Bone Witch (17 page)

"I let them live because you wished
it, little maga. Not because they have value besides their seed."

Alaysha groaned, frustrated, and Bodicca
spoke finally. Her voice was a gritty whisper. "Had I let Yuri die in our
land, this little maga you seem fond of would not be sitting in front of
you."

Cai shrugged. "The value of seed,
warrior, no more."

"This man was valuable enough to the
Enyalia that Komandiri Alkaia gave her life for his service." She pointed
at Theron who squirmed anxiously.

"Again, all has more to do with the
power of Enyalia, Bodicca, not the value of men. We birth men, they serve us,
and in their time they die. If men were more resourceful, more valuable—even
more fearsome a thing, they would not die so easily at the quarter solstice. My
blade would not have sent a red grin across two men's throats, the pre-men
would not have hoisted dozens of their comrades to the burning sword over and
over and over again as long as Enyalia has thrived."

A terrible guttural sound came from the
bushes and Gael, his face a fearsome mask of pain and rage, threw himself over
the fire and leapt at Cai.

The two struggled, Cai finding her footing
first, but Gael meeting her cheek with a resounding blow as she did so. He
seemed to know each place she would be and followed her with dogged punches, to
the stomach, the ribs by the time Yenic and Bodicca lunged in to separate them.
Cai gave in readily to Bodicca, but Gael fought on, thrashing in Yenic's hold
until Alaysha shouted that the foolishness should stop. It did stop, but Gael
stomped out into the trees snarling to himself. Alaysha looked about the
surprised group, all heaving, the tensions obvious in their shoulders. She
turned and picked her way behind Gael.

She reached to touch him but he shifted
away, his shoulder jerking forward. "Leave me be, Alaysha," he said.

"I won't. You're hurt."

"Then send the shaman to tend to
me." He stomped a few paces further, forcing her to step over a fallen
tree to get to him.

"Gael?"

The full moon had tucked itself into black
clouds, but it was light enough for her to see his face when he spun back to
her. He was closer than she thought and his voice sailed over her head. "I
told you to go away."

"No." She didn't understand the
coldness in his tone. "You need to rest, to eat. You're still not fully
healed."

"I'm as healed is I need to be."

This time when she touched what she thought
was his chest, she heard his sharp intake of breath. He gave an audible
swallow, then his voice, like grit in his throat. "Leave me alone,
Alaysha. Go back to your pup."

The hulking shadow settled down next to the
tree. There was a dark movement as though he was pulling his cloak over his
head and then all was quiet but for the sounds of bats clicking in search of a
meal.

Alaysha picked her way through the darkness
back to the fire, feeling confused and concerned. She could make out Bodicca's
form hunched next to Theron, mumbling over Cai's upturned face as the komandiri
sat against a tree.

"Broken," Bodicca said. "Can
you see out of the eye, Komandiri?"

Cai cursed loudly as Theron prodded about,
but Alaysha was certain it wasn't because of the pain he might be inflicting on
her cheekbone.

"He's quick, isn't he?" Alaysha
asked.

"And brutishly strong," Yenic
added. He rubbed at his shoulders as though yanking Gael off Cai had torn
tissues beneath.

"Imagine the warrior when his strength
is returned," Theron said, and Cai swatted the two of them away.

"He is freakish," she said, but
Alaysha thought she detected a smile in her tone. A niggle of sadism streak
through Alaysha that she wanted to set free.

"So," she said. "Can you see
out of the eye?" It had been a wallop of a punch, aimed at a fellow
fighter, not a woman, and Gael had held nothing back.

Cai stood next to the fire and stretched,
making a great show of disdain over her own discomfort. "No doubt our
Alkaia lends him her strength through her mark." She said it almost as
though she was impressed, but Alaysha knew better by now.

"Might your Alkaia have been a bit
mad?" she asked a little too sweetly.

Cai didn't take the bait, rather treated
the question with all seriousness. "Uta thought her mad certainly for
choosing exile over her sword sisters. All for a man. But no. I don't think her
mad."

Bodicca squatted again next to the fire and
poked at it. "She was a komandiri to the last," she said, and Theron
made a small sound in his throat that stole Alaysha's attention.

"What was she like, Theron?"

He shook his head, refusing to engage in
the conversation.

"My father's mother," Alaysha
said, testing the statement to her ears.

"Madre," Bodicca said. "Our
word for mother."

"Men don't have a madre," Cai
said.

"No," Bodicca agreed and passed
Alaysha the poker. "Your father knew he had no such claim to her, but the
infant –"

"Ellison," Theron interjected.

Bodicca looked at him thoughtfully.
"Ellison might have, had she lived to watch him grow." Bodicca said.
"As it was she died true Enyalia even in exile."

Cai shifted as she sat, letting one long
leg snake over top one crossed. "Sword in hand?" She asked.

Bodicca nodded. "Even when the red
grin stretched across her neck. We had to pry it from her afterwards."

Alaysha understood their sense of pride; a
warrior caste such as these women wouldn't want to die of old, doddering age.
But she didn't understand how loving a male of any age could make her less a
woman, less fierce. "One would think," she said. "That a true
warrior wouldn't be afraid of a small infant in the first place."

Cai's foot moved across the leaf litter,
but she said nothing. Instead, she sighed audibly. Alaysha hadn't forgotten the
warrior sitting alone in the woods, his cloak over his head, not for an
instant. "I would think a warrior such as an Enyalian wouldn't have to
drug a man –"

Cai sent a glance Yenic's way. "You
gave my sisters quite a fight when you came, but did we resort to drugs to keep
you docile?"

Yenic looked at his feet. "I had other
things to take my mind."

Cai shifted closer to Alaysha, so close her
booted foot nearly crushed Alaysha's bare toe. "It's your large one you
ask for, I know. But I tell you the only drugs Thera used were to keep his body
quiet during his repair. The rest—I'm afraid would have all depended on my
sisters."

Alaysha didn't want to hear anymore. She
didn't want to have to think about any woman equally as large as the Enyalian
leader settling into bed with Gael, touching him. Rousing him from a wounded
sleep.

"I'm tired," she said.
"Someone needs to take watch."

"I'll do it," Bodicca said.
"I find pain a remarkable antidote for weariness."

Alaysha moved back into her furs and
stretched out. Someone tapped her shoulder and she turned to see Yenic slipping
in behind her. He curled around her without a word, pulling her close. His
warmth felt right next to hers, the comfort it gave to have another body next
to hers helped her eyelids ease closed.

Dawn hadn't yet courted the tree line when
Alaysha heard it. Her eyes flew open but she kept her body still, not moving,
not shifting or breathing. She could tell by Yenic's arms around her midsection
that he heard it too, and like her, he pretended he was asleep. The forest
clung to a wet mist, even in the quiet gloom of predawn, a figure would have
thickened into a great hulking shape if it tried to move through the wide swath
of mist, but still Alaysha knew something was out there.

Bodicca and Cai thought so too. Neither's
eyes were open, but each had tightened grip on their blades. Cai was sitting
frozen next to a tree, the obvious lookout for the early morning, a woman who
for all intents and purposes appeared to have fallen asleep.

It would fool many invaders, but not
Alaysha. The warrior looked entirely too comfortable and the woman never looked
comfortable.

They came even as Alaysha was contemplating
whether Theron understood they would soon be under attack.

One moment there was nothing but mist, the
next a savage looking man appeared directly in front of her, his muscled legs
springing from a squat as he landed to a full-on run in her direction. There
were dozens of them: all-male, all slick with mud, twigs, and branches and
leaves in their hair, streaks of soot across their faces. Perfectly camouflaged
for dropping out of trees and it was evident that's what they done. Half a
dozen still were dropping.

Alaysha had time to bolt to her feet and
dart sideways to avoid her attacker. He caught Yenic as he tried to gain speed
and together they rolled across the forest floor, Yenic doing his best to avoid
the blade in his attacker's hand.

The sound of metal striking metal met
Alaysha's ears and she knew she had to get her sword. The man in front of her
pulled an arrow from his quiver; Alaysha wasn't fool enough to believe he could
use it at such close proximity. She made a lunge for him, thinking to put him
off balance and sprint passed him. He held onto the arrow as though it was a
blade, jabbing it into her forearm. She felt the bite between the bones and
gasped. The arrow head must've been made of god's teeth it was so sharp. She
caught the fury in his face as he pulled it out and made to stab again, this
time aiming for her throat. His gaze touched for an instant on her chin and she
took that moment to swipe with her good hand for the arrow. She grasped it above
his grip and broke off the feather fletching, leaving the shaft with the
arrowhead still in his hand. No good. She needed to get the black arrow tip
away from him.

She would have ducked and swept his legs
with her feet except a blow landed on her back stealing her air and dropping
her knees from beneath her. Little gnat bites burned into her shoulders two it
a time, and the sting went deep into her tissues. It reminded her of the oddly
numb feeling in her side when Drahl had tried to kill her—not truly painful,
not at least until she saw the blood running down her arms. She peered up to
face her attacker, this time with the arrow ready to swipe across her throat.

All sound returned, and she heard her group
fighting on despite being outnumbered. Her chest burned to release the power,
even as she felt too weak to keep it at bay. She couldn't let loose. Not yet.
They were still very much alive. She had to block out the emotion, use the flat
heartlessness her father taught her.

She made to come up with fist aimed to
block her attacker's swing, but even as she uncoiled the springs in her thigh
muscles, the man's head disappeared from his shoulders and his torso fell
sideways in a heap.

"Move, Alaysha," Gael ordered and
turned to engage yet another attacker. Beyond him, two handfuls of invaders in
similar states were all around her. He finished with one and stormed toward
where Bodicca was cutting an equally fierce swath around Theron. They all
appeared ferocious and vigorous in their battle, but the subtleties were
different; Alaysha could detect the slight hesitations in the movements, the
heaving chests from effort, the slight sway to their stance. They still battled
the invisible enemy of fatigue and recovery from the earlier attack and to her,
it showed.

Alaysha searched for Yenic who was grinning
madly as he set fires around the feet of his attackers. She found herself
wondering how he could wield such power at all, knowing to do so would take an
amount of blood. Then she saw him holding onto his side, and his fingers oozed
with red. She looked at her own hands, covered in her own blood, swept a glance
at Bodicca and Theron and Cai. Blood was to be found in abundance.

But they were winning. At least it appeared
so. Cai was chuckling with each man she felled. She barely moved as they came
at her from all sides, and each time she did move, it was with such economy
Alaysha knew was calculated by perfect harmony of her senses.

It was time to dart for her pack and pull
her sword. Alaysha lost all sense as she spun to meet one, two, three
attackers. She sent her whole body into the swings, slicing into their
stomachs, then she flung herself passed them to where Gael had engaged two of
the burliest.

There was something familiar about the way
these men moved, the way they herded themselves into battle: without thought,
as though fighting was one more chore they had to complete for the day before
they settled in to their beds. They seemed almost slave like. Even still, they
owned a strange sort of fierceness. Savage. Her father would've used such a
crew wisely, she thought and realized the truth of it as it entered her mind.

Her father had used them—or some of them.
She thought of the word Cai, used to describe them.

"Highlanders," she said. The
tribe of people who were fierce at heart, but who did everything they worked at
stolidly, like oxen. Edulph's clan.

She stepped forward, hefting her sword and
taking aim at the closest of Gael's attackers. He too fell into a heap, his
head lolling to one side, cut, but not severed. She didn't have the strength
for that.

She knew the battle was dying around her.
There were far less noises. Gael sent his last attacker to his knees, but
spared him the final blow. Instead, he pressed the man's face down in the
blood-soaked moss.

Alaysha couldn't help smiling at him and
pointed at the man she'd slain. "I returned the favor."

His face when it turned on her was cold.
"One man is equal to a dozen, witch? You're cheap with your favor, it
seems." He glared down at the recumbent man. "You'll wish for your
death when I hand you over to the Enyalian." Gael didn't look up, but
Alaysha knew his next words were for her nonetheless.