The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Falon scoffed noisily, causing the Witch to glare at her. Despite the thrill of fear that coursed through her, the young Rankin girl was determined not to show it. But despite her brave front, she felt an unaccustomed quiver to her lower lip. Steeling herself for worse torture than she’d had yet endured, as punishment for spiting the witch and almost getting free, she jutted out her jaw to hide the telling quiver.

  “You should have thought about whether you could really scare me worse than a rampaging savage with a giant axe swinging for my head,” she said defiantly.

  Tulla gave her a knowing look and then laughed. “Put me in my place, will thee?” the old Witch smiled.

  Falon stared at her rebelliously. “What do you want with me, Tulla?” she once again demanded. “You treat me worse than a dog. I’m your slave any time you want it, so why don’t you just kill me or get it over with so that I can finally put all this behind me and go home!”

  “A slave?” the old woman looked faintly surprised before an evil light entered her eyes. “Well…I suppose that every apprentice has felt like a slave to her master at one time or another,” she said with a self-satisfied way about her.

  “Apprentice?” Falon gaped, taken aback and then shook her heads in fierce denial. “Nay! I am not your Apprentice,” she said and then added proudly, “I am a warrior.” Immediately after she felt embarrassed to claim such an unfeminine art for her own, but then stiffened and once again jutted her jaw.

  “That too,” Tulla said agreeably.

  “Nay!” Falon repeated shaking her head. “I am a warrior only, and someday when I put all this behind me—gods and goddesses willing—I’ll be a wife and be done with all this nonsense of dressing up like a man and killing things!”

  Tulla shook her head in disgust. “A girl’s dreams, all sunshine and lollipops,” the older woman said acidly.

  “And what’s wrong with having a dream? Is that such a crime, or are you so lost to your own anger and hatred at others that you would take away any hint of joy in another—in me?” Falon asked angrily.

  “If you weren’t talking fantasy I’d say nothing, but you want to be nothing but a wife? How low is that? Better if home and hearth were your secret wish; to dream of being a mother, now that I could respect in an apprentice,” Tulla mocked. “At least there I could point you in the right direction for superior bloodstock, to help breed your talents true.”

  “First you make me your slave so I can work as your apprentice, and now you’d make of me a brood-mare?” Falon flared with outrage.

  “Witch,” Tulla replied mildly.

  Falon blinked at this non-sequitur and then shook it off. “A brood-mare and—,”Falon started back into her interrupted train of thought.

  “Witch,” Tulla interrupted, yet again.

  Falon stopped and glared. “Are you still on your craze about making me an evil, foul-smelling Witch like you?!”

  Tulla sighed. “That’s true too,” the old woman said with exaggerated patience, “but not what I was talking about.”

  “Then what were you talking about, other than trying to breed me like livestock,” Falon demanded, and then shuddered at a terrifying thought. It was very possible if this old woman took it into her head, that with her ability to paralyze and otherwise control Falon, she might actually be able to do it!

  “Witch! Brood-Witch!” Tulla snapped, finally losing her patience. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, at least get the name right,” she yelled, her nostrils flaring.

  Falon’s mouth dropped open, taken aback by this admission.

  “Not every Thorn is cut out to walk the warrior path with the men and work the killing magics,” Tulla snapped. “And despite the craven women who infest its ranks, there’s nothing dishonorable in dropping bairns for the Brood to keep the lines of magic alive!”

  Falon’s mouth opened and closed as she squeaked in dismay, instead of putting forth the sort of fierce and fiery argument against this sort of sentiment that she should have done. It seemed even the most outraged of people could be knocked back on her heels if given too many crazy notions to deal with at one time.

  “So yes, if the home is for you, then after testing you to within an inch of your life, I will let you go home to drop children…for the Common Brood,” the old hag said in a no-nonsense voice.

  “The Common Brood…Brood-Witch…you really would try to turn me into a brood-mare?” Falon said with real horror in her voice. “What next? Force me to lay with every man, and the beasts of the field besides?!”

  “Say ‘brood-mare’ one more time and I’ll beat you with a stick,” the old Witch said in a dangerous voice. “A horse drops foals at the will of its owner and for his, or her, betterment. A Witch drops wee bairns to continue the bloodlines—and because she increases her own power over the magic with every child she carries! I may be willing to do many things but to force a woman against her will…” a murderous look came and went in Tulla’s eyes, “but do you truly think me no better than an Invader—is that it?!”

  “You gain power by having children,” Falon gaped, wondering what unholy rites a woman like Tulla used in order to gain power. She briefly wondered with mounting horror whether human sacrifice was somehow involved.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” Tulla said angrily, “your connection to the earth and its magic increases with every child, but especially so during pregnancy. So much so that even some of the Guard would fill themselves with a child to fuel their magic during a planned fall campaign so as they could drop the child in spring, avoiding the cumbersome late-stages during the times they would be needed on the field. Pregnancies are very potent to a woman’s magic—although, along with the increased power comes increased difficulty.”

  “I don’t, I mean…” Falon began and then stared at the old witch, as the idea of laying with a man and getting pregnant, just to fuel one’ power during a war, settled into her brain. She found the entire notion repulsive, and quickly blurted, “Ugh, yuck!”.

  “As I’m too old for such shenanigans—and you obviously don’t find the idea favorable—I think we can safely set aside that particular duty of a witch,” Old Tulla loosed an earthy laugh. “No, the reason I brought you here was to see if you could draw power yet, and if you could to start your training; nothing more, but certainly nothing less!”

  “Draw power,” Falon said dully, taking a moment for her mind to sort through all the strangeness that had been thrown at her before it penetrated. When it did, she quickly shook her head in negation, “No! I am not a Witch or your apprentice!”

  “I’ve already spoken with your mother and staked my claim. Thou belong to old Tulla now, and won’t be free again until after learning the arts of which I will teach thee,” said the vicious old hag. “The sooner thou learn, the sooner thou can be free of me and back to thy dreams of fantasy—so pay attention!”

  Falon stared at her unhappily. She very much did not want to learn anything this woman had to teach, but she was naturally tempted by the idea of earning her freedom and getting home.

  “What would I need to learn?” she asked cautiously.

  Tulla bared her teeth. “The first and most important thing a woman needs to know, if she’s to become a Witch, is how to draw power. After that, it’s all about shaping: drawing and shaping. The drawing can’t be taught—or rather, it can’t be forced—although the tattoo’s help thee learn to draw it out from the Earth. After that, it’s all about strengthening the draw and guiding the young Witch as she starts her first, ham-fisted attempts to shape that power,” Tulla instructed.

  “That doesn’t sound so hard,” Falon said cautiously, “so after I can draw and shape, I’m free to go home?”

  “Drawing and shaping are just the basics,” Tulla said calmly, “many marginal Witches fail at a consistent draw, or can’t learn to shape worth a hill of beans, and never rise above the level of Apprentice Witch. It’s a matter of mind and talent, and some girls have only one or the other in
sufficient supply.”

  Falon felt a chill. “That’s not fair,” she whined, unable to help herself.

  “Life isn’t fair, and whoever told you the contrary was probably a man!” Tulla snapped, bringing to mind the very same advice she had got earlier in the day from Captain Smythe.

  “Sorry,” Falon mumbled, suddenly ashamed with herself and wildly resentful of that fact as she felt her face heat.

  Tulla breath hitched as she started to take a deep breath and then coughed. Falon watched the old Witch’s discomfort with cold satisfaction at the sight. It served Tulla right for enslaving her to be her apprentice!

  “First we’ll start with your draw, until you have that down cold and can do it by will alone. Then, after you can call it up consciously, we’ll focus on shaping the power. Since you’ve already learned how to increase your physical strength, we’ll start there and then branch out,” the old Woman explained. “Now, imagine your power is a well and you’re pulling up a bucket of water…”

  “Not a snake?” Falon interrupted. “’Cause that’s how it feels, climbing up the tattoos and into my belly.”

  Tulla gritted her teeth and shook her head irritably. “Imagine it is a snake,” the old Witch started again, with forced patience heavy in her voice, “then the next thing you need to do once you have it is clear your mind…”

  As the old Witch explained, Falon settled back to learn everything she could so that she could earn her freedom, or kill the witch that kept her captive against her will—whichever opportunity presented itself first.

  Chapter 37: A Night Attack!

  Falon lurched out of her bed to the sound of a blood curdling scream. Heart lurching in her chest, she hiked up her pants and threw on her sword. She always slept in an overly long shirt of her fathers’ now, to avoid potentially exposing herself, and she tucked that shirt into her pants before tossing back the tent flap. It had been a long night, and it looked to be an early morning.

  Rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes with the back of her sleeve, she stepped out to see what the ruckus was about—sword in hand, of course.

  “Report!” she yelled at the first man she saw running past her tent. But the barbarian running behind him with a raised axe quickly told her all she needed to know.

  Both men ignored her, too caught up in their own personal life-and-death drama to pay the short ‘boy’ in the tent much mind.

  Falon grasped the hilt of her sword in one hand and the sheath in the other, and before her sleep-addled mind had fully caught up with everything that was happening, her body was in motion.

  ‘Swords have a tip, not just the edge you western barbarians are enamored of—use it!’ her Imperial Training Master’s words echoed strangely in her ears.

  The barbarian stiffened and came to an abrupt stop, his body arching and Falon realized she had executed an almost perfect lunge. She blinked, saw her sword sticking into the barbarian’s side, and took a prancing step backwards as time seemed to slow.

  The barbarian in front of her fell to the ground, dead. Yes, he’s definitely dead, she noted with wide eyes. The thud of his fall broke her out of her trance, and time seemed to resume its regular flow.

  “Rally,” she shouted, seeing the man she had just saved continue running away from the edge of their camp and toward the rest of the army, “hold the line!”

  “Vosten Mogrey’s!” bellowed a deep, male voice to her left rear.

  Falon’s left leg gave an involuntary shake, and the magic ‘snake’ she had spent most of the night laboriously working on summoning with Tulla now, when she needed it, came sluggishly and not at all eager to heed her call.

  Pivoting on her heels, the young woman lifted her sword into the ready position. She was just in time too, as just a few more seconds and the savage would have split her head like a watermelon. For a long moment she struggled, blade to axe-head, trying to thrust aside the giant, bronze monstrosity of a weapon. The axe pushed toward her head as its wielder grunted with effort, and just when she thought all was lost, the snake surged fitfully and with one last, womanful, heave she thrust the axe wide.

  Pain seared across and down her shoulder, but her melon was still intact and she had one more chance at life.

  The barbarian bellowed like an angry bull, lost in a moment of rage and frustration and swinging his weapon wide and back around his head for another go at splitting her head in two.

  Riposting, Falon stabbed upward and her sword sank deep, taking the savage warrior in the belly. The barbarian’s mouth opened in a silent scream as he gurgled and then dropped to his knees, still feebly trying to bring his axe around for a follow-up attack.

  Stepping back, her sword came free with a strange sucking sound. After Falon took another step back, the barbarian’s sluggish axe finally came over the top of his head, but she was already well outside of range.

  Up until then she had been reacting without too much thought, just like Darius had been training her to do, but as the axe sunk deep into the cold, loamy earth, she started to shake. When he toppled over his axe and twitched before finally going still, she realized how much bigger and more powerful the brute was than any woman—especially one barely out of her girlhood—and the fear that had been so absent before that moment now violently coursed through her body.

  If it hadn’t been for her painted body and the tattoos that Tulla had so cleverly hidden—yet so painfully written—on her, she very likely would have been dead instead of triumphant. She felt her hands go to her torso as she wrapped her arms around herself briefly, trying to control the fit of fearful shivering which had just come over her.

  A barbarian roared and someone screamed, but all Falon could think about was her own mortality and how close she had come to winding up dead on a frozen battlefield.

  “Duncan!” screamed a familiar voice, and Falon’s head instantly shot around.

  Where cries of pain and savage yells had failed to gain her attention, that one name spoken by a familiar voice snapped her out of her paralysis.

  “Rally to me; to your Lieutenant, you motherless sons!” Falon screamed, lifting her sword and charging in the direction of that voice.

  A donkey brayed in the distance and Falon surged around a tent, running full-tilt into a young man barely old enough to grow a beard.

  With a thud Falon fell, and the young man did likewise in front of her, his terror-filled eyes looking around wildly and without comprehension. In that moment he looked more like an animal than a person.

  “Lost,” he panted, “we’re overrun!”

  Rolling to her hands and knees, Falon got to her feet while the man—nay, the boy—was still sobbing into the earth.

  “On me, you dog,” Falon shouted, kicking him in the side. Why did he cower when their friends were down? Men were supposed to fight, to be the protectors, and here this one clutched at the earth like it was his mother while a sister stood tall against the savage hordes.

  The boy yelped as her second kick connected, and he quickly scrambled to his feet. Still wild-eyed and fearful, he was at least now resting his gaze on her.

  “A-Rankin,” she shouted into his face, then lifting her sword she twirled over her head before leveling it in the direction she’d been going before being knocked down, “for the Swans!”

  She charged, sparing a glance over her shoulder before she cleared the lean-to made from pine branches put there to protect the tent against the elements. To her mild relief, the boy followed; she wasn’t sure if she could save Duncan and his brother all by herself, and having a second body present couldn’t hurt.

  “Rankin for a-Swan,” she shouted hoarsely, her breath coming in ragged, shallow breaths. All the excitement of the recent life-and-death struggles came crashing down on her, now that she’d been forced to take a moment and stop. Rounding a fire pit, she saw Ernest standing over Duncan, who was leaning on an elbow, with one hand pressed against his head—which was covered with blood.

  Surrounding Ernest was a br
ace of four barbarians: two with axes and the others with massive, crude mauls with stone heads.

  “To me!” she called out once again, pausing long enough to shout for help before surging forward to try and take the savages in the back before they could respond.

  However, alerted by her words, two of the barbarians turned to meet her before she could stick her sword in their unprotected backs.

  Howling something in their indecipherable language, the first savage swung low, while the other one came over high with his maul.

  Jumping high to avoid the sweeping axe attack, her feet left the earth and with it went her connection to the magic snake. Off balance for more reason than one, Falon interposed her sword between herself and the maul and this proved to be a mistake. Stone met metal with a clank that reverberated up and down her blade, and without the magic she had been drawing from the earth, she hadn’t the pure hand-strength to muscle through it.

  Her hand stung like a hive of bees had descended on it as her sword went flying into the air, and between the blow to her blade and her off-balance jump, she fell to the earth with a muffled cry.

  “Ahhh!” shrieked the man-boy she’d brought with her and, apparently, had decided not to run. Or at least, not run away, as out of the corner of her eye she saw him running forward with a spear in his hands that he must have picked up somewhere along the way.

  Rolling to the side, Falon avoided the maul just before it slammed into the place her chest had been a moment earlier. She kept rolling in the direction of her lost sword as fast as she could manage, and her mind for some reason brought images of doing the same thing through fresh, spring grass some years earlier.

  Metal met wood somewhere behind her, rousting her from her oddly-timed memory, and the clash was followed by the sound of a fist hitting meat as the young man who had followed her cried out in pain.

  “There’s some more of the goat-loving throat cutters…and I’ll be jiggered, it’s the Squire!” exclaimed someone with a Raven accent.