Thalgor's Witch Read online

  Gurdek claimed another of the benches, and ate, too.

  “Which of us do you mean to starve?” Thalgor pointed lazily at the single remaining bowl. “Me or the witch?”

  The old woman frowned at him and went out again. She came back with another bowl of gruel and a piece of honeycomb on a plate, which she put on the table near the child.

  Thalgor gave a huff of laughter as he took off his cloak. Gee took one look at the blood-soaked bandage, went into one of the side chambers and brought him back a clean tunic. He pulled it on before he sat at the table and began to eat.

  Erwyn took the last bowl from the table and sat on one of the benches by the wall, well away from Thalgor and the child.

  Suddenly the noise that seeped through the walls from around the campfire outside grew louder.

  “Meat.” Gee grinned and hurried out.

  The sounds of the happy camp outside flooded briefly in. When the tent flap fell, it plunged the room back into quiet. Erwyn felt very much alone with the child and the two men. More alone when the child emptied her bowl, quickly chewed up the honeycomb, and fell asleep curled up on the hard wooden bench.

  Gurdek wolfed his food down with an occasional wary glance at Erwyn. Thalgor simply ate as if no one else were there.

  Erwyn sniffed the savory mixture of crushed grain, herbs, and vegetable broth. She had to curb the urge to bolt it down as the child had.

  She scraped the last of the thin gruel from the bowl as Gee returned with a platter of meat and set it on the table by Thalgor. Gurdek pulled out his knife, cut a huge piece of roasted flesh, then began to devour it. The old woman sat beside him and held out a plate where he put a smaller slice of meat.

  Erwyn was shocked by their brazenness. In the camp of her captors, everyone ate by rank. The same had been true in her own camp. Her uncle had eaten, and her aunt, then his lieutenants, the warriors, the old men and the older boys, finally the other women and children. Often there was only gruel for them. In very bad years, some of the women and children had died from hunger, even when her father led the band. Some might go hungry in Thalgor’s camp, but perhaps the children would not starve.

  Thalgor drew his knife and cut a large piece of meat. He surprised her even more when he walked over to drop it in her now empty bowl. He looked down at her expectantly.

  “Thank you.” The words nearly choked her.

  He barked a laugh, then cut a piece for himself.

  The roasted meat melted in her mouth, and filled her belly with warm comfort. She wanted to gobble it up, too, but ate slowly to savor every bite.

  When Gurdek finished, he muttered something about the need to post guards and left. Gee gathered up the dishes and went into the scullery. Erwyn was left alone with Thalgor and the child. She stood with a sigh and went to wake her charge.

  But nothing she did could rouse the girl. Erwyn sat on the bench next to her and buried her hands in her hair in frustration.

  “Let her sleep there,” Thalgor suggested quietly.

  “She’ll wake up in the night and set up a wail when she realizes she’s in a strange place.”

  “Are you sure you can’t carry her to bed?”

  She stared at him and probed his mind to see why he sounded angry. A wall protected his thoughts from her.

  Witch blood! This man carried witch blood so powerful it was almost a presence in the room.

  An icy chill ran through her. The same witch blood that protected his thoughts from her could open her mind to him, unless she remained constantly on her guard against him.

  Almost as if she felt the impact of Erwyn’s dismay, the child stirred, whimpered and sat up, blinking slightly.

  “Come,” Erwyn said coolly. “Which way?”

  Thalgor gave her a black look and started to say something, but instead he gestured to the side of the tent opposite where Gee had fetched his clean tunic.

  Erwyn led the child through the drape that separated the sleeping chamber from the main room. A single torch lit the comfortable space. She put the child on the bed along one wall. The girl fell asleep at once, Erwyn’s hand held tight in hers.

  Erwyn waited a while before she pulled her hand free gently so as not to wake the child. When she looked up, Thalgor stood in the doorway, a leather strap in his hand.

  Her heart began to race, not with fear but with a mixture of dread and excitement she’d never felt before. She took a step backward and almost toppled over the sleeping child.

  He stopped her fall and pulled her closer to him.

  Close enough in the half-light that she saw his face had tightened, not with desire, but with anger. Her heart skidded to a halt after all, paused, then resumed its frantic rhythm.

  “You are an unnatural mother.” He stepped away from her. “Is that true of all witches?”

  Pain shot through her at the sudden reminder of her mother’s love, but she gave no sign.

  “Witches are unnatural,” she replied.

  He cursed under his breath, then gestured for her to sit on the bed on the wall opposite the child. Unsure of his intent, but confident in her power to protect herself with magic if necessary, she complied.

  To her surprise, he fell to one knee in front of her and lifted her foot. The same foot he had branded with his icy touch in the forest now burned beneath his fingers. He freed it of her sandal, pulled a rope from his belt and tied one end of it around her ankle.

  “They say our ancestors lived in stone houses.” He stooped to tie the other end of the rope to a post by the doorway. “But we live in tents, and tents are easily escaped from. You know now I would not harm your child, if only because the old woman would not let me, so I must find another way to keep you here. Your hands,” he commanded as he stood.

  The strap dangled from his hand. Her heart beat wildly.

  “You mean me to think you cannot untie a rope?” he asked.

  Still she sat silent, hands clasped in her lap.

  “I will not have to bind you if you sleep in my chamber.”

  “Sleep?”

  “Among other things.”

  His arrogant smile would probably have had any other woman in his bed in a heartbeat.

  Not Erwyn. Arrogant men–the father who had not believed, the uncle who had not listened–had already cost her both mother and home.

  With cold dignity, she lifted her hands to him.

  After he bound her wrists with the leather, more loosely than Gurdek had with the rope, he left her alone with the child.

  He must have known, as her previous captor had quickly learned, that her magic could not burn leather as it could rope. She would have to undo the knots.

  When she finally succeeded, Thalgor’s people still laughed and sang by the fire outside. Drums beat a dance rhythm. Happy chatter and the sound of pipes crept in through the tent wall.

  Her hands freed, she could make herself invisible to take some food and escape, but she would have to leave the child behind. She knew now no harm would come to the girl, but she had made a vow to her dying mother.

  With a sigh, she lay back on the bed to wait until the camp was quiet, so she would be able to take the girl with her.

  The day had begun before dawn and every moment of it had been hard. Long before the camp fell silent, she slept.

  She dreamed her mother floated toward her across the sea. When the vision threw back its hood, she saw, not her mother’s face, but that of a young man about the age of Rygar with Thalgor’s body–even taller and more muscular than the archer’s–and Thalgor’s face, but dark hair and eyes as blue as her own.

  “Who are you?” she asked, as the vision stepped from sea foam to sand.

  “I am the Witch King.” His voice was both tender and sad.

  She shook her head. “You are a man.”

  “I am the Witch King.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “You must stay in this camp.”

  Her heart began to pound. “You know I cannot.”


  “You must. For my sake.”

  Confusion swirled around her like the fog that rose from the stormy sea behind the vision.

  “I cannot. I must take the child to the Wise Witches.”

  “Stay for the sake of the child.”

  “No. She has already cost me too much.”

  “And what have you cost her?” A single tear traced a path down his cheek.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “Stay for your own sake.”

  “I can’t,” she sobbed.

  Then he disappeared. His absence felt like a death.

  She awoke just before dawn, her face wet with tears. Thalgor stood beside her. He silently retied the leather strap around her wrists and left her to sleep again.

  *

  Thalgor sat at the table, discussing their next move with Rygar, Gurdek, and the rest of his council when the witch emerged from her chamber. Dark circles beneath those clear blue eyes showed the hours she’d spent in the effort to free herself. Silently she raised her hands.

  Gee played a stone game with the child nearby. At his nod the old woman went and untied his prisoner’s wrists. Once freed, the witch undid the rope from her ankle and threw the free end into the chamber behind her.

  When Gee went into the scullery to get her breakfast, the witch did not take the old woman’s place beside the child as he expected, but stood where she was and rubbed her wrists.

  The memory of how he had frightened her with his knife the night before shamed him. The ropes had been necessary, but not the terror in her eyes. This woman–this witch–pulled something evil out of his soul. He would have liked to think she put it there, but he knew better.

  The child whimpered.

  “Go to her,” he ordered the witch, angry on the child’s behalf more than his own.

  The witch stayed where she was. “You have already said I am an unnatural mother.”

  “My grandmothers were both witches. From what I remember they were as loving as any grandmothers.”

  “I am not her grandmother.”

  His men snorted with surprised laughter. Even Thalgor had to admire his prisoner’s spirit, and her wisdom in knowing she need not pretend she was under his control with these men, whose loyalty to him was unshakable.

  “Does your child have a name?”

  Why was the witch so driven to protect the girl, despite the cold way she treated her? And why did she pause before she answered such a simple question?

  “Felyn,” she finally said.

  “Can she talk?”

  The witch stepped between him and the child as if to fend off a physical attack.

  “Of course she can talk.”

  “I haven’t heard her speak. And those slitted eyes…I thought she might be a half-wit.”

  “She speaks–and hears–perfectly well.” His prisoner tipped her head toward the child.

  Thalgor felt an unwelcome shudder of recognition. He, too, had refused to speak after he and his mother were captured. Until he had been made to.

  “Has her mother a name?” he asked to erase the memory.

  The witch paused again before she answered, long enough for his witch blood to warn him she might not be the child’s mother after all.

  “I am Erwyn.”

  Gee came in then from the scullery with a bowl of their morning gruel, rich with sheep’s milk and dried berries.

  “Ah, here is your food. Eat it and be silent. We are in council and women do not speak in council.”

  The witch began to protest, but when Gee handed her the bowl, she took it and sat on the bench by the door, well away from where the old woman played with the child.

  He turned his attention back to his lieutenants.

  “You were saying we should move south,” he prompted Gurdek. “Why?”

  “We will find more forage for our livestock there. And my men fight better when it is not so dark and cold.”

  “So we should move south because your men fear the dark?” Batte challenged, only half in jest. He was not much older than Thalgor, a blond, wiry man, his handsome face marked by a jagged scar that ran from one side of his nose almost to his shoulder, a reminder of a long-ago battle they had nearly lost.

  “Better than to move north,” Gurdek half-joked in return, “where there are so many mountains and caves for raiding parties to hide simply because your men don’t like to sweat.”

  “Why not stay where we are?” asked Rygar, always the peacemaker. “It will take time to assimilate all we took in the last battle–people, animals, and goods–into our camp. Let us rest here a while.”

  “Too exposed,” Thalgor said. “And the grass grows thin. We must move our herds farther away each day to graze.”

  “East, toward the forest,” Gurdek’s second suggested. “Our women and children can hide there if we are attacked.”

  “If we aren’t attacked from the shelter of the forest itself.” Batte’s second was prone to contradiction like his leader. “I say west, toward the moor. No one goes there.”

  “For good reason.” Thalgor studied the map while the others continued to debate. Finally he made a decision. “South.”

  The others nodded, Batte more slowly than the rest.

  “We move in two days.”

  “No!”

  The witch stood behind Rygar, staring over his shoulder at the map.

  Chapter Three

  “No?” Thalgor asked the witch, more puzzled than angry.

  “There is danger to the south. You must move north.”

  “North? Toward the Sea Mountains?”

  She nodded.

  “So you can more easily escape to the citadel of the Wise Witches?” He drew a circle with his finger around the mountains on the map. “Do you think I am a fool?”

  “You are a fool if you ignore my warning and move south.”

  He took a deep breath to ease the anger that burned inside him. Had he not told her women did not speak at his council? Yet she openly called him a fool.

  Unable to see her thoughts, he found trust hard. And the cold way she treated her child rankled. As did the curl of unwelcome lust low in his belly.

  “A warning based on what? We send scouts in all directions each day. They have found no large forces anywhere. It makes the most sense to move south where there is more feed for our animals.”

  The witch closed her eyes to look into the future–or to make him think she did.

  “Two small raiding parties can be as dangerous as one large one.” The blue eyes opened and met his fearlessly. “Not enough men to capture your camp, but enough to weaken you badly for the next raiding party or band of marauders that comes along.”

  “Lies,” Gurdek spat.

  “Do not listen to the witch,” Batte, for once, agreed.

  “Did you not take me captive because of my power to see as well as my power to heal?”

  “I do not know yet if you see, or see truly. But I do know two things. We are strong enough to resist any raiding party. Or any two. And you have good reason to trick me into going north.”

  “I could escape more easily in the chaos of battle.”

  “Or be killed, or captured by someone who would be much less kind to you than I.”

  “You mean to die in either case.”

  Her quiet defiance sent a strange thrill through him, but the distrust of witches was stronger.

  “Why would you help us? We killed your men, captured your people.”

  “They were not my people, any more than yours are.” A look of remembered loss softened the witch’s face.

  He wondered for a moment if she was even old enough to be the child’s mother. Perhaps a very young witch could be taken by force after all. That might explain her coldness toward the child, and her uncertainty whether the girl was a witch.

  Yet he remembered all too well how his mother had loved the child she bore to the brute who had captured them.

  The possibility that Erwyn might also ha
ve been raped cut open old scars carved deep into his heart, reminding him of the cost of love. He pushed the unwanted memories away.

  “Still, why should I trust that you wish to help us?”

  The witch’s face went cold again. “I only tell what I see.”

  “Why allow the witch to speak at all?” Batte grumbled, turning his back to them both.

  She pulled herself up taller. “I tell you, you must move north. Tomorrow.”

  “And I tell you, you must be silent and let us decide based on what is, not what might be.”

  “What will be.”

  “Silence!”

  He stood and leaned over the map toward her. The move brought him close enough that he smelled the sweet woman’s scent of her body. His eyes fell against his will to the mound of her breasts as they rose and fell under her gown with each angry breath. Blood rushed through his ears, then flooded lower to harden his body with a burning want he could not wish away.

  “Fool!” she spat at him.

  “Get out!” He threw his arms wide toward her.

  She picked up her cloak, wrapped it around her, and strode out of the tent. The child ran after her, and Gee followed them.

  “A witch is nothing but trouble,” Gurdek commented quietly.

  The others nodded in another rare moment of harmony.

  *

  Erwyn stood outside the tent and took deep breaths to calm herself. She took strength from the icy breeze in her hair, the dim sunlight on her face. The child came to play nearby and hummed tunelessly to herself. Gee watched them from a stool by the door and chatted with the other women who passed by.

  At noon Gee went to feed the men who still met inside and Erwyn took her place on the stool. She must have dozed because suddenly Thalgor stood over her. His shadow chilled her.

  “Do witches do no work?”

  “I have worked today. I saw. That is more than heavy work. I saw, and you did not listen to my warning. My uncle did not listen either. He insisted his scouts knew more about what the enemy might do than I did. You might learn from his mistake. His arrogance cost me my home.”

  Her uncle’s camp had not truly been her home since her mother’s death, but this man would care little about that.