Of Thinking and Knowing

“You could teach me.” Ciaran followed Brenna as she started along the shoreline. After a moment, he realized where she was headed - the caves along the Giants’ Road.

She looked up at him, and was there laughter in her golden eyes?

“Perhaps.”

Ciaran fell into step beside her. “I’d make a great warrior,” he said. “I’m taller and stronger than you - I could wield that sword easily.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” Ciaran had worked hard every day of his life; he was just as strong, if not stronger than those fishermen and farmers who flirted in the markets.

Valhalla and Hel

“What are you looking at?” Ciaran asked.

“Just watching the sea...and waiting. For the thunder to strike.”


Ciaran shrugged. “Didn’t you look at the dawn? There will be no storm tonight,” he said. “Besides, lightning strikes, not thunder.”

“That you know of,” Brenna said, and there was something ominous in her tone. “You should go to bed, and I...should train.”

“I thought I ought to run away,” Ciaran said.

Brenna glanced at him as she sheathed her sword. “You should. You’ll not stand a chance when Odin’s Warriors come calling to send your people to Valhalla and Hel.”

Their Colors

“You’re not my mother,” Ciaran said. Disappointment and cold shock washed over him. He wrapped his arms around himself and hunched his shoulders, staring bleakly at Brenna.

“What made you think I was?”

“I could hear her,” he said. “She was calling my name.”

“I thought your mother was dead,” Brenna said.

Ciaran lifted his chin. “I could hear her.”

“You sure you’re not afflicted of the moon?”

“I heard her,” Ciaran insisted. He eyed Brenna’s sword warily. “Why are you down here again? I thought druids lived in the forest.”

“I’m not a druid - I just wear their colors.”

Sneaking Up on a Woman

Ciaran eased the window open, but the grassy field beyond the hut was empty. He climbed out, barefoot and cold, and circled around the hut. No one was at the bog either.

But then he saw a figure down on the seashore, a woman in a cloak, hand outstretched toward the waves.

Ciaran, the woman said again.

He hurried toward the cliff, scrambled down the treacherous boulders, sprinted across the sand.

“Mum!” he cried.

The woman spun around, and a sword flashed in the moonlight.

Then Brenna said, “Are you mad, sneaking up on a woman like that?”

Ciaran stilled.

Call His Name

Ciaran was awakened in the night by a woman calling his name. He swam out of a dreamy haze where he was standing on the beach talking to Brenna’s reflection in a tide pool, and his first thought was that she had sneaked into the hut and his father would wake up and go mad with anger, but when he opened his eyes, he and his father were alone.

Ciaran, the woman called, and something in Ciaran knew. He rose up off his pallet.

“Mother?”

Come outside, my son, she said, and Ciaran felt something tug him toward the window.

Careful, Promise

Brenna stared into the flames and imagined she could see the Northern Hordes descending on the rocky shores where the giants once crossed the sea. She wondered if the man leading the charge would wear Dagaz’s face and smile and have his green, green eyes. She knew hundreds of years had passed since she and Angelus - who went by Malak these days - had set foot in the icy kingdom to bring Old Master’s will to fruition, that Dagaz was long buried and forgotten.

She just knew that she’d never forget his face.

“I promise to be very careful,” she said.

Hands and Smiles

“What you saw shall come to pass, then?” Odran asked.

Brenna said, “The sons of the North are coming with their long ships and their thunder god to bring golden and red hair and blood and destruction to the shores of your green land.”

“And the son of Brighid?”

“Will be ready to fight, or he will die,” Brenna said.

Niamh arched an eyebrow. “You be careful with that lad,” she said. “I’ve seen him. He has quick hands and a quicker smile.”

Deagan laughed. “No one has quicker hands than our Brenna - have you seen her with a sword?”

Death and Thunder

“You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Ciaran demanded, miffed, but then he remembered who he was talking to.

Brenna was still laughing. “It’s why I turned away.”

Ciaran had questions he wanted to ask, about where she was from - because she obviously wasn’t really from Eire. How had she come? Over the sea? By magic?

“You should sleep,” she said. “And maybe, tomorrow, think about going somewhere far away.” The laughter slid off her face, and in the moonlight, her golden eyes were almost brown.

“Far away? Why?” Ciaran asked.

“Death and thunder are on the way.”

Stillness and Motion

Brenna glared, and the man’s voice sobered. Ciaran could only watch, puzzled and afraid, and Brenna’s expression became grimmer. Eventually she nodded, lifted the bowl, and emptied the water onto the sand. Ciaran stared as the man’s image spilled and distorted and then sank into shore.

“What’s going on?” Ciaran asked.

Brenna lifted the bowl in her arms and turned away from the sea, and it was then that Ciaran realized that, during her entire conversation with the man, the sea had been utterly, unnaturally still. Moments later, a wave crashed down on both of them.

Ciaran yelped. Brenna laughed.

Laughter on the Water

“No, he’s not,” Brenna said.

Ciaran swallowed hard. He’d heard the druids sacrificed people to appease gods and make apples grow on trees, but this type of magic was - Brenna was a powerful sorceress. Should he bow or...?

“He’s just very far away, and this is the only way I can speak to him,” Brenna said. “Shouldn’t you be fast asleep, dreaming of a hard day’s work for tomorrow?”

“So...he’s a real person?” Ciaran peered into the bowl.


The man waved, and Ciaran lurched back.

Brenna sighed and said something in that foreign language that made the man laugh.

Dead Man Talking

Ciaran wondered if he should turn, leave her be, but then he realized she was speaking. To the bowl. It was a language he’d never heard, a touch guttural, rolling in other places. Unable to help himself, Ciaran drew nearer, and he saw there was a face on the surface of the water, a man, handsome, as dark-skinned as Brenna and even more dark-eyed. The man said something, grinned, and Brenna turned, looked at Ciaran.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I saw you,” Ciaran said. “I thought you were going to drown. Is that man...dead?”

On the Seashore

Ciaran dropped both bowls and went careening down the grass. He leapt off the edge of the short cliff and hit the sand, rolled, staggered to his feet.

“Look out!” he yelled.

And then he slowed.

The figure was Brenna, and she had a massive bowl set out before her. Her head was tipped back and her arms raised high, and she was chanting something above the sound of the waves.

Ciaran could only stare as the wave crashed down on her. When it retreated, she was still standing there, drenched, arms outstretched, and the bowl was filled with water.

Wondering

Ciaran hunched his shoulders defensively. “I dunno. I was just...wondering.”

“Well, stop it,” Eoghan said gruffly. He plunked his bowl down on the hearthstone near Ciaran’s knee. “Do the washing up before you turn in.”

“Aye,” Ciaran said. He watched his father settle onto his pallet of bracken, then finished his share of stew. He wandered down to the well to draw water for washing up. While he was dawdling with the rope, he looked up, and he saw someone down on the seashore. A giant blue swell was about to crash down, drag the person out to sea.

Curiosity, Sudden

That night, at supper, Ciaran stared down at the crude wooden bowls he’d carved for himself and his father years ago.

“Da,” he said, “tell me about Mam?”

Eoghan grunted. “What d’you want to know? I’ve told you everything I know.”

Ciaran knew that his mother was a foreigner from distant shores and she’d had the same red hair he did, and that she’d been a weaver par excellence, but that was all he knew.

“What was she like? Was she funny? Did she smile like me?” Ciaran asked.

Eoghan stared at his son, brows furrowed. “Why the sudden curiosity?”

You Said

Ciaran’s brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Brenna said, “I cannot help you.” And she scooped up her harp and sword and started to walk away.

Ciaran stared, dumbfounded. Then he started after her. “Oy, you said --”

An old, blind man with a cane came tap-tapping toward the blanket, and he seated himself in Brenna’s place. He smiled in Ciaran’s general direction. “Can I help you with anything, lad? Interested in buying a fine bowl?”

Ciaran took a deep breath. “No, thank you,” he said. He spun on his heel and started on the road home.

Not For You

“Is what true?” Brenna’s hands stilled.

Ciaran met her gaze tentatively. “That you can see people who are...dead.”

“It’s true if you’ve the power,” Brenna said. “Who is it that you want to see?”

Ciaran glanced over his shoulder; the other lads were busy flirting with the girls who’d come to buy wool. He turned back to Brenna; she had to be foreign, with that skin and those eyes. “My mother,” he said. “She died when I was just a baby.”

Something unreadable crossed Brenna’s face. “I’m sorry - I cannot help you.”

“Then it’s not true.”

“Not for you.”

Not Exactly

Ciaran made the rest of his trades, keeping a weather eye on Brenna all the while. He managed to avoid getting into an argument with Aidan while bartering for some rabbit meat. When Aidan became distracted by Aednat, Ciaran ducked away, wandered slowly but deliberately over to where Brenna was singing a song in some unknown language.

“Hello,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “Hello, Ciaran.”

“You remember my name,” he said.

“Yes. Do you remember mine?”

“It’s Brenna.”

“Indeed,” she said. “Are you looking to trade?”

“Not exactly,” Ciaran said. “It’s just...is it true? About those bowls?”

Just A Girl

“Seeing?” Aoife echoed. “Seeing what?”

“Your fortune or fall, your lover or your child - whatever you desire, if you’re willing to pay the price,” Brenna said. She strummed a glissando of notes, and Ciaran went still, listening intently to the conversation. “You can see the living and the dead, and the yet to be born.”

“You’re a witch,” Aoife said flatly.

“Hardly,” Brenna said. “I’m just a girl, waiting for a boy or a war or something to make my life matter.”

“How much for a bowl?”

“What have you got?”

“I’m a decent spinner,” Aoife said.

“One spool, then.”

Holding or Seeing

Ciaran waited until Fionn the fisherman was distracted before he made a trade with Fionn’s grandmother, Fingula, who took pity on Ciaran, “the poor, motherless mite”. He glanced over his shoulder to where Brenna was minding her wares and wondered what she was doing at market. Didn’t druids spend their days dancing in the trees or something?

She had a sword by her side, as fine a weapon as any chieftain carried, but she seemed languid, amused by all she saw.

Aoife stopped to talk to her.

“What are you peddling, lass?”

“Bowls, for holding or seeing as you need.”

A Girl Amused

Brenna sat on the ground next to a blanket laid with fine pottery and some woven cloth folded in neat stacks. She had her hood tossed back, and her hair - blacker than any Ciaran had seen - gleamed in the sun. The blue swirls on her arms looked surreal, and she seemed less interested in making sales than in playing a small lap-harp, picking out idle melodies the likes of which Ciaran had never before heard.


Several children from the village ventured close, but their mothers pulled them away, making the sign against evil in Brenna’s direction. She just smiled.

Until

Ciaran wasn’t sure whether he liked the days when his father sent him down to market by himself to trade peat for supplies. Some days, when the weather was fine, Ciaran would huddle miserably beneath his cloak and curse his pale skin, his odd freckles and unnaturally red hair. Most Gaels were dark-haired, and even though Fingula and the old wives said he was lucky, the rest of the lads in the village - strong, hulking farmboys, hunters and fishermen - liked to mock him.

Today Ciaran was determined to make the trades and go straight home.

Until he saw her.

Son of Brighid

“So you’ve met him,” Deagan said.


Brenna nodded, finished skinning the rabbit with a swift tug. “Hair almost the color of wine, eyes the color of the sea - as you said.”

“I’m surprised Eoghan let you near him,” Niamh said, handed Brenna a spit for the rabbit.

“Eoghan didn’t,” Brenna said.

Malachy laughed. “That’s our brave lass. What did you think of him?”

“He’s just a boy,” Brenna said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“The son of Brighid is a mighty force. We should all fear him,” Odran said, his blind gaze fixed on nothingness. “He isn’t human. Not really.”

Brenna

Before Ciaran could take a bite of the apple, the bird took to the sky with a harsh cry.

“Farewell, lad,” Brenna said, and she vaulted over the stone wall after it.

“My name’s Ciaran,” he protested, but she vanished over the crest of the hill almost too quickly to be humanly possible.

“Lad, bring your father some wine, would you?” Eoghan called from the other side of the hut.

Ciaran jumped. “Yes, Da!” He took a bite of the apple, then ducked into the hut for the jug of wine kept cooling under the table.

Her name was Brenna.

Apple Seeds

“My name is Brenna,” she said, and she smiled at him, held out her cupped hands. “Would you like some of my apple?”

Apple. She was just holding an apple. The red was the skin of an apple. Fruit. Edible. Poison seeds, yes, but --

“Thank you,” Ciaran said. He set the bricks of peat down by her feet and reached out. He jumped when her fingers, sticky-damp with juice, tangled with his, and then she pressed half of the apple into his hand. She’d cut it in half, and he saw that the seeds formed a five-pointed star.

Blood Magic

One gold coin would keep a family in peat for a month. Ciaran nodded and accepted the coin, then ducked around to the shed. He darted a nervous glance at his father, but Eoghan was still working and whistling to himself, assuming his son was still hard at work too.

Ciaran drew several bricks of peat out of the shed and wrapped them in old sacking for good measure before skittering back around the hut.

“Miss,” he began, and drew up short.

She was leaning against the wall, cradling a handful of bright, damning red.

It was druid blood magic.

Suffice

“Your kind,” Ciaran echoed. “What is your kind?”

“Some call the men druids, or holy men,” the woman said.

Ciaran had heard of the druids, the mad men who prayed to trees and worshipped goddesses and conducted rituals by blood. He drew back.

The woman smiled. “I suppose you’ve heard the stories, then?”

“I...cannot take so much money,” Ciaran finally said. He wasn’t afraid of old wives’ tales. Even if the other village lads weren’t there to see him, he would be brave.

The woman paused and looked down at the coins, then up at him. “Will one suffice?”

By Fire

Ciaran nodded and started back toward the shed where he and his father stored their cut peat, but something in the woman’s eyes made him falter, pause. She’d come buying peat the day before - that was what she wanted, right? But then he listened to her words in his mind once more, and a bright blush stole over his features.

“Er...how much peat do you want?”

The woman held out a hand; again with the mass of gold coins.

“It is peat you want, isn’t it?”

The woman laughed softly. “Yes. Warmth by fire is preferable for my kind.”

Warmth Tonight

Ciaran raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I mean no harm.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at him, and Ciaran saw something like recognition flash in her eyes. But then it was gone, and she let her hand fall to her side.

“You startled me,” she said. She glanced up at the bird, and then she whistled.


Ciaran could only stare as the thing settled on her shoulder. She reached up, stroked its crest absently.

“I don’t think your father would like you talking to me,” she said. “But I am still looking for a little warmth tonight.”

Lure

Ciaran checked over his shoulder for his father once more, but Eoghan was on his hands and knees, cutting peat neatly with his knife. He wouldn’t be able to see if Ciaran, say, went to talk to the lady. Ciaran set down his spade and rose slowly, ducked around the side of the hut.

“I have some chicken lungs, if you think those will lure your pet down,” he said.

The woman turned to him, and Ciaran saw that her eyes were bright golden. And then he saw that she’d reached beneath her cloak - for the hilt of a sword.

Wide-Eyed and Lovely

Ciaran knew her voice - it was the woman who had come seeking peat, the woman her father had turned away. He’d tried to ask Fingula about the ‘holy men’, but she’d just shuddered and shook her head and asked him to help her build a fence to pen in her goats. Ciaran glanced at his father, but Eoghan hadn’t noticed.

Ciaran rose to his feet, started toward the hut, and then he paused, for the woman was standing beside his window, and she’d flung back her hood, raised her arms as if she could catch the bird.

She was lovely.

Memory

Dawn off the horizon turned the sea pale lavender tinged with gold. Ciaran looked up from his work and dragged a hand over his brow. Heat came early in the summer, and he’d been working hard for an hour already.

A harsh cry broke the morning stillness above the sound of his father’s labor, and Ciaran turned, saw a massive black bird swoop across the sky and settled on the roof of the hut. Ciaran thought it looked at him, but then he’d been imagining a lot of that lately.

And then a woman called out, “Machnamh! Return to me!”

And Her Eyes Were Golden

Ciaran started, shocked at his father’s rudeness, but then he saw it - blue ink curling up the woman’s wrist and vanishing into her sleeve.

“My kind?” the woman asked.

“We don’t serve the holy men in this house,” Eoghan said.

“I am no holy man - just a traveler looking to have some warmth for the night.” The woman sounded amused.

“You wear blue,” Eoghan said.

“Some days I wear red,” the woman said.

Eoghan shook his head. “Please leave.”

The woman inclined her head beneath the cloak. “As you wish.”

Ciaran swore that as she left, she looked at him.

Your Kind (Reprise)

Ciaran twisted around to see who had caused confusion in his father, who was endlessly polite, and he saw a shadow in the doorway. Or rather, a person, short, dressed in a long cloak, cowl obscuring features.

“Eoghan?” a woman asked.

“I am he. What can I do for you?”

The woman extended a fist, and Ciaran tensed, reaching for his father’s cutting shovel, but then the woman turned her hand over and revealed a fistful of coins, more money than most people saw in a lifetime.

“Peat, please.”

Eoghan reached for it, then stopped. “No. Not for your kind.”

But Someone

Ciaran knew it was strange, that is father wouldn’t let him do something as simple as start a fire, especially since they were peat cutters and their peat burned well, but he knew his father had become a bit...strange after his mother’s death, and Aoife and Fingula and the other women in the village warned him to let it go, so he did.

Aoife’s creaking voice faded, and hope lunged in Ciaran’s chest - food time!

But someone knocked at the door.

Eoghan, who’d been halfway across the hut, turned and opened the door.

“Can I help you sir...ma’am?”

For Himself

“Da, ‘m hungry,” Ciaran said. He hunched next to the hearthstone, flint in hand, and stared despondently at the cauldron full of stew waiting to cook.

“In a moment, son - Aoife and I will be done in a moment.” Eoghan was especially nice to widows.

Most days Ciaran would join in his father’s sympathy, but today he was too hungry to care.

“Can I just -”

“No,” Eoghan said. “I’ll start the fire. In a moment.”

Ciaran sighed and sat back on his haunches. He’d seen the fear in his father’s eyes the first time he’d started a fire for himself.

Ciaran

Everyone knew Eoghan had found a four leaf clover in his time or something equally lucky, because he had a hardworking son who hadn’t gotten anyone’s daughters into trouble, and the peat he cut always burnt better than anyone else’s.

The entire village had been sure Ciaran was trouble as a child - it was his cheeky grin and propensity to make things disappear with a slide of his hands - but he worked alongside his father day in, day out, and managed to be decent despite not having a mother.

Ciaran had red hair and eyes the color of the sea.

Interlude 7

He stood on the edge of the field and watched the flames crackle and dance, golden-bright against the black of the sky. His eyes glimmered green, briefly in the glow, before turning sea-blue once more. He’d roamed for several lifetimes before settling here, where he was meant to be, near the sea.

The man stood at the edge of his small farm, clutching his squalling infant son and staring, wet-eyed and terrified, as his home burned down.

The village would know the truth of the man’s wife, the cause of the fire, and always suspect his son.

Each Have

“Nine eagles,” Angel murmured. He sounded proud as he and watched the legions depart.

“Eagle of the ninth,” Ella agreed. “They’ll get lost.”

“Lost how?”

“In time,” Ella said. “But they’ll do well, conquering and fighting and killing.”

Angel huffed, exasperated at the way she spoke her knowledge of the future without warning. “So what now? We return to Old Master?”

“No,” Ella said. “You must travel east. The Sarmatians need help. And the Persians. Also the Hellenes.”

“Why do you always know these things when I don’t?”

“We each have jobs. Mine is to see. Yours is to do.”

Birds and Reptiles

“What’s this?” Angel asked. He leaned in the doorway and watched Ella stitch a complicated pattern into bright red cloth.

“An eagle,” she said, “for the legions.”

“An eagle?”

She’d seen it in a vision. She shrugged. “I think it looks nice. And they’re fierce creatures.”

Angel scooped up the other red pennant she’d made. “And this creature? I don’t think they exist anymore.”

“It’s a dragon,” she said, which she knew he remembered. From Andrev.

“Why a dragon?”

“It will confuse historians,” she said. So many battle leaders, so many dragon standards. “Have you heard from Lucius Artorius yet?”

Treat, Tread

“It’s a good thing you kept your hair short like a boy,” Angel said.

“They all know I’m a girl,” Ella said. She glanced out over the ranks and ranks of men standing in neat formation. Then she considered their spears, wondered at ways to improve accuracy, distance, durability.

“Shame works wonders,” Angel said. “A man’s ego is a fragile thing. Treat it carefully.”

“You mean tread carefully,” Ella said.

Angel glared. “Or don’t tread at all.”

“They won’t learn if they’re proud,” Ella said.

“You speak from experience?”

“You forget General Shanka?”

“Never, my lady.” Angel said, louder, “Attention!”

Changes and Forgettings

“If we keep training random foreign armies to take over the world, won’t that give us a bit of a bother when it comes time for Dagaz and the rest to march southward?” Engel asked.

Jente cast him a look. Didn’t he realize that Dagaz and the rest were dead? But she lowered her head and continued sharpening the short, wide sword he’d been given by the Captain. Gladius, she thought it was called.

“So they call you Angelus,” she said.

“Angel,” he agreed. “What shall we call you?”

“Ella,” Jente said.

“Why Ella?”

“Short for ‘puella’. It means ‘girl’.”

Agreement

“How so?” the Captain asked.

Engel nudged Jente in the elbow with his leg. She rose up slowly, so as not to startle the guards. Then she shrugged off her cloak and lifted her head, squared her shoulders. The Captain gave her a once-over, and his scowl deepened. He’d noticed what his guards hadn’t in the initial fight.

“Why would he train a slave so?”

“To protect his business,” Jente said.

“Your Master could teach my men?”

Jente glanced over her shoulder at Engel. “He could teach them to take over the world.”

The captain smiled. So did Engel.

Bare Hands

Engel enjoyed it a little too much when Jente knelt at his feet.

“What says your master?” the captain of the guard asked. He looked bored and skeptical of the entire proceedings.

“Master Angelus says he apologizes for the harm caused but he does not apologize for the incompetence of your men,” Jente said.

The captain scowled, irritated. Engel stood behind Jente, arms folded across his chest. He was smirking.

“Your master thinks he knows combat better?”

Jente translated, listened to Engel’s haughty reply. “Master Angelus says he can train a woman to defeat a man with her bare hands.”

For Years

As there was no war imminent, Engel decided the best way to find himself a spot with the local military was to earn it. By sacrificing Jente, of course. She got into a fight with some local guards, and when other guards showed up to arrest her, their comrades had to confess their humiliation at having been beaten by so delicate a boy. Jente murmured that her master had taught her to fight so as to protect herself while on his business, and then the curiosity came.

“Who is your master?”

She suspected that question would haunt her for years.

Power of Surprise

They ended up finding a house on the edge of the city and crashing there for the night, emerging during the day to learn the language and customs of the locals. Jente had a better knack for learning languages than Engel, so they started the master-slave farce early on and let the locals think Jente was translating for her master out of a sense of duty. When one vendor became difficult, Engel stepped in to prove he did know the language, which left the locals unsettled.

Unsettled was what Engel wanted, but then he enjoyed the power of surprise.

I Think One Day

Engel wasn’t at all amused at winding a sheet around himself as clothing, because he preferred the vanity of the Egyptian kilts, but Jente cottoned on quickly to the fact that the men who went so scandalously shirtless were usually slaves.

No one would listen to them if they looked like slaves.

“You still look like a boy,” Engel pointed out and ran a hand over Jente’s silky cap of dark curls.

“That’s why you’ll have to do the speaking,” Jente said.

“Up there? In that building? What is it?”

“I think, one day, it will be called The Senate.”

City With Seven Hills

They walked for ages. Engel whined and wished they’d kidnapped a camel or two. He declared Jente several different kinds of masochist for just walking in the sun day in and day out. When they finally stood on the edge of the nation Jente had declared as their “one stop” on the way back to do Old Master’s bidding, Engel enjoyed a handful of the little green fruit-vegetables Jente had told him were called “olives”.

“...What’s so important about the city with seven hills?” he asked, and popped an olive into his mouth.

“We’re here to teach their armies.”

Attempted Diplomacy

“Pharaoh won’t be happy with us up and leaving in the middle of a war.” Engel shouldered his pack and stood at the top of a ridge of sand, gazed down at the muted fires of their old camp where medics tended to the wounded and priests tended to the dead.

“Actually, he’ll probably be glad we’re gone,” Jente said. “He wasn’t the Pharaoh who took us on, after all. He never appreciated us as much as his great-grandfather.”

“I think you mistake lack of appreciation for fear,” Engel said drily.

“I was trying to be diplomatic,” Jente said.

On The Way

“What was that out there?” Engel stood over Jente where she was kneeling behind a fallen chariot, trembling, bleeding from a wound in her thigh.

“I saw --” She swallowed hard. “It’s time.”

“Time?” Engel turned to gaze across the battlefield, at the fallen soldiers from both sides.

“I saw him. At least, I think it was him. It was either him or a memory.”

Jente might have been talking to her herself; Engel wasn’t sure.

“So we have to go back to Old Master?” Engel asked.

“No. We move on. But we have to make a stop on the way.”

Past and Present, Tense

Jente danced with her sword, carving destruction and death, painting the air with blood, moving to the song of screaming soldiers. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the first time she clashed with the Hittites in illusion, in dreams, staring down at charioteer with hair like frost and eyes like a fjord at dawn.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a man standing on the edge of the battlefield, pale-haired, ocean-eyed, white-robed, and her heart stopped, her rhythm stuttered. She didn’t even scream when an enemy stabbed her. She stabbed back, and she fled.

Sides

“What? What is it?” Engel asked.

Jente was kneeling at the mouth of the tent, gasping and choking, coughing.

“I - saw something.” Jente clutched at her throat, eyes wide. Engel scrambled to kneel beside her.

“What did you see?”

“It’s almost time,” Jente said.

“Time to what?” Engel asked.

“Return.”

“To Old Master?”

Jente nodded. She dragged her hand across her mouth and stared out at the golden desert sands, at the thousands of tents arrayed beneath the stars.

“How soon?” Engel asked.

“Not until this battle is won,” Jente said.

“Won by which side?”

“That only time will tell.”

For A Time

“Who taught them how to fight before?” Engel asked.

Jente scrubbed a cool, damp cloth over her face, scrubbed a hand over her short hair. “Who knows. Someone who wasn’t taught by Old Master, obviously.”

“They’re strong and fit,” Engel said. “It’s a question of technique and instinct at this point.”

“It’s an adjustment for us,” Jente said. “When was the last time we fought with troops on this massive a scale? Some ingenuity and wit is sacrificed for the sake of controlling so many men.”

“So we’re just here learning?” Engel asked.

“Not just learning. Waiting. For a time.”

Like That

Jente joined the troops three days later, hair shorn short, fitted in the smallest, cheapest armor the armorer could find. He’d sneered at her and scorned her for her paler skin (which gave her an excuse to wear a tunic for modesty’s sake), but she’d just bobbed her head politely and skittered into place.

She scared the daylights out of the man next to her when she surged into action at Engel’s direction, swinging her sword with practiced ease, dancer’s grace.

At the lunch break, one of the soldiers smiled at her. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

In a Few Days

“No one’s going to respect me if you loom there in all your girliness,” Engel said between gritted teeth. He and Jente stood at the top of the steps overlooking the courtyard where Pharaoh’s army trained. Engel wore the simple leather armor of Pharaoh’s troops, though it was more ornate as befit a commander.

Jente was dressed like one of Pharaoh’s queens, all silks and linens, head held high, eyes lined with kohl. She admired the neat rows of troops, their gleaming dark skin, their alert faces.

“I’ll cut my hair and dress as a boy in a few days.”

Of The Matter

“Well done,” Jente said. She sat on the edge of her luxurious couch bed, combing out her long, dark curls. “Now his royal holiness has a new general.”

Engel said nothing.

Jente arched an eyebrow. “Not pleased at your success?”

“Pleased, yes,” Engel said. He studied his hands. “Just...I cannot forget my past failures.”

“We’re human - it is human to fail.”

“Are we human? Andrev wasn’t human.”

The heart of the matter. Jente said, “He was a person, wasn’t he?”

“I thought so. He was just a boy.”

“What’s done is done. We have a new job to do.”

Sticky Situations

“How dare you mock the efforts of my soldiers!”

Pharaoh roared, and the guards standing on either side of his throne went to draw their swords.

Jente dipped into a low, graceful bow, one more befitting a dancer than a warrior. Engel wished he knew what her skills were before they got into these sticky situations.

“We do not mean to mock,” Jente said. “We watched the battle, and we sorrowed for your men. We merely wish to help, to prevent as many men dying in the next battle.”

Pharaoh hummed thoughtfully, turned to Engel. “What would you have done?”

Watch and Learn

“Are we just going to watch them slaughter each other?” Engel asked when Jente made no move to draw her weapon and charge down the hill into the fray. Something in her expression was distant, dangerous, unreadable.

“Not just watch - learn,” Jente said. “About how those chariots function in battle, what their typical formations are. And then see how we would do it better.”

“Would we do it better?”

“Pharaoh had better believe we would.”

Engel watched spears and arrows zip through the air. “Pharaoh would be the man dripping in gold jewelry?”

“Yes, that would be him - the Pharoah.”

In the Market

Engel and Jente stood at the top of a massive sand dune and stared into the distance at the massive stone structures, gleaming, peaked, that arced toward the sky. Jente noted, idly, that they mirrored a pattern of stars and wondered if they were religious markers beyond tombs.

“What is this place called?” Engel asked.

“I don’t know what the locals call it,” Jente said, “but I’ve heard people call it Egypt.”

“What are we doing here?” Engel asked.

Jente nodded down at the approaching army of rumbling chariots. “I’m thinking Pharaoh is in the market for a skilled general.”

Try to Rule the World

“I like these things,” Engel said, popping another small, green pitted fruit into his mouth. He smiled as he chewed. “They’re good, but not too sweet. Not like those other ones on that tree. I think I much prefer this vine business.”

“That’s because you like wine,” Jente said. “The oil from those green things burns clean, if you ever need a torch.”

“How do you know these things?”

Some things Jente had seen, like how armies of the olive-skinned men who roamed this land donned armor and marched from the seven hills to try to rule the world.

On Their Own Now

“I don’t like this one bit,” Engel said. He and Jente stood on the edge of a massive fjord that emptied out into the icy ocean.

“You didn’t seem to mind it when we sailed here.” Jente hefted an axe and started for the nearest useful-looking tree.

“I just don’t see why we have to go alone, just the two of us. You saw how well that worked last time.” Engel glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have brought Dagaz or the twins or --”

“They need to learn to make boats on their own now.”

Memories Long Lost

“So...we trained them all, and now what?” Engel asked.

“We leave them to train more, train others. It’ll be a while before they have numbers sufficient for our operation,” Jente said. “But for the record we do head south. And east - further east than they’ll be going in a few centuries.”

“In a few centuries?” Engel echoed. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere I saw,” Jente said. “A while ago.”

She closed her eyes, and a voice echoed in her mind, one from memories long lost.

“For Pharoah!”

Golden sand, rolling war-machines, spears, dark-skinned warriors, giant stone tombs.

Somewhere Else

“You’ve never had the urge to go somewhere...else?” Engel asked. “Somewhere much, much further east? East of where we met?”

Dagaz and the Red Twins peered at the map. “Where are these places?”

“Old Master scouted,” Jente said absently. “As for further east - for the moment, I think we can trust it on its own. You and I do need to visit some other places, though, while this lot gets ready to move on out.”

“Can we trust them on their own?” Engel asked.

“They need time to train and grow and build,” Jente said. “And they’ll need boats.”

The Plan

The fire had almost died and the mead was gone; the Red Twins were snoring on each other loudly. Only Dagaz and Engel were awake, staring into the redness of the embers. Engel thought it looked like blood crystallized. He wondered if Dagaz had ever seen real blood earned in battle. He was about to ask when the door of the hut creaked open and Jente stepped out. She looked pale, exhausted.

“Well?” Old Master asked.

“We mobilize, sweep south and east, and we mingle, settle, drop roots, and wait.” Jente handed him a crudely drawn map.

Old Master smiled.

An Answer

Engel had never seen Jente looking for something; it always seemed impolite to watch her work her...whatever, even though she’d seen him use his gift dozens of times. Engel had never considered that Old Master might not be allowed to watch Jente do her thing. The two of them sat outside of Jente’s hut, drinking mead and keeping warm with a small fire, and waiting to see what she saw.

Eventually the Red Twins and Dagaz joined them, bringing more honey-mead, meat, logs for the fire.

“What are we waiting for?” Dagaz asked.

Old Master said, “An answer.”

What I Cannot

Old Master appeared in the doorway of the empty mead hall where Engel and Jente were arguing over tactics on a raid to one of the southern lands.

“How goes training the ranks?” he asked.

“It goes,” Engel said.

“They’re natural warriors. Sometimes they have to learn to curb their enthusiasm lest they sacrifice the element of surprise,” Jente said. She rolled up the map. “What do you need?”

“I wondered if you would look for something for me,” Old Master said. “I have a plan, but I need your guidance.”

Jente blinked. “Mine?”

“You can see what I cannot.”

At Least Ten Times More Weird

“Seen him before how? Have you been to the North with Old Master before?” Engel asked.

Jente shook her head, tapped her temple. “I think I’ve seen him. Before.”

“Oh. Seen.” Engel knew his own ability to move things without touching them was inhuman and uncanny, but he was pretty sure Jente’s ability to see things before they happened was at least ten times more weird. “Do you think he’s important?”

“For now, he’s the only one who has a decent sense of stealth,” Jente said, and she lifted her bow, fired an arrow. One of the Red Twins cursed.

Seen Him Before

Dagaz was a golden-haired boy, green-eyed, more slender than some of the others - like the Red Twins - but strong all the same. He wasn’t nearly as surly and aggressive as the Red Twins; rather he was charming and boyish, at times inappropriately loud and enthusiastic, like an overgrown puppy, but he showed promise with a sword.

Engel didn’t like the way Jente looked at him.

“He’s too young for you,” Engel said.

Jente rolled her eyes. “Everyone is too young for both of us, and I’m not interested in him. I just feel like I’ve seen him...before.”

Dagaz

“What do you mean, ‘yet’?” Engel asked. He swallowed hard, remembered Andrev.

“Old Master has not spoken to the pale-haired stranger in a while,” Jente said. She lowered her hand and straightened up, hands clasped behind her back as if she were standing guard. “Dagaz is on his way.”

“You said they had to come unseen.”

“No mortal would see him.” Jente elbowed Engel lightly, and he realized this was the first time he’d seen her smile in a long time. “Now come on. Pretend. So they can learn.”

Engel sighed and obeyed. “Dagaz is your favorite, isn’t he?”

For the Sake of the Exercise

“What are we doing, exactly?” Engel asked. He and Jente stood atop a glacier in the middle of a fjord, swaddled in furs to protect them against the bite of the winter wind.

“Stealth exercise,” Jente said absently. She shaded her eyes and scanned the horizon. “There’s a sword in the ice behind me. One of them must approach without being seen and then defeat one of us in battle for the sword.”

Engel blinked. “They’ll never defeat one of us.”

“We’re going to pretend we’re mortal for the sake of the exercise - there are no more of us. Yet.”

Runic Names

“What kinds of names are those, anyway?” Engel asked.

Thurisaz and Hagalaz were a pair of giant twins, red-headed, with full beards. There was something amusing about the fact that they were terrified of Jente, who was less than half their size.

“Not real names, sir,” Thurisaz said. “Not people names, really. Just - letters. From our alphabet, as it were.”

“What kind of an alphabet?” Engel asked.

“Runes,” Hagalaz said. “Jente teaches us to read and write.”

“Right,” Engel said. He raised his sword. “All right! Show me a backhand sweep!”

Both twins obeyed. Swords sang through the air.

Earn Your Keep

“Mission? What mission?” Engel asked in a low voice.

Jente lifted her head and called out, “Thurisaz, Hagalaz, don’t drop your shield arm! Keep it up or you’ll lose a limb.” She continued working on the boot, puzzling over the soft leather of the sole.

“What mission?” Engel asked again, nudging her in the ribs.

She sighed. “Did you listen to anything Old Master said during your graduation ceremony?”

“Mostly that I’d get to come down off the mountain and finally see some women again,” Engel said. “Why?”

Jente sighed. “Never mind. Come help me teach - earn your keep already.”

The Mission

Three days later, out on the ice, Jente was drilling the lads and lasses in keeping their feet in slippery places; she was also toying with a pair of boots, experimenting with ways to create more traction.

Engel stood at the edge of her demarcated battlefield beside her and watched her work.

“Are you punishing me?” he asked finally.

“It’s not my place to punish you,” she said.

“Then why are we here in this hellishly cold place with these ghost-pale children teaching them to fight?”

“We have a mission, and some of us are working to complete it.”

Unthinking Acquiescence

“What are you doing?” Engel asked. He leaned in the doorway of the mead hall, watching Jente showing a young man how to use a staff.

“Training our new troops,” she said.

Engel raised an eyebrow. “Since when do we need new troops? Is there a war going on that I missed?”

“Old Master has requested that I train new troops,” she said, and turned away from him. Engel eyed the golden-haired, ice-eyed youth and freely admitted to himself that the lad was bigger and stronger than anyone Engel had ever seen. Still, Jente’s unthinking acquiescence was disturbing.

New Names

Rastaban didn’t know how long he’d hung from the posts of the fortress walls, arms strained beyond feeling, lashed by the icy wind and driving blizzard snows. He just knew that he replayed Old Master’s angry words over and over again while he hung there, cringing at the disappointment in his teacher’s eyes.

The pale-faces of the north accepted his immortality when Kana came to let him loose, and they seemed uncaring of Kana’s easy magic and Rastaban’s easy gift. They called him Engel, and they called Kana Jente, and after a while, Rastaban answered to his new name.

Cold and Colder

Rastaban had the entirety of the march toward the white kingdoms to ponder what he had done. Kana said nothing. She didn’t bother to eat or drink, and some nights she didn’t even sleep. Kana hollowed out a tree trunk with a small knife and her bare hands; Rastaban hovered awkwardly on the sidelines until his guilty conscience moved him to carve a pair of oars.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Rastaban asked.

Kana pointed toward the sky, toward the north star.

“It’ll be cold,” she said.

Rastaban didn’t think it could get much colder than it already was.

His Own Good

Kana stood at the edge of the grave she’d dug - with her bare hands, because sometimes she just needed to feel.

“He was too strong for his own good,” Rastaban said.

“We were supposed to be for his good,” Kana said. She lowered Andrev into the grave, smoothed her thumbs over his eyelids in a last farewell. She buried his spear and his pipes beside him, and then she lifted her voice in a song to the wind, to carry his spirit away to eternal peace.

“You don’t really still believe in that, do you?” Rastaban asked.

Kana turned away.

Interlude 6

The third wound in his shoulder had half-knit and no longer bled, but it still burned with every motion. He stood on the windy steppes, gazing down at a freshly-dug grave. In the distance, two figures walked. For one moment, his eyes flashed golden-bright, but then they returned to lifeless, dark brown. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. The moonlight turned his hair ageless white, and for one moment, he seemed little more than a ghost. Then he opened his eyes - now sea-blue, glowing with trinity-fire, and turned toward the ocean.

Your Kind

The hunters recoiled, spears drawn up to throw.

Kana sank to her knees beside Andrev’s body where it was broken and bruised, scooped it up. Wards shimmered in the air around her, and the first few spears bounced off it. She could feel the next spears chipping away at the invisible barrier, but she knew the people were too afraid to get too close.

“Fine,” a woman spat. “Take him. Your kind isn’t welcome here anyway.”

Kana turned to her, eyes dark and wet. “He was your kind, too. If you’d just loved him, he would have been your kind.”

You Will

“Don’t touch him!” she growled.

Behind her, she could sense Rastaban stirring. She didn’t care what he had to say - he’d made enough of a mess as it is.

The woman screamed, and the hunters whipped around, leveled their spears at her.

“She was dead!” one of the said. “We killed her!”

“She’s another demon - burn her too!”

Kana sketched runes in the air with easy hands, clawed open her own palms to use her blood to stain them. “You will not touch me,” she said. “You will give me the boy, and I will give him a proper burial.”

Just to Make Sure

Kana struggled to push herself up, but it was too late. Another hunter, and then another lunged in, driving his spear into Andrev’s body. There was no response, just the sick, slick slide of stone through flesh, the sluggish gurgle of blood.

“It’s dead,” one of the hunters said.

They stood around the corpse, staring. Then a hunter lifted his spear over his head and cheered. “The demon is dead!”

The other hunters joined in the cheer.

And then a woman said, “We should burn its body, just to make sure it doesn’t come back.”

Kana managed to stand up.

No Response

The sound of tearing flesh and bone made Kana wish her ears were bleeding. Andrev couldn’t even screen. His body jerked once, twice, and then went still. The dog growled, thrashing its head wildly, and then it spat a piece of bloody flesh and bone into the grass. The hunters stared, awed and confused. The dog took a step back, then another, and swayed. It crumpled to the ground, a woman once more.

“He’s dead,” one of the hunters said. “The demon is dead.”

“How can you be sure?” another asked.

A third prodded Andrev with a spear. No response.

The Final

The hunters circled Andrev and the woman warily, spears poised to throw once the battle had settled into two static forms.

Kana lay still on the grass, hyperalert, listening. Andrev was going to kill the woman, and he would never receive the answers he needed, about who he was or what he could do, but -

Quick as a snake striking, the woman reared up, shifting into a dog mid-lunge, and she sank her teeth into Andrev’s skull, jaws locked around the final horn. He let out a cry and toppled backward, humanoid once more. The dog shook its head.

Slowly

She was devious, quick, but he was just as fast, just as strong, and half a dozen blows in he knew. Which way she would move, where she would strike, how fast she could turn. The battle raged in cycles, from ground to air to ground again, claws and beaks, talons and tails, poison and quills.

It ended when he had her pinned to the ground, one paw on her throat, his eyes animal-silver and her eyes wide, human.

Kill her, the voice inside him whispered. Survive.

He leaned down on her throat slowly, watching her struggle to breathe.

He Smiled

“Andrev, no!” Kana cried.

He didn’t hear her, not really. One moment his body was a slow-burn of agony, the next he was lightning, quicksilver, moving through the air faster than a blink. Then he coalesced into anger and hurt, body lupine-sleek and darkly-furred, and he tasted-heard-felt the satisfying crunch of a human spine in his jaws.

Kir was dead. Andrev turned on the blonde woman, rose onto his hind legs, shifted into a form that was neither man nor wolf, that was all strength and all rage, and he flexed his claws.

He smiled.

Survive

Survive, a voice inside him whispered.

You are stronger than them all. Survive.

The light was blinding. Andrev was dizzy, confused, - he couldn’t feel. Anything. Not his body, not the grass --

You still have power.

But then he could feel the sluggish sting, the burn of deadly-poison-gold. Kir was cutting him again. His last horn. No. If Kir cut him off, he could die, it would all be over --

He arched his back and roared.

Beneath the roar, he could hear people screaming. He opened his eyes and he was on his feet, and the earth was cracking.

See The Light

Andrev couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew Kir was standing over him, crowing, hoisting another horn high. Three gone. Two to go. Andrev wondered if he would die before Kir reached the last one.

Andrev was cold, but his body couldn’t shiver. Something inside him was splitting apart, fracturing, breaking, like the shaft of a spear dashed over a boulder again and again.

Kir leaned over him again, and he was hissing, snake-like. “This one is for me.” And he drove the golden blade down.

Andrev’s world vanished, and he saw light.

What Happens When

Kana had to play dead, marshal her strength. Every time she moved, one of the hunters stabbed, disabled her again. If they were distracted by the spectacle - if Kir kept up the torture long enough - she could heal fully, pull herself together. She could save Andrev.

Rastaban was face-down in the grass with a spear in his back. He wouldn’t be moving for a while.

Andrev screamed again, writhed, and the scent of blood in the air thickened. Kir hacked doggedly at his opponent, and lightning lashed the sky.

Kana thought, This is what happens when a god dies.

For My Father

Andrev couldn’t think for the pain. Kir rose up, the tiny horn clutched in his fist, and turned to the cheering, roaring hordes of hunters who had come to see the monster laid low. Andrev tried to move, to push himself up so he could crawl away, but his body had betrayed him, and he was frozen on the ground. A hollow ache gnawed in his chest, a counterpoint to the raging fire in his skull.

“The creature is laid low,” Kir said. “This is for my father.”

And he knelt to cut off the second one.

Andrev screamed again.

Four More

Andrev’s head was filled with the sickening crunch and creak as Kir severed the first of his five little horns. His entire life, Andrev had avoided touching them, looking at them, acknowledging they were even there. He’d never sensed cold or heat with them - they were like fingernails.

He’d never expected the pain.

Andrev thrashed, screaming and begging and pleading, clawing at Kir to make him stop, but he could feel something inside him curling up, shuddering, withdrawing. The earth beneath him roiled, and the sky turned black.

The other hunters watched.

“Four more to go,” the blonde woman said.

Each

Kir dropped down, planted one knee on Andrev’s chest and pressed. Andrev writhed, tried to dislodge him. Kir grinned and brought the knife lower.

“Do it,” the blonde woman said.

Kana cried out. “Don’t do it - no --”

Andrev didn’t want to think of her, couldn’t think of her, gaze fixed on the blood-stained gold coming closer and closer.

“You’re not a gift from the gods,” Kir said, voice low, almost gentle. “You’re just an animal.” And he hacked.

Andrev screamed. His entire being was on fire. He could feel each scrape of the blade against his flesh, his bones.

Once More

“Andrev!” Kana cried. She was sprawled across the grass, body broken, bleeding. She heaved herself up on her hands, dragged herself toward him.

He shook his head. No. She’d betrayed him, pretended to die, turned him into the monster he’d told himself he wasn’t. But her eyes were wide, pleading, and she was crying.

“Andrev, don’t --”

Kir kicked him in the ribs, spun him over onto his back. Andrev lay there, panting, gazing up at him.

“Not so strong now, are you, beast?” Kir leaned over and sneered, his breath foul, features twisted with hate.

The earth trembled once more.

Won't Last Long

Andrev’s eyes went wide, the breath driven from his lungs even as the searing pain buried itself between his shoulder blades. He staggered forward, landed on his knees. He twisted to look over his shoulder, eyes wide, and saw Kir, who looked shocked and triumphant, clutching a gleaming golden blade.

Gold.

Andrev willed his body to shift shape, to shake off the wound, but it wouldn’t respond. He could feel his power constricting, tightening in his chest, unable to obey his call.

“You were right,” Kir said to the blonde woman.

“I know,” she said. “But it won’t last long.”

She Smiled

The blonde woman signaled, and the remaining shapechangers moved into battle formation. Andrev crouched, ready to spring, ready to take on any form. He charged first. Even as an animal he was lightning fast. He was tiger, wolf, bear, hawk, lion, eagle, slashing, biting, tearing, clawing.

A cacophony of animal growls and roars rent the air, but Andrev ignored them, reveling in the quicksilver sensation of going from shape to shape without stopping. When he returned to his human form, the ground was littered with bodies.

The blonde woman looked pale, shocked.

“I don’t believe you,” Andrev said.

She smiled.

Believe Me

“No,” Rastaban said. One of the men lunged at him, turned into a bear midair. Three more creatures dove at Kana, and Andrev could only watch as they fell on her and tried to tear her apart.

“It’s true,” the blonde woman said, “we would not have found you but for the witches and their magic. But that matters no longer. Your time here is ended. No one creature is meant to have the power you have.”

“If you want to end my power, you will have to finish it yourself,” Andrev said.

The woman smiled. “Believe me, I will.”

Ours Is

“No,” Kana began, started toward him.

“I fought to avenge you,” he said. He turned to Rastaban. “You told me she was dead, that she -”

“I never asked you to avenge me,” Kana said.

Andrev felt rage boil in his chest. The ground shook. “I loved you!”

“That’s sweet,” the blonde woman cooed. “The little boy learned to love.” She sneered at Andrev. “You fool - our kind can never love a human. We do not love - it is not in our hearts. Ours is to create and destroy. And right now - it is our time to destroy you, five-horn.”

And Then He Realized

“You’re not stronger than us,” the blonde woman said, and she rose up from the fray of the other shapechangers. “We are the dragons, the spirits of the earth, the creatures of all forms. We are indestructible save to each other. Your petty magic cannot harm us.”

Rastaban flicked his wrist, and one of the men was thrown to the ground. “We don’t have petty magic,” he said.

Andrev felt his heard wrench. “Kana,” he said. “You were dead. I saw you --”

And then he realized. All those nights, all those dreams - they’d all been real. “Did you betray me?”

Neither of Them

Andrev spun around. He saw her standing on the edge of the fray, beautiful, alive. No. He’d seen her die. He’d seen Rastaban die. What was going on? Unless - unless neither of them were human.

Something about her was different. She didn’t have the same careless, mercurial air about her. The lucidness in her eyes was almost - frightening. The hunters turned and saw her as well, and Andrev heard some of them scream.

“She’s a ghost!”

“She’s a demon!”

“He turned her into a monster!”

“I am none of those,” Kana said. “I am human. I’m just stronger than you.”

If He Wasn't Careful

“Wait!” Kana cried, but Rastaban burst from the shadows, dove into the fray, laying about left and right with a broken spear he’d scooped up from a startled hunter.

Kana supposed it was better that he hadn’t gone straight to using his gift, because he’d likely kill everything in the vicinity if he wasn’t careful.

The wolves howled in pain, shifted back into human form, circled Rastaban. Andrev reappeared as a human moments later.

“Rastaban - you were dead! How --”

“We need you alive,” Rastaban said. “I’m here to help. Come on --”

“We?” Andrev asked.

“Kana,” Rastaban. “Kana needs you too.”

Going In

Andrev leapt into the sky, a fierce eagle, his shriek tearing through the air, but the crows were too many, outnumbered him. Feathers and blood spattered, and then a stag landed on the grass, took off running. The crows swooped, dove, and then a dozen wolves took off after the stag. The stag leapt mid-air, changed direction, and a lion landed in the midst of the wolves.

Yelps of pain made a sharp counterpoint to the fierce roar, and then hunters circled the mass of writhing bodies.

A wolf dissolved, reappeared as a snake.

Rastaban said, “I’m going in.”

To Them

Later Kana would reflect that it was called “a murder of crows” for a reason. Right then, she and Rastaban were riveted to the spot, watching in horror as Andrev’s own kind turned on him.

“How the hell did the hunters summon them?” Kana demanded. “They hated his kind and thought he was an aberration. How --”

And then she saw, on the edge of the crowd, Savva’s wife, clutching a poultice of herbs and chanting. A witch. Of course.

Rastaban dragged a hand through his hair. “They’ll kill him. What do we do?”

“Nothing,” Kana said. “To them we’re dead.”