The Shapeshifter's Fate

by Chris Africa

  It was an uneventful night, and she woke everyone as soon as the sun rose. She had put on the porridge and it was ready to eat by the time the last sleepy head popped up.

  "This is much better. Tastes like you added honey," Cherise exclaimed. "Have you been holding out on us?"

  "I followed some bees yesterday and found their hive. Then at night when it was my turn to watch, William stayed up longer so I could retrieve it." It was good and worth the couple of stings she had received. "It won't last as long in Andrev's pot now that it has honey, so I made a small amount. But we have a little more." She revealed a piece of honeycomb wrapped in waxed cloth.

  The honey may have made breakfast porridge more pleasant, but she couldn't stop worrying about Chassy.

  "Tell me again why we're wandering off in that direction?" Andrev said. "Unless one of you knows how to track an eagle. I just don't see any value in wandering in a random eastward direction. He can go places we can't even reach."

  "It's all we can do. Chassy must have continued eastward as planned. Perhaps Gnarkvetch is much farther away than we expected." William tossed his pack over his shoulder. "I can think of several reasons he might be delayed."

  "Like they captured him?" Andrev asked.

  "Andrev! Why did you think of that first?" Nita was indignant.

  "More likely," Cherise pointed out, "he may have needed to take a rest. You know how exhausting it is for him to hold a different shape."

  "All right, let's find him," Nita said. She struck off in the direction Chassy had gone. They found a footpath traveling in the right direction and followed it. If Chassy had gotten exhausted and had to change back to human, she hoped he had found shelter. It would have been cold overnight with no clothes.

  37: Chassy

  Based on the location of the sun, Chassy thought he could go farther before turning back for the day. So far, he'd seen quite a lot of potential prey—rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and larger animals like bears and foxes. His stomach growled, but he was in too much of a hurry to give in to his eagle instincts. These were the first humans he had seen.

  Below him, two men were roughing up a third one. While he had no particular interest in getting involved in their personal quarrels, it seemed reasonable to think where there were a few humans there would be more. And maybe these would let something important slip.

  Chassy flew down and perched on a large branch close enough to hear them talk.

  "I didn't take nothing from the warehouse," the victim growled. "I didn't have a chance. And anyway, there wasn't almost anything magical in there. Only that cloak. Gnarkvetch took all them peoples' stuff, no matter what it were, to make a point." He swiped his longish black hair from his eyes and stood up taller.

  The bald one sneered and shoved him. "Well, Ames and I saw ya taking something before you run away like a big crybaby."

  Black-haired guy shrugged, hands in the air. "Well, search me if that's whatcha thinking. Here's my pack."

  Ames eyed him suspiciously. "Throw your clothes over here too. Trevor, look through that." He tossed the meager pack over to Trevor, who dumped the contents and sorted through them.

  Meanwhile, the black-haired man tossed over his shirt and pants. When he started to remove his smallclothes, Ames waved his hands and grimaced.

  "Not those!" he yelled.

  "Ames, I don't find nothing in this pack. I got a small bit of cheese, a flint, leaves." He held those up and frowned at them, as though compelling them to spill their secrets. "Couple bits of cloth and some rope."

  Trevor was having similar luck with the simple clothing, which had no pockets. Here was a man traveling light, which seemed not unusual given Gnarkvetch's penchant for taking people's belongings.

  "Well, he probably left it somewhere else," Trevor reasoned.

  "Why do you care if I took any of the junk from the warehouse?" asked the victim.

  "There's people looking for this stuff," Trevor started, but Ames knocked him off his feet with a backhanded blow.

  "We want everything," Ames said. "We need to keep the warehouse in good order."

  Chassy wondered if Martu was involved. He shifted and snapped a branch.

  "L-l-look at that enormous bird!" Trevor stuttered.

  "That's no bird, it's an eagle," Ames said with suspicion. "And it looks hungry. I heard they eat small children, and you ain't no large man, Trevor. I think we best be moving along. Toss it the cheese. Maybe that'll keep it from following."

  Trevor tossed over the small chunk of cheese they'd stolen from the victim's pack and waited. Chassy's stomach growled again. That cheese sure smelled good.

  "You got to get it closer, idiot! He suspects something!" Ames walked over to pick up the cheese and threw it again. It landed at the foot of Chassy's tree. He hopped and let his wings carry him downward.

  Seeing Chassy's movement, Trevor gave a shriek and the three men ran off into the woods, leaving the victim's clothes and the rest of his pack strewn across the ground. He heard their crashing continue for several minutes, probably startling some actual predators.

  The man's pack contained nothing of interest. Even the leaves looked like normal oak leaves, though Chassy was aware some people believed oak bundles could keep away angry spirits. He picked at the bundle with his beak, putting his frustration into it. He should follow these men, but if he went farther, he would have to overnight in the woods. But he knew he was close!

  He had decided to risk it when the bundle of leaves burst and revealed a surprise. Hidden in the middle was a large tooth. From some large predator, like a lion or bear, perhaps. It was longer than his thumb would have been, had he been in human form. Now he knew the black-haired victim would return. Whatever this was, it was no ordinary tooth, and he had hidden it.

  Chassy flew the tooth and a couple of key clothes up to a safe spot in a tree. Then he glided back down and scattered the guy's belongings around, tearing and muddying them. It must look like the tooth had been lost and like there were no humans involved. He laughed at the thought. Of course, there were no humans involved, since he was an eagle. Satisfied with his work, Chassy set off to find a sleeping spot and eat cheese.

  It was near dusk when he found the cave. It was more like someone had plucked a small chunk of rock from a stone wall, but it would keep him out of sight and out of the wind. Chassy shifted back to human form and donned the man's clothes. They were too long by far, but he knew he couldn't keep his eagle form all night and had no interest in freezing or having someone discover him naked. He then ate the small block of cheese, knowing it might be all the food he would get for another day without going full predator and killing something. He wondered if he would be any good at hunting now.

  Staring out at the star-filled sky, Chassy thought of last summer's adventures and the prophecies of the Nydwon.

  Your hope is in the trees and carried as ash on the wind. Your destiny takes you to the sun and stars. Protect that which is important, not that which you desire.

  Was the prophecy so simple? By becoming an eagle, he had soared on the wind, roosted in the trees, and come as close as anyone could to the sun and the stars. He drifted off to sleep with the tooth clutched in his hand, wondering why it was so special the guy would hide it in a bundle of oak leaves.

  ***

  Chassy awoke in a panic and almost rolled out the edge of the cave. The sun was shining straight down on him. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his head and sighed, looking out over the rocky edge below him. When he had landed here last night, he was sure it had looked a lot easier for climbing. He supposed he would have to fly down. Removing the clothes, he tucked the mysterious tooth into a crevice and transformed into a bird again. He glided down, carrying the clothes in his talons.

  At the bottom, Chassy tucked the clothes into the hollow of a tree he thought he could climb and then shifted into a form more amenable to sneaking, one of the feral cats seen slinking between trees in Waet Tree Village. He had seen none in the cities they
'd been through yet, but back home people even took them as pets. He'd befriended a gray one he called Thanh, and that's how he thought of himself. Like Thanh, he could climb trees, leaping from branch to branch, and land only on his feet when fell.

  It was refreshing after a lifetime of bruises from tumbling out of trees. Once, he'd even broken his arm.

  He forgot all that and raced through the forest, sniffing out the men who had run away. Ames, Trevor, and the black-haired man. At least they all seemed to have gone the same direction.

  After more searching, he saw other signs of humans and slowed down. If this was Gnarkvetch's camp, it stood to reason he would have a way of suppressing magic. If Chassy walked right into it, he would have no way of avoiding being changed back into a naked human. He came upon some men beside a stream washing clothes and complaining about why they had brought no women to do these chores. This must be Gnarkvetch's group, he realized.

  Nita would have slugged these guys for sure, he thought. Women didn't want to do the wash any more than men.

  Chassy wondered how he could get into Gnarkvetch's camp without being discovered. He wasn't sure how far the magical suppression extended, or even what would happen when he entered the affected area. Would he turn into a human? Or would he be stuck as a cat and unable to change back? He should return to the others; except he knew they were already looking for him and he would waste precious time backtracking to where they no longer were. Surely after Cherise came home empty-handed, they would know to go east rather than west.

  He saw this for what it was—an opportunity to gather information he could share with the others when they arrived.

  Keeping his distance and sticking in the shadows, he followed the griping men back to a small camp. There were a few tents, presumably for people like Gnarkvetch, but the rest were out in the open. Chassy counted thirty men in total. Thirty was a lot of people to fight. He pictured Nita raising her bubble shield, only to have it burst or fizzle. Cherise, William, and Andrev had no use for magic. Chassy had to make a plan that did not rely on magic.

  38: Nita

  After a few hours of walking eastward, they arrived in a small clearing that showed signs of a fight. The meager contents of someone's shredded pack littered the clearing. William studied the fragments.

  "Look at these holes." He pointed to punctures in the leather pack. "These look like bird talons made them, not bear or wolf claws. And look at those tracks on the ground. I would say this is Chassy's doing."

  Nita looked around at the destruction. There was no blood, but still… "But why would he do this? Rip someone's things apart?"

  William shrugged. "Maybe to prevent them from recovering their belongings?"

  "Or misdirection," Cherise suggested. "To disguise the true events here."

  "Or he was angry about something," Andrev added.

  Each idea sounded plausible in its own way. "This appears to be his work, though I can't picture Chassy angry, even as a bird."

  "We're going the right direction, for sure," William said. "At least we have proven we are on the right track, even if we don't know how close we are to Gnarkvetch. We should be more careful. Cherise, will you climb up and look around?"

  Cherise obliged and returned in a few minutes. "There are men walking this direction. We should hide."

  "Should we disable them so there will be fewer to fight later?" Nita whispered.

  "Good idea," William agreed. "We can secure them, so they won't interfere with our efforts. But first, let's hide."

  They ducked into the brush, while Cherise swung up into a leafy tree. Three men stepped into the clearing.

  "And I told them I didn't take anything from the warehouse, but they made me take off my clothes, anyway. Then a giant bird came through, looking like it could eat all of us. Hey, what the—?"

  He must have spotted the destruction. Nita covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud, then swallowed a shot of guilt for finding it funny.

  "Aww, why would a bird do such a thing? We even gave it my cheese," the guy whined.

  "Birds don't eat cheese, you idiot. Eagles eat meat and bones. It's getting back at you for not giving it a proper meal," one of the other guys said. "Good thing you ran away, or we'd be looking at your bits."

  They came into view, and Nita sent the slightest trickle of energy toward them, freezing them in place.

  "It's safe," she called up to Cherise, who swung down to help.

  One guy's eyes rolled around as he struggled against Nita's magic. Another man was tall and broad-shouldered, with his mousy hair in a thick braid. He stared at Nita with angry, fearless eyes. Nita gagged him first. Then William kept his sword ready while Nita released them one at a time so her friends could bind their hands with rope and move them.

  They hid their captives under a cluster of large pines, separated so they couldn't plot together.

  Then they cleaned up the scraps from Chassy's tirade and eliminated the bird tracks. When they finished, it was impossible to tell anything unusual had happened here. Their heads turned at the thrashing sounds.

  "We should give them a sleeping drought," Cherise said. "Anyone who comes through here will hear them."

  "And do you have any with you?" Andrev asked. "Because we're fresh out."

  "Of course." Cherise gave him a sweeter smile than he deserved and produced a thin bit of cloth wrapping some herbs. "We'll want to add it to the porridge. It doesn't go down so easily dry."

  Nita mixed the herbs into her precious honeyed porridge and removed the first prisoner's gag. "Eat this," she ordered. "It will make you sleep."

  "I'm not eating nothing made by a sorceress." The man clamped his jaws shut, pressing his lips into a tight seal.

  "Fine, then we will have to paralyze you so you can't make any noise," Nita stretched out her hand, and his eyes bulged.

  "All right, I'll eat it. But what even is it, anyway?" He gobbled the mixture.

  "It's herbs in porridge," Cherise soothed. "You can use it to keep away nightmares. It's something an herb woman would give you, nothing more."

  "This porridge don't taste right. It's good," he said. "It better not turn me into something nasty, or Lord Gnarkvetch will be after you."

  Nita's face wrinkled. "Do you think so? I never imagined him the type of person to do that."

  "Well," the man stuttered. "I am his mother's fourth cousin. I'm not just anyone, you know."

  He lapsed into a snore, and his companions took the same choice when presented with their options.

  "I wonder if that's true, what he said about Gnarkvetch looking for him."

  "I'm sure he wants to believe that's true," William said. "Maybe Gnarkvetch even told him that. But a person like Gnarkvetch, who can imprison and kill hundreds of poor farmers after stealing their belongings, isn't likely to be out searching for a distant relative."

  Nita nodded. She would like to believe they could turn Gnarkvetch away from his current course, but it seemed more and more likely he was unredeemable.

  "The good news is we can track them back to their camp."

  They crept through the trees. Soldiers never traveled alone; there would be more. Eventually, they arrived at a stream bed. This side of the stream, someone had spread washed clothes across rocks and bushes.

  "We're moving the right direction," he said. "From the clothing we see here, looks like at least twenty men." He held up one shirt, which looked like a small tent. "Very large men, in some cases."

  After that, they proceeded more cautiously. Nita occasionally tried to create a small ball of light to test if they had entered a magical suppression area. So far, everything felt normal.

  "Cherise, could you climb up and check how near we are?" William asked.

  Cherise obliged by shinning up the nearest tall tree. Once her legs were out of sight, they saw and heard no more until she dropped from a different tree up ahead of them. She waved them forward and into denser vegetation.

  "We're close now," she said
. "About twenty yards from here, there's a small rise to the top of a hill. Their camp is on the other side. I could just glimpse the tent tops and campfire smoke."

  "Let's see how close I can get and still do magic," Nita said. "I think we should move into the heavier tree cover."

  Everyone shifted into the trees and moved in the direction Cherise had pointed.

  "What happened to your big plan?" Andrev asked. "Are we going to barge in now that we're here?"

  Nita shushed him. "Talk softer, Andrev. We're so close to the camp. Plans are made to be broken. They might have caught Chassy by now. It's a new situation. If Chassy is in there, we don't want him getting hurt. Plus, they'll know something is up."

  "I didn't see Chassy," Cherise admitted.

  "Well, did you see any animals? Remember, he may or may not be in disguise. He could be in a tent. Or maybe they've even taken him somewhere in the woods." She thought back to how they'd left three men drugged and tied under trees.

  William agreed. "We may have to barge in. But let's scout first."

  Here we go, Nita thought. She forged ahead, pausing every few steps to send energy to her fingertips, which continued to function. They crested the top of the rise, and Nita advanced by herself under the cloak's protection. She stayed low behind the greenery.

  Below, the camp buzzed with activity. Her fingers tingled with the urge to take down a few, but she kept her calm and observed. There were half a dozen tents arranged around a cooking fire. Men scurried about doing what looked to be various chores.

  "I noticed there are no women, only men." Cherise crawled on her belly in the grass beside her.

  "That's because women are too smart to follow him. Men want power and standing," Nita said.

  "I've heard Gnarkvetch hates women," said a voice on her other side. She jumped and almost squeaked as William crawled up beside her.

  "What are you guys doing? They'll see you." She gestured for them to get low.

  "Nita, we're under your cloak with you," Cherise reminded her.