Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter

by Jean Johnson

  Solyn wasn't overly devout. She prayed to Cora during holy days and festivals, but rarely outside of those moments. As she walked back up the path, she prayed now. Goddess of Mountains and Valleys, thank You for the glorious luck we had in Traver running across Kenyen, allowing us to free him before he could be killed. Please, help us to stop the rest of these madmen? You know I don't ask You for much, but we could really use some help in wrapping up this matter...

  There was no reply, of course. Cora could have Manifested, as in physically appeared beside her—as all gods could, if the need were great enough, or at the deity's divine whim—but Solyn didn't need that kind of help. Just a bit more of good luck on our side will do, that's all I'm asking You.

  Kenyen half-feared, half-expected a confrontation with the Mongrels. The trick with the lanolin might disguise some of it, but not all of it. His scent could be explained away from previous visits, but Solyn had never been to the cottage before. Of course, most of the shifters didn't come in close, daily contact with her, so it was possible her scent wasn't that familiar. But he did expect some sort of confrontation, particularly after Tunric had raced off to go looking for his so-called son.

  He just didn't expect it the moment he descended for breakfast.

  He stopped on the next to last step, staring at the sight of Zellan holding on to an upset-looking Luelyn on his lap, one arm wrapped around her torso and the other hand clamped tight over her mouth, fingers damp from her tears. Beyond the two of them, Reina was being held on the cushion-strewn settee by a shifter he only vaguely remembered from the bonfire night, while Ysander was being held next to the hearth by a third. Each adult had a knife at their throat. Thumps, rustlings, and a faint crash could be heard from somewhere beyond the front hall, no doubt a result of the herb-room being ransacked.

  Before Kenyen could do or say anything, Solyn descended the stairs behind him. She stopped and stared as well. Zellan lifted his chin, though whether to signal Kenyen to back off and not attack like the real Traver would, or if he meant for the younger man to grab Solyn, Kenyen didn't know. One of the other two called out.

  "Tunric!" the one holding Reina snapped. "He's awake!"

  Kenyen descended the last step and rested his hands on his hips. Shaped like Traver, wearing Traver's clothes, he knew from the way Ysander and Reina narrowed their eyes in sudden suspicion that his pose was very un-Traver-like. It wasn't meant for them, though. The power and confidence implied in his stance, along with a touch of impatience, was meant for the Mongrel curs who had invaded the house.

  "About time you woke up, boy," Tunric growled, coming into the parlor from the front hall. He stalked up to Kenyen and slapped him. "You're Gods-be-damned useless! Like that boy of mine! You've had all that time in this household to find the Gods-damned thing, and you're useless!"

  Thankfully, the blow came without claws. The force of it did rock him a little, but aside from a sting and a slight bit of bruising, Kenyen wasn't harmed. Ignoring the throbbing, he asked, "What do you mean, useless? I'm here, aren't I?"

  "But you never found it!" Tunric accused him, pointing a finger at Kenyen. "I knew I should've killed you, the moment I saw you!"

  "You never told me what I was supposed to find!" Kenyen lifted his own hand and poked the older man in the chest, hard enough to make him flinch. "You kept it a Gods-be-damned secret! That means it's your damned fault I couldn't find whatever 'it' is! So, unless you don't even know what you're looking for, what in the flaming Netherhells am I supposed to be finding in this place?"

  "You're working with them?" Ysander demanded. He tried to lunge forward, glaring at Kenyen. The Mongrel shifter holding him increased his muscles, making the linen of his tunic creak with the strain. Subsiding, Ysander continued to glare at the Shifterai by the stairs.

  Solyn realized she needed to react, too. Affecting a hint of confusion and rising accusation in her voice, she asked, "Traver, what's going on? You know what's going on, don't you?"

  Reaching back, Kenyen caught her by the arm, dragging her down the last few steps. A spin wrapped his arm around her throat, pulling her against him at an awkward angle. He didn't actually hold her hard, but she did pretend to choke, and "clawed" at his arm, as if the pressure on her neck was too much.

  "A good wife," he growled, "doesn't question her husband." A quick flex of his arm muscles produced more mock-choking sounds. At least, Kenyen hoped they were faked. He looked back at Tunric, who was smirking. "Now, since you seem bent on ruining my secret, what are you looking for? And make it quick. I haven't had breakfast yet, and it's been a very long time since I had someone to chew on."

  Tunric narrowed his dark eyes at the order. He did move, though, turning to face Reina. The Healer was glaring stoically at him, unmoved by the blade at her throat. "Greensteel," he growled. "The antithesis of that accursed bluesteel, which marks us all. The one thing which can un-scar our bodies, and allow us to completely blend in wherever we want to go. And this bitch and her cur-pup know how to make it!"

  Reina frowned at the first insult, but Ysander only blinked in confusion at his. Kenyen decided to enlighten them as to the slander. "He means you're not only the lowest of the low, being a cur, you're at the bottom of all hierarchies, following along in the wake of a woman, of all things."

  That news only received another bemused blink.

  The man holding the blacksmith snorted. "Too stupid to know when he's been insulted. Can I cut 'im, now?"

  A muffled wail interrupted any answer their leader might have made. Luelyn sobbed against the hand smothering her mouth, fresh tears trickling onto her cheeks. Caught in her husband's fake stranglehold, Solyn quickly started humming. It was the same tune she had used the other night, with the same soothing energies pouring out of her. This time, she didn't just touch one distraught female, her sister, but extended it to the Mongrel shifters in the room.

  It was all Kenyen could do to prevent a sneeze, at that. He even reshaped the interior of his nostrils, trying to quell the damnable itch her magics stirred. Half a dozen tries, plus some thick-scaled skin, cut off both his sense of smell and the itch, save for its after-effects. Eyes watering, he watched some of Tunric's belligerent tension ease. Some, but not all.

  Thankfully, none of the other four shifters looked inclined to sneeze. That did, however, make him think of an alternate plan to distract the Mongrels in their quest. Now to find the right moment to tell them.

  "No. Not yet," Tunric muttered. "We still need something that'll remove our permanent scars—and will you shut her up?" he added, turning to scowl at Kenyen. His gaze strayed briefly to the humming woman. "She's beginning to annoy me."

  "Why?" Kenyen countered. "She's keeping the brat quiet."

  "It's annoying me, that's why!" Tunric snapped. "Either you shut her up, you damn pup, or I'll slit her throat! She doesn't know the secret to making it!"

  Solyn jumped at that threat, losing the thread of her hastily cobbled spell. She recovered fast, though. A quick, hard look at her sister, and Luelyn widened her eyes. A heartbeat later, the little girl wailed again, this time even louder and more frenetically.

  "Oh, for sodomizing a Netherdemon—shut up, you little brat, or I'll tear out your throat myself!" Tunric ordered the young girl. She shrieked at that thought and sobbed wildly.

  "You do that, you Netherdemon spawn, and I will pull your body to pieces with my powers!" Reina snarled, losing her calm at the threat to her child. She grabbed wildly at the arms holding her prisoner, forcing the shifter to actually struggle to contain her. "By Cora, I swear I will!"

  * * *

  Thirteen

  "Oh, dear. I think you got the little bitch mad," Kenyen quipped, unable to resist the opportunity to rattle the criminal shifter even more. "You know, it's really not a good idea, making a mage foreswear her Healer's Oaths not to do harm."

  Solyn quickly began humming again, and Luelyn obediently quieted down again. She extended her spell toward her mother, but only enough to
help lull the man holding her into relaxing again. Back aching from her position, she shifted a little to take some of the strain off her spine. Thankfully, Kenyen moved his arm to accommodate the subtle change, or it really would have been pressing against her throat.

  "As for you, young pup—" Tunric snarled, whirling to face him. Kenyen cut him off before he could say anything else.

  "—I suggest you shut up, old dog, and let this 'young pup' teach you a new trick. Now that I know what you're after, I can actually help you," Kenyen countered. "All you have to do is shut up and listen."

  "Solyn, you didn't tell him," the blacksmith muttered, staring at what he could see of his still humming eldest daughter, given she was on the far side of her husband from him. "Tell me you didn't!"

  Tunric seized on that news, his scowl switching to a fierce grin. "Oh, so you did get some news out of your 'fresh meat' after all?"

  Affecting a smirk, Kenyen mock-kissed his wife on the head. "Plow a bitch good and hard, and she'll tell you anything you want."

  Solyn growled at that, but only because she figured it was expected. The two of them had fallen into an unspoken accord on trying to treat Kenyen as if he were a real Mongrel shifter, instead of an honorable one. His words provoked a coarse chuckle from the other shifters in the room. Figuring they were sufficiently distracted, she resumed her soft humming, putting more of her magic than her voice into her spell.

  "So? Where's the blade, boy?" Tunric ordered impatiently.

  Kenyen rolled his eyes. "It's not a blade. The knife is just a decoy. A distraction. Any knife will do."

  Tunric narrowed his eyes at that. "What do you mean by that?"

  "The power to heal scarlessly doesn't lie in steel, whether it's green or red or purple," Kenyen lied. Behind Tunric, he could see the eyes of his in-laws widening in comprehension of what he was actually doing. Only he and Solyn could see, however, because the other shifters were looking at him. He affected a slight but smug smile. "The real power lies in the cheese."

  All four Mongrels blinked. Zellan frowned at Kenyen, his hand loosening a bit more over Luelyn's mouth. Wisely, the young girl didn't bite him or try to escape. "The cheese?" he asked. "What do you mean, the power is in the cheese? What cheese?"

  "Greenvein, of course." Behind his primary audience's back, he could see Reina narrowing her eyes in thought. So did Tunric.

  "I've had greenvein, boy," he growled. Reaching up, he tugged on the braid at the top of his scalp, reshaping the locks free so that he could pull down the flap of skin guarding his double-stroked Banished mark. "Do you see unmarked skin, here?"

  "Did you ever eat greenvein while that particular scar was wounded?" Kenyen countered calmly.

  Tunric scoffed at that. "You expect me to believe this? That eating cheese will remove a bluesteel scar from my head?"

  With a brief shake of his head, Kenyen shrunk his hair down to stubble, unweaving the braid that had been holding his bangs out of the way ever since encountering the Mongrel holding on to little Luelyn Ys Rei. He tipped his head and smirked. "Do you see a bluesteel scar on mine?"

  Mouth sagging, the man pretending to be Tunric Tel Vem stared at Kenyen's head. In the near-silence following the younger shifter's claim, broken only by Solyn's faint humming, they all heard a knock at the front door of the house. Whoever it was knocked again. Heart skipping a beat, Kenyen managed another tight smile.

  "I'll get that. This is now my house, too, after all. All of you, stay quiet, so I can get whoever it is to go away. Come along, dearest," he growled, flexing the muscles around Solyn's throat. She gurgled as if he had actually tightened his grip. "Say one wrong word, make one wrong look, and I'll eat your little sister alive, feet first. She looks tasty, doesn't she?"

  Solyn hastily put a bit more magic behind her humming as Luelyn started to cry for real. Since she was still blanketing the others, Tunric merely nodded, letting them move. Shuffling at his side, she righted herself as her husband's arm shifted to her shoulders, holding her close. A second shake of his head regrew and re-braided his hair into curly, Traver-style locks.

  He nudged the door to the parlor almost completely shut as they entered the front hall. But when she drew in a breath to speak, Kenyen quickly lifted a finger to her lips, silencing her, then tapped it against his ear. That ear briefly grew long and large like a horse's before returning to normal again, silent warning that the Mongrels behind them were no doubt doing the same so as to eavesdrop on them. Releasing Solyn, he opened the front door just as whoever it was knocked again.

  Manolo Zel Jav, middle-aged Shifterai of the South Paw Warband, Family Tiger, politely lowered his hand, smiled, and asked, "I've been told you sell the best cheese in the land?"

  Kenyen quickly flung his finger to his own lips, silencing his friend before Manolo could say which kind of cheese. Manolo narrowed his dark brown eyes, giving both of them a wary look. Considering Kenyen still looked like the absent Traver, he couldn't blame his friend for being cautious.

  "Yes, we do. Or at least, we like to think so," he stated calmly. A glance showed three others in view: Ashallan Nur Am, the lead princess of their expedition; Anaika Ell Tu, the other princess from Family Lion; and Bellar Sil Quen. The shifter whose brother had been exiled from the Plains, and who had warned him to keep the members of Kenyen's expedition away from the back of the cave, where the remains of the original, true Tunric Tel Vem had been hidden.

  There were also two members of the local holding in sight, mainly his nosy aunt-in-law and one of the younger cousins, each poking their head out their front door in curiosity at the visitors. Ignoring them, Kenyen quickly unbuttoned his tunic, pulling aside the front panel. It wasn't easy, speaking and drawing on his flesh in dark-hued scales, but he did his best.

  "We have several types of cheeses for sale, at this holding. Soft ones, fresh ones, hard ones, crumbly ones... do you have a particular type in mind?" he asked, while on his chest he painstakingly wrote, Four Mongrels, three hostages, and the words, Side doors, upper windows. Go.

  Manolo blinked. So did Ashallan. She narrowed her eyes and dismounted from her horse. A ripple of flesh left her clothes in a puddle on the ground. Launching upward in hawk form, she flew off to the side of the house. Off to one side, Hylin gasped; to the other, the cousin gaped.

  Bellan swung out of his saddle, catching the reins for Ashallan's horse, then hastily grabbed at Anaika's. The other princess had dismounted as well, but she didn't take the form of a hawk. Instead, she shifted into the shape of a lioness and headed for the other side of the building. Plains-bred as they were, none of the horses snorted as she slunk off, ears pricked forward and tail lashing in hunt-mode.

  Recovering from the shock, Manolo smiled ingratiatingly and said, "Oh, we've heard of several delightful cheeses. There's one called 'golden delight'... and 'mautzoa'... and 'greenvein.' Do you have any of these?"

  "Ah, we don't have mautzoa on hand," Solyn offered. "We could make some by the end of the day, though. It's a fresh cheese. Perhaps if you came back later?"

  "Yes, we haven't even broken our fast yet," Kenyen said. "We could also fetch you some greenvein by then."

  "I suppose we could wait—could we wait with you, perhaps?" Manolo asked.

  "I'm afraid not. The youngest of the family has developed a fever," Kenyen lied smoothly, rebuttoning his tunic. "We don't want it to spread to the rest of the holding."

  "Oh, well, we wouldn't want that, no," the older shifter agreed mildly. He questioned Kenyen with his gaze, glancing to either side. Kenyen shook his head subtly.

  "Feel free to make use of the benches," he offered politely. "Or even draw water from the well. When we have eaten, we will come back out and discuss quantities and prices and start making the mautzoa for you."

  "Cora bless you," Manolo said, though he lifted his gaze toward the rising sun, rather than to the peaks of the mountains around them.

  "Goddess bless you," he returned politely. His fellow Shifterai bowed and move
d off to the side. Kenyen nudged Solyn inside ahead of him and shut the front door. Pasting on a smile, he grabbed Solyn again and nudged open the inner door, dragging her back into the sitting room. "Good news! We have customers waiting to buy some greenvein cheese. I can easily head down to the storage cave and bring up several extra rounds."

  Zellan stood, setting the little girl on her feet. "Wrong. You will stay here. I know the cave in question, so I'll fetch the cheeses. Here, Tunric, you hold the little bitch-pup."

  Something slithered out of the kitchen. It paused on the threshold next to the hearth, lifted its head toward the stairwell, then darted forward. Kenyen, recognizing the grass viper and his silent signal, grabbed Solyn and ducked down. The serpent struck the foot of the shifter holding Reina on the settee just as a tawny shape leaped down from the stairs, striking Tunric in the chest.

  Pushing his wife away, he rolled into Zellan's legs, knocking down the shapeshifter. As much as he feared for Solyn's safety, he had to trust she could protect herself with her magics. Her little sister had no such protection. Pain lashed up his side as the older shifter reacted, lashing out with claws. The piercing shriek of a hawk and the pain-filled cries of the Mongrel holding his father-in-law mixed with the frightened screams of his young sister-in-law.

  A hard kick toppled the older shifter, and a wrenching twist allowed him to grab and fling Luelyn through the door into the front hall. The throw was awkward, considering he was rolling across the floor. One shoulder seam of his tunic ripped from growing his arms to the right length and muscle mass for the job, but it did get Luelyn out of the way. Righting himself with another twist, he shifted everything back to proportion. That stemmed the worst of the bleeding from the gashes in his side.