CHAPTER 16

It wasn't easy for Lis to convince Cillumn of her need to explore the forest outside of the Aerie; however, ingredients simply did not grow within the pale stone walls, especially not the type of ingredients she was after. He had first convinced another Lord and three Shifter warriors to join them, and insisted that they stay within sight of the Aerie walls. She couldn't decide if he was always so protective, or the new developments had just worried him that much.

“Tell me again what, exactly, we are doing wandering the forest?” the blond Lord Cillumn had enlisted asked. He had one foot propped up against a boulder and rested an elbow upon the bent knee. The position was striking and highlighted his muscular back and waist, which, Lis assumed, was why he struck the pose to begin with. She couldn't tell who he was trying to impress, but the brilliant jade cuffs and collar that lined his black shirt indicated he was looking for attention, like one of the brightly colored male birds hopping around and flashing their feathers.

“Frog hunting,” she answered when no one else spoke. Then she realized it was more of a complaint than a question.

“Yes, but why?” he hopped down from his perch, a section of forest floor that rose above the rest, and nudged something toward her with his very shiny boots. Lis looked down.

“I need them alive if I am going to scrape the poison,” she grouched. The thing laying dead at her feet was not going to help anyone. A pointless death, too. It wasn't the frog's fault it had protection against predation.

The blond Lord frowned at her, and then the limp creature at his feet.

“How am I supposed to secure it? These are poisonous, you know,” he raised a brow her direction, his eyes flashed with something...an attempt at charm? Was he showing off for her?

“The poison is inert once it has been exposed to oxygen for more than five minutes. So long as you don't suck on them gathering the frogs, with your hands should be fine.”

He studied her with a critical eye. “But what if you're wrong? What if the poison lasts six minutes and I ingest some? The world wouldn't be the same without all of this magnificence.”

His eyebrows rose and fell, some sort of cue for her. He struck his pose once more and tilted his head, as if to prove a point.

“Strale, if I knew you were going to waste time and try to entice Lis, I wouldn't have asked for your help,” Cillumn strode over to them, a handful of green wriggling frogs with bright red spots in his hands. Lis opened the old leather sack she was using for collecting so that he could dump them in.

“Sure you would, I know you have missed my presence as much as I missed yours,” Strale leapt sideways and reached down, holding up a fist with two gangly legs protruding from it when he straightened. “A month is a long time to go without a good spar, or a good fu...”

“I think we have enough frogs, don't we, Lis?” Cillumn interrupted, glowering at his friend.

“Great,” Strale grinned and then frowned down at his hands. “There is a painting lesson beginning in an hour and I have finagled my way into modeling. It's hard to ignore a Lord you are trying to paint. Especially a magnificent Lord...a naked magnificent Lord,” he looked at Lis from where he stood. “Do you paint?”

Cillumn groaned a little, and his fingers flexed. It looked as though he might be considering punching his friend. Lis shook her head.

“No? That's unfortunate, I could use a student to point out all of my finer features to the other painters...one in particular.”

“You need someone to point out your finer features?” Cillumn snorted in disbelief. “You rarely talk about anything else.

Strale sniffed. “Any Lord worth his balls will take any help he can get. Besides, this particular student is adept at avoiding conversation with me, which leaves me with no time to point out my magnificence. Having a second opinion, a female opinion might help her open her eyes.”

Cillumn stared speculatively at the man. “You've used the word magnificent at least four times in this conversation in reference to yourself.”

“So?”

“Well maybe your painter would have more interest in conversation if you varied your vocabulary a little.”

And spent less time talking about himself, though Lis couldn't help but be amused a little at his predicament. Beneath all the self-importance, she sensed he was a bit flustered by the woman he sought to impress.

“My conversation is practically alive with wit and fascinating insights,” he looked at Lis sideways. “You could point that out, too, if you joined the lesson.”

The Lords began to move back toward the Aerie. In the forest background, she noticed the Shifter warriors doing the same. They had remained separate from their group, not deigning to collect frogs as they were, but standing wary guard.

She tried not to look at them. She was banished. A rogue. Many packs would chase her away as soon as she was scented. None of these men had moved against her...yet. But she wouldn't test her luck by encouraging their notice.

Strale was still looking at her. He seemed to require some sort of answer this time.

“I don't paint,” she told him. She didn't. In fact, she felt it was a useless activity. What good did painting do? The only link she had with such silliness was the construction of the paint itself.

She stopped in her path. Could that be it? Was it possible the answer would be that easy?

“What is it, Lis?” Cillum asked when he noticed she had not kept up.

“I need something more,” she announced, “...a vine.”

“Frogs and vines?” Strale glanced at Cillumn. “Most women crave baubles and decadent desserts.”

“Not me. Come on, I think I saw some of them just over there,” Lis gestured to her right. She didn't wait for them to agree, just started in that direction, trusting they would come along and keep up.

“What vine, in particular?” Cillumn asked when he fell in stride.

“Cissiac hydiacia.”

“Ciss..what?” Strale rubbed his forehead.

“The Xiophal vine, fleshy with big broad leaves and thorns as long as your palm.”

Thorns that contained a gel within that had both antiseptic properties, and was thick enough that it allowed for little air within the structure of the gel itself. The perfect medium for paints...and perhaps poisons as well. If her theory was correct the gel from the thorns would not only allow the poison to stick to the blade in a more efficient fashion, but extend the time limit when it could be effective. Five minutes was not a long time with which to act, if the anaerobic environment of the gel could prolong the poison's effects, the warriors might actually have a chance to strike a creature and damage it.

The idea was so fresh and persistent in her mind she nearly missed the warning her senses were yelling at her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose until they were painful.

She crouched instantly, inhaling a deep breath of air, trying to pinpoint the cause of her alarm. Both Cillumn and Strale strode past her before noticing her erratic behavior.

“What? Is it found below ground?” Strale asked turning to her warily.

She gestured him to silence and waved at the two Lords to take similar hidden positions. Raising her gaze to the forest around her she realized the other Shifters were far ahead of her. She couldn't see them anywhere, but she could still feel their presence.

She sniffed again, prepared to shift into wolf to get a better indication of what she faced. But her dress stopped her...and made her angry that she had succumbed to the fashion advice of humans. What would Gayriel and Tharissa think if she destroyed the clothes they had lent her? Her wolf was far bigger than her human form, the material would be torn to shreds, and she didn't have the time to undress.

She would just have to work with her human senses, insomuch as she could.

There was a strange smell on the air. More than one strange smell, if she was correct.

Ahead, along the very trail she had been walking something moved. The leaves of a towering fern shifted and shook.

She tried not to feel exposed in her position, she might have chosen a better place to hunker down. There was no leaves or vines, or even trees to cower behind in the place she had stopped. Only thin wisps of grass stood between her and whatever was coming, it wouldn't take much for whatever it was to spot her. She wondered, for a moment if the Lords at her side were thinking along the same lines. She was not a battle strategist, that much was clear.

She raised her left arm, aiming her dart launcher toward the disturbance. She had already set a capsule of poison in the receptacle. Gratefully, the darts themselves were porous and didn't need the gel in order for the poison to stick sufficiently, and the capsule had a resealing substance on either end, so that the dart would pass through, but very little air should find its way inward. Ingenious, if she did say so herself, but completely useless for any other form of weapon.

Again the problem of adhering the poison to metal blades formed a puzzle in her mind.

Until the creature emerged.

She had forgotten, through lack of exposure over the last few hours, how truly horrifying the possessed Shifters were.

“By the Six,” Strale breathed at her side, and she gestured him wildly for silence.

The creature might not be able to see them, but it was partly Quatori, and their sense of hearing was acute. She wasn't sure where the other Shifters had disappeared to, but none seemed eager to attack the threat. This would be the first time any of them had seen such things.

The question was, what was one doing so far away from where they had found the others? Were they prevalent all over the forest...or were they still tracking the glyph, somewhere inside the Aerie's walls, in the hands of the Archon?

With slow, deliberate caution, Lis pulled the lever of her dart launcher, the mechanics of the creation slipping a dart through the capsule and preparing it for launch. And then she hesitated. The Shifter possessed this time was young, younger than Adda. It was difficult to tell with her eyes missing and her face scarred with open wounds—her entire body scarred with open wounds—but Lis imagined, once, that she had been beautiful. Was there any little bit of who she was left in that body?

She couldn't help the wave of guilt that immersed her at the thought of killing such a wretch. The woman had suffered enough. But as she watched, the ruined body ambled forward, sniffing the air with an almost excited gesture. Then, horribly, her head turned toward them, the empty sockets seeming to focus on Lis' very soul. Without hesitation, the creature leapt forward, pulling up dirt with the action of her naked, mutilated feet.

Blocking all farther thoughts of sympathy, Lis shot the dart, and then reloaded, shooting a second just as the creature came within ten yards of their position.

Strale leapt backward, releasing his blade and aiming it, defensively toward the form. Cillumn, too, had drawn his weapon.

But it was unnecessary. The mutilated woman crumpled on her second bound, her momentum carrying her a little farther, her face mashed against the dirt and roots as she slid to a halt. There were several seconds where no one said anything.

“What in the Six hells was that?” Strale demanded at last.

“Our new enemy...or would that be enemies? I have no idea where they are coming from,” Cillumn answered.

Lis ignored their conversation and stood, creeping forward to where the half-dead corpse lay. Like the first of the creatures she had poisoned, this one didn't want to succumb entirely to the effects of the tree frog slime. She lay, helpless and twitching somewhat, but still breathing evenly.

That should be impossible. The blood within her system should have solidified nearly instantly, especially with the addition of the second dart. So what was it, then, that kept her alive?

Lis neared, closer than was wise, probably, and studied her form, trying very hard not to feel morbid. A greater understanding of the possessed creature's physical processes was obviously needed. How could one expect to kill something that didn't behave as a mortal body should?

She studied the wounds, keeping a few arm's lengths away, just in case, re-thinking her earlier sympathy. Whatever was left of the Shifter she had once been would have long ago been driven mad. The wounds were nothing short of horrific, both deep and fresh looking.

Yet they did not bleed. Lis paused in her study.

Cillumn approached from behind her, blade forward, his intention clear. He would behead the thing.

“Wait,” Lis demanded.

“Wait, for what?” Strale had followed behind. “What if that thing rises again? I am not sure what you did to it, but I wouldn't be taking the chance that it isn't permanent.”

His words struck her. Not permanent? She looked back at the creature, who moaned miserably, its legs pushed against the ground in a spasm, digging its face farther into the dirt.

What if it wasn't permanent? Did the poison represent a stall tactic rather than a solution for killing the things? She didn't seem to be improving from the shot, but Lis couldn't be sure of the poison's effectiveness unless she studied the complete reaction to it. The implications of a recovery, however, were alarming. If Lis did manage to engineer the poison to stick to the Dragon Lord's blades, they might assume a downed enemy was a dead enemy. In a swarm like the one she faced while retrieving the glyph, it would be easy to lose track of the fallen, and it might be devastating if they were to revive.

She looked back to the wound she had been studying. A pre-made wound, part of the creature's mutilation. It was deep enough, on its own, to end the Shifter's life, the blood loss should have sealed her fate. Yet, before the poison, she had been moving around...stalking them. Even now, no blood seeped from the wound. And it should have, if there was any blood left in the body and a heart to pump it.

Lis frowned at her. Maybe there wasn't. Was it possible that this possession, a possessed creature, had different rules for existence?

Her lungs still worked, though, they heaved with attempted breaths.

“You might be right, Strale, let us see if she recovers,” Lis trained the dart launcher on her, just in case.

The man sputtered. “That is *not* what I suggested,” he protested.

“No, but the information is vital...”

An arrow ended that thought. Shot straight into the Shifter's heart, followed by three more.

But they hadn't come from the group Cillumn had formed, no one within it had brought bows. Which meant one thing.

Someone else was in the forest.