Nothing.
Something grated on stone, low to his left. It might have been Tobry, twitching on the floor, but Rix did not think so. Tobry’s presence wouldn’t make the little hairs on the back of Rix’s neck stand up.
He caught a faint exhalation, the snick of a set of massive jaws closing, a liquid sound in a long throat. What was the caitsthe up to? He turned slowly, the hilt slipping in his sweaty palm, his eyes struggling to penetrate the dust. Where was it? Those weren’t the sounds made by a beast preparing to attack. Caitsthes took the easy prey first. It was going for Tobry and he didn’t know where either of them were. And Tobry was unconscious, helpless. All it had to do was close its jaws around his throat …
Rix had to make the beast go for him. Picking up a handful of small rocks, he flung them horizontally, one after another, turning as he did. The fourth rock made a faint thud, as if hitting flesh. The caitsthe drew a sharp breath and he knew where it was.
Then it went for him.
Rix fought best when he relied on instinct and he allowed it to take over, angling his sword to the right as if planning a swinging blow while surreptitiously freeing the knife on his left hip. It would not be easy to fight with such different-sized weapons at once, nor was it a defence he’d ever practised. And if his hunch proved wrong …
His only warning was the hiss of exhaled breath, foul as a jackal that fed on carrion. Rix swung the sword, deliberately leaving his front and left side exposed. If his guess about either the caitsthe’s position or mode of attack was wrong, it would gut him.
‘Re-ven-ge,’ it said in a halting purr. As if, even in human form, its throat struggled to shape words.
Was it parroting something its master had taught it, or was a cunning mind at work inside the caitsthe? If it was truly intelligent his strategy would fail.
And where was the wrythen? Rix glanced over his shoulder. The cold was getting closer. Was its plan to attack from behind as the caitsthe came at him from the front? To his left the air flurried and faint, swirling red lines appeared there. Caitsthe magery? Rix was glad of his enchanted blade now.
He caught the blur of movement as it sprang and more swirls of red, but before he could strike the beast had him by the shoulders, digging its claws in and holding his sword arm so tightly that he could not use the weapon. It could have torn his throat out with a snap of those teeth. The fact that it did not suggested it had other plans, and the toothy smile confirmed it.
The urge to protect his groin was almost irresistible. It took all Rix’s will to follow his instinct and wait for the one second when he would have a chance.
The caitsthe arched its back, opened its maw and began to lower its head. To divert his true intentions, he drove a knee up at its belly where the twin livers would be. The glancing blow had too little power to do serious damage, yet the caitsthe groaned and threw its head back.
No time to wonder why. He jerked his unnoticed knife out and up at the caitsthe’s belly at the same instant as it went for him. The knife encountered unexpected resistance — the woven belts of belly muscle were taut as wire. Rix swayed backwards and its snapping teeth grazed his chin, its foul breath blasting up his nostrils. His right forearm hit the side of its head but his sword was now behind the caitsthe and at the wrong angle to strike.
There was only one chance and he used it, forcing the knife through its belly muscles to the hilt then dragging it sideways. The caitsthe’s grip relaxed fractionally. He brought his knee up into its groin this time, putting all his weight behind it, and the shifter must not have been completely healed there, for it howled.
Rix slammed up again, gave the knife another twitch then put one foot against its crotch and shoved the creature backwards, tearing its claws from his shoulders.
The caitsthe slid off the knife and he lost sight of it as it hit the floor, though he could hear it panting and the oily squelch of intestines in its opened abdominal cavity. Any other creature would be dying from such an injury but the shifter seemed more troubled by the battering its groin had taken. He was safe for a minute or two until it healed itself — safe from it, at least — and had Rix been by himself he would have bolted.
Blood ran down his upper arms from his shoulders, each gouge throbbing as if a nail had been dragged through his flesh. He cleaned the caitsthe’s blood off his knife, very carefully, then scanned the air for the wrythen, the floor for Tobry. There was no sign of either.
Rix sheathed the knife but kept the sword out and, using his free hand, groped along the piled rubble. ‘Tobe, where are you?’
He had always taken Tobry for granted, had not realised how much he mattered to him or relied on him. His mocking, believe-in-nothing friend could not be dead. ‘Tobe, speak to me. I need you.’
He could not be far away. They had been side by side before they jumped, but if Tobry was under two feet of rubble there would be no helping him.
‘Tobe, if you’re conscious, I need light badly.’
The irony did not escape Rix, but his phobia about the uncanny had to take a back seat now. He was moving along the face of the rock fall when he realised that he could no longer hear the squelch of intestines. He couldn’t hear anything from the place where the caitsthe had fallen. Had it healed itself already?
A faint bluish glow lit the tunnel from behind. Tobry had come through; he was alive! But as Rix spun around, his smile died. The wrythen was hovering a yard above the ground on the other side of the rubble, blocking his retreat. Even if by some miracle he beat the caitsthe, he must next face an opponent he had no means of fighting.
Out of nowhere, the caitsthe launched itself head-first at his groin and there wasn’t time to raise the sword. Rix jammed its tip against the floor and wriggled the blade from side to side, pathetically trying to protect himself with the narrow blade.
The caitsthe’s jaws snapped, trying to close around him, but the blade cut across its mouth. It yelped, withdrew, then dived at him. Rix braced himself and jerked the edge of the blade into its path.
It twisted its head out of the way, losing only an ear, but momentum drove it hard onto the blade, which sliced a hand-span deep down the side of its neck and through its inner shoulder. The arm went limp but the caitsthe’s other hand came curling around behind Rix to wrench his feet from under him.
He lost his grip on the sword, then landed so hard on the rubble that he went numb from the waist down. The caitsthe was snapping and snarling, blood pouring from the terrible wound in its shoulder. It attempted a lunge to finish him off but the sword blade was caught on bone and the lunge only drove it deeper. Nothing else could have saved him.
It lurched backwards, reaching across with its good arm to pull the sword free, then jerked away as though the hilt had burnt it. The enchantment was the only thing protecting Rix now.
Yellow-brown fluid squirted from glands behind the caitsthe’s ears onto the wound; froth foamed up to cover it. The creature’s eyes glazed and it made several uncoordinated snapping motions with its teeth.
Rix’s numbness was fading but the smell of the glandular fluid made his nose drip and his stomach heave. As he tried to get up, the strength drained from him; the warmth fled from his body and was replaced with ice. His limbs might have been weighed down with rubble — he could barely move them. What was the caitsthe doing to him?
A convulsive blow sent the sword clattering across the rubble. Rix managed to rise to his hands and knees, though there were pins and needles in his feet and his shoulders had an unpleasant, jelly-like quality. The caitsthe was temporarily incapacitated as it shifted the tissues and bone to heal itself. Was it drawing on his strength for that purpose? Could it do such a thing?
It let out a groan; its free hand skimmed its stomach and it winced. Rix’s knife gouge was no longer visible but its belly bulged like a melon above its livers and the sweat running down its front was steaming there. What if the twin livers were involved in shapeshifting or healing? Were they painful because they had been so overworked, forced to heal by shifting again and again?
He groped behind him for a chunk of rock, then flung it at the bulge. The caitsthe screamed and convulsed, flinging its arms up and out repeatedly like a grotesque mechanical toy.
The cold and the weakness eased suddenly. Rix staggered forwards, fumbling for his knife, knowing that this was his last chance to finish the beast but not sure his legs would hold him up. If he had guessed wrong about the caitsthe it would tear his head off.
He swayed on his feet, the icy numbness creeping up his bones again. Should he try to cut the twin livers
