Daughter of the Witch Wood

05.

Dark Schemes and Dark Magic

"

San

!" The sound of the man's voice was so rough and ragged that it seemed more like a snarl. Of course, given who was speaking, that was a more accurate description than most. "Damn it, woman, where are you?"

"Down

he-e-ere

, Ustal," San said in a sing-song tone, not looking up from her work. "Where else would I be?" It was damp and dark in the little underground dwelling that had been dubbed her "lair"; the surroundings suited her more than somewhere out under the sun. It was built in a natural hollow beneath the roots of a

sogut

tree. The walls were of thick earth, black and heavy, with thick tree roots cutting through them, sometimes stretching over her head from wall to wall. She'd hung clay bowls of bioluminescent lichen from the most convenient-to-reach places, filling the earthen chamber with a blue-green light.

The underground chamber was only accessible by way of hanging vines and climbing down a set of half-buried boulders like a set of steps. Ustal was a hulking brute of a man who didn't normally like to come into her little work space, but she heard grunting and the sound of vines creaking and cracking from his weight, followed by a heavy thud when he landed on the dirt floor. "You've been down here all night," he growled—everything Ustal said was a growl.

San didn't turn around. She was standing at a flat stone set against the dark earthen wall, bending over her work, which she cut at with a knife chipped out of black flint. "You made it quite clear that you needed more soldiers, so I've been working." Her hands were wet, so she rubbed out an itch at the tip of her nose on her bicep. It allowed her to look over her shoulder, giving the man a welcoming smile and a playful shake of her naked ass. "Did you miss me?"

Ustal grunted an affirmative. He was not a handsome man—his nose was too wide, too flat; his brow was prominent, and his beady eyes shone in the shadows. He was a man almost as wide as he was tall, stocky, thick from his wide neck all the way down to his flat, bare feet. He was covered in course, black hair; his manhood hung soft and heavy between his legs. "I also came to check on your progress."

"So sweet of you," San said before she went back to her cutting. Her work was nearly finished, but the effort of sawing with the ragged edge of her knife was still intensely physical. She was coated in crimson from her fingertips nearly up to her elbows, and more was spattered across her breasts and collarbone; aside from her stained hands she was slick with sweat, and her hair stuck to her face, neck and back. Her

kollik,

made of polished black stones, finger bones and a sharpened piece of flint swung back and forth against her tanned chest.

She felt as much as heard Ustal walk up behind her, so heavy were his steps. He towered over her, black and immense, and the weight of his hands on her shoulders could've made her knees buckle. He bent over her, watching her work, his breath soft and warm in her hair. She felt the sheer bulk of his body, the greedy way he pressed into her. "Looks like you're nearly finished."

"And with three more for the cooking fires," she said, nodding her head to the shadows near the rocks—three still shapes lay there, unmoving, waiting for his warriors to come down and fetch them. "This one..." San grimaced, hacking away at a last bit of resistance. "...is almost..." There was a hard, meaty

crack

of a noise. "...done!" The witch grinned in triumph, setting her knife down and lifted her precious prize out of the opening she'd made through an effort of sweat, toil and a great deal of blood.

A human heart sat pillowed in her cradling fingers, dripping with the spilled blood its host no longer required. It filled her small hands, and San could sense the lingering warmth and life of its former owner—just who he'd been or what his name was, she neither knew nor cared. "Isn't it beautiful?" she whispered. The sound of flies buzzing in the air was louder than her words.

Ustal grunted again, squeezing her sore shoulders. He pressed up against her, bending down, his mouth hovering next to her ear like a predator leering over his prey. "Well done, my dear," he said.

"Why thank you, Papa Bear." He was three times her age, practically an old man amongst the beast tribes of the Wood, but Ustal hadn't come to power and held onto it this long without proving just how strong and cunning he could be. There were some of the bears who questioned the wisdom of their chief mating with an outsider, and San didn't trust any of them to accept her as one of their own—she had to keep Ustal completely enthralled, whatever the price required of her. Playing to his vanity and protective, possessive nature cost her nothing, and the young witch

did

enjoy his company, after a fashion.

San turned and carefully rested the heart into a larger bowl, where three more were already waiting, half floating in a mess of fluid and congealing blood. "Once I've completed the ritual, that'll be four more invincible soldiers for the tribe, and we'll one step closer to our victory, won't we?" She pulled away from his hands, leaving both her lover and the lifeless corpse as she washed herself in a basin of cloudy water—it'd been clear when her work began.

"Do you require anything besides the bodies to be removed?" Ustal knew little of magic or how it worked. He cared only about results, and the proof of her spells was shown in the shining eyes of his soldiers—once ensorcelled, they were unstoppable, possessing the strength of two or three bear-men at a time, and were also completely obedient to their chieftain's commands. The bear-man chieftain kept the little witch woman with him because she brought him victories. San had no illusions that she was any more valuable than that, although...perhaps she had

some

additional value to him.

Turning, letting him watch in the pale green light, she cupped several handfuls of warm water and began to pour them down over her sleek, naked flesh. It cooled her, and Ustal got to watch as rivulets slithered over her breasts, down her belly and hips, trickling into the dirt between her toes. Picking up the single horse-tail of hair she'd tied behind her back, San held it aloft while rubbing at her blood-spotted skin, making sure he saw every caress and tender stroke, bathing for him without being bidden to. "I missed you last night," she said, her voice becoming softer, smaller, just the way she knew he liked it. "Will I see you when I return to our den later?"

Ustal's reaction was immediate, so much so that she could see it happen in real time: his breathing quickened, his fingers twitched, he straightened in his stance. The look he gave her was hungry—a predator's gaze; she expected his pupils were even dilating. His cock gave a twitch like a living thing.

The man was

so

easy to predict.

"I missed you too. I'll definitely be looking for you, be sure of that."

Still dripping, San walked back to Ustal. As she slid one hand up his chest, craning her neck to look him in the eye, her other hand came to rest between his legs, cupping his cock in her small hand, giving his hardening flesh a slow, firm squeeze. "Do you promise?" she said, licking her lips, as if she planned to go to her knees and take him in her mouth right there.

His dick jumped so hard in her hand it almost made her giggle. "Oh

yes

," he said, his voice as deep as though he was swearing an oath to her. "Count on that, my girl."

The warm heat between San's legs came with a tingling promise of desire, a reminder that her cunt needed what Ustal could provide. San gave a shivering little sigh that was, in fact, heartfelt as she released his thickening flesh. "I'm looking forward to it, Papa Bear." She smiled and stepped back. "I'll finish the ritual now. Send your warriors down for the meat once I'm done, please." No reason not to be polite, after all.

Ustal gave another growl that sounded a touch frustrated, but he nodded, turned and began to climb again. San's standing instructions were that no one was to bother her while she enchanted the hearts that would give the warriors their unholy strength, and Ustal was up and out of her work space in moments.

San spoke a series of sounds that, to untrained ears, would be a painful mouthful of gibberish. "

Kis iben, Nerilein Kyub Sritan!

" Her vision turned green and she felt a violent trembling in her limbs, so strong that she almost fell over; she grabbed the stone edge where the dead body lay and shuddered, opening her mouth as

something

invisible invaded her body: every hole, every orifice she had swelled and stretched for a moment as the power of

kar

filled her. She imagined how she must look like, bent bent over and fucked like a doll by some unseen figure that could—and sometimes did—lift her right off the ground from the force of it.

It was the most violent, violating and pleasurable sensation San ever remembered feeling in her life, and it was good every time. Ustal was a skilled partner, but he was no match for the power of an undying god. Tears slid down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold herself upright as her god commenced their union.

Kar

was the magic of the deeps, of immortal power contained under the earth for untold thousands of years. Any witch, if she wished it, could call upon deep magic, but most were too weak of will or short-sighted to give themselves to it. Being a witch woman was supposed to mean independence, controlling one's own destiny, or so San's old tutors had told her. She simply took that independence to the next level, granting herself access to power greater than what they thought she should have.

San had

ambitions

. Shackling her fate to a greater power, whatever form he might take or power he possessed, was worth the risk. The price of beseeching that power was a steep one, but she would do it a thousand times over, if necessary.

When San came, it was brutal and short, flickering right on the edge between pain and pleasure—she threw her head back and shrieked, hearing it echo in the confines of her little lair, making sure to let it out as loud as she could. For one, she knew the bear-men were already frightened of her and her powers, so her screams would keep them away and cut down on the chance of someone spying on her. It also just felt better to scream when she climaxed—she didn't need a better reason than that.

When the pleasure and pain faded, the chaotic power of

kar

felt like a second heartbeat in her chest. San shuddered, opened her eyes, watching the world through a green haze as her god's magic filled her. She pushed up to standing again, but now she felt as strong and renewed as ever. San grabbed the butchered corpse and lifted it over her head with no more effort than it would've taken to pick up a dead child. She threw it onto the pile of waiting bodies to be fetched later by whichever of the bear-men had drawn short lots to be assigned to guard her.

With that complete, she picked the hearts out of the bowl and laid them all out in a line, four in a row. They were all roughly the same size, since the spoils she'd been given were three grown men and one woman. None of them were wolf-blooded, mores the pity—not because they made the spell anymore effective, but simply because cutting one of the Kelash to pieces would've made her so very happy. She usually didn't know or ask where Ustal got the sacrifices she required—transients, travelers, spoils of war on witch women or human villages—and San didn't see any reason to care.

She spoke more words—"

Kverme amazdurl cugu

"—and waved her hands over the hearts, first in one direction and then the other, to seal the power into the chosen vessels. Any body part could do—a hand, a foot, the brain—but Ustal was leading an army of men, and containing the power in the heart felt poetically appropriate in her mind.

The dark lumps of flesh began to glow with a greenish hue, the same color as the glowing light in her den, the same hue that always showed when

kar

physically manifested itself. It gave the detached bits of muscle a desaturated, ugly hue as the light spread over the surface, turning them black like burnt meat. Bits of clinging blood sizzled and spat, burning away with oily smoke before they vanished.

When the incantation was complete, four black hearts remained, as dark and foul as if San had dug them up from out of the heart of the world itself. She was satisfied, spoke a silent prayer of thanks to the deeper powers, and let their magic go. She sighed, feeling the pressure inside of her release, the sense of fullness fade away.

All four hearts began to beat in unison together—silent, save for a soft whistling noise of air caught and expelled. She felt them writhing in her hands as she picked them up, pulsing with the power of her god as she placed them back in the dirty bowl. She took care to keep them far away from the bowl of water that she rinsed herself in a second time, after the ritual was complete—washing the hearts would've fouled the enchantment and she'd have to start all over again.

With her work finished, San took hold of the vine-ropes and began to climb her way out of her little lair. She wanted a more thorough bath before heading back to Ustal's den, where it was more likely than not that he was already waiting for her. If she wanted any sleep tonight, she needed to tend to him sooner rather than later.

The children of Bhalot were semi-nomadic, and this tribe of bears were more solitary than most. They did travel some during the hot months of the year, then retired to a more-permanent home deep within the Witch Woods during the rainy season, near the end of the year when it was simply warm as opposed to hot and much, much more humid.

It was a turn of good fortune that Ustal's spies had spotted the nearest wolf-man tribe camping near the bear's ancestral hibernating grounds. He summoned the entire tribe home in preparation of his army marching to war in one, final battle to crush the wolf-men and capture their women. It warmed San's heart in all sorts of interesting ways to know the majority of the She-Wolf children would be finished off before much longer.

The bears had settled in their winter dens around a great rock near an enormous waterfall. At the apex of the falls, the water had worn away at a huge stone until it was said to resemble the head of Bhalot herself, the She-Bear who'd birthed the bear-men in ages past. It was a holy place to Ustal and his ilk. Trees grew thick around and in places right up to a great pool at the base of the falls, before the water passed into a river that cut and meandered a long path through the forest, all the way to the human-controlled lands beyond.

There were more than three or four men for every woman at camp, and the bear-men guarded their women carefully. Bear-men generally liked fucking as much as any other male would, and the women who didn't manage to escape were pressed into caring for the cubs whelped by the entire tribe in-between having to entertain whatever man took a liking to them. The women were humans, abducted or taken by any number of means and forced into the pack. San, as the solitary witch woman, walked about freely and without fear. Bear-men were proud, at times brave to the point of foolishness, but none of them were foolish enough to waylay a witch if they wanted to live for very long.

San stepped into the cold waters of the pool and washed herself clean, scrubbing hard at her bloody arms until her skin stung and the flesh was spotless. She sank into the pond and dunked herself under her surface, coming up with a loud gasp that echoed off the rocks—the sensation was delicious, but still so very

cold

. Up above her, in the rocks and stones about the falls, she saw people staring at her—most of them stared for a few moments and then vanished; some gave her dirty or threatening looks, but soon, they were gone as well.

San didn't care how anyone looked at her, she cared how they

acted

around her. She was, without a doubt, the smallest woman in the camp—her hips were narrow; breasts small, hardly with any curve at all, nipples small and tight; she was small and her pussy smooth by choice, as that was how her hairy mate preferred it. Everyone knew who San was and they gave her the respect she demanded, which was what mattered.

When her bath was done, San climbed out, wrung her hair out as best she could, then took a detour on her way back to Ustal's den—no one followed her and no one was watching, she was sure of it. Climbing to the highest place in the falls, taking care with the slippery footing, she passed her mate's den and walked out further onto the stone ledge and into the shadows where the trees were thickest, stretching up like tall, bony fingers into the evening sky.

"It'll be dark soon," she said, seating herself on a flat stone on the very edge of the precipice, letting her small feet dangle into the empty air. The ground was a good distance down, and if San fell she'd have crushed herself on the rocks below.

"Night always comes eventually," came the answer. The man's voice was as dark as the night he spoke of, yet also as smooth as a touch of moonlight. San was instantly wet when she heard it. The memories that came with that voice...she shuddered and resisted the temptation to open her legs, to brush her fingertips across her cool, tight lips.

"I came last night to find you," she said, letting the pouring water mask the sound of her voice. There wasn't another den within a stone's throw of where she sat, save her own, and Ustal knew nothing about her visitor. "You weren't here." She fought to repress the anger and disappointment in her voice.

Her visitor knew her too well. "It couldn't be helped," he said, almost cooing in an attempt to soothe her. "I was gone then; I'm here now. When will your man and his warriors move against the wolves?" The speaker hated calling Ustal her mate and refused to acknowledge the bear-man as such.

"Soon, I think," she said, looking out over the tops of the trees. The Witch Wood stretched on forever, green and brown and black in every direction. "A few more days, a few more sacrifices, and he'll be ready to move."

"Very good, San." Three simple words, but the sound of the man's pleasure made her heart leap with delight. She smiled, fought down the urge to laugh with pleasure.

"Thank you. Are you proud of me?" she said, throat tightening as the prospect of what he might say.

"I am," he said. "I'll show you how much soon. I promise."

San bit her lip, squeezing her thighs tight together and moaned, unable to help herself. The figure gave a chuckle that sent a wave of something hot shooting off in her belly. At this rate, she'd be sitting in a pool of her own making before long.

"You love to tease me," she said.

"Of course. Are your other preparations made?"

San scoffed. "I have Ustal bound to me so tight I don't

need

preparations. But," she continued, "yes. I shall meet you at the chosen spot if things for the bears go badly."

"Good girl."

Those two words made her heart start pounding and her nipples tighten; she took a breath. "I missed you last night." They were the same words she'd said to Ustal, but her heart was in them this time, such a longing and craving that she could barely stand it.

Looking around, San made sure no one was watching, which was simply paranoia on her part; she'd checked that this spot was hidden the same day she'd come to that place. Turning to face the thicket for the first time, she opened her legs wide, reached down between them with both hands and spread her pussy open wide for him, wide enough that she wanted him to see every glistening fold and crevice. "

This

missed you," she said in a breathy whisper, knowing he could still hear her. "And I know you missed having it, too."