Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) (6 page)

The man stared down at her with a smile, as if he was amused by her silent shock. “You’re not from around here, are you?”



The foreign tongue was confusing. Kaydee thought she had passed out after crossing through the portal. That was probably due to the fact that she had landed on hard ground. When she came to, the first thing she heard was a tangle of foreign languages. She didn’t know if it was one separate language or two, but the foreign words wove around her, the elegant symbols curving and curling with each word spoken.

As her mind rearranged the syllables, it became clear that the potion was starting to kick in. Soon, the words warped and shifted, turning from a lovely foreign sound to something that she could clearly understand.

“And the foreigner? What are we to do with her?”

“We are crossing another trade post. She could fetch a nice profit to the traders at Govoya.”

She sat up abruptly at that, unaware of what she would face when her eyes opened clearly. Instead of the hard dirt ground she had landed on, she was inside of a tent of some sort. Brilliant purple cloth stretched above her head to form a sort of shelter, held up by a framework of wood. She was still lying on dirt ground, but someone had lifted her onto a small pile of cloth. The cloth felt like scraps of scratchy, uncomfortable linen and burlap. As she pushed them aside, she realized a chaotic patchwork blanket of scraps had covered her.

Hesitantly, she peeked out of her tent-like shelter. There were other tents set up around her, gathered around a central campfire. People milled around, clothed in a bizarre series of garments. Some looked like that of noble people she had seen in story books; others looked as they wore beggar rags. There was no distinction on if there was any ranking, if the brilliantly dressed people were in fact nobles or that those dressed in rags were beggars.
Everyone milled around, seemingly equal. There were even children in the same mix of clothes, playing with each other. Women sat around the fire, cooking over large, metal pots. Horses were tied to a sort of stable-area, with a trough of water below them. Each structure looked temporary, as if it was meant to be torn down and re-built at a moment’s notice. This was not a permanent settlement, she realized, but a band of nomads.

The question
was, where
was
she? This certainly didn’t look like a school or even a place of education to her. There were no studying children or scholarly looking people, just those who looked like they worked hard throughout the day, without break or time to study at all.

“Ah, she awakens.”

She peered up at the woman who was staring at her, realizing that this woman was the first voice she had heard speaking.

“Don’t be afraid, child. Come out.”

Encouraged by the oddly foreign form of English they were speaking, she stood up and out of the tent.

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said. At least, that’s what she heard herself say. The woman in the patchwork dress jerked back, startled, as if Kaydee had sprouted another head.

“Mage speak!” the woman cried.

There was a flurry of activity as other men and women surrounded her. There were all sorts of confusing questions and the magic translating the foreign tongues couldn’t keep up at first, giving Kaydee a confusing mix of foreign tongue and familiar words. Finally what emerged were repeated questions of, “Where did you come from, mage? Who is your teacher?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried. “Let me go!”

She burst forth from the crowd of people and stumbled into a stand full of glass bottles and wooden trinkets. She recognized one of the bottles as what Dirk had held – a glass vial full of potion. Was this where he had gotten the potion from?

“Mage!” a man shouted at her, as if that was her proper name.

“What do you want from me?” she said, hating how weak her voice sounded.

“Where do you come from, mage? Do you reside in a nearby village?”

“N-no, I don’t, I’m not from around here!”

She was hoping that the sudden outburst would get the people to back off from her, for them to realize that they were doing nothing more than scare her. She backed up against the stand of potions and trinkets once more, the glass bottles tinkering as she hit them, as if in protest. The men and women weren’t backing off from her as she had hoped. Instead, a few men pulled swords from their sides, the shiny metal glimmering in the campfire.

Panic settled into Kaydee. She had never been the one to fight, leaving the three other Assassins to fight while she lagged behind, healing those who needed it. She wasn’t a great fighter but she could feel her own magic building. These people already suspected she had magic. She didn’t know what would happen if she used it, if they would fear her for it or attack her, but there was only one way to find out.

Her concentration dipped down below her feet, to the ground below. She sifted through the dirt with her magic, looking for seedlings of life. Her magic influenced those seedlings to grow at an alarming rate, sprouting up out of the ground to form a wall of vines and ivy plant that separated her from the people threatening her.

“Earth mage! This one is an earth mage!” the first woman she had heard shouted.

The second woman she had shouted joined in the fray. “Sell her to Govoyan traders! She’ll be worth much more now!”

Kaydee had no idea of what would happen if she was sold to a trader, but she didn’t want to stick around and find out. Her powers lashed out again, making the vines and ivy grow taller. If she had to destroy this entire campground to protect herself, she would do it. She heard the men on the opposite side of the wall trying to fight the plant growth to get through her. Finally, someone must have grabbed a torch or some other scrap of wood holding fire, because the vines she had summoned burst into flame.

She screamed and her concentration dropped. The plants stopped growing and continued to burst into flame, withering and dying on the spot as they incinerated. The men pushed the smoldering plants out of the way and seized her.

“A draught of sleep should do some good,” the first woman said, reaching to the glass bottles behind Kaydee. She pulled the cork out of a bottle and shoved the glass rim to Kaydee’s lips.

Kaydee tried to fight but the men held her steady. The woman shoved the bottle into Kaydee’s mouth, forcefully pouring the liquid down her throat. Kaydee choked on the bitter, minty liquid as she struggled, but the concoction was instantaneous. The fight leeched out of her and her muscles went limp, as if she had been fighting for days.

The woman caught her as Kaydee collapsed. The last thing Kaydee heard was something about finding rope to bind her with, and contacting the Govoyan trader...then she fell into a deep, deep slumber.



Out of one forest and into another.
That was the phrase that stuck with Marco after he landed in the Second Realm. Wherever he was, this was no school that had been promised. This was more forest, but a different type of forest. Instead of the brilliant greens and browns that made up the forest behind Fyrn manor, this was different. Darker. More ominous, perhaps.

None of his cohorts were with him. He thought that, as the last one to land, he would land with them, but he was alone. Well, not totally alone. He heard the sounds of birds in the trees and rustling from the underbrush of bushes that tangled giant trees, but other than that, there was no living person near him.

“Kaleb? Evie?” he asked, his voice strangely loud in the quiet forest. “Kaydee? Are you guys here?”

His only answer was the sound of a healthy forest ripe with life. No voices answered, save for the birds above him. His heavy boots crunched over the undergrowth of the forest, all the fallen leaves and twigs that made up the ground. This was not the forest behind the Fyrn manor at all. This was like no forest he had been in before. In Moonlight Hills, the only forests were the remains of undeveloped
land, and even that wasn’t quite as
wild
as this was. There were no bits of litter here and there, that suggested that messy, careless humans inhabited this forest. This forest was wild, untouched and free of human taint.

Figuring that his companions may have moved, he began wandering through the forest. He had hoped to find a clearing or even a building or a river to mark his location, but there was nothing but more of the
sameness
; that was, trees, trees and more trees.

Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes and reached into his inner mental powers. Stretching his powers out as far as they would allow, he searched for living creatures. He found plenty instantly, but filtered them out of his mind. Creatures of the woodland were of no interest to him. There were a few creatures that flagged his attention. He could feel a magical aura coming from them, but couldn’t figure out what they were. There were no humans at all, no sign of his missing friends. Finally, at the edge of the forest far from him, there was a living creature, a female creature roughly humanoid but not human. The notion confused him. There was magical energy coming from her, but it didn’t seem dangerous. Figuring that this would be a good place to start, he tracked how far she was from him and started heading towards her.

Along the way, he quickly found out that he was not made for trekking through the wilderness. He was a city boy used to the concrete jungle that downtown Moonlight Hills provided. This forestry, this wilderness, was outside of what he was familiar with. He tripped over plants, stumbled into burrows and snagged his jeans on a thorny bush. All the weapons he had packed on him came in handy. He had a slim, six-inch dagger in hand, slashing through what his clothing caught on. A machete would be more appropriate. Or a chainsaw. Maybe a tank.

He amused himself with ways to roll through the forest, even as he struggled. He came to a stream where there was no bridge to cross through and found himself stepping through the water, cringing as the water flooded into his jeans from the knees down and into his boots. There didn’t seem to be anything dangerous in the water, like
say a piranha, but now he would be trekking through the woods with wet clothing, and that was just unpleasant.

Marco had no idea of how far he had traveled, but he used his powers to again see where that woman was. She was close to him, so close in fact that his powers couldn’t track her anymore. She was too close–

There was a whistling, whizzing sound as something shot at him, from out of nowhere. He gave a cry and flattened himself to the ground. Overhead, he heard a distinct
thunk
as an arrow lodged itself into a tree. The arrow was of light-colored wood, the feathers on the end of some kind of bird he hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t one of those store-bought arrows with the plastic feathers.

“Stand up!” a woman’s cry demanded.

From behind a tree trunk, a woman revealed herself. Her dress was torn and tangled at the bottom, suggesting that she too had been wandering through the forest like he had. She had high cheekbones that made her face seem regal, even with the dirt that streaked across it. Her long black hair was captured in a long braid down her back and...were those
pointed
ears? Her ears were delicately pointed at the top, like some storybook fairy.

“Stand up!” she yelled again, her green eyes blazing.

Figuring that obeying him would save him from being skewered by an arrow, Marco stood up slowly, his hands up in front of him in the universal sign of,
please don’t shoot me.

The woman approached him, a tautly-strung bow in her hands. She notched an arrow and aimed at him.

“Are you human?” she demanded.

When he didn’t answer fast enough, she let the arrow fly. It had to be a deliberate miss with how close she was. The arrow tore through his shirt and lodged into the tree behind him.

“
Are
you?” she shouted, her voice growing angrier with each passing moment. “Answer me!
Are you human?
”

The sun was starting to set over Moonriver Academy. Dirk had asked several people if there were any foreign visitors, but so far, no one had heard anything. The Shadow Assassins had not landed in Moonriver, like they were supposed to.

He consulted with another teacher about the matter. The only thing that made sense was that whoever had attacked had disrupted the portal. It was supposed to be a
difficult thing to do, but by disrupting the portal and its original destination, it opened the portal up to the complicated network of portals that made up the white void they traveled in. The Shadow Assassins could have landed anywhere on the continent of Aurialis for all he knew...if they were in fact on Aurialis.

It wasn’t a good situation to be in. He was responsible for the Shadow Assassins and now they were nowhere to be found. Their original mission was in jeopardy now, the one that involved only a little observation. The Shadow Assassins were missing.

In addition to all of that, he had one more problem on his hands. The hybrid Dante sat in his office, an unruly student to be disciplined. Now, in addition to the larger crisis on hand, he had to resume his normal duty as Dante’s unofficial caregiver.

“What exactly were you thinking?” he asked her.

She glared down at the ground, making it clear that she hadn’t been thinking of much at all. She sat before him in the typical uniform of Moonriver Academy, the black slacks, polished shoes and black blazer over white shirt and purple tie. The front of the blazer had many golden buttons and the school’s insignia on it in deep purple thread. She wore hers unbuttoned, with her white shirt untucked and sloppily wrinkled. He could have disciplined her for her untidiness alone, but there were other matters to attend to.

“The mage started it,” she sighed. “I really hate her, you know that.”

“And that is why you cannot let her get to you. By allowing her to anger you, you allow her to wield that much more power over you.” He sighed, echoing her. “Dante, I care about you, but this is not the time to need my disciplinary touch. I–”

He was cut off by a knock on his office door.

“Enter,” he called.

The door opened and a tiny man entered. The man barely reached the height of Dirk’s chest, but he spoke with power.
“No word yet on your four visitors, sir. Do you want us to expand our search?”

One
more weary sigh escaped him. “Yes. Extend to the entire grounds of the school. If they’re on our property, find them.”

“Yes, sir.” with that, the man headed out the room.

“You have visitors?” Dante asked, disciplinary action forgotten.

He didn’t answer her on that. Instead, he said, “Go back to your room, Dante. One more fight with another student and you
will
be on academic probation, if not other disciplinary actions. Go.”

He watched her leave before he sat back on his chair. This was not a good situation. He would have to seek permission to open another portal back to the First Realm. Dr. Fyrn should be notified about what happened to his team.



Far from Moonriver Academy, another society stirred. The werecat tribe of Kkyathi was bustling with activity. Rough-hewn
cabins made out of wood stood in a forest clearing. There were metal disks above the door of each cabin, the disks also rough-hewn and roughly circular. It was the moon-disk, the good luck charm of each cabin to welcome in the moonlight and its good graces. Between the ten or so cabins were bright orange and red tents as tall as the house. These tents also had the moon-disk on the front entrance.

Tradition must be kept. The moon-disks were as old as the tribe itself. The same went for the piece of jewelry one woman held. The woman, slight in build and wearing a plain white dress, held a silver disk in her hand about an inch in circumference. Etched into the disk was a symbol of one of the moon phases – hers held a crescent moon shape etched into the circular pendant. The leather cord was tangled around her fingers. It was habit that had her taking the leather cord off from her pale neck. Pale fingers ran over the worn metal, taking comfort in the familiar feeling of the worn etching.

“Worried, aren’t you, Kikkaho?”

She turned and faced another woman in a short, crude-cut dress. The woman’s face was scarred badly, but she still smiled.

“Always worried,” the woman, Kikkaho, said.

“Don’t be. The warriors are coming home tonight!”

It was as if the scarred woman had said some magical word. At the edge of their home clearing, there was a small cheering and the distant sound of drums. She listened for the pattern of percussion beats, picking out the notes of the Kkyathi victory dance.
Victory.
The warriors had come home with food and other supplies.

“Yes,” she said faintly, pausing to slip the leather cord over her head before taking off at a run. The leather necklace dangled the pendant down past her breasts and to the center of her chest. The cord was absurdly long, but that was required for her kind. As she ran, the moon-disk pendant bounced against her chest, her shoulder-length blonde hair streaming out behind her.

A procession was making its way to the center of her camp, of men and women. There were no horses like other colonies and tribes used, but there were many men and women, all carrying a bag of supplies or an animal that had been successfully hunted. There were several warriors still in what they called
feral
form, or their animal form. Large cats patrolled the perimeters of their traveling group. At the front was an older man with graying hair, a woman in the traditional Kkyathi warrior armor and a strange human male.

Kikkaho ignored their strange visitor for a moment and ran to the two leading the group.
“Father! Sister!”

Her father held out his arms to her and she ran right into an awaiting hug.

“Welcome home,” she said.

The older man hugged her tight and gave her is own greeting. He was the chief of the Kkyathi tribe. In his older age, he rarely hunted with the others, instead, joining the hunting party to guide his daughter, Kikkaho’s half-sister.

“I see you fare well, sis,” said the woman in leather armor.

“Kirrah.
Glad to see you as well.”

Other greetings were exchanged among the Kkyathi and supplies were distributed. The slaughtered animals were brought into a large tent with several other supplies. The crowd disbanded into several of the cabins or tents.

Kikkaho oversaw each of the tribe move, before turning to the strange male in their party. “Who is this?”

Kirrah pushed ink-dark hair out of her golden eyes. “I found
him on our hunting grounds. He’s a shape shifter, this one. I saw him shift out of a bird form.”

“Why is he bound as if he were a prisoner?” Kikkaho asked, noting how his arms had been bound behind him with leather cord.

The woman named Kirrah frowned, accentuating a small scar near her lip. “Khala’s idea. Useless really, considering he can shift out of it, but he has not moved yet.”

“I’ll take him. Thank you for the successful hunt.”

“Of course, my sister.”

Kirrah’s voice was ripe with formality, but Kikkaho didn’t bother to correct her. Half-sisters they may be, but Kirrah had never warmed to Kikkaho at all. They were total opposites, inside and out. Kikkaho had been charged to lead the women and families who remained
behind when the hunting party left to roam the woods outside their small village. Her father Korjah, the Kkyathi chief, insisted it was best for her to run the village, while he took Kirrah out and taught her how to lead the warriors. Younger than Kikkaho, Kirrah had war in her veins. She was the perfect warrior, while Kikkaho was the perfect diplomat.

Unfortunately, that difference in their being meant that they had no other common ground to bond on. Kirrah made a rapid exit, leaving Kikkaho alone with the strange younger male.

She turned to him. “Why don’t we untie you?”

The man allowed her to remove the leather bindings before he backed off from her, his eyes wide in fear.

“I will not hurt you,” she said calmly, meeting his eyes. “I am not a warrior like they are.”

“What
are
you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. He spoke Kkyathi-Wereinsh, her native tongue! The way he spoke it sounded choppy, as if he either wasn’t a native speaker or was using a magical device to translate. Mage speak, it had to be. If he was truly a shape shifter as her sister had said, he must associate with mages to be able to use the universal translator of magic.

“We are the Kkyathi, a werecat tribe,” she explained calmly. “You were found on Kkyathi hunting grounds. This is our village. What are you called, shape shifter, and how are you speaking our language so fluently?”

“My name is Kaleb,” the man said after hesitating for a moment. What followed was a confusing series of events, something about coming from the First Realm, jumping through a portal and becoming lost. He explained the foul potion he had drunken before crossing over, which explained the fluency he spoke with.

“Kay-leb,” she mused over his name. “Such a strange name. Well, Kaleb, you are safe as long as you do not threaten my people here. You are free to go as well, if you wish it. You are not a prisoner of ours. I hope you find your people.”

Her words were a clear dismissal, giving him the option to leave if he chose. She expected him to do just that, as others have done when they were found trespassing on Kkyathi hunting grounds. Instead, the man in the strange black clothing glanced at her with dark gray eyes, taking her form in. It was unnerving, as if he had never seen a werecat before, but as he said, he was from the First Realm.

“I don’t know where they are,” he said, finally. “My people, that is. We all got separated. I don’t know where I am.”

She gave him a kind smile. “Well, Kaleb, you are in the Second Realm, on the continent of Aurialis, on the territory of the Kkyathi.”

She saw the growing smile that crossed his lips. He chuckled. She had to laugh with him.

“Come,” she said. “I will introduce you to our people. Maybe one of them can help you find your lost comrades.”



Kaleb followed the woman called Kikkaho as she led him to a large orange and red tent. Above each dwelling was the same circular disk that each of the Kkyathi wore around their necks. He supposed it was something to signify the were-part of each of them.
Werecats. He had never heard of werecats, but he had gotten a good demonstration of them.

The woman he had encountered in the forest had given him a good demonstration. When she had shifted back into her human form, she had threatened him at knife point, demanding to know who he was and why he was on their hunting ground. It was only after other Kkyathi warriors had found them that she had backed down and pulled on leather armor. A redheaded woman had chided her about running around naked.

The werecats were an interesting tribe. He walked around with Kikkaho as she introduced him to others. Most of the people who had remained behind were women raising families or men too old or weak to fight or be of use gathering food and supplies. The healthy warriors were bustling around, too busy to stop and say hello, but preparing the slaughtered animals for roasting or other preparations. He briefly saw Kirrah, the woman who had captured him, and the redhead who had chided her. The two women were inside the tent, their lips locked in a tender kiss. Kaleb averted his gaze. Kikkaho passed over the two without much notice, as if she were used to seeing the two together.

As they went around the village, Kikkaho explained what the disks were for. Moon-disks, she called them, for protection and a reminder of who lived there. Each of the werecats had a specific time of the lunar phase when they felt the most powerful and were most prone to shifting. It wasn’t like the werewolf, she said, who were bound specifically to the full moon. The Kkyathi tribe could shift to what she called feral form, or the cat form, at any time, but each werecat had a specific moon phase to abide by. The Kkyathi who shifted during a particular phase of the moon went out on what were called midnight hunts, to shift and hunt and do whatever it was that their feral form demanded them to do.

“You’re lucky that you didn’t catch Kirrah in pure feral form,” Kikkaho added. Pure feral form was what they called the Kkyathi who were forced to shift during their moon phase. According to the werecat in front of him, the Kkyathi were most dangerous when in their pure feral stage.

As the tour to the village came to a close, Kikkaho turned to him. “You are welcome to stay if you like, Kaleb.”

“I’d like that,” he said after a moment. He wasn’t sure what it was about this werecat tribe, but he felt an odd sort of connection to them, more so than he had with normal humans. Maybe it was that animal part of the weres that he liked, he didn’t know.

Kikkaho gave him a brilliant smile. “I’d like that, too.”