Death Witch Read online

  I’ve informed those in town to be careful when travelling and to move in groups, but convincing a few thousand people to do anything is always hard when they can’t see the danger right in front of them.

  What puzzles me is what they’re up to. It’s not organized, not exactly, but it’s definitely all for the same reason. They aren’t going out of their way to profit; they’re just subsisting off of the land and stealing to get what they can’t hunt for. They’re not locals turned con, either, they’re immigrating from all over, setting up camp, and… waiting.

  The Lords could damn me if I could tell you what they’re waiting for.

  Peace Officer’s Journal, Sheriff Brinkley

  “I’ll play the friendly one,” Adelyn's father, Lyman, suggested as David crouched over the wounded man. “You just sit back and look like you’re ready to hurt him if he doesn’t tell us what we want.”

  David shook his head immediately, changing his focus from the spell to wake their captive and switching to a more argumentative state of mind. ‘Torture doesn’t work.’

  “Sorry, no, I think you misunderstood me,” Lyman shook his head. “I don’t want you to actually torture him. That’s about as reliable as having a cat steer your plow. Just make it seem like you might, if it weren’t for me getting in the way.”

  David wasn’t sure how much of his signs he’d understood, but at least they were in agreement. Returning his concentration to the spell, he focused on the concept he wanted to bring to life, did a few sacrosanct signs, and the unconscious raider gasped awake.

  “Okay,” Lyman said, crouching over the bandit. “We patched up your wounds, and I’m going to forgive you for trying to murder my daughter. First thing’s first, though, I’m going to need you to do—”

  …

  “—some talking,” Mama explained, leaning over the bandit that David had captured. They hadn’t bothered to tie him up, but he was disarmed, and she had her rifle at the ready. “David didn’t hurt you too bad, but I’m a little less merciful than him, so here’s how this is going to work. My daughter—you know, the one you were trying to murder? She’s got a nice bag of silver.”

  In emphasis, Adelyn held up the jangling coin purse, shaking it so he could hear how full it was.

  Waiting until their captive had time to look back at her, Mama continued. “You are going to answer some questions, and we’re going to compare your answers to what your friend has to say. Every time your answers line up, you’ll get a tack. Every time you tell us something different, you lose a tack. It’s pretty basic math, you can follow along, right?”

  …

  “Now, there’s a bit of a catch to us being so generous,” Lyman said, sitting back. “You brought down a whole host of problems on me and mine. I have no problem letting bygones be bygones, but for what you did, you’ve got to pay us back a bit of a debt first. One silver dagger should do the job just fine. If you and your buddy both tell us the truth, you shouldn’t have any problem paying me back, but if not…” He glanced over his shoulder at David, hoping that the threat would be clear.

  In case it wasn’t, David held up a knife, playing it between his fingers with practiced dexterity. It was all puppetry and theater, but it had the desired effect, making the raider tremble in fear.

  “Do you understand?”

  …

  “Y-yes,” the wounded bandit stammered, watching the crackling sparks of power play over Adelyn’s hand. Her father had said to avoid magic, but he wasn’t here to stop her, and Mama wasn’t complaining. It was just a light show, but it had the desired effect. “I’ll tell you anything you want, but the other guy—”

  “If your friends aren’t trustworthy, that’s your own problem,” Mama said. “Now, first question, and this should be easy. What’s your names?”

  “I’m Ben,” he said, “And my friend over there is Ed.”

  …

  “I didn’t see who it was you took, but I’m Ned,” Ned said, eyes darting between David and Lyman. “I… my friends call me Ed, though. If he says I’m Ed, I’m not lying, it’s just—”

  “That’s fine, Ed,” Lyman said. “Don’t worry about David, he won’t hurt you as long as you play nice. The other one is tall, a little wiry, he’s got red hair. Looks a bit like a carp out of water.”

  “Ben,” Ned said, tentatively. “That sounds like Ben.”

  “Good,” Lyman said, as David made a mental note. “Now, Ed, how did you find us?”

  “I can’t tell you—”

  …

  “—I would be happy to tell you, but I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit,” Adelyn interjected. “You just picked a direction and stumbled on our trail?”

  “No,” Ben explained, shaking his head. “I just mean, our leader got some kind of tipoff when you went through Petra. I don’t know how he knew you were there. After that, we just figgered you were heading to the railroad and it was easy to get in your way.”

  “Who was your boss?” Mama asked.

  “One of you shot him dead. His name was Brennan.”

  “Is he the one who hired you?”

  …

  “Brennan just told us about the job. He’s not the one who was gonna pay us if it all went straight.”

  Lyman eyed their captive, considering his next question. David knew it was an act, since they’d planned all the most important ones in advance. If he hadn’t been there, though, he never would have guessed that it was an act.

  Leaning forward, Lyman looked Ned up and down. “If Brennan isn’t paying you, then who?”

  “I can’t tell you that. They’d kill me if I—”

  …

  “It was the Watchers,” Ben assured them, eager to please. “They said, if we killed the witch, we’d get her power.”

  “Watch it,” Adelyn warned. “‘The witch’ is sitting right here.”

  “A lot of you, and only one gets the reward?” Marci asked. “What did the rest of you get?”

  “A shot at magic is a pretty big reward, even if it’s only a slim chance,” Ben pointed out. “Most men I know’d die for a shot at less. You’re telling me you wouldn’t have taken that deal?”

  Adelyn cleared her throat before Mama could answer. “They knew we had silver, too.”

  “Well, sure, there’s that,” Ben conceded. “A nice, cashy reward is always appreciated. From what we were told, money like you’ve got, we could retire. Not that I would, but, y’know.”

  “So, the Watchers talked to you directly?” Mama continued, sticking to the prepared questions.

  “They talked to Brennan.” Ben leaned forward, and Mama eyed him warily, moving her rifle further away in case he tried to make a lunge. Noticing her movement, he quickly added, “Just getting comfortable. I think your friend threw out my back when he knocked me off my horse.”

  “You know who he is, right?” Adelyn interjected. “Did they tell you that much?”

  “Wizard,” Ben said. “Right? But no tongue, so he’s just got spirit sense. We were told to be cautious around him, but not to kill him unless we didn’t have a choice.”

  They don’t know he can do spells, Adelyn thought. Interesting. They’d been keeping that close to the chest, but they hadn’t been able to keep it totally secret. More than a couple people had seen David do magic and lived to talk about it.

  Mama cleared her throat, getting the questions back on track. “Is it just the five of you that were sent after us, or are there others?”

  …

  “What do you mean, ‘They’ll kill you’? How would they even know?”

  “If I say too much, they’ll find out,” Ned said. “I can’t explain more, or—”

  “We’ll come back to this later,” Lyman said, shaking his head. “Was it just your team that was sent after us, or were there others?”

  “I think there were others,” Ned said. “We had to get to you first or we wouldn’t get paid, and Brennan seemed pretty urgent to get on your trail. Seemed worried that others would find you if we didn’t get to you first.”

  “Okay.” Lyman nodded, glancing back at David for a moment before asking his next question. “And how did you track us?”

  “Brennan. He knew the town you were in, and which way you’d left,” Ned explained.

  Lyman raised an eyebrow. “And after that?”

  Ned looked at him incredulously. “You’ve got five horses and a heavy wagon. Might as well be paving the road behind you.” He started to sit up, then winced and doubled over in pain, clutching at his belly.

  …

  “Do you know how you found—” Marci’s question was interrupted by a peal of gunfire. Looking over towards their camp in alarm, she almost didn’t have time to see Ben lunging for her rifle.

  Adelyn wasn’t so easy to distract. She’d been keeping a little power on hand for a spell since the interrogation started, and unleashed it with a snarled, ‘Ansyr!’

  Ben ran into an invisible barrier, reacting as though he’d slammed into a brick wall. As he staggered, Adelyn stood and kicked hard.

  It turned out to be a bad call, though the attack proved to work reasonably well. The heel of her boot struck him across the face and knocked Ben to the ground, but her body was not happy with the sudden violent motions. Flares of pain blazed at her shoulder and side, with an added dull throb across most of her chest. She recoiled, fighting through the pain to react to Ben’s next attack.

  It wasn’t needed. Mama was on top of the problem, snatching up her rifle. She aimed and pulled the trigger, once, twice, and a third time, the lever action on her gun moving smoothly.

  Adelyn winced, this time at the burst of power that surged through the air as Ben stopped living.

  “Lyman!” Marci yelled, turning and chambering
another round. She started running, and Adelyn hobbled after.

  Another burst of power rippled through the air, and Adelyn started hobbling a little faster.

  “David?” she called. “Papa? Are you—”

  “We’re alive!” Papa shouted back, stepping around a tent and waving. He had his hand on his side and wore a grimace of pain, but he was clearly alive, so he hadn’t been the burst of power that Adelyn had felt. Based on what he’d said, it hadn’t been David either. “You?”

  “Not hurt!” Marci was close to him, a dozen paces ahead of Adelyn. Reaching her husband’s side, Mama explained what had happened in the time it took for Adelyn to reach the camp.

  “How’s David?” Adelyn asked again, her aches receding as she limped into the camp.

  “Fine,” Papa assured her. “That man has reflexes like a cat.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Adelyn said. Rounding their tent, she saw David wiping the blood off his knife. “Hey, David.” He glanced at her, and she signed, ‘Are you alright?’

  David slid the blade back into its sheath and shook his head. ‘I didn’t notice the gun soon enough. We still had questions.’

  ‘We got plenty of good information.’ Adelyn only glanced at the body, feeling a touch of regret.

  “And, we need to get moving,” Papa declared. “These weren’t the only ones after you.”

  “Just a few minutes ago, you were convinced we were safe and could take it easy.” Adelyn regretted being petulant the moment after she said it, but it was too late to take the comment back.

  “That was before we got new information,” her father pointed out, his tone so matter-of-fact that it almost didn’t sound condescending. “We don’t know how close they are on our trail. The train depot is only a couple days away, though, and once we’re mobile there’s no way anyone can catch up to us before we make it to the fort.”

  “Unless they are waiting for us at the other end,” Adelyn pointed out, trying to regain face.

  Mama stepped in to play the neutral party. “So, we’ll figure that out when we get there. Let’s saddle up.”

  David started packing up their tents as they argued, clearly uninterested in getting involved with the bickering.

  Doing her best not to sound petty, Adelyn said, “If they’re on our trail, we should try my plan to throw them off.”

  “No!” Her father rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “We just need to be fast; we don’t need to use any magic stunts.”

  “It’s not a stunt, it’s—”

  “You need energy to do your… spells, right?” Papa interjected.

  “Yes.” Adelyn pursed her lips, trying to guess where he was going with this.

  “So, you use up all our energy to do this spell, and then we’ll be too dead on our feet to travel, and it’ll cancel out any good it did us anyways. Magic never helps; it just creates new problems that are worse than the old ones. We’re travelling, and we’re not doing the spell.” He set his jaw and turned to help David with the tents.

  Fuming, Adelyn sputtered for a retort, but she couldn’t do the spell if he was raising a fuss, and she never had any luck out-stubborning her parents. “If they find us, I’m going to say ‘I told you so’.”

  “If they find us, then they’re so close on our trail that your plan wouldn’t have helped anyways,” Papa replied flatly, bundling a canvas tent and walking it to their wagon.

  Looking to Mama for help, Adelyn tried to get some support from that field. Her mother just shrugged. “He’s got a point.”

  Grumbling, Adelyn moved to start clearing camp, but Mama stepped in to prevent that too.

  “You’re hurt. Go rest, we’ll take care of this.”

  “I can he—” Adelyn started, but she swallowed the argument and paced away. Their wagon was low, with a mat laid out just for her to rest on while they travelled. It felt incredibly patronizing, but there was no point in arguing.

  “Not even tired,” she grumbled, lying down. If they wanted her to lie down and watch the clouds roll by, she’d do it, but…

  …

  “She’s out like a light,” Lyman said, glancing at the wagon. “Be gentle setting things back there.”

  David nodded, tying up the last tent. His fingers were still shaking from the flurries of combat, but he was able to tie up the canvas bundle neatly.

  He’d spent almost eight years of his life carefully learning to fight without killing. It had been an entirely new discipline, harder than anything he’d learned in the war, and he’d grown to be a master at it.

  It had been an alarmingly easy habit to break.

  He didn’t regret forgoing his vows. The gods he’d made those promises to had turned out to be evil, and there was no good reason to keep up a contract made under false pretenses. The Watchers had proven themselves to be evil. He wouldn’t give them the time of day if one came in from their realm and asked to borrow his watch.

  He didn’t wear a watch, but that was neither here nor there.

  “Give me a hand here,” Marci called to him, from a few paces away.

  David raised an eyebrow, walking over to see what she wanted. She was holding one of the raider’s bodies by the legs, and gestured for him to take the arms. “We don’t have time to dig a grave,” she said, “But I want to at least give them a few last rites.”

  ‘They were probably Watched,’ David signed, before taking the legs.

  Marci had to mouth the words a couple times before she understood, but then she nodded. “Do you want to do the ritual, then?”

  David shook his head. He wasn’t Watched anymore. They carried the body next to another, stacking them next to each other. Hands free, he continued, ‘Watched want to be burned, or sent out to sea. Not buried.’

  “Can you repeat that?” Marci asked, walking over to where David had initially ambushed the raiders.

  ‘We should burn them. Fire. Burn.’ He tried to emphasize the gesture, so she’d follow along.

  “Oh,” Marci said, crouching to pick up the next body. “That seems like it would draw a lot of attention.”

  David shrugged, lifting with her. Once they’d dropped the body, he shrugged. ‘We could light the fire just as we leave. It seems like, we’re leaving an obvious trail no matter what we do.’

  “Do it, then,” Marci said. “Everyone deserves a proper funeral, no matter what they’ve done.”

  They finished stacking the bodies, and David approached Lyman. ‘Whiskey,’ he signed. ‘I’ll replace it.’

  Lyman raised an eyebrow. “Now’s not the time—”

  ‘To start a fire,’ David said, gesturing to Marci so she could explain better.

  Once he’d been given a rundown, Lyman nodded. “Okay. It’s in the wagon, in my chest.”

  David followed the directions, moving slowly at the back of the wagon to avoid waking Adelyn. The bottle of whiskey was where promised. If it was a low proof, he would have to cook up some magic to distill out the water and get a better product. He glanced at the label. 160 proof. Never mind, it’d do just fine on its own.

  Also, Adelyn’s father must have had a gut of iron.

  Crouching near the six bodies laid parallel to each other, David concentrated on a few simple concepts, pressed his hand into the dirt, and signed the correct words of power.

  The grass and greenery around the bodies was suddenly cut down, as though a massive scythe had come through to clear it away. He followed that with a gust of wind, blowing the foliage over the bodies, covering them in dry plant life and leaving the land around them barren for ten feet, so the bonfire couldn’t spread.

  Sprinkling the whiskey, David waited, glancing over his shoulder. Their horses were saddled, and the wagon was fully loaded. They were ready to go.

  With one last sign, David lit the funeral pyre. It didn’t take much power, as the alcohol caught in an instant and the brush was happy to burn.

  There wasn’t enough fuel to burn the bodies down to ash, but it was good enough.

  He walked away, getting onto the horse he’d been lent. Ace, his old stallion, was still half the country away, and he didn’t much care for riding any other steed, but it was that or ride on the wagon with Adelyn.

  The fire crackled, but David started riding before the smell could reach them. They had places to get to, and no time to get there.

  Chapter 3