A Witch In Winter (29 page)

But I wasn’t sure if she did. I wasn’t sure if she knew what she was asking of me. I knew she was right, but my heart felt like it was tearing in two, ripped between love and duty.

Abe took my hand.

‘
I
understand, Anna,’ he said, very quietly, and something about the way he said it made me believe that he did understand, perhaps had stood in my shoes once upon a time. ‘It’s a terrible choice; one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But you need to ask yourself, what would Seth tell you to choose?’

I snatched my hand away, turning my face to the storm. Because I knew, of course I knew, what Seth would say.

‘And Anna,’ Sienna put in, ‘even if we held back, it might not save Seth. Look at it.’ She waved a hand at the sea, and she was right. It was impossible to imagine any craft surviving out there. Perhaps he was already gone and I’d be sacrificing Winter for a dead man.

I nodded brokenly.

‘Are you sure?’ Abe put in gently. ‘We can do this without you, if you prefer.’

‘No.’ Suddenly my voice was strong. I couldn’t take the coward’s way out. ‘No, you’re right. I’ll help. But please,
please
spare the Spit as much as you can.’ I directed my plea to Abe, knowing that if anyone had the power to shape this storm, it was him.

He nodded. ‘You have my word.’ He looked around at the others, ‘Ready?’

They nodded.

‘Then follow my lead.’

He shut his eyes, bowed his head, and his shadow seemed suddenly to grow about two feet, lengthening across the grass. The clouds boiled and coalesced overhead and thunder rolled. Then the storm erupted.

The first thing to change was the wind. It veered round to our backs and began to pick up pace. I would have thought it impossible for it to blow with any more violence, but it did. The pitch increased to a scream, small trees bending, ripping in the force of the gale. Stones and branches flew ahead of its path and I saw that it was turning, shaping, massing upon a vortex directly above the castle. True to his word, Abe was concentrating all his energies on that one single spot, forcing the storm’s devastation down on the Ealdwitan.

‘Bill,’ he snarled under his breath. Bill raised his hands and brought them down as if cracking an invisible whip. Lightning struck at the towers and stones rained down. There were shouts and cries from the castle, and great balls of St Elmo’s fire raced up and down the battlements.

Sienna and Carl each put a hand on Abe’s shoulder blade. They had their eyes closed too, and I sensed the flow of their strength running invisibly into Abe’s arteries, feeding his power as he in turn fed and shaped the storm. Emmaline’s eyes were wide and both her hands stretched out towards the castle’s defences, ripping and tearing the distant threads of power. But as fast as she stretched and strained at the web, it meshed and grew. The witches inside were repairing and strengthening their defences, far faster than Emmaline could penetrate them.

‘Anna.’ Sienna spoke with her eyes still closed. ‘Anna, you’re not helping …’

I was not. In fact, I suddenly realized that a part of me was even hindering, damping down Abe’s storm in spite of my intentions. I was fighting the winds that ripped across the bay, smashing the small boats out there to matchwood. Oh, Seth …

With a great effort I tore my mind back from Seth and Bran and threw my power into the fray. Once I did, it was both terrifying and exhilarating. I was swept into the torrent of Abe’s violence, all my rage caught up and whipped into the swirling storm, with one target – the Ealdwitan. I threw everything I had at the castle, and the huge structure groaned.

For an incredulous, joyous moment I thought we had them – their spells fthed Carl elickered and frayed, and a cry of shock and fury went up from their ranks. And Abe had the storm right within his grasp – every twig, every hailstone, every drop of rain had become a weapon to smite the Ealdwitan as hard as we could.

But, after the first shock, they began fighting back. The wind veered round and we, too, were buffeted and shaken. Bill’s lightning, instead of striking with precision, fractured into a dozen forks, smiting trees, rocks, all over the countryside. The rain howled in our faces instead of at our backs. And all the time they huddled behind their fortress of protection and we had nothing, nothing but the shirts on our backs.

‘Give her to us,’ a voice came from the castle, howling above the storm. ‘Give up the girl, surrender, and the rest of you will go free.’

‘Never!’ screamed back Emmaline into the teeth of the gale.

And then came a crack of lightning so close and so devastating that we all fell back, shielding our eyes, feeling our bones rattle with the living shock of it. A smell of scorched earth and burned hair, and a bright blindness that burned and bore into my skull long after the crack had sounded.

We were all stunned, I think. Then as we came to ourselves, peering through the blinding darkness, a fear fell upon us. One by one we scrambled to our feet – all except Bill.

He lay against the scorched earth, his face pale and untouched, but the zips and buckles of his biker’s jacket were melted and twisted beyond recognition. Sobbing, Sienna knelt beside him. She touched his face, then snatched her hand back as if scorched. Emmaline made to follow but Sienna cried, ‘Don’t touch him, he’s burning.’

The rain that fell on his body hissed and turned to steam as we watched, the grass curling and wilting beneath.

‘Is he … ?’ Emmaline asked.

Abe nodded. Carl gave a great sobbing cry and put his head in his hands. Then suddenly Abe ducked and flung his arm out defensively, and barely a moment later the lightning stabbed again. It hit Abe’s shielding arm, shattering into a thousand flaming fragments, and Abe staggered backwards as if he’d taken a great blow to the heart.

‘Abe! Are you OK?’ Emmaline ran to him and flung her arms around him, supporting his weight so that he tottered but didn’t fall. He nodded, dazed, and when he spoke his voice was cracked and hoarse.

‘This can’t go on. They’re so much stronger than us. I can’t shield and fight at the same time.’

‘Fight,’ came a cry from the woods behind us, and we all turned. Maya was forging up the hill against the tearing winds, her hair streaming out like a Medusa’s in the gale, her linen dress soaked dark with rain. Behind her came the others. ‘Fight, we’ll shield you.’

‘Ma!’ screamed Emmaline, and she and Sienna ra ane’ll shn to embrace her. Maya hugged them fiercely for a moment, then suddenly broke away and shouted, ‘Everyone, shield!’

She flung out a hand and a huge rock, tossed by the winds, smashed harmlessly into shards above our heads.

‘That was a bit too close,’ she yelled. ‘Come on now, everyone, let’s get on with this and give them space to work.’

At Maya’s signal her party spread around in a circle and suddenly it was as if a cool breeze had wafted over us. The fury of the winds ebbed, the rain no longer lashed in our faces, and when the lightning cracked again it broke harmlessly above our heads.

Abe gave an enormous grin and I saw him gather the threads of the storm together. Then he flung them at the castle and the granite stones groaned.

For what felt like hours the storm raged to and fro, buffeting the castle with all its might, and then turning, twisting back, shaped by the magic on either side according to the cunning and strength of each. But we were tiring. More and more of Maya’s half of the party stepped forward to help Abe’s attack. Now expressions were grim and the rain was lashing us again, while the castle stood, impenetrable as ever, and there was a note like mocking laughter in the wind that blew in our faces.

I was standing at Abe’s shoulder, adding my strength to the attack, when I heard a voice in my head. ‘
Anna, Anna
,’ I turned. It was Maya. Her eyes were shut and her lips weren’t moving. She looked totally concentrated on the task of shielding her family, but inside my head I heard again, ‘
Anna, stop a moment, pull back
.’

I stopped.

‘
It’s never going to work this way
.’ Her voice inside my head was short, breathless, like someone trying to speak while holding up a great weight, but it was calm and gentle as ever. ‘
Their protective charms are too strong. They’ve used the old magic on the castle – ancient charms – to their advantage. We need to break it; break their protection. I know you can do it
.’

‘Maya, help me,’ I begged. ‘Show me how. Like you did before – you lead and I’ll put all my power behind you, but I can’t do it alone, I don’t know how.’

She shook her head, an almost imperceptible movement, but I caught it.

‘
Too much. Have to shield
.’ Her voice was staccato now, as if the effort of holding the shield was almost too much. ‘
You can do it. You. Alone. You
must
do it
.’

I looked down at Winter, drowning by slow degrees. I looked out at the blackness of the sea where somewhere Seth was fighting his own battle against the storm. And I looked at my friends, ranged around me with expressions of desperate concentration – at Emmaline, her face twisted with effort; at Abe, crouched against the force of the storm; and at Bill’s body, lying where he had fallen. Everyone I loved would perish, just as Bill had done, unless I oneortcould find a way of shattering the protections that the Ealdwitan had hijacked for their own.

I shut my eyes and looked inside, into the inner well where I imagined my magic bubbling up, longing to break free. I tried to think about everything Maya had shown me, everything I’d seen and learned in these few short weeks. It seemed pitifully little. I was scared. I was scared of myself. But what else could we do? If I couldn’t do this …

I stopped. I
had
to do it. There was no other option.

I opened up and let the magic out. Then I flung it at the castle with all my strength.

A cry went up from the battlements. I opened my eyes to see the torn threads of charms hanging loose and limp where I’d seared them – but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. The mesh was too strong, too old, too cunning for one person to break.

‘Maya, I’m sorry,’ I started, and she turned to look at me. As she did, a huge ball of magic came hurtling across the sky from the castle, and crashed into her shield. Maya gave a gasping cry and fell to the ground.

‘Ma!’ Sienna screamed, and all around us now hail and rain and lightning bolts were falling, our shields in disarray, our defences completely abandoned.

‘Are you OK?’ Emmaline ran to crouch beside Maya, but Maya was beating her off, pushing her away.

‘Leave me, you fools. Don’t stop shielding!’ She heaved herself up on one arm, blood pouring down her face, and then scrambled to her feet. ‘Sienna, get that shield back right
now
. Emmaline, give me your scarf; I can’t see for blood.’

She grabbed the scarf from Emmaline’s neck and swiped frantically at her eyes, until the worst of the gore was clear, then stumbled back into position, her shielding arm at the ready as if nothing had happened. ‘Get on with it, Anna,’ she cried, and then ducked as a huge rock sailed inches above our heads.

I had to end this. I had to end it
now
, or we were all going to die, witches and outwith alike. I took a deep breath, drawing into myself all the power and rage and love that I possessed. I forced it down into the dark well at the centre of my heart. Down, down, I pushed it all, concentrating every feeling, every emotion I had ever had, into a single thought.

And then I let rip.

A blinding light seared across the sky. It was a blast like an atomic bomb, rippling out from the centre, devastating the magic that lay in its path, tearing through the charms of centuries, ripping through the Ealdwitan’s protective forces, slashing, cutting, rending everything in its path. The earth shook and groaned as if torn by an earthquake, and the group around me fell to their knees, stunned for a moment by the force of the explosion.

Then Abe howled, ‘Their defences are down!
Now!
’ And he flu’ as a ng the wind and rain back to the castle with a terrifying violence.

Rocks were crashing into the sea – and more than rocks. Large parts of the headland began to crumble away, taking bushes and trees down too. As we watched, one of the castle towers groaned and tottered, and then the granite blocks, which had stood for more than a thousand years against the sea-wind and rain, fell with a thunderous roar into the crashing waves beneath, taking the castle’s seaward battlements with it.

With their protections shorn we could see the Ealdwitan now, what was left of them. They were scrambling back from the precipice, those still able to run dragging the hurt and maimed with them; and from the weeping and screaming that reached us on the wind I guessed that more had gone to their deaths in the sea. The thought should have made me sick with horror – but it didn’t. I only felt a fierce delight in my own power of destruction.

The Ealdwitan were running now; we could see figures disappearing over the headland, some running, some hobbling, some loping like wolves, others swooping through the air over our heads. Their silhouettes were like huge black crows against the pearly sky.