Ch 12: THE WITCH OF WICKSHAW
“But what about—” Fionnobhar gestured to his neck.
“The infection didn’t take. Thank you,” Marten added. “Truly. You saved me.”
“Yeah, to go questing together.” Fionnobhar sounded genuinely crestfallen; Marten felt a twinge of guilt. “We were just getting started.”
“I’m not the man you need for this,” Marten said apologetically. “I’m afraid stabbing one wyrm with a pair of sheep shears is my limit.”
Fionnobhar seemed about to argue, then visibly changed his mind. “Hold that thought,” Fionnobhar told him. He turned to the ancient woman by the door. “Are you the witch of Wickshaw?”
“I am,” she said, her eyes glimmering and bright amid the wrinkles of her weathered face.
“And you believed the story about the wyrm. Because you knew for a fact there was a wyrm in the well?”
“I did.”
“Because of magic. You can sense it?”
“Indeed, I can,” she confirmed.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any other beasties tickling your senses that you’d like to point me towards?” Fionnobhar asked, steering her and Marten both outside, away from the increasingly rambunctious Town Hall.
“You are a hunter of such fell beasts?” she asked, allowing him to move her until the three of them were standing away from the building, to the side of the road.
“I’m on a god-given quest,” Fionnobhar said proudly, puffing himself up. “Obviously, I can track them down myself, no problem, but having someone with a nose for magic to point me in the right direction would save some time. Is there anything good in the woods nearby? Any werewolves or demons causing problems with a bounty on their heads? Another little dragon, maybe? Or a unicorn, or something?”
“The world is full of magic,” the ancient witch intoned. “Wherever you look for it, there it will be.”
Fionnobhar huffed. “Okay, granny. I was kind of looking for something more specific.”
“So impatient,” she chided, pursing her wrinkled lips. “But, such is the nature of youth.” She held out one hand, her fingers curled like talons from clutching the head of her walking stick for so many years. “Shall I read your fortune, brave Sir Knight, and see the future of your quest, that you hold so dear?”
“Read it through my armor, if you can,” Fionnobhar said carelessly. “I already know I’m going to succeed. There’s no question about it.”
“What of your own future, then?” the witch asked Marten. “Are you as confident as your friend?”
“We’re not friends,” Marten corrected politely. “We’re freshly acquainted.” Ignoring Fionnobhar’s insulted gasp, he held out one hand to the witch, palm-up. “I would appreciate some direction,” he admitted as she took it. “If I’m being tested, I’d like to know how to stop it. Or at least why it’s happening.”
She hummed, drawing one sharp nail over the lines of his palm. “People are rarely being tested by anything, in this day and age. Anyone is more likely to run into a string of common bad luck than to have caught the attention of a god.”
“Common bad luck is getting caught in the rain, or losing your favorite shirt,” Marten protested. “This has been worse.”
Turning his hand over, she gave his knuckles, still scraped and bloody from Drummondville, a sympathetic pat. “Then your luck has been uncommonly bad, of late. But that is all it is.” She turned to Fionnobhar. “But you, Sir Knight. You say your quest is god-given. What god is that?”
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“Endenreste,” Fionnobhar replied, giving her his gauntleted hand when she reached for it.
“The road at your friend’s back is marked by death and illness,” she said slowly, a frown deepening between her brows, “but your path ahead is steeped in darkness.”
“And bloodshed?” Fionnobhar guessed. “Because of my exploits hunting monsters and battling demons, right?”
She stared up at him, into the black depths of his visor. “If you seek a direction, go you west through Whicken Wood to the castle of Lord Renmore, where a great shadow has gathered. I know not whether he would benefit most from a knight or a doctor, but it is good that he should be offered both.”
“I won’t be accompanying Sir Fionnobhar any further,” Marten said, clearing his throat. “His quest is his own, from here on out.”
“His quest,” the witch repeated. She clutched both Fionnobhar’s hands in hers, around her walking stick. “Sir Knight, I must warn you of the danger of your quest.”
“The danger is half the point. If I’m to prove my worth to my lady and her goddess, there has to be at least some danger involved.”
“It is not only danger to yourself of which I warn, but a great and terrible danger that would threaten all the world.” She clung to his hands with skinny fingers like bird claws. “There is death and deception lurking at your back, Sir Knight,” she insisted, “and you would do well to heed my warning, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of every mortal soul on Tærra. Turn from this quest. Forsake your lady and her god. Do not facilitate their blanketing this land in darkness.”
Fionnobhar, who had gone cold and stiff, jerked his hands from her grasp, stepping out of reach. “I swore an oath,” he said flatly. “I won't break it on the orders of some mad old hag from a backwater, wyrm-infested village.”
The witch raised one gnarled finger in warning. “You are honorable and brave, Sir Knight, but that is not enough. Forces swim beyond the boundaries of this world that steel and honor cannot defeat or repel. They must not be woken.”
“Fionnobhar,” Marten murmured, made nervous by the knight’s suddenly cold demeanor. “Leave her. She’s mad, as the villagers said. Her insults bear no weight.”
“I may be mad, but my sight is true. Something wicked would latch onto you, Sir Knight, something with ill intent that means to use you for its own ends. It is not too late to shake it off.”
Fionnobhar’s hands moved, one to his hip, the other to his sword hilt. “Make your accusation against my lady in plain language,” he dared her, “and I’ll answer it plainly. Otherwise, apologize.”
The witch turned back to Marten, who sincerely wished he had stayed inside to watch the brawl.
“You are his voice of reason, are you not? You speak for his conscience.”
“No,” Marten said, with some panic. “I’m in his company entirely by chance. Or rather, bad luck, as you called it. We hardly know each other.”
“You are a doctor. You have sworn oaths to aid and protect.”
“I think we should go,” Marten began.
“Like a hound on the hunt, he will not willingly veer from his course, nor be easily swayed,” said the witch. Her words took on a rhythm like an incantation, heavy with intent and foreboding. “You will stay with him. Influence him where you can. Temper his impulses. Shield him from this darkness nipping at his heels that would drive us all to ruin, with him at its head.” She turned her gaze back on the knight, her eyes glimmering with far-flung knowledge accumulated over a lifespan of staring between the worlds’ gauzy veils.
“She’s mad,” Marten repeated to the knight. “Just ignore her.”
“Yeah,” Fionnobhar said slowly, his grip flexing around his hilt. “Yeah, I think you’re right. She’s just some mad old woman.”
“Your lady casts a shadow of fathomless darkness,” said the witch, just as Fionnobhar made to turn away. “Shake her off!”
In a single movement, Fionnobhar spun on his heel, drew his sword, and let the steel sing in a silver arc across the witch’s throat.
Her blood streaked across the brown dirt of the road.
Her stick toppled; her body fell.
Marten stared, mouth agape in disbelief and incomprehension as her head rolled across the dirt and through the scattered leaves, her face wrapped in wiry hair, eyes staring blankly through it.
Fionnobhar looked at the head for a moment before exhaling harshly through his visor and giving his sword a rough swipe against his cloak.
“What did you do?”
Marten dragged his gaze from the head to the knight, who stood rooted to the road like a statue. He was a stranger, as unpredictable as any lowly vagabond, as given to sudden violence. For all their hours spent together, for all that Fionnobhar had saved his life three times over, Marten didn’t know him whatsoever.
“She was a harmless old woman!”
“She was a witch,” Fionnobhar countered, the point of his sword twitching at the ready, “and she insulted my lady.”
“So what?” Marten exploded. “You should have let it stand! We both agreed she was half mad; she was no threat to you, and her insults mean nothing and have no bearing on you or your lady’s life!”
“I’ll bear any insult,” Fionnobhar said, “but my lady can’t be touched.”
“I’m sure she would be pleased to hear her knight defending her honor from such threats as a century-old woman with half her wits,” Marten spat, shaking with disgust and outrage at the senselessness of the killing. “How chivalrous of you. And you call yourself a knight.”
“I do,” Fionnobhar said evenly, “and she would be pleased. If you think I’m acting out of order, then you must not know many knights.” Stepping forward into the spray of blood, he bent to pick up the witch’s head by her tangled silver hair. “Magic,” he said. “She counts towards my total.”