It was Uta's command that saved them from certain death. The chalk witch had stepped from behind Thera's lodge, her arms filled with herbs. She shouted one word: no. Cai made a short motion with her head that indicated the warriors were to bring the two of them forward, then she turned to Uta .
"You put the boar grease to her back yourself, Uta. Why do you save her now?"
"It's not for her I wait."
Alaysha was surprised to see Cai gape at the chalk witch. "The man? Surely not."
"You're too much of a young bitch yet to understand." Uta shuffled forward the few steps to meet with the warriors who brought both captives forward. Alaysha caught Theron's eye as they drew closer, his expression was pinched and determined. Something in his black eyes made her think he was forcing his feet to move step-by-step into what he thought was certain danger. Indeed, it was. But there was something more behind his gaze. Something that made Alaysha bite her tongue so that it wouldn't ask the question that was right on her lips. She had to trust him.
He faced the chalk witch, pointing all the while at Bodicca's still healing back. "Is such a horrible thing as this what was done to Alkaia? Tell us you cruel woman."
"Careful, man."
He laughed with something almost akin to true humour. "The woman knows our name, she does; oh we know she does because Alkaia used it, and this woman heard her use it."
Alaysha could see that everyone was as dumbfounded as she. Something was happening that rooted each set of feet to the ground: some in disbelief, some in confusion. It seemed the mere mention of Alkaia turned their backs to stone.
"I heard her use your name, man," Uta agreed. "What is that to me?"
"She knows who we are. A shaman such as Theron is recalled after all and would have thought to find his death here in this forsaken village. Why not let us die at your warrior's hands, woman, as you would have let your own this sister of yours die."
"She is no sister of mine." Uta made a show of turning away from Bodicca as though ashamed she knew her. "But I thought you could see the fruits of your labours here before you die, man."
She held her hand toward Thera and Theron's black eyes flicked over the bone witch for the first time. Alaysha heard his sharp intake of breath, watched him swallow repeatedly, either trying to get water down or bring water to his mouth.
"You look like her," he finally said and his words came out in a croak. "You have Alkaia's skin, her mouth." He made a motion to reach out, but before his fingers touched her face, Thera had pulled a blade from one of the warrior's hands and plunged toward her father's neck. Cai reached out almost lazily and grabbed the woman by her shoulder.
"Stand down," she said and turned to Uta. "Why would you shame her like this in the face of her sisters?"
Uta didn't flinch in the face of that magnetic stare. "For the same reason I put those marks on her when she was born. For the same reason her sisters wouldn't let her train to Enyalia."
"I am Enyalian," Thera insisted. "I have the mark." She lifted her chin but Alaysha noted that even Cai tried to avoid looking at it.
Instead, the komandiri nodded quietly and then turned to Alaysha. "She was born of the only man freed from this land. We can never forget."
"You said no one escaped."
Cai shrugged. "No one did."
Alaysha spun to face Cai, mustering all the disgust she could onto her face to show the crone what she thought of her. "You marked her?" Alaysha asked Uta in disbelief. "Why?"
"It's a mark of her shame."
"It's a mark of great power," Alaysha argued, realizing for certain these women knew nothing of the clay witch and her true power. "You have no idea."
"I do, witch," Uta said. "I know very well." She turned to Theron again. "How do the marks look, man? Are they correct?"
Theron wouldn't answer.
"I had only Alkaia's description to go by you see."
Theron swallowed hard and shook his head.
Uta's voice was mocking. "Why do you return? I thought you dead."
"This shaman very nearly died, but then a witch such as this one would know that since despite the bargain Alkaia made to keep me alive, it's the other that nearly took me."
Uta chuckled quietly. "So her pre-man whelp didn't hold to his oath, then?"
"Oh, he tried; yes, yes he did. It just took much longer than you expected for him to do his ugly deed."
Thera had pulled herself from Cai's hold and stepped in front of Uta. "This small man is who you would have me believe sired me?" She cast a disgusted look Theron's way. "He's nothing. My madre would not have risked her back for such a one."
Uta didn't back away. "And yet she did."
Alaysha was doing her best to make sense of it all. Theron had been here before, she knew that. She also knew he had somehow escaped. But to be a solstice mate of their most revered komandiri? It seemed impossible the shaman had kept such a secret.
Cai flicked her wrist toward them, initiating the warrior's clamping down on both of their arms. "He may live for the moment, but he will have his time as will the others. Find a place to put them for now."
Alaysha heard herself protest. "But Bodicca needs treatment. She's hurt."
"She's hurt of her own accord even if it is a generation later. Enyalia has a long memory. She knew that when she entered the village again."
Alaysha thought there was nothing she could do but let them go and was willing to lose the small battle to win the larger war when Theron spoke up again.
"Ask them what they mean to do with Yenic and Gael when they're finished with them. Ask them, young witch."
Uta spoke when Cai seemed reluctant to. "It's no secret, man. They die. They always die."
Theron grinned broadly. "Ah, but men don't always die. Sometimes they sire children and are then freed. Sometimes men are born here and are similarly freed to do damage where they can. To create an army. To gather the magics of witches the like you've never seen. Sometimes they seek vengeance."
His words chilled Alaysha to the bone, not just because of the threat, but because he was eerily clear for once. She could tell that it disturbed the others as well. She turned to see Cai, whose face had blanched. The woman tried her best to retain her composure but Alaysha could see she was struggling.
"What is he talking about?" Alaysha asked her.
"Yuri." Theron said. "Fierce Leader of a thousand: he was the only man except for this poor shaman to escape this place alive."
"No man escapes," Cai said, turning to Alaysha with fresh eyes. Comprehension spread across her face in a way that made Alaysha uncomfortable.
"The man you call Yuri, your father," Cai said thoughtfully. "The pre-man Bodicca freed in her youth, the reason she wears the boar grease and suffers the shame of exile. These two are the same man. He lives?"
Alaysha shook her head. "No. He's dead."
She thought she heard Bodicca sob, but she couldn't be sure; the woman's face was as impassive as always.
"Then all is as it should be," Cai said decisively and clapped her hands together as though done with a distasteful task. "The pre-man is dead despite the love of a foolish would-be warrior who thought to save him, Alkaia's man will now die despite her shameful act of granting him freedom. The natural order is restored." She explored the shaman with scrutinous eyes. "I don't think any warrior will cast for you, man, but you will do well to feed the fires."
Theron took to mumbling again and Alaysha wouldn't have given his words credence except she caught a word that she recognized, that normally wouldn't matter to her but for reasons of late made her super sensitive.
"What about a twin, Theron?"
"The other man who lives." He eyed Uta speculatively, waiting for a reaction. "And not that filthy urchin Yuri bargained out of here. I see she has forgotten that one, hadn't she? Oh yes, we see she did. How delightful to know she can forget some things. But alas, he too, is dead, that vile creature." He grinned broadly. "No." He nodded at Thera. "I'm talking about her twin."
"She has a brother?" Alaysha couldn't keep the surprise from her tone and was relieved to see the others were just as shocked. All but Uta. Uta merely seesawed her jaw back and forth.
"Uta?" Thera said, taking a step backwards, nearly stumbling. She sent a quick glance toward her lodge and a host of expressions ran across her face. Alaysha didn't have time to assess them all, but they ended up with one bald look of seeming comprehension that made her fidget nervously.
"The babe perished in the wild. The man lies." Uta's chin set itself stubbornly.
Alaysha could see she'd have to press the point to get the information; no one else seemed inclined or informed enough to do so. "How do you know this, Theron? What does it have to do with my father?"
Theron's black eyes met Alaysha's. "Oh dear, this shaman named Theron does know things, though he keeps some secrets. Yes. Yes, he does. But this one secret is too delicious to savour alone. That babe the cruel woman sought to kill became my Neve's Arm. My Ellison."
Thera made a sound like a swallow and a groan at the same time. Alaysha watched her, the beads of sweat forming on her brow.
"Your Neve? Her Arm?" The pieces were falling; Alaysha had only to assemble them.
He nodded. "Alkaia's son, yes, oh dear me, yes. Ellison: named by my clay witch in the old tradition. For her. My Ellissa." His voice broke and with it realization struck Alaysha. She'd killed that old crone along with the others, and all this time Theron knew it.
"Your Ellissa was the witch?" Alaysha felt sick.
He pressed his chest out, proudly, at Uta. "She raised that infant as her own. Yuri brought him to us, thinking to bargain for our knowledge. He was ever a greedy pup, that one."
Bodicca spun towards him impassioned. "You know nothing, Shaman. Yuri loved that boy," she said, turning to Alaysha. "We have a word for two sword sisters who share a madre, but none for two males who do. Yet he felt for that boy the way a sister does to a sister. He brought him to the shaman in promise."
"Whose promise, foolish girl?" Uta asked, seeming to lay more shame on her with the term when Bodicca was obviously anything but a girl.
"Komandiri Alkaia's promise. She wanted him to live."
"Absurd. Our Alkaia wouldn't wrest such a promise from a whelp she didn't speak to, for a whelp she cared nothing for." Uta stepped menacingly in front of Bodicca, who met the woman's eye just as menacingly. "What could you know of it?"
"You sent us to kill the boy, and then to kill Theron. You know this."
"And yet you speak as though I've forgotten it. Do you think the sisters will be shocked at such a thing? They were but males." Uta shrugged.
"But Komandiri was our best. Was she not?"
Uta had the grace to nod.
"Yuri killed her in the wild. That's what I know. She begged him to take the infant to Theron and then she let Yuri take her life."
There was a collective murmur that made Alaysha's skin crawl.
"It can't be true" Uta murmured. "I left her back unmarked. She would have lived. She wouldn't have let a man take her life. "
"Yuri killed her. I know this. We burned her the way a warrior should be, hot and high, and we collected her ashes and he took her sword."
This time the murmur became straight out shouting. Alaysha missed the reasoning and touched Cai on the arm for explanation.
"Our swords," the warrior said. "Our bone witch forges our swords—"
"With the ashes of your leaders. Oh my God, Cai. It is true. He killed that woman."
"What makes you certain?"
"Gael's mark. Alkaia's sword. My father must have used her ashes to mark his warriors and forge their steel." She turned to search for Thera, thinking the bone witch would want to know the truth, but Thera was gone. The leather flap of her lodge moved quietly.
Theron chuckled and Alaysha wanted to throttle him for his insensitivity. He shut off the chuckle, but kept Alaysha's eye. "The poor pup, never able to re-enter the bitch's den; how it pained him."
She didn't feel sorry for him, then; she felt afraid, wondering what else the man knew that he was keeping to himself.