Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers

by Wendy N. Wagner

  Jendara's mind went back to the boar hunt on Sorind—had it only been a few days ago?—and Morul scorching the boar's hide. There had been skinwalkers once before. Her people remembered at least a ghost of those times. She wondered how much of the legends were true.

  "I sure hope so." She glanced back into the entrance hall. It still smelled of smoke, but she couldn't see any. With any luck, she'd put out the fire.

  She turned, and Lomont hurried back inside to protect his books. The smell of smoke clung to Jendara as she raced back toward the port. She wasn't going to forgive herself for endangering the library—if not all of Halgrim—by bringing a traitor inside. Not until she had Hazan's head.

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tripping a Trap

  The stairs leading down the docks thudded under Jendara's boots as she ran. People grumbled as she pushed past them. She leaped over a pile of crates filled with ice, then skidded to a stop. A crowd blocked off the dock, most of them men and women wearing simple leather armor with plain iron shields slung onto their backs.

  "Jendara? Is that you?" a ginger-haired man on the edge of the crowd asked, and she belatedly recognized Fambra's cousin.

  "Jorgen." She paused to catch her breath. "Is everything all right?"

  "Terrific. I talked to some people, and a bunch of them wanted to hear details from Fambra. They'd certainly like to hear from you, too."

  "Is that Jendara?" Fambra called from the bow of her boat. "Let her come through." She waited for Jendara to join her on board, then frowned. "You smell like a bonfire. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. But it turns out Hazan's been a spy for Kalira all along. He just attacked one of the librarians and left with a bunch of Kalvamen. I thought for sure he was going to come back here, but I guess all the Iron Shields kept him away."

  "A spy?" Fambra's nostrils flared. "

  "I should have killed him there on the beach," Jendara fumed.

  "Jendara." Fambra's tone was suddenly sharp. "We need to get back to Sorind. Now."

  "Agreed," Jendara said, but something in Fambra's face chilled her bones. "What is it?"

  "Hazan," Fambra said. "Kalira's your sister, and from what you said, she wants to catch you. But she has no idea where you live—you were out in the fishing grounds when she caught you. But if she turned Hazan—"

  Jendara stiffened. "Kran."

  "We let him into our homes." Fambra spat, then cupped her hands to mouth and called for Jorgen. They conferred for a few minutes, and then Jorgen pounded her on the shoulder.

  "We'll join you on Sorind as soon as we can. Maybe we can round up a few more volunteers." He hurried down the gangplank and tossed up the mooring rope.

  Jendara twisted the rope in her hands. Kran. How could she have placed him in this danger? She stared out at the sea and for the first time wished she could use magic. She would summon all the winds to speed her journey.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The sun slid over the horizon, needling Jendara's eyelids. Unwillingly, she pulled herself awake. Sven had taken the last watch, but Jendara hadn't been able to sleep much, worrying about Kran and what might be happening on Sorind.

  She scrubbed her face with her palms, watching the cold brilliance of sunrise over the sea. The wind caught her hair and tossed it in her face. She ran her fingers through the stuff. It felt strange this short.

  She worked out the worst of the knots with her fingers. Fambra surely had a comb in the little sleeping cabin up front, but Jendara wasn't about to bother her with something so trivial. Fambra had been up very late, making adjustments down in the cargo hold. Her boat had moved across the water at double the speed of an ordinary fishing boat. There was magic involved somehow, but Jendara didn't want to know the details.

  Jendara pulled the strands of hair tight and began rebraiding them. The breeze smelled fresh; they were sailing true and fast. A seagull spun overhead. The thieving birds often followed fishing vessels, hoping to snatch fish out of the nets when they were brought in. Jendara wrapped the tail of her braid, smiling. She had to admire that kind of cleverness. They were such pirates of birds.

  The seagull lowered itself circle by lazy circle, dropping down to keep pace with the boat. It turned its head, fixing its bright eye at Jendara.

  Its beak opened. "Jenny," it called. "Jenny!"

  Jendara tumbled onto the deck, then leaped back onto her feet.

  "Just you wait, Kalira! I'm coming for you!"

  Her sword flashed, but the seagull wheeled away, rising into the clear blue sky until it was only a spot. It cried out, the long haunting cry of a gull. Jendara stood watching it go, feeling sweat soak through her linen shirt.

  Sven touched her shoulder. "What was that?"

  Jendara clenched her jaw. "Wake up Fambra. We've got to go faster."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  It was late afternoon when they finally reached Sorind, and not a single vessel fished in her waters. Every slip in the harbor held a boat. She glanced at the Milady sitting silent in her berth. Her decks looked abandoned.

  "Where is everybody?" Fambra asked. She leaped over the side of the boat, landing beside a mooring cleat.

  Jendara tightened her sword belt. "It's too quiet."

  "I see smoke." Sven pointed up the hill, to the cottages clustered around the meeting hall. "More than one family's got a fire going."

  "But no one's in the streets." Jendara moved quickly up the dock, listening and watching and smelling. No clanging from the smithy. No bitter stink from Morul's tannery. She peered down the main street. No one stood outside the tavern, waiting for friends to arrive from the docks. "I don't like it."

  Then the tavern door opened and a voice bellowed: "Jendara!"

  "Morul!"

  She broke into a run, relieved and strengthened by that familiar voice. He hurried toward her.

  "It's good to see you, Dara." He looked over her shoulder. "I was hoping to see a war party at your back. The other scouts told me your plan to ask White Estrid for aid."

  "White Estrid is away, and her steward wasn't inclined to send guards away from Halgrim. But I do have a group of volunteers—mostly Iron Shields—following behind us. They should be here in half a day."

  He stoked his thick yellow beard and led her toward the tavern. "I hope that's soon enough. A lot has happened while you were gone."

  He opened the door. Lamps lit the small space and every seat was taken. A few people sat on the floor. Only one or two people sipped at tankards of ale or glasses of mead—most folks were polishing weapons or cleaning some kind of armor. Tam caught sight of Jendara and jumped to his feet.

  "The captain had us join the villagers here to help prepare for battle, ma'am," he explained.

  "Where's Vorrin? And Kran?" Jendara hoped her voice didn't sound as strained to others as it sounded to her.

  "Up at the meetinghouse, settling in some of the refugee families from the north end of the island," Morul said.

  "Refugees?" Jendara asked.

  "Yes. During the night, creatures attacked a farm on the coast. The family escaped, but a number of their goats were killed. Other farmholds reported wolves in the woods. Given the news your scouting teams brought, we thought it might be wise to pull those outlying homesteads in to the main village."

  "And Yul? Did he come?"

  Morul nodded. "He's up at the meeting hall, reinforcing the pen he and some of the other farmers built. They're worried sick about losing their livestock."

  "Livestock are the least of their worries," Jendara said, absently rubbing her wrist. The skin throbbed. She needed to find a wisewoman, and soon.

  Fambra had been talking with an older fisherman. She patted him on the shoulder and crossed the room. "These are your fighters?"

  Morul nodded. "Everyone in this room has experience. Some have dabbled as raiders, a few have tried their luck as guards in Halgrim or on the mainland. Whatever those K
alvamen are planning, these are the men and women to face it."

  "You need more gear," Fambra said. "I'm going back to my boat. I've got a few items to contribute stashed away in my hold."

  Jendara's certainty that Fambra dealt in more colorful business than mere fishing was further strengthened. She couldn't help smirking at the other woman. Fambra was a fighter, a smuggler, and a damn fine mother. Jendara had no doubts that if anyone was coming out of this battle alive, it was Fambra.

  "I'm going to go up to the meetinghouse and see what needs to be done. It'll make a good defensive location for our noncombatants."

  "I agree," Morul said. "Leyla's been organizing a team. She'll show you what's been done." He hesitated, then leaned close. "Tell her to keep Oric inside. He's a good lad, but I don't want him on the front lines. He'll distract me."

  Jendara nodded and spun on her heel, pushing open the tavern door with her forearm. She could already feel the familiar blend of tension and excitement she always felt when battle approached. It had been a long time since she'd planned to get in a fight. Usually the fights just found her.

  A surprising sight met her as she made her way uphill: a crew of boys and women setting logs into the muddy ground around the meeting hall, and a stout blonde woman overseeing another group's effort to raise scaffolding against the building's sides. Jendara waved, and the woman's face spread into its usual jolly smile.

  "Jendara! Come see what I've been working on."

  "Leyla." Jendara squeezed her tightly. "I see you're putting in a stockade."

  Leyla eyed the nearly completed wall. The logs' sharpened tips jabbed outward from the meeting hall, forming a bristling perimeter not even the most courageous or hungry wolf would want to leap. "It's something, anyway," she said. "Given the reports from the northern homesteads, I'm glad I've got this." She pulled back her long sweater, revealing a wicked-looking axe on her belt. Jendara had no doubt she could use it well.

  "That bad, eh?"

  Leyla pulled her aside. "My cousin's wife watched six bears and two wolves meet at the edge of the woods and start pulling down the stock fence. Big fence. Six feet tall. The bears' claws ripped through it like it was balsa wood."

  Something in Leyla's voice warned Jendara that wasn't the worst. "What happened?"

  "Two crows flew down and joined the creatures. Then the things herded out every last animal. They led them off someplace in the woods." Leyla folded her arms across her chest. "You ever see a cow go with a wolf? It ain't natural."

  "They're organizing," Jendara mused. "Stocking supplies for their troops. Kalira's not just raiding. She's planning an invasion." Jendara rubbed her forearm. It burned, almost as if in response to Kalira's name.

  Leyla's smile returned. "Anyway, looks like there's someone here pretty excited to see you."

  Kran stumbled forward, throwing his arms around Jendara. Mud streaked his face and clumped his hair. He smelled earthy.

  "Kran's been an excellent help building defenses. He's a right natural at construction."

  Kran pulled back, smiling up at Jendara. He patted her cheek, an unusual display of affection for a boy his age out in public.

  "I'll just leave you two for a moment," Leyla said. "I want to make sure these archers' scaffolds are strong enough."

  Jendara met Kran's eyes, studying their dark depths. "You weren't worried about me, were you?"

  He nodded solemnly, then reached for his chalk. I knew you had to go, to protect us. But I wanted to protect people too. So I helped with the wall.

  Her heart swelled with love and pride. "I'm glad you did."

  But he was still writing. He swiped the chalkboard clean, a smudge of mud following his sleeve's passage over the slate, then scribbled, I know you don't want me to hunt. But I was really hoping you could give me that spear now. My knife isn't very big.

  Jendara stared at her boy, looking, really looking at him. He was tall for a ten-year-old, just a little shorter than she was, and his eyes were very serious. A little constellation of mud spotted high on his cheekbone. She'd seen him muddy before, but this dirt wasn't the ordinary grime of a boy playing outdoors. This mud had come from honest work building the defensive wall that might be the only real protection the village offered its people tonight.

  Jendara's shoulders sagged. What a fool she'd been, keeping him away from that boar hunt. She'd brought him to these islands to keep him safe from pirate attacks and brigands in the harbors of the mainland trading posts her travels took her to. She'd brought him here because he was an adventuresome boy who deserved an honest place to explore. But she hadn't taught him what he needed to keep out of danger.

  Traveling in rough places wasn't the danger she should have worried about. Hunting wasn't the danger.

  Life was the danger.

  No matter where he went, there was bound to be trouble. She could worry about that, or she could prepare him for it.

  Because Kran was a lot less safe fighting monsters with just a belt knife.

  She ruffled his hair. "I don't have that spear for you, but if you're going to be working with the defense team up here, a spear's not a good choice anyway. Too close of quarters to get a really good stab in."

  His eyes widened. He leaned closer, like a plant turning toward the sun. By the gods, he was her boy. Jendara resisted a sudden urge to laugh with delight.

  She stooped to put her mouth closer to his ear, so no one else could hear. "I think Fambra's got some extra weaponry on her boat. Why don't we go down and see her?"

  A dagger. That's what the boy needed. Not a knife, but a real fighting blade to hold off anything that burst through the sharp stakes of his wall. They might not have much time until Kalira's creatures attacked, but they had enough time for Jendara to teach Kran how to use a dagger.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Jendara sat on the floor cross-legged, looking around the meeting hall's great fire pit at the faces shown by the flickering light. She didn't recognize most of them. The farmers from the northern end of the islands had come the closest to the flames, as if it could hold back the things they'd seen out there. She took a bite of her meat pie, wondering how much longer they all had to wait.

  "Dara." Vorrin squeezed her shoulder.

  She smiled over at him. They hadn't had a chance to talk yet. He'd been busy helping build the archery scaffolding while she'd been working with Kran and fielding questions about the Kalvamen. Everyone needed her, it seemed. Morul and his fighters had a thousand questions about the way the creatures transformed and moved and fought. She wished she'd had more information for them.

  "I heard a little about your trip," Vorrin said. He picked up his meat pie and put it back down. Then lifted it again. Whatever he really wanted to say, he clearly didn't know how to proceed.

  "I wished you'd been there," Jendara said. She put her hand on his knee. "In that palace, you would have known what to say. You would have convinced the steward. I missed you so much."

  "Is that the only reason you missed me?" The fire danced in his eyes. In the dim light, shadows outlined the strong planes of his face. Her heart skipped a beat.

  Jendara dropped her gaze to her meat pie and felt its gravy catch in her throat. She was glad for the cover of the coughing fit. These feelings were awkward. After all, Vorrin was Kran's uncle. Her dead husband's brother.

  It had been close to five years since Ikran's death, and whole months passed when she didn't think of him save for Kran's resemblance to him. She no longer mourned his laugh or missed his warmth in her bed. Ikran was gone. She had come to accept it. If Vorrin had been any other man, she wouldn't have the slightest compunction about her feelings. But he wasn't. It just wouldn't be fair to Kran to have his uncle for a stepfather.

  Noise at the front door was a welcome distraction. Across the room, Morul caught Jendara's eye. She got to her feet, meeting him halfway across the hall.

  "The fog is coming down from the highlands," he said. "I imagine they'll attack under its cover."
<
br />   She nodded. "I'll go join the outer defenses."

  Morul stopped her. "They're accepting final blessings from the wisewomen. You might want to give them a moment to finish."

  "Thank you." She hadn't realized he'd noted her aversion to such things. "I'll use the time to speak with my son."

  The crowd of refugees was murmuring now, picking up on Morul's grim expression and possibly his hushed words. Leyla looked to her husband. At his nod, she got to her feet.

  "Friends, hear me now. The battle approaches."

  Everyone went still.

  Leyla pointed toward the back of the meeting hall. "As most of you know, we built a cellar when we rebuilt this meeting hall. It's not a large cellar, but it connects to an escape tunnel. I want the smallest children, their mothers, and any pregnant women to go down to the cellar now."

  People began gathering their things, the small bundles they'd need to make it through the long night. Jendara knew Leyla had cached diapers and dried apples in the cellar in case of a retreat. She patted her sword's pommel grimly. It had better not come to that.

  "The rest of us will stay inside. I'd like anyone with arms to man the perimeter of the building. Those without weaponry, prepare yourselves to fight as well. Even a belt knife will be valuable."

  "You won't be alone," Jendara called. "Our archers are already in position. Our best fighters are waiting just inside the barrier wall you worked so hard to build today. Those beasts aren't coming in here."

  Someone shouted a battle cry, and others joined in, first raggedly, then louder. Kran waved his fists above his head. The sight of him made Jendara's mouth go dry. She hoped she was right.

  She pressed through the crowd toward him and crushed him in her arms. He'd looked so tall and strong earlier, but now he felt thin, too fragile to risk against the tide of Kalira's monsters. "I love you, Kran," she whispered, pressing her cheek against his mop of dark hair.

  "Jendara." Vorrin put his hand on her shoulder.

  "I know you wish you were out there. But you're the most experienced swordsman I know. I'm not letting you leave Kran's side. He's safer with you than with me."