by Jo Spurrier
The horse shifted his weight from foot to foot, and snorted.
‘Did you see the one who did it to you? Just snort for an answer, twice for yes and once for no. Did you get a good look at her?’
He snorted twice.
‘It was a her, wasn’t it?’
Two snorts.
‘How can you tell?’ I ventured to ask.
‘It just has that feeling about it. The way the threads are wrapped and tangled . . . men tend to be more direct.’ She took a step back. ‘So how did she do it? A magic circle, like this one?’
The horse hesitated, pawing the ground with one hoof, and then snorted twice.
‘Ah, so not exactly like this one, but a circle nonetheless.’
Two snorts.
‘And was it just you? Or were there others?’
He flattened his ears and gave a low nicker.
‘Oh, fine,’ she snapped. ‘Were you alone?
One snort.
She raised one eyebrow. ‘With strangers?’
He hesitated again, scratching at the ground with the tip of his hoof before dropping his head with another single snort. No.
‘Friends, then.’
He gave two small snorts and hung his head low.
‘Yeah,’ Aleida said. ‘A little while ago, wasn’t it? Four months? Six? Something like that?’
Two more snorts.
‘Mm. All right.’
I couldn’t hold back the questions any longer. ‘Have you ever seen anything like this before?’ I asked in a soft voice.
She shook her head. ‘Noooo, this is . . . this is really something else.’ She sank her hands into the tangle of threads, weaving between them like strands in a ball of yarn.
Her face thoughtful, she pulled one hand free and drew her ritual knife from her belt and raised it to her lips to breathe on the blade. Then, swiftly, she cut through the cord in her hand.
The horse snorted in alarm, throwing his head up. The cords wrapped around him shifted and pulsed, and the severed end of the thread Aleida held whipped out of her hand, hissing through the air as it convulsed like a cut snake. With a nicker of pain, the horse pulled away, only to slam into the invisible wall that was the ritual circle. He bounced off it and stumbled hard, almost going down to his knees.
‘That hurt, did it?’ Aleida said. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant, I’m afraid.’
‘Did it do anything?’ I said. I hadn’t seen what the cut ends did once they left her hands, but I couldn’t see any sign of them now, and the cords wrapped around him didn’t seem at all diminished. If anything they seemed thicker, stronger, almost pulsing with power.
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t expect it would. I just wanted to see what would happen.’
‘Right,’ I said, trying not to roll my eyes. ‘I take it this is going to need a bit more than sage and salt water to cleanse?’
She chortled, like I’d told a good joke. ‘Ha ha, yes. Yes, quite a lot more. Whoever did this had some serious power. It’s not a dead spell, not a set and forget like a ward. It’s like a living thing, it reacts like a living thing. What does that tell you?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, miss.’
‘Means it’s drawing power from somewhere. If we want to have any chance of undoing it, we have to find the source and cut it off.’
At this, the horse snorted again, his head lifting and his ears pricking.
‘Don’t go getting excited,’ Aleida told him. ‘That’s a big if. I’m not making any promises. But . . .’ She backed out of the circle, rolling her shoulders. ‘I might be able to brute force it. Just for a few minutes, so we can have a proper conversation about the matter.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. I hissed through my teeth, and Aleida turned my way with a sharp glance.
I wanted to say Are you sure that’s a good idea? But I swallowed those words. She’d told me enough times never to ask those kinds of questions, never to voice my doubts. But some days I felt as though I was made of doubts and uncertainties — I didn’t understand how I was supposed to keep silent when everything inside me was full of misgivings.
But I’d shamed myself enough for one day. ‘Can I help?’ I said.
Aleida gave me a withering glance as she sat on the damp grass and began to pull off her boots. ‘Maybe if you didn’t have a bellyful of food . . . Actually, scratch that, you’re too green either way. It’s easy to throw too much into something like this, Dee. Get the balance wrong and you’ll have to spend the next week sleeping it off. Just fetch my walking stick for me, will you?’
I hurried off, afraid I’d come back to find her stripped to her skin. She did that sometimes, for difficult workings, though I doubted she’d do so in front of a stranger. When I returned with her staff she had just stripped down to her leather stays over her chemise, with her skirt and petticoat still on. She was still sitting in the grass with her legs splayed out to the side, and with my witch-sight enhancing my night vision I could clearly see the hairy dog’s feet within the folds of cloth.
I held out the staff and my hand as well, and she took both to heave herself to her feet, then used the staff for balance. ‘Don’t say it, Dee,’ she growled under her breath.
‘I didn’t say a word,’ I protested.
‘Yeah, well, I can still hear you thinking it.’
‘I reserve the right to think what I want,’ I said, tartly, and she chuckled.
‘Fair enough. All right, let’s do this thing.’
I moved back, trying to keep myself from scowling at her narrow back. Brute force didn’t sound good. None of this really sounded good — but what was the alternative? Walk away and leave the poor sod in this state?
Aleida shook her hair back and squared her shoulders, planting her bare feet into the grassy earth, and raised her right hand.
White light flared around the beast within the circle. He tossed his head up in alarm, eyes showing their whites, feet stamping on the trampled grass.
‘Just hold still,’ I told him. ‘Hold still and stay calm.’ Then I turned back to my mistress, and started chewing on my lip once again.
Her breath was calm and steady — not laboured, but not relaxed, either. There was a purpose, an intent, with each rise and fall of her chest above her black leather stays.
The white light around the horse grew steadily brighter, moment by moment, until it hurt to look upon him, but the shape within that brightness remained stubbornly the same, until Aleida let it go with a sigh and a slump of her shoulders. ‘All right, fine,’ she said. ‘We’ll do it the other way.’
‘Miss,’ I said.
‘Dee, hush.’
This time I didn’t bother to hide my scowl. I moved to the side, so I could see her face, and watched as she closed her eyes and bowed her head.
This time, when her power rose I felt the strength of the earth flowing with it. The blades of grass around us bent towards her, not fluttering as though blown by the wind, but leaning slowly and steadily, as though gravity itself were pulling them towards her.
The strands of energy wrapped around the horse throbbed, pulsed — and then they all turned to ash and fell away.
In the middle of the circle was a man, as naked as the day he was born. He fell to his knees with a sob, his skin streaked with dirt and filth, his brown hair shaggy and unkempt.
I didn’t pay him much more mind in that moment, however, for my mistress swayed on her feet, grabbing her staff with both hands to keep from falling, and I hurried to steady her. ‘Miss—’
‘I’m fine, Dee,’ she said. At the words, something on my hand hummed, tickling my skin, and without thinking I twitched. Probably some bug. ‘But maybe you should fetch a blanket or something. Funny, I thought we still had a week or so before the full moon.’
I glanced over at the kneeling figure and quickly looked away. Full moon indeed.
Maggie’s blanket was near at hand, and I confess part of the reason I didn’t find one of ours w
as the prospect of washing it afterwards. A horse that smells like horses is one thing, but a naked man streaked with months’ worth of dirt and sweat and stinking like a stable is a different matter.
By the time I’d dumped the blanket around his shoulders, Aleida was still leaning heavily on her staff, her dark skin sallow and sweat beading on her brow. ‘Come on, big guy,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure how long we’ll have before it all snaps back. Can you talk? What’s your name?’
Trembling like the palsy, he clutched the blanket around himself and nodded. ‘Y-yes, m-miss,’ he said, his voice rough and ragged. ‘They c-call me Toro.’
I saw her eyes grow narrow. ‘Toro, is it? Strange sort of name.’
There were old scars across his broad back, long healed and bleached of colour. I saw him swallow hard as he straightened, sitting back on his heels with the blanket pulled tight around him. His face was battered, too, his nose crooked, and a fresher scar lashing across his cheek to disappear into his beard. His eyes were deep-set and fierce. I could imagine them full of rage sooner than full of laughter, but right now they showed nothing but worry and despair.
There was something very familiar about his face. Very familiar . . . Then, with a start, I remembered where I’d seen it before.
‘All right,’ Aleida said. ‘Time’s a-wasting. What’s your story?’
He just stared at her, mouth hanging open like a landed fish.
‘Aleida?’ I broke in. ‘I’ve seen his face before.’
Her eyes slid to me, and she nodded to me to go on.
‘You remember that poster at the blacksmith’s forge? His face was on it.’
‘Mm,’ Aleida said. ‘Well, Toro? Were you a bandit?’
He huddled low to the ground, like a dog expecting the whip. ‘Yes, miss.’
‘So what happened?’
He glanced around, eyes wide, face pale, but his jaw was clenched in a way that reminded me of Kara, sticking stubbornly to her story even when everyone around her insisted she was lying. But then he bowed his head. He’d given up, I realised. The time he’d spent as a beast, running, hiding, fearing for his life, had beaten him down too far to cling to his lies. ‘We met her on the road. A woman travelling alone, with two beautiful horses. Looked like easy pickings. But those horses — they fought like men would, aiming for weak points, feinting, driving us where they wanted us. And the woman. She just stood there and laughed at us. Laughed and laughed. And then . . . she did something to us. She made us lay down our swords. She made us obey her.’
‘Yep,’ said Aleida. ‘Sounds about right. What was her name? Did you ever hear it?’
He shook his head. ‘No, miss. She talked to us for a bit; she wanted someplace to hole up. She made us tell her about all our places, you know, where we’d lay low after a job. But in the end she had us all follow her up to the ruins on the ridge. She kept us there for a few days, made us work for her, day and night, digging out the ruins, cutting down trees, building a wall. Then, when it was all done, she made a circle, and one by one she sent us inside.’
Aleida’s face was flat as she listened to the tale. ‘How many?’ she said when his voice trailed away.
‘Miss?’
‘How many of you?’
‘Eight,’ he said, looking down. ‘There were eight of us and she ordered us around like we was little children.’
By this point I was watching Aleida more than him. But her face was a mask, perfectly still. I couldn’t read a thing from her.
‘And she did you all at once?’ she said. ‘One after another?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And then what happened? Don’t tell me she just let you go.’
He shook his head. ‘No, she . . . As each man got turned, she had the others lead him to one of the posts we’d set up, and chain him there. That was for the biggest beasts. She was happy about them, you see. But some of us she wasn’t so happy about. Me and Knuckles and Fishbone, she didn’t care about us. She just shoved us in the yard we’d built. At first we didn’t understand what was happening, you see, we didn’t know. Whatever it was she did to us, it stole our wits, left us blind and confused, but slowly, slowly it came back, and we could think again.
‘It was too late for the other lads, she had them chained up good and proper, but the rest of us . . . we couldn’t talk, but we managed to work together enough to bust the godsdamned fence down and get away.’
‘Three of you?’ Aleida said.
Toro shook his head. ‘No. Just two. Knuckles didn’t make it. She, she turned him into a stag, you see, and I guess he didn’t realise how big those damn antlers were. He got caught in a tree, and she got him. I heard him screaming back behind us.’
‘What happened to the other one who escaped?’ I broke in.
Toro glanced from Aleida to me. ‘I-I don’t know, miss. We got separated in the first few days. I haven’t seen any sign of him, not since we escaped.’
‘So for all you know she might have got him back, too,’ Aleida said.
‘I suppose so, miss.’
‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t she . . .’ I trailed off, unwilling to say the words.
‘Why didn’t she just kill them?’ Aleida said. She shrugged. ‘No idea. It’d be a hell of a lot easier. She must have had something in mind for them.’
The naked man kneeling on the grass, streaked with filth and stinking like a beast, began trembling harder.
‘Something bad?’ I said, hesitantly.
Aleida just gave me a humourless smile, a wry quirk of the lips. ‘Blood sacrifice usually doesn’t mean anything good — if that’s what she’s going for. It could be something else entirely. All right, Toro, what else can you tell me about this witch?’
‘Nothing, miss. I swear I’ve told you all I know! She never said a word to us beyond giving us orders, but she . . . she . . . we should have known not to mess with her. Right from the start I knew there was something wrong about her. Something about her that was as wild as a winter storm.’
I missed whatever he said next as, beside me, Aleida swayed, her knees buckling. I leapt forward to steady her as she slumped forward. I caught her by the shoulders before she fell against the lit candle and the smouldering incense. As she hit the ground, the candles and the glowing sigils all shuddered and flickered as though in a sudden wind, and then snuffed out. There came a rush of air, a wave of bitter cold, full of the scent of summer storms, and the man screamed; a guttural, hollow bellow of pain. Then, in the midst of the circle, the horse stood once again, wheeling and plunging, ears flat to his head and eyes wide with fright.
Aleida’s face was the colour of ashes. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she was gone, lost in a faint as deep as the ocean.
CHAPTER 4
I laid her down on the grass and stepped back, raking my hands through my hair. ‘Lord and Lady . . .’
You idiot, I wanted to say. You absolute dolt, what were you thinking? My heart was beating hard as I cast around this dark, close world. There were nether creatures out there, and bandits, and somewhere, a witch who had turned a whole troupe of highwaymen into beasts. And here my teacher had overtaxed herself to passing out. Lord and Lady, what do I do now?
The circle broken, Toro inched closer, his head held low as he snuffled over Aleida’s still form, and then raised his head to me, ears pricked.
I bit my lip, wrapping my arms around myself. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, not exactly, though it was the first time she’d passed out completely. In the past when she’d overstretched herself it had just been a momentary faint, and after a few minutes she’d roused enough that I could help her inside. This time she was out cold and seemed ready to stay that way for a while.
‘All right,’ I muttered to myself. She couldn’t stay out here, that much was clear, what with Nether beasties around and apparently a powerful witch, too. But I couldn’t carry her; even as slight as she was, she was more than I could lift.
I retr
ieved Maggie’s fallen blanket, and managed to roll her onto the cloth. So far, so good. Then, I started hauling it towards the tent.
I hadn’t got far before the big chestnut horse circled around me, and with a nudge of his nose, pushed my hand aside and took hold of the old blanket in his huge yellow teeth.
Together, we made short work of the job and got her inside, behind the wards and out of the elements. I expected at any moment the tugging and shoving would make her rouse, but she never stirred.
When it was done I covered her with a blanket, and looked up to find the bandit still watching me, the human intelligence unsettling in those bestial eyes. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help. Could you stay here, for tonight? She might want to speak to you some more in the morning.’ Or she might not. It was hard to tell sometimes, with her.
He gave a low nicker I took for assent, and turned away to graze on the dry autumn grass, and with a sigh I went to pack away the remains of the ritual.
I spent an uneasy night, tossing beneath the blankets and checking on Aleida. When I did sleep, I dreamed of things with wings and teeth stalking me through the darkness, while around me men and beasts wept and cried for help. It was only when I saw that my teacher had roused enough to roll onto her side and curl up beneath her blankets that I was able to get any real rest.
That ended around dawn when Aleida pushed herself up, grumbling something about coffee, and with a resigned sigh I kicked my covers off to sit up as well. ‘I’ll fetch some water and get grinding the beans,’ I told her, pulling on fresh clothes. ‘You need to eat something. You barely had anything last night, and don’t you try and tell me that working didn’t have you scraping the bottom of the barrel.’
She just sighed as she ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. ‘It was nothing, Dee. Piece of cake.’
The amethyst ring she’d given me hummed on my hand, startling me and making me twitch. With a muttered curse, I flung the tent’s curtain aside and stalked outside.
The world beyond the tent was quiet and dim, still cool from the night, though that wouldn’t last long once the sun came up.
