Krystal grinned, even if Trudy could not see it. ‘You’re just a romantic at heart.’
‘Greys can’t afford to be romantics.’
‘That’s an excuse. Maybe most greys can’t, but you’re a grey with a fairly strong talent for magic. You have extra options.’
‘I do, yeah, you’re right.’ One of Trudy’s hands slipped down between Krystal’s legs, cupping her mound. Krystal gasped. ‘I have opted to do that and I have the option of right or left nipple. Isn’t the air cool now? It feels great on my skin.’
‘Uh, yes. It’s nice. Trudy, I’m standing in an open window…’
‘And it’s raining like the world is ending. No one’s going to see you.’ One of Trudy’s fingers slipped between Krystal’s labia and then penetrated further. ‘And anyway, you don’t exactly seem to be unhappy about me doing this. It’s almost as wet down here as it is out there.’
Krystal began to writhe a little as Trudy slipped another finger in and began to work them. ‘W-what can I say? I’m a shameless hussy, remember?’
5th Day of Highsummer.
The rain kept up through the morning, eventually trailing off after lunch. The animals still needed feeding so Jesse went out and no amount of persuasion would keep the others from going with her. They were soaked through in seconds, but they kept going and Krystal was rather impressed with the way Felicia handled it.
A true lady, the nuns had said, handled whatever the world threw at her without complaint, at least while in public. The new breed of upper crust, however, should be expected to take any circumstance they encountered as a personal affront. Sadly, dragons were not what they used to be. Felicia did not complain. Not when the rain soaked through her T-shirt and glued her skirt to her legs. Not when her hair was wetter than it had been in the lake two days earlier and the water was dripping in her eyes.
Krystal complimented her friend on her stoicism.
‘Oh, darling,’ Felicia replied, ‘last year you would not have got me out in the rain. Now that I’m considered the lowest of the low, I find it easier to bear the inequities of the world. Besides, if my friends can put up with this without complaint, how can I do anything else?’
On the other hand, Felicia complained copiously about having to buy a pair of jeans for the trek into the forest. Jesse proclaimed the clothes Krystal and Trudy had available to be suitable. They would need to wear long sleeves, but their jeans would be durable enough. They needed boots, as did Felicia. Felicia was going to need a shirt and jeans as well because she had nothing with long sleeves and had brought only skirts. It took Jesse listing a catalogue of plants which would sting, pierce, or rip skin, sometimes all three, for Felicia to agree that she needed new clothes.
Still, she agreed, and the following morning she was dressed in her trekking outfit when Xanthe, Charlotte, and Ramona arrived at the Oakleafs’ farm ready to set off.
‘Flis in jeans?’ Charlotte said, grinning. ‘I thought you were pathologically incapable of covering your legs that much.’
‘It’s not by choice, darling,’ Felicia replied. ‘I’m told that the underbrush can be rather unhealthy. I put a lot of effort into keeping my legs trim and smooth, and I’d rather they remained unscarred.’
‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ Jesse commented from behind Felicia. Felicia turned around and Jesse’s eyes lifted to Felicia’s face. ‘I know you’re fashion-conscious, so I made sure you’d look good in them, as well as protected.’
‘Your ass does look pretty good there, Flis,’ Ramona commented.
Felicia gasped and her cheeks reddened. She pointed at Jesse. ‘You said they were tight so that they would fit comfortably under my boots.’
‘And that’s true,’ Jesse replied. ‘It just so happens that your butt looks great in them too. Now, I suggest we get moving. We’ve a lot of ground to cover and the more we can do today, the better. The weather’s only going to get warmer as the week goes on.’
‘Seriously?’ Xanthe asked.
‘Uh-huh,’ Charlotte replied. ‘Humidity is over ninety percent after the storm. That’s going to dry out over the next couple of days, but it’s going to get hotter.’
Xanthe sagged. ‘I could really go for cooler.’
‘Oh yeah, I’d say about twenty percent cooler. That’d be good.’
‘It’ll be cooler once we’re under the trees,’ Jesse said. ‘We’ll be out of the direct sun anyway. Let’s get there while it’s still rising and we won’t bake.’
‘I think broiling is more of an issue,’ Trudy suggested. ‘Or steaming. I think I’m being steamed already.’
‘Then let’s move out,’ Krystal said. ‘We have a long way to go and a witch to find. Let’s go do it.’
Part Three: The Tangleroots Witch
Tangleroots, Concordance, 5th Day of Highsummer, 1000.
On the first night, they made camp beside a small pond. It had been cooler beneath the trees and the tracks were good. Jesse estimated that they had covered thirty miles, which was good, according to her.
Jesse and Xanthe got a fire going while Charlotte filled their water canteens. The blue dragon knew how to move water about, so she was able to stream water from the pond into the canteens, leaving anything else behind. Xanthe had been ready to purify the water with a spell to kill any bugs which might have been in it, but Charlotte’s spell worked exactly as described and she was called upon again to run water into a cooking pot to make stew.
They were travelling fairly light. Everyone had their own sleeping kit and canteen, and then there were a few general items shared out between them, though Trudy, Charlotte, and Ramona were taking a bigger share of the weight because they were stronger than the other four. Thus, there was a cooking pot: not a huge one, but big enough to make up some stew for all seven girls. There was food, mostly dried food which could be eaten as-was if necessary, but only managed to be palatable when made into a stew or soup. They had ten days’ supply, but Xanthe and Jesse were confident that they could supplement the rations with foraged foods. There were bowls and spoons to eat with, which Felicia found almost civilised. And there was a short folding shovel which, when she found out its purpose, Felicia went a little green over; that was likely because she had just realised there was no plumbing in Tangleroots.
Krystal and Trudy were sharing the cooking duties. Trudy was a little annoyed to discover that Krystal was a slightly better cook than she was, or she was until they were all sitting down around the fire and eating the stew which had been flavoured with berries and herbs Jesse had quickly gathered while collecting firewood.
‘It’s not fair,’ Trudy stated as she spooned stew into her mouth. ‘You’re good at everything. How’s a girl supposed to compete with you?’
Krystal pursed her lips. ‘Sometimes, the only way to win a game is to avoid playing.’
‘Is that something the nuns taught you?’
‘Yes, actually, but I am not good at everything. For example, yes, I knew what to do with the berries and herbs, because Jesse said they were safe to eat and I could taste the stew and tell what would enhance the flavour. But, if you’d sent me out to get the berries and herbs, I figure there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’d have poisoned everyone. I don’t recognise at least two of those leaves Jesse found.’
‘That’ll be the ones which don’t grow outside Tangleroots,’ Jesse said. ‘There are a few plants deep in the forest which don’t have proper names. No one’s sat down and identified them properly.’ She frowned. ‘Actually, sitting down and identifying some of them would be bad. You’d get eaten.’
Felicia laughed. ‘You’re joking, of course. I was always told that dragon-eating plants were made up for cheap horror novels.’
‘Well, true. I mean, they don’t actually eat you and they didn’t evolve to eat dragons. There are a couple of plants in the forest which live by killing animals and feeding on the nutrients that come out as the body decomposes. They don’t often manage to catch something as
big as, say, a wolf or a dragon, but they can.’
Felicia swallowed the mouthful of stew she was chewing a little convulsively. ‘Could someone remind me why we are marching into this wonderland of dangers?’
‘We’re going to find a witch who may or may not really exist so that we can find out who Krys’s parents were,’ Trudy said. ‘If we find her, she may or may not turn us all into toads instead of talking to us.’
‘Oh, wonderful.’
‘Well,’ Jesse said, ‘I’d be doing something like this anyway. Someone has to go deep into the forest every year to check on the trees and plants. I’ve done it the last three years.’
‘And the witch is real,’ Xanthe said. ‘I know people who’ve seen her. Whether we’ll find her is another matter.’
‘And it’s highly unlikely that she’ll turn us into frogs,’ Krystal added. ‘I’m sure she would just kill us if she was going to be nasty. If we can find her, I don’t think she’s going to be nasty.’
‘Xan could tell you some of the stories about her,’ Ramona suggested. ‘That might change your mind.’
There were giggles from Krystal, Trudy, Jesse, and Felicia. ‘Does anyone survive any of the scary ones?’ Trudy asked.
‘Oh, you noticed that?’ Xanthe said.
‘Major plot hole,’ Krystal said. ‘I don’t really think the witch is going to murder us or whatever. Finding her if she doesn’t want to be found, on the other hand, could be a problem.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Xanthe said with a grin. ‘All the stories where she sweeps in to help someone have the protagonist lost and starving, or injured, or poisoned, or whatever. So, all we have to do is get close to the ruins and then get in really big trouble, and she’ll find us.’
‘I’m not sure I want to go quite that far to find her. Let’s get as far in as we can and see where we go from there.’
6th Day of Highsummer.
Krystal got her sleeping in early so that she could take over the watch from Xanthe. A watch, they had decided, was needed and Xanthe and Jesse had made plans to just do it all themselves. Then Ramona had pointed out that she was a red dragon and, while she was more of an entertainer than a soldier, she was quite up to handling a night watch. Krystal had pointed out that she had better night vision than any of the others, plus this was her quest so she should be helping with the security of the group. Four people handling the watch was probably going to be enough, so they had split the night up between them.
The others had not disagreed too much. Felicia in particular was not used to walking such long distances and, while she did not complain, she looked as though she needed a good night’s rest before they went on. Of course, none of them were getting a really good rest because it was hot and humid, and they were lying on blankets on the ground, but they had a good twelve hours to try to sleep.
Krystal sat with her back to the fire and listened to the forest around her while she waited for dawn. Even with her enhanced night vision, there was not enough light to see past the area covered by the firelight. What moonlight there was failed to penetrate the canopy above them, and the shadows were deep. She had considered shifting into her dracoform so that she could see further, but neither Jesse nor Xanthe had really expected any problems and several hours in scales would have given her a powerful hunger come morning. So, Krystal sat and listened and watched as best she could.
The forest was far from being quiet. Night birds called among the trees. Sometimes other things, which did not sound like birds, called back. There was little in the way of wind at ground level, but branches creaked above them and leaves rustled. The air currents Jesse had talked about and Charlotte had discovered seemed to be at work above the trees. That was a weird phenomenon that Krystal felt someone should study, but there was something else about the forest which, now that she had nothing else to draw her attention, had started to impinge upon her consciousness.
There was about the forest of Tangleroots a feeling, a sensation, a vague tickle of magic. Krystal could not get a more accurate sense of it than that, but there certainly seemed to be more than nature at work among the trees. Well, Tangleroots had always been thought of as a little unnatural. The Armonia family had been skilled magi, for the most part, and the land around their centre of power had, according to the history books, been touched with magic. Maybe some of that lingered, even a millennium after the family had been destroyed.
So focused was she on the magical feeling of the place that Krystal failed to notice something else happening. She started and got to her feet as she realised the forest around them had gone silent. She scanned the shadows around them, looking for any sign of a predator which might have stilled the birds, but there was nothing visible. She gathered her will, set well-understood glyphs in her mind, and reached out beyond her natural senses. No large bodies and no intelligent minds appeared in her mind’s eye. They seemed to be alone, but something had caused the sudden silence.
‘Krys? You okay?’ Trudy’s hushed voice seemed to break the spell the area was under and birdcalls once again sounded through the trees.
Krystal turned and smiled at her friend, standing near the fire, wrapped in a blanket. It had turned cooler as dawn approached. ‘I’m fine,’ Krystal said. ‘We’re fine. I thought you were sleeping.’
‘I woke up and, well, I guess I’ve had enough sleep. It’ll be light soon anyway, right?’
‘Right,’ Krystal agreed and sat down again.
Trudy snuggled in beside her. ‘I thought I’d have trouble sleeping, but I guess the fresh air got to me. I went out like a light.’
‘Me too. I’m glad I had the last watch. I think I’d have nodded off on my own if I’d have taken an earlier one.’
‘I’d have helped.’ Trudy was leaning closer, cuddled up in her blanket. ‘I’d have… stayed up with you and, um, kept… kept…’
Krystal looked around at her friend and smirked. Trudy’s eyes were closed and her breathing had steadied. ‘Uh-huh. Some help you’d have been, sleepyhead.’ The sudden silence forgotten, Krystal continued her watch with one arm wrapped around Trudy’s shoulders.
~~~
There was singing. Ramona was not much into the more military cultural aspects which red dragons frequently gravitated toward, but the music was another matter. Ramona had her views on what made a good song, like any other dragon, but she also thought that pretty much every form of music had some merit. In this particular case, marching songs seemed like a good idea and Ramona was teaching the misfits several of them.
As yet, the forest was still being fairly easy on them, but you could tell that they were moving into less-travelled regions. They were still on pathways worn down through use, but the tracks were getting narrower and you had to watch your footing more thanks to uneven ground and up-thrust roots. It was harder going and singing a song with a marching rhythm, and generally somewhat bawdy lyrics, kept the girls going.
Charlotte was particularly fond of a song called ‘The Brigadier’s Wife’s Drawers,’ which went into fairly graphic detail regarding the opportunities a soldier might have should he get the titular character out of her underwear. Weirdly, Felicia took to the same tune with some enthusiasm, even if she lost the beat at various points due to giggling.
‘I would never have thought you would like a song quite so…’ Krystal trailed off while thinking of a suitable adjective.
Felicia supplied one. ‘Earthy? Darling, we’re in the middle of a forest. I see no reason to be civilised in the least. Bring on the bawdy lyrics, I say!’
Jesse, walking beside Krystal at the front of the line, shrugged. ‘The noise is good. The wolves will keep away.’
‘Are we likely to run into wolves?’
‘Not if we keep singing. Probably not even if we don’t. They’ll know where we are long before we know where they are and they generally avoid dragons. We’re more trouble than we’re worth.’
‘Unless they’re very hungry,’ Xanthe said, ‘or one of u
s is wounded. This time of year, they shouldn’t be worrying over food.’
‘Don’t get wounded then,’ Trudy suggested.
‘Well, that would be preferable for a number of reasons. Hey, Jesse, isn’t there a stream just up ahead?’
Jesse looked around. ‘Uh, yeah, I think so.’
‘Stop there for lunch? It’s almost noon.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
The stream was barely five hundred feet further down the track, but there was something a little off about it. Just from the topology, Krystal could tell that this was generally something you either had to step in or jump over; maybe two feet wide and still a little damp all the way across, the streambed was fairly obvious, and fairly obviously not containing as much water as usual. The stream was more of a trickle and both Jesse and Xanthe stood there for a few seconds frowning at it.
‘I’m going to go check upstream a little,’ Jesse said after a few seconds. ‘Start on lunch, I’ll be back soon. Uh, no one goes near the stream until I’ve checked things out.’
‘You shouldn’t go alone,’ Krystal said. ‘I’ll go with you.’
‘Fair enough. Don’t step in the water.’
They had to push through more undergrowth as they moved north along the streambed, but they did have the streambed to help them. It was just difficult to stay away from the water. ‘What are you expecting to find?’ Krystal asked after a minute or so.
‘Expecting? I don’t know. Something must’ve blocked the stream. Maybe a dead animal. That would mean the water could be fouled. Sometimes a branch can block them and sometimes things grow on those that taint the water.’
Krystal frowned. ‘The track was dry, but the streambed was still damp. I don’t think the stream’s been blocked for longer than a day.’
‘Dead animal could be a problem after that long. It takes a little while for dead wood to host poisonous fungi. Still best if we check it out and maybe clear it. Part of why I’m in here is checking that everything’s okay, remember?’
Misfit Witchcraft (Misfits Book 2) Page 14
