Chapter 21: Chapter twenty

All shapers expel the energy that they shape in what is known as vis-state before converting it back into its original form. In this state, the energy is largely intangible, being affected by the physical world, but having no obvious effect on it in return. The shaper can exert a certain amount of control over this vis-state energy and convert it back to its original form at will. However, at a certain distance from the shaper, this vis-state energy will convert back to its original form independent of the shaper’s desires (painshapers being the exception to this description, read their section for details). The range that this vis-state energy can travel before it converts back to its original state is different for different kinds of shaper (see the table above for details).

• The Fundamentals of Shaping

 

Kalissa and Sarina caught up with the Yarrls in the middle of the night. Their campfire was easy enough to see from some distance away, and only one of them appeared to be on watch while the other two slept.

They stopped a safe distance away, near some trees that gave Sarina cover and gave them somewhere to tie their horses. Then Kalissa started to change. It wasn’t much, just adjusting her hair and skin colour to better blend in to the long Salitian grasses, but it still took her almost half an hour. A full-blooded skard could have done it in the blink of an eye. But then, a full-blooded human couldn’t have done it at all, so perhaps the waterskin was half full.

She finished and stepped from under the tree where she had been concentrating. Sarina looked up from where she was lying, passing the time with a bottle of something strong and purple.

“Aveth’shod surang fet’zesh!” Sarina said, spitting her liquor on the grass. “You’re green!”

“So are you,” Kalissa said absently, double-checking her supplies.

Sarina was on her feet and looking freaked. “You’re a Savec-uhn? One of the god-spawn?”

Kalissa had never heard the word before, and had frankly forgotten that she hadn’t mentioned to Sarina that she was a changeling. That weird guy at the bar had noticed and Kalissa had just assumed he had mentioned it to Sarina and the others he had been meeting with. Plus, everyone back in Inveritus seemed to know, she wasn’t used to people she worked with freaking out. That was worrying. A significant oversight, but one Kalissa would have to address later. Right then, she had Yarrls to kill.

“I don’t know what that is,” Kalissa said. “But I’m a changeling. One of my parents was skard.”

“Ah,” Sarina said, visibly calming down. “Only quarter-god then. That is not so bad. I knew a man once who was quarter-god on his mother’s side. Good enough fellow.” This last seemed to be said mostly to convince herself.

“Right, I definitely want to know what all of that means. But I’d rather not stand around chatting this close to the Yarrls camp. I’m going to sneak over there now. Are you going to be okay to cover me if something goes wrong?”

Sarina looked offended at this, which was good as that seemed to be a much more natural emotion for her. “Of course. You have hired me for that purpose.”

“Okay good. Then here goes.”

Sarina nodded and started stringing her sur-bow while Kalissa crawled through the long grass towards the side of the Yarrls camp. The grass was damp and Kalissa had to get a lot closer to their camp than she would like. There wasn’t any good cover around, which is probably why they had chosen that spot in the first place, so she stayed as low to the ground as she could and swung wide around the camp to come back in from the north where the Yarrl on watch, it looked like Bald, wouldn’t get as good a view of her while he was looking out to the east.

Kalissa would rather have come from the west, where she would be at his back, but she needed to be upwind in order to distribute the poison. She had been building up a tolerance to trackersbane for a while now, in theory she should be almost totally immune to it. She hadn’t ever taken a dose as large as she was planning on using on the Yarrls before, but so long as the wind stayed with her, she wouldn’t have to.

She wasn’t far away now, perhaps thirty feet from the edge of the camp. She just had to get a little closer and she could release the poison. Before she could cover the distance, she heard something. The sound of horses in the distance. Bald seemed to notice it too and went to wake the others.

No.

Kalissa was going to lose her chance. If the men broke camp now, there was a good chance she would be spotted. Then, even if she escaped with her life, they would be much more wary of her in the future. They’d post better watches and camp away from even tallish grass. She wouldn’t be able to avenge Carlton’s death.

The anger that had sat in her belly, that had been lulled to sleep by ridiculous situations, twisted sharply. Kalissa did something stupid.

She sprang up and ran for the camp, pulling the poison from her cloak pocket as she did. She was moving for about three seconds before Bald spotted her, then there was shouting and going for weapons.

Bald picked up a crossbow he had kept nearby while on watch. Small drew a long knife from his belt. Big, who was obviously the juggernaut from earlier, pulled his enormous war hammer from a pile of gear. The thing was roughly the size of a person and significantly heavier. It would have been completely impractical for any normal man to even lift, let alone fight with, but juggernauts are only men in the most technical of senses.

The horses were drawing closer.

Kalissa flung the poison.

And then the wind changed.

 

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Sal ran for it. He barged his way past the slave girl and went for the guest bedroom he had come in through.

Guards charged up the stairwell. Crossbows twanged and quarrels flew.

Sal threw out one of those unsubtle blasts of force he derided earlier and the quarrels spun and bounced off the walls. He flung another wave of force at the guards and they clattered into each other and several fell back down the stairs.

Sal dashed through the spare bedroom and leaped straight out of the hole he had put in the wall. He bounced force off the ground to slow his fall and landed without injuring himself.

Where he was immediately tackled by one of the guards.

Sal panicked a little. Being pinned to the ground was only a step away from being buried in it, so he whipped his right hand back and hit the guard with a massive blast of force that sent him flying into the night.

The sound of angry dogs barking came from behind.

Sal scrambled to his feet and made for the nearest wall. He released more force to create a crosswind behind him that would hopefully foul any shots the guards took at him. He couldn’t direct them to pass him by as he had in Inveritus woods while he was on the move, as he’d either leave the current of force behind him or run into it and get thrown to the ground, so a stiff breeze was the best he could do. Sal had expended a lot of force on this job already, and he was beginning to run low.

The perimeter guards appeared ahead of him. They had split up and were aiming crossbows at him from both his left and right. Too far apart to hit both with a wave of force, and if he took the time to hit one, he would get skewered by the other.

Sal bounced force off the ground and threw himself into the air, soaring over the shots of the two surprised guards. He hit the ground hard, not having enough force left to waste any cushioning his landing. He tried to roll as he landed, but he had gotten so used to softening his falls with forceshaping that he bungled it and his leg flared with pain as something bent in a way it wasn’t supposed to. Sal picked himself up as quickly as he could manage and half-ran-half-limped to the outer wall.

The sound of barking was drawing closer.

One of the guards had reloaded his crossbow and was drawing down on him, so Sal flung a wave of force at him that knocked him to the ground and sent the crossbow skittering away. The other guard had drawn a sword and was coming at Sal. Sal sent more force at this guard, shaping it to come in from the side and push the man’s sword arm. The guard fell, staring in surprise at his own sword, sticking out of his torso.

Sal reached the wall, but he couldn’t fling himself over it. He had used all his force and needed to store up some more.

Then the dogs caught up with him.

 

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A cloud of poison hit Kalissa in the face and she started coughing. She could taste the acrid tang of trackersbane in the back of her throat and her eyes were streaming. Bald levelled his crossbow at her. He grinned a cruel grin. There was no way he would miss from this close, even at night.

Then an arrow sprouted from his head and he collapsed.

Thanks Sarina.

The other two Yarrls reacted immediately. Big dove for his pile of gear and came up wearing a massive helmet. Small oriented on the direction the arrow had come from and did something weird with his mouth, opening it too wide and seeming to taste the air. Then he pointed and spat something in Yarrlish to Big who thundered off to find Sarina. Big got about two steps before an arrow appeared in his leg. The arrow stood on its own, penetrating through Big’s leathers and into the muscle beneath, but he kept going like it was only a minor inconvenience, keeping his beefy arms in front of his chest to protect his vitals.

Small sprang at Kalissa, knife flashing.

Kalissa drew her own knife. She was adept at knife fighting, especially for someone her age, but it became obvious within the first couple of seconds that Small had her badly outclassed. He moved faster than she would have thought possible, certainly faster than she could effectively block. Every couple of strikes, he scored a cut on her somewhere. They weren’t deep, and none of them would have been dangerous on their own. But they hurt, slowing her down, and they bled, her life leaking out of her one drip at a time.

Small was grinning broadly, his mouth wide open. He was seemingly consumed with the same instinct to destroy the ones who kill your friends that had driven Kalissa to this plan in the first place.

Kalissa was slick with blood, her eyes were watering, and she could still taste the trackersbane in her mouth. Which gave her an idea.

Kalissa roared her defiance and launched a desperate attack at Small’s midsection. He flicked Kalissa’s knife away with his own and then brought it around to stab at her neck. Kalissa’s left arm came up to block the blow and the knife cut her down to the bone.

But it brought her close enough. Face to face with Small, Kalissa spat in his mouth.

Small laughed in her face, grinding his knife against the bones in her forearm. Then, the realization that something was terribly wrong spread across his face as the trackersbane began to take effect. Kalissa knew the feeling well from the many times she had taken the poison to build up an immunity to it. Right then all the man’s muscles were seizing up and a terrible weight was pressing down on his chest, squeezing the voice out of him. Kalissa could see the horror in his eyes as he tried to call for help and all that came out was a wheeze.

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Kalissa spat on him again for reasons that had nothing to do with practicality.

 

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Sal was out of force and a pair of angry dogs were bearing down on him. Sleek, dark-furred Salitian hunting dogs, they were all sharp features and sharper teeth. This was, to put it mildly, bad. Sal could absorb the force of the dogs’ charge using his left hand and stop them in their tracks, but all that force would have to pass through his hand before he could convert it to vis and store it. That much would break his hand for sure, and without a working left hand, he couldn’t absorb any more force. It wasn’t a practical option.

But he didn’t have to stop the whole dog.

Sal splayed his left hand and concentrated. He calmed his mind, letting the pain and the angry barking become simple background noise. He waited until the leading dog came into range, and then he absorbed the force from just its left-front leg.

One of the dog’s legs abruptly stopped, robbed of its kinetic energy, while the other three kept going at the same speed. The one fouled the others and the creature yipped and went down in a tumble of fur and limbs.

Sal used the force he had absorbed to push on one of the other dog’s legs to achieve a similar result and turned back to the wall. There wasn’t time to safely absorb enough force to get himself up and over it, so he would have to do it the old-fashioned way. He knew there was a tree growing near enough to one wall somewhere around there, but he was turned around from running for his life. He stopped and looked around, trying to get his bearings.

There.

Sal took off for the tree as fast as his injured leg could carry him. The guards he had flung around earlier were beat-up enough that they didn’t get up and follow him, but the dogs seemed to be picking themselves up and would probably be after him again soon, no doubt striving for doggedly excellence and a chance at humanity in their next lives. Of course, the dogs’ next lives wasn’t nearly as pressing to Sal as his own current one, so the virtues of the dogs went unappreciated in the moment.

The other guards were after him, shouting and pointing weapons. A crossbow twanged and there was nothing Sal could do about it. He just had to run as best he could and hope the guards weren’t very good shots.

And then a light flared in Sal’s eyes, brighter than the noonday sun on the hottest day of the year.

Idiot, Sal thought. Of course Bracken has a lightshaper on staff. Who else was working that lightshaping contraption from Inveritus? Should have planned for that.

Sal turned away from the source of the light immediately, but the damage was done. With his eyes adjusted to the night, the light had blinded him. So, Sal ran forward into blackness, the sounds of shouting men and barking dogs getting ever closer.

 

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The small Yarrl collapsed and Kalissa went down with him. The movement dislodged the knife in her arm and, now that she wasn’t fighting for her life, the pain hit her like a runaway horse. She tried to scream but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs and she just sobbed on the ground. She was bloody and weak, and her muscles were starting to get sluggish from the trackersbane. She had the presence of mind to take the knife from the paralyzed Yarrl and jam it into his neck, but then things got blurry.

There were sounds of fighting somewhere in the distance. Men shouted. Horses brayed. Things were smashed with something large and heavy.

None of it meant much to Kalissa. She was lying in the grass cradling her arm and trying to remember what it was she was doing. She couldn’t think straight through the pain. She had never really understood what it meant for pain to be mind-numbing before, but she had a pretty good idea now. Her mind was wandering about, doing anything it could to not focus on the blinding agony that her arm was reporting, like thinking about what it is for something to be mind-numbing.

After what felt like a long moment, Kalissa collected enough of her thoughts to realize she should be doing something. She needed to get up, needed to move.

A horse was approaching.

She started slowly pushing herself to her feet, fighting her body for every vertical inch.

The horse was getting closer. She could hear a man shouting but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

She got one foot under herself and heaved. It felt like the most difficult thing she had ever done, but she stood up.

The rider on the horse whacked her on the head and she passed out.

 

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Sal couldn’t see. The world had become a mess of dark blobs and angry noises. He thought he was moving towards the tree, but he had no idea how he was going to climb it once he got there.

One thing at a time. Keep moving or die.

Sal half-dragged himself across the grounds, his injured leg protesting every step. The dogs sounded uncomfortably close.

Then hands were grabbing him.

Well, this is it, Sal thought. It’s been a good life, hope I’m not a worm in the next one.

“Come on!” A half-familiar voice hissed at him. “We’ve got to go.”

The hands were pulling him along. Sal wasn’t captured. He could hear fighting nearby, but he had no idea who would be fighting for him, especially since Sarina went off with that girl.

Perhaps they think I’m someone else.

Whoever-it-was placed Sal’s hands on a rope ladder and he climbed blindly up. He reached the top of the wall and flopped over it onto the ground with all the grace of a fish taking a holiday on land. Strong hands pulled him up and manoeuvred him onto the back of a horse.

As they rode away and Sal’s vision started to clear, he saw he had been rescued by the staff of the Snake Pit. He rode with a bouncer he didn’t recognize on one side, and a whore he definitely did on the other. Behind him Eve and Carrus were climbing over the fence and pulling the ladder up after them. They had horses waiting for them and caught up quickly.

“So,” Carrus said, his long hair matted with sweat. “Did you get the lumographs?”

 

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Kalissa woke with a start. She was bound and slung over the back of a horse. Hard men rode all around her and there were an awful lot of horses without riders.

“She’s awake boss,” one of them said. Half his face was one massive bruise and one eye was swollen shut.

A nasty-looking man in a long coat that Kalissa recognized as Philious Bracken directed his horse over to the one carrying Kalissa. “So she is, so she is. Well little missy, you speak Cutso?”

I still have green skin. They probably think I’m a delkin.

Kalissa nodded, not trusting her voice at the moment.

“Good,” Bracken said. “Then I can explain your situation to you. Your friend killed several of my men and took something that belongs to me.”

He’s talking about Sarina. She got away then.

“If she values your life, she’s going to bring it back. Either way, my boys here are feeling sore. Losing friends does that to a bloke. They’re going to take it out on you. Do you know what that means?”

Kalissa said nothing.

“It means we’re going to hurt you. Bad.”

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