Island Shifters: Book 01 - An Oath of the Blood

by Valerie Zambito

  The Commander rode forward and dismounted. “Thank you, Lieutenant Wilem.”

  Dismore traded grips with the legionnaire and then looked back at the mounted recruits. “As first order of business, I must elect a Lieutenant for Troop 158. As always, the journey north tells me much about my new company, and I am honored to tell you that your new Lieutenant is…,” Dismore paused, “Beck Atlan!”

  In contrast to Troop 157, who extended a professional salute to Beck, Troop 158 dismounted in a disorderly fashion and pulled Beck from his horse, mussing his hair and offering him their raucous congratulations. Heath and Jon Anders simply stood back and watched. They were coming around, but not quite there yet.

  Rogan grinned when Rory Greeley started hopping up and down excitedly. “I told you!” he shouted to no one in particular. “I just knew it would be him!”

  Airron did not waste any time in his attempt to exploit his friend’s position. He immediately rode over to Beck. “Hey, Lieutenant! Any chance you can help with the latrine duty?” he asked hopefully, grinning ear to ear.

  Beck smiled just as wide. “Sorry, Airron, but I think that the Commander was totally justified in his punishment.”

  “Huh?” Airron questioned with raised eyebrows.

  Rogan listened in as Beck beckoned Airron closer and whispered “Maybe this will serve as a reminder not to be snakey…. I mean sneaky.”

  Rogan did not know what Beck was talking about, but assumed by his comment and the look on Airron’s face that he also knew that Kiernan was here. How could he not? They were family, after all. The only family Rogan had known since he was six years old and his own parents abandoned him. Like Kiernan, he felt restless, but he was also angry. Angry at Galen Starr for committing generations of shifters to exile and angry at his parents for not loving him enough to stay by his side.

  He often thought that there was more to the story surrounding his parents within his own recollection but whenever he was close to remembering, the images would slip away like a wisps of smoke. It was maddening that he could never latch on to any specific detail. If he could remember just one, it might lead to the discovery of his past.

  Somehow, he would find the answers, he promised himself. Only, it would be easier if they were not located a thousand leagues away in his homeland of Deepstone.

  “You coming, Rogan?” It was Beck.

  He nodded and led his mount after the others.

  It was late by the time both Legion companies were settled into the barracks for the evening. It was a tight fit, but necessary since Troop 158 was not departing until first light the following morning.

  Rogan watched as Kiernan’s slight form slipped into the building behind Airron. He stretched out onto the cot assigned to him, closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds. He was so tired that his mind refused to respond when he heard a shout from outside that sent legionnaires rushing out of the doors of the barracks. Rogan sighed and sat up, surprised that light was spilling in through the windows.

  Is it morning already?

  He stood and took off running along with the rest of the legionnaires thinking as he did that for a journey that was supposed to be boring and mundane, there was a plenty of screaming going on.

  Beck was the first one out of the barracks, and he scanned the area for the source of trouble. A movement on top of the bluffs caught his eye, and he looked up just as one of the patrolling legionnaires came into view and issued a loud warning signal on his trumpet with one long and two short bursts. Three legionnaires of Troop 157 pushed roughly past him and started up the steps in the cliff at a sprint.

  Dismore rushed out of his private quarters thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his uniformed shirt and left it unbuttoned as he made his way to the top of the bluff. Beck was right behind him, anxiously holding back the instinctive desire to give him a helpful shove along the way.

  “Demons breath,” whispered the winded Commander, emerging onto the wide platform built onto the cliff top, buttoning his shirt at last. Beck stepped off the step after him and put his hand above his eyes to shade his view.

  His breath caught in his throat. An armada of ships was besieging The Crown Bluffs. Large, black, three-masted vessels. He had an instant to wonder if the ships could be friendly when a shifted ball of fire crashed into the seaside cliff face, causing the ground to shudder at his feet. A waist-high stone wall was built into the other side of the walkway, probably more for safety purposes than for defense, and he dove behind it.

  “To the bluff!” Dismore bellowed. “All legionnaires to the bluff!”

  Rogan hurried over to Dismore in a crouch, snapping both arms out away from his sides as fire roared to life in each hand. “Commander! With your permission, sir!”

  Dismore looked at Rogan with a bewildered expression. Despite all of the years of tours and training, the Commander seemed wholly unprepared for an actual attack. Beck doubted that the man ever thought that this day would come. He doubted that there was a shifter in the last six generations that believed this day would come.

  “Yes, yes. Go ahead Radek. Hurry!”

  “Stand back,” barked Rogan as he stood upright and shifted a large lightning bolt that sizzled and crackled. He ran a few steps, spun in the air, and used the momentum of the spin to heave it toward the nearest ship. The bolt sliced through the air and on its downward arc, made direct contact with one of the ship’s enormous sails, which caught fire immediately and quickly spread to the wooden decking. Men closest to the fire screamed and jumped from the burning ship into the ocean and began swimming toward the beach. Several of the black vessels were already lowering smaller skiffs over their sides sending them after the men in the water and others yet directly for Massan shores.

  The atmosphere was chaotic and charged now with the experienced Troop 157 running along the platform and shouting orders and the inexperienced Troop 158 floundering about in confusion.

  Fortunately, Dismore seemed to have finally recovered somewhat. “Fireshifters to me!” he yelled, stumbling upright. The young men quickly formed at the wall and once the order was given, volleyed fire rained down on the enemy.

  “Archers!” roared Dismore over his shoulder.

  Legionnaires were still scrambling up the stairs, but the archers of Troop 157 wasted no time in taking up their bows and firing at Dismore’s signal at the men in the water and on the boats.

  Beck peered down at the invaders. As the first of them made it to shore, he shrank back in horror. They were not men at all, but enormous, thick-skinned creatures with one eye! He never could have imagined that such monsters existed in the world. They were something out of his worst nightmares, and the archers’ arrows were bouncing harmlessly off their hides. He shuddered and then ducked as a ball of friendly fire flew by close to his head.

  Taking a chance, he popped up from behind his cover and leaned far over the stone wall to look at the cliff face. He quickly found what he was looking for and thrust his hand out toward several large granite boulders embedded in the wall below him, careful not to disrupt the foundation too much so that it caused a collapse. The earth obediently responded to his summons and the dirt beneath the boulders shifted away, creating a crevice. Whipping his hands in a circular motion, the earth on top of the rocks shifted away inch by inch in a controlled maelstrom of dirt. His legs and arms ached from his position hanging head down from the wall, but he could not proceed any faster. Ignoring the shouts and explosions above, he continued shifting until the boulders finally came loose and tumbled down the cliff face. Swinging back up to the safety of the bluff, Beck’s face was a veritable mask of dirt and sweat.

  The first creature that emerged from the ocean was a fraction too late in noticing the danger, and the boulder crashed into him with deadly accuracy, crushing him into the sand. Two other invaders were helping to pull one of their comrades from the ocean when the second boulder hurtled into them, killing all three instantly.

  A blinding flare of fire suddenly erupted
from further out to sea, and Beck had to throw an arm over his eyes in protection. Peering back, his vision focused on a man in black standing on the prow of one of the ships, cloak billowing out behind him. He was human, Beck noticed. He was also a magic user. That much was obvious as his hands were held out in front of him shifting a considerable amount of fire.

  Beck turned and saw Rogan’s narrowed and confident gaze on the man as he too shifted fire. With a loud hiss, he shaped a large fiery club that he held in one hand and twirled in anticipation of slamming any fire balls back to the magic user.

  The man stared back and just as indolently separated his fire into balls and began juggling them—one of Rogan’s favorite tricks. He then issued a laugh so evil that it caused the hair on the back of Beck’s neck to stand on end.

  The black shifter tossed his fireballs one by one into the air, and the balls spun violently far above the man’s head, creating a vortex that coalesced into one huge bright orb of fire.

  The Northwatch Legion stopped to stare in shock as the fiery sphere twisted into the face of the creatures with one eye now swarming ashore. Only this image was even more grotesquely deformed with two rows of jagged teeth through which a serpent tongue slithered in and out. Unexpectedly, the head turned toward the legionnaires lining the bluff and sped towards them, fiery jaws snapping.

  “Bloody amazing,” said Rogan, in awe at the man’s skill in fireshifting.

  Catching sight of the danger careening toward their position on the bluffs, several legionnaires screamed in fright and ran toward the stone stairs on the other side of the cliff. Beck watched as the big earthshifter, Heath, pushed at his fellow soldiers while attempting to get to the front of the line. One pushed back and Heath slipped from the edge, plummeting to the ground below.

  He shook his head remorsefully. There was no way that the earthshifter could have survived that fall.

  Realizing that the fight was going to take place on the southern side of the bluffs anyway, he screamed out to start more of the soldiers moving toward the stairs and away from the dangerous fireshifting. “Legionnaires! Move! Down to the camp! Everybody move!”

  Where is Dismore?

  Beck turned back to Rogan just in time to see him take a swing with his club at the head of the monster. Regrettably, it managed to evade the strike and turned its jaws instead on one of the legionnaires heading for the stairs and swallowed him whole. The screams as the young man burned were unbearable for Beck to hear, and he was grateful when Rogan honed his club into a sword and ended the legionnaire’s agony.

  The grisly scene caused more legionnaires to panic and two of them slipped down the seaside cliff face and onto the sand below. Beck ran to the stone wall to look down. Neither legionnaire survived, but that did not stop one of the creatures from ripping apart their corpses. Furious, Beck reached out his hand and bade the sand to his will. Under the feet of the invader, the sand began to liquefy and pull at his boots. The creature’s one eye widened in terror as he tried to escape, but the shifted sand held him fast as he struggled and cried out while sinking lower and lower into the earth. The doomed invader’s comrades stood by helplessly as the sand buried him up to his neck. Beck turned away only when the beast fully disappeared, silencing his screams forever.

  Turning back to the platform, he ran for the stairs. Several of the intruders made it through the channel on their skiffs and were engaging the legionnaires in battle.

  For Beck, time and motion suddenly slowed and his feet rooted in place as he looked from scene to terrifying scene. Earthshifters with little magic to call forth were on the ground taking on the larger invaders in a physical fight to the death. Bodyshifters were summoning their fiercest forms to tear at the trespassers with sharp teeth and claws.

  In time that felt mired in thick syrup, Beck struggled to turn his head to the left and saw that Rogan was still battling the fire monster, muscles straining and arms and face blistered by the alien flames. Farther down the platform, Beck finally found Commander Dismore. He was lying face up, with his eyes open and a hole in his chest where a ball of fire slammed into him.

  For the first time in three hundred years, the security at The Crown Bluffs was breached. Legionnaires were dying. Young men Beck’s age, most of whom had grown up in Parsis and attended the Academy with him.

  Dead.

  His friends.

  Through the haze, Beck faintly heard Rory crying out to him from the stairs several feet below. “Lieutenant! We need help!”

  Beck fought to turn his head to look over once again at his best friend. Rogan continued his solitary fight, breaking down the monster with every mighty swing he took. He was the last one standing on the cliff now and if Beck left him, he would be utterly alone.

  Rogan must have sensed his hesitation, because he immediately turned to him and screamed, “Go, Beck, I’ve got this!”

  Rogan’s words brought time slamming back into place and Beck’s body jerked in reaction. That was when he remembered that Kiernan was down there somewhere. Shaking his head, he nodded to Rogan and ran down the steps, passing Rory on his headlong flight into the fight.

  The first person he saw as he leapt from the stairs was Airron. The Elf was sprinting, the air shimmering around him as he raced to reach Jon Anders who was locked in mortal combat with one of the giants. By the look of the creature’s open wounds, Jon had put up a good fight but the earthshifter now had his back up against the cliff wall. He was leaning into it in exhaustion, sword point dropping to the ground.

  The invader grinned and made an aggressive maneuver toward Jon.

  Behind him, Airron sprang and shifted mid-air into one of the great black wolves of the Grayan Forest, sailing onto the creature’s back and digging his claws into its body. The thing bellowed in pain and twisted around to grab at the wolf clinging to its broad shoulders. The distraction provided Jon the opportunity he needed, and he took it, shoving his sword into the single eye of his combatant. The creature fell over dead, and the wolf jumped free of the falling enemy and grinned.

  “We have to get out of here…. Lieutenant,” said Jon to Beck, tiredly. “We are no match against these invaders, and we have to save those still alive.”

  Beck nodded. “How many have we lost?”

  “Over half,” said Jon.

  He was right. Retreat was the only viable option at this point. Beck approached the wolf. “Where’s Kiernan? Have you seen her?” The black wolf shook his head and then loped away, hopefully, to find her.

  “Anders, I have to go back for Rogan. Gather up the legionnaires and meet me at the top of the valley where we first arrived.”

  The blonde earthshifter nodded. “Retreat!” he yelled, running through the melee. “Retreat!”

  Beck studied the battlefield and at the same time held out his arms and shifted the earth. The dirt and stones ran up and over his body in a wave creating an earthen suit of armor. When he was finished, he had a two-inch layer of stone covering every part of his body except his eyes. “Kiernan!” he shouted over the screams of battle. “Kiernan!”

  He spotted a small, hooded legionnaire near the barracks fighting one of the monsters. The legionnaire was an expert swordsperson, and Beck knew it was Kiernan even before the hood slipped off her head and revealed her blonde hair. Howling with rage, he started to charge toward her when one of the invaders struck him from behind. He fell into the dirt and looked up just in time to roll to the side and avoid a powerful two-handed blow. Beck put his hands underneath him and summoned the earth to lift him to his feet effortlessly. With his feet now planted squarely underneath him, he swung a mighty fist of stone at his foe and knocked him several feet into the air and up against the cliff wall, dead.

  Another challenger rushed him and Beck ducked under his grasp and took him down at the knees. He then lifted the giant by one arm and one leg and swung him around with all of his super strength before letting him go and sending the creature sailing into what was once Dismore’s quarters, cavin
g in one wall. Looking for Kiernan again, he was relieved to see Bajan at her side, the creature she had been fighting unmoving on the ground.

  Starting toward her once again, he was knocked to the ground by a large explosion that rocked the morning air. He looked up at a sky littered with tiny sparks of fire, and the deadly embers fell down onto the rooftops of the buildings in the camp and started to take hold.

  Rogan ran down the stone steps yelling, “I got it! Let’s get out of here!”

  Distracted, Beck did not notice one of the creatures standing over him until it was holding a Northwatch Legion sword at his eye—the only visible breach in his earthen armor. Beck flinched in shock when the thing spoke to him.

  “Do not move,” the giant commanded.

  Beck looked up at the huge form and was quickly calculating how to shift the earth just enough so that the sword point did not penetrate his brain, when he saw something in the creature’s eye that surprised him.

  It was indecision.

  Abruptly, the creature swung his head up, paused, and then threw down his weapon. Beck scrambled out from under him and followed the monster’s gaze.

  There was Kiernan, barely able to stand upright, leaning on her sword. Like the rest of them, she had been fighting for her life.

  “Kiernan!” Beck shouted in relief, getting to his feet and allowing the armor of stone and dirt to slide off him. She stumbled over to him and into his arms.

  Nothing had ever felt so good to him in his life.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said, green eyes worried.

  “I know,” he said and reached out to wipe a smudge of dirt from under her eye. “You go. I have to make sure we get everyone out safely. I will catch up with you. Just go!”

  “No need, Beck,” said Airron, who had rejoined them. “There is no one else. It is just us.”