by Jean Johnson
If you ever have to fight someone, she remembered her father instructing her, make sure it is done swiftly. If they offer you violence, end it quickly and decisively. If they are neighbors—if Josan gets too much stout in him and he starts swinging at anything that looks twice at him—then you end it without killing or maiming him. If they are enemies, and they are trying to kill you, end it any way you can, but end the fighting quickly. You will be as much a target as they are, when you fight.
The bandits crested the hill; she could now see that there were four of them, not just three. Two carried bows, arrows nocked on the strings. The other two carried axes and knives. They moved cautiously, but quickly, their attention behind and ahead. Not above.
Diving down between the branches, Tava concentrated as she fell, swelling her muscles, her mass, until she was as large and furry as that bear she had seen. Hitting the first man on the shoulders, she crunched him under her excessive weight. Thick fur and thicker muscles padded her from a bad bruising as she tumbled free. Those same muscles also allowed her to launch herself at the next man as soon as she completed her somersault.
Paws shifted into claws when she pounced onto his back. They raked down his spine, slamming him into the ground. Ribs cracked under her weight; blood flung in hot, wet droplets from her claws when she leaped again. It took two bounds to get to the next man, who had whirled at the noise of his companions being brought down. Pain blossomed in her shoulder, but it was too late to stop her lunge. She shifted shape as she passed his dodging body, shoving the arrow shaft out of her flesh by sheer force of will.
Now vaguely human, but fur-clad and three times her normal size, Tava used her uninjured arm to grab the wrist holding the offending bow. She used her forward momentum to spin herself around, yanking the bandit off his feet. A yell escaped him as she slung him around and released him, sending him flying through the woods. A thump ended all further noise, save for the crackling of branches, as his body landed limply on the bushes at the base of a tree.
Whirling to face the last bandit with the momentum of her throw, she shifted again, leaping at the ax-wielder with a feral, feline snarl. Bears had power for brute strength, but she wanted the claws of a stripe-cat to make this murderer pay. Something else slammed into him from the side, knocking him out of her way. Or rather, someone else. Striped and tigerish, the other shapeshifter tore into the bandit even more brutally than she had treated his three comrades. She skidded to a stop, not wanting to get involved in the fierce, brief battle between the two males.
For a moment, Tava allowed herself to feel a feral satisfaction, even though her aborted target was the one with the blue and purple patchwork tunic, her rightful prey. Still, at least one of the five who had survived her father’s ambush was now thoroughly dead, one of the few she had been able to identify as one of his attackers. She let herself feel satisfied for a moment.
Backing off of his bloodied prey, the other tiger looked up at her, tawny, light brown eyes narrowing in wary puzzlement. Realization dawned as he met her gaze.
Shifterai male. Lone female. Oh . . . muck!
Spinning, she launched herself downhill, sprinting for the same stream the bandits would have used to hide their scent and their tracks. When she glanced behind her and saw the other tiger giving chase, Tava threw herself and her attention forward. She raced as hard as she could, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the stitch in her abdomen. Unfortunately, tigers weren’t built for long sprints; they could dash after prey, but usually only in short bursts. Mostly, they traveled great distances at a steady lope. Time for another change.
Limbs lengthening, spine bunching and flexing, she bounded over bushes and rocks, dodged trees, and crossed the wending stream in her nearly straight flight. A few minutes later, another glance showed no further signs of pursuit; Tava slowed just enough to catch some of her breath, but she didn’t stop running and didn’t lower her guard. Shapeshifters could become almost anything and hide almost anywhere.
There was only one place safe for her, and it was at least an hour’s run from here. The Morning River. She had heard of Shifterai warbands taking the shapes of eagles, but she had never heard of them taking the shape of a river eel. As soon as she reached the great river, she would be relatively safe, provided she avoided any barge nets and made herself too large to be swallowed by another fish.
Father, I have avenged you. At least in part. And, Goddess save me . . . the Shifterai have avenged the other part. I never thought I’d be grateful to their kind for anything, not after what they did to my mother! But as you taught me, I must acknowledge the truth, and the truth is, they have done me a favor. I could not have taken on all seventeen bandits, not so swiftly, and not on my own.
But Father, I wish it hadn’t been necessary! How I wish you were still alive!
A tigress . . . That was a tigress.
Still a little stunned by the discovery, Kodan padded back toward the bodies of the fallen bandits, nose to the trail. Tigerish, humanish, bearish pawprints reeked of nervous sweat and battle adrenaline. A bloodstained arrow discarded on the ground smelled of pain and injury. And all of it smelled female. There was no lying to a Shifterai nose.
Noise up on the top of the ridge made him tense, then hurry away from the four corpses. I have to keep the others away. He didn’t question the possessive urge; it was a cautious one, and caution usually saved lives. Her life, whoever she was.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Shifter females don’t usually leave the Plains. Not without an escort; they’re too important. If the others got a whiff of her, they’d act impulsively, scaring her farther away . . .
Whoever she is, I haven’t smelled her before. Either she’s someone from a far-flung Family, exploring on her own, or . . . Well, I don’t think there has ever been a case of a Centarai cross-kin being a female. This could be an exception, but if she is cross-kin, where is her escort? Even cross-kin males ride from their Plains to ours with an escort of some sort.
“Did hyu get de last of dem?” the bear pausing at the top of the ridge asked, peering down through the bushes and trees.
“Hyez.” Talking with a tiger’s mouth was about as comfortable as talking with a bear’s, but it was less tiring than shifting into something more human. And more courteous; Manolo wasn’t a multerai, but he might still feel compelled to shift back to a humanoid form if Kodan did. Better for the older, less skillful man to conserve his energies until they were absolutely sure the battle was over. “Fhour crozzed de ridge, and fhour are dead. De odders?”
“Dead.” Twisting his head back over the ridge, Manolo indicated the vale. “I help gadder tings from dem?”
“No, I be fine. Go help de odders,” Kodan directed him.
Nodding, Manolo loped over the top of the hill, heading back down toward the others.
Normally he would have suggested the other way around, that Manolo strip the corpses while he returned to the others. He had been voted the warlord for this expedition, and it was his duty to direct their group efforts. However, the scent of that female shifter still lingered near these corpses. Until he knew what to do about her—if anything, given how fast she had fled from him—Kodan would keep her existence to himself.
He retreated back to the four corpses. Two had crushed rib cages and one had a broken neck, thanks to the woman shifter. The fourth, he himself had disemboweled. Her kills were cleaner than his, with mostly minimal damage to the brigands’ clothes. Much of it could be salvaged. Keeping enough fur on his body to preserve his dignity, he shifted to his natural form and started tugging off the nearest set of boots.
Whatever he and his men didn’t want for themselves would go to the villagers that had hired their warband. It was only fair to reclaim such things; most of whatever these bandits owned had been stolen from others in the first place. He had his duties to perform, in spite of her tantalizing, fading scent and the unpleasantness of handling dead and bloodied bodies.
If I wasn’t in c
harge of the warband, I would have given further chase. Whoever she is, I’m fairly certain she’s not Shifterai. A Princess of the People wouldn’t have run from a fellow shapeshifter. A thought made him pause as he stuffed a pair of brown, Mornai-style britches into a yellow tunic. Unless perhaps she’s a spellshifter? An actual mage? If so, she’s a long way from lands where mages are born. Possibly from the head or the mouth of the Morning River, or possibly from somewhere to the east?
But she doesn’t really smell like a mage. I’ve only been close to three, all of them priestesses, but they all stung my nose like fresh-ground pepper. Adding the boots and the worn leather belt, he moved on to the next corpse. It’s a question I may never get answered.
When he was finished stuffing tunics with garments and using the last of the belts to lash the weapons together, he bundled the salvaged belongings over his shoulder and headed back across the ridge. The others had been equally industrious; not only were the bodies stripped, but the buttons and buckles the bandits had been gambling over had been gathered back into their storage chest, and the bolts of fabric were being reloaded onto the wagon.
That’ll be a good haul to bring back home, Kodan acknowledged, satisfied. The Aldeman can send word back along the trader’s route of the poor man’s loss . . . though I wouldn’t give the Aldeman the bolts and buckles to send back as well, not without knowing exactly who should inherit them. He’d be more likely to “tax” the whole amount and keep it for himself and his fellow Alders.
These remote village leaders are often greedy, even power-hungry. Full of themselves. And we don’t have a written contract with them, just a verbal one. They wouldn’t accept me as the scribe, and they were too cheap to send for the local man.
“You’ve snagged a fine haul for us, Brother.” Kenyen came up and took the bundle of weapons from Kodan. Like his elder sibling, he was clad in fur from waist to knees, his feet bare of all but self-toughened skin on their soles. The younger shifter lifted his chin at the wagon. “Such bright colors and finespun threads will be worth quite a lot when we get to the City.”
“Yes, when we get to the City,” their father stated, limping up. He, too, was mostly naked, though he had chosen to clothe himself in feathers from hip to thigh. At Kodan’s concerned look, Siinar lifted his hand. “Just a stab wound to my calf. It’s half-shifted whole and no longer bleeding. I’ll be fine by tomorrow—don’t tell your mother. She worries too much. I am not too old for the warband, whatever she says.”
Kenyen snorted, and Kodan grinned. Sinya had been worrying over Siinar Sid Quen for as long as they could remember, despite how often he came home alive and well. She wasn’t a princess, but she did rule over their family whenever her menfolk were home.
Siinar eyed his sons, then the wagon again. “A fine prize indeed. That just might be enough to retire for the winter . . . though we could always seek out more. Only a few of us were injured. Even Torei, the least-shifted of us, should be healed within a few days. So, do we head back to the Plains, Warlord, or do we seek out more work?”
It wasn’t the prospect of more wealth that occupied Kodan’s thoughts. It was the sight of a tigress bounding downstream as fast as she could. Work would be a good excuse to linger in the area. If she gets over her fright, she might seek us out. She’s not Shifterai, and she’s not a Centarai cross-kin. The Centarai are warriors in their own right, but even they don’t travel alone when they leave their Plains. No, it’s slightly possible that she’s a by-blow from some shapeshifter’s visit to a local village. If so, she may be local-born.
“We’ll stay and seek more work,” he decided. “These bandits were attacking whoever they could. We’ll head upriver to the next village after we’ve collected our fee from Muddy Ferns, and see if they, too, will be suitably grateful . . . though we won’t tell them immediately why they should be grateful.”
Siinar chuckled and clasped his eldest son on the shoulder. “You’ve learned your bargaining at your mother’s knee. I feel pity for these Mornai.”
Kenyen laughed outright at that, heading to the wagon to add the weapons to its load. Someone was bringing over the pair of horses that had drawn it, preparing to hitch the geldings to the traces. The bodies of the bandits would be left where they had fallen. Kodan followed his younger brother, adding the bundle of clothes to the items piled under the wagon’s canopy. They would have time to wash and sort everything on the journey north, since Muddy Ferns was roughly a day away.
Manolo came over, tying the drawstring of his breiks around his waist. The older man had draped more than his own tunic over his naked shoulder; he had also fetched Kodan’s clothes. “Here. I’m off to fetch the rest for the others. Did I hear right, just now? We’re going to look for more work?”
Kodan nodded, accepting his breiks, chamak, and boots. A check of the lattermost showed his socks were still stuffed inside. “It’s a good haul, with no one other than the Alders of Muddy Ferns likely to try to claim the wagon’s goods, but we have enough time left in the season to do a little better. Family Tiger is strong because of its wealth, not because of its numbers.”
“I think there’s a village just south of here, within a day’s walk. Five Springs, Aldeman Tronnen, if he’s still in charge. It’s been a while since I was in a warband this far south along the Border.” The older shifter shrugged. “We’d have been here long before, if Clan Dog hadn’t claimed this corner of the Border for themselves.”
Kodan shook his head, glancing at the forest around them. “Claimed it, but not sent any warbands into it. I hate to say it, but . . . Clan Dog has grown strange over the years. There’s something . . . unfamiliar in the way its Families have behaved.”
“Well, the land down here is still somewhat familiar to me.” What Manolo lacked in shifting ability, he made up for with his long memory. Kodan listened as he continued, rubbing his chin. “There was also a scribe living in the village of Five Springs . . . Vanamon, I think. A good man with a neat hand and a little girl. Though I suppose she’s all grown by now. I haven’t seen any of them in years.”
“We all grow up,” Kodan said, shaking out and stepping into his breiks. “And I picked this far south because no one has been down here in years. If the Aldeman of Muddy Ferns gives us trouble, we’ll go find this scribe of yours. They usually have Truth Stones and Truth Wands as part of their business.”
“T-T-Truth St-stone?” Torei asked, limping up to the two men. “Sc-sc-sc-scribe?”
The youth was barely eighteen summers old and could take only three shapes, but he was a good enough fighter to qualify for a warband. Of course, not good enough yet to avoid getting injured, Kodan noted. Torei’s thigh wound was bandaged to prevent further seeping of blood, though it did show some signs of shifter-fast healing. A few more shapeshifts and the wound would be fully closed, though it would be an effort for the young man to heal himself that way.
He wasn’t like Kodan, who had learned seven shapes within his first year as a young shifter. At the age of eighteen, Torei had mastered only three shapes and would likely never become a multerai. His stutter didn’t help him to appear strong and powerful, either. But there was nothing stunted about his ears or his mind. “You mean, th-this?”
He dug into a bag slung over his naked shoulder and fished out a handful of quills, a scrap of parchment, and a smooth, white, marble disc.
“Why would bandits have a Truth Stone?” Manolo asked, frowning slightly.
“Why would they have a bag full of parchment and quills?” Kodan countered, plucking one of the altered, ink-stained feathers from Torei’s grasp. He gave Manolo a grim look. “I suspect the scribe you just mentioned may have also fallen victim to these brigands. If so, it is our duty to tell his fellow villagers what may have happened to him. Particularly if they do not already know. I think these curs may have been killing their victims, not just robbing them.”
Nodding, Torei handed him the disc and the bag, leaving it a matter for his warlord to deal with. Accepti
ng the bag, Kodan tucked the feathers gently back inside, along with the disc. Lifting his hand when he was done, he rubbed at an itch on the side of his nose . . . and smelled something faintly familiar.
Brow pinching in a frown, he lifted the bag, examining it. Oiled canvas on the outside to shed the rain, leather lining the inside for sturdiness. Dyed threads stitched along the canvas in interweaving bands of wool. The embroidery smelled of sheep, making his nose itch, but other parts smelled of that same familiar something. It took burying his nose along the fabric covering the leather shoulder strap to figure out what that elusive scent was: something very similar to her.
The tigress . . . she’s touched this bag. Not just once, but several times. It’s an old scent, the kind that has become one with an object. Nothing too recent, and definitely not with adrenaline or fear. There’s no stink of either in her scent on this strap, nor any hints of pepper in her scent. He eyed Manolo, who was studying him curiously. Lowering the bag, Kodan slung the strap over his head.
“I smelled spices.” It wasn’t really a lie; there were faint hints of herbs and spices imbued into the canvas along with the scents of a male and a female. “Maybe this Five Springs village has some for trade?”
“It’s more likely for them to have tea this close to the Corredai Border than foreign spices,” Manolo said. “Don’t hold your breath on finding exotic foods this far from outlander cities, Kodan. Not in quantities they’d be willing to trade. We wouldn’t be that lucky.”
“Good luck only happens if you’re quick enough to grasp an opportunity, Mano,” Kodan returned, thinking of his own missed opportunity in letting that tigress flee. The older man shrugged and moved away, letting him dress in peace.
By the time he had his breiks tucked into his boots and his tunic settled over his chest, Kodan knew he would have to go looking for that tigress. Somehow. Even if it meant sending the warband home without him, since he had no idea which way she had fled once she had vanished downstream.
