It’s Tuesday! What’s that mean? you ask. I’ll tell you, it’s storytime! Sadie the skinchanger was juuuust about to have her neck sliced open by the dogged Captain Claire Claymonte of the Winged Riders. Onward to story!
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The Shape of Family
Part Twelve – Family
by Rick Cook Jr
The woman that appeared from a mouse fell back from Claire’s sword, tripping over Jeffrey’s body and tumbling to the ground. She was screaming something, but Claire couldn’t hear it. She was furious. She would have blood. She dashed forward, sword extended.
Then was knocked to the side, her sword thumping to the ground. Private Tanner stood where Claire had been moments before, shoulder held like a charging spearman. Her side ached where he had pummeled into her.
“What do you think you’re doing, Tanner?” she yelled, struggling to her feet, throwing off the hands of Sergeant Hughes trying to help her up.
“She’s crying for mercy, Captain,” Hughes whispered.
Mercy. Was it mercy that had led Jeffrey to betray them? Mercy that led her twins here and put them in peril? She picked up her sword and stared at the naked woman, crouched behind Jeffrey’s prone form.
“Is that so, creature? Are you calling for mercy you don’t deserve?”
The woman nodded. “I’m here to help,” she said. “I was only trying to help.”
Claire snorted. “Before Jeffrey absconded with that infernal horse and my scout, he told me a little story about creatures that can change their shape.” The woman gasped and Claire smiled. “I had a suspicion about that horse, but I didn’t want to believe it. You are that horse, are you not?”
She nodded slowly, backing away from Jeffrey.
“So you are, what, a demon? Changing shape, manipulating my Sergeant.”
“I freed the soldiers. Did you not meet them on the way down here?” she asked.
Claire shook her head, then nodded to Sergeant Hughes. “Scout the tunnel a bit. See if the Kingsguard are here.”
Hughes saluted and departed with Private Dawson into a dank but glowing tunnel.
“Jeffrey accidentally killed this one when he tried to slay the bandersnatch.”
“Tried? I see no blood but Harbor’s.” She nudged Harbor’s body with a boot and a little more blood oozed out from under him.
“He is a creature of smoke and oil. He changes his shape effortlessly. He is not the same as me.”
“You expect me to believe such a tale?” She wanted to, she realized. It was easier than believing Jeffrey was a traitor. “Say I do. Why were you a mouse? Why not a bear, or a bandersnatch even?”
The woman sighed. “May I have a jacket at least? It is cold down here and I have no fur.”
Claire pointed at Jeffrey. “Tanner, remove his jacket and give it to the creature.”
“I’m not some creature,” the woman snapped. “I’m a person.”
“You’re some kind of monster,” Claire said.
“I’m not. My name is Sadie.”
“Do you think having a name means anything? What are you doing down here with my twins and my former Sergeant?”
Sadie sighed, pulling the jacket Tanner handed her around her chest. “Jeffrey and I were trying to rescue them. He said your paranoia got the better of you and we had to flee.”
That much was true. She nodded. “Is it paranoia if it turns true?” she asked.
“It is when you jump at the wrong shadows,” Sadie said. She stood and smoothed the jacket over her front. Jeffrey was tall enough that his jacket covered her pelvis, too.
“If you turn into a bat or something, my Wings will skewer you,” Claire warned.
“There is no bat,” Sadie said cryptically. “I am not going to flee. I made my decisions and now here we are. If you are going to kill me instead of let me help you, so be it. I did what I could and I tried to save your stupid twins when I had every opportunity to flee and find my nephew.”
The bitterness in her voice drew Claire’s mouth shut. “What nephew?”
“The wolf who became a boy. He is my only living relative and he did something foolish, got caught.”
Wolf-boys and horsewomen. Claire wanted to run her through with the blade and be done with it. Easier than trying to accommodate this insanity into her mind.
“So you are here to help my scouts.” Claire put her sword away lest she follow through with her desire. She held a hand out to this woman, and when Sadie reached in to shake, Claire pulled her close and whispered furiously in her ear, “If you are lying to me I will stick a blade through your heart, and I’d like to see you change your shape out of that.”
Sadie only nodded, freeing herself from Claire’s death grip. “I don’t know exactly where the creature took your twins, but they left down this tunnel.” She pointed deeper into the cave system while Hughes returned with Dawson from the other direction, shaking her head.
“Any sign of Kingsguard?” Claire asked.
“Some footprints, maybe,” Hughes said, standing close to Dawson, as if they were protecting each other. “I see the monster still has her head.”
Claire grinned. “A small grace period has been granted her. Keep your eye on her, Sergeant. If she starts to look a little like a horse, you wrestle her to the ground.”
“I gave you my word I would not flee,” Sadie said, eyes angry.
“And I don’t know you from the stars in the sky. This whole thing has my head spinning.” Admitting that was a tactical move, to set her soldiers at ease. They were nervous and all of them were way out of their depth. A little solidarity would help just then, so long as she could still appear competent. She ordered Jeffrey’s body lifted and carried.
“So this creature,” Claire said, “what is he?” She motioned for Sadie to walk, and the woman did, down the path she claimed to have seen the girl and the beast go.
“I wish I knew. He is so different from me and yet similar.” She stopped talking and her lips grew tight.
“Don’t go all stone on me, Sadie. Speak on.” They followed a winding path down into the dark until their torches started to gutter. Sadie plucked one of the glowing mushrooms and sniffed at it.
“I do not think these are poisonous. Rub them on your weapons.” The Winged Riders looked at Claire and she nodded after a moment.
“At least that way we won’t stick each other in the dark,” she commented, and that elicited a nervous chuckle from Private Tanner. At least someone wanted to remember what laughing was like.
“You were saying something, shapechanger.” Claire prodded her as they walked.
“I have said too much already. My people live in secrecy and I will not be the one to drag them out into the light, to be hunted as curiosities for your freak shows and your parlor amusements.”
That set Claire to smiling. “Well, if you can’t talk about yourself, what about him? You say him as if you know that’s what he is.”
Sadie nodded. “When I am something else I can smell his musk. It lingers here, too.”
Claire breathed deep but the unfamiliar scents could have been anything: the mushrooms, animal spoor, anything at all. “It smells like a barracks after training to me.”
The Wings made small chuckling noises as they followed behind, but this was a serious situation and no jokes came back at her.
“I think we are close. Can you hear it?” Sadie asked. Claire strained her ears and thought she could pick out the faint chatter of young women arguing.
She nodded and held her hand up for silence, then held her glowing sword out in front of her as they progressed deeper. They came out of the tunnel and into a small chamber with dripping water into a small pool, and there near the water were Claire’s twins. Arguing, bless their hearts.
Marie spotted them first and cried out, “He’s not here! Quick, loosen us before he returns.” Claire gave the order and Private Tanner rushed forward with his dagger.
“Who’s she?” Renee asked. “The creature can change its shape.”
“We know,” Claire said, stepping close. “The rest of you, guard the exits.”
But one of her men made a guttural groan and she turned to find Private Dawson and Sergeant Hughes back to back, stabbing the soldiers carrying Jeffrey. Gut wounds, slow deaths. Before Claire or the others could do more than gasp, the two melded away into smoke, a hideous laugh sounding like both their voices mixed.
Claire swung her blade, as did her remaining soldiers while Tanner worked to free the bonds of the Twins. Sadie did nothing, the useless woman.
The blade passed through the smoke, coated with an oily substance that subdued the mushroom glow, but the creature didn’t seem to care as it laughed and laughed.
“So,” it said in its mixed voice, settling as smoke around the twins, such that Tanner backed off, coughing. His knife was no longer in his hand.
“You are the horsewoman,” it directed at Sadie. The woman said nothing. “Just a bastard.”
“A what?”
“Skinchanger,” the creature spat. “Feeble against the likes of my kind. It has been so many years since I scented one of you, I thought you extinct, as you deserve.”
“What are you doing with my scouts?” Claire demanded, swinging her sword futilely at the black vapor. It coalesced into a bear paw and shoved her back before coalescing into a handsome older man.
He held out supplicating palms to them all. “They are to be my broodmothers. Fortune shines upon me after a century of hibernation.”
Claire’s fears for the young women confirmed, she redoubled her efforts, but the man turned into mist wherever she struck, swatted her away with a palm. She crashed against her few remaining Wings and Sadie danced back from the monster.
“You can be the nourishment for my children. What an honor for you, to serve as the meat and potatoes for a new generation.”
“That will never happen,” she growled. Her eyes darted to Renee and the girl swung wildly with free hands. The dagger struck home in the back of the creature, and he staggered forward, blade in his back, eyes wide.
Then laughed. And the blade clattered to the stone as he shifted to smoke and back again, wound healed. Claire’s heart lurched in her chest. How do you kill a creature that can do that?
“I can see this is going to be untenable. I cannot fathom how you all found your way here, but I suspect she had something to do with it.” He jerked a thumb at Sadie. “And now that I know what she is, I can deal with her.”
Sadie threw herself into the pool of water as the creature surged forward, becoming a bandersnatch and slashing for her. The woman screamed in pain as she fell, disappearing with a bloody splash under the water.
Claire yelled at the creature, “What did you do with Sergeant Hughes and Dawson?” as she pressed forward, slashing at the beast to no effect. It batted her away to strike the wall, then charged her remaining soldiers, wounding them in a handful of seconds. Renee made it to Claire’s side as she sat up, feeling for broken skull and seeing double.
“Captain, you have to get up. You have to help!” Renee cried. The smoke creature descended upon the pair of them now, all slashing claws and gnashing teeth. Claire tried to fight her way up but the bandersnatch clawed her sword away, slashed her trousers to ribbons as it dug for the soft muscle beneath.
Her soldiers cried out. They were being wounded but not killed. They were becoming prisoners for this creature’s brood, caged food waiting to be consumed.
A tendril shot from the boiling water, attaching itself to the creature and stinging. Others followed and the beast howled with pain, jerking left and right, pulling the largest jellyfish Claire had ever seen from the tiny pool of water.
The bandersnatch turned into smoke and oil but couldn’t disentangle itself from the stinging tendrils. The jellyfish was making some kind of hideous screeching noise as well, and the bandersnatch whirled and bit, tearing tendrils and shifting from smoke to beast as it freed itself.
But the damage was done. The beast was hurt and clearly surprised. It flung off the last of the jellyfish’s tendrils and became smoke once more. Scooped up a screaming Marie and grabbed at Renee with ephemeral smoke tentacles.
Claire clutched at Renee. “No, you vile beast! You won’t have her!” Renee was ripped from her grasp like a doll from a child’s hands, and they disappeared up the tunnels, the twins screeching and yelling, fighting against what they could not hurt.
Claire heaved breath, staring up the tunnel. She wanted to give chase, desperately so. But she was missing soldiers, had injured and unconscious to deal with.
And the jellyfish turned into Sadie once more, naked again, flesh stripped all over her legs, wounds weeping blood as she shook and bit her lips to keep from crying out.
What a disaster, she thought. Claire gritted her teeth and got to work tending her wounded. They’d find this bastard and kill him, whatever it took.
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The twins held captive, the bandersnatch fled to the Hundred know where, Claire and her entire retinue missing or injured. What will become of them all? Can Claire muster her soldiers and find the bandersnatch before he disappears completely and makes his fell desires reality?
Tune in next week to find out!
Panning For Clouds 