Nasty Little Witchling

The witches all wore grey frocks that fell past their knees and thick brown robes that hung off their shoulders to the ankles. They were basic, but compared to our worn-out rags, they looked incredibly comfortable, and I hoped there was a pair in my size.

If they let me stay, that is.

Speaking first was a disadvantage since I didn’t know their language, and maybe that was enough for them to kick me out. I glared at Ulia’s back, begging her to introduce me. I’d lost my claim to being the orchestrator of our escape, but that could add more credence and make it less suspicious that we got out…as long as she spoke up.

I could still brag about my window-shattering save and clearing the way in the tunnels by being bait for the first attack.

“Seems you’ve taken in a stray,” an older woman said from the outskirts of our group. She was hunched over, her robe trailing in the dirt. “Who might they be?”

“I’m a witch from—”

“Was I talking to you girl?”

My jaw clamped shut as the air vibrated around her. I could have ignored it and started talking again, the piddling curse not taking full effect, but I thought better of it.

Ulia finally extricated herself from the embrace and stepped towards the woman. “Elder Eudralia…”

I resisted the urge to sigh at the language change, unable to follow their conversation except for body language. And from that, it wasn’t looking good for me. Eudralia was impassive, responding with short sentences, while Ulia gesticulated at me during a lengthy justification.

Would interjecting that I saved our lives do more harm than good for my situation? Ulia was trying her best and seemed to be winning over the wrinkled elder, who was taking longer to respond. Her teacher joined in, for whose side I had no clue, but that ended the exchange.

“You will be allowed to stay for the night,” Eudralia said, walking away after that statement, taking a few of our spectators with her.

“Patela,” Ulia said, bringing over her teacher. “This is Elder Talena, my teacher and aunt.”

I was taken aback for a heartbeat, having not considered how all these people would be related. My eyes widened further as a man walked behind them, between the auxiliary buildings and through the soft orange glow of their lamps. No one had ever explicitly said there were no male witches, but from how everyone talked about them and my experiences, there were none.

Talena followed my gaze. “Ah, don’t mistake their presence for a reversal of our most hallowed custom. We are more reasonable today than in the past, but the males are here to live, not learn.”

I hummed, not wanting to say anything when I didn’t know the custom she spoke of.

Talena held out her arm to herd us towards the main complex of the barracks, or rather, abbey, as Ulia put it. The usual symmetry and practical colourings of the military buildings I’d been around were gone, replaced with mismatched artwork. It mostly depicted colourful flora that didn’t exist in nature with ritualistic markings in symmetrical designs that interacted with the mana around us.

They were possibly the only buildings in the city with a full coat of paint.

The manicured hedges I’d expect to frame the pathway had been dug up in favour of vegetable patches and fenced enclosures for chickens. The same warm light from the lanterns outside shone from many windows, with shadows dancing across them from movement inside.

Despite the obvious signs of many people living here, it was silent. Faint whispers of conversation drifted over from the few still outside with us. That and the lack of bright lighting were purposeful in order to keep this place hidden from the world beyond.

However, with the bridge reaching the gate tower, I wasn’t sure how long that would be feasible.

Ulia and Talena were exchanging stories of their time apart, the former especially animated in her retelling of our trek here.

“I’m very pleased they were able to get you out,” Talena said. “It takes so long for our intermediates to pass along the happenings of Drasda to us. We set this in motion as soon as we heard what happened to the base.”

“They wanted to know about you and the new recipe,” Ulia said. “They had Patela ask me about it almost every day.”

“Even if we didn’t anticipate the good fortune, it is lucky that our actions freed you, Patela. Further proof we must band together because the failure of one can be used against the rest of us. These mages have no limits in their depravity to keep children in cages.”

“Thank you. I feel guilty saying that I’m glad Ulia was captured because it was an excuse to see another face after so long. I’m sure my mother would agree if she were still with us,” I said, unsure of the truth. She’d been a detached creature but always returned in a better mood from her travels.

“A pity, that. What was her name?”

My mind went black. Had I ever said her name out loud? The reason I knew it in the first place was a signed author's note at the front of one of her books she was trading.

“Caoimhe.”

Talena pondered for a few seconds but shook her head. “I don’t recognise the name. Was she a part of a larger enclave?”

“She did occasionally go on trips without me, but I don’t think that was to visit more than a few individuals.”

“Ugh, sounds like you’re the old-fashioned hereditary sort, hoarding all your passed-down knowledge…I hope you don’t act like the others I’ve met,” Talena said without worrying how uncouth she came across. “Otherwise, there’s no space for you here.”

I shook my head quickly. “She didn’t have time to teach me much. Died before she could.”

“For the best, perhaps. I prefer empty heads to people who think they know everything.”

I wanted to drop my jaw in shock. I didn’t care about her words, but for her to say this to someone who supposedly lost their mother was beyond rude.

We walked into the courtyard where the flag pole was empty and being used as a centre point for laundry lines. The small fields of gardens continued but contained more useful plants that were not edible, like alchemical herbs and cotton.

The well-worn pathways between them led to each of the squat side buildings that would have housed troops and a broader path to the blocky barracks headquarters. After all the transformations, an abbey was a more apt description for the area than barracks; General Kylepo may even faint at the sight of it.

The older woman led the two of us under a faint lamp hanging from a doorway and scrunched her face at my bloodied sweater. “Met the neighbours?”

“Sadly.”

Talena shook her head sadly. “Pitiful creatures. If only…I’ll have a brew brought over to fight off the infection.”

She pushed open the door, paused, and quickly closed it behind us to keep the warmth inside. Through an open arch, the first room of the long hallway was a kitchen with a simple cooking arrangement and bare-bones sitting area. A large flame was lit beneath a heavy black stove with nothing on it.

A door further along, was flung open, and a girl my age with messy brown hair came rushing into the hallway. Her eyes widened at the sight of Talena, and she tried to stop, but her socks slid her across the wooden floor into the wall.

“Girls!” Talena shouted, and more doors opened, girls joining us in a hurry. Their ages varied, with someone Ulia’s age walking out confidently while a pair of small child poked their heads out.

“What have I said about using the stove for heating?”

“Why are you speaking to us in their tongue?” the eldest asked in a light accent. “And we gathered the firewood ourselves.”

“Really Darine? Then why does Jayden look so guilty?” Talena asked, pointing to the girl who slid in first.

Jayden panicked, turned to Darine for help, and was given it. “She wanted to turn it off since she knew you’d be mad no matter what.”

“Is that so? Since you’re eager to gather firewood, you can heat up a few pails of water for Ulia and our visitor to wash. I’m sure you won’t mind collecting more tomorrow.”

The girls noticed us behind Talena for the first time, and most rushed to Ulia, pushing past Talena and exclaiming excitedly in their language.

“We do not…receive visitors many,” one of the younger girls said, looking up at me with wonder.

“Many visitors,” Talena corrected.

“Where are you from,” Jayden asked with stars in her eyes, pushing in next to me through the crowd.

“Ah—”

“After you fill the tub, girl.”

Ulia was dragged off into the sitting room, besieged with questions, while Jayden and Darine picked up wooden buckets and went out the back. Talena shooed me off to the end of the hallway, and she went back out into the cold night after what sounded like more admonishments.

Some of the girls had returned to their rooms along the hallways. They sat in pairs on their bunks, chatting or at the desks surrounded by books and alchemy equipment. Altogether, maybe fifteen girls shared the nine rooms I passed towards the end of the hallway, where the lavatory was.

I sat down for the first time since the carriage ride, which had been so bumpy it didn’t count. My toes had been smooshed into the sorry excuse for shoes for a full day of walking and running. They’d gotten wet, muddy, and torn, the dirt trapped inside scraping away at the skin of my feet and blistering my toes.

I threw them to the side and began extricating the fibres of my sweater from the scabbed cuts on my shoulder, gritting my teeth when they didn’t budge.

The bathroom contained two wooden tubs big enough to sit in and a collection of scavenged soaps and scented bottles. The toilets were also oddly out of place, obviously not being the originals.

Jayden waddled in, holding a steaming bucket between her bent legs. She hefted it up and tipped most of the water into the wooden tub, throwing me longing looks with questions on the tip of her tongue as she left.

Darine came in next, tipping the contents casually into the second tub in one smooth motion, only throwing a single glance at my shoulder. They each brought another bucket and were followed by Ulia, who closed the door on Jayden attempting to return empty-handed.

“Ignore her,” Ulia said. “Jayden gets excited about what’s beyond the walls. She would have fought me to be in Drasda if she was old enough.”

“You don’t get to leave to the settlements? I thought you had a tunnel to them.”

“Only some of us have identities inside the settlement and are fine to walk around. It would look weird for random people to pop up out of nowhere from the same place.”

“Is that where the men come from?”

“Yeah…not sure why that’s such a recent thing, but a few people threatened to leave if they couldn’t bring their lovers. That pushed the elders to make changes. Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

Ulia stripped without the worries for propriety that Haiy had been slowly trying to hammer into my head. She recoiled as her toes hit the steaming water, hissing at the heat before slowly dipping them back in. I peeled off my clothes to follow her lead and slowly submerged into the warmth.

My sore muscles melted along with the sweat and grime coating my body. I bundled up my hair to soak it as well, getting out all the dust and stray leaves. The water turned murky from the dirt and blood, making me miss my shower.

I took in my surroundings, carefully considering my options now that I had a moment of peace. It felt like I was in the prologue of a murder mystery book. Everything was idyllic in the small community. The elders were a little prickly, but overall, they were not behaving out of the ordinary.

However, just like I knew what genre I picked to read, I knew the kind of den I’d walked into. At the very least, the witches here were responsible for the destruction at the opera house. At worst, the elders were the same people responsible for the capital’s fall.

There was a figurative and literal murder walking around the abbey I needed to find, most likely some or all of the elders. Maybe it was Talena who decided to go to Drasda, or was she under another’s direction like Ulia?

She was ultimately at fault for the opera house. Even if my meddling with the dragon’s breath shifted the destruction slightly, I still blamed them.

Or was making alchemical products completely disconnected from their use? Was the poison maker just as guilty as the posioner?

The sound of sloshing water as Ulia got up to retrieve soap brought me out of my spiralling thoughts. She handed me a scratched bottle with a faded label, and I doubted the liquid inside was the same as described.

“What do we do after this?” I asked, lathering my body in scented suds.

Ulia scowled. “Let me enjoy this bath that I didn’t have to pour myself…but usually it’s self-study, dinner, and then we’re free until bed. That’s as late as we want as long as we wake up at sunrise.”

A hint of jasmine made me think of Missy, Polem, and the other horses. The journey would have been much easier with them, and they could have trampled any ghoul that tried to get at us. Sadly, I couldn’t figure out a way to reformulate the plan in a way that could have included them.

“Do you think they’ll let me stay?”

Ulia shrugged. “Probably. No real reason to turn you away.”

We finished our bath when the water turned chilly, and for the first time in ages, I couldn’t pull the water off and be dry in seconds. We changed into matching sets of white frocks and brown robes after I dabbed a tincture left with the garments onto my shoulder.

They fit well enough after rolling up the sleeves so they didn’t hang past my hands. It wasn’t the smooth quality I was getting used to back in Drasda, but they were still comfortable.

The air outside the lavatory was scented with garlic and thyme from the kitchen. The other girls had been cooking, one standing atop a stool to stir the large pot of stew. Stacks of flatbread climbed higher, built up by Jayden pinching them out of the stove's centre and passing them between her hands.

I joined an orderly line supervised by Darine, who smacked hands straying too close to the flatbread towers.

Bowls were handed out, and thick stew was ladled in. I wanted to groan at the chunks of meat but pushed that feeling away. This wasn’t the place to complain and be picky. I blew onto my spoon and ate, mollified by the surprisingly rich taste.

“Where are you from?” Jayden asked as soon as everyone sat down. I looked up to see everyone watching me, the stranger in their midst.

“Drasda.”

Half the girls nodded, yet some, like Jayden, looked to Darine for help.

“It’s in the north,” I said. “It’s the biggest city of the northern duchy.”

“How big are the shops there? Is it true people can buy what they want? Is it dangerous? How far away is it? Is that where you went, Ulia?”

I slowly worked through her questions, each answer earning me another set of them until they were struggling to think of more. It made me realise how little I knew of the city I’d been calling home for a whole season. Did Drasda have a toy shop? Were there fountains and statues that spit out water?

Did people like living there? Was the group working with Zara and the witches a rare occurrence, or were people unhappy?

Darine killed the mood when she reminded them all that they wouldn’t be able to see the city since witches weren’t welcome and would end up in chains like us. I could have argued it was safe as long as you didn’t go throwing curses around, but being a contrarian on the first night wasn’t good for bonding.

There was pounding at the outer door that signalled a clean-up and exit to their rooms. I was directed to the one I would share with Ulia and took the top bunk in a room. I unfolded the sheets placed on the bed and fell into the feathered pillow, ignoring the quill poking me in the cheek in favour of passing out.

…

I woke with a start, bolting upright, searching for the ghoul stalking me across the wooden floors.

Ulia looked up, on the tips of her toes, as she closed the door.

“My bad, but you’d need to wake up soon anyway.”

I lay back down and rolled across the bed, extending my limbs to their limits, groaning with contentment as the sore spots stretched out. I was already dressed, and there weren’t any annoying boots to put on, so I stayed in bed for a while longer.

Ulia tugged at my foot, and I dropped down onto the cold floor. “Where to?”

“Chores,” Ulia said, curt and unhelpful as ever. She fluffed up her pillows and tucked in her sheets. Getting the idea, I climbed back up to make my bed. Afterwards, we opened the windows, tied back the curtains and swept the room before joining the others outside to take care of the chicken coop and gardens.

Because of the high walls, sunlight was limited to the middle of the day. However, there was also no wind, which removed the worst part of winter mornings.

The few older witches out and about squinted at me, quickly figuring out I wasn’t one of theirs and asking where I came from. They also realised Ulia was back and figured out the rest quickly after a short explanation from her. It was heartening to see the girl wasn’t only short with me and even exasperated the elders.

“You have a meeting with the elders this afternoon,” Talena said, walking through the garden paths to where I harvested carrots. “Ambuya Anoliwa is away so it’s the council that will decide how long you can stay. For now, stay close to Darine.”

“Yes, ah, Elder Talena,” I said, almost calling her ‘ma’am’ like an instructor at the castle. She had the same tone of voice Instructor Daniels used during our drills.

She scrutinised me and the muddy carrot in my hand for a long while. “Good.”

I tempered my instincts to make the carrots less bulbous and ugly and stopped heartbeats away from shifting the mud off my hands. I dragged buckets of water across the garden when I could have made it rain.

It was a return to the tasks I often did at the cottage, but this time, there were many sets of hands to help and loud voices to amuse me. I also enjoyed the forgotten sensation of grass between my toes and the quiet that was always elusive in the city.

That tranquillity was broken by a long pulsating screech, calling for help. It was hard to tell where it came from while surrounded by walls, but it was distant. It wasn’t a voice calling for help; it carried mana like the knight’s pulses.

Everyone looked up, yet instead of shearing the horror I felt, they grinned.

“Unlucky, finding a screecher this early,” Darine commented. “Not going anywhere near the east when we leave.”

“Screecher?”

“Mutation…kinda clear why we call it that,” she said, thumbing the direction it came from. “Attracts more of the inflicted better than the usual kind.”

I eyed Ulia, but she waved me off. “We manifest our beliefs into existence with thoughts alone. I didn’t need another person thinking a hunter would find us.”

“Big snout,” Darine clarified, putting a hand over her nose to demonstrate. “You only get them a good way through this district, so that was probably looters. The death knights are still trying to clear the outer district before pushing through.”

“Aren’t they going to find us then?”

“We moved here when they pushed through on the southern end. We’ll move again when this side catches up to them.”

“To where?”

Darine shook her head. “Ambuya Anoliwa knows the best spots. She lived here before The Trial happened. We’ll move once she gets back, I think.”

She and Talena treated the moniker more reverently than when saying ‘elder,’ so I assumed I’d found the murderer in my story.

“Let’s go,” Darine said. “That should have pulled away our area as well.”

“No. Not a chance I’m going out there again so soon,” Ulia said, quickly shaking her head.

Jayden squeezed into our conversation. “I’ll go!”

“No.” “Not happening.” “You’re too young.”

“Can I?" I asked. “Elder Talena said to stay close to you.”

Darine considered it for a moment before slowly nodding. “I’ll get you a spare pair of boots.”

As much as I liked not wearing the things, the city was covered in shattered glass and rubble, so I definitely needed them.

We met by the door under the watchful gaze of Elder Eudralia, who only had eyes for me. “Will you ensure she doesn’t get lost before our meeting later, Darine?”

“Yes, Elder,” she said, passing me a pair of well-worn leather boots. Another pair of girls joined us, but we would be splitting off from them to forage separately. It was more efficient and also safer than being on our lonesome. They brought with them and handed us knapsacks for whatever we were going out to look for.

The one Darine received looked heavy, and when she opened it to check, I saw it was full of smooth white crystals. She searched outside the door and opened it for the pair to run out and down a side street. We waited in the doorway and ran out towards a different street, someone else locking the door behind us.

“Our warding keeps this area clear, but it's been searched already. So, once we get to the end of this street, we’ll climb.”