Chapter Six Vina #2
“You have your axe,” Vina suggested. Then she paused for a breath, noting the tic of the witch’s jaw. “The axe is too heavy for you,” she said.
“It wasn’t made for my hands,” the witch said tightly.
“If I may?” Vina held out a hand.
“Take it, then,” said the witch abruptly, angling the handle to her. “I need to reach the top of the hill.” She hesitated. “I don’t know what’s waiting for us there.”
That was warning enough. Vina took the axe by the handle. Her fingers brushed the witch’s for a butterfly’s breath—then the witch drew back. Vina hefted up the axe. It was heavy.
“This may take some time,” Vina warned, then began to chop.
She hacked at the tree again; again, and again, and again.
Ten dull thuds, and then the treelike thing shuddered and began to twist in front of her, wildly, the branches shaping into claws.
Shit. Vina reared back, angling her weapon to meet them, and the witch snapped, “I can deal with the claws! Keep hitting the weak point you’ve made. ”
“Will that be enough?” Vina asked, lurching to avoid a branch slash aimed directly at her throat.
“Every monster has its weakness to be exploited,” the witch said confidently.
That sounded reasonable enough, so Vina obeyed, hitting the same deep groove over and over.
Sweat ran down her body, but she hacked, and hacked, the reverberation thudding through her.
The witch was muttering something—sharp, staccato words.
Marks on the trees and in the soil began to blaze hotter still, smoldering and spitting as the witch poured magic into the webs and traps she’d already made.
The trees contorted, ink oozing from them like blood.
If Vina hadn’t known better, she would have believed they were in pain.
The tree finally gave way, and a scream ran through the branches around them.
Silence.
A tree’s-breadth of a path had opened in front of them. Darkness ahead of them. Vina breathed deeply, shoulders heaving, and wiped the sweat from her brow.
“What next, lady witch?” Vina asked.
She heard the whisper of the witch’s footsteps. The witch moved to stand by Vina’s side. From the corner of her vision, she watched the witch cross her arms, expression wary.
“My name is Simran,” said the witch. “I am only telling you so you don’t call me Isadora or ‘lady witch’ again.”
“Simran,” Vina said obediently.
“Follow me.”
The witch—Simran—walked through the trees. And Vina, who’d promised to do what the witch told her to, followed.
Ahead of them, clad in briars, stood the ruins of some ancient temple to gods Vina could not name.
Figures held up the broken remains of the roof.
The figures were so eroded that their faces were not visible, their bodies devoid of fingers, mouths, hair.
An old tale, tucked away among blackthorns, nearly forgotten.
But it was not the temple that made Vina’s heart thud in warning, and her muscles coil. It was the smell. Some strange, discordant mix of herbs and metallic blood met her nose and her lungs.
The witch made a noise; a hiss between her teeth. She raised a hand barring Vina’s path, forcing them both to stop.
Vina looked around Simran and saw it: a body lying on the ground. It was freshly dead, still intact, its chest unmoving, its skin pale and cold. It looked like a woman, older than both Vina and Simran.
A mark was carved into her forehead. A perfect circle, bloodless.
The witch lurched forward one step. Her hands were clenched. She made a noise, a little shudder of breath, and kneeled down. This was someone the witch knew. Vina’s heart gave a sympathetic pang.
Vina almost spoke. But as she opened her mouth, she felt a coldness brush at the back of her neck—the wind, perhaps, or a warning. She carefully lowered the axe to steady soil. The sword at her belt was better fit for her hands, familiar and sharp. She turned her head slowly.
There was a figure behind her. Tall, and broad, and silver-haired.
“No traps for me, witch?” he said. The witch startled, turning where she kneeled. “I thought you’d be better prepared.”
“You’re the one who set a trap,” Simran said. Her voice was thick with unspent tears and fury. “You baited it with my friend’s corpse.”
“She should have rotted by now,” said the man, circling. Somehow, his feet made no sound.
Vina watched his footsteps. He threw no shadow, and the grass under him did not move out of shape.
“The woods are protecting her,” said Simran. She watched him hawkishly, intent. “They’re her woods after all, and they love her. Are you here to try and kill me again?”
“I did not try to kill you,” he said. “I offered you a gift.”
“There’s no gift sweeter than a blade through my chest, I’m sure,” the witch said tartly.
“Peace, witch. That is what I gave her. Doesn’t she look peaceful? Death is kinder than the fate that was awaiting her.”
“The forest is dying. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”
He shook his head.
“She told me,” Simran insisted, voice shaking.
“You fall so easily for lies,” the stranger said. His gaze cut, abruptly, to Vina. “You haven’t tried to kill me yet, knight? Strange. The last time we met you gutted me from navel to neck.”
He looked like a tall man, broad, fair-haired. Vina looked more closely. His murky eyes went from gray to blue to deep red as she watched him; as she breathed carefully and told herself, Look, all magic is illusion, look under the veil and see him. Look!
“I would gut you, stranger,” said Vina. “I hate to disappoint. But there is no point trying to gut someone who isn’t here.”
The witch’s eyes sharpened.
He quirked an eyebrow.
“What exposed me?”
“If you don’t know, sir, I don’t feel inclined to tell you,” Vina said, tone amiable.
Simran had no questions. She was digging now through the soil by the corpse, long fingers scrabbling in the mud, nails stained with dirt.
“Keen hunter’s eyes, you have,” he said. Mildly said, but mocking. “And yet so easily bespelled.”
“Do you know me, sir?” Vina asked. “I’m afraid I don’t know you.”
“No,” he agreed. “You don’t. I see that.”
The witch drew a hank of hair from the ground, expression triumphant. Silvery fair, tied with twine.
“I see I’m not the only one with a gift for witchcraft,” Simran said.
“I had a fair teacher,” the stranger replied. He swept toward Simran, all his focus on her. He bowed over her, throwing no shadow, his voice low. “You have something of mine, now. Before you send me away, let me give you something of yours.”
He held out his hand. On his palm lay a single coil of black hair. Simran stared at it, uncomprehending.
“Do you recognize it? No? Then perhaps these.”
The lock of hair vanished. In its place… Vina peered closely. Cigarettes? Perplexing.
But the witch understood. She straightened, eyes flashing and wrathful.
“What have you done to him?” she demanded. Around them, the witch marks she’d set began to glow again, burning with her fury. “Where is Hari?”
“I’ve pondered you, witch,” the man said, staring at Simran so intently it was as if Vina did not exist at all.
“I often ponder you. You don’t see the gift death is.
Maybe you don’t recognize your own chains.
I could lay a thousand truths at your feet.
And you would reject them all because they come from me…
and because you are craven.” His voice turned ugly.
“You are worse than a dog, compared to what you were. But still, I’ll give you a chance.
If you want him back, you will have to find the truth yourself.
The mountains of copper, witch. Come to your ancient tor.
Meet me there, before the winter solstice.
Tell me my name, and tell me why I cannot die, and you may have him back whole and alive. ”
The witch shook her head, lowering her face, squeezing her eyes shut. Her mouth moved, soundless, shaping words.
“You have until the winter solstice, witch,” he continued. “Then your friend will die.”
Simran twisted the lock of silver hair between her fingers, mouth still moving.
The man shuddered. Lines of gold appeared on his face, livid as scars. His eyes widened, then narrowed to slits.
“No more of this,” said the stranger. “I know you’re seeking me out. I can feel you trying to trap me.”
“You gave me the tools,” Simran said. “Give him back to me. Now.”
“No. Find me, or he dies. You have your quest. Farewell.”
He snapped his fingers, and Simran yelped as the silver hair burned to dust. Before the two of them, the stranger vanished in white smoke.
The witch was breathing hard, blinking back angry tears.
“I need to go,” she said. “I need to go to Gore—the town, the houses beyond the woods. I need to go now.”
It sounded like it was already too late for urgency.
“Who did he take?” Vina asked, low and gentle. A sibling? A lover?
The witch swore, shaking. She walked back to the gap in the trees, then stopped as rainfall brushed her head. She raised a hand to her forehead. The fingers came back black.
Vina raised her head quickly. Above them, the branches were beginning to crack and groan. Ink was pouring from them like blood. A burst of it touched her own face. It bloomed, painfully hot on her skin, then slithered lifelessly to the ground.
“We need to leave,” Vina said urgently. “Go, Simran. I’ll follow.”
“The way is gone,” Simran said, and Vina saw that their path had vanished, swallowed by the trees that were closing in, drawing together.
“Use the axe,” Simran ordered then. Vina was already hefting it up. She threw the weight of her whole body behind the axe, but the trees were growing larger around them, filled with the screaming wails of dying birds.
“Your magic,” Vina bit out.
“I can’t feel it,” Simran said. Her face was gray, her hands raised as if she was trying to seek her magic in the air, in her fingertips. Her voice wavered. “I can’t feel my magic at all.”