Witch Hunt Read online

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  The directions from the dead hunter sent us north into what turned out to be a proper swamp. The land we’d traversed had been marshy but cultivated, curbed by human hands and the water levels drained and contained. To the north of Strongwater Barrow, once we cleared the cursed zone, true swamp took over. Hillocks of deceptively infirm spargrass dotted the more open areas while thick, slimy moss dripped from the trees and formed insect-infested, pungent curtains that blocked the sunlight and plunged us into an eerie green twilight.

  Or perhaps it was only eerie because we were hunting witches. We had been slogging our way for hours in the stifling heat and damp, but likely hadn’t gone more than a few miles from the town.

  We moved in our usual traveling order. I took the lead, ranging ahead a short ways where my keener hearing and better vision might alert me to any dangers. There were always dangers even on a clear, wide road, much less in a dank, dim swamp. One thing I had quickly learned about the mortal realm was that it was teeming with life and most of it will kill you if given half a chance. Makha followed in my wake and I didn’t envy her heavy armor and what was probably a sweaty oven inside her slatted steel helm. We carried only water and our weapons. Azyrin followed his wife with his falchion sheathed at his side and his embroidered bag of components and potions tied to his belt. Drake brought up the rear, wearing a sensible sleeveless leather vest and thigh-high boots that he’d spent the previous evening waterproofing with a noxious yellow liquid.

  I squished and hopped my way forward, dreaming of dry feet and almost glad for the heavy herbal scent of the insect-repelling salve Azyrin had insisted I paste onto the exposed skin of my face. My hair was tied up with leather thongs but a tendril escaped and curled, teasing the points of my ears. Incessant buzzing, the hum of insect life, and the rustling of unseen birds set me on edge, making my ears itch worse and my neck hurt from the tension in my muscles. As an Elemental elf who used to be capable of singing whole landscapes into being, I have a deep appreciation for nature, but only a crazy person would have sung to life this sopping, muddy place. Even the trees here were slick with algae that oozed from the trunks like ichor from a wound, their branches curving downwards in what I imagined to be tree-like resignation.

  “This is enough to make me wish I’d been right about undead,” Drake muttered.

  “You could have remained in town,” Rahiel told him in a tone that suggested she wished he had. She was the only one of us not slogging through the knee-and sometimes waist-deep fetid sludge. Bill had his jeweled collar on, which allowed him to fly, and the sorceress sat primly on his back, her wand out with a magic shield emanating from it which she used to shove aside the tangling moss.

  “And risk catching the wine pox? Yah, no. Women the world over would mourn the loss o’this face.”

  “Clamp your gums, gumblelumps.” Makha said.

  Silver mist flowed out of a nearby cypress and coalesced into the mist-lynx. I heard Drake suppress a curse. Fade’s tufted ears flicked back toward the noise and then his silver eyes focused on me. I raised my bow, bringing our group to a stop. The mist-lynx coughed, once, twice, and turned his head to our left.

  I nocked an arrow and heard the scrape of swords sliding from sheaths behind me. The swamp went silent around us and Fade leapt back into his tree, staying in solid form this time.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” Drake cried out, breaking the tension.

  “What? What do you see?” Azyrin asked and I heard splashing, probably the shaman moving to Drake’s side.

  “No one heard that? That horrible screaming?”

  “No. I heard nothing.”

  “Nope.”

  “No one screamed but you, man-child.”

  I didn’t move, keeping my eyes on the direction in which Fade had indicated some threat lurked. Shaking my head would have meant a headache and I had no need for one before a battle with multiple witches. If we ever found the cursed things.

  “I, uh, I don’t know. I heard it, damnit. Like the wail of a banshee before you die.”

  Branches cracked and snapped in the direction I was staring. For a moment I saw nothing but the shivering movement of the cypress boughs through the curtains of stinking moss. Then, with a piercing screech, the owlboars smashed down on us.

  Owlboars are big as hunting hounds with the tusked head of a boar, a wickedly spiked long, mobile tail, and clawed wings that can catch and rend even metal. They also have the temperament of a rabid wolverine which is why it is fortunate they are never found in quantities of more than one. Except my quick count took in four of the creatures as they smashed through the undergrowth with death in their mad red eyes.

  My first arrow took the nearest one through the wing, toppling it in mid leap. It crashed with a wet smack into the swamp in front of Makha and she bashed it with her shield. I stumbled backward into more open ground and grabbed another arrow.

  “Why are there so many?” Drake yelled.

  “Some knucklerotting enchantment,” Makha said, punctuating her words with a slash of her sword. Metal on metal grated as the owlboar threw its weight into her shield, forcing the metal rim back against her gardbrace.

  “Witch magic,” Azyrin grunted.

  Rahiel screamed unintelligible syllables and threw a handful of glowing dust at another of the creatures. The owlboar fanned its wings, rearing up on its hind legs and bellowing in pain as the dust turned to a shower of molten sparks. I pivoted and took aim. My arrow pierced deep into its belly and its lifeblood spurted, staining the swamp as it crashed into the mud.

  I nocked another arrow and pivoted toward Drake’s cry. Two more owlboars had flanked the rogue and the shaman. My companions stood nearly back to back, Azyrin’s falchion flashing out to slice the thick forehead of one beast as it sprang in, opening a shallow wound. Drake’s left arm was bleeding but he kept hold of his rapier, its wicked tip parrying the slashing tail of the second owlboar. Grunts and shrieks filled the stagnant air.

  My fingers were slick on the bowstring and sweat threatened to drip into my eyes. I sucked in a breath and pulled the arrow back until the hawk’s feather fletching brushed my lips. Breathe out slow, release. Don’t aim, just kill. My shot buried itself in Drake’s owlboar’s side but the crazed beast didn’t waver in its attack. Its heavy tail snicked around, spraying fetid mud. Drake jumped the whipping bone spikes and reversed his grip on his rapier, stabbing downward. He missed the tail and had to scramble backward as he flicked his sword back to guard.

  Draw, target, release. My second arrow carved a canal through the owlboar’s back feathers, distracting the creature long enough for Drake to lunge and send his slender blade through one of its rolling red eyes and into its brain.

  Then the witch showed herself. She materialized out of the trees in a buzzing swarm of wasps, sickly green mist swirling around her feet. She wore a heavy cloak and the insects surrounding her made it hard to focus on her features. I shot an arrow straight at her heart. The wasps flowed in front of her and knocked it aside. The green mist billowed, forming shapes like human skulls. I shook my head as bile rose in my throat and a stench worse than a pile of dead fish washed over me.

  Fade leapt from the trees, slamming into the witch. He yowled as the swarm engulfed him and turned to mist again, flowing away. The swarm followed him. Both mist-lynx and wasps disappeared into the moss-choked trees.

  Exposed, the witch raised her arms and the skulls drifted closer. Drake leapt back and Rahiel sent a wall of flames into the green, screaming mist. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Makha drop her shield onto the dead owlboar at her feet, her gauntleted hand going to her throat. Azyrin cried out and turned toward her, gripping his amulet with his free hand. His blue skin started to glow.

  Green light exploded around me as I drew another arrow and I dove to the side on reflex. Pain surged through my shoulder as I hit the mud and I squeezed my stinging eyes shut. The swamp mud tasted worse than it smelled and I shoved away t
he thought of what had shit or died here to create the rotten paste I spat out.

  I struggled to my feet, forcing my eyes to focus through the haze of grit. Sand poured from Makha’s mouth. The ground around her had turned to thick black sand that sucked and sank around her heavy body. Despite her struggles, or perhaps because of them, she had sunk nearly to her armored waist in the shifting sands. I tried to lunge forward but the air had turned to thick soup and every movement felt as though my limbs were bread dough instead of muscle and bone.

  I’m coming. Use your sword! Brace yourself. I wished I could yell, could do more than lay here in the muck opening and closing my mouth like a catfish caught in a drought. A quick glance showed Rahiel and Bill circling as the sorceress continued to channel flames. Her magic fire held the screaming skulls at bay though it did nothing to stem the spine-mangling screeching. Drake was busy keeping the remaining owlboar off Azyrin as the shaman chanted, his falchion pointed at the witch. Gold light collected on the curved tip of his blade.

  For a moment I wanted to crawl over and yank him around. Couldn’t he see his wife was suffocating and if that didn’t kill her quickly enough, the sinkhole would? I spit out more sludge. He wouldn’t abandon his wife. The two were thick as, as. . . mud. Even after all this time, faith was still difficult for me. Azyrin would do what he needed to do, I had to trust that.

  Which left me the only one free to act. Soup or no, limp limbs or no, I was the only one near Makha. The quicksand had dragged her down until only her ridiculous pauldrons and helmet were above ground. Her tanned face was corpse-pale inside its steel cage, her eyes bloodshot from lack of air.

  I half-staggered, half-crawled the distance between us, trying to tell her with my eyes to hang on. She flailed with her huge sword, jabbing it into a nearby root. It slowed the sinking, but not the flow of sand from her mouth. I shoved Thorn toward her, gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulders as she grabbed on. I lay back in the mud, digging my heels in as I tried to haul her up.

  Red flecks blurred my vision and my arms tried to dislocate themselves from the strain. She was too large and wearing too much armor for me to free her. Her grip slid on Thorn and she looked at me with desperate, despairing eyes as she sank to her armpits. I was losing her.

  Golden light flowed over us and thunder pealed as though a storm were breaking in the distance. Strength flowed into me and Makha spit out a final mouthful of sand and took a gurgling, rasping breath. Whatever Azyrin had done was working. Even I was ready to thank gods I didn’t care about and hardly believed in.

  The witch shrieked but I didn’t dare take my attention off our champion. My arms and thighs throbbing with the effort, I dragged myself backward foot by squishy foot. Able to breathe again, Makha used her sword to help. The black sand grudgingly released its captive. She heaved free with a sucking pop and flailed until she was on her side. She lay there breathing in rough gasps but made no effort to rise.

  I rolled to my feet, reaching muddy fingers for an arrow even as I stumbled to stand over the gasping fighter. She might be able to breathe again, but I had no illusions that she would be up and fighting soon.

  The witch had drawn two curved daggers whose blades dripped sickly black with what I would bet a whole month of camp chores was poison. Azyrin stood firm, his eyes closed, his glowing sword held in front of him, keeping the light around us that had dispelled the witch’s evil. Drake danced with her, his rapier flashing in only to be parried by her blades.

  I followed the fight with my eyes, waiting for my shot. I had no desire to sink an arrow into Drake, as annoying as the human was on occasion. I focused on the witch’s swirling robes, recalling Edan’s stained robe and Hewgrim’s bleak, hollow gaze. This swamp bitch deserved to die.

  Reaching back for an arrow sent another twinge of pain up my arm and into my neck but I shoved it aside. I strode forward; my entire focus on the witch’s dancing body. A bolt of crackling magical energy seared past my shoulder, barely missing my ear. The witch ducked away. She started to chant in a sinister, grating language as she struck out at Drake with her daggers.

  My brain sifted through the words and their meaning came to me. She was calling on another swarm; I caught the words for poison and serpent from her rising cry. Interrupt her! Drake! But there was no way to warn my companions.

  I drew my bow in mid leap, springing into the air as high as my tired muscles would bring me, clearing a shot for myself. This one had to count. This arrow was for everyone who had died in the broken town behind us. For Hewgrim and his strangling despair. The feathers brushed my lips and I opened my fingers.

  My arrow punctured the witch’s throat, hitting her hard enough that her hood was flung back. I caught a glimpse of her surprisingly young face as she crumpled to the ground. My feet hit the mud and the landing jarred me all the way to my back teeth. I slid another arrow free of the quiver, but the witch did not rise. Her body convulsed once, twice, then she lay still and slowly her blood marbled the churned duckweed and stinking mud beneath her.

  Azyrin’s own chant died. He sheathed his falchion and squelched to Makha’s side, digging a potion out of the embroidered bag tied to his belt. He broke the strap on her helmet, yanking the heavy metal contraption off her head as he tilted her chin up and dumped shimmering liquid into her sand-caked mouth.

  My right shoulder felt as though a tree had slammed into it and I wanted to collapse but we had only killed one witch. There should have been a second witch and she could still be lurking in the swamp, just out of vision. Rahiel seemed to have the same thought I had. She and the unicorn flitted away, circling the clearing, her pale green skirts and wings blending so well with the foliage that her purple hair and Bill’s rose-colored fur made them appear like an exotic flower.

  The return of birdsong and the clacking buzz of cicadas reassured me more than Rahiel’s thumbs up as she came back into the clearing. Perhaps Hewgrim had been wrong about the number of witches, or perhaps one had choked on her own evil. I could dream.

  Drake had knelt with his kukri in his off-hand and was hacking the head off the witch. Her mouth was open in hideous rictus, her teeth filed to points and her brown eyes already clouded. She looked human enough and satisfyingly deceased.

  “Can’t ever be too sure with magic users,” he said as I came over. He handed me my arrow.

  I inspected the tip and found it sound, if filthy. Not that any part of me was clean anymore. Mud, sweat, and algae streaked my fine elven armor. Crud even clotted the dragon’s tooth amulet around my neck. I drew my dagger and went to the nearest owlboar. It had crushed one of my arrows, but the other looked whole enough. I cut the broad head out and smoothed the fletching. Wet arrows would still fly well enough, especially given the short distances I’d likely be shooting in this tangled mess of a place.

  The hot copper smell of fresh blood mingled with the swamp’s natural fumes and caused my stomach to rebel. I tucked away my arrows and double-checked that Thorn had survived its impromptu use as a pole. My bow was far sturdier than anything this world could craft, sung into being by my own voice from the heartwood of a blood yew. Its long limbs were deep crimson with thick spines curving out from around the grip, sturdy enough to protect my hands when used as a quarterstaff to block a sword, and there was very little in this world that could scratch or mar the wood.

  “How is Makha?” Drake asked Azyrin.

  I leaned on my bow and uncorked my waterskin, rinsing the last of the sludge from my mouth with its tepid contents. The ache in my shoulder was down to a dull throb. Bruised then, not seriously injured.

  “She will live. We can not go on today. Must rest.” Azyrin helped Makha to her feet. She was still breathing heavily but color had returned to her face and she managed to sheath her sword without assistance.

  “There was that spreading oak back not too long a way,” Rahiel suggested.

  Azyrin nodded and then looked over at me. “Killer? Are you hurt?”

  I answered
him by striding forward, heading toward the tree Rahiel had mentioned. My shoulder would be little more than an annoyance. It was not worth wasting a spell or a potion, not with Drake bleeding through his make-shift bandage and Makha still gasping like a winded horse.

  “Oi! My sword arm? Where’s the concern for me?” Drake pointed at his wound.

  “You will not bleed out in the next candlemark, though you might catch some hideous infection from this fetid mud,” Rahiel said, flying past him as she followed me.

  “Only in your dreams, shortcake,” Drake muttered.

  We set up a grim, make-shift camp. There wasn’t a dry spot to be found, even for Fade, who reappeared and leapt onto one of the wide oak branches. He looked to have survived his chase with the wasp swarm and I doubted he would want me to fuss over him.

  “Killer.” Makha caught my arm as I moved past her in my vain search for dry-ish spot to rest. “Thank you.”

  Her rough words and the grave respect in her eyes touched me. I put my hand over hers and met her gaze with a smile. My head started to ache but for once I didn’t care. We are companions, I wished I could tell her; this is what we do for each other.

  And I realized as I thought this that it was true. This ragged band was working itself into a heart I had thought shattered and incapable of real caring. Friends, I tried to tell her with my smile, with my eyes. She squeezed my arm and nodded. I chose to believe she truly did understand.

  The sunlight faded into deep gloom as Makha and Drake, his arm bound with a clean cloth Azyrin had pulled from his bag of tricks, both slept off the effects of the healing potions. I, too, tried to doze. I would take the night watch, since I needed very little sleep and my eyes, pupils shaped much like Fade’s, had no trouble picking out movement and danger in the dark.

  No one talked much. We had been in worse situations, but everyone looked exhausted and worried. As the summer moon rose, Rahiel quietly asked the question that disturbed my fitful dozing.

  “Where is the second witch? Do you think they could have been wrong? Are we done?”

  “No, I still sense much wrong in this place,” Azyrin murmured, his hand gently stroking Makha’s damp red hair as she lay with her head pillowed on his lap. She’d refused to remove her armor and yet she looked like a steel kitten curled against the half-orc, snoring lightly.

  “Almost makes me wish for bloody undead,” Drake muttered.

  Night isn’t over yet. Resigned to not getting any further rest, I checked my bowstring. It was still waxed and relatively dry. My arrows were protected by a spell on my quiver which Rahiel renewed every ten-day for me. Even the ones that had been covered in crud earlier were clean now, their fletching dry. I stretched my sore legs out in front of me, laid Thorn in my lap, and waited for the next attack to come.

  When false dawn hit and mist blanketed the oak tree, cloaking the surrounding swamp in a shifting silvery cloud, I stood up and shifted from foot to foot, stretching my cold muscles. The mist might hide the swamp, but it did nothing for the smell and only added to the damp. The night had stayed nearly as hot as the day and I felt like a blister, sticky, warm, and ready to burst.

  My ears twitched as my keen hearing picked up the faint sound of language. The sound was so faint that for a moment I thought I had imagined it. Then something splashed in the not quite distance. Somewhere among the branches above me, Fade hissed.

  I had an arrow in my hand instantly. With one soggy boot I nudged Drake. His eyes snapped open and wordlessly he rose, his rapier sliding from its sheath. He continued the chain of nudges, bumping Bill where the unicorn had curled up against a root. In the corner of my eye I saw the flicker of Rahiel’s wings as she took to the air, her tiny fists rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  Makha’s armor clanged as she shifted. I heard a grunt, likely from Azyrin helping his wife to rise.

  Movement in the mist. Red eyes glinted for a moment and I loosed my arrow without a thought. A scaled body writhed and splashed as the arrow found its mark.

  “Ack. Twitballs. I hate snakes,” Makha swore behind me.

  “Maybe it was the only one?” Drake whispered even though there was little point in trying for stealth now.

  I readied another arrow in response to that stupid remark, remembering the spell the witch had tried to cast before I killed her. Something about vomiting serpents.

  “If this is random encounter,” Azyrin said, “then I will feed my hat to Bill.”

  The unicorn snorted and I could almost feel Rahiel’s glare burning away some of the mist around the half-orc.

  Then Azyrin screamed. I whipped around as he threw a thick snake from himself, blood droplets flicking like dark tears from his bitten hand. Makha’s sword took its head off.

  Fade dropped from the oak, another twisting serpent struggling in his jaws. Thick venom flowed from the snake’s huge fangs and it flared its hood, trying to find an angle to strike the thick-furred cat. Maiden-fang cobra. Their poison was plentiful and melted skin like acid, killing within minutes without magic to stop it.

  “Killer! Behind you!” Drake yelled.

  Fearing there would be no time to turn and shoot; I sprang forward and whipped my bow around. The lower limb thwacked into the striking cobra and sent it sliding through the muck. I followed its path with an arrow.

  Two more sets of red eyes shimmered in the fog, but the cobras were learning caution and none came in close. I took aim but the eyes winked out. We closed ranks as Azyrin dropped to his knees, his hand already swelling and his normally pale blue flesh turning deep red around the bite. The skin sizzled as the venom burned into his hand.

  “Bag,” Azyrin said through clenched teeth.

  “Tell me what you need. Don’t you die on me you icelump.” Makha’s voice still sounded like her throat was growing its own beard on the inside.

  Red eyes flashed again, closer. Rahiel tossed a handful of dried white petals onto the ground in front of us. A sudden wind flared up in a half-moon wall, pressing outward and clearing the mist away. The cobras were caught in the open, my arrows and a bolt of blue energy from Rahiel’s wand took the remaining snakes down.

  “Drink it,” Makha said. “Swallow.”

  She had Azyrin cradled in her steel-clad arms, a tiny vial of silver liquid in one hand. The shaman shook and convulsed, the red stain of poison streaking up his arm. When it got to his heart, he would die. His jaw was locked shut and the first drops of precious anti-poison draught spilled and ran off his lips.

  I threw down Thorn and grabbed onto Azyrin’s legs, trying to hold him still. Taking my cue, Drake joined me, pinning the shaman’s arms. Makha ignored Azyrin’s sharp tusks as she pried his jaw open and then dumped the remaining liquid in. His jaw snapped back shut, a tusk catching one of Makha’s gauntlets and tearing through a leather strap.

  For a few moments we all held still, everyone focused on Azyrin’s arm, watching for the spread of the ruby-colored poison. The scent of burned hair and rotting fruit filled my nose and made my eyes water, but I dared not look away. My heart beat seemed as loud as our harsh breathing in the silent pre-dawn swamp and a thick lump choked my throat.

  “Saar don’t let him go don’t let him Saar I beg you,” came Makha’s harsh whispered prayer to the orcish god of storms that she and Azyrin had sworn to follow.

  The sizzling of the acid poison stopped, his skin no longer blistering and melting away around what was now a hideous gaping wound. I sucked in a deep breath as the red streaks retreated down Azyrin’s arm and he stopped convulsing, his muscles going slack beneath my hands.

  His eyes opened, rolled for a moment, then fixed on Makha’s relieved and tear-streaked face. “I would crawl through a thousand winters to stay by your side, storm of my heart,” he murmured in Orcish. “No mere serpent’s bite will part us.”

  “He’s talking, that’s good right?” Drake moved back, giving them room as Makha bent and pressed her forehead to Azyrin’s, squeezing her eyes shut in relief.

 
“I think so. I do not speak gruntish,” Rahiel said.

  I retrieved Thorn from where I had dropped the bow, my face growing hot. It felt like eavesdropping on a very private moment, but I couldn’t help that no language could hide its secret from me for long. Knowledge is the gift of my kind, language in all its forms our ultimate power. Though my tongue could not speak, my mind still remembered.

  The cobra which Makha had dispatched started to glow with greenish light that coalesced into a ball. It floated very slowly toward the north, joined by other bobbing lights as the dead snakes disappeared.

  Fade dashed after the balls, pausing to turn and yowl at us.

  “Summoned creatures. Fascinating. Not the way I would have done the spell, but it conserves a lot of power to pull the essences back like this.” Rahiel cast a quick spell of her own, her eyes staring into the odd middle distance only mages seem to know.

  “Translation for tall people?” Drake asked.

  Rahiel batted her wings in annoyance as she dropped onto Bill’s back. “The witch made snakes go bitey bitey. Snakes dead now. Magic that made them appear go floaty back to witch. Got that? Or should I draw you some pictures?”

  “Nah. With your preferred color palette, I’d probably go blind.”

  “Those green lights lead back to witch?” Azyrin’s voice was weak, but it was a relief to hear his carefully articulated accent.

  “No, love,” Makha said, cutting off Rahiel before the pixie-goblin could reply. “I know what you’re thinking. No doltkicking way. We are in no shape to fight another witch.”

  I rolled my shoulders. I was still a little stiff, but otherwise I felt as good as I would given the heat, the wet, and the crawling stench. I was willing to fight again and those green balls of magic would lead us straight back to their caster.

  “I made promise to dead woman. Must kill all witches. Killer knows.” Azyrin’s sunken eyes found mine.

  I lifted my bow in salute, wincing as a warning throb of pain lanced up my neck. This time that gesture came too close to communicating for the curse, but I didn’t care. I would go after the witch myself if I had to, though Fade seemed eager. The two of us might make better pace through the swamp without my companions anyway and we were no strangers to hunting on our own. It had been just us for years before I’d found my companions and started this less lonely era of my exile.

  “I’ll go with Killer,” Drake said, surprising me. “Makha can get you back to town.”

  “We are splitting the group? But, we do not split the group. It is one of our rules.” Rahiel’s wings beat their own tiny hurricane of distress as she looked up at us.

  “You comin’ with us or going with the lovebirds?” Drake’s lighthearted tone was a grand attempt.

  “Oh burst you all. I will go with Killer. You cannot go against a magic user without your own caster. She will have you boiled and baked into a man-child and elf pie without my help.”

  “Go,” Azyrin said.

  “But we’ll be here,” Makha added. “Not goin’ back to town with tails between our legs. We’ll stay and recover and be closer if you need us.”

  Azyrin reached into his embroidered bag and took out a tiny silver bell. He handed it to Rahiel. “Ring if trouble. I know. We come. I will rest, pray to Saar. Get stronger.”

  Fade yowled again and I turned, seeing that the lights had floated out of sight. I started after the mist-lynx, jogging through the mud to catch up. No point in saying a long goodbye. Trying would only give me stomach cramps and a splitting headache.

  Rahiel, riding Bill through the air as though it were an invisible, solid road and Drake caught up to me. We moved with very little noise now, free of Makha’s armor. I found myself missing the reassuring clanging of knowing I had a large, deadly woman guarding my back.

  But Azyrin was right. We had made a vow to Hiljen, mine silent but no less binding. Kill the witches. One down. One left.

  We caught up to the balls of light and fanned out, staying back far enough that they were just barely in view. It might be a trap, I wanted to point out. I wished I could ask Rahiel if the witch would have felt her summoned creatures’ deaths.

  The swamp changed again, the water flowing freely now between thin strips of semisolid ground. As the sun rose, the mists burned away. The trees grew further apart, revealing patches of bright blue sky. The dank stench of the swamp lessened, replaced by a light fruity scent that grew stronger as we went. Blue frogs slipped off the banks as we moved past them, sliding almost silently into the myriad of branching streams around us.

  The bog cypress and black willows gave way to more spreading oaks and wild apple, which turned out to be the source of the scent as hard green fruits ripened on overladen branches. My stomach clenched, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since the morning before. I ignored it, intent on studying the landscape and wary of another attack. Up ahead was another clearing, this one a large, somewhat elevated hill. What I had taken from a distance to be a clot of vines around an apple tree revealed itself as a cottage woven from living plants and rough-hewn stone.

  The balls of light shimmered and suddenly disappeared. Before Drake could form the words asking Rahiel what had happened, a gentle feminine voice hailed us. A young woman stepped out of the cottage. She wore a rose-colored gown and had soft golden hair that crowded her heart-shaped face in bouncing ringlets and her smile echoed the bright summer sunshine.

  I should have shot her. I had my bow raised, the arrow nocked. Something in her tone stayed my hand. She sounded so gentle as she called good day to us, so sweet. I no more wanted to shoot her than I would stab a kitten.

  “What brings you to my humble home?” she asked.

  “Fair lady,” Drake said, walking forward as he sheathed his rapier with a flourish.

  “Stop!” Rahiel cried out as Bill neighed, bucking in the air as his rider clung to his pink mane.

  Fade growled beside me and his head slammed into my hip, knocking me back. I had to look away from the lovely woman and as my gaze left her face I felt my wits return.

  Too late. Drake was between me and the witch.

  “Drake! You idiot weak child!” Rahiel yelled. “Move!”

  Drake turned but the witch sprang forward and her hand gripped his arm. For a moment his handsome face went slack, then he drew his rapier and thrust the witch behind him.

  “Leave her alone. Are you both crazy?” Green light burned in his eyes. Behind him the witch started chanting under her breath but my keen hearing caught the murmur of the spell.

  I tried to strafe right as Rahiel flew higher into the air, both of us searching for an angle on the woman. The ground shook beneath my feet and monsters coalesced from the mossy earth. I sprang back and loosed an arrow at this new enemy. It sank no more than an inch into the creature’s bumpy green-black hide.

  They were as tall and broad as Azyrin, walking upright like men but with the thick, toothy heads of crocodiles and long arms that ended in vicious hooks. Their hide was ridged and tough and black ichor dripped from their jaws. Hiljen had mentioned crocodile men.

  The nearest monster broke the shaft of my arrow with a swipe of one clawed hand and lunged for me. Splinters.

  “Sorry, Drake,” I heard Rahiel call out as I parried a slashing claw with the stave of my bow and threw myself backward.

  Drake turned into a rabbit. A bright, fluffy, pink rabbit.

  Her human cover eliminated, the witch squeaked and her dress swirled around her, turning to a swarm of wasps. I sent an arrow arcing into the swarm as I continued my retreat.

  The crocodile man was slow but persistent. He lumbered forward, his hooked hands slashing and his jaw snapping, spraying black acidic goop into the air around me. The ichor scorched the vegetation as it splattered, droplets hitting my armor and smoking against the enchanted hide.

  A ball of Rahiel’s blue fire slammed into the crocodile man’s side and he crumpled with a hideous yowl. The flames ate at his hide and I squinted against the sudd
en, intense heat as the air crackled and filled with a smell like burning pork. The monster fell close enough that I had no need to gauge distance or my aim so I sent two arrows at once into his belly, drawing with all the strength in my arm and pulling the string back to my earlobe. The monster stopped yowling and crumpled.

  Two more crocodile men lurched and snapped at Rahiel. She had flown Bill down low and the unicorn now had the nape of the rabbit formerly known as Drake clamped in his golden teeth. Now she flew in dizzying spirals, staying just out of reach of the monsters as she sent another bolt of crackling fire into the nearest one.

  “Fade!” she yelled at me, pointing to the woods beyond the cottage. “Follow him. Witch getting away.”

  Fade was covered in a cloak of angrily buzzing wasps but the cat had a firm grip on the skirt of the witch. She had almost gained the trees and as I started forward, drawing another arrow, her dress tore and Fade disappeared into the swarm.

  I had no shot. The witch dove into the trees and I took off running after her. Rahiel and Bill were on their own. This woman had killed off nearly an entire town, had truly doomed Strongwater Barrow. The curse would die with the last of the witches and some good might be salvaged from the wreckage of that unhappy place.

  If I could catch her. If I could kill her. She had charmed Drake. Almost charmed me, though I was loathe to admit it even in the silence of my own mind.

  Shaking the doubts from my head, I entered the forest. The ground here was mostly dry, the swamp seemingly losing its hold on this part of the wood. The witch was fleeing, her progress easy to track as branches snapped ahead of me and her impractical skirts left broken fronds of fern and threads in the scramblebriars that grew along the forest floor.

  Then the sounds of her flight stopped and the wood grew eerily silent, the way the swamp had before the first witch attacked us. Warned by the change, I halted and readied my bow, my eyes searching the shifting shadows for her. Chanting again, but where? Curse you. I swung my bow to the left, trying to pinpoint the sound, to find a target for my murderous desires.

  Glowing green vines erupted from the forest floor and though I sprang into the air and slashed out with my bow, the unnatural vegetation entangled me. Thorns dug into my armor and the vines tightened until all I could do was struggle to breathe. Another vine whipped up and tore Thorn from my weakening fingers. I opened my mouth in a scream no one would ever hear.

  Fade burst from the tree cover and slammed into the witch as she revealed herself. For a blessed moment her concentration was broken and I sucked in a desperate breath as the vines loosened.

  Then green fire engulfed the mist-lynx as the witch threw the tiger-sized cat from her with impossible strength. Fade hit the wide bowl of a maple tree with a sickening smack and lay still.

  Mist, damn you. Go to mist. Heal, I begged him with helpless eyes. The fire fizzled out but he didn’t move. His silver and black-striped fur smoked faintly in the sunlight.

  The thorns on the glowing vines cut into my exposed skin and hot blood trickled down my neck into my armor. I blinked to clear tears and sweat from my eyes and refocused on the witch.

  She rose slowly to her feet and smoothed her gown, never taking her glowing green eyes off me. I twisted my left hand, my wrist brushing the smooth pommel of the dagger sheathed in my belt.

  “No last words, elf?” she said with a laugh I might have found beautiful in wildly different circumstances.

  Words. If only I could.

  “No?” Then her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “What are you? I thought wood elf, but that smell. Your blood. That power! It’s like honey and damp grass and starlight.” She laughed and the sound sent shivers through my aching body.

  Starlight has a smell? I twisted my hand, trying to get my fingers onto the dagger. My blood helped in that it lubricated my vambrace and let my arm slip higher, but the hilt was slick or my fingers were. I couldn’t look down to tell. Blindly I worked to free my hand enough to get the blade.

  “Answer me!” she demanded, coming ever closer, drawn by whatever power she sensed in my blood.

  I wasn’t worried she would figure out what I was. Elemental elves, the world-singers, are a long lost legend in the mortal realms. I was willing to wager my bow that less than twenty beings in this world would know what I was even if I told them and none of them were likely to be as young as this witch appeared.

  “What? Can’t you speak? I will make you speak!”

  The vines tightened. My ribs grated on each other and the breath I’d taken whooshed out of my lungs with painful force. Oh, how I wished she could make me speak.

  In cheye. Freedom. That word would tear these vines from my body.

  “Speak. Tell me the secret of your power, what magic fills your blood!” The witch was close enough that I could see the greenish veins beneath her porcelain skin, see the green madness burning in her unnatural eyes.

  Lotfahn. Rend. That word would turn the witch inside out.

  My fingers closed on the hilt of the dagger. I gritted my teeth and pulled up and forward, loosening the blade from its sheath.

  Enshallaa. To unmake. The word that would destroy the very fabric of a person, tearing them from all the songs ever sung. A word even my people had tried to forget. A word I had used only once and to my utter ruin.

  A word that now, in my pure hatred of this witch who had cursed the village, who had turned my closest companion into a smoldering corpse and nearly killed the few others who looked past my muteness and aloof ways and welcomed me by their sides. The anger I tried to bury, the same white rage that had caused my life all its grief, surged in me, infusing my limbs with searing strength.

  With the scent of Fade’s burnt fur choking my nostrils and my own blood stinging my eyes, I dragged the dagger free and threw it with a flick of my wrist.

  The vines almost foiled the shot but the witch had come too close. The dagger sank into her belly. Not her heart at which I had aimed, but enough to distract her. The vines loosened again and this time I was ready.

  I tore them asunder with both hands and teeth, leaping onto the shocked witch with animal fury. My blood-slick fingers closed around her scrawny throat and I squeezed and squeezed, my mouth open in a silent howl. She kept fighting, struggling, her hands turning to claws that tore into my thighs and shredded my enchanted vambraces.

  I threw my head back to keep it from her slashing hands and dug my fingers in, lifting her head and bashing it down into the soil. The ground was too damp here to do much damage, but my fury slowed her attacks. Her damaged throat coughed out a word and I felt a ripple of power gathering in her. My pants started to smoke and char. Remembering how she had thrown Fade from her, I let go and rolled away.

  Something hard jabbed into my back. Thorn. I snatched up the bow and reached for an arrow. No quiver.

  The witch had gained her knees. A quick glance showed my quiver only a few feet away, its shoulder strap severed.

  “Burn, elf bitch,” screamed the witch as she threw a bolt of burning fire at me.

  I was already moving, lunging for my arrows. I grabbed one, nocking it and releasing as I straightened up, letting my fury guide my aim.

  Baleh. True flight.

  The arrow flew true. Its broad steel head punched into her heart and red blood spewed from her surprised, open mouth. She dropped face first onto the loam and lay still.

  I stumbled forward, holding my bow in front of me like a stave. With the end of it I turned her over. Her eyes no longer glowed and her chest did not move. Blood trickled from her mouth and soaked the front of her bodice. My arrow had broken beneath her, but I intended to leave it in her heart anyway. I retrieved my dagger from her belly and staggered toward the tree Fade lay beneath.

  The mist-lynx was not there. For a stunned moment I looked about. There were charred lines on the tree bark where his burning body had hit. This was the tree. I knew it was.

  A cool, rough tongue laved my neck as the mist-lynx materia
lized behind me. Tears stung my eyes as I turned and threw my arms around his thick, fuzzy neck, burying my face in his charred fur. My stomach rebelled and bile rose in my throat, but I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

  I had thought my friend was dead. This show of affection, this joyous clinging to another life, it might trigger the side-effects of my curse, it might count from the point of view of those who had damned me as communication, but any pain, all the pounding in my head and churning of my belly was worth it.

  Fade’s chest began to vibrate and soon my whole aching body reverberated with the strength of his purr. Apparently there are some things even a curse cannot ruin.