by Liz Penn
When the elementals quieted, Ákos stood on unsteady feet. One hand clutched at his stomach.
“I’ve never seen you shift completely before.” Gaia said in awed surprise. “Or any Ishtar, really.” She bit her lip, annoyed at her reaction. So what if he could change his appearance like that? He couldn’t wield a bow if his life depended on it.
Ákos winced. “If I had my choice, you would not have seen it at all. Ooh.” His face paled. When he bent double, Gaia stepped back. She winced in sympathy as he retched.
“Is it always like this when you shape-shift?”
His response was a gasping wheeze.
“Ákos?”
“Moment..please.” He shuddered again and leaned heavily against the nearest tree.
Gaia frowned and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” When he nodded slowly, she frowned. “Is it always like…like this?” she gestured at his shaky stance and washed-out features.
“Only when … I shift … close together.” Ákos wrapped both arms around his stomach. “Or hold a form … too long. Especially close to the Flux’s end.”
“The end?” She cocked her head, eyes widening in surprise. “How close are you?”
“I am fine now.” He said.
“You are not.” She put hands on her hips. “You look as if you would fall over with the next puff of wind.”
His cheeks flushed and he straightened. “I am fine.” But sweat sheened his skin, dampening his hair. And the color had yet to return to aught but his cheeks.
Gaia bit her lip as words threatened to break free. Well, well, so the Ishtar was not as superior as he pretended to be. She glared at him. “How long?”
His blush brightened. “Three days.”
Gaia shook her head. “Why are you out here? That close to your Flux, you should be with your own people.”
“I am fine. Truly. Let’s get back to camp.”
She frowned, but let the topic drop. “You’re right. No more delays. We need to free those prisoners.”
“What?” He stared at her as if she had sprouted viper fangs. “I meant our camp. We can’t go to the Derki camp. They’ll kill us.”
“We can’t leave prisoners behind!” Gaia snapped. “They’re lucky to be alive at all.”
Ákos threw his hands out with a flourish. “You have lost your mind, Chuia,” he snapped. “There is only two of us, but a whole battalion of Derki out there. They’ll capture us both, flay the skin from our bones, and leave our bloody skeletons for the crows.”
“Thanks for the encouraging thoughts.”
He frowned. “But it is true.”
“I do not care.” She frowned. “What if one of those prisoners was your mother, or brother, or cousin? I won’t leave them behind.” Squaring her shoulders, she whirled away from him and stalked through the underbrush.
< >
Gaia stirred uneasily, eager to move forward. After her pronouncement, Ákos had chased after her and insisted she wait until darkness fell. She had been forced to agree that running into the Derki camp, without plans and with only the cover of twilight, would not end well.
They waited. The shadows of sunset lengthened into the darkness of night.
As the last light of the sun melted below the horizon, Ákos nudged her shoulder and then stood, creeping forward. Finally. Gaia shifted into a half-crouch and inched toward the camp.
The wind whispered in Gaia’s ears as she crept through the long grass. It swept the olive blades, strumming them like lyre strings. Moonlight dappled the trees in silver and sapphire, smoothing the forked outlines of branches into obscure outlines.
The moon’s tender touch could not soften the gruesome sight spread at the outskirts of the Derki camp.
Chuia were everywhere, but none would ever make a sound again. Several dangled from trees, tongue lolling, a rope wound around their necks. The rest were heads—jammed into lances on the ground or pinned with daggers against tree trunks. A circle of grass was charred, soot-blackened bones a mute testament to those who had died there. Two other bodies were staked down nearby. They had been butchered like cattle.
Gaia shoved a hand into her mouth to stifle the sob catching in her throat. Unshed tears burned. She closed her eyes and breathed heavily through her mouth. Her last meal twisted in her stomach, the sight and its accompanying stench fighting to bring it up again.
The Ishtar settled on his belly beside her. His arm brushed against her shoulder. Gaia reached back, feeling the tension in his body as her fingers ran down his arm. In mutual consent, they clasped hands. He squeezed gently, running his thumb across the ridge of her knuckle.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If we had known—if I had known, I would have…” he sighed. “I would not have made you wait.”
“Neither of us knew that they would … do this.”
“It does not change that they died when we could have helped.”
“Don’t.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp. “Don’t blame yourself. Guilt changes nothing, and only harms the bearer.”
He glanced down at his empty hand and then returned his attention to her face. A soft smile curled the corner of his mouth. “Is that from your teachers?”
Heat rose into her face. Gaia looked away. “Yes.” Clearing her throat uneasily, she crept past the macabre gallery. “These are all men. Do you think the rest are…” Saying it was harder than thinking it. “That they are already eaten?”
The Ishtar’s eyes clouded. “No. Derki scum.”
Gaia flicked him a surprise look. Anger flashed in his eyes, darkening the green into midnight jade.
“Why has no one told us about this?”
“That the Derki are cannibals? We have. Over and over again.”
He shook his head. “We knew they ate those they killed. But this…” Ákos swept his hand at the butchery sprawled about them. “This is much worse than a simple eating-for-power ritual, as we thought it was.”
“Simple ritual!” She jerked to her feet. The resisted tears broke free, drawing cold lines down her cheeks. “These are my people in this ‘simple ritual’, my kin suffering. This…this…”
Ákos stood and rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Truly. We…I had no knowledge of this…this atrocity.” He shuddered and turned his head away. His skin had paled again. “No wonder the Chuia have refused their treaty. If this is how they treat—“
His voice cut off with a strangled sound. She had been expecting that. Anyone would be ill at these sights, and a pampered Ishtar even more so. Gaia took a step back as he walked past her, but he did not retch.
He stalked across the killing field and raised one hand. Gaia flinched at the buzz of elementals. After a moment, Ákos relaxed. He gestured to the west, where the moon, a bulging slice of silver, hung low in the sky. In two days’ time, it would be full.
“There.” Ákos said. “They headed that way.”
“The prisoners?”
“Yes. And their guards.”
“You can tell without trancing?”
Ákos glanced at her over his shoulder, brow arching in derision. “I am Ishtar. The elementals hum in my blood.”
Pompous little… Gaia swallowed her words. It would do little good, and a world of bad. Who knew how long this urge, this whim to help, would last?
She walked up to the Ishtar’s side and held her dagger out, hilt first. “I have my bow. You should take this.”
Ákos shook his head. “I have my own weapons.”
Her eyebrows arched. “An Ishtar carrying a blade?”
“No.” He smiled and his eyes were suddenly feline, vertical black pupils on a field of emerald. “But mine none the less.”
Traveling with a shape-shifter. She shivered. The thought had not been quite as frightening this morning. Gaia squared her shoulders. “Well then. Let’s go.”
With a curt nod of agreement, Ákos strode through the grass on a path of moonlight. Gaia followed close behind.
Ákos clamped his hand on her shoulder and shoved her to the ground, narrowly missing a rounded boulder. He plopped down beside her a half-second later.
“What?” she hissed.
“Look.” He pointed to her left. “Behind that tree.”
Trees lined the hilltop ahead. A copse of aspens clumped beside a lone willow, its trailing fingers stroking the pool at its roots. A Derki sentry leaned against its trunk, whittling.
With a soft curse, Gaia slunk lower. “If he had seen us … “
“I know.” Ákos smiled. His fingers rested, feather-light, against her back. “Good thing he was too busy.”
She shifted from beneath his touch. “But why is he out here? The camp is way back to the east.”
“Is it?”
She glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
Ákos eased himself higher, peeking over the edge of the rock. “Do the Derki know that the Chuia send scouts?”
She blinked at the change of subject. “Yes.”
“If you knew the Derki sent scouts, would you sit idly by and let them count your numbers?”
Gaia paused, thoughts racing. “No. But they do not care. They do not fear us. Or Ishtar, anymore.”
An old lecture twisted into her mind. The treaty between Chuia and Ishtar, and the power that the shape-shifters represented, had prevented any major attacks for centuries. Until the Derki and their longboats had beached upon the eastern shore.
“They should fear Ishtar.”
Gaia sighed. This again. “But they do not. Or they would have feared the treaty between our peoples more.”
Not that it had mattered. The Chuia Council had contacted the Ishtar capital years ago, but nothing had come of it. Nothing but more observers like Ákos.
“The treaty does not include a promise for martial aid.”
She gritted her teeth. “It should have. Or it should be understood. What good is a treaty if you sit around and do nothing for us?”
“The gods did not gift us shifting abilities to be used for war. We are not weapons or tools for your petty problems.” He shook his head fiercely when she opened her mouth. “That is what I am told.”
“But you do not agree, clearly. Or you would not be helping me.”
“I did not say that.” Ákos shifted his gaze away from her, out toward the forest. “What would you do, if you knew a scout would be near?”
“Then what did you say?”
“What would you do?” he said again.
Bah. Fine. “I would try to camp where they could not reach, or see,” she said. “But the Derki don’t fear us. They’ve never bothered.”
“Until now. It appears to me, they camp in two places and keep most of their soldiers out of sight.” Ákos spread his fingers, pointing at a spot just beyond the hunched willow. “Don’t you see them?”
She peered at the tangled mess of trees and underbrush. Vines wrapped leafy webs from branch to branch. Broad leaves, veined gray by the rich moon, spread flecked shadows across the tall grass. “I don’t see…” Her heart leaped in her throat.
There was a smooth curve in that knot of foliage, too smooth to be natural. Her eyes followed the line as it arched through the trees. She recognized the shape. Shivers fluttered down her spine. The dome-shaped tent of a Derki, hidden in the shadows of the forest.
Her eyes darted from one to the other, counting the tents as she spotted them.
“Fifty,” Gaia breathed. “At least fifty men dwell in this camp.” She scanned the land around them. “Do you see anything else?”
“Cages.” His voice was sharp, bitter.
“What?” Nausea clogged her throat. “Where?”
“That way,” he gestured with one hand, “There are Chuia women in them. And girls.” Gaia tensed. His voice dropped lower. “We cannot act too rashly. If we fail, there is no change for them, and we will join them.” He grimaced. “You will.”
Understanding punched her in the gut. “They’ll kill you.” The image of the mutilated bodies flashed in her mind. “And worse. Stay here. You can warn the village if something happens to me.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist. “No. You should remain, and tell your people. They will not listen to me and someone must warn them. These Derki have something planned.” His eyes narrowed as he peered over the boulder once more. “These are much more…cunning…than they seem.”
Gaia scowled, twisting her hand out of his grasp. “I am no weakling to flee from danger. If we are to go, we go together.”
Ákos sighed. “This is foolish.”
“Don’t start that again.” She moved forward.
Ákos seized her shoulder and pulled her down beside him again.
“Let me go! Bloody Ishtar—“
He covered her mouth. She bit his fingers. With a muted yelp of pain, Ákos jerked his hand back. “That’s the second time you’ve bit me! You are impossible.”
“I know.” She tipped her chin up. “Together or nowhere?”
Ákos scowled. “We go together.” He released his hold on her, peering at his fingers for wounds, and then glared at her. “At least allow me to clear your path.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this a trick?”
The elementals shrieked. Gaia flinched. Ákos shivered and his body transformed. He hunched forward as if his spine no longer supported him. By the time his hands touched the ground, his fingers had lengthened into ebony claws, sharp and poised. Muscles rippled beneath tawny skin. A tufted tail lashed the grass.
Ákos growled, lips peeling back to reveal yellowed fangs. He turned his head to study her as he crept through the grass. A highland cat with emerald eyes.
The Derki at the tree stirred, hand resting against the hilt of his dagger. Ákos crouched low and then leaped. He tackled the Derki guard, ripping his throat out cleanly. The man gurgled and clawed at his neck, but the blood pooling around him could not carry his mute cries of alarm.
Clutching her dagger closer, Gaia eased toward him. She was not sure what to expect. Ishtar did not usually attack people; they never killed. But tonight…
Tonight, everything was changing.
< >
Fidgeting uneasily where Ákos had left her for the fourth time that night, Gaia scowled. It took time to avoid the larger knots of warriors, alert sentries, and other dangers. Almost too much time. She was worried someone would find the bodies the Ishtar was leaving everywhere. Especially as dawn was shortly to come.
How much of Ákos remained, and how much the animal mentality drove him, Gaia could not be certain. He paced at her side mostly, sometimes darting ahead at some sound or scent that she could not trace. As he did now.
The Ishtar trotted back from his scouting and pawed at her leg. He whirled aside, loping across the grass. She followed at his heels, clenching the dagger until her fingers ached.
The brush of warm fur slowed her pace. Ákos blocked her path and stiffened, ears flicking forward and back. With a low snarl that bared fangs, he slunk out of sight. She waited for his return with little patience.
There was a muffled scream. Ákos reappeared and cocked his head. His jaw was smeared with blood.
Desire unfolded soft wings in her chest. Gaia wished her own hands were wet with Derki blood. She wanted to stab and slash, leaving Derki heads and coils of viscera behind to stain the grass, such as the blood of her own people had done.
Gaia growled beneath her breath, at once disgusted and pleased at the vivid images in her mind.
They were close enough to see the cages now. Crudely cut tree branches were lashed together into an impenetrable mesh. Bowls of gruel and water lay scattered through the hemmed-in space, but most had been knocked over by the motion of the captives. The only way into or out of the prison was a small opening, blocked by two thick oak staves.
All of the prisoners were women, none younger than twelve winters, and none older than child-bearing age. Uneasiness brushed icy fingers down her spine. After taking the
ir fill of them, the Derki should have simply slaughtered the prisoners. But these were still alive, being fed and cared for—in a way. Some of them, judging by their tattered clothing, had been prisoners for at least a full month, if not more.
Behind her, Gaia caught a plaintive yowl and the barest flicker of whining elemental. She turned in time to see Ákos, now Ishtar again, straighten with a sigh. Growling a low curse, he swiped at the blood on his face with his thumb.
