Time of The Witches

The snow crunched underfoot like fishbones crunching on teeth. Crunch-crunch-crunch. Step by step – the farther into the forest, the deeper the snowdrifts. Behind Alrik his own footprints were buried in white, and ahead was a virgin expanse. If hunters have passed through here, their path has long been covered with snow.

According to the laws of the community, Alrik did not take a torch with him. The pale light of the moon wandered between the trees, turning into brisk shadows. They whispered as they told Alric of exploits, gray seas, and shining steel hardened by the blood of their enemies.

But not about the glorious battles Alrik dreamed under the shadow of the night forest, not the halls of Valhalla beckoned him, not allowing him to fall into the abyss of fear. Alric was clutching a log to his chest, the largest he had managed to get, making his way through the thicket in search of fire.

Suddenly, a firefly flared up and darted around from the side – a tiny ball, no more than a spark from a fire, but Alric made out it in the prickly darkness of the spruce forest. A moment later, a brother joined the firefly – the golden afterbirth of a wild flame, and then another and another.

Gradually gaining heat, they were filled with red, like apple sides in autumn. Warmth breathed into Alrik’s face, ruddy from the cold and the long journey.

“You can stop, traveler, you can take a breath,” the sleepy forest whispered, but Alrik knew he had to move on.

An invisible conflagration enveloped the thicket: it crackled, gurgled, clicked from all sides. Night predators, tawny owls, alarmed and frightened, began to bawl, as if someone was trumpeting for battle.

Elnik attacked with fire. Alric took a deep breath, hooted back three times as his brother had taught him, and suddenly realized that he was standing in the middle of a clearing that appeared out of nowhere. It lit up with orange heat, and immediately voices fell from the rowan branches.

Voiced and resonant, tender and rough, young and old, creaky and shrill – the coven came to the call.

“Who wanders around here in the long night?” — The old witch was walking through the snow. Her appearance was different from the human one: spruce paws grew on her head instead of hair – intertwining with each other, they looked like a wonderful crown.

From under a piece of sackcloth, designed to serve as a dress, bare arms and legs stuck out. They were covered with tree bark, smoldering right before our eyes – the smoke rose up and disappeared into the icy air. The upper lip barely covered the yellow animal fangs, and flames danced in the eyes.

Alric tightened his grip on the log and answered, swallowing a lump of fear of the unknown:

Alric, son of Klaus.

“Why did you come, Alric, son of Klaus?” the witch asked, coming quite close. So close that Alrik could feel her warmth and the smell of burnt wood.

“I came for living fire!”

The voice of the young warrior covered the glade, like a wave covers the water surface. The witch burst out laughing. Her laughter – exactly like a bird’s call – was picked up by the others.

Their bodies separated from the forest, gathering in a flaming circle. Crimson sparks rose into the blackness of the sky. The witches croaked and grunted, closing the ring like a huge fire that could devour everything in its path.

“Do you know, Alric, son of Klaus,” laughter fell to the ground with a last hoot, “how they pay for a living fire?”

Alric didn’t know, but everything inside him went cold, as if it wasn’t the fire of overheated bodies that approached him, but an icy wind blew from the sea.

“Life for life, life for life,” was heard from all sides. The witches beat the rhythm of the sentence in a frenzied dance. – Life for life!

Alric grabbed the log with all his might. According to the laws of the community, he was unarmed. Every year, a unanimously elected husband went out in search of a log in the long night.

Every year he returned with fire, without saying a word about what happened in the forest. Had the witches changed their minds and Alric had to die?

Life for life, life for life. – Getting closer and closer. The coven filled the clearing with sparks and crackles.

Will the Valkyries take away a warrior who has fallen at the hands of a witch? Alrik could not imagine a worse death than to perish forever under a thick layer of snow in the forest, unknown, forgotten by everyone.

“Life for life! the chief witch proclaimed, retreating towards her sisters.”

Alric closed his eyes.

“A life for a life,” a voice came from very close. So beautiful, gentle and melodious that Alrik shuddered involuntarily and opened his eyes.

The girl stepped forward. She was not like the others: horns did not grow on her head, and her skin had not yet turned into a bark. Bright sparks played in her honey-colored hair. And only the eyes, shining with living fire, betrayed the true nature.

Alrik, fascinated and amazed, froze, his mouth gaping in amazement. He seemed to stop breathing, so beautiful was the witch.

She approached, continuing to repeat the sacred words, and … kissed the young warrior. In surprise, he dropped the log.

The witch’s kiss swept through his entire being: his knees trembled and buckled, his lips burned, and his heart began to beat as if not a green spruce surrounded Alrik, but a battlefield.

The witch’s caftan, embroidered with golden threads, fell at her feet with a soft rustle.

“A life for a life,” she repeated again.

“I am old,” said the chief witch. Her voice snapped Alric out of his daze for a moment. “I have to die, live young, and be born new. This is our time – the time of the witches! Do what you came for, Alric, son of Klaus!

The coven began its song again: it floated overhead, carried away into the starless sky, filling the taiga silence. Everything that happened next seemed to Alrik a dream.

The most wonderful dream he’s ever had. Alrik had only been with a woman once, but that was a savage in the occupied land. Now the real element of nature lay before him, a power to be reckoned with.

All feelings were sharpened when the naked witch laid the warrior on her shoulder blades, climbing on horseback, like a Valkyrie on a winged stallion. The fur cape, thrown aside, seemed to the foggy mind a wild beast that came to stare at the triumph of the flesh.

Wet snow piled up behind the collar of his shirt, but Alrik did not feel the cold. His hands gripped the witch’s hot thighs. The heat from his palms rose up to his throat.

Before my eyes, as if behind a veil of rain, the tops of centuries-old fir trees circled. They tore apart the blackness in the light of sparks flying in all directions from the long witch’s hair.

Alric could smell the sweat, the sun, and the tight ears of wheat. The witch smelled of summer, and the warrior believed that there would be summer. The long night will end, day will come to replace it. The earth will warm up, and a new beginning will break through into the world from it.

The monotonous rumble of the witch’s song and the howling of the wind began to pick up pace, accelerating along with the lovers. Alric, unable to contain the storm of passions, groaned as if from wounds. The witch bent down and, clinging, gave the warrior another kiss.

Alrik reached out for the elusive warmth and sweetness of his lips, but his eyes widened in horror. Instead of a beautiful face, Alrik suddenly saw an old, scab-covered witch.

Then another – with long crooked horns, a third, a fourth. The images changed like the wind in the sea. The whole coven was at that moment a single entity.

Alrik, wanting to dispel the confusion, picked up the hot body and turned over so that the witch was under him. Gasping in surprise, she still did not resist.

Power seethed in his blood, and the coven greeted that power, singing louder and louder. Alric tensed and trembled like a flag trembling at the mast. Datura left his body along with the seed.

The witch’s pale skin suddenly shone as if a living flame had spread underneath it.

“What is your name?” Alrik whispered in a barely audible voice, leaning over the witch.

“Lita,” she replied with a chuckle.

Lita…

“Get up, Alric, son of Klaus!” – like a thunderstorm, the voice of the head witch rumbled. Alrik obediently got up, adjusting his clothes: the fur cape returned to his shoulders, and the log in his hands. You deserve your fire!

Lyta, still naked, stood in front of her and smiled triumphantly, as if it was her victory. She extended her hand in front of her and closed her eyes. The features of his face were sharpened in tension.

The coven froze, waiting for the blessing of the gods on this long night. Lita unclenched her fist and a second later a timid light flared up in her palm. At first it seemed to Alric not real, a golden beam of light, just a crumb, and then it began to grow, taking on form and essence.

The flame was drawing out Lita’s radiance, absorbing her energy, her life. When it turned crimson, purple and blue, and firefly sparks flew in all directions, Lita went out.

She sent her gift through the air, blowing it from the palm of her hand, and a light, like a hungry barbarian pounced on a log. Alrik shuddered, but did not remove his hands – the live fire did not burn at all, warm rough tongues licked the skin.

Alrik watched the real miracle in rapture. Lita, like a sack stuffed with straw, collapsed into the snow.

“A life for a life,” the coven began again.

Alrik, frightened, hurried to help, but the head witch stopped him with a gesture.

“Life for life!”

The two witches stepped out of the circle and knelt beside Lita. They joined their hands over her seemingly lifeless body, and began to whisper something in a language unknown to Alrik.

Time in the clearing in the middle of the spruce forest seemed to have ceased to exist. Only the trust of a flaming log reminded of the usual course of life. Alric did not want the gods to take the beautiful Lyta in exchange for the gift of fire.

Suddenly she inhaled noisily, as those rescued from the water inhale, and sat down, tearing the “dome” from the hands of her sisters. One of the older witches put her hand on Lita’s stomach and said:

Let there be new life!

Alric closed his eyes in relief. He felt, just for a moment, the weightless touch of a whisper against his cheek.

Lyta’s gentle voice lifted the veil between the worlds, visible and invisible, and a yellow meadow again appeared before Alrik’s inner gaze, his nose caught the smell of hops and herbs, and his skin was warmed by the hot breath of summer.

“A life for a life,” Lita said, giving the warrior a final kiss.

He did not remember how he got out of the forest. Fluffy snow fell from the sky, covering the way back. Clinging to the tops of the fir trees, somewhere far, far away, the sun of the new year was climbing. The horizon was still grey, but the tremulous flashes of dawn were already heralding the end of the long night.

Alrik clutched a flaming Yule log in his hands and confidently walked forward to his people to tell about the spring, which would certainly come true.

And then, in a fertile autumn, once again mooring to his native shores, he will return to the forest, and by all means find the treasured clearing, beloved Lita and their newborn child.

But Alrik will not tell a single living soul about this.