by Jean Johnson
Tava blinked as he held out his hand to her. The warlord wasn’t looking at her; instead, he kept his gaze on the Aldeman. Like a hunter would keep his eyes on a venomous snake, she realized. She also realized she could refuse his hand, but something about the way he offered his hand made it seem like he was indeed offering her his protection. A glance at the bearded faces of the Alders showed they were just as unhappy with the Shifterai in their midst as she was . . . but that they were also unhappy at her.
The enemy of my enemy . . . isn’t my friend, and in this case will never be my friend, she acknowledged, remembering her father’s advice on such matters. But for now . . . these horrid shifters are the closest thing I have to an ally. Because I certainly cannot stay here any longer.
Wary of the demonic bargain enfolding and ensnaring her, Tava slipped her hand into his. His flesh was softer than she expected, lacking the calluses common to most Mornai men’s hands, but his fingers were strong. They didn’t crush her palm, but they did help to pull her from her seat.
“Manolo, gather her things,” Kodan directed one of the others. The older man complied, shuffling together her scraps of parchment, quill, ink jar, and Truth Stone. A gentle tug on Tava’s hand drew her in the warband leader’s wake, his men shifting to flank both of them. No doubt their closeness was as much to keep her from escaping as to keep the Alders from retaliating somehow, but Tava didn’t resist. Surrounded by watchful, angry shapechangers wasn’t the wisest moment to flee.
They made an odd procession, for none of them rode their horses; instead, they walked their beasts, save only for the three driving the wagons, including the trader’s caravan she had seen back at the bandit camp. Tava had expected to be thrown over a saddle and carried off, but the warband leader seemed to be content with walking her away from the Aldehall.
It was clear that what he did, his men echoed. Glancing at him in snatches, she took in his somewhat young but full-grown face, his air of confidence and watchfulness, and compared that to the others in the group. Some were much older, many were only a little older, and a few looked to be younger than him. It made her wonder what power he had over the others, that he was their leader.
It wasn’t long before one of the others spoke. He did so once they were beyond the heart of the village, out of the range of watchful Mornai eyes and straining Mornai ears. “Your actions are very puzzling, Brother.”
Glancing at the speaker, Tava could make out some similarities in their features. His eyes were darker, his hair longer, his face younger. Actually, compared to the sun-wrinkled faces of the village men, all of them looked younger than they should have been, even the ones with gray hairs; it was their smooth chins and lack of heavy wrinkles on their tanned faces that made them seem youthful compared to the bearded Mornai men she was used to seeing. Every boy in Five Springs longed for the day when he could grow an Alder’s beard. To see so many clean-shaven, fully grown men felt unnatural.
“Not as puzzling as you’d think. This woman is as welcome in this village as a blue jay is among vultures,” Kodan pointed out. “We would do her a disservice to leave her here.”
“That, too, but I meant your belligerence. It’s not likely we’ll be welcome in this corner of the borderlands again for some time.”
You’re not welcome here at all, Tava thought, surreptitiously trying to tug free her hand. The warlord Kodan shifted his grip, lacing their fingers together. She caught the quick glance of his unnamed brother, the pinching of his brows, and the raising of them in comprehension.
“Ah, now I know why. Just remember, we will all have our chance at her,” the brother chuckled.
Tava stiffened, fear warring with rage, but there were still too many of them for her to break away. These were seasoned warriors, experienced shapeshifters. Unfortunately, both men sniffed, then twisted to look at her, frowning in confusion. Her anxiety spiked again, this time from the realization that they could smell her fear. Both exchanged quick looks, but neither said anything. The warleader didn’t release her; if anything, he quickened his pace a little. Not enough to make her stumble, but enough that she had to concentrate on matching his lengthened stride.
“. . . So much for your infamous charm, I see,” the brother drawled, smirking a little.
“Be silent, Kenyen,” Kodan ordered. “This is not the time nor the place to discuss such things.”
“When will be the time?” the man who was carrying her things asked.
“At her home, where we can have some privacy. I don’t want these Mornai interrupting us while we take care of business.”
Oh, Goddess! Shock made her stumble. They’re not even going to wait to take me up onto the Plains! That did it; she would run, as far and fast as she could, the moment he let go of her hand. I don’t need money, I don’t need food, I don’t even need clothes—I just need to get away from these beasts!
Again their nostrils flexed, more than just the two brothers’, but she couldn’t stop her fear. All she could do was control it, forcing herself to walk along in their midst. Desperately thinking of how she would escape, and to where: namely, the River. No Shifterai she’d ever heard of could turn themselves into a river creature—not that she’d heard much, just whatever was written down in her mother’s book. Nor could they learn fast enough to follow her. Even she had choked, the first few times she’d tried to grow gills.
Everything depended on getting herself away fast and far enough to fling herself into the river. Unfortunately, they were now on the second bank, moving farther away from the safety of the water with each step. Her anxiety rose with each stride, until all of the Shifertai men surrounding her were sniffing the air and giving her confused, concerned looks.
When they reached the bridge over the brook where all of them had first met, the warleader appeared to have had enough. Jerking her to a stop, fingers still firmly entwined with hers, he faced her.
“Why are you so afraid of us?” he demanded. His hand slashed out at the muddy bank, still bearing the marks of her fall and recovery. “Haven’t you been paying attention? We’ve rescued you from those monsters! And we’ve saved your things from their greed.”
Somehow, his bold confrontation gave her the strength to shift some of her fear into anger. She tried using her free hand to pry his fingers from hers, but they tightened their grip. “Ha! Only to have it snatched away by your greed—let go of me!”
“No! Not until you tell me why you’re afraid of us,” he repeated, shifting to grab at her with his free hand as she struggled harder to free herself. “Stop that!”
Tava quickly raised her free hand in a fist, glaring at him. “Don’t you dare hit me! I’m not my mother! Hit me, and I’ll hit back!”
That froze all of the Shifterai men. The looks of horror and disbelief on their faces confused Tava.
“We don’t hit women,” Kodan told her, speaking slowly and carefully. He didn’t release her hand, but he didn’t strike her, either. “Whatever you may have suffered at the hands of these Mornai, your suffering is now over.”
“Ha! I know my suffering has only begun! I’d rather take a beating from the Alders than be beaten and raped by all of you! Let me go!” Taking advantaged of his shocked, wide-eyed stillness, Tava kicked the warband leader in the shin. He hopped, not quite avoiding the blow, but her boot had only grazed him. She tried kicking again. “Let me go!”
“Not until we get a straight answer,” Kodan countered. “What do you mean, rape you? We don’t hurt women, and we certainly don’t do that!” he asserted.
Several of the others nodded, though most were still eyeing her as if she had shapeshifted a second head. Tava shook her head, unwilling and unable to believe it. “I don’t believe you.”
The one holding her papers, Manolo, quickly shifted the bundle, separating out the Truth Stone. “I swear upon Father Sky and Mother Earth, Patrons of the Shifting Plains, that Shifterai men do not rape our women!”
Flipping the disc, the older warrior showed it
s unblemished sides.
“. . . I don’t believe you—you said your women!” she added quickly. “You said nothing about outlander women!”
“We don’t rape outlander women, either,” Manolo asserted, gripping and releasing the Stone. “See?”
“Then it’s broken,” she countered. “Let go of me!” Tava argued, aiming another kick at her captor’s leg. This time, he was more successful at dodging her blow. “You can have my things, you filthy thieves, but you’re not taking me!”
Manolo gave her a dark look, gripped the Stone, and said, “I am the Aldeman of Five Springs.” The marble disc showed a blackened imprint of his fingers when he shifted them. “See? We do not lie. I tell you that the Shifterai do not beat our women, nor do we beat outlander women. We certainly do not rape them, and we are not going to hurt you.”
Tava peered at his upraised hand. The black marks had faded, leaving the Truth Stone white. A glance at the dozen or so men surrounding her showed a matching level of conviction in their expressions. One and all, they still looked disturbed at the thought of any of them hurting a woman, never mind her.
Confused—this clashed with everything she knew about the Shifterai—Tava peered at their leader.
“We are not thieves,” Kodan told her. “Everything will be packed up and carted off in your name, solely for your use, save only for the one-fifth tithe to the Family of all the trade goods that have been added on top of your worldly goods. That’s the same one-fifth all of us have to pay when riding in a warband—where did you get the asinine idea that we . . . that we rape and beat women?”
“From my mother, that’s who!”
His brows lifted, his light brown eyes widening in comprehension. Tava had the sudden, instinctive impression that he knew she was that shapeshifter from the bandit battle. That she was one of them, despite her being a female. How many of the others knew, she didn’t yet know. Her fear increased.
“Why w-w-would she th-think the Shift-t-terai would r-r-r-r . . . you know her?” the youngest man in the warband asked, stuttering his way through the words. He blinked twice under her scrutiny, but met Tava’s gaze with the open confusion of someone undeniably innocent. “We hav-haven’t c-c-come here in y-ye-years!”
“Yes; this is the first time in decades that a Shifting Family warband has been this far south and east,” Manolo confirmed. Since he was still holding the Stone, she could see from the shifting of his fingers that his words were true. “We certainly wouldn’t have raided the Mornai just to steal away one of their women!”
“She wasn’t Mornai. She was Zanthenai, from the southwest border of the Plains. And she was kidnapped and brutalized for two years by you animals, before she finally had the chance to run away,” Tava told them, lifting her chin. “She ran through a grass fire to get away from the hell your people put her through! My father found her while hunting for oak-galls up in the forests on the Corredai border and brought her back here. She was too badly burned to travel any farther, so he took care of her. She told him all about the way you beasts treated her—and my mother wasn’t a liar! Nobody would run through a grass fire just to lie about why. And my father was a scribe, the best scribe, and he wrote down everything she said, word for word!”
“Your mother may have been brutalized by someone, but it wasn’t a Shifterai,” one of the older warband members told her. He had the same chin and nose as the warlord and his brother, probably some relative of theirs. “Such a thing is anathema to our people.”
“She said they were shapeshifters. That’s why she had to run through a grass fire just to get away. Every other time she tried to run, they shifted into dog shape and tracked her down!”
That caught their attention. Frowning, Kodan asked, “Dog shape? Did she ever say what Family held her, or what Clan, or even what warband?”
Tava lifted her chin. “Yes, she did. She said they referred to themselves as Family Mongrel.”
“Family Mongrel ?” Kenyen repeated. His confusion was echoed by the others as they all glanced at one another. “There’s no such Family. Not even in Clan Dog.”
“Did your mother mention a warband, like how we’re the South Paw?” Kodan asked her.
“It was all one warband, as far as I know. She said there were other women, stolen from other outlying lands, though there weren’t many of them. That’s why they passed her and the others around—but I’m not my mother!” Tava swore, lifting her left hand in a fist once again. “If you try any of that with me, I’ll hit you so hard, you’ll wish you’d been born at the mouth of the River! Now, let me go!”
“. . . No.”
“Kodan!” the older, related man snapped. “Let her go!”
“If we leave her here, Father, the Mornai will confiscate her property and beat her senseless for what they would call her insolence. These Valley-dwelling idiots don’t value her wit, her pride, or her spirit,” Kodan said, ignoring the way Tava tugged again at their joined fingers. He caught the fist she aimed his way, subduing her struggles. “If we let her go, she won’t get far before they’d find out and come after her. The safest place for her right now is on the Plains with us.” Turning, he looked at her. “Where you can see for yourself that we’re telling the truth.
“I don’t know who or what captured your mother, but they weren’t Shifterai, I promise you. We don’t do that sort of thing—the very thought of it is anathema!” he finished firmly.
“Really? Then why are you still holding me?” Tava challenged him, lifting her chin. She tugged on her arms for emphasis, since now he held both of them captive.
“Yes, Brother,” the one named Kenyen echoed, folding his arms across his chest. “Why are you still holding her?”
He wasn’t the only one who gave the warband leader a doubtful look. Kodan directed his answer to Tava.
“I’m holding you here because my instincts are saying you’ll try to run away . . . and my instincts are also saying that would be a very bad idea. You have too many enemies here. Come and live with us, at least for a while,” he coaxed as Tava stiffened. “Long enough to let the closed-minded men of this little village forget about you. Live with us for a year and a day, and see with your own eyes that whoever tormented your mother before she escaped, they weren’t true Shifterai. Whatever wrongs you think our people have done . . . give us the chance to show you it wasn’t us. Don’t condemn us as a whole before you’ve sought the truth for yourself.”
He seemed sincere. So did the others when she glanced at them. Tava had to admit that most of what she knew about the Shifterai, she had learned from her mother’s book, dictated to her father before her mother had died from her lingering grass fire injuries. Worse, Warlord Kodan was right about the reaction of Aldeman Tronnen and the others; they would never forgive her the insolence of a female standing up for herself—never mind that she no longer had her father around to speak up for her. They wouldn’t forget her boldly asserting her rights, contradicting them publicly in the Aldehall itself, the bastion of male Mornai authority.
But . . . to go with these shapeshifters? All I have is their word versus my mother’s. She glanced at the Truth Stone still clasped in the hand of the one holding her other writing tools. I can’t stay here, but I can’t take my belongings with me. Not by myself. Even I know it would be very hard to find a home for myself in one of the big cities up or down the River, not without the money and resources to support me as I seek out work as a scribe. I could do it, but . . . I just don’t know!
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” she challenged him. “You won’t let me go right now, so how do I know you won’t let me go in a year and a day? Why should I trust you?”
Holding her gaze a long moment, the warlord finally released her left hand, holding his palm out toward the one with the Truth Stone. As soon as it was in his hand, he spoke. “I swear upon this Stone that, if you agree to come and live among us for a year and a day, treated with the exact same courtesies, honors, and deferences as any othe
r woman of the Shifterai should expect . . . if you choose to leave us after that year and a day, I will personally pay you five times the cost of the dowry we negotiated for you today and give you full escort to wherever on Aiar you wish to go. This I swear, Kodan Sin Siin, multerai of Clan Cat, Family Tiger.”
Turning their entwined hands up, he placed the unmarked disc on her right palm and released her fingers, fully letting her go. Released from his grasp, Tava stared at the white marble Stone.
He was telling her the truth, but years of thinking one way about these shapeshifters, of doubting their humanity based on their treatment of Ellet Sou Tred, weren’t so easy to shift out of their fearsome shape. She held out the Stone, looking up into his light brown eyes. “What if I don’t want to stay the full year and a day? Will you drag me back if I try to escape?”
Those light brown eyes rolled in a pained gesture for self patience. Taking the Stone from her, the warband leader clasped it again, pausing between statements to show her his bargain was true. “I swear that if you want to leave before the year and a day is completed, you will be free to leave with all of your belongings and dowry . . . save only the one-fifth of the extra trade goods, as I mentioned before. I will also give you safe escort to whatever border kingdom of your choice you wish to travel to . . . though not all the way across Aiar, if that is what you’d prefer. And not for the first full turning of Brother Moon.
“You have to give us a chance,” he explained as she frowned. “You’ve laid some very powerful and rather insulting accusations at our feet. Whoever mistreated your mother, they’ve slandered our people’s name, and we deserve the right to prove it wasn’t us. If you leave now, or within the first full turn of Brother Moon . . . you can take whatever you can carry, coin, goods, whatever, and a single horse from among your herds. But we’ll take the rest back to the Plains with us and hold it for a year and a day, as surety of our good faith in our good natures. If you want it back before that point, you can come onto the Plains at any point and finish a full turning of Brother Moon among us.