The Witch of Glenaster (3 page)

Our village lay at the
westernmost tip of the Fallen
Range, that
snakes from
the Fields of the Sentinel in far
Ustus
to meet the
broad plains of Sophia to the south. As the mountains start to diminish, many
miles from their zenith in High Meadow, they are split by the great tongue of
the Anvil, on its way to the
Skyless
Delta, and the
sea. Our ancestors made their home high up on the slopes above the river, where
you can see your enemy approach from many leagues on a clear day, but where the
ground is hard and good only for pasture. When it rained, as it did often,
there was little protection against the wind and the storms that battered our
houses and frightened our livestock, and the going was always tough. But this
had been our home, for more generations than even the oldest among us could
count; and a man will defend his home, to the death if needs be, against all
who would take or destroy it.

And so, as my twelfth birthday
drew near, and with the summer shortening into autumn, came those trials,
recounted here, which were to change my life forever, and forge for me a new
one, hard and brutal as flint.

Things had been quieter in the
village in the two years since the outsiders had plunged into the river to
escape the drakes’ fire. The winters seemed less harsh, and the summers less
fierce, and the sheep did not go mad or stampede, nor the horses. Folk smiled
without thinking, and were quicker to pass the time of day; and children played
once more in the woods, and ran careless along the river. Some of the men who
had left even returned from the towns, and brought their women and children
with them, and people said the shadow was lifting; perhaps the Witch was dead,
or had gone quiet once more, or was simply weary of her sport and had moved on
to others. No one had heard of the drakes reappearing, or of any recent
sightings of the Watchers - those men who served the Witch - or of the Third
Eye that they wore. All seemed calm, and even cheerful, in the valley, and when
my mother’s cousin gave birth - the first child to be born in the village since
my own brother, eight years before - all agreed it was a good omen.

But it was not so.

I was old enough now to accompany
my father on his trips to town, driving the packhorse over the low-walled
bridge that crossed the Stave, the Anvil’s gentler brother. From there we would
make our way east, through the rolling hills of Dulcet, the sweeter and lusher
lands of our neighbours, with their pretty villages and neat farms. We did not
envy them their prosperity, nor resent that their lives were easier than ours;
it was almost a sin amongst my people to be ashamed of who we were, and where
we had come from.

So on a fine and sun-drunk day
in mid-September, as on many days before it, we walked along together, the
horse labouring beside us, my father touching the brim of his hat to those we
passed, and they greeting him in return, often by his name. And he and I would
play games – guessing how many strides it would take to walk to
Ampar
, the emperor’s Golden City, far to the north, or
competing to spot otters at play in the streams, or kestrels on the wing. And
so we passed the time, until we reached Hale, the nearest town.

Hale was a trading-post that
had grown lazily along the banks of the Stave, and, though hardly large by the
reckoning of northerners, seemed big enough to those of us who lived in the
south. Its one central street meandered for over half a mile, the shops and
stalls on either side having a temporary air which testified to its busyness:
buildings always seemed to be being torn down and rebuilt, or else something
new taking their place.

The top end of the street was
dominated by the Trading House. Its slanted roof and high, narrow windows would
have looked perfectly ordinary had they been on a smaller scale, but it was
their very vastness which impressed: towering above you, intimidating despite
their great ugliness. This is the place where everything happens, they said.
Men are just ants, they whispered. Later in my life, after I had seen the
forest-houses of the Green Cities, and walked across the Bridge of
Socus
, high above the towers of
Ampar
,
I would not reckon the Hale Trading House so great. But now it is lost, like so
much of my past, and as a child I thought it terrifying.

Beside the House there was a
large enclosure, and we left our horse there, tethered and guarded by two young
grooms, who spoke so little they might as well be mute, and bit every coin my
father handed to them. Then we unstrapped our bags of yarn from the animal’s
back, and went inside.

My eyes blinked in the noise
and chaos within. A great press of men – for there were few, if any, women –
filled almost every inch of space, but somehow they managed to avoid crushing
or elbowing each other as they moved around the building. Their hands and
mouths flew out and open, there was sweat on their brows from the effort of
making themselves heard, and they had grass or tobacco to chew when they were
silent. The currents of conversation settled back and forth, and finally echoed
up into the high ceiling; and all of it sounded meaningless to my young ears.
But my father nudged his way gently through the crowd, determined and careful
of his feet, and I followed him doggedly, as I would have done anywhere, for I
loved him.

We were about half-way across
the room when he stopped by a tall reed of a man, whom I knew from previous
visits on market day. His name was Silas Lode, and he nodded down at me, and I
sulked a little back.

“Joseph,” he said to my father
in greeting.

“Silas. Good cheer. It’s a hot
one.”

“Ah…” Silas replied,
dismissively, and he turned to spit. “I’ve known hotter.” He gestured to the bags,
which we had set down for a moment on the floor.

“Should fetch a bit,” said my
father. “Got a promise from Drew Peters to buy.”

“There’s an honest man,” said
Silas, coughing long and loudly. “Not like those
Sunnucks
boys…” And he nodded towards a pair of surly-looking young men, badly shaven
and overfed, in the corner of the room. “Their merchants are everywhere now –
even as far as
Lowcastle
– and every time they call
they’re always
offerin
’ a lower price. The market’s
in a glut, they say; I’m
bein
’ generous
givin
’ you this much, they cry… And then they’re adding
water to the wool, and Old Man
Sunnucks’s
looms are
working night and day…” He shook his head. “Nobody ever sees him now, ‘
cept
his banker.”

My father laughed.

“I wouldn’t worry about
Sunnucks
. He can’t go on playing the nabob forever.
Besides, whatever a man does is repaid in kind, sooner or later.”

Silas nodded slowly. Then his
look changed, and he lowered his voice.

“You seen anything, out there
by the river?” he asked, and fixed my father with a strange look.

My father swayed a little, but
his face remained absolutely still.

“How
d’you
mean?” he said, quietly.

“I mean - anything
unusual
…”
said Silas Lode.

“Don’t waste my time with
riddles, Silas. Seen what?”

Silas moved in a little closer to
my father, and touched his arm.

“The Witch,” he said, his voice
dropping near a whisper. “Ben Cotton has seen her – seen her handiwork, that is
– not a week previous. Out by the Small Woods he was, not far from your way.
Seen a great commotion down in the
combe
there, and
when he goes to investigate, he finds there’s a great swath of tree just gone –
must’ve been a storm, he thinks, but the skies are full clear, and no cloud to
be seen.” And he paused, and glanced at me. “Then he sees it. There’s a young
woman, and at first he thinks she might be hurt; only she’s black all over from
being burned, like in a fire, and she’s tied to a stake in the centre of this
clearing; and she’s been split – down the middle, like her belly burst right
open – and inside he sees something so awful he can’t hardly bring himself to
say. He…” And here he leaned in to whisper in my father’s ear, and, though I
strained upwards on my toes, I could not catch it.

My father’s face was dark. He
looked at Silas for a while, who nodded with satisfaction.

“Don’t you be scaring my
daughter with this kind of talk, mister,” he said. And, though his voice was
not raised, I do not think I ever heard him so angry.

“Joseph, I just thought…”

“I don’t care what you thought.
Ben Cotton has been a wrong-headed fool for as long as anyone can remember.
Most likely he made the whole thing up.”

“Joseph…”

“I don’t want you repeating
this tittle-tattle within my earshot again, Silas, or you can consider our
friendship at an end. Now point me the way to Drew Peters’ table, and don’t
delay me here any longer, unless you’ve got business to make…”

Silas stared at him blankly,
then simply pointed to a large table, a good few strides away, with many men
around it. And my father grabbed my hand, picked up the bags, and marched me
away, and I could feel through the tight grip of his fingers that he was
trembling.

Drew Peters was an old friend,
a man trusted and respected, and by some a little feared - though only by those
who had something they wished to hide. He was thick-set, about fiftyish, and
his hair hung in a cloud of grey from beneath a battered fedora, and his beard
was broad. I never saw him smile, but he was always pleased to see my father.

“Lanark,” he said in greeting.

“Peters,” said my father, and
the two men embraced across the table.

“How’re things?”

My father nodded.

“Fair, Drew. I can’t complain.”

“Aye. And this’d be your little
wren…? Grown tall,
in’t
she?”

“She can speak for herself now,
Drew.” And he turned to me. “Esther. Mr Peters asked you a question.”

My eyes were glued to the
ground; but I summoned my courage, and looked the other man full in the face.

“I can kill a blackbird with
one shot now, mister - and it moving through the air.” And I pushed out my
bottom lip defiantly.

Drew Peters said nothing,
though the men around him laughed.

“Aye, I’m sure you can. A
couple of years and you’ll be wrestling the boys, I shouldn’t wonder…”

“I can wrestle them now!” I
replied, and the men laughed again, though my father frowned, and I knew some
joke had been made at my expense.

“Well, there’s plenty of time
for all that. Saw old Silas had a face like a dead sheep after talking to you,
Joseph. What did you tell him? He
ain’t
been boring
you about his gammy leg again, has he…?”

My father was silent, and looked
at the floor for a moment.

“No,” he said. “He spoke about
the Witch.”

At mention of the Witch, the
men said nothing. One or two of them wouldn’t look at us, and some drifted off,
to neighbouring tables. But Drew Peters gave the merest of nods, and said no
more, but opened his ledger, and talked nothing but business after that.

Later, as the two of us walked
home with the old packhorse, the bags of yarn sold and the sun sliding down the
sky, my father said very little, except to point out the odd squirrel, or to
stop and listen to the hum and dither of the birds. But when we got home, he
hugged me especially close before I went to bed, and looked in on me in the
night, though I pretended to be fast asleep.

I wish now that I had not.

It was the sound I heard first:
and it seemed so distant, so far away, that it could not possibly be real, only
a whisper or an echo. But then I was aware that it was suddenly near, and loud,
and somehow terrifying, even before I knew what it was. It sounded like an
animal, or rather a chorus of animals - but no animals I had ever heard, and I
knew all the beasts and birds about. It was a high, shrill cry; a cry of
mockery.

I opened my eyes. The room
seemed endless, without walls, and for a moment I thought I must still be
asleep, or else transported to some unfamiliar place. But then I realized I was
in my room after all, and the harsh tang in my nostrils confirmed why I had
been so confused.

The room was full of smoke.

I think I started to cry then.
I believe I cried all that terrible day, but I did not hesitate to act. I was
out of my bed, and stumbling for the door, and I almost opened it…

My mother’s warning came to me,
of how the air can feed a fire, and I knew if there were flames out in the
corridor I could be burned alive. I pulled back my hand, and staggered around
the edge of my bed for the window.

The sound was growing now.
Where before it was muted and distant, now it sucked the air from around it as
the fire did, and the heat of the burning house also struck me like a slap to
the face: I knew I had to get out, to get outside on to the cobbles of the yard,
to feel cool stone beneath my bare feet, to stay alive. I knew with an absolute
certainty that I had to stay alive, that somehow there was more depending on it
than my own survival. I put my knee up on the edge of the windowsill, and found
it was harder to climb on to than I had expected; my mind rose and fell with
the action of my lungs, and I felt the smoke that was choking them was also
choking my brain, poisoning its workings, leaving me reeling like a sailor too
sudden on the shore.

I finally managed to haul
myself on to the wide sill, battering back the curtains, my fingers stammering
at the latch… and then falling, falling, out and over on to the ground, a
stinging at my brow and the crying of my brother in my ear.

I do not know how long I was
out for; I think it was only a few moments, though it seemed endless. But there
was my brother above me, shaking me, and I thinking, what’s he shaking me so
roughly for, I’m trying to sleep; and all the time the roaring of the flames,
and the wailing of the dead and the dying.

I sat up, my brother still
tugging urgently at the sleeve of my nightdress. I gazed stupidly at him, and
we looked at each other for a while thus, struck dumb. Though it came in pieces
to my shattered mind, I knew what had happened: the drakes had finally come,
they had come as we always knew they would; they had come and they had
destroyed our village.

There was just then a keening
sound, off to the east, and I stood up, a little woozily, and spun in that
direction. And I saw them, reflecting the early morning sunlight as they swept
away, glinting like sparks in the grey dawn, the fire-drakes of the Witch of
Glenaster
; and I knew then that my brother and I had had a
lucky escape, for if we had left the house any earlier, we would most probably
have been spotted, and burned or eaten alive where we stood. And I reached out
a hand to him, and he took it; and I held him to me as he wept, and swore then
that no one would touch him, no thing living or dead, unless it murder me
first.

It was only then that I thought
of my parents.

For some reason I had simply
assumed they were only missing: gone to fetch help, or run to the aid of our
neighbours. But now I started to panic, and fear took hold of me, my gut
tightening around it like a snake; the fear that they might be dead, and if so,
that I would have to tell my brother, that I would have to fend for him
somehow, for him and for me, and that we would be destitute, without anything
to call our own; no house, no land, no coin. Such people did not last long
where we came from.

I turned slowly back towards
the house. It was burning steadily now, the roof-timbers collapsing, not in any
particular hurry, the building surrendering to the flames without a fight. For
a moment I was almost transfixed by it, as if it were the most normal sight in
the world, to see the house you had grown up in, the only home you had ever
known, burn to the ground; but I soon restored myself, and, hearing my brother
crying for his mother, resolved to see if any way in to the house could be
obtained without risk of death or injury.

There was none.

The kitchen door was full of
flame, and too hot to come near; and the back door appeared to have been blown
right off its hinges by the force of the fire, bellowing within. The windows,
too, were either too high or too dangerous to enter; and the smoke and the heat
pushed out against me, so that I constantly staggered back away from the house
to recover my strength. Only the old porch had escaped, though its brickwork
was blackened and scorched; but there were some clothes piled in one corner,
and shoes also, so that I was able to wrap my brother and myself up
half-decently at least, for we were both in our nightclothes, and I laced an
odd pair of small boots onto his feet, and they seemed to fit him well enough;
there were none that would fit me. I knew then what I had to do. We could not
stay here. I could only hope that our parents had escaped somehow, had fled;
and I picked up my brother and ran barefoot down the hill, to the Head Man’s house.

The Head Man was in his
sixties, broadminded but not so quick in his wits; still, my father had always
supported him, and I knew he had a good regard for our family. I did not know
what I hoped to find. The path to his house ran through dark pines, and the
ground was steep, and there was smoke drifting through the trees and masking
the way, so that more than once I became lost, and stumbled on stones and
broken tree-roots. My knees were stained green, and my feet pricked by thorns,
when finally we arrived at the house, and my shoulder was wet with my brother’s
tears.

I set him down outside the
front door, for I could hold him no longer; he was nearly eight then.

“Some weight you are, little
one,” I said, and tried to sound cheerful, though I fear my words had little
effect: he was even less convinced by them than I was. I knocked twice, hard,
on the door. It gave a creaking sigh, and fell inwards.

The house, that had looked so
solid from the front, was a smouldered ruin behind, its insides disintegrated
as surely as if they had hardly stood at all. Magnus was distracted for a
moment from his crying, and I stood there mute as a stone, only the birds
making any comment. I put my hand out to stop him following, then gingerly
walked through the door into what was left of the house.

It was hardly recognisable; but
of those things preserved, an old kettle sat high and
unscorched
on a pile of bricks that might once have been a shelf of some kind. And upon it
perched a carrion crow, who squawked his indifference at me, and made me
shiver. I followed his gaze.

There, near the centre of the
place, under a good two feet of fallen brickwork and roof tiles, lay a woman,
big and black and quite dead, on the floor of her own house. Her face and trunk
were scored, as if she had been sliced by a butcher too drunk to think, and I
realized after a moment that her body had been cleaved sheer in two by the wall
on top of her. On looking closer, I saw that the marks that were set into her
flesh were those of large, blade-like teeth. It was Alice Pepper, the Head
Man’s wife. When I was younger she had sat up with me sometimes when my parents
were away, playing with me on the floor, or singing stories about the olden
times, and the Kings of
Areon
. When I was sad she would
chuck me under the chin, and whisper, “There, there, little one...” I stared
for a while longer before running back the way I had come, dragging my
protesting brother, who I was no longer strong enough to carry, back up the
hill towards the village. I had seen enough.