Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 06

"What disease there was has passed," he said as he worked, "and I stay where I will. For this winter, that is here - where there is a woman who hides and offers no name after demanding mine and speaks as though she owns the place."

An arrow thudded into the tree trunk right next to his boot.

"I do own it, as you say," she said in a low voice as she nocked another arrow, "I have waited long for the deed; waited while the men either died or left, fearful for their souls, or were taken by others.

Now, I find that I am beset by interlopers who clamber inside and presume to set up their home. You have no right to it."

Koten didn't look up and he kept at the pruning for a moment, "A strange home you have then, if you keep dead spirits close to the courtyard, and anyway, you made no reply when we called out. If I had not seen you in the window that day, we would still know nothing of you -- as opposed to almost nothing -- since you will not even give a name."

He smiled to himself then, "Or perhaps it is that you have not been entrusted with one, knowing that you would never need it, since you are too proud to give it as is the custom almost anywhere."

He looked up then, steeling himself just in time so as not to give anything of himself away as he looked at her amber eyes -- and the point of her next arrow; aimed, it appeared, to land between his eyes.

He made a half-hearted motion as if to shoo away a fly with his hand before he lowered it, his lips moving silently for an instant afterward.

She saw that he was unafraid and it seemed to change something in her after a moment. She lowered her bow a little, easing much of the tension out of the bowstring.

"I have a name," she said quietly, "though you could never say it, I think. I can see that you know different tongues, so I think that you might have traveled. Where are you from? I mean to ask, where were you born?"

"I am Suomalaiset, and I come from a land far from here. From the north, I come. We are here because we seek a place to winter in and maybe to live."

He produced a rag from his pocket and draped it over a clear section of the trunk with a little care -- all while knowingly under her nocked bow. Then he sat down on it and looked at her.

"Why is it that you ask things of me as though you expect me to answer when you yourself answer almost nothing of what I ask in return?"

"The other man," she began, "I saw how he killed the spirits while you and the woman stood looking ready to aid him if it was needed. What was that? How was it done?"

He shook his head, "And still you have questions and offer nothing. This is very one-sided."

She drew back her bow again, but found that she couldn't draw it much and when she tried to aim it at him, she found that she had difficulty in holding the sight picture steadily.

"And it is rude -- where I am from at the least - to hold a bow on a man who has done nothing to cause the need of it."

She lowered her bow and stared, knowing at last that she'd been charmed in a small way, "What are you?"

"A traveler who tires of this game," he said, "Who were the spirits? Why did you keep them there?"

She sighed, "That was as far away as we could force them. They came to battle us every night. In truth, you and the others have done us a kindness,"

She looked down for a second, "and I should not be so rude."

A silence fell between them after that and when nothing more came from her, Koten glared at her and threw his axe down.

"Who -- were -- the -- spirits?

If you make no answer now, then I will not speak again. There is better company to be had with this felled tree."

"Wampyrshi," she whispered.

"They were wampyrshi. More than twenty there were, nine by the time that you came and eight came from the soldiers of this place. The ninth was their lord, not from here, and he created them out of dying men. They were the strongest."

She looked around in the dull light of the cold and wet midday for a moment, "There are more, and doubtless they will come again in but a little time."

There was a low and quiet bark from the forest, a good ways off by the sound of it and as Koten turned his head to listen, the young woman answered in kind.

The sound of it snapped Koten's head around in wonder before he heard light footfalls in the woods behind him. He stood up and stepped back to stand beside the woman's horse as he drew his sword.

"Do not look to me for protection, "she said quietly, "The one who comes is an ally. If you must hold your sword that way, then have a care with it, so that your actions are not wrongly seen."

Knowing the score now, Koten stepped away from the woman, still holding his sword at the ready, though at least a trifle looser now. He watched a dark shape come cautiously nearer in the dim light of the trees.

What he saw in another moment almost caused him to drop his blade.

A creature came to the edge of the woods and seemed to hang there, right at the eaves of the forest. What he saw looked like a blending of shapes to him and after a moment, he was certain that he was looking at something that he'd heard of but never seen -- a wolf with a human sort of shape to it.

More than that, the shape was most definitely female. The feminine swells were well represented, including even a pair of breasts, though the whole wore a covering of fur. Mostly it was very dark, almost black, and yet there were some lighter gray tufts in it and these stood out in great detail to Koten's eyes, as though he saw the thing with an almost unnatural clarity down to even a single strand of her fur.

He was sure that his mouth fell open as the two began to converse in the odd speech that the woman had used originally with him.

"Who is he?" the dark one asked.

"One of the newcomers," the blonde replied, "He asks many things and I do not know what to say in answer. It was as we saw. They have a way to kill the wampyrshi, but he will say little, since I answer almost nothing."

The creature nodded once and then stepped out of the forest, walking closer with caution and sniffing a little.

"You may have skill that I do not know of, Koten Fornjot," the woman sitting on horseback beside him said in a low voice, "but if you possess a mind, you will not move that blade very much at all. It would do you little good regardless. She seeks to know you better, and that means to know of you by more than only seeing. Stand very still."

The being moved in an odd yet very graceful way around him as he stood still, snuffling at his clothing and looking up at him one moment and then standing near him on two legs and looking him in the eye the next. She started with the beginnings of a snarl as he slowly moved his sword and sheathed it in his scabbard.

"A wise one -- or a fool," she said in her growling speech, "but if they can do as we thought that we saw that day, then we need to look on his kind a little differently."

She looked at the woman for a moment, "Alone, our troubles only continue. Maybe it is time that we learned to share trusts with these others. Answer what he would know."

The woman stared for a moment and then she nodded, turning to Koten.

"We have names. As I have said, they are likely not anything that you could say, so we have others which were given to us. I am Jenna and this is Petra. We were born there," she said, pointing back at the keep, "in that foul place. From the moment when we drew our first breaths, we were prisoners."

The wolf-thing stood on her long legs and made a motion to the woman on horseback and was handed an old woolen cape which she wrapped around herself as she turned away. When she turned back a moment later, Koten was looking at another young woman, strikingly similar in her features to the blonde one and yet with black hair. There was also the matter of their eyes; both women having irises which reflected only a pale amber light to Koten's gaze. Their visages were strikingly beautiful to him.

"What of your name?" she asked in Latin now, "I thought that I heard my sister call you Koten. Did I hear it rightly? And what is a Suomalaiset?"

Finally, he thought, I may learn a little here.

"Koten is my name," he said, "The other is the name for my people. How is it, ..." he looked up at Jenna for a moment and then at Petra once again, `How can it be that I speak with a wolf-girl one moment and then a human woman the next?

And you are sisters, you say?" He looked up at Jenna, who only smiled at him, waiting to see what he would do.

He saw then that they were both waiting for the same thing -- his reaction to them and what he would do afterward.

But their eyebrows rose a little and Petra's mouth opened a bit in surprise when Koten began to laugh quietly.

"Why do you laugh?" Jenna asked.

"I have been here almost thirty days," he smiled, "in that time; I have seen only dust and the cold emptiness of the coming winter in that place."

He looked off at the rest of the vale, "I come here whenever I can, happy to be out in the fresh air and working at something which makes some sense to me. Today, I meet the apparition from the window and she says little to me over anything that I ask.

Now I see that she is no ghost and that there is another. I may grow to like this place yet."

"Have you no fear of us?" Jenna asked, "Most people whom we meet feel at the least, great apprehension, though they do not know whence it comes in them. We do not either," she shrugged, "we only know that no one comes here much."

"Do you live alone, you two?"

Petra shook her head, "No, there are others of us. Perhaps you do not share this fear of us because you cannot tell, but you have seen me do something which women cannot do." She smiled a little uncertainly for a moment, hoping for some reason that she wasn't completely certain of that he wouldn't now develop the fear at last.

"We are not women, Koten. The truth is that we are not the same as you are. We can take the guise of a woman, that is all. How you saw me when I came from the forest is the way that we are."

Koten looked from Petra to her sister and Petra nodded, "I did say that we are sisters. Jenna has this also. We have met one this day who we wish to know a little better, since you seem to have no fear of us."

She looked away, her gaze sweeping the vale to end with her looking at the small ridge which was the only way to get where they were without needing to scale sheer rock faces, "The people here -- that is, down below in the long valley where the road passes through, all of them have things which they fear, and with good reason as far as some of it goes."

She paused for a moment and then looked at Koten again, "This is an old land, known well by few, and it carries its troubles as it always has.

There are creatures here who come mostly at night, and they cause terror by feeding on the blood of those they can catch. Mostly, they feed until they are sated or the victim passes into death within their grasp. Sometimes, they inflict a different bite by drawing a good deal of the blood away and then replacing it with some of their own to create others like themselves.

They are known by different names. To the west and north, they are called 'wampirs or 'vampyres' and to the east and north, 'upirs'.

It does not matter what name is used, they are a scourge here."

She looked down, "We are another terrifying legend spoken of to children so that they remain in their beds at night. We can and have harmed people now and then, but mostly it was over chasing us and trying to harm us."

She looked up, "Try to imagine that you are hunting so that you and yours can live and men set their packs of hunting dogs on you to run you to ground, and the very first thing that they think of is how to kill you. How would you answer it?

Myself, I kill the men and the dogs are food which I do not have to hunt."

He stared at her for a moment, thinking that if what hunted him was not the same as he was, then killing would go a lot more easily if one was hounded. "Do you eat the men once you have killed them?"

She shook her head, "Never. None of us eat humans."

There was a pause then until she spoke her next thought, "They taste badly."

It might not have been their intent, but the sisters found themselves smiling at Koten for the way that it had caused him to laugh.

Petra sighed heavily, "We seek the same thing as all others -- to live free, and not, ... the way that we were imprisoned here by men."

"What happened here?" Koten asked and they looked at him in a bit of wonder for a moment.

"What have I said, if it was something wrong?" he asked, seeing their expressions.

"No -- nothing," Jenna smiled, "You have said nothing wrong. You surprise us with your open want to know of everything, and of us, that is all."

Koten's shoulders slumped a little, "I want to know because, ... well, among other things, we seem to have become unwelcome neighbors to you. It has grown too late in the year to find another place to begin, so I think that we will have to find ways to get along and accommodate you -- if it may be done. Also --"

Petra shook her head, "I have not said that you are unwelcome."

Jenna cleared her throat a little uncomfortably, "I might have hinted, Petra, before I knew much of him at all. I wish to take some of my coldness back, Koten. We are always careful because we have to be so. What were you going to say?"

"I wish to know what happened here. You have both spoken of being prisoners there," he pointed. "We have found little which speaks of any men there, so it must have been cleared out."

They nodded, "It was done to remove the reminders, "Petra said.

"I have read of tales from Northmen -- and I think that you must be some kind like that. They told of a people called Wulfings who were a tribe and ruled the Geats, I think as it was written. They were fearsome warriors because they were said to be able to turn themselves into wolves in battle.

I think that the legends were wrong. I do not think they came from this Geatland at all, but from elsewhere, and I think that it was further wrong that they were men at all. We are not men -- or women.

To the south and east, lies the land where we stem from. We call ourselves Kurtadams, as we have always been called. We find our gods in the land and the animals, being such ourselves. We might be called a people, since we are not dumb beasts, but we are certainly not humans, yet with a little thought and care, we can hide among them easily.

But men, no matter which sort, always have the same thoughts in their minds. What is different from them must be killed. I do not know anymore, but at one time, we had a leader. I think that your kind calls such ones kings. He made a pact with some men to allow them onto our land there so that there would be no more bloodshed. I have no way to know, but I think that if it was done, then there likely are no more of us there. I have learned that there are no greater liars and cheats than men.

The pact was that some few of his family were to be taken away to begin elsewhere.

What was done was something quite different.

There was a force of veteran soldiers and their families who had grown tired of the wars of men and wanted to find their place. They agreed to protect the Kurtadams who were to travel with them. But to men, it is a little clear that we can be difficult to control by our ways and so a group of holymen -- at least that is what they called themselves -- were to go along to begin the workings of their faith in a new place."

She looked around herself and Koten watched the way that her long black hair blew across her face as she peered around for a long moment.

"This was the place which was chosen. They came with much gold and between the soldiers and the craftsmen who were hired, that thing there was built over some years. The monks, as they called themselves further, practiced rites which I learned were banned by their church. What they practiced was a magic to control us and keep us docile."

She spat on the ground, "If it worked, it was out of the endless repetition of the droning chants which were intoned. I can still hear them in my mind without much thought or the want of hearing it. My elders went to ask why they were imprisoned and the men waved books and smoking burners at them, commanding them to return to their cages. What really kept my kind in chains were the soldiers.

But time wears everything away, and the soldiers grew old. Some took their families and left. Most passed from age and infirmity. Many of my kind were killed off, but not all.

They could not reach all of us. We can climb well and it takes many men to kill even one of us because we do not fight as men fight. We fight like men and we fight like beasts and they learned at last -- those who were left -- that it was better to leave us to ourselves.

The last soldiers died at our hands and then we told the holymen to be still. We told them where they would be allowed to live in there and that they were to leave us alone or join the soldiers.

Jenna and I were born there in chains. We have always hungered to be free and there are more than only us two. We trouble no one if we are left alone, but even the weak monks sought for ways to keep us against our will. We planned to kill them all one night.

But the sickness of men came before we could take things into our hands. We watched as forty-three men died in three days and the rest left us alone, thinking that we would die as well. But we are not men, Koten.

At last, a few years ago, the fortress belonged to us, the prisoners."

She looked at him and straightened a bit, "We keep to our old ways at least a little. There are three rulers here, though there are not many of us. Jenna and I rule along with our younger brother, Natan. We were born of the same whelping. Natan was born later, the only living whelp that time.

Altogether, there are a little less than ninety Kurtadam left. Perhaps we are all who are left in the world now."

She looked at him and smiled, "You are truly a different sort of man. If you wish to learn more of us, then why not come with us to our side of the fortress and we will share some of what we have with this new neighbor who seems so unafraid. You will see more of us then, but I can speak for your safety among us -- at least this once, unless you suddenly feel yourself threatened."

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The other conversation that Margit and Gunnar had that day was with a man and his wife who told of the things which ruled the night there and elsewhere.

"They find and take at least one or two people every month," the woman said, looking around as though she expected the things that she spoke of to burst out of the very ground at her feet to seize them and take them away at that moment.

"Sometimes it's said that they just walk into a good man or woman's home looking like ordinary people, and sometimes they come from above on wings and carry a person off. If the poor soul is a little lucky, then we find the body and bury it. It's the ones that we don't find that cause us even more worry."

Margit asked what was meant and the man said, "They make some few into others like themselves and we sometimes see them again, relatives or friends which we knew once. Only now, they are not who we knew anymore.

It has happened that a woman might hold a quiet want for a man, but she is married to another. It happens here as I am sure that it happens elsewhere just the same. But if she is one of the ones who are taken and turned, she might come back one night to take the man that she wanted for herself by turning him -- and who wants that?"

"Then there are the wolves," the woman said, plainly fearful to even speak of it, "We hear them some nights up on the high peaks. It's said that they sometimes do not content themselves to only steal a ewe or a lamb to eat. Sometimes, they tear the door from a home and kill everyone inside for nothing. They are crazy like that sometimes."