Water Witch Read Online Free PDF Page A

brother, and stomp on a stray foot with his. Add to the fact that Alaysha
could drain the beast of all fluid and it sensed that danger. Add to the
tension the beast felt from her father's very real, but checked hostility. The
cipher made for dangerous territory.
    Yuri reached across both mounts, stretching
toward the basket. "How many?"
    She unleashed the basket from Barruch's
saddle and pulled out the pouch, handed it by its lashings to her father.
"Eighteen pairs."
    Yuri's fair face flushed red.
"Eighteen?" He grabbed the handle and twisted to shake it at Drahl.
"Eighteen pairs."
    Drahl hung his head but said nothing.
Alaysha wasn't sure what the trouble was.
    "I collected them all, Father. Even
the children's."
    He didn't sound as though he believed her.
"All, you say." He opened the top and rooted around within as though
he could tell one shriveled eye from another, as though the contents weren't
thirty-six eyes at all, but a benign collection of baubles. "All, you
say." He withdrew his hand and yanked the pouch closed, then tossed it to
Drahl.
    "Tell her, Drahl."
    "There were to be nineteen dead."
    "Nineteen," Her father repeated.
"Now tell me, where is the last?"
    She swallowed hard. "The last?"
    "You counted eighteen and there were
to be nineteen. Where is the last?" He enunciated very clearly, very
slowly, almost as though he thought she was stupid. But she wasn't stupid.
Anxious, maybe. But not stupid.
    "One woman was with child, but
eighteen is all I killed, Father."
    "Don't call me that," he said so
matter-of-factly she wasn't aware of the venom in his tone at first. "I
may have stolen your mother for my pleasure, but that doesn't make me your
father. It makes me your Emir."
    "Yes, Fa… yes, Yuri, Conqueror of the
Hordes." Best to use his formal name, the one he prided himself on.
    "It makes you my tool."
    She nodded. She wouldn't react. He was
angry, that was all. He always got this way when he was angry. Always trying to
hurt her, to goad her. To test her. She would not react.
    "Yes, Yuri."
    "Where is the nineteenth?"
    She wouldn't look at him. He would know if
she showed him her eyes. "I killed only eighteen." It was true,
wasn't it? He couldn't accuse her of lying.
    He swore and pressed his mount closer.
Barruch grew agitated. He stomped and writhed under her hold.
    "I know you killed eighteen,"
Yuri said. "For if you had killed one more, I would have nineteen sets of
your seeds."
    He pressed so close Alaysha could smell the
onions on his breath, the cactus wine he drank before each battle. She had to
work to keep Barruch from rearing.
    He pressed his spur into her bare shin and
twisted. She gasped.
    "There is no nineteen."
    He glared at her, his blue eyes like chunks
of hail and for a second she thought she'd like to melt the ice, drain it from
him, taste the wet --
    "Don't even think it, witch," her
father said and she lost the thirst so fast she could taste the desert on her
tongue.
    "I'm sorry, Father."
    He let the title slide, but he seemed to be
considering it. Finally, he addressed Drahl, who had dismounted and was
standing with his feet apart, the leather riding breeks buckled at the knees.
    "Your scouts were wrong."
    "I scouted the village myself."
    "Then you were wrong."
    Drahl kept the flint of his eyes cast
downward and his thick lips pressed firmly together, but his posture argued
with Yuri in ways his words would never dare. He opened his mouth once and then
clamped it shut, considering. Then, he changed tack. "Perhaps the
nineteenth was away during the attack."
    Yuri rubbed his broad thigh in thought.
"Perhaps," he said after a while. "Then we need to find out who
was missing." He glanced at the basket of seeds. "That will be
useless."
    He turned Alaysha. "What of the
bodies?"
    She relayed what she could remember leaving
out the information of the tattaus and the man in the oasis.
    "Three crones you say?" His face
lit up at the news. "Three?" He repeated, holding up his fingers.
"You're