Witchlanders

by Lena Coakley

  Maiden’s woe was everywhere. Every time he saw some, he had to leave the bar and wade to the bank, and the river was bitterly cold. Still, Ryder plunged his hands into the icy water with relish. The plants needed water, and it was satisfying to see how quickly they began to shrivel in the sun after he’d pulled them up and tossed them out onto the shore. He tried to push aside the feeling that it was too late, that his mother had taken so many of the flowers that keeping her away from them now might even hasten her death. She was Mabis. Her will—and his—would keep her alive. For the rest of the morning, he attacked the black trumpets like a soldier killing his enemies.

  It was when the sun was high in the sky that he began to hear it. A sound. An evil sound—and it seemed to be coming from just up ahead. Metal scraping stone—where had he heard that phrase before? In a flash it came to him: It was how Dassen had described the singing of the Baen right before the attack on Barbiza. Some Baen magician must have crossed the border! Cursing, Ryder took off along the sandbar at full speed, his waterlogged shoes slapping the water as he ran.

  Abruptly the song stopped.

  Hush-sh-sh. Hush-sh-sh. There was another sound in his ears now. It was like a great forest of dry leaves rattling in the wind. A waterfall, he thought; it must be huge. But turning a bend in the river, he found that the falls were smaller and farther away than he had imagined. A thin stream of water tumbled over a rocky wall and into a green lake thick with maiden’s woe. The rock wall hugged the edge of the water and amplified the sound of the falls. Hush-sh-sh. Hush-sh-sh.

  “I know you’re here, Baen!” Ryder shouted. His voice echoed with the sound of the water. He waded to shore as quickly as he could, then ran around the sandy edge of the lake toward the waterfall.

  No one. There was no one. If a Baen had been here, he must have melted into the rocks. Ryder turned a circle where he stood, spray from the waterfall wetting his face. He was alone. And yet he had the oddest feeling that someone had just been there, disturbing this peaceful place.

  There was a small rocky outcropping in the center of the lake, with a bridge of haphazardly placed stones leading out to it. Thinking it might be the best way to see the whole panorama of the shore, he ran back and hopped from stone to stone toward the slippery little island. When he got there, he looked up and down the sandy bank of the lake, but there was nothing to see.

  The music must have been in his mind. His mother was right: There was a Baen in his head.

  A fisherwing screamed its call and Ryder jumped, startled. The screech had sounded in his ear, but, stepping back and looking up, he could see the bird on a high ledge above the waterfall—a trick of the echoing rock walls.

  Suddenly he cried out in astonishment. Two huge pairs of eyes stared out at him from either side of the falls. It was a mosaic: the faces of two women set in multicolored stones. Before, it had been obscured by the water and by jutting rocks, but from this one spot on his little island, Ryder could see it perfectly.

  One woman was like him, blond and blue-eyed, while the other, like the girl in white, clearly had Baen blood. Ryder knew they were witches, though, both of them. They both wore the mark of Aayse on their throats: two red slashes depicted in crimson stone, the symbol for the vow of silence. This lake must be some holy place, Ryder thought. He must have gone so far upriver that he was now at the base of witch territory.

  At his feet he saw the glimmer of colored tiles. Two footprints marked the rock, inlaid in green and gold. Ryder placed his feet on the marks, and the falls grew louder; they made his whole body vibrate. As he listened, it seemed to him that the lake was not as murky as it had been a moment before—he could clearly see the roots of the maiden’s woe reaching down into the mud. The two women looked down at Ryder so serenely. They were beautiful in their opposition: dark and light, like morning and evening, like two sides of a coin. Yes, this was a holy place.

  No Baen would dare make magic here.

  “Stay out of my head, you blackhair!” Ryder yelled to the sky. The echoes of his voice swirled around him like music.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE CHILLING

  Ryder’s soaked woolen leggings clung to him, and his leather shoes had begun to fall apart, but he felt oddly pleased. He’d found the source of his mother’s flower. And he’d caught her a fish. It was still twitching in his net when he came up over the prayer hill, but the moment he looked down on the family’s land, he dropped the net and ran.

  The stand of trees was still there, and most of the barn, but the cottage . . . The cottage looked as if it had been blown apart by a great wind. Ryder hurtled down the hill. When he got to the clearing, he stood, his breath in shallow gasps, struggling to take in what he saw. Only the door frame was left standing, and the table Ryder’s father had made, still covered with dirty breakfast plates. The rest of the cottage lay in piles of rubble and toppled walls. Pots and pans were strewn over the ground, and shelves and furniture lay splintered as if dropped from a great height.

  “Mabis!”

  Ryder cast his eyes through the debris but saw no sign of her. He stepped into the rubble, pushing aside stones and lifting up bits of broken furniture. A corner of blue fabric poked up from underneath the stones of the toppled fireplace—his mother’s shawl. Heart thumping in his ears, he kneeled to uncover it, trying to remember if Mabis had it on that morning—but it was just the shawl. Mabis wasn’t there.

  “Hello!” he called again, desperation in his voice. From around the barn came a chilling moan.

  “Maba!” he cried, and ran toward the sound. It wasn’t his mother.

  Yellowhead’s eyes rolled, and pink foam streamed from his lips. He lay on the ground in a pool of blood, both back legs broken. When Ryder came close, Yellowhead strained in terror to get up, screaming again. Ryder had never known a horse could make such a human sound. The tortured pain of it sent a wave of nausea through his body.

  “Whoa, boy. It’s me, boy. It’s me.” Ryder dropped to the ground and lay beside the horse, his arm around his neck. Yellowhead blinked his eyes and stopped straining.

  “Goddess, Goddess, Goddess,” Ryder whispered to himself. “I don’t want to have to kill him. Don’t make me have to kill my horse.”

  Just then a great shudder radiated through the horse’s body, and Yellowhead was still. It took Ryder a moment to realize that the first prayer he had ever made had been abruptly answered.

  “Aata’s ghost, don’t just sit there, you fool!” Ryder looked up to see Dassen standing red faced before him. He was holding his sword, the Baenkiller, over his head.

  “We can’t afford a new horse,” said Ryder weakly. He saw that his hands were covered with Yellowhead’s blood, and he quickly wiped them on his shirt, leaving red streaks. Dassen was looking over his shoulder.

  “Quick, boy. Come with me. There are more behind me.”

  “But my mother!”

  “She’ll be safe. She knew it was coming, remember?”

  They ran, Dassen gripping him by the wrist, pulling him along. A few times he stopped to circle back as if to confuse their tracks, as if something were following them.

  “Where are we going?” Ryder demanded, but Dassen didn’t answer.

  Suddenly there it was, right in front of them: a thing that couldn’t exist, a monster straight out of his mother’s twisted nightmares. A walking grave.

  It was a man—at least, it had the rough, ungainly form of a man—but it seemed to be made of packed brown earth. It swayed back and forth in front of them, as if it didn’t so much see them as sense their vibrations. A wide mouth hole opened and shut, opened and shut, in the middle of its face, but other than that it had no features—not even eyes. Dassen motioned for Ryder to stay still and lifted his sword, but just as the blade came singing through the air, the creature leaned out of its path. It grabbed the sharp tip of the weapon and pulled Dassen to his knees.

  “Go! Ryder, go!” shouted Dassen.

  Ryder turned and started to run, but an
other creature was staggering toward them. Ryder couldn’t fathom how it could be real, how it could move. It looked like something a child would build out of the river mud and leave to crumble in the sun. He felt his stomach shrink, and he backed up into Dassen.

  “I told you to get out of here,” the tavern keeper barked. He was on his feet now, swinging his sword with lightning speed at the first creature.

  “There’s another one,” said Ryder. “We’re trapped!”

  “Take this!” Dassen thrust the Baenkiller into his hands.

  Ryder knew he should object, but the second creature was almost upon him. Without thinking, he attacked, stabbing at it with all his strength. The sword made a dull, muffled sound as it entered the creature’s body, exactly as if Ryder had plunged it into the ground. He yanked the weapon back, only to find it had made no mark. Fear gripped him. He raised the sword again, but the thing gave a swoop of its arm and the Baenkiller was ripped from Ryder’s hand. The next thing he knew his skull was hitting a tree with a thudding crack. Pain shot through him. He struggled to stay conscious, but everything around him was doubled and spinning.

  Dassen rushed to stand between Ryder and the creatures, fighting them both now with only his bare fists. One of them landed a powerful blow to his jaw, sending him to the ground, but the tavern keeper was up in moments, pressing on, his fists a blur. A piece of one of the creatures flew off and landed on the ground right beside Ryder. Dazed, he picked it up, crumbling it to nothing between his fingers. Dirt. It was just dirt. How could these things exist?

  Ryder thought of running—Dassen had told him to, after all—but what chance would the tavern keeper have on his own? Slowly Ryder stood up. The sword glinted on the ground just beyond the fight. Without taking his eyes from Dassen and the creatures, Ryder slipped around them and picked up the weapon. He was close enough to smell the creatures now, but there was nothing strange about them; they smelled like tilled soil. He crept up behind one of them and positioned himself for a mighty strike. He swung the sword as hard as he could. In a spray of brown clumps, the creature’s head left its body!

  Ryder felt joy surge through him—but the feeling didn’t last long. A stone at his feet whizzed toward the creature, then a clump of earth. Ryder ducked and shielded his head as sticks and bits of debris came flying toward the creature from all directions. It was as if there was some powerful magnet at its core that pulled matter to it when it needed to reform itself. In moments it was whole again. Now both creatures turned and lurched toward him. He swung the sword wildly, stumbling back.

  “Don’t take my ear off, boy!” Dassen shouted.

  Again the tavern keeper was pushing himself between Ryder and the creatures, punching with fists that seemed to be made of iron. One of the creature’s arms broke off and came sliding to the ground, but that hardly seemed to slow it down. Ryder could see how formidable Dassen must have been during the war, but he could also see that the older man was losing. The more he fought, the more the creatures grew new limbs from the earth and debris at their feet.

  All at once, the two creatures encircled Dassen, seemed to merge around him. Ryder could hear his screams, but he could barely see Dassen now—the creatures were trying to suffocate him.

  Ryder lifted the sword again and started hacking at the earth surrounding Dassen’s body. The tavern keeper’s arms were still visible, and Ryder could see his face—it was twisted with fear and pain.

  “Grab my hand!” Ryder shouted, but Dassen didn’t seem to hear. Ryder managed to grab one of his arms. As hard as he could, he pulled, and pulled again.

  “Just go, you fool!” Dassen moaned. “Just leave me!” but Ryder strained with all his strength.

  Finally Dassen came loose, and Ryder fell back hard, the heavy man on top of him. They both stumbled to their feet, but Dassen winced when he tried to put weight on his right leg. In front of them, the ground was a churning mass of earthen arms, flailing out in search of their lost victim.

  “Can you make it to the village?” Ryder said, quickly picking up the sword again.

  “We don’t have to,” Dassen answered. He put his arm around Ryder for support. “Just get me to the river!”

  Another creature came to the edge of the river as Dassen and Ryder stood in the shallows. It didn’t exactly look at them, as it had no eyes, but it seemed to know they were there. It stood on the bank, swaying back and forth as if it could smell them. It didn’t come into the water, though, and after a while it lumbered away. Stand in the river, Mabis had said. And she’d been right.

  She’d been right about everything.

  “The fish!” Ryder said, a realization washing over him. “My mother sent me upriver to get a fish. She did it to get me away—to save me. She knew this was going to happen!”

  Dassen nodded, not the least surprised, and Ryder remembered how Mabis had trusted him to believe her when no one else did. Ryder promised himself he would be like Dassen from now on. He would never doubt his mother again.

  Time passed. The two men stood shivering in water up to their thighs, not knowing if it was safe to leave. Pain warped Dassen’s face. He had limped badly getting here and now leaned heavily on Ryder’s shoulder.

  “I can’t see the mill,” Ryder said. His voice was hollow. The valley was lit by shafts of late afternoon sunlight, though darkness seemed to be coming with surprising speed. He should be able to see the mill and the little houses along the road where the blacksmith lived with his wife and sons. He told himself that he was wrong, that he couldn’t really have seen those things from this vantage point. He must be too far away.

  “They’ll be in the river,” Dassen assured him. “I did what your mother said. I told every single one of them—more than once.”

  He had, too; Ryder didn’t doubt it. The villagers would have thought he’d gone mad—but they wouldn’t think so now.

  “I’ve got to get you back to town,” said Ryder. Dassen’s shivering was growing worse, and his face was ashen under his beard. “We’ll follow the river. It will keep us safe.”

  “Not for long. Look at the sky.”

  Ryder looked up. Behind him, fingers of dark purple stretched toward them from over the mountain. The chilling. “Aata’s blood, why today?”

  “We should thank the Goddess it wasn’t yesterday,” Dassen said.

  “How long have we got?”

  The tavern keeper shook his head. “Could be anytime. I think you should go—make your way down to the valley. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I won’t leave you!”

  “I’ll follow as quickly as I can. Go, boy. I’d do the same in your place.”

  “Really, Dass? You’d leave me injured in the river with the chilling coming? I don’t believe that for a moment.” A thought occurred to him. “Just what are you doing so far from the valley? Are you going to tell me you just went for a walk? You’re here because you came to help me and my mother, to see if we were safe—don’t tell me you’d leave.” Dassen looked away. “Now put your weight on my shoulder. We’ve got to get out of the water—now. Just pray those things are gone.”

  Dassen clambered painfully up onto the bank. “I see them!” he cried. At first Ryder thought he was talking about the monsters—but there was joy in Dassen’s voice. “There are people in the water! Look! Down by the bridge!”

  It was true. As Ryder squinted through the trees, he could just make out a tight group of villagers standing in the river. They had listened. Maybe his mother was down there with them. Ryder was sure she would have saved herself. After all, she’d sent him to the safety of the river at the right time. She’d known.

  “Here it comes!” Dassen warned, looking up at the sky.

  Ryder had a moment to stumble out of the water and prepare himself. Then, like a heavy weight pressing down from above, the cold came. Ryder heard a hissing sound, like an intake of breath, as the water on his clothing froze stiff. He gasped, and Dassen let out a bellow of pain. Cold. Frigid cold.

/>   “Hurry up!” said Dassen. “Keep moving.” His words were clouds in the air now, and his beard was white with ice. Above them the clouds, like purple fingers, seemed to reach out to grip the valley. Winter had arrived.

  “The river will be frozen by tomorrow,” said Ryder. “What will we do about the creatures then?”

  “We’ll fight. And we’ll pray to the Goddess. What else can we do? We don’t even know what these things are or what magic made them.”

  What magic. Out of the blue, Ryder remembered the singing he’d heard in his mind, and he remembered the conversation he’d had with his mother that morning. Something even colder than the chilling snaked its way around his heart and tightened its grip.

  “Yes we do know, Dassen,” he said. “My mother told me. She said there was a Baen in the mountains. He must have made these things.”

  Dassen’s face hardened. Then he looked at Ryder and smiled grimly. “Well, we Witchlanders know how to kill a Baen, don’t we?”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE COVEN

  Pima’s hair was damp with sweat, and her brow was creased. Even in her sleep, she looked troubled. Ryder knelt next to the small bed, feeling awkward in his borrowed clothes.

  He didn’t want to be here. Being inside in this too-warm witch’s hut made him feel singled out, favored. He should be with the other villagers, standing on the outskirts of the coven in the bitter cold, warming his hands over the bonfires and waiting for word from the coven elders. All the way up the mountain, the villagers had talked of blood. There had been deaths in the valley—few because of Mabis’s warning—but enough to give them all a taste for revenge. Soon, Ryder hoped, the witches would add to their number, and in the morning they would all swarm across the border like a tide.