The Last of the Ageless (2 page)

“Hope so.” Cahlae tossed the gun back, and Dalan scrambled to catch it without touching the trigger.

Dalan shoved the gun into his pack, which he slung over his shoulder. As he began the transmeld into the red hawk yet again, thirst prickled his throat, but he needed to hurry.

He crouched down with the pain, shrinking as he absorbed his pack while pushing feathers out of his skin. He grinned at Joktinn and hopped over to the edge of the platform on two awkward legs.

Before finishing the transmeld, Dalan launched himself over the edge and plummeted through the air. Leaves slapped him in the face as he fell. Enjoying the adrenaline rush, he waited until his transmeld was nearly complete before flicking out his wings, turning his freefall into a graceful dip.

Can break a wing doing that, you know,
Joktinn and Cahlae’s mother warned.
Open your wings before you’ve lost enough mass and—

Yes, but it’s more fun that way,
Dalan said.

Going to tell your mother you’re a bad influence,
she said, but Dalan heard the smile behind the words.

He swooped over branches, instinctively folding his wings back when he passed between two sister trees. After a few minutes, he reached the elders’ circle. The sun blazed through the gap in the canopy overhead, its rays briefly brightening the forest floor.

Thirsty from so much transmelding, Dalan dipped his beak into a water trough the Omdecu Tribe kept handy to ward off transmelder dehydration. He took several more sips, tossing his head back to swallow.

An osprey dipped its beak into the trough, and Dalan recognized Eskenor’s mental presence.

Am taking bets on who gets back first,
Eskenor mentioned. His words were casual, but Dalan sensed his mingling excitement and anxiety.

No, thanks.

Come on. Could put in that gift from your brother. Surely you of all people don’t need a weapon like that.

How do you...
Dalan trailed off as the elders approached in their secondary forms. Their aura weighed down the mental landscape as they climbed the trees, taking their places around the perimeter of the clearing above the nine supplicants.

Come, children, and hear our last words of advice before you go.

Dalan felt his insides twist. He hopped along the forest floor as Sepp, his grandmother’s dragonfly, buzzed overhead and landed on the tree above her. One dead tree for each elder, they surrounded Dalan and the other initiates.

His grandmother’s voice entered their heads.
Remember the dragonfly loves moist, shady places like our homeland to hunt in.

The omdecus’ mottled coats blended in with the boles of the trees they clung to with their opposable thumbs.

Though dragonflies may be more abundant closer to home, you may instead wish to venture further afield.

Dalan wasn’t certain when one elder stopped speaking and another began.

The drylands, too, are good for finding your future companion.

His thoughts wandering, he pondered whether anyone had ever seen the elders transmeld—they always appeared as omdecu.

For only dragonflies seeking to bond would travel into such inhospitable places.

Dalan dipped his beak in acknowledgment of the elders’ wisdom.

Remember to bring back the offering discs. Our neighbors would trade much for such rare metals, but only we of the Omdecu Tribe understand their true worth.

Above all else, remember to conduct yourself as the Ancients, dead since the Catastrophe, would have done.

The sun passed out of the circle overhead, leaving the nine supplicants in relative darkness. At the tone of finality in the elders’ words, Dalan and his peers burst from the forest floor in a flurry of feathers, taking off in several different directions.

Wait,
one of the elders said to Dalan. It was his grandmother, Gavainya. He banked, circled back around, and came to rest on a branch beneath her as the other elders shuffled away, moving limb to limb with their claws extended.

In the past,
she began, and Dalan shoved down his impatience. Rushing her would get him nowhere.
Asked something special of all my grandchildren. In addition to bonding to the dragonfly that will become your hunting companion and guardian, you must also solve a problem.

Solve a problem, Grandmother?
He schooled his thoughts, trying to bubble his respect for his grandmother and the elders above his irritation at the vague command. The other children had a single, simple goal for their trials of adulthood.

A problem of some consequence. Your sister rescued a pronghorn from drowning in the river. Your brother put out a fire before it could rise up and endanger the forest and the people and creatures living herein. Am expecting great things from you, my grandson who saved the tail-horse from extinction.

He thought saving one of the mutated children of the Catastrophe should’ve counted as his problem solved, but Dalan gave his mental assent.

When the Omdecu Tribe first formed around the earliest transmelders, the leaders decided to preserve the past. After the Catastrophe, humans weren’t the only species to mutate. Other animals mutated in horrible ways, sometimes leaving them unable to procreate or survive in post-Catastrophe conditions. Old species couldn’t always compete with the mutants.

Perhaps his grandmother meant to remind him of how selfish his choices had been. The elders selected a pool of species for each generation to preserve.

As one of the elders’ grandchildren, he’d been among the first to choose from the pool. But gifted with four transmelds when others only had one, Dalan should’ve left useful melds like the jaguar to those who had fewer melds.

He thought he’d made up for his selfishness later by becoming the first person to take the tail-horse into himself, but he didn’t dare argue with an elder, especially not his grandmother.

Dalan ducked his head.
Will follow my siblings’ examples and solve a problem of great consequence, Eldest One.

Her emotions crowded toward him as he pushed away from the tree branch and opened his wings: Pride. Joy. And a tinge of worry for what he would soon face.

Remember,
her words grew faint as the distance between them stretched,
our people rarely venture far. So when you visit the world outside our tribelands, you should strive to leave it a better place than you found it.

Dalan opened his wings and rose from his perch. As he gained altitude, the hawk part of his mind scanned the empty drylands that stretched below for any sign of prey, but the human part of him listened for the buzz of dragonfly wings.

Several days ago, Dalan had sighted the shadow of a dragonfly skipping from rock to rock in the borderlands. In his haste, Dalan had spread out his offerings, but the dragonfly did not deign to inspect them.

The insect had buzzed off toward the grasslands, leaving Dalan to contemplate his failure. When he glanced down at the colored discs, he realized he hadn’t fanned them out enough: the dragonfly probably hadn’t seen its preferred color among the offerings.

Dalan vowed to take his time with the next dragonfly. He would perform the bonding ritual as his instructors had taught him, and return home with his companion. Until then, he would confine himself to the tortured drylands, where only dragonflies seeking companions would venture.

When a deer mouse skittered beneath him, the hawk took over and dove. Dust scattered as his talons sank into flesh.

Long after his beak plucked at its entrails, Dalan’s mind resurfaced. Cahlae would have scolded him for losing control, but Mishnir would’ve said returning to his birth form to eat his supper would waste energy and water. He gazed over the expanse of nothingness, contemplating whether coming out to the drylands had been such a great plan to find a dragonfly.

A tremor in the ground sent Dalan bursting upward in a surge of flapping. As he rose above the barren earth, he reasserted control over the hawk’s startled mind.

To the west, a dust cloud rose in the distance. Within it, indecipherable shapes were silhouetted by the red sun, but the thunder of hooves hinted at people on horseback.

Dalan considered returning to the remainder of his meal before the distant figures happened upon him, but decided to remain airborne instead.

Dalan’s keen eyesight took in the riders as they neared, most of whom rode two to a horse. They wielded clubs and crossbows, and the lack of mutations in their appearance suggested Purebred human stock.

A woman with orange-hued skin—a Changeling for certain—fled before them. As Dalan watched, the gap between them and their quarry closed.

Soon, he was able to see the individual hairs on their prey. Her skin wasn’t orange after all; black-and-orange striped fur covered her entire body. Atop her head sat two cat’s ears.

Dalan was stunned. A fellow transmelder caught between melds? He closed his eyes and let the updrafts from the drylands lift him into the air. Concentrating on keeping the hawk part of his mind silent, Dalan reached out to her.
Can you hear me?

He heard nothing but the thunderous pounding of the horses’ hooves.

Dalan tried again.
What’s going on? Do you need help?

Despite being two to a horse, her pursuers would soon catch up. Adrenaline coursed through Dalan’s veins, demanding that he act, but allowing outsiders to know of his Changeling powers was forbidden.

Dalan flapped away from the group and plunged to the ground. Hiding behind a mound of boulders, he gained mass, his bones becoming denser in order to withstand the weight of the new muscles attached to them. He lost himself in the agony as his joints shifted and reformed.

His teeth grew in, and he clenched them together to ward off a scream as his body thrust his clothing and other accoutrements to the surface. Sound traveled well out here where vegetation was scarce, and Dalan knew better than to risk being heard.

Ignoring his body’s need for water, Dalan poked his head above the rocks while the final changes completed. Anyone encountering him in birth form would likely assume him a Purebreed.

The horsemen and their quarry neared. Dalan dropped his pack and rummaged through it for the Ancient gun. A shout got his attention as his fingers closed on the gun’s short barrel. He yanked it out and peered over the rocks again.

Though Dalan had only been visible for a moment, the unarmed woman apparently had spotted him—and she led her pursuers straight toward him.

Dalan’s breath caught in his throat. He raised the LEC6, hoping the sight of the Ancient weapon would be enough to scare the horsemen off.

But on they came. If Dalan didn’t do something, the horsemen would ride down both of them. Sighting along the short barrel, Dalan aimed for the foremost horse, the only one with a solo rider, his face marred by a large, untreated burn mark.

Praying the animal’s spirit would forgive him, Dalan pulled the trigger. Sizzling blue lightning shot out. It crackled across the horse’s chest and writhed over the man’s legs like tentacles.

The horse collapsed, pitching its rider. The other horses shrilled in terror and scattered.

Dalan ducked down, taking advantage of the distraction and waited. He sidestepped to peek over a shorter boulder as he counted to six.

A horse reared, causing one of its riders to fall while the other clutched at the reins. The furred woman darted toward them, dodging the horse’s flailing hooves. Silhouetted against the sun, her hand arced toward the fallen man just before a panicked horse blocked Dalan’s view.

The gun vibrated in his palm. The remaining men surrounded their intended victim as the sun slipped lower on the horizon.

A noise behind him caught Dalan off guard. He jumped to the side as a crossbow bolt thudded into the sandstone beside his chest. He threw himself behind a mutated prickly-pear cactus, aimed between cactus paddles, and fired alongside the mound of rocks.

Writhing snakes of blue energy rolled across the shoulder, neck, and face of his attacker. The scrawny man gaped in a silent scream, his whole body going rigid.

The body of his would-be murderer hit the ground hard and peppered Dalan with dirt. He coughed at the taste of dust. Gathering his wits, he tried to figure out what to do next, but instead found himself just watching.

The burned man Dalan had dismounted earlier approached a horseman, who ignored him and raised a club. “Get her!” he said, taking a swing at the furred woman. She dodged to the side and leaped onto the horse, landing in the saddle behind him. They wrestled momentarily before falling to the ground.

“You idiot!” someone called out. “Watch her claws!”

The crossbowman aimed but held his fire as the two rolled in the dirt. He noticed Dalan and swung his arm toward him. The sun disappeared below the horizon, and in the deepening shadows, Dalan ducked behind the rocks again. He remembered the gun in his hand, raised it, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

A crossbow bolt skidded across the top of the sandstone, catching the cloth of Dalan’s shirt as it flew past.