The Ragwitch (11 page)

“You’ve never fought against other people, then?” asked Paul, rather doubtfully.

“Other people!” said Deamus, shocked. “We could not!”

“Not even if you were attacked?” asked Paul. “If others wanted your land or something?”

“We have our place,” replied Deamus sternly. “We are bound here to earth and sea—it would not answer to others. And their places would not answer to us. Only the North-Creatures know no home, and so seek to take ours from us, even if it will avail them nothing.”

“I see,” said Paul, for the first time really understanding what the Ragwitch meant to this peaceful Kingdom. She brought war and destruction, and many people would die to stop Her—if they could. He suddenly remembered Malgar the Shepherd in his village to the northwest. Maybe, even now, his people were fighting the Ragwitch—and from what Tanboule had said, probably losing. Instinctively, he reached for the blue feather in his
pouch, the Breath—and realized he was dressed in nothing but a wool undershirt that hung down to his knees.

“I’ll just get dressed,” said Paul, tottering back inside.

“Aye, and then we’ll join the festival,” said Deamus. “Though I don’t think Paul will be dancing.”

Quigin nodded absently, watching Leasel bound off into the dune grass that grew a little way up from the beach. There were sand lizards there, and he wanted to learn how they spoke.

“I’ll come down to the village later,” he said, poking his head into the door, before heading off after Leasel, making lizard calls deep in his throat.

The transition through the globe was different with Lyssa leading the way: slow, and gentle, with none of the numbing loss of senses that normally accompanied Julia’s passage. But the light was very bright, and Julia was forced to close her eyes.

When she opened them, it was to gentle sunlight, and she breathed cool, clean air. Lyssa stood at her side, silver hair flowing in the breeze.

To Julia, it seemed that every aspect of the land about them was like some long-forgotten pleasure. They stood on a green hill which overlooked a small, but very blue, lake. From its shores, broad-leafed trees marched up to the bottom of the hill. Birds flew in the distance, and there was no hint of any cloud.

“Remember, Julia,” said Lyssa. “None of this is real. It is a memory of the Ragwitch—an early one, for the land is clean, and not despoiled. But Her memories shift, and overlap; you must be prepared for any change…”

Lyssa’s voice faltered, and her body shimmered for an instant, like a fleeting mirage. Then, she firmed again, and continued, “Quickly—I am called to my tree! You must look for Anhyvar, a woman, with long red hair, who wears a silver star upon her breast. She will be near the sea…”

“But what do I do when I find her?” asked Julia, clutching Lyssa’s hand. “Oh, please don’t go!”

Lyssa wavered again, and her hand became insubstantial, passing through Julia’s like mist. Then Lyssa plucked something from her hair, thrust it into Julia’s other hand—and vanished, her voice drifting across the hill.

“Send it to the wind when you find Anhyvar…and I will come…”

Julia listened carefully, and looked at the small russet leaf she held in her palm, before tucking it neatly into her shirt pocket.

“Near the sea…” she muttered to herself, looking down at the lake. A kilometer or two away, on the other side of the lake, she could just make out a river. And rivers flowed into the sea.

Drawing the yellow-gold wand, she held it before her and strode boldly down the hill.

An hour later, Julia began to notice changes to
the north. A great mass of black cloud was rolling in—a solid wall of darkness, with lightning striking before it, and thunder rolling behind.

Julia eyed it suspiciously and quickened her pace. She had no desire to be caught out in the open.

Then, without warning, the whole sky was black—though the cloud wall couldn’t possibly have reached the river. Lightning danced a jagged dance down the hill behind Julia, and thunder crashed against her ears, dry, booming thunder, without any hint of rain.

She started to run, the lightning following her, forking down in great strokes, flashes of light making the landscape flicker and move as if lit by a gigantic strobe. Amidst the shrieking storm, Julia ran blindly, her hands pressed to her ears, and her feet stumbling over the madly lit ground.

Then the clouds were gone, and the sky was blue and silent, as if the thunder and lightning had never been.

But the land around Julia was not the same. The river was gone: a dry ravine wound where the water had once run deep. There were no broad-leafed trees, and the grassy hills were yellow and cracked like overbaked scones.

A memory change, thought Julia, looking around at the wasteland. Lyssa had said that at the height of Her power, the Ragwitch had turned much of the kingdom into a desert. Obviously, the
land about Julia was a memory from this time—so Her North-Creatures were bound to be about.

Julia looked back at the hills again, before continuing along the path of the dried-up river…not noticing the dark silhouette of something crouched just behind the crest of one of the closer hills.

T
HE SOUNDS OF
happy preparations grew stronger as Paul walked slowly down towards the harbor, with Deamus half supporting him. It was a rather slow and frustrating progress for Paul, as his legs kept going rubbery and giving way. And there always seemed to be just one more house to walk around before they reached the sea.

Then there were no more houses, and they stood on the slate-tiled harborside, a broad expanse that stretched from the breakwater to the boatsheds a hundred meters away. Because of the Festival, trestle tables lined the quay, covered with food, ranging from fish to lobster, with all kinds of shellfish and edible seaweed in between. Only the barrels of wine and beer (of which there seemed an awful lot) hadn’t come from the sea.

Around these tables, scores of cheerful men, women and children, were all fearfully busy (or pretending to be), either putting out food, rearranging it, tuning musical instruments, practicing dances or just getting in the way.

No one paid any attention to Paul and Deamus, so Paul sat down on an upturned keg on the fringe of all the activity, and waited for Deamus to decide what to do next.

“This is the Sea Festival,” explained Deamus, waving his long arms about like a sort of daddy-longlegs. “A holiday for us, and a time to give our thanks to the sea.”

Paul nodded, his attention wandering to the water’s edge, where a woman stood staring out at the sea. Unlike the rest of the revellers, she wore no bright colors or jewelry—just a simple black dress. As Paul watched, she cast something into the sea at her feet and turned away, disappearing into the crowd.

Deamus followed Paul’s gaze, and added quietly, “We thank the sea for our livelihoods, but it knows cruelty as well as kindness. Avelle’s husband and only son were lost in a great storm just a few weeks gone. Today is also a time to grieve for those who have been taken by the sea. But come—I would like you to meet my own wife and children. I have a daughter much the same age as you.”

“Couldn’t I just rest here for a bit longer?” asked Paul anxiously. He was always nervous about
meeting people—especially girls. Julia’s friends often made fun of him when she wasn’t around to protect him. And who knows where Julia is now, thought Paul, miserably. And his parents had probably given them both up for dead—if they’d taken the time to notice.

“Rest all you like,” said Deamus, noticing Paul’s eyes begin to go a little teary at the corners. “Come across when you’re ready. No one will disturb you till then.”

Paul watched him walk across to one of the farther tables, towards a tall, black-haired woman who was almost as thin as Deamus. No one else could be Deamus’ wife, thought Paul. A few seconds later Deamus kissed her on the forehead, confirming Paul’s opinion. Next to the woman was a small, dark-haired shadow of herself, again, obviously their daughter. She saw him looking, and returned his gaze with a calm disinterest that made him quickly look away—straight at Quigin, who had just appeared, red-faced and panting, with Leasel close at his heels. The Friend of Beasts staggered, and bent over, his mulberry-colored hat falling at his feet.

“What is it?” asked Paul. He got up himself, with the vague expectation of having to run somewhere too.

“Ran…all the way…from the dunes…” puffed Quigin. “Couldn’t find…sand lizards…but there are creatures…gathering behind the dunes.”

“Creatures?” snapped a voice behind him. “What sort of creatures?”

Paul looked up from Quigin, and saw a tough-looking man clutching a still-writhing lobster with considerable dexterity. Paul thought the lobster was very unlucky to be held by such a hard-faced person—anyone else would have let go. Quigin gasped out, “Gwarulch! I think they’re Gwarulch! And coming this way!”

The hard-faced man looked carefully at Quigin, as if the possibility of encountering Gwarulch in the sand dunes was as unlikely as finding a ring around the sun. Then, in a voice that cracked through the festive chatter like a slamming door, he bellowed, “Deamus!”

Deamus looked up at once, and hurried over. So did most of the other fisherfolk, leaving their tasks, music and chatter behind.

“Deamus,” said the man, passing his lobster to a woman at the front of the crowd (who passed it on when it snapped at her). “This boy says there are Gwarulch beyond the dunes. You brought the boys here. What do you know of this?”

“I know nothing of Gwarulch,” replied Deamus slowly. “But Paul, here, brings tidings of a great and ancient evil. I had hoped we need not speak of it till the morrow. But it seems we must…”

Around him, the fisherfolk muttered and fidgeted, many making the sign against evil with their thumb and forefinger. Deamus cleared his throat,
and said bluntly, “Paul has told me that the Ragwitch has come to the North. And She is no tale for the children, but the North-Queen come again, in a different shape and form.”

No one spoke for a moment, but Paul felt everyone looking at him, and saw in their eyes a kind of dread, reserved only for bearers of evil news.

“Is this true?” asked the hard-faced man, looking from Deamus to Paul, who shivered under his gaze.

“Yes,” said Paul, slowly getting to his feet. “I have been to see the Wise, and Tanboule said She had returned. And Gwarulch chased me and Aleyne through the forest…”

Paul’s voice trailed off as he remembered that night in the forest, running through the blackness between the trees, the Gwarulch howling a few steps behind…and then the one that had trapped him, standing over him and licking its lips. He shivered at the memory, and then shivered again as a chilling scream sounded far off in the dunes. A Gwarulch had found Quigin’s trail—and was summoning the hunt.

Only the hard-faced man seemed unaffected by the scream. The rest of the villagers had gone as still as an old, brown-toned photograph, the color fading from their ruddy cheeks. Paul watched their throats moving, as they compulsively swallowed to keep from crying out. And they all seemed to be looking at him.

Then the hard-faced man spoke, and Paul realized that it was he the villagers were really looking at. “I am Sir Rellen,” said the man to Paul. “And I have fought Gwarulch far to the north. They can be killed.”

His words seemed to unfreeze the fisherfolk, and a wave of sound and action leapt out of the stillness. Deamus was the first to react, his long arms flapping as he leapt onto a keg, and cried, “You’ve heard Sir Rellen. Gwarulch can be killed! And we are warriors—at least on King’s Days! Go—fetch your weapons and armor, and we’ll show these monsters how the fisherfolk of Donbreye fight!”

Everyone paused for a second at his words, as if the whole thing couldn’t really be happening, and then ran towards their houses. Some bellowed as they ran, as though somehow the sound could inflate their courage. But most were grimly quiet. Sir Rellen walked, and whistled a melancholy little tune. Paul watched him for a second, and thought of Aleyne—the two knights were very alike, at least in their attitude to danger. Paul tried to whistle himself, but his lips were dry, and he soon gave up.

Deamus also watched Sir Rellen, and then turned to his wife. “You’d better get ready, Oel,” he said. “Take the better helmet, and please bring my armor and sword. Sevaun can help you, but be quick. I want to talk to Paul for a moment.”

Oel nodded, and turned away without a word. As they walked, Sevaun slipped her hand into her
mother’s, her shorter legs striding farther to match Oel’s quickening stride. Paul felt a pang of something like jealousy, as once again he thought of Julia, and wished she were there to hold his hand.

“Do you think you can beat the Gwarulch?” he said to Deamus, looking back up to the fisherman. “I’ve only seen one, but it was very strong…”

“I don’t know,” replied Deamus. “But we can probably hold them off long enough for you to escape.”

“Me?” asked Paul, surprised. He hadn’t really thought of escaping. At least, not without everybody else. There seemed to be safety in numbers—or he hoped there was. “You’re going to fight so I can get away?”

“Yes,” replied Deamus. “You and Quigin. From what he told me, the Wise think you can somehow harm the Ragwitch…so we must get you away.”

“Why doesn’t everyone run…” Paul began to say, when the Gwarulch howled again, drowning out his voice. They were closer now, near the hut on the ridge. And there were answering howls from both north and south, along the rocky shore.

The howls subsided a little, as if the Gwarulch were drawing breath, and the silence was filled with the clatter of armor and the thud of heavy boots—the sound of the fisherfolk returning to the harborside.

They made an odd company. Some wore buff coats overlaid with back and breastplates, others just the coat, or a buff jerkin and perhaps an
armored gauntlet. Most had open-faced steel helmets, shining with fish oil which had been applied to ward off the rust. Only Sir Rellen wore a full suit of armor; blue enamelled back and breastplates, with flexible plates covering his thighs, and gauntlets of layered steel and ringmail. He wore a helmet with a three-barred visor and a back shaped like a lobster’s tail that hung over his neck.

The fisherfolk’s weapons were almost as varied as their armor. Some had long pikes, others halberds, or even tridents. Most had a sword or a long knife as well. Again, Sir Rellen was different. He carried a poleaxe, that hung from his wrist by a worn leather strap.

The Gwarulch had stopped howling altogether, and Paul imagined them slinking down the hill, running from hut to hut like cats on the scent of mice.

“It’s me they’re after,” he said suddenly, touching the feather of the Breath in the pouch at his side. “The Ragwitch knows I’m going to get Julia back.”

Deamus looked at the boy’s face, and saw the fear that lay just under the appearance of determination. “Yes,” he said, putting his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “That’s why they’re slow in coming. They’re surrounding the village, so none may escape—at least over land.”

“The boats, then,” said Quigin. “I’ve got a fair idea how to sail. At least, a sailor once told me how it was done.”

Deamus shook his head, and pointed at the sky. “You wouldn’t get far on the sea either. Look up.”

Both Paul and Quigin looked up at once. At first Paul couldn’t see anything, then Quigin pointed out a patch of sky. There, circling with a lazy watchfulness were nine or ten large, black shapes. Too big even for the largest eagles…

“What are they?” asked Paul, thinking back to Tanboule telling him about “things worse than Gwarulch.” The thought of things worse than Gwarulch was not a pleasant one, and Paul felt his pulse begin to beat faster, throbbing behind his ears.

“I think they are Her creatures, though I do not know a name for them,” said Deamus. “They have been in the sky overhead for three nights. Yesterday, they circled over your balloon—and today, the Gwarulch have come.”

“And so has your armor,” said Oel, stepping between two pikemen. Paul stared at her for a second. The thin fisherwoman was gone—and in her place was a new Oel, bulky in a buff coat, with a steel helmet framing her face, and a basket-hilted sword at her side. She carried Deamus’ buff coat, a metal gauntlet, and a rather tarnished helmet, with bronze-rimmed cheek pieces that clattered as she passed it over.

Sevaun was different too. She was still her thin, dark self, but now wore a green cloak shot with silver lines, and carried a wand of ivory which was inlaid with shells. She had a very serious
expression for a girl who couldn’t be more than ten years old.

“As I was saying,” said Deamus, as Oel helped him put on his heavy buff coat, “you wouldn’t get far on top of the sea. But you should have no trouble underneath it.”

“I don’t think I can hold my breath very long,” said Paul, thinking about those terrible few minutes when he’d almost drowned escaping from the balloon. “I’d rather not try…”

“You won’t have to hold your breath,” interrupted Deamus. “Sevaun is a Waterwitch, and her Magic is very strong on this Day of the Sea. She should be able to cast a spell that lets you all breathe water like air—and you can walk out onto the sea floor!”

“Can you really do that?” asked Paul, rather doubtfully. “I mean, breathe water and everything?”

“Yes,” said Sevaun solemnly. “But only today, because it’s the sea’s special day.”

“From here, you should walk south, staying underwater as long as possible. We will meet you ten leagues or so south of here.”

“You won’t try to defend the village?” asked Quigin, who’d just sent a most unenthusiastic Leasel to spy on the Gwarulch.

“No,” replied Deamus heavily. “We are too far north to last any real trouble. We’ll fight our way south, and join the King. One day we will return here again.”

He almost said something else, but stopped and adjusted his sword belt instead. Paul thought he knew what he had almost said—that not everyone would return. Maybe not anybody. The people around him were preparing their weapons, or just talking quietly, and, looking at them, Paul felt homesick for his own, uneventful life at home. Despite the warmth of the sun, he shivered, and wondered why he wasn’t brave like the people in films—and the battle hadn’t even started…

Then, even as Paul shivered, Rellen pointed with his poleaxe towards the hill, the sunlight flashing on his gauntlet. “They are moving again. Deamus, we must prepare to break out.”

“Yes,” sighed Deamus. “Would you shape us as you see fit, Rellen, and lead us when the time comes?”

“I hoped not to fight again,” said Rellen somberly. “But it seems I must.”

Deamus turned back to Paul, and behind him, Rellen started moving the people of Donbreye into a diamond-shaped “hedgehog” of pikes and swords, with the unarmed people in the middle. Paul and Quigin watched silently for a moment, taking comfort in the sudden bustle of movement, and Rellen’s sure, confident voice.

The hedgehog had just begun to really look the part, all bristling with pikes, when Leasel returned, her long ears laid flat in fear of the Gwarulch. Quigin touched noses with her briefly, and relayed her message—true to their nature, the Gwarulch
were sneaking closer rather than charging down for an all-out attack.