CHAPTER 1 Elizebith ran and fell and scrambled up and ran and fell again. The fresh-fallen leaves and tilted slope were treacherous un- der the slick soles of her boots. Naked branches of bramble and scrub oak clutched at her, tearing and cutting, pricking her a thousand times about the face and hands and neck. The giri slipped once more on a leafy rock and fell, banging her knee. She knelt, clutching her leg and crying silently. Letting the tears flow helped the pain—in her knee. anyway. Her heartache was something else. Bith was tall and dark, slim and soft, with flowing brown- black hair and eyes that were almost luminous. She wore a dark outfit of shin and pants with a deep blue cloak over all. Around her middle was a wide yellow belt that matched her fine-tooled boots. The belt's grinning devil-face buckle and dozen small pouches marked her as a magic user. The girl tried to quiet her breathing enough to hear the pursuit. Far down the ravine could be heard the cursing of men as they thrashed through the dark underbrush. Bith didn't know how many there were, but there were enough to comb the ravine easily without missing her. She looked up at the fading light. The days were short now. Scaly branches made 2 RUNESWORD ^LUME ONE a spider's web that laced the overcast twilight. The brush was so thick it was like looking up through a latticework basket. Even where she crouched there were branches reaching for her soft skin. She hadn't known how thick the brush grew up this ravine. She should have found out, she berated herself, she should have teamed her own neck of the woods' It was stupid to not know what lay at the head of this ravine. Did it open into meadow, or more forest, or drop down again to more brush? She should have found out before now, now when she was fleeing and learning the hard way. The lesson for today. Live and learn, she thought bitteriy. Learn or die. Somewhere below her a man barked an oath. Her heart flut- tered. He was close. She pinched her knee into numbness and crept uphill through the brambles- In truth, she hadn't lived in her tiny ramshackle cottage long enough to leam where much of anything was. Living alone meant so much to do- Fetch water, tend the fire, check the snares before the foxes got to them, gather roots. This was why men had wives and the wealthy had servants. It was an all-day affair just to keep fed and warm. There was no time for exploring. Or reading or studying or having any fun. It had been a long time since Elizebith had done anything fun. And here she had to minister to the wants and needs of the peasants who sought out the "witch." More wants than needs, but who was she to talk? The reason she was so clumsy at fetching and carrying and cooking is that she'd never done it for herself until recently. If only she'd known how happy she was when she was happy! She had been such a little giri. A spoiled little girl. Never wanting for anything. She would give anything now, even her soul, just to be able to sit quietly and not run, run,run. Yes, the peasants had come. They wanted a cure for a toothache. A love potion. A physic to flush a baby from the womb. A curse fora prosperous neighbor. Elizebith did what she could. A toothache received the inner bark of the slippery elm. But it was only a temporary cure. A love potion was camphor oil applied tb me hair of the loved one, accompanied by "good thoughts." It was a nostrum. The physic to be rid of a baby was mineral oil. The poison killed the woman as well if she took it improperly. The curse could be anything OUTCASTS 3 as long as it was vile: hate added the rest. But she had known she couldn't keep it up for long. People hated witches. (It was a mark of the peasants' ignorance that they couldn't tell witches from magicians.) They hated what a witch could do, even as they asked her. They welshed on payment unless you took it beforehand. And they waited until the last minute, and that had been Bith's undoing. While a couple had not hesitated to make the long journey to her hut to save a cow, they always waited until a daughter was at death's door before lifting a finger. This time it had been too late. Bith had tried, but the child had died within hours. The grieving parents had blamed the witch. She should have known. Her mother had warned her time and again that helping people always brought punishment. But she hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Here she was, fleeing for her life. Bith rose and pressed through the brush, uphill. It was very quiet up here, and there was no wind. Was the ravine closing in? The slopes at either hand were not just grass and leaves, but crumbly ledge. The sides were steep and not thirty feel apart. Maybe she'd pass through this cut soon, then she could run on the flat. Though she couldn't run much farther—she was almost spent. A lifetime of sailing a cockleshell on a lake and reading romances had not prepared her for a real outdoor life. She put her hand against one rocky slope for balance. It remained quiet. Had she lost them? She couldn't see very well. The sky was faintly luminous but this ravine was black as the inside of a bucket. Suddenly she bumped her nose into another rock wall. An outcropping? She groped with her hands. No, a turn in the wall. Then her heart sank. This was the head of the ravine. A rocky wall all around, a stone box. A dead end. The slopes had to be twenty feet high on three sides. The only way open was downhill. Bith jumped at the stone cage around her and found no purchase. Her fingers were too weak. And she couldn't see anyway. What to do? Jump like a mountain lion? Fly away? She almost laughed. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Nothing useful came to mind. Nothing. The slim giri fell to the ground and sucked air in great wracking sobs. She was trapped. Her captors might as well be running up a tunnel at her. Except they weren't captors. They would kill her when they caught her, probably tear her to pieces. They 4 RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE wouldn't even drag her back to the village to burn. Was that better? She doubled over, fear and fatigue overwhelming her. She hugged herself and sobbed. A horned owl brushed overhead with a hoo, startling her. Had she been asleep? Was that possible? Bith wiped her face with filthy hands and took a deep breath. She felt strangely better. She was all cried out. Did that mean she was ready to die? On the contrary, she was beginning to feel angry. Angry at these stupid, ignorant people who hunted her for no rea- son. The peasant girl had died this morning, true, but not from Bith's lack of care. She simmered with fury until her ears grew warm. She'd get them if she could, with the black- est magic she could conjure. But where were they? She cocked an ear down the ravine and listened. All was quiet. Crickets chirped far off, the last before the snow. Somewhere a badger hissed. The air was full of the smell of leaf mold and crushed teaberries and red sumac. Where was everyone? Bith rose softly and felt along the stone slope. No sound. Then she heard them. A thrashing of brush. The gut- tural growl of men after blood. And a new sound. Ha-rooooo! Hark. hark'. Ha-roooooo! Dogs! They'd brought up dogs' She was surely done for now. Never mind. There was one thing both men and dogs feared. And she'd teach them to fear a sorceress, too. She found a small overhang of rock and bumped her head getting under it. She felt in a pouch with delicate fingers and plucked out a'fuzzy lump that crackled under her fingertips. With the other hand she touched the bole of an oak tree per- haps a handspan thick. And she waited - . . As the darkness grew deeper and the sound of pursuit louder, Bith, daughter of Morea, thought of her old home and what it had meant. Her old home was a musty castle wreathed in mist. Lake water had stretched away behind the castle, and the front looked out over a hard expense of scrabble and low, tough bushes. Brimstone bubbled from fissures along the shoreline. Water leaked into all the lower rooms of her moth- er's castle. A rusty iron gate with iron spikes guarded the door. Every battlement had the cracked skull of an enemy mounted on it- That evil place had been her home for sixteen years. How strange that she had been content there. Would OUTCASTS 5 she rather be there right now? She couldn't say. How strange the way her mind worked, the mind of a spellcaster. No won- der mortals didn't understand them. They didn't understand themselves. Hark. hark! Rowf! The bark of the dog exploded almost under her feet. Bith saw a white branch whip aside, low down, at the height of a dog's shoulder. A growl sounded off to her left. There were two dogs. They stopped. Having found her, stood still and sounded. Ha-rooo! Rarf, rarf! Park rark, rark! In between calls the beasts snapped and snarled at her, foam splashing from their jaws. They kept her in place and notified their undeserving masters. The noise was ear-splitting in the narrow defile. Bith's hands were busy, as were her lips. She chanted, low and intense. Shouting oaths the crowd of men burst into the ravine. "There she is!" "Hold her fast!" "Don't let her get away!" Someone call...
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