Sing a Graveyard Song, page 32
part #3 of Enclave Book Series
“Two nights and two days, as promised. Pray we kill this monster in that time, good mother, or little Verel will not see a third night.”
“So shall we pray.” Her gaze flicked to the bright tattoos and thin scars covering Alstera’s arms, but she asked nothing. Alstera did not think they would find the tiny cut on the baby’s ankle for many a day.
When Ilsa carried him to Grisetta, the mother stared as if he were a stranger, yet she needed no urging to nestle him close and drop kisses on his soft skin.
Alstera, her oiled cloak bundled under her arm, signaled Jaeger with her eyes. He rose with alacrity. Scant thanks they got as they left the house.
“You should put on your cloak,” he advised, once they were walking in the lane. “It ain’t warmed up that much.”
“I have to burn this cloak.” They walked a little farther before she remembered. “Jaeger, there was a boy born with a twisted leg, was there not? Magretha said his healing went awry.”
“He died two springs ago in rushing water. He couldn’t swim.”
“Yes, Magretha said that. His mother—do you think she would talk to me?”
“She was one of the women at Grisetta’s.”
Alstera stopped in the lane and looked back at the house. The sun, high overhead, burned its warmth into her, easing the ache of this morning and last night.
“Do you think you would learn any more than you learned last night? Or back there?”
“No. No, I guess not.” She resumed walking.
“Leute had the babe’s watching last night. You think she did him ill?”
“She had no need to do anything. It was done days and days ago. Jaeger, if we don’t kill Harroth—. The babe has two more days before he dies. I can do no more, not unless we destroy Harroth.”
“We’ll get him. We’ll get him tonight.”
“And Leute? She must be stopped, too, or she can create another death-walker.”
“Tonight,” he promised. “Tonight we’ll get the truth.”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
In the cold cave-dark, Harroth paced and paced. An occasional flash of light glinted off the knife blade clutched in his hand. “Now,” he growled, “now,” but the bindings kept him tied to the cave-dark. His mind chanted “power, power,” driving him along the inner passage and into the outer cave. Yet he could not compel himself to go to the cave maw where bright sunlight shafted in. Not yet. Not yet, and he made a vow of the two words.
He wanted power, needed it, craved it since this morning when he’d woke with a howl of rage. Something had severed a source of his strength. He needed to cut and cut and drink a gut-full before he could slake that rage.
And he could, he promised himself. He’d drink power enough to break his bindings, drink a rich, heady blood, enough to give him night and day for hunting.
Tonight, he promised himself. Blood of power tonight.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Late Afternoon
Leute tucked the covers around Evangel. The woman blinked at her but gave no other response. Since before dawn she’d tended her. Jors had gone early to work in his kiln. She’d not seen anyone else the day long, and she itched to hear another human voice, perhaps telling her a bit of good gossip before she returned to her little house to wait through this night of another attack by Harroth.
She gathered up her things. Before slipping past the curtain, she looked back at Evangel. The woman had turned onto her side and drawn the blanket over her head, still trying to hide. Useless. Harroth could have her when he wanted her. And soon, to relieve Leute of this burden. It had not won her as much good grace as she’d expected. Soon she’d leave a shutter open so Harroth could find his way in, and no more Evangel.
Not yet, though. Harroth still had Magretha and Jaeger to kill and Chanoine and now that cursed wizard Alstera. Yet he’d get to Evangel. She promised herself he would.
Jors sat at the table she’d scoured, eating the thick soup she’d made, with utensils she’d washed. He didn’t look up when she emerged with her things. “I am leaving for the night. Unless you need anything else?”
He looked at her from under thatchy brows. Sometimes she wondered if he truly saw her. If he’d looked at Evangel like that, no wonder the woman had turned to Ruod. Yet now his gaze focused, and he left off eating. “No, I ain’t got more, but Grisetta’s oldest boy Swein, he came. They want you there.”
A well-schooled mask hid Leute’s excitement. The babe had died! That had to be why they wanted her. The babe had died, and Harroth was stronger.
No one stopped her on the way, for which she was glad. She tried out several responses to the sad news of Verel’s death. A touch of surprise, not too much, and a good bit of grief. Aye, that was the trick. She’d held the babe as much as his fool mother had—much more than his kin had. She would have to cry. That was hardest, coming up with tears when she wanted to scream her success. She controlled life and death, she controlled the power of the gods! To pretend grief—. Yet she would. None of them would know, not yet, not until all her enemies had crossed to Neothera. She had to cry. She cast about for an appropriate memory. Feldie’s casting her aside? No, she had not cried then. Her parents’ deaths? Chanoine’s rejection?
She reached the house, as tightly shuttered as when she’d left. She opened the outer door. The inner stood open, revealing a roomful of family and neighbors. They all chattered like jays. Confused, Leute stopped.
A little girl spotted her. “Leute’s here!” She ran to her and grabbed her cloak to tow her into the crowded kitchen. Everyone shifted to make room, and she found herself propelled into a chair at table’s end.
“Jors told me—.” She got no further. At the other end sat old Ilsa cradling her newest grandson, who nursed greedily on a goatskin bladder.
“Is it not wonderful, Leute?”
She turned her head. The cursed wizard sat beside her. She smiled, but those cold wizard eyes cut like glass shards.
“Is it not wonderful? Verel thrives.”
“How—?”
“The wizard worked her magic.” Jaeger’s hated voice sounded on her left. She jumped as a hand dropped heavily on her shoulder. His, damn him. “The babe was failing after you left this morn, so they sent for Magretha. Since she was gone, I made them let Alstera try her healing.”
“Took hours it did,” someone added down the table. The swelling clamor from the others threatened to drown her. She wavered under that flood of voices, trying to understand how the spells she had worked ever so diligently had been negated.
Ilsa took the milk bladder away. Verel bawled, silencing the room. “Tsk, little bit, you can’t drink the goat dry.” Everyone laughed. Verel, sucking the milk, rolled his eyes then clutched at his grandmother’s hand.
“You said—You said Magretha was gone.”
She didn’t direct the words at Jaeger, but he heard. His answer carried over the chatter that had resumed. “Left yesterday with Raul. To check on Archaim. They ain’t back yet.”
Leute looked up. Like the wizard’s eyes, his pierced her with an intent she distrusted.
“You expect them tonight, don’t you, Jaeger?” Olva, Chanoine’s wife, stood by the sink.
“Oh, aye, Olva.”
Chanoine had his arm around his wife, his hand pressed to her belly as if he protected a secret there. Was Olva pregnant? Leute’s eyes narrowed at the prospect.
“Well before dark,” Jaeger was saying. Leute forced herself to listen. “They should be back by now. I know they won’t push it. That creature may attack again tonight.”
“Even if Kortie’s dead?”
“I thought Kortie raised it and her dying killed it,” Leute added slyly. She’d prepared that one the other night. She was pleased at how well it fit.
“We got our theory on that, specially after we talked to Jan’s old mother. She remembered a good bit about Walking Death that I’d forgotten.”
Death Walking. The naming shocked Leute. If they knew that much, did they also know how she’d created it? Gods, if they did—. If they did, they could destroy it. Before it got the vengeance she’d bound it to do.
The room had silenced again, everyone staring at Jaeger. Leute wanted to slink away.
“We’ll be setting up to fight it tonight,” the headman said.
“Have you got a chance?” Chanoine asked.
“We can defeat it with magic,” the wizard said, “which is why we so needed to see you, Leute. We need your help. You have power. Feldie trained you to use it. We want you to link with us tonight so we can kill this monster. You will help us, won’t you, Leute? We need you.”
The trap yawned before her. Her brain mired up, refusing any response except “Me?”
“Aye, Leute,” Jaeger said firmly. “If you three women link together tonight, you and Magretha and Alstera here, we got the edge we need against this death-walker.”
“I don’t—.”
“If you are afraid you are too inexperienced, I can tell you what to do,” the wizard offered with her cursed cultured sweetness. “We have time enough for that.”
“I don’t—.”
The door opened, and two more people stomped in. “Ah, Magretha,” the wizard said. “Just in time. Leute has agreed to help us tonight. Haven’t you, Leute?”
With everyone watching, she had no choice but to assent. Everyone broke into talk. Mutely she tried to finagle a way out. Forget helping them! Yet she had no opportunity to slip away. The wizard and Magretha hooked her arms and towed her away to prepare and meditate before dusk. She dragged her feet, but they propelled her steadily forward, into a neat trap she could not escape.
Chapter 29 ~ Night of Twenty-Third / Twenty-Second of Winter’s End
The lancet windows of the church reflected the need-fire flames in a flickering dance from pane to pane. The seasoned wood crackled and cast up old motes freed by the new fire. Stars flickered in the black sky like silver sparks trapped in the heavens.
Magretha reached to snare Raul’s hand. “How long do we wait?”
Her father glanced around. On the other side of Leute, Alstera looked up at the great bulk of Mother Hearth before she answered. “We should link now. We set no wards. We will have no warning when Harroth nears.”
Leute inhaled sharply. “You know it’s Harroth? You know—.” She stopped and hugged herself.
“So much we know and so little we know,” Alstera said. “We know Kortie did not raise him; we do not know how to destroy him. Unless you do?”
“Me? Why would I know anything?”
“Indeed why? You were merely Feldie’s apprentice.”
“I don’t even know why you want me here tonight. I should go—.”
“We want you because you were Feldie’s apprentice. We have need of your power.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“We will find the way, the three of us, together,” and she drew a belt-knife from beneath her doublet. Magretha pursed her lips and remembered Alstera’s suspicions about Leute. What was she going to do, threaten the truth out of Leute? Nor was Leute sure, for she shied and would have bolted if the wizard hadn’t grabbed her arm. “Afraid of me, Leute?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Only a little blood-letting.” In her night-darkened face, her teeth looked white, her eyes wolf-yellow as they eerily reflected the firelight.
“I don’t trust you.”
“Because blood-magic is forbidden? Or because blood draws the death-walker?”
“Both,” she choked.
The light flickered in the wizard’s eyes. “Yes, you would know that. Going to run, Leute?” The woman didn’t answer. Alstera gave a shallow laugh. Magretha hadn’t realized she could be so icily cruel. With a flick of the knife, she opened a cut on the heel of her hand then extended it, bleeding, to Leute. “Link with me,” and it was a challenge.
Leute obeyed. The wizard’s fire-weirded eyes flickered again. Leute shuddered. Her hand writhed in Alstera’s clasp, then she jerked hard. Alstera didn’t release her and didn’t act as if her hold was difficult to keep.
“Be still. Be calm. I won’t hurt you.”
“Kill me,” Leute gasped.
“Now why would I want to do that? I merely want to borrow a little power. A very little.” She extended a hand to Magretha. It still held the knife. “Cut me. A shallow cut, please.” When she hesitated, Alstera offered a gentler smile and softer voice. “I am the link. I must have blood to slip my bindings. Please, Magretha, only a little cut. I will heal.”
She obeyed. Every particle of being revolted at causing deliberate damage. When she was done, she flung the knife from her. Alstera spread her hand, and the blood ran freely. When she offered it, Magretha clasped it willingly.
At first she felt only the slick of blood and the warmth of flesh. Then the first jolt surged into her. This is why Leute cringed. The power ran strong, like a swift current flowing down a narrow channel, with an even larger flood dammed behind it. She identified Alstera’s power. Bright energy with dark, roiling depths, glinting like the firelight as it gushed and rolled into her. Stronger than the power Alstera had shared to heal Père Hals.
Behind it, bounded by it, came a second power, keen-edged like the knife Raul had picked up. Like a blade, but of a weaker alloy than the iron her father worked. Hammered and hammered and re-hammered into a weapon.
“Leute,” Alstera named it to her mind.
Magretha opened her eyes to the night, to the need-fire, to the wizard’s compelling gaze. Leute seemed a mere shadow.
Alstera’s gaze lifted to Mother Hearth. “Harroth comes.”
“How do you know?” Raul demanded while Jaeger checked his musket, useless though it had been three nights ago.
Alstera didn’t answer, but Magretha saw it, saw him slipping and sliding on the path, careless of the cost to flesh that no longer decayed. She saw, hazily, a shadow without the grace of light, a blooded vessel and a blooded knife, and she knew the truth came through the linkage. Impossible to be Alstera, it could only be from Leute.
She shuddered at the full knowledge and would have flung away the linking clasp, but Alstera’s grip was strong. “He comes.”
Those wizard-clear eyes held her until she nodded, accepting.
“Call levin-fire.” Into her mind flashed the spell and the shaping. Magretha’s free hand lifted. Energy sparked and grew, crackling like the fire. Again knowledge flashed, the means to form it, the way to hurl it. She dimly realized that Leute had resumed her struggle to free herself, was dimly aware that the men had ranged to flank them, but those were like unlit mirrors. The levin-fire rolling into a sphere to compass her hand, that was the whole reality.
Harroth burst into the circle of firelight. Raul shouted. Jaeger’s musket sharply cracked. The death-walker staggered back. When he steadied, she flung the levin-fire.
The sphere exploded, shattering sight. When it blinked back, shimmering at the edges, Harroth was on the ground, trying to lever himself up. The magicked fire had charred the dead-white skin on his chest and the lower half of his face. Other black marks like welts covered his arms and belly. But he still moved, and in the seconds she gaped at what the levin-fire had done and not done, Harroth reached his knees.
“Again,” the wizard commanded. Her body jerked as Leute tugged hard to break her clasp. Beyond her Jaeger hurried to re-load. “Again, Magretha,” Alstera ordered.
She lifted her hand, the rush of power already sparking to new fire. Harroth lurched to his feet. Raul fired his pistol, but it did no more than stagger him. He took a step, another, then he rushed and grabbed the musket as it leveled to fire. It jerked Jaeger off his feet. Steel flashed, and her father sprawled on the slushy ground.
“Throw it!”
Harroth bent toward Jaeger.
The sphere was half the size of the first, but Magretha obeyed the wizard. The power burst on the monster’s back. He stumbled forward, tripped over Jaeger and fell. Jaeger scrabbled on the slush, trying to get away even as he leached blood onto the trampled snow.
Harroth caught his coat and hauled him back. He brought the knife up and slashed, but Jaeger had got his arm up. Blood spurted. The death-walker yanked and fastened his mouth to the wound. Jaeger pummeled him with his one free arm, but he had latched on like a leech.
Alstera screamed, “Again!” even as Magretha shaped more levin-fire. The power jolted through her, arcing as she jerked it into use. Not too soon, not too soon, she warned herself. The power had to be strong enough to knock him back, but, gods, the seconds crawled. She no longer marveled at the energy shafting through her to form in her hand. She kept crying “now, now,” but it was still too small.
Raul swung the musket like a club. It cracked on Harroth’s shoulder. He lifted his head from the bleeding wound. Jaeger sagged back, wrenching to free himself. Raul swung again. The death-walker released her father to block the blow. Then his hand snaked to grab the musket. Raul jumped away, into the fire. He yelped and leaped out, and Harroth was there, catching him with one hand and flinging him aside like a child’s rag doll.
He turned toward them. Leute sobbed, “Throw it, throw it,” as Alstera hauled them back. Harroth stood still, his lips drawn back, baring his bloody teeth, his mouth a black maw. He stepped toward them then stopped. And looked from them to her father, trying weakly to get to his feet. From them and to Jaeger, from them and back. Then, looking at them, he stepped toward the wounded man. Magretha threw the levin-fire with all her strength.
Harroth dropped to the ground. The sphere sailed over his head and exploded against the church wall. When he surged up, he came after them.
Magretha drew up more power, and it came with the same rush, but she needed time. Time which Harroth would not give them. Alstera threw off her dual hold. Magretha staggered at the sudden loss of surging energy. Leute fell to her knees.
And the wizard lifted her bleeding hands to Harroth. “You want blood? Rich blood? Powered blood?” Energy glowed around her hands.
The death-walker hesitated at that gleaming magic. He glanced at Magretha, toiling to shape another sphere with her weakened energy, then at Leute. His gaze swiveled to Jaeger, staggering on his feet, clutching his bleeding arm to his chest. Then, as if lured, his black, black eyes returned to Alstera.
