Shifhuul fell to the ground, half trapped under the torso of the dying human. The man flailed and shook, as though trying to hold on to something slipping inexorably away from his grasp. Shifhuul kicked and pushed to get his legs free. Finally, he stood and reached for his bow, only to find it snapped in half by the weight of man’s impact on the hard dirt. He grabbed his blade from the man’s chest and ran around the edge of the barn, halting as he saw Yeth wildly swinging a sword at five militiamen while she attempted to retreat.
He saw a clear path to the bonfire. He could light the flame. By then, Yeth would fall to the five men.
Five…
So many…
TWO YEARS AGO
“SO MANY.”
Black shapes darted from shadow to light to tree to shadow, steel flashing in lamplight, cries clinging to the moist summer air. Shifhuul reached out his arms to pull his mate and daughter away from the edge of the railing where the family looked down on the assault assailing their forest town.
“So many and no warning,” Shifhuul said in reply to his mate’s statement.
The neighboring wyrin Liniff territory had been threatening war for months if previous border agreements were not honored, but he had not expected the traitorous northerners to attack just before dawn when most of the town’s families would finally have gone to bed. His five-year-old daughter, Whinara, trembled beneath his arms as the screams of his fellow townspeople rose through the branches to their home.
“What will we do?” His mate, Shahana, clung close to him, pulling their daughter between them as though she might protect her from the sounds below.
What to do indeed? The town guards were likely dead. The cries of the dying forest dwellers had awoken his family, not the horns calling alarm. The militia would take time to assemble if they made it from their houses before being slaughtered. Their only salvation would be to hold out until reinforcements from the nearby river army reached them, assuming someone had managed to flee and alert the local commander of the attack. Shifhuul could do nothing about that. He could only hope to protect his family.
“Back into the house.” Shifhuul pulled his mate and daughter through the doorway and into their sleeping chamber. He looked to his mate. “Both of you hide beneath the bed. No. Too obvious. It must look like others have been here.”
Shifhuul tugged at the edge of the mattress, pulling it from the bed frame, linens piling on the hardwood floor. He knocked over a chair and pulled over a dressing cabinet.
“Hide beneath the blankets. Make it appear as though they are piled accidentally. I will return soon.” Shifhuul pulled on a pair of pants and slipped on his boots, ignoring the laces.
“What will you do?” Shahana asked as Shifhuul grabbed his sword belt from the wall and tightened it around his waist.
“I will douse the lights on this level and cut free the bridge.” Shifhuul kissed his mate and daughter quickly. “They will come first to the houses with lights.”
Shifhuul ran from the room as his mate and daughter made to hide themselves beneath the bed covers piled by the wall. He left the door open, as no supposed intruder would close it after ransacking the room. His mother’s house sat among the branches of three of the most massive red-barked jedket trees, comprising a total of four levels. The sleeping chambers rested in the branches of the uppermost level. The hardest to reach. His mother had designed it that way so that the bridge from the level below could be separated and cast away. Shifhuul, for once, appreciated his mother’s ingeniousness and forethought. His mother would not return from her merchant trading journey for days yet. She would no doubt chide him for abandoning the fight to save the town in order to preserve one small portion of it.
Shifhuul raced through the rooms of the sleeping level, blowing out lanterns where they sat on large metal trays, an extravagance his mother complained about but which he indulged in whenever possible. As nocturnal people, most wyrins kept only a single lantern burning through the night. Shifhuul found this uncivilized, luxuriating in the glow of multiple lamps throughout the dark hours. Dousing the tenth and final lamp among five rooms, he cursed the practice, swearing to abandon it.
He ran to the bridge connecting the sleeping level to the rest of the tree home, finding black clad wyrin males bursting through the door. He threw himself around a corner as he heard a scream. His mate’s angry shouts joined his daughter’s cries. He lunged from behind the corner and raced down the hall, his sword already drawn, swinging out to strike the first soldier in the back of the neck before taking the second in the back of the leg, sending them both to the ground.
Shifhuul swore against his stupidity as he ran from the hall to the bedchambers. He should have cut free the bridge first before dousing the lamps. He had thought he had more time, that the lights would lure the attackers. That they might climb the trunk the great tree if they found the bridge cut and the lights still glowing. He had been correct, but had judged the situation wrongly.
He ran through the doorway to the main hall and found his mate and daughter being pulled in opposite directions each by two wyrin soldiers. Two men dragged and beat his mate as they pulled her back toward the bedroom while the other two soldiers yanked his daughter toward the southern breakfast balcony. He slid to a stop between the two doors, frozen in fear and confusion. Whinara cried out to him from the balcony as one of the soldiers punched her in the head. Shahana screamed out their daughter’s name. He found himself unable to move, his mind unable to think, incapable of processing the choice he faced.
Then his feet moved, as though willed by some other mind, carrying him through the door to the breakfast balcony, blade lashing out. A sword blocked his own as he watched his daughter tumble from the balcony edge, thrown over by the soldier who had held her. Shifhuul’s thoughts fell quiet, seeing all but feeling nothing. He should have yelled in rage. Should have felt his heart tearing and burning like the fires dotting the tree houses beyond the balcony. Should have ached with unfathomable loss. Instead, he felt utterly empty, devoid of all possible emotion — a riverbed drained dry and baked hard to stone beneath an unforgiving sun.
The soldiers before him attacked.
Shifhuul had never wanted to excel at anything, but his natural inclinations led him to the sword and the bow. Both required a great deal of practice to master, and as a wyrin with little inclination for the work of his mother’s merchant trade, he invested his time where he enjoyed it most. He found archery more gentlemanly and refined than swordsmanship, but against any great desire, he had become one of the best sword wielders in the southern territories.
His killed the two soldiers before they knew they were likely to die. He left them and walked in a strange, eerie calm to his bedchamber, where two more soldiers held his mate to the floor, one attempting to mount her. He killed them as well, his blade severing their heads before they knew to turn, their blood spraying across his chest, his mate, the mattress of the bed, and his boots.
“Where is she?” Shahana clutched at him as he stared back with dead eyes.
“Gone.” The word took more effort to speak than any act in his entire life.
“No!” Shahana pounded at his chest and ran through the door to the breakfast balcony, leaning over to scream into the black air.
Shifhuul walked to the hallway and stood looking at his mate. When she finally turned to him, he cast his eyes away.
“Hide,” he said.
“Where are you going?” Shahana sobbed as she spoke.
A distant part of him wanted to go to her, to hold her, to comfort her in her sorrow. A part of him wanted to share in that sorrow. He did not deserve to feel loss and pain. He deserved only regret and shame.
“To kill as many of them as I can.”
Shifhuul turned from his mate, walked along the halls across the bridge to the main house, down the winding spiral stairs to the street below, and fulfilled that vow and pledge again and again until the sun warmed the rising air to send the dew falling from the l
eaves and signal the dawn of a new day and the end of his known life.
THE PRESENT
COLD STILLNESS, fired by memory, filled Shifhuul’s mind and body, ceasing all linear thought and guiding his limbs in every lightning-swift motion. He did not yell a childish battle cry as the humans did; he simply ran, sword swinging and cutting and swinging again. He did not try to fight in some noble manner. He slashed at the backs of the human’s knees as he ran behind them, and stabbed at their necks as they fell backward to the ground. He saw Yeth cry out as she took a blade to the arm she’d been wound in earlier that day. He heard a pounding of footsteps and the crunch of hard leather on packed earth behind him.
He ducked a blade and thrust upward into his assailant’s groin, hearing a squeal of pain. He rolled to the side to avoid one blade, swinging his curved sword into the path of another. His arms rattled, and the metal of his sword bent against the impact of the larger, heavier steel.
Shifhuul slashed at the knee of a human and jumped up to swing at his head. His sword blade flew from his hands as pain exploded in his chest. He tumbled through the air, striking the wall of a house, his head slamming to the ground.
He could not think, the cold emptiness of his mind replaced with a hot agony from his chest. He reached his paw to his breastbone, feeling a damp, gaping gash. He struggled to breathe and fought to think. He had been wounded. A human had struck him. What human? Where?
He saw flames at the edge of his vision. Heard the calls of the yutan and the roagg. Saw the roagg above him, bleeding from the neck. Had they both been injured? Should they run? They should run. Back to the castle.
He did not think he could run.
The roagg spoke and lifted him up in his arms. He tried to reply, to complain at being carried like a pet squirrel, but his lungs did not work to give him air.
Rest. He would rest while the roagg hauled him back to the castle. He would need his strength to climb the rope. He had been good at climbing as a child. Yes, he would rest until they reached … where were they going? It did not matter.
He thought about the things he missed as he waited to reach … wherever they went. His daughter. His missed his daughter. Sweet Whinara, always asking to ride his back as a little one, always into mischief, so much like himself. Smart and quick to tease and to care. So much like his mate. His mate. He missed his mate. He wished she had not left him as she did, had not taken her life on the same balcony their daughter died falling from, but he did not blame her. How could she continue with life when the daughter she cherished so much lived no more, and the mate she loved had died inside, leaving her to grieve alone?
He missed … what did he miss?
Where was he?
Who was he?
Blackness ate all thought and devoured all cares, leaving him once more in a place of cold emptiness.
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To continue reading Shifhuul’s storyline follow this link.
THE FUGITIVES
OGTANKAA
A ROILING cloud of blackness, churning and undulating, humming to vibrate the air, exploded in single-minded fervor as stale darkness opened to fresh air and firelight. Ogtankaa stepped back from the barn door as the swarm of black flies erupted into the glow of the lantern she held high above her head. She waited for the dark swarm to dissipate before entering the slat-walled barn. The smell that drew her to the barn pulled her toward the cellar, revealing what she expected to find — decomposed bodies, flesh eaten away by rodents and insects, maggots turned to flies in the remains. Five men. Soldiers. Weapons tossed in a pile near the corpses.
She left the barn, enjoying the scent from the untended vegetable garden nearby. She checked the house next, again finding what she expected. Stains that spoke of a bloody fight. A pantry raided quickly for supplies. The stink of her quarry lingered strongly, permeating the walls, emanating in waves from the bed and blanket in the corner. The odor of the soldiers hung in the air as well, rising even through the reek of lamp oil that covered the dried blood on the floorboards. Another aroma remained in the small farmhouse, one that Ogtankaa did not expect — two females.
What did that mean? Why would he travel with two women? Did he force them to accompany him? Had he killed them later? Would she find their bodies molting their flesh like the soldiers in the barn?
She sniffed the air again.
A woman and a girl, not two women. How could that be? Did he have a family? The females’ smells did not emanate from the farmhouse the way the scent of her prey did. Not a family, then. A wave of relief spread through Ogtankaa at that realization. It would have implied things for which she had no explanation.
She searched the house for clues about her prey’s life there and his possible destination after his departure. She checked a chest and found clothes. Rummaged the bed and discovered a Pashist prayer book. What did that mean? Did it belong to the woman? It clearly did not belong to her prey. Had he taken a Pashist priest or nun as captive? To what end? And why a girl? Was the girl the woman’s child?
She found the false wall next, noting a dustless spot on the floor that had obviously once been occupied by a bag of some sort. Planning ahead, then. She knew him to be cunning, so this did not surprise her. He had not eluded her for so many years by being reckless. How had he managed to curb his instincts and desires for so long? Had he discovered a way to cloak his essence?
Ogtankaa left the farmhouse, stuffing a few ripe tomatoes and carrots from the garden in her riding pouch. A snack for the road. She climbed into the saddle of one of her three mounts and headed back down the thin lane toward the dirt road, the horses strung together by ropes. She alternated the steeds every few hours to keep them from tiring too greatly. It allowed her to cover more ground in a day. It occasionally attracted the attention of bandits and once a greedy militia commander, but she dissuaded them of their interest easily.
Back on the road, she followed the narrow dirt path through the forest and fields of local farms. The town looked like the others in that region — clay bricks and thatched roofs. A few hundred people living close together, patches of land divided by rows of rocks in strips behind the houses. She spied a tower of stone farther up the road. A local tahn’s small dominion within the Dominion. A crowd of pilgrims gathered at the edge of the town, making camp from their westward march. She had seen many pilgrim bands, both living and buried, along the roads she had traveled over the long weeks since redirecting her hunt. She understood what drove them, even if she could not share the dreams that motivated their journey. To seek something unseen and reveal it. The star that shone each night troubled her, but much less than the thought of losing her prey.
A near forgotten sense tingled at the back of her mind, dissimilar from the one that had resumed her hunt, but one she remembered instantly. It lasted only a moment, blinking in and out of existence. She looked northwest, facing the direction from where the sensation emanated. She turned back to look at the pilgrims, who were eating and talking by their campfires.
Ogtankaa smiled. She did not know the meaning of what she had experienced, but knew it to be related to her prey. How, she could not be certain, but she did not doubt the connection. She also knew now in what direction she needed to proceed.
THE FUGITIVES
LEE-NIN
“ARE YOU certain you can do this?”
“Yes.”
“What if they see you?”
“Then I will lead them away, and you will follow the river north.”
“Then what?”
“Then I will find you.”
Lee-Nin slapped quietly at a water gnat buzzing in her ear. She and Sao-Tauna crouched with Sha-Kutan behind a red viper bush growing along the shore near a bend in the river. The long shadows of early night hung over the water and darkened the forest around them. She saw the fishing boat with the wardens approaching the riverside pilgrim camp. Two men rowed while the others sat ready to disembark. Two dogs lean
ed out over the prow of the small vessel, enjoying the wind in their ears. The pilgrims noticed the wardens’ boat and sat watching the arrival as they finished their evening meal.
“You said you can always find us. How?” Lee-Nin had asked the question before, continually receiving vague answers. Her mind ached under the weight of Sha-Kutan’s ambiguous replies. She wanted to know how he could find them when he needed. How he had found her at the bottom of the river. Another part of her desired to know why she cared so much that he might find them again rather than simply fleeing with Sao-Tauna on her own. She ignored that inward inquiry.
“It is a gift.” Sha-Kutan did not take his eyes from the river. “It is impossible to explain. I sense where you are. That is all you need know.”
“Are you a seer?” Lee-Nin knew the big, ugly farmer to be more than he claimed. Farmers didn’t kill five wardens with their bare hands. A seer hiding as a farmer might. She’d watched him for signs that he possessed The Sight, but did not really know what to look for.
“No.” Sha-Kutan pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his boots. The smell of male sweat and something else, something odd that always clung to the man, wafted through the air. She noted again the shiny skin of multiple scars that marked his chest, arms, and back. What had he done to gain such wounds? Had he been a soldier? A deserter escaped from the army, hiding as a farmer? She looked away with a slight blush as she realized how long she had been staring at the powerful brown flesh of his torso and arms. He handed her the clothes and boots.
“What do you think the pilgrims will say?” Lee-Nin looked back to the riverside camp, seeing the boat with their hunters nearing the shore.
“They will lie.” Sha-Kutan pulled off his socks and sat them atop the pile in Lee-Nin’s hands.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 54