Spell of the Witch World (Witch World Series) Read Online Free Page A

it, then all is well. But if it clouds—”
    He did not let me finish. “These are times of war, sister. No man walks safely forever.”
    “True. Yet sometimes ill can be turned to well.”
    Elyn made an impatient gesture. Never had he taken any interest in wise knowledge. It was as if he deemed such of little value. Still we had never brought this difference into words. Nor did we now.
    Rather I put away the cup and worked with Aufrica preparing what he must take with him, covers to sleep warm in on the trail, food and drink, as well as a wallet of healing herbs. And, like my father, he went.
    But those of Wark left also. Some of the younger men followed my brother like an ill-drilled menial. For he was, in spite of his youth, a leader amongst them in his knowledge of arms. The rest of us barred the doors of our houses, loaded our pack ponies, and took to the hills.
    That was an ill winter. We found refuge, first in an inland village, until an alarm of raiders came—then farther inland in barren country. Until we lived in caves and other rude shelters. Always came tales of farther and farther invasion, more and more taking of High Hallack.
    Aufrica and I were much called upon for our knowledge of healing, not only of wounds when wanderers from lost battles chanced upon us, but of the many illnesses which come from hard living, hunger, and even of hearts giving up hope. Since we faced dangers which were more sharp and sudden, I wore the mail my father had fashioned for me, knew sword-weight at my belt. Just as I learned to use the bow for hunting, both for the pot and for those who would prey on us for what sorry possessions we had left.
    As it always is when there is no law in the land and only war and more war, season after season, there were those who had been born of our own kind and now skulked as filthy scavengers, preying on all too weak to defend themselves. I killed in those days and knew no sorrow for it, for those I so slew were not truly men.
    One thing I kept ever by me was the cup, and each morn I took it forth to look upon it. Never was its brilliance dimmed, so I knew all was right with Elyn.
    Sometimes I tried to reach him by a dream bridge, using a sleep potion. Yet all I bore back into wakefulness was a confusion of half memories. At those times I hungered for more than Aufrica could teach me, for what my mother must once have had.
    In our wanderings we came nigh now and then those places of the Old Ones. From several we urged our now small and stumbling band away. For what crept like a foul fog from those was evil malevolence, wholly alien to our kind. Others were empty—as if what they had once cupped was long fled or had seeped away through the years. A few were welcoming, and to those Aufrica and I went, hoping to evoke something of what centered there. Yet we had not the proper training to take more with us when we left than a sense of peace and inner refreshment.
    There were no longer named years for us, just the passing of seasons. In the third summer we found refuge at last. Some of our band had split away, choosing other roads. But our small remaining group, with Omund at its head (he was now much crippled with an aching ailment of the bones), his younger brothers, their wives, two daughters with children whose husbands had followed Elyn (for which they sometimes looked ill at me yet never spoke their feelings aloud), and three more households in which the men were elderly, remained together.
    We found a way into a small upland dale which had never been settled or visited save by shepherds in season, or cattle drovers, who left huts where they had sheltered during the grazing months. There we stayed, our handful of sheep, our half-score of footsore ponies, glad to be at rest. And the people who had spent their lives combing a living from the sea turned with patient labor to win some sustenance from the hills.
    In high places overlooking the two passes we kept guards. So different had life