The Witch's Reward (12 page)

“Here. Allow me.” He bent over and deftly released the fabric, then snapped off the offending branch and tossed it into the bushes.

“Thank you.”

He stood up and was about to reply when a noise came from the direction of where he’d thrown the branch. In a split second, Larra found herself deftly pushed behind the captain, who was standing poised and alert for battle, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The noise came again, this time closer, followed by a growling sound that Larra immediately recognized and that had the hairs standing up on the backs of her arms.

“Lumbar,” she whispered hoarsely, beginning to tremble.

“Maybe. If it is, don’t run. It will only chase you down if you do.”

As if she had the capacity to run. It was a miracle that she was still standing, her body was shaking so bad. Memories flushed through her, overwhelming her with fear and phantom pain. Instinctively, she reached forward and grabbed at the back of the captain’s tunic to steady herself. He must have noticed, because his head moved just slightly. But he didn’t turn around. His attention was focused on the bushes.

More snarling, more rustling, then the bushes parted and a small, black, fuzzy animal stepped through.

Immediately, Larra’s fears dissolved. “He’s adorable!” She let go of the tunic and began to step around her protector when she was sharply reprimanded.

“Get back, Larra.”

“It’s just a puppy. He must be lost.”

“That’s no puppy. And that noise we heard was definitely not the whimper of one.”

It was true. As the pup moved closer, she could see that its physique wasn’t quite the same as a dog’s. Its back was longer, higher, and its muzzle…She didn’t finish analyzing the differences, because right behind the little creature stepped a much bigger, much angrier version.

For the second time that evening, Larra felt herself jerked backwards. This time, the captain held her to his back with one long, tense arm, while the other withdrew his sword and pointed it in the direction of the growling, slobbering adult lumbar.

The pup moved closer to investigate the two strangers.

“Don’t move a muscle,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.

The adult followed its offspring, which came all the way to the captain’s dirt-splattered boots. The pup sniffed, stepped over one boot, and then, getting bored of its find, walked off.

They weren’t so lucky with the parent, which had paused near the tip of the captain’s sword. It was so close that Larra could smell the familiar, pungent scent of wild animal. The aroma only added to her fear as she relived her previous experience. It was only because of the captain’s steely arm around her that she didn’t either faint or turn and run.

The animal let out a roar of anger that had Larra burying her face into the captain’s broad back. She knew he could feel her vibrating terror, but she didn’t care.

Neither animal or human moved for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, without warning, the lumbar reached out and struck the captain’s sword arm, slicing its razor sharp claws along his forearm and leaving four bloody slashes in its wake.

And still, the captain did not move a muscle, not even to lower his sword and kill the animal.

When it got no reaction, the animal gave one last growl, then a heavy huff. And then it turned its back on them and walked back into the bushes after its errant offspring.

“Ah!” The captain released his hold on Larra and bent over his wounded arm, dropping the tip of his sword to the ground. At the sight of the blood oozing over his ripped garments, Larra was shocked out of her fear.

“Oh my—” she rushed around him to get a better look.

“It’s nothing,” he grimaced, awkwardly placing his sword back in its sheath.

“It’s not nothing! We need to get it taken care of!”

He gave her a look. “On that, we agree. But not with your magic, witch.”

“I didn’t offer!” she hurled back at him. “Here,” she bent down and ripped a strip from her underskirt. “Let me bind it until we get back to the campground, at the very least.”

He consented, dropping his arm so that she could reach the wound. He grimaced again when she tied the knot, but otherwise didn’t make a sound.

“Let’s get back to the camp before that creature returns,” she urged. “This time, you lead the way.” She expected him to refuse, to argue that she couldn’t be trusted to walk behind him, but he didn’t.

They reached the camp within minutes.

“Captain!” “What happened?”

It was clear that his men were concerned.

“Nothing bad, I assure you,” he answered them. “Just a little run-in with a lumbar. Is Griff back?”

He wasn’t.

“Want me to stitch you up, Captain?” asked one of his men.

“With your needlepoint skills? Are you joking?”

“I’ll do it,” Larra offered. There was silence in the clearing. “If someone has a needle and thread, that is.”

The captain faced her. “You said you were a healer in your village?”

She nodded. “Under my grandmother’s tutelage. I’m very good. There will hardly be a scar.”

He considered her for a long moment, and she wondered if he would reject her services. But he surprised her when he turned to a stocky, brown-haired knight and said, “Jered, go fetch the pack with the medical supplies. Let’s see if she’s as good as she claims.”

The other knights returned to what they were doing, and Larra followed the captain to a large log on the opposite side of the campground. He gestured for her to sit and then sat down next to her and held out his arm. Opening the bag Jered brought them, she fingered through the supplies and then got to work.

“Why didn’t you kill it?” she asked as she bent over the wound. “You could have just run it through with your sword and then you never would have been injured.”

“I am not one to kill an innocent animal, especially if I’m the one trespassing in its domain.”

“But why not run? Why stay there and let it attack? How did you know it wouldn’t kill us?”

“Did you see that silver stripe down its back?”

As she disinfected his arm with a funalseed cream she found, she recalled the lumbar and nodded.

“Only the males carry a silver stripe.”

That had her looking up. “But it had a baby with it!”

He chuckled. “Not all species have the mothers watch their young. Female lumbars, in fact, are faster and far more deadly than the males. So they generally are the ones that hunt for food, while the males stay behind and guard the offspring. But if I hadn’t seen that silver stripe, if it had been female, you can rest assured that I would have killed it. A female would not have simply dealt me a swipe and then left me alone. She would have finished the job for the mere pleasure of it. The male, however, won’t kill anything unless it runs first. He’s too lazy.”

She reached for a needle and thread and began to sew. He didn’t even wince when she pushed the thin metal point into his thick skin. “The one that attacked me was a female.”

His free hand reached forward and rested over hers, stilling the needle. She glanced up.

“What attack?”

“The one that turned me into a witch. What? Did you think I was always a witch? That I’ve been hiding from the king for all this time?” She laughed bitterly and turned her wrist, removing his hand from hers. “I grew up as innocent and normal as any other girl. More innocent than most, in fact, since my grandmother had so many rules. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before you arrested me that I had any knowledge of my magic.” She briefly told him about the incident near the berry bushes and her young friend, Kiera.

“I’m beginning to understand,” he said.

“Understand what?”

“Why a beautiful girl such as yourself could be considered so dangerous and yet appear so angelic. Why a gnome would profess your innocence even as the kingdom’s greatest scholar warned me to beware your deception.”

She couldn’t find her tongue. He thought she was beautiful? She sneaked a peak at him, thinking he might be as embarrassed as she by his words, but he appeared deep in thought. She wondered if he even realized what he had admitted.

“Done,” she said, forcing down her blush. She cut off the loose ends of the thread and then wiped up any additional blood. “Now all you need is some of Sir Griffen’s magic salve and you’ll be as good as new. You were lucky it didn’t claw through any major tendons.”

He lifted his arm and surveyed the neat lines of stitches. “I’m impressed. You did exactly as you professed. If I scar at all, it will be very faint.”

“Steadiest hands this side of the Krymean Mountains, my grandmother always said.” She began to put the supplies back in the bag.

Once more, he stilled her busy hands with his.

“Thank you.”

Something passed between them. Warmth. Understanding. A connection.

She nodded. “No problem.”

After that, the evening progressed much as it had the night before. Sir Griffen and another knight returned with fresh kill from the forest, the dogs trailing in behind them. The meat was immediately set to roast over the fire as the men relaxed and waited, casually chatting about ladies they’d loved and battles they’d fought. The captain settled in with them and Larra was returned to the foot of the wagon with the dogs commanded to watch over her.  

As he had the prior evening, Griffen lent her some salve for her feet and wrists and helped her pad the skin with clean strips of cloth. As he finished, he smiled kindly and patted her head as though she were a child, and asked if she had everything she needed for the night.  Then he helped her into the cage and locked the door.

It had been a long day and she fell readily to sleep. She didn’t know that Smithen would be assigned to the night guard until it was too late.

Chapter 12

She dreamed she was standing in the middle of a large, grassy field. The warmth of a midday sun shone down on her upturned face like a soft, warm blanket. There was a slight breeze, gently folding the fragile blades of green and yellow grasses and lifting the hem of her skirt. She tilted her head back, held her arms to the sky, and let herself turn and turn and turn. Her eyes were closed, her smile wide, her face a mask of serenity. And as she spun, she felt she was free—free from harm, from imprisonment, from death. She was free and she was magic. 

She felt the power flow through her body, like butterflies spreading their wings and taking flight. Spreading, flying, soaring, building in pressure until she felt she would burst from the twinkling, bubbling font of magic working through her and flowing to every limb. It was about to burst free, the feeling of joy and peace almost more than she could bear. But just as the magic was about to fly from her fingertips, a beautiful gift to present to the world, everything changed.

From behind her closed eyes, she felt the sun run away. It fled like a scared little child running from monsters beneath the bed, leaving in its wake a great cloud of darkness. She tried to open her eyes, but they felt glued shut. She looked inside herself for her magic, thinking it could help her escape, but it had been imprisoned within her.

She felt the soft, gentle turn of the wind begin to freeze. It blew a little stronger, and then stronger still, turning quickly into a cold, claw-like chill that wrapped itself around her feet and crawled up her body. 

The chill reached her knees, her hips, her waist, her chest. And still it climbed, choking everything in its wake. It reached her throat, and like an anaconda around its prey, it began to squeeze.

The pressure became so great that Larra struggled to breathe. She started to panic, thrashing wildly against the strangling chill. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but the chill quickly moved up and over her mouth, shutting it. Blind, mute, and restrained, she wondered if this was the end. 

“Wakey, wakey, little witchy,” the chill whispered in her ear.

Larra’s eyes jerked open. She awoke to find Smithen’s long, thick arm wrapped around her neck, holding a gleaming, serrated knife that flashed silver in the quiet light of the campfire. His other hand was pressed to her mouth, smothering her terrified screams. Her nightmare had come to life.

“Not a peep, witchy, or it will go even more painfully for you,” he warned, using his grip around her neck to pull her out of the wagon. His other hand pressed over her mouth, and she futilely struggled against him. 

She still felt cold, though not from a chill wind. It was the ice cold feeling of terror.

Just as he began to drag her from the wagon and into the woods, one of the dogs let out a whimper. They froze. Smithen’s knife pressed to the side of her face, and she feared that with the slightest movement her cheek would be sliced. The two dogs approached, clearly confused at what was happening. They knew the girl shouldn’t be moving, but she was assisted by a man they were familiar with. They weren’t sure if they should react or not.

Larra reached down with her foot and kicked a clump of dirt toward the nearest hound, hoping the action would go unnoticed by Smithen. It did not.

Before Smithen could react, the dog whimpered again—loudly, this time—at the startle of having dirt flung in its eyes. A rustle came from the camp and suddenly Larra was released, falling hard to her knees. The impact zipped up her legs, stunning her. She barely recognized the captain moving through the camp and into their corner of the clearing, with two of his men by his side.

She was about to cry out, when Smithen’s voice came to her ear again.

“Careful, or remember that when I’m finished with you I’ll go back to Farr and take care of your grandmother.  And if anyone tries to stop me, I’ll kill them, too. You wouldn’t want all those deaths on your conscience now. Would you, witchy?”

The words were raspy and harsh and filled with malice.

“What is going on here?” came the captain’s gravelly, sleep-ridden voice.

Larra’s braid had loosened during the struggle, and it was through a curtain of tangled hair that she was able to see how very angry and concerned the man was. Both he and his two knights had their hands on the hilts of their swords, ready, if necessary, to fight.

Something flashed in the low light of the fire, and Larra watched as the captain’s attention zeroed in on the knife Smithen held to the side of her face. He looked pointedly at the blade before lifting his head to stare at the soldier with such frigid accusation that it made winter in the Krymean Mountains seem welcoming by comparison.

“I hope you have a very good reason for why that girl is out of the wagon and that blade is in your hand. Especially at this hour.” He spoke slowly, as if it took considerable effort to form the words.

The free hand Smithen had placed on her shoulder tightened, and it was all Larra could do not to cry out. Each word of his reply seemed to be given with equally measured care as the captain’s. “Aye, sir,” said her would-be killer. “I was passing by on my rounds and noticed that the lock on the cage looked askew. Imagine my surprise when I found it unsecured. Luckily, the witch didn’t know, or she would have escaped.”

“That doesn’t explain what she is doing
out
of the cage, Smithen.”

The hand on her shoulder tensed even more, and Larra knew the soldier had to think furiously to come up with a good response. “Since I already had the door open and the witch was stirring, I figured I’d double check her bonds, just to be sure. I wouldn’t want some other fellow to get into trouble for tying them too tight, like I did before.

Larra watched a muscle tick at the corner of Christoff’s eye. “I might believe you except that the girl doesn’t have any ‘bonds’ and hasn’t since you messed up before.”

Smithen ever-so-slowly released his grip on her shoulder and stepped back. The cool night air followed in his wake, sending shivers up Larra’s spine. “Well look at that! I had no idea.” He chuckled, feigning self-consciousness, and Larra heard the knife being slipped back into its scabbard. “You’ve just had me so busy lately that I didn’t realize you’d changed your mind about the ropes. My mistake. I’m sorry for waking you.”

If the captain believed him or not, he didn’t say. Larra wanted to scream at him, to tell him the truth, but she was bound to silence by her fear.

“I’d think you too tired after today’s taxing workload to stay awake the rest of the night, Smithen. You’re relived of your guard duty. Go find your bed and consider this reprieve from a long, boring night as a reward for all your hard work.” 

He made the words seem like a suggestion rather than a command, but Larra knew that the soldier had no option but to obey. Not if he wanted to maintain what little remained of his innocent-soldier-boy façade.

“Of course, sir.” Smithen stalked past Larra, near enough so that his scabbard barely clipped the side of her head.

“And Smithen?” the captain called out. “Don’t forget that you are here on probation, and at my sufferance. You are being watched.”

The soldier’s expression was one of barely suppressed fury. He nodded and spun quickly away.

The relief Larra felt was so overwhelming that she would have fallen to her knees if she hadn’t been on them already. She took deep breaths, trying to slow her pounding heart. When she finally lifted her chin to peer at the captain, it was to find him regarding her intently. Wondering about her. Judging her. She felt bare before him, all vulnerability open to his perusal. He wasn’t stupid. He knew there was something going on. But whether he suspected foul play on Smithen’s part or something entirely different, Larra couldn’t know.

“Let me help you back in.” He bent and lifted her by the elbows, carefully assisting her into the wagon. She trembled beneath his touch, but didn’t know if it was because of what had just happened with Smithen, or because it was this man who was touching her.

“I don’t know what has happened or what this bizarre connection seems to be between you and the soldier, but he won’t bother you again tonight. Go back to sleep.” He shut the door, locked it, then turned to the men at his side. “Either of you interested in taking the rest of the watch?”

One of them stepped forward. “I’ll do it.” Then in a hushed tone, “Something’s not right here, Captain. Sir Griffen wouldn’t have left that lock unsecured. Smithen must have picked it.”

“I know. But there’s no proof, and nothing we can do about it except to keep our eyes open. Thanks, Bart.” He clapped the black-haired man on the shoulder and turned to the camp. “Back to bed, everyone. There’s nothing more to see tonight.” The other knights, who must have awoken along with the captain and his men at the sounds of the struggle, nestled back into their bedrolls.

The next morning, Larra knew that she had played a game with the devil and come out the winner. There were few words to describe her relief that the dog had whined loud enough to rouse the captain. Gratitude welled up from deep within her, and she was sorry she couldn’t give her thanks to the hazel-eyed man for what he had unknowingly done. She knew if she told him, he would ask questions. And if he asked questions, Smithen would find a way to fulfill his threats.

This time, it was the captain who came to take her to the river. She felt understandably embarrassed when he first approached, certain that with her tangled hair and wrinkled gown she was not a pleasant sight to behold.

He helped her out of the wagon.  “Come. I have some questions for you about what happened last night.”

Trepidation was too good a word to describe what Larra felt when she heard that statement.

They walked through the camp, passing the men who were busy packing bed rolls and saddling horses. There was no sign of Smithen, and Larra assumed he had been sent to scout the path again, as he had the day before. The captain remained quiet until they were clear of the others. But once they were alone on the small, twisting trail that lead to the river bank, he began his interrogation.

“I want to know what relationship you have with Smithen.”

“Relationship?” she paused in surprise, and consequently tripped over a rock. The captain’s arm shot out and grabbed her just in time to keep her from falling to the ground. He released her immediately.

“By your surprised response, should I assume there is no relationship?”

“Absolutely not! Before my arrest, I’d never even met the man. And I certainly have no desire to meet him again when this ordeal is over.”

“Then should I also assume that these accidents
that seem to occur frequently when the two of you are together are merely that—accidents?” 

“That is exactly what I’m saying.” She hated to lie to him. Being dishonest went against her nature, but the price of telling the truth was too high.

“Are you saying that he had no intention to harm you? Because by way you were trembling last night, it looked an awful lot like you were scared of something. If there is something amiss between the two of you, then you’d better tell me.” His tone was firm, demanding.

“Like I said, I’ve never met him before. Everything that’s happened between us has been a coincidence. Nothing more. I don’t know what else to say to convince you.” 

She yearned to tell him of the soldier’s threats, yearned to ask for his help and protection. But she couldn’t. Instead, she could only wait and hope that the captain’s suspicions were enough to keep her safe until she arrived at the palace.

They reached the river and she turned to face him. His hazel eyes burned in quiet fury, a display of emotion that should have surprised her, but didn’t. He was angry, and she didn’t blame him. She didn’t have experience at lies and deception and knew hers were obvious. He didn’t believe her and was forming his own conclusion of the situation.

“Do you have anything more to say to me on the matter?” he asked tightly, a muscle clenching in his jaw.

“No.”

“Fine. We’re here.” He turned around and walked away toward a large tree, his back ramrod straight, his shoulders stiff with frustration. “And don’t forget to speak while you wash up,” he threw over his shoulder.

Larra stared after him until he disappeared, and then proceeded to the rocky bank to rinse the sleep from her eyes. As she did, she tried not to care that in lying to the captain, the fragile, tentative relationship that had bloomed between them over the last few days was threatening to wither and die.

Christoff braced an arm against the tree and took several deep breaths, trying to control his emotions. 

He hadn’t been deceived last night by that fool-of-a-soldier’s pretense. His sense of danger had been screaming at him and he had fought enough battles to know when something was wrong. The man had been livid at being caught in whatever game he’d been playing, but he’d held his tongue——a wise move, if ever Christoff had seen one. They had been at an impasse of sorts. Smithen knew that Christoff mistrusted him, yet Christoff hadn’t said a word. Similarly, Christoff knew Smithen was up to no good, yet Smithen had done nothing that could prove his guilt. They were both men of silent accusations and pent up anger. Neither had been willing to state the obvious, and neither had been fooled by the other.

The soldier had been lying then, but it was Larra who was lying now. After tossing and turning most of what had remained of the night, Christoff had determined that there were only two possible conclusions for the midnight altercation. The first was that the Larra was in league with the soldier and that everything—the tightened bonds, the sounds of struggle, the innocent replies—was an act played to mislead him, to make him unsuspecting of their plot. The second possibility was that Larra was afraid of the man, but didn’t trust Christoff to be able to protect her.