Chapter 6 #2
Something dark caught my eye in the distance, and I squinted as a black shape flew rapidly toward us from beyond Ambrosia.
Ambrosia noticed my attention shift and turned just in time for the black streak to slam into her head, knocking her over and out cold, all at once.
I gaped at the witch, lying still on the ground as flies dropped around her like dirt being thrown into an open grave, many covering her body, obscuring her even in unconsciousness.
The horse at her back, in response, collapsed in upon itself as well, the light going out of its eyes.
Auggie landed atop the pile of bones, appearing unharmed, not even stirring.
A breath of relief escaped me in a whoosh. I leaned over my knees, thankful for the turn of events.
I stared at the woman, much shorter than her intimidating figure had initially suggested, before I noticed the bodies of foxes entangling her feet.
She had been standing on them, letting them propel her forward like a ghost. Her skin was an even deeper green than the four-armed body, rust-colored hair spilling out from her headdress.
The black shape that had taken out Ambrosia slowed and veered back in my direction. I braced myself for this new attack, then blinked as it stopped before me and dropped to the ground, sniffing my boots.
“Narcissa,” I said with a sigh of relief.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see you in my life.
” I’d been very close to letting this go very badly.
If not for Narcissa…. My parents would never have frozen like I had.
The best I could do was copy the great work they’d done.
I hadn’t even been able to come up with a single potion to help when it mattered most.
Narcissa mewed happily, then batted at my feet, which I realized were also free of the necromancer’s powers.
I took a step toward Ambrosia, noting the large gash on her head, black blood flowing freely from the wound. A rock lay beside her.
Someone gasped behind me, and I whirled to face them. My hands automatically reached into my pockets. Perhaps a repeat of the previous spell was in order.
But it was the four-armed woman who’d gasped.
She was on her knees, dragging in ragged breaths, weapons tossed aside.
Her bun had come loose, and stringy hair fell into her face.
I blinked. Shouldn’t she have died like the horse had?
I took a step away from her. “You stay right there, and we won’t have to hurt you as well,” I said, trying to sound much more confident than I felt.
Narcissa hissed her agreement with my words.
The woman looked up, appearing tired and defeated. She shook her head. “You will get no trouble from me. Instead, you have my eternal thanks. I’ve been under the necromancer’s rule for near a dozen years now.”
I blinked, absorbing this information. Sweat glistened on the woman’s green skin, her frame trembling.
If Ambrosia’s powers had been giving her dead body life, she should have returned to being a corpse, or rather a mess of corpses stitched together, if that was what she was.
“What did Ambrosia … do to you? Did she create you from other people?”
The woman licked her lips, an exhausted smile ghosting across her face.
“No, that was my own doing.” Struggling to sit up, she pulled up her shirt to bare her stomach, where a strange rune glowed, a symbol that radiated power, pulsing with a black light as if from within her body.
“I’m afraid I really am cursed, but I did it to myself.
I was so afraid of death that I found a way to cheat it.
Unfortunately, over the years, I have had to replace parts of my own body to remain whole.
Especially after a skirmish with Vikings. That was a rough time.”
I squinted at her as she pulled her hair back, reassembling her bun with two hands as her other two arms kept her balanced. “And you upgraded, apparently.”
“Ha. Yes, you could call it that.” With a grunt, the woman got to her feet.
“The bodies I used to supplement my own were dead, of course. When I passed Ambrosia’s territory over a decade ago, she took advantage, enslaving me with her powers.
” She shuddered. “I knew what she was doing, but was unable to stop her, trapped within my own body. It was horrible, the things she made me do.” She closed her eyes for a moment before reopening them.
“Even in sleep, she retained enough power over me that I couldn’t do anything against her.
Only now that she’s been knocked out cold have I felt my first moments of freedom in years. ”
I nodded solemnly. “I too crave freedom, to be out from under another’s thumb.”
The witch considered. “Yes, the boy is the key to that, from what I hear.”
“Yes.”
“The boy,” the woman said, eyes shifting to settle on Auggie. “He’s certainly attracting a lot of attention, isn’t he?”
“To my misfortune.”
She returned her gaze to me. “And you’re truly only escorting him for Lucifer?”
“Yes.”
“To what end?”
I hesitated. “I haven’t the slightest idea. And I don’t really care. He’s a means to an end.”
“A means to an end.” She straightened, looking down her nose at me. She had a good foot on me. An intimidating foot. “Then I shall help you achieve your freedom, as recompense.”
I started, staring at her as she retrieved her weapons and sheathed them. “You would aid me?”
“Yes. I saw the bounty on the boy appear in Ambrosia’s mirror. It likely went out to many others, so Ambrosia isn’t the only witch who will respond to the summons.”
“But who sent it out?”
“Any number of ambitious witches. Many have grown mad over the years, or desperate. But someone like that doesn’t stay in the shadows for long.” She straightened. “If you fight as terribly as you appear to, you’ll need me to help keep your enemies at bay.”
I couldn’t argue with her there. But could I trust her? “I’m Callum.”
“Freya,” she said. “And no, I’m not known as The Butcher of Wayward Souls.
She was bluffing.” She tilted her head. “Although, it’s a rather intimidating title.
I could adopt it.” Her face melted into a grimace.
“But that would be giving her too much credit. As good as I am with a sword, I’d rather not be referred to as a butcher, when there are clearly much worse things out there than me.
” She hesitated. “I rather need the extra arms to give me an advantage.”
“It’s quite the advantage,” I noted.
She nodded stiffly.
“Well, it’s nice to make your acquaintance, Freya. I appreciate your offer of aid. This is proving to be a much more … troublesome task than I was led to believe.”
Freya frowned. “You don’t say. Well, I for one am glad it brought you this way. If not for your intervention, I would still be in her power.”
We walked slowly to Ambrosia’s prone form and stared down at her. One of the foxes was so rotted through that half its skull was showing. A mound of dead flies filled her open mouth.
“Shall I kill her, or would you like that honor?” I asked Freya.
Freya’s head jerked up in alarm. “Kill her?! Gods, no, you can’t do that. She controls the dead. If you destroy her physical body, who knows if she will have an even greater reach as a spirit?”
I considered. Ambrosia’s powers seemed to have dissipated with her consciousness.
It stood to reason that they would die completely with her body.
However, what if those powers were tied to her soul?
Would she be able to control the dead without the limitations of the physical world?
Necromancers had died before. There had to be a way to safely dispose of them if their physical deaths didn’t mean their ultimate end, or the world would be in their control.
Perhaps that was a problem for the Council of Witches.
Their job was to maintain a balance to the magical world, after all.
Surely they had a way to control creatures like Ambrosia and had safety measures in place, should a necromancer die and try to overreach.
“Very well,” I said, tearing my eyes from Ambrosia. “You have more cause to see her dead than me.”
Freya inclined her head in acknowledgment.
I turned my attention to the pile of bones at Ambrosia’s back that had once been a horse, my eyes searching out Auggie amid the ribs and femurs and vertebrae.
He lay peacefully, looking as if asleep, hair tousled adorably.
His ankle worried me though. It wasn’t bleeding any longer, but black oozed from the wound yet, like tar, like some decay Ambrosia had poisoned him with.
“He suffered a blow to the back of the head,” Freya supplied, sounding apologetic. “He’ll likely be out for another few hours yet.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw, despite myself.
I had dragged hundreds of souls to Hell, but I couldn’t even protect a single boy.
I could remember and recite, but the one time I didn’t have a full pod’s worth of energy left, I couldn’t think of a single spell efficient enough to cast. My magic was useless if I couldn’t use it to save my own life.
If only I had my parents’ heads for it, Auggie wouldn’t have been touched by that foul witch.
“Enough time to see him to safety, I hope. I know someone who can assess his injuries as well, if it comes to that.” I glanced uneasily at Ambrosia.
“Of course, we have no idea how long she will be out.”
“Oh, we’ll be long gone before she awakens,” Freya assured me, offering the first genuine smile I’d seen from her.
It brightened her green, and potentially rotting, face significantly.
“Ambrosia could use my body and wield me like a weapon, but she couldn’t force me to use my powers.
I was more like a marionette in her hands. ”
“Ah. And just what are your powers?”
“I am a rune master,” Freya announced proudly. “I use the ancient language to command matter. Give me but a moment, and I’ll teleport us well out of this horrid witch’s reach.”
I perked up. “Oh? Can you teleport us to America?”
Freya hesitated. “I’m afraid not. I have to have been to the place. The closest I could get you is Greenland. I need to picture it as I open the portal. It’s not like the permanent runes you have in your potion shop for teleportation.”
“You’ve heard of my shop?”
Freya grinned. “Of course I have. Best potion shop east of London. I was going there for years before Ambrosia got her hands on me.”
I smirked down at Narcissa, who had weaved her way between my legs. “You hear that? Best potion shop east of London.”
Narcissa mewed, the sound somehow conveying disbelief. But even my unpleasable familiar wasn’t going to dampen my spirits. I liked this Freya.
“How about Bristol then?” I asked. “We were headed there to secure passage on a ship, and there’s a healer I trust just north of town.”
“A ship,” Freya’s face twisted in a grimace. “How quaint.”
“But you’ll do it?”
Freya didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted an arm before her, fingers glowing gold.
Her three other arms joined the first, creating runes that hung in the air like afterimages.
“It takes a lot of concentration to do this right. I have to factor in things like elevation and the rotation of the Earth as I picture the place. Otherwise we could very well fall a thousand feet to our deaths.”
That didn’t sound particularly pleasant. “Yes, please be thorough. Take your time.”
A moment later, the runes seemed to converge on one another until a purplish-pink hole stood in the air before us, its edges glimmering like starlight.
“After you,” Freya said, smiling brightly.
I hesitated. I could very well be walking into a trap. Perhaps this portal would lead me directly into a dungeon cell. But it wasn’t like I had much of my own magic left. And we should both be long gone before Ambrosia roused.
I picked up Auggie carefully, his head lolling back, exposing his neck. I stared at his mouth, which had fallen open prettily. He felt warm in my arms and looked vulnerable with his face so relaxed. He really did boast the longest eyelashes I had ever seen.
“This does take no small amount of energy to keep open,” Freya said, voice tight.
I shook myself, and walked to the portal, Narcissa walking alongside me. I took a deep breath as I faced the portal. “Here goes nothing.”