Giselle didn’t blame them, actually.
“Well,” Rosa said, after a long pause, as they picked their way down into a little gravel-strewn valley and back up again, still following the game trail. “Whatever it is, it’s affecting mostly the Earth. I gather you aren’t feeling anything?”
“Nothing,” Giselle replied.
“Well, that only leaves about a hundred things it could be. And if you eliminate the ones that wouldn’t be ‘death’ to a sylph, that leaves about fifty. Which is why I have a coach gun, a crossbow, and an ax. Most things it could be are things we can deal with by simple material violence.” Rosa held aside a branch so it wouldn’t slap Giselle in the face.
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. So watch where you step, and don’t make any more noise than you can help. . . .
“That?” Giselle whispered doubtfully, peering through the parted branches of the bush she and Rosa were hiding behind. They were looking at one of the most charming little woodland cottages she had ever seen. Its windows shone with warm, friendly light, its thatched roof looked practically new, it was clean and neat and all the plaster was freshly whitewashed. There were flowers in the yard, and yellow curtains at the windows. The only anomaly was that there was a big oven in the yard going full blast. You’d never be able to bake anything in an oven that hot, you’d have to wait until the roaring fire in there burned down to coals. Which did not look to be happening any time soon.
But it was hard to imagine that something that innocuous, even welcoming, could hold any sort of a menace.
“Really?” she said doubtfully. “That?”
“That,” Rosa affirmed grimly, as if her teeth were clenched. “If you were an Earth Master, you’d be throwing up at this point, because despite its looks, that place is pure poison. It’s a lair, a horrid, tainted, vile lair. It’s supposed to look like a friendly cottage to lure victims in. And now I know what the problem is. It’s a Blood Witch.”
“I haven’t gotten that far in your book . . .” Giselle said, uncertainly.
“It’s . . . special,” said Rosa, grimly. “When a witch who practices blood magic manages to find and mate with an Erlkoenig, and she has a child, the child is much, much worse than she is, and absolutely not human. If the offspring is male, it’s another Erlkoenig. If it’s female, it’s a Blood Witch. They’re rare. Thank God, they are rare, in part because an Erlkoenig is as likely to kill the witch as mate with her. But we have a Blood Witch here, and we are going to need help. The damned thing is as fast as a snake, as strong as a troll, and its hide is as tough as a crocodile’s. My crossbow bolts will just bounce off, and I’m not too optimistic about your bullets.”
She let go of the branches, and Giselle did the same. They both slid deeper back into the bushes and put their heads close together so they could talk. “What do we do?” Giselle asked.
“You try and get some Air Elemental to come close to this cottage and take a message for us. An Earth Elemental won’t be fast enough.” Rosa looked over her shoulder. “We need to get some distance between us and it. I don’t want to take the chance on it sensing us before we can get that help.”
They retreated into the dark forest and took shelter in the middle of a circle of juniper bushes. Nothing was going to be able to find them in there, not with the strong smell of juniper covering their scent. Giselle concentrated, as hard as she could, bringing in all the Air Magic she could hold to bolster her plea. She wasn’t trying for a sylph this time; they were too timid, and given how the last one had reacted, probably would not come close. Anything smaller would never, ever take the risk if a sylph was too frightened. She was trying to reach something she had only ever encountered once.
She was trying for an aether.
“Aether” could refer to the Greek god of air and chaos, or a greater spirit of air sometimes identified with storms and tempests. But an aether was not, in fact, either of these. It was aloof, and powerful, and according to Mother was rarely seen, yet the one she had encountered as a child had regarded her in a kindly fashion and actually hovered outside her window and told her stories. It was certainly powerful enough not to be concerned with a Blood Witch, or so she hoped.
She concentrated on her plea, trying to make it as forceful yet as humble as she could, and holding the image of the aether she had seen in her mind. It had been as if there was a man before her entirely made of air, something she could only see vaguely, mostly by the way things behind it were slightly distorted. She might not have been able to see it, but she had felt it, and so had Mother when she had come back from a trip to one of the nearest villages. Mother had been extremely surprised to see it, and when it had gone, had warned her to always treat such creatures with great respect.
If this doesn’t work . . . I’m going to have to hope that one of the sylphs will get up enough courage to . . .
The sharp tang of ozone made her eyes fly open. She couldn’t see it . . . but once again, she could certainly feel it. And it felt just like the one she had met so many years ago.
Its first words confirmed that yes, it was. “My little friend, the protector of the sylphs. It is good to see you grown into your power.”
The voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but she could hear it clearly. And by Rosa’s startled expression, so could she! Giselle got a little thrill down her back.
“What is it you ask of me?” the Aether continued. “I will do what I can for you, but I fear I cannot help you with the evil that dwells behind you. I have no power over her kind.”
“No . . . sir,” Rosa whispered. “But my friend Pieter, the troll to the north of here, does. Could you possibly take a message to him swiftly?”
“Ah! A simple, trivial request. So trivial, I gladly go out of friendship. What shall I tell him?”
“Come as quickly as he can!” Rosa begged.
“I shall carry your scent with me, and leave him a trail to follow. Farewell!”
The scent of ozone vanished. “Is he gone?” Rosa asked. “The last time I encountered something like that . . . well, it was the remnant of a god.”
“Yes,” Giselle told her. Rosa nodded, and they crept back to the bushes, parting them to look at the cottage.
Time crawled. She knew that the aether would probably get to Pieter within moments. How long was it going to take Pieter to get here? She didn’t think the troll was all that fast. And would he understand the urgency? She had no idea how bright he was, but . . .
The door to the cottage opened, and a flood of light came from within, a light too strong to have come from something like candles or an oil lamp. A strange creature emerged from the door, and there was so much light Giselle could see it perfectly clearly. It looked vaguely human . . . but its arms and legs were too long, and too spindly; its torso was too short, and it seemed to have next to no neck, just a hunched-over back with a head jutting from the top of it, a head covered with an unruly shock of straw-like hair. The more Giselle looked at it, the more inhuman it looked, as if everything about it was wrong in some way. It didn’t move right, the joints bent in unnatural places. It made her a little sick to look at, and her skin began to crawl.
It was dressed in black rags, and when it turned sideways for a moment, she saw it had a face that was like the caricature of an evil witch in a child’s book, all nose and chin, with glowing green eyes. It was the eyes that made her feel truly horrid, although she could not have said why. The eyes were the least human thing about it. There was a malevolence there that she could not even begin to measure.
It reached into the cottage and pulled out something. No, it was not a something, it was a someone.
A child. A young girl, who was sniveling and shivering, all pulled in on herself as if she was doing her best to keep away from the creature. It was easy to see her in the light pouring from the doorway, too; she wore the typical smock and apron of a farm child,
but both were dirty and tattered. Her hair was coming out of its braids, and she was barefoot. Her face was filthy, and tear-streaked, and had that blank, stunned look that only came with utter terror. She was carrying something in her arms, something bulky, like a bundle.
The Blood Witch shook her. “Go, my pretty, and feed the piggies.” The voice that came from the thing sounded like creaking hinges. “One of them is surely fat enough by now. I’ll follow you and test them, yes I will. I am ready for a feast!”
She shook the girl again, then shoved her forward, toward the far side of the cottage. The girl stumbled and recovered herself before she fell, careful not to drop what she was carrying. Then she shuffled around the side of the cottage with the creature no more than a couple of paces behind.
And that was when the screams and cries began, coming from the opposite side of the cottage. Giselle felt a fresh jolt of fear mixed with nausea. What in the name of all that was holy was going on here?
“Oh blessed Jesus, it’s worse than I thought!” Rosa said. “She’s got an entire pack of children back there, and she plans to cook and eat one right now. We can’t wait for Pieter! Come on!”
And with that, before Giselle could object, she charged out of the bushes, heading for the cottage, already pulling her ax off her back.
Oh no—Giselle lurched to her feet to try and stop her, but it was too late.
Giselle followed, skin crawling with fear, both revolvers in her hands, although she couldn’t remember pulling them from the holsters. Rosa might be used to fighting things like some sort of lady-Siegfried, but she wasn’t! And she couldn’t imagine what good her Air Magic could do here; she certainly couldn’t call on any of the Lesser Elementals for help, and if she called, would a Greater One even answer?
But she couldn’t leave Rosa to face that monster alone. So she ran as fast as she could, trying to catch up, hoping she wouldn’t stumble over something in the yard and fall flat on her face. She was going hot and cold in turns, and she was very, very afraid.
The two of them charged around the side of the cottage, and the light from the windows on that side cheerfully illuminated the row of rusty iron cages there, six of them, each cage holding a child standing inside. The girl they had seen before was just now shoving a chunk of bread and cheese through the bars of the nearest as they came around the corner. Tears streamed down her poor little face. The children inside the cages, howling and weeping, had backed themselves as far away from the fronts of their prisons as they could, as the Blood Witch cackled and reached her long, skinny arm through the bars for the first one.
The girl didn’t hear their feet thudding on the ground as she and Rosa raced toward them. But the Blood Witch did.
The creature whirled to face them, and Giselle was reminded of nothing so much as a poisonous, four-limbed spider with a witch’s face. She nearly turned and fled at the sight of the thing; if she had been alone, she probably would have. She was absolutely frigid with terror now, but there was no way she was going to leave Rosa to face this monster by herself.
The Blood Witch shrieked at the sight of them, sounding like nothing so much as a cross between a steam whistle and an angry fishwife, and before Rosa could get in the line of fire, Giselle holstered her left-hand revolver, took careful aim and emptied her right-hand revolver at the creature, using a trick that Cody had shown her and fanning the hammer instead of pulling the trigger.
It shrieked again, and even though Giselle was fairly sure at least half of the bullets had struck it, it didn’t act as if it had been wounded at all. Rosa closed with it, but it somehow leapt over her head and came down behind her, moving faster than anything Giselle had ever seen in her life. She grabbed and emptied the second gun into its back, with as little effect.
Giselle felt her throat closing up in panic. If bullets did nothing, how were they ever going to stop this thing, or even hold it off long enough for Pieter to reach them in time?
Rosa whirled just as the thing charged her; it had a knife as long as Giselle’s arm in one of its skeletal hands, a cleaver in the other. Rosa parried the first with her ax, and dodged under the wild blow from the second, then danced backward out of reach.
Giselle pulled the bag of salt off her belt and threw it as hard as she could at the monster’s head. The bag hit the side of the creature’s head and split open, sending salt spilling all over the Blood Witch’s head and shoulders.
That had some effect. The salt actually sizzled where it struck the monster’s skin. The horrid thing screamed, and turned to see what had burned it. But turning sent the salt flying into its eyes and it screamed again, shaking its head in pain.
That gave Rosa the chance to charge it from behind, cutting through the air with her ax. The thing turned instantly, and stopped the cut only just in time, leaping backward in Giselle’s direction.
She backpedalled as fast as she could, and spied another ax buried in a stump beside the woodpile. It didn’t look like much, but it was better than two guns that had no effect at all! She dropped her revolvers, ran to the ax and wrenched it out, then turned to help Rosa, her heart pounding and her nerves on fire. Her breath burned in her lungs and somehow flooded her with electric energy. If only she knew what to do with it!
Rosa was fighting for her life. The Blood Witch hadn’t marked her yet, but the thing’s speed was incredible, and it was clear that it was all Rosa could do to keep the knife and the cleaver from connecting. It was concentrating on Rosa as the truly dangerous one, however, and didn’t sense Giselle charging it from behind until Giselle struck it in the back with her ax. She managed to hit it at the top of the thing’s humped back, between where the shoulder blades should have been.
The ax bit for a moment, and stuck, and the Blood Witch screamed. It was a sound so piercing, so painful, that Giselle fell helplessly to her knees, clapping both hands over her ears.
The Blood Witch whirled furiously to meet the new attack, only to have to turn back to face Rosa again as the Earth Master resumed her attack. Giselle staggered to her feet and looked for another weapon, as the Blood Witch redoubled her blows on Rosa, driving her back, and back and back—
Now she panicked. Rosa couldn’t bear up under that punishment for much longer! Something! Anything! I have to—
“RED CLOAK!”
Before the Blood Witch could beat past Rosa’s defenses, a deafening howl of rage and outrage shattered the night. The Blood Witch turned again, and Giselle felt herself shoved to one side as Pieter charged past her, his other hand outstretched to seize the monster.
The Blood Witch howled in response, and leapt to meet his charge, Giselle’s ax falling off its back as the monster jumped.
She landed on Pieter’s face, more like some kind of hideous insect than ever, and clung there, hacking away at his eyes with her cleaver. Pieter cried out. In anger? In pain?
Rosa threw her ax.
Giselle watched it fly, shining in the light from the cottage windows. It spun through the air, lazily turning over and over three times. And then it hit the Blood Witch squarely in the back, right in the same place that Giselle’s woodcutting ax had cut it open. Giselle prayed it would at least slow the monster down.
But this weapon nearly split the Blood Witch in two when it hit.
The Blood Witch screamed again, and this time both of them, all the children in the cages, and the girl who had been feeding them, clapped their hands to their ears and dropped to the ground from the pain. It felt as if someone was driving red-hot needles into her brain!
Only Pieter stayed erect. And he pulled the Blood Witch from his face with both hands, threw her to the ground, and stomped on her. There was a terrible crunching sound. The screaming stopped abruptly. And in the silence that followed, Pieter rumbled something unintelligible. But it sounded very, very angry.
Giselle sat up, slowly. Is Pieter all right? That thing was trying to dig o
ut his eyes!
Then Pieter allayed her fears as he spoke up. He peered anxiously at both of them, and shuffled toward Rosa. “Is Red Cloak all right? Is Yellow-hair all right?”
Rosa got up first and staggered toward him. He held out his massive hands, and she embraced him. “Oh Pieter!” she cried. “You did it, Pieter. You were wonderful! You got here just in time. You saved the life of at least one of these children. And very probably mine as well.”
Both Pieter and Rosa were so engrossed in each other that neither of them was paying attention to what was left of the Blood Witch. But just as Giselle stood up and started toward them, she caught motion out of the corner of her eye.
The Blood Witch was pulling itself erect, broken limbs snapping back into place, split body pulling back together again.
Giselle shrieked at the top of her lungs and pointed, and Pieter whirled, faster than she would have ever believed possible for a creature of his bulk, and grabbed the reforming Blood Witch in both hands.
It screamed shrilly, and writhed in his grip, clawing at his massive hands, scrabbling for his face with its long arms.
“The oven!” Rosa cried. “Pieter, the oven!” She ran over to the oven, knocked the red-hot latch open with a piece of firewood, and the doors swung apart, showing the interior, so blindingly hot that Giselle winced and looked away. That was when she saw the bread-peel, like a flat-bladed shovel with an iron blade and a long wooden handle, leaning up against the brick wall that held the oven. She ran to it and snatched it up as Pieter marched toward the oven, holding the Blood Witch out at arm’s length. The closer he got to the oven, the more she screamed. Giselle ran to his left side, as Rosa snatched up an ash-rake and converged on his right.
The heat from the fire was so intense it felt as if her skin was burning. Pieter shoved the screaming witch in through the oven doors, and as he pulled away, shaking his hands, Giselle and Rosa put their implements into the Blood Witch’s chest and shoved her all the way inside. They jumped back, and Pieter slammed the iron doors closed again and dropped the latch in place.
From a High Tower Page 26
