Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

Sammang dropped his war ax and leaped to the wheel, turning the Girl so she was cutting across the rising swells, not lying helpless between them. Hairy jimm roared the men capable of moving into trimming the sails and getting the ship into order so she wouldn’t be broken by the coming storm. Brann and the children staggered along the deck, heaving Djelaan dead and wounded overboard. When that was finished, Brann stood a moment staring at her glowing hands, the wind whipping her white hair about, plastering her shirt against her burning body. With a sigh she went searching for crew dead and wounded. Zaj was dead, a small brown islander much like the men who’d killed him. She and the children carried him to the side wall of the cabin and lashed him there to wait for what rites Sammang and the others would want for him. She hurried back to kneel beside Dereech who had a flap of scalp hanging down over his face, deep cuts in his legs and shoulder. He stared up at her with his one clear eye, horror in his face as she reached for him, tried to crawl away from her but was too weak. When she flattened her hand on him, he froze, a moan dying in his throat.

From his place at the wheel, Sammang watched her and wondered what she intended, wondered if he should drive her off Dereech. What she’d done to the Djelaan she’d done to save her life and theirs, but the glimpses he’d caught of her work worried him. He liked and trusted the child in her, but didn’t know what to do about the witch. In the end, he did nothing.

She bent lower, smoothed her hand up along Dereech’s face, pressing the flap into place, her hands blurring in a moonglow mist. The bleeding stopped, the flap stayed put as if the mist had soldered it down. She pressed the other wounds shut, smoothed her hands over them, the glow shuddering about her flesh and his. The children stood behind her, their hands welded to her body until she sat back on her heels, finished with the healing.

Tik-rat had a spear through a lung. She burnt the spear, out of him, bone point and broken haft, close the wound and held her hands over it, a wound that was almost always fatal. Smiling Tik-rat was the ship’s bard, story teller and singer, the pet of the crew. Now all saw her clean and close his wound, saw the boy’s chest begin to rise and fall steadily and smoothly. Our witch, she’s our witch. A whisper passing round. Our child-woman witch, Sammang murmured to himself. The children with her, she moved on to Rudar, then Uasuf, left them sleeping, their wounds closed, cleaned, healed.

She went briskly over to Hairy Jimm, who jumped when she touched him, looked uneasy and dubious as she began moving her hands over his meaty body, touching, pressing, the mist moving with her. After a minute of this, though, he grinned and stood holding his arms out from his body as if for a tailor taking measurements. When she finished, he patted her on the head. “Any time, our witch.”

She went on, the children following close behind. Tun-ope, Leymas, Gaoez. Healing the smallest cuts, the scrapes and bruises, even a blood-blister on Turrope’s little finger. Then she came toward Sammang.

She looked very tired, haunted by all the dying, her face pale in spite of the eerie glow that shone out through her skin. “Your turn, Sammo. Give over the wheel a minute; you might find this a bit distracting.”

Hairy Jimm boomed laughter, shouldered Sammang away from the wheel. “Distractin’s not the word, no not the word.”

She touched the cut in Sammang’s side. He felt a jolt, then a tingle, then coolness, a new vigor coursing into him. Her strong nervous hands moved along his body and all the hurts and scrapes of the fight were wiped away. And he understood the look on Jimm’s face. He was tumescent before she was half done, ready to take on a harem and a half when she stepped away from him.

She smiled uncertainly at him, met his eyes briefly, blushed, turned hastily away to the hatch.

A bit of hard work and some douches of icy sea water from the building waves cooled him down. He glanced at the sun and was startled to see how little it had moved. Less than an hour since the fighting started. He shook his head, feeling a touch of wonder at how much had happened in that pinch of time. Two dead. But because of the child-woman and the not-children the wounded lived and were well, neither maimed nor disfigured. He lifted his head and laughed. “Our witch,” he shouted, laughed again at the cheers from the three now awake. He began a rumbling song, Hairy Jimm took it up, all of them roared it into the wind as they settled the Girl for the blow coming.

SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT Sammang stumped wearily into his cabin. A nightlamp was hanging from a hook by his hammock. Brann was curled in the bed, half-covered by a blanket, her flesh faintly glowing in the darkness. Her eyes were closed and for some time he thought she was asleep; he pulled off his shirt, started to unlace his trousers, thought about the sleeping witch, and decided he could stand the damp if he kept himself warm. Eleven, eleven, eleven, he told himself; his mind believed it but his body didn’t. He started to swing up into the hammock, couldn’t resist another look at Brann. She was curled on her right side now watching him. Her face was pale and drawn, huge eyes, dark-ringed, asking him… He turned his back on her, climbed into the hammock, flipped the blanket over him and settled himself to sleep.

Much later he woke, knowing something had roused him from sleep, not knowing what it was. He listened to the ship, nothing there. Slowly he became aware of a sound almost too soft to hear, faint rhythmic creaking, soft soft rustles.

Brann lay curled up, her back to him; the children were somewhere else, doing whatever shapechangers did at night. She was sobbing and the shudders that convulsed her body were shaking the bed. He scowled at her, hesitated, tipped out of the hammock and padded the few steps to the bed. He touched her shoulder. “Bramble?”

She buried her face in the pillow. The shaking went on; she was gasping and struggling to stop crying, unable to stop the shudders coursing through her body.

He caught her shoulder, pulled her over, examined her face. She was crying with the ugly all-out grief of a wounded child. He straightened, looked helplessly around, cursed the children for leaving her in this state. Finally he gathered her up, holding her tightly against him, patting her, smoothing his hand over her hair and down her back, over and over, murmuring he didn’t know what to her; her shudders and wrenching sobs died gradually away.

For a while she was just a child he was comforting. Insensibly that changed, pats changed to caresses. He forgot the child in the woman’s body-until he suddenly realized what he was doing. He pulled away from her. “You’ll be all right now,” he said when he could get the words out. He started to get up but her hands closed about his arm, pulled him down beside her.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please.”

“Brann…” He touched her face, drew his hands down over her shoulder and onto her breast. Her eyes widened, her tongue moved along her lips. She sighed and her breast shifted under his hand, tfie nipple hard as he was. He pulled his hand away.

“No,” she breathed.

“Got to,” he said; he tore at the lacing on his trousers, breaking the thongs in his urgency.

She was warm and wet and ready for him, closing tightly about him, passive at first, then doing what her body taught her. When it was finished and he lay beside her, his breathing quieting, she snuggled against him, sighed, a sound of deep contentment, and went to sleep.

HE WOKE WITH a numb arm and white curls tickling his chin, sunlight pouring through the slats of the airvent, lay a moment listening to the sounds of the ship. The wind had slackened to a brisk quartering breeze that drove the Girl steadily along without straining her.