Circe's Gifts

Chapter 22

They slept in turns that night, Kalliope taking the last watch before the dawn. She hadn't slept well, but she wasn't alone. Everyone woke at the smallest sounds, which oddly made her feel better. Nothing would find them unprepared.

Dylan had insisted on being human again in case they had to discuss anything during the night. Kalliope thought that maybe he had become too fond of being human.

By the next night, they had outdistanced most of the rumors of war and the panicked people. Tiernan said that they were hardly more than a day's walk from the capital now. He looked worried most of the time which made Kalliope realize they had new troubles to face.

Humans were too complex. She didn't know what they should fear now. So finally, as they sat around a campfire off the main trail, she asked.

"You're worried," she said and looked him in the face. "Tell me what we need to worry about now."

Tiernan bowed his head and took a deep breath before he looked up again. He'd stayed human for most of the day, and it showed. His movements were less abrupt -- less hawk-like. He didn't flex his fingers as though they were talons. He nibbled at the bread they'd bought in the last village rather than tearing it apart with his teeth.

"I haven't been home in a long, long time," he said at last. "I don't know the King. My father. For all I know, Rolin might even have a real cause for rebellion."

"No," Pet said. "Circe and Mother wouldn't have sent us on this trip if their cause was just."

"Just in whose eyes?" Tiernan asked. "These are human matters. We might see things differently."

"Maybe so," Pet agreed. Kalliope frowned, trying to decide if the boy had reason to worry. Not that it would matter to her just now. She had her cause and would see it through. It was a matter of honor -- at least as long as she knew that she did not help evil, then there was no reason to worry about things she couldn't know.

Humans worried about too many things beyond their control.

She reached for another piece of goat's cheese. Odd stuff. She wasn't sure she liked the human food. So many things seemed to do the hard way. Just kill it and eat it --

Something whispered in the trees. She would have thought it was her imagination if all her companions hadn't gone instantly still when she did.

Not so much a sound as a lack of it. A feel, as though the dark world beyond their fire had gone very still.

She met Dylan's eyes. He was starting to stand slowly, his hand on the knife at his belt. Pet had carefully put aside the bit of bread he was eating. Tiernan rose more quickly, turning around to look behind as though he thought the danger came from that direction. In truth, Kalliope thought it came from everywhere.

And nowhere. Nothing. Just darkness and silence. Kalliope wanted to growl and chase something away. She wanted to protect her people. Her pack. Her companions.

The compulsion came so strongly that she changed to a wolf without even realizing what she was doing. Now she could growl and race toward the woods.

Pet yelled something. She didn't listen, not feeling inclined to take notice of a mouse's words in the heart of the trouble. She bounded toward the trees, and with her wolf vision, she could see the shapes within the shadows. Humans, after all -- though surely no mere humans could have gotten so close to them without notice. Magic, she suspected, was at fault here.

And she leapt among them.

Kalliope startled the humans. She'd moved very fast and now suspected that her change from human to wolf had frightened them. She hadn't considered it at the time and hadn't thought about the fact that she'd given away their biggest secret.

Kalliope snapped at the nearest human and tasted the tang of human blood, though she hadn't been trying to bite. It unsettled her, that taste. She backed up a step and another, growling deeply, wondering if she could kill them -- a dozen or more, and she alone in the woods with them. None of the others had come to help.

She glanced back over her shoulder, wondering why she had expected their aide -- and seeing why they hadn't given it.

There were more men in the little glade, and one of them -- one had magic. She could see and feel it from here. Dark magic that twisted around the forms of her friends -- forms that were withering in the faint firelight, changing and unchanging --

She howled, spun and charged. A sword whacked her across the hind hip, but she didn't slow. The magician turned to her and frowned, but didn't look bothered by the fact that a wolf was preparing to leap at him and tear his heart out.

"No," he said, waving a hand in her direction. The dark magic whispered around here. "I won't be stopped by that sort of game. Change to your true form."

The magic whispered into her skin, under her fur.

True form?

This was her true form. The mage looked startled when she kept coming. Had he thought she was a human shape changer? How interesting.

She bit his leg. He screamed, and the magic he had made failed in a cascade of sparks that were brighter than the fire. The others tore free of the lessening bounds, and she could hear their yells. The hawk reached their enemy first, talons slashing across the man's face. She would have preferred that Prince Tiernan stayed back, though she realized a hawk would be more help in a battle than a cat or a mouse. The mage started saying something -- odd words, she realized, not the language that she was used to hearing. There was something ominous in the chanting sound, and Calliope didn't like it. So she bit him again. Dylan, still as a human, grabbed the man and slugged him.

The magician staggered backward and lost the words as he shook his head, stunned by the blow. He waved his hand again, whispering quick words. Kalliope found that there was now an invisible barrier between her and the man, though it wasn't very strong. She began to press against it, her shoulder's hunched and her nose down.

The mage didn't remain for long. When Kalliope looked up, he disappeared, as did the humans who had arrived with him. The disappearance was so sudden that Kalliope nearly stumbled when the barrier disappeared.

"Damn!" Pet exclaimed. He sounded so angry that it startled her. She spun and turned human almost in the same breath. "We better move on quickly, Kalliope," he said. "That was him. The man on the pillows. Now that he knows so much about us, I don't think we want to be so easy to find."

Tiernan had circled twice and now landed, changing to human as well. He began to kick dirt over the fire, taking any choice in the matter out of everyone else's hands, which almost annoyed her, except that Kalliope knew he and Pet were both right.

She looked at Dylan. The fight hadn't helped him any. She saw fresh blood on the back of his shirt, and he had his arms wrapped around his chest -- but he looked at her with unexpected fire in his eyes. Dylan, she suspected, liked a good fight now and then -- especially when he won.

But at least he looked willing to run away now rather than risk another confrontation. Kalliope decided not to argue since she did agree with the decision. She just didn't like that they made it without her.

In moments they were moving through the trackless woods, though in human form. Kalliope thought the wolf would be better, but they might need to make decisions, and the ability to speak to one another seemed more important than any gain they might get from moving faster. Even Kalliope knew this race was not going to be won by speed.

They must be cunning now. And yes, that was an ability Kalliope didn't think she and her friends lacked.