“Your mother deserved her fate.”
Erwyn tamped down an angry denial. A man would think that.
“She said not. She told me she knew a special magic to keep my father’s seed alive in her body. Only when she could no longer touch his mind with hers and was certain he was dead did she allow the child to be conceived. Or so she said. She did not know that madness, not death, had broken the bond between them.”
“And you think the Wise Witches can tell you if she spoke the truth.”
“Yes.” The single word rang with the pain of her doubt.
He moved quickly and took her hand in his. A flow of heat shot up her arms, then sank more slowly down through her body.
“You blame the child for your parents’ deaths?”
She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
“Your parents did not die because of her,” he said gently. “They died because one of them made a tragic mistake. But you don’t know which one. It wasn’t the child’s fault, in any case. It took me many years to learn that simple thing.”
Puzzled, she looked up at him, but saw nothing in his face but pain. Her free hand reached up to smooth the tension away.
She never knew what might have happened next if at that moment one of the guards had not come up to them.
He held a bedraggled man tightly by the arm and carried the stranger’s sword in his other hand. The guard pushed the man roughly toward Thalgor, so he fell at the leader’s feet. The guard handed Thalgor the sword, then left without a word.
Batte’s man, Erwyn thought as she pulled her hand back.
Thalgor inspected the well-worn sword while the stranger righted himself to kneel on one leg at the large man’s feet.
“I ask to become part of your band,” the man, no longer young, said in a tone of resignation.
Thalgor lowered the sword toward him. “Yes?”
“My band was small…”
“Marauders?”
“Yes.” The stranger hung his head. “We became too few to feed ourselves, so we turned marauders. A raiding party found us ten days ago. They killed all the other men and took what little we had–women, children, our few goods and tents. I was badly wounded and left for dead but, to my regret, the wound healed. It was too late to save my family. I have no wish to be a renegade, so I ask to join your band.”
The man slumped, as if this speech exhausted him.
Thalgor turned to Erwyn, who looked into the man’s heart.
“I see a good man, brave, and loyal,” she said quietly.
Thalgor grunted. After a moment’s thought, he turned the sword in his hand and offered its hilt to the man at his feet.
“Welcome, comrade.”
The man stood. The lines of weariness and grief etched in his face eased a bit, but he only nodded and took the sword.
“I follow you now.” He held the sword across his chest.
Thalgor motioned to the nearest guard to take the man into the camp and find him food and fresh clothes. The guard, one of Gurdek’s men Erwyn guessed, greeted the newcomer with a smile.
When they were gone, Thalgor turned to Erwyn. He placed one hand on her shoulder. Shivers of sensation rushed through her.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“For what?” She hated the breathlessness of her own voice, hated that she made no move to push his hand away.
“For what I have thought of you.”
“I let you think it. Wanted you to think it.”
“Why?”
“I thought motherhood might protect me.”
She smelled the leather of his breastplate, the subtle aroma of maleness that surrounded him. She smelled and savored, and hated herself for that as well.
“Protect you from what?”
She pulled free and sat back on the rock. “From you.”
He walked away and stood with his back to her.
“You know I cannot take you by force.”
“I did not want you even to think of me that way.”
He gave a low laugh. “As if I would take captive a witch and her child if I did not think of her that way.”
“But I have been useful to you.”
“Very useful,” he acknowledged, turning back toward her. “But I am not certain it has been worth the trouble you cause.”
“The trouble I cause?” She stood to face him. “I made an enemy of Batte, I know. But you can handle Batte. Otherwise I see no trouble I have caused you.”
He took her by the shoulders.
The delicate trembling in her body began again. The moon behind him shadowed his face so she saw only the movement of his head as he lowered it toward hers.
“No.” She pushed him away. “Never.”
She fled back to the camp, pursued not by Thalgor but by the Witch King’s voice saying, “Yes. Forever.”
*
Thalgor sat on the rock Erwyn had abandoned and laughed.
Not caused him trouble! The witch had done nothing else since he first set eyes on her.
She only troubled his body at first. Badly. So badly he could scarcely think of anything else, could scarcely sleep, could scarcely look at her without being awash in lust.
The lust had finally overwhelmed all that was sacred to him, even the memory of his mother’s suffering. His need to take doubled by the battle lust that day, he’d carried her off to the woods with every intention of breaking the only vow he ever took.
But she had been so vulnerable, so empty not only of her power, but almost of herself. Empty because she worked to save his wounded men, warriors who would not have been wounded if he’d listened to her warning.
The need to take had died when she fell asleep in his arms. In its place had grown something he could not name at first, but now knew was tenderness. A strange and unexpected thing, that tenderness.
Not that the lust went away. Once the witch was whole again, it returned double. And grew each day.
So he avoided her when he could and cursed his weakness for her when he couldn’t.
Tonight she had confided in him, allowed herself to weep, and he thought perhaps…
She had never been with a man, he realized with a sudden certainty.
His body was swept with waves of lust, tenderness, and a need to protect that fragile body with its great powers.
The Sea Witches gathered their strength from the sea and from their total devotion. She could not become one of them if she surrendered to her desire for him.
He never doubted her desire. He had witch blood enough to see it in her eyes, smell it in the air around her, feel it in her touch. That would have to be enough. For now.
Rygar waited when he reached the edge of the camp.
“Trouble?” Thalgor’s hand went to his sword.
The younger man shook his head. “Erwyn left the camp. You followed her. She returned alone. I came to make sure she didn’t turn you into a toad.”
Thalgor laughed. “Witches can’t do that. At least not ordinary witches.”
The two of them fell into step, walking parallel to the edge of the camp as if on guard duty.
“I know,” Rygar replied. “But it might be a good idea.”
“Why? So you can be leader of the band?” Thalgor joked.
Rygar laughed and shook his head. “I have no desire to lead. Only to help you be a better leader.”
“And to be turned into a toad would do that?”
Rygar sobered. “It might keep you from hurting Erwyn.”
Thalgor wanted to tell him he would never hurt Erwyn, but they both knew that was a vow he could neither make nor keep.
“You care so much for her yourself?” Thalgor’s heart paused as he waited for the answer.
He and Rygar shared much. But to share that tenderness…
Rygar laughed again.
“Erwyn is my friend. A sister, perhaps. But to be her man would be to live a life of constant battle.”
“Doesn’t that excite you?”
Th
e other man caught his involuntary confession and whistled softly between his teeth. “Not as it apparently excites you.”
“Don’t presume too much, archer.”
Rygar shook his head. “I’d sooner have Dara than Erwyn. Dara only wants your body. Erwyn would demand a man’s soul.”
“I know that all too well.”
In spite of his words, a sense of relief swept over Thalgor now that he had told Rygar what was inside him.
“You will be good together.” The younger man clapped him on the shoulder as they turned to enter the camp.
*
Erwyn went back to the ox cart, told the child a story to put her to sleep and fell into a restless sleep herself.
Thalgor haunted her dreams at first, then they shifted. She saw her father as he once was, his love for her and her mother in his every look. That same love was on her mother’s face as she cradled her second daughter. Nor did it ever falter when she looked at Erwyn, even when her older daughter accused her of the worst kind of betrayal.
Her father’s image returned, broken in body and mind by his enslavement.
“No,” she screamed against the dream. “No!”
Then she saw herself, holding the child, bathed in her parents’ blood.
She woke up in tears.
Three days later she could smell the sea. The scent spread a peace through her she had not known since her father’s capture over ten years before. But the sea’s nearness also brought a restlessness, fed by Thalgor’s now more open looks of desire.
The next day she heard a seagull cry and peace passed into joy. The restlessness became plans, plans to leave within hours instead of days.
She expected visions of the Witch King that night to tell her she must not go, but she slept dreamlessly.
Perhaps the warnings were only to keep her in Thalgor’s camp until he brought her safe this far. And now she was free for her destiny.
During the day she slid whatever food she could take into the bag she always carried at her waist. When they stopped for the night, she ate as much as she could bear.
She silently blessed the child as she put her to bed, and Gee, who slept beside her. She touched Rygar’s head lightly as she passed where he slept to bless him as well.
She lay down, but didn’t sleep. She waited for Thalgor to return from gambling with Gurdek and his second two fires away.
Finally he came back and extinguished their fire last of all in the camp, as he always did. She watched through half-closed eyes as he lay down beside Rygar.
When he snored, she filled a basket with food and, reluctant to steal an ox, tied it across her back. Then she left the camp.
She walked through the night. After a cold breakfast at dawn, she crawled to the center of a thicket to sleep.
A drizzling rain woke her in mid-afternoon. She walked the road openly now, certain Thalgor could be no closer than half a day behind her. If he followed her at all.
After he complained about how much trouble she caused him, she began to think he might let her go. He knew now why she needed to reach the Sea Mountains, and his desire for her was perhaps not enough for him to keep her from them. Or enough to make it worth the trouble to follow her.
That possibility caused her more pain than it should have.
She walked until the moon set, then slept beneath some bushes by the road. In the morning she found the bushes were heavy with tangy ripe berries and ate her fill.
She walked in daylight now, mind alert for renegades more than followers from Thalgor’s camp.
As her store of food dwindled, she ate less each day, except when she found more early berries to gorge herself on.
The hunger grew until she began to have waking dreams, always the same. A woman very like her mother stood by a fire. Erwyn could smell the rich aroma of the meat she cooked. The woman beckoned her onward, but never smiled.
The mountains on each side of the river she followed grew closer together. The road finally climbed half-way up the mountainside to keep from disappearing under the roaring water.
She found the climb hard in her weakened state, but the vision of food, now even more than the nearness of the sea, pulled her onward.
She ate the last of the dried fruit she’d brought as sunset colored the fog that crept in at the end of the sixth day. She huddled by a bush on the treeless mountain for shelter. Birds had already eaten the ripe berries. She was still hungry enough to taste the green ones, but their bitterness turned her empty stomach to pure bile.
She vomited them up, then turned greedy eyes to the white rush of water in the river below. But it would be folly to try to climb down through the rocks and slag to drink and bathe. Impossible to climb back up.
She lifted her eyes and for the first time saw a thin line of blue and gold shimmer in the sunset under the fog on the horizon.
The sea. Reconciled to dying within sight of her goal, she slept.
When she found herself still alive the next morning she trudged on through gray mist, only to be rewarded with a clear mountain stream around the next bend in the road.
She drank and washed, calm and joyful despite her hunger. Not only was the sea within sight, but a damp breeze ruffled her hair. Two more bends of the road and it all lay before her.
The sea stretched endlessly to the horizon, blue in the distance, gray-green near the shore, curling white waves on the beach. The fog had floated away to become a cloud. The beach sand was more golden than river sand, and she knew it would be finer.
Except for the mouth of the river where some great ancient cataclysm has split the wall of rock, the sea roared right up to the mountains that lined the shore on both sides as far as she could see. In some places rocks jutted out into the water, drenched with the spray sent up by the waves that crashed against them. Gulls landed, then soared away again from the tide.
The road wound down the mountainside until it crossed the river where it formed a great shallow fan on the beach. Half-way up the mountain opposite her was a great stone citadel half carved from, half build upon, the solid rock.
She had never seen a stone building before, only tumbled rocks where they had once stood. She marveled that human hands could make anything so ageless and beautiful, even with the help of the Wise Witches who lived there.
She hesitated before she followed the road to the beach, aware her every move could be seen from the citadel. No wonder it still stood. Even without the power of the Wise Witches to protect it, the great stone tower would be impervious to attack.
She found going down the road to the sea almost as hard as the climb behind her. Soon her calves ached. But she focused on the fresh water of the river and ignored both the steep climb up to the citadel ahead of her and her growling, empty stomach.
When she reached the river she followed it upstream to a wide, deep pool sheltered beneath low-hanging trees. She drank the cool, sweet water, then bathed. Afterward she floated on her back to ease her sore legs before she dried herself and dressed.
When she returned to the roadside to gather up her cloak and bag, a woman stood beside them. The unsmiling woman of her dreams.
“I am Mafern.” She was no longer young but not yet old, about the age Erwyn’s mother was at her death. “I am the youngest of the Sea Witches.”
Erwyn’s heart sank. If this was a young Sea Witch…
“I brought food.” Mafern held out a bag that smelled of fresh bread and fruit.
Erwyn managed to control her hunger enough to say “Thank you” and wait until Mafern handed her the bag, but then she sat down on the spot and greedily ate every bite. Mafern watched her with the same unsmiling face that had haunted Erwyn’s dreams.
“Come now,” Mafern said when Erwyn had eaten all the food.
Erwyn stood and immediately fell down again. Her legs didn’t simply ache. They would no longer hold her.
“Ah.” Mafern dropped to the ground beside her and pulled Erwyn’s gown up to her knees, then reached for the bag s
he wore at her belt and pulled out a vial of red ointment. Expertly she spread it on Erwyn’s legs and massaged them as she chanted softly.
The spice-scented potion and the Sea Witch’s touch healed more than Erwyn’s legs. All the weariness of the journey melted away with the pain. When she felt whole again, she nodded.
Mafern put her ointment away and held a hand out to help Erwyn stand. “Come now.”
The walk to the citadel was much less arduous than Erwyn had feared. A full stomach and a companion, however silent, made light work of the climb.
Still, the fog rose and the sun set behind them before they neared the great door of the citadel.
Mafern turned off the road and led Erwyn into a cave in what had seemed from across the river to be a solid wall of rock.
“You will sleep here tonight.” Mafern showed her a bed by a small, cheerful fire. “Do you need more food?”
“No, thank you.” Sleep already dimmed Erwyn’s senses.
“I will bring breakfast, then take you to the Wise Witches.”
Erwyn nodded and collapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Mafern woke her with milk, a bowl of berries, and more fresh bread. Then she led Erwyn into the citadel.
They followed long, twisted passages through dark, empty rooms and climbed well-worn stairs. Their steps echoed against the ancient stone walls. At each landing were two windows. One looked out over the sea, the other across the river toward the road.
As they climbed, Erwyn noticed someone come down the road, a mere speck from this distance. Slowly she was able to make out a man and an ox with baskets on each side of its back. A servant who brought food to the citadel, perhaps. She turned to cross the next empty room and climb the next long flight of stairs.
They emerged at last on what should have been the roof of the citadel. But rather than the stone and mortar Erwyn expected, she found herself surrounded by the perfume of a thousand flowers, the sweet scent of fruit-bearing trees, and the music of scores of singing birds.
Water leapt down a stone bridge from the mountainside to form a stream that meandered through the garden before it crossed another stone bridge to flow down the mountainside again.
Thalgor's Witch Page 7
