Shadow Walker
by James 'Fel' Galloway
Chapter 7
There was a big difference between understanding how to do something, and actually doing it.
The room was dark, with only a tiny point of light coming in from a covered window to produce deep, deep shadow, the type of shadow he needed right now, since he was still learning this trick. This was shadow at its strongest, the darkest shadow could get before becoming complete dark, which was not shadow and therefore meant nothing. For it to be shadow, there had to be light. There was nothing in the room except for him, and he sat on the floor, nude, eyes open and both mind and body completely attuned to the shadow that surrounded him. He could see it, sense it, was part of it, and he was in a state of concentration, of meditation, that allowed him to control it.
For two straight days he had worked at nothing but this. Three times, he had almost managed to accomplish his objective of disappearing from this empty room and appearing in the cellar, in a closed-off area with naught but a tiny window in one corner almost against the ceiling, leaving the room in dark shadow. Three times, he had managed to disappear from the room he was in, but failed to traverse the distance and appear in the cellar because of the nature of where he went when he vanished.
He had been wrong about one thing. The fox hadn't stepped through that other place instantly. There was real travel involved in that other place, that place of shadow, and the three times he had entered it, he had lost his concentration and had fallen back into the real world because the place was confusing . . . and unwelcoming.
There were . . . things in there. The three times he'd crossed into the shadow, he sensed them almost immediately, and they were not friendly. All three times, he appeared within that world of shadow, saw where he wanted to go, but then the vertigo of the place would assault him because it was a place that had no up or down, no near or far, not even a sense of time. It merely was, in its myriad forms, and that radical difference from the real world was enough to confuse him. Just about the time he was starting to get his senses in there and would be able to cross over to the cellar, he would sense them, sense them coming towards him, seeking him out. Without seeing them, without getting anywhere near them, he could feel that they would not greet him kindly if they caught him. Their presence would make him antsy and uncertain, he would lose his concentration, and then fall back into the real world.
But he would persevere. He knew he could do it, he was absolutely certain of it. He just had to conquer the vertigo and get to where he wanted to be quickly as soon as he entered that shadowy world. It was a place with no sense of distance, but there was distance in that he had to get from his start point to his end point while inside that place. It was like . . . like a ten year journey accomplished by a single step. Distance, time, they were jumbled in there, they all but didn't exist, and he had the feeling that the only reason he perceived distance between his start and end points was because he believed there was distance between them. He was thinking in real-world terms in a place that had no similar dimensions, and his belief was enough to cause what he believed to be his own reality within it.
That was what he was trying to solve now. He had to convince himself that there was no distance, just like convincing himself in the veracity of an illusion so as to fool others, but, he also had to maintain the sense of distance between him and the things in there, so they couldn't get him. His sense of distance impressed itself upon them as well as himself, and forced them to actually travel to get close to him, which gave him the time to get scared, get confused, and then lose his concentration and drop out of that world back where he started.
He situated himself, framing everything in his mind. All his practice and work using illusions was going to help him now, for he had conditioned his mind to work in the exact way it needed to work to do this, to selectively believe something in one manner, but believe in a matter that contradicted the first without ruining either one. It was all about how it was framed in his mind. He envisioned it as a simple step, a doorway from which he would step and another into which he would enter that were but a single step apart, which was vital point since his entire body had to enter that other place for this to work. He had to spend some time completely within that shadow world, and he would envision it as a single step. He would appear in the world with the door from which he came behind him, and the door into which he would go immediately before him, dominating his field of view and allowing him to cross to his destination with a single step. These doors would be far, far away from the beings in there, to give him the time he needed to take that single step and return to the real world where he wanted to appear.
He was ready to try again.
He blew out his breath and closed his eyes to center himself, and then he opened them and called out to the shadow. It responded immediately, surrounding him, infusing him, and he wrapped them around himself like a blanket, just as the fox had done so many times. The shadows converged around him, and when they fully surrounded him, he pushed at them in a way he couldn't quite explain, pushing an opening into that other place. This part he had accomplished many times, opening the doorway into the shadowy world, but only three times had he actually passed through it and tried to move. He had practiced opening the doorway many times before trying to go through it to ensure he could do it right, make it stable; he didn't relish the idea of losing concentration and having it cut him in half when it closed while he was inside it. When the door was open, he didn't step through it, he instead had the doorway pass around him. His eyes swam in an undulating darkness, like being in a sea of swirling ink, and a very cold mist seemed to surround him; the shadows were not a place of warmth, but of cold. A strange, dank smell touched his nose, but he found no need to breathe, in fact could not force his lungs to exhale, as if there was nothing here to breathe . . . yet he found no need or desire to do so. The room took on a strangeness, as if the walls and floor were made of taffy, undulating and shifting along unseen currents. And he felt them, those malevolent entities. They were out there, they knew he was here, and they started towards him.
He was here.
He felt the dizziness and fear almost immediately, a feeling of no up, no down, like he was falling in place a million minars an hour. But he had had three prior attempts to prepare him for this sensation, and he battled against it as he focused his mind through the haze, through the cold, through the chilling smell, through the feeling that the whole world was made of tree sap oozing down a branch, and concentrated on the task at hand. The door. He reached out with his senses through the living molasses around him, sending the shadows, sensing, understanding, that the vertigo he was suffering was caused by the fact that some of the shadows around him were in the real world, and some were here in this shadow world. The intersection of the two kinds of shadows were a paradox to his mind, and he couldn't make sense of them, which caused everything around him to seem to swim as if the world were trapped in one of the gelatin dessert treats famous in Alamar. He paused a brief moment, fighting the vertigo, trying to look into it, trying to feel the shadows around him, both in the real world and in this world.
The vertigo faded somewhat. He was able to penetrate the undulating curtain with his senses; not sight or smell, but that innate sense of shadow that seemed to be part of the powers that the fox gave him. He focused on that sense, sensing the shadows, and he could feel them, feel them around him, and could feel those that were in the real world . . . but not with the same precision he usually could when not doing this. He could also feel those things getting closer, advancing on him with certain speed, for he could sense them as much as the shadows around him. He separated out the shadows of the real world from this world in his mind, and he could sense them in a way that almost seemed to draw a hazy picture of the entire plantation, but those shadows all seemed to be not even past his own elbow.
Another indicator that distances were not the same here as they were in the real world, that in fact there was no distance in here but what he decided was distance. This world had no rules, no boundaries, except what boundaries were enforced upon it by a sentient mind, which was only natural because a sentient mind defined itself by the boundaries around which it was set.
An epiphany, he realized as he sensed the shadows around him; there was no distance here. He could move from a shadow in the Free Territories to a shadow in Haven. He would have to learn how to assence the shadows of a place distant from him within the scope of the real world first, but when he figured it out, he'd be able to step through the shadows across half the continent.
But that was something to worry about some other time, for those things were getting much closer and much faster, almost as if they had ferreted out his trick and were using their own wills to remove the distance he placed between them. He reached out with his senses and found the shadows in the cellar, just like the other three times, but this time he kept his mind utterly focused on the task. He motioned with an arm and caused a swirling vortex to appear in front of him, the intersection of the shadows of the cellar and the shadows of this world, and then he pushed the same way he pushed to get in. He felt the vortex in front of him shift, become a gateway, and he moved to step through it--
And moved not an inch.
Immediately he realized that this place had the same rules for him it did for the shadows. There was no distance here, and that meant that he couldn't physically move so much as he enforced his concept of distance on the world and made the portal move towards him. That was the mistake he made the other times! In this place, one didn't move one's body from one point to the other, the body remained stationary while the entire world moved around it!
Using his control of shadow, he beckoned the gateway as he felt those things get very, very close, almost close enough to see, filled with hatred and a hunger, a hunger for his warmth, a warmth that was alien to this place. The gateway shuddered but didn't move, which surprised him. He instinctively took a step towards the portal, and then it swept forward suddenly to surround him even as he stepped towards it. The cold seemed to waver, the world to his eyes seemed to dim, swirl, and then solidify, and then he felt a sudden urge to breathe.
When the shadows stabilized around him, he was standing in the cellar, in a dark shadow underneath the single tiny window high up on the wall, a cellar filled with brandy casks that were placed on racks spaced evenly across the floor.
He did it!
He jumped to his feet and gave out a joyous cry, pumping his fist in the air, and promptly bashed it against the low roof. He winced and made a hissing sound, then he laughed ruefully as he shook his hand. He did it, and it wasn't even that hard! It only took four tries to figure it out! He quickly centered himself and beckoned to the shadows, and had them converge on him. He again pushed into the shadow world, and felt those things literally all but on top of him. He ignored it as best he could, moving swiftly, because he felt as if he could almost see one of them as soon as he showed up, and they started moving towards him quickly as soon as he appeared. Since he was very familiar with where he'd just left, he quickly found that spot, beckoned to the shadows there, and had them rise up into the shadowy world and then take him with them when they returned, pushing himself from the shadow world back into the real one. He again moved from that shadowy place filled with chaotic sights and cold and dank smell and the imminent sense that the things there were almost within arm's reach of him, back into the real world. It happened with great speed this time, both because of the fear inspired by the proximity of those creatures in the shadow and also because he'd just moved between the same two points just a moment before. With much more speed and surety than the first time, he was again in his dark, bare room, after he stepped through the shadow world and back into the real world.
"Yes!" he shouted in triumph.
But triumph wasn't complete until he could do it without any kind of preparation, when his life may depend on his ability to vanish into the shadow world at the blink of an eye. So, he had won the battle, but he had a lot of work to do to make it as automatic as illusions were now. He knew that even though he'd accomplished, he had shadow walked, he had only scratched the surface of the ability. He could tell from the brief exposure to that world that it had its own rules, and since there was no distance within, he could use that trick to move vast distances in the blink of an eye, but only if he mastered the ability. He had to learn how to sense distant shadows--distant in the real world anyway--and what had to be the ultimate use of the ability, he needed to learn how to surround himself with his own shadow the way the fox could, create her own shadows and use them to enter the shadow world. If he really worked at it, he could find some way to create shadows in the real world from the shadow world and then appear within them, which would let him shadow walk anywhere, day or shine, shadow or no shadow. That trick, he knew, would take a long time, because one thing he noticed when he was there in the shadow world was that it was dynamic. Where shadow did not exist, it did not exist in the shadow world, leaving it a broken jumble, like that cheese with holes in it, a worldscape filled with voids where there were no shadows in the real world. It was how he imagined it, but that introduced the concept of distance into the place, and it had no distance. It had no time. It had nothing but what the conscious mind impressed upon it.
That was what he had to do, he had to master that other world, become as comfortable as possible with it, learn its secrets. That world was the key to this power; the better he understood that other place, the more effective the ability would be.
He was a little wary, though. That second time, those things had seemed all but on top of him the instant he shifted into the shadow world. It was a place without distance, but they sure as hell felt like they were only paces away from him, and that proximity had scared him into moving fast. But thank the spirits, he'd not lost his concentration and had managed to move back to the room rather than fall back into the basement. Despite the fear and the sense of danger, he had maintained his concentration and completed the shadow walk.
She was there. He turned and saw her sitting sedately, her tail wrapped around her legs, but her expression was strange. It was . . . prideful. He knelt down and held out his hand to her, feeling that strange mixture of respect and hatred he had for his spirit, and she placed her large, clawed forepaw in his hand. And in that touch, there was communication. Well done, my Shaman, she intoned strongly. You accomplished it much faster than I expected. It is not as easy as it appears. Getting out is much harder than getting in, because you must make sense of a world much different from this one. Yet you did so, and very quickly. I am proud of you.
"Thank you. What are those things in there, sister fox?" he asked. "I felt them, and they felt . . . ominous. I was afraid of them, so I stayed away from them."
They are the beings of the shadow world, those who call it home. Do not let them catch you, my Shaman. They are attracted to your warmth, and they will kill you should they catch you, they will drain your warmth from you. It is their hunger you sense, and since you are what they seek to eat, your mind comprehends that sensation as fear. It is a healthy fear. I avoid them as well. They are not friends to those who move through their world. Continue to practice, but no more practice today. You are correct in that you have only just touched on the surface of this power, and once you master it, you will be all but unstoppable.
"You told me long ago that my shadow powers would rival my Shaman ability. Now I see why."
She nodded. You have within you the power to cross the entire continent in the blink of an eye, penetrate any defense, circumvent any obstacle. With this power, you can literally walk through walls, and be naught but a ghost. When you return to Avannar, they will be defenseless against you. But remember, my Shaman, remember always. Your ability to practice is limited by your ability to avoid them. The more you enter their world from a certain place, the closer they will be when you enter again. You cannot stay in one place too long or they will find you, and will literally be there waiting for you should you enter their world again. That is why it is no longer safe to practice today. Those beings within have found where you left their world, and they are waiting there for you to appear again, like a bear at a stream awaiting a fish. They will lurk near your entry point for some time before they give up the hunt and move away. When you practice, limit yourself to only ten walks into the shadow from any one place within the span of a day, and if they get close enough for you to almost feel as if you can see them, then cease practice for the day, for they will be too close to you. Until you gain such a mastery of the power that you can exceed this restriction safely, follow it. Though there may not seem to be time or distance in that world, they do exist. They are only influenced by the conscious mind, who can alter those dimensions as it sees fit when it enters that world. That too attracts the entities, for it is an alteration of their natural state.
"When I managed to walk the first time, I imagined being far away from them before I went in, and it seemed to work."
It will, temporarily, but they are not mindless, my Shaman. They will learn to see through the trick for what it is. Remember that as you think up ways to deceive them, they will be working to penetrate your deception. They are clever, and they remember tricks you have used in the past. So use deception only when it is needful. Do not let them learn your tricks for keeping them at bay for silly reasons, or they will see through them the one time you can't afford to have it happen. When you have fully mastered this power, they will no longer be as dangerous to you that they are now, but now, as you are learning, is when they pose the greatest threat to you. Even as you learn how to move from place to place through the shadows, work also to understand the shadow world. Your understanding of that world is your protection from those who live within it. When you learn enough, the entities within will only pose a threat to you if you make a mistake.
Remember always, my Shaman, that you enter that world at the risk of death, every time. That is why I am here now, warning you, when usually I would allow you to learn yourself. I have no use for a Shaman I must coddle, who does not improve himself of his own volition, she sniffed. You have learned how to shadow walk on your own. I would be a poor totem for not explaining to you the dangers now that you have unlocked the power within you. So long as you exercise proper caution, you will master this power safely. Just always keep the danger in the forefront of your mind, my Shaman. This power is the most powerful ability you possess, but it is also the deadliest to you. Mastering it will reduce the danger, but you must face that danger to master it. Do so with care and caution.
"I'll be careful," he promised.
As it should be, she intoned calmly, removing her paw from his hand and putting it back on the floor. She regarded him with her glowing emerald eyes for a moment, then she called forth the shadows of the room, and they carried her off into the shadow world.
Well, she wasn't afraid of those things to use the shadows to leave from the same point where they'd be waiting for her . . . but then again, she said that those who mastered the power had little to fear from those shadow entities. What did she say exactly? Oh yes, that knowledge of their world was the protection from them. The fox clearly had much more understanding of that shadow world than him, so she was not afraid to enter it all but on top of those malevolent things.
He wanted to practice more, but she had specifically warned him not to do so, and so he would not, both because he respected the danger she was sure to explain to him, and also because she was his totem and she gave him a direct order, and he would not disobey his totem. It was what she expected of him. It took him a while to figure that out, he had to admit. She didn't expect him to act like anything but himself. He had thought to act like Clover, thinking she was what a Shaman should be, but that was an unwise conclusion. Shaman were individuals, and there was no one way to be a Shaman. Even though Stalker and Clover were very different, they were both still Shaman. Stalker was violent and hated humans, Clover was gentle and sweet-natured, but both were still Shaman. Kyven just had to be himself, act in his own way, make his own decisions and be who he was meant to be. His gained wisdom would change some of his decisions as he learned from his mistakes and became smarter, but it wouldn't change the fundamental nature of who he was, and it was to that nature which he must be true. Sometimes that would put him against his totem, sometimes it would not. He understood that now. Just as she didn't seek his approval, he now understood that he didn't have to seek her approval. She wanted an independent thinker, someone she could tell what she wanted done and allow him to go about doing it in his own way. As long as the job got done, she didn't care how he did it.
That was the crux of it. She wanted Kyven Steelhammer, not someone who changed who he was to try to fit into a mold that didn't really suit him. She had taught him how to appreciate other ways of thinking and doing things, through changing him into an Arcan and later as he worked with his illusions, but she still wanted him for who he was. His experience being an Arcan had changed him, he couldn't deny that, but it was a change for the better. He'd walked in both worlds, and it gave him a unique outlook on things. But that was what wisdom was all about, he supposed, to see through opened eyes, to learn, to understand, and to allow that understanding to influence one's actions in the future. All he had to be was himself, and learn how being a Shaman changed Kyven Steelhammer, not to change Kyven Steelhammer because he wanted to be a Shaman.
It was an esoteric, ethereal concept, but maybe that was one of the things that wisdom was supposed to give a man. The ability to make such delicate distinctions.
Or maybe he was just full of shit, who knew?
He left the little room and was almost knocked down by Clover. She clung to him and slurped her tongue from his chin to his forehead, which made him laugh. "I felt her in there," she told him. "Did you make progress?"
"I pulled it off," he grinned. "Twice."
"You did? Good job!" she congratulated, licking his cheek. "Is that why she came?"
He shook his head and pushed out of her arms enough to cross the hall to his room, where his clothes were laid out on the bed. He had no idea if clothes could go when he did that, so he'd decided to err on the side of caution while trying to learn how to do it. Tomorrow, however, he'd try it with clothes on, just to see what happened. "It turns out it's actually quite dangerous," he told Clover, explaining about the entities within the shadow world as he dressed. "The shadow fox warned me to be very careful while practicing, and never try to shadow walk from the same place too many times or they'd find where I was coming in and out and ambush me the instant I showed up on the other side."
"A sensible warning," she nodded, sitting on the bed as he sat down to pull on his boots. "Did you see one of them?"
"No, but I felt like it was right on top of me the second time I did it, like I could have punched it in the nose before I got through," he answered. "It scared the piss out of me. I managed to finish the walk, though."
"A wise man can fear without being ruled by it," she said sagely.
"So can a wise coyote," he said with a slight smile as he stood up and pulled on his shirt, then buttoned it up. "Any word on the rifles?"
She shook her head. "Nothing yet. But since we have heard nothing, that means the Loreguard haven't found them either."
"How are they getting here?"
"Wagons," she answered. "There are ten wagons holding the cases and supplies that go with them, moving along the country lanes and along some old trails wide enough for wagons that only locals know. But, since this is my territory, I know them. I gave the drivers very detailed maps. They should get here any time now, and won't pass through a single village."
"So, you knew about this before I did."
"I only knew where they wanted the rifles to go," she said. "Lightfoot and I got word of it the day we attacked the ship."
"I wonder why the council didn't call up Danvers to lead the Arcans," Kyven mused as Clover stood up and they walked out of his room. "He has much more experience than Danna, and he could have built a very good army."
"He would have said no," she answered immediately. "He has said no in the past to similar offers, offers to organize a guerilla army of the Masked. After spending so many years moving, he wanted to stay in one place, my brother, but he does help in one way by teaching members of the Masked about fighting, they just have to come here. Besides, the spirits demanded Danna. They see something in her we do not. We must accede to their wisdom, for it is greater than ours."
"But he'll be moving again," Kyven grunted as they came to the stairs. "I guess he can't ignore how serious it is now."
"No," she said. "I've known him for three years, my brother, and he's very worried. Not just at what we have to do, but at what is happening. He told me at breakfast that he sees the entire continent at war within the year. When Flaur attacks the Loremasters, and word gets out as to exactly why they're attacking, it will be the torch thrown into the powder magazine."
"Just more substantiation of what we told you, Clover."
She nodded soberly. "I can say I fully believe you now, brother. But it's not easy. I've been around humans most of my life, but sometimes I just don't understand them."
"We don't even understand ourselves," he said self-deprecatingly. "Arcans are much easier to understand. They're simple, but complex at the same time."
They stepped out onto the back porch, where Danvers was sitting at a round table with a cup of what looked like coffee before him, reading from a book. Out in the back yard, Lightfoot was with Lucky, and she was "teaching" him how to fight. In reality, she was systematically beating him senseless. Lucky professed interest in learning how to fight, how to be a fighting Arcan, and Lightfoot rather reluctantly agreed to show him what it was about. Lucky had absolutely no training at all, but what he did have was amazingly fast reflexes, and that was the only reason he could last more than three seconds against the lithe, dangerous little cat. This was his second day of lessons, and the only thing he'd managed so far was to learn how avoid Lightfoot's flashing claws and her feet for more than ten seconds before she put him on his butt. Kyven remembered his own training with her, where she taught him the basics of unarmed combat so he could protect himself in an emergency, and she showed little mercy on him either. Even after that training, Kyven could admit that he wasn't very good at hand to hand fighting. He could be with more training and practice, but as it was now all he could do was attack someone by surprise and take them down or defeat someone as inexperienced as he was. If he came up against someone experienced in close fighting, odds were he'd lose. Kyven's strength was in either striking from ambush or fighting at range, and in those cases, he was very good.
"Enjoying the show, General?" Kyven asked with a chuckle as he leaned against the table.
"Such as it is," he answered. "Did your practice go well?"
"As a matter of fact, yes, General. I managed to do what I was trying to do. But I'm done practicing for today."
"Good, you've been cooped up in that room for far too long, and you look like you could use a little rest. I received word over my relayer, Clover. The rifles will arrive sometime early tomorrow morning."
"Good, good," she nodded.
"Kyven, I hate to intrude on your practice, but I'll need your help teaching the men how to use them," he said. "All they've ever handled are breech loading muskets. I've handled a Briton rifle before, but I'm just one man, and Clover told me you are quite a good shot with a Briton rifle. With two of us training the men, it will go faster."
"I've been taught how to use them, I can do it," he assured the older man.
"I'm going to give us two days to teach the men how to use the rifles, then we move," he said, picking up his cup of coffee. "I shouldn't even waste that time, but we can't possibly train the men on the move."
"Have you got enough horses?"
He nodded. "They've about denuded the valley and hill of grass, and it's getting hard to keep them a secret," he answered. "Three thousand and more horses aren't easy to conceal."
"You know we're going to be spotted moving."
"There's no helping it, but Clover's knowledge of the back roads of the territories should minimize our contact with the civilians," he answered. "She'll be our guide out there."
"Easily done, my friend," she assured him. "Are the logistics secure?"
"We have enough supplies to get to Riyan, and have two days afterwards," he answered. "We'll have to forage from there, but since we'll be moving openly, we can raid for it."
"Raid?"
"We'll be freeing Arcans on the way, so we'll raid the plantations and farms for food as well. We won't be burning them out or taking everything, but three thousand men and however many Arcans we have won't be easy to feed. We'll be forced to take it from the citizens as we move south."
"I just hope it won't turn into some kind of rolling atrocity," Kyven fretted.
"My men are disciplined, Kyven," Danvers assured him. "And the civilians aren't our enemies. Yes, we're going to take from them, but there will be no looting, no pillaging, no hurting the civilians, and we won't leave them starving themselves. We'll just raid for what we need. Oh, Kyven, I'll have that layout for you by tonight. I have a man in Riyan scouting, and he'll send his report this evening."
"I'll need it," Kyven noted. "I need to know exactly where they're keeping the Arcans and what kind of protection they have around them."
"My man is very good, my friend, I'm sure the report will be very detailed, and will undoubtedly include maps."
"The more detailed it is, the easier it'll be."
They heard Lucky yelp, and saw him on his belly on the ground, Lightfoot sitting negligently across his shoulders, his tail firmly gripped in her hand. "That little cat of yours is very good, Shaman," Danvers noted. "She could fight almost anyone I know toe to toe."
"You should see her shoot a pistol, General," Clover chuckled. "She's a deadly shot. I have never known her to miss."
"I wonder how she'd handle those new repeating revolvers," Danvers mused. "Have you seen them?"
Clover nodded. "I've seen them."
"What is that?" Kyven asked.
"It's a pistol with a revolving cylinder that has six chambers. You load each chamber, and the pistol's workings advances the cylinder to line it up under the hammer as you cock it."
"It uses the brass cartridges like the Briton rifles?"
Danvers shook his head. "You have to load each cylinder, but it does give you six shots instead of just one or two like with normal pistols. I've heard the Britons have pistols that do use cartridges, and fire as fast as you can pull the trigger."
"Huh, I'd like to see one of those," Kyven mused.
"You may get your chance, given we intercepted the rifles. The Loreguard has been trying to get the new revolver pistols in numbers to replace the breech loading pistols they use now. But most of the higher-ranking officers are carrying them. No doubt loaded with black crystal shot," he frowned.
"They have to hit me first, General," Kyven chuckled. "And that's not easy in the dark."
"They only have to nick you, Kyven, and that means they can get lucky."
"Trust me, General. I'll be very careful."
"He'd better. I only have one human brother, and I won't lose him to his own overconfidence," Clover noted, poking Kyven in the side.
"I still can't quite get used to that idea," Danvers admitted with a chuckle as Lucky and Lightfoot squared off again, but it only lasted about four seconds. Lucky tried to grab Lightfoot's paw, but she intercepted him, knocked him off his feet, and put a foot on his neck deliberately, giving him a cool, unpleasant look and chiding him in a low voice for being foolish. "But then again, I've gotten used to quite a few things since I took this job."
"You never did tell me why," Kyven said.
"Simple, my young Shaman," he said, motioning before him. Kyven and Clover sat down, and Missy, Danvers' canine house servant, brought out two cups of coffee for the Shaman with a low bow and adoring eyes. "It started at the Balton rebellion," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I was stationed in Balton then, just a Colonel, and our unit was the only one close enough to intercept the Arcans. We got intelligence from ahead of them that let us intercept them, and we found that they outnumbered us nearly four to one. But they had no weapons, just farm tools, and my men had muskets and shockrods.
"We set up at a bridge over a river so their numbers were countered, and we dug in. With us commanding the bridge, they couldn't come at us any way where we couldn't see them coming, they had no room to maneuver, or they'd be going so slow that we'd have time to take them out. I fully expected them to try to pass us by and swim the river out of musket range, which was only the smart thing to do, which would have given us time to get to that point and fire on them before they could reach our side of the river. But I was rather stunned when nearly a quarter of them charged us from the woods. Given we were on the far side of the bridge, it's fairly predictable what happened next. None of them made it to our position. But then another wave of them charged, and they were killed as well. After the second wave, a third wave charged before we could reload muskets, but they stopped just outside of shockrod range and then retreated, getting back into the forest before we had enough muskets loaded to volley. Needless to say, their suicidal charges and then the sudden retreat had me a little confused, but that was only until a kerchief floated down the river. That's when I realized that the Arcans who attacked us were nothing but a diversion. Their intent had been to pin my men down at that bridge and occupy us while others went upriver and forded it. They had given their lives to give the others time to escape, because they did go somewhere else and ford the river.
"Contrary to popular belief, there was no slaughter to the last Arcan at Balton," he said calmly. "The truth is, half of them escaped, mostly females and children, because that last wave of Arcans attacked just as we started to separate so some of the men could chase after those that got past us," he grunted. "They timed it perfectly. Just as the men started to redeploy, they charged out of the forest. It only took my men a moment to reset to volley on the Arcans, but that moment was all they needed. The trail end of the attackers managed to get into the formation before we could kill them all. Seven Arcans made it to the lines, Shaman, and those seven Arcans killed fifty-four men before they were taken out. At that time, infantry weren't issued pistols, a policy that changed quickly after Balton, and at that range shockrods would kill our own men. So my men had to fight off Arcans armed with farm tools used as bayonets. I'd never seen anything like it," he said in a grim, musing voice. "I never believed that untrained animals could be so deadly. But they were. They got among us, and they killed us like a farmer harvesting wheat. I saw one chop a man in half with a wide-bladed axe," he said with a shudder. "You never appreciate how strong Arcans are until you see them use that strength. Anyway, after we defeated the Arcans that stayed behind, we couldn't catch up to the others. I had wounded men to see to and they had too much of a head start, so I decided to pull back to Balton. So we sent word ahead and returned to Balton, but I spent the entire return trip trying to make sense of what they did. What they did troubled me. What they did, some sacrificing themselves to give others time to escape, that is not the behavior of simple animals, even if they are smart animals. When I reported what happened to my superiors, they simply spread the story that the Arcans were wiped out, and covered up the activity further west as those females and children moved across Malan, then vanished into the Smoke Mountains north of Two River. I was promoted, told to keep my mouth shut, and play the role of hero."
He took another sip of his coffee. "But I never forgot what I saw that day. What those Arcans did was the highest form of nobility, Shaman. Some of them charged straight into death to give others a chance to escape, and I could not fathom how animals could do such a thing. Mothers will often fight to protect their cubs, animals will fight to defend their territory, but these were all escaped Arcans who barely knew each other, yet some had willingly died to give others a chance to be free. It bothered me for years, and I quietly investigated the Arcans myself. I wanted to see if those I fought at Balton were the exception or the rule. I bought Arcans and talked to them, I quietly searched through records at headquarters over Arcan activities, and I investigated the Shaman. What I found out was, Arcans are not animals. They are people, just like us, and while they look very different from us, and have different views about things, they are just as intelligent and capable of emotion as we. That was when I realized that we are enslaving people, not animals, and I was horrified. I resigned immediately, but the Loreguard said I'd put in enough time, so they retired me and pensioned me instead . . . also to maintain the image of General Wilson Danvers, the hero of Balton," he said scathingly. "But, thankfully, I retired on good terms with some people still in the Loreguard, and they pass on information to me from time to time. Us Generals, we all know each other, you see," he said with another sip of coffee. "A General would tell another General something he'd never tell another man, which is how I was able to find out what I know about Riyan. In reality, Generals gossip worse than any maid ever did," he chuckled.
"It was during my search for the true nature of the Arcans that the Masked took notice of me. After I retired, they approached me, and I joined them. I took the money I was given for pension and some money they supplied me and I bought this plantation, which is a critical stop along the Freedom Trail. More Arcans move through my plantation than any other stop in the Free Territories," he said proudly.
"And that's why infantry now carries pistols," Kyven mused. "Because your fight with the Arcans showed the Loreguard they were no match for Arcans in hand to hand combat."
"Pistols and impact rods," Danvers nodded. Kyven knew what those were, since he'd taken them off Loreguard before. They were black metal rods which were alchemical, and their purpose was to strike with magically augmented force. A child armed with an impact rod could crush the skull of a bear with a solid hit, though the recoil might well break the child's arm. Some men called them Bashers or Beatsticks, but the ones that earned that name were the ones whose impact was much lighter, allowing them to be used in a non-lethal manner, dishing out blows with stunning force rather than lethal force. There were even versions of impact rods which could be changed from the lower, non-lethal mode to the killing mode with a flick of a switch on the base of the rod. At the low setting, a blow from an impact rod could stun. At the high setting, the same blow would kill, or at the very least shatter every bone under where the rod struck. Impact rods weren't very common outside of the Loreguard, though the occasional bartender might keep one of the non-lethal versions of one under his bar to maintain order. The Loreguard in Avannar carried them as non-lethal weapons against rowdy drunks and hard cases, but the cavalry Loreguard he'd killed to take their horses had not been carrying them. Then again, a cavalry man didn't need an impact rod when he had a horse. They used swords instead, which were more effective from horseback than an impact rod due to the fact that the impact rod pushed back against the user. A man leaning over in his saddle doesn't cater well to being knocked backwards.
"And now your calico friend wants to learn to fight," Danvers noted, motioning at the scrap before them.
"I think he only wants to learn to fight so he can get time with Lightfoot," Clover said lightly.
"A very serious young Arcan," Danvers noted. "And a damn good fighter."
"Trained by former pen fighters," Clover told him. "The fighting Arcans that reach us from the fighting pens contribute by teaching the young ones how to fight. Lightfoot is good with her hands, but she's even more dangerous with a pistol."
"Well, your calico, Lucky, will be good. He has fast hands and he's quick. But he'd be better suited to a rifle than balling his fists." He looked to Kyven. "Clover says you're the best knife thrower she's ever seen, Shaman."
"A youth wasted at the posts board, General," he said lightly.
Danvers laughed. "I have a posts board, you know. You have a set?"
"Not one I've tried out yet. I picked up an old used set a few villages ago. They were a bit worn, but well made. An old posts vulture like me just doesn't feel right if he doesn't have a set handy."
"Well, we should give you the chance to break it in. And I think you could use a break. You've been in that room for two days."
"I think I could."
The posts boards were outside, nailed to the side of the carriage house, and they showed signs of heavy use; clearly, posts was a hobby of the overseers. Kyven found out quickly that Danvers was no slouch at posts. He was easily as good as Kyven or Timble, and Kyven found the challenge refreshing as he broke in the set of used posts knives he'd bought with the rest of his gear. "If I might ask, what have you been working on in that room, Kyven?" he asked.
"I've been trying to master a very difficult trick where I vanish from within one shadow, and reappear in another shadow in a different location."
Danvers almost missed the entire posts board, giving Kyven a wild look. "Are you serious?" he asked.
Kyven nodded. "I've managed to accomplish it twice, moving from my room to the cellar, and then back again. But it's very difficult, and it's not entirely safe to do."
"I should say so. Teleportation would be very dangerous, I imagine. After all, how can you see where you're going?"
"What?"
"Teleportation. It's in some old stories, a magician vanishing from one place and reappearing instantly somewhere else."
"Ah. Well, my totem calls it shadow walking, because the shadows are something like a bridge between where I start and where I finish. I sort of walk through them and appear where I'm going. It's not vanishing and reappearing more than stepping through a door between where I am and where I'm going."
"Ah. Can you take others with you?"
"You know . . . yes, actually. My spirit once carried me through, so it stands to reason I could carry someone else. But I won't try that until I fully master the power. Doing it is very dangerous, General, and I won't expose anyone to that kind of risk until I can do it safely."
"I might be tempted to have you take me someday." He threw his last knife, then went down to get them and tally.
"You wouldn't like it, General," Kyven told him. "The shadow world is a cold, frightening, hostile place filled with things that would eat me if they could catch me. That's the danger involved. There's no time inside that place, so what looks instant out here actually takes time in there, and that's when those things in there try to hunt me down and kill me."
Danvers gave him a long, searching look. "And yet you intend to master this power?"
"The advantages are worth the risk," he shrugged as he took his place at the line. "Once I master the power, nobody can stop me. I'll be able to get past guards, through locked doors, even cross hundreds of minars in the blink of an eye. When I master it, I'll go back to Avannar and go through the Loremasters' building from top to bottom and ferret out every secret they have, which will make it much easier for the Arcans and everyone opposing them. That's what I was trained to do, General. I'm a spy and an assassin when needs be, and mastering this power will make my job much easier."
"More the spy than the assassin, from the sound of it."
Kyven nodded. "My totem only kills as a last resort. She's a being of guile and deceit, who prefers to trick or talk her way out of situations rather than fight. We share that sentiment. I don't like to kill, but I will when I have to."
"Then you're the best kind of man to make that kind of decision, my friend. No man should be given any kind of power that feels no remorse for the lives he takes."
"Sounds like you're the kind of man that remembers the name of every man who died under his command."
"Sixty-two, my friend. I remember their names, families, where they lived, their personal histories, and I still write to their wives or parents on the anniversary of their deaths," he sighed sadly. "They were good boys, all of them, and it's a shame they had to die so young."
"I think I could learn to like you, General," Kyven said calmly as he threw his first knife.
Danvers accepted Kyven by rote because he was a Shaman, and therefore an ally. But Danvers' troops, on the other hand, weren't quite so quick to accept him, and showed Kyven some of the dangers that being a Shaman might entail.
The rifles arrived almost exactly as Danvers predicted, early the next morning as the still doe-eyed Missy served them breakfast. She was almost awed to be in the presence of Shaman, and all but fell over herself to see to their every need or want. Clover had told him she had always been like that, and accepted the attention with her usual calm smile and nod. But the rifles arrived, and Kyven and Danvers rode with the lead wagon out to the troop encampment. It was a grassy valley about two minars from the edge of Danvers' plantation, a large, wide valley nearly five minars long with a hastily built fence around the northern end that held a few thousand horses, and rows and rows of tents to the south backed by a large number of supply wagons. An army may be made up of men, but it was the food and supplies that made it go, and Danvers clearly understood that. There were dozens and dozens of wagons lined up with nearly military precision not far from the fence, and there were more of them lined up behind the tents to form a barrier of sorts, for it looked like behind the wagons, the men trained in the large open field with a gentle slope up to the forest.
There were over three thousand men here, and they were not kids. These were lean, hard, tough men, professional fighting men, possessed of no standard uniform. Some men wore cotton shirts and blue denim trousers. Some wore hardened leather tunics to form as a sort of armor, and some wore buckskins. But all of them, every one, had at the very least a musket, a pistol, and some kind of alchemical weapon or sword for hand to hand combat. One dangerous looking fellow Kyven saw had two pistols in his belt, two knives behind them, a knife in each boot, and the hilt of either a large knife or small sword jutted up over his left shoulder. There were very few Arcans here, and Kyven recognized one from the plantation, who was helping cook breakfast at one of the many fires. That Arcan, a willowy male feline with tawny fur, was the one that let it slip as to just what Kyven was. Every Arcan on the plantation knew Kyven was a Shaman, and Kyven wasn't exactly hiding the fact anymore either. But, as the men helped unload, the feline came up to him as he and a thin dark-haired man with a scar on his cheek handed off a heavy crate of rifles to two other men. "I'll be returning to the farm, General," the feline said.
"That's fine, Gold."
"Will you bless me, Shaman?" the feline asked, holding his hands out towards Kyven.
"Of course," he answered with a smile, taking one of Gold's hands and putting the other on his shoulder. He recited the ritual benediction, which made the tawny cat smile, lean forward and nuzzle Kyven's neck with the side of his muzzle, then he turned, dropped to all fours, and loped off towards the farm some two minars away.
When he looked back at the soldiers, he was confronted with dozens of surprised and slightly suspicious expressions. "You didn't say nothin' about working with a fuckin' Shaman, Danvers," the closest man growled.
"I told you the Arcans would help in any way they could, Captain. Do you think they wouldn't send a Shaman?"
"He's human," another man said.
Kyven nodded. "I'm a human Shaman," he said simply.
"Bullshit!" someone else called. But then there were nothing but gasps and stares when he opened his eyes to the spirits and let them see his glowing emerald eyes.
"Well stay the fuck away from me," the captain snapped, taking an aggressive step forward. "I don't want no stinkin' filthy Trinity-cursed Shaman anywhere near me."
"Given that he's the one that's going to train you in the use of Briton rifles, that may not be easy, Captain," Danvers said dryly.
The captain glared at Kyven darkly, then turned and stalked away.
That one fact made Kyven very unpopular among the men. They all stared at him, gave him dark looks, or just outright avoided him. When it came time for them to learn about the rifles, though, they showed they were professional enough to listen to him as he explained how they worked. A couple of them gave him slightly approving looks when he fired one for them, hitting a target set up that was far out of musket range in quick succession with four bullets, and they paid close attention when it came time for them to learn how to load, unload, and clean the rifles. Kyven taught them in groups of twenty all through the day, and though most of them glared at him, they didn't put up their noses at what he had to teach.
It worked fairly well. The Briton rifles were actually extremely easy to use, and these men all had extensive experience with using muskets. The rifles were very easy to load, easy to clean, easy to check for a problem in the action, and could be field stripped into the ten pieces that made up the action in about a minute, which made them very easy for an experienced gunsmith to check for problems if one misfired or broke. Each group of twenty, after they mastered the idea of it over the course of an hour, then broke up to train another group of twenty themselves, which allowed the training to sweep through the army very quickly.
It wouldn't have been that easy had it been a more complicated weapon and these men didn't already have experience using muskets. Every man Kyven taught grasped the idea of the cartridges quickly, and the questions they asked were professional and to the point. He did, however, have to tolerate a number of men making whispered comments that were just out of his ability to hear, but he ignored them. But the men, almost to a man, did not like him, did not like him one bit. It may have been because he was Shaman, but the looks in their eyes were more because he was a human Shaman. That seemed to shock and violate them, that a human had become something . . . Arcan.
By sunset, when the men were settling down with dinner, it all came out into the open. A very large, burly man with black hair got right in front of him and blocked his way. "They say you're a Shaman," he said in an aggressive manner.
"I am," Kyven answered simply.
"Ain't no human can be a Shaman," the big man snarled. "That makes you a liar."
Opening his eyes to the spirits, Kyven held out a single finger, a finger that had a lick of flame appear over it. "Does that answer your question?"
"Well then, that makes you a devil," the man growled, taking a fearful step back.
"You're here to fight the Loremasters, soldier. Upholding their beliefs defeats the purpose," Kyven told him calmly, looking up at him. "What the Loremasters say about the Shaman is a lie. I know, I've seen the truth with my own eyes. I used to believe it too, but then I found out I'm a Shaman, and then I learned the truth personally. Shaman don't serve demons or evil spirits. The spirits the Shaman serve are just as worried about the humans as they are the Arcans. I won't be the only human Shaman, or the last. The humans need the spirits, because the Loremasters have corrupted them into believing in something that will destroy the entire civilization of Noraam and kill untold thousands of Arcans."
"I'm here because I'm being paid," one man said bluntly.
"Then do your job," Kyven said to him. "You may not like me, but I'll be fighting with you, and I'll be fighting for you. We don't have to like each other to do our jobs."
"I don't want your dirty magic anywhere near me," the big man grated.
"It won't be," Kyven shrugged. "But when the fat's in the fire, I doubt you'll be very picky."
The man's face turned ugly, and he took a swing at him. Lightfoot's training took over at that moment. He'd never be the fighter that Lightfoot was, but he saw the punch coming, and Kyven had fast reflexes. He leaned out of the path of the punch, then took a couple of steps back. "Woah! Calm down there, hoss!" Kyven barked. He evaded a few more punches, then danced back to put a campfire between him and the big man, while the other men just moved back and watched.
"What, you gonna magic me like a damned little bitch coward?" the big man sneered. "Can't fight without your dirty magic, can you?"
"I'm not a fighter, my big friend," Kyven said lightly. "I leave that job for people better suited for it. My area of expertise is trickery," he said, making a gesture towards the man as he channeled a spell of illusion. The illusion wrapped around the man, and made it appear to the men at the campfire that he was wearing a low-cut dress that a prostitute might wear, with a low neckline, with abundant amounts of short, curly hair peeking out from the neckline and bust.
A couple of men actually snorted out a laugh at the sight.
The big man couldn't see the illusion, and he gave one of the laughing men a dark look. That distraction was all it took, however. With blazing speed, Kyven's foot hooked under a rifle laying near the campfire, kicked it up into his hands, and then he worked the lever and brought it up to his shoulder, leveling it at the big man, who suddenly looked wary and nervous. "Like I said, I'm a trickster, my big friend," he said in a calm yet serious voice. "And I follow only one rule when it comes to fighting. Win. By any means necessary, because I for damn sure don't care if you think I'm a coward or not. You don't like me. I can accept that. But when the chits are on the table and the hands are being counted, you'd better make sure you're doing your job, because I'll be doing mine. And if you didn't know, my job is to make sure your job is as easy and safe as possible. While you boys are waiting outside, I'm the one that's going to be going into Riyan, alone, and putting myself in jeopardy to make sure you boys are safe by getting the Arcans ready to move and eliminating any threats to you boys that I see while doing it. That's what I do, and forgive me if I sound brash, but I'm good at it. I'm a spy, my big friend, and I'm willing to put myself at great risk if it means keeping the rest of you alive. Are you willing to do something like that?"
The big man just stared at him.
"Then never call me a coward again," he said, lowering the rifle and tossing it to the nearest man. "And never throw a punch at me again either, or I'll do something to you that you'll never forget."
"Damn dirty Shaman," the man spat.
"I am a Shaman," Kyven declared proudly. "And someday, you'll understand what that means."
He returned to the plantation house to a thick packet of papers, which were the reports sent from Riyan. Together with Lightfoot, Clover, Danvers, and Lucky, they sat down and pored over them. The Arcans numbered over a thousand, the closest estimate was around 1400 of them, and they were being held more or less as Danvers expected. They were in a camp on the southwestern side of Riyan, guarded almost negligently by about 20 men, being kept in a camp dedicated only to them . . . a camp with no tents, no bedrolls, just 1400 Arcans being kept inside a rail fence and left exposed to the weather. The problem wasn't how they were being held, the problem was that the Arcan pen was literally surrounded by tent cities of soldiers on both the south and the west, with the city to the north and east. Getting to the Arcans wouldn't be hard, and eliminating their immediate overseers also wouldn't be difficult. The problem was, to get them out, they'd have to go through some 500 soldiers no matter which way they went. There were, total, about 20,000 Loreguard soldiers camped in and around Riyan, which would make some kind of diversion dicey. With that many men, if Danvers attacked the east side of town, they'd be outnumbered in a matter of minutes.
But that was exactly what Danvers decided to do. "We can pull those men out of the tents and to the east," he declared, pointing at the southeastern corner of Riyan. "Here. There are only about two hundred men camped around these warehouses, and the warehouses themselves conceal the area from the rest of the city. The river cuts the city in half, so it cuts the Loreguard off from those camped on the north bank. We strike at this point, and that will pull the men from the tents on the west side. I'll have a small support force there to cover you as you bring the Arcans out. We'll hit those men and torch the warehouses."
"Seems dangerous, but I don't see an easier way," Kyven sighed. "I'm going to need a head start on the army, General. Draining that many collars is going to take some time, and the army can't just sit around and wait for me to do it. We can just decide on when you're going to attack, and I'll make sure the Arcans are ready by then."
"How long do you need?"
"For that many collars? A few hours minimum. I can't just line them up and walk down the line or the guards will get suspicious. I'll have to mill around with them and do it that way, and that means I'll have to chase down the last stragglers."
"The advantage of it is the guards won't know the collars are drained unless they take one off an Arcan," Clover added. "Kyven can infiltrate early and have time to move through the Arcans, draining their collars and getting them ready to move."
"I can get there in two days," Kyven told the General. "The army won't move as fast as I do. So we just decide on a time when you attack, and I'll have the Arcans ready."
"Not alone," Lightfoot growled. "I go."
"I could use help spreading the word among the Arcans," he nodded.
"Then three's a good number," Lucky declared.
"No, Lucky, you'll stay with Clover. You're not quite ready to start doing the heavy lifting yet, but it won't be too long," he smiled.
"Aww," the calico frowned.
"Just be patient, young one," Clover told him. "You need more time yet before you are ready."
"Don't complain," Lightfoot said to him directly as he was about to retort, and he clamped his muzzle shut and looked at the map.
"I'll help you finish teaching the men how to use the rifles and we'll leave early tomorrow morning," Kyven told him. "Me and Lightfoot will be moving much faster than the army, and moving in a straight line. I'm going to need a dud collar for her," he added. "That way we can just go right up the main roads without attracting attention."
"I have plenty," Danvers assured him. "If it's going to take you two days to get there and more time to drain the collars, let's call it four days to factor in unforeseen circumstances. How long will it take a column of mounted men and wagons to reach Riyan along the untraveled paths, Clover?"
"Four days," she answered confidently. "If you leave in the morning, you'll arrive around noon four days later. We're assuming there are no problems with the wagons, and they move at a fairly decent rate."
"That fits almost perfectly," Danvers noted, scratching his chin. "We'll attack the second hour after midnight. That gives us time to rest before the race south, then get into position. The main force will attack the warehouses, but I'll have two hundred men picketed here, along this ridge," he added, pointing it out on the map to Kyven. "They'll cover the Arcans as they escape. We'll pull back and rendezvous here," he tapped the map. "Where these two lanes intersect Tobacco Road. After that, we run like hell using the road until we get to Peteburrough, then strike out due south as the road turns west. We can skirt the Reed Lake to the east, I know a path through the marshlands down there that will save us some time."
"Sounds like a plan. So, the night after four days, we should expect you to attack?"
"Two hours after midnight, on the tick," he nodded. "That should give you a full day to infiltrate Riyan, drain the collars, and get the Arcans ready to run. You'll probably need every minute."
"I'm more worried about the Arcans than anything else," Kyven grunted. "All it takes is one Arcan too much the slave to run to the Loreguard, and we're in trouble."
"I doubt they'd do that."
"When I freed a group of Arcans from a ship and ran it aground, General, some of the Arcans just sat down on the beach and waited for the hunters to come," Kyven said seriously. "There are some Arcans who have been all but beaten into believing what the humans say. They're so used to being slaves they're afraid to think of being anything else."
"Well, you might have to do something about that, my friend," Danvers said soberly.
"I know," he said with a dark frown.
They finalized the plans with about two more hours of discussion, and then broke up for dinner. After dinner, Kyven returned to his dark room to practice. He found it much easier to enter the shadow world, but the fox was right that the things in there got closer and closer to him as he moved in and out, as they seemed to sense him and moved towards him. He spent his time studying the shadowy world, for that was the key to mastering the power. If he wanted to walk far, he had to be able to sense the shadows where he wanted to arrive and form a gateway out of them, so he stayed in the shadow world as long as he possibly could, seeing how far he could extend his senses, trying to understand the alternate reality of the shadow world. The fox had affirmed his own suspicions that this shadowy world would conform itself to his intent, and he used that to try to stave off the things inside, "stretching" out the distance between him and them even as they tried to reach him, but found little success in that trick. They seemed to understand what he was doing and circumvented his efforts, which eventually forced him back into the real world, where he would have to stay for a while until those things moved on.
The next day was nearly as unpleasant as the last. The soldiers of Danvers' army let him teach them, but they obviously didn't like him, didn't like what he was. He spent the day speaking in calm, direct words, just training the men in how the rifle was loaded, checked, fired, and cleaned. There wasn't any friendly banter, even among the men, there was nothing that even hinted in any way that they wanted anything to do with him outside of what he could teach them. But if they thought it bothered him, they had no idea. He simply brushed the men off, for it was too much of an effort to try to talk them out of their prejudice. He'd let his actions speak for him, for actions were always bigger than words. By early afternoon, thanks to the efforts of the men to teach each other, all the men had a working knowledge of the Briton rifles, and could load, shoot, unload, and clean them . . . and if it wasn't for the fact that the rifles were so easy to use, it would have taken much, much longer. It was as simple as thumb in cartridges, jack the lever, pull the trigger. The biggest thing the men had to learn was how to aim using the sights, and how to clean the weapons, since unloading it was accomplished by simply working the lever holding the rifle sideways without pulling the trigger, which caused the unfired round to fall from the same chamber where the empty shell was ejected when the rifle was fired and reloaded.
While the men moved the unused rifles and supplies to the wagons and prepared to move out, Kyven returned to the house to practice again with his shadow walking. He again focused on getting used to the feel of the shadow world, trying to conquer the vertigo and the strange sensations, trying to acclimate himself to that place at the same time as he tried to extend his senses into the place. He again only had a short amount of time to study the place and get used to it, for the things in there started searching for him as soon as he entered, and they inexorable got closer and closer to him as he studied the shadow world and extended his senses to detect shadows further and further away. He spent nearly ten minutes in the shadow world before the imminent proximity of those creatures forced him out, and he knew that they were too close for him to risk going back in again. Like a fox standing over a rabbit hole, they were just waiting for him to show his face in order to bite it off.
Lightfoot woke him up well before dawn, a hand on his shoulder shaking him. "What?" he asked sleepily, yawning.
"It's time," she said, then turned and stalked out of the room on all fours.
He shook off his sleepiness and got dressed, a simple buckskin jacket over a light cotton shirt and rugged denim trousers, their dark blue already starting to fade. These denim pants were becoming very popular because the fabric, made from cotton, was light and comfortable, yet extremely strong, very rugged and resistant to tearing. He packed a small pack and filled his saddlebags, paused for a quick breakfast down in the kitchen, and then went up to wake up Clover, who was sleeping with Lucky. "Sister, I'm on my way," he said gently.
She yawned and looked up at him with her amber eyes, and nodded. "You will be very careful, my brother," she told him, reaching out and taking his hand. "If you get yourself killed, I'll never forgive you."
He smiled, then leaned down and kissed her on the nose. "Take good care of Lucky while I'm gone."
"At least he's not as, enthusiastic, as Tweak," she noted, which made Kyven chuckle. "I'll see you in five days, my brother. Keep each other safe."
"We will, I promise," he told her, patting her on the shoulder, then he let her go back to sleep.
Lightfoot looked very annoyed when, instead of running, he instead had his roan saddled and rode it out of the livery. "I don't have Arcan legs anymore, Lightfoot, I can't run half as fast now as I could before," he chuckled. "And besides, this horse makes me much more invisible. A man running down the road on foot attracts far more attention than a lone man trotting down the road on a horse."
"Foolishness," she snorted, putting on the fake collar Danvers had given him.
"Belt," he ordered, leaning down in the saddle and holding out his hand.
Lightfoot gave him a dark look, then unbuckled the belt holding her pistol and shockrod, then handed it to him. He hung it from his saddle, which put the weapons in convenient reach for Lightfoot if she was beside the horse. Seeing Lightfoot out of that belt had not lost its impact on him, and he had to give her a long, assessing stare that she didn't miss. She smiled just slightly. "Pervert."
Kyven laughed. "I'm still me, it's just the outside that changed," he grinned.
"Let's go."
Lightfoot was a very quiet, reserved person, and traveling alone with her was no different. She ran alongside the horse, bounding along on all fours at an easy pace as Kyven's stolen horse, a very burly and sturdy young roan stallion, and said very little. In a way it was almost like traveling alone, at least until she made one of her rare comments, or they stopped to relieve themselves, give the horse a short break, or eat something. They passed by a few travelers and one patrol of Loreguard, but nobody challenged them. Lightfoot was obviously collared, and Kyven moved with calm confidence and certainty, looking like an honest man going about his business.
After dinner, though, Kyven surprised Lightfoot by pulling her up in front of him in the saddle. She seemed to protest until he put his arm around her, then she settled down a little. "I've heard what Clover had to say, but I haven't asked you yet what happened after I was captured. So tell me."
Lightfoot glanced back at him, but she did oblige him. In her usual manner, she used as few words as possible. "Not much to say," she began. "Shario came to us. Told us what happened. He took us from the shop. I burned it down first, though," she added, "and made sure of the vault. Destroyed everything. He put us with a few of his men. Good men, I know them. I trust them. They pretended to be Arcan traders. They took us to Atan in a wagon. There was no trouble." She leaned back slightly against him. "Virren took us in. He has a place. An old mine. We stayed there. Clover came to us a few days later. She sent the kids to Haven. Lucky refused to go," she said with a slight chuckle.
"He likes you."
"He's a good kid," she said in a complementary fashion. "He wants me."
"Nothing wrong with that, Lightfoot. If I were a cat, I'd want you too. You're all kinds of woman."
She hissed slightly, a kind of snorting chuckle, and patted the arm wrapped around her furry tummy. "Flatterer," she accused.
"Hey, it's the truth," he retorted lightly. "So, you like him?"
"He's a good boy," she repeated. "But I won't give him what he wants."
"So you don't like him."
"I didn't say that," she said, a bit hastily. "We're going to war. I don't want to get pregnant."
"Ah. You won't give him that."
She nodded. "Not even once. Too much risk," she grunted. "I was a first joining baby. So was my mother. I won't risk it."
"Did you tell him?"
She nodded again. "He said he'll wait."
"Now that's devotion," Kyven chuckled.
"We'll see."
"Poor little Lightfoot," Kyven chuckled. "Tweak in Haven, I'm human, and you won't risk it with the only male left."
"I'm a pervert too," she said calmly.
Kyven laughed. "So, me being human doesn't bother you?"
She shook her head. "Does Clover."
"I know, she hasn't made a single invitation since I was changed back," he chuckled. "But that's okay. I understand, and I don't mind. I just don't do it for her like this. There's no attraction for her. And I'd never dream to impose myself on her when I don't incite those kinds of feelings in her as a human."
"That's her. Not me. It's still just as big."
Kyven blushed slightly, then burst out laughing, patting Lightfoot on her muscled stomach. "That's because you're so small," he teased.
"Works for me," she declared. "She'd do it if you were an Arcan," she hummed.
"Probably. It was my body that attracted her."
"You were handsome."
"What is this? Emotion?" Kyven teased, and he gasped a little when she elbowed him in the ribs. And she was not gentle.
"You do have that necklace."
Kyven chuckled. "Now I see why you don't mind," he told her. "You'll make me use the necklace."
She glanced back at him. "It's just as big," she repeated evenly. "When you fuck me from behind, I can't see you anyway. Does it matter what you look like?"
Kyven burst out laughing.
She proved that she wasn't joking when they made camp, well back from the road in a sheltered nook nestled up against a heavily weathered rock face poking out of the side of a very low hill. After camp was made and the tent was raise, she pulled at his clothes and licked at his neck sensually, and he found his body responding to her advances. That both surprised him and it didn't. She was an Arcan and he was a human, but spending a year as an Arcan had left in him an attraction to his old bedmates that didn't change with his body. He had no trouble settling behind Lightfoot as she was on her hands and knees by the fire and giving her what she wanted. It was different because he was no longer an Arcan, he no longer had the impulse to bite the back of her neck as he achieved initial penetration, and he no longer had to worry about scratching her with his large, sharp claws. It was an odd sensation feeling her furry body against his hips and legs, but the sensation he was feeling elsewhere was no different as a human as it had been as an Arcan. She felt the same, and she acted the same, her tail battering his side as it flexed and slashed, making low growling sounds in her throat as he thrust into her, performing no different than he had as an Arcan, gripping her by her hips and digging his fingers into her short, soft fur, then sliding up her back and over her sides, leaning over to cup her small breasts and play with her nipples as he continued to thrust into her. He actively explored her, actively compared having sex with her now to before, and found that it really wasn't that much different from before.
She certainly didn't act any different. Lightfoot didn't try to drag it out the way Clover did, she just arched her head back and urged him to go faster, thrust harder, which never failed to cause him to obey. Their session ended the way it usually did, with him roughly kneading her breasts and holding her against him as he thrust hard and fast into her, until she gave out a growling cry and he felt her clench around him. That incited his own climax, and he pulled her against him and held her tight as he spent himself into her.
"Well, that was certainly like old times," he panted, which made her laugh.
"It's just as big," she retorted breathlessly. "Again. Rest, then again."
"Yes ma'am," he chuckled, putting his forehead on her shoulder as he continued to massage and fondle her breasts.
They reached Riyan about sunset the next day. Kyven and Lightfoot didn't meander into the city, instead approaching it from the trees near Tobacco Road and looking it over. The tent cities still surrounded the city, and now that he knew what to look for, he easily identified the Arcan pens to the southwest, directly behind a large array of tents. There were hundreds of campfires dotting the grassy plain separating the city from the woods, the campfires of thousands of Loreguard soldiers. Even from there, they could hear the faint reedy sounds of music, of fiddles and guitars and pipes and mouth organs, as the men whiled away the time waiting for orders to move.
"We'll go into the city and get a room," he told Lightfoot. "You'll hold the room while I go out and do the work. I'll come back before sunrise and rest, then go back out later. I'll need you the second time out to get the Arcans ready. The first time I go out will just be to kill as many collars as I can."
"Alright," she growled, obviously not liking the idea of waiting in the room.
They worked their way back out to Tobacco Road, Kyven mounted, and Lightfoot padded beside his horse as he rode north, towards Riyan. The road bisected two large arrays of tents, and several groups of soldiers at fires near those tents watched Kyven and Lightfoot go by. Kyven found it a little odd that there were no guards before they reached the tents, but perhaps the Loreguard figured with this many men around, nobody in their right minds would try anything. They wound their way through the tents along the road, and even came within a hundred rods of the fence of the Arcan pens. Both of them looked it over as they passed, and saw that it was exactly as the reports described. The Arcans were penned up inside the fence, and they had nothing. No tents, no blankets, nothing. They were all naked as well, wearing nothing but a collar, and they were sitting, laying, standing at the fence looking out, just trying to pass the time as they waited to be moved out. As was usual for Arcans, he saw almost no talking, and what talking there was was done in whispers and done out of easy sight from the outside. But since he'd been there once himself, he had an idea of what to look for.
"Hold, traveler!" a voice called behind them as they approached the outskirts of Riyan. Kyven reined in the roan and looked back, in time to see three men on horseback trotting down a path between rows of tents behind them and to his left. The man in the middle was a Loreguard officer, a captain by his rank, and he had two sergeants riding escort with him. They got out onto the road, and the three of them cantered up to a stop just behind his roan. Lightfoot moved as he turned the horse to look at them.
"What do you want, soldier?" Kyven asked calmly.
"We need that Arcan," he answered, pointing at Lightfoot.
"Tough," Kyven said immediately. "I need her more."
"That wasn't a request, citizen," the captain said with sudden flat eyes.
"I wasn't being cordial when I said no, either," Kyven answered gratingly. "I know my rights, and I know the law. My dad's a lawyer. You can't take my Arcan, because she's my personal property."
"Your father doesn't know the law from his own ass," the captain said haughtily. "We have every right to confiscate your Arcan by eminent necessity."
"Try it."
The captain gawked at him, then he dismounted his horse as he pulled a slender crystal rod from his belt, which what some might call a master key. It could unlock almost any collar. Unobtrusively, Kyven put the tip of his boot against Lightfoot's back, wrapped himself in an illusion of himself so fast that his glowing eyes never registered to the men, and when the captain roughly grabbed hold of the small Arcan and tried to put his key to her collar, Kyven channeled lightning through Lightfoot and into the collar. The magic had to come from him, but he used Lightfoot as a living extension of himself. The captain yelped and staggered back when a sudden flash of light and the sharp sound of an electrical arc filled the twilight, dropping his master key onto the road and shaking his hand violently to get rid of the sudden numbness.
"I hope you like my dad's collar," Kyven snickered. "We had too many people steal our Arcans, so my alchemist uncle made us collars that nobody can take off but us. So like I said, soldier, no. And that means no."
Lightfoot looked up at him in surprise, but he simply had his illusion smile knowingly down at him. It would actually behoove them to have the soldiers take Lightfoot into the pens, where she could quietly start spreading the word, but Kyven wanted to see how serious they were about it, and how far they were willing to go. If they tried to throw him in jail or arrest him for not giving them his Arcan, then he knew they were desperate for Arcans.
He looked to the pens again, and wondered how many of those Arcans were Loreguard-owned, and how many had been confiscated from nearby plantations.
"Boy, you are two seconds from a jail cell," the captain warned as he flexed his fingers. "I'll haul you in for interference with official Loreguard business and assault."
"I didn't do a thing," Kyven retorted smugly. "You shocked yourself, and did it trying to steal my property."
"I think this joker needs a night in the Riyan jail, Captain," one of the men said.
"I'm not going to jail for stopping you from stealing my Arcan," Kyven snorted. "So yes, let's call up the Riyan Regulars and tell them all about it. I don't care if you're the Son of the Trinity, you're not taking my Arcan without paying for her."
"Paying?" the captain gasped.
"Paying," Kyven said flatly. "I spent a hundred credits on her thanks to this damn Arcan shortage, so I'll take off that collar for, say, two hundred credits."
"That's highway robbery!"
"No, it's a seller's market," Kyven said smoothly, admiring his fingernails. "Either you pay me to take off that collar, or we go talk to the Riyan Regulars, who I'm fairly sure don't like you very much given you've brought a bunch of scruffy-looking hooligans to their town and I don't doubt they're raising hell every night in the city after they get tanked up on beer and whiskey."
"Sergeant, go get a grounder," the captain said flatly, glaring at Kyven. That glare turned into a shocked look when Kyven leveled a pistol right in his face.
"Go ahead, Sergeant, go get that grounder. I'm sure you'll enjoy picking up the pieces of your officer's head," Kyven said coldly. "You want my Arcan, you're buying her. I don't let nobody steal what's mine."
"Here now, what's this all about!" someone shouted. Kyven didn't look behind him, keeping his eyes locked on the captain, and keeping the pistol leveled dead at his face. "Put that pistol down, young man, this instant!"
"No way," Kyven said. "This overdressed poppinjay here is trying to steal my property," he declared. "I won't let him out of my sights until there's money being held out, or I go on my way with my Arcan."
"What's going on, Captain?"
"This man refuses to surrender his Arcan, Major," the man said, a little fearfully as he stared down the barrel of a pistol.
"You tried to steal her," Kyven snapped. "No man steals from Jack Masters! No man!"
"Ease off there, son," the man behind him said soothingly. "I'm afraid the Captain's in the right here. We have official authority to confiscate Arcans, authorization directly from Avannar. I'm afraid you have to surrender your Arcan. You'll receive a voucher to get another Arcan from any guild-run kennel, when they're available again."
Kyven was quiet a moment, then eased the hammer down on his pistol. "He didn't say that," Kyven growled. "He just marched up and demanded my Arcan, like he was gonna take her without paying. Then he got pissy when I told him he could shove his attitude up his ass, at least in so many words."
The captain glared at him.
"Just a misunderstanding, son," the man behind him said calmly. "So go ahead and take your collar, and then come with me and I'll fill out that voucher for you."
"Sure thing, sir," Kyven said in a much more respectful tone. He leaned down and took hold of the collar around Lightfoot's neck, gave her a sober look and a nearly imperceptible nod, and then pulled it off. She gave him a steady, calm look in return, then one of the sergeants advanced, dismounted, and locked a plain brassy collar around her neck. Under his illusion, Kyven reached out with his hand and touched that collar and immediately drained it, then patted Lightfoot on the shoulder. She nodded imperceptibly herself, and then the sergeant locked a leash to the collar and dragged her towards the pens.
Kyven rode along with the nearly elderly Major, a man with silvery hair and a trimmed pointed white beard under a weak chin. "Major Stark," the man said by way of introduction. "You're certainly a brave young man to pull a pistol on a Loreguard officer surrounded by soldiers."
"No man steals from Jack Masters, sir. No man," Kyven declared. "And that man was an arrogant little shit. Pardon my language, sir," he said quickly.
"A very rash thing to do, my young friend."
"Dad always said I had a hot temper and an even shorter fuse," Kyven chuckled.
"Your dad's a wise man," the major chuckled.
Despite pulling a gun on a Loreguard officer, he didn't really get into much trouble. The Major took him to a pavilion-style tent near the road, just outside Riyan's edge, and then he sat down and wrote out a voucher for a new Arcan. "There you go, young man. I'm not sure when the kennels will have Arcans again, but when they do, you'll get a new one. And you can show that voucher to anyone who asks what happened to the one you had."
"I'm not too happy about it, but I can live with it, sir," Kyven told him. "I needed that Arcan."
"I'm sorry to say it, but the Free Territories has a greater need for it," he said consolingly, patting Kyven on the shoulder. "Just be content knowing that you've helped us by giving us your Arcan, son. It'll be working for the betterment of everyone."
He rode on from the tent with the voucher, and a clearer understanding of just how desperate the Loreguard were.
He got a room in Riyan in a small, cozy little inn not far from the river, and once his horse was stabled and he was in his room, he got to work. He shed his clothes, and then with a cleansing breath, he took hold of the foxhead medallion and enacted its power. He felt his body turn cold, his bones turn to water, as he was poured into a new mold. The cold sensation faded, and he felt he was again in his black-furred, shadow fox Arcan body. He mused lightly, wondering how Danna felt at that moment to be human again after days in an Arcan form, but he dismissed it as he got his mind on business. He didn't want to be seen leaving the inn, so he centered himself, beckoned to the shadows, and then vanished into them, stepping into the shadow world.
It took him a moment to overcome the vertigo and feel around, feeling the deep shadows of the night all around him, which made the shadow world seem much more solid, much more complete. He could literally see the real world through those shadows, and he moved through it through both walking and by willing the world around him to move, which carried him closer to the pens. He selected a nice shadow among the pens that would bring him out in a corner towards the Riyan side, and then formed the gateway. He felt the things inside with him advancing on him, but he gave them no chance to track him down, stepping through the gateway even as he willed the gateway to go through him, and he appeared again in the real world.
He was quite pleased with himself. He had just shadow walked nearly a minar, from the inn to the pens.
Most of the Arcans were laying on the ground, sleeping, but there were a few that were still awake. Melting into the shadows, Kyven dropped down to all fours and began his work.
He had a simple system for it. He would touch a collar and drain it, a very quick process, then lean down, wake up the Arcan, and whisper "tomorrow night." He said nothing more, just tomorrow night. Lighfoot was in the pens, and she would be the one to elaborate for them. News traveled very fast through an Arcan community, and he had no doubt that in the hour or so since Lightfoot was put in here, half the pens knew she was sent from the Masked and that there was a plot afoot to get them out. News would also pass just as quickly among them about him, since he didn't hide his eyes form the Arcans, letting them see the glowing eyes of a Shaman looming over them as they woke up, and then given that cryptic message tomorrow night. It was easy for him to see where he'd been and where he needed to go because the crystals in the undrained collars glowed brightly to his eyes under spirit sight, and he worked his way through the entire pens during the course of the night. Since they weren't up and moving around, it made it very easy to be systematic about it, allowed him to complete that part of his task in about seven hours.
With the false down peeking over the eastern horizon, Kyven located and drained the last collar from a mature ferret Arcan who was awake, standing at a rail, then leaned in and whispered "tomorrow night" to him, patting him on the shoulder. The ferret looked at him, gaped at his glowing eyes, then almost fell over himself grabbing Kyven's hands.
"Bless me, please," he all but begged in a low whisper.
Kyven put a hand on his shoulder, but put his finger to his lips as he closed his eyes to the spirits. "Tomorrow night," he said again, gripping his shoulder firmly but gently.
The ferret nodded in understanding. He watched as Kyven took a single step back, and then the shadows seemed to converge around his body, concealing it. The ferret gawked like an enraptured child when the shadows seemed to melt away, and took the Shaman with them!
Within the shadow world, Kyven took note that the things were already very close to him, and that dictated he move very fast. He moved quickly back to the inn and located the shadows within his own room, even as he felt the creatures charging towards him. He ignored them and the vertigo as he concentrated on the shadows of the room, and twisted them together to form a gateway back into the real world. He moved into the gateway even as he willed the gateway to move around him, and then he was back in his rented room.
He moved quickly and confidently. He put his clothes back on, relieved himself at the chamber pot, washed up, and then packed up his bags and left the room. The inn's cook was already awake making breakfast, and the smells wafting in from the kitchen made Kyven's empty stomach growl, so he stopped by the dining room and sat down to a quick meal of fresh-baked bread, eggs, and bacon. "You're up early," the cook noted as he brought out the meal.
"I have a ways to go yet," he answered as he picked up his fork.
"You look a little tired."
"I've been on the road so long a single night at an inn doesn't make up for the minars," he chuckled. "But I'm almost there."
"Where you off to?"
"Stinger Bay."
"Ah, yes, you'd need to leave early if you want to get there in two days," the cook nodded.
"Yup," Kyven said, picking up a slice of bacon and biting into it.
Kyven deflected the cook's attempts to engage him in conversation by being polite yet vague, until another customer came down and took the cook's attention. Kyven finished his meal quickly, retrieved his horse from the stable, and then mounted up and rode off to the east. He took the road to Stinger Bay, a road he'd traveled once before, but when he was about ten minars from Riyan he turned south, following a map Clover supplied to him, using narrow country lanes and overgrown unused roads to circle around to the south. He returned to Tobacco Road, and then again took to the forest, reaching a gentle ridge that gave him a view of Riyan, a ridge just west of the ridge he and Lightfoot had occupied to survey the city. This ridge was going to be occupied tonight by their army, he knew, so he picketed his roan after unsaddling him, spread out his bedroll, and got some sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be very, very busy. He was sure of it.