Hadrick regarded D'Jenn for a long moment before letting out a deep breath. He looked to his men, who stood around the room in silent witness. No one spoke as Hadrick mulled over his decision. The next few moments could pass in peace, or erupt in sudden violence. Dormael tensed for the confrontation.
“If you can do this, if you can kill the bastards threatening my food supply, then fine. I'll find your ship. The girl and the child will stay with me—as guests, mind you—to ensure that you hold up your end of the deal. And I'll need proof.”
“Of course,” D'Jenn said, a wicked smile blooming on his face.
“Fine. If you're enemies of the Galanian Empire,” Hadrick said, putting out his hand, “then you're friends of Hadrick Lucius, and friends of the Eighteenth. Now let's have another round of drinks, and I'll point you in the right direction.”
***
Dormael turned his beak into the wind, filling his wings with the cold night air. His vision, heightened to the breathtaking clarity of the gyrfalcon, crawled over the land as it wheeled beneath him. He beat his wings, pulling himself into the higher reaches, where the strong winds flowed unfettered. The wind howled in from the sea, and the harbor was rolling with the chop. It wasn't the easiest flight Dormael had ever attempted, but he was well experienced with flying.
The same, however, could not be said for D'Jenn.
For some reason unknown to any but the gods in the Void, D'Jenn had never mastered the basic feel for flying. Dormael had attempted to teach him over the years, but D'Jenn remained the least graceful flier that Dormael had ever seen. If birds could laugh, D'Jenn would have been a flock favorite. Luckily for his cousin, it was too dark outside for any onlooking bird to see him pawing through the air like a dog trying to swim.
Don’t flap unless you have to, Dormael said into D’Jenn’s mind. If you climb and get some stronger wind beneath you, it will be easier going.
I don't know why I ever agreed to this, D'Jenn's voice came back. We could make good time on four legs, and not risk breaking every bone in our bodies.
Be my guest. Dormael replied. When you finally catch up to me, though, you have to admit that I'm the better Warlock.
You should hold your breath until that happens, see if you pass out first, D'Jenn shot back. He did climb to an altitude closer to Dormael, though. Once D'Jenn got the rhythm down, he stopped floundering around in the air and stabilized his body.
If you feel like you're going to lose control and fall out of the sky, spread your wings and aim for a snow drift, Dormael said. If the gyrfalcon could grin, Dormael would be smiling from ear to ear.
I hate this, D'Jenn returned.
Taking the forms of animals was a strange experience. Each wizard had different affinities for different things, and even within the small group of Blessed who could muster the power to take animal form, skill with maintaining the spell varied. It took intense focus to make the change in the first place, and sliding into the physical form of another creature brought certain complications with it.
Wizards tended to develop preferences for the forms they took, because each time an animal form was assumed, the wizard gained greater control over the change. Shape-shifting brought with it the essence of the form, the instinctual side of the animal. Staying in control was like riding the beast from within.
Dormael had his own preferences for shapeshifting—he took the gyrfalcon for flight, the wolf for hunting, and he kept the lion as leftovers from a specific mission. He could slide into other forms if he prepared for it, but staying in control was difficult. Mastering the form was like mastering the animal itself.
D'Jenn found the forms of birds distasteful, and hated to fly. He was also impatient, though, and wanted to get this part of their journey over with. Flight had been necessary, much as D'Jenn had grumbled about it.
The rival gang leaders and their men had taken up residence in a sprawling forest to the east of Borders called the Darkroot. It reached very far to the east—almost to the border of Lesmira—and to the south it ran right up to the walls of Arla, the Cambrellian capital. To the north, it trespassed even into southern Dannon. To hear Hadrick tell it, the Darkroot was a massive, old wood that had resisted every attempt by man to tame it. There were no roads through the Darkroot, and few trails that led anywhere at all.
It was the kind of forest where being lost under the endless canopy twilight was a real danger. Hadrick had told them tales of massive trees, and rumors of dark spirits in the forest. Dormael had found in his travels that untamed places always gave rise to tales of gremlins and goblins, or secret temples dedicated to the worship of Saarnok. Such things were rarely true, but they gave the locals something to whisper about in dark corners.
Any real traveler knew that a forest as dense as the Darkroot was scary enough as a regular old forest. One could easily get lost, or turned about. Ancient wild places were the home of unchallenged predators, too, and wolves could take down a pair of men with little difficulty.
Dormael put his reverie out of his mind as he dipped his wings to make his turn, heading east and away from the wind. The land rolled underneath them, the moonlit valley coming into view as the cold night air whisked through Dormael’s feathers. The aura of light from Borders faded beneath them as Dormael led D'Jenn into the inky night.
Lightning flashed through the sky to the north, a flickering beacon over the steppes of Dannon. Winter storms were common in this part of the world. He could see the Darkroot in the distance, the moonlight reflecting from the top of the canopy. The trees filled the valley to the horizon, dense and foreboding, and blackness filled the spaces between the trunks. Dormael tucked his wings and pointed his beak at the trees, sliding into a shallow dive.
Follow me, Dormael said to D'Jenn.
Just don't get me killed.
Dormael angled a few links over the canopy, sweeping the trees with his heightened vision. He turned lazy curves in the air back and forth, working his way further to the east. Hadrick had no idea where these men had camped—probably the very reason they had retreated to the Darkroot—but Dormael figured that they couldn't have gone far. Urban gangsters wouldn’t have ventured far into the primordial forest. Just as the thought formulated in his mind, he spotted the moonlight playing through wisps of smoke in the distance.
Stay close, we're landing!
Got it, D'Jenn sent back, a sense of urgency coloring his magic. No doubt he was anxious about landing amongst the trees. Dormael turned to the north and wheeled in a circle, looking for a clearing large enough to accommodate their landing. Once he found one, he spiraled downward and fluttered to the ground in silence. He dug his talons into the loamy earth, and poured his magic back into his body.
Dormael’s whole body shivered and burned. The feeling of his flesh sliding between one form and the other always left him with a sense of vertigo. Feathers pulled back into his skin, his face distended and morphed, and his torso exploded with sensation. When it was over he crouched in the clearing, back in his own form once again.
He breathed the cold air through his own nose, and shook off the sensation of the change. The flutter of wings and the feeling of magic crawling over his skin alerted Dormael to D'Jenn's landing. Within a few short moments, Dormael turned to find his cousin crouching on the ground.
“You had fun that time,” Dormael smiled. “You don't have to lie to me.”
“Dormael,” D'Jenn sighed, “I'd rather pull my teeth out through my stomach than do that again. Can you tell which direction that fire was from here?”
“Northeast, I think,” Dormael said. “If you give me a moment, I'll see if I can catch the scent.”
They had agreed to fly to the forest, and go on in the forms of wolves. Wolves were natural inhabitants of the Darkroot—or good enough to pass, anyway—and had the exact set of advantages that would be good for hunting. A camp full of men would smell horrid to any wolf who was in the area, and Dormael felt confident it was the right choice. Wolves were swift, sile
nt, and had the sort of inherent ferocity that would fuel their hunt to its end. The wolf could also smell things from half a league away, and hear things from an even greater distance.
“Fine,” D’Jenn grumbled. “Give me a few moments to clear my head before we make the change, though. It always makes me a little nauseous.”
“Kick your feet up, take a nap,” Dormael smiled. “It's not as if we've got people to kill, cousin.”
D'Jenn gave him a sour look and shook his head. “Alright, alright. Let's go. This time, I lead, though. The wolf is a beast I'm well acquainted with.”
Dormael nodded and offered his cousin a short bow. He turned his power inward once again, focusing the image of the wolf in his mind, summoning the very essence of the beast. A violent spasm wracked his body for just a moment, then it was fluid, sliding like a greased eel into the powerful form of the wolf.
He breathed, tasting the air of the forest. Scents assailed him from every direction, their myriad sensations telling him stories. A deer had passed this way earlier in the day, female unless he missed his guess. Dormael's mouth began to water of its own accord and his jowls opened, tasting the air along the deer's trail. He resisted the strong, instinctual urge to snuffle along the ground and shoot off after the deer—after all, they had more dangerous prey to chase.
D'Jenn's chosen form was a giant, black-furred beast. His eyes were deep gold, and they glowed like beacons in Dormael's strange wolf-vision. He hadn't expected to have to adapt to the way a wolf sees the world, but he had been wrong. In wolf form his vision was sharpened, as if each movement in his field of view jumped out at him. Though the colors he could see were washed out, he could tell when each individual leaf on a bush tussled in a breeze. Adding scent to the mix produced an entirely different way to see the world.
The essence of the wolf pulled at him, eager to be on the hunt.
Are you ready? It's time to go, Dormael sent. He almost dug his nails into the ground in irritation, but resisted the urge.
D'Jenn shook his black shoulders and sniffed along the ground. Dormael tested the air again, and smelled a faint hint of something that filled his body with tension—the smell of burning wood. Any animal would be terrified of fire, and the wolf was no exception. It took a bit of concentration for Dormael to keep the essence from pulling at him to run.
I've got them, D'Jenn's voice whispered into his mind. We hunt!
Like ghosts in the night, they were off.
D’Jenn flew across the ground, dodging around large trunks of ancient trees, loping over the litter of dead leaves without seeming to touch the earth. Dormael pumped his muscles, springing over the ground after his cousin through the strange world of the Darkroot. To anyone they passed, the wizards would have been a whisper in the wind, a flash in the moonlight before they were lost in shadow. To Dormael, though, the world screamed past him in a flurry of noise, smell, and eager anticipation.
They ran, following the scent of cook-fires, until Dormael's heart beat into his ears with excitement for the hunt. The forest around them became thicker, and soon the acrid stench of burning wood became thick enough to make Dormael want to sneeze. D’Jenn slowed to a stalk, and Dormael fell in beside him. The trees stood like dark sentinels around them, branches reaching out to block what little light could penetrate the canopy. This section of the woods, though, was alive with man-stench. Dormael could smell steel oil, cured leather, sour sweat, and someone had even pissed nearby in the last few days.
There's a guard ahead, D'Jenn's voice said into his mind. Dormael looked up as a form materialized out of the darkness ahead. Steel glinted in what little light was available, and Dormael realized that his was the man-stench he had picked up. The sentry milled about in the woods, oblivious to the presence of the two wolves nearby.
I see him, Dormael sent back. Should we take him, or pass wide?
We're getting close, so let's take him. I'll go high, D'Jenn said. Dormael's mouth watered, and his legs twitched with tense energy as D'Jenn said the words. He itched for the guard's blood in his mouth. Nothing beat taking a fresh kill after a good run.
I'll go low, then. Dormael crouched low to the ground and ghosted out to the guard's side, circling to take the man from behind. The woods didn't betray his presence, and Dormael moved through the brush with little more than a whisper. D'Jenn's black-furred visage was nowhere to be seen. He put his belly to the dirt and slinked forward, baring his teeth and readying for the confrontation.
Now!
Dormael sprang, his pent up energy releasing like a taut spring, and in three lightning-fast steps he was there, teeth champing shut around the man’s hamstring. In one fluid movement Dormael had ripped the tendon from its place and slammed his wolfish body into the man’s legs, taking him violently off balance. The barest hint of a scream escaped the man's throat before D’Jenn’s teeth silenced him. The sentry went to the ground, and Dormael jerked his legs to the side to help the process. D'Jenn ripped out his throat, ending his protests in a bubbling gurgle of blood.
The coppery taste of that same blood filled Dormael’s mouth, having leaked from the guard’s leg. It invigorated him, charged him with energy like nothing else in the world. He wanted to throw his head back and howl at the sky, he wanted to tear into the man's soft parts and eat them before death cooled them to tastelessness.
Dormael clenched down on the essence of the wolf, trying to wrench control of his psyche back from its baser instincts. If he didn't stop himself now, he'd eat the man they had just killed. The last thing he wanted was to become a cannibal—even though the thought of the meat filled his mind with a ravenous hunger. He could see D’Jenn’s sides heaving, and knew his cousin was fighting the same battle.
Perhaps it's time we forgo the animal form, Dormael sent. It's becoming hard to control.
Indeed, D’Jenn replied.
Taking animal form was always a risk. There were some forms that had strong essences, and the wolf was definitely one of them. Sometimes it was hard to fight off the urges of the beast, and many wizards had returned to their human forms only to have an immediate wave of nausea, or despair, over what they had done. The blood in Dormael's mouth was going to sicken him, he knew, but for the moment he felt only elation at the taste.
Turning his power inward once again, Dormael returned to his own skin.
Once the vertigo was out of his system, Dormael gagged on the taste of the man's blood. He spit and coughed into the dirt as quietly as he could, and heard D'Jenn doing something similar nearby. It took six mouthfuls of frigid water to wash the taste of it from his mouth, and a few moments of heavy breathing to try and calm his beating heart.
D'Jenn's hand on his shoulder signaled him to alertness, and he nodded to let his cousin know that he was ready to move on. D'Jenn slipped into the cold darkness of the woods, his feet moving through the underbrush without a sound. Dormael took a deep breath and followed him, trying to give his eyes time to adjust to the change in lighting. The world was more vivid with human eyes, but the darkness was also much deeper.
He followed D'Jenn through the silent landscape, moving toward an orange glow in the distance. Scattered noises came floating through the woods to Dormael's ears—the tinkling of metal, or a solitary burst of harsh laughter. Tension settled into the space between his shoulder blades as they neared the camp. He focused hard on placing every foot just so, and not running into any unexpected surprises. The night's quick transformations had left him feeling that his human senses were at a distinct disadvantage.
When they could go no closer without penetrating further into the sentry lines, D'Jenn fetched up against a massive tree trunk and signaled Dormael to a place nearby. He obliged his cousin, and found his own tree to duck behind.
Get a look at what we're dealing with. I'll watch your back for sentries, D'Jenn sent into his mind. Dormael nodded at his cousin and closed his eyes, turning his magic inward once again. He separated his consciousness with practiced ease, and floated up th
rough the boughs of the ancient trees, surveying the camp.
As he took in the lay of the land, he thought that calling this haphazard arrangements of tents and cook-fires a ‘camp’ would be painting a turd with a golden brush. There was no order to the layout at all, as if these men had just pitched their tents wherever they pleased. Plundered carts lay here and there in the encampment, their contents spilled onto the ground, or stacked into clumps. In fact, the only place where the camp had any organization was on the eastern side, where the horses were picketed in a long line that disappeared into the shadows.
There were somewhere around thirty tents in the camp, and Dormael couldn't tell much more than that. None of them were larger than the rest, and he couldn't pick out one or two people as definitive leaders. Men milled about in the camp, or huddled into their bedrolls, and all of them wore thick fur cloaks.
He returned to his body and breathed through his own nose again, shaking his head as he settled back into his skin for the third time tonight.
Thirty tents, he said, maybe sixty or seventy men. I looked for a pavilion or something similar, but there's nothing like that in there. I couldn't tell who was in charge.
Eindor's bloody eye, D'Jenn cursed. I had hoped we could identify them, hit them from a distance, and get out of here in time to have a drink before bed.
That's two of us, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen, Dormael said, sending a wry tone through the mental link.
Any ideas?
Dormael sighed and started thinking. The cousins didn’t want to kill anyone without a good reason. Hadrick had specifically asked—and somewhat unexpectedly—to spare anyone they could. He said that most of these men were just hired hands, and he could use them in cementing his own influence over the city. Without the men paying them, they would melt back into town rather than camping out in the cold woods to raid a few farms and food caravans.
They had to draw the leaders out. If one of them could create some kind of distraction, something dire enough to draw the attention of whoever ran this outfit, then the other could hit them with something nasty. Once that was done, they could head into the trees and be done with it. Dormael's thoughts went to the one place where someone had the forethought to organize the camp's assets.
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