The Shapechangers (34 page)

Silence reigned. No one moved, as if made immobile by the sudden collapse of Shaine. Then Finn turned a strangely impassive face to Carillon.

“Is he slain, princeling? Is the Mujhar dead at last?”

Carillon knelt by Shaine’s side. Carefully he turned the body over and they all saw the twisted travesty of a face. Alix gulped back a sour taste in her throat.

After a moment Carillon lowered the body and rose, facing Finn bitterly. “You have accomplished your goal, shapechanger,” he said flatly. “The Mujhar is slain.”

Alix began to tremble. She saw an expression in Finn’s face that frightened her. It was a mixture of conflicting emotions: pleasure, relief, satisfaction and something very strange. It turned her cold.

For a long moment Finn looked down upon the body stretched by the firepit. Then he turned and stared at the throne a very long time. Finally he looked back at Carillon and stretched out a restraining hand as the prince moved away.

“No,” he said.

Carillon frowned at him. “I go only to tell the guardsmen their lord is slain.”

“The
old
lord is slain,” Finn said clearly.

“Because of you!” the prince snapped.

Finn looked down at the knife in his hand as if surprised to see it. For a moment he seemed bewildered. Then he glanced back at Duncan.

Alix felt the intensity of their locked gazes and looked from one to the other, shaken. But she did not interfere.

Finn smiled. Something in his face had surrendered. When he looked again at Carillon he seemed resigned. Swiftly he flipped the knife in his hand and slid the point beneath the underflesh of his forearm. Alix winced as blood welled quickly around the blade, staining it.

“Is this expiation for a dead Mujhar?” Carillon asked harshly.

Finn did not answer. He dropped to one knee, head bowed. “It is Cheysuli custom, my lord, that the Mujhar is ever attended by a liege man.” A deep breath lifted his shoulders briefly. “Fifty years ago Hale of the Cheysuli swore a blood-oath to take Shaine the Mujhar as his liege lord until death.” His eyes moved to Carillon’s face as he held out the knife, hilt first. “If you will
have it…if you will accept it, my lord Carillon…I offer you the same service.”

Carillon, staring at the kneeling warrior in absolute astonishment, slowly opened his mouth.

“I?”

“You are the Mujhar. The Mujhar must have a Cheysuli liege man.” Finn smiled without his customary irony. “It is tradition, my lord.”

“Cheysuli tradition.”

Finn remained unmoving. “Will you accept my service?”

Carillon threw out both hands, flinging water across the dais. “By the gods, Finn, we have never met without railing at one another like jackdaws!”

Finn’s mouth twisted. “It is unsettling for a Cheysuli to recognize his own
tahlmorra
when he wants no part of it. What else would you expect me to do?” He waited, then sighed. “Do you accept me, or do you refuse me the sort of honor my
jehan
ever respected?”

Carillon stared down at him. “Well…I cannot have you bleeding all over the floor. Although once I said I would see the color of your blood.”

Finn nodded. “If you see much more, I will have nothing left to spare in your service.”

Carillon smiled and held out his hand. The hilt was placed in it, and he accepted the knife without comment. Then he drew his own, slid Finn’s blade home in his sheath, and gave the Cheysuli his own untarnished knife.

“A blood-oath is binding,” he said quietly. “Even
I
know that.”

Finn rose, shrugging. “It is only binding until it is broken, my lord. But that has only been done once before.” He smiled crookedly. “And you have seen the result.”

Carillon nodded silently. Then he moved past Finn as one dazed and walked to the huge silver doors. There he paused and looked briefly at Alix, then to Duncan.

“Have you known he would do this?
Him?
”

Alix, who wanted to ask that question for herself, waited expectantly.

Duncan grinned. “Finn does as he chooses. I cannot explain the madness that comes on him at times.”

Carillon shook his head and glanced back at the Cheysuli warrior who stood silently with his wolf.

Alix, also staring at Finn, felt a strange bubble of laughter burst in her soul. She grinned at Carillon.

“I think you have your revenge, my lord. How better to overcome a Cheysuli than to appeal to his eternal
tahlmorra
?”

Carillon grinned back. Then he lost it as he heard the first shouts from without the Great Hall. His face turned harsh.

“The Ihlini,” he said. “My uncle has destroyed the wards.”

“Then it is time we left this place, my lord Mujhar,” Duncan said quietly.

Carillon glanced back at Shaine’s body. Then he turned on his heel and departed the Great Hall.

Almost instantly they were surrounded by Solindish and Atvian troops who shouted triumphantly as they made their way past slain Homanan servitors and guardsmen to begin their destruction of the fallen palace.

Alix bit her bottom lip as Duncan thrust her against a wall that blocked an Atvian soldier’s cursing attack. She slid back against the wall in horror, seeing only the blood-lust in his eyes and the sudden savagery in Duncan’s.

Carillon’s sword clanged against another as a Solindish man sought to bring him down. The prince fought well, though badly outweighed and outreached. He fell to one knee, gasping as he tried to bring up his broadsword, but Finn was there before him. Alix saw the royal knife that now belonged to a Cheysuli sink home in a Solindish throat, and bit back an outcry as the man fell at Carillon’s feet.

The prince pushed himself upright and turned, staring fixedly at Finn. “Is this what it is to have a liege man?”

Finn, retrieving his new knife, grinned. “I am newly come to the service, my lord, but I know it is my task to keep you alive.” He paused significantly. “When you foolishly engage someone stronger than you.”

Carillon scowled at him, but Alix saw gratitude and dawning realization in his blue eyes. She nearly smiled to herself, pleased beyond measure that they could be in accordance after so much discord, but Duncan grabbed her arm and dragged her down the corridor.

“Shaine has done his work well,” he said roughly. “We have little time to win free of this place.”

“Win
free!
” Carillon called breathlessly from behind. “This place is Homanan! I will not have it fall into enemy hands.”

Duncan turned to say something more, saw the approaching enemy soldiers and shouted something to Finn. The younger Cheysuli turned back, shoulder-to-shoulder with the prince, and beat back four soldiers. Duncan grabbed Alix’s shoulder and shoved her through a tapestried doorway.

She stumbled into a small ceremonial chamber, protesting inarticulately at Duncan’s roughness. He remained at the doorway, holding the tapestry aside as he peered out to search for the enemy. Alix turned from him and surveyed the chamber.

It was deserted but oddly comforting, like the eye of a bad storm. Braziers warmed the room against the chill of mortared stone, and fine rugs and arrases bedecked the floors and walls.

She fingered the back of an ornate wooden chair and wondered at its fineness. Then she heard Duncan expel a sudden breath and whipped around, crying out as the Atvian plunged through the door tapestry with an iron spear.

The flanged head slid easily into the back of the chair and shattered it, spraying her with splinters. She stared speechlessly at the bearded Atvian who clawed at his belt-knife.

Duncan lunged for the man. “Alix! Find a place to hide yourself—I cannot spare the time to watch out for you!”

She retreated instantly, staring as Duncan engaged the man. Finally she wrenched her eyes away and sought a place.

An indigo curtain shrouding a huge casement billowed and she ran for the wide bench of stone sill. Alix climbed up and pressed her back against the cold stone, dragging the velvet around her body. But she left gap enough to watch.

Duncan slew the Atvian soldier and stood over the body, gasping as he tried to recover breath through his torn throat.

“And who prophesied
your
death, shapechanger?” asked Keough from the door.

Duncan straightened instantly, meeting the Atvian’s satisfied, expectant eyes. The Cheysuli stood spraddle-legged over the dead soldier as Keough advanced into the room through the only door. Behind him stood his son, blocking the exit.

“Where is your vaunted bow, shapechanger?” Keough challenged. “Where is your animal?”

Duncan said nothing as he stepped around the body and settled into a readied position.

Keough laughed. “Before you had your bow. Now you bear only a knife, and I a sword.”

Duncan watched the gleaming blade dance before his eyes. The lord of Atvia was huge and unbelievably swift for a man of
his bulk. Thorne, smirking in the door, folded his arms and watched his father drive the Cheysuli across the hall until his back pressed against a colorful tapestry.

Keough smiled in his red beard, sword tip drifting to touch Duncan’s neck gently. “It seems someone has already tried to take your head, shapechanger. Shall I finish it for him?”

The sword flashed to the side lightly and Duncan brought up his knife, flipping it to throw.

Keough slapped it from his hand with a frighteningly smooth motion. The sword tip moved again to the bruising on Duncan’s throat. A trickle of fresh blood welled in the ugly wire cut.

“Here, shapechanger? Do I strike
here
?”

Thorne cried out as the ruddy wolf flashed from the casement, ripping through the velvet arras. Duncan’s yellow eyes widened in unfeigned surprise and Keough, warned by it, whipped the sword around.

He met the snarling jaws of a wolf-bitch, compact body hurling itself against the Atvian’s huge chest. Off-balance, Keough went down at Duncan’s feet. A terrified cry broke from his wailing throat.

Thorne rushed the length of the hall, sword drawn and raised to strike the wolf from his father’s body. Duncan bent swiftly and grasped his knife, thrusting himself forward to block Thorne’s furious charge.

Keough’s son went down with a cry of pain, clutching at the knife buried in his chest. Duncan straightened and turned, moving unsteadily to the wolf-bitch.

The animal stood across the unmoving lord of Atvia, feral eyes blazing with silent rage. Slowly knowledge crept into them as she saw Duncan staring wordlessly at her, face drawn.

“He is slain,” he said hoarsely.

Keough, face congested, bore no wound. But the man lay dead within Homana-Mujhar.

“
Cheysula
,” Duncan whispered.

The wolf-bitch blurred before his eyes and Alix moved to him, arms crossed slackly across her stomach as if to protect the child. “He would have slain you.”

“Aye, Alix.”

She blinked empty eyes. “I know you said I should not shapechange,
cheysul
, but you would have died. I think I would be like a
lir
less man if you died, and lose my very soul.”

“It was done out of fear and a wolf’s fierce protectiveness for its mate. I could not have asked for or expected different, child or no.”

“Then you are not angry with me?”

He put out his arms and took her to him, cradling her head against his shoulder. “I am not angry, small one.”

“Duncan…we are losing Homana-Mujhar.”

“Aye. Carillon will have to wait a while longer before he can assume the Mujhar’s throne. We must gather ourselves and go before Bellam finishes the
qu’mahlin
Shaine began.”

Thorne, at Alix’s feet, groaned. She shuddered and whipped her head around to look, hand to her mouth. Duncan took her away from the young Atvian, heading toward the door.

“Duncan—he is still alive!”

“He will have to remain that way. We can spare no more time, Alix. Come.”

Getting out of Homana-Mujhar safely proved more difficult than getting in. Twice Duncan had to fend off Solindish soldiers and Alix shrieked once as a wounded Atvian rose from the floor. A thrown knife bearing Carillon’s royal crest quivered in the man’s back and she looked up to meet Finn’s eyes across the corridor.

“So,
meijha
, you still trail after my
rujho.
”

Alix, faced with Finn’s obvious exhaustion and blood-smeared features, laughed at him. “Aye, I still do. And ever will.”

Finn smiled at her and retrieved the knife that was now his, shooting his brother a searching look. Duncan gestured for him to follow and they moved down the corridor silently.

“The prince?” Duncan asked hoarsely.

“I left him in Shaine’s own chambers, effectively dispatching two Atvians. Our princeling has learned how to kill. He did not need my help.”

“Are you ready to go from this place?”

Finn laughed shortly. “Though I hate leaving such work unfinished, I am more than ready. All we do here is die.” He sighed. “We will take Homana-Mujhar another time.”

“Carillon might not wish to go.”

“He will when I have told him. He may be my liege lord, but I have more sense.”

“
Do
you?” Alix demanded, grasping Duncan’s belt as they moved.

“Aye,
meijha
, I do.”

“Well,
rujho
,” Duncan said, “perhaps you have gained some in the past months. You never had any before.”

Finn, affronted, followed them as Storr moved closely at his heels.

They found Carillon where Finn had said and convinced him to join their flight from the palace. He was not particularly happy
with the idea, but gave in when Duncan explained their chances. Carillon sighed and pushed a forearm across his damp forehead. His hair had dried into unruly curls.

“This way,” he said and led them through winding corridors.

Twisting and turning in the bowels of the immense palace, they followed the prince out of Homana-Mujhar, glad of a respite. They found no Atvian or Solindish troops and it gave them all a chance to breathe again.

Alix followed Carillon out of a recessed doorway into the small bailey at the back of the palace. Behind her were Duncan and Finn, murmuring to one another in the Old Tongue she had not yet quite learned. Then she came to an abrupt stop as Carillon halted before her, and stepped around him to question their pause.