witch should ask him," he
said.
"The witch will."
His lips worked for a while before they
settled into a hard line. Without another word, he turned his back and strode
off. Alaysha didn't need to follow him -- she knew exactly where her father's
camp was even if she'd never been allowed within a hundred horse strides of it.
Her power must have done more damage than
she'd thought. She tilted her head upward, to the gathering pinkness of the
dawn sky. There were clouds just overhead, thickly white and clumped like
clotted goat cream. Not enough water to make them heavy enough to let go, but
enough to fatten them. She believed the pitiful stream they'd settled next to
the night before was probably dry, and they'd have to journey nearly a day
before there was another river large enough to fulfill all the needs of camp.
Hopefully, there were a few pools along the way. The skins would need bloating
if they were to make it home alive.
Chapter 7
Drahl left her a few paces from her
father's site. It was pitched so his tent was backed into the side of a verdant
hill, the more to shade him in the morning while he slept. On all other sides
there were smaller tents where his guard intermittently kept watch and slept.
His personal cook's tent, a short, flat-topped one made of bear skins, was in
the middle of the area, a fire crackling merrily, its flames licking upwards to
the rotisserie of sizzling hare. It would be cinnamoned and honeyed, that hare,
its belly stuffed with wild apples and dried cranberries from the last season.
Bodiccia, a tall, wiry woman whose prowess as a warrior was only outmatched by
her fame as a savoury cook, stood over the wrought iron, ladling herbed boar
fat over the back of the meat.
Alaysha's stomach grumbled.
The woman glanced up sharply, and the circlet
of men's teeth she'd stretched around her forearm jangled. Alaysha could make
out the weathered look of skin needing fluid. Though the woman was watching
her, Alaysha couldn't meet her eyes.
"My father asked for me."
Bodiccia said nothing, just set the bowl of
fat down and lifted a tankard to her lips, then made a great show of surprise
before she upended it over the grass.
Nothing spilled out.
Alaysha wanted to say it was fortunate the
food hadn't dried to leather, that it was lucky the honey she was using hadn't
crystallized beyond use -- that they were all damn lucky to still be alive. But
those were all the reasons she'd been ordered here in the first place, and they
all knew it -- and feared it -- and that fear brought anger, not relief. She
had no choice but to keep her tongue, and instead settled down onto a log on
the very edge of her father's camp, listening to the trembling song of the
flute player rousing him to audience.
Her mouth watered at the aromas, but she
did her best to seem unaffected while she waited. She'd rather not appear
vulnerable in any way to her father under the circumstances. The piper's notes
grew ever more grim, and Alaysha assumed the time for Yuri's appearance -- and
her own punishment -- was drawing close.
She watched the cook pull out a hammered
silver platter and lay the roasted hare on it, then circle it with roasted
eggs. Usually they would be boiled, but not this day. She topped the eggs with
roasted seeds and then set the plate down next to the tankard she'd upended
earlier. It seemed the lack of liquid would be as much part of her father's
repast as anything else -- and intentionally so. All the better to make him
angrier.
Well, his wrath wasn't quite so fearsome as
all that. Alaysha would just have to prepare herself for the chastisement as
best she could, and remind her father of the things she'd done for him.
Certainly, she'd lied about the identity of the village she'd finished, and
that meant they would be traveling and searching even longer for nothing, but it
also meant he might feel some wariness, thinking those he was hunting were
still out there somewhere. Until then, he needed his water
said.
"The witch will."
His lips worked for a while before they
settled into a hard line. Without another word, he turned his back and strode
off. Alaysha didn't need to follow him -- she knew exactly where her father's
camp was even if she'd never been allowed within a hundred horse strides of it.
Her power must have done more damage than
she'd thought. She tilted her head upward, to the gathering pinkness of the
dawn sky. There were clouds just overhead, thickly white and clumped like
clotted goat cream. Not enough water to make them heavy enough to let go, but
enough to fatten them. She believed the pitiful stream they'd settled next to
the night before was probably dry, and they'd have to journey nearly a day
before there was another river large enough to fulfill all the needs of camp.
Hopefully, there were a few pools along the way. The skins would need bloating
if they were to make it home alive.
Chapter 7
Drahl left her a few paces from her
father's site. It was pitched so his tent was backed into the side of a verdant
hill, the more to shade him in the morning while he slept. On all other sides
there were smaller tents where his guard intermittently kept watch and slept.
His personal cook's tent, a short, flat-topped one made of bear skins, was in
the middle of the area, a fire crackling merrily, its flames licking upwards to
the rotisserie of sizzling hare. It would be cinnamoned and honeyed, that hare,
its belly stuffed with wild apples and dried cranberries from the last season.
Bodiccia, a tall, wiry woman whose prowess as a warrior was only outmatched by
her fame as a savoury cook, stood over the wrought iron, ladling herbed boar
fat over the back of the meat.
Alaysha's stomach grumbled.
The woman glanced up sharply, and the circlet
of men's teeth she'd stretched around her forearm jangled. Alaysha could make
out the weathered look of skin needing fluid. Though the woman was watching
her, Alaysha couldn't meet her eyes.
"My father asked for me."
Bodiccia said nothing, just set the bowl of
fat down and lifted a tankard to her lips, then made a great show of surprise
before she upended it over the grass.
Nothing spilled out.
Alaysha wanted to say it was fortunate the
food hadn't dried to leather, that it was lucky the honey she was using hadn't
crystallized beyond use -- that they were all damn lucky to still be alive. But
those were all the reasons she'd been ordered here in the first place, and they
all knew it -- and feared it -- and that fear brought anger, not relief. She
had no choice but to keep her tongue, and instead settled down onto a log on
the very edge of her father's camp, listening to the trembling song of the
flute player rousing him to audience.
Her mouth watered at the aromas, but she
did her best to seem unaffected while she waited. She'd rather not appear
vulnerable in any way to her father under the circumstances. The piper's notes
grew ever more grim, and Alaysha assumed the time for Yuri's appearance -- and
her own punishment -- was drawing close.
She watched the cook pull out a hammered
silver platter and lay the roasted hare on it, then circle it with roasted
eggs. Usually they would be boiled, but not this day. She topped the eggs with
roasted seeds and then set the plate down next to the tankard she'd upended
earlier. It seemed the lack of liquid would be as much part of her father's
repast as anything else -- and intentionally so. All the better to make him
angrier.
Well, his wrath wasn't quite so fearsome as
all that. Alaysha would just have to prepare herself for the chastisement as
best she could, and remind her father of the things she'd done for him.
Certainly, she'd lied about the identity of the village she'd finished, and
that meant they would be traveling and searching even longer for nothing, but it
also meant he might feel some wariness, thinking those he was hunting were
still out there somewhere. Until then, he needed his water
Similar Books
