Blood and Betrayal Read online

  For the Darkness must stay sated, or it would wake once more.

  Bleeders didn't tend to live long. When they bled too much and faded, or—as sometimes happened—fell whole into the breach, new Bleeders would be sent to their widows so that they might breed more Bleeder’s sons. And so it would be.

  Until it was not.

  Amaya smiled up at her husband, patting his hand and placing her other on his arm. “Come, Husband. I am well; there is no need for worry. Help me to stand, then fetch some eggs and I will make our morning meal.”

  He nodded and stood, reaching out a beefy hand to help her to her feet. She gave him a soft laugh and a kiss on his cheek before gathering the water and heading back to the cottage.

  Later that day, after their evening meal, Rakin took a last sip of his ale, then looked across to her.

  “I think ’tis time I called the midwife. It seems to me you are very near your time, and I would that someone be here with you while I am gone.”

  She looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, Husband. That will be best, I think.”

  He stood and gathered his cloak and pack, taking down his dagger from its place above the fire and strapping it to his belt before turning back. “I will send for her then. Tell her to come this night.”

  Again she nodded. “Thank you. I will look out for her coming.”

  He leaned down to kiss her, then headed to the door. “Be well, Wife.”

  “Bleed well, Husband.” She smiled, and he was gone.

  Alone, she let out a long sigh, then stood and began to clear the dishes from the table. She was not long clearing up, and once the animals were fed and locked in their stalls for the night, she carried in more wood and set about lighting the fire. She loved fire. Loved the shadows that rose to dance along the walls between the firelight.

  She hummed to herself as she knelt to build the little fort of twigs and sparked the flint—a little tune: wordless, strange, and dark. She didn’t know where she’d heard it first, but it had come to her with the babe. She did know she shouldn’t be singing. Singing was forbidden in Nearbreach. And Midfall. And everywhere else, as far as she knew. But she didn’t think this was really singing. Singing had words—at least in the old stories. ’Twas Songs with words that had ruined the world.

  No, this wasn’t singing; this was something else, and she liked it. It made her feel good. In the same way he made her feel good. She heated again, colour rising to her cheeks as he surfaced once more in her mind. She missed him. His arms around her. Dark. Powerful.

  The kindling burst into flame, interrupting her thought—and a sudden sharp pain jolted from her back, arcing to wrench around her womb as her waters gushed from between her legs. She cried out and dropped the log she’d been holding; it rolled across the floor to thunk against the table leg as another pain jolted through her.

  It was time.

  She got to her knees as the contraction passed, but only managed to crawl a few feet before the next took her—more horrible than the last, like knives stabbing, tearing at her. She cried out again and fell to the floor, weeping, her gaze sweeping the room, seeking out shadows for comfort. There weren’t enough. The sticks she had lit were burning through too quickly, the room settling into darkness again. Where was he? He’d promised. He’d whispered to her when she’d gone to him, when she’d whispered to the Dark that she was with child. He would come to her, he’d said. He’d sworn it.

  The pain seemed to last forever—knifing through her as she screamed and cried—but finally, it passed enough to let her get to her knees again and grasp the log in a hand now damp with sweat. She just managed to toss it onto the fire when the next wave of pain hit. She screamed, falling again in front of the fireplace, no thought now but hope that the pain would end—and then the door burst open, and the midwife was there.

  Yes.

  Tutting, the older woman gathered Amaya up and helped her across to the bed. “There now, youngling, you’re alright, Ezri’s here.”

  Amaya nodded, relieved. She grasped at the woman’s clothes, peering around her shoulders as she searched the corners of the room. “It hurts.”

  “Yes.” The midwife smiled. “It does, to be sure. Never was there a time or a place when it did not. ’Tis a woman’s lot, and that’s the way of it. But we will make quick work of this together, you and I. And soon your babe will be born, and then won’t his father be happy, hmm?”

  “Yes.” Amaya smiled, nodding as the woman brushed the damp hair back from her brow. “Yes. He will be happy.”

  She craned to see over the midwife’s shoulder, searching the room—but the shadows were waning again. The fire. The fire was dying.

  “The fire…” She only got the two words out before another wave hit, and she couldn’t speak due to the pain.

  The midwife understood, however. “Yes, dearie, don’t you worry, I’ll get that fire roaring. We’ll need hot water, won’t we?” And when the pain passed, the woman piled more logs on the fire, filled the pot from a bucket, and set it over the flames to boil.

  As the logs caught, and the flames grew, the shadows grew too, dancing in the corners of the room. Amaya closed her eyes, able to rest between the pains. He’d come now. Soon.

  The stabbing pain went on and on, though, deep into the night. And still he did not come. Nor did the babe. As hour after hour crept by, the midwife looked worried—so worried that she laid out knife, needle, and thread—in case. Amaya, for her part, began to fear that day would find her before the end and he wouldn’t be able to come. She grasped the older woman’s hand, her own slick with sweat and shaking from exhaustion.

  “Please. Let him come soon. Please, before the dawn. He has to be here.”

  The midwife nodded and leaned up from where she worked. “Any minute now, love. Yes. You’re ready. There you go. Now push, my love. Push for me, dear!”

  Amaya leaned back against the pillows, searching the room once more—and then she saw him. There, gathered in the furthest corner from the fire. Watching. Smiling.

  Push.

  She smiled, then screamed as she did as she was told, bearing down with all her might, once, twice, again—and then it was over, and the babe was in her arms. The midwife continued cooing and talking and working—but all she could hear, all she could see was him, closer now, his shadowy form reaching toward her as the fire flickered low.

  “There you are.” She smiled. She lifted the babe up, showing him to his father, and the shadow smiled back as the babe began to wail.

  The midwife looked up from her clearing of what came after. “He needs feeding, Miss, so he does. Will I show you how?”

  Amaya nodded, shyly. “Yes. Please.”

  The older woman smiled and leaned up on the bed beside her, helping Amaya tug her dress down and talking all the while of motherhood and milk. Amaya nodded, and let the midwife talk while with her own free hand she gathered up the tangled bedclothes until she grasped the hilt of the midwife’s blade.

  There. She pulled it swiftly up—and sliced it quick and hard across the woman’s throat.

  A fount of blood gushed forth, splashing over Amaya, the babe, the bed, and the wall behind. The midwife’s eyes opened wide and she tried in vain to grasp at the wound, but it was too great, and she fell—face down and blood pooling—into Amaya’s lap.

  Amaya looked down, frowning. “It is too much. And it spilt all over.”

  The babe in her arms wailed again, and so she cradled him in one arm, soothing him, while with the other she pushed and shoved the dying woman over—wincing in pain, as she herself was still sore—until the body lay face up again, exposing the bubbling wound. But the blood just ran down around the midwife’s neck, soaking the bedclothes.

  She looked across the room. “What should I do?”

  The shadow moved then, stretching penumbral arms between flickering firelight to curl around the midwife, pulling her body up to lean so that the blood flowed freely and gathered into a pool in the hollow between h
er breasts.

  The infant whimpered—then his perfect nostrils flared, his little lips moving, his pudgy hands flailing. Amaya nodded. “I see.”

  She lifted the babe, holding him close to the pooling blood, and he opened his mouth. His tiny tongue, shadow-black, flicked out to lap at the blood, cooing and whimpering as he fed.

  “There now.” She smiled down, then looked across the room to where the shadows were thickest. “Our son.”

  A shadowy arm lifted away from the body of the midwife, reaching up to caress her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into the caress. “I love you.”

  From the corner came a whisper in return; then, from the window, birdsong. The shadow bent one last lingering arm around the babe—then withdrew into the corner of the room and away, leaving the bloodless body of the midwife to flop back onto the bed.

  “Hello, my son.” Amaya looked down at the babe as the grey morning light filled the room. “Your father had to go. But he will return soon; never fear. Meantime, we must clean this mess, yes we must. We must make the bed anew for my husband. He will want to see you when he comes, to hold you for the first time, and to name you.”

  The babe hiccupped and sighed, then opened his eyes—black as a starless night—to her own, looking up at her with perfect trust and understanding as he reached his small hand to her face.

  She kissed his fingers and smiled. “We must let him do so, then let him rest. Let him heal. And then, in a day or two, we will use the knife again. We’ll do it better then. Not so much mess. He is large and will feed you well.”

  The babe cooed again as Amaya gathered him back into her arms and rocked him back and forth, humming softly a little tune: wordless, strange, discordant, and dark.

  Harvest

  Christiana matthews

  Perched in the topmost branches of one of her favourite trees, Mitera watched for many long years as dust and desperation permeated the olive grove. Olive trees are tough, but a decades-long drought had adversely affected the oil yield, which farmers like the man below her relied upon.

  She peered down curiously as he set up a makeshift altar beneath a massive, thousand-year-old grandmother olive, using one of the ubiquitous granite boulders that littered the landscape. He set a small, metal bowl over a convenient hollow and filled it with a small quantity of extremely high-quality olive oil. Mitera’s interest was piqued.

  He was clad in threadbare, patched, and faded clothing. The soles of his leather sandals also showed patched holes, their uppers held together with bits of frayed rope. The petitioner seemed unlikely to be able to afford such largesse—the oil would have been cripplingly expensive. Mitera looked closer than she had on his previous visits. The ragged clothes had originally been of good quality; so had his footwear. So, a once-prosperous man reduced to near penury by repeated failed harvests.

  “Great One,” he intoned, arranging a display of leaves around and above the dish of precious oil on his altar, “Annanoe of the Harvest, hear the plea of thy subject, Dimitri. I beseech thee, please don’t let my trees die! This grove is all we have, my family and I. My wife will deliver our first child soon, and I need to be able to provide for them. For all of us.”

  Slowly, with deliberation, he set flint to the oil, and as it smoked and popped repeated his entreaty twice more. Three times total, to catch the ear of the goddess and to summon her servant.

  Mitera sorrowed with him. Day after day she’d watched him lug buckets of water from the rapidly diminishing well, seen the way his shoulders slumped, how his tread became progressively slower, more reluctant, and how readily the tears sprang to his eyes. If salt tears could have provided the grove with nourishment, Dimitri’s trees would not be dying.

  Now, Mitera felt the farmer’s deepening despair as keenly as the rasp of a saw along her bark. Despite her mistress Annanoe’s assurances that this was simply a burden humans were required to deal with and none of Mitera’s fault, she couldn’t help feeling responsible. She was the helper he sought, but being long past her prime, she could no longer rejuvenate his trees. Once she would have been able to easily, but now.…

  Mitera lifted her gaze toward the encircling granite mountains and the high pass that led to the sea. A road ran through that pass along which Dimitri’s wagons had traveled in better days, delivering his pressed oil to the waiting ships and numerous overseas markets. A road they would travel again, if the goddess attended his plea—although as things currently stood, that didn’t seem likely.

  With a catch in his voice verging on a sob, Dimitri finished his devotions and sat back on his heels, lifting his eyes to the heavens where dwelt his goddess in splendor. That gaze drifted past Mitera’s tree and paused.

  “Greetings!”

  She glanced around, confused. Had someone else entered the valley? Who was he talking to, and why was he looking up at her tree?

  “Hello!” the hail came again.

  A shiver danced along her spine. His gaze wasn’t just focused on the olive tree, he was looking directly at her.

  “H-hello. You…you can see me?” The words came haltingly. Mitera couldn’t recall how long it had been since she’d last used her voice or spoken words in a human tongue.

  Dimitri scratched a work-roughened hand across the dark stubble of his jaw. “You’re right there. How could I not? It’s not the right season for picking, you know, even for green olives. They’ll still be too small and hard.”

  Mitera studied him. “That’s as it should be. Trees need their rest, too, you know.”

  “I do know. I own this grove. For now, anyway, until the moneylenders repossess it. Will you come down?”

  She had little choice. He could see her. There was nowhere to hide from a man with the sight. A normal human wouldn’t be able to distinguish her from the olive tree. Mitera spun, twisted, and leaped over the arching, poorly laden branches. One hand spread flat on the ground between her splayed knees to lend her balance, she landed, catlike, at his feet. For all her countless centuries of living, she was still spry. Even if the green magic no longer came effortlessly when she beckoned.

  “You’re a dryad,” said Dimitri.

  What else would she be, with her bark-like skin and abundant grey-green hair? Did humans always state the obvious? Distant memories whispered that yes, perhaps they did. Ignoring his asinine observation, she indicated the altar. “You petition Annanoe.”

  Dimitri sighed heavily. “Yes. For all the good it’s likely to do. My mother always said that circles of three bind the otherworld—that to contact the gods one must do so three times three. This is my third visit to the grandmother tree, and I’ve made my nine appeals. I’ve yet to see any indication that the goddess is aware of my existence, much less that she’ll listen to me.”

  Once, Mitera herself—as the goddess’s dryad handmaid—would have had enough power to grant his request after a suitable bargaining period, of course. The favour of gods always carried a price.

  Dimitri collected the empty oil vessel and bowed his head to the visitor. “Well, I must return to my wife and our soon-to-be son or daughter.” He fingered a short knife at his belt. “And see if I can gather something for our supper along the way, or we’ll go hungry to bed yet again.”

  Son or daughter. An idea began to form.

  “Wait!” Mitera reached out a long, brown arm to grasp his, to hold him there by her side. He looked down at the knotted, claw-like hand and curving talons clasping his elbow and tried to pull back. She tightened her grip. “I can give you what you ask for, what you need, if you grant me a boon in return.”

  Still focused on the strange appendage restraining him, Dimitri took some time to reply. “What kind of boon?” he asked at last.

  “Your child.”

  “What!” He tore out of her hold, flaying his own skin and drawing blood. With a swear, he hugged the injured hand against his chest, gripping it tightly with the other and sucking air through his teeth. “You want me to sacrifice my baby? Never! Gods above,
my wife would kill me if I suggested such a thing to her!”

  Searching her memories, Mitera selected what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. Her voice sounded like wind soughing through old, dead leaves. “Of course not. I’m not suggesting you drive a knife into the infant’s heart and feed your trees with their blood. My goddess—our goddess—reveres life. But this is a large island and ensuring a viable harvest, year in, year out, for such a large population stretches her resources to the limit. Therefore, she needs help. From somebody like me. I was human once, you know, before I entered her service.”

  Nostrils wide, eyes rimmed entirely with white, Dimitri drew in a series of short, sharp breaths and let them out again in a staccato flurry. “You’re looking for a replacement.”

  A smile stretched her wide mouth. “You understand! Yes, yes I am.”

  Dimitri shook his head, slowly at first, then with increasing vigor. “No. No, I don’t. I won’t. I can’t.” His tone spiraled upward, teetered on the edge of panic.

  Mitera sought a firmer voice, one that brought to mind gnarled, dry branches rasping together. “Many of the old tales speak of a firstborn son or daughter being offered up in such a bargain. How do you think I became what I am? My father went from subsistence farming to ruling a great kingdom; my siblings’ territories stretched to the edges of the world. And I…I’ve had the satisfaction of knowing I’ve improved the lot of mankind. Ensured good harvests and full bellies, and provided rich, nutritious soil and fair weather for the trees, the grains, the herbs, and all of the other edible plants.”