Safe? They thought the warriors were keeping themsafefrom the people of Chalandros? They thought they weredemons? Gantalla felt a frown crease her face at the idea, then the moment she realised it, she deliberately smoothed her features again. Even so small a gesture could be noticed by observant eyes, and then she was as good as dead.
But… her people were just trying to escape the heat and the famine. How had the humans got the idea they were a threat? The only reason they had to fight was because the humans kept trying to kill them.
The group of women kept up their work, loading the bodies onto the carts and wheeling them away. But it soon became clear they were almost as interested in gossiping amongst themselves as actually working, and Gantalla felt a wave of gratitude at the realisation. It would take them far more than the afternoon to reach where she was lying. But would they stop for the night? Or would she have to somehow find a moment in the darkness when she could slip away unnoticed?
The sun continued its slow arc across the sky, and as the afternoon faded to evening, Gantalla was surprised to find she was actually feeling a little cold. The breeze was unexpectedly cool. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d felt a wind that didn’t scorch her skin. But her right arm was growing numb from lying in the same position for so long. Her neck was itching, and she thought she felt something crawling across her right leg.
Let a thousand bugs crawl across her, she thought fatalistically. She was not going to move. Her right calf started cramping, and so she adjusted her foot painstakingly slowly to stretch the muscle just a little, keeping an eye on the women to make sure they didn’t notice. An insect landed on her face, crawling up and down over her lips. She pressed her mouth closed, but endured the annoyance. She’d made it this far. She could make it the next step, too.
Night began to fall, and as the light turned to dim grey, the women finally packed up and left, though they left their wooden carts at the edge of the field, no doubt ready to start work again tomorrow. Thirst clawed at Gantalla’s throat, but she forced herself to lie still for another hour. It wasn’t fully dark yet. What if more humans came back? What if they were watching from the forest and saw her move?
But then, as night closed in, new fears lit in her mind. She knew nothing about this land, but if it was anything like the old forests of Chalandros, there would be predators roaming amongst the trees. She had no idea what wild beasts might exist in this world, but there were likely a few of them that could be a threat to her. At least she still had her knife…
Finally, darkness fell entirely. But even then, Gantalla waited, fear clawing at her. She had only one chance at this, and if she got it wrong… She didn’t dare to think what would happen then. The silence was thick, the wind dying down, and she became aware of the smell of hundreds of dead bodies. By tomorrow, insects would have arrived to feast on the remains, and scavengers too, most likely.
It was time to go.
Steeling herself, she moved slowly, rising cautiously to her hands and knees. Nothing moved, not on the battlefield, not at the edge of the distant forest.
She rose to her feet, stepping cautiously over the body she’d been lying against. She headed east, along the edge of the rock, towards the forest, but not in the direction of the road. The road headed south, and that was the last place she wanted to go.
Odd, she realised, all of a sudden. In Chalandros, the gate faced east, but here, it faced to the south. She’d somehow assumed it would face west.
But that was an unimportant detail. Focus, she schooled herself. Pay attention.
But in the dark, with her steps hampered by dozens of dead bodies, stealth and silence were a hard ask. She stumbled, her feet slipping on loose rocks, and she winced as a handful of stones skittered away down the slope. She froze, listening carefully… but the silence continued. She pushed herself to her feet again, picking her way across the battlefield, until finally, long minutes later, she cleared the last of the bodies. The forest was only a few dozen metres away, and suddenly fear caught up to her. In a desperate burst of speed, she raced for the tree line. Low branches whipped at her face and ferns grabbed at her legs, but she kept going. She wove between trees, twisting and turning to find a path to follow, almost blind in the darkness. But she had to keep going. She had to get away.
After about five minutes, she finally drew to a stop, breathing hard. She looked back the way she’d come, somewhat amazed to see that no one was chasing her. Had she made it? Was she safe?
But no, not just yet. There was one last thing to do. She pressed her shaking hand over the obsidian gem at her neck and muttered the spell the witch had taught her. She felt the change come over her, a tingling sensation all over her skin, and she looked down at her hands. Once again, her long, black claws had vanished, replaced by those useless human nails. Her hands were ugly now, brown and stubby, and she felt odd without her tail to aid her balance. But she looked human. That was the important thing.
She kept going, walking more slowly now, until an odd sound reached her ears. It was low and soothing, almost like wind, but more solid, somehow, and she followed the sound until she reached…
Oh, praise the gods! She rushed forward, falling to her knees beside the stream, the water babbling gently over rocks. She cupped her hands, drinking in great gulps of the clear water, assuaging her thirst. Water! Great gods, this world still had enough of it to form whole rivers of the stuff!
It was only after she’d drunk her fill that it finally occurred to her how filthy she was. Her clothes were covered in dust from the desert. Her shoes were now caked in mud, and she had blood on her hands – and likely on her face too, though she had no mirror with which to check. Gods only knew what the humans would think of her if she showed up looking like this.
Carefully, making sure to keep her knife at the ready, she stripped off her clothes. Her trousers were still the ones she’d worn in her father’s palace, with beautiful patterns embroidered into the cotton. Her shirt was a plain one, cream coloured, though the cuffs of the sleeves were stained with dirt. She shook out her cloak, getting rid of the worst of the dust, then knelt down in the water, washing away days of dirt and grime. For her feet, in particular, the water felt heavenly. She had blisters on her soles from the heat of the desert, and she soaked her feet in the cold water, sighing in relief. She splashed water on her face, then used the edge of her shirt to scrub her skin, before doing her best to wash the stains out of the sleeves.
Finally clean – though a fair bit colder than she would have liked – she dressed again, ignoring the dampness of her sleeves, and looked around for a likely spot to spend the night. Hunger clawed at her belly, but there was little chance of finding anything to eat. A nearby bolder looked like as good a spot as any, a thick bed of leaves gathered at the base, so she sat down, bunching up her cloak as a makeshift pillow. Then she rested her knife on her thigh, keeping her fingers wrapped around the hilt, ready to fend off any unexpected threat. Tomorrow, she would have a whole new set of challenges; finding food, figuring out which way to travel, and avoiding any humans, as much as possible. But she’d made it this far. Not bad for a spoiled princess. And a damn fine achievement for a so-called demon wandering about in the human world. Perhaps this adventure wasn’t going to be so bad, after all…
CHAPTER FIVE
In the morning, Gantalla started walking early, woken by birds before the sun had fully risen. She followed the river upstream for a while, hoping to come across a road of some sort. It would be both a blessing and a curse if she did. Roads meant humans, but the longer she walked, the more she realised that sooner or later, she was going to have to interact with humans anyway. And that, unfortunately, had been part of her plan that she hadn’t really thought about. Making it across the gate was only the first step in escaping Chalandros. She had no food, no money, no spare clothes. Poverty was a thing she’d never experienced before, and the thought of it now was both terrifying and offensive. She’d had to barter her jewels for food and water on the road to the gate, and if these humans thought she was a demon, her status in her old city would mean nothing.
She’d have to find work somewhere, she realised with a sinking heart. But what kind of work could she possibly do? She didn’t know how to grow crops or tend livestock. She wasn’t a blacksmith or a tailor. Perhaps she could find a job as a maid in some rich man’s house? The thought grated badly. A princess serving meals and washing clothes for a human family? She grimaced. Maybe that was her fate, but only as a last resort.
But what exactly had she thought was going to happen once she crossed the gate, anyway? That there would be an army of hadathmet waiting to welcome her, to hand her wealth and comfort on a silver platter? Ridiculous girl, she scolded herself. Alithmain had been right. Her older sister had been horrified when Gantalla had told her of her plan to cross the gate. Of course, Alithmain was the oldest of her father’s children, the first daughter of his first wife. One day – if their kingdom hadn’t been destroyed – Alithmain would have become queen. And she was every bit as spoilt and entitled as the title implied.
Gantalla was the daughter of her father’s fourth wife, the youngest of his seven children, and as such, she had never been destined to rule anything. Not that she would have had a bad life. She would have been granted a nice estate on the southern side of the city and given a handful of servants to keep her house. There would have been a grove of falisal trees, their fruit sweet and juicy, and the yearly crop worth a small fortune when sold at the local markets. And she would have married a handsome hadathmet noble-
Stop it, she scolded herself. There was no point in fantasising about what might have been. Half her family was dead. Her city was a smouldering ruin. And even now, she marvelled at Alithmain’s insistence on staying in Chalandros. There was no longer anything for her to be queen of, no food, save for scraps of lizard meat, no jewels or fine fabrics or parties to attend.
Gantalla stumbled suddenly, and then drew herself to a stop. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even realised she’d wandered right onto a road.
Right. Well, a road was a good thing, she reasoned. Better than wandering about aimlessly in a forest, at least. She looked left, then right. To the left, the road headed north east – away from the human city – so she turned in that direction. She looked like a human now, she reminded herself. She was just a simple traveller. There was nothing about her that any of the humans would notice as strange or out of place. She was going to be fine.
But not even ten minutes later, she suddenly had to reassess her decision to stick to the road. Footsteps were coming her way, along with the sound of wheels bouncing along the road, and she froze, seeing in her mind’s eye the image of those flat carts the women at the battlefield had had, ferrying dead bodies off to the graves they’d mentioned.
