The Last of the Ageless (3 page)

Dalan heard a scream, then a gurgle. Her fur matted by blood, the woman rushed the crossbowman, who yelped and dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. The man with the burned face chased after the crossbowman on foot, shouting until he reined in.

The burned man struggled to climb up behind the saddle but slid off, the front of his shirt ripping. The crossbowman steadied him on his second attempt. As the horse whinnied and lunged into a canter, they fled, followed by their companions. Dalan gazed across the expanse after as they disappeared into the darkness.

Dalan reeled at the scene around him. Blood drenched a man’s threadbare shirt, his wooden club abandoned in the dark pool beside him. His face and neck were torn to ribbons, a chunk of his lip hanging loose. A red seam split another corpse’s neck, and his pool of blood touched the first man.

Dalan found himself on his knees by the prickly-pear, puking his guts up. When he finished, he sat back on his ankles and let his stomach settle.

The furred woman kneeled down next to the crumpled body of the man Dalan had killed. Her hand slipped inside his shirt and groped around. Finding nothing, she proceeded to go through his pockets and the pouches on his belt. To Dalan’s consternation, she pocketed a few trinkets from the man’s belongings.

He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear away the image of the scrawny, rigid body and gaping mouth and told himself he hadn’t meant to end his life. But the man had been trying to kill him, so the Ancient Teachings would condone Dalan’s actions.

The woman stood and regarded Dalan contemptuously. Under all the blood, it was impossible to tell what color her vest had been. Now matted with blood, orange fur with black stripes covered every inch of her skin. The tips of her fingers ended in sharpened claws.

She appeared to be trapped between birth form and some kind of cat transmeld, which meant she was definitely a Changeling, but not a true transmelder like him.

Dalan held his hand out, though he hoped she wouldn’t take it until she’d cleaned her paws. “Hello. Dalan, of the Omdecu Tribe.”

She didn’t take it. The woman’s mouth moved as if to introduce herself, but her cat’s eyes pierced Dalan, making him want to check over his shoulder for what might be behind him.

She turned her face to the side and snapped, “No.”

Dalan stepped back, concerned she might be a half-wit Brute, a Changeling whose mutation had left her mentally unstable or deformed.

The woman huffed. “Here. Take this.” She held a furred fist toward him, and a pendant dropped from it, suspended by a band of leather.

“Why?”

“For thanks…” she said through her fangs. “For what you just did back there.”

He smiled. “Oh, no need. The Teachings say—”

“Really,” she rasped. “Take the damn necklace. You apparently deserve it.”

She stepped forward, and he decided to humor her demands in case her people’s customs obligated her to offer him a gift of gratitude. A flat, oval stone hung from the black leather cord.

“Well? Put it on.”

“Thanks.” Dalan slipped it over his head. “Wasn’t necessary.” A pink light blazed as the necklace touched his chest. He held the stone up in the darkness to discover that two pink dots gleamed inside it.

She gave him a strange, sideways glance, as if waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she asked, “What happened back there, to your gun?”

“Oh.” He held it up. “Doesn’t work after dark.” Dalan wiped the sweat from his brow. This early into the night, the heat of the drylands still reigned. “Needs to be recharged.”

She shot him a look of confusion—or what he assumed was confusion. It was hard to tell through the fur.

Despite looking like a transmelder, she evidently lacked his people’s ability to communicate telepathically. He chose his words carefully before saying, “The
gun
is recharged by the sun. It is a rare Ancient weapon.”

The furred woman smirked. “It may be Ancient, but Ancient guns aren’t all that rare. I’m guessing yours is a LEC6. Six seconds to recharge, right?” The slitted pupils of her cat’s eyes unnerved him.

Dalan squeezed the gun’s grip. “Yes. Old technology…” He ran a hand through his hair, wondering how she knew so much. “The Ancients supposedly saved up daylight so they could use it after dark, but the knowledge is lost to us now. Is not rare?”

“No.” Her disinterested expression went unconcealed as she tossed him a knife. “Here. Use that at night, then.” It stuck into the earth near his foot.

Dalan had saved her from a horrible death, perhaps a death worse than these men had suffered. He shuddered. If he intended to remain in his birth form and pretend to be a Purebreed, he might actually need the knife.

He tucked it away and glanced up at the night sky, searching for the All-Seeing Eye. The stars of Ursa Major caught his attention, but the glint of the All-Seeing Eye shone brighter than any stars. Dalan closed his eyes, begging its forgiveness for the killing it had witnessed.

When Dalan opened his eyes, he noticed the strange woman had followed his gaze. “Now, there’s some rare Ancient technology. Who knows what junk is left above the Earth?”

Her assumption that the All-Seeing Eye was a piece of Ancient technology and not a sacred omen irked Dalan, but he didn’t want to argue over it with a stranger. “Uh… so, what’s your name?”

“I’m Nyr. Tiger Clan of the Hellsworth Tribe. Which way were you headed before you decided to…” she seemed to search for the right word. With a peculiar smile, she settled on, “
Rescue
me?”

“The forest.” He waved a hand toward the west, though the forest was nowhere near visible, even in daylight. He longed to return to the cool shade of his homeland, and hoped he could shake Nyr before he found a dragonfly to bond. He didn’t want an audience.

Nyr hesitated. “What a coincidence. I was headed that way myself before those men chased me back in this direction. Maybe we could help each other out. Since this is such dangerous territory to tread through… on my own.” Her eyes held contempt, which put Dalan on edge. “Let’s get going.”

“Of course, in case they come back.” According to the Ancient Teachings, he should offer his protection to a fellow traveler until their ways parted. “But first I need to pay my respects.”

Nyr’s eyes narrowed. Dalan leaned over the first man she’d killed, and whispered words of encouragement to the dead man’s spirit. He struggled to focus on the rites as he considered the repercussions of what had happened.

The Ancient Teachings justified their killing of these men as self-defense, but that didn’t make his part in it any easier to accept. In a way, Dalan should be glad that he’d solved a much bigger problem than his grandmother required. He’d saved someone’s life. Now, if only he could find a dragonfly.

As he visited the next two bodies, he averted his gaze while whispering the words. Then he tipped his canteen to his hand and dabbed a drop of water between their eyes. He deemed this part of the ritual especially important in the drylands. After completing the death rites for all three men, Dalan replaced the cap on his canteen. He hoped the men’s spirits would find peace.

Dalan straightened, his eyes falling on his new companion. He gaped at her appearance. Not only had she changed into clean clothes, but she’d also lost her fur. The rest of her pale face took on human angles, and her long, red hair draped over her shoulders. Like him, she now appeared to be nothing more than a Purebreed.

Nyr’s raised voice interrupted his rumination. “Why should I give your shards to anyone else?”

Dalan hadn’t said anything, so he wasn’t sure what she meant. He frowned, wondering how to respond. Dust and blood covered her left forearm; Nyr ran the edge of a flat stone across her freckled skin, sloughing off the residue. As Dalan watched her pull the flat stone down next to the clean spot, he heard a man’s voice say,
Don’t worry about her.

Dalan scanned the darkness, but saw no one. He shivered and opened his mouth to ask Nyr if she’d heard it too, but when his gaze caught her, his teeth clacked back together.

She appeared to be engaged in a whispered argument with no one he could see.

Chapter 2

Korreth had barely put his foot down before he had to lift it again, the chain on his ankle pulling tight as Jorrim strode toward the fork in the ravine. Not for the first time, Korreth admitted to himself that escaping in this manner might not have been the best of plans.

“Which fork should we take?” Korreth asked, wiping a hand across his brow. The dark skin of his forearm glistened with sweat. They needed shelter from the sun—soon.

Jorrim headed toward the right, tripping Korreth yet again. “I think there’s a way up over here.”

A dry chuckle from the other arm of the fork startled Korreth. As one, he and Jorrim faced the sound and fell into similar fighting stances.

A brown, furry creature stood before them, up to Korreth’s chest in height. It lifted its arms and threw back a hood to reveal its weathered face. An old woman’s face. Korreth dropped his hands to cover his nudity. When he glanced at Jorrim, his friend rolled his blue eyes.

The crone looked them up and down. “That’s hardly the best way up, considering the difficulty you’d have in your...” she ogled their naked flesh, “situation.”

Jorrim stepped toward her, the chains going taut. “What’s that supposed to mean, old woman?”

She gestured off-handedly. “You’re chained together so tightly.”

Korreth twitched his wrist, and Jorrim relaxed. Not long after they were chained together, they’d developed a way of communicating without talking. Korreth tapped on their shared chains.
Let me.

Korreth shuffled forward. “What do you want?”

She shrugged, the gesture almost hidden by the furs and leathers piled upon her. “I merely wish to save you the difficulty of the climb. There is a much easier path. Follow me.”

Jorrim tensed but didn’t budge. “What makes you think you can order us about? We’re in no mood to be following anyone’s orders, especially not some crazy old hag’s.”

The woman plodded along as though she hadn’t heard them. Korreth lost sight of her as she reached a slight bend in the fork.

Korreth worried for his fair-skinned friend. The ravine had sheltered them in the morning, when the sun cast deep shadows. He raised an eyebrow at Jorrim and then tapped the chains.
Harmless.

A trembling under his feet distracted him from tapping more. Pebbles jumped on the ground. “Is that an earthquake?”

“Not an earthquake.” The crone’s disembodied voice echoed eerily off the ravine walls. “Shake a leg.”

Korreth and Jorrim exchanged a glance at her strange way of speaking. But then a rumbling noise, barely audible at first, made Korreth’s pulse quicken. As the sound increased in volume, they loped after the old woman.

“She ignored what I said,” Jorrim muttered despite the rising thunder.

“Just keep moving,” Korreth urged, concentrating on staying in lock-step as they came around the bend.

The crone waited at the top of a gently sloped incline. At first, Korreth and Jorrim tackled the incline in sync with each other, but when one slipped, the other would stumble and fall, causing them to lose a few feet sliding back down.

Jorrim let out a groan of frustration the third time they landed on knees and elbows.

“Alright.” Korreth’s heart raced as the thunder amplified. “Let’s act like we’re back at the camp. Ready? Together!”

He inched his chained foot up the slope. Then they both took a step forward with their unencumbered feet. The pebbles jumped around them, making their footing even more treacherous.

“Together!” Korreth called, and they took a simultaneous step forward with their chained feet.

Under their former masters, he and Jorrim had been treated as punching bags on which young Changelings practiced their fighting skills. As a result, the slaves also learned to act in coordinated pairs.

Near the top, Korreth’s unchained foot slipped on the loose rocks, and he fell forward on one knee. Jorrim’s free hand reached solid ground, so he hauled Korreth up using the chain between their wrists. Dripping with sweat, Korreth twisted his free foot up to where he could see the lighter-colored skin of his sole. Then he ran a hand under his chained foot to determine whether he’d cut his feet, thankful that both seemed unharmed.

The crone’s gaze lingered on the ravine. “I thought you were about to meet your maker, boys. You’re lucky you didn’t get trampled to death in the stampede.”

“Stampede?” Jorrim asked, shaking the dust from his blond hair.

Back in the direction from which they’d escaped, Korreth made out a brown and white mass in the ravine. As it thundered closer, he began to see the individual animals of the herd and recognized them as lithe pronghorn antelopes, an essential source of meat for most borderlands tribes.

The crone spoke up over the roar of hundreds of hoofbeats. “The dingars scare the pronghorn and herd them out into the drylands. They always time it perfectly, so the hottest part of the day falls when the herd begins to tire.”