Chapter Nine
The warning came as the warrior band rode through the thick forest, making their own track. Cai broke through the thin veil of tree limbs and foliage to seek out Duncan. Alix, glancing up in surprise, saw the hawk wing down and light upon a branch.
They come, lir, the bird said. Mounted men in the Mujhar’s colors. Half-a-league; no more.
Duncan pulled his horse to a halt. Alix, seeking to remain upright on the animal, caught at Duncan’s waist. She felt the tension in his body as if it were her own.
He half-turned in the saddle, muttering something under his breath. Then, “I must find a place for you.”
“You will fight them?”
“They will give us no choice, Alix. Why do you think they come, save to slay us all?”
Alix opened her mouth to retort but suddenly could find no words. Her mind was ablaze with sound so intense she knew it was not something she heard with her ears. She thought her head would burst with words, and it was only grabbing at Duncan’s waist that kept her on the horse. She mumbled something, closing her eyes against the weight of voices, and vaguely heard the approach of a horse. Duncan took no note of her sudden weakness.
“Well, rujho,” Finn’s voice said, “the princeling did not lie. He has given us little time.”
Alix forced her eyes open and glared at him, though a part of her attention was still claimed by the multitude of voices.
Do they not hear them? she wondered.
Duncan reached around and caught her arm, easing her down from the horse until she had to scramble to stay upright. “Take her,” he told Finn.
Alix forcibly detached her mind from the other voices. “No! Not with him!”
“See to her, rujho,” Duncan said calmly. “I will not have her harmed. These men will see only a shapechanger woman, and would do her injury. I leave her to you.”
Finn grinned down at her. “Do you see, meijha? The clan-leader passes you back to me.”
“I will have none of you,” she said with effort, trying to speak beneath the weight of words in her mind. “Do you hear?”
Duncan said something to her but Alix heard nothing; she saw only that his mouth moved. She clapped hands over her ears and bowed her head, trying to withstand the patterns and tones in her mind.
Finn’s hands came down on her shoulders. Dimly she saw Duncan lead his horse away, leaving Finn on foot with her. She peered at him uncertainly.
“You have been given into my keeping,” he announced. “I do not intend to let you out of it.”
“Is it sorcery?” she gasped. “Do you seek to take my mind from me?”
Finn scowled at her. “You do not make sense, meijha. But I have no time to listen to you now…can you not hear them?”
“I hear their voices!” she cried, trembling. Finn’s look on her was strange. “I speak of their horses, meijha. I hear no voices.”
For a moment she pushed away the soundless words and listened to reality. Through the forest came the sounds of men battering their way through delaying brush. Her eyes flew to Finn’s.
“They will slay you,” he said gently.
The weight began to fall from her mind. Faintly she heard echoes of the tones and patterns, but she did not feel so bound by them. Her strength was spent. She nodded wearily at Finn and did not protest as he led her deeper into the forest.
“Storr?” she asked softly.
“He is behind, watching. He—like the others—will fight the Mujhar’s men.”
Finn pulled her down under cover of a broken tree trunk leaning drunkenly against another. Quickly he set deadfall over them, weaving a rapid shelter. When it was done he pushed her down on her stomach and knelt beside her. Alix, still shaken from the silent voices, watched from a distance as he loosened his belt-knife and effortlessly nocked a yellow-fletched black arrow to his compact, powerful bow.
Alix put her head down on one arm and longed for the security of her father’s croft.
“Watch my back, meijha,” Finn said roughly. “I have no time for women’s fears.”
She wrenched her head up and glared at him. His back was to her, presenting an excellent target for a furious fist, but the precariousness of their position was uppermost in her mind. She put away the urge to do him harm and turned instead to watch behind him, as he had bidden.
Alix’s head ached. She scrubbed at her forehead as if to drive the pain away, but it did no good. The voices were gone, only a figment of memory, but it was enough to leave a residue. Her entire body ached with the indignities she had been forced to endure: sores remained on her legs from continued riding; bruises dotted her flesh and her bones and muscles felt like rags. Her mind, she knew dimly, was as exhausted. For all they insisted they would do her no harm, the Cheysuli had accounted for more pain and fatigue than she had ever thought possible.
At first she thought it was a Cheysuli horse crashing through the brush toward their thin shelter. Alix stared silently up at the man a moment before she realized he was a mailed man-at-arms in the scarlet-and-black tunic livery of the Mujhar, sword drawn.
Relief flooded through her. She would escape Finn and the others now, putting herself into the care of a Mujharan guardsman, who would surely rescue her from her plight. Alix sighed in relief and crawled forward as the man’s eyes fell on hers. The beginnings of her smile of greeting faded.
The sword lifted in a gloved hand, swinging back over his shoulder. Transfixed, Alix stared at the bright blade. It hung over her, poised to fall, and in a blinding flash of realization she knew Duncan’s words were true. They would slay her where she stood, and call her shapechanger.
Alix lunged backward into Finn. He turned sharply and hissed something, then saw why she moved. He said nothing more. The arrow’s flight was unmarked in passing, but Alix saw the feathered shaft quiver out of the guardsman’s throat. He fell back in the saddle, crying out something in a gurgling voice. Then he tumbled from his bolting horse.
She stuffed a fist into her mouth to keep from screaming, aware only that Finn had left her and was fighting hand-to-hand with yet another guardsman. Alix recoiled, staring open-mouthed at the straining men. A bough jabbed her in the small of her back, tearing through the woolen fabric and into her flesh, but she was oblivious to the pain.
Finn bent the man’s knife arm away from his throat, a fearful rictus of concentration baring his teeth. Muscles bulged beneath his armbands as he fought to keep the blade from his throat.
Alix mumbled something to herself, unaware she spoke. Finn drove his knife upward into the guardsman’s stomach, but not before the man managed to bring his own weapon down in a slashing motion that penetrated Finn’s rib cage.
Alix cried out again, then heard a strange moaning sound and saw the Cheysuli blur himself into his wolf-shape. Before her horrified eyes the wolf leaped on the man and bore him to the ground, ripping his throat away.
Sickened, she leaped to her feet and fled the shelter.
“Alix!”
She ran on, ignoring Finn’s human cry.
“Alix!”
An agonized glance over her shoulder showed him coming after her, bloodied knife in one hand. She blurted out a garbled denial and ran on, breaking her way with outstretched hands.
A horse drove through the brush before her, pawing hooves flailing at her head as its rider jerked it to a halt. Alix ducked down and threw up a beseeching hand, expecting a blow from one of the hooves. She saw an enraged face hanging over her as the guardsman drew his broadsword.
“Shapechanger witch!”
“No!” she shrieked. “No!”
“You’ll not live to bear more of the demons!” he cried, lowering the blade in a hideous slash.
Alix threw herself flat onto the ground and heard an eerie whistle as the blade flew past her head. Then she scrambled up and instinctively dashed directly at the horse.
The wolf-shape hurtled past her, leaping, and took the man from the horse in one sweeping lunge. Alix h
eard the guardsman cry out. The horse screamed and reared, striking out.
The guardsman’s broadsword fell at her feet as she stumbled away from the terrified horse. The man, now on foot, lifted his knife to slash at the wolf leaping toward his throat. The point slid sideways and tore open one furred shoulder, driving the wolf back.
The soldier bent for his sword, caught it up and advanced on the snarling animal. “Demon!” he hissed. “Know what it is to die in that shape!”
Alix threw herself forward and grabbed at his arm, thwarting his blow. The mail bit into her hands and face as she hung onto the arm. One jerk knocked her to the ground so hard she lay there, half-stunned.
Gloating, the man turned back to the wolf. But the animal was gone. In its place stood a Cheysuli warrior whose knife found a new sheath in the guardsman’s throat. His blood splattered Alix as the body fell next to her.
Finn stood over her, clasping his left shoulder. His jerkin was heavy with blood from the wound in his ribs. Amazed, Alix saw a grin on his battered face.
“So, meijha, you feel enough for me to risk your own life.”
Burgeoning panic and the sickening smell of blood drove her to her feet. Alix stood before him unsteadily, trembling with rage and reaction. She wiped a hand across her face and felt the dampness of the man’s blood.
“I wish death on no one, shapechanger. Not even you.”
Another horse crashed through the trees, leaping mailed bodies as they lay scattered on the forest floor. Alix swung around in panic and saw Carillon on his chestnut warhorse. He wore his Cheysuli sword but had not unsheathed it.
“Alix!” He jerked the horse to a halt, staring down at the man Finn had slain. The Cheysuli warrior, weaponless, glared wrathfully at the prince.
“Do you slay me now, lordling?” he demanded, lowering his hand from the wound in his shoulder.
Carillon ignored him and reached out to Alix. “Quickly, Climb up behind me.”
She moved forward, stunned by the suddenness of her rescue, but Finn’s bloody hand on her arm stopped her.
“Meijha…”
She wrenched her arm free. “I go with Carillon,” she said firmly. “As I told you once before.”
“Alix, waste no time,” Carillon urged.
“Meijha, stay with your clan,” Finn said.
Alix grasped Carillon’s hand and pulled herself onto the horse’s broad hindquarters. Her arms settled around the prince’s hips, resting on his swordbelt. She sent Finn a significant look of triumph.
“I do not stay. I go home…with Carillon.”
Finn scowled blackly up at them. Carillon, smiling oddly, tapped his sword hilt. “Another time, shapechanger.” He spun the chestnut and sent him leaping back the way he had come.
Alix, clinging to him, saw with horror the carnage as they passed. Liveried guardsmen lay scattered through the forest, some displaying the marks of beasts. She shuddered and pressed herself against Carillon’s back, sickened by the results of the forest battle.
Carillon’s horse broke into a clearing and galloped across a lush meadow. The edge of the forest fell behind them, and with it the grim toll of dead.
“I said I would come,” Carillon said above the sound of pounding hooves.
“So many are slain…” she said.
“The Mujhar’s vengeance.”
Alix swallowed and put a hand to her tangled, blood-matted hair. “I saw only slain guardsmen, Carillon. There were no Cheysuli.”
She felt him stiffen and expected a curt reply, but the prince said nothing. The golden hilt of his sword pressed against her left arm as she hung on, and she stared at its huge ruby and the golden Homanan lion crest in wonder.
Hale’s sword…she whispered within her mind. My father?
A hawk broke free of the trees and flew to catch them. It circled over them, drifted a moment, then drove closer. The warhorse, shying as the bird neared his head, plunged sideways.
Alix saw the hawk as it streaked by them, circling to return. It was the smaller one she had conversed with in the forest, and she nearly fell from the plunging horse as her grip loosened in shock. Carillon, cursing, tried to rein the stallion into control.
The hawk drove close again, wings snapping against the horse’s head. Alix felt the smooth hindquarters bunch and slide from beneath her, though she grabbed at Carillon’s leather doublet. She cried out and tumbled awkwardly to the ground.
Carillon called her name but the frightened horse would not allow him to approach. The prince wrestled with the reins, muttering dire threats under his breath, but Alix saw no good come of his words. She sat up dazedly and fingered the lump on the back of her head.
Stay with me, the bird said. Stay.
“Let me go!” she cried, getting unsteadily to her feet.
Stay.
“No!”
I ask, small one. I am not Finn, who takes. The bird hesitated. I ask.
Realization flooded her. “Duncan!”
Stay with me.
“Duncan…let me go with him. It is what I want.”
It does not serve the prophecy.
“It is not my prophecy!” she cried, lifting a fist into the air. “It is not mine!”
And the tahlmorra?
Alix was conscious Carillon had calmed the warhorse somewhat. The prince jumped off the chestnut and dragged him behind, crossing to her with long steps.
“Alix!”
She stared at the hawk drifting idly in the sky. “It is not my prophecy,” she said, more quietly. “Nor is it my tahlmorra.” But it is mine…
Alix turned to Carillon, shoving tangled loose hair out of her face. “I go with you. If you can keep your horse in check, I will stay aboard.”
She saw questions in his eyes but he did not ask them. Eloquently, silently, he gestured toward the hawk.
Alix stared up at it, aware of a sensation of regret. “If you would stop me, shapechanger, you must do as your brother. And to do that earns you my enmity.”
The bird paused in mid flight. That, it said after a moment, is not entirely what I seek.
“Then let me go.”
The hawk said nothing more. It circled a last time, then soared higher into the sky and flew away.
Carillon touched her shoulder. “Alix?”
Strangely defeated and somehow bereft, she turned to him. She spread her hands. “You may take me to Homana-Mujhar, my lord, and to my grandsire.”
His hand tightened on her shoulder. “I have warned you what he may feel when he sees you.”
She smiled grimly through her dirt and blood stains. “I will take that chance.”
Carillon caught her waist and swung her up on the quieted horse. He put her in the saddle and she clutched at it, surprised. He mounted behind her and took up the reins, setting his arms around her waist.
“I think the Mujhar may find his granddaughter is no simple crofter’s child.”
Alix smiled wearily as the stallion moved on. “He raised a willful daughter. Let him see how that spirit serves Lindir’s child.”
BOOK II
“The Meijha”
Chapter One
Carillon took Alix first to the croft so she could see Torrin and show him she was well. As they rode down the hills into the valley Alix had known all her life, she felt a strange sense of homecoming mixed with loneliness. Her relief at seeing the lush valley again was tinged with sadness and regret, for she realized her few days with the Cheysuli had altered her perceptions forever.
“It seems odd,” Carillon said quietly as he guided the chestnut toward the stone crofter’s cottage built along the treeline.
“Odd?”
“Torrin lived among the halls of Homana-Mujhar, privy to much of Shaine’s confidences. Yet he gave it up to work the land like a tenant-crofter owing yearly rents to his lord.”
Alix, slumped wearily in the saddle, nodded. “My father—” She broke off, then continued in a subtly altered tone. “Torrin has ever been a man of deepn
ess and dark silences. I begin to see why, I think.”
“If the story is true, he has carried a burden on his soul for many years.”
Alix straightened as the whitewashed door of the croft squeaked open. Torrin came out and stood staring as Carillon took the horse in to him.
“By the gods…” Torrin said hoarsely, “I thought you taken by beasts, Alix.”
She, seeing him through different eyes, marked the seams of age in his worn face and the thinning of his graying hair cropped close against his head. His hands, once so powerful, had callused and gnarled with crofter’s work over the years, so different from an arms-master’s craft. Even his broad shoulders had shrunk, falling in as if the weight of the realm rested on them.
What manner of man was he before he took me from the Mujhar? she wondered. What has this burden done to him?
Alix slid free of the horse as Carillon halted him, standing straight and tall before the man she had called father all her life. Then she put out her hand, palm up, and spread her fingers.
“Know you what this is?” she asked softly.
Torrin stared transfixed at her hand. Color leached from his weather-burned face until he resembled little more than a dead man with glistening eyes.
“Alix…” he said gently. “Alix, I could not tell you. I feared to lose you to them.”
“But I have come back,” she said. “I have been with them, and I have come back.”
He aged before her eyes. “I could not tell you.”
Carillon stepped off his horse and walked slowly forward, skin stretched taut across the bones of his face. “Then it is true, this shapechanger tale. Lindir went willingly, forsaking the betrothal because of Shaine’s liege man.”
Torrin sighed and ran a gnarled hand through his hair. “It was a long time ago. I have put much of it away. But I see you must know it, now.” He smiled a little. “My lord prince, when last I saw you, you were but a year old. It is hard to believe that squalling infant has become a man.”
Alix stepped up to Torrin and took one of his hands in hers. She felt the weariness and resignation in his body.
“I will go to my grandsire,” she said softly. “But first I will hear the truth of my begetting.”
The Shapechangers Page 9
