Bone Witch (12 page)

A
laysha looked from one woman to the next, thinking someone
would break the tension, but ended up doing it herself when none of the Enyalia
spoke.

"What of the survivor?"

The three looked at each other, then Cai
strode toward her, with the obvious intention of herding her out. Alaysha
planted her feet. "If she lives, where is she? She can tell us who
attacked them."

Cai's hand rested on Alaysha's back; she felt
it there, pressing gently, but the woman was strong enough to move her.
"There is no us, little maga."

Alaysha stumbled along, doing her best to
resist the woman's more raw strength.

"Don't make me pick you up and carry
you—my sword sisters would not look at you the same if they saw me do such a
thing."

Alaysha grabbed onto the only solid thing
she could; the wooden bench just along the door next to the wall. "Maybe I
can help."

"How? You will knit her another
hand?"

The hand. So that was the peculiar reaction.
"Her sword hand?" Alaysha forced herself on the bench, sitting down
hard and wrapping her toes around the leg. She wasn't sure why she cared,
except the woman's reactions were entirely unexpected. Cai reached for her hand
to pull her off the bench and despite the best efforts to stay put, Alaysha
sailed over the woman's broad shoulder.

"I gave you a choice," Cai said
and impassively made for the door.

Only Uta's voice stopped the warrior, and
it was a thoughtful, familiar tone that she'd heard hundreds of times in her
life. Her stomach sent bile up her throat when she understood the words.

"Perhaps we could use a powerful
witch," Uta said.

Without letting her down, Cai spun to face
the old woman. "No," she said. "We have no need of such
magic."

Alaysha couldn't see Uta's reaction, but
she understood the harrumph plainly enough.

"This magic is different, Cai,"
Thera said. "It's of the land. It's brown, not black. Maybe we can use
it."

Alaysha wasn't sure how she felt about
being talked about as if her very nature was wrong, but she had no chance to
argue it. Thera and the chalk witch took to speaking both at once. Cai had to
shout to get them to quiet down.

"I know the power, sisters. Do
you?"

It seemed only Uta moved to answer. She
slunk toward Cai. "You know I know it."

Alaysha felt Cai's hands tighten against
her hips. "Yes, Uta. The witch past the burnt lands who could move stone
and earth. I know you
think
you know the power." She tapped once,
twice. "It's for Thera and I to decide now, Uta; your turn is done."

The old woman didn't complain so much as
threaten when she responded. "My turn saw more power than you even believe
exists."

"Then what will happen if the little
witch extends her full power? What then?"

Talked about as an object again. So, so
familiar. Alaysha hated the way, Cai was speaking of her, hated the way her
tone revealed how she really thought, of Alaysha being a dangerous liability.
Alaysha didn't want to stop herself when her fists began pummelling the
warrior's kidneys as she hung over her shoulders.

Cai set her down and spun her around to
face the magnets of her eyes. She didn't seem hurt, only annoyed. "Stop.
Stop it all. You don't know what they ask of you."

Alaysha heard the impassive tone again, but
this time it was coming from her own mouth. "I do know."

Thera was next to her in an instant.
"You know and yet you don't argue it."

Alaysha faced her. "You want me to
drain your enemies for you." She gave the witch a weary shrug as much to
say she'd journeyed often on the same path. It was obvious now, Thera was not
the witch she sought. If she was, even if she was and didn't know it, she would
still feel the power, see the results. She'd know to move the earth would be as
useful as moving water. No. Thera was not the clay witch. The clay witch had
been past the burnt lands in Uta's time; this Thera would not—could not—be
her daughter.

Thera's silent appraisal unnerved her at
first, but the woman seemed to make up her mind about something.

"You will want your men in
return."

It wasn't what Alaysha expected; it was
leaguas better.

"I want both of them." Alaysha
said it, not planning to keep her bargain, only seeing it as a way to get
around the tricky business of escape.

The discussion seemed to be running down to
agreement when Alaysha held up her hand. After all, she was nowhere near done.

"And I want the third one when he's
found."

"That's much to ask for."

"My power is worth much more."
She counted on the innate greed of any person to want more than they could
afford. She expected a quick agreement: at the same time worried she'd get it.
No one had been able to have such power at their command that she knew of and
yet not take it.

She didn't expect Cai to step forward.
"No," she stated to Thera. "You can't make this decision alone."
Cai was unmoved, as impassive as Alaysha had yet seen her except when she was
punishing Gael.

"The quarter solstice is one sunrise
away." Thera said. "Our warriors will be occupied and then by all
hope, they will be unfit for battle."

"The Enyalia is never unfit."

"Would you risk our future by sending
them to battle, then?"

"There is no risk. We are
superior."

Thera's eyes flashed in anger and Alaysha
could see she was doing her best to keep her tongue.

"Then we will cast tomorrow as
tradition dictates, and the outcome of all of this will be on your
shoulders." Thera turned, dismissing Cai, and Cai just as impassive as
before, took Alaysha's arm to pull her from the lodge.

Alaysha looked over her shoulder at Gael,
certain she heard a sound come from somewhere in the back of the gloom; he lay
perfectly still. Asleep. Unconscious.

More than likely pretending. Awaiting the
prime time to act if she knew him well. And now she'd been shut down from
making a bargain that could see them all free, she'd need him awake when she
came for him. She'd find a way. Her and Yenic.

She caught Uta's eye and what she saw there
made her uneasy;
a witch past the burnt lands who could move stone and earth
Cai had said to her. The real temptress of clay, not Thera at all.

"You mentioned a witch," Alaysha
asked her.

Uta nodded. "From past the burnt
lands. A woman of incredible power." She sounded impressed.

A woman of incredible power from past the
burnt lands. It didn't matter who the witch was, all those witches had
encountered the same fate and telling this crone of that fate just might force
a little fear into the old bones.

"I think you should know,"
Alaysha said to her. "That woman of incredible power you speak of—I
killed her."

S
he left with Cai on her heels. The warrior was too
disciplined to ask what was burning in her throat, Alaysha knew, and with luck,
she could use the information to get some of her own. She intended to do so
immediately.

Once outside, she spun on the warrior
before they even made it a dozen paces from the lodge. Young boys hustled
about, carrying water and tinder, and the occasional tinder bundle.

"Who is it that has your people so
afraid?"

If she expected a straight answer she was
more foolish than she'd been accused of.

"The Enyalia aren't afraid. We don't
fear death."

"Looked like fear to me."

"Resignation. Exhaustion. Nothing
more."

"From what? Who?"

"I don't owe you an explanation,
little maga."

"You have two of my men prisoner. You
owe me more than an explanation."

"By your admission they are not your
men. We won them in battle." Cai gave her a peculiar look. "We own
you as well."

It was a shock to hear it. Alaysha hadn't
for one moment thought of herself as a possession.

"No one owns me."

"You're wrong." Cai's mouth
turned up at the edges ever so slightly but Alaysha couldn't have called it a
smile.

"I said no one owns me. Have you
forgotten what you saw in the burnt lands?"

"I saw a witch afraid to use her power
for fear of killing a man." Cai lifted one broad shoulder. "That
alone makes you ours. You'll stay because your men live. Only remember your
promise and I'll let you live in return."

The commander's mask had gone up again. Cai
was impossible this way.

"Don't you want to know why I killed
that witch Uta so revered?"

Cai waited as a young boy passed her a
flatbread. It smelled of char. She sniffed at it. "I already know
why."

"You couldn't."

"But I do. You killed for the same
reason we all do: survival, greed, hatred. Love."

It was Alaysha's turn to smile. "No. I
killed her because a man asked me to."

"Then you are a foolish witch."
Cai bit into the bread and chewed thoughtfully. "We have plenty of
enemies. We always have, but this one Uta wants to be free of is an enemy
generations old."

"You took their men," Alaysha
guessed.

"Some, yes. But there's more to it
than that. We thought them weak because they were so accepting of the fate.
Every komandiri thought so. But the witch you killed was not the only one of
her kind."

Alaysha's heart raced. Did she dare say
more or just wait. She opted to wait and was rewarded with Cai's further
reflections.

"The komandiri of Uta's time pressed
into many lands in search of the solstice men. Her komandiri before her, too.
We've seen many peoples, but nothing like the witch we met past the burnt lands.
She was very powerful, so Uta says. She grew to hate a woman she'd never met. A
woman who was powerful enough to change everything we knew about ourselves
without so much as stepping on our soil."

Alaysha fidgeted, wanting to ask a thousand
questions, but she realized to prod the woman might be to stop the well.

Cai tore a piece from the flatbread and
offered it; when Alaysha shook her head, the woman continued. "The people
from the frozen lands rose against us before, during Uta's time. Very early, you
understand. Alkaia was very young then. They both were."

"Alkaia?"

An incredibly fierce komandiri. She is
legend, even now, besides being one in her own time. Uta's time. She took many
teeth from many men. She also took from women. The only komandiri ever to do
so. Men, you see, their only value lies in their teeth, and only as war
trophies. But when the people from the frozen lands came, we had to fight. They
were not content to have us use their men and so sought to rescue them."

Alaysha thought the story had more to do
with the men who were here now, warning Alaysha in subtle ways to be careful,
more so than the men of yesteryear. She kept her own counsel, though. Let the
woman continue.

"Those women fought fiercely enough,
but of course they were slaughtered. Alkaia took their teeth in memory of their
bravery. Those who did survive, didn't go back to their lands. They spread out,
letting us think them wiped out. Some of them went to the highlands and stoked
the fires of vengeance."

"And they've returned."

"Yes. And much more able to do
damage."

"What could be such a challenge to the
Enyalia?"

Cai gave her a knowing look and when
Alaysha didn't seem to understand, finally answered the question. "They
have a witch of your making in their arsenal."

"That can't be."

Cai swallowed the last bit of flatbread.
"But it is."

"I tell you it can't be true."

"And why do you feel so certain?"

"Because I killed her too."

Cai quirked her brow to show her surprise
but no more. "So much killing for one from the other lands."

"It's true."

"Then it is you who are wrong, little
maga."

"I tell you, I killed them both. At
the same time. Both old women were nothing but leather when I stood over them
at the end." Alaysha decided not to speak of the third, that would be a
secret she could use later. If she needed it.

At this, Cai laughed. "So now we both
know that the woman you killed is not who you think it was. This witch I speak
of is but a mere babe and already powerful enough to suck the wind from a dozen
Enyalia."

Alaysha tried not to betray her thoughts at
the revelation. She hoped she succeeded but the warrior watched her face with
keen interest even so.

It was true the wind witch could have died
at Alaysha's hand and still, there be a witch in her place. It was obvious Cai
had no idea what created a witch of her kind, that it was passed down through
her mother and initiated only at the mother's death. Alaysha did some quick
processing. She'd killed all three of the other witches by order of her father,
not knowing who it was or why she was doing battle. All three were old women
even by the time Alaysha had taken their lives. That meant each passed down
their full power to the daughters they had somewhere in hiding. The crones
sacrificed themselves in order to pass their powers onto a daughter somewhere
too far for Alaysha to reach. One of those women was Aislin who had murdered
Alaysha's sister and abducted Saxon and now held Sarum in her grip.

Now to know that the wind witch was
somewhere near, was being used already as a weapon the way Alaysha had been
most of her life both excited her and repulsed her.

Cai interrupted her thoughts, pointing out
a fur-lined hut with smoke rising from the top.

"Come, little maga. Best we rest. The
casting can be difficult and the day will be long. You should sleep." She
headed off, assuming Alaysha would follow.

Alaysha made her feet move, but she knew
she'd never sleep. The wind witch so close.

Too close, really, because as long as
Alaysha stayed in the camp of the wind witch's enemy, she too was in danger.