Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter (6 page)

The other shifter narrowed his eyes. "Why
him
, as a gift?"

Kenyen flushed. He hadn't considered being caught on that point, and his mind raced.
I can't tell him what Traver told me, but I have to seem evil enough to be acceptable. Father Sky, how can I show myself evil without having to prove it?
To kill time, he smiled at the other youth, doing his best to make it look slow and feral. Traver gulped and licked his lips under the weight of Kenyen's stare.

That gave him an idea. Shifting his gaze to the other shifter, Kenyen shrugged. "Not
him
. His belongings. That's a nice pony he was riding. I take it you know him, so he's probably from the same area as you?"

The older man shot him a dark look. "He's been acting weird lately, and when he ran away from the tea caravan... well, we have orders about this one. Particularly given the latest rumor about why he fled. We won't have to kill him, don't worry. At least, not if he cooperates."

"But I was so looking forward to it," Kenyen pouted. He didn't want to lay it on too thickly, but he did want to try to establish that he fit in with the other criminals hidden in these mountains. "I like it when they scream." Eyeing Traver, he licked his lips. The Corredai youth shuddered. "So what's this rumor about him?"

"He ran away so he could try to tell someone about us—and you
can't
run, let alone hide," the other shifter added, glancing back at Traver, who had started to shift his weight. The subtle movement stopped. "When we get what we want, you'll be set free. Until then, you're our prisoner, boy. Cooperate and live; run and die. You
do
want to make it back to your pretty little betrothed, don't you?"

Kenyen didn't like the way the other man mocked the Corredai, nor the way Traver paled and swallowed at the older man's threat. He tried distracting the older shifter with a question. "What's your name?"

The other shifter glanced back at him. "You can call me Zellan Fin Don. Particularly if the others have a use for you in our area. Until they do... I'll just call you Catson. Our real names aren't meant to be discussed around outsiders."

"Then 'Catson' I am. For now. If you want
him
replaced," Kenyen pointed out, lifting his chin at Traver, "you probably can't afford to use one of the others. Given how long you've been doing this, there probably aren't many free bodies left. My arrival seems to be a bit of good timing for both of us, given the circumstances."

Zellan eyed Kenyen thoughtfully. "You're rather smart, for new blood."

Actually, it had been a wild stab in the dark, a guess at best, if something of an educated one. Kenyen accepted the compliment with a dip of his head. "I try. I have some rope in my saddlebags, Zellan. Why don't we drag this tasty little prize back to where I left our mounts?"

"A good idea.
Get up
," Zellan snapped at Traver. "Remember, if you run, you die. And there is nowhere you can run that I cannot track you."

Swallowing, Traver did as he was ordered, rising slowly. He paused to finish tying the waistband of his trousers, then carefully picked his way back toward the small, grassy clearing where Kenyen's horse and his pony waited. As much as Kenyen wanted to reassure the Corredai, he couldn't, daren't say anything out loud.

It didn't take long to return to the two mounts, nor to bind Traver's hands behind his back. Flexing shapeshifted muscles once both steeds were saddled again, the two Shifterai put him on his pony. Kenyen mounted his mare and took the reins of the pony. The man named Zellan tucked his clothes into Kenyen's saddlebags and shifted shape into a large, rangy, gray-furred wolf. The short fur on his forehead looked mangy, however; Kenyen belatedly realized that was because the skin beneath it was scarred.

He's one of the ones Banished from the Plains
, Kenyen realized.

"We go to de hiding plaze." Zellan stated the words carefully through his wolfish muzzle. "You, Catzon, follow me on de road. I am fazter den I look; you vill not be able to run from me, eider."

"I didn't have time to hear much before being sent on my way, but I did hear enough to know you have a sweet setup in these mountains," Kenyen retorted. "I'm not about to ruin it. Not when I have a chance at a piece of your little pie."

Huffing, Zellan trotted up the path. Knowing the hearing of a wolf—one of his own shapes—was quite good, Kenyen didn't try to reassure Traver. He did, however, slip the other man a quick wink when he glanced back, making sure the mountain pony was comfortable with following his larger mare. Some of the worry left Traver's gaze, but not all of it. Not when Kenyen gave him a sharp look.

I may not think things through as fast as my brother—I just know this is going to come back and bite me on the tail if these Mongrel shifters get a hold of Nollan Sil Quen and find out I didn't come from him—but it's not like I had enough time to think of anything better.
Dissatisfied but unable to do anything about it for the moment, Kenyen urged both steeds up the semi-steep path, headed back to the road that mounted the slopes of the foothills flanking either side.

The wolf glanced back a few times, but continued upward, moving first on the path, then through the bushes at the side of the main road once they reached it. Kenyen followed dutifully, glad the pony wasn't fussing too much from the scent of the predator leading them.
If I didn't need to know the identities of these Mongrel types, I'd have rather fought this fellow in straightforward combat. I'm
good
at fighting. Father Sky... if You can hear me here in this foreign land, help me be good at disguising and dissembling, too. It's not just my life on the line but the life of this Traver fellow, too... and however many more may wind up duped, threatened, impersonated, and slaughtered by Family Mongrel.

Gods, how am I going to get word of this mess back to the princess and the others? I don't dare leave Traver in this cur's hands. Until I can get him free in such a way that they wouldn't even think of tracking him...
Kenyen had no clue how to manage that. The twists of Fate, distant Threefold God of another land, had put him in this awkward place.

Here's hoping that, whatever comes, I can act fast enough to save all our hides.

* * *

Cullerog Twil Ziff—if that was his name—rubbed his gray-stubbled chin, eyeing Kenyen in the fading light of dusk. The cabin behind him, not much more than a shepherd's croft at the edge of a high meadow, had taken the trio the rest of the day to reach. With the scent of smoke curling up from its stone chimney and the muffled baaing of sheep herded into their barn for the night, the scene was remarkably tranquil for such a tense moment.

"You say Nollan sent you?" Cullerog challenged.

"That's right. Though he'll probably deny it," Kenyen added. The long ride had given him time to think of several defenses for this moment. "There were rumors of Shifterai on his trail when I was kicked out. Something about some cur of a shifter female claiming some Family Mongrel was committing crimes up here. So he'll probably deny our meeting from fear of secretly being watched." He smirked. "Me, I'm just looking for work and a place to live... and the chance to keep doing what I love doing."

"And that is?" Zellan asked, stepping through the doorway of the cottage. He had taken Traver inside, supposedly to the root cellar, and now appeared alone in the doorway.

Reaching for the braid at the top of his head, which he had tied in place between saddling the mare and the pony, Kenyen carefully, subtly reshaped his forehead under the guise of working the locks free of their plait. A scrape of his palm dropped the fringe of hair and its flap of flesh, revealing the fake brand he had shaped, long enough for the elderly man to get a good look. Smoothing the false flap upward again, he rebraided his hair with a few flicks of his fingers. Cullerog grunted, watching him fasten the thong in place.

"What did you get that for? In specific, I mean," the older shifter ordered, lifting his chin.

"Well, first off, I killed a man," Kenyen stated plainly, keeping his expression impassive. Zellan snorted, and Cullerog did not look impressed. Keeping his tone matter-of-fact, Kenyen ad-libbed, "Then I took a bite in the heat of battle rage... and I liked it. So I kept eating him. I didn't kill the next one, though. I just started eating her."

Both men blinked, staring at him.

Kenyen shrugged. "That's when they caught me and cast me out. I should've gagged her first, or maybe killed her, though I liked the way she struggled."

Cullerog wrinkled his nose. "Well, don't do that
here
. Not on a whim—not without orders. We've worked hard to blend in. And what we're looking for in the Nespah Valley is too important to draw any further undue attention to ourselves."

Lifting his chin at the cabin, Kenyen said, "Zellan said I could eat him when you're done with this one. I can wait until then."

"—I didn't say
that
!" Zellan interjected firmly.

Kenyen ignored his protest. He kept his gaze on the older shifter. "Of course, if I'm going to be the one imitating him, I'm not exactly going to eat him right away, now am I? Besides, it's like honey. It's a special treat, the kind you don't eat every day—if I did, I'd wind up fatter than an outkingdom pig."

Cullerog snorted. "We'll see. For now, he's my 'special guest'... as are you. You'll stay here tonight, though we won't chain you up in the cellar. Zellan, go fetch three of the valley elders from your area. Tell them to be here by midnight, and don't show yourself to anyone else. As for you, 'Catson,' go stable those mounts, then come inside. You'll eat mutton tonight, not man."

"Whatever you say." Leading his mare and the pony toward the barn, Kenyen wondered when, or even if, he'd get a chance to talk privately with Traver. Improvisation would only carry them so far in this unexpected, increasingly convoluted charade.

Three

Solyn was fairly confident her family was alone when they sat down to dinner. Her sister, Luelyn, fidgeted, eager to have the basket of biscuits passed her way, though her gaze was more on the dish of butter and the jar of honey waiting to be applied to them. Their mother, Reina, carefully poured out the steeped tea, a blend of freshly picked leaves for the aroma and partially fermented ones for the base. Her husband, Ysander, accepted the first cup. Sipping carefully at it, he nodded. Not that he was a tea planter by trade, being the local blacksmith, but it was his place as head of the household to approve of the first cup.

Solyn's older brother, Ysenk, lived in his own home with his wife and newborn son. Their cottage was placed a little higher up the slopes of the sprawling plantation, though not too far from the rest of the homes sheltering Reina's extended family. Rather than trying to divide up the family lands into smaller and smaller plots, some wise Corredai soul of ages before had formed a cooperative holding.

It had proven both profitable and popular. The hills and valleys of the Correda Mountains had been dotted with such holdings from a time long before the collapse of the old Aian Empire. It was that sense of community and communal property that had allowed them to survive despite the abrupt loss of their central government. Sometimes the Corredai pushed back the edges of the local forests to plant and tend more tea; other times they simply added more cropland to the local, terraced slopes, and shared the produce and the profits with all.

Despite the way the locals shared the land and its produce, most families still preferred to live in their own homes whenever possible, however large or small. As the resident Healer, Reina had inherited one of the largest houses in the holding. With her husband also being the valley blacksmith, they could have afforded to furnish it with fancy things, but it hosted the same sort of furniture as any other home, neatly carved, cushion-lined, and clean.

Tonight's dinner was a sauce-and-bread combination made from dove meat, a few vegetables, and the biscuits. It was simple fare, the sort most families ate at this time of year. Solyn poked at her food with her fork and wondered what exotic lowlands food Traver would get to eat. She also worried whether he would be safe, sneaking away from the others. He had no way to tell a shapeshifter from a real man.

"Oh, Solyn, some good news," her father stated, pausing before his first bite. "Your cousin Zanbar, from down in the Tequah Valley, found another magery book. Samdan, the tinker, dropped it off at my shop when he brought me the metal scraps he had traded for on his route uphill. I forgot to bring it home, though. We can go find it after supper."

Poking at her food, she nodded. "Another book would be nice, especially if it's one I don't have. What I
really
need..."

Reina reached over and touched her older daughter's forearm. "What you
really
need are lessons. You don't
have
to stay. No one has tried to find... it... for the last six months. At least, not that I could tell."

"It's a false lull before the storm," Solyn stated, shaking her head. "I
know
they're after it. I know they won't give up. And if there's any little thing I can do to stop them from hurting more people in their quest to find it..."