Thalgor's Witch Read online

  She did not look for her aunt among the others from the camp where they’d both been enslaved. She had seen a misdirected arrow pierce the old woman’s body through as she tried to flee the battle. A shattering wave of grief washed over Erwyn at the memory.

  She remembered, too, the look of horror on the face of the archer who had shot the arrow, a tall, slender young man with immense brown eyes in a too thin face.

  Thalgor walked into the camp without any sign of his injury, although she still felt the aching weakness inside him. His people fell silent as they saw him, until the entire camp was quiet except for the weeping captives at its edge. Even the cattle seemed awed to silence by their triumphant leader.

  “My people,” Thalgor said in a voice gone from mocking to majestic. “We have done well. Our warriors are great, and brave, and strong. We have taken food, livestock, and goods from many tents. We have taken women who in time will belong to our men who have none, children who will become as our own, old men to help with the work of the camp. Remember what they have lost this day.”

  His people murmured and nodded as if this were a speech they heard after every victory. But how could that be? Let the old men live? Take the children as their own? The women were not simply to be used and sold as slaves? Yet Gurdek had said their men were not allowed to rape, and Erwyn felt the truth in Thalgor’s words.

  The other captives fell silent, no doubt as surprised as she was by his strange speech.

  With a gesture to Gurdek to keep Erwyn and the child where they were, Thalgor walked to the circle where the remnants of the defeated band huddled together. Only the small children still wept.

  “When we leave this meadow, you may come with us and have our protection.” He spoke in the same majestic voice, softer now because his listeners were fewer. “Or you may venture out on your own. You will not be harmed if you stay with us. In any way,” he emphasized as he looked at the women. “But you must work to keep yourselves. Your children will learn our ways. Those women who choose may become the women of our warriors who have none. We do not take slaves.”

  The captives stared at him in disbelief, then fell to talking among themselves. The conversations gradually took on clear patterns. Mothers argued with sons old enough to wish to join what warriors might be left from their band to become marauders and seek revenge. Old men argued with women reluctant to leave their men behind if any hope remained that they still lived. All of them hungry, cold, and frightened. All aware the choice Thalgor offered was for most of them a choice between life and death.

  Slowly, in ones and twos and family groups, they stepped outside the circle of warriors.

  “We are now of you.” The voice of the old man who led them was rough with grief.

  Thalgor nodded and gestured for food to be brought to the larger group who had joined his camp, and to the few who remained inside the circle–boys old enough to brave a life on their own, childless women who would leave in the morning to search for their men. A fire was lit for them as well.

  Felyn began to cry.

  “Let me take her to the other women,” Erwyn urged Gurdek. “She is hungry.”

  “You will both eat.” Thalgor had reappeared at her side. “In my tent.”

  She looked up into eyes that seemed carved from agate.

  “I thought you took no slaves.” She schooled the fear, and that other emotion she had no name for, from her voice.

  “We take no human slaves.”

  Her blood ran cold, then hot.

  “Make sure the men know she is a witch,” he told Gurdek as he took the rope from him.

  Then he turned back to Erwyn. “As for the child, without her within my reach, I would not dare keep you in my camp, much less in my tent.”

  Erwyn shivered with a fear her magic could not lessen. A dread darker, deeper than of death.

  Thalgor saw her fear. He smiled.

  Chapter Two

  They made slow progress through the camp because the people crowded around Thalgor as they always did, eager to speak to him or even touch the cloak he kept wrapped closely around him to hide his wound. He spoke to those he knew by name, now and then stroked a child’s head as he talked with its parents.

  Dara waited for him outside her mother’s tent as she had after every battle since the last cold time. Until recently he had been glad for the distraction from battle and death she provided.

  Her cloak hung open to expose the gown pulled tight across her ample breasts. Her lips would taste of the berry juice that stained them red.

  “Thalgor.” She smiled at him with hungry eyes.

  He could not simply ignore her.

  “Dara.”

  He gestured for Gurdek to take the witch and her child on to his tent, but the witch refused to follow, and Gurdek was clearly afraid to force her to move. With a shrug, Thalgor turned back to the woman who had until recently been his lover.

  “Who’s that?” Dara pointed at the prisoner.

  “A witch. I think she might be useful in battle.”

  Dara raised one eyebrow, then turned to him with a dismissive shrug. She stroked a hand down his sword arm.

  Once her touch would have made him smile in anticipation. Now it irritated, but he didn’t push her hand away.

  “I watched the battle from a tree on the hillside.” She paused to lick her lips. “You killed so many men.” She stroked his sword arm again. A familiar flush tinged her face. “And I saw you cut their leader’s head off.”

  Her eyes glowed with a desire that always made him uneasy. Now, drenched in his own blood and that of the men he had killed, her passion for battle repelled him more than ever before. He gently pushed her hand away from his weary arm.

  “He wounded me in the process. Badly.”

  “I don’t see any wound.” Her wide, red mouth formed a pout.

  “The witch healed it.”

  “Oh. The witch.” Dara turned to where his prisoner watched them and gave her a malevolent smile. “She has a child, and you can’t force a witch. What use is she to you?” Dara rubbed her breasts against his arm.

  Her touch chilled him. He took half a step back.

  Between that chill and the wound, he feared he would be sick if he didn’t soon make his escape.

  “I told you. I think she might be useful in battle.”

  “But not in your bed?”

  Dara licked her lips, which made her look like nothing so much as a viper. His stomach clenched tighter.

  “My wound makes my bed beside the point.” He eased another half step back. “For anyone.”

  Dara stroked his sword arm again. His belly churned.

  “Perhaps tomorrow? Right after a battle is always best, but I could come to tend your wound…”

  “You never tend anything of mine. You refuse to carry my water or cook my food. You only want to be my woman in bed.”

  Once that had pleased him well enough. All his lovers knew he only wanted a night’s pleasure now and then. When they wanted more, they chose men who would give them the love he could not. Shame and rage had turned his heart to stone long ago. Dara was the first woman he had tired of before she was ready to move on.

  “Isn’t in bed enough?” She stepped closer again. A cold sweat beaded on his brow. “If I stay in my mother’s tent she does the work and I can devote myself to pleasing you.”

  “And yourself.”

  “Of course.”

  She gave her hips a little shake so they made contact with the part of him that interested her most.

  He refused to step away again, but pushed her gently back.

  “Stay in your mother’s tent, then. All the time.”

  She looked up at him in disbelief. Her eyes clouded. Not with hurt, to his relief, but with anger.

  “Because of the witch?”

  She stood feet apart, hands fisted on her hips. A man who challenged him so would already be dead. The people around them, who had politely pretended not to listen, suddenly turned to s
tare.

  He took a deep breath against the anger. Consider yourself lucky to be rid of her before you got her with child.

  “Because I have become tired of you.”

  “Tired of me!”

  Repulsed by you, he wanted to say, but mindful of the people around them he replied, “Yes.”

  “No one gets tired of me. I…”

  Dara clearly had more to say. Her lips moved, but no sound came out of her mouth. Her eyes opened wide in surprise, then fear as she turned toward the witch.

  The witch smiled.

  “Witches can make dangerous enemies,” Thalgor commented when he was certain he could speak without laughing.

  Others around them were less restrained. No one guffawed outright, but giggles and snorts moved through the small crowd.

  Dara looked around at them, face scarlet with rage, but still couldn’t utter a sound. She made a half move toward the witch, then spun around and disappeared into her mother’s tent.

  As she went he saw the witch give a small nod he knew released Dara from the spell.

  The witch still smiled. Not an evil smile, but a contented one. The smile told him that fed and happy she might be beautiful.

  But what had happened to Dara had made him even more aware of how dangerous it could be to trifle with a witch.

  The heat that circled his body and settled low in his belly told him he wanted to do much more than trifle with this one.

  *

  Fair warning given, Erwyn turned to follow her captors as they strode on toward Thalgor’s tent, but Felyn refused to take another step. She plopped to the ground and sat like a stone. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Thalgor and Gurdek both turned to see why their prisoner didn’t respond to the tug of the rope.

  “She is too heavy for me to carry,” Erwyn pointed out.

  “Tell her to get up and walk.” Thalgor’s tone still echoed with anger from the scene with the woman who clearly was, or recently had been, his lover.

  Erwyn’s nose twitched with the urge to turn that anger against him and curse him in some painful and permanent way. She chose instead to bide her time and conserve her powers.

  “She’s tired and hungry. Were you never a child? I wouldn’t walk any more, either, if I were she.”

  The two men looked at each other. Gurdek opened his mouth as if to say something, but seemed to reconsider Thalgor’s mood and snapped his mouth shut. He handed the rope to the larger man with obvious reluctance and knelt beside the child to lift her to his shoulders with surprising gentleness.

  Surprisingly, too, the child allowed him to do it without protest. In hopes of food, Erwyn concluded from a look at the mask-like little face so similar to her own.

  Thalgor let Gurdek carry the child past him, then absently tugged on the rope for Erwyn to follow. That was too much. She stood her ground and jerked the rope back, heedless of the pain in her bound wrists.

  Thalgor turned to look at her and her heart stalled. He came to within half a step of her, so he towered over her like a fox over a cornered rabbit. She refused to be afraid. She braced her feet apart, as that woman had, and glared at him.

  “Don’t challenge me,” he growled. “I owed Dara a certain amount of forgiveness. I owe you nothing.”

  He spat the last word out with such vehemence that a few of the people nearby moved gingerly away.

  “You owe me nothing,” Erwyn agreed. “Except your life. So much for your gratitude.” She held up her bound hands.

  “I let you live.”

  “And I let you live.”

  As they faced each other Erwyn felt the minds around them wonder. She knew the danger if they wondered too much about their leader’s ability to control a witch. Torn between pride and that danger, she held Thalgor’s gaze until the silent wondering around them grew too loud, then strode past him, head high, to follow Gurdek and the child.

  Her surrender took Thalgor so much by surprise the rope almost pulled out of his hands when she reached its length. He recovered quickly and marched along behind her like a herdsman with his beast. He would pay for that, too.

  Thalgor’s tent was closest to the huge fire where the ox was roasting. Warriors stood around in small groups, eating battle gruel while they waited for the meat to cook.

  Erwyn’s eyes stung from the smoke while her mouth watered at the savory smell of the meat. Food, food, food, her whole body seemed to chant.

  Thalgor pulled her to a stop to talk with his men. She allowed it only because she knew any wondering about his ability to control her could be especially dangerous here. Warriors were by nature suspicious of strangers, especially witches.

  Gurdek disappeared into Thalgor’s tent with his burden. As soon as the flap closed a wail went up from behind the wall of tight-woven wool. A loud thump, then a string of curses. A small body rocketed from the tent and flew to Erwyn’s side.

  Gurdek lumbered after the child, limping slightly.

  Erwyn yanked the rope free of hands Thalgor had let relax and turned to face Gurdek, shielding the child with her body. “What did you do to her?”

  Thalgor came to her side, but she couldn’t tell if he did it to intimidate her or his comrade.

  “I-I…? Nothing,” Gurdek protested.

  “She screamed. And she trembles.”

  “I did nothing.” He appealed past her to Thalgor, who made an impatient noise low in his throat.

  “As soon as we were in the tent,” Gurdek explained, “she started to wail and pounded on my head. When I tried to put her down, she kicked me in the chest so hard I fell over.”

  “I see,” Thalgor murmured with barely concealed amusement as he took the rope and tugged more gently for Erwyn to follow. The child came, too, clutching her cloak.

  “So, the daughter is as fierce as the mother. Is she a witch as well?” Thalgor asked Erwyn.

  Danger lurked behind any possible answer to that question. Before she could decide which danger was least, she saw a tall, thin young man come around the corner of Thalgor’s tent.

  The archer who had killed her aunt.

  He must have recognized her, too, because he gasped, and his face went white with horror, as it had when her aunt fell.

  She stopped in front of him. The young man’s hand went to the knife on his belt.

  “A knife isn’t much use against a witch, Rygar,” Thalgor said casually. “But I will not let her harm you.”

  You can’t stop me, she wanted to say, but his warriors still listened.

  And while she glared, she did not intend to harm the young man. He had not meant to kill an old woman who only fled the battle. Still, Erwyn did not want him to think she would ever forget, or ever forgive him.

  “Will you eat with me, Rygar?” Thalgor asked the archer.

  “Does the witch eat with you?”

  “Tonight, yes.”

  “Then I will not. Thank you.”

  As Rygar left, Erwyn felt the guilt gnaw inside him. Perhaps Thalgor sensed it, too, because he gave her a questioning look.

  What linked the two men? Rygar was too old to be Thalgor’s son. A man-lover? No. Not alike enough for brothers. She shrugged the question off and followed Thalgor into his tent.

  A single torch dimly lit the dark space inside. Gurdek, who had come in after them, took it to light the others around the room, then lit the braziers by each of the four doorways. Shadows danced on the pale brown ox hide roof.

  The growing light revealed a large room dominated by a massive table at its center. Benches surrounded it on three sides, with a large chair on the fourth. More benches lined the walls. Three sets of curtains marked three rooms similar to the anteroom where they had entered, one on each side. The tent was similar enough to her uncle’s she could guess the two side rooms would be sleeping chambers, the one across the room a scullery and larder that led to a small cooking fire outside.

  The glow of the torches glinted off the gold inlay on the carved chair opposite them and a smal
l pile of gold and a rainbow of jewels on the table. Taken from the defeated band, but displayed far more carelessly than they had been in her former captor’s tent, or her uncle’s before that.

  Thalgor let the inner curtain fall behind them. The double walls kept out the cold and deadened the sounds outside. The sudden warmth and quiet, the flicker of light made it seem as if they had stepped into another world, both eerie and familiar.

  No wonder the child had screamed and run away. She still clung, trembling, to one of Erwyn’s tied hands. Erwyn turned her hand in the ropes to cup the child’s face in an awkward, almost involuntary effort to comfort her.

  “You never told me if she is also a witch.” Thalgor sat on the bench in front of them and drew his knife from its sheath.

  Frightened into honesty, Erwyn replied, “I don’t know.”

  He stopped. The edge of the knife glimmered in mid-air.

  “I don’t think so,” she added under the prod of his stare.

  “How could you not know if your man was of witch blood?” He pulled her hand from the child’s grasp and cut the ropes in a single stroke that froze Erwyn’s heart with fear.

  She rubbed her sore wrists and waited for her heart to start to beat normally again.

  “Or don’t you know who her father was?”

  She chose the risk of defiance over the pain of confession and remained silent.

  Gurdek disappeared through the curtain in the back of the tent and returned with a bowl of gruel. An old woman carried in two more bowls behind him.

  Despite the age lined on her face and the silver braid over her shoulder, the woman walked straight, with more pride than Erwyn would have expected from a servant.

  “Rygar?” the old woman asked in lieu of a greeting.

  “No, Gee,” Thalgor answered. “Your pet fears my witch.”

  The woman set the bowls on the table. She looked Erwyn up and down, then her warm brown eyes came to rest on the child.

  Despite her age, she crouched down and held out a hand. “Come here, girl.”

  Much to Erwyn’s surprise, the child went to Gee, who sat her on one of the benches by the table and pushed a bowl of gruel toward her. With a cry of delight, the girl began to eat while the old woman beamed happily down at her.