Gwarruf

Gwarruf knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped out of the palace. He didn't spend a lot of time in the Troodon's forest. In fact he spent as little time there as he possibly could. But even he knew things were too quiet, that something in the air felt wrong.

“Hello?” he called out. “I'm here to pick up your report!”

Nothing.

“Do we really need to play games like this? You're the one who rang the signal bell!” He was trying to sound exasperated but he had a niggling feeling he still sounded terrified. Probably on account of the fact that he was terrified.

There was a scraping sound behind him and two troodons appeared, pale eyes gleaming in the darkness. He shrank away from them, their pallid skin and stringer feathers bringing bile to his throat like always.

“Yes,” he said. Well, squeaked. “Yes, yes, okay, you've done it you've scared the human now where's your mistress?”

The troodon's hissed at him and took a step forwards. He backed away, but the troodons kept coming, at a slow steady pace. When he tried to bolt around them another troodon burst out of the trees and startled him back in line. I'm being led somewhere. Panting and sweating he was herded to a nest dug into the ground and filled with fronds and leaves for cushioning. Some kind of big, lumpy shape lay in the center of the nest.

It moved and moaned, and the troodons hissed. A lot of troodons hissed.

They were everywhere. They poked their heads out of bushes, they darted between the trees. Some of them leered down from the branches. They were all around him, all around the nest, circling and watching. The ones behind Gwarruf snarled, forcing him closer to the nest and the bleeding shape. He stumbled towards it, certain they were going to kill him next, that they'd figured out how to use the bell to summon dinner, until he saw who it was was lying there.

“Gods. That's her. The emperor's claw.” He hadn't recognized the naked girl without her leathers until her eyes fluttered open and he saw her mutant troodon pupils. After that his eyes wandered first to the curve of her small naked breasts and only then to her mangled limbs, for which he never did quite fully forgive himself for the rest of his life. Not just because it was callous but because she looked young enough to be his granddaughter. She couldn't really be in her late teens, could she? She'd served the emperor for at least a decade. Did she start that young? Or was there something in the troodon blood her body was infused with that kept her young?

He made his panicked, babbling mind focus. Her limbs had been cut cleanly but it had obviously happened some time ago. The wounds were bound with reeds and vines, inexpertly but tightly, which probably explained how she was still alive. But she'd still lost both legs and arms and from the swollen, seeping look of the cuts they were almost certainly infected. Impossibly, the emperor's claw was dying.

“Kkkkkellkkkk,” A troodon hissed beside him. “Kkkellkk kkkerr.”

He'd never heard them make that sound before. He didn't know what it meant.

“Kkkellkk kkkerr!” the Troodon insisted, jerking a claw towards the fallen assassin.

Oh gods.

“Are you...” Gwarruf peered at the troodon. “Are you...are you saying...are you trying to say “help her?” Is that it?”

The assembled troodons hissed in approval and Gwarruf felt his heart clutch in his chest.

Since when can they talk? The thought was a panicky shriek as he stared at the gleaming, alien eyes all around them. Who gave you horrible things the right to talk!? And how many of you are out here? I'm sure no one knows it's this many. I'm sure of it.

He had an image of a great wave of troodons armed with shields and swords flowing over the city and devouring everyone in their path, the empire torn apart in the dark of night by fang and claw...

“Kkkellkk kkker,” the troodon insisted again. “Kkkunan kkkeelinkk.”

Help her. Human healing.

They can't do H's or P's or G's, some part of Gwarruf's mind insane enough to remain rational in the face of the night's madness provided. And it seems like they don't know the difference between M and N. But they know we've got better medicine than they do. Which means they know about medicine, which is terrifying all over again now isn't it?

Gwarruf wasn't sure what he should do. Would Lekarik want to heal a failed assassin? Or had she failed? Was Shylldra lying dead in the forest and some other enemy had done this? And if some other enemy had would the emperor want to know? Or would he prefer to sweep it all under the rug?

Another troodon butted him in the shoulder.

“Kkkellk kkker,” it told him. “Kkker die thyuu die.”

“Die,” the troodons around the nest chittered in eerie chorus.“Die, die, die.”

Of course they don't have any trouble with that word, Gwarruf thought miserably.

Illeth

Do you recognize me?

It had been such an odd thing to hear a troodon say. And she was sure she didn't. She knew every one of her pack, the only troodon pack anywhere near the city. This troodon had to be an alpha. He was sleekness made flesh, the very image of a forest ghost. And yet he felt familiar somehow. She'd thought he was going to kill her and claim her pack but instead he led them through the forest on paths...paths she didn't recognize.

How are there paths I don't recognize?

None of it made sense. Her troodons had been carrying her to safety when they met the strange one, but she'd known she was going to die. They were too far away from the city, from any human healers who could help her. And then the strange troodon showed up, and then...

We can't have gotten back to the city in three days. It's impossible.

But there she was lying on a bed with the emperor staring down at her. Her nakedness didn't bother her except that it meant she wasn't as protected as usual. But what did that matter when she was going to die? She tried to speak to him but she couldn't make her lips form words. She couldn't even talk mind to mind with her troodon pack, despite two of her troodons standing guard beside her. Then the door opened, wafting in the scent of congealed blood.

“Dalluth,” Lekarik said to the newcomer. “I'm glad you could some so quickly.”

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“Emperor,” Dallith bowed, apparently not noticing the troodons hissing at him. “What can I help you with?”

“This woman is one of my most trusted vassals,” Lekarik said. “My greatest assassin. As you can see, she's been wounded. Can you save her?”

A moment of silence.

“Ah,” Dalluth finally said. “You want to see what happens before you use my services yourself.”

“Can you?” Lekarik pressed.

“Of course, I have the tools right here. It will only take a few hours.”

NO! Illeth tried to scream. No, don't let him touch me don't you dare touch me! He's wrong, can't you feel it? Can't you feel the way the air slithers trying to get away from him? He's not human! He's not supposed to be here!

“Then I'll leave you to it,” Lekarik said, leaving her alone in the room with the thing that called itself Dalluth. She wanted to cut its throat out but she couldn't move. And she had no idea if that would kill it anyway. Once the emperor was gone, Dalluth turned to her troodons.

“You two would do anything to save your mistress?” He asked them. The troodons hissed.

No! Don't do it. I know you can smell it like I can. Don't ask him to save me, I'm not worth that! I'm not...

“Good,” With a casual sweep of his arms he tore out the troodon's throats. Illeth tried to scream, but it only came out as a moan. There was the sound of blades sawing bone and slicing flesh for a while, then Dalluth turned on her.

She couldn't remember exactly what happened, after that. There was pain, like fire burning in her mind. When her senses returned she was still in the bed. She rolled groggily, raising her hands to her face. Pale green, with long claws. They were troodon hands. He'd grafted troodon arms onto her stumps.

“Amazing,” the emperor was saying. When had he gotten back? “She's...well, she's horrifying. But that's good for an assassin, isn't it?”

“I take it you're pleased?” Dalluth. The monster. She had to fight through the fog in her brain, she had to focus.

“Very. When can you get to work on me?”

“Yours will be a much simpler procedure. Given a few days to prepare and the right materials it should only take an hour or so. I believe there's some preserved tyrannosaurus blood in the imperial treasury?”

“It's yours.”

“What did you do to me?” Illeth asked, sitting up in bed.

“Oh it’s very impressive!” Dalluth said. “Grafting limbs has only been done a few times successfully before. I actually carved matching infusion runes directly onto the arm bones. I'm going to create wonders.”

“He saved you,” the emperor said. “You ought to be thanking him.”

“No,” She couldn't tear her eyes away from her limbs. They had been hers. Her pack. And that thing had grafted them on to her. “No. Kill him. Now. He's wrong.”

“What is she babbling about?” the emperor asked.

Should have known. Humans are useless.

She leaped from the bed at Dalluth. Her new claws might horrify her but they'd do to tear him to pieces. Except her target was quicker than she expected and avoided her with a sidestep sending her careening into the wall. While she was still trying to get her bearings there was a strange noise, a honking tinkling bleating sound, and something made of bone cracked across her skull. The world swam around her and she felt herself losing consciousness again.

“The emperor's claw,” Lekarik sighed. “I suppose she's mad now. Have to put her down like a mad raptor.”

“Please, emperor. She could still be useful for my research, if you could keep her alive.”

“Oh alright. I know just where to keep her.”

And then Illeth finally fell back into the darkness.

Hallek

Hallek stumbled out of the cottage clutching the sword. He didn't need a master infuser to tell him he was dying. He could feel his body changing, feel his organs be the wrong shape. And he could feel the dinosaur in his head, snarling and pacing, his thoughts a whirl of mismatched memories where he was different sizes and species all mixed together and impossible to piece apart.

Maukra was his only hope. She stood next a chair made of wood and covered in fetishes of infused bone. There were straps on the arms and legs as if it had been designed to hold down a madman. Hallek had a worrying feeling this wasn't far from the truth. He sat down with the sword across his lap, gripped tightly in one hand. Norak strapped him in.

“You'll get through this,” Shylldra told him. He could just barely manage to smile at her.

“This will hurt,” Maurka said, pulling out a set of needles. “You will endure.”

She stabbed him with one of the needles and began to tattoo him in his own blood. It took hours for the pattern to form. There was one large rune of the back of each hand and each heel. Then the tattoos flowed up his limbs. Then at the hips and shoulders they blossomed almost like flowers, the runes extending over his back and chest until all four lines met between his shoulder blades and formed a large circle. Inside that circle, larger than any other rune, Maukra drew one of softly curving sides and abrupt, jagged corners.

When that rune was finished, all the runes glowed a bright orange and jerked in the chair. It felt like he'd been struck by lightning,crackling energy tearing across his skin.

“It is up to you now,” he thought he heard Maukra say. But he was going down, down into a spiral darkness, down into the depths of his own mind, and there was nothing but pain and darkness and falling and swirling until it suddenly stopped, and he floated in the darkness.

I'm alive.

The thought should have been comforting only he couldn't figure out who'd had it. He could feel that things were better now with Maukra's tattoos in place. Now there were two minds in his head instead of the swirling morass he'd been trying to think with before. But they were both him,and they weren't the same, and if they kept trying to share the space inside his head he was going to tear himself apart.

This is MY body. The thought echoed with two voices in his skull.

He was only a little aware of what was going on around him. He could feel the sword gripped tightly in his hands. He thought his eyes were closed but he couldn't be sure. He needed to maintain control. Like he had back at the carcass.

My old body.

The giganotosaur was nothing but instinct and emotion, hunger, pride, and rage. And tenderness, and sorrow, and loss. It wielded those emotions like a club, slamming them over and over again into Hallek's psyche, trying to break the strange and frustrating human mind apart. It was all fury, and if this had been a duel with weapons anything fighting like that should have died in seconds. But this wasn't, this was a duel of the mind, and he was fighting a Fang. A piece of one god and the rage of another. It was relentless as the tides.

We're not supposed to be fighting. We're supposed to be finding a way to live together.

The giganotosaur either didn't understand or didn't care. The psychic onslaught continued. What did he have to fight it with? He'd always been so...placid. His emotions were deep but not especially intense. Solid like stones embedded in the earth. That was probably why his mind had survived this long. But what did he have to fight back with?

He had a memory.

He was small, and hungry, and alone. The alley was wet and dirty and it stank, the foul smelling filth clinging to his fingers as he undid the wrapper he'd found in the street. A sausage. No. Two links of sausage. A feast he hadn't seen in weeks. But no sooner was it out of the wrapper than the compies were there, city compies, gray skin and vicious little teeth and small enough to squirm through cracks in the walls. There were a lot of them this time. They'd smelled the meat.

“Go away! It's mine!”

It was worse this time.

Worse because he'd lived this memory before and he remembered. Remembered before it happened how they flowed over him like water, remembered the claws scratching and teeth biting to make him let go. Remembered how he curled into a ball clutching the sausage to his chest. Remembered how those bites and cuts had swollen the next day, remembered wondering if they were infected and he was going to die. He lived it again, huddling around his food and gritting his teeth and refusing to let them near it as they screeched and hissed in rage.

And he remembered the end. When he couldn't take it anymore. He remembered bursting out of the swarm of compies and snatching one around the neck. He'd beaten it to death against the alley wall and thrown it's corpse at the swarm. He remembered the rest of them fleeing in panic.

He remembered winning.

I survived. I survived and I endured. And I will again.

The giganotosaur snarled in fury and confusion as it came across something in Hallek's mind it could not shatter. It raged against the obstacle only to find something it understood. A hard, iron core in Hallek's soul. The determination to live, to endure whatever horrors it took to walk out the other side still breathing. Survival instinct wrapped in sheer, bullheaded stubbornness.

It was an anchor. The point where their souls truly overlapped. The one thing they shared totally and without qualification. And because they were one mind now, and those two pieces of themselves were the same, there was finally them only one of them, one sliver of mind that was both Hallek and dinosaur. And once one part was the same rest fell into place. He felt the giganotosaur recede, felt parts of his mind rearrange themselves to allow the dinosaur room. Felt the human, mammal thoughts overpower the saurian rage. Watched the compies scattered back into the darkness.

And then he heard Shylldra scream, and there was only one thought.

Protect the mate.