by Rose Francis
“My lady,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling in his transformed body, “they are herding us. At every intersection, they howl or threaten, to drive us towards a destination.”
The fear ate at Lucia. She heard the prince’s words, but could make no sense of them. Run, her wolf howled at her. Run and fight another day. She needed to get her pack out, to calm them, to save them. She tried to focus, to think about human things, to drive the wolf away. But every scent of her pack pushed her mind further to the rear. Every howl of the hunters pursuing them strengthened the animal in her. She was too new to this, too untrained. She wasn’t ready. She should have gone with Farid.
Farid. What would he do? He’d smile and joke, and then shoot his enemy with a wickedly barbed bolt. He’d stare at Lucia through his sooty lashes, as if the bedroom could solve all their problems.
Like ice breaking, the fear in her blood cracked and fell away. If I focus on Farid, on human desires, I can hold on to myself, she realized.
They were being hunted, pursued, but more so they were being directed. The alpha-spawn were herding them forward like trained dogs. But to where? Nothing good could be at the end of their path. Lucia tried to recall the directions they’d turned, but the maze confounded her. They twisted and wrapped in every direction, going up ramps and leaping down ladders. It was beyond her. But she didn’t need to lead alone.
“Foxtail,” Lucia called. Beside her, the grumpy old woman was gone, replaced by an overly large fox. A dire fox? Did such things exist? “I don’t want to go where they are forcing us towards, Tail. Find us another way.” The great red fox, whiskers twitching and eyes sharp and keen nodded, then raced ahead of the pack.
“Follow the fox!” Lucia yelled, but her pack was already slowing. They’d been in prison for who knows how long, starved and beaten. They didn’t have the reserves to chase all day like she had.
Reaching again through the pack bonds, Lucia gripped her pack tight and pulled even as she ran faster than ever before. Her body was a blur of speed and even so she could barely keep Foxtail in sight. Around her, the soldiers of her pack howled in delight as their bodies changed again, shifting to the dire wolf form favored by Conwynne. Lucia in her were form ran, surrounded by her pack of wolves.
How are you doing this? Conwynne’s voice echoed in her head.
“I’m just doing what you taught me,” she replied. The pack were almost outpacing her now. They should have been stumbling over each other, getting in each other’s way, but they moved like a rushing wave through the halls.
Only an alpha can fully shift, Conwynne argued, annoyance and wonder warring within him.
“How isn’t important, Con. We have a job to do.”
Foxtail dove through a side hallway, directly into the scent of the spawn. Every atom of Lucia’s being wanted to turn and run the other way, but she forced herself on, pulling the pack with her, despite their whines of unease. Ahead, two misshapen mutts, one with an arm like a snake and another with two bickering jaguar heads, waited. In their strong hands they gripped silver-tipped spears. They grinned hungrily as the pack approached.
It wasn’t a contest. Lucia’s pack flowed around the spawn, ripping them to pieces before they knew what was happening. A spear point clipped the ear from one of her soldiers, a woman who went by the name Postie. The dire wolf howled in pain, but didn’t slow. The wound would heal slowly, if given a chance to. It would be an ugly souvenir.
Once past the alpha spawn, the way was clear. They ran until they found a disused hall, out of the way of anyone. It was carved of stone, narrow but tall, with thirty foot ceilings and vaulted arches. Even the air smelled fresh. Lucia’s mind cleared as the fear in her pack melted away. She released her hold on them, watching with wonder as their bodies reformed into human perfection. The usual signs of shifter-blood weren’t present in their appearances. The long nails, elongated teeth, heavy brows—all were gone.
With her will, Lucia had shifted her new pack into wolves, and then back into humans.
“I really am an alpha,” she said, her voice full of wonder.
The shifters looked around uneasily at each other. Some had been quite monstrous in their previous forms, with fanged muzzles or heavy ridged brows. They’d have to get used to the way each other looked again. Postie, the shifter who’d lost an ear, winced as the prince gently examined it.
“Where to now, sir?” She asked, hher accent unusual and languid. “There’s still dozens of those bastards out there and I have another ear to give.” She grinned at her leader, the prince with admiration. He’s a good man, Lucia realized. His soldiers love him. You could do worse than mating with him, that’s for sure. The longer she was around him, the more her wolf needed him. If she was ever trapped alone with him, she’d be done for. Her clothes would come off before the door even shut.
The impulses of her animal-side were becoming harder to control. The more she used them, the more power they had. She’d have to watch out for that.
Once everyone had their breath and Postie’s ear had been pronounced irrevocably damaged, it was time to reassess.
Conwynne paced nervously as Foxtail sketched out a map with a claw in the stone wall. With a scritching sound she traced where they had come from and where they were going.
“Almost there,” she said, tapping a room just above where they were. “Weapon.”
“Where were they trying to lead us?” Lucia asked.
Foxtail frowned and squinted at the map she’d carved into the wall. “To the edge of the ship.”
“It’s a long drop,” the prince sighed. “Nasty way to go.”
“But the fall, it wouldn’t kill us. There’s no silver or fire or anything like that below. Just rocks and sand and the million horrible hungry things that live in the wastes.” Lucia didn’t understand.
“My lady,” the prince began, sharing a look with Conwynne as if unsure he should say anything.
“Spit it out, my prince,” Lucia growled. Even just talking to him, her wolf got excited.
“The point wouldn’t be to kill us. But rather to break us. The Suzerain has an insatiable appetite for his mangled alpha spawn. The drop to the ground would shatter every bone in our bodies. Before we could heal, the witch and her pack would scoop us up and drop us again. And again. Until we swore allegiance to her and her master.”
“Nasty,” Postie said, her fingers idly probing the scar of her ear.
“Or,” Foxtail added, “here. Power supply.” She tapped the map again, noting a large circular room.
“Power for what?” Lucia asked. “The whole ship?”
Foxtail shrugged. “Didn’t build the ship. Just saw the map.”
Conwynne broke in. “We have to go. Now.” He sniffed the air, locating the scents of their pursuers. “They’re coming.”
The soldiers readied themselves, knowing what came next. Lucia grinned at them, feeling their trust and excitement through the pack bond. “Ready?” she asked, then pulled on their flesh through her bond. She didn’t bring them all the way to the dire wolf form, but rather stopped halfway at the perfect blend of human and wolf. Her own body flowed and shifted to match theirs, arms and legs lengthening, fingers becoming claws. The muscles and bones in her legs knitting themselves into the canine form and her mouth filling with fangs. She gripped her glaive tightly and addressed her pack.
“This is our only chance. We all have people out there in the wastes that we love. If we don’t destroy this weapon, they’ll die. It’s as simple as that. We have to fight with every drop of our blood, with every inch of fang and talon. But we can do this. We are mighty. And they don’t know how to fight us. The Suzerain and his twisted minions have grown lazy preying on the unprepared. They pick off lone travelers. They attack children. They aren’t the alpha predators here. We are. For the first time in twenty years, there’s a pack that can stand up to their evil. So come, let’s show the witch the color of her own blood.”
Lucia let a howl rip from her throat. It was a b
attle cry and a threat. The witch knew they were coming. Let her also know they weren’t afraid.
Chapter 14
A Heavy Price
Following Foxtail’s lead, the pack surged through the pyramid. This deep in, they encountered many of the Suzerain’s people. They were functionaries and assistants, clerks and all the behind the scenes people who kept an evil empire grinding forward. They all fell before the pack. Were some of them innocent? Did some deserve to live? Can you find yourself trapped in an evil place, doing evil things, and not be evil yourself? Lucia didn’t know. When she burst into a room and saw the red-jacketed personnel busily typing away on ancient devices or painting new borders on old maps, all she could think of were those poor gasping people in Sierren. And also of Farid, still loose in the world to dance and grin and smuggle. If she had anything to say about it, he always would be.
If Lucia hesitated a moment before opening a red jacket’s throat with her sword, the prince was her opposite. His people had been at war with the Suzerainty for a generation. He opened every throat he could. Not with malice or glee at the death, but rather out of respect for the dead on his side. Through the pack bond, Lucia could sense him. She could feel his sense of honor and duty being fulfilled by crushing the Suzerainty one person at a time. It wouldn’t bring his people back, but it would honor their memories.
When one of the soldiers, a heavy man by the name of Paperweight, laughed at a kill, the prince wasted no time in cuffing him across the head. “We do not enjoy this,” he said.
“Nervous laughter,” Paperweight said, baring his bloody teeth.
“Since when has a fight made you nervous, lad?” the prince asked.
“Guess I’m just not used to suicide missions, sir.”
Lucia broke in. “It’s not a suicide mission. You can’t think like that. Focus past yourself. Think about what’s out there, what you have to live for.”
“What are you living for, boss?” Paperweight asked, his eyes suggesting he knew the answer already.
Farid, she thought. May the moon save me, I’m fighting for Farid.
The prince averted his eyes from her, his body tensing. How much of her thoughts and feelings could the pack sense? They were a storm to her, a swirling vortex of emotions and memories. But she was the alpha, the center of the web that connected them. Were her thoughts broadcasting to them as well? She tried to push away her vision of the pirate, his naked chest glistening in the desert sun, but it was no use. The more she resisted, the stronger he became in her mind.
Foxtail yipped impatiently. “This way,” she said. “Almost there.”
Down another winding corridor half-full of boxes they ran, through a cafeteria recently abandoned—fresh flatbread still steaming on dented metal plates—and then up to a winding ramp full of heavily armed soldiers. Beyond the mob of armed men was the weapon chamber. It was nearly at the apex of the pyramid, though not quite. The apex was the domain of the witch, where she lived and watched the world, and worked her dark alpha magics.
The red jackets held swords and shields. Some in the read readied bolter rifles. They were a formidable phalanx. Or would have been, against some other opponent.
Lucia charged the ramp with her glaive drawn, a bear shifter spirit who specialized in fighting armies single-handedly formed around her. With sweeping strokes of the sword, Lucia and the bear cut through the small army before they even knew she was there. As the last body dropped, and Lucia cleared the top of the ramp, the bear faded away, swelling with a sense of pride.
No wonder the Suzerain is afraid of alphas, she thought. Look at what we can do given half a chance.
Behind her, the prince and the pack picked their way up the ramp. She could feel their amazement at her prowess through the bond. They couldn’t see the spirits of the glaive. They didn’t know the skill was borrowed, the victory shared. She’d have to tell them at some point about the blade and the incredible science locked within. But not today. Today she would bask in their admiration and pretend to be the hyper-competent warrior they thought she was.
They’d reached their destination. Finally, the weapon’s room.
The room was large, filling the entire floor of the pyramid. Whirling mechanisms crowded the walls and ceiling. Spinning gears meshed effortlessly with mirrored plates, rotating quickly, filling the room with a strobing red glow. In the center of the mechanism, a crimson statue stood. It looked like a shifter woman carved out of crystal. She was life-sized, with her mouth open and howling in rage. Thousands of tiny fractures in the surface, like dust-caked wrinkles at the edges of an old man’s eyes, covered the sculpture. It was missing arms and legs, shattered stumps suggested where they might have been.
The statue rested on a dais that was painted or carved with elaborate rune work. Another part of the dark ritual, surely. Around the statue rotated mirrors atop gears, pulled by chains by an unseen machine under their feet. The wall across from Lucia, on the far side of the room, was coiled like a lens.
“How does it work?” Lucia asked.
“Do we need to know, my lady? Can’t we just destroy it?” the prince asked.
“If we do a poor job of it, they’ll just rebuild it tomorrow. I need to break it in a way that can’t be fixed.”
The sound of ragged howling echoed up the ramp. The spawn were near.
Foxtail walked around the room, stepping nimbly over spinning chains and rotating gears. “Statue is the key. Destroy it and you destroy the weapon.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?” Paperweight growled, hefted a stolen sword and brought it down on the statue before Foxtail could tell him what an enormously bad idea that was.
As soon as Paperweight’s blade struck the cracked crimson surface of the statue, light flashed in the room like lightning without thunder. Paperweight slumped to the ground, his arm a shriveled and misshapen mass still gripping the sword. Lucia gasped as she felt his presence in the pack snuffed out.
“The crystal is charged with the deaths of hundreds. Maybe thousands,” Conwynne sighed. “Destroying it will be no easy matter.”
A wicked voice laughed from the shadows. “You will not be quite so hard to defeat.”
A woman dropped from the ceiling, landing in the middle of the pack. She was robed and hooded with red cloth, but her bare wolfen feet and clawed hands as black as death gave her away. It was the witch of the wastes, Azra Moreno, called by some the Nightwalker, or the Lord’s Fist. Shadows clung to her, reaching out for her from every surface like a child reaching for a mother.
In her left hand she held a sword—a glaive—forged not of silver, but rather of the red poisonous crystal that dominated the room.
“You have one chance,” she said, her voice high and sour. “Pledge yourselves to me. Join my pack or find yourselves at the end of your days.” Under the hood, the witch’s eyes glowed red with malice. She was focused entirely on Conwynne, as if he was the alpha.
“What have you become, old friend?” Conwynne’s voice ached with pity.
“Stronger. Better. Deadlier.” The witch smiled, her pointed teeth shining white under her hood.
“You used to be a hero.” The old man drew his glaive slowly, bringing it up to a guard position.
“You used to matter,” the witch sneered. “You will die today, old friend. But your pack doesn’t have to. We’re always looking for skilled warriors to join our red jackets. They don’t have to die.” She glanced at the prince, her eyes burning with hatred. “Well he does, too, but just the two of you. The rest are free to join us.”
Lucia moved slowly behind the witch, stepping with great care, moving like the sands upon the dunes. When she was sure the woman couldn’t see her, she raised her glaive for striking.
The witch spun, her crystal sword jabbing straight for Lucia’s heart. A glaive spirit manifested around Lucia, a young handsome lion shifter. He brought with him the smell of the forest, birdsong, and the best defensive techniques known by shifter kind. Giving in to his
instruction, Lucia glided away from the witch’s thrust, her own blade knocking aside the crystal sword and lashing out for a counterstrike, the blade stinging against the witch’s shoulder.
“What do we have here?” The witch smiled widely. “A new alpha? Connie, wherever did you find her? She’s adorable.”
Lucia adjusted her footing. “I found him, witch. Right outside Los Robles.” The lion spirit roared within her hands and she leapt high in the air, bringing the blade down in a mighty crack against the witch’s crystal glaive. Which sword would shatter first?
The witch’s burning eyes tracked Lucia’s scarred glaive then in a moment of realization, she spun to confront Conwynne. “You brought her here? This was not the deal, you old bastard.” She spat at him and howled, “This was not the deal!”
Shadows leapt from the witch’s body as she pulled her pack of twisted alpha spawn to her. From every dark nook and cranny in the room, a misshapen malignant shifter emerged. Too many to count. Too many to fight. They formed a wall of hatred between Lucia’s pack and the weapon.
“What use is protection from the Suzerain if you kill everyone else? How twisted is that mind of yours, witch?”
“Conwynne,” Lucia asked, “what is she talking about. What deal is this?”
“It’s not important,” he snarled. “Destroy the machine. I’ll occupy the witch. She won’t dare kill you.” He dropped his robes to the ground, held his glaive at guard.
“You think I won’t kill her?” The witch laughed. “Maybe once, old friend, that would have been true. But I’ve seen things beyond this world. I’ve touched the mind of darkness and now see that nothing lasts but power.” She swung her sword in a vicious arc overhead, spinning her body with the blade in a full circle. Lucia threw herself backwards, out of reach, but some of her pack weren’t so lucky. As the crystal sword touched them, it stole their life away. Four soldiers fell to the ground, their bodies already cooling, their souls eaten by the witch’s crystal blade.
The alpha spawn laughed and jeered, but didn’t come forward. They stood their ground in defense of their death ray.