Gunwitch

by David Michael

  “Sit up,” Mr. Thomas said. He had followed her into the tent. “Let me help you with that.”

  He pushed aside her hands and lifted her into a sitting position. He held her head with one hand and untied the gag and pulled it away with the other.

  Margaret coughed and spit out the nasty cloth in her mouth. She rubbed her right hand under her nose. Her nose hurt like it was bleeding, but she saw no blood on her fingers. She noticed Mr. Thomas had stepped out of the tent and she breathed a sigh of relief. There was no pile of clothes in the tent, so she picked a corner away from the front of the tent, and curled up to sleep.

  The tent flaps pulled away again and she heard Mr. Thomas come back inside, and the smell of cooked meat filled the tent. Her chin trembled as she tried not to throw up.

  “I thought you might like something to eat,” Mr. Thomas said. “And I thought I would share it with you.”

  Margaret didn’t respond. She pulled herself into a tighter ball in the corner and wished he would go.

  “No? Not hungry? Alright then. You won’t mind, of course, if I help myself?”

  She heard the sounds of him slicing off strips of meat and chewing. And later of him pulling apart bones and blowing on his fingers from the heat and more chewing.

  “I’ll be sleeping in here with you tonight, Miss Laxton,” he said, the words separated by sounds of him licking his fingers. “I do hope you don’t mind.”

  “I mind,” she said. “And my father. He would mind.”

  Mr. Thomas laughed. “Yes, I am certain he would. However, his being not here, I will just have to use my own judgment. I expect we’ll have visitors by morning, and it’s best if I’m here to keep you. Safe,” he added.

  After a few moments of silence, he said, “You haven’t asked about our visitors.”

  Margaret continued to not ask. Her mind hovered just over the edge of sleep, and his voice kept pulling her back. She could not make him leave her alone, but she wished he would be quiet.

  He did not say anything else. Another few minutes passed and he went out of the tent. He startled her awake again not more than ten minutes later, coming back into the tent and noisily spreading blankets. He cast one blanket over her, then he settled down to sleep.

  * * *

  An explosion, like a cannon going off over her head caused Margaret to leap up. She tripped over her cuffs and a blanket that had wrapped itself around her and fell back to the floor. She could not see Mr. Thomas in the darkness, but she could hear him sitting up, and chuckling.

  “I told you we’d have visitors,” he said. “I think Rose just found your little friend. And my friends have found her, I think.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Miss Ro–”

  He must have been waiting for her to do exactly that, because she barely had her mouth open before he had stuffed the gag into her mouth. Then he held her down and wrapped her with blankets, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “Now now, Margaret,” he said as he tied the cloth around her head again, securing the gag. “We mustn’t spoil the surprise.”

  Gunshots and shouts. Then another explosion.

  She looked up at Mr. Thomas, barely seeing the shape of his head above her, and wished him dead.

  He chuckled as if he could read her thoughts, and knew how powerless they were. Then he moved in a squat to the tent flaps. “You stay here,” he said. “I’ll go see what our trap has caught.”

  There were more gunshots, and a woman screamed.

  Chapter 10

  Chal

  Bayuk

  12.6.5.8.5 L.C.

  Chal sat on the patch of grass, her back to the bayuk channel, facing the handsome young Major Haley and the pretty young Janett, facing the direction Rose had gone. She saw them all, the two in front of her, and, not with her eyes but with the senses of the water and the grass and the trees around her, the figure of her friend getting further away with every step. Farther away from her, and closer to the … wrongness … that accompanied the man Ducoed.

  As she sat, as Rose moved past the fringes of Chal’s awareness, the wrongness stirred memories, bringing back to her a time that … she had never known? A time thought ended and past. Buried. The first glimpses, mere sensations, had caused twinges, small shocks that provoked reflection but not recollection. The more she and Rose and the children had followed the footsteps of Ducoed’s force, the more painful the shocks and the twinges had become. And the more she … remembered?

  They were not her memories, not directly. They were more like sediments from the mountains, brought down by the river through the ages and settled in the pool of her own mind and experience. Ducoed … or those he was with … had stirred the sediment, clouded the waters, and brought back faint traces of what had gone before. And what was coming again.

  Visions of men welded to stone, neither dead nor alive, screaming, fighting, dying, killing flashed in her mind. Not what was now, though. What had been. The history of her people stretched back and back. Time and enough for great successes of which few traces remained, as well as time and enough for tragic mistakes which lingered.

  She had agreed with Rose: Margaret must be rescued. The attempt must be made. She would have gone herself, but Rose had claimed the right because of her promise to the general. They could not both go, not with the major and Janett to look after. So Rose went, and Chal awaited her return.

  Or not.

  Chal twirled her fingers in the long blades of grass, and through them listened to the waters. The waters called to her, as they always did, beckoning her to join them, but they also sang for her. She listened to their songs of the bayuk and the river and the oceans beyond and took comfort.

  “Rest,” she told the two children. “Sleep while you can. In two hours, we will follow Rose.” And what? Rescue her? Possibly. Recover her body? Perhaps. She could not see the future, nor could the waters sing of it to her.

  Water flows, my child. The voice of the Water Mother came to her, from her past, from across time and distance. It does not tell the future, nor does it wish to. Water caresses and shapes what is there. It does not judge. It does not create. Even life, which springs like a well from the heart of Alaghom-Naom, is not created by water. Only nourished and carried by the flow. You cannot ask the waters where they will flow, only where they flow now.

  “Follow Miss Bainbridge?” Janett asked. “But she specifically told us to wait for her here.”

  The major nodded. “The sergeant–Miss Bainbridge–did request …” He stopped, and his head cocked to the left as he looked more intently at Chal. “Have you sensed something?”

  Chal stroked the grass, feeling the life within the green stalks brush against her fingers as she replied. “Nothing that I have not already told you, Major Haley. And Rose, as well.”

  “Then why are we going to follow her? That would be disobeying a direct order.”

  Chal smiled. “Major Haley, Rose is my dear friend and my beloved sister through the cutting of our hands and the mingling of our blood, but she is not my commanding officer.” The major opened his mouth to say something else–probably to apologize, Chal thought; the boy was too easily cowed by a woman’s stated will; Janett had had him to herself for too long–but Chal held up a hand to stop him. “Rose does what she thinks is best, and so do I. Rose could best approach unseen and unheard without the rest of us. But afterward …” She shrugged. “Rest, now. I will sit watch.”

  The major looked as though he would say more, but did not. He only stretched out beside Janett, one arm under his head as a pillow. He did not close his eyes.

  “Miss Rose said we should stay here until dawn,” Janett said, still sitting upright.

  Chal looked at Janett. “And now you are agreeing with her?”

  Janett’s face flushed but she did not look away. “There are hundreds of them– Whatever they are. We are only four, three now. What can we do? We should stay here, and wait for Miss Rose to come back.” She sniffed. “If she comes back.
Then we go to my father and–”

  “And what, Miss Janett?”

  “Father will know what to do!” the girl said, her voice rising. “He will send out an army to deal with these–these things. And he will rescue Margaret.”

  “These … things,” Chal said, “are between us and your father. Please,” she added, “keep your voice down. We are not the only creatures in the bayuk who have ears.”

  “She told us to wait here,” Janett said, her voice just above a whisper. “Until dawn. And if she does not come back, we go to my father. He will know what to do.”

  Chal did not respond.

  “He will,” Janett insisted, as if Chal had argued with her. “Father will know what to do.”

  “Sleep, Miss Janett. I will wake you when it is time to go.”

  Janett’s face showed that, for her, the argument was not over. Chal, though, was through.

  Chal twirled her fingers in the grass again, but this time she did not listen to the song of the waters. Instead, she reached through the blades, through the roots, through the moisture of the earth, and her mind brushed across Janett’s. Janett’s eyes grew wide.

  Sleep, she said without words.

  Janett resisted, stifling a yawn. “I’m not …” Then her eyes got heavy and she blinked slowly. “What are you … doing …?”

  “Sleep,” Chal said again, aloud this time. “You will need your strength.”

  Janett started to say something else, then nodded, and lay down with her back to the major.

  With her awareness and the connection, Chal could see the fatigue in the girl’s muscles, the pain of overexertion. She reached with her right hand and dipped one finger into the water of the bayuk.

  At once the waters sang in a chorus of a thousand thousand voices in her mind, calling to her, beckoning her to join them. And with every ounce of her being she longed to answer their call, to join the waters, to melt into them. But the time was not yet.

  With an effort that strained her muscles and her willpower and caused her to stand, she pulled her finger from the water. The chorus cut off as if a door had slammed shut and she blinked away tears, but the power of the waters remained within her, welling up like a rushing river thwarted by a dam.

  Around her, the bayuk seemed to shine with the light of full day, a light that only she could see. Before her, laying on the ground, both of them asleep now, the children lay. She could see them clearly, see through them to their cores, see their sinews and muscles and the blood pumping through their veins. She stepped forward so she was between them, and knelt.

  She laid one hand on each of them, and let the warmth of the waters flow from her into them. Major Haley gasped and Janett moaned, but neither of them woke. She watched, her sight dimming back to human normal, as the pains and the fatigues and the tensions washed out of man and girl. Two hours of sleep would do them more good now.

  She pushed herself back to the patch of grass and sat, her arms trembling from exertion.

  Now who was the child? she asked herself. She shook her head. The Water Mother would say there were three children here in the bayuk this night. But the major and Janett would need all their strength. She could not leave them behind. She needed them. To keep up with her.

  Her gaze moved from the sleepers to the still trembling surface of the waters in the bayuk. Would the Seekers have sensed her? Only the touch of her finger?

  * * *

  She woke Major Haley, then Janett.

  “What time is it?” Major Haley asked. He started to yawn, then stopped and flexed his jaw. “How long did we sleep?”

  “It is two hours before dawn,” Chal said. “And we must go. I fear that Rose might already need our assistance.”

  “What help can we give her?” Janett asked.

  “We can save her life,” Chal replied. The children were not standing fast enough, so she took the major’s arm and pulled him up, surprising him. She turned to assist Janett, as well, but the girl pulled away from her. “We must hurry,” Chal said.

  “Major Haley,” Janett said. “If you please.” She held up her hands.

  The major cast a quick look at Chal, then helped Janett to her feet.

  “We will go faster if you both hold my hands.”

  “If we must hold hands,” Janett said, taking the major’s left hand in both of hers, “then I will hold the hand of Major Haley.”

  Chal considered forcing the issue. She had little patience left for the girl, but decided to let it go. “Very well.” She reached out her left hand to the major. After a brief hesitation, Major Haley took her hand. His grip was tentative. Hers was not. Through her fingers she could feel his renewed strength, from the rest and from the waters. “Stay close to the major, Miss Janet, and walk in his footsteps as much as you can. Perhaps you will gain some benefit.”

  “Benefit?” Janett asked. “What kind of benefit?”

  Chal ignored her and took a deep breath. She considered the direction they must go. Unlike Rose, they would take the most direct route. The Seekers would not know what she did, but there were those among Ducoed’s force, including Ducoed, who might feel her coming to them. There was no help for that, just as there was no help for her own lack of sleep and the fatigue such a path would claim on her. But Rose needed her. Needed all of them.

  She pulled the major forward, at a fast walk, drawing from him some of his new reserve of strength. There was an instant of resistance from Janett, then the combined pulling of Chal and Major Haley overcame the girl’s inertia.

  Chal led them in a straight line. Grasses and flowers bent for her and sprang back up behind the major. Bushes divided so she could pass through, closing behind Major Haley, their branches and nettles reaching for Janett’s skin and clothes and hair, pulling when they got a hold. The branches of trees rose or bent out of her path–and more than once caught Janett smartly across the forearm or threatened her head. They reached a bayuk, nearly twenty feet across, and Chal stopped.

  “This is madness,” Janett said, panting, holding the major’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “I cannot continue like this.”

  “If you will consent to hold my hand, Miss Janett, I can make your way easier.”

  “You’re doing this,” Janett said between breaths, “intentionally.”

  “I am doing what I must, Miss Janett, and what I can. All of us have limits. If you do not hold my hand, then you are outside of mine.” She waited, but Janett just looked at her. She almost smiled. “Very well.”

  She sensed … a knowing, a waiting ahead of them, and it pulled her attention from Janett. A trap?

  There was no time for subtlety. Chal pushed into the earth at her feet, then out of the earth and stone at the bottom of the channel in front of her, and forced stepping-stones to burst through the surface of the water. The major gasped and let out an oath–had he felt that his strength had done this for her?–but followed when she tugged him, leaping from stone to keep up with her.

  Janett protested and tugged at the major, but came on. She made it half-way before slipping off and splashing into the water, still holding his hand.

  “Do not step off the stones, Major Haley,” Chal said, pausing so he would not be pulled off balance. “The water is not deep.”

  “I can see that,” Janett said, standing in the water up to her knees. “And no thanks to you. My shoes are soaked through, and my dress–”

  “Help her back on the stones, Major Haley, but do not step into the water. Keep up, Miss Janett,” she added when the three of them were again on the stones.

  They reached the shore at a slower pace, without further slips. Then she led them into the underbrush again, following the same straight-line path. She disliked leaving the stones as they were. It was not her way to leave such things in her wake, but she was in a hurry. Their path led through a briar patch. Behind her, she heard Janett gasping and crying out as the thorns found her.

  “We cannot slow down,” she said before Major Haley could sugge
st it. “Rose’s life–”

  She felt the explosion through the trembling of the ground, long seconds before the sound rolled over them.

  “Was that a cannon?” Major Haley asked.

  “No, Major Haley. That was … a call for help. Do not let go of Miss Janett,” she added. She no longer walked, she ran. As fast as she could, held back by the major who was held back by Janett, the three of them stretched in a line, her pulling them all with the major’s strength. She no longer passed through the underbrush, she pushed a path in front of her. A path that would only slowly recover from the affront of her passing. She regretted the necessity. At least it made Janett less of a drag.

  At the next channel she did not slow. Her feet made great splashes in the water as she pushed the water away from her, and she ran in a bubble that wrapped itself around her, let her feet fall on dusty damp earth and closed behind her, sloshing water against the feet and legs of the major and Janett. The waters protested her keeping them away, she could hear their cries, and some catfish and kraveys suffered a few seconds of asphyxiation and convulsed in the dust beside her feet before the waters returned to them. I am sorry, she told the waters and the creatures and the plants.

  The Seekers might very well sense her. Through the change in the song of the waters or the distress of the fish, through the water that splashed on Major Haley, or even through Janett, who floundered behind them, soaking up enough water in her skirts and petticoats to drop the level of the entire bayuk and raising such a fuss that Chal expected the few remaining citizens of far away Tik’al could hear her. But there was no time for sneaking, no time for worrying about the Seekers, and no time to properly shut up Janett–assuming that was possible with either might or magic.