The Shapechangers (32 page)

Where are they?
she asked fearfully.
Where are the Cheysuli?

The child whimpered in her arms. Alix shifted him closer to her chest and placed gentle lips against his forehead, silently promising him safety. But she also feared for her own.

She glanced back the way she had come and stiffened. Through the narrow street walked a cloaked figure, moving with familiar grace. The hood was drawn up again to hide the man’s features, but she knew him by his movements. Alix pressed back against the wall.

Then a second figure slid out from the shadows, just behind the cloaked Ihlini. Alix watched in painful silence as the second man moved into the moonlighted street, then caught her breath in a gasp as muted light glinted off gold
lir
-bands.

“Ihlini!”
the Cheysuli whispered.

The cloaked figure spun and froze. Alix saw him push his hands out sideways, away from his body, as if to indicate his innocent intent. The Cheysuli moved closer and a shaft of moonlight slanted clearly across his face.

“Duncan!”
she whispered in horror, clutching at the child.

The Ihlini’s voice, quiet but pitched to carry, came clearly to her. “We should not fight, you and I. The Cheysuli and Ihlini are much alike. You have your gifts, I mine. We could use them in concert.”

She heard Duncan’s soft laugh. “There is no likeness between us, sorcerer, save equal determination to serve our own gods.”

The Ihlini lowered his hands, then pulled his cloak off and dropped it to the cobbles. “Then I will serve my gods, shapechanger, by ridding this land of one more Cheysuli.”

The fight was sudden and vicious. Alix gasped as Duncan closed with the Ihlini, movements half-hidden. She saw only the glint of knives and heard their grunts of effort as each sought to slay the other.

“By the gods,” she whispered to herself, horrified, “it is much worse than I thought,
Much
worse!”

The child whimpered again and she hugged him closer, seeking her own strength in his need for security. But her mind was with Duncan.

She saw the Ihlini stumble back. A metallic glint flashed from his left shoulder and she saw the hilt of a Cheysuli knife stand out from his dark leathers. Duncan, crouched in readiness, straightened. Alix felt overwhelming relief flood her body, then realized how much she had longed for the sorcerer’s death. The emotion shocked and sickened her.

The Ihlini did not fall. His back turned to her and she saw his right arm move to pull the knife from his shoulder. Duncan, hands empty, waited warily.

Die, Ihlini
…she whispered silently, hating herself for desiring another’s death.
Die!

The sorcerer went to one knee. She saw Duncan clearly in the moonlight, feet spread to brace himself against his enemy. Darkness slid down one arm, dulling his
lir
-band, and she realized the Ihlini’s knife had found at least part of its target. She bit her lip and fought back the instinct to run to him.

A rattle behind Duncan spun him around. He was unarmed, vulnerable to a second attack, but something in his stance told her he was prepared. Then she saw the Solindish soldier move into the moonlight, sword bared.

Cai!
Alix cried.
Cai—do something!

The pattern was faint. At last Cai answered her.
Liren, I cannot. It is an Ihlini he faces…the
lir
do not interfere. It is part of the gods’ law.

The Solindish soldier made no move against Duncan. He stood braced, ready to fight, yet did not step in against his shapechanger enemy. Alix saw the Ihlini come out of his crouch and realized the Solindish man acted only as a decoy.

Her cry of warning was lost in the Solindish soldier’s shout. Alix spun and set the baby down in the darkness near a wall, dragging the knife from her boot. Then she pushed herself free of the wall and ran toward the Ihlini.

She saw Duncan stiffen spasmodically as the sorcerer snaked a gleaming wire around his throat. Both hands flew to the wire and clawed at it, seeking to rip it away. But the Ihlini stood unmoving, slowly tautening the thin garrote until blood broke from Duncan’s throat.

“No!” Alix shrieked.

The Solindish soldier stared past the Ihlini and his prisoner in alarm. His sword shifted, rising, and she realized he would move to stop her.

But she could not hesitate. Her fear had been replaced by the overwhelming need to strike down the Ihlini who threatened Duncan. Her veneer of civilization and gentle ways was stripped from her easily, leaving her naked before all men, and she knew herself as capable of slaying a man as any warrior.

Duncan’s knees buckled. The Ihlini stood firm, bending slightly as he tautened the garrote even further. Alix was oddly aware of the flash of the Solindish sword as she stumbled to a halt behind the sorcerer. But it did not matter. She lifted the knife, clutching it in both hands, and brought it down with all her strength.

The shock ran through her arms as she drove the knife through leathers and into the flesh of the Ihlini. She felt him stiffen spasmodically, crying out. One gloved hand clawed briefly at his
back, fingers stretching and scraping, then it dropped slackly at his side. The sorcerer sagged over Duncan and fell into the street.

Alix heard the soldier swear a violent oath, unable to decipher his words. She saw the malevolent gleam in his eyes as he lifted the sword over one shoulder, preparing to unleash the killing stroke. Somehow, she was unafraid.

“By the gods!” cried a clear voice, “you will
not
!”

Dimly she heard the clatter of hoof on stone and saw the horse rearing behind the soldier. Before the Solindish man could turn, a flashing sword swung through the air in a swift arc and severed head from shoulders.

Alix staggered back, gagging, as blood sprayed from the falling trunk. It splattered over her face and clothing, staining her hands as she raised them to cover her eyes. Then she peered through her fingers into the blazing blue eyes of the prince of Homana.

Instantly she forgot Carillon. She stumbled forward, reaching frenziedly toward the sprawled bodies. Blood ran through the cobbles, muddying the ash and dust, but she ignored it all as she clawed at the Ihlini’s still form.

Alix tugged ineffectually at the heavy body until Carillon flung himself from his horse and helped her, dragging the slain sorcerer free of Duncan.

“No!” she cried, falling to her knees.
“No!”

The wire, she saw, had fallen partially free of Duncan’s throat. It had bitten deeply but had not yet sliced into the vulnerable windpipe. Carefully she pulled the wire away and threw it into the street, moaning as she saw the livid discoloring as blood stained his neck.

“He is alive, Alix,” Carillon said, kneeling over the warrior. “Alive.”

She put gentle fingers to his bloodied throat, feeling the erratic pulse-beat. Carefully she cradled his head in her lap, fighting back the rush of bile into her throat as she realized how close he had come to death.

Duncan’s hand twitched and moved instinctively to the empty sheath at his belt. Carillon reached out and stopped the searching hand.

“No,” he said clearly. “We are not your enemy.”

“Duncan!” she cried. “
Duncan
…”

His eyes opened and blinked. For a moment he said nothing, lying limply against her lap, then bolted upright into a sitting position. Carillon moved back, squatting, and Alix hastily wiped
tears off her cheeks. Duncan, in all his Cheysuli pride, would not want to see her cry.

Duncan looked silently at the body of the Solindish soldier. Then his eyes traveled to the felled Ihlini, lying so close. After a moment he put bloodstained fingers to his throat.

He looked directly at Carillon. “Tell me I did not hear her,” he rasped. “Tell me I somehow imagined she was here.”

Carillon began to smile. His eyes slid past Duncan to Alix, and his smile became a grin. Then he shook his head.

“I will not lie to you, shapechanger. You have only to look.”

Duncan winced and turned his head. Alix swallowed welling tears away as she saw the sliced welt rising on his throat, still weeping blood. But Duncan ignored it as he looked at her in dismay.

“Alix…”

She bit her lip in response to the ragged sound of his voice. Then she shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably.

“I am sorry, Duncan, that you are burdened with such a disobedient woman. I am not at all the proper sort for a clan leader’s
cheysula.
”

She saw his eyes travel over her blood-smeared face to the dark stains on her ragged shirt. One hand reached out and touched her arm, tracing the sticky flesh. Then he drew up his legs into a cross-legged position and sat there. Silent.

“Duncan—” she began tentatively, then broke off as she recalled the infant. She jumped to her feet and ran, ignoring Carillon’s startled question.

Alix knelt by the jerkin-wrapped child and smiled, gathering it up carefully. “There is someone you should meet, small one,” she whispered. “Someone very special.”

She half-rose, cradling the child against her chest. Then something stopped her, cutting through her happiness like a scythe.

The child was cold, too cold. He made no sound as her hand gently touched his face. Carefully Alix knelt back on the cobbles and fought down the sudden painful fear as she slid a hand beneath the jerkin and felt his body.

Horror came slowly. Then the pain. “No!” she cried. “Not the
child!
”

He lay unmoving, unbreathing. Alix shuddered over him, rubbing hands against his cold flesh as if her warmth would bring him back to life. She heard footsteps behind her and the clank of a sword sliding home in its sheath.

“Alix,” said Duncan’s hoarse voice.

She shook her head violently in denial, still rubbing the child’s cold flesh.

Duncan’s hand was on her shoulder, pulling her away gently. “There is nothing to be done,
cheysula.
”

She jerked away and knelt over the child. “He is mine.
Mine!
I will not let him die.”

Duncan pulled her away. Dimly she saw Carillon kneel by the infant and touch a hand to its chest. Then he glanced up at Duncan and shook his head.

“He is mine,” she repeated.

“No,” Duncan said hoarsely. He put his hand against her stomach. “
Here
is our child.”

She stared into his face. “I only put him down for a moment. You needed my help. The Ihlini would have slain you. So I put him down to go to you.” Her eyes closed. “Why did the gods make me choose between you?”

Duncan sighed. “Do not torture yourself like this, Alix. It does no good.”

“It was only a
child!
”

“I know, small one. But he was more fortunate than most. He did not know what he faced, before it claimed him.” Something crept through his eyes and she saw the vestiges of remembered horror. “He did not know what it was to look into the eyes of death so close.”

Alix shivered and pressed herself against him. “Duncan, I could not bear to lose you. I could not bear it.”

“Well, you have made certain I will live a little longer.” He smiled crookedly at her and traced the bloodstains on her nose. “I have taken myself a warrior instead of a woman.”

Carillon’s boots scraped against the cobbles. Alix looked at him and saw the weariness and determination in his face.

He gestured toward the red walls rising in the near distance. “Homana-Mujhar, my friends. It waits for us.”

Duncan nodded. Alix slipped from his arms, cast one more longing glance at the jerkin-wrapped bundle in the corner, then turned from it resolutely.

But the pain remained.

They found shelter in the shadows of the high walls, avoiding the Solindish soldiers who gathered in the torchlight spilling from sconces set into the red brick. Cai perched himself in a nearby tree, for the proximity of Ihlini kept him from conversing with Duncan, and even Alix felt the weakness in her mind. She did not wish to expend energy she might need later, so she kept herself from conversing with the hawk.

Duncan leaned one shoulder against the cool walls and looked at Carillon. “We need a way in, my lord. As normal men. I have no recourse to
lir
-shape here.”

Carillon’s hand idly caressed the hilt of his massive sword. “There is a way. I played here as a child, and I know all the secrets of this place. I am only glad the Solindish do not.”

“Alone?” Alix whispered.

Duncan shook his head and felt gently at his bruised throat. “If you can, Alix, summon the
lir.
They will bring the warriors.”

Apprehension flared in her. “But you said I should not use what power I have. Because of the child—”

“We have no choice. If we are to succeed, we must get to Shaine.” His hand engulfed and pressed her shoulder. “
Cheysula
, I would not ask it otherwise.”

She nodded and leaned back against the wall, detaching herself from immediate awareness. She no longer felt Duncan’s hand on her, or heard Carillon’s startled question. She was aware only of the heaviness in the air and the great effort it took to reach the
lir.

At last she felt Storr’s familiar pattern questioning her. Alix smiled weakly and told him to bring his
lir
, and the others. His acquiescence came just as her strength failed her.

Alix sagged limply against the wall and felt Duncan catch her. He swore something in the Old Tongue that broke halfway through his exclamation and set her upright, pressing her against the wall. She heard Carillon’s sharp question, but Duncan made no answer. At last she dragged her eyes open and looked into their faces, seeing their mutual fear.

Alix managed a faint smile. “They come. The
lir
, and their warriors.”

“I am sorry…” Duncan rasped uneasily.

She shook her head. “It—it was only that they are so far. I will be well enough in a moment.”

Carillon flicked a dark glance at Duncan. “
I
would not use her so, shapechanger.”

Duncan’s face hardened. “It is for
your
sake I asked it, princeling.”