I reached Hasda before Gunarra.
Panting, he stood in the center of a ring of burned-out forest, slender twigs around his ankles crumbling in the fresh ash. Sword in hand and cloaked in djinn fire, he glared around the now-bare forest. It took a moment for me to spot the bleached bones at his feet, but once I did I spotted several skeletons hidden among the scorched remains of the forest floor.
“Rats?” I fought the urge to summon my own weapon.
He shook his head, nostrils flaring. “Squirrels. Undead.”
Gunarra pulled up as his gaze swung on her. “I…if only I could sense them.”
“That makes two of us.” Snarling, he banished the djinn fire and slammed his sword in its sheath and then sucked at his hand.
“What happened?” I came over to examine him, but he pulled back.
“Caught me off guard. I was picking berries and it bit me before I saw it. Saran—” He stopped, eyes hard on Gunarra.
“If that’s what your djinn calls himself, it is a name with which I’m not familiar.” She gave him a flat look. “Even if I knew his former designation, I’m not sure it would help me remedy whatever prior offense has caused his grudge.”
“He didn’t sense it, either.” Hasda ignored her and inspected the wound. “I don’t suppose sparing me some ambrosia would be permitted?”
I stole a surreptitious glance around the forest. Kydon, still beneath the Veil, frowned and folded his arms. It took effort to keep the scowl off my face. “Did the Stitcher get his claws back in you?”
Hasda shook his head. “That hold was broken the first time, and it won’t set a second. I’m more concerned about normal infection than undead disease.”
“I might be able to shift.” Gunarra winced at his glare. “Even if I can, my senses are still clouded, so we must needs wait for my jackals to arrive. But you haven’t lathered your wound in a mysterious sludge, so it won’t affect my personage negatively.”
“If you can shift, I suppose we can try.” He flexed his hand. “But make it quick. I need to find more food, since I ruined the first patch.”
The half-form dipped her head and stepped back. Gathering herself, she thrust her arms forward and pushed against an invisible barrier. Sweat beaded her brow, lines carving consternation on her face. Then, with a pop, she fell to all fours.
As she shook herself, her dress shifted into long strands of fur. Her limbs thickened, her hands becoming paws, her fingers clawed. Soon she wagged three bushy tails again, although her face had taken a more feline cast than the canid jackal one she’d first worn. Her nose was puffy as well, as if a hive of bees had assaulted it, and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Hold out your hand.” Her voice sounded like she was recovering from a cough.
Frowning, Hasda extended his arm. Gunarra sniffed the wound a few times and then shook her head. One final sniff, and then she licked the bite once, twice. A sneeze, and she was finished.
Face scrunched, Hasda surveyed the pink blotch of fresh skin. “That was…fast.”
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The canid lioness blinked. “I merely meant to disinfect it.”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “Yes, well, appreciated. How close are your jackals?”
“Likely several hours away still. Why?”
“From the look of your face, your senses are still messed up?”
She nodded.
Sighing, Hasda turned and stalked northward. “I’m hungry. I need to find food.”
“We’ll go with you.” I gave Gunarra a stern look as I set off after him. “I’m sure her jackals know how to track her.”
She snorted and plodded after me.
We kept Hasda in sight, but followed from a distance. The feel of the forest had changed. Even though the ill-suited silence still draped the woodland, the sense of emptiness had faded. Maybe it was the knowledge of animals unseen, yet distantly present, or perhaps it was the Sukalla’s tentative companionship, an accompaniment that differed from Hasda’s former men, but the atmosphere of life deprived no longer clung to the air.
I glanced sideways at the jackal heeling beside me. “You were explaining the generations of djinn before the interruption.”
“Strange, I remember declaiming the futility of avenging past wrongs upon Marudak while the Sea Mother remains unbound.”
I snorted. “It’s either that, or you explain this betrayal my boy’s djinn hates you over.”
A low growl rattled her throat. “Arali first fashioned the girru, unbridled spirits whose fire consumed even light itself. But they refused to submit, so he shattered them and forged a new line from their shards. The galla served better than their precursors, but they tended to waste their hosts.” Her eyes assessed Hasda’s broad back. “How long have they been bonded?”
“A few years at this point.” My neck itched, but I ignored it. “Why? Will he suddenly succumb to death after being exposed too long?”
“Nothing like that.” Gunarra padded silently for a pace. “Less a candle guttering out, more dousing a fire with oil. A predictable fate. What drove Arali to try again with the ghitti was how the galla would push their tuzhsu beyond mortal limits in battle. A consequence, perhaps, of gifting the galla with too many skills. The gudhu, however, were not so endowed.”
“And why they failed as tuzshu,” Hasda called back. He’d found another bush and, after stabbing it a few times, bent to pick at the glossy red berries.
Gunarra pulled a face that was hard to interpret with her inflated features. “Arali gave the ghitti a fourth of what he lavished upon the galla. The gudhu he gave even less, not even a tenth. Is it any wonder they were less than slaves?”
“Funny choice of word, that.” Hasda glanced up from his gathering, his face twisted in a scowl. “But you would know, wouldn’t you?”
Her tails flicked. “You withhold your name while screaming your fallen master’s. Kakka Me-Me condemned herself when she sided against mine.”
The muscles in Hasda’s jaw worked, and his fingers snapped twigs as he yanked at the berries.
I took a step closer to him as I maneuvered myself between them. “Explain.”
The jackal sighed and shook her head. “Kakka Me-Me was the djinn’s former nirarin. Before Marudak could rise against the Sea Mother, he needed to ensure he wouldn’t find himself staring up from the floor with a tuzshu’s blade in his spine. The largest troop of tuzshu outside his control followed Kakka Me-Me, who belonged to the [name], a favored house of the Sea Mother and her chosen.” She bared her teeth as Hasda pulled harder at the bushes. “So I took her bonds from her, to give the father of my mistress a chance to save her.”
“You tore her mind apart,” Hasda roared. Red juice dripped from his fist, the berries crushed. “Stripped her soul bare and enslaved her djinn, only to present your ass the moment the bull betrayed his own daughter for the throne..”
“My mistress bore the mantle of warden with pride.” Gunarra growled, long and low. “The tuzshu were a threat, as was I. While I would never have moved against her father, no matter how much I pleaded with her not to let herself be sacrificed for the Sea Mother’s internment, without her hand on my leash I was but a rabid dog to him.” Ears flat, she looked down her nose at him. “Bastard though he be, he is no fool. He saw clearly that, if he could turn the Sea Mother’s machinations against her, the same could be done to him. So he broke the engines that enabled his triumph that no other could follow the path behind him.”
“That wasn’t the only thing he broke.” The smile that crept across Hasda’s face was cold and cruel.
“And what will your brothers say, djinn, when they catch up to you?” Gunarra’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Oh yes, you aren’t the only one with claws. I’ve half a mind to sniff out your dangling lead and bind it to myself.”
Hasda’s hand drifted towards his sword, and then he seemed to realize he’d lost his food yet again. With a sigh, he wiped the juice onto his pants. “If you’d truly prove yourself useful, tell your jackals to bring food with them.”
“That would only delay them further,” she said, frowning.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I…”
Drawing his sword, he rose and dashed past us. Something in the underbrush crashed away, blundering through the forest detritus. Hasda hacked at a screen of branches blocking his way and ran after his quarry.
It didn’t take long for us to catch up to Hasda, or him his prey.
Across from him stood a crusty orange skeleton. Its bones looked corroded, like metal long abandoned to the whims of the weather. All of its armor, if a helm and buckler could be so called, as well as its sword, had succumbed to the mottled turquoise of aged copper. Strangest of all was the rune carved into its forehead, a chevron with a circle at its zenith. Although the deteriorated skull softened its edges, the symbol remained distinct.
Hasda charged as soon as the skeleton twitched its sword.