Mark of the Witchwyrm

by Steve Van Samson

  Galttauer urged his horse over to the conspicuous spatter, then dismounted. After dipping his fingers in the stuff, he brought them to his nose.

  "This? This is witch blood? And you drew it with... a Maldaavan blade." This last observation held no question, only the acceptance of an unlikely truth.

  "Yes, and a twinkle in my eye." Visibly exasperated, Kro pinched the skin between his eyes. When he spoke again, the edge in his voice was gone. "Damn it, Henric. Don't think I've forgotten what happened last time--don't you dare. Just... open your eyes! It is bleeding! That means we might have a chance! A chance we will squander if we stand around all night talking in circles!"

  "You know he's right," the deep voice of Rander Belmorn came as a shock. "The question is, what are you going to do about it," this was directed at the man with the icy glare and the long noble bloodline.

  Captain Henric Galttauer frowned so deep with such inward distaste, it might have been a new standard for the expression.

  12 - 2

  The group had swelled by five. Now, Belmorn, Kro and Rivka stood or sat beside four armed soldiers and their captain. The rest of the garrison had been sent ahead. On Galttauer's orders they were to ride past the thorn wall and into the High Veld. To locate any sign of the witch's blood trail and to stand upon it. Leaving a man behind every half mile or so, creating a chain which snow could not erase.

  It had been the blackfoot's idea. A precaution, in case of snow.

  "Belmorn!" Kro's impatience was becoming raw. "Now?"

  "Not yet." The riverman patted the neck of his enormous horse. "I told you. Longer."

  "Damn you and your doting, riverman. Even now she escapes us. You know this is our only chance!"

  Belmorn lifted a ball of hard packed snow to Magnus' mouth. The horse's rubbery lips reached, pulled in the mass of snow and ice and happily crunched it down. "The horses are not the only ones who are tired, Kro. The witch ran just as far, just as fast. She will not be able to keep that pace on her return. Especially bleeding like that. The Roon men are fresh. If they do as they have been instructed, we will have no problem finding our quarry."

  Hearing this, Galttauer sneered. "My men know how to follow orders, but I won't leave them out there for long. We rest for one hour. No more."

  Belmorn set Magnus's giant saddle down on a log that likely served as a bench in the camp. "Fine," He said, sounding not entirely pleased. "One hour."

  "The witch," Rivka's voice came after a long silence. It was a tiny thing. "How does she do it?"

  "Huh?" Kro spat, audibly frustrated. "Do what?"

  "The horses, those men!" The girl was standing. Leaning against a tree. "She just makes them... disappear."

  "Well..." Kro began poking around the camp, looking in tents and piles for his missing belongings. "Can't have a witch without a little craft."

  "So it's... magic!?" The girl sounded awestruck.

  Listening with only one ear, Belmorn accepted some feed from one of Galttauer's bags and poured oil and water over it. "Thought you said there was no such thing."

  "Magic? Biology? If you want the truth, I have no idea." called Kro from inside a tent. "But I can tell you this... there is something important in the venom of that stinger. Something no other creature that walks or slithers on this rock can produce. That's why I had us try to hack it off while she was trapped. Something in that venom connects to another place. Belmorn, I told you... the witchwyrm's feet straddle an invisible line. A kind of boundary between worlds. One foot is anchored here, in the world we know."

  As he continued to half-listen, Belmorn noticed his horse was still tacked, steaming with sweat, and had begun to shiver. He directed Rivka to make another bowl of food as he'd just done. When Kro was done talking, he called back "Don't be an idiot!" He began to untack the silver mare. "There is only one world."

  "Ah... but when you look into your river, do you not see another man looking back?"

  Returning to his own bags so he could groom the horses' coats, Belmorn snickered and shook his head. Then he pulled out the very tool he'd remembered the man for and glared at it. "Okay, Brushman. This other place. What is it?"

  "Just, somewhere else. A place only witches and their victims ever see. The Akkadians had a name for it, the Without."

  From inside her furry hood, Rivka's face went pale. Before she could respond, Kro was shouting again.

  "She doesn't just make things disappear. She moves them. Secreting her victims away the way a leopard uses an acacia tree, where they lie placid and helpless with two separate types of venom in their veins. The one in her teeth is unique in all the animal kingdom. It paralyzes and it heals. Reversing all manner of infection and disease, keeping her meat fresh and healthy."

  Suddenly, the ears of all in the camp were assaulted by a series of distant barks--so loud they seemed to strike the very air like a drum.

  "That's the one, Belmorn. What you came all this way to find."

  "What?" The blackfoot spun to look at the hooded man, fires in his stormy eyes. "What are you saying?"

  "The primary component in witch tears is her venom. What I once had was acquired by chance, in a land far from here. The stuff was old but potent as ever."

  "You son of a bitch. You goddamned son of a bitch!"

  Belmorn stormed over to where Kro was standing in five long strides. The four guardsmen bristled, but a gesture from their captain put them at ease. Galttauer was listening intently.

  "You told me to leave." Belmorn shoved the hooded man. "My boy's salvation was right here, and you tried to send me away?!"

  "Belmorn, please. I didn't want you to get any deeper into this--either of you. Listen to me... this plan is not a smart one. I should be the one to bear its consequences. Please, just take Rivka and leave this place. Go back to your river and your boy."

  "I can't. Not like this." The eyes of the blackfoot flashed. "Don't you see? Can't you understand? They are my everything. My heart. My life. And in their darkest hour, I left them."

  "Only to find a cure!" The phrase exploded from the young girl. "Left them to come back! To save your son's life!"

  "She's right, riverman." The captain spoke up at last. "What you did, coming here... going forward even after all you have endured... that is not leaving. That is sacrifice. True nobility."

  "Noble am I?" Belmorn coughed up a mirthless laugh. "Bet you think I'm brave too. Thing is... courage isn't what drives a man so far away from where he is needed most. Fear does that. I may have been able to fool myself at first, but the truth of it was written on my wife's face as I rode away. This quest has been the actions of a coward and nothing more. One who would rather wrap both arms around a fool's errand than watch his only son wither away! To die a little more each day, swollen and purple!"

  Regretting his temper and many other things, Belmorn spoke more softly.

  "Kro... you once warned me about the people this far north. Cold as the wind, you said. But even they don't deserve to be taken one by one by that hag. I say we help each other now. That we kill this thing so I can take its venom back to Grael and save my boy."

  After a few seconds, Tenebrus Kro turned his head, catching the stormiest part of Belmorn's eye. No more words were needed and none were offered.

  Time passed in silence after that for a long while. For Kro's part, he continued searching the site. Scouring every bag and crate of accrued plunder with determined, if secret purpose, until finally...

  "There!" Kro gasped, lifting a bag from a pile of discarded belongings. "If there are any Gods left up there..." The bag as the rest of the goods nearby had been trampled by the witch. With hurried, frantic jerks of his hands, Kro threw the top flap open and dumped the contents onto the ground. All present watched this intently though none could guess as to what madness had suddenly possessed the man.

  "Where is it?" Kro muttered on hands and knees. "It had to be here. Has to be... ah!" From amidst broken glass and powder, sticks and shattered bits of clay, a small objec
t was retrieved. Overcome with emotion, Tenebrus Kro dusted the thing off, then pressed it to his cheek. "I'm sorry. My loves. My life." He was close to tears--rocking as if alone in the ruined camp. "I'm so Goddamned sorry."

  "Mr. Kro." Rivka stepped forward, placing a hand on the alchemist's elbow. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, girl." Kro smiled as a tear fell down his cheek. "I just... thought I would never see this again."

  He opened his hands to reveal a raggedy homemade thing. Something like a child's toy. It had been made of braided black hair--fashioned into the shape of a bird, with tiny buttons for eyes and a candle wax beak.

  "It's a crow." Rivka smiled sweetly. "Like you."

  Drawing one arm across his face, Kro nodded. "That night. I knew going after those bastard rats was stupid. Morgrig... everything he took was precious. Nearly impossible to replace. But this," he placed the tiny thing in his palm--allowing the wings to spread. "My sweet girl. My Lishka made this. Gave it to me the last time I..." Kro drew the back of one hand across his eyes. Allowed himself a moment. "Hold it every day, she said. And kiss it every night before bed. Do this, she said, and no matter how far apart we were... she would feel it and she would know."

  Right then the man who's heart had been closed for so long, raised the raggedy object to his lips--leaving a kiss there. Then, standing up, Kro tucked his daughter's final gift away in his cloak.

  "Of course you're right, Belmorn. The horses need rest. We all do. This is our one shot and too many lives depend on us now. Just too fucking many."

  12 - 3

  There were many riders coming.

  As they moved over the low veld, the group stretched into something more resembling a line. This was a fortunate thing for the man on the ground.

  The crescent knife felt good in his hand. Usually he kept the blade strapped to one leg and usually, that was where it stayed. But now that his cleaver swords had been lost, he was glad for the backup weapon. He had to be smart now. The man who had been calling himself Slagter may not have been sane, but he knew there would be no more chances.

  This was it. Time at last for the settling of old debts.

  In a long line, the riders approached the slanted rock in a gallop. Slagter was ready. Crouched beneath the giant's tooth--looking through cracked lenses for his hated enemy.

  But these were not the riders he had expected. These were Roon men. A small Garrison of soldiers. Though why they were here, Slagter could not say. Mannis had proved time and again that the men of that blasted city were too afraid to open their door. And yet here they were, galloping straight for his rock--no doubt, chasing down the beast.

  The snake mother had passed him already. Shrieking and stumbling--too frantic to notice that there was anything but shadows beneath Slagter's rock. She had collapsed not twenty feet away. Lying there for a time, her belly in the snow, just breathing and bleeding. He couldn't believe the size. That the accounts Mannis had dismissed as fish stories, fell woefully short of the reality.

  At such close proximity, Slagter could see the beast had earned every word of her own legend. After a few seconds of respite, the snake mother scrambled abruptly to her feet, then vanished. Reappearing some fifty feet closer to the hill. It had all happened no more than ten minutes ago. And now it was riders who were about to pass his hiding place.

  Inside his mask, Slagter's mouth curled into a grin. It didn't matter why they were here. These men had horses. Weapons too. In a straight fight, he could never take them all. But perhaps one at a time. So long as their eyes remained fixed on the trail.

  One by one, they passed by. Each bringing a loud whoosh and gust of cold air.

  One. Two.

  He counted as they passed.

  Three. They must be allies of Mr. Kro. Four. If even one lives, they might spoil everything. Five. Six. Seven. You have to kill them all. Eight.

  As the ninth of the Roonik Guards galloped by in a great gust of cold air, the masked man made his move. Leaping, grasping, scrambling, then stabbing, slicing.

  12 - 4

  Horses tore through the northern woods and their count was seven.

  The man in the very front wore a hooded cloak, the color of midnight. His beard was dark and pointed. His eyes focused. Hungrily they scoured both brush and path--yearning for the next fleck of yellow-green blood.

  Decades of practice had honed his tracking skills but following this particular trail at his current speed was pushing those skills to their limit. The area past the moat was a wasteland. A vast, open swath under the shadow of a peculiarly shaped mountain. The High Veld terminated most abruptly at a massive cliff. The largest known to the civilized world.

  World's Edge.

  "There!" Kro's heart all but soared as he shouted, pointing to the yellow spattered on a small, flowered bush.

  Riding just behind, Belmorn and Rivka met his eye. Both of them looked dauntless. Utterly set on the task of joining him to the bitter end of this damned nightmare.

  It was wrong, Kro knew. Fundamentally unjust. This nightmare was his by right. So many innocent lives had been lost already. All for a singular, colossal lapse in judgement.

  The egg had been beautiful, marbled with smokey trails of purple and grey. According to the man Kro had obtained it from, it was over a hundred years old. The thing could only be inert, little more than a curio. And his Lishka did always fawn over her father's collection of rare eggs.

  "There!" Kro pointed to a tree with a cracked trunk. It bent as if something heavy had stumbled, lost its balance, and careened into it. Most importantly, running down it was a trickle of bright yellow-green.

  Kro's legs squeezed together, urging his mare on even faster. The giant's teeth were just ahead. All of them slanted north, aimed in the same direction the riders were headed, as if pointing the way.

  Weaving through and past the strange rocks both on and off the path, Kro was following a chaotic line of sliding tracks. A few steps here and a few over there. The trajectory was clear, but broken.

  "Look at the tracks," Kro shouted to the man beside him. "The beast must have been vanishing as it ran. Slipping in and out."

  Kro's eye caught a thread of yellow and he veered around another of the giant's teeth. There had been movement, a dark flicker behind one of the rocks. He recognized the area as roughly where the masked man had struck him. He squinted at the spot. Finding nothing, he turned his attention back on the road ahead. It was mental torture to keep their current pace. Slow and safe enough to travel over the treacherous ground.

  "Racing falling snow and a setting sun to slay a witch," he called in a sing-song voice to the blackfoot. "Probably make one hell of a ballad."

  "Yeah," said Belmorn. "If one of us lives to tell it."

  Captain Henric Galttauer had not led his men away from Roon in a very long time. Before the Veld had been marked by a witch, his had been the name which kept the shadows from creeping too closely to the last of the great shield cities. Now, as he urged his horse and his men on and forward, he could almost remember what that felt like.

  Wearily, he glanced ahead to the leaders of the expedition. The merchant man and his tall companion were about to disappear over the crest of the hill, but before they did, Galttauer was struck by a pair of eyes. The young girl who clung to the tall one's middle was looking back, staring, judging. Though she did not look familiar, the captain could not help but accept the brunt of that judgment.

  He was glad to have those eyes pass out of sight, but the relief was short lived. As his jet black stallion summited the hilltop, Galttauer's breath caught in his throat.

  An impressive collection of discarded clothing was strewn about the snowy ground. Cloaks, jerkins, and trousers lay beside and atop saddles, bridles and armor. Eerily, they mimicked the shapes of whatever men had worn them. Tracks, too, were everywhere. Horse, man, and other.

  As Galttauer's mind reeled, one item drew his eye. The cuirass was old but definitely Roonik. It lay in a pool of dark red, and the me
tal around the neck flared in sharp, broken angles, as if pried from its previous owner with massive claws.

  "Kro!" Belmorn's sudden voice made the captain jump. "What is all of this?"

  The alchemist turned, but the dying light indicated no face within the hood. He shouted back. "Whoever she vanishes, wherever they really go, it is without the shirt on their back. What you see here are her table scraps. All that remains of Mannis Morgrig and his merry band."

  "But this armor..." said the captain. "it looks Roonik."

  "Of course it does. What's the matter, Galttauer? Have you forgotten the last time we rode together? It was up that same hill. Towards this same damned goal."

  Seven years ago, the travelling merchant had arrived in a state, spouting nonsense about a monster in the Veld. Galttauer had relented to the pleadings of Tenebrus Kro, agreeing to follow him north with a small garrison if only to set his people at ease. Not for an instant had he lent credence to the man's ravings; Kro had been disturbed or drunk or mad, but he was certainly not to be taken seriously.

  'Forgotten'? The captain scowled.

  Even with the drumming of hooves pressing into his skull, Henric Galttauer could still hear his men on that blackest of days. Their cries still assaulted him at night and in the quiet moments, reminding him of the depths of his failure. Was it any wonder he chose to bar the gates of Roon? If the captain could not protect his people outside, he would keep whatever was out there from getting in.

  "There!" The blackfoot was pointing at a thread of steaming yellow blood.

  Some days ago, the man had claimed to be from Grael. An insignificant speck along a distant river most Velders would never see.

  Back in Morgrig's ruined camp Galttauer had made a split-second decision. This man, Belmorn, had suffered enough--sentenced and damn nearly been put to death for the crimes of another. All for what? A deception aimed at the very people he had sworn to protect? Because if he could no longer provide true security then perhaps an illusion would serve?