The River Witch

by Helena Rookwood

  Lysander sped swiftly and silently over the dull, green-and-grey landscape. It was almost as flat as it had been near Tabitha's village and he thought it mostly ugly, but it made for swift progress. And in spite of the best efforts of the autumn drizzle to saturate the ground, this was heaven to travel across compared to the marshy landscape that Tabitha lived in. At least this time Lysander could track her without the difficulties the mud and the river had presented. He checked the knives at his side again; yes, they were sharp and ready.

  As the signs that someone had travelled ahead of him became more recent, Lysander abandoned the horse and began moving over the land more carefully, keeping to cover and frequently checking back to the riverside to make sure he hadn't passed Tabitha by mistake. It slowed his progress, but Lysander was keen to get things right this time. He wouldn't so much as allow himself time to study the girl. He would strike immediately.

  There was no room for any mistake, Lysander told himself firmly as he ran through a small patch of woodland. The Iron Court had been lenient with him once, but they would not accept a second failure. He ignored the niggling frustration that they had continued to refuse to tell him what this hagstone was exactly. That wasn't his concern, they had insisted; all he had to worry about was retrieving it from the girl. She might not have looked dangerous to Lysander; but that didn't mean that she wasn't. She had fled the village the moment the fae had arrived, Lysander thought. Perhaps she really was tied up with some greater plot.

  Lysander sighed heavily, and checked in his racing thoughts. It wasn't like him to worry like this. Shaking his head in a poor effort to try and clear it, he veered back towards the river to make another check.

  Lysander had barely left the cover of the trees before he was forced to drop to the ground to avoid being seen. Up ahead, a figure was crouched at the edge of a wide blue lake. His gaze flicked to a wooden construction in the distance. A village, he supposed, although not one that he had visited in the past. Lysander could have kicked himself; he should have spotted the thin fingers of smoke rising from the houses long before now. If Tabitha was already in the village – if she decided to stay there – that would make his task much more difficult again.

  His gaze returned to the figure by the lake. Even Lysander's sharp eyes weren't sharp enough to make out who it was from this distance. It could be a villager, but if it was Tabitha he ought to strike now, before she reached the protection of the village. He needed to get closer.

  Lysander shifted into a crouching position, and assessed the land before him. There was a slight rise in the land all around the lake, forming a defensive ring around the water; perhaps if he could make it that far unobserved, he could get a better view from above of who exactly was sitting by the lake, and if it was Tabitha, take her off-guard.

  With animal-like predatory instincts, Lysander made his way swiftly and carefully across the ground between them, his eyes constantly assessing for cover, checking all around him to make sure it wasn't a trap. Unlikely as it was out here, he wasn't about to take any risks. He reached the foot of the mound, the other side of which was his quarry, and remained very still, listening to make sure that he had not been seen. He frowned. The sound that reached his ears was sobbing... and what sounded like several voices. He was sure there had only been one figure by the lake. Lysander carefully lowered his pack to the ground and crept slowly up the side of the mound, being careful not to make a sound. There were definitely voices.

  Bracing himself and drawing his knives in case it was a trap, Lysander peered over the crest of the hill to where the figure was crouching down below.

  It took him a moment to register what he was seeing. It was the girl he had been looking for – he knew it as soon as he saw that dark head of hair – and she was in tears. But she wasn't alone.

  Lysander saw the little people at her side – making her cry! – and some ancient noble instinct kicked in.

  Gripping his iron knives firmly, Lysander rushed down the hill.

  ***

  Tabitha wiped her eyes, and exhaled slowly. She needed to pull herself together; it wouldn't do to go to pieces at such a small setback. She tried to organise her thoughts.

  If the villagers remained angry, it probably wasn't sensible to remain so close by. So they needed to set off again soon. But where should she go now? She wondered whether it was still worth going to the village that Mica had mentioned a little to the south. Would they know what had happened in this village, and that she had been held to blame? Would she get the same reception there? Even if she did, perhaps if she could find out some more information about the Iron City then that would still make it worthwhile... and if she didn't go there, but returned to following the river, would she had to wait for weeks again before stumbling across another village? It was so hard to know what to do.

  The sprites were still clustered about her, murmuring soft consolations. At least she had them. She briefly considered asking them for their opinion, but after their reaction to her original suggestion to visiting the village, Tabitha thought she knew what they would say anyway. What was she to do?

  As her mind raced, Tabitha suddenly became aware that the sprites had gone very still. She looked down, and for a split second she thought she saw rage on their faces like she had never seen in them before. But then she heard a cry from behind her, and the sprites sprung away from her side, racing towards the source of the sound.

  Tabitha stumbled backwards, almost into the shallows of the lake, holding her arms up defensively. But no one attacked her. Still keeping her arms up in front of her, she looked up.

  A strange man was whirling around before her, a sharp black knife in each hand, stabbing and slashing with unbelievable speed as he tried to attack the sprites. His movements were so fast and precise that he somehow reminded Tabitha of the master fisherman from her village, wielding the kind of skill that should only be possible after a lifetime of dedication. And yet, Tabitha thought, the man only looked around five years older than she was. She watched, mesmerised, as he spun and stabbed and deftly parried the advances of the sprites. She flinched as the sprites made contact with his fingers and his neck, the only exposed bits of flesh, the man crying out as their little sharp teeth drew blood. It was hard to keep track of them as they all moved so fast, and Tabitha felt quite overwhelmed, as well as quite unable to help.

  Yet at the same time another part of Tabitha's mind was whirring. Who was this man? He certainly didn't look like any of the villagers she had seen yesterday... his hair was fair, a bright gold that she had never seen on anyone else before, his skin pale; whereas the villagers' had been darker, like the people of her own village, skin seasoned by outside work. His clothes were carefully fitted, designed to give him ease of movement. And the blades he carried at his side seemed to flash, sharper than any stone knife she had ever seen before, and like nothing she had spotted while she had been inside the village yesterday...

  A third part of Tabitha's mind gave her a little push. Never mind all of that – she needed to do something.

  Recovering from her surprise, Tabitha crawled as quickly as she could towards her bag. Her faery friends were right – perhaps humans were the ones she needed to be wary of after all, and not the little folk. She picked up the stone knife she had brought with her, but another glint from the long, shining knives that this stranger was wielding made her drop it again. Her eyes lit upon ACompendium of Faerie. It was a very heavy book...

  Without thinking any further, Tabitha grabbed the Compendium and raced towards the stranger.

  “Leave them alone!” she cried, and swung the book at him with all of her force.

  The man easily dodged her swing, dancing nimbly aside, but he stopped slicing his blades through the air turned to look her in surprise. The sprites halted too, waiting to see what Tabitha would do.

  Tabitha folded her arms, and mustered all of the authority she could. It had worked when she first met the sprites, after all... maybe it would work now. />
  “What do you think you're doing, attacking me and my friends?” she demanded in her best imitation of her grandmother. She hoped it wasn't too obvious that she had been crying. Perhaps her red eyes would make her look angrier.

  For a moment the concentration on the man's face slipped, his expression completely open. His eyes widened, his mouth slackened, and he seemed to be floundering.

  “Well?”

  Tabitha tried to scowl at him – but there was something about such an open face that made her hesitate.

  “I'm rescuing you from these imps!” the man burst out, spreading his hands out in a wide, baffled gesture. “What do you think I'm doing?”

  “Imps!” the sprites hissed in indignation, and they relaunched their attack, baring their teeth and swiping at him with their sharp fingers. But having seen Tabitha rush to their defence, the man refused to retaliate and just batted them away.

  “These are my friends,” Tabitha said firmly, “and they're not imps, they're sprites.”

  The man could not have looked more surprised if Tabitha had joined in with the fight.

  “Forgive me,” he said, slapping at Ani with his hand as she tried to take a bite out of his ear, “I simply was passing, and thought that you were in trouble. I had heard that the fae were not friendly towards humans.”

  At this he shot a dark look at the sprites. Tabitha glanced at them too, and the moment she did they retreated from their attack on the stranger and returned to her side, clinging to her forcefully.

  “Don't listen to him,” Corida hissed in her ear. “He attacked us!”

  The man sheathed his knives and held his hands up.

  “I was not trying to hurt you,” he repeated, fixing his eyes on Tabitha. “There have been reports of fae attacking villages. I just wanted to help you.”

  Tabitha hesitated. The fae had attacked her... and the village she had just passed.

  “These sprites have been better friends to me than any humans I've met recently,” she said uncertainly.

  “Then I apologise,” the stranger said instantly. “Please, accept my apology, and believe me that I wanted to help you.”

  Tabitha was nervous. The sprites were still hissing in her ear, still protesting that they didn't like this stranger. But that openness in his face... Tabitha wanted to trust him. She tried to hide her nerves, straightened her back, and ensured that her voice remained authoritative.

  “I'm Tabitha,” she said, and she stuck out a hand.

  ***

  Lysander looked at the hand outstretched towards him. And he took it.

  “I'm Lysander,” he said, and he looked at her keenly.

  It was strange to see her at such close range – to talk to her, even – after keeping his distance for so long. She really did look strikingly similar to Madeleine. It was the bone structure, he decided, not just the dark hair. Her eyes were dark like Madeleine's too – almost black. And perhaps it was just because he had Madeleine as a point of comparison, but Lysander thought that Tabitha looked very, very young.

  “Well, I'm pleased to meet you Lysander,” she said with a half-smile. “Now that you've put those knives away, anyway.”

  Her face was disarmingly innocent. Beneath the downturned eyebrows and the head held high, her eyes were still red-rimmed and her hand trembled under his. She was also considerably cleaner and neater than he thought she should have been after weeks of travelling. What had happened to her?

  “Forgive me if this is improper,” Lysander said as gently as he could, “but you seem distressed. Is everything okay?”

  For a moment Tabitha wavered, evidently unwilling to disclose everything to him. Lysander brought forth every ounce of the charm that had made him the best thief in the Iron City.

  “Apart from a stranger setting on you with knives, I suppose,” he added with his most captivating lopsided grin.

  This brought about the quirk of the lips he'd expected. Tabitha was clearly trying hard not to smile, but he could see her relaxing a little as he joked with her. Lysander's trained eyes took in everything as she began to drop her guard.

  “I had a bit of a... a bit of a run-in with the village,” she said slowly, gesturing to the settlement behind her. She paused. “You weren't entirely out of line to think that the fae aren't to be trusted... No, don't be like that.”

  The fae at Tabitha's side – sprites, she had called them – were obviously disgruntled at this, tugging viciously at her hair and digging their fingers into her skin. They were strange-looking, like insects, and not at all what Lysander had expected them to look like, having seen pictures in the books that Madeleine had collected over the years. And yet for some reason there was something about them which seemed strangely familiar to him. Lysander frowned.

  Tabitha meanwhile was hurrying to explain herself to them.

  “Not you three!” she said hastily. “I would never say that of you three.”

  One of them dug its fingers harder into her skin.

  “Please, Ani! You

  “And who chased you out of the village?” the second said. “Fae, or cruel humans?”

  “I know! I know.”

  “And who comforted you afterwards?” the third finished. “Before

  The sprites all turned to glare at Lysander.

  “Look,” Tabitha said insistently, “I promise, I trust you. I didn't mean anything by it, honestly. I just want to figure out

  Lysander took all of this in. No matter what Tabitha said, he wasn't sure he trusted these sprites, at all.

  She turned back to Lysander. “In the village, a host of fae creatures arrived overnight, and they wrecked everything they could find in the village. I woke this morning to chaos, and the villagers... they thought I was to blame. Because I'd only just arrived the previous day. And they ran me out.”

  Interesting, Lysander thought, that Tabitha had been present both when the fae had arrived in her home village, and now in this obscure village too. He'd lied when he told her that there had been reports of fae attacking other villages; the only attacks he was aware of were the ones which had occurred in the places that Tabitha had visited. Perhaps there was more to her than he'd thought. And maybe he ought to travel with her a while, to try and establish what it was. There wasn't any harm in delaying his plans, surely? He would still take the hagstone, if she had it – he would just find out more about this strange girl first. It might help make amends for the failure of his last mission if he could return to the Iron Court with both the stone and an explanation for why the fae had reappeared.

  “I didn't bring them here,” Tabitha was saying quickly now, no doubt because Lysander hadn't replied straight away. “I don't know where they came from. I would never hurt anyone.”

  Lysander raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at the heavy book she had swung at him a few minutes earlier. Distantly, it occurred to him that this probably meant that she could read. Madeleine must have taught her; he wondered whether she had also ever taught her daughter any magic. He hadn't seen any sign of it...

  Tabitha at least had the grace to blush as he gestured towards her weapon of choice.

  “Present company excluded.”

  “I believe you,” Lysander said, “although I probably shouldn't.”

  Tabitha looked wounded.

  “Well, you are travelling with three fae companions.”

  “Oh, but these are my friends! They wouldn't hurt anyone.”

  Lysander put a hand pointedly to his neck, which had been bitten and scratched.

  Tabitha threw her hands up in frustration. “I don't know why I'm explaining myself to you – you're the one who attacked us!”

  Lysander dipped his head in acknowledgement.

  “You're quite right. I was supposed to be apologising. Perhaps I can make it up to you – help you out in some way. Where are you travelling to?”

  The girl's face closed up again.

  “I might be able to help,” Lysander pressed. “And as you say, I owe you.
”

  “I... I wanted to learn to be like the wandering folk,” Tabitha said in a stilted voice. “So I left my village just to try.”

  She blushed a deeper shade of red. Presumably this sounded as thinly veiled a lie to her as it did to him. But no matter; Lysander could afford to take his time. He saw an opportunity, and he struck, as he had been trained to do.

  “Well, in that case, don't you think things would be easier if you could learn from someone?”

  “Well, I haven't yet met anyone...”

  Lysander cocked his head to one side. “Well today's your lucky day,” he said with another wide, easy grin. “Perhaps I can be of help.”

  “You're one of the wandering folk?” she asked, still sounding a little suspicious.

  Lysander nodded. “At your service.”

  He watched her again. A range of emotions seemed to flicker over her face, but before she could speak again, her faery friends had interrupted.

  “No, sister,” one of them was saying urgently, “he attacked us. With his black knives.”

  “He is glamoured,” another said, “don't

  “Glamoured?” Lysander asked, but they just scowled at him.

  “He's not like us,” the third faery hissed.

  Tabitha looked nervously back to Lysander.

  “Why would you help me?” she asked warily.

  “Consider it an apology for so rashly jumping to conclusions,” he said, glancing back to the fae. “I wander the land because I find staying in one place to be dull; I would enjoy the company of someone who feels the same.”

  From the look on Tabitha's face, Lysander concluded that she certainly did not feel the same, so he simply offered her his most winning smile, all of his thief's charm focusing in on her.

  “We wandering folk depend on learning from one another to survive,” he said. “It is my duty to pass that knowledge on.”

  Still Tabitha wavered, the faeries scowling and muttering to her that Lysander was not to be trusted. Perhaps they did have her best interests at heart, he thought ruefully. And how strange that she hadn't been won over by him already when he was trying so hard. But then Tabitha appeared to come to a conclusion, and she turned to face him.