Forest Tribe Part 1

The handful of elite Drang soldiers fanned out in the forest. They wore lighter armor than usual to avoid clanging armor and eased their leather-clad feet along the ground, looking for previous tracks before moving forward onto the forest floor.

After three days of sprinting from the castle, they were all aware that they had now entered Forest Tribe territory. A place that marked the disappearance of countless Drang who ventured beyond it in the past fifty winters. The few who had returned with their lives had very little intel to share and were swiftly executed for fleeing the battle, if not for the lack of information gained.

Massive trees with intertwining roots towered above the soldiers as they searched the underbrush and dark soil for signs of other life, signs of Changers.

Large-leafed ferns were scattered among the mossy forest floor, which seemed to breathe in and out with the windswept forest.

All the Drang scouts held unsheathed swords as they inched tentatively forward.

Suppose an especially observant bird was watching the soldiers as they combed through the forest. In that case, such a bird might have seen the tension between some of the soldiers’ shoulder blades as they nervously glanced into the shadows of the deeper forest ahead of them.

Such a bird might have watched as the soldiers, hunched over, snuck deeper into tribe territory. Suppose such a bird were to have extraordinary eyesight. In that case, it might have been able to spot the glaring reflection of the sun off steel blades, long before the soldiers entered the cover of the forest.

Dusk had seeped into the forest like spilled ink. Each soldier could barely see those on either side of him, in the encroaching darkness. The soldier at the front of the V-shaped search party held up a fist, and the others rippled to a halt.

Next, many things happened in quick succession. The three outer left scouts were dead before the others turned back to face their comrades. However, to the bird’s extraordinary eyesight in the distance, the events unfolded in crystal clear night vision.

When a bird screeched in the distance, to the soldiers right, they jumped and turned their swords  in the sound’s direction. At that same moment, three dark shadows fell from the trees on three soldiers, bringing them to the ground.

When the others turned back to look at the new sound behind them, two of their comrades were gurgling blood through ripped throats. One of them ran back the way they came through the dense vegetation, never looking back.

One dying soldier damned the name “Karth” before gasping his final breath.

Let this one bring the queen to our false location. Let them come to us, Sooadahm thought loud enough for the other Skinchangers to hear in their minds.

A massive wolf, the size of a horse, pinned a soldier to the ground. With his gray muzzle dripping with blood, he looked up from his lifeless victim, and smiled at his comrades.

Another soldier was being mauled by a  black panther as he grasped at the air in vain. Using one paw to pin the now helmetless man’s forehead down, she used her other paw to break his trachea with a snap.

The third soldier to die, fell under a tiger. Its muscles rippled beneath a deep red coat covered in black stripes. It muffled instantly his initial scream of surprise as the tiger clamped its immense jaws around the man’s face and pulled back with all its force.

This Changers’ attack was executed in a practiced unison. By the time the remaining four soldiers turned toward them, two of the three Changers had transformed back into their human form and had armed themselves with the dead soldiers’ blades. The tiger continued to chew on his victim.

A moment before, a wolf had stood atop the soldier. Now a bearded man, naked as his Nameday, rose, and armed himself with the sword of the Drang. He fell.

Where there was once a panther, a woman wrestled two long daggers away from the soldier she had sent to the Dream Realm. Once both blades were free of the scabbards, she rose slowly, still atop the lifeless body, and faced the stunned soldiers. The Drang’s swords stood frozen in the air. They looked like flimsy statues swaying in  a hurricane.

Sooadahm cracked her back several times as she stood up from her first Drang kill of the night. Her fingers curled around twin daggers of tempered steel, each holding a blood-red gem in the pommel. She showed her own white dagger teeth in a smile as she thought of how nicely these would add to her collection. She looked up and connected with the eyes of the nearest soldier.

His outstretched hand shook, as his furrowed brow dripped with sweat. He failed to hide his pounding heartbeat. Sooadahm couldn’t help but notice while her next mark knew he was about to perish, he couldn’t stop from glancing down at her naked figure, silhouetted by the moonlight shining behind her through the forest canopy. Her smooth dark skin let her stand among the trees without seams. Every bodily shadow and curve aided in the hesitation of any man or woman who wished to kill her.

Not that she needed that to help her in battle.

Sooadahm glanced to her side, where Tiogair still gorged on the dying soldier. The soldier’s heart had ceased beating, yet Tiogair continued showing attention to the man’s neck. Sooadahm let out a low growl for him to hear as she sent him a feeling of focus. Focus on the mission at hand. There are more yet

The lead soldier leaped back as the three remaining soldiers formed up behind him, providing a safe distance between them. He shouted to the others, “On me!”

They looked around in case there were more than the three Changers.

Sooadahm saw in her peripheral vision Canu had changed from wolf to his two-legged form and had a Drang broadsword in his hand.

He slammed the sword’s tip down into the Drang’s dead body on which he stood, like a weaver would stick a needle in a cushion to hold its place for a time. He smiled at the soldier to the rear, who had been sneakily knocking an arrow. Canu’s yellow eyes glowed for the soldier, who hesitated. His knocked bow and arrow aimed at the ground, feet froze in place.

Another soldier fluidly unsheathed a dagger and threw it at Tiogair. A breath too slow for the tiger, who bounded off into the surrounding dark underbrush unscathed. The dagger stuck into the base of a tree, humming slightly as it swayed with leftover force.

Another bird cry echoed behind the remaining soldiers, though none turned away from the two armed and naked Changers, baring their human teeth.

The falcon, taking his opportunity, crashed-landed on the face of the soldier with his bow about to shoot and had both the soldier’s eyeballs detached and clutched within his talons. He flew back into the night, gripping his prizes and leaving another soldier squirming in pain on the dark forest floor. He screamed in agony, though none of the others moved. Two Changers stared back at two Drang.

“Two left,” Canu growled at the last scouts. They stood shoulder to shoulder, unsure of where to face—the two Changers in two-legged form, or the falcon and tiger. Changers could lurk somewhere beyond even their enhanced Drang sight. Canu smiled as he swung his stolen sword in circles on either side of him, warming up for his next kill.

Losing his nerve, one of the Drang made his attack. He lunged toward the naked woman, now holding twin daggers, deeming her the less deadly.

He chose wrong.