneath she could tell he was silently planning their deaths.

Several Enyalia were circling him, going
about much the same routine as the women inside had been doing to Gael. The
inspection was thorough. For long moments the Enyalia examined the potential
and a handful of stock women had begun to grow impatient. Alaysha could hear
them complaining, the mumbling becoming louder. Finally, Cai stood in front of
him and indicated for Thera to stand next to her. Both women divided the crowd
into several distinct groups: one of stock women, all who held onto spoons; one
of very large, very broad and almost mannish Enyalia, and a final group of
shorter, more squat Enyalia, who Alaysha noticed had far fewer circlet on her
forearms and thighs than the first group. As she scanned the groups, she
realized that the hardier warriors, obviously the strongest with the same ones
who had been inspecting Gael as he lay unconscious.

The remainder were to cast for Yenic. She
had the ludicrous thought that Gael would be impressed that he was being saved
for only the best of the Enyalia while Yenic was getting the leavings. The
thought didn't last long. If she was to act, she had to act now.

She stepped in front of Cai and threw down
the only thing she had on her person that she could use to show she was a
warrior: the small blade she used for scoring apples. She been allowed to keep
it as a token of respect while her sword had been spirited away somewhere
during the initial journey.

"What is this, little maga?"

"I wish to cast for the man," she
said, hoping she was using the right terminology.

Cai shook her head while Thera just glared
at her. Alaysha thought she heard Bodicca somewhere to her left chuckling
heartily. She didn't spare anyone else a glance, rather kept Cai's gaze as
directly as she could.

"Not possible."

"Why not?"

"You're not Enyalia."

"You told me Enyalia is your word for
a warrior. Do you disagree that I'm a warrior?"

Cai said nothing for a moment and in the
space of time it took for her to consider, Enud stepped forward, the circlets
on her thigh chattering loudly. In one thrust, she had pulled them free of her
leg and threw them down next to Alaysha's blade. "If the woman wants to
cast, let her cast."

Cai looked at the group of Enyalia that
Enud had come from. Most of them shrugged indifferently, others made no motion
of protest. It seemed none felt challenged enough to care. Then from the group,
she turned to Thera. The bone witch shrugged indifferently. Alaysha noticed
Enud stealing a look at Uta who stood to the side, her face a careful mask of
disinterest.

"Because the solstice has so few men,
we will spare only five of our warriors to cast for this man. Understood?"

Some of the Enyalia began to grumble then,
but Enud's hard glare stopped some of the smaller ones immediately. "We
understand."

Cai sent Alaysha a look of sadness.
"It seems it's done, little maga. Fight well."

Three other Enyalia came forward, their
circlets in hand, and threw them into the same pile, making a grotesque lump of
teeth and sinew. Cai turned to Thera and extended her arm, touching the bone
witch's fingers briefly, and then joining with her hand. The bone witch lead
out a series of undulating shrieks that brought the hair on Alaysha's arms to a
full stand.

The whole of the village backed off as
though they'd been given a command. Both Cai and Thera linked hands. In one
voice they declared the solstice.

"This man has been cast for. The woman
who remains when the battle is done shall have the right to this man, to his
seed, his life, and finally his death."

It was only when two of the warriors came
forward and knelt before both leaders, kissing their feet, taking their leaves
of their Enyalian oaths that Alaysha realized that these women planned to
battle to the death.

And that in casting, she had pledged the
same.