“That bad, huh?” Falon said, glancing back over at the Wench on the bed, her legs still wrapped in bandages. “How long do you think before she’s healed entirely?”
“Fortunately, the Wenches don’t have much work while on the march. Unfortunately, due to the damage there’s only so much we can do at one time. We have to heal and then let the body naturally recover before once again encouraging the body to create new flesh.”
“What is your best estimate?” Falon encouraged.
“It’s anyone’s guess,” the apprentice gave a short eye roll, “however if I had to put money on it…she’ll be as good as she’ll be after…say, a week? However, even though it’s likely that she’ll walk again, we’ve no guarantees. Sometimes we heal back up burnt flesh but the body can’t feel it anymore. But even if she walks, the flesh will be tender and prone to tear easily also,” the apprentice grimaced and showed a hint of dread, “her feet will probably never be pretty again. And I don’t know if all of her toenails will grow back.”
Falon winced. “That’s rough,” she said, unhappy for the fate of the other woman. But as a military leader she had to look at both the good as well as the bad and thus couldn’t give into the temptation to wallow in the bad. “At least she’s alive—and she can always cover her feet,” she tried to finish on an upbeat note.
“High boots or leg wraps under her dress so that even if they see a bit of ankle they still won’t glimpse the scarring,” the apprentice wench said seriously and then did a double take. “Well, anyway, that’s more a woman’s line of concern; don’t bother yourself with it Sir Falon. Just leave it to us and we’ll take care of her.”
Falon felt oddly depressed as she signaled her agreement and turned away. She tried to tell herself it was only concern over the fate of the Witch she’d saved but somehow that justification rang increasingly false in her mind’s ears.
Shoulders slumping she headed back outside to direct the men of her battalion in their march to the midlands.
“It’s not like I’m the sort of person whose really that interested in pretty clothing and accessories,” she tried to console herself, but despite the relative truth of these words—else how would she have survived in a man’s world for as long as she had—it was still only relative. But worse than being cut out of the sort of conversations she used to be able to have with her sisters were the memories it brought back of her home and kin.
Rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, Falon walked out of the tent strangely not feeling so much sorry for the poor woman in the tent but instead for herself.
Does that make me a bad person? she wondered as she briefly wallowed in her depression and homesickness.
Chapter 26: Hurrying to Catch up
“How much longer?” Falon asked, stomping back to the tail end of the march and putting her hands on her hips.
“Can’t rightly tell ye, Loot-nant,” drawled the corporal in charge.
Falon look at the man, her brows lifting. “What did you say, again?” she asked icily.
The corporal straightened and then coughed. “I meant to say that old Aodhan is still looking at it, Lieutenant, Sir Falon, Sir!” the corporal stumbled over himself several times as his lower class accent noticeably lightened.
“Hmph! Not good enough,” she declared and, looking around she didn’t see old Aodhan anywhere. “Well…where is he?”
The corporal blinked stupidly for several seconds before realization dawned and his legs started shuffling as he hurriedly pointed around at the other side of the wagon.
“Here he is, Mister Knight, Sir,” the Corporal said triumphantly.
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes and break him back down to recruit level so that he could start his training all over—and maybe get it right this time—Falon followed him around the back of the wagon to the other side.
“Aodha—ackkk!” she cried, instinctively bringing up a hand to cover her eyes.
“Something wrong, Lieutenant?” asked the muffled voice of old Aodhan as he bent down under the side of the wagon to inspect the broken wheel. His head was down, and his butt was up in the air, but she refused to look. It wasn’t so much that his hindquarters were wagging forth in the air like a dog as he inspected the wheel, but that his pants were riding so far down that it was like staring at the reputed great crack of Mt. Formier in the south—the so called ‘chasm of doom.’
“Cover that thing up, curse it!” Falon said heatedly.
Aodhan leaned back out from under the wagon to look at her curiously. “Eh?” he asked, working his mouth before a long stream of brown tobacco spittle flew past her. “Something wrong?” he gave the wagon a jaundiced eye. “T’aint nothing here that’d suffer from a bit of water damage,” he declared, oblivious to Falon’s embarrassment and the cause for it.
“Just…fix it!” Falon said, waving a hand in his direction and backing two steps away before turning to the side as if to observe the back of the wagon. “How long is it going to take?” she asked, knowing that if the wagons fell too far behind she’d have to slow the column. They’d already been moving slower than she’d like because of the burnt witch.
“Eh?” Aodhan looked surprised before firing off another stream of tobacco products. “Looks like the axle is fine. Though we’ll need to run this wheel over to the nearest blacksmith soon as possible, Lieutenant.”
“So how long before we can get the wagon going again?” Falon asked worried over how much time was going to be lost.
“Eh-hmmm,” muttered old Aodhan his head moving back and forth as if he was thinking deeply. “I’d say maybe a half hour? If we have enough lads to hold up the wagon bed while I knock in the spare, of course,” he said decisively.
Falon blinked and the blinked again before her face flushed with embarrassment. “Well why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” Falon snapped angrily.
Old Aodhan blinked in surprise. “I did. As soon as you asked,” he replied, looking as if he’d just been falsely accused.
“I mean about the spare wheel,” Falon blustered, leveling a finger at him.
His brows rose. “I thought thou knew? The boys picked a pair of them up at one of the farms they done raided for supplies like,” old Aodhan said, looking at her now like she was the one at fault.
Falon started to color once again. “What?! And we don’t ‘raid,’ we ‘requisition.’ Everything is paid for with chits that are good in exchange for taxes,” Falon said, quickly correcting the warrior’s misconception—or, at the very least, his verbiage. They weren’t raiders, blast and dang it, no matter what the farmers said. So no matter what the peasants they took the food from said, she couldn’t let her own people start to think that they really were pillaging the countryside of their own kingdom! If she didn’t keep a lid on that particular kettle, things really would get out of hand.
“Okay,” Aodhan said as if humoring her.
“Enough jawing,” she declared, “just get it back on the road.” Then pausing to throw a hasty if a bit disgruntled, “Good work,” over her shoulder, she proceeded to beat a hasty retreat.
She had enough troubles keeping the march moving without getting bogged down while requisitioning supplies from the farms along their path. She didn’t want to spend what little remained of her precious time arguing with a man who was about to finish his job—even if both he and his corporal both seemed as thick as a pair of boards.
Time was starting to press and the last rider sent by the Prince’s high command had instructed her that she was expected in the Froglands in two days.
They were going to have to push it, the men and the wagons both, something that they wouldn’t have had to worry about if they’d been on the main road—or if almost two thirds of her warriors weren’t right off the plow or fresh out of the stocks.
It was infuriating that they were given the worst troops—some even without any militia training—to go with the longest, most meandering path and the least support from the Prince�
�s quartermaster in the entire army. Then they were expected to keep up, or even stay out in advance of the main column as some sort of scouting unit.
It was almost intolerable, and if she’d had more time she would have gone around and complained to anyone who listened. Unfortunately, as it was she simply didn’t have time to jaw around and complain. She needed to get this small army of hers on the move.
So she started passing the word up and down the column to the various sergeants that they didn’t need to slow down or camp early, which would get the wagons back on the road in a short amount of time. They would press on and only make camp when it fell dark. The Swans had to keep going if they were to meet the Prince’s impossible deadline.
Falon mentally chimed an old nursery rhyme inside the privacy of her own head as she jumped up onto her horse and rode up and down the column to help chivvy things along.
Chapter 27: Someone else catches up with the main army
The sun had set hours earlier, and everyone in the camp had already eaten supper when a tall and proud woman, her back unbent or broken by the privations of the road and camp life, marched up to a certain tent and thumped the bit of wood sewn into the tent flap with the bottom of her staff.
“I’m closed for the night. Go away,” came the irritable response from within the tent. “If thou want something come back in the morning.”
“You’ll come out or I’m coming in,” the woman outside said severely.
“Oh, thou will, will thou,” demanded the old woman inside the tent, throwing the flap open and coming out with a gnarl-headed wooden cane clenched in her hand. The knob of the stick seemed to glint in the darkness. “Don’t know better than to beard old Tulla in her own tent when she’s only looking to sleep after another hard day’s walk? It’s time someone taught thou some manners!” She said, shaking away a few stray cobwebs that seemed to stick to her hair as she stepped outside the tent.
“The only one learning any manners tonight will be you, daughter thief!” Muirgheal thundered, moonlight gathering around the head of her staff as she raised it up and brought it down with punishing force.
Tulla shouted incoherently, bringing the gnarled head of her walking stick up to meet Muirgheal’s descending staff in the nick of time. The clash of opposing powers was enough to send both women staggering backwards.
“What?!” Tulla demanded, falling back into her tent with a thump before her mouth tightened and, grasping the cane with both hands, levered herself back to her feet.
Meanwhile Muirgheal, staggering and overbalanced, managed to finally find her footing and leveled the staff back at the other witch.
“Who?” Tulla hissed spitting mad with fury at the attack. “Who dares…?” she repeated angrily.
“Muirgheal of the Common Brood,” the younger witch declared proudly.
“A common coward, and a name I’ve never even heard of,” Tulla scoffed. “If you think either of these things moves me. Me a Branch-”
“By custom, I have the right of training along maternal lines when, where, and how I wish! You will release my daughter or I’ll grind your bones for blood meal and stretch your skin over a drum!” Muirgheal hissed. “And we’ll see if that is enough to remove your hexes!”
“Thou have courage, but as the last survivor of root and branch…all thorns…are mine!” Tulla panted, raising her cane high, prompting a black and brown swirl to form around the gnarled head of her cane.
“You’ve got a lot of guts!” Muirgheal shouted, raising her staff high. Bringing her offhand up, she clasped it into a near fist next to the hand holding the staff, “Old hag!”
“Who are you calling an ‘old hag’?” Tulla snarled, jumping fully six feet into the air and spinning forward with preternatural speed and grace. She did a full rotation midair before bringing the head of her cane into a downward strike infused with the power of her magics. Blocking with her staff while stepping to the side, Muirgheal was sent to the ground. She skidded for several feet before being laid out on the grass with a groan. She wasn’t sure if she could get up again; the force of the old witch’s attack had been unexpectedly powerful. However, through all of this she never once put down the hands she had clasped nearly together just above the middle of the staff.
“Go home and maybe I’ll decide to let you live…out of concern for your daughter,” Tulla seethed, leveling her cane at her fallen foe.
Muirgheal glared at her furiously as a lance of dark, brown energy struck her staff. The resulting vibrations in her hands forced her to drop the staff.
“You’re done,” Tulla stated flatly. “Leave.” “You fight like a man,” Muirgheal said, feeling the faintest tingling sensation in her two hands as she smiled spitefully.
Tulla became furious. “I fight like an Earth Witch—something you Common Cowards seem to have forgotten after so many years laboring to fulfill the desires of the foreign men who have polluted our lands,” she declared angrily. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” she said stepping forward and raising her staff high.
“You really do fight like a man,” Muirgheal said, shaking her head before suddenly bringing her hands apart. The thin silver string in her hands suddenly lit up—shining brightly under the supercharged power of a Full Moon!
Tulla gasped, doubled over, and promptly vomited bright red blood out of her mouth. “You…” Tulla retched, still doubled over lifted her head to stare at Muirgheal with surprise.
“You also like to gloat too much,” Falon’s mother said critically while levering herself back up to her feet. “I waited until the moon was at its fullest and carefully wove my spells over days. The walking staff was only ever a diversion, but then if you hadn’t spent so much time trailing after armies of men—stealing daughters and getting young girls killed fighting a war lost so long ago you must have only been a girl yourself—maybe you would have known that.”
“You think just because you turned your back on your heritage that I will someday do the same…but I never will. With my dying breath I will spite and spit on every invader and collaborator in these lands,” Tulla panted and then groaned, spitting out more blood as Muirgheal pulled tight the string between her hands before giving it a strong yank for good measure. “One day we will be free again, and these lands will once again be the lands of witches and the living trees—like they were before.”
“Release Falon,” Muirgheal demanded, holding high the silver moonlight threads in her hand. The area surrounding Tulla’s tent was soon filled with a frozen web of silver moonlight, woven in the strings shimmering about the air.
“No,” Tulla said spitefully.
Muirgheal’s face hardened. “The silver strings are even now settling in your innards; you can’t escape without tearing yourself open. If you try to free yourself with me still around you can’t heal yourself, so you’ll die soon after. What will happen to your cause then?” she asked coldly.
“I will train anyone who will fight, and shake off the chains that yoke all women to a man’s harness!” Tulla said, straightening up with effort and leveling her cane at Muirgheal. “And I may die, or I may not die; thou have no idea the kinds of power within this old body of mine. One thing is certain: dead or not I can easily pull a woman of your strength down into the grave with me before I go.”
“Release the bindings. Now,” Muirgheal said once again raising the moonlight threads high, “I will not ask again. Do it or I will kill you and see if the barbed bindings you placed upon her dissolve with your death.”
Tulla glared at her hatefully. “Fine,” she said, closing her eyes and concentrating before drawing a clawed fist through the air as if tearing a giant leaf of paper in twain. She opened her eyes, “There, that’s as much as I can do from this distance. I have released my side, now all she has to do is desire to be free from them and they will fade and disappear on their own.” Her eyes were like molten pools of fury as she glared at Muirgheal.
Muirgheal smirked. “My own bindings will fade with wan
ing moonlight. Forgive me if I do not release my hold on them as I prefer they naturally fade away,” she said, her body tense and eyes continuing to track the old Branch Witch. “Bide a moment while I check thy work.”
Closing her own eyes while continuing to hold the moonlight threads in her hands tightly, she utilized a mother’s blood-tie to sense her daughter. It was murky and hazy, as it always was, but she could feel a lessening in the bindings around her daughter.
“Satisfied?” spat Tulla, her face turning even uglier than usual.
“For now,” Muirgheal said serenely, “I’ll take my leave then.”
Tulla bared her teeth, a crazy glint taking up residence in her eye. “Think you can just walk away as easy as that?” she said harshly. “Today thou had days to prepare, the element of surprise, and the moon at its fullest, and still thou were not my match! It was trickery and guile, not power that won the battle. How dare you turn your back on me, an enemy that can beat you like a drum on any day in the future?”
Muirgheal turned and looked at Tulla with pity. “Because I don’t have to,” she said simply.
“You’re a fool,” Tulla said dismissively, “born a fool, raised a fool, and destined to die a fool,” then something seemed to occur to her. “It was the cobwebs wasn’t it. I was in too much of a rush that I didn’t mind them. But I should have. How could a spider have time to take up residence in the short amount of time since I set up the tent?” she said, shaking her head at her own stupidity.
“I don’t have to, not because I am a fool, but because you are my Sister,” Muirgheal said, causing Tulla to stiffen. “You forget yourself from living out here all alone with only your anger for company but we do not kill each other without good reason. Like a crazy old aunty living all alone on the hill because she’s too stubborn, and just too ornery, to let the rest of the family take care of her. To the point that she just stopped visiting entirely and promptly snatched the first relative to visit her in years and locked her in the house. I don’t find you dangerous, old woman, although you are that. I find you sad; you’ve lost your way, and if I’m wrong and you try to kill me for protecting my daughter from you, then you’ll have simply proven that the Common Brood aren’t the only witches that have forgotten what it means to be a guardian of the people of the trees of the Old Blood,” Muirgheal finished, turning away and then disappearing into the shadows.
The Channeling (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 3) Page 14
