Bone Witch (19 page)

"Best we leave it to Aedus,
then." Whatever the consequences would be should the child live, would be
nothing compared to those if she died. It made Alaysha keenly aware of her own
mortality and its effects if she died without a daughter to pass the power to.
She couldn't stop herself from running her palm across the child's back,
comforting her, wanting desperately to hold her tightly.

"We need to start, oh yes."

Alaysha's heart pounded as she watched
Theron part the girl's hair. "Now?" She said and he met her gaze with
black determination.

"Can this witch not sense the girl's
departure? We have to start now."

Edulph groaned from behind her. "Do
something."

Theron remained calm. "We are not as
skilled at this as we should like."

"Theron?" Alaysha said. "Are
you sure this is right?" She eyed the black edge with anxiety. It had
scored Edulph so neatly that the folds of flesh knit back together perfectly
within seconds. That meant it was terrifyingly sharp.

"Listen, little witch," he said
and put her palm on the girl's back. "Listen with your hands."

Alaysha felt that, the rise, the halt, and
the long pause of the girl's lungs. Beneath just the spine, there was a chill
waiting, one that made Alaysha's mouth go dry. She dug deeper into the Moss
with her knees.

"Do it, Theron," she said.
"We haven't much time."

To his credit, the shaman kept his hand
steady, his movements were deliberate, not rushed or hasty. First he shaved a
square away in the blonde locks. They fell to the Moss like petals from a
bloom. "We shall cut here," he said, pointing to the top of her head.
"No doubt the bones still knit together and so it will be softer, yes yes.
Easier on the poor thing—less of an insult."

The blade brought blood against the white
scalp, and Alaysha knew from experience it would be lots of blood, enough to
make Edulph sob and stumble to a nearby tree, his fist in his mouth, the other
hand cradled against his shoulder. When the skin lifted away, the blade dug
into the bone, and the sound of the scraping black edge against brittle bone,
sent Yenic to join him. Alaysha could hear his retching and her stomach tried
to rebel until she heard Cai complaining about the weakness of men.

Theron had two lines drawn into the skull
and Alaysha was beginning to believe they could manage it. She kept having to
remind herself to breathe. Then she felt the girl's limbs twitch against her
thighs. Theron must have noticed it too—his blade paused, his one hand filled
with his cassock to sop up the blood, the other pressed into the corner, ready
to etch another line. He said nothing but his black eyes were all pupil, making
them seemed an endless pit of terror.

A movement came from Alaysha's lap, muffled
by pain and confusion but most definitely a child's sound.

Even Yenic stopped retching at the noise.
Cai stepped closer, her arm raised above Alaysha and it was only when the child
twitched again, her whole body bucking upward, that Alaysha realized Cai's arm
was filled with the handle of her blade. The Enyalian planned to strike the
girl as she woke.

And she was most definitely waking.

T
he next few moments passed in a blur. Alaysha heard a sound
like a shout, but it wasn't the noise that made her cringe, expecting pain or
breathlessness. It was the feeling of having a massive weight fall against her
back and the feeling that if she gave into the heaviness of it, that she
crushed the frail body that was even now coming to and squirming in confusion.
Moments more and the child would know the pain she felt. Would know it and
strike out against it in the only way she knew. Another shout came, even as she
had the fleeting thought that she'd have to unleash her power and that this
release would surely kill them all. This shout sounded like Gael. If only she
could wrest herself from beneath the heavy form, she could hear better. And it
was a form, she realized now. Cai's body atop Alaysha's shoulders, her sword
dropped on the ground. Were they under attack? What was all the shouting? She
tried to find Theron who should have been right there in front of her. She
worked to make sense of it when the girl's moaning grew louder, turning to a
stifling sob. Oh dear deities. It would be soon. If it hadn't started
already—maybe that was why Cai had fallen onto her, maybe –

Then she felt the weight ease and the
shouting clarify. Aedus and Gael both yelling at her to move. Theron at her
side, pulling the Enyalian by her feet to the ground. Aedus slipped in and blew
a Quill into the child's neck.

The squirming halted.

"My hero," she said to Aedus,
smiling, and the girl wiped muddy locks away from a harried face. Gael stood
next to her, holding a handful of blackish beetles. His palm was stained
purple.

"Save me a few quills," he told
the girl. "I think I found a way out of listening to that brute's
infuriating pomposity."

"Such words," Alaysha said,
relieved to see them both. She lifted the girl back onto her lap. "How
close, Theron?"

The shaman's eyes were glassy with
exhaustion. "Soon," he said and then bent again to his task.

"We'll need to cover the hole once
he's done," Alaysha said, thinking about the hunk of bone that they cut
and that they could never thread back into place. It was a small square but
still, it would need protection.

Aedus peered over Alaysha's shoulder.
"We could wrap a gourd over it, or a nut casing."

"The young one would make a good
shaman," Theron mumbled. "Find one of these—not too round." He
was on his last cut, the black edge was indeed terrifyingly sharp but it was
more brittle than steel.

"We'll need Aedus near when you're
done, so she wakes to a familiar face."

"She won't be waking," Theron
said and Alaysha heard Edulph curse. The shaman ignored the nasty things Edulph
called him. "This little witch needs to stay asleep while she heals,"
he said.

"Stay asleep," Alaysha repeated.
"So we'll need more of Aedus's beetles then."

"Just until this shaman can measure
his ghost pipe roots." He put a critical finger on the girl's neck where
the flesh rose and fell irregularly. "Far more predictable when measured
than these beetles."

Alaysha felt the prickle of someone leaning
over her shoulder, someone who smelled of onions and sweat.

"You're a lucky father," she told
Edulph, not trying to disguise the coldness in her voice.

"She'll live?"

"She has a better chance now than
before."

"No thanks to you."

"You shouldn't have attacked us."

"We were saving you."

She snorted. "Your rescue nearly
killed us, but then you would have known that." She would never be
convinced he wasn't using the child for his own means. "At any rate,
she'll need to recover. And you'll need Theron. We're coming to your
village." She had no intention of letting this small witch out of her
sight now she'd found her.

Edulph said more, but Alaysha wasn't
interested. Instead, she told him to sit down and when Theron had the girl
safely wrapped, she eased out from beneath the small body and let Edulph take
his turn holding her.

She caught sight of Gael edging his way
toward the furthest tree. He looked weary and the bandage Thera had wound
around his head showed red. When he leaned against the trunk, she could see his
legs trembling and noticed that the tree he'd selected was a good distance off.
While it was in good view of the group, it was well out of personal distance.

It was time she spoke to him. She brushed
the leaf litter from her leggings and took a bracing breath.

"We'll need to set off soon," she
told him when she got close enough. "Theron wants to get the girl back to
her village while Aedus still has beetles enough to keep her asleep."

He eyed the spot where Cai was just coming
to with a curse. He smiled, but said nothing. Alaysha reached out to touch his
arm and he recoiled, electing to drop to his haunches and stare morosely ahead.

"Gael, please," she said, falling
to a crouch beside him. It was the best way she could to look them in the eye.
"I don't understand. Is it because of Yenic?"

Keeping his thighs from quaking proved to
be too much, and he ended up sitting on the Moss, his legs outstretched.

"Is the she-beast coming with
us?" he asked.

Alaysha followed his gaze to Cai's now
standing form, glowering down at Edulph, her arms crossed, fingers tapping on
her biceps. Alaysha didn't want to admit that they might need her. Especially
not to Gael.

"For now," she said carefully.
"Is she what's bothering you?"

"Alaysha," he said, and her heart
sank. He never called her by her name, but always with the endearment that
she'd come to enjoy from his lips. His hand covered hers where she'd placed it
on his leg, and she thought for a moment that he would squeeze it . Then he
plucked it off him and placed it delicately in her own lap

"I need you to leave me be," he
said.

He might as well have slapped her. She was
about to get up, to rush off in embarrassment but she heard the pain in his
voice, disguised, yes, but there was pain in it if she listened.

"No," she told him.

He sighed in frustration and before he
could speak again, she pressed on. "Where is the Gael of the burnt lands,
the one who would swear to help me? Did I offend him somehow? Is it because we
found Yenic, because you don't have to be a victim Gael. I won't ask anything
of you, if you need to leave because you hate him or hate him and me or hate
me, I understand. Only please don't keep me in the dark. Tell me what I've done
so I can take my leave of you properly. You've been so good to me, Gael—so
good for me. I couldn't bear it if I –"

"You did nothing, witch," he said
and in his voice was a growl of anguish. He tried to get up, but seeing him
struggle to do so, Alaysha leaned against him, hoping to put him off balance.

"Don't, Gael."

"I failed you, can't you see
that?"

"Before? With the Highlanders? No.
You're still ill –"

"No. With the Enyalia. In the
village."

She thought of the fight with Enud and
couldn't imagine why he thought she had been failed. "You were
unconscious. I couldn't expect you to save me from Enud."

"No." He nearly bellowed, then
lowered his voice when Cai turned around. "No," he said. He met her
gaze with panic stricken gray eyes. "I used you, witch. When they came.
When I –" he swallowed convulsively, the cords of his throat working to
plunge the Adam's apple down. "When they made me rise, I couldn't help
myself, and so I used your image, the thought of you, your voice, your touch. I
needed you with me in order to bear it, so I wouldn't feel like a weak woman
under pillage." He squeezed his eyes closed. "Only now I feel like a
traitor because I used you so."

"But you're a man, surely you can't be
forced."

His fingers raked through his hair and he
laughed harshly. "You heard Cai before. A man is a man and our bodies are
bodies. Can I stop my flesh from pimpling when it's cold?"

"Oh, I see," she said and for the
first time realized why he felt so tortured. "But Gael, it doesn't matter
to me."

He glowered at her. "It matters to
me." He stabbed at his chest. "A warrior doesn't fear assault; that's
a woman's fear." He ground his heel into his eye. "How could I stand
it if I knew I was being taken so without my leave? And so I used you and it
sickens me, both of those truths. I ache with disgust for using our one memory,
for my weakness."

She knew better than to reach for him. He'd
pulled his blade from its sheath and played at the edge. "Now any thought
of you is tied to those beasts with tits and my own shame."

"I would have told you to use me,
Gael," she whispered. "If I had known. If I couldn't save you and you
needed me. I would have told you to use me."

She didn't know what else to say. There was
entirely too much truth hanging in the air to pluck and process. She couldn't
help him or heal him, but she could tell him her own truth.

"My memory of our night is sweet, and
I carry it here." She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her chest so
he could feel her heart beat. When he tried to pull it away, she held it there
with both hands.

"You need to know that I cherish
it," she said and he met her eye finally. The skin around his were red
rimmed, his expression drawn. The fatigue showed in every muscle, the pain of
his healing revealed its every twitch. But he at least looked at her. She
thought she might have broken through, brought him back to the proud warrior he
was, that she knew he was.

Then Cai's foot appeared in her peripheral
vision and she knew also it appeared in Gael's. His face hardened and he yanked
his hand away. The moment died and she doubted it could be re-exhumed. She gave
the Enyalian her reluctant attention.

"Does the man need coddling," Cai
asked. "Because the shaman of yours has finished with the child."

Even Alaysha detected the mockery in the
woman's tone, but to Gael's credit, he didn't respond. He merely worked his way
heavily to his feet, and swaying once, picked his way toward Aedus who was
holding her niece's hand.

Alaysha saw Cai was again tapping her
fingers against her arm.

"You shouldn't goad him, Cai,"
she said. "And these men are not mine. If you plan to stay with us, you'd
do well to remember to be kind."

Cai's mouth twitched. "Why a woman
puts such stock in men is beyond me. They're feeble-minded, cock-driven things
with no real conscience." She gave her arm with its new circlet a shake
and the teeth chattered. "You'd do well to put your trust in women."

"Women like you," Alaysha guessed
and Cai squared her shoulders defensively.

"There are no other women like
me."

Alaysha couldn't help but chuckle and
patted the Enyalian's forearm, being careful to avoid the teeth and the bits of
bloody gum that were still attached. "For once, we agree."

"Truly, though," the Enyalian
said. "How do you think to proceed? Your large one–"

"Not mine. Gael."

"
The
large one is unfit because
he's not yet healed. This battle could've killed him. Your handsome one –"

"Yenic," Alaysha said patiently.

"
The
handsome one is too
preoccupied with the way the large one steals looks at you, and the shaman is
as cunning as a squirrel who forgot where he placed his seeds."

Alaysha sighed. Put like that, these men
did sound like a bother. But she knew better.

"And Edulph –"

"You're crafty one –"

"That one is most definitely not
mine," Alaysha argued and Cai's russet brow lifted in surprise.

"Well, he isn't. He isn't even
ours."

"Even so, that one is as true as a
lightning strike."

"What do you propose?" She asked,
thinking as she did so that Cai already had a plan and that this preamble was
nothing but formality. The Enyalian's heavy arm went round her shoulders and
steered her further into the brush. "Let me trail you, unseen, undetected.
I can watch from a distance. If your crafty one –"

"Edulph."

"The others are nothing but sick
puppies watching for the bitch, but that crafty one lies in wait. Perhaps if he
believes himself free of me it won't take so long to discover what he's waiting
for."

"And you won't have to be nice to the
others if you're out of sight."

"I won't argue that I tire of being in
such close company."

"I didn't think you'd ever tire of
mocking them."

"You are intuitive, little maga."
Cai smiled. "Must I admit to you that I tire of being kind for your
sake?"

"You've been being kind?"

She shrugged. "They live, do they
not?"

Alaysha gave it thought and realized that
for now she did want the woman with them. "I would like it very much if
you stayed," she said. "But in the end, I have no hold over you. You
are free to travel as you please."

The Enyalian stared at Alaysha, her fingers
tapping against her thigh, the teeth encircling her forearm rattling softly.
Before Alaysha realized what the woman was planning, she'd leaned down and
covered her mouth with her own, a soft sigh brushing against her lips. Cai's
hands gripped Alaysha's shoulders tenderly and squeezed gently, then she pulled
back with shuddering breath, her eyes still closed, her expression melted into
something Alaysha had never seen on the Enyalian's face.

"You have more power over me then a
mere bit of magic, little maga," Cai whispered, and she turned, striding
back toward the camp.

It was long moments before Alaysha
recovered herself enough to return. She had no doubt that they would have all
preferred to see the Enyalian depart—Gael especially. But it meant Alaysha had
to be on her guard without her. With both Gael and Bodicca still recovering
from their wounds, the only other true help she had would come from Yenic.
Edulph would have to be under constant scrutiny. Theron and Aedus would be
focused on the child. Seven more sunrises and several more till they reached
the Highlands and then what? Better to have the Enyalian a present and visual
danger to any who thought to come upon them.