The Witch of Glenaster

by Jonathan Mills

  We turned, to see the fire-drake hovering in the air above the trees, lighting them up like a small sun, big as a house and glittering like sparks, its great eye always watching; deep, impassive, without sorrow or pity.

  People around us were staring, transfixed despite the danger, entranced by the beauty of this thing that was about to destroy them. In my mind I could see the flames shooting forth, covering everything, filling my vision until finally they came licking at my flesh, stripping it in seconds from my bones, too quick for me to scream, leaving my body a charred ruin.

  But this did not happen. It seemed to be waiting for something, or someone, for it went on hovering there, its wings beating a hot breeze across the glade, its belly rippling and fat in the moonlight.

  Suddenly, there was a cry, away to our right, and the drake turned to see what it was; and a man, about fifty, middle-aged and chubby, his face full of fear, and his arms waving madly, came stumbling out of the wood. Amazingly, he did not seem to see the dragon, floating in the air above him, but simply gestured to us like a marionette: big eyes, jerky movements, and limbs that seemed to have a life of their own.

  “They’re coming!” was all he said, over and over. “Run! Oh, God, run!”

  And then he saw it.

  Stopping, his large, bald head leaned back as far as it could as he looked at the drake, and the drake looked at him. They regarded one another for a moment, man and beast, and there was a strange, sickening quiet. Then the animal’s eyes narrowed, it coughed slightly, and then burned the man to a cinder.

  That broke the spell: now people were running in all directions, screaming, crying, shouting at each other to get out of the way. One woman cried, “My daughter, my daughter!”, and then disappeared; a man wrestled a boy for a small pouch, though whatever it contained cannot have been worth anyone’s life; two guards tried to keep control, as all around them men, women and children streamed into the woods, desperate for safety.

  The drake emptied its throat then, and a great wall of flame ripped across the clearing, cutting off the path to shelter; and I was on the wrong side of it. One man rushed past, almost knocking me down, and all around me now there was a sea of faces, and the same terrible look on all of them.

  I felt myself shaking with the effort not to cry, not to give in, when I felt a hand at my back, and Thomas Taper was there.

  “This way, Esther,” he whispered, but for a moment I did not hear him, gazing only at nothing. “Esther!” he repeated, in a hiss. “Come with me. We will die if we stay here.”

  And I turned, slowly, and took his hand, and we ran away, into the dark, into the north.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “Where are we going?” I asked him, for I found, though I trusted him, that I feared him also.

  “There are places to hide, away near the river,” he said urgently, and there was a slight wheeze to his chest as he breathed.

  “Why near the river?” I said, almost tripping, for he was half-pulling me along now, and my legs protested. He stopped then, for a moment, and turned, and I saw that his face and clothes were streaked with grey powder, and his eyes were full of sorrow.

  “That is where I am headed. It seems I have no choice now but to take you with me. Is that not what you wanted? Above everything else, even your brother’s safety?” His tone was bitter.

  As he turned away, I saw my hand strike his face, and heard the slap, before I even realized I had done it. He simply hung his head then, his hair a tangle of ash-coloured strands lying heaped and lifeless against his cheek, the wind nudging it gently, this way and that.

  “How can you say that?” I demanded, stung by his reproach. “You think I am heartless to want to leave my brother behind. Very well! I will go back for him. I do not want your judgement. You can go hang!” And my voice was hoarse and broken in my throat.

  “Esther!” he cried, and pleaded with me; but already I was turning back towards the lodge, the fury of grief bellowing my brother’s name in my chest.

  I was so angry I did not feel the first blow.

  The second, however, caught me so hard about the face that I was knocked to the ground, and could not get up.

  At first I thought it must be Thomas, and I cursed his name. But then I realized it was not him; there was someone standing over me - a figure I did not recognize - and Thomas had disappeared. Then, as I struggled to put some will into my legs, and crawl to my feet, I heard a howl, and saw a desperate struggle above my head, a blur of arms and hair and teeth, and the clash and roar of a death-duel.

  My vision was misted and unclear, but I could see that the man, if man it was, who had attacked me was very tall – hardly an inch off seven foot – and had a face all but covered by a thick beard and a mane of raven-black hair, which reached past his shoulders. He wore a tunic, dirty-white in colour, and fixed across the waist by a wide belt, frayed and worn from use. His legs were covered by woollen trousers, and his boots were scuffed and ill-fitting, and seemed too large for his feet, which despite his size were small and almost dainty. One does not always notice a person’s clothes, especially if they are not otherwise remarkable; but my assailant was memorable for more than just this, for apart from his height and tireless ferocity he had one other important attribute.

  He could fly.

  In all other respects he was more like a beast than a man; but he had the ability to launch himself from the earth clear into the sky, a good twenty feet or more, high enough to catch the branch of a tree and swing himself from it at great speed.

  This Thomas soon discovered, and it cost him a boot to the head that nearly knocked him unconscious, so that he lay for a good few seconds dazed and stupid on the ground, and I feared he would not get up. But he did, and the second time the tall man tried such a trick he was able to partially deflect the blow, though still caught a stinging kick to the shoulder that sent him spinning against the stump of a dead oak.

  My senses were returning now, and I could see a commotion of noise and smoke coming towards us from the direction of the Towers. I tried to move my legs, and though at first they seemed alien to me, after a while, and with much pushing against the tree at my back, I managed to stand. I watched as Thomas drew his seax, his long dagger, and held it in his left hand, with his sword in his right, and waited for his opponent to come at him again.

  This he seemed in no hurry to do, and merely stood watching for a moment, his lips chewing against themselves, and his mouth moving to form what may have been words, but in no language I recognized. I suspected they were only meaningless ramblings, and, when his mouth was open, saliva would pool and slide from its corners, as if he were no more sensible than a dog. I wanted Thomas to kill him now, despite our argument. I wanted to see this monster die.

  Finally, he ran at him again, and this time Thomas was able to trip him with the point of his sword before he was able to lift himself off the ground, and he gave a yelp, and his gruesome, hair-filled face creased in pain and confusion. He roared out then, and I saw there was blood soaking his trousers, where his left leg met the top of his boot.

  He staggered towards Thomas, who backed away a little, but seemed surer now of how to deal with him, and did not panic. He attempted to leap into the trees once more - but it looked like he had lost the ability, for he had a noticeable limp now, where his leg had been hit. He lumbered in an unsteady circle around Thomas, who kept his eyes on him, and waited.

  They marked each other in this way for several minutes, slowly moving, never breaking eye contact, the giant occasionally bellowing his rage at Thomas, whose face was set, unreadable. I found myself shouting, screaming, begging him to run the creature through, to spill his guts on the cold earth; and from the giant’s throat I heard a low, guttural snarl, and knew he would tear me apart if Thomas was killed.

  Then, suddenly, he bolted, half-leaping, half-scrambling up a great fir tree, so fast we were left staring after him; and we saw now that he was jumping from tree to tree, high above our heads,
and was obviously not so badly wounded as he had seemed.

  I heard Thomas curse then, and call upon the giant to come down, and face him like a man; but the giant did not – he knew he had the upper hand – and I could see how impotent and angry Thomas felt, his weapons and all his skill useless against such tricks. Then there was a loud rustle of branches, and the man seemed to swing away into the wood, leaving us alone, quiet, in the still night.

  Thomas leaned over, catching his breath; and when he complained he was getting too old, I couldn’t help but laugh, and this made him laugh also; and he wiped down his blade with a cloth, and was just walking over to see that I was all right, when suddenly the giant returned, from the opposite direction in which he had gone, scurrying like a wolf along the ground, and barrelling into Thomas with such a speed and fury he sent him crashing against a tree, and knocked him senseless to the ground.

  He seemed about to rip him to pieces, until I started to shout and swear at him, in words my mother would have been ashamed to hear, calling at him:

  “Hey! Here! Over here! You ugly son of a whore!”

  And he did turn his gaze on me then, and I swallowed hard from fear.

  His eyes were bloodshot and dark, and his arms shook as he stared at me, savage and unsure, and I wondered how far I would get if I tried to outrun him.

  Then, suddenly and quickly, he came straight at me, loping like an excited dog, and I felt a great hand, as wide it seemed as the tree I was resting against, grab my throat, and squeeze.

  The feeling of discomfort and shock soon switched to panic, and then raw terror. My heart drummed its warning in my ear: I must breathe, or I would die.

  My eyes scanned the ground for… something. What was I looking for? What did it matter? I felt my brain dying. I wanted to pee. I looked at the man’s face, his breath as foetid as a corpse, his eyes wild. What had he been like as a child, I wondered? Had he even been a child? Apart from a lover, no one presumes such intimacy with another living being as a murderer.

  And then, as the cloud filling my mind started to cover every other thought, I felt the pressure relax, and at first supposed I must be slipping out of consciousness, and into death. But then I realized I was still alive, and that his hand had released its grip. There was a look, almost of relief, on his face, and the wildness in his eyes seemed to have gone. He looked like a friend might, on waking from a nightmare. He took a couple of steps back. He had Thomas Taper’s sword sticking out of his chest.

  Thomas had some difficulty retrieving the weapon, so deep was it embedded; but finally, with a snap and creak of gristle and bone, he did so, and wiped it clean. Then he put his hand to my forehead, and looked carefully into my eyes. When he spoke, he did so quietly and urgently.

  “Esther? Can you see? Can you walk? We must go now. There will be more like him, and I cannot fight them all.”

  I looked at him for several good moments, and, finally, sensing my own vulnerability, and with no more energy to do otherwise, simply nodded.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  We pushed our way through the dense firs, and I hardly had the strength to fight back against the twitching branches that plucked at my clothes, and scratched my skin. Thomas managed to slice a pathway of sorts with his knife, but still we both stumbled, and at times it became so dark I had to clutch at the tail of his coat for fear of getting lost.

  Eventually we reached the northern wall of the Cities, and felt our way along the coarse brickwork, bound with vine and creeper, until we found a clearer road, that shadowed the wall, and threaded through the trees towards the north gate.

  The gate was deserted, and I supposed the guards had left to help repel the attack to the south, or else fled another way; for who but a madman, and a madman’s apprentice, would head north, when all that lay beyond were the unforgiving waters of the Soar, and, on the other side, the miles of barren rock that people called the Lessening Lands. And beyond them, where the winter cold was fiercest, and the sun most distant, the lair of the Witch, Glenaster.

  The Histories tell that Glenaster was once a beautiful and sacred land, and that, despite the cold and the difficulty of the journey, many folk used to travel there in the Forgotten Days, before the seas rose about the known world, and cut it off forever from the gods. Then there were no demons, nor witches, nor warlocks by the Dying Sea, and men used magic only for good. But then the Witch arose, and fear and hatred with her; and Glenaster became a desolate place, where people feared to go; and the Witch made it her home, and so had remained there ever since.

  The gate was open, though only by the merest fraction, and we squeezed our way through, for the great iron hinges would not move, and the whole edifice seemed sunk into the ground, and stuck fast.

  “There is some shelter up ahead,” said Thomas, striding quickly on into the darkness. “We should be safe there until daybreak.”

  And so we pressed on, across the broad marshes south of the Soar, following the safe paths that Thomas knew, and turning our backs on the peopled lands.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The shelter he spoke of was hardly more than a hut, with tarred walls, and a copse of lime trees protecting it from the bellowing wind. It was about a mile from the north gate of the Cities, and I was happy to see it, rude and draughty as it was, because I was weary in heart and limb.

  I slept sound and long that night, though the wind howled against the door; and Thomas stood sentry for much of the darkest hours, still as a house, a trickle of moonlight illuminating his face. He had brought some food with him in a bag – some banana bread, a meat pie – and I was careful to ration them.

  “I do not know when we shall see food like this again,” he said.

  Finally the sun marched boldly up the sky, and a robin opened its throat to greet the cold morning.

  We set off then, striking north across the marshes towards the river. After a mile or so we found a causeway, old but still sturdy, and followed it for six good miles through the wetlands, the cold seeping into our bones, and the hour well past noon before we reached its end. There Thomas stopped, and pointed ahead with a long finger.

  “There it is,” he said.

  And I stood up on tiptoe, and rested my chin, damp with mud and rain, on his shoulder, and listened. And I could hear the heavy rush of the River Soar, hardly more than fifty yards away, its chilly waters sliding slowly by, its voice a song of longing for the sea.

  We followed the river westward for a good league or so, through drier country, the air still and silent except for the shrill cry of geese. The winter sun set paths and hedgerows ablaze with a keen light, but gave little warmth, and the bare and crooked trees that marked our way cast long and sad shadows. We walked along, hardly speaking, and now and then I caught a small noise – an intake of breath, a quiet sob – and realized with some surprise that they came from my own mouth. Thomas, a few yards ahead, hardly looked back; but from the shape of his coat as he held it around him, and the way his head was hunched low into his scarf, he seemed more alone than I had ever seen him.

  By late afternoon we were near to the Ice Bridge of Sennow, so called because of the thick cluster of icicles which settles upon it during the deepest part of the winter, and which forms the only crossing between the inhabited lands south of the Soar, and the foreign wastes beyond it. As we sheltered beneath a birch, stripped by the sighing wind, we saw a young man, dressed like one of the Green folk, in a wide coat, and carrying a dead deer. He stopped when he saw us, and nodded at Thomas.

  “Brother,” he said, and his voice was cracked, and sounded as if it was far away. Thomas nodded in reply, and gestured to the animal, held upside down, the man’s gloved hand tight around its legs.

  “Can you spare any of that meat, brother?” he asked, and looked hard at the man, who held his head a little to one side, and said:

  “I wish I could. This is for my family, and they are not small in number.” Then he added: “I am sorry.”

  Thomas only smiled, as
if this was the answer he was expecting.

  “If you cannot spare any food, perhaps you can tell us something. How goes it with the Green Cities? Have you heard anything of Richard of the Towers?”

  The young man looked suspicious then, and backed away a little. Then he said:

  “The Southern Acres are overrun. I suppose you know this already. The Witch had been building a great army in Glenaster: bigger than we had imagined possible. Our complacency has cost us dear. There are some safe places left within the Cities’ walls, but if you do not know where those are, I am afraid I cannot tell you. Messengers have been sent to Ampar, to ask the emperor for help; but I doubt anyone will come, or, if they do, it will be too late…” And his voice trailed away, and he closed his eyes, and was silent for a time.

  After a while, he said:

  “I do not know where you will go. The servants of the Witch have closed off the roads south, and there is no retreating that way. Unless…” And he looked at us, and his eyes widened a little, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. “Unless you mean to go…” And he pointed with his arm, toward the lands that lay on the other side of the river. We did not reply.

  He nodded again, and turned to leave, but then, turning back, said, to me:

  “You are welcome to hide with my family, if you wish. You are too young to cross the river.”

  I must admit, I was tempted by his offer, and felt Thomas’s eye on me as I considered it.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said at last. “But I have a companion on the road, and I do not think I will need your protection as well. But I am grateful to you.”

  The man hesitated slightly, then bowed a little, and walked away, and soon disappeared amongst the trees. And that was the last sane man we met before we crossed into the lands of the Witch.