She saw him shudder at the prospect of doing business with the Gypsa, but he nodded.
“Okay, let’s go.”
They set off on foot down a worn dirt road. They were silent for most of the time, except for small bouts of conversation on where they were going. They stopped to rest when their legs wore themselves out, then set out after. They traveled by moonlight alone. This was not a well-used trail so there were no torches to outline the road. There were no settlements, just wild countryside. Dimitri jumped when an animal made a sound too close to them.
Dante figured they had been walking for an hour when they saw a faint orange glow ahead of them. It had to be the Gypsa caravan she had heard a teacher talking about. The Gypsa were banned from school grounds. It was only a rumor, but they had heard of how the Gypsa kidnapped people and sold them off to deadly tournaments where opponents fought to the death, on the Isle Dark. That and they sold trinkets that were rumored to be cursed, and potions that could be used to harm the body. The Gypsa had been banned from Moonriver Academy, so they continued along their established trade paths, as if the school didn’t exist.
As they approached the camp, Dante saw Gypsa around in their odd assortment of clothing. The Gypsa traded with whoever wanted to do business. They dealt in gold and in trade, resulting in a wide variety of fashion and culture. Two men dressed in the robes of Emeralde Kingdom nobility stood guard outside their encampment.
“Halt!” one of the men called to them, raising a crudely-made bow. “Who are you to be traveling so late and among Gypsa trade path?”
“We wish to borrow two horses for the night,” Dante said, as Dimitri cowered behind her.
“We do not lend horses,” was the simple denial.
“We only wish to borrow the horses for a few hours’ time, to make for faster travel. You will have them back before you set off again in the morning. We are prepared to pay.”
The man lowered his bow at the mention of payment. “What do you wish to pay?”
She waited until she had fully approached before she pulled two gold coins from the pouch. One gold coin for each horse.
The man was not impressed. “Five cut.”
Cut was what the Gypsa called for the relatively standard gold coins that were used as currency. Around Aurialis, there was no universal currency, but the Gypsa had been around the continent enough to establish that each of the territories’ currencies were close enough. Cut meant that the coins had to be of enough consistent size and shape that they could be close enough to other forms of currency.
“Five is a bit much, isn’t it?” she frowned.
“You want fast travel, not me. Five cut or keep walking.”
She bit back the insult that threatened to leave her, about how the Gypsa were all money hungry. No good would come out of insulting the man she was trying to barter with. Instead, she pulled the pouch open and pulled more coins out.
The man’s eyes lit up as five gold coins were pressed into his dirty hands. He invited Dante and her companions into their camp, before leading them to a makeshift stable.
“I want these horses back before the sun rises,” the man grumbled. “No later than that, or I’ll have your heads for it.”
“Before the sun rises,” she echoed. “You got it.”
The man said nothing else as he handed two mares over by worn leather reins. Dante didn’t care. She mounted the horse and waited for Dimitri to do the same. When they were both ready, she marked where the camp was in her mind and set off.
The horses took off at a run to help them travel faster. The great black wolf Moonshadow ran beside them, keeping a small distance between himself and the horses. The horses were scared of him.
“Was that wise?” Dimitri called to Dante. “Doing deals with the Gypsa?”
“We just have to get back before dawn,” she said. “Not hard at all. The Gypsa will at least keep their word.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he grumbled.
“Don’t worry about what everyone is saying about the Gypsa selling people into slavery. It’s probably just a myth.”
“Probably,” he echoed in disbelief.
They rode on until they stumbled into another farming village outside of the Emeralde Kingdom’s walls. The Emeralde Kingdom only stretched so far but the King reigned over several smaller villages that depended on the kingdom for trade. Like the previous village they had visited, this one was being attacked. They were nowhere near the village entrance and Dante could already hear the screams.
Dante got off of her horse. She handed the reins to Dimitri. “I’m going in. These horses aren’t ours so I won’t dare risk them in battle. Stay here, okay?”
Dimitri’s eyes narrowed momentarily, clearly not okay with being left behind, but he nodded. “Take Moonshadow.”
Immortals and familiars rarely parted company for long. Younger Immortals couldn’t stand their familiar traveling very far from them, citing pain that was actually physical in the absence of their animal guide. For their excursions, Dimitri and Moonshadow parted ways for short amounts of time. Dimitri was nervous to begin with, but being without Moonshadow made him jumpier.
“Are you sure you don’t need him?”
“It will calm the horses,” Moonshadow said. “Let’s go.”
She nodded. “We’ll be back.”
Moonshadow turned to his human. “Be safe, Dimitri.”
“You too.”
With that, Dante and Moonshadow sprinted off.
The screams of the village got louder as they approached. As Dante and Moonshadow approached the village, they saw an all too familiar scene. Knights on horseback terrorized the villagers who fled from their homes, still dressed in night gowns or other clothing that clearly suggested that they weren’t a threat. That didn’t stop the soldiers from chasing them, demanding for them to stop and surrender for crimes they didn’t commit.
A low growl escaped Dante. She felt hot anger rippling through her, influencing her demonic side to come out and play. That was the rush she was looking for. She let loose with a horrible howl as her demonic side came out to play.
Dimitri heard the commotion from the village and knew Dante had transformed. There was no other explanation for the sudden screaming. The horses seemed spooked at the sudden noise but he calmed them. They weren’t exactly convinced to settle down, but then again, he wasn’t their normal handler.
He still didn’t agree with doing business with the Gypsa, but there was no point in arguing with Dante. Dante was so set on fighting this war in what she called her little “resistance movement,” that she would have just left him if he had disagreed with her. Not exactly what he wanted. He couldn’t have snuck back into the castle, not with all of the teachers around.
“Dimitri?”
Speaking of which.
Dimitri practically jumped out of his saddle at the familiar voice. He turned and saw Dirk on horseback, looking thoroughly annoyed at seeing his student so far away from home. Caught.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I...that is, we...” he didn’t know what to say, exactly.
“We? Does that mean Dante is with you, as well?”
Dimitri cursed in his head, not daring to say it out loud. He didn’t have to say anything in order for Dirk to know that Dante was out there. The screams of terror and sounds of destruction were enough proof for him.
At the thought, Dirk seemed to pick up on the noise. “Is that her in that village?”
Dimitri sighed heavily. “Yeah. This was her idea.”
He wasn’t the only one cursing. Dirk let loose with a string of curse words before he nudged his horse into motion. The last thing Dimitri heard was Dirk shouting, “Stay where you are, Dimitri! If that horse moves one hoof out of place, I’ll know it!”
“Academic probation?”
Dirk was not impressed at Dante’s attitude. She paced around his office restlessly.
“You heard me,” he said, his voice level.
“But why? I didn’t get hurt or anything. I was helping people survive–”
“You could have gotten killed!” he snapped. “You snuck out of school property after curfew. As noble as you are, Dante, there are still rules of the school to be dealt with.”
“In a time of war?”
He ignored the dramatic candor of her voice and kept his judgment. She had been hard enough to deal with when he had pulled her out of the village. He was thankful that her transformations took so much energy from other; otherwise, he feared that she would have turned that demon strength upon him. She had argued with him all the way back to the Gypsa campsite, where they had returned the horses. While he rode his horse, he made Dante and Dimitri walk on foot, where Dante had complained more, limping the whole way from her battle wounds. Dimitri had taken the news of his own academic probation relatively well, if not with some disappointment. He had probably expected the punishment. Dante, on the other hand, was still angry over it, and had followed him back to his office once they had arrived back to the school.
He wasn’t in the mood to put up with her. The Shadow Assassins were still missing and he had finally gotten permission to cross back over to the First Realm, to inform Dr. Fyrn. Not a meeting he was looking forward to.
Dante ceased her pacing and slumped into the chair across from his desk, huffing impatiently. In a calmer voice, she said, “By the way, did you hear the Gypsa when we were leaving? There’s apparently elves in the Feynid Forest.”
“I wouldn’t trust the Gypsa as a reliable source of gossip,” he said. “The Oraldine elves seldom venture out of their territory. I don’t think they’d ever willingly go into the Feynid Forest.”
Her frown grew more pronounced as he spoke.
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Dante, it’s late. Go back to your dorm. And go to bed. No sneaking out, no rule breaking. Bed.”
She shot him a glare that worried him, her dark eyes flashing red in the reflection of the light. She didn’t argue with him further, storming out of his office instead.
Dirk sighed heavily once more, leaning his head onto the cool wood surface of his desk. He was never going to have kids, if they could turn out to be like Dante.
Chapter Ten
The Kkyathi were an interesting tribe. Kaleb watched as they lit up what they called the social fire, the camp fire in the center of their tribe grounds, as night fell over Kkyathi land. There were several cooking fires to the sides, used for food preparation, but the social fire was the fire around which people danced around and socialized at. Like the town tavern, the social fire was the place where people gathered to unload the events of the day onto their friends and exchange ideas. People sat on carved wooden benches or balanced on the ends of crates or other objects, clinking their cups and laughing merrily around the fire.
Kaleb felt a bit awkward, just sitting awkwardly out to the side. Kikkaho had been his guide around the tribe, introducing him to the warriors he had walked beside or a few of the cooks, but she had left him for a few errands she had to run. With no one else really familiar to talk to, he hung around the fringes, observing.
“How do you like it here, stranger?”
He turned. The woman who had been hanging around Kirrah stood before him, holding a metal cup. She was smiling at him, her golden eyes warm. Her red hair had been released from its binding and it flowed around her shoulders freely. She wore the armor of the Kkyathi, which was leather and free of fancy decoration. The leather had been stressed and battle worn, but it was still supple enough to allow movement and thick enough to stop a knife. There were weapons on her, but she gave no indication that she was going to use them.
Realizing that he was staring, he quickly replied, “I like it here. You’re all very kind.”
She sat down on a log next to him. “I’m not really one of them. My tribe, the Chokerre, was wiped out by Emeralde’s knights. The Kkyathi have been kind enough to let me stay. So, you should probably realize that they are kind to strangers, as long as you pose no threat to them.”
“I’m not a threat,” he murmured faintly, sitting down next to her. “I’m sorry about what happened to your tribe, though.”
She shook her head, her brilliant red hair glimmering in the light of the social fire. “The battle between Emeralde’s knights and my own were how Kirrah and I met. She was spying on our tribe, trying to warn us about the knights. We had fought and well, she became my war conquest.”
There was so much foreign terminology Kaleb had been exposed to since he had found the tribe. The words were plain enough, but the meaning obviously had a different significance than what he was used to.
At his apparent confusion, the woman before him clarified, “Kirrah and I fought when she was discovered on our land. I could have killed her, but I spared her life instead. That made her my war conquest, or slave until the life debt was paid. She paid the debt in the same day by saving me and taking me to her tribe but...we’ve stuck around each other a lot since then.”
The small, warm smile on the woman’s face suggested the sort of feelings she had for the werecat. Kaleb smiled with her. “The two of you must be fierce warriors.”
She nodded. “Kirrah is leader of the Kkyathi warriors. I was the leader of mine. I could not be with someone of less caliber and skill.”
“Are you a werecat like she is?”
At the question, the woman grinned, exposing canine teeth that were longer than what Kaleb was accustomed to. “No. The Chokerre were a great clan of werefoxes. I’m the last of them.”
A werefox and a werecat together. Now that was something he had never heard of. He was going to comment on it, but his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden commotion. From the edge of the woods, several men shouted an alarm. People around the social fire stopped their conversation and looked towards the forest, instantly alert.
The woman cursed. “We have company in the woods. I’m sorry, but I must part ways with you. It was nice talking to you, for however short a time it was. My name is Kamu, by the way. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” he said. “But could I help out somehow? I can shape shift to a creature that can help, possibly.”
She murmured her approval and led him to a small gathering. The men who had raised an alarm were now crowded around Kirrah, letting her know what they had found. Several armored knights on horseback were wandering through the forest, weapons drawn.
“Men who are lost do not wander around with swords out and ready for battle,” one of the warriors spoke up.
“You’re right.” Kirrah said to him. Louder, she announced, “Men! We ride out to go greet these men on horseback. If they are Emeralde’s knights, they must leave our land.”
A cheer of agreement rose up from the men around her.
Kamu found her lover and greeted her with a nuzzle to the cheek before turning her attention to Kaleb. “Our visitor wishes to assist by shifting into an animal that can help us.”
Kirrah eyed him and nodded. “Take the form of a great cat, like us. There are two kinds of Kkyathi warriors – the ones who remain in the form of man in armor and the kind who run as wild animal. Transform, stranger, and join the line of creatures.”
Kaleb nodded and followed her lead. Kirrah had stepped back, undoing her armor until she wore no more than a thin cotton sheath that hid her nakedness from him. As she shifted into an animal, the cotton sheath tore and shredded apart. Her body warped, bones melting and re-forming into the correct shape appropriate for that of an animal. She fell forward as fur sprouted from her body, the lengthening limbs becoming strong with the massive muscle of the panther she transformed into. Brilliant yellow eyes stared out of the panther, highly intelligent and waiting.
Kaleb followed right out of her, his body falling into the form of a tiger. It was his favorite kind of large cat and he figured it would be appropriate for the werecat tribe. He met the stare of the panther he had met earlie
r and a sort of approval passed between them.
Kamu stayed in human form, but she swept her hair up and out of her face, tying it up before she withdrew a long dagger from the belt at her hips. A few of the human-form warriors stayed close to her, as if she were leading them. Around them, several other warriors were shifting into the form of various cats, from mountain lions to tigers. They joined up with the line of human warriors who wore armor and carried heavy blades and sharp bows. Without Kirrah having to direct her warriors, the group of human and animal headed to the forest, perfectly trained, settling into a sort of formation where the great cats headed the group of humans.
What followed next could only be described as a hunt. Kaleb watched the human-form Kkyathi move from tree trunk to tree trunk, hiding their lithe bodies from view. The feral cat warriors, meanwhile, crouched into the tall grass and forest underbrush. There were indeed men on horseback wandering through the forest, their heavy swords drawn but not used to navigate through the forest. They were a group of maybe fifty men and it was almost as though they were expecting to be attacked, with how tense they were. The torches and lanterns they carried did little to light up a clear path around them and they squinted in the dim orange light. Their horses tripped on the tangled forest ground, clomping around, snapping twigs and snorting their disapproval. Their loud noise covered the sounds the Kkyathi warriors made as they hid in their various spots. The horses knew there were predators around. As they edged closer to the Kkyathi cats, they grew uneasy, refusing to go forward. The knights cursed and forced their horses on.
Kaleb watched from his spot next to Kirrah. He had lost track of Kamu; she and her human-form warriors were behind among the trees. He thought he had seen her climb a tree, fast as lightning, but he couldn’t be sure when he himself had been running.
During his work with the Shadow Assassins, his animal forms were usually used to chase and subdue, never fight. A thrill ran through him that was more animal than it was anything else. This was like nothing his human mind could comprehend. He was in a tiger’s body and the tiger’s instincts awakened, his senses heightened and trained eagerly on the prey in front of him. He was a bundle of coiled energy that could spring up at any given second, bringing down the horses without as much as a second thought.
Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) Page 10