Warstalker's Track (25 page)

Sea eagle!
Came another thought, neither his nor Lugh’s, but soothing, comforting, as he’d sought to comfort Lugh.

Suddenly he was mostly Calvin again, and aware that he’d been snatched from the water by some kind of raptor, and that Lugh was with him, and that the bird
might
be more than a bird, but that wasn’t to be expected (so said the fish), and maybe he ought to try to escape again anyway, just in case.

In any event, the decision might soon be taken from him, for the erne was clearly not equipped to lug two substantial fish and fly at the same time, and seemed to be having trouble gaining much altitude at all. The only comfort was that they were heading back toward the cliff and the waterfall, which was also toward his friends.

Calvin’s heart skipped a beat. This was no safe situation, and Lugh likewise seemed to divine the same as the erne winged closer to a narrow ledge set back from the sheerer slope at the top, most likely to deposit them, then shift back to some more useful form, or perhaps even change them back.

But no; it was simply flying onward, wingbeats faltering more with every flap.

Lower, and it might not make the ledge at all, or might drop them (and hadn’t he just felt one of those claws slip, where they jabbed into his side?).

Lower again, but closer to the ledge. And then another shape was arrowing out of the nearby shadows, faster than anything animate had right to be: dashing, leaping, pouncing—slamming the erne from the air. Claws raked his sides, and he was flung free.

Panic found him; the fish reasserted; and when he was himself once more, he’d thumped down on hard rocks, with something much larger and darker than the eagle looming over him. Something with green eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth at the end of a snarling feline muzzle.

Cougar,
something supplied. And the fish came back.

He might just let it drive for a while. After all, if he was going to be eaten alive, it would be better experienced at maximum mental remove.

Yet the jaws that gripped him were lifting, not chowing down, and all at once he was being carried in long, fluid lopes up the near-vertical face of the cliff. It jolted, but not as much as he would’ve expected, though it was still damned disconcerting. And maybe there was enough pain now, if he concentrated.

Forgetting everything else, he reached within, to that place where he remembered Calvin. Remembered having arms and legs, fingers and toes, all of which were deft and strong and nimble; remembered having smooth bronze skin, thick black hair, and clear-cut brows; strong cheekbones and jaw, and a nose too short for any proper Indian, with a tattoo on his right buttock that had all but faded away from so many prior shiftings, and with nothing anywhere else that wasn’t Calvin-as-designed.

Heat washed him and awakened hope, but then he heard—in his mind alone but heard nevertheless—his companion in adversity start to panic. And as that panic struck him, his own awakened, and for a long dark moment, fear consumed him.

Fear! Fear! Fear! Fear! Fear!

He was aware of being carried, of raw rocks close beneath him, of his tail slapping them painfully, and of increasing darkness in his mind as his gills dried, making it harder and harder to breathe.

He had just steeled himself for one final go at regaining his own shape when that wild upward surge gave way to a
loping dash along smooth, dark,
damp
stone, with water splattering in from one side. And then a closer, more comforting darkness enclosed him entirely: stone passages and an all-encompassing unheard roar that he connected with the waterfall and another, more intense memory from back when he’d been Calvin. And then the jaws released him and he fell
splash
into a shallow, star-shaped pool. For a moment he gave the fish rein again and gloried in being wet all over and able to breathe.

A splash beside him was Lugh. A flood of relief like unto his own surged out to brush his mind, which helped keep his human aspect awake. And now he worked at it, he saw that they were enclosed by a vast rocky chamber that was almost certainly inside the cliffs behind the waterfall, that a matched set of sleek black cougars sat primly on the sandy shore just out of reach, and that a taller shape he recognized as truly human was striding up between the cats and reaching down to swish something leafy through the water while murmuring words he had no way of hearing.

Yet he
did
hear, sort of, and realized at the same time that he was stretching upward, out of the water, returning to his own shape with startling rapidity, without the rush of pain that usually accompanied it.

Too
fast, though, so that by the time he had feet under him, he was balanced wrong to stand upright, and so made his reentrance into his own right form sprawling forward on hands and knees in the sand.

Laughter tickled his ears: female first, then…feline. Calvin blinked, coughed, sluiced hair from his face and water from his eyes, and finally managed to scramble to his feet and take stock of his surroundings.

He was in a cave all right, pale limestone of irregular height, the walls and crevices of which writhed with coiling, sliding life: snakes of every species, including some foreign to Georgia. Yet he noted that peripherally, for his attention was focused on the woman who sat before him clad in a buckskin skirt that left her bare above the waist, exposing fine round breasts, their upper curves brushed by waves of thick hair, black as his own. And the eyes: green and wicked-looking, almost cat eyes—he couldn’t tear his gaze from them. The woman smiled. Calvin blinked once more, having finally sorted his memories enough to recognize her.
“Okacha!”
he blurted through a grin, rushing forward, then checking himself at the last moment, having realized first that he was wet, second that he was naked, and finally, that this woman, whom he’d helped send here in the first place, commanded a fair bit of authority hereabouts.

“Edahi!” she laughed, giving him his birthname in Cherokee. “
Siyu!
Welcome to Galunlati!”

“Uh, yeah,” Calvin choked, recalling a jumble of things at once, one of which was the mission that had brought him here; another, that he had friends somewhere about; and finally, that no less a personage than the King of the Faeries had been his companion of late. He twisted around abruptly, gazing at the pool, and saw only a large salmon swimming angrily in tight, jerky circles while a pair of handsome young cougars looked on with languid interest.

“It’s not for me to free him,” Okacha chuckled. “And I’ll probably hear words I won’t like for having freed you, but you did me a favor once and I’ve never been one to claim the easy road.”

Calvin nodded, looked around for something to wear, then shrugged and sat on the rock nearest the woman, taking care to confirm that it
was
a rock and not a turtle, which such seats had been known to be.

“Your friends will be here shortly,” Okacha continued. “My husband’s gone to fetch them.”

Calvin eyed the pair of gleaming felines. “And the…boys?”

She lifted a brow at the cats. “They’ve grown, haven’t they? I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize them, though perhaps your brain was feeling…crowded at the time.” She clapped her hands. “Lads?”

One cougar yawned and stretched, then kept on stretching in odd places, shedding hair as it did, so that a moment later a boy sat there: early teens, naked, more pretty than handsome, and feral-looking in a feline way.

Which was to be expected when his father was a demigod connected with thunder, and his mother the last survivor of a long-ago mating between a proto-Cherokee woman and a race of werecougars who lived, by choice, underwater. And which were also gifted magicians, Calvin recalled, especially when it came to weather-type things and shapeshifting.

Okacha sighed dramatically and shook her head as the boy acknowledged Calvin with a silent, wary bow. “His brother, I fear, is not so obedient and prefers four legs to two. I wonder what a psychologist would make of that.”

Calvin laughed amiably, amazed at how relaxed he was now that
some
order had been restored to his life. “This is a very strange conversation.”

“And a very strange visit.”

“And strange hospitality,” a third voice echoed from the rough arch of the entrance. Calvin looked around to see Fionchadd standing there, bare as himself and the cougar-boy, and no more concerned about it than the other. The Faery looked angry, though; as angry as Calvin had ever seen him.
“You!”
he demanded, leveling a finger at Okacha. “What was that you did? You and your pets! You could have injured me! You could have killed one who is your better. You could—”

“Show more courtesy to my wife, Dagantu!” yet another voice thundered, almost literally. To Calvin’s vast surprise and amusement, Fionchadd jumped straight up, nearly braining himself on the low roof there.

Which brought more laughter from the passage behind him, some of it human and recognizable.

Fionchadd recovered quickly, and ever the courtier (even stark naked) managed to execute a formal and very contrite bow as he stepped aside to admit the true master of the cavern and the land around it.

Hyuntikwala Usunhi. Uki, for short. The man—demigod, or whatever—was well past six feet tall and sported black braids to his knees, but though his face clearly displayed Native American features, his skin, of which a great deal was visible (for he wore only a sketchy loincloth), was so white it almost glowed. Calvin had first met him years ago, when he, David, Alec, and Fionchadd had entered his realm in search of a back route to the Land of the Powersmiths. One had been found, and Fionchadd had left them there. But the highlight of that adventure had been the uktena hunt they’d undertaken, which had earned them all Uki’s great respect, and himself a mentor.

“Siyu, adewehiyu,”
Calvin murmured in ritual greeting.
Greetings, very great magician.

“Siyu,
Edahi,” Uki acknowledged, his face sterner than Calvin would’ve liked, nor did he miss the omission of his war name. Without further comment, Uki strode forward. Snakes slithered from his path as he approached. Okacha rose, as did her human son. The other cougar likewise found its feet, but made no other obeisance. Calvin felt a pang of apprehension, which was only slightly relieved when the rest of their band filed in; Liz first, then David, followed by Sandy (carrying Calvin’s discarded clothes) with cousin Kirkwood bringing up the rear, sharp eyes darting everywhere. He could practically hear Churchy scribbling mental notes as he found himself entering what was, to him, a childhood myth. For their part, Sandy and Liz looked remarkably smug, though perhaps that was because half the men in the room were handsome, well-built, and nude, while another wasn’t all that modestly draped either.

“Okacha,” Uki snapped. “Bring food. Bring clothes. Then we will talk.”

Calvin scowled at that, wondering how such orders would fly with someone as independent as the cougar-woman, never mind the cultural norm. Yet she heeded those commands. He watched her go; it was impossible not to, the way she moved—and jumped half out of his skin when soft fur brushed his legs to either side: the cougars, both on four feet again.

Uki had paused a short way off and was studying him curiously, then frowned and continued his approach. “Gather ’round the pool,” he told his guests, motioning them forward. “You, Edahi,” he continued, “what am I to do with you? I knew of your coming. And truly I am glad to see you. But to arrive so, and then act so irresponsibly.”

Calvin bit his tongue as anger surged within him. “How so?”

Uki’s eyes flashed fire. “Have I not warned you about shifting shape without good reason? And did you not just do that very thing?”

“I had reason!”

“Did you think I would allow an envoy such as yours to enter unescorted?” Uki retorted. “Or permit an ailing visitor to escape without effort made to recover him? Do you forget that I also am a shape-shifter, that my wife is, and that her sons likewise can choose some forms at will? And,” he added, eyeing Fionchadd speculatively, “that Dagantu here could also have effected that pursuit without the risk you take every time you change, about which I have warned you more than once.”

“I’ve found a way to keep track of changes,” Calvin challenged.

“Have you?” Uki snapped back. “But are you certain it is reliable here, or in other Worlds, with so much else awry? Power flows strangely these days, both within Worlds and between them.”

Calvin gazed at him steadily, neither admitting guilt nor denying it.

Uki’s brow furrowed. “Still, your rashness was well intended,” he sighed, “and perhaps you did act in ignorance. I suppose, too, that I punished you enough, for it was I who denied you your own shape when you would have resumed it earlier. Here!” He reached to a pouch at his waist to retrieve the uktena scale necklace Calvin had abandoned with his clothes. Calvin caught it on the fly. “Now you are better dressed.”

“I like him that way,” Okacha purred, rejoining them with a pile of leather clothing, the top item of which she presented to Calvin. It proved to be a deerskin breechclout. Calvin hesitated as he shook it out. “I’ve got my own clothes,” he dared.

“You do,” Uki acknowledged. “But they are better suited to your Land than this, and to action, not reflection.”

Calvin shrugged and donned the garment. He was just doing up the ties and wondering whether Uki had his companions so cowed they were afraid to speak (unlikely, since only Kirkwood had never met him), or if they were acting under orders, or were simply deferring to him as de facto leader, when a sharp splash from the pool reminded him that one matter remained unresolved, though if what Uki had just said was true, that
he
regulated shapeshifting in his realm, he had an idea why.

“Adewehi,” he began again. “If I may be so bold—”

“You have been bold enough for one day,” Uki rumbled, gazing curiously down at the pool, where an irate salmon swam in ever more agitated circles.

Uki grimaced dramatically and squatted by the edge of the pool, extending one hand toward it. Calvin wondered if he intended to tickle the King of the Faeries into his grasp. He also wondered whether, given the volatile politics bouncing about just now, that might not also be construed as an insult, thereby precipitating another war, with the Lands of Men caught not so innocently between forces.