Mark of the Witchwyrm

by Steve Van Samson

  After seven long years, his heart's desire was fulfilled and all he could feel was despair.

  Belmorn stood, dusted himself off, and turned to look at his friend.

  "You know," he said at last. "I've been pulling monsters out of the water for so many years, more than I can remember." He shrugged. "It was about time I gave one back."

  "But..." Kro spoke softly. "Your boy."

  "Rivka!" Belmorn's tone was sharp. "Does she live?"

  It took a few seconds to process the question, but Kro gave a weak nod. "Yes. Miraculously, she appeared unhurt. If there are any gods left up there, I'd say one is keeping an eye on that kid. A hell of a thing, jumping from that balcony. That is the kind of seed that legends spring from."

  "Yeah." Belmorn nodded, then fell silent. After a few long moments, he looked up again, blinked, and asked with a waver in his voice, "Kro?"

  "Mmm?"

  "Do I still have a horse?"

  PART SIXTEEN

  CIRCLE

  16 - 1

  Jayce was quiet, and it was still.

  Cloaked in full night, the street would have been entirely silent had it not been for the girl. Rivka Pesch was doing the only thing she could for the enormous horse--sharing her warmth.

  The adamandray was still breathing, but within its bulk coursed a strange venom. For some time Magnus had lay unmoving upon the cold street. His posture, his breathing, the steady rise and fall of his side, they all spoke of slumber. But Rivka knew better; the animal's eyes told a very different story. They were black and bulging with an unmistakable emotion.

  Fear.

  The girl had tried to close the horse's eyelids, but she could no more manage this than she could raise the animal to his feet. Alone and worried beyond measure that her other two friends might never come back, Rivka began to cry.

  Through deep sobs, she stroked the horse's face. Then, leaning over, placed a kiss upon his cheek.

  "It's okay," she said in the comforting tone of her mother. "We're going to be okay. Y-you were so b-brave tonight. And strong. N-no. Not strong, mighty. That's what you were. M-mighty. Just like Charon the Graveless." she sniffed. The shivering was getting out of hand. "I d-don't know if they make st-tatues of just horses. But they should." With a shaky breath, Rivka laid down her head, pressing a cheek to the animal's neck. "You know, if I was a st-tatue m-maker, I would make one of just you. Magnus the M-mighty. Witch-kicker. Bravest horse there ever w-was."

  Her lips were closer to violet than red, but they held a faint smile. Very soon, she would have to take shelter in one of those buildings. Of course that would mean that Rivka was going to be alone. Truly and completely, all over again. Possibly forever.

  More tears welled. She tried to fight them but lacked the strength. And so they flowed, tracing dark lines down her cheeks and disappearing into the striped coat of the adamandray, where brown and white mingled.

  The town of Jayce was getting colder... but from inside, Rivka felt a warmth coming over her body. She wanted to keep looking--out there, past the buildings, down the street. In the direction where Kro had ridden off after Belmorn and the witch. More than anything she wanted to stay vigilant, to know the very first possible second that her friends were okay.

  Perhaps... perhaps I can just rest my eyes for a minute. Maybe two. Yes, that would be all right. She could stay with Magnus the Mighty out in the street and close her eyes. The idea was insidious but more seductive than she could endure. Her body had no will to move, no strength. It needed this. To rest. To sleep. Just for a while.

  The girl's mind registered sounds coming from behind. Shuffling footsteps. She remembered the captain. Perhaps, after so many months spent in squalor on the streets of Roon, he had finally taken pity on her.

  Rivka's eyelids fluttered, then shut. With incredible effort, she opened them again, lifted her head, and turned in the opposite direction. The captain wasn't there. The street was filled, but not with men. Through her tears, the figures appeared blurry and indistinct, but she could make out their eyes. Tiny pinpricks of light.

  They reminded her of stars.

  The girl gasped and fell back upon the horse. Too weak and frozen to move again, she waited. One of the figures broke from the group and kneeled before her. The troll's eyes were tiny, sheltered beneath a prominent ridge of bone, but Rivka was not afraid. Aside from moonlight, there was true kindness in those eyes. Perhaps something like gratitude.

  God, she wanted to keep looking, to say something. But then, in the inner darkness, the girl could feel a warmth that hadn't been there before. It came from everywhere, enveloping her like a blanket. Before unconsciousness took her, she felt the inexplicable notion of movement, of being lifted and cradled in unseen arms.

  In that moment Rivka Pesch knew that she was far from alone.

  16 - 2

  Bror peered down at the human child. He was pleased to see that she still lived. With care, he cinched up the pelt she wore for a cloak around her already wind-bitten face.

  The Pershten chief looked back at his people. He had tried to keep them safe for so long--only to lead them right back to the serpent's nest. It was what they had wanted. Every Pershten, young and old, had insisted upon it, for they had come to understand a simple truth. Whether Bror liked it or not, the time for hiding was over.

  "Just stay down. Get back under those pelts and whatever happens, keep your small ones quiet!"

  He could still hear the frantic words of Tenebrous Kro. The last he had managed before riding off with the other man and the child.

  When the alchemist and his companions had raced out of the hollow place, the Pershten knew well what was about to happen. The hated beast was coming and she was coming fast. She had caused so many of their kind to disappear and had chased the rest from their mountain, from the mines and heated springs that had been theirs since time began.

  Lacking the strength to fight or legs fit for racing, Bror did exactly as Kro had bidden. Ordering his people back under their pelts--to lie as flat and as still as the ground itself. The tactic, aided in part by the beast's rage, had worked perfectly. After tearing a new entrance in the bramble wall, the witchwyrm had stormed past the nearly two dozen trolls without a glance. Her slitted eyes had been fixed solely in the direction of the noises that called to her.

  Soon, amidst horn blasts, there came the sounds of battle and of screams. A loud BANG had emboldened the Pershten chief into action. The alchemist had his sympathies, but Bror's people were peaceful. They were miners and shepherds and the catchers of blind fish, nowhere near equipped for joining the clash of men and monster. But they had to move--to once again flee from the snake-headed beast that would likely be back through this same break in the thorns.

  Bror's mind had raced knowing damned well that there was nowhere left to go. Even if the beast hadn't blocked their way south, the world at large was not for them.

  He had tried to convince the Chieftain of the cliffrook tribe of this very thing, but Schtell had led her people down that road many months before, hoping to live in the woods, where they might subsist on the noisy black birds that lived there. As far as was known, the beast had never left the High Veld, but there was another thing to consider.

  Man had tried too hard for too long to convince himself that Bror's kind should be feared. That they were base, unnatural things who lurked under bridges or came at night to snatch swaddled babes from where they slept. Out there, trolls they had been labeled and trolls they would always be.

  Their only chance was to hide. If not in their mountain then somewhere else. But there was nowhere else.

  "Bror," came a voice in a tongue no human would have been able to discern. "The animal has been bitten. The beast's poisons are inside."

  Bror regarded the adamandray. Then he looked over at the unconscious body of Captain Galttauer, which three more Pershten were inspecting. The man was riddled with holes and leaking a fair amount of blood.

  "The Roon man?" Bror's voice was
low and even.

  "Almost gone," said one of the Pershten males, placing a very long sword on the ground, parallel to the man's body. The blade was covered in frozen blood. "There is another. There. And also there."

  Bror's eyes moved from headless body to bodiless head.

  "This was not the wyrm's doing." The other male continued. "Look there, the blood on the Roon man's sword. He did this. But why? Why would these men come all this way to fight each other instead of her?"

  Bror frowned, causing the others to take on a sheepish posture. "Because they are men."

  Another nodded, stepped forward. "Bror, we did what we could for the wounds, but there is much damage inside. Schratmoss will not be enough."

  Bristling, Bror shifted his focus from the man to the horse and then to the sleeping girl, still in his arms.

  "Tonight we have more tools than schratmoss," he said in a firm voice. "Here... Gretch." Bror faced one of the gathered females. "Take the girl. There must be a bed in one of these dwellings." He pointed with his eyes at the nearby buildings. "Please find it."

  The Pershten woman nodded, accepting the girl like a mother would her own child. Without a word, she headed off to the nearest structure. Bror kneeled at the horse. He peered down into its bulging, horrified eye and whispered softly, "Your fight is done. Now it is time to sleep."

  The other Pershten nodded. They all placed open palms on various places of the horse's hide. Slumber came quickly and the animal was no longer afraid.

  "Godnatt, brave one." Bror leaned in to inspect the puncture wounds in the animal's neck. Each was barely a pinprick. Far too small to have ever permitted such enormous fangs as those of the Witch.

  Instead of breaking down flesh, witch venom restored it. The unlikely effect ensured that the victim remained fresh and healthy, allowing the beast to wipe out populations while keeping her cupboard stocked with fresh meat. Most bite victims were also hit by the second attack--the sting that caused them to vanish, to be whisked from this plain to wherever witches went. But sometimes an individual was left behind, bitten but un-stung, overlooked as the witchwyrm continued her gluttonous harvest.

  If those bitten were reached by survivors, secreted away to lie paralyzed for many days, they awoke feeling invigorated. Experiencing something like renewed youth--their bodies healed from wounds both outside and in.

  Bror frowned, cursing in his native speech. "Her poisons are working fast. These are nearly healed."

  Letting the air out of his lungs, he pressed his mouth to the first puncture mark. The venom tasted like needle pricks. It froze and tingled until his tongue went numb. Again and again his cheeks caved, but most of the substance had been absorbed into the horse's bloodstream. The Pershten Chief lifted his head and spit carefully into a clump of a mossy substance, plucked from his own shoulder.

  The others looked on as he lowered his head to repeat the procedure. When he was finished, Bror's lips curled into a grimace. Drawing a long forearm across his mouth, he looked woefully unimpressed at the venomous moss. In all, only a few drops had been removed from each wound... but perhaps...

  "Bror?" asked the voice of a child.

  The Pershten chief turned and looked down at the small one. "What is it, Nafti?"

  "What are you doing?"

  "What I can to save this man's life."

  "But, these men... Didn't they do this to each other?"

  "Yes but they cannot help it. Such is their nature."

  "Then why save them?"

  Bror took a deep breath. Then he placed a hand on the child's shoulder and simply smiled.

  16 - 3

  The trek back from the edge felt endless.

  Kro had twice offered to share the use of his mount, but Belmorn had been cut from a stubborn cloth. His was a proud people who existed in perfect symbiosis with exactly two things--the river which sustained them and the gigantic horses which bore them into it.

  Rander Belmorn was going the distance on foot. A gust of wind licked past as the tall man spoke. "You were wrong, you know."

  Kro peered down, past his oxblood scarf. "Oh?" His voice was ragged. "About which part?"

  "You said every journey was a circle. That no matter how far we go, we always end at the beginning. But that's shit. This--all of this--has been for nothing. I can never go back. Not now."

  "I'd say that depends."

  "On what?" Belmorn's tone was passing annoyed and circling angry.

  "On which home you were planning to get back to. Seems to me there's more than one. That one you knew, with your pretty life that was? Healthy, happy family and little house? All your worries aimed at that damned black trickle? Well, that home, my friend, you were never going back to. They say time marches, but it's only in one direction." Kro took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "There's another one. A new home, right where the old one used to be. It's waiting for you."

  Belmorn scoffed, shaking his head. He spoke with a measure of disdain. "Waiting for what?"

  "For you to stop running away." The statement held an unintentional edge that Kro did not redact.

  Rander Belmorn glared up at the man in the saddle, but he did not know what to say.

  "I'm sorry we lost the teeth, Belmorn. And I'm sorry for your boy." Kro sighed, straightening his gaze. "But the witchwyrm is finally gone. Finally dead. Sinking into oblivion, and I am sure as hell not sorry for that."

  After a while, Belmorn responded to this with a single nod. And that was enough.

  In the distance, rectangular shadows became visible in the moonlight. The insignificant spec of a mining town should have been a welcome site, yet for the men who beheld it, there was no relief.

  Kro drew a sharp breath, his hand shooting to the place where the masked rider had pinned an exploding cross. Though much of the man's face was hidden, Belmorn could see real pain in his eyes. It was not an easy sight to behold. It forced the riverman to remember that he was not the only one in pain.

  "You know..." he started in a low voice. "You should see a doctor."

  Amidst the discomfort, Kro managed to look genuinely surprised. "Right," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I'll look one up, next time I'm in Britilpor."

  Belmorn looked up. He didn't smile, but he wasn't frowning either. "Who was that man?" he asked gingerly. "The one with the mask, and the scars."

  "Morgrig's butcher?" Kro lowered his hand from his collarbone. "Don't recall a name... but..." Trembling fingers mimicked the curve of his hidden face. "I had this coming. " Kro's eyes grew moist. "As a boy, all I wanted to do was get as far as I could from this damned frozen waste. To see the rest of the world, maybe uncover a secret or two." Kro smiled then, sadly. "It was out there I learned about the craft of alchemy and about the code. Three words: unearth, unveil, and know. They were my map, even after I decided searching for eternal life at the bottom of a crucible wasn't for me. But no matter how long I was gone, no matter how far I went, this damn place always called me back. Every time." He turned. "Make no mistake, my wagon bore the symbol it did for a reason."

  Belmorn could picture it. The serpent, eating its own tail, rendered in black. "The Ouroboros. Because all journeys end at the beginning," he said.

  Kro nodded. "Like it or not, Belmorn, we all go back by pushing forward. Sometimes it's just hard to see. When too many steps are taken, we risk forgetting where we've been." He grew quiet for a moment, then said, "Babatunde. I had forgotten that name. Had gotten so used to thinking of what was left as just another what. Instead of a who."

  "Babatunde." Belmorn looked confused. "The scarred man's name?"

  "His son's." Kro shook his head. "The boy who went up like so much kindling--taking his mother and baby sister with him. I had heard the story in whispers and did what I always did. I located his grave, and I unearthed... unveiled." The man's voice quivered with emotion. "Just another curiosity to poke and prod. One more ingredient for my wagon--"

  "An ingredient?" Belmorn snapped. The ends of his haresh changed d
irection with a sudden gust. "That man... Kro, you are telling me that you stole the remains of his dead son?"

  Kro said nothing to this as the slow clops of his silver mare filled the silence. Finally, he continued, but as if the previous question had gone unheard.

  "In that shallow grave there wasn't much left--a few blackened finger bones, some baby teeth. Little enough to keep in a single jar, and eventually a vial. Just another tool in my stock I employed to save my own sorry ass over the years. Yours too. Remember the night I broke you from that cell? When we were escaping, when I left you to make a distraction, did you imagine I was setting Roon on fire?" Kro barked a scornful, mirthless laugh. "The boy's bones were elemental things. They could create smoke in incredible quantities with the slightest kiss of an open flame." Kro stopped as his hand once again moved to his collarbone. "But those bones were a boy, once. Just a little boy. Cursed by some accident of birth. A cruel trick of whatever gods leer over that distant land. He was just a boy, Belmorn. And he had a name."

  "Babatunde," whispered Belmorn with terrible understanding.

  "Babatunde!" Kro bellowed the name, shaking in his saddle. After that, for some time... the tundra was silent. It was a long while before either man spoke again.

  "Rinh." said Belmorn, his mouth turned in a scowl of disgust. "How do you live with yourself?"

  "Oh?" asked the rider in a low drawl. "To tell you the truth, living was never the plan. You see, I was going to join them. My girls. They're waiting for me. You see?" Kro paused before going on "For seven years, there was only one true end I could imagine. Only one way to close the circle. I needed to return, not just here, but to them. To go where they had gone. But first I had to find a way to do what the people of old dead Hispidia never could. To answer the last question, the only question. How do you kill a witch?" Kro laughed, wincing in pain. "Imagine my shock in discovering that answer wasn't some elusive combination of whats. But rather a who." Another mirthless chuckle escaped the rider's gullet. "Maybe if Hispidia had a blackfoot, its history would be different, eh?"