Water Witch (5 page)

So she headed back to camp only to find
that same camp being packed up. It was so like her father to break for Sarum
without wondering if she had made it back safely or not. She knew the way of
things. News just traveled. Drahl would have been given command to break and he
would set his men about the task. The sundry womenfolk: laundresses and cooks,
the children who cared for the horses and beasts, the hunters and gatherers,
all would see the camp going through the motions of packing and would do the
same without question.

She dismounted and led Barruch to her own
encampment, a cleft of a cave in the side of a mountain about a hundred paces
from the actual camp. Yuri's daughter or no, he never allowed her too close to
his site. Too dangerous, he'd said. Drahl had merely told her no one wanted to
be in close quarters with a witch.

She found it odd her father had been the
one to soften the blow of that news.

She had meager belongings to collect: a
bowl and a spoon, a bed blanket made of leopard fur and a thatch mat her nohma
had woven years earlier with bits of feathers amidst the thatch to soften the grass.
It rolled neatly and tied to Barruch easily.

She grabbed her bowl and spoon with the
intention of scavenging a few morsels to fill her belly if the cook hadn't
finished packing, then she'd take a few minutes to get some water from the
stream next to the camp. She rathered the order be switched, but the stream
would always be there waiting, while she had her doubts about the cook and his
fare.

"Wait here," she told Barruch and
gave his rump a pat. "If I'm lucky, there'll be a stray parsnip in it for
you."

She left him peering down at the sour grass
with disdain, and set out towards the cook's tent, trying not to meet anyone's
eye. She needn't worry; most scurried out of her path as she approached.

Once or twice, when she encountered one of
Drahl's men, they spat on the ground when she came near enough.

"Drink that, witch," one said,
leering and poking at his friend's side.

"Watch it now," his companion
said. "She can have you in one swallow."

"Brah," The first muttered,
raking her with his gaze. "She's drank already. Killed a hundred men today
already and half a dozen babies. Even a water witch can't drink more'n
that."

Drink. They really had no idea. The man had
been a soldier for as long as she'd been alive, and he'd seen the end of a
dozen of her "battles", but he had no idea still what it was she did
for her father. No one did. And so they assumed she put her lips to another's
and drank their liquid away.

Fools. They thought they were safe if she
didn't touch them. No one considered how difficult it would be to have to kill
one by one and still be successful. Drahl might have had an inkling of what she
did; he came upon her first deaths so quickly after battle, knew she hadn't a
mark on her, knew she was too far away to touch anyone who died. He might have
an inkling, and he might hate her out of fear, but he didn't really know the
scope of her power. Most who had seen it used, had died within moments of
witnessing it.

Only her father knew the full truth of it
-- had used her truth since she was old enough to be carried in a basket on his
mount's sidesaddle. Had used her for his gain these last eighteen years.

Maybe it was a mercy they had no idea she
could drain them even from this distance. And that was the fear of it -- she
could drain so easily -- too easily, but she couldn't control it. Everyone,
everything, every drop of water would obey her and gather for her, and move for
her to the heavens until the weight of itself needed to be released: rain,
hail, once even snow.

And afterwards she would be as thirsty as
if she had been drained herself. So she could command the water, but it
weakened her. And the more the power grew, the more it drained her when she
used it. She'd been much weaker today after battle than she'd been during the
last, over six months earlier. It wasn't enough yet to make her sick or
helpless, but how long would it be before she collapsed after battle? How long
before she fainted dead away?

And that was the secret her father could
never know. He thought the draining empowered her, he thought the power came
from the thirst.

She intended he always believed it.

Cook was all packed up when she neared his
tent. His was the largest in the retinue but for her father's because of all
the provisions he was in charge of and how many people milled about throughout
the day. At the moment, no one sat near the now-dying fire or queued up for hot
acorn mash tea. The old scent of roasted boar hung in the air, mingled with
wild onions and the sweet fragrance of honeyed ale from last night's supper.

She knew the smell, sure enough, but she'd
not been given a taste of the warrior's meal. She'd had to forage for her own
acorns and dig a few wild onions and fern tops to steam over a lonely fire.
She'd had no meat.

Cook caught a glance of her as she lurked close
to the fire pit, scouring the rocks for stray bits of meat or vegetables. He
had the decency, at least, to back away even though he lifted a pot at her --
his way of fending her off, she supposed.

"I'm just looking for leftovers,"
she told him.

"There is none." Cook busied
himself with rooting in a rucksack, stashing wooden utensils and tying up the
leather thongs at the top. He was trying avoid meeting her eye, she realized.

Alaysha noticed on the fringe of his
stockpile a wooden plate with a short stack of griddle cakes and a few slices
of burnt meat: bacon left over the spit too long, she figured, and no one had
been interested in charred boar.

"What about that?" She pointed,
and he followed her direction.

"That? That's rot, you fool."

"It looks edible enough."

He shrugged. "If you've a mind to eat
burnt food, it's no care of mine. Save me from burying it."

Alaysha was headed to salvage the leftovers
when a small girl bolted out from behind a stand of brush and made a grab for
the griddle cakes with one hand and the bacon with the other.

Far be it for Alaysha to let a girl starve,
but she was pretty hungry herself. She took after the scamp, hearing the
unmistakable sounds of Cook chortling.

"Come back here," she yelled,
trailing the girl past the brush and into the woods. "That's my
breakfast."

The girl was fast the way a ferret is fast
-- she slunk through tiny gaps in trees, over the roots creeping along the
forest floor, underneath the lowest hanging branches. She would have
outdistanced Alaysha if she hadn't come up against the same hillside that had
provided Alaysha a small cleft of sanctuary while they'd been out here.

She drew up to within a few feet of the
girl and stopped, panting, as she decided what to do with her.

"That's mine," she decided on.

Up close, the girl looked even grubbier
than she'd first seemed. Her long face had a gaunt, underfed appearance, and
the smudges beneath her haunted eyes were black as the soot from the fire. The
strings of her hair hung down in pigtails held together by mud -- no lashing
anywhere in sight. It was impossible to tell what color the tresses were
through the dirt.

"Mine," Alaysha said again. She
didn't care how starved looking this girl was, that food was well-earned spoils
of war -- her spoils -- and she wasn't giving them up.

The girl was panting hard and her gaze
never rested in one spot. It seemed as fidgety as a cornered ferret.

"Give it to me."

The girl shook her head and darted to the
left, where Alaysha realized she'd tethered Barruch. They both started off at
the same time, but Alaysha knew the girl would fetch up into a very large, very
hungry, and very annoyed stallion. Sure enough, the sight of the black beast
gave the child enough startled pause that Alaysha was able to make a grab for
the girl's tunic -- or what ragged pieces made up her tunic.

She gripped the edge of the coarse
flax-spun as tightly as she could and simultaneously pressed the girl closer to
Barruch.

"Give me my supper."

"I thought it was your
breakfast," the girl taunted.

"It's both of those things."

The little ferret took one long look at the
food still clenched in her hands.

"It's mine," Alaysha whispered,
thinking the soft tone might soothe the savage expression on the child's face.
"Please." She took hold of the girl's elbow, more to implore her than
to hurt her.

And she was rewarded with teeth crunching
into her tricep.

"Why you little --"

There was a flash of a dirty smile before
the girl crammed the griddlecake into her mouth. Alaysha had to wrestle the
bacon from her other hand even as the ferret chomped and swallowed
convulsively, frantically. The girl's mouth and throat worked so hard, it was
almost a thing of beauty -- until, still fighting for the bacon, the girl
started to choke.

"The Deities have mercy," Alaysha
sputtered, watching the girl's eyes widen.

Instinct made the girl drop the bacon in
favour of flailing at her throat.

Faced with a dying child or grabbing for a
burnt piece of bacon, Alaysha let go the girl's tunic and made to help dislodge
the stuffing of griddlecake that still puffed out the young cheeks and was
obviously stuck in her throat.

"Maybe some water --" she started
to say, and was frantically searching for a cup to dip some, when the girl
whooped triumphantly, grabbed for the bacon, and in a flash tumbled under
Barruch's belly and rolled to her feet on the other side.

Just like that, the little ferret was gone.

The bats came while she slept under the
stars. Alaysha could hear their clicking noises as they navigated in the dark,
foraging for gnats and mosquitos. She rolled over on her thatch mat, curled
into a ball and shivered. Sometime between her lying down till now, the
temperature had dropped, and she hadn't thought to pull a skin over herself
before dropping off into the land of shadows.

It had
been one long, incredibly long, and exhausting day. And the battle
 
-- she couldn't call what she'd done to that
tribe battle -- best she call it what it was -- assassination. Yes, after the
assassination and the search and the subsequent fight over her supper, she'd
been so fatigued when the camp set back on their way to Sarum that she'd fallen
asleep on Barruch's back at least three times. When the queue of riders stopped
for the night, she hadn't even bothered to find a decent shelter, just unrolled
her mat a few sans-kubits from the rest of the camp and fell onto it.

She could
see the fire pit from where she sat now, hear Barruch's heavy breaths, feel the
heat coming off his flanks as he stood close. She could tell he was sleeping
even though he rarely rested for more than a couple of hours. Today must have
been equally as tiring for him with all the travel. She'd have to make sure to
see the wrangler for oats in the morning to help him build his strength back.
He was no friend of Alaysha's but he hated to see a mount suffer. For now she
should try to find a skin in her pack. Maybe with warmth, she could sleep till
morning.

She
rubbed her bare arms, hoping to stimulate the circulation and bring a flush of
heat to the skin. She got up and leaned against Barruch as she rooted in the
pack beneath him. He woke when she touched it and glared at her through
unblinking lids. He snorted and moved a step to his left. She had to dig
deeper.

Strange;
the pack felt empty. No spoon. No bowl. And most definitely, no furred skin.

Someone
had undoubtedly stolen the few possessions she owned, and there was only one
person she could think of worse off than the water witch. No doubt the little
ferret was cozied up somewhere wrapped in the fur and clenching the spoon with
hope morning would bring a few meager crumbs to fill the bowl.

Alaysha
sighed heavily. It would be a long wait till morning. She'd either have to
build a fire in the dark without her tinder bundle, or brave the fire in the
middle of the camp and its few sentries who kept it fed through the night.

She
didn't relish the thought, but she patted Barruch's rump anyway. "Go back
to sleep, old man," she whispered and he sent a cloud of hot air in
response.

Barefoot,
she made her way toward the fire pit in the center of camp. She stumbled a few
times on tree roots, and got a twig jammed between her toes, but she knew the
shrubbery of the camp fringes would eventually give way to the even, open plain
of the main camp, and the going would be easier. She was intent on staring at
the ground, trying to discern the way of it when she felt a dry palm clamp over
her mouth.

She was
already struggling and fighting into the palm bed when a second arm went around
her waist and pulled her hard into a muscled torso.

Instinct
told her to thirst, and panic came with it, like a hard hit to the stomach. If
she drew the water, it would come from everywhere -- including the camp. She
could already taste the moisture and moldy scent of wet earth. The fear of that
made the psyching of the water even stronger.