Chapter 24
Offerings
Outside Gottestag, Gotland
On Sir Burkhardt's advice, Lys and her companions took the southern road to the capital. His reasoning was that the Witch Queen's forces would be expecting the enemy from the west, where the war was still ongoing, not the south, which scarcely put up a fight when the Witch Queen's armies came marching. It was a longer route and they needed to strike before the winter solstice, but haste makes waste, as they say.
It had been twelve days since they crossed the border, but the capital was now in sight and they had set camp in the King's Wood while they waited for the opportune time to slip into the castle. When the kingdom was in its rightful state, the wardens of the woods would find and drive out any interlopers, but it would seem that the Witch Queen did not have the same taste for the hunt as the King and his guests from days past.
Speaking of being found out, normally when you are moving in secret, you forego the comfort of a campfire, but Lys had a more pressing reason than comfort for preparing a fire. Sister Ysolde was sitting off to the side. Despite having travelled together for nearly a month, they had never once had a proper conversation together. Her brother had always been the intermediary, but for what Lys intended to do, she did not want the company of the menfolk. Because they had not really spoken to each other in all this time, Lys was actually a little surprised when Sister Ysolde spoke to her now.
"What exactly do you mean to do?" she asked.
"I have to prepare for the battle ahead," Lys replied as she ran her thumb along the edge of her knife to test its sharpness.
Sister Ysolde then asked her, "Why are you naked?"
This was of course why Lys had shooed away the menfolk first. It would seem that she had regained some civilization because she was a little more self-conscious than she was when she left the Ral'shee lands. Although the skins she garbed herself in had their own magic to them, rituals such as this were best performed sky-clad. She needed to feel the flow of the æther against her skin to fully channels the magicks she was drawing to herself.
"I must be one with Nature," she explained to Sister Ysolde. "You don't see the creatures of the woods wearing clothes, do you?"
This did not seem to convince the nun. Although Lys could have left it at that at focused on her work, the fact that Sister Ysolde was opening up to her inclined her to reciprocate.
"It was embarrassing for me at first," she said, "but in time I learned to free myself of the chains of civilization. You have to if you want to become a shaman."
Lys was expecting some word of reproach, but Sister Ysolde said nothing. She would not get off so easily if it were Bishop Friedman or even Kolman. Of course, she would not be practicing her arts like this in front of either of them.
A little more time passed and her call was finally answered. All manner of creatures of the forest emerged from the boughs of the trees and the underbrush. For so many animals to appear at once in a manner so contrary to their nature, it was no surprise that Sister Ysolde would be startled, but Lys held up a hand to calm her.
"Don't be afraid," she said as the animals gathered around her. "They won't hurt you."
Looking around bewildered, Sister Ysolde asked, "What are they doing here?"
"They've agreed to help us," Lys replied.
She crouched down and extended her arm to a squirrel, which hopped onto her hand. She stood up and stared into its little black eyes. With beasts, you could not speak mind to mind as you would with a sapient being, or at least such a thing was impossible with Lys' level of power. Instead, they communicated by feelings, their two hearts steadily coming into alignment. Once they found harmony with each other, Lys touched her forehead to the squirrel's, then stroked its head for a moment. She drew in a slow breath before giving its head a sharp twist, breaking its neck.
Sister Ysolde gasped, holding up her hand to cover her mouth.
"What, what have you done?" she asked in disbelief. "How could you?"
Lys laid the squirrel on the ground, then picked up her knife and began to cut its body apart.
"It's what he wanted," she said coolly as she plucked out the liver and tossed it into the fire. "I need sacrifices to call upon the spirit powers. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the power. The Witch Queen and all the other witches are doing the same. When the solstice comes, they will sacrifice all manner of beasts. Men, too, I imagine. Tens, maybe hundreds.
"The difference is the ones they sacrifice die in fear and despair, cursing the ones who stretch out their hands against them. It pollutes the sacrifice, weakens its power. That's why they kill so many, to compensate.
"These here may be small animals with little power to offer, they give their lives willingly and the sacrifice is pure. I believe your kind knows something about the power of a willing sacrifice."
"How do you know of such things?" Sister Ysolde asked.
"I was not born and raised in the wilds," Lys replied. "Before I left, they tried to raise me in your ways. I still remember a little. There is some power to it, or else it would not have stuck with me all this time."
* * *
A short way from the clearing where Lys was performing her ritual, there was a hill where Sir Burkhardt, Father Tristram and Corothas were waiting on the other side. Or at least they were supposed to be on the other side. Father Tristram was leaning against a tree at the top of the hill looking down on the scene that was unfolding below.
Sir Burkhardt, who had just returned from gathering some more firewood at Lys' request, saw this and demanded in a hushed voice, "What're ye doin'?"
"Just watching," Father Tristram replied.
"Ye shouldn't be. Come away from there."
"I would've never guessed those markings go all the way down," the priest said, ignoring Sir Burkhardt.
"What kind o' pries' are ye?"
Father Tristram glanced back at Sir Burkhardt and replied, "The kind who can appreciate the loveliness God gives to the fairer sex. And the kind who doesn't trust a witch to work her craft without at least keeping an eye out. But I guess I haven't quite succeeded at forsaking all the Devil's works and ways myself, have I?"
"I know little of the arts the child commands," Corothas said, "but I can sense her power building. By the blood of her sacrifices, she grows stronger, but will it be enough for what she means to do?"
"Sacr'fices?" Sir Burkhardt asked, unaware of what Lys was doing.
"You can tell, Master Corothas?" Father Tristram asked.
"I can smell the blood all too clearly and I can sense the spirits at work," Corothas replied. "There is nothing to fear. There is no malice in sacrificer or sacrifice. Indeed, the purity is stirring."
Father Tristram sniffed at this notion.
"Purity, huh?"
* * *
Despite knowing that the ritual needed to be performed, it felt like it was taking as much out of Lys as it was giving her as she worked through the three and twenty birds and beasts that offered themselves up to lend her their power. It was one thing to hunt for food and something quite different to take lives for the sake of a ritual like this. It was no less necessary and she had the assent of those that offered up their lives, yet there was still a sense of guilt that clung to her like the blood of her sacrifices that she had used to trace over her markings. She had taken trophies of bone, skin, sinew and feathers imbued with a fragment of the spirits of those creatures, but it was as if they were leaden weights.
It had to be done, she told herself. Even with all these sacrifices, it might not prove to be enough, but without them, she did not imagine she would have had much of any chance at all. Even so, she needed more. She knew she needed more.
In an unsettled moment, she looked to Sister Ysolde and a horrible thought came to her. Fortunately, there was some power at work that spared her from pursuing such a thought any further. From the underbrush in the distance, a pair of eyes glowed by the firelight. A fine she-wolf emerged. Without the wardens to patrol the King's Wood, she was free to turn the forest into her hunting ground and game was plentiful, it would seem, as you would not often see a wolf in the wild so sleek and well-fed.
Sister Ysolde was understandably frightened, but once again Lys held up a hand to calm her. The she-wolf approached Lys. Her intent was clear, but Lys could not help feeling reluctant.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Lys crouched down and the wolf came closer and rubbed her head under Lys' chin. Lys had seen this in packs in the wild and knew what it meant. Though proud and strong, the wolf was submitting herself to Lys so that Lys might take that strength with her.
Though the whole of the ritual had taken its toll on her, it was only in this moment that Lys could no longer hold back her tears. She knew these creatures were not the only lives that had been sacrificed in her pursuit of her quest. She would carry that weight with her to her dying day, which was all the more reason she had to succeed to make those sacrifices worthwhile.
Embracing the wolf, Lys whispered, "Thank you."
And then she tightened her grip on her knife...
