Alaysha woke to warmth, but when she opened her eyes she saw nothing. So the shadows had taken her after all and she was dreaming. She listened to the fire crackling nearby. Behind her perhaps? She tried to move only to discover she was trussed up into some sort of torturous blanket too heavy to lift. She heard Yuri's voice commanding her to be calm, to stay resolute, stupid girl, and she worked to quell the instinctive panic.
She inhaled slowly as he would have bid her, and forced herself to imagine the air moving to her toes and fingers. There. Much better.
The darkness was merely night, not the gloom of Corrin's dungeon. The trussing material, a warm fur tucked tightly around her, covered her head. It let her face peek through and now that she understood what was happening, she knew that the fire was indeed crackling behind her. She'd rolled over in her sleep, evidently, and now faced the forest. She shook her head free of the fur and worked to unwind her arms from wherever they'd come to rest—crossing her chest, hands jammed into her armpits. Now that she was free, she could make out conversation, hear distinct words.
"She wakes," Cai's voice from somewhere near. Alaysha tried to roll over.
"Careful, little maga. Here. Let me help you."
Meaty hands burrowed beneath Alaysha and twisted, freeing her enough that she could manoeuvre into a semi-sitting position. Cai grew impatient with the floundering to get set right and pick her up, fur and all, then plopped her back down facing the fire.
"What happened?"
They were all there, sitting around the flame: Yenic, Theron, Gael, Bodicca. They all looked sullen. Full recall struck Alaysha like cold water.
"The girl," she said. "What happened to her?" She had a quick image of a toddler knocked backwards, her body broken against a tree, her hair hanging down, wet, against her tiny body. "She's dead," she heard herself say.
Yenic poked at the flames, the light dancing on his brow. "We can't say that for sure."
"She will be dead," Cai said and Yenic looked at her.
"I know the Enyalia are fierce, but you saw what happened. You can't say for sure the girl is dead."
"My sisters would have killed her if the little maga didn't."
He chuckled humourlessly. "Your sisters could barely move."
It took a moment, but Cai did agree. "True," she said. "We were much—drained—but a child? Well, she wouldn't have taken much energy to kill in her broken state."
Alaysha thought of the girl again with dread and imagined the limp body. In her mind's eye she saw someone reaching for the girl and lifting her, even before the Enyalia managed to gain her feet.
"Edulph," she said and Theron's beady black eyes rested on her. "It was Edulph. He took her."
"That madman, he's dead. Surely the Enyalia killed him in the burnt lands." The shaman said, and Alaysha gave him quiet study as she listened to his words. There were too measured. Too careful. Too altogether clear.
"Both he and Aedus saved her. I saw them."
"Alaysha," Yenic said. "You couldn't have. If they were there, they would have been in the same condition as the rest of us. As it was, even the Enyalia struggled to gain their strength. The loss of air, and fluid." He shrugged. "None of us could manage more than an hour's walk even with the beasts. Cai could barely carry you."
"I tell you, they were unaffected."
His brow furrowed and Alaysha turned to Gael. He would understand. The warrior was mostly quiet.
"She shot Uta with a quill. You know how she does it. Uta collapsed. That was it. Edulph left an arrow in Saxon's bed when he stole the boy for Aislin. An Enyalian was shot in the neck with the same." She waited for Gael to support her but it was Cai who replied with a disgusted snort.
"A traitor's weapon, that. No honour in it."
No response from Gael and he wouldn't even meet her eye.
"Gael?"
It was Theron who spoke, and he seemed to be taking great care in putting his words together. "A madman such as that one would use the witch for ill."
"A madman such as that one had no reason to fear the witch, Theron. Why would that be?"
"The blood. Like your nohma. Like Yuri."
"Yes. The blood. He's related, and so must be Aedus."
"Closely too," said Yenic thoughtfully.
"Very close. Yuri and my nohma where the only ones safe from me. My father and my aunt."
Yenic kicked at the fire. "Doesn't make sense. He used you to free his people from Sarum because there were no others left. He wanted them back. He hated the servitude. That's why he forced us there. Remember?"
Cai rose to dig at the fire, and Alaysha realized there was a spit over it, some sort of rodent roasted there. "The highlanders have never been warlike. Only subservient. In my time. In Alkaia's. I would expect it from those in the frozen lands, but they are long gone. Enyalian justice before I was born."
Alaysha tried to pull her gaze from the long tail hanging down from the spit. "Scattered, you'd said. Slowly rebuilding themselves."
"Perhaps to relocate in the highlands as we suspected." Cai said thoughtfully.
Yenic shifted as he sat. "Gathering strength."
"To make war on Enyalia."
"Not Sarum," Alaysha said. "Edulph wanted his people so he could build an army. Even Aedus said so when I first met her."
"To drive Enyalia to oblivion," Cai said. She sighed. "So at least that war is over. We needn't worry about that."
"Why not?"
Cai shrugged. "My sisters would not have let them live."
Gael sniffed haughtily and tried to stand. It took a few long staggering moments for him to catch his balance, but when he did he wrapped his cloak tighter around his chin, staring into the fire, and then he strode off into the trees. Alaysha watched him go with a curious foreboding sitting in her chest. It seemed the drugs had worn off and he was able to move about, but he certainly was unsteady on his feet, nor swift. Each of his movement seemed full of effort. She got up to go after him, only to discover her legs wouldn't hold her.
Cai caught her before she fell.
"None of us have much in the way of strength, but you even less, little maga."
"What you did was amazing," Yenic said. Alaysha never heard that tone in his voice before and it made her feel warm and tingling. "Such control, Alaysha."
"I seem to be paying for it, however."
He nodded, mutely. "It's still a victory. You should enjoy it."
She looked around, as much to change the subject as anything else. "What is this place?"
"This is the pine woods. It's the last piece of land before the journey to the highlander territory." Cai stretched her legs forward and Alaysha noticed her circlets were gone. There was no corresponding rattle.
"That fire," Cai nodded at the flame. "Is burning in the same place my sword sisters say Alkaia lit one her first night in exile."
Bodicca made a sound on the other side and Cai nodded at her "I knew when you found us here that it was true. You met her here, didn’t you?"
"We did, yes. She was weak. We had no idea how badly she was bleeding." Her voice seemed far off and Alaysha thought she must be remembering, maybe even watching it again. "She'd already killed four wolves by the time we found her. And the babe."
"Ellison," Theron murmured. "How did you keep him alive until you reached us?"
"Easy," Bodicca said with a grin in her voice. "We let him drink his fill from her after—after she died. Then we stole back into the village."
"So you were the ones," Cai said.
"Yes." Bodicca said. "Corrin and Yuri hid away a host of pre-men too young at the time of the quarter solstice to go to slaughter. Dozens of them." She chuckled. "Together with the stock women and wet nurses, it seemed like a thousand. The boy had plenty to drink then. Many of us lived on mother's milk for the first sun cycle."
"Fierce leader of a thousand," Alaysha mumbled, thinking of Yuri's title.
"It's easy to re-enslave those already enslaved if you offer things seeming like freedom," Bodicca said. "That was Yuri's enticement. Freedom to live and fight at their will in a city of their own. They slipped away as they did their chores and we lit on our way through the burnt lands before four sun rises."
It was a history of her father she'd never heard, and it held Alaysha rapt. "Why didn't the boys just leave before if it was so easy?"
Cai cleared her throat. "Until then, Enyalia would have noticed. They would hunt and kill anyone who left the village. But then-"
"Then the village was under strain," Bodicca said.
"Strain. A good description," Cai said. "Uta only ever called it difficult. A young warrior choosing to save a pre-man. Our leader gone into self imposed exile, taking an infant male with her and leaving the daughter."
"Self imposed? I thought she'd be banished." Alaysha was surprised to hear this.
"I suppose she knew she'd upset the balance. That to choose an outsider, she was no better than Bodicca. She would expect the same treatment."
"Uta expected us to track Alkaia and kill the boy."
Alaysha sensed something in the warrior's tone. "And you, Cai? Now that you've saved outsiders instead of your sisters?" Alaysha reached out to touch where the woman previously sported her circlets, and the thigh muscle trembled beneath her fingers.
"I can never return," she said.
"It's a hard choice," Bodicca whispered and got up, finally, staggering as Gael had done before she managed a good balance. She looked incredibly old in the firelight and Alaysha realized for the first time that she was old. She'd been such a solid, brusque constant in her life that Alaysha had always assumed she didn't age. But she was as old as her father had been.
Her father. So much she didn't know. He'd saved his half brother from certain death, rescued dozens of comrades from Enyalia, survived the burnt lands.
And had done everything in that power to ensure all but the one witch he could control was dead.
She watched Theron in the light, wondering what he knew, and found herself feeling betrayed by him. He'd known all along that she'd killed his witch—his wife she knew now—and he'd not told her the connection. How much more was he keeping quiet? She was even beginning to wonder if he was half mad at all, but used his speech patterns as a means to stay below the vision line. He'd made her take Yuri's eyes, saying they were part of Etlantium, and she'd carried them with her in her pack.
All that was left of her father after Aislin scorched him to ashes. All she had of a sister she didn't know was a memory. She thought of the warrior Alkaia and how she'd saved her son, the part Yuri played in that and felt strangely proud.
"Do you have children, Cai?"
"I have celebrated two quarter solstices; I did not relish the task, and did not think to repeat it. I am grateful I never quickened."
Alaysha shifted uncomfortably as drums sounded in the distance, the beat growing more incessant, and she realized Cai was watching her. "Makes me nervous," she said.
"It’s meant to. They get into your chest, do they not?"
Theron grumbled from his spot next to the fire and Alaysha peered at him, trying to make out his expression. "Do they bother you too, Shaman?"
He had taken to rocking. "The hair. Stinks of burning."
"Not yet, old man. Not yet," Cai said and his eyes snapped to her, suddenly aware, as though the turn itself had struck a chord.
"And yet this old man smells it. Spectres of men once known, they follow us. They do. And they are not kind. Such is the price of escape."
"What does he mean?" Alaysha asked.
Cai sighed. "My sword has bathed in solstice blood but twice, but even I remember the stink of hair and fat."
She looked to want to avoid the topic, but Alaysha pressed her. "The drums will peak and die even though no men will be sacrificed. The pre-men will have no need to tether the men to the burning sword. Many of them will be forced to walk into the flame. Some, those who are lucky enough, will be killed before, to shed their blood for us. All will die."
Alaysha thought of Yuri, of his knowing what lay ahead of him if he stayed in the village of the Enyalia and realized at once that he'd saved dozens from their fate. She stole a look at Bodicca, who stared into the flame as though reliving her own casting ceremony so many years ago. Her mouth was twisted into a line of revulsion that echoed how Alaysha felt.
"That's savage. You don't kill for a god, or to prevent disease. You kill because they are men."
Cai pursed her lips, considering. "You speak as though there was something wrong with that."
"There is something wrong with that. You use them to procreate –"
"Not just any male, little maga. Only the halest of them."
"So you use the best specimens, force them to lie with you –"
"Not all are forced." Cai held up her hand. "Quite a few enjoy the activity."
"Only because they have no idea what their end will be. So the ones who don't enjoy it? What do you do to them? You torture them to submit?"
"Little maga, a man is simple, and his manhood even more so. There is no need for torture—unless he wants it."
"And then you murder them."
"They are men. They have no further use."
"I thought the Enyalia felt no fear for any man."
"And what do you think affords us such courage?"
"Surely you can't believe all men are vermin. These here," Alaysha pointed to Yenic and then to Gael who sat by himself hunched fire away from the fire. "These men were useful enough that you brought them here."
"I let them live because you wished it, little maga. Not because they have value besides their seed."
Alaysha groaned, frustrated, and Bodicca spoke finally. Her voice was a gritty whisper. "Had I let Yuri die in our land, this little maga you seem fond of would not be sitting in front of you."
Cai shrugged. "The value of seed, warrior, no more."
"This man was valuable enough to the Enyalia that Komandiri Alkaia gave her life for his service." She pointed at Theron who squirmed anxiously.
"Again, all has more to do with the power of Enyalia, Bodicca, not the value of men. We birth men, they serve us, and in their time they die. If men were more resourceful, more valuable—even more fearsome a thing, they would not die so easily at the quarter solstice. My blade would not have sent a red grin across two men's throats, the pre-men would not have hoisted dozens of their comrades to the burning sword over and over and over again as long as Enyalia has thrived."
A terrible guttural sound came from the bushes and Gael, his face a fearsome mask of pain and rage, threw himself over the fire and leapt at Cai.
The two struggled, Cai finding her footing first, but Gael meeting her cheek with a resounding blow as she did so. He seemed to know each place she would be and followed her with dogged punches, to the stomach, the ribs by the time Yenic and Bodicca lunged in to separate them. Cai gave in readily to Bodicca, but Gael fought on, thrashing in Yenic's hold until Alaysha shouted that the foolishness should stop. It did stop, but Gael stomped out into the trees snarling to himself. Alaysha looked about the surprised group, all heaving, the tensions obvious in their shoulders. She turned and picked her way behind Gael.
She reached to touch him but he shifted away, his shoulder jerking forward. "Leave me be, Alaysha," he said.
"I won't. You're hurt."
"Then send the shaman to tend to me." He stomped a few paces further, forcing her to step over a fallen tree to get to him.
"Gael?"
The full moon had tucked itself into black clouds, but it was light enough for her to see his face when he spun back to her. He was closer than she thought and his voice sailed over her head. "I told you to go away."
"No." She didn't understand the coldness in his tone. "You need to rest, to eat. You're still not fully healed."
"I'm as healed is I need to be."
This time when she touched what she thought was his chest, she heard his sharp intake of breath. He gave an audible swallow, then his voice, like grit in his throat. "Leave me alone, Alaysha. Go back to your pup."
The hulking shadow settled down next to the tree. There was a dark movement as though he was pulling his cloak over his head and then all was quiet but for the sounds of bats clicking in search of a meal.
Alaysha picked her way through the darkness back to the fire, feeling confused and concerned. She could make out Bodicca's form hunched next to Theron, mumbling over Cai's upturned face as the komandiri sat against a tree.
"Broken," Bodicca said. "Can you see out of the eye, Komandiri?"
Cai cursed loudly as Theron prodded about, but Alaysha was certain it wasn't because of the pain he might be inflicting on her cheekbone.
"He's quick, isn't he?" Alaysha asked.
"And brutishly strong," Yenic added. He rubbed at his shoulders as though yanking Gael off Cai had torn tissues beneath.
"Imagine the warrior when his strength is returned," Theron said, and Cai swatted the two of them away.
"He is freakish," she said, but Alaysha thought she detected a smile in her tone. A niggle of sadism streak through Alaysha that she wanted to set free.
"So," she said. "Can you see out of the eye?" It had been a wallop of a punch, aimed at a fellow fighter, not a woman, and Gael had held nothing back.
Cai stood next to the fire and stretched, making a great show of disdain over her own discomfort. "No doubt our Alkaia lends him her strength through her mark." She said it almost as though she was impressed, but Alaysha knew better by now.
"Might your Alkaia have been a bit mad?" she asked a little too sweetly.
Cai didn't take the bait, rather treated the question with all seriousness. "Uta thought her mad certainly for choosing exile over her sword sisters. All for a man. But no. I don't think her mad."
Bodicca squatted again next to the fire and poked at it. "She was a komandiri to the last," she said, and Theron made a small sound in his throat that stole Alaysha's attention.
"What was she like, Theron?"
He shook his head, refusing to engage in the conversation.
"My father's mother," Alaysha said, testing the statement to her ears.
"Madre," Bodicca said. "Our word for mother."
"Men don't have a madre," Cai said.
"No," Bodicca agreed and passed Alaysha the poker. "Your father knew he had no such claim to her, but the infant –"
"Ellison," Theron interjected.
Bodicca looked at him thoughtfully. "Ellison might have, had she lived to watch him grow." Bodicca said. "As it was she died true Enyalia even in exile."
Cai shifted as she sat, letting one long leg snake over top one crossed. "Sword in hand?" She asked.
Bodicca nodded. "Even when the red grin stretched across her neck. We had to pry it from her afterwards."
Alaysha understood their sense of pride; a warrior caste such as these women wouldn't want to die of old, doddering age. But she didn't understand how loving a male of any age could make her less a woman, less fierce. "One would think," she said. "That a true warrior wouldn't be afraid of a small infant in the first place."
Cai's foot moved across the leaf litter, but she said nothing. Instead, she sighed audibly. Alaysha hadn't forgotten the warrior sitting alone in the woods, his cloak over his head, not for an instant. "I would think a warrior such as an Enyalian wouldn't have to drug a man –"
Cai sent a glance Yenic's way. "You gave my sisters quite a fight when you came, but did we resort to drugs to keep you docile?"
Yenic looked at his feet. "I had other things to take my mind."
Cai shifted closer to Alaysha, so close her booted foot nearly crushed Alaysha's bare toe. "It's your large one you ask for, I know. But I tell you the only drugs Thera used were to keep his body quiet during his repair. The rest—I'm afraid would have all depended on my sisters."
Alaysha didn't want to hear anymore. She didn't want to have to think about any woman equally as large as the Enyalian leader settling into bed with Gael, touching him. Rousing him from a wounded sleep.
"I'm tired," she said. "Someone needs to take watch."
"I'll do it," Bodicca said. "I find pain a remarkable antidote for weariness."
Alaysha moved back into her furs and stretched out. Someone tapped her shoulder and she turned to see Yenic slipping in behind her. He curled around her without a word, pulling her close. His warmth felt right next to hers, the comfort it gave to have another body next to hers helped her eyelids ease closed.
Dawn hadn't yet courted the tree line when Alaysha heard it. Her eyes flew open but she kept her body still, not moving, not shifting or breathing. She could tell by Yenic's arms around her midsection that he heard it too, and like her, he pretended he was asleep. The forest clung to a wet mist, even in the quiet gloom of predawn, a figure would have thickened into a great hulking shape if it tried to move through the wide swath of mist, but still Alaysha knew something was out there.
Bodicca and Cai thought so too. Neither's eyes were open, but each had tightened grip on their blades. Cai was sitting frozen next to a tree, the obvious lookout for the early morning, a woman who for all intents and purposes appeared to have fallen asleep.
It would fool many invaders, but not Alaysha. The warrior looked entirely too comfortable and the woman never looked comfortable.
They came even as Alaysha was contemplating whether Theron understood they would soon be under attack.
One moment there was nothing but mist, the next a savage looking man appeared directly in front of her, his muscled legs springing from a squat as he landed to a full-on run in her direction. There were dozens of them: all-male, all slick with mud, twigs, and branches and leaves in their hair, streaks of soot across their faces. Perfectly camouflaged for dropping out of trees and it was evident that's what they done. Half a dozen still were dropping.
Alaysha had time to bolt to her feet and dart sideways to avoid her attacker. He caught Yenic as he tried to gain speed and together they rolled across the forest floor, Yenic doing his best to avoid the blade in his attacker's hand.
The sound of metal striking metal met Alaysha's ears and she knew she had to get her sword. The man in front of her pulled an arrow from his quiver; Alaysha wasn't fool enough to believe he could use it at such close proximity. She made a lunge for him, thinking to put him off balance and sprint passed him. He held onto the arrow as though it was a blade, jabbing it into her forearm. She felt the bite between the bones and gasped. The arrow head must've been made of god's teeth it was so sharp. She caught the fury in his face as he pulled it out and made to stab again, this time aiming for her throat. His gaze touched for an instant on her chin and she took that moment to swipe with her good hand for the arrow. She grasped it above his grip and broke off the feather fletching, leaving the shaft with the arrowhead still in his hand. No good. She needed to get the black arrow tip away from him.
She would have ducked and swept his legs with her feet except a blow landed on her back stealing her air and dropping her knees from beneath her. Little gnat bites burned into her shoulders two it a time, and the sting went deep into her tissues. It reminded her of the oddly numb feeling in her side when Drahl had tried to kill her—not truly painful, not at least until she saw the blood running down her arms. She peered up to face her attacker, this time with the arrow ready to swipe across her throat.
All sound returned, and she heard her group fighting on despite being outnumbered. Her chest burned to release the power, even as she felt too weak to keep it at bay. She couldn't let loose. Not yet. They were still very much alive. She had to block out the emotion, use the flat heartlessness her father taught her.
She made to come up with fist aimed to block her attacker's swing, but even as she uncoiled the springs in her thigh muscles, the man's head disappeared from his shoulders and his torso fell sideways in a heap.
"Move, Alaysha," Gael ordered and turned to engage yet another attacker. Beyond him, two handfuls of invaders in similar states were all around her. He finished with one and stormed toward where Bodicca was cutting an equally fierce swath around Theron. They all appeared ferocious and vigorous in their battle, but the subtleties were different; Alaysha could detect the slight hesitations in the movements, the heaving chests from effort, the slight sway to their stance. They still battled the invisible enemy of fatigue and recovery from the earlier attack and to her, it showed.
Alaysha searched for Yenic who was grinning madly as he set fires around the feet of his attackers. She found herself wondering how he could wield such power at all, knowing to do so would take an amount of blood. Then she saw him holding onto his side, and his fingers oozed with red. She looked at her own hands, covered in her own blood, swept a glance at Bodicca and Theron and Cai. Blood was to be found in abundance.
But they were winning. At least it appeared so. Cai was chuckling with each man she felled. She barely moved as they came at her from all sides, and each time she did move, it was with such economy Alaysha knew was calculated by perfect harmony of her senses.
It was time to dart for her pack and pull her sword. Alaysha lost all sense as she spun to meet one, two, three attackers. She sent her whole body into the swings, slicing into their stomachs, then she flung herself passed them to where Gael had engaged two of the burliest.
There was something familiar about the way these men moved, the way they herded themselves into battle: without thought, as though fighting was one more chore they had to complete for the day before they settled in to their beds. They seemed almost slave like. Even still, they owned a strange sort of fierceness. Savage. Her father would've used such a crew wisely, she thought and realized the truth of it as it entered her mind.
Her father had used them—or some of them. She thought of the word Cai, used to describe them.
"Highlanders," she said. The tribe of people who were fierce at heart, but who did everything they worked at stolidly, like oxen. Edulph's clan.
She stepped forward, hefting her sword and taking aim at the closest of Gael's attackers. He too fell into a heap, his head lolling to one side, cut, but not severed. She didn't have the strength for that.
She knew the battle was dying around her. There were far less noises. Gael sent his last attacker to his knees, but spared him the final blow. Instead, he pressed the man's face down in the blood-soaked moss.
Alaysha couldn't help smiling at him and pointed at the man she'd slain. "I returned the favor."
His face when it turned on her was cold. "One man is equal to a dozen, witch? You're cheap with your favor, it seems." He glared down at the recumbent man. "You'll wish for your death when I hand you over to the Enyalian." Gael didn't look up, but Alaysha knew his next words were for her nonetheless.
"Have the shaman tend to you. You look like you're ready to faint, and I'd rather not shrivel into a husk because you have no control over your power."
It hurt. He had to know it did, and she didn't understand how he could save her life one moment and cause her pain the next. She turned to see where Theron was and noticed him tending to Bodicca's back. It appeared to have split again in spots. Alaysha staggered forward, feeling her strength waning. Yenic came up beside her and she reached for him, thankful to have the support. She'd expected Cai's people to come for them; this attack was a complete surprise.
"Are you hurt?" She managed to get out.
He twisted her around so he could look at her face, and in another moment, she felt his palm press against her belly. "It's not as bad as all the blood seems," he said, lifting her into his arms.
"Are you hurt, Yenic?" she asked him again, fighting the desire to lay her head against his chest. A full night of sleep and she was still exhausted. Now what had this battle done for her stamina, she'd not know. "Tell me, Yenic," she pressed, thinking he had to be hurt because he wouldn't look her in the eye.
"Yenic."
"No," he said, striding to where Theron was busy digging roots from the dirt and stuffing them into a strip of leather. He patched up Bodicca's back again with strips of linen he must have stored away from Sarum.
Not hurt. Good. Alaysha curled an arm around Yenic's neck, holding on as he squatted to ease her onto the Moss. Theron swiped his hands on his cassock and edged closer, poking at the wound in her forearm.
"It's clean," he murmured. "Straight between the bones." He inspected her shoulders, where the gnat bites stung. The witch's back is the same. Already knitting back together. Such clean wounds, no tearing. The young witch was never good at healing, but today she has been given a gift."
"Is it bad?" Yenic asked and Theron shook his head. "The blood would still be flowing freely if it was. Oh yes. But we should clean it." His eyes flicked over Yenic. "And yours too."
"Her first." Yenic ran his hand over Alaysha's hair and offered her a short, encouraging smile. "She nearly passed out."
Theron hummed and thought. "We see. Oh yes. We have seen it before." He peered down at her. "How long has the power been draining you?"
She eased her eyes closed because it was easier to speak the truth without looking at anyone.
"Always," she admitted. "But never like this."
"Yes, oh yes," he said. "Not something a witch wants anyone to know. We understand. The stronger the power, the more it uses of you. And it is very strong in this witch. Your father knew it, planned for it, but he wouldn't know its cost, would he?"
Alaysha shook her head. That Yuri had engineered her strength by killing her mother and grandmother simultaneously when she was born was not news to her now, but she'd never truly understood why. The discovery of how she'd come into so much power had sent her searching for his blood when she discovered it, but when Aislin had killed him instead, Alaysha suffered too much emotional conflict to give it more consideration. It was one more thing that she slammed down into the dungeon of her memory, hoping never have to think about it again.
"The power grows, Theron," she said cautiously, opening her eyes to study his reaction.
"As it should. It needs to mature." He poured water over a piece of his cassock he had ripped free and wiped his hands clean it. "The young witch must find a way to ground it, to stretch it past her own breath or when its fullness comes, as indeed will, it will use her up. Yes. Oh yes yes."
"She needs an Arm," Yenic said. "But how, here with nothing."
Theron's face split into a happy grin. "Warriors think little of shamans, yes they do. So little they go unnoticed right in their own eyesight." He chuckled and Yenic glared at him.
"This isn't the time for foolishness, Theron. We need her mother's ashes and then we need a good candidate. We're lacking both."
"We lack nothing. We have something better. Yes. Oh yes we do."
Alaysha was about to ask when her peripheral vision caught Cai stooping over one of the felled attackers. She watched as the woman rammed the butt of her blade against the man's open mouth and extracted several bloody teeth, weighed them thoughtfully in her palm and then dropped them into an already large pile. Alaysha couldn't help the revulsion she felt, and both Theron and Yenic followed her gaze.
Yenic let out a sound of disgust and hearing it, Cai turned. A fiery brow quirked and she shrugged. "I feel naked; a bit of filmy gauze is better than nothing."
Alaysha felt a shudder pass through her, but she wasn't entirely sure with the chill of early morning. Theron ran his palm over her shoulders, much the same as he had to Bodicca in the burnt lands. "She is fierce, that one." His voice held a note of question.
"No," Alaysha said.
"Then who?" Yenic asked and she heard the dread in his voice. She thought it might be because he knew what it meant to be an Arm, the weight of it, but she suspected the real truth.
"Not Gael either," she said, hoping to ease his worry.
"Either warrior would die for a witch," Theron said. "And you can't find a better Arm than that. It must be one of them."
She thought of being tied to Cai for the rest of her days, then imagined it with Gael, knowing how conflicting it would be for him when she was also bound to Yenic and how much the two men hated each other. The price would be too high for all of them.
"Gael has already suffered too much," she said and heard Yenic's relieved exhale.
Theron sighed. "The witch is a foolish one. There isn't a better choice, oh no. And there isn't time either."
Alaysha tried to sit up, fighting the wall of black that weakened her vision. She waited, letting it pass, and watched as both Cai and Bodicca picked a specific dead man one after the other and cracked into their mouths to extract trophies. She noticed Gael, on his side of the clearing trussing the last living attacker and hefting him against a tree. He was breathing hard, she could tell even from the distance, and she knew it was because he still wasn't fully recovered. He never so much as sweat when he fought, and here he was fighting to stay on his feet.
They needed to eat to regain strength, and they needed rest. At least, they could manage one of those things.
They settled quietly, each with a meagre amount of meat and nuts, chewing reflectively. Alaysha knew they were all surly, thinking the repast a foolish waste of time, but the bare truth of it was she didn't have the energy she needed even to climb atop Barruch and ride. She knew the others were equally spent. The Enyalia would come regardless and overtake them eventually. They would die if they weren't fit enough to face them. The few moments wouldn't matter unless they were used to refuel.
She could already feel the energy creeping into her extremities as she chewed a piece of apple. When she looked around at the group and saw the strained looks fading, she knew she'd made the right decision. Her eyes were drawn to the captive repeatedly, and she caught him staring at her.
"Why did you attack us?" she asked and Gail harrumphed around a mouthful of salted pheasant that Cai had in her tackle.
"I already tried to beat that out of him."
"Foolish man," Cai said, rolling her eyes. Bodicca murmured her agreement.
"What would a fearless Enyalian have done," he demanded.
She shrugged, "killed him. Why would I care why he attacked, only that he attacked."
"It doesn't matter," Alaysha said. "He's alive. We might as well ask." She turned to him again. "You heard the Enyalian. She would have you dead."
The man blinked but said nothing. Alaysha pressed on, "You see those two stringing your comrade's teeth, would you like to rattle about their thighs with them?"
He spit a gob of blood on the ground in front of his feet.
Alaysha sighed, "I suppose why he attacked doesn't matter. We’ll head on and leave him for your sisters."
She got up and stretched. She did feel better now she'd eaten. Her shoulders still hurt, but like Theron said, the wounds would heal. The others too.
"It's time to go, I think," she said and collected her sword and bedroll. She heard the others doing the same. Both Cai and Bodicca dropped the teeth they'd collected into pouches tied to their waists. No doubt by nightfall the women would have full circlets around their forearms and would feel a little less naked. Alaysha scanned the area smelling now the stink of the dead that littered the forest floor. The wolves and crows and other beasts would come soon to feast and would no doubt pick the bound man to death. He must know it, and still he said nothing.
She and Theron sat Barruch while Bodicca tried to get Gael to sit Cai's beast with her. The massive man refused and Bodicca leapt up to sit with Cai saying it was just as well—a man had no place on a beast unless it was as a body from a solstice raid.
It sounded like an intentional dig to Alaysha but she noticed that although the warrior clenched his jaw, he said nothing in counter.
"Where to?" Alaysha asked.
Cai spoke with an offhand shrug and nodded toward the dead. "The vermin come from the high lands. Best we not go there."
"Foolish woman," growled out Gael, "That's exactly where we should head."
"Foolish man. My sisters, those who are sent to kill us, will most assuredly be on their way to the highlands. They won't let this go unavenged." She smiled almost nostalgically, "We've not seen a decent war in many seasons."
The man stirred in his bindings.
"Having second thoughts?" Alaysha asked him. Cai had seen no reason to gag him, saying casually that his cries would only bring Enyalia or wolves to his aid.
"We were only one group of many," he said and Alaysha stepped closer.
"Tell me, and I'll loose you."
Cai and Bodicca both protested, but Alaysha silenced them with a glare. She prodded the man with her toe.
"A dozen ambushes, set a day away from the Enyalian village in every direction."
"What for?"
"To wait in case the young one didn't succeed."
Alaysha could feel the hairs rise on her arm. "The young one?"
"Yes. She and her father. Gone to kill as many as they could."
There was no sound to give Alaysha warning, but Cai was next to her in a heartbeat, her face leaning into the captive, her blade pressed against his throat. "You highlanders forget yourselves."
No fear sat in the man's eye as he responded, and Alaysha's back tingled. "No. We are only just remembering, Enyalian."
"Cai." Alaysha put her hand on the woman's wrist and noted that the blade had pressed far enough into his skin that the folds neatly met over it. "Cai, it doesn't matter."
Green eyes met hers. "It's the only thing that matters."
"Not anymore. Why isn't important. "She turned back to the man. "Where are they now, this young one and her father."
He glared at her. "If you're here, filthy Enyalian witch, then they are dead."
Alaysha pulled back and studied his face, keeping her palm on Cai's forearm. She chewed her lip and noticed Cai tapping her own arm as she too gave the man study. It was obvious he knew little except to guard the escape routes and nothing more. It was also obvious he'd never visited Enyalia, but had heard about Thera and her tattaus. He thought he had the two powerful leaders just within his grasp. That must have been the reason for the attack.
"What if I told you we spared their lives only to be betrayed as they escaped?"
"I'd know you are lying. No Enyalian has such pity."
Alaysha could feel the tension in the woman beside her as she spoke. "What do you know about Enyalia, man?" Cai said. "The little your foolish mother weaned you upon wasn't even enough to fill a frog's tiny mind."
Alaysha squatted down to reach for the man's lashings. "You're wrong," she told him. "Enyalia respects a woman's power. The young one was spared because of it."
The man's eyes never left Alaysha's face, but they were suspicious and wary. "And the father?"
The twigs crackled from somewhere behind her and Alaysha knew it couldn't be from any of her mounted people. She and Cai spun at the same instant to see a horde of men thickening the trees, bows drawn, swords drawn, blades drawn. At the head of the throng stood Aedus, a look of surprised pleasure on her face, and next to her, holding a limp and tender looking toddler's blonde curls draped over his arm, stood Edulph.