Fantasy and Supernatural Novels by B.B. Walter

Years had passed since that day in the woods, and Sister Hathu was dozing peacefully for a moment in the quiet sunny room of the coven’s main house. Children large and small spoke in whispers allaround her as they engaged themselves in activities of their own choosing, careful not to wake the sleeping sister. A few played card games (although Hathu disagreed with such a thing), others painted or drew pictures on sheets of pressed parchment. A small girl spun on a loom in one corner, intent on making a colorful rug for her and her bunkmate’s sleeping chambers. An older boy, about thirteen in age, played a wooden flute softly, so as not to disturb the others. The melody he had chosen was sad but sweet. Almost every child in the room was paired with or audienced by other children.

Except for one.

A girl, slender of build, about fifteen, sat alone by herself next to a large open window. A soft breeze stirred outside the window and it lifted playfully at the wisps of hair escaping her thick braid. The young girl was sewing on the hem of a dress dyed a deep rich shade of emeralds. She pulled the needle and threads through the dress only half-concentrating on the task set before her. The thread glistened and winked gold with each pull in the sunlight. The rest of the girl’s attention seemed to be focused on a point in the southern hills just outside her window.

“Do you mind if I disturb your rest, Sister?”

The sound of the voice brought Hathu back from the verge of halfsleep, half-meditation she had been approaching, and she fully opened her eyes, looking up to greet the speaker.

The Priestess of Light stood before her, her aged face lit by a half smile as she looked down at Hathu’s sleep-fuddled person.

Hathu snapped straight, the sleep falling from her like a dead weight.

“Of course, Lady!” she exclaimed. “It would be an honor for you to sit a minute this day with me,” Hathu answered honestly, her voice eager. She gestured feebly to the seat beside her, and then moved a large cushion onto the wooden seat.

The older woman sat with a sigh of relief and leaned back in the wooden chair, her eyes partially closed.

Hathu slumped beside the woman, knowing that she herself looked more than twice her age of thirty, and now she sat beside the priestess, a woman who looked no older than forty, though she must surely be older than that.

“Have you been sleeping well, Hathu?” she asked softly, her tone warm and open to conversation.

Hathu gave the woman a startled look. She had not spoken to anyone about her sleepless nights of late, and she had made certain not to venture too frequently from her chambers should someone see her and begin questioning things.

“Don’t act so surprised. You do not become Priestess of Her Lady Light without knowing the ins and outs of every brother or sister beneath you, at least.” She paused, and Hathu absorbed her statement, then continued on. “Something particular bothering you?”

“Dreams plague me, that is all, Lady,” Hathu answered honestly, though not telling the woman everything.

“Ah,” the woman answered and fell silent.

Hathu watched the woman’s gaze travel the room, absorbing the happy sight of the children at play. Several of the children were new, as was the case of the girl on the loom, but she and the others had already began to make friends with the children who had been there longer. She knew that the Priestess could casually observe the circles of friendship as she scanned the recreational area that the coven’s orphanage had to offer.

Hathu’s own sights fell on the girl by the window, and she knew that the Priestess could see that the girl didn’t sit within any circles.

Either accidentally or deliberately, she knew not which, most of the circles were situated away from the girl as she sat sewing her dress.

“You dream of her,” the Priestess said bluntly.

Hathu knew of whom she spoke immediately.

“Sometimes, Lady.”

“She has grown into a fine young woman, and yet you are filled with fear.” The older woman turned to look at Hathu.

The younger sister knew how she must look, her face lined with age. It was true that most of the damage had been caused by hard work at the coven house, but the rest was worry and love that had helped age her beyond her years.

“Yes,” was the only reply Hathu could manage.

“Our own Lady Light healed the sick, wounded, and dying,” the woman began. “Yet you fear her gift, and not the Lady Light.”

Hathu sighed and touched her fingertips to her temples, massaging them absentmindedly. Realizing her actions, she calmly replaced her hands in her laps, clasping her fingers tightly together as if in prayer.

“Our Lady Light, Merciful Healer, Protector of Life, blessed the waters and land. She did not call lightning down out of the sky into a courtyard full of people,” Hathu answered quickly, her tone uneven and frightened. Hathu sighed as she heard the small murmur that rippled through the other children in the play area. She knew they all remembered and that the mention of it still made them uneasy.

Nearly a fortnight had passed since Rose healed the dying man who had made his way to the small convent. The Priestess herself had tended the man’s numerous wounds, but even her wizened healing and gentle touch could not bring him from the shroud of death that overlay his soul. The sisters had worked shifts trying to keep the man as comfortable as possible, feeding him poppy’s milk when the pain became too unbearable for him and his howls echoed through the halls of the coven’s stone passageways.

Rose had only been near the man when he first arrived, bleeding and dying from a hundred wounds and hardships. She had, like many other orphans, heard the story of the Kijack raiders. Neighbors in a kingdom across the waters, the hideous bird-like creatures attacked the man’s village, one of the small fishing town’s leagues south of the convent’s doors. The Kijack had hacked their way through the countryside, looting and raping, before finally making their way to the man’s village.

Man, woman, and child alike were the Kijack’s targets; they had no discrimination for sex or respect of age. Most of the men were used for the females’ entertainment, including the man himself. After the females finished with the men, they often released them into the wilds to be hunted like rabbits by hounds.

The men were lucky in comparison to the women.

Kijack males would first rape the women of the village, keeping some as slaves. Others, the ones who did not show signs of pregnancy, were slowly carved. They flayed them alive, their insides spilling into the dirt, whilst the women still drew breath. And, before death could overtake them, they would be placed then on blunted spikes, held aloft by only the “womanly part” and taken to the center of the village.

Then the dogs would be set loose to attack the spike. When it was knocked over, a meal was to be had for the dogs.

The injured man swore, tears streaming down his face as his voice rattled, that while the women were atop these poles they still lived.

The remaining women, those that had shown signs of pregnancy, were tortured mercilessly by the demon seed in them. It grew so quickly that they writhed in pain. All during this farce of life-giving the Kijack males still took their “turns” with the women. The women screamed in double torment as the monsters grew within their bellies and the Kijack filth raped them over and over. Several dozen, two or three times apiece, with one woman a night, he swore.

When asked if the women who had been pregnant lived, the man could not answer, only moan and wail, trembling so hard that his teeth chattered and he fell into convulsions.

The healer sisters had removed him quickly from the courtyard, restraining him so he could not cause further harm to himself. Sister Hathu had been one to help carry him to the infirmary. When she had returned seeking Rose she found that the girl had fled to her bedchamber and barred the door behind her.

No amount of pleading ended with Rose opening that door.

She remained that way for several weeks, taking none of the food or water left before her door.

Storms howled around the tiny coven’s small stone structures during those long weeks, and many of the sisters whispered that demons heralded the oncoming of the Kijack. They gossiped endlessly that the beats would slaughter them all. The Priestess had assured them that the storms were the Lady Light’s workings, that they were sent forth to cleanse the land of the corruption. To cleanse it of the evil of the Kijack.

However, Hathu had seen the doubt worrying the woman’s face as she had turned away from the other sisters.

The storms finally did lessen, then stopped entirely, and finally Rose, one bright day, had emerged from her chambers. She seemed no more diminished for her weeks of fasting than she would have if she had simply gone to bed the night before without supper. She did not, as a fact, even ask for breakfast when she emerged. Instead, she asked to speak to the “dying man.”

The two sisters posted to her door immediately showed her to the man.

The healers had moved his bed outside into the courtyard, during the daylight hours, into the sun, in hopes that the Lady Light might see to healing him Herself.

Rose wasted not a second.

She immediately began to cry softly as she grasped the man’s thin and frail hand in her two strong hands. This time there were no clouds, no storm, as though nature had depleted its reserve of them during the weeks past. But, just the same, a crackling tension filled the air in the confines of the courtyard and the sound of thunder rolled somewhere off in the distance.

Dozens of children, novices and sisters filled the courtyard, ringing Rose and the man, dying within his bed, in. The Priestess and Hathu arrived just moments before the blinding white light of the heavens flashed, striking Rose directly.

Hathu, and several others, cried out in fear, their wails loud and full of anguish, as the lightning receded from Rose, recoiling back into its place in the heavens.

The courtyard fell silent. Three sisters fainted from the stress; children sobbed in unknown terror. Everyone’s hair stood on end, and then the strained silence was penetrated by a single word.

“Water.”

Sisters, children and novices alike, those left on their feet, jumped miles into the air, it seemed, and several rushed, not a few bumping into one another as they went, to fulfill the man’s whispered desire. They all stopped, though, as Rose released his hand, laying it gently across his chest with a whimsical smile on her lovely features, and rose to her feet from the small wooden chair that the healers had been using to watch over the man.

With her eyes distant and crackling with energy, she made her way calmly to the dining hall and broke her weeks-long fast.

Not a soul, other than Hathu and Sielman, a young man living at the orphanage, and the Priestess herself had traveled within ten feet of the extraordinary girl since that fateful morning. She had spoken to none, as well, including those that would still speak with her.

The Priestess’ expression did not change at Hathu’s remark, but she did turn to look at Rose once more before facing Hathu.

“What is it that you fear, Hathu; her power?” the older woman asked in an uncertain tone.

Hathu sighed once more, her breath full of frustration but mostly sorrow, and slouched more than she already was. When she looked back at the Priestess’ face, her eyes were heavy with tears, her face seeming a thousand years old in an instant.

“Not her power,” she answered, her tone wavering, “her heart."