The Shapechangers Read online

  Carillon’s eyes narrowed. “A Cheysuli warrior—liege man to my uncle the Mujhar—stole away a king’s daughter.” He smiled coldly, as angry as the Cheysuli. “That practice, it seems, is still alive among your race. Even now you steal another.”

  Finn matched Carillon’s smile. “Perhaps, princeling, but she is not a king’s daughter. Only her father will miss her, and her mother, and that will pass in time.”

  “My mother is dead,” Alix said, then regretted speaking at all. She took a careful breath. “If I go with you, willingly, will you free Carillon?”

  Finn laughed softly. “No, meijha, I will not. He is the weapon the Cheysuli have needed these twenty-five years of the qu’mahlin, for all he was born after it began. We will use him.”

  Alix’s eyes met Carillon’s, and they realized the futility of their arguments. Neither spoke.

  “Come,” said Finn. “I have men and horses waiting in the forest. It is time we left this place.”

  Carillon got carefully to his feet, cradling the injured wrist. He stood stiffly, taller than the black-haired warrior, but somehow diminished before the fierce pride of the man.

  “Your sword, princeling,” Finn said quietly. “Take up your sword and return it to its sheath.”

  “I would sooner sheathe it in your flesh.”

  “Aye,” Finn agreed. “If you did not, you would not be much of a man.” Alix felt an odd tension in his body. “Take up the sword, Carillon of Homana. It is yours, for all that.”

  Carillon, warily eyeing the wolf, bent and retrieved the blade. The ruby glinted as he slid the sword home awkwardly with his left hand.

  Finn stared at the weapon and smiled oddly. “Hale’s blade.”

  Carillon scowled at him. “My uncle gifted me with this sword last year. It was his before that. What do you say?”

  When the Cheysuli did not answer immediately Alix looked sharply at him. She was startled to find bleakness in his yellow beast-eyes.

  “Long before it was a Mujhar’s blade it was a Cheysuli’s. Hale made that sword, princeling, and gifted it to his liege lord, the man he had sworn a blood-oath of service to.” He sighed. “And the prophecy of the Firstborn says it will one day be back in the hands of a Cheysuli Mujhar.”

  “You lie!”

  Finn grinned mockingly. “I may lie, on occasion, but the prophecy does not. Come, my lord, allow my lir to escort you to your horse. Come.”

  Carillon, aware of the wolf’s silent menace, went. Alix had no choice but to follow.

  Chapter Two

  Three other Cheysuli, Alix saw apprehensively, waited silently in the forest. Carillon’s warhorse was with them. She cast a quick glance at the prince, judging his reaction, and saw his face was pale, jaw set so tightly she feared it might break. He seemed singularly dedicated to keeping himself apart from the Cheysuli even though he was in their midst.

  Finn said something in a lyrical tongue she did not recognize and one of the warriors came forward with a strange horse for Carillon. He was being refused his own, and quick color rising in his face confirmed the insult.

  “We know the reputation of Homanan warhorses,” Finn said briefly. “You will not be given a chance to flee us so easily. Take this one, for now.”

  Silently Carillon accepted the reins and with careful effort was able to mount. Finn stared up at him from the ground, then moved to the prince and without a word tore a long strip of wool from Carillon’s green cloak. He tossed it at him.

  “Bind your wound, princeling. I will not lose you to death so easily.”

  Carillon took up the strip and did as told. He smiled grimly down at the yellow-eyed warrior. “When I am given the time, shapechanger, I will see the color of your blood.”

  Finn laughed and turned away. He grinned at Alix. “Well, meijha, we lack a horse for you. But mine will serve. I will enjoy the feel of you against me.”

  Alix, both furious and frightened, only glared at him. His dark face twisted in an ironic smile and he took the reins of his own horse from another warrior. He gestured toward the odd gear on the animal’s back. It did not quite resemble a Homanan saddle, with its large saddletree and cantle designed to hold in a fighting man, but served an identical purpose. Alix hesitated, then placed her bare foot in the leather stirrup and hoisted herself into the saddle. Before she could say anything to prevent him, Finn vaulted onto the horse’s rump behind her. She felt his arms come around her waist to take up the reins.

  “You see, meijha? You can hardly avoid me.”

  She did her best. The ride was long and she was wearied from riding stiffly upright before him when at last Finn halted the horse. She stared in surprise at the encampment before her, for it was well hidden in the thick, shadowed forests.

  Woven tents of greens, browns, grays and slates huddled in the twilight, nearly indistinguishable from the trees and underbrush of the forest and the tumbled piles of mountain boulders. Small fires glowed flickeringly across the narrow clearing.

  Alix straightened as Finn reined in the horse. She turned quickly to search for Carillon, lost among the black-haired, yellow-eyed Cheysuli warriors, but Finn prevented her. His left arm came around her waist snugly, possessive as he leaned forward, pressing against her rigid back.

  “Your princeling will recover, meijha. He is in some pain now, but it will pass.” His voice dropped to a provocative whisper. “Or I will make it.”

  She ignored him, sensing a slow, defiant—and somehow frightening—rage building within her. “Why did you set your wolf on him?”

  “He drew Hale’s sword, meijha. Doubtless he knows how to use it, even against a Cheysuli.” He laughed softly. “Perhaps especially against a Cheysuli. But we are too few as it is. My death would not serve.”

  “You set a beast on him!”

  “Storr is no beast. He is my lir. And he only did it to keep Carillon from getting himself slain, for I would have taken his life to keep my own.”

  She glanced at the wolf waiting so silently and patiently by the horse. “Your—lir? What do you say?”

  “That wolf is my lir. It is a Cheysuli thing, which you could not possibly understand. There is no Homanan word for our bond.” He shrugged against her. “Storr is a part of me, and I him.”

  “Shapechanger…” she whispered involuntarily.

  “Cheysuli,” he whispered back.

  “Is any wolf this—lir?”

  “No. I am bonded with Storr only, and he was chosen by the old gods to be my lir. They are born knowing it. Each warrior has only one, but it can be any creature.” He picked a leaf from Alix’s hair, even as she stiffened. “It is too new for you to understand, meijha. Do not try.”

  She felt him slide from behind and a moment later he pulled her from the horse. Alix stifled a blurt of surprise and felt each sinew tighten as his hand crept around her neck.

  “You may release me,” she said quickly. “I can hardly run from a wolf.”

  His hand slid from her. She felt her braid lifted from her neck and his lips upon her nape. “Then you are learning already, meijha.”

  Before she could protest he turned her face to his and bent her head back as his mouth came down on hers. Alix struggled against him with no effect except to feel herself held more securely. He was far too strong for her, stronger than she had ever imagined a man could be.

  You should not, lir, said a quiet voice in Alix’s mind.

  She stiffened in fear, wondering how Finn spoke without saying anything. Then she was pushed from him unexpectedly as he moved back a single step. She saw he had not spoken, silently or aloud, but whatever had formed the words had greatly upset him. His eyes, watching her warily, were slitted. Slowly he looked at the wolf.

  “Storr…” he said softly, in amazement.

  You should not, said the tone again.

  Finn swung back to her, suddenly angry. “Who are you?”

  “What?”

  His hand clasped her braid and tugged sharply, jerking at her scalp. �
��What manner of woman are you, to draw Storr’s concern?”

  The wolf? she wondered blankly.

  Finn peered closely at her, fingers painfully closing on her jaw until she had no choice but to look directly into his shadowed face. The wolf-shaped gold earring gleamed.

  “You are dark enough for one of us, but you have not the eyes,” he muttered. “Brown, like half of Homana. Yet why else would Storr protest my pleasure? It is not for the lir to do.”

  “I am none of yours!” she hissed, profoundly shaken. “I am daughter to Torrin of Homana. Do not curse me by naming me Cheysuli, shapechanger!”

  His hand tightened and she cried out. Faintly she heard Carillon’s worried tone carry across the way. “Alix!”

  Finn released her so curtly she stumbled, back. “Go to your princeling, meijha. Tend his wound like a proper light woman.”

  She opened her mouth to protest his unseemly words, then bit them back and whirled, hastening to Carillon. He stood by his Cheysuli mount, unsteady, cradling his bound wrist against his chest. His face, even in the shadows, was drawn with pain.

  “Did he harm you?” he asked harshly.

  Alix shook her head, recalling the anger in Finn’s hand upon her chin. “No, I am well enough. But what of you?”

  He half-shrugged. “It is my sword arm. Without it I am not much of a prince, nor even a man. Otherwise I would not speak of it.”

  She smiled and touched his uninjured arm gently. “We have nowhere else to go, my lord. Let us move into the firelight where I can see to your wrist.”

  Finn came to them silently and gestured toward a green tent not far from where they stood. Mutely Alix followed the Cheysuli leader, keeping one hand on Carillon’s arm. That he had said anything at all about his wound worried her, for it indicated the wolf bite was worse than she suspected.

  Finn watched them kneel down on a blue woven rug before his tent and then disappeared within, ignoring them. Alix cast a quick glance around the small encampment, seeking a way out, but there were too many warriors. And Carillon’s face was already fever-flushed and warm when she set her hand against it.

  “We go nowhere, yet,” she said softly.

  “We must,” he answered, carefully unwrapping his injured wrist. The flesh was scored with teeth marks. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was open and seeping.

  “We have no choice,” Alix whispered. “Perhaps in the morning, when you are better.”

  Light from the small fire cairn, built before the tent, flickered over his jaw. She saw the stubborn set to the prominent bones. “Alix, I will not remain in a shapechanger camp. They are demons.”

  “They are also our captors,” she agreed wryly. “Do you think to escape them so easily? You could hardly get half a league with this wolf-wound.”

  “You could. You could reach your father’s croft. He could ride to Mujhara for help.”

  “Alone…” she whispered. “And so far…”

  He rubbed his unwounded forearm across his brow. “I do not wish to send you into the darkness alone, no matter how far the distance is. But I have no choice, Alix. I would go myself, willingly, as I think you know.” He lifted his bloody arm. “I do recognize my own limitations.” His smile came swiftly, and left as quickly. “I have faith in you, my girl, more so than in any man who might be with me in this.”

  Pain squeezed her heart so that it nearly burst. In the brief weeks she had known him he had become everything to her, a hero she could worship from the depths of her romantic soul and a man she could dream of in the long nights. To have him look at her so warmly and with such trust nearly undid her convictions about not allowing him to see her vulnerability.

  “Carillon…”

  “You must,” he said gently. “We cannot remain here. My uncle, when he learns of this, will send mounted troops immediately to destroy this nest of demons. Alix, you must go.”

  “Go where?” demanded Finn from the tent’s doorflap.

  Alix twitched in surprise at his stealth, but Carillon glared at the Cheysuli. Somehow Finn seemed more substantial, a thing of the darkness, illuminated by the firelight dancing off the gold on his arms and in his ear. Alix forced herself to look away from his yellow eyes and stared instead at the earring half-hidden in thick black hair. It, like the armbands he wore above the elbows, bore a skillful figure of a wolf.

  For his lir…she realized blankly, and wondered anew at the strangeness of his race.

  The Cheysuli smiled mockingly and moved to stand over them. His steps were perfectly silent and hardly left a mark in the dirt.

  He is like the shadows themselves…

  “My prince,” he said vibrantly, “you must doubtless believe this insubstantial girl could make her way through a hostile forest without aid of any sort. Were she Cheysuli, she could, for we are creatures of the forests instead of cities, but she is not. And I have gone to far too much trouble to lose either of you so quickly.”

  “You have no right to keep us, shapechanger,” Carillon said.

  “We have every right, princeling! Your uncle has done what he could to slay every Cheysuli in Homana—a land we made! He has come closer than even he knows, for it is true our numbers are sadly reduced. From thousands we are hundreds. But it has been fortunate, lately, that Shaine is more concerned with the war Bellam of Solinde wishes to levy against Homana. He needs must steep himself in battle plans again, and forget us for a time.”

  “So,” Carillon said on a sighing breath, “you will ransom me back to the Mujhar?”

  Finn stroked his smooth jaw, considering, grinning at them both. “That is not for me to say. It is a Cheysuli Clan Council decision. But I will let you know how we view your disposition.”

  Alix straightened. “And what of me?”

  He stared sightlessly at her a long moment. Then he dropped to one knee and lifted her braid against his lips in a seductive manner. “You, meijha, will remain with us. The Cheysuli place much value on a woman, for we have need of them to breed more of us.” He ignored her gasp of shock and outrage. “Unlike the Homanans, who may keep a woman for only a night, we keep her forever.”

  Alix recoiled from him, jerking her braid free of his hand. Fear drove into her chest so quickly she could hardly breathe, and she felt a trembling begin in her bones.

  He could do this, she realized. He could. He is a demon…

  “Let me go,” she pleaded. “Do not keep me with you.”

  His black brows lifted. “Do you sicken of my company so soon, meijha? You will injure me with such words.”

  “Alix is none of yours,” Carillon said coldly. “If you seek to ransom me, you will do the same for her. And if her father cannot meet your price, the Mujhar will pay it from his own coffers.”

  Finn did not bother to look at Carillon. He stared penetratingly at Alix. “She is a prize of war, princeling. My own personal war against the Mujhar. And I would never take gold from a man who could order his men to slay an entire race.”

  “I am no prize!” Alix cried. “I am a woman! Not a broodmare to be judged by her ability to bear young or bring gold. You will not treat me so!”

  Finn caught one of her hands and held it, browned fingers encircling her wrist gently. She tried to pull away, but he exerted just enough force to keep her hand imprisoned.

  “I treat you how I choose,” he told her. “But I would have you know meijhas are honored among the Cheysuli. That a woman has no cheysul—husband—and yet takes a man as mate does not make her a whore. Tell me, is that not a better life than the light women of Mujhara receive?”

  Her hand jerked in his grasp. “Let me go!”

  “You are not the first woman won in such a fashion,” he said solemnly, “and doubtless you will not be the last. But for now, you are mine to do with as I will.”

  Carillon reached out to grab Finn’s arm, cursing him angrily, but the pain of his wrist prevented him. His face went horribly white and he stopped moving instantly, cradling the wounded arm. His brea
th hissed between his teeth.

  Finn released Alix. “If you will allow it, I will heal the wound.”

  “Heal!”

  “Aye,” the Cheysuli said quietly. “It is a gift of the old gods. We have healing arts at our beck.”

  Alix rubbed at the place he had held on her arm. “What do you say, shapechanger?”

  “Cheysuli,” he corrected. “I can summon the earth magic.”

  “Sorcery!” Carillon exclaimed.

  Finn shrugged. “Aye, but it is a gift, for all that. And used only for good.”

  “I will not suffer your touch.”

  Finn moved and caught Carillon’s wounded arm in a firm grasp. The prince winced away, prepared to make a furious protest, but said nothing as astonishment crept across his face.

  “Carillon?” Alix whispered.

  “The pain…” he said dazedly.

  “The earth magic eases pain,” Finn said matter-of-factly, kneeling before the pale prince. “But it can also do much more.”

  Alix stared open-mouthed as the Cheysuli held the lacerated arm. His yellow eyes had gone oddly piercing, yet detached, and she realized her escape lay open before her. He had somehow gone beyond them both.

  She moved as if to go, coiling her legs to push herself upright, but the expression on Carillon’s face prevented her. She saw amazement, confusion and revulsion, and the beginnings of a protest. But she also saw acknowledgment of the truth in Finn’s words, and before she could voice a question, afraid of the sorcery the shapechanger used, Finn released Carillon’s wrist.

  “It is done, princeling. It will heal cleanly, painlessly, though you will have scars to show for your foolishness.”

  “Foolishness!” Carillon exclaimed.

  Finn smiled grimly “It is ever foolishness for a man to threaten a Cheysuli before his lir.” Finn nodded his head at the silver wolf who lay silently by the tent. “Storr will let no man harm me, even at the cost of his own life.” He frowned suddenly, eyes somber. “Though that has its price.”

  “Then one day I will slay you both,” Carillon said clearly.

  Alix felt the sudden flare of tension between the two, though she could not put name to it. And when Finn smiled ironically she felt chilled, recoiling from his twisted mouth.