She mumbled a few words. He opened his mouth in pain and surprise as a small wound on his arm began to swell and throb.
“Watch yourself,” she warned him as she walked away.
Once out of his sight, she eased his pain before she let herself sag with fatigue.
Drained as much in mind as in body, she stumbled through the gathering dark toward the ox cart, where she hoped Gee would have food ready.
Thalgor appeared in front of her. “What of my wound?”
She did not want him to know how close she was to collapse, how unable to protect herself from him.
She pulled the last of the cobwebs and sea-scented oil from her bag and quickly tended the wound. Because it was in his hip, she had to touch him where she would rather not have. Where she would not have earlier either, if she hadn’t been compelled by a force she scarcely understood.
His flesh burned and trembled under her fingers, but not from pain.
When she straightened and started to turn away, wobbly with exhaustion, he took her arm with one hand to stop her and with the other hand tipped her face up so he saw the weariness in her eyes. And she saw the desire in his.
“So magic is indeed hard work,” he said softly.
He swept her up in his arms like a child and carried her close to his body through the noisy confusion of the camp as it recovered from the attack and began to settle for the night.
He didn’t take her back to the ox cart, but away from the camp and toward the dark of the trees nearby.
She saw his intent in his eyes and tried to gather her strength to stop him. But even that small effort exhausted the last of her energy and she sank unwillingly into sleep.
She awoke when he laid her on a bed of fallen leaves, the hood of her cloak pulled over her hair to protect it. She tensed for the attack to come, her magic too weak to stop the inevitable.
But Thalgor turned away and started a small fire.
Once it burned bright he left. Erwyn knew she should flee back to where the others would offer her some protection, but she was so spent she could not pull herself to her feet.
Thalgor came back in a few minutes with a rabbit, which he quickly cleaned and put on a stick to roast over the fire. He propped the spit up with two forked sticks and left again to return with bread and a small jug of water from the camp.
Erwyn half dozed. The rich aroma of the roasted meat tormented her empty stomach too much for true sleep.
But when he silently offered her some of the cooked animal, she shook her head. She dare not let him know she could not sit without trembling. To her surprise, he cut off a piece of the juicy meat, lifted her head and shoulders with his arm, and fed the meal to her, bite by bite, until she could eat no more.
Then he finished the food and banked the fire. Erwyn thought he would sleep on the other side of it, as he did in the camp, but instead he came and lay down beside her.
Now he would take her. Icy dread swept over her, so deep her breath froze in her chest. She tried to summon the strength she would need to protect herself physically because her magic was entirely spent. To her shame, all she managed was a pitiful, “Please, don’t.”
Thalgor wrapped his cloak around both of them and pillowed her head on his shoulder. She went so weak with relief her tears flowed and soaked his tunic.
“Sleep, witch,” he whispered.
They both woke before dawn. Despite Erwyn’s protests, Thalgor swept her up in his arms to carry her back to the ox cart. He moved stealthily, in spite of her weight, so he would not alert the sentries.
As soon as they left the shelter of the trees, Rygar rose up in front of them.
“You are not on guard duty, archer.” Thalgor set Erwyn on her feet.
The younger man’s eyes searched Erwyn’s face. “You told me to guard those who live in your tent.”
“Do you think I would harm her?” Thalgor’s voice was thick with sadness as well as anger.
“It is all a matter of what you consider harm.”
“Do you truly think I would do anything to her anyone would call harm? You know me better than that.”
Strangely distressed by the anger between these two men she sensed loved each other, Erwyn raised her hand.
“He did not touch me, Rygar.” She chose to ignore the intimate way they’d slept together. Then she turned to Thalgor. “But if you did not mean to harm me, why take me to the woods so others might suspect you did?”
Thalgor’s face flushed red. “I did not expect you to be so helpless.”
“Just helpless enough?”
She saw his shame turn in an instant to rage at her half-mocking tone.
“Why don’t the two of you stay and talk about it all day?” he growled. “I have work to do, if there is to be a second attack.”
Erwyn gave a laugh that startled even her. “So, great man, you have become a believer after all.”
Thalgor gave her a look so dark it set her back on her heels. Her heart raced, but she stood her ground.
“Thalgor, you are right,” Rygar quickly intervened. “We all have much to do. Where should we start?”
Erwyn turned her back on the two men and walked unsteadily toward the ox cart. A light rain fell, but Gee had fashioned a lean-to from a flap of the tent. As Erwyn approached the makeshift shelter, Felyn gave a cry of joy and ran out into the rain toward her. Erwyn patted the child’s head awkwardly and ducked under the lean-to.
“She fretted for you all night,” Gee said. “Why did you leave?”
Not, why did she not return until morning.
“I had work to do. She knew that.”
The child did know, Erwyn realized. But how? An icy shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Maybe, but she has lost so much,” Gee replied. “She is afraid she will lose you, too.”
“Her pain is as strong whether I am here or not.” When had their aunt’s nearness ever eased Erwyn’s pain?
“Perhaps she fears it will grow worse if she loses you.”
Grief washed over Erwyn in a rush that crumpled her legs. She fell gracelessly to the ground by the fire. The loss of her aunt just days before had certainly made her pain worse. But at root the child was the cause of it all.
“And how much pain have you caused her?” she heard the Witch King ask, his voice as clear as if Gee had spoken again.
Erwyn pulled herself up to sit with her back against the cart and looked at the child by her side. She nodded, and the girl clambered into her lap. Almost immediately they both fell asleep.
Once the sun rose, and everyone had eaten, Thalgor summoned Erwyn to where his council met. She started to refuse, but a vision of the second attack overrode her anger and pride.
The council crowded around a makeshift table of boards and logs to study the rough map of the area Gurdek had drawn. The men parted to make a place for Erwyn next to Thalgor.
“Where does the attack come?” he asked her without greeting.
She looked at the map. Before she answered, she took a piece of the charcoal the map had been drawn with and used it to correct the path of a river.
“Here.” She indicated a drive from the south. “As the dark time ends, raiding parties from the south will move north in waves. The bands further south have grown stronger and push them toward us. That is why we must move north.”
“Enough of moving north, witch,” Batte growled. “Tell us about the attack that comes today.”
Erwyn realized with a shudder that she’d made a dangerous enemy, one who held Thalgor’s trust where she did not.
“They will come from here,” she pointed, “but split into two groups at the river, each the size of the raiding party yesterday, but not so well-organized or so well disciplined.”
Thalgor gave a grunt of satisfaction as she paused to call the vision to mind again.
“Half will attack the front of our line, half the rear.”
“What if we are in a circle, rather than a line
?” Thalgor interrupted her.
She closed her eyes. “It depends on whether their scouts see how we are arrayed before they split at the river.”
“Gurdek,” Thalgor ordered, “take your men and sweep all the land between here and the river. Kill anyone you find.”
His lieutenant nodded and headed quickly off.
“A tight circle,” Thalgor said. “Even the livestock inside. It will only be for a short time, and the more ranks of warriors around the camp, the less likely the attack will succeed.”
Rygar, Batte, and the others nodded and spread out to reorganize the sprawling camp and post their men around it.
“Go back to the ox cart with the others.” Thalgor barked the words as if to one of his warriors in battle.
“After the battle we move north?” Erwyn asked.
“After the battle we rest,” he replied, his body half turned from her. “Then we move north.”
She waited, vainly she knew, for words of apology or gratitude. But she wanted him well aware that she expected them.
They stood frozen until a young man came to say their scouts had already seen the raiding party cross the river and split in two. Thalgor nodded.
“Go, now,” he told Erwyn. “You are no good to us dead.”
As close to an apology as she was likely to get.
This day’s battle went differently. Even though the raiders came sooner than expected, when they did they swooped down on what they thought would be a vulnerable line of march. The heavily guarded circle they found instead sent them into a panic.
Some carried on with the attack, but most turned and ran. The first rank of Thalgor’s warriors charged after them.
Erwyn’s work as a healer was soon begun and quickly ended. Few of their men were wounded and most of the attackers were dead or dying. Luckily so, as she was still drained from the day before and already exhausted. As she walked wearily across the silent battlefield, it struck her again as wrong that the brave should die as the cowardly fled. Wrong and wasteful.
Thalgor’s warriors chased the attackers only as far as the river. When they returned with the swords and shields of those they had killed, Thalgor had the camp spread out again and ordered an ox roasted to celebrate the victory.
While Erwyn and Gee served his council their food, he announced that the next day they would head north. Not even Batte raised any objection.
Chapter Five
Life quickly became routine as they made their way north. Erwyn helped Gee with the work of the camp by day, and met with Thalgor and his council by night.
His people did not trust her, so Thalgor never consulted her openly when the council met to make plans and settle the petty disputes that arose in the camp. Still, he would look at her before he made a judgment for a nod or shake of her head, or a gesture of indecision. She never knew if the rest of the council saw. She and Thalgor never spoke of it. In fact, they scarcely spoke at all, except when the council discussed strategy and needed her second sight.
Rygar, on the other hand, did indeed become her friend. In the evenings, when the council’s work was done, he told her and the child all the legends of his people, with an occasional correction from Gee when he didn’t tell a tale quite right.
One thing Erwyn learned from his stories was that Thalgor was a direct descendent of the kings who once ruled the land. By counting from the family stories Rygar and Gee told around the campfire, she also calculated that all of Thalgor’s grandparents were of witch blood, except his mother’s father. No wonder he could see into her mind at times.
Slowly the child ceased to grieve and began to speak again. Not to Erwyn, whom she avoided now she felt safe, or to Thalgor. But Erwyn heard her sometimes talk softly to Rygar or Gee, or to the other children she’d finally begun to play with.
One or two of the boys teased her at first about her strange eyes, but when she shrugged off their cruel comments, they relented and accepted her as she was.
One evening when Gee was too tired, Erwyn cooked dinner over the campfire while Thalgor played the stone game with the child. Suddenly Felyn stood up and threw the stones at him.
“Don’t stare at me,” she cried. “Don’t stare at my eyes!”
“I’m sorry,” Thalgor responded calmly, despite his obvious surprise. “They are lovely eyes.”
“No. They’re ugly.” The child stamped her foot.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m cursed!”
Erwyn dropped the spoon she held and moved to silence the child, but Thalgor held up his hand to stop her.
“Cursed?” he asked gently. “How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“I don’t know that, either. Erwyn knows.”
“Did Erwyn curse you?”
“No,” they both cried.
The child ran to Erwyn and buried her face in her cloak.
“Is that why you are the way you are with her, because she is cursed?” Thalgor asked Erwyn.
Reluctant to tell him more than he had a right to know, or to upset the child further, Erwyn just shook her head.
But his eyes followed her as she returned to her work.
Another night, when rain drove the camp to set up their makeshift lean-tos and settle for a cold dinner, Gee was the one who broke the glum silence.
“Have you heard, Thalgor, that Dara and Batte are together?”
Erwyn shivered.
“I heard.” Thalgor’s voice was empty of feeling.
“Is she his woman?” Rygar asked. “Does she tend his fire?”
“Not that one.” Gee laughed. “He still lives in the barracks, but she brings him to her mother’s fire to eat, and he lets her younger brother care for his sword and armor.”
Clearly the news made Thalgor uneasy.
Had he heard the same whispers among his warriors that Erwyn had heard among the women? Rumors that she’d bewitched him so he would lead them all to a certain death in the north. She’d wondered at their source, but now could see they were most likely tales Dara had told Batte, and Batte had spread around the camp.
She shivered again and felt Thalgor’s eyes on her. She looked up to find him appraising her as if he, too, wondered if the rumors were true. An unexpected pain made her look away.
Sometimes, late at night after an especially acrimonious council or a rainy day that covered everything with mud, when the child whined and Thalgor barked, she prepared herself to leave and go on to the Sea Mountains alone.
But the Witch King’s face would appear in the fire, or hover over the child as she slept, or shine in Thalgor’s eyes, and she stayed.
One night, the urge to leave was so strong she slipped away from the others and walked along the stream where they were camped. The steady gurgle of the water–a thin echo of the sea, mother of all witches–brought her peace.
The night was quiet. Only the occasional hoot of an owl or the rustle of mice in the leaves disturbed her thoughts. Even the call of a panther on the prowl could not disrupt the calm.
She sat on a rock in sight of the warriors who guarded the camp and lost herself in dreams of a life for the child freed of her curse, a home for herself as a Sea Witch, a future without wandering and war. Thalgor’s dreams, as well as her own.
A sound interrupted her reverie. Her heart jumped. Thalgor.
“Do you follow me, great man?”
“Do you flee me, witch?”
“No.”
“But you want to.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why this need to go to the Sea Mountains?”
Half an honest answer was better than none. “To find a home there.”
“Have you not a home in my camp?”
“No.”
The air between them crackled. Her denial hurt him, she realized with surprise.
“Will the Sea Witches give your child a home as well?” His voice was brittle because he knew the an
swer. “You mean to leave her with Gee?”
“Yes. It would be cruel to uproot her again.”
“And not cruel to abandon her?”
“It is complicated.”
“You do not love your child. The reason may be complicated, but the fact is simple.”
Unable to bear the contempt in his voice, she stood and turned to face him in the silver light of the full moon.
“She is not my child.”
She sank back on the rock and braced herself for whatever came next.
“But she looks…” He stopped. “Your sister?”
Erwyn nodded.
“But not a witch?”
“My father was captured and sold as a slave five years before she was born.”
Thalgor was silent for a long time. “This uncle you seldom spoke to?”
She nodded.
“And he carried no witch blood.”
She nodded again.
“But still, to be so cold to a mere child, your mother’s child…”
“The cause of my mother’s death.” She stood again to face him. “And my father’s.”
Thalgor frowned.
“My father escaped from slavery, but a different man. What he endured had turned his strength to raw cruelty. Perhaps that was necessary for him to survive. In any case, when he found our camp and saw my mother with an infant, he killed her with one stroke of his sword, then turned the sword on himself.”
“You saw this?”
“I grabbed the child from my mother’s arms and shielded it with my body so he would not kill her, too.” Tears streamed down her face but she ignored them.
“He did not kill you.”
She shrugged and refused to take any comfort in the fact.
“The curse on the child comes from this?”
“Yes.” She turned half away to wipe the dampness from her face on her cloak.
“And you go to the Sea Mountains to have the curse removed.”
“To ask. Even the Wise Witches may not be able to do that.”
“Your mother cursed the child for eternity?”
“No! The curse comes from causing my mother’s death.”
She heard him move closer in the darkness and shrank back in reaction. The false promise of comfort he brought made the now familiar torment of his nearness more powerful.
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