On Wings of Magic (Witch World: The Turning) Read online

  A thin, nervous girl with hot bronze hair and yellow eyes threw back her unaccustomed veil and whispered, “Tell me again about last time, Aunt Natha.”

  The woman beside her glanced up at the Crag again and whispered softly, “They fixed the Visit huts, and cut us several cords of wood. They redug the outhouse trenches, and after generations of ignoring this place, made everything as snug as if we truly lived here. Why, they did not say. Does anything in the records speak of this?”

  The girl Arona shook her head and looked up at the sky. Thunderheads were forming in the east as they did most evenings in the early fall. The sky was darkening. Natha Lorinsdaughter, coguardian to the young Keeper of the Records, took her hoe and Arona's and turned back towards the cluster of cabins around the trailhead. They were small and barren, of log chinked with clay, with crudely thatched roofs and tiny stone hearths by the door. The Falconers had built them long ago when, strangers to these lands, they deserted the village to seek their fortunes alone. Some said they had been expelled for extreme ill-behavior. Arona wondered.

  She lit the fire as Aunt Natha filled an old ceramic pot, chipped around the edges, with water. They unrolled the sort of bedding usually given to animals on the rough dirt floors. A shepherd on duty would find this adequate, but for the closeness and the fear; many a young girl sleeping out in the woods for this reason or that had less comfort. To go without weapons or jewelry or any other adornment, and to drink neither ale nor beer, made this a religious vigil of sorts. It was only the apprehension that made her uncomfortable, she told herself. For a moment she even believed it.

  She and Aunt Natha had eaten a rough meal of field rations, washed down with water, cleansed themselves clumsily from their only pot, and given thanks to She Who Guards Women, when an odd sound made her stand up suddenly. Arona raced for the hut's open door frame and put her head out. Far above her, a lookout's throat twisted itself into the harsh sounds of a falcon's cry. “They're coming,” the girl blurted out, turning back to the door. “Now!”

  She was almost too late. Racing hoof beats drowned out the sounds of the lookout's warning. Arona covered herself hastily, begging the Goddess for protection as her heart pounded. Above her, shadowy mounted figures raced down the well-worn trail between this meeting place and Falcon Crag.

  Mounted Falconers in bird masks, with metal pots over their heads and metal plates binding their jackets, thundered into the village on the backs of horses, like horses fleeing before wolves. Long, curved butcher knives hung from their belts, and wolf-spears were bound to their saddles. They swung themselves out of their saddles and moved with grim purpose towards the huts. Without a word, one took the girl by the shoulder and shoved her into the hut. Well warned at her Initiation, she made no outcry, though she was bitterly angry that she must endure this three times in succession. Was this how daughters were started in a woman's womb? This was the central mystery of their lives, that she had been so eager to experience?

  But birth was also painful and bloody, and lasted longer; nor did the Falconers enjoy the deed that makes a child, either. They seemed driven and desperate.

  Before the last Falconer was finished with his duty, a low-voiced, harsh mockery of her own lookout's call sounded, very close. The Falconers in the hut swore, rapidly made themselves fit to ride again, and raced for the door, herding the two women after them. A golden-helmeted Falconer stood in the center of the cluster of huts. “Females,” he barked, harshly. “We go now. Keep your sons. We cannot see them now. We will see them later. Now go.” He prodded one with a short, nasty-looking eating-knife. Awkwardly she moved at a rapid walk, not daring to run, until she reached the shelter of the forest. The others followed, each going their separate ways. The central figure said, even more harshly and loudly, in that unnatural deep voice, “We must do this. Enemies must not find you. Forgive.”

  He barked an order and, efficiently, the mounted Falconers rode into the huts and gardens, trampling everything that could be trampled, knocking the straw from the roofs, tearing down the log huts, as the women watched in stunned silence. Then they rode away to the south, without venturing deep into the forest where the real village was.

  As soon as the last Falconer was gone, Arona and the younger women picked up their skirts and ran along the hidden forest trails to their comfortable, safe homes under the trees. Then Natha Lorinsdaughter opened her throat to sound the all-clear, followed swiftly by the call for possible trouble ahead. Arona wondered dry-eyed what trouble? And what worse enemies they could have than these bird-faced creatures? Then she ran into the House of Records, flung herself across her bed, and wept as if her favorite dog had savaged her.

  In the village of Cedar Crest, Morgath the Blacksmith's house and forge were burning like the bonfires of an angry god. With one last, hastily stifled sob, Morgath's wife Huana—no, his widow, now—looked down from the hillside to which she'd fled, and laid a hand over her young daughter's mouth. The trees, thick as winter fur, hid the sight from the women and the women from the Hounds of Alizon. But the village square was empty.

  As Huana watched, people began dashing out of houses and barns to the forge where lay several bodies, as still as death. All but a few of the gathering crowd wore skirts, and those few were very young, or very old. The blacksmith's widow laid her finger across her lips and whispered, “Stay here, Leatrice, and don't make a sound unless one of our neighbors comes.” She thought a bit and said, “If it's a pack of lads alone, don't answer even if it's our neighbors.”

  “I'll climb a tree,” Leatrice promised, hushed by her mother's manner. But excited as well.

  Huana groaned. “It's unseemly and unwomanly, but—better that than spoiled for marriage, I suppose.” She said so as if grudgingly. “I'll be back.” Purpose came back into her voice then. “If I'm not back by next sunset, wait till dawn and try to reach your Aunt Markalla in Twin Valleys. And, Leatrice—keep to the back roads if you do!” And as silently as possible, the woman slipped down the hillside.

  Every woman, child, and old man in the village of Cedar Crest seemed to be in the square, and all the women were wailing fit to wake the dead. Huana shoved her way through the crowd to the smithy, where her dear husband Morgath lay dead at his own forge. And for what? Huana strangled another sob. The soldiers had demanded that he shoe their horses and repair their swords and spears. The first he had done willingly; the second he claimed to be beyond his power and, for that, they slew him and ransacked the house, burning it.

  She knelt beside the body, weeping for the blood flowing from his many wounds, and laid her ear to his mouth, then his chest, to listen for his breath. There was none. She laid her hand to his mouth then. It came away bloody. Under the heavy, coarse shirt with its stiff” collar, his throat had been cut.

  Now she keened like any of the others, howling, “Oh, Morgath, why did you ever defy them? I told you and told you, do as they ask and send them on their way. I told you!”

  Tears running down her face so she must blow her nose on her apron, she shoved her way through another crowd to the village well, and dipped that same apron in the bucket without a by-your-leave as a neighbor woman hauled it up. Then back to where her husband lay, and with the wet apron, washed him as best she could. But how could she bury him decently, with no men around to dig the grave? She looked around, desperate to see any man of her kindred at all, but saw only her son Oseberg, who would be fourteen in the spring.

  “Oseberg!” she called above the noise. “Oseberg, come here, immediately!” Accustomed to obedience, the hulking young boy pushed through the crowd as she did, to Stand by her side. Softly she said, “We must bury your father.” White-faced, he nodded. “Do you run to the house and see if a shovel remains, and if not, find one. No, help me move him to our yard first.”

  The boy gulped and looked around to see if anyone could help. He caught the eye of Lisha the baker's wife; she moved more gracefully to his side and asked gently, “Can I help?”

  Huana sighe
d deeply in her relief and threw her arms around the other woman. “Oh, I am so grateful for your help, cousin. Has a shovel or spade survived in your house, and does your husband still live? Oh, yes, and—Leatrice!” She lowered her voice. “Leatrice is in hiding from the soldiers.”

  Lisha patted her cousin on the shoulder. “I'll send my sons to get her.” Noting her cousin's look of oh-gods, the baker's wife nodded understanding. “I'll send Hanna and her sister,” she corrected. “We'll need our big boys to dig graves and help rebuild.”

  Gratefully, Huana patted Lisha's shoulder in return, and the three of them—two women and a boy—helped carry the boy's father back to Huana's scorched houseplot.

  Then, wiping the sweat from her forehead, Huana said, “I can't stay here, with Oseberg too young to take over the forge and not done with his apprenticeship yet. Who would take care of us? We have no close kin here.”

  “What will you do?” Lisha asked practically.

  “Try to make our way to my married sister in Twin Valleys,” Huana said grimly. The thought of living on her sister's husband's charity was not at all appealing. She could only pray his charity extended to finding his wife's nephew a new master in the only trade the boy knew. She who had been mistress would become a drudge in another woman's house. But she and her children would not starve, nor be reduced to begging or harlotry, and surely nothing else awaited her here. Why, after three invasions in as many months, scarcely a man was left to support any woman, let alone one in her late twenties with two children. She sighed heavily.

  Lisha nodded in sympathy and said, “Let us rest a while, and see if we can ask others to help in this. Then, after we've buried Harald and Morgath together, we can help them, too.”

  Huana, who had not looked beyond her own needs, said in hasty horror, “Oh, Lisha, I'm so sorry! I had no idea they killed Harald too.”

  “Trying to defend us,” Lisha said, her eyes dark with anger and grief. Only then did Huana notice Lisha's torn gown and headdress, hastily set to rights? Instinctively, the blacksmith's wife pulled away. If Lisha had been dishonored, Huana could not associate with her without sharing the stain, and then not even her good name would remain to her. She would be destitute indeed.

  Lisha's mouth twisted cynically, but she said nothing but, “Shall we see to the burial, then?” And because the needs of the moment came first, the women and boys began to dig their loved ones’ graves.

  Little enough was left to the village after this last raid. Hands wrapped in rags, the women and children dug through the ruins for anything they could salvage: iron pots, a few plates and utensils, a bit of farm gear. Huana and Lisha managed to capture a few fowl that had run, squawking, when the raiders rode through. Leatrice had managed to rope an aged donkey belonging to the village priest, whom for some reason the wicked child heartily disliked. “Well, the priest won't miss it where he is,” Huana dismissed the matter in her mind. It would not do to tell Leatrice this, of course.

  Then the sky darkened suddenly as the earth shook under their feet and the very land rumbled and belched like a giant with indigestion. “Run!” cried Huana, abandoning her quest for goods. She shouldered her heavy bag of salvaged goods and slapped her young son across the backside. Oseberg Smithson gave his mother a resentful look, picked up an equally huge bundle, and served his sister as his mother had him. Lisha and her five children followed. Other bewildered and leaderless women and children from the ruins of Cedar Crest plodded along into the forest at the greatest speed their burdens would allow. It was not a quiet exodus. Cattle lowed, children sobbed, fowls in their cages cackled, and an occasional mule or donkey brayed.

  Luckily, there were no pursuers to hear and follow them. These were not the doings of men, but of the gods.

  The small party of bedraggled refugees picked their way through trees and over rocks, through sticky mud and slippery moss, scratchy briars, and up a steep hillside, speeding away from the source of the turmoil with all deliberate haste. Children fell down and had to be picked up; harried mothers often slapped them to send them on their way again. The youngest babies whimpered their hunger and fright. There were sharp sounds of anger and quarreling as they forced their way uphill, skirts heavy with mud and torn with briars. The sickly-sweet voice of Yelen the carpenter's wife chirped desperately, “Now, now! Little birdies in their nests always agree!”

  “Oh, shut up!” Gondrin the alewife snapped in fury.

  “We've been through too much,” Lisha said sagely to Huana beside her, as their children struggled in game silence up the hill. “We're all worn to the bone by now.”

  Wondering who had appointed her possibly-defiled cousin the village priest, Huana glared and said nothing.

  They scarcely noticed in their fear and exhaustion when the steep hill rounded off and began to slope downward. When they found a way relatively free of briars and brambles, it took them a while to realize what was happening. Leatrice Smithsdaughter spoke first. “A path, Mama! A path! I wonder where it goes?”

  “A path, a path,” cried the weariest and the least thoughtful.

  “A path to where?” Huana asked sharply. “Do we know the ones who made it? What if they turn us from their doors as beggars?”

  “As you always did,” the alewife whispered in a voice that carried all too well.

  “A path to an enemy stronghold, perhaps,” Yelen the carpenter's wife said fearfully.

  “Or maybe to refuge?” Leatrice answered stoutly. Then they all began to talk at once, occasional voices rising briefly above the babble until Huana groaned. “Oh, if only we had a man here to lead us!” That got instant, vocal agreement.

  “Well, we have not,” Lisha snapped, “so let's try to settle this like grown women. Those who would go on, gather over here where I am. Those who would not, make up your minds what to do. For me, I am going on. Whatever awaits us, it could never be as bad as being alone in the woods at night, unless, as you said, it's an encampment of soldiers. If it is, why, we can send somebody ahead to find out. Egil?” She called her oldest boy.

  “Sure, Mama,” the youth answered in a reassuring tone. He was almost seventeen and already trying to cultivate a mustache.

  “That's settled,” Lisha said cheerfully. “It's getting dark. Shall we try to camp here, or push on?”

  “If we camp here,” a young girl's voice quavered, “won't wild animals get us?”

  “Not if we light a fire,” Egil Bakerson said With amiable scorn.

  “If we light a fire,” an older woman asked more rationally, “won't wild men see it and find us?”

  Lisha thought about that as voices babbled around her again. “Some of us must stand guard,” she finally said, “and take turns. Who has anything long and heavy or sharp? A pitchfork? A kitchen knife?”

  “Do we have enough big boys to keep watch?” Yelen asked, trying to count them by eye.

  Gondrin had taken a stout stick in her hand. “If Lisha will take the first watch, so will I,” she declared. “If anything comes, you all be ready.” She saw Yelen look fearfully towards boys of ten, eleven, and twelve, and said in scorn, “Oh, grow up, Yelen, and don't lay your burdens on their shoulders yet. Anybody else?”

  Leatrice looked around and found the shovel they had used to bury her father. “I'm with you,” she answered bravely.

  “No, you're not,” Oseberg shoved her aside. “That's my business; I'm the man of the family now.”

  “Oseberg,” Huana decided. “Go with them.”

  The women and children slept uneasily that night on the wet ground. The forest was filled with strange noises and stranger, deeper silences. The women and boys on watch shivered in fear and exhaustion and longed for even the small comfort of their cloaks on the cold ground. It was hard to keep from dozing off. When they were relieved, Oseberg, Gondrin, and Lisha were replaced by Egil, Leatrice, and, hastily, Huana—who did not want her maiden daughter up alone after sunset with a grown lad like Egil. The boy glared at her discreetly, disappointed. H
uana intercepted the glance and smiled grimly, watching the children more than the oncoming night.

  They woke to a forest cold and damp, with the fire nearly out. The women dug in their bundles for what food they had, and managed to find a few eggs from the fowl they had brought. Their one goat was dry. In a tone that brooked no argument, Egil Bakerson announced that he and the boys would snare small game for their hungry families. “You just wait here,” he ordered them. Yelen quavered acceptance; Lisha gave them till midmorning. The women used the time to check and rearrange their bundles; several bitter fights broke out over what food was left.

  The first and second watches rested. Leatrice and her mother were relieved by Lisha's daughter Lowri and a tough old beldam, the widow Melbrigda, from a farm on the edge of the village. The boys came bade empty-handed, but for Oseberg, who had found some sour crabapples on a tree. Even those were welcome. Wearily they picked up their bundles and moved on.

  One day followed another, cold, wet, and hungry. A light rain began to fall, but it was no common rain. It felt nasty, as if fireplace ashes had been mixed with it. The earth had ceased to rumble, but the clouds overhead were a baleful orange-grey, as if the very heavens were on fire. Huana and Lisha could go no farther, but sat down on the ground and wept helplessly.

  Then a dove called out of nowhere. The fog parted enough to show a tall, tumbled crag in the distance. Closer yet and to the north were the vague outlines of a mountain range, shrouded in mist. Below them was a wooded valley. The dove called again, and her cry became a falcon's screech. Huana looked up, terrified, to see a great woman-headed bird part the clouds.

  She circled high in the sky, closer and closer to the wet, bedraggled group of refugees, then glided in on silent wings. Old Melbrigda, whose husband had once been in service to a lord, said, “Why, it's a ladyhawk. Come on, pretty, come to Mother.” She wrapped her shawl around her arm to make a thick padding, and held her arm out. The ladyhawk settled down on the padding gently and dug her claws in.