Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [5]
She turned to the young man, saw the bleak acceptance in his eyes, but before she could speak, a dark cloud of magic shimmered in the far side of the tower room, then took silent, solid form. The bodies of three of Rashemen's witches-the women whose death had nearly been Zofia's-had returned to the nearest fastness.
Zofia dropped the black sword and hurried to her fallen sisters. Her mind refused to catalogue all their injuries, acknowledging only that they had been horribly slain. Two of them still wore the black masks that witches donned when traveling and sometimes when spell casting. The other's face was untouched by her violent death, and it appeared young, fair, and very familiar. It was the face that Zofia had seen when as a girl she had looked into a clear pool or a silvered glass.
Her heart breaking, she dropped to her knees and gently removed the mask so that she might gaze into the aging face of Zhanna, her twinborn sister. She gently smoothed aside a strand of gray hair and whispered a prayer to speed her sister's spirit on its way.
A lifetime of duty pushed aside this new pain. With steady fingers Zofia tied the mask to her belt. Later she would call Fraeni to her, give her the mask, and send her to hold the Watchtower. Zhanna was one of the most powerful witches in the land, and she had been the guardian of many treasures. In addition to the Mask of Danigar, she had been entrusted with an ebony wish-staff and the task of ferreting out the ancient power hidden in the Wind-walker amulet.
A deep foreboding filled Zofia, and she slid one hand beneath the high collar of his sister's robes, her fingers seeking the chain. It was gone-taken by the wizards who had slain her sister.
Gone, too, was her sister's dream. According to the old tales, in the Windwalker lay the power to bind and to break, to heal and destroy. Zhanna had been certain that it had a role to play in the restoration of Rashemen's magic.
The burden of grief was suddenly too heavy for Zofia's shoulders. The tower room spun and blurred, and her own spirit strained at its life-tether in a yearning to follow its twinborn self.
"Grandmother?"
The tentative question, voiced in a deep, resonant bass, jarred Zofia back to herself. She rose to her feet in a single smooth movement, schooled her face to a mask of calm majesty, and turned to face Fyodor.
The young warrior was pale and haggard, weaving on his feet. It was a marvel he could stand at all. The sickness that fell over Rashemen's warriors after a berserker rage could be as devastating in its own way as the killing frenzy.
Pride and grief mingled in the old witch's heart as she beheld her kinsman for the last time. Fyodor was his father's son-a strong man, a fine warrior. Young as he was, there had been talk about making him leader of his own fang. With a heavy heart, she took up the dull black sword, holding it so it lay flat across her two hands.
"You have brought honor to Rashemen," the witch said softly. She marveled that she was able to speak the ritual words without wavering. Even so, she had to swallow hard before she could speak the last words. "In honor go to your last battle."
He took the weapon from her, accepting without hesitation his sentence of death. An honorable death, yes, but death all the same. Zofia lifted one hand to give the blessing bestowed upon the dead and dying, but try as she might, she could not form the ritual gesture.
For a long moment the old witch and the young warrior stood in frozen tableau, then Zofia's hand dropped heavily to her side.
She had had too much of death.