Kuu
Kuu woke up in the tiny iron cage, with his ribs still hurting from the night before. One of Yelto’s men—with a great eye at night, apparently—had managed to land an arrow or two in his side. Good timing on the guard’s part, as Kuu was just about to break free of the compound. Any longer and he would have had to find an excuse to be caught. Rathma could have kept going, the Farstepper didn’t play a part in this part of the plan, but it felt good to have the company.
He winced as he took a breath that sent a bolt of pain through his ribs, brushing it off knowing the sensation would pass. It was part of what made him so reckless and fearless, thinking and feeling he was invincible: every time he changed shape, his wounds would heal. It taught him to deal with much worse pain than this.
He looked around the underground room that the guards had thrown them in after their “trial,” and saw that it was still dark. The torches that had been lit when they were dragged down had been extinguished after he and Rathma were thrown in their cages. He was at the end of a rather long hall, with a wooden table and chair on the opposite side for the guard to sit at. It was empty now, but depending on how much longer it was until daybreak, Kuu knew it would soon be occupied. He reached inside his thin vest to the hidden pocket sewn into the fabric. A smile spread over his face when he felt the keys that were still secreted inside. The guard hadn’t even noticed that Kuu had taken them. He didn’t know how much time he would have before they came to take him and Rathma, so he took advantage of being conscious and alone.
He started to quietly unlock the shackles around his wrists; he would have to leave them on for when the guard came to take him out of his cage, but he would loosen them for now. Once the guard got close he could toss them off and—hopefully—overpower him. It would only work if there was one guard, though; any more and Kuu might not be fast enough. If an alarm was raised, it would mean the end of their carefully planned infiltration of Yelto’s compound. Getting captured had been the one way to find out exactly what was on the inside, and it had worked like a charm. Kuu had seen what he needed to and made mental notes of it, although their real goal was still locked away somewhere else.
Yelto must be keeping her somewhere even more protected, Kuu thought. But there was no time for that now; his brothers would come up with something.
The only thing left to do now was escape.
He looked up and down the hallway and then back to the bars on his cage. Easier said than done, he thought. Of course Rathma left this part to me.
He heard the door open. Kuu watched as a guard stepped in with a single torch, using it to light the others in the hall. No other guards came in behind him.
Alone, thought Kuu. So far so good.
The guard walked out of sight, toward Rathma’s cage, and started making a racket that could have raised the dead. He was trying to wake them, Kuu knew, and he was not being gentle about it.
Kuu shouted, “Can’t we sleep just a little longer?” As he did, he slipped the key back into his vest in case he needed it later. Never hurts to be ready for anything, he thought.
The guard barked an indignant reply, followed by a metal clank, telling Kuu that Rathma’s cage was open. His own cage would come next, he figured. He definitely needed to be ready.
Turning the corner, the guard came back into view. He was wearing a sword at his side, and a leather breastplate that was ubiquitous among Yelto’s men. Those could come in handy, Kuu thought slyly. He would need to make himself look helpless so the guard wouldn’t suspect anything. A couple of snarky remarks usually did the trick.
Kuu flung a few expletives his way, as well as insulting his parents—always a great target, and relatively easy in Khôl. By the time the guard got to him, he was sufficiently worked up.
“That’s enough out of you, dog,” the man said in a sharp tone.
Kuu had his hands behind his back in a feigned display of submission. “But I wasn’t done!” he said with mock regret.
“I’m going to enjoy watching them flay you.”
The guard looked inside the cage at Kuu’s hands behind his back, double-checking the shackles around his wrists, and let open the cage just as Kuu freed his own wrists from their bonds.
“Sorry to disappoint you, then,” Kuu said. As quickly as he could, he reached up and grabbed the guard by the collar and pulled, causing a collision between his face and the metal bars lining the cage. That should do it, Kuu thought. When the guard didn’t immediately collapse, Kuu gave him a strange look and thought he might have been losing his touch. “Your face is tougher than it looks,” he admitted, and smashed the guard’s face on the cage again. The second collision did the trick and the guard slumped to the ground.
Kuu climbed out and looked around. The small hallway had just one torch in it, but the rest of the underground room was well lit by other sources of light. He hadn’t heard any other guards come down, and hoped his ears hadn’t deceived him. He reached down and started to undo the guard’s armor. “Lucky for me they didn’t send a fat one,” Kuu said as he slid the breastplate on. He took his sandals, sword, and shemagh, leaving the thin but muscular man mostly bare, and rolled him into the cage where he himself had just spent the night.
Closing and locking the cage, Kuu tossed the key up and snatched it from the air as he walked toward the entrance of the room. As he got closer, he saw his red-haired friend, blindfolded and shackled to the wall, groping around, searching for Holder knows what. Kuu snickered at how clumsy and helpless Rathma looked, and wanted nothing more than to savor the moment. He watched the Farstepper, who probably thought no one was watching, looking like a helpless coyote cub that had lost its pack and its eyesight.
I could at least have some fun before we leave.
Coming up behind Rathma, Kuu grabbed him and, in a deep voice, said, “Let’s go.”
He thought for sure that Rathma would catch on right away, but his fake guard voice had apparently been better than he expected. Rathma moved forward with no resistance, and Kuu suppressed a snicker as they walked.
He reached out and opened the wooden door in front of them that led into the hallway. He took a breath. This next part would not be easy.
***
“Don’t make me regret this,” Kuu said to Rathma.
Turning as he took out his sword, Kuu moved with the grace and precision of a practiced thief, swiftly covering the distance between him and a handful of guards. They were caught up in the confusion, and Kuu used that to his advantage.
“He went that way!” he yelled, pointing in the opposite direction. There were four of them, and the gears were turning slowly in their heads. One of them had half drawn his own sword, and the other three looked as if they should consider it. Before they could, Kuu was on them.
“Ha, gotcha,” Kuu said as he sent his sword through the open side of one guard’s armor. He watched the eyes of a second one grow large as the alarm registered; but there was no time for it to fully take root, as Kuu had already grabbed the dagger that was sheathed at his thigh and driven it up, into the man’s jaw. He ducked a punch from the third guard, who was placing his hand on his own sword. A quick twist from Kuu and a sword to the belly of the fourth guard left the two men facing each other.
“Sorry to leave like this,” Kuu started, dropping his sword to the ground with a clang. “But dying would be pretty inconvenient for me.” He stepped backward and reached inside himself, where the power he had yet to fully master was waiting for him.
It was hot, like grabbing a piece of metal that had been baking in the sun, and soon a sensation spread over him as though he were pulling on a coat made of searing hot needles. He felt his legs lengthen and contort as the rest of his body went through the tumultuous process of becoming something else.
Inside his body, he could feel his bones breaking and resetting as his skeleton did what it needed to in order to make the transformation. Part of that process was what would heal any wounds that he had previously picked up. His skin would change, and his muscles, too; but the pain that came with it all was very real.
Despite all the practice he had changing while moving, the process wasn’t easy. He had leaped into the air so he could use the momentum to carry him forward toward the door leading from Djozen Yelto’s chambers to the courtyard outside. Just as his arms became legs, he touched the ground. His shoulders had broken and reformed themselves, slightly more forward, just below their normal position on his body, allowing for the reduced flexibility but increased speed that came with his four-legged gait. The tail that popped out behind him, which he still hadn’t really found a good use for, wagged itself into being as he fled through the open door.
His eyesight was sharper as a wolf (a fox, technically, but he was still working on changing into larger animals like his brothers could). For now, though, he settled for the diminutive form that was still relatively easy for him to change into. He was so much quicker than he ever was on two legs, and he found himself flying through the courtyard, ducking through the open legs of surprised guards and weaving his way closer to freedom.
Shouts of “Grab him!” filled the air, but Kuu had no intention of being caught this time. If foxes could smile, Kuu would have done so; instead, he simply let his tongue hang out the side of his mouth as he ran, speeding over the sand and making his way toward the hidden outcropping in the desert that he and his brothers called home.
As he did, two towering and great black figures made their way toward Djozen Yelto’s stronghold, with what looked to be four human riders flanking them. His timing, it appeared, was flawless as always. Tongue wagging, he fled, arrow-like, across the desert sand.