The creature thrashed about, trying to slip free, but Kandler just squeezed his arms together harder. This creature was his only link to Esprл, and he was never going to let go.
The shifter thrashed about like a wild animal, struggling to get free from Kandler’s hold. The justicar pressed his elbows together, trying to force the fight from the creature. “Where is she?” he growled. Even to his own ears, he sounded desperate bordering on mad.
The creature in Kandler’s arms became both taller and broader. Its teeth morphed into tusks, and its skin grew rough and leathery. From the smell alone, Kandler didn’t need to turn his foe around to know he was now holding something that looked almost exactly like an orc. The thing let loose a stomach-wrenching snarl.
Kandler pulled his elbows back nearly a foot, bending the orc’s arms back nearly to the breaking point. Then he bore down and forward, slamming the thing’s face into the ground. He felt the orc’s snout smash into the crater’s hardened floor. One of the creature’s tusks broke off and stabbed it in the face. The creature yelped in pain. Kandler felt the blood pooling around his arms.
“I’ve dealt with your kind before, changeling,” Kandler said. “I won’t let go.”
The justicar felt something tickling about at the base of his brain. His fingers started to go numb. It reminded Kandler of his youth in Sham, the wondrous City of Towers. Once, at a friend’s birthday party, a performer had asked him to come onstage to help out with a trick. The little gnome had reached into Kandler’s brain and stunned him silly for a moment. He hadn’t realized what had happened until he’d come to a moment later and saw everyone laughing at the way he was drooling down his shirt.
Afterward, Kandler had asked his father what had happened. “That was a psion, son,” the old man had said, his huge paw of a hand on the young Kandler’s shoulder. “They use their brains to mess with ours. You can’t trust them for a second.”
Still a bit confused, Kandler had asked his father what he should do if something like that happened again. The old man just flashed his son a rueful smile. “Me?” he said with an ironic laugh, “I’d kill him. But that’s not for you, son. I’m just a soldier. You’ll be better than that.”
The efforts of the creature in his arms brought all the shame and confusion back into Kandler’s head, and he used those emotions to force the tendrils from his mind. He found the outrage blazing in his heart and centered on that, shoving the invader back. He bore down harder and ground the orc’s face into the dirt. What was left of its tusks scraped against the rocky floor.
“Get-out-of-my-head!” Kandler growled. He pounded the orc’s face against the ground to punctuate each word. The sensation in the justicar’s head vanished.
Kandler snorted down at the creature in his arms. “If I feel an inkling of you in my brain, I’ll snap your neck.” To emphasize his seriousness, he squeezed the creature’s neck between the heels of his hands, and the fight slid out of it.
The creature in Kandler’s arms slimmed down and grew shorter. Its hair lengthened, and its skin became smooth and pale. Its shape changed too, and Kandler realized he was now holding a woman.
“You’re quite the warrior, justicar,” the changeling said through lips now unbroken by an orc’s shattered tusk. “It’ll be a sad day when I have to kill you.”
“Where’s my daughter?” Kandler said. The creature’s bravado hadn’t unnerved him, but he struggled to keep his desperation about Esprл’s safety from his voice.
The changeling snickered as best she could. “If I tell you, you’ll kill me.”
Kandler slammed the changeling’s face into the ground again. “If you don’t talk, I’ll kill you for sure.”
“You’re bluffing,” the changeling said. She morphed into something softer, sweeter-a slim lady elf with long, blonde hair.
It was the scent of her hair that informed Kandler instantly that he was holding the form of his wife again-the dear, deceased Esprina. For a moment, his grief over her death threatened to flood him, but he shoved it back. He hadn’t been with his wife when she’d died on the Day of Mourning, and he’d spent many long, empty nights since wishing he’d had one last chance. This wasn’t her though, and that thought made him angrier than ever.
Kandler ground the changeling’s fine features into the crater floor and flexed his muscles, pulling her arms back to breaking. He knew what had happened. The creature had pulled the image of his long-dead wife from his mind and transformed into her, hoping that the presence of his beloved would break his will. In that, she’d made a horrible, perhaps final mistake.
“Don’t you dare use her against me,” Kandler snarled, his ferocity surprising even him. “Last chance, then you die. Where is my daughter?”
The changeling cried out in pain but didn’t say a word.
“I’ll break your back and leave you for the zombies,” Kandler said. “Read my mind, psion. Tell me if I’m bluffing.” He forced aside any doubts he might have had about this course of action, and he hoped it would be enough.
Kandler flexed again and felt the changeling’s arms start to pop. She yelped as she morphed back into her natural form. “All right!” she said. “All right!”
Kandler eased up on his hold, but just barely, enough to let the creature talk. “Where is she?”
“The others have her,” the changeling said through gritted teeth, her cheek still shoved against the ground. “The vampires. She’s in the main square.” The battered changeling started to laugh. With Kandler’s weight on her, it came out weak and shallow and set off a fit of coughing.
Kandler leaned over on the changeling so he could look in her pale, empty eyes. “What’s so funny?” he asked, although he knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
The changeling smiled. “I’m in telepathic contact with the vampire who has your daughter. With just a thought from me, he’ll rip out her throat. Get off. Now.”
It was Kandler’s turn to be afraid.
Chapter 14
Kandler got to his knees, the changeling still in his grasp. For a long moment, he considered killing the creature then and there. If he was quick enough about it, she might be dead before she could even think about Esprл. It was impossible from this angle though. He could choke the changeling to death, but it would take too long. He loosed his hold and shoved the creature to the ground.
The changeling dusted herself off as she made her way to her knees. She winced at her cracked ribs and turned to look up at Kandler. The creature’s face looked like a moon in the dim light spilling out of the house, soft and distant, yet still strongly feminine. The scratches and cuts on her rounded cheeks and on her thin slash of a mouth disappeared as Kandler watched. Her blank, white eyes seemed to glow softly in the darkness. She spoke as she started to her feet.
“Now let’s see who’s in charge he-”
Before the changeling could finish, Kandler lashed out with his boot and caught her across the jaw. The blow stunned her, he saw, but it did not put her out. She reeled backward. Desperate to save Esprл, Kandler pressed his advantage, never giving her a moment’s respite. He brutalized her with foot and fist, beating her until she stopped resisting, until she stopped moving.
Kandler grabbed the psion by the front of her tunic and hauled her toward the beam of light stabbing from his home’s front door. Pinkish blood dribbled from her battered face. Her breathing was shallow but steady. He tossed her aside, picked up his sword, and dashed back into town.
With any luck at all, Kandler figured he would reach Esprл before the changeling regained her senses. He considered killing her there and then, but he feared he might need her later. Also, he didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill her in cold blood. Taking a life in the heat of battle was one thing. Executing a helpless foe was something else altogether.
As Kandler sprinted toward the town square, he heard clashing swords and screams of terror and triumph up ahead. Someone had tossed more kindling on Shawda’s still-smoldering funeral pyre in the main square, and the flickering light reflected off the low-hanging tendrils from the Mournland that were always reaching out over the Mardakine crater.
The justicar turned a corner, and battle lay before him. Men and women of Mardakine fought toe to toe with
