Thalgor's Witch

by Nancy Holland

  As she lay beside Thalgor one night, her body still humming with pleasure, the thought crept in unbidden that for such joy she would brave anything.

  Break your pledge to another man? A voice inside her asked.

  Yes. She sat bolt upright in the bed, gripped by an icy cold that had nothing to do with the driving rain outside.

  Thalgor grumbled in his sleep and turned his back to her, wrapping the cover more tightly around his shoulders.

  Had her mother felt for her uncle what she felt for Thalgor?

  She remembered how deeply her mother had loved her father, yearned for him long after his capture, mourned him when she could no longer touch his mind with her own and assumed him dead.

  Erwyn also remembered her uncle, a great warrior, if a flawed person, the man of her father’s sister.

  Could he have been moved, without Erwyn knowing it, by her mother’s wisdom and beauty, she by his skill as a leader?

  Perhaps. The only answer she ever got to such questions.

  But would her mother have broken not only her own pledge to Erwyn’s father, but also her uncle’s to her aunt for less than total passion? To think so was to deny everything Erwyn knew about her mother.

  Which left two possibilities. Either her mother had told the truth, however unlikely, about who Felyn’s father was, or she had succumbed, as Erwyn had, to a passion that made her betrayal understandable. To Erwyn, if not to her crazed father.

  She understood, but could she forgive?

  Her head began to ache. Thalgor rolled over and pulled her back down beside him. Wrapped close to his body, she let sleep answer the question for now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The intensity of his renewed passion with Erwyn made Thalgor feel truly bewitched by her. One night he decided to combat this new addiction to her body by standing guard with his men so that Rygar, who had a cold, could sleep.

  At the depth of the black, icy night he stood silently with two other warriors, sheltered from the raw wind by a few trees on a rise that overlooked the dozing oxen when he saw a movement on the far side of the herd. Then another, and another.

  He motioned to the two men half asleep beside him. One ran to alert the rest of the patrol, the other ran back to the camp.

  Thalgor divided his men and watched from the rise as half moved around to take the would-be thieves by surprise from behind. When they were close enough to the intruders, he led the rest of his men to where the thieves were trying to cut a dozen or so oxen from the herd and spirit them away.

  A raiding party, he judged from the number of oxen they intended to take. That meant they all must die.

  His heart heavier than it should have been, he raised his sword high so the fine metal glinted in what little light shone from the stars and a cloud-shrouded moon. Silently, his men fell on the enemy from two sides.

  Thalgor fought his way toward their leader. He found him directing battle with one hand and using the sword in the other hand to fend off one of Thalgor’s warriors. When that man saw Thalgor, he fell back so quickly the enemy leader had no time to shift his position before Thalgor’s sword swept his away.

  Thalgor laid his blade against the man’s neck just as the clouds moved away and a full moon shone like day on them both.

  The face that stared back in his, more in surprise than in fear, was younger than Rygar’s.

  “Kill me, but spare my men.”

  The motion of the young leader’s throat across Thalgor’s sword left scarlet drops of blood on his slender neck. Thalgor drew his sword away a fraction so it did not cut him more.

  “Do you know so little of battle?” he asked.

  “Enough. But my men are too young to die.”

  Thalgor gave a gruff laugh. “Younger than you?”

  The enemy leader nodded. Thalgor looked around to where his men held the rest of the raiding party captive. Indeed, they were more boys than men.

  Anger bristled through him at the need to kill children.

  “Why?” he roared at their leader, who still faced him with calm dignity.

  “Our band lost many women to a birthing sickness. Those who should have been our women have become the women of our elders. If we raid and are successful, we have more oxen to trade for slave women in the South. If we fail…”

  He shrugged, unable to say they had been sent to die.

  Thalgor swore and plunged his sword into the half-frozen earth at his feet.

  His men turned toward him. He heard Gurdek’s solid steps as he arrived at the battlefield with Sett at his side. Rygar came more slowly, wheezing slightly, followed by the surgeon, the bone-setter, the herbalist, and Erwyn, tying her hair back as she came. The sight of her sleep-softened face sent a sweet flame through Thalgor’s system even here.

  Without a word she went to the worst of the few wounded men from their band, the other healers following in her wake.

  Rygar and the rest looked with astonishment at the young faces of the captive men, and then with even more astonishment at where Thalgor’s sword stood half-buried in the ground.

  “Would you or your men go back to the camp of a leader who cares so little whether you live or die?” Thalgor asked the young man he had wounded.

  “We have our parents, our brothers and sisters.”

  “But you have no women, nor much hope of any.”

  “If we capture…”

  Thalgor didn’t let him finish. “Your leader sent you to capture oxen, not women. And the dark time ends, so your band will move north, not south to buy slave women.”

  The other man flinched, which made him look younger still.

  “And would you want to buy a woman?”

  The distaste on the young man’s face was clear. Something else to respect him for, Thalgor thought as he pulled his sword from the earth.

  The young leader’s eyes slid toward the now-dirtied sword, but he showed no sign of fear.

  “Why this conversation?”

  “You want me to spare your men. But you know I cannot if they will only return to your camp to steal from us again.”

  The young man sighed. For the first time, he lowered his head.

  “But if they wish to become members of my band…” Thalgor went on, then paused.

  The enemy leader and his own men all looked at him in open surprise.

  “You might find women among us, and we could use strong, young men and brave leaders.”

  The young man flushed. “My wounded…”

  Thalgor turned to Rygar. “Tell the witch to heal them all.”

  His second nodded and went quickly to where Erwyn was spreading salve on the wrist where a man’s severed hand had been.

  Satisfied at the approval in Rygar’s eyes, Thalgor looked to Gurdek and Sett and saw the same in theirs.

  “You have until the witch is through healing your wounded to talk with your men and decide.”

  Sett led the young man to where the rest of the captives huddled, surrounded by Thalgor’s men.

  “What a choice.” Gurdek laughed grimly. “Join us or die.”

  “With a leader like the one who sent them, they will die sooner or later anyway,” Thalgor replied. “What a fool to sacrifice brave young men so old ones can have women. Better to send them off as marauders, at least.”

  “But then their families would blame him instead of the enemy who killed them.”

  “I don’t wish to be that enemy. Where is Batte?”

  Gurdek hesitated. “His men are third rank tonight.”

  “He is with Dara?” Gurdek nodded. “You think I care?”

  “I’d prefer not to find out from your fist.”

  Thalgor laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

  Their prisoners, who had been murmuring among themselves, suddenly set up a cry.

  Thalgor saw Erwyn approach one of their comrades who lay crumbled on one side, a sword lodged between his ribs.

  “They think the witch means to kill him,” Sett reported.
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br />   “She might need to, if his wound is as bad as it looks. She calls it the gift of an easy death.”

  Sett shook his head. “I doubt his comrades will agree. It may turn them against your plan. Better to have gotten their allegiance first.”

  “Not without the witch to tell me if any are unworthy,” Thalgor explained.

  “A narrow pathway you’ve drawn for yourself, Thalgor.” Gurdek sighed. “And it grows narrower.”

  He gestured with his head. Batte strode toward them.

  “Why do these raiders live?” he asked.

  “Because they are but youths,” Thalgor answered wearily. “And we could use some young, strong arms.”

  “You don’t mean to take them into our camp?” Batte cast a cold glance at Erwyn, who was cleaning the sword wound on the fallen man she tended. “Are you so bewitched by this she-devil you no longer care for the fate of our band?”

  Thalgor found silence the easiest way to control his temper.

  “Dara is right.” Batte’s face reddened with rage. “You are a fool. An utter fool.”

  Gurdek stepped between them, hand on his sword.

  “Do you defy a leader who has saved us all a hundred times?”

  Rygar and Sett materialized at Thalgor’s side, arms crossed on their chests.

  Batte looked at the four men before him and shook his head.

  “I defy no one. I merely speak the truth.”

  “As you see it.” Gurdek took a step closer. “Now.”

  “As I saw it just a moment ago,” Batte echoed with a resigned air.

  Gurdek stepped back and took his hand from his sword.

  “But I do not trust the witch,” Batte added as he strode away again.

  “He worries me,” Gurdek said.

  “He will see things differently in a year or two when those young men have made our camp strong and rich enough to divide so he can lead his own band,” Thalgor told him.

  “If their women will leave that walled camp of yours,” Sett commented with a chuckle.

  “Oh, yes, the wall,” Thalgor sighed.

  Was peace worth losing his bravest, most skilled lieutenant? Was the wall worth losing his oldest friend?

  Not questions to be answered at dawn on a battlefield, he decided, and went to find a fire to warm him until Erwyn finished healing the enemy wounded.

  *

  The young raiders agreed to join the band. None showed a black heart when Erwyn looked into them, so all were welcomed.

  Still the air was thick with the acrid smell of danger. It burned Erwyn’s lungs as she followed Thalgor back to the tent.

  At dawn she rose to wash it from her body, but it lingered on her clothes. She washed them in the stream she bathed in and walked back to the tent through the early morning frost wrapped in nothing more than her cloak, which reeked of danger, too.

  Only the tuft of herbs she lit in their chamber on her return drove the smell away so she could dress and face the day.

  “What?” Thalgor asked when he came back from his sunrise walk through the camp to eat, and smelled the cleansing herbs.

  Erwyn paused in braiding her hair. “Danger.”

  “Where?”

  She spread her arms, one hand still holding the long braid of her hair. “Everywhere.”

  “Is it this place?”

  “In this camp.”

  He shook his head. “That’s impossible. I know every soul in this camp. There is no danger among them. You are a witch. Surely you can see where the danger is.”

  “I could find a large danger, but this is a small danger everywhere, like the rumble of faraway thunder. Only when it grows loud enough can I see where the lightening is.”

  “Has it to do with the stones?”

  She searched with her mind, but saw only the acid-green cloud all around.

  “No.”

  “I am not the fool Batte thinks me, but I sometimes think I must be mad to share my tent with a witch, much less my bed.”

  An icy chill ran through her, deeper than the pain at his words. The acrid smell of danger turned darker, more bitter.

  She no longer heard minds wondering about her in the camp, but the danger might lie with a few who had moved beyond wondering to anger and fear, their hatred half-buried in the many who no longer wondered because her magic had saved so many lives. But she wasn’t certain enough to say anything to Thalgor.

  “Tell me if you see more.” His tone had gentled. “Do not fear. There is always danger and we are always stronger.”

  She held on to that “we” as they left the chamber to eat their breakfast and the day began.

  *

  They made camp near the stones a few days later. The first job for the stone workers was to build the wall and cisterns for the two springs that fed the creek on one side of the camp.

  The first job for Thalgor was to face a rash of disputes over whose tents should be closest to the water.

  The usual plan for the camp put barracks on all sides, but the council decided it made no sense to give warriors who ate in a common mess the easiest access to water. So they put the tents belonging to Gurdek, Sett, Batte, and Tynor on the edge near the stream, trading the prize places for the need to feed and house guards. In spite of the fact that Thalgor kept his own tent in the center of the camp, many saw the decision as favoring his lieutenants.

  As the dispute grew, Batte and Tynor complicated things by surrendering their tent sites to a very large family and an elderly couple cared for by a daughter with a withered leg. Gurdek, with the midwife’s children as well as his own in his tent, and Sett, who also had several children and an aged mother, stood firm.

  That only spread the dispute to the next row of tents.

  “So, witch,” Thalgor sighed after a long day of hearing complaints, “where is your wisdom on this?”

  “Am I to blame for human nature?” Erwyn replied, a bit sharply. “It will calm down soon enough. Once everyone is fully settled, no one will want to move.”

  He rubbed his temples. “What do you have for this headache?”

  Before the complaints about the tents faded a new conflict arose.

  The stone workers, who did heavy labor every day, felt the herdsmen, who spent their time watching docile livestock, weren’t doing their share of the work. The herdsmen, well aware of the lambing, calving, and shearing that came with the warm time, claimed the guards, who waited all day for an enemy who never appeared, were the ones with little to do. The guards, for their part, complained about the few men who, like Rygar, spent their days teaching tales to the children and battle skills to the older boys.

  The throbbing in Thalgor’s head grew worse each day.

  “Every fourth day have the herdsmen move rocks, even if they cannot build with them,” Erwyn suggested as she handed him a cup of the nasty tea that eased his pain. “Have the guards watch the herds, and the stone workers stand guard. Have all the teachers do as Rygar does, teach in the morning and work at one of the other jobs in the afternoon.”

  The council agreed, Batte reluctantly because he had no liking for livestock.

  “Teach sword skills, then,” Rygar suggested with a smile.

  Batte, who was no fonder of children, grunted in response.

  “Or tell yourself you guard the livestock rather than herd them, with panthers as enemies rather than men,” Sett suggested to the same unsatisfying response.

  The disputes grew fewer, the weather warm enough for the women to set up their looms. Building the wall temporarily took second place to the more familiar occupations of planting and birthing animals. The calm of warm time crept over the camp.

  But Thalgor was more aware each day that leading a wandering band was a very different thing than being responsible for a band that lived in a fixed place. Sometimes at night he heard the echoes of those he decided against in disputes muttering as they walked away.

  “Batte is right. Our leader is bewitched.”

  *

 
; As the other bands moved north, it was inevitable the camp would be attacked before the wall around it was fully built.

  When the day came that scouts reported warriors on their way, Erwyn searched her mind and saw an attack Thalgor’s men could easily repulse. She continued to care for the warm time’s first new mother as she labored hard to deliver twin babies who would also need Erwyn’s care as soon as they arrived.

  The tiny pair, their harsh breathing eased by Erwyn’s magic and herbs, were enjoying their first meal when Rygar came to say the battle was over and her healing was needed.

  Seeing no barracks on the stream side of the camp, the enemy had attacked there. Since they expected a quick and easy victory, they sent almost all of their men into the battle. But the stream was well-guarded and Gurdek’s men, although outnumbered, defeated them easily.

  Batte’s men came on the scene in time to follow the fleeing enemy to their own poorly-defended camp and quickly captured it. The attackers, caught between the two, could only run helter-skelter into the woods or be slaughtered where they stood. In the chaos that followed many were killed or wounded, and the stream beside the camp ran red with blood.

  Erwyn healed as she always did, then made her weary way back across the battlefield toward the tent to rest. A hand grabbed her ankle and a rough voice cried, “Heal me, witch.”

  She looked down and saw a young man she had grown up with among her own people. He must have joined the attacker’s band after their camp was destroyed. He was a good man, and a talented flute player. Felyn had loved to listen to him play.

  Erwyn greeted the man and dropped to one knee beside him.

  “Have you a family now in your new camp?” she asked as she inspected the deep gouge an arrow had carved under his ribs.

  “Yes.” He drew a sharp breath at the pain. “But this band will take my woman, who carries our child.”

  “This band does not sell captives as slaves,” Erwyn assured him as she reached for her bag. “Would you join us if you live?”

  “I will do anything to see our child born.”

  Erwyn nodded, busy now with his wound. It wasn’t until she had finished bandaging it and helped the man to sit that she fully realized what she had done.