Page 37 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“We thought you were dead,” Haz said as they all finished their meal. The militia was back at the campsite, away from the body-filled battlefield. Each unit sat around a fire, filling up after a very eventful morning. “That nightmare just plucked you right up like a fish and pulled you away.”

“That would’ve been a disappointing end,” Itehua teased, his smile pulling at his pox scars. “Worst war story ever.”

“Boys, shush,” Lueti scolded. She patted Khana’s shoulder. “We’re just glad you’re all right, darling. Eat up.”

Khana had, surprisingly, already eaten one bowl of stew and was halfway through a second. The battle had famished her, but she hadn’t noticed until now, sick with worry over what had happened to her unit.

Turned out, they were fine. Worried sick about her , but completely unharmed. Neta had even scolded her for getting surprised like that, and for losing her spear and helmet, which she’d pressed back into Khana’s hands.

“Do you think we’ll be pushing on?” Xopil asked, finishing his second bowl. “Kick the Reguallians out of the mountains?”

“We won’t have to. Look.” Neta pointed to some distant storm clouds. “That’s coming right at us. The snow will bury anyone still here by the end of the week.”

“I thought winter was done,” Khana complained.

Neta laughed. “You’re sweet. We get spring snows all the time, especially in the mountains. Summer is the only season where there’s never any snow.”

Haz snorted. “Here we were getting all worried that we’d have to do a lot of fighting, only to find out the weather does it for us.”

“It does,” Yxe chirped. “Most wars we’ve fought have ended by the enemy losing so many soldiers and supplies trying to cross these mountains.”

Neta’s prediction turned out to be true. Chief Phramanka made the announcement that they were to retreat back to Pahuuda. “Let those imperial brats fight Mother Mountain and Snowy Jadok if they’re begging for another beating,” she said to a round of cheers.

So, after only one battle, they gladly marched toward home. Some units sang war songs, others were more glum. The units who had lost soldiers carried their dead back, wrapping them in blankets with their weapons.

“Hey, witch!” a man called. He motioned to the dead body his unit carried. “Can’t you do something about this?”

Khana winced, doing some quick calculations. Over two dozen dead. She’d have to lose two dozen pieces of herself – significant pieces – to bring them back, to say nothing of the life force needed to heal their fatal injuries. Her conscience would revive one, maybe two. How much would she get for her compassion? All of her memories? Would there be anything left by the time they were done? “I never learned how to raise the dead.”

“Can’t be that hard, can it?” the soldier called. “You just put that glow in them.”

“No, that’s how you get night creatures. If I tried to revive your friend in that way, they’d be a monster, with no memory or sense of self. No soul. Trust me, I tried.”

The man caught up to her. “How much do you want?”

Khana blinked. “What?”

“How much do you want us to pay you to bring him back, death-bringer?” he asked, annoyance flavoring his tone.

“It’s not a matter of money. That’s the reality. A person cannot be revived with a simple transference of life force. I don’t know what they need; I never got that training. No one does. I’m sorry.”

The soldier sighed but didn’t protest further. He lumbered off, re-joining his unit. Haz brushed his shoulder against Khana’s and gave her a nod of silent support.

“We only lost a couple dozen soldiers,” Neta commented. “The Reguallians lost almost a thousand, thanks to ill training, no magical healer, and no impressive commanders. Overall, this is probably one of the most successful battles in Ghuran history. Well done, Poison Darts.”

“Ill training?” Lueti echoed.

Khana grimaced. “Most Reguallian soldiers are farm boys, or even slaves. Yamueto can rely on sheer numbers to overtake a battlefield now, rather than using his more elite fighters.”

Lueti looked behind them as if she could see the bloody field they’d left behind. “Poor boys.”

Neta pulled Khana away. “Here. We took trophies from the night creatures we killed. This is yours.”

Khana took the tooth. It was pitch black, longer than her middle finger and just a little skinnier.

“I cleaned it for you,” Neta continued. Her face twisted in annoyance. “Phramanka should have publicly lauded you. You took out more of those things than the rest of us, and healed what would have been the most fatal injuries. But…”

“Ire toward witches is still too strong?” Khana guessed.

“It’s stupid. She worries more about her public image than doing the right thing.”

She bumped Neta’s shoulder. “Thank you, serji.”

There was a little hole naturally formed in the base of the tooth. Khana used it to string the tooth onto her necklace, right next to her obsidian frog.

Everyone brightened considerably when they reached Pahuuda. Khana didn’t think she’d ever be more relieved to see the snow-speckled stone houses. Scouts must have run ahead to tell everyone that the battle was successful, because a whole crowd waited for them, cheering and ready to embrace loved ones.

“Baba!” Haz called, dashing off to Heimili, who sat on the lip of one of the wells with Amati. Khana watched them hug with a smile that quickly slid off her face. Part of her yearned for that type of community – dare she even say, family – but the thought of being touched right now made her shudder.

Khana stayed apart from it all, watching everyone happily reunite but feeling unable to join them, even though she knew Heimili and Amati, at least, would be moderately happy to see her. Instead, she stood near a building, halfway in an alley.

“Are you all right?”

She jumped, so deep in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Sava coming to stand next to her. The two weeks in the mountains had made his normally well-trimmed beard a bit scruffy, but she found she didn’t mind.

“Just thinking,” she said.

“Doesn’t look like happy thoughts.”

She grimaced. He wasn’t going to let her sulk on her own. “This won’t last,” she said. “The empire will be back.”

Sava leaned against the building. “Of course it will. We know that. They know it, too. But the way to win a war is to keep morale up. Celebrate the little victories. Remind everyone what they’re fighting for.”

She hummed in response. She didn’t need any reminders. She was fighting for survival, or at least not to be dragged back to Yamueto.

Sava moved to nudge her arm, then visibly remembered what she’d said about touch. He moved just a tiny bit closer. “The first battle’s always the roughest. You’ll get used to it.”

“Should you?” Khana asked, thinking of all the men she’d killed. Men who probably had families and villages just like this one.

He shrugged. “That’s a question for the philosophers. We’re a town of warriors.”

“Here I thought there was at least one bard.”

“Aspiring, not practicing.” He gave a quick grin. “My archers are already singing your praises. We saw you on the field, tearing a hole through the other side like they were snowmen.”

She looked away, face heating up. “I got lucky.”

“Probably. But they feel a lot better with you fighting on our side.”

“Yamueto has witches, too. Hundreds of them. With far more training than me. It’s only a matter of time before they join the fight.”

“I doubt he’ll be able to send them all,” Sava mused. “You know what happens to empires who stretch themselves too thin?”

She did. She’d spent a fair amount of time reading up on histories and talking about them with Princess Sita. Most of the historians blamed ancient civilizations’ collapse on their barbaric ways or turning away from the gods, but most of them expanded beyond their means, taking more land than they could actually govern. In short order, usually after a plague or civil war or other disaster, it all came crumbling down.

“Besides, those witches are all used to fighting against mere mortals like myself,” he continued. “I’ll bet good money they haven’t had to fight someone as powerful as them.”

“Yamueto has,” she said quietly. “He’s fought and killed dozens.”

Sava scooted closer. “We won’t let that happen to you.”

He said it so intently, dark eyes boring into her, that she almost believed him. She wanted to fall forward, bury herself in his chest, and let him handle all the darkness in the world for a little while so she could forget it existed and just… be.

She resisted the urge and pulled away. “I should… go take a bath. I can’t imagine any of us smell good.”

“The soap-makers are going to have a fantastic couple of days,” he agreed, pushing off the wall. “I’ll see you around, Khana.”

Khana breathed out, unable to shake the feeling that she’d missed some sort of opportunity there.