him a cool look.
“Mistress-“
“Guard them well, Haught,” Ischade said, not looking back at him. “I will take a
dim view of any ‘accidents.’ I’m not done with them yet.” She paced away,
turning after a few seconds and beginning to walk a circle, setting wards. There
was no outward sign, no fire, no sound. But Mriga felt the air grow tight, and
when Ischade came about at last and gestured the circle closed, the mortals in
it looked at each other in still terror, like beasts in a new-snapped trap.
“No god or man will cross that line,” she said. “Goddesses, your last word. Will
you do this?”
“Get on with it,” Siveni said. Her spear sizzled.
Mriga nodded and looked down at Tyr. The dog put her head up and howled again,
softly, an eager sound.
“Very well,” Ischade said, and paused by the altar, and looked over her shoulder
at the donkey. There was a wheeze, the terrible sound a corpse makes when it’s
rolled over and the last breath leaves its lungs-only this breath went in. The
tethered donkey plunged and screamed as its burden abruptly began to move, a
slow underwater struggling. Ischade reached out leisurely and stripped the
covering from around the body. It crumpled toward the ground, collapsing to its
knees, then slowly, slowly stood. It was a young woman, terribly wounded about
the breast and neck; her tunic and flounced skirts were blood-blackened and her
head had a tendency to slew to one side, trying to come undone from the half
severed neck.
“Well, well,” Ischade said, calm-voiced, “not ‘he,’ but ‘she.’ Some poor