The Ragwitch

by Garth Nix

  Gingerly, Aleyne reached out a gauntleted hand, but even as he touched it, the patterns swirled, and he recoiled, cursing.

  “The thing’s red-hot! Where did you…”

  “The Patchwork King gave it to me,” said Paul. “I guess I have to use it. I don’t suppose anyone else can…”

  “What is this?” asked another voice, and Paul looked up to see an older man, with a rounded, almost chubby face, and eyes that might have twinkled in better times. But he had an air of command about him, and Paul didn’t need to see the crown around his helmet to know he was the King.

  “This is the boy, sire…Paul,” said Aleyne slowly, as if he were waking from a dream. “He says he can slay the Ragwitch!”

  “I fear that is just a fancy, Aleyne,” said the King, with a sad smile. “You saw what happened to Sir Harent when he closed.”

  “The Patchwork King gave me…” Paul started to say, but a great howling roar from the Gwarulch drowned him out, as the pike-wall buckled and broke, to the booming shouts of the Angarling. The ditch was finally full, and the Stone Knights were attacking.

  Hands grabbed at the King, and Paul saw him almost dragged back, soldiers pouring in to form a second wall in front of him. But Aleyne kept a firm grip on Paul.

  “Here—put this on,” he yelled, picking up a helmet from the ground and handing it to Paul. Then he waved his poleaxe in the air, and Paul saw it was Sir Rellen’s, as Aleyne shouted, “To me, Donbreye! To me!”

  Paul crouched at Aleyne’s side, and tried to lace his helmet one-handed, not wanting to let go of the needle-spear. He fumbled for the laces, then felt gloved hands helping him, and Oel was suddenly kneeling next to him. She smiled, and drew the laces tight under his chin. Then a pair of familiar narrow legs came into sight, and Deamus was there too, dropping an enormous leather jerkin over Paul’s head, and pulling it past his helmet. He smiled too, and said something, but it was lost in the roar and clash of fighting.

  Then Aleyne was helping him up, and Paul saw that they were a little to one side of the melee, in the center of a tight knot of Donbreye villagers and Borderors. Just then something wet touched the back of his hand, and he flinched, and looked down—but it was only a friendly lick from one of Cagael’s dogs, bulky in its armor of studded leather. Cagael was there too, over on the left, with Ethric and the other dogs—and even Quigin, who had just run up. There was no sign of Leasel or Hathin, and Paul hoped they’d had the sense to stay farther back.

  Paul looked at everyone around him, in the brief second before they joined battle themselves, and felt that it was like a painting he knew very well, with every small fragment of light and color captured forever in his mind.

  And there was the enemy, less than fifty meters away. The ring of Angarling, slowly lumbering forward, crushing everything in their path—and in the center of the ring…was the Ragwitch.

  Paul looked at Her, and felt the fear rising up from his stomach to choke him. Then he thought of Julia, and the Kingdom, and all the dead and wounded, the villages lost…and he held the needle-spear aloft, and pointed.

  Thunder clapped, and flames burst out of the hillside above the Ragwitch, spreading quickly in the dry grass, white smoke boiling into the sky like the thickest fog. The ground shook…once…twice…and long sections of the road gave way, tumbling Gwarulch to their ruin down the mountainside, and trapping the Angarling deep in holes. Earth and Fire had come to Paul’s aid.

  Even as the Gwarulch howled, the Angarling boomed and the Meepers screamed above the smoke, Paul pushed forward, and Aleyne with him, both of them shouting, “Charge!”

  “Four runes of anc…” Julia sang, and then, “Look out!” as a Gwarulch suddenly loomed out of the darkness, talons ripping across towards Mirran, who met it with a wide sweep of his golden sword, lopping off its head in a flurry of golden sparks.

  “They’re more than half-real now,” said Mirran. “We’ll have to stop singing, and…”

  He stabbed out into the darkness, and a leaping Gwarulch impaled itself on his sword, falling to the turf to be totally consumed in sheets of golden flame.

  Julia drew closer to Lyssa and Anhyvar, who stood motionless, eyes closed, next to the flame. Neither had spoken or moved for at least ten minutes, but occasionally they swayed, and their frowns of concentration deepened.

  Julia looked at them anxiously, then out into the darkness. The Spire and the Terraces were very solid now, and the wind that howled through was very cold. The Gwarulch could see them now, Julia knew, from the glint of their piggy eyes reflected in the moonlight. All of them were looking in the direction of the flame, and there was a constant stream of new arrivals from the outer Terraces.

  “How long will they be?” asked Julia, nodding towards Lyssa and Anhyvar. She knew Mirran wouldn’t know, but she had to say something to ease the awful tension inside her.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, smiling confidently back at her. “Not long…not long…”

  Julia tried to smile confidently too, breaking off into a scowl of effort as she thrust her spear at a Gwarulch that sprang towards her. The point razed across its chest, and the creature recoiled, wailing. But Julia shivered as she realized the Gwarulch had touched the turf, and it had hardly flamed at all, and there had been no sparks from her spear. Worse, the moonlight seemed to be getting stronger, and the light within the holly-ring was now only faintly golden.

  “How long…?” she whispered to herself again, as more and more Gwarulch descended the Terraces, to add more and more staring eyes.

  “Go Paul!” shouted Aleyne as his poleaxe bit through the neck of the huge Gwarulch that had leapt at the boy, and he moved to meet the black-wrapped thing that had pranced behind it, brandishing a jeweled sword. The poleaxe was slow to come free, and he only just managed to parry the creature’s first blow, and didn’t look across to see if Paul had got through.

  Paul had—moving through the gap in the battle-line in a frenzied rush, past the two battling figures, farther into the smoke. He was alone now. Everyone else had fallen, or was locked in combat somewhere back along those awful fifty meters. Now there was only the Ragwitch ahead, and the Angarling, sunk to their mighty chests in earth. Paul skirted them, coughing and half-sobbing, and they boomed and shook, but could not get free.

  She was waiting in the very center of the sunken ring of stones, a tall ghastly form, shrouded in the smoke. Paul slowed as he saw Her, and lifted the needle-spear, thankful that he couldn’t see Her eyes.

  She saw him, and hissed, a long, drawn-out hiss of hatred, somehow louder than the noise of battle around them. Her arm rose from Her side, and a black whip of thick and ropy smoke uncoiled from Her three-fingered hand.

  “So,” She spat. “Paul!”

  The Gwarulch had stopped leaping in, at least for the moment. Mirran was too quick with his sword, as was Julia with her spear of jagged lightning. Now they just circled the ring, snarling, occasionally touching the turf before recoiling in pain.

  But the flames grew weaker and weaker, and Mirran’s sword no longer sparked, and had lost much of its golden sheen—and the Gwarulch tightened their ring, even daring to step past the braided holly, and onto the outer turf.

  Julia stared back at them defiantly, but her hands began to shake as she met their red stare, and saw the glint of their teeth and talons…and Lyssa and Anhyvar still weren’t moving.

  Then, without warning, the flame went out.

  Julia screamed, Lyssa and Anhyvar’s eyes flashed open, and the Gwarulch sprang, howling, talons and fangs seeking flesh to rend…but finding only an empty ring of wilted holly and dying, blackened turf.

  The whip cracked out, and Paul leapt aside, forgetting he could have used the needle-spear to block it. The Ragwitch lumbered forward, still hissing, and now Paul could see Her eyes, black-pupilled and glistening with hatred. She gnashed her shark-teeth and advanced again, and he sprang back, almost tripping on the uneven surface of the road, all broken by the earthquake.r />
  Quicker than he would have thought possible, the Ragwitch’s puffy arms brought the lash around again to strike him. Paul parried with the needle-spear, and the lash burst into a stream of water that spilled harmlessly on his chest—and the Ragwitch reared back, staring at Her hand.

  Paul gulped, trying to get a breath free from smoke, and found a place on the road with better footing. The Ragwitch backed away too, but Paul didn’t try to attack.

  “So,” hissed the Ragwitch. “You have found some small Magic…something of the earthy sort…but it cannot help you, Paul…it cannot help you…”

  Paul shook his head angrily, as if the words were somehow attaching themselves to him, and advanced upon Her again, raising the needle-spear. She laughed, a vicious, rasping laugh, but She moved back—and suddenly, with exhilaration, Paul knew She was afraid.

  “Boy,” She said, as he edged closer, “I can give you back your sister. Send you back to your world…with rewards…”

  Paul ignored Her, leapt forward, and stabbed. But She surprised him again, jumping away, Her bloated legs leaking straw that fell slowly to the ground. As he turned to stab Her again, one fat three-fingered hand swung around, smashing into his shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground, the needle-spear rolling away to clank against a rock.

  Paul rolled after it, as She stamped with her foot, missing him by centimeters. His hands scrabbled among the dirt clods, and suddenly, the needle-spear was in his hands again, and he swung it around, the point grazing the Ragwitch’s arm as She bent to grab him.

  She screamed, the high-pitched scream of a car shrieking to a stop, and scuttled back without straightening up, like some ghastly cloth spider. Where the needle-spear had touched, the threads frayed, and straw spilled out of a gaping hole.

  Paul got up, and advanced with the needle-spear tucked under his arm like a knight holding a lance. Tears streamed down his face, from smoke and fear and pain, but he blinked them away, and, keeping his gaze on the Ragwitch, slowly advanced.

  Then the Ragwitch spoke again, and Her voice was the voice of Julia.

  “Slay me,” She said, “and your sister…your Julia…dies with me.”

  Julia felt the Ragwitch’s cumbersome body first, then the dulled senses…and then the pain. It was a feeling so alien to that leathery body that she was disoriented, and found it hard to see or hear. But the Ragwitch’s body was all too familiar to her, and soon she was seeing from the greenstone eyes, and listening through the muffled ears.

  The others were with her too, she knew. Julia could feel them, feel their separate identities, as though they were all holding hands in the dark. She felt strength flowing between the four of them, building, as they waited their chance.

  Then Julia saw Paul, small and pale before the Ragwitch, holding a spear with grim determination, despite the tears streaming down his face. Her heart stammered in fear, and then in hope, as she felt that the Ragwitch was afraid, that this was no ordinary spear, it was something—the impossible something—that could kill Her.

  But Paul just stood there, and Julia strained to shout to him, strained to make him use the spear.

  Then the Ragwitch spoke, softly, using Julia’s voice.

  “You can’t hurt Me, Paul. Not without hurting your sister. You want Julia to live, don’t you Paul? I will give her back to you…just throw down your spear…”

  Slowly, She advanced upon him, and still Paul didn’t move. Julia saw the indecision in his eyes.

  “Throw it away…” hissed the Ragwitch, Her voice breaking out of Julia’s and back to Her own. “Throw it away, or your sister dies!”

  Paul shuddered, and he lowered the spear a fraction—and in that small gesture, Julia realized that he might not use it, and as she realized it, so did Anhyvar, Lyssa and Mirran.

  “Now!” they thought, and all four struck at the Ragwitch’s central mind, and She became aware of them…a little too late.

  Julia suddenly felt something snap, like the elastic in a skirt, and then she was in control of Her body, like she’d just stepped into it from outside. She felt the others around her, like a wall, and beyond them, the Ragwitch, a furious wave of darkness drawing back like the sea, preparing to sweep all before Her. She knew they would only have seconds before it struck.

  Without even thinking, Julia rushed forward, raising her arms to pull Paul into her embrace, to hug him…and the needle-spear slid effortlessly into the Ragwitch’s chest, at the very instant that She broke the four prisoners’ will and resumed control of Her body.

  Paul screamed as the needle-spear left his hands, and he fell from the grasp of the Ragwitch. She loomed above him, mouth gaping, and tried to pull the needle-spear out, but Her body started to split along every seam, and straw blew out into the wind, small splinters of greenish yellow, sparkling in the smoke.

  Slowly She knelt on the ground, and the crumpled, empty cloth blurred into flesh, and became a woman with long red hair, who hissed and scratched at the needle-spear transfixing her. Then her features blurred, and flickered through several forms: a man’s, grim and strong, but smiling in triumph, and then Julia’s, her eyes closed as if in restful sleep. Finally, it was the redhaired woman again, but her hands were curled around the needle-spear in acceptance, and her face was calm and kind.

  “The vision was true,” whispered Anhyvar, and then she smiled at Paul, as if in happy recognition of a friend.

  Her eyes closed, and the needle-spear shimmered, the patterns solidifying into four different bands. One, of water, poured away; one, of air, shrieked to the sky like a bird; the fire blazed a trail across to the burning grass; and the earth crumbled onto Anhyvar’s body. Body and earth sank into the ground, and there was nothing left, save the silent stones and the fire.

  High on the hill above, an ancient rowan cracked, and Paul looked up to see it slowly falling, white flowers tumbling through the air like snowflakes, and the air was briefly filled with the sound of a jangling harp.

  Then all was still, save for the sound of fleeing Gwarulch, people shouting, and Aleyne calling, calling Paul’s name.

  Paul sat and shivered, till a hand touched him on the shoulder, and he looked up to see the Patchwork King, his cracker-crown rustling on his head.

  “Come on, Paul,” he said. “Time to go home.”

  Epilogue

  PAUL HELD THE Patchwork King’s hand as they walked back through the battlefield, pausing only to dump his helmet. Aleyne was still calling, but he stopped when he saw Paul appear out of the smoke, with the old man at his side.

  “She’s dead,” said Paul. “The Patchwork King is taking me home.”

  Aleyne nodded, as if this were all quite usual, and laying his poleaxe on the ground, took Paul’s other hand.

  A little farther on, they saw Deamus and Oel, sitting among a group of wounded. Deamus was bandaging Oel’s arm, and she had her eyes closed, and mouth set tight against the pain. Deamus looked up at Paul, and said, “There will be a Donbreye again after all…”

  He touched Paul on the shoulder, and then turned back to his wife. Paul walked on, still in a daze, through a line of exhausted soldiers, who had just slumped where they’d fought, too tired to move. Beyond them, Quigin knelt amidst dead Gwarulch, and Paul saw that Ethric the boar lay dead, and one of the marmot-hunting dogs—and between them lay Cagael the Friend of Beasts.

  Quigin looked up as they passed, and Leasel too, from where she sat at his side. He tried to smile, but even he couldn’t, and Paul saw that he had been crying.

  “If I hadn’t found you, Paul,” he muttered, “that day in the balloon, this…everything…would have been for nothing…”

  “Yes, I guess so…” whispered Paul. “I’m going home now, Quigin, but I’ll never forget you—or Leasel…”

  He bent down, and Leasel touched his face with her nose, dark eyes peering into his, lending him some of her serenity.

  “I’ll never forget you either,” said Quigin, hugging him. “Or any of it…the Wind M
oot, under the sea…even today…”

  Paul hugged him back, then took the Patchwork King’s hand again, and Aleyne’s, and they walked up the road, past the wounded and exhausted soldiers, and those tending them, past the King and his knights, who bowed as they passed—though to whom, Paul wasn’t sure.

  Finally, they came to the path to the sunken pool, and the Patchwork King stopped, and looked at Aleyne.

  “This is where I leave you, I think, Paul,” said Aleyne. “We have come a long way from Awgaer.”

  “Awgaer,” said Paul. “I can say it now…I don’t know why.”

  “Perhaps because you’ve saved it,” said Aleyne, quietly. “Goodbye, Paul.”

  Paul nodded, and hugged Aleyne, his hands barely meeting around the buff coat and cuirass. Aleyne clapped him on the back, and then turned away to go back down to his people.

  The Patchwork King started up the steps, and Paul followed blindly. Sick at heart, and weary in both mind and body, he just trudged along, head down, hardly noticing the way. It wasn’t until they’d stopped climbing that he noticed they weren’t on top of the hill—they were somewhere else.

  “Hey!” he said, looking up to see the wide expanse of the sea and the grey spit; and down, to see the broken shells and red earth of the midden under his feet. He felt different too, and realized his clothes had somehow changed back to T-shirt and shorts, his boots to sneakers. And the Patchwork King was gone.

  The picnic basket still needed another catch, Julia saw, and one of the handles looked a bit broken—the side Mirran was carrying.

  Then she saw a rock pool, full of small fish, forgot about the picnic basket, and sat down to look. The others kept going up the beach, but fairly slowly. Julia was sure she could catch them up, particularly since Anhyvar and Mirran had the basket to carry, and Lyssa the big silver bottle.