Half Wild (27 page)

The next raid is six days later in France again and we are up against fourteen Hunters. It goes smoothly: none of us are injured. Greatorex is healing well but misses that raid and the one after that, which is even smaller. The big difference, which I’m not happy with, is that, on the third raid, Annalise, Sarah, and another two foragers are brought along to help carry away anything we find afterward. They stay well back from the fighting and only come when one of the trainees gets them after the fighting’s over. But I’m uncomfortable with Annalise seeing me. The others fight with guns, so don’t get messed up, but I use a knife and end up looking like I’ve stepped out of a horror movie. I want to find somewhere to wash but first I decide to cover the bodies before the foragers arrive. This is something we never normally bother with.

There are ten bodies and I start to cover them with blankets from one of the tents. As I lay a blanket over one of the furthest bodies I notice that her eyes are closed and I can’t see any wound on her at all. I think she may be playing dead. I’m not sure if she’s got a gun in her jacket but I cover her with a blanket. I look over to the others but they aren’t paying any attention to me; they’re all busy with their jobs.

I get my knife out, pull the blanket back, and say, “Open your eyes.”

I’m not sure she can speak English but I bet she has the basics so I say, “Open your eyes or I cut the left one out. Now!”

She opens her eyes. They’re brown with silver sparks. White Witch sparks.

I shout now for the others to come. I’m still not sure what weapons she’s got. Marcus arrives within seconds and Gabriel not long after that.

It turns out she hasn’t got a gun but two knives. She’s French. Her name is Blondine but she won’t say more than that. At this stage Celia arrives and I’m about to leave her to it and go and find somewhere to wash when she says, “Nathan, she’s your prisoner. Stay with her until we’re ready to go back to camp.”

I look for Nesbitt, who is still my partner, so he can guard Blondine while I go and wash. But, of course, Nesbitt is never around when I need him.

I’ve never had a prisoner before. I’ve been one often enough but that doesn’t mean I’m sure what to do. The others leave to do their jobs and I see Annalise glancing over at me.

The only person who doesn’t have another job to do is Marcus. He stays with me. He’s staring at Blondine and not in a good way. I move to put myself between them.

He says, “You should kill her now. She deserves to die. They all do.”

Blondine whimpers. I say, “No, she’s my prisoner.” I grab hold of her arm as I have a bad feeling she might run. I can feel her shaking. I tell her, “Stay with me.”

It’ll be safer for Blondine if we go back into the center of the Hunter camp. I say to her, “We’ll go over to the others. Stay close to me. Say nothing.”

She’s so close to my side she’s almost tripping over my legs and she’s crying now and moaning quietly.

Marcus walks with us too, staring at her the whole time. It’s only a hundred meters but it feels like miles. With each step I think he’ll just lash out and kill her.

I head to where everyone is gathering. It looks like we’ll be heading back to base camp in a few minutes. I stop. Blondine stops too. Her arm is touching mine. Marcus is leaning in on her and I know that if I don’t get him away he’ll kill her.

Nesbitt is pulling on a huge rucksack of swag he’s collected. I say to him, “Stay with her. She’s our prisoner.” I point at him and tell Blondine, “Do as he says.”

Then I turn to Marcus but before I can speak he says, “Hunters caught my father, your grandfather, and tortured him to death. My father. And his father. And his. And his. If they caught us what would they do?”

“That doesn’t mean we do it.”

I walk past him, hoping he’ll come with me. I have to get him away from her. I half turn to him and say, “Don’t hurt her. Please. I don’t ask much from you.”

I keep walking off and he says, “Why?” But I think he’s heading my way. I keep walking. He’s with me. He asks again, “Why?”

We’re in farmland and I vault a gate and go into the next field. I get to the far end of it and stop.

He looks at me. “I can easily walk back and kill her.”

“I know.” I shrug. “But I don’t think you will if you don’t see her.”

“Out of sight, out of mind?”

“Something like that.”

“Why won’t you kill her?”

“I don’t want to be the sort of person who kills prisoners.”

“When I look at her I don’t see a prisoner. I see a Hunter. I see an enemy,” he says. “We see things differently. This is the first time I’ve seen your other side.”

“My White Witch side?”

“The side of you that is like your mother. Don’t think of her as a White Witch. I don’t. I think of her as a good person and that can’t be said of many White Witches. Can’t be said of many people at all.”

I look at him and see him differently too. Not as a great Black Witch but just as a person. A person whose father was tortured to death; whose mother, Saba, was chased down by Hunters and killed. A man who couldn’t live with the woman he loved and whose son was imprisoned in a cage.

“Don’t you think you could have been good? Under different circumstances, I mean.”

He laughs and says, “The point of being good is doing it when it’s tough, not when it’s easy. Your mother was a good person.”

* * *

We all go back to base camp together, carrying as much as we can. Blondine is hooded, her hands tied behind her back. Nesbitt stays with her. I stay with Marcus. At the camp Celia takes Blondine and I wonder if she’ll have a cage fixed up for her. But I really don’t care. I’m just glad that Marcus hasn’t killed her.

We’re all starving and I go to the canteen area with the others. It’s already lunchtime and there’s a lot of people getting food. As I get my stew I hear the complaints. The stew is thin. There’s no bread. There’s no fruit. There’s no this. There’s no that.

Nesbitt joins me. He says, “Do they think it’s a holiday camp?”

Gabriel jokes, “If they find out Blondine got the last of the bread there’ll be murder.”

Nesbitt says, “If that’s true I’ll murder her myself.”

I look around and notice that as usual we, the fighters and scouts, are the only mixed group. Everyone else sits in groups of Whites, Blacks, or Half Bloods. I can hear a group of Whites near us talk about “the prisoner”; some want her tried and executed, others just want her executed.

“That girl’s a problem,” says Nesbitt. “And if we get more prisoners then we’ve got even bigger problems. Feeding them, guarding them.” He finishes his stew and says, “Killing them is simpler.”

“I think Celia will question Blondine and then send her back,” says Gabriel.

“What?” Nesbitt and I both stare at him.

“It’s a logical thing to do. As you say, keeping prisoners is a hassle. If she lets them go, the Alliance seems reasonable, and when this is over people will remember that. Forgiveness is important.”

“Being sensible is too. Blondine will have a gun shoved in her hand and be sent off to fight us again,” I say.

Gabriel says, “Will she? I’m not so sure, and Celia knows how the Hunters think as well as anyone. Hunters kill deserters. They hate any sort of betrayal and being captured isn’t far off that: they’re supposed to die fighting for one other. She won’t get a hero’s welcome, that’s for sure. They may even execute her. I imagine Blondine might rather take her chances as a prisoner with us than back with the Hunters.”

It does sound logical the way he says it but I’m not sure Marcus will see it that way.

* * *

It’s not until that night that I get to see Annalise alone. She always comes to my spot by the tree when she’s finished her chores and we spend the night together.

This time I want to talk. I have to tell her about Kieran; I’ve waited long enough and Annalise needs to know about her brother. But as usual the opening line is the difficult one. She says, “You’re even more silent than usual.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

“How to tell you something. Something serious.”

She sits back.

“I should have told you weeks ago. But I didn’t. I kept putting it off, waiting for the right time and crap like that. But there isn’t ever going to be a right time and so I have to tell you now.”

She’s looking into my face and I keep my eyes on hers when I say, “It’s about Kieran.”

She waits. I think she must already have a good idea what I’m going to say.

“What about Kieran?”

“You remember I told you that I killed a Hunter in Switzerland? There were two of them at Mercury’s cottage while I was waiting for Gabriel. They found my trail. Followed me. They attacked me and Nesbitt. Nesbitt killed one; he was Kieran’s partner.”

Annalise waits.

“The other one was Kieran.”

Annalise looks into my eyes. Hers fill with tears. “You killed him?”

“I should have told you before. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“And are you sorry about Kieran?”

I can’t lie about that so I say nothing.

Annalise gets to her feet and I do as well. I think she’ll leave. I say, “I had the chance to kill him before then but I didn’t. If Kieran and his partner hadn’t hunted me, they’d be alive.”

She says, “You should have told me before.” She sits down on the ground again. “He was a bully, a Hunter. But he was my brother.” She wipes her eyes and says, “I wish the world was different. I wish he’d been different.” She starts crying again.

And I wrap her up in my arms and hold her and she cries and eventually she stops and is still, her breathing steady. I lie with her, looking at her, kissing her cheek as gently as I can, and I whisper to her that I love her, that I don’t want to hurt her. I fall asleep holding her.

I wake. It’s gone cold. Annalise is sitting up. I reach for her hand but she slides it away, saying, “Kieran was a great fighter. The best, everyone said. My father said Kieran would never get killed because of his Gift. So how did you beat him?”

I’ve told Annalise what my Gift is but I’ve never explained it. Whenever she asks I change the subject. I’ve never told her what it feels like or that I’ve killed anyone or anything when I’m an animal.

“Tell me, Nathan.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I transformed into an animal. I could hear Kieran. Sense him, even though he was invisible. We fought. He stabbed me.”

“And what did you do to him?”

“Annalise, don’t ask these things, please.”

Annalise starts crying again. “My father once told me that Marcus transformed to kill. To steal Gifts. He took the same Gift, invisibility, from another White Witch. It’s a handy Gift to have.”

“I didn’t take Kieran’s Gift, Annalise.”

She looks into my eyes and I can see she’s not sure.

“Would you really tell me if you had?”

“Yes! I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“You’ve been hiding the truth from me for weeks.”

“I’ve said I’m sorry about that, Annalise. And I’ll tell you again, I’m sorry. I should have told you about Kieran before.”

“Yes, you should have. And you should have told me about your Gift. It’s the most important aspect of being a witch; we always agreed that it reflects what a person is really like, but you never talk about it. Even now you’ve hardly told me anything. You’re more like your father every day.” She gets up and says, “I need to be on my own for a while. Need to think.” And she walks away.

I sit up and get the fire going again, watch it, and wait for Annalise to come back but she doesn’t.

The next day Gabriel and Celia aren’t at morning training. When we break for lunch Celia comes over to me and asks me to walk with her and Gabriel. I think it’s something to do with Annalise.

We go into the trees away from everyone and she says, “I’ve asked Gabriel to come with us because I thought he should tell you.”

I look over at him. He’s hanging back and I can tell from his face what it’s about. It’s nothing to do with Annalise. It’s either Arran or Deborah.

I feel sick.

Gabriel comes over to me; at least he’s going to tell me.

“It’s Deborah.”

And I know she’s dead.

“They executed her two days ago. She was shot for spying. They killed her husband too, for helping her.”

And it’s so wrong. So wrong. She was clever and good and a great White Witch. And I know they’ll have questioned her, tortured her. And it’ll have been bad. And I’m so angry and I want to hit things but Gabriel is holding me. And I don’t know what to do but there’s nothing I can do about it, about any of it. It’s too late for Deborah and I want to see her again and I can’t ever and I can’t even think of her being happy and I hate them for that. I hate them.