Nasty Little Witchling

Alisa came back over from where she had been digging in her pack and eyed our hands. Annalise loosened her grip, and I pulled away.

“Are we going to meet them?” Alisa asked, then paused. “That was…the standard ripple code for a meeting right?”

“I feel I should make you read the code book backwards just for asking that.”

“Wait, wait. I know every knight code, I’m just a bit behind on the standard ones since we never use them.”

Annalise raised her hand and let mana collect and turn into what felt like a spinning wheel over her palm. Small waves of mana launched off it and passed through me in the time it took to blink.

Shivers ran through my body that left me feeling a bit dizzy. I almost complied with the words in my mind, a warning to drop to the ground because of danger. Alisa did and was on her stomach in the grass after only a moment's hesitation.

“I guess you’re safe for now, I won’t let Madam Hanover know you need to retake her class next year.”

“Please don’t,” Alisa said, dusting off her hands. “She should just hurry up and retire already.”

“I’ll pass along your well wishes next time she comes over for dinner. Send out a low strength ripple to the others and tell them to pack up and regroup here.”

Alisa started to mumble about dots and dashes before I felt the same mana shape as before. I was prepared for the weird feeling it caused when ripples of mana were let out. The words that came with it were a very clipped version of what Annalise had asked.

It might have been the same as knowing what creatures felt. Something I shouldn't have been able to understand as an outsider.

I turned to see Annalise looking at me. This was something that had no upside to telling her, and I hoped I hadn’t been too obviously affected by them. “Yes?”

“We were planning to leave soon, but we’ll go see what this mystery unit wants before we do. Anything to pack before we leave?”

What I really wanted to say was that I wasn’t leaving. That I wanted to stay here. “My boots, the books, and the doll.”

“Right…the doll. Alisa change of plans I’m heading back with Valeria. You keep getting the horses saddled and ready.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I trotted behind Annalise while we walked back. She looked down at my feet. “How are you okay skipping through the forest without shoes? What are you going to do if a snake bites you, or you step on a thorn?”

I took an extra long step to avoid said thorns. “Snakes only bite if you annoy them, and I’m not dumb enough to step on a plant that could hurt me.” Those were easy to recognise since they felt like they barred their ‘teeth’ at me compared to the other docile foliage.

The poisonous plants and mushrooms were fascinating to try and sense. Some of the more colourful ones seemed to pull me in with promises of sweetness. I didn’t like sweet things.

“Mister Harickson would love you,” she muttered.

We got to the clearing amidst a flurry of activity. Tents and tarps had been folded. A fire with the vestiges of breakfast beside it was being smothered by Barick. Daral was trying to float each piece of the folded fabric in the air while Ian was inspecting the alchemy equipment.

I watched as the floating fabric shrunk by at least five times before Daral grabbed it out of the air and stuffed it into a satchel. Ian was doing something similar to select pieces of the class equipment he was inspecting.

I looked to Annalise to ask what was going on. She caught my eye and wiggled her eyebrows. “People always find this to be our most bizarre spell. Apparently, most things are empty on the inside or something like that.”

“Could you shrink a person?”

Annalise sucked in a deep breath and held her stomach. “Don’t ask, they showed us a lightgraft of the aftermath of someone trying that in class. They were already dead, thank goodness. Anything too complicated gets confused on what parts to shrink down and when better to keep it simple.”

“So glass and cloth are okay? What about a chest?”

“No chance, not even Missy could hold that much weight. The things don’t actually get lighter, just smaller. Besides, that thing is made of too much iron to even try.”

She gave me a small push on the back and I took that as my cue to get my stuff together: one pair of boots from the cottage, with matching socks. One cursed doll and one electrum coin.

I searched around and thought back, there had to be more. I was wearing my clothes and underthings already. The soap and neem I used to brush my teeth was back with Alisa.

I must have gotten too used to having more stuff when living with Trissa.

There was one more item I needed to get. The key was still where I left it and I floated out the doll a moment later. Its amber eyes glinted in the sunlight and I tried to hide it from the view of any crows.

“Daral you’re on doll duty,” Annalise said, still standing in the same place.

The boy in question looked up from where he was packing the last tent. I hesitated, I could keep it afloat and didn’t need to pass it off. I looked at Annalise and she nudged her head to Daral with a smile.

I conceded and dropped the doll into his open arms, glad that it wasn’t hard enough for the doll to activate and for me to have to feel his touch on my butt.

“Ah, please don’t shrink it.”

Daral looked horrified, then confused. “Ian, shrinking the doll. What do you think would happen?”

“Well…that’s an interesting line of study.”

“Don’t even start, just put it away,” Annalise said.

He carefully placed it inside the larger pocket of a satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Did Alisa mess up her ripple? I thought we were meeting you there?”

“I came to help Valeria pack. We sensed a low mana rhythm knock at the stream,” Annalise said. “Which means?”

“Ah…someone wants to meet us?” Daral said.

“High strength and long-range ripple, and since we didn’t sense it you were on the edge of its range,” Barick added. “Maybe a few miles out?”

“Do we know if it's military, or us?” Daral asked. “Are we getting help?”

“Few miles sounds about right since we can’t sense them yet,” Annalise said. “And no idea, it was Werl standard, so could be anyone.”

“You’re the only knight order in the duchy and the military wouldn’t be able to prepare in the time we left and catch up,” Ian said.

“That’s why we’re going to go see,” Annalise said. “Get moving and change into full insignia. Alisa should have the horses ready when you get there.”

The three of them walked past her hefting multiple bags and satchels. The small things didn’t look as heavy as they made it seem, but thinking of the shrunk items made it make sense.

“Got everything?” Annalise asked, sceptical as she glanced over the boots in my hand.

“Yup.”

She slowly nodded and turned to follow after the lackeys.

Potato was kicking up a bit of a fuss with Ian who was angrily hissing at the horse to calm down. The apprentices were all saddled and loaded up with the items from the camp, straps and latches being tightened and buckled.

“You're probably tightening something too far and it's pinching him,” Daral said from atop the cowardly horse.

“You put too much weight on his right flank,” I said.

Ian ignored both of us and tried to get his foot into the stirrup.

Shhh, it’s okay. I’ll fix it for you.

Potato relaxed and Ian thought that signified his win and got up onto the saddle. What he didn’t know was that he was moments away from the horse under him rearing up. It took me a second to get the latch off of a satchel and pull out a miniaturised volumetric flask wrapped in cloth. It was deceptively heavy and despite it fitting in one hand, I had to use both.

Ian made more of a fuss than Potato as I moved it to the other side and put it in his personal pack where ‘it didn’t belong.’

The others had changed out of their dull cloaks and into shorter green capes that had an insignia of a—I had to ask Annalise—castle hiding behind white mountains on one side and trees on the other.

She had me hold out her armour in the air while she unshrunk it and explained how her great-grandfather was bestowed the title of duke by the last king for taking the castle and the surrounding land during some empire’s civil war. He went on to defend it for weeks without reinforcement from a different aggressor hoping for the strategic position. Annalise used a lot of names and landmarks I couldn’t have repeated moments after she said them, but I got the idea that it was all very important and heroic.

Everyone, but Ian and I, put on a weird-looking hat that flopped to one side. Trissa would have been able to tell me its name, origin, and cultural significance, but sadly she wasn’t with me. The apprentices were unadorned while Annalise had the same insignia as the cape sitting on a strip of silver in its centre.

Annalise came over to me and tied her cloak around me, it almost draped onto the ground. As she lifted me up onto Missy I wanted to ask her if she was sure I couldn’t stay.

I knew even if she said it was possible I wouldn’t have done that to Trissa and her parents.

“I sense them, four maybe five mages moving at a walking pace towards the town on the road I guess would be from Drasda,” Annalise said, and got up behind me.

I looked to where she was and scrunched my face in concentration, but didn’t feel a thing.

“That would make sense for a knight squad,” Barick said.

“Why would they be using the country wide code and not the ducal one?” Daral asked.

“Really Daral, just work it out,” Alisa said.

“What? It's a perfectly valid question? Why is everyone looking at me like that?”

“Because the rest of us have worked out we’re about to run into a bunch of rems.”

“If it is them, let’s use their full name and not piss them off,” Annalise said. “The Revivified Remnants of the Capital.”

“Fucking fanatics,” Barick said. “They’re chasing after the witch story.”

“Useful fanatics,” Ian said.

We started moving through the forest and I tried leaning into Annalise, unfortunately, the hard metal of her armour was all I found. I’d thought steel was the same as iron, but this didn’t seem to pull at my mana.

To pass the time I tried leaning forward and testing out my braiding on Missy’s mane, but she didn’t approve.

“Why don’t we like the people we’re meeting?” I asked.

“It’s not that we don’t like them—”

“No, we definitely don’t like them,” Barick said from beside us. Too close for my liking.

“Shut it, Barick. Go scout ahead and let whoever it is know we're coming.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s not that we’re enemies. They just…when the capital fell to the witch's curse most of the capital’s army, and some of its knights, were stationed in the surrounding area. When they heard about what happened to the city and their families they of course mobilised to defend it. They found that the people inside the city had turned into savage husks, ghouls. A few million people just…gone and turned into horrible creatures. They killed off the things that managed to wander out and held the gates till the nobles could bring help. Without them the surrounding areas would have probably been devastated.”

“They sound like your great-grandfather, no?”

“This was a while after that event, the civil war in the then Empire of Oclar to overthrow the mage lords bled into Werl. We think they had witches backing them and also incited the coven to initiate the events in the capital. To extend their revolution to us. We were not as bad as Oclar, but still people didn’t like the nobility. It’s why the nobles at the time agreed to have no more hereditary titles and let people vote in…never mind.

“The other armies mostly went back home after it was clear the capital was sealed up and that there was no one to help. The capital armies and knights, the remnants stayed and vowed to retake their home. The five remaining dukes made it so a king, just like how barons vote them in, had to be voted in by the dukes. They didn’t and haven't voted anyone in. So, who did the Remnants owe allegiance to? Do they disband them? Can they?”

“The other duchies didn’t want the capital’s land?”

“Father says everyone still wants it but the responsibility and expense of handling the hundreds of thousands of ghouls still there isn’t worth it.

“So, my great grandfather and the others let them stay as knights of the capital with the mission to one day retake it. Nowadays the group is more of a plundering team taking trips into the still infected capital to loot and sell. That wouldn’t be so bad except they keep letting more and more ghouls get out to the point where the surrounding duchies had to station their own troops there to stop it. So, now they plunder while we handle the defence and the current seven dukes can't get the four votes to stop them.”

“It sounds like they should? If they are having their armies there anyway?”

Ian answered my question from where he was riding near us. “Three duchies don’t even border the capital and no one else is crazy enough to go into that place to get the millions upon millions of roe worth of stuff just sitting there. They still haven't made it past the second wall, but imagine the wealth of the king’s treasury or even just the ducal estates inside the third wall. Plenty of people join up with them just at the idea of a piece of that.”

“And they’re just allowed to steal?”

“Is it really stealing at this point? They fight over treasure and steal from each other, but buyers, including dukes, don’t care.”

“Hey, my father has been trying to get the others to put some more regulations in place.”

I felt the ripple Barick was supposed to send out.

“Can you teach me to do that?” I asked, interrupting their conversation. I was overwhelmed, I’d have preferred the story in a book.

“What? Oh…Sorry, but…well, I suppose it isn’t a spell? Maybe? We’ll see about it some other time,” Annalise said.

“I’d think she’d have a severe lack of range with having no mana reserves,” Ian said and turned to me. “Don’t bother, each duchy has its own code system and then there's a standard kingdom one on top of that. I’d rather memorise entire alchemy books, at least they make sense.”

“Don’t exaggerate, I only learnt two,” Annalise said.

Ian ignored her to carry on talking to me. “Speaking of alchemy, can I get you to translate some of those books? Just read them out to me when we’re free and I’ll write. I’m sure there’s something in there to make this trip worth it.”

“Besides saving my father, the duke?”

“Well…yes. But…oh look we’re out the forest.”

I hadn’t ever seen the town’s walls from this far away before. The fields of crops and enclosures still went around this area. Wooden barns and buildings were built further out with even more fields beyond them. After all of that was green grass that stretched all the way to the horizon.

I could sense the large mana reserves of the strangers coming our way before I saw them ride into view past a field of corn. There were five of them on horseback with one holding a large banner. It was white with three grey rings surrounding each other and a final red ring around those. They didn’t have any cloaks or capes to hide their red and white uniform. Under the sections of coloured cloth looked like shimmering scales from afar, but as we got closer it was little rings of interlocking steel.

We stopped near where Barick had with Annalise moving slightly in front. The lead rode up to the point where their horse could touch their noses with Missy. The two animals regarded each other with curiosity.

The man at the lead had the same rings covering his head so only his face was visible. The rings looked to go all the way to his boots and wrists but the hands were still bare like every mage seemed to like. I saw a miniature full helmet hanging from a chain around his neck. It had hollowed out eyes and a nose with a full tooth smile imprinted into the metal. The man himself looked slightly older than Annalise with full green eyes and brown hair peeking through the metallic links.

The man slowly pointed his finger and wagged it up and down. “You must be…the new captain. What a pleasure to meet a Riker, how’s daddy doing?”

“He’s well. Who am I speaking to?”

“Well? I’m glad. You have before you Captain Tometh of the Revivified Remnants of the Capital. This scraggly bunch would be the rest of my scouting party. And might I say I never believed all the rumours I heard in Drasda about your promotion to captain of security. You obviously take the protection of the duke very seriously. ”

The slow cadence of Tometh was starting to annoy me with his sentences never finishing as quickly as they should. So many extra words and drawn out syllables to say so little.

“If you had stayed in Drasda a bit longer you would know I’m officially taking over the position next season.”

“Hmmm. I suppose I was in a bit of a rush to get here, no one bothers trying to revive the railway system in the capital. A lack of foresight in my opinion.”

I wanted to pull my hood up and hide under it from the closed lip smile the man was giving.

“What is a scouting party from your order doing so far from the capital?”

Tometh tutted. “You parade knights forget we do not just babysit you and your dull blades from danger, but also expunge it where it seeks to grow away from our home. We still remember what duty is, what they took from us. Barron Graham of Kiteer was kind enough to inform us of the witch. We came up here as a favour to the dear baron to make sure he ripped the threat out by the roots and you would not guess the news the traders on the road were going on about. There is talk of a second witch and possible coven, but the information is all hush-hush and contradictory, you know how merchants can get.

Maybe you know? What else would bring a bunch of city folk out here?”

“There’s no second witch,” Barck said angrily but the men and woman behind Tometh, and the man himself, ignored him as if he hadn’t spoken.

Annalise nodded his way. “It was a misunderstanding born from misinformation. There is no second witch or coven.”

Tometh slowly shook his head. “In that case, we need to find the person who made that false accusation, I am sure you know how dangerous these accusations can be for the women folk. We also have methods of confirming if someone is a witch that you people may not know about.”

“Oh, we know all about your barbaric methods, you don’t feel bad when the people you use your ‘methods’ on develop mana poisoning when they’re innocent?” Ian spat.

Tometh shrugged. “We have the good duke to thank for coming up with a cure for that. They drink it and it’s like nothing happened.”

“Expect an extreme amount of pain,” Ian said.

“What is pain but a lesson. These women did something wrong to have been accused, we provide accountability. Accountability we would like to extend to this, not a witch.”

Annalise shifted behind me. “Unnecessary, the Knights of Riker have handled it.”

Tometh stayed quiet and I looked to see what he was doing and met his green eyes.

“You know, I am starting to develop a theory. A theory that now involves the pretty young madam that I cannot seem to sense at all.” The men and women behind Tometh were also staring at me.

Annalise passed for a long while. “She was the accused witch, but only because people didn’t understand.”

“Use mana,” she whispered into my ear.

I held out my hand and heard metal scraping. A very faint whisper of an order to stop drew my eyes up, but it wasn’t directed to me. Tometh also had his hand held out to stop the knights behind him from fully drawing their swords strapped to the side of their horses. Their free hands pointed at me. Annalise also had her hands up over me.

“Peace friends, peace. The young madam has a demonstration for us it seems.”

My arms and hands were shaking, but I managed to lift up some of the rocks from the ground around us, they floated in the air around Missy. She wasn’t thrilled and I assured her it would be over quickly.

A woman spoke up to Tometh’s right. “If she really is a mage then our tests will not harm her, you should hand her over, so we can make sure for all our sakes.”

Tometh shook his head. “No no, Talia. There is no need. Those soulless creatures can not use the Mother’s gift, she is acquitted. And alas my theory has been disproven, partly. There is still the matter of the accuser, is there not?”

“They’ve be dealt with by me”

Tometh leaned forward in his saddle. The rings of metal clinked together as he tapped his finger on the horse's head. The animal had very few thoughts and feelings about the whole matter. Not even a moment of fright when swords were half drawn like all of ours, except Missy.

“It is not so often I am so thoroughly disappointed, but I suppose there being no witch to slay is a blessed thing. Shall we expect your company on the way back to Drasda?”

“No we’re off the Kiteer and taking the train back.”

“Ah, then I bid you a farewell and safe travels Captain Riker. Maybe we can meet on the fated fields of battle, as allies of course.”

“We’ll see.”

“Farewell young madam,” Tometh said and lobbed something towards me. Annalise caught the dull object before I could.

As soon as they were far enough away Alisa spoke aloud what my shaking body was telling me. “That was fucking creepy.”