Don Bassingthwaite - The Grieving Tree

“Ashi!” he called. “Stop and help me! Orshok, run slow-you’re our bait!”

He saw the young orc swallow, but keep going. Ashi stopped and whirled around. Geth grabbed her and pulled her into the shelter of the bend. He thrust the free end of the bolt of fabric into her hands. “Hold tight to this.”

Shouts echoed along the street. The first group of Vennet’s men had come after them. Geth and Ashi pressed back. Geth drew a deep breath, reached inside himself-and shifted.

Instincts, reflexes, and animal features weren’t the only legacy to shifters from their lycanthropic ancestors. Although they couldn’t take the true beast forms of their ancestors, shifters could take on bestial aspects. Some could grow claws or fangs. Some could put on incredible speed or enhance their senses. Geth’s shifting ability wasn’t so flamboyant or deadly, but he had always thought it was even more useful.

As the shifting swept through him, his skin toughened. His hair bristled and seemed to grow thick. A sensation of invulnerability pounded in his veins.

When Vennet’s men came pounding around the bend in the alley, their eyes fixed on Orshok, Geth roared and leaped out behind them. Startled, the men froze for just an instant. That was long enough for Geth. He darted forward, jumping around the men, the bolt of fabric unraveling behind him in an unlikely banner. Ashi realized what he was doing and ran around the other way to meet him, drawing the noose of fabric tight. Vennet’s men found themselves abruptly clustered together, pinned by the colorful cloth before they could draw their blades. Geth and Ashi turned almost in unison and threw themselves against the trapped men, laying them down with a flurry of hard, fast punches and kicks.

One sailor managed to squirm free and pull out a knife as the fabric noose fell slack. He lunged at Geth. The shifter swatted his attack aside, but the knife still connected. The blade slashed his arm-and left no more than a score in his shifting-toughened skin. Geth growled and smashed his elbow across the sailor’s face. The knife might have done no lasting damage, but it still hurt .

The man dropped like a stone, the last to go down-and just in time. Vennet’s voice swept down the street. People were staring down from windows above. A short distance along the street, Orshok was waiting, hopping from one foot to the other, ready to run again. Geth let go of the fabric and grabbed Ashi. “Come on. Half a dozen down is only a start.”

Ashi’s eyes were bright as they sprinted after Orshok, whipping around another bend in the street. “It was too easy,” she hissed between her teeth. “They moved slow. Did you see their eyes?”

Geth scowled. “I wasn’t looking at their eyes!”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, though, he could see in his memory exactly what Ashi meant. The sailors’ reactions had been slow, almost as if they had been drinking. Their eyes had been focused, but also strangely distant-as if a part of each man’s mind had been under the control of someone else. Another growl escaped him. “Dah’mir’s influence!”

“Where do you think he is?” asked Orshok. “Word of Vvaraak, why hasn’t he come after us?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to take to the sky over a crowded city,” said Ashi.

Or, Geth thought, maybe he couldn’t. The dragon’s stiff movements, the haggard look of pain on his human face … maybe Dah’mir couldn’t fly. Tiger’s blood, he wondered, how badly did I injure him?

He kept the thought to himself. If Dah’mir was somewhere behind them, they couldn’t led their guard down. Vennet and his men were still following, their shouts echoing along the twists of the street-once they lost them, they could worry about Dah’mir. Geth glanced down each of the alleys that split off from the street, but without exception, they were all even narrower than the street itself-and now was not the time to risk blundering into a dead-end.

Assuming that the twisting street wasn’t itself a dead-end.

As they skidded around a final corner, though, the buildings that had hemmed them in fell away. The crooked street opened up, merging with other streets to make a plaza along the side of a broad canal. To their left and ahead, wide streets ran off through the city. To their right, a bridge leaped across the canal. The plaza was busy-ordinary people going about their day’s errands, merchants strolling and talking, porters plodding under massive loads of goods. A strange smell like a hundred crushed plants mingled together made Geth’s nose twitch.

“That’s the herb market!” Orshok panted. The orc was running heavily, out of breath. “It’s close-on the other side of the canal. Singe and Dandra will be there. They can help us!”

A chill rolled along Geth’s back. “No!” he said, slowing in the middle of the plaza. “We can’t lead Vennet to them. Dandra’s vulnerable to Dah’mir’s power.”

“What do we do then?” asked Ashi. She swung around to face him-and her eyes focused on something high and behind him. Her mouth opened to shout a warning, but Geth was already spinning-

— as five black herons with acid-green eyes came swooping out of the sky, practically on top of them. He flung up one arm to shield his face and flailed wildly with his other, trying to bat the birds away. He smelled a greasy, coppery stink as one of the birds struck. Pain raked along his arm. As the birds flapped back up into the air, he glanced at his arm. The heron’s sharp talons had drawn blood even through his tough hide!

He spun around. The birds were beating for altitude again, coming around. People across the plaza were shouting and turning to look. Ashi was helping Orshok to his feet. There were long slashes in the druid’s sleeves and bloody scratches on his forehead. Geth jumped to his side, teeth bared. “I’m really starting to hate those damn herons!”

There was anger in Orshok’s eyes. “Then let’s give them something to worry about besides us!” He thrust his hands-his hunda stick clenched in one, the fingers of the other spread wide-toward the sky and spat a prayer.

Nature stirred and answered his call. In the sky above the wheeling herons, the afternoon light seemed to fold and part. With a chorus of brittle shrieks, four eagles burst out of the air and hit the herons in a flurry of feathers and talons. One of the herons fell to the wooden plaza almost immediately, its neck broken. The others scattered, pursued by the eagles.

The display of magic drew even more attention to them, however-some of it distinctly unwelcome.

“Geth!” shouted Vennet. “Ashi, you treacherous bitch!

Geth turned to see the half-elf standing in the mouth of the crooked street they had just left, his dim-eyed crew spreading out around their captain. He recognized many of them, including a formerly friendly, steadfast sailor named Karth. If Karth had been turned to hunting them down, Geth knew, something had definitely taken control of Vennet’s men.

He also knew that they couldn’t just keep running. He crouched down, a snarl tearing itself from his throat and reached for his sword. Ashi was at his side, her hand on her weapon as well. The bystanders closest to them pulled back swiftly.

Then Orshok’s voice rippled through the air in another desperate prayer. The afternoon light vanished in the roiling cloud of thick mist that took shape all around them.

“Grandmother Wolf!” Geth’s curse was lost in the shouts of alarm from the people around. The shifter reached out and grabbed the dim shape that was Ashi and pulled her with him toward Orshok. The young orc loomed out of the mist like a ghost.

Geth grabbed him, too. “Move! This isn’t going to stop Vennet!”

“He can’t see us.”