WITCHGRAVE an original short story by Rachel Caine This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License . "Welcome to you, friend!" the innkeep cried, and banged the door shut behind the newcomer with a grunting effort to shut out the howling wind and rain. "The devil's own storm, sir, eh? Black as a witch's heart, and not fit for man nor beast!" The newcomer shrugged off his oiled cloak, and the innkeep took the cold leather and hung it on a peg over a trough of dirty water. "You shan't be sorry you chose us, sir, the Brass Bell may not have the lordliest rooms in the town, but we have the finest food. Roast lamb, sir, tender and fresh. And savory stew. Smooth, creamy ale if you -- " He stopped, open-mouthed as he caught full sight of his new custom. Well-bred ladies always dressed in full skirts, with layers of kirtles and petticoats to disguise any hint of their shape from lustful eyes. This -- creature -- wore leather trews, a thick cotton shirt of a mannish cut. It clung to the swell of her bosom, slid in to define a waist no decent woman would dare show, flared over hips and stopped indecently short to flaunt the shape of her leather-clad lower limbs. The female was armed with two matched daggers, a boot knife, and an ivory-handled sword of Caldish workmanship. She had no outriders, and no attendants for virtue's sake. She was, in short, the most immodest hoyden he had ever seen, and for a fateful second his outraged sensibilities insisted that he send her on her way, storm or no. "Lady -- " he began, a thing which he could plainly see she was not. "The Women's Lodging House is at the end of the way, to the north. Perhaps you could--" "No," she said flatly. "Perhaps I couldn't." She was a mannish thing, from her hair cropped and dripping at her shoulders to the bold look in her dark eyes. More muscled than any woman he'd ever seen. "How much for a bed?" A bed? As if he'd accept such as her in his honest rooms. "None available," he said shortly. She had the temerity to smile, as if he had amused her. "I saw the size of your inn, friend, and the number of horses stabled. You have more than one bed going vacant this evening, save for the lice and fleas, which I think you will agree do not pay good coin for the privilege." He swept her with another disbelieving look. "And you can." Insolent, that smile. Dangerously so. "Perhaps," she said. "And perhaps you might find it wise before the evening ends to make a friend of me." He gave her a disgusted look and went to the door as it flew open yet again, admitting the roar of thunder and a silver curtain of rain. The woman moved to the huge roaring hearth, where the spit-dog slowly turned a roasting chunk of meat that sizzled deliciously. She wrapped her shoulder-length black hair into a knot and twisted out a drizzle to the rush-strewn floor, then shook the damp waving strands back in place around her face. Across the room, two men watched her every move. She had marked them upon entering, as she'd marked everyone in the small, overheated room, as well as the exits from it. Those two were of interest to her, as they did not seem to fit the mold of broken farmers into which the others had been poured. Too young, too fine, too neatly dressed. They sat close together, and as she watched them, the taller one with longish white-blond hair nodded deliberately in acknowledgment. He was pale, almost albino, and when he raised a hand to summon the serving girl his hands were long and graceful. He mimed another round, and pointed across the room to include the swordswoman in his order as well. She set a hand on the hilt of her sword and joined them, settling lightly on the rough wooden bench opposite the two young men. Seen close, the blond was a startlingly lovely creature, with blue eyes like jewels and an angel's face. The other man was dark-haired, the devil to his companion's angelic countenance, but comely in his own right. He smiled at her, too. "Would you have the name of Tatya, then?" he asked. He had a low, pleasant voice, with the burred, lilting accent of the far north. "Would there be two swordswomen traveling to this godforsaken place tonight?" she asked, and sat back as the serving wench slapped down a mug of spiced wine before her. "You'd be the ones looking to hire me." "Aye," the dark one said. The light one continued to smile silently. "My name is Silk. My companion here is called Silence." She laughed -- not a lady's polite titter, but a man's full-bellied explosion of amusement. "Silk and Silence? Are you whores?" They continued to smile. "No," said Silk. "Our names are a part of the tale we have to tell, my lady. If you will ...?" Tatya shrugged, mail jingling, and took a long pull of hot wine. "The coin you already spent guarantees you at least my ear, if not necessarily my sword," she said. "Tell away." The blond one -- Silence -- signaled for the wench again, and mimed eating. She nodded, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and hurried away to cut them pieces of the roasting lamb. Tatya's stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh, hot meat, rich with spices. She'd had nothing but old bread and thin soup for the better part of a week. "They call you Witchkiller," Silk said. "Is there truth to it?" Tatya Witchkiller sipped her wine and cocked a single eyebrow. "Have I killed a witch? Aye. More than one. You need not worry -- unless, of course, you be witches." Those same, unsettling smiles. "Mistress," Silk said politely, "that, too, is part of the tale." She nodded without speaking. Silk opened his mouth to begin, but was halted by his blond friend, who seized his arm and shook it gently. Tatya watched in fascination as Silence's long, pale fingers danced in complicated, mesmerizing patterns. Almost she could understand... almost ... Tatya blinked and stood, tipping the bench over with a loud thump while her hand found the hilt of her sword. "What spell is this?" she barked, and showed three cold inches of steel in outright threat. "Speak!" Silk flung out a hand, alarmed, and said, "He cannot! He speaks with his hands. It is no spell, only a language learned by those who have no voice. A language! It was taught to us at the great university in Padua." Tatya frowned. The serving wench, undeterred, delivered a platter of thick-sliced roast lamb, redolent with rosemary, in the center of the trestle table. "Not magic," she said. "You're certain of this." Silence spread his eloquent hands, still smiling. After a black second, Tatya righted the bench she'd overturned and grudgingly took her seat again. "Continue," she ordered, and speared a slab of meat upon which to gnaw. "In the mountains above this town lives a witch," Silk said. "No ordinary spell-caster, Lady Witchkiller; no simple mumbler of spells such as you might have faced before. He is rich in the currency of death." "I have no use for poetry," she mumbled around the first delicious mouthful, grease running down her chin. "I deal in odds and swords." "Then I will make myself plain." Silk's dark eyes took on an unholy glow -- passion and hatred, she recognized the look well. "Know you of the tale of a succubus, who draws forth a man's seed by night in dreams?" She nodded for him to continue, still chewing. "A succubus can then turn incubus, take male form and deliver the stolen seed into another, unwilling vessel." "A succubus is a demon, not a witch." "Witches use demons for their own purposes," he said. "And witches can neither quicken a woman, if male, nor bear their own children, if female." Old news, tales long since spread. She nodded for him to continue. "The child of an incubus grows quickly within the vessel the witch chooses for it. There are certain rituals the witch completes, but before the child can be born, he performs his cruelest ritual of all: he buries the mother alive, still swollen with child." Tatya stopped eating, frowned again, and washed down a mouthful of meat with muddy wine. "Why should he go to such trouble to simply do murder?" "Not murder," Silk said. "Sacrifice. For every fifty women who go into cold graves, one child is born living, though the mother perishes. Such children are valuable to witches, as they contain the power of death passed to them from their unfortunate birth." She said nothing. Her lips were compressed, her eyes bright and fierce. Silk avoided the look and raised his mug to sip wine. He wore gloves even in the heat of the tavern, she saw. All of his skin, save his face, was covered. He continued, "This particular witch has through the years created two such children in this manner. His ... pets, you might say. But those dogs have slipped his leash." "Have they." She surveyed them through half-closed eyes, leaning forward with elbows on the table. "Yet perhaps they have come sniffing at the gates, whining for their lost master." Silence's fingers, which had been relaxed and elegant, tightened on the edge of the table until they looked bone-white. All of Silk's charm and good humor drained away. Ahhh, there, she marked them now for honest men. Honest in their hatred, at least. "Say that again," Silk whispered, "and there will be blood." "It strikes me that there will be blood whatever I say," Tatya shrugged. "Do you not hear the voices outside?" He did not understand for a moment, and then his gaze slid away from her, fast, and she heard the creak of the outer door and another harsh howl of wind, with harsher mens? voices shouting above it. More travelers, but no honest ones. She had a sense for such things. ...
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