Gambit of the Gods

by Ashley, Angela

  “I understand,” I answer meekly, lowering my eyes.

  Song at Sunrise pulls away from Thunder Echo and gives me a look filled with pure hate.

  “You would be wise not to turn your back on me, siqua seke etu. You do not deserve to live.” She spits the words out like they burn her tongue, then turns to her mate. Siqua seke etu has no direct translation in the Common Tongue, but loosely translated, it means something like ‘befouled son of a motherless pig’. I’ve only ever heard it used once before. It’s one of the worst insults our language contains.

  “And you,” she snarls, shaking her fist in her mate’s face. “My daughter would be safe in her bed right now if not for your half-blood child and this witko (fool). So when we catch up to them, you’d better save Shy Mouse first, even if it means the others die.”

  Men and women are equals among the People and under normal circumstances, they treat one another with respect. But Thunder Echo bears her tirade with good grace.

  “I swear it,” he vows, before turning back to me.

  “I trust you’ve had time to practice the Changing since your Quest.” He begins to unbutton his shirt. I nod once and unbutton mine. I wish I could see my father and mother one last time before I leave, since I may not survive this, but I can’t risk going back into the Village, even if these two would let me. I tell myself it’s because someone might detain me, but in my heart, I know it’s because I fear the Lady will work her spell on me again. But how will I face her when she appears to me in my dreams tonight?

  Thunder Echo tosses a skin bag to me, breaking my train of thought. He drops his clothes and knife into his own bag. Drawing the string to close it, he turns to his mate, placing her clothes and quiver with arrows into another bag. The bow is too long to fit, so he ties it to the outside.

  Placing the bag with my clothes in it on the ground, I close my eyes and summon my Spirit Animal.

  Glowing yellow eyes wink at me from the darkness forming within my mind. I feel my body melt and flow. As always, there’s some discomfort as my limbs elongate and pop their joints to bend in different ways, but there’s also a feeling of rightness to it, as if I’m assuming my truest form. My senses expand to take in all the new information around me. Immediately, my hackles rise in response to the acrid scent of an enemy.

  Two hunting cats stand before me, ears flat against their heads, a low growl coming from their throats. This is why we don’t hunt with other Clans—we’re all natural enemies in our Spirit Animal form.

  I snarl, baring my teeth. I could tear out their throats so easily, but I must not. I must override my instincts and prove I’m no threat. The wolf within me struggles for dominance, but slowly I push him back, just enough to take control. The hunting cats haven’t moved; their slitted eyes track my every move, their tails lashing. I smell their fear and hatred. There’s only one thing I can do.

  Lowering myself to the ground, I roll over, exposing my neck and belly to them. The wolf in me recoils in disgust to show lesser creatures such submission, but I lie there, waiting. Finally, the male hunting cat walks over, stiff-legged and poised for flight. He sniffs gingerly at my exposed flank. The female follows unwillingly, still growling, but the rumbling in her throat trails off at last and she too dips her snout to sniff once. Satisfied by my submission, they take up their skin bags in their jaws and turn toward me expectantly.

  Rising, I retrieve my own bag and follow them as they leap away. Lifting my nose into the wind, I taste the tang of the coming rain. I leap over rocks and between trees, the cool, sharp morning breeze scouring my soul clean. The scent of prey pulls at me often, but I know I must keep the hindquarters of the hunting cats in view. They’re smaller and lighter than I, but not as powerful, so it’s not difficult to keep up.

  Soon I grow somewhat accustomed to their feline stink and turn my attention to the other scents, sights and sounds the forest has to offer. Badger spoor beckons to me from a shallow cliffside dotted with holes, and a pair of raccoons trundled across our trail not long before. A small meadow yields a dizzying array of rabbit scents, causing me to drool. I sense their tiny hearts thudding swiftly, just below the surface. A surprised mouse darts away from under a pile of dead leaves. I snap half-heartedly at it and leap on, dancing to the ancient song of blood singing through my veins and the rhythm of my paws beating the earth beneath me. Time is an unseen river eddying at the edge of my consciousness, measured more in scents, sounds, sensations and sights, and less in blocks of human moments.

  Sometimes we catch the scent of something dead and hear it moving in the trees ahead; pausing, we choose another path well away from it. The hunting cats’ ears go tight against their skulls, heads lifted to gauge where to go. Often they must follow me as I pick out a new path to follow, for my sense of smell is stronger than theirs. I know we’re getting nearer to those we seek when we scent the dead, but we mustn’t let them detect us or we’ll lose the element of surprise.

  When the light begins to dim, my heart beats faster, wishing to hunt. The hunting cats slow and then stop next to a huge cedar, dropping their bags. They Change.

  “Go and hunt, boy,” the man says softly. “We’ll do better with bow and knife. Meet us back here before too long, and we’ll share what we find.”

  I slink into the trees, my heart racing. I glimpse a flash of lightning, followed by the crash of thunder overhead. The rain I scented earlier begins to fall, pattering on the leaves.

  The forest is alive with animal scents, but rabbits are among the easiest to catch so I follow after the trace of a lone rabbit, nose to the ground, ears cupped eagerly for the scrabble of terrified paws.

  Here, it crossed paths with another rabbit, leaving fragrant pellets behind to mark where they paused to greet one another. There, it tore at the grass for the sweet young blades within and nibbled some clover. The scent becomes overpowering as I draw closer. My blood seems to catch fire in anticipation. I almost miss the other scent.

  It’s a familiar odor, so familiar that at first, I think I imagined it. Something flies past my flank and lands in the tree just ahead of me, vibrating there—an arrow. A girl steps out from behind the tree, with a knife in one hand and Song at Sunrise’s braid gripped in another. Song at Sunrise spits out blood and groans, falling to the ground at the girl’s feet. I growl low in my throat, backing away.

  Two men join the girl, pushing Thunder Echo in front of them with their bows aimed at his back. He falls to his knees beside his mate, blood flowing from a large gash on his forehead.

  “Sudden Spark,” the girl calls to me. The bushes around me come alive with men, hemming me in on all sides, gripping bows, knives, or clubs. I look for a gap to leap through, then glance back at the girl. There are ribbons fluttering at her shoulders and face paint highlighting her cheeks, I see by the light of the rising half-moon.

  I recognize her. It’s Fiery Grace.

  She throws me a skin bag. My skin bag, with the scent of my saliva on it.

  “We won’t hurt them if you Change and surrender to us.” Her knife kisses Song of Sunrise’s throat. The bowmen pull their bowstrings back; I hear them creak.

  Heat suffuses my body and melts me. I Change, my skin and bones re-knitting into human form. Soon, I stand shivering in the moonlight. Fiery Grace smiles slightly.

  “I missed you, my love,” she says, her eyes darting down once to take in my nakedness before coming to rest on mine again. Yet there’s a coldness in her gaze I haven’t seen there before. She gestures toward the bag. “Get dressed. There is much to discuss.”

  She and the two men with her drag Thunder Echo and Song at Sunrise away, but the men surrounding me remain. Knowing I can’t leave the others to die, I reach for the bag and pull on my clothes.

  The headache I’ve nursed since I woke this morning has worsened.

  Chapter 29: Sera

  When I first laid eyes on those hideous, hulking beings with glowing red eyes and skulls for heads, I knew a moment of true despair and
a feeling of helplessness such as I had not known since the day we unwittingly loosed the plague upon our people and learned our fate. There was nothing I could do but watch as Kella fled from them, then fought for her life, finally calling the storm down upon them. Now they lay on the ground, three piles of smoking, blackened ash and mud. Kella lies unconscious at my feet. What I had so greatly feared has come to pass. Malyse has made her first move against me. What does she have planned next?

  As if thinking of her summons her, Malyse appears and saunters over to me. Sensing that Kella has fainted from shock and exhaustion rather than trauma, and knowing there’s nothing I can do for her anyway, I turn to meet my enemy.

  Her mind is carefully shielded and her face is blank, but I know her well enough to read the hint of self-satisfaction in her eyes. She tsks at the smoking ruins of her creatures, giving me what is meant to be a congratulatory smile.

  “Well done, my dear. Your Chosen acquitted herself well against my Chosen’s creatures. The ability you gave her is quite powerful. Was it your idea, or someone else’s? I may have underestimated you.”

  “That’s hardly relevant,” I retort, letting my anger show. “This isn’t a game to me, though it clearly is to you. I’m not going to stand here while you speak as if Kella is just a pawn to remove from the board.”

  Softening my tone with effort, I continue. “If you want me to beg you to spare her life, I will. I’ll gladly concede that you’ve won this ‘game’, if it will cause you to stay your hand. Please, spare her. I beg you.”

  “Oh, my,” she replies, her lush lips pursing as if she’s moved by my plea. “You’ve grown quite attached to her, haven’t you, Sera?” She tsks again. I force down the desire to grit my teeth at her condescension. “But haven’t you learned yet that love is just a falsehood that makes one weak? She doesn’t even know you exist. I’m sure you could find another Chosen to live through in no time, just as you did when you moved on from the others. This girl doesn’t seem all that special to me, after all.”

  Biting back another angry outburst, I fight to calm myself. I won’t give her the emotional response she wants.

  “Haven’t you ever loved someone or thought someone was special, Malyse?”

  She shakes her head impatiently, but something in her eyes tells me I hit a nerve, though her mental signature remains serene.

  “I never said I hadn’t. What I said was that love is weakness. When you love someone, you give them the power to hurt you in the deepest of ways. And I promise you, they’ll never fail to do so. At our core, we’re animals. And like animals, we’ll do whatever it takes to get what we want and take out anyone who gets in our way. Animals do not love. They survive, at any cost. Maternal instinct may now and again cause a female animal to die for her offspring, but I’ve also seen them kill and eat their own young.”

  She shrugs. “Have you ever seen a happy couple, then hear about what happens when one of them dallies with another lover? Suddenly love turns to hate, even murderous hate. If love was real, it would never end, no matter what might happen. So you see, this thing we call love is just the selfish possession of another, which is conditional based on their actions. I’ve never known anything more false than that.”

  I can’t help but glance over at Kella, lying there on the ground so still and helpless. She’s not blood of my blood, but I know in that moment that if I had my human body back, I’d give my life to protect her. I think of Wilde and how my heart would shatter if he ever rejected me; but I know that part of my heart could never regret loving him.

  “I agree with you that love makes you weaker in some ways, but it also makes you stronger in others,” I argue. “When you love someone, you hold their heart in yours, bringing meaning to life in a way that nothing else ever can. And when they love you in return, loneliness can never reach you. Your heart is doubled. Their strength is added to your own, and the burdens of life become easier to bear because the weight of it is halved between you.”

  It’s my turn to shrug. “Once love has lived in your heart, you’re never the same, in all the very best ways. Even if such a love ends, it’s never truly gone. It remains a part of you forever, making you more than you were before for having loved someone as close to unselfishly as a human being can. I feel sorry for you if you’ve never known a love like that.”

  Too late, I realize pity is probably not the best idea with someone like her, and that the only love I’ve ever known like that is with the man she used to be with and might still wish to be with. But her smile only widens.

  “Oh honey, I’m sure you believe that, and it’s sweet to think so. I just don’t know of any man capable of being truly unselfish for that long. And I’ve known quite a few.”

  She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, just between us women: you might be in for a rude awakening soon. You’re with Wilde now, aren’t you?”

  I don’t deny it, and she nods sagely. How could she know?

  “He’s a difficult man to keep at your side, if you know what I mean. Not that you have that much competition now, but a man like that is never satisfied with just one woman, in my experience. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  I would never admit it to her, but her words go straight to the root of my fears when it comes to Wilde. He was with her for a long time, and she’s the opposite of me—beautiful, sexy, wild, and more than a little dangerous—all very exciting things. In contrast, I’m relatively plain and boring. Can I trust that he’s changed enough to never want her back?

  I takes an effort, but I manage to smile politely.

  “Thank you for your concern, Malyse, truly. I’ll consider your warning. Now, about Kella—”

  “I’m sorry, Sera. If you were to join my side, I’d make sure Kella was safe, but I’m committed to seeing this game through to the end either way.”

  Her side? I have to at least ask. If I would die for Kella, what else would I be willing to do?

  “What would you require of me to be considered ‘on your side’?”

  Her eyes narrow slightly, as if considering the question. “Hmm. Well, a game is no fun unless you play to win. Winning takes strategy and making big moves. What would you think about pretending to be on the other side and getting information we can use against them?”

  Her eyebrow lifts. She’s challenging me, perhaps even mocking me, knowing that to do this, I’d have to turn my back on my moral compass. Still…

  “What kind of information?”

  “Oh, you know. Their Chosens’ talents, where they’ll be, their weaknesses and strengths. Maybe feeding them false information that would lead them into a trap.”

  She grins, her eyes fixed on mine, unblinking. Could I betray my friends like that, if it meant saving Kella? If their Chosen are going to die either way, would I really be betraying them?

  “I take it you have more of these…things,” I say, gesturing at the piles of muddy ashes around Kella’s prone form.

  Her smile this time is proud and predatory. “I don’t want to tip my hand, but I think that’s a reasonable assumption.”

  Wilde’s face appears in my mind, looking straight into my soul with eyes full of love. In the end, I would have to betray him and Jaereth. I could never do that.

  “I’ll talk to Wilde about it. Maybe we can both come to your side.”

  “I already approached him on the subject, and he’s considering the same proposition. I just thought I’d offer it to you as well, and if you accept, I won’t need his help. He’s been quite unreliable in the past, unfortunately.”

  She says it sadly, but the sadness doesn’t reach her eyes. How could I ever live with myself if I betrayed them all, only to find I’d lost myself in the process? And would she even hold to her part of such an agreement?

  Interesting, though, that she talked with Wilde about it and he didn’t tell me. Not only that, but she said he was considering her offer. I don’t know what to think about that. Would he betray me? Would I
betray him, to save Kella?

  The sound of hoofbeats turns us both around. Jaereth is galloping toward us on horseback, following the kicked-up earth Kella’s fleeing horse left behind. He spots her on the ground and reins in, vaulting to the ground and running to her side. When he touches her, she moans but doesn’t wake, so he picks her up, cradling her carefully.

  Wilde appears beside him, looking worried. He sees Kella lying unmoving in Jaereth’s arms, then catches sight of Malyse and me standing nearby. In the time it takes to think it, he’s standing in front of us.

  “What have you done?” he shouts, glaring at Malyse. She grins, enjoying his anger.

  “I’m playing the game,” she says, as negligently as if she’d just moved a playing piece on a game board. “Did you think I wouldn’t follow through?”

  Jaereth hurries off with Kella in his arms, pulling the horse by the reins behind him. Wilde gazes after him, clearly wanting to follow, but turns back to us instead.

  “Why do you want to hurt people? They haven’t done anything to you. They’re innocent. If it’s me you’re trying to hurt, then hurt me, but please, leave them alone.”

  Malyse doesn’t react, but her pupils dilate as she looks at him. Even angry or begging, he’s a breathtaking sight, his dark eyes passionate, his dark-stubbled jaw tight and commanding as he spits out each word. His inner radiance makes him look like a magnificent, dark angel. I swallow hard. He doesn’t look at me, and in the shadow of Malyse’s beauty, I feel invisible.

  “No one is innocent, darling. And you give yourself far too much credit if you think I’m doing this because of you.”

  “Then why?”

  “I thought you understood me better than that, Wilde. But I’ll tell you why, since you asked so nicely. I’m doing this because I can, and because I want to. We’re like gods now, don’t you see, and what do gods do? They play with human lives, they move them around on the game-board of life wherever they will. And sometimes a gambit must be made, a sacrifice offered, in order to win a game between gods.”