Fire Witch (5 page)

"And even if he didn't, it would be a long way back to your village in any case. There's no telling what would happen to you on the way – if you even made it."

He reached down and plucked the bowl from the mossy carpet and pressed it toward her. "So you'll just have to wait. Once I return this gang of thieves back to my brother, we'll backtrack, you and I, and I'll see you safely home."

She felt the wooden edge against her shoulder as he nudged her. "Take it. We still have a way to go, and you'll be hungry long before we get there."

She contemplated taking the food from him, but before she could, he shrugged and left it on the ground just out of reach. She thought he did so on purpose, to force her to make a specific effort to retrieve it.

He pushed himself to stand and looked down at her. "There are plenty of men who could use that broth if you're not hungry," he said. "I won't force you, but I won't wait either."

In the end, she decided it was best to eat what she could while she could. She might pretend to Chelan that she would let him deliver her safely home, but she had no intention of going along so complacently with his plans. She would wait until they were all sleeping and then she would slip onto the back of one of their horses
–
probably the spindly youth's since his seemed to be the least aggressive
–
and then she would head back in the direction from which they had come. Even if she wasn't as skilled a rider as these, they had only traveled for a single sun rotation; surely she could make it in a turn and a half.

She was no coddled child to be cared for and protected. She was the first daughter of the witch of flame. That meant she had seasons upon seasons of power coursing through her veins and lying dormant beneath her tissues. She might not have been given her sacred marks, but she had been trained by her mother's old arm of protection on ways to track and trap. She had been forced to stay several nights in a cave within the woods, alone and naked, having to feed herself and warm herself until the old tracker had come for her. She knew at the time it hadn't been at her mother's bidding, but rather at Branor's behest. He always told her that a witch might have the power to protect herself from harm, but she also needed to learn to protect herself from the elements. Nature could be far more cruel than any man, he told her.

Though he had been dogged in his training, he hadn't been cruel. She took to the lessons with zeal. If she couldn't find her way home again, she didn't deserve to go home.

She thought of the old man as she sipped at the edge of the bowl, swallowing down the broth as she filtered out the meat and wild onions. She'd been mistaken about the venison. She'd chewed several pieces already and it was far too stringy and musky to be deer. She figured goat might be the best bet, but it didn't quite taste like goat either.

When the liquid was gone, leaving a leathery taste of musk in her mouth, she plucked the remaining two pieces of meat from within the bowl and inspected them between her fingers. Not lamb. Not rabbit.

There was a noise from beside her, a short clearing of the throat. She looked up to see the spindly youth standing in front of her. His grin nearly split his face in two; his black hair bristling at her from muddied spikes that proved he hadn't washed in weeks.

"It's rat," The youth said, the grin not leaving his face for one instant.

She dropped the meat into the bowl and had to struggle against the rising bile as she remembered the feel of it in her mouth. The stench of the boy's body odor coated her palette, a disgusting companion that she couldn't do anything but focus on now that her nose had registered it.

He looked at her quizzically. "Don't you like rat?"

There was no time to even shake her head at him. She would not vomit. She would not. She plumbed the depths of the bowl for bits of wild onion and crammed them into her mouth to give her taste buds something else to consider.

His dirty fingers spidered in next to hers as she went for another scoop. He extracted the two pieces of meat and popped them into his mouth. He chewed reflectively and then pointed to his chest as though he thought she might be a simpleton.

"Raga," he said around the strings of meat. "Can you say that?"

The war of the rat was almost won; the onions were helping. At least, that's what she told herself as she looked past him to where Feran sat smirking on a large boulder. He pushed a chunk of the disgusting food into his mouth and chewed, rubbing his belly simultaneously. She swallowed convulsively and ineffectively around the blades of onion, trying to force it down on top of the rat meat. Her stomach would not be fooled. She caught Chelan's eye and could swear he too was laughing.

Rather than meet that inscrutable gaze, she sprang to her feet and raced for the bushes. If she managed to make it out of sight before she vomited it would be only through the grace of the goddess.

She was retching up green onion and bile when Chelan swept into the copse with her, pushing aside brambles and stray tree branches, making enough noise that even the mice scuttled away. She knew it was him from the boots that stopped just at the edge of the puddle of sick. One toe kicked moss over it as she hung over limp and heaving.

"It's no use," he said to her. "Rat sticks to you."

She groaned. No wonder there was no meat in the stream of sick. It refused to be dislodged, much like its living body. Another shudder took her as she imagined the hunks of meat still clinging to her insides as stubborn and tenacious as the animal itself. She felt his palm on her back, not rubbing it with empathy, but whacking it like he wanted to loosen something inside.

"Stop," she managed to rasp out. "Can't you see I'm ill?"

"I do see," he said. "It's time for you not to be." He gave her another whack on the back of her lungs.

She choked. "You think I can help it?"

"I think you're forcing it."

She staggered away from him, reaching behind her for a tree trunk to support her and only stopped when she felt the rough texture beneath her palms. Then she felt she could face him with some sort of bravado.

"You fed me vermin."

He shrugged. "I fed you." One black brow cocked, matching itself to that arrogant shoulder.

Wary, she watched him study her almost impassively before he reached for a water skin attached to his belt. He threw it at her feet.

"Wash the taste of food from your mouth then," he said.

It was still sloshing when she scrabbled for it, thinking he might take it back again. She was clawing it open, praying to the goddess that it might actually clean her mouth of the taste, and knowing it would do nothing for cleaning her memory of having eaten it.

She thought he would leave her there while she drank, but he waited with a scowl while she swallowed down several bolts of liquid. She was certain she could feel the rat meat floating and bobbing in her stomach. The sensation bent her over double again, her body heaving with determination until she stumbled to her hands and knees.

"Sweet goddess," she gasped after the last of it streamed from her. When she sat back on her haunches, he was knelt down beside her. She only realized he'd been holding her hair when he dropped it to her shoulders. She would have offered a weak thank you but he pushed to his feet and strode for the fire.

"Hurry up," he said over his shoulder. "It's getting dark."

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth hardly believing he was leaving her there. In the bushes by herself, a full water skin next to her feet. Was he doing it on purpose? Was it his way of allowing her to escape and save face with his men at the same time?

She didn't question it. Although her knees were weak from the ravages of nausea, she pushed herself to a trembling stand, the water skin a bloated bladder in her hand. Enough in there to last her several days if she was careful. Long enough to find a water source and trace it back to her village.

But could she do it, was the question. One day's journey by horse meant more than several by foot. No. There was a better way.

She peered through the branches of the canopy, trying to assess just how close to dark it truly was. Several stars had already burned pinpricks of light into the sky; full dark wouldn't be too far off. If she was quiet, she could pick her way through the bracken and find a place to hide close by. No doubt once they realized they'd lost their captive, they'd settle down for the night. There was no true reason for them to hunt for her except for their own sport, and she didn't think they cared enough to bother. She'd obviously been an afterthought, one the brutish Feran had taken advantage of when she turned up to save her little sister. If she hid well enough, she could wait until full dark and creep back into their camp and steal one of their horses.

If she had any doubts about the plan, the sound of Feran's laughter on the other side of the wooded curtain decided her. As silently as she could, she crept away to the left, following what she thought was a parallel line to their camp. If anything, they would expect her to flee completely opposite to their site like any frightened girl, traveling with blind fear and streaking away like a rabbit. They would never expect her to stay within a few dozen yards.

It didn't take long before Chelan realized she hadn't followed him back to the fire, and she could hear one of the men asking how a hunter of his abilities could manage to lose a slip of a girl so quickly. She heard Chelan curse loudly and then storm into the bushes where he'd left her. She knew she didn't have much time to find a hiding place, but she also knew she couldn't rush. She had to pick along just as carefully as she'd begun, keeping her eyes open, sweeping the glade carefully and methodically.

There. Several yards away she found an up rooted tree. It would have to do for now, and if she was quiet, she might be able to dig into the earth where the roots had lifted and manage to squirm down flat enough that darkness would cover her completely.

The others had joined the search now, she could tell, but she was nearly there. Half a dozen more steps, several more moments before darkness dropped upon them enough that even a cat couldn't see her in the dark. She went slowly, being careful not to step on anything that might crack or crinkle or even lift a bird from its evening roost. She became a shadow as she moved, creeping upon the uprooted tree the way a Jaguar would its prey.

She heard Feran taunting Chelan about finding her first, and she shivered involuntarily as she imagined those meaty hands reaching out for her in the dark. But he wouldn't find her. No one would. The voices were entirely in the wrong direction. Perhaps she was even capable of stealing one of the horses right there, right then. Except they would be alerted. No. Best to stick to the original plan and steal a mount while they slept and were blissfully ignorant of her presence at all.

By then it was so dark that she was having to reach out almost blindly in front of her, and she began making foolish sightless mistakes. Twice she nearly stumbled over tree roots but caught herself before she crashed into the bushes and gave herself away. By the time she made it to the hollow left of the uprooted tree, she was ready to fall into it with relief. Instead, she willed herself to move just as silently as before, flattening her stomach out on the ground and crawling forward, trying to reach the nook in the very back where the tilted tree still joined with the earth.

She was rubbing handfuls of soft humus over her face, trying to blacken any bit of skin that might show in the shadows when she heard a deep-throated growl coming from just next to her. In the moment, she registered the terrible funk of wild beast and the only thing that competed against the growling rumble was the sound of her heart beating in her ears.

Two heartbeats later, something clawed into her, ripping skin from several places in her bicep and leaving hot tracks of pain down her arm.

After that, there was no way she could keep quiet.

She scrambled for freedom from the beast, giving up any hope of stealth as she propelled herself over tree roots and brambles. Fingers dug into soft moss of the forest floor as she tried to find her feet and she stumbled twice before she managed to launch herself several yards away, clinging to a tree trunk in the darkness, eyes straining to see. She flattened herself out against the tree, wrapping her arms around it as she struggled to regain composure enough to quell the heavings of her chest that forced her breath out in noisy rasps. She needed to hear. She needed to know whether the thing beneath the tree would come for her before the men did. If she was lucky, they would be too far away to notice her distinctly noisy bumblings.

Holding her breath, she paused, freezing every muscle in her body so that she could concentrate on each sound and realized all other sound had ceased as well. They had heard her. No doubt waiting for her to make another foolish noise. She racked her memory trying to recall whether or not she had shrieked in pain and fright, but couldn't come up with anything except the recollection of that primal terror. She exhaled slowly and evenly, knowing that even as she did so she would have to make a run for the horses. There was no sense even pretending now that she had fled away from the camp. Best to take whatever chances she had while she could take them.

At least the thing beneath the tree had stopped its snarling. A badger, no doubt. A terrible beast in its fury, but satisfied that it had done its best to ward off the dreaded invader settled back in for a good night's sleep. She poked tentative fingers into the muscle of her bicep, testing for damage. It was already swelling, and when her finger reached a bleeding raw section, she winced. It would have to be cleaned and bound, but that would have to wait.