Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 01

After a short distance with Annikki almost cowering at Louhi's side, they saw a figure walking toward them, and in the glow of the flames reflected down from the clouds, Louhi knew who it was. Juhani was the son of the wealthiest landowner in the region, and this night he walked in a little confusion and some anger.

"Where is that priest?" he grumbled to himself, "It wasn't to have gone this way." He looked off to his right, "IF I knew where the priest was, I'd know where Father was, wouldn't I? I can't find ANYone here tonight."

Louhi felt Annikki trembling against her and she pushed the girl behind herself, pointing to the shadows of an overhang. Annikki wanted to tell Louhi that she knew that Juhani almost always wore armor of some sort as he swaggered around bullying people.

As Annikkii tried to slip away unnoticed, the motion caught Juhani's attention and he looked over. He recognized who it was who tried to get out of sight and he would have made a comment, but for the other figure standing there in the middle of the street.

He stared, trying to get a better look, not really believing what he saw there.

"There you are," he sneered, "the witcher's girl. Always gone and never brave enough to take what a man can give you.

Well? Do you like what was done? You and your kind are not welcome here, you barbaric she-beast. It was long past time to drive your kind away."

"You look for your father?" Louhi asked wanting to make it clear that there was no victory here for anyone without a cost.

She smiled, "He hangs from a hook at the butcher's place and flops like a caught fish."

"Here?

Here, Juhani?

Where is here? What is here anymore now? I did not come tonight to look at anything."

Her eyes began to glitter, "I came to take from you and others what was taken from me. I came to avenge the ones who were killed for little more than your cursed father's greed and your need to feel like a man when you stroke yourself."

She stepped forward and threw back her cloak so that the oaf saw the armor and the sword there.

"I have come to close your other eye for you this night, you stupid troll."

She pointed to the sky behind him and Juhani spun around as he saw the brighter glow. He gasped as a large fireball lofted away into the sky with a whooshing roar. He was still staring at it when he heard her cold voice again.

"Tell me, Juhani, where do you think that will come down? You are about to lose the very same things that I have lost."

The man spun around, "If that hits our home, witch," he said threateningly.

But Louhi laughed and tilted her head, "IF?

You look at me as though I send that. I do not. That comes from my father, who helped you when you were slow to walk and your mother grew concerned enough to bring you to him.

He told her that you would walk and talk when you were ready and that it would not be long. She was still worried and he made a tincture for you to sip.

You walked the next day. And yet, your mother has been one of the loudest voices to steal our land while calling it another thing. I can almost hear her from here. She hangs next to your father.

But I am not here for that."

She walked forward and her blade rang as she drew it. The long dagger came to her other hand the instant afterward.

"I came to test your sword arm."

Juhani spun again and tried to run, but after a few steps, he found that his armor had grown much heavier to him. He looked down, thinking to tear the chestpiece off, but he found that it had become a much thicker and heavier thing. He gasped and looked lower, seeing the heavy splint armor that he now wore instead of the studded leather. This was armor which even a wealthy man in a small place could not hope to afford to buy for his brute of a son.

There were no heavy plates, other than the breastplate. Everything else was protected by mail which covered the metal splints and gave the type its name. The full clanking suits were another few hundred years away yet.

All the same, it was heavy, and the mail which hung from the metal skullcap on his head caught his hair.

"Save your strength for me," Louhi said as she stepped forward again, "My gift to you takes much to move in and you waste what you have trying to run in something which was made to only walk in. Only a man can run for a short time in that. You do not fit the word."

He stopped and stared at her as she picked up a stone from the dirt.

"That is very fine armor," she said, "and it befits a true lord but not a churl such as you."

She flung the stone and Juhani flinched for no reason since the breastplate protected him easily.

"But see? You are no lord, for you quail." She walked up and held out her blade.

"Fight me, Juhani. Show me what little stones that you have and I might spare you alone out of all of the dead here. Your home is crushed now and what remains is burning. You have nothing now but what you wear and," she looked around, "no friends to laugh along while you bully people."

He raised his sword and Louhi stood to watch him.

"Too heavy, lord Juhani?" she asked mockingly.

"Try anyway. Your life hangs in my balance, merchant's son. You should try hard to make it good."

He raised his sword then and he swung, his eyes filled with rage.

She struck him three times before he'd even gotten his stroke stopped to try to swing again. She was careful though. She wanted to drive him by his false pride first. She blocked two of his strokes and each time, she slapped the mail which hung from his head with the flat of her dagger -- hard.

When the last of his little common sense left him, and before his bullishness did, he swung once more with all that he had behind it.

But Louhi danced back and the stroke almost passed by.

As it retreated away from her, her own blade took the sword and his new gauntlet and the mail glove and his wrist in one blow.

Juhani stared at the spurting mess where his hand had been and when he looked at Louhi, he found her a little closer with her hand held just a little away from his breastplate.

The breastplate began to glow and in a second, the rest of his armor began to glow with it.

Juhani screamed in pain and dropped to his knees before he toppled over backwards, a shrieking man burning alive inside a melting suit of mail.

Louhi looked for a moment until Juhani's struggled weakened and then turned even before the life was gone from the mess in the road.

Annikki looked just as frightened as she had cowering in the dark corner.

She held out her hand, "My only friend need not fear me, Annikki."

The girl nodded and looked to be having some trouble trying to get her legs to obey her mind for a moment, but at last she managed to stand and step out to come to Louhi's side.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked with a light quaver in her voice as they walked off.

"Nowhere that you do not wish to go, Annikki," Louhi said. "My horse is this way and it is time to leave. Unless I am wrong, you have even less here than I anymore, but I will share what I have with you."

They walked on past the burned wall and the flaming pyres until they came to the place where the horses were tied and Louhi handed her the spare cloak which she always traveled with in case it turned cold, and she offered her some meat and a crust of bread. The way that Annikki looked at what was held out to her, it was as though she couldn't believe what she saw. She took it and tried not to look too greedy as she began to eat.

"Why did you not buy some food with the silvers that Uncle Olaf gave you? I think that I would have at least done that."

The girl shook her head, "No one would sell me anything, Louhi. They said that I belonged with the others, dead inside the walls. One merchant said that he would sell me food, but when I handed him a silver, he forced my hand open and took everything and gave me no food. This is the first time that I have eaten anything since the night before this began."

She looked around in the darkness and appeared to be speaking to herself, "I do not know where to go now."

Louhi knelt before her friend, "You will come with me. I have little, but I have enough. I go to my grandmother's home. My mother and brother will be there in a day or so. Come with me, Annikki."

Annikki nodded, "Alright. I think that anything or anywhere must be better than here now."

"I think that it always has been,"Louhi said, "At least for the last few years."

When Gunnar walked to them out of the darkness, he was surprised, but very pleased that someone had survived who was known to him. Louhi explained that she was taking Annikki away and would reach his mother's place in a day or so, depending on how frightened the girl was over the ride. She turned then, "Do you know how to ride, Annikki? I ask because I cannot think of a time when I ever saw you on a horse."

"I never had a reason to get on a horse, Louhi, "she said with a shrug, "I was only a servant girl there. What will I do where we go?"

"Well, you will not be a servant girl," Gunnar said, "but at least you will be there and not here anymore."

He nodded to his daughter, "Go when you want to. I will follow in the morning."

He didn't need to say it, and his daughter knew what it was that he would remain there over the night to do.

There was no point in saying anything to the poor girl, but Gunnar intended to gather the bodies that he could to make one last pyre.

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It was a frightening thing for Annikki to think of getting onto a horse, but with gentle coaxing, Louhi managed to get her onto hers before she swung up behind her.

"Do not be afraid," she said quietly into Annikki's ear, "I will not let you fall off. Hold your cloak closed tightly to keep out the damp of the night."

When Annikki thought that she could gather up enough courage to try to leave while sitting nervously on the back of a large horse, she nodded and they plodded off into the night.

But as they went and as the smaller girl grew used to the motions, Louhi told her that they were going to go a little faster and not to worry. Annikki grew fearful regardless until she felt Louhi's arm around her as the pace quickened.

Annikki wondered why it was that they could go at such a pace -- which was not a walk to the horse, but also far from a gallop. It was just more of a jogging canter, but she didn't know how it was possible, since she could look away and stare all that she wanted to, but she could see nothing but black night around them.

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The next day, a pall of smoke hung over the village as the dogs and the wolves began to prowl through, looking for a meal.

After a long look around, Gunnar left and was in Northern Finland in seven hours.

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Not long before the dawn, Annikki was nodding out of weariness and it wasn't that Louhi held her tightly to reassure her friend or to keep her from slipping off. It was that she now needed to almost hold her up because she was losing the fight to her weariness. Since there was light outside of what they traveled through, Louhi caused it to thin and pass from sight a little slowly and by seven or so, she sidled her horse along and around a small lake to the opposite shore.

Annikki woke up then, "Where are we?"

"I do not know," Louhi smiled, "but I have seen no people for a little while now and I think you need a better place to sleep than me."

She told the girl to sit still and then she swung out of the saddle to stretch a moment before she helped Annikki down.

Annikki groaned as she stood a little unsteadily for a moment. "Thank you for all of this, Louhi. I cannot feel a thing between my legs and farther back, I can feel far too much, but thank you."

When they could manage it, the girls sat down under a tree and shared the rest of anything that there was to eat , but as much as Annikki seemed to want to appear pleased and chipper, Louhi thought that she had a notion of what had to lie not far below and so she was careful to allow Annikki only so much carefree attitude and joking.

Near noon, it grew warmer and they went for a short swim, mostly to get clean again. As they sat together on the bank afterwards combing out each other's hair with Louhi's comb, that was when Annikki's dam burst and she began to cry.

She wept over the deaths of her parents, mostly her mother; since she'd raised her and always loved her one mistake, as she told herself silently. Annikki wept for her father, because she knew that he'd loved her and had always sought to provide what he could for her and her mother. She wept for the others who had been cut down and murdered and she wept for lord Olaf, who had never been a real lord, though everyone saw him that way.

When she thought of how he'd sent her away to buy some wine - when Annikki knew that he never drank the stuff and only drank beer and ale - just to have an excuse for her to be away from what he must by then have known to be only an uncertain length of time away, Annikki bawled and couldn't stop.

Louhi was weeping herself, but she looked behind her at the tree there, so she reached for Annikki and pulled her close before she leaned back. The two held each other and cried for a long time.

When Louhi awoke, Annikki had slipped down a little and her face was against Louhi's breasts. Louhi eased her head back against the tree, not wanting to wake Annikki since she didn't know if her old friend had truly cried herself out yet. She only hoped that she had, but Louhi wasn't even sure of herself at that point.

But after some minutes, she felt Annikki's soft kisses there and she raised her head again.

"What are you doing, Annikki?"

The words came to her very quietly, "I am at least a little content," she sighed, "I owe you very much, since no matter how I think of it, you saved me last night. I do not know what will come now, but I feel some comfort like this, Louhi. Is it alright?"

Louhi sighed and nodded a little, "It is fine, Annikki, " she said as she raised her arms to hold Annikki and touch her head, "It makes me feel better too."

Annikki didn't want to move, and she didn't know what would be permitted, so she gently snuggled her head a bit more and she opened her mouth to take her friend's nipple in and suckle very gently for a few minutes.

They drew apart after a while and Annikki lifted herself up high enough to look into Louhi's eyes before she kissed her very softly, "Thank you for everything."

Louhi smiled and kissed Annikki back, "Thank you for what you did as well. We should leave soon, unless you wish to lie here with me forever."

Annikki shook her head, "Not forever, but it is a very nice thought all the same."

"Have you ever done anything with a boy?" Louhi asked and Annikki nodded, "Well, I have never done anything with a boy so much as I have had something done to me. I tried always to be quick, but even someone as small and fast as I am gets caught now and then. It felt nice sometimes, but not ever long enough for me, and anyway, I am just someone for them to catch and use. Then I must worry until I bleed again. That is how my mother came to have me.

I have fumbled a little with another girl, though," she admitted, "I liked it better. Girls seem to know that they want it to last at least a little longer. There is no big thing to stab you, but it is nice.

Have you? Ever been with a boy, I mean? Well, or a girl, now that we talk of it."

Louhi nodded, "Never with a girl, but I spent one night at it with an idiot a few days ago and it cannot have been very far from here at all -- since there he is there wanting to come over."

Annikki looked over and saw the young man, "He looks to be alright for it, I'll grant you, though he does not look to be too smart all the same."

Louhi sighed as she sat up a little more. Annikki was about to get off, but found Louhi's arm around her to keep her there.

"That one is not smart enough by half," she said, "I only picked him because I wanted to try to fuck with a man once. It was alright, but he thought it was the best thing and now when I thought that I was rid of him, he is back like housefly and about only as bright as he needs to be to keep me annoyed."

"There you are!" The fool began, "I thought it was you. And you have brought a frie-"

There was a flash from Louhi's palm and the man tumbled backward to land in a heap, mostly on his face.

"What was that?" Annikki asked in a startled voice as she looked around.

"Nothing more than my careful warning," Louhi smiled, "I reason that if I hurt him a little more each time, he will learn from it and leave me alone. Or maybe I should just kill him and have the trouble gone.

Could you, ... could you please kiss me again, Annikki? I liked it very much."

Hours later, after perhaps the most pleasant education that Louhi thought that she could ever imagine at Annikki's hands, they washed again and got dressed. Annikki had admitted to being very new to it as well, but she demonstrated that she had a very fertile imagination and anything that either one thought of was tried on them both.

They were about to leave when Annikki reminded Louhi about the young man who still lay in a pile on his face. She walked over and knelt to look at him.

He stared as she fitted the breastplate onto herself and fastened the closures.

"I, ... can't, ... move," he groaned into the grass.

Louhi nodded, "But at least you can breathe and you still live.

Now, fool, do you see at last how much I care for you? Is it enough to keep you away from me -- even if I am unlucky enough to be seen by you?"

"Was I that bad?" he asked the buttercup there in his field of view.

"No," she said, "not really. You were only selfish and you knew little more than I.

I made a bad choice in you, that is all. Now, please, ... try to find yourself a girl who might want you, and the next time -- if you ever have that much luck again, think to ask her what she would like. Learn of it that way, and you might become known as the sort of man that a girl might get to want in her bed quite a lot.

Oh, and bathe more often as well

Do not try to get up until you can no longer hear my horse's hooves, yes?

And if you cannot even get this one simple thing right, I will kill you, because I have no use for the useless."

She walked away to her horse and after getting Annikki up and then swinging up after her, Louhi called back.

"If you really cannot get me out of your mind, then try with one of your goats if you must."

He lay listening for a time and then he tried to move. The best that he could do at first was to lie on his front. After a while, he rolled over and began to pleasure himself, but by then, Louhi and Annikki were almost a league away.

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The next day, they all met up at the winter house and sat over a good meal to decide things. Gunnar and Margit wanted to go back to the mountains where they'd wintered for a few years long before, but Louhi had other plans, wanting only to see a little of the world.

Annikki said that although she had no value as anything anymore and certainly not a voice in their decision, she wanted to go with Louhi -- since she obviously felt that she owed her life to her in no small measure.

Louhi wept a little when she left her family three days later, expressing her desire to see them again one day.

Over the time and the traveling, Annikki learned to ride a horse and Louhi taught her what she could of fighting and - to their amazement and quite by accident (in a moment of panic), Annikki was found to have at least a little magical ability.

Which she'd demonstrated unwittingly by killing an assailant with a rock to the head from thirty yards moved by her fear and desperation alone.