So quietly, so balanced, Aghmor thought. The young warrior was the nephew of Tay Aillig, and had gotten all of the warrior traits of the Usgar-laoch, the calm and the courage, it seemed.
The two remaining Usgar glanced from the camp and to each other repeatedly. Aghmor could see the anxiousness in Ralid’s eyes, noted the way the man was rolling his spear in his hands, flexing his forearm muscles with every turn, wincing even, now and then, from the intensity of his grip.
Apparently too engaged with his anticipation of battle, Ralid wasn’t counting.
So Aghmor did, five fingers, five times, and he looked to Ralid and waved the man forward.
Into the camp leaped the young Usgar warrior, rushing across the low-burning fire and kicking the embers at the apparently sleeping form. Hardly slowing, Ralid crossed the fire and spun his spear in his hands, whacking the form with the back end of the shaft, right where the victim’s head should have been.
Should have, but was not, and Ralid’s follow-through yanked the cloak from the ground and from the branch stuffing, revealing the ruse.
The attacker barely gasped before Aghmor skidded to a stop and backpedaled fast into the forest cover.
* * *
Talmadge saw his chance, one warrior alone, staring dumbfoundedly at the propped bedroll. He had seen the second warrior, as well, but in retreat. He had to get this one down fast.
Before he leaped up, his heightened senses had his neck hairs dancing once more.
There was someone standing right behind him.
For a brief moment, Talmadge hoped that perhaps somehow his camouflage would hold, and this third Usgar would bypass him. He was a skilled frontiersman, after all, and had melted carefully into this brush.
But no, he realized. He had been seen.
“Best to die on my feet, then,” he told himself and gathering his nerve, he started to leap and spin, a single move that would set him defensively, sword leading.
He got about halfway up, and halfway around, when a boot slammed him in the face, throwing him back to the ground. And as he fell, the Usgar spear swept in and gashed his forearm, launching his spear aside.
The warrior hovered over him, leering down at him, dangling his spear tip menacingly over Talmadge’s face.
That should have been the end of it, the end of him, Talmadge thought, but once again, his thoughts turned to Khotai, beautiful Khotai, lovely Khotai, sweet Khotai … deadly Khotai.
He rolled back onto his shoulders, right foot coming forward to kick the spear; when the warrior came forward a step to keep control of his weapon, Talmadge’s left foot shot straight up, the heel connecting with the man’s crotch with such force that it lifted the young Usgar up onto his tiptoes.
Talmadge retracted and kicked out with both feet, cracking the man on the kneecaps, jolting him and straightening his legs painfully as the force drove him back.
Talmadge threw himself over, rising up high on his shoulders, planting his hands and pushing off, so that his back roll landed him right on his feet.
But the young Usgar was there, charging in, spear leveled for Talmadge’s gut.
Khotai had taught Talmadge well, though, and he had enough balance to turn, throwing his right hip back, crossing his right arm in a backhand parry to drive the spear out wide.
Not quite wide enough, though, and Talmadge howled as the crystalline spear tip gashed him just above his right hip.
He kept his momentum and focus, though, growling back the pain. He grabbed the Usgar behind the neck, pulling him forward, then threw himself backward to take the man to the ground with him, tucking his legs to launch the man right over him and into the oak tree.
It was a good plan, except that Talmadge hadn’t even touched back to the ground before the enchanted Usgar spear crackled with lightning, and instead of falling straight back, he went flying out to the side, tumbling into a stand of thin birch.
“Dactyl’s arse,” Talmadge cursed under what little of his breath he had left after that shock and tumble.
His senses hadn’t even returned to him, but his mind was screaming for him to get up, and so he was on his feet before he had even registered how much pain he was in. His side burned, his arm twitched uncontrollably, and he could see nothing out of his right eye.
He grabbed a branch with his left hand, and when the Usgar charged, he tore it off in desperation, swinging it before him like a sword.
In came the Usgar, but out went Talmadge, fighting with the fury of a man who had nothing left to lose. Back and forth went the branch, whacking at the darting spear, connecting then stabbing forward as Talmadge stubbornly pressed on.
He had the warrior backpedaling, hitting him about the chest and head. If he had had his sword, the fight would be over—but he didn’t have his sword.
He had a branch, just a branch, a thin piece of unwieldy wood.
The Usgar warrior was good, and recovered quickly, stealing Talmadge’s momentum, now parrying and waiting for a single opening to thrust his spear into Talmadge’s gut.
And the Usgar warrior wasn’t alone, a fact that Talmadge suddenly remembered when a flying spear drove into his thigh from his right, and remembered again as he turned to meet a third Usgar who had leaped upon him from the left, bearing him to the ground.
Talmadge tried to turn, to bite, to scratch, to kick, but the world went dark when the flat side of an axe head whacked him across the head.
He rolled and tried to cover as the Usgar fell over him, raining blows and kicks until Talmadge was beyond pain, beyond all sensibilities.
* * *
The woman seemed frustrated. She clutched her crystal tightly and scrunched her eyes, shivering with intensity, and frustration.
“Can you feel it?” she asked.
“I feel only the cold wind,” Mairen replied, staring at Gavina curiously.
“No,” the frustrated witch replied and sighed.
“What is it you wish me to feel?”
“The magic.”
“I am Usgar-righinn. I always feel the magic of our god.”
“More magic here, like at Craos’a’diad,” Gavina stammered.
Now it was Mairen’s turn to sigh. Gavina had brought her out to this windy ledge, far afield of the encampment, with a promise to show her some revelation, something special regarding the song of Usgar. While the Usgar-righinn could appreciate the excitement of the soon-to-be witch, she was still in a foul mood and would only humor Gavina for so long.
She didn’t answer, other than to stare incredulously at the middle-aged woman.
“I brought you…” Gavina stuttered and shook her head. “I wanted to show you.”
“Then show me something.”
“The magic. I wanted to show you that the magic here was thick, like in the caves! I wanted to float down this cliff and back to you, to prove to you that you were wise in picking…”
“Then do it,” came another voice, surprising them both, and Usgar-laoch Tay Aillig walked around the ledge from the other end, moving past a shocked and angry Mairen to stand between and behind the two women.
“Why are you here?” Mairen breathed, barely able to contain her rage.
“He told me of this place,” Gavina said, and Mairen’s eyes widened in shock.
“Do it!” Tay Aillig prompted Gavina. “Float down! You have the power. You belong! The Usgar-righinn chose right.”
“There is no … I can’no,” a defeated Gavina said.
Tay Aillig heaved a great sigh, dropped his gaze, and shook his head, shoulders slumping in clear disappointment. “Oh, Gavina,” he lamented.
“What game do you play?” Mairen asked him, or started to, for halfway through her question, the War Leader stabbed his arm out against the shoulder of Gavina, launching her from the ledge.
“Do it!” he said as she screamed and tumbled, flailing with her crystal, actually trying to access the levitational magic within it.
Mairen slapped her hand over her mouth and looke
d over, watching Gavina flailing. She hit a jag lower down that bounced her away from the cliff face, somersaulting, her crystals flying from her hands.
She missed one of the pine trees below, but didn’t miss the flat stone beside it, landing headfirst with a sickening splat.
Mairen gasped and spun away. “Murderer!” she cried.
Tay Aillig simply laughed at her. “Why would you stand against me?” he asked innocently.
“Stand against you?” Mairen echoed in disbelief, backing and clutching her own crystals, reaching already into the levitational magic within one in case the murderous Usgar-laoch wasn’t finished.
“Stand against me!” Tay Aillig reiterated. “You knew my desire, but you chose … that!” He swept his hand out to the cliff to make his contempt for Gavina clearer still.
“Instead of your plaything?” Mairen said, gaining confidence now, for the crystals were humming in her hands, their powers ready and at her beckon.
“Plaything? That foolish and ugly little girl?”
“Ugly?” Mairen echoed skeptically. “What does Tay Aillig know about ugly?”
He started to respond, but stopped short and stared at Mairen curiously. She knew where his thoughts were going, where his memory was leading.
“Because I refused you?” he asked. “I was a boy.”
“You had killed lakemen by then!” Mairen snapped back, allowing more anger through than she had intended. She was surprised by the level of her residual anger here over something that had happened more than two decades before. But there it was, and she couldn’t deny it, and she couldn’t deny the truth behind her decision to pick Gavina instead of Aoleyn!
“I was a boy, not yet through my eighteenth summer.”
“And I was an old and ugly crone,” Mairen spat.
Tay Aillig laughed at her. “You had seen thirty winters? More? Yes!”
“And now I am old and withered and invisible.”
Tay Aillig started to heave yet another sigh, but it was a ruse: he came out of it like a striking white-furred viper, one hand slapping across, taking the crystals from Mairen’s grasp and sending them bouncing about the ledge, the other hand clamping on Mairen’s throat.
Before the Usgar-righinn even understood what was happening, the powerful man was holding her out over the ledge with just that one arm. She grabbed at his wrist and kicked her feet.
“Why?” he said to her, his voice surprisingly calm and steady, she thought, sympathetic and even wounded. “Why would you stand against me? Do you not see the future?”
“Because I am old and ugly,” she said with a sneer, daring him to drop her.
But he didn’t. He pulled her back and ran her across the ledge to put her back against the mountain wall, and he kissed her, hard and passionately, and grabbed at her and pulled her close. She fought him and scratched his face, but only for a moment until she was kissing him back.
She was kissing this man who had just thrown an innocent woman to her death, and she didn’t care!
And he pulled up her skirt and he took her right there, standing against the mountain wall, and they cried out and they shuddered, and they melted down in each other’s arms.
“You’re not invisible to any,” Tay Aillig said to her. “You are Usgar-righinn, the greatest woman of Usgar.”
“Will you tell yourself that while you hump Aoleyn?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.
Tay Aillig laughed at her again. “Aoleyn is a tool and nothing more. I have seen her in the spiritual joining with Brayth. That is her great power, and it is one I need to become Usgar-triath.”
Mairen was chuckling and shaking her head as she reached up to touch the deep scratch she had inflicted upon the man’s face.
“You will not be Usgar-triath for many years,” she said. “It has already been decided.”
But Tay Aillig’s grin was a confident one.
“What do you know?” Mairen asked him, tilting back her head to better survey the man’s expression and demeanor.
“Soon enough you will see, mighty Mairen. And together we will rule without question.”
“While you bed Aoleyn?”
Tay Aillig chortled and yanked her close and kissed her, rolling atop her yet again.
34
RIDDLES UNDER A RED MOON
Aoleyn went about her mundane chores the next day, unconcerned with the duties at hand. Whatever she was doing—gathering wood or berries, hanging hides, beating the dirt out of furs—she made sure to keep in sight of Tay Aillig.
The Coven had passed the word that Iseabal would make her red-faced appearance that night, and Aoleyn knew from that conversation up on th’Way that Tay Aillig meant to go after the fossa, or do something, at least, quite dramatic.
After the man’s last words to Bahdlahn, Aoleyn wasn’t about to sit idly by.
She stood before a hanging fur rug, absently whacking it with a stick, watching Tay Aillig and his nephew Egard, with whom Aoleyn had had more than a few unpleasant encounters over the years. She noted that Egard was limping badly, and constantly, and gingerly adjusting his breeches.
Aoleyn was quite enjoying that, until a young girl ran up to her.
“The Usgar-righinn will see you,” the child said.
Aoleyn looked at her skeptically. Then glanced back to Tay Aillig, then up at the sky. It was already midafternoon.
“Now,” the girl insisted, and she ran off.
Aoleyn hesitated, watching the girl’s movements, thinking perhaps that Tay Aillig, knowing he was being watched, had sent the child to get away from Aoleyn.
But no, she surmised, for the girl ran back the other way across the camp, passing very near to Mairen’s tent, where she exchanged nods with another Coven member who stood outside.
Aoleyn moved across the compound, but slowly, taking her time, and watching Tay Aillig all the while. So distracted was she that she walked right past the flap of Mairen’s tent, and moved right alongside it before she even realized her mistake.
She turned and started back, but stopped when she heard talking from within, Connebragh’s voice.
“How can this be?” Connebragh demanded, and her tone in speaking to Mairen surprised Aoleyn.
“She tried to prove herself in a most unfortunate way,” Mairen answered.
“Why?”
“You would have to ask her.”
Connebragh snorted, with what Aoleyn believed to be disgust.
“Aoleyn, then?” Connebragh said, and when Aoleyn heard that, she was reminded that Mairen was not a particularly patient person. She hustled around the tent and pushed in through the flap, to find the two witches sitting on some piled rugs near the tent pole.
She bowed respectfully and said, “At your call, Usgar-righinn.”
“Yes,” said Mairen, and Aoleyn heard no joy in her voice. “Gather some crystals and leave. Practice hard. You will enter the Coven at the winter solstice.”
Aoleyn blinked repeatedly. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. She found herself replaying the words again and again in her head.
“Usgar-righinn?” she asked, at a loss.
“Go!” Mairen demanded.
Aoleyn bobbed in a series of badly attempted bows, then spun about and ran for the bin of crystals Mairen kept beside the tent flap, almost making it before Mairen spoke again, with a resounding, “No!”
Aoleyn skidded to a stop and spun about.
“No, I have another task,” Mairen said, rising. She walked toward Aoleyn, sorting her own crystals as she did. She held out one to the young woman, a green-flecked crystal Aoleyn knew very well.
“Take this and come with me,” Mairen demanded.
The Usgar-righinn looked back at Connebragh as she finished, “I have something for you to retrieve.
Connebragh gave a little snort and seemed darkly amused, Aoleyn thought, and that didn’t comfort the young woman as she scurried behind Mairen across the camp. She resisted the urge to ask Mairen where they
might be going when, to her surprise, Mairen walked right out of the camp, and kept going at a swift pace, down the trail and winding through some scraggly trees. They moved opposite from the uamhas grove, and Aoleyn didn’t know this area very well—on foot. She had flown over this region, both in her own body and in the owl, but things looked different from this perspective. She couldn’t imagine where Mairen was leading her so late in the day.
They came out of the trees to a ridge, then climbed down a low slope to the blueberry patches—yes, Aoleyn knew this place. She took some comfort in that familiarity, but it was short-lived, for Mairen crossed right through and kept going still, then moved onto a ledge, just a few steps wide, with a sheer drop before them and a sheer cliff behind.
Finally, without warning, Mairen stopped short, and the distracted Aoleyn almost ran into her.
“You have stayed silent all the way,” Mairen said, in a voice to convey that she was impressed, which of course made the whole thing just another insult aimed at Aoleyn.
“Yes, Usgar-righinn,” she replied obediently, keeping her eyes staring at the ground.
“Oh, for the sake of red Iseabal, look at me, child!” an exasperated Mairen demanded, and Aoleyn did so, to see a stern expression indeed staring back at her. “Are you not even curious?”
“I am!” Aoleyn blurted.
Mairen pointed over the ledge. “Both of your answers lie below.”
“Both?”
Mairen sighed impatiently.
“How I am the thirteenth when a thirteenth witch was already picked, and why you have brought me out here,” Aoleyn reasoned fast.
“Perhaps you are not so stupid, then,” Mairen replied. She pointed over the ledge again. “Look, and look closely.”
Aoleyn hesitated.
“Idiot child, if I wished to kill you, you would already be dead, and more horrifically than a simple fall off a ledge!”
Aoleyn gathered her courage and peered over. Her hand instinctively went to her belly, to the malachite and moonstone, as she stared down at the tops of tall pines.
“To the right of the tallest tree,” Mairen said.