Blue Jay tore himself loose from the dead octopus just as a second descended upon him from above. He didn’t have time to turn, to dance, to slash, to even raise his fists in defense.
The octopus picked him up off the ground like a marionette. Its tentacles wrapped around Blue Jay’s arms and legs, neck and middle. It lifted him up, and then it broke him. Legs and arms, neck and spine, all snapped like kindling.
Blue Jay changed, then, one last bit of magic. One last bit of mischief for the trickster. He became the blue bird again, and slid from the grasp of the octopus.
The bird fell to the ground, struck the stones, and did not move again. Three lone blue feathers spiraled down to land nearby.
The fox wept.
Collette felt wired, like she’d had several gallons of coffee. Adrenaline pumped through her, even though her arms and legs ached. Her clothes were covered with blood and the stink of it filled her nostrils. Twice she’d helped hold together the guts of a soldier so badly wounded that she had to vomit; both times she had returned immediately to the surgeon’s side, doing her part. Doing her best. The smell of blood up inside her nose, the taste of it on her tongue, helped. It was far preferable to the shameful reminder of her vomit.
These men and women needed her.
They were dying down there on the battlefield. Her soul felt torn between the urge to run to their aid—to throw herself into the fight and do whatever she could to help with blade or club or bare hands—and the terror that threatened to drive her screaming over the hill, through the trees, and off into the unfamiliar lands of Euphrasia.
For half an hour, the urge to pee had been nearly overwhelming. Now it became painful. For the moment, the makeshift battlefield hospital—a dying place or a surviving place, but not really a healing place—had become quiet save for the moaning of the wounded. Another wave would arrive shortly, but her opportunity had come.
With a glance, she found Julianna. After all she had endured, some of the beauty seemed to have been eroded from her. Her hair was tied back with a strip of cloth and her clothes were also bloodied. Dirt smeared her face, hands, and arms. Dark crescents had appeared under her eyes. Yet she seemed more herself than ever before. All of the ephemeral qualities had been scoured away, and what remained was a woman Collette loved dearly, and felt proud to know. If they had to endure this, she knew they could survive it together.
Julianna waved. Collette smiled and dashed away toward King Hunyadi’s tent. It seemed somehow disrespectful to piss that close to the king’s tent, but there were precious few places she could go and be out of sight of the advisors and medics and aides, not to mention the wounded.
Once past the tent, away from prying eyes, she noticed the stand of trees at the top of the ridge behind the encampment. Twenty paces or less. Collette raced to the trees and went over the ridge just a few feet, dropped her pants, and crouched behind an old oak with a massive trunk. A sigh escaped her as she relieved herself, the sheer pleasure of reducing the pressure on her bladder enough to make her shiver.
“Not that much different from animals, really,” said a voice.
Collette turned even as she rose, tugging up her pants and fumbling with the buttons. She staggered, nearly fell, her boot sliding in the soft, damp spot where she’d just pissed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.
Coyote stood leaning against a nearby tree smoking a cigarette he must have rolled himself. The pungent herbal odor made her nostrils flare.
“Ordinary folk, I mean,” Coyote went on. “You people. Not much different from animals.”
The lithe little man, that legend, glanced up at her from beneath narrowed brows and cast her a dangerous look. His arms were thin but corded with muscle. He stepped away from the tree, taking a long tug from his cigarette. Smoke plumed from his nostrils.
“I should’ve guessed you were the type for cheap thrills.” Collette stood her ground. Then she frowned. Something was wrong. It took her a moment to figure it out, but then she stared at him.
“You’re not Coyote.”
He faltered a moment, then took another drag and gave a soft laugh, both self-deprecating and cynical.
“Coyote’s missing an eye. I saw him earlier. If he could’ve grown one back, he would’ve done it already.”
He sighed. “There’s always someone cleverer than you are, girl. Hard lesson to learn.”
A knot formed in Collette’s chest. No mischief lingered in Coyote’s black eyes, just a wrongness that made her stand a bit straighter, lean away from him.
And then he changed, but not from man to animal. The air rippled around him, his features blurred, and where Coyote had been there now stood a different man entirely. He had silver hair, and the tint of his skin marked him as Atlantean, but he wore dark pants and a blue cotton shirt that hung loosely on him. These were the clothes of a traveler, not the armor of a soldier or the robes of a sorcerer.
Collette took a step back, heart racing, ready to defend herself. “Who the hell are you?”
“One who’s been in the dungeons himself, once or twice, just as you have; one who had to make a deal to get out. He offered my freedom in exchange for your life.”
Collette couldn’t breathe. She said one word. A name. An incantation. An accusation.
“Ty’Lis.”
The Atlantean took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled white smoke. Then he shrugged. “I would’ve died of boredom in there, so I figured, why not? What good are the skills of an assassin if you’ve got no one to kill?”
The killer took two slow steps. He stood between her and the encampment. The only place for her to run was down the open slope behind her or along the top of the ridge, in and out of trees.
Collette shook her head. No running.
“You’ve made a mistake.” She lifted her hands. “I have power you can’t even begin to understand. I can unmake you, asshole. Dust to dust.”
The assassin laughed. Then he lunged, too fast for her to stop him. He drove his fist into her face. Collette staggered back, nearly fell but caught herself, and scrambled away. He pursued her, reaching out with his left hand in an open-handed slap that she mostly dodged, only to see his right fist coming at her again.
Collette stepped into the punch. It glanced off the side of her skull, but by then she was in close. She hit him in the jaw with all her strength and it brought him up short, eyes going wide with surprise. Then she drove her forehead into his nose, felt it give way, and watched in satisfaction as he backpedaled, blood dripping from his nostrils.
He swore, then let slip a laugh. “Where’d you learn to fight like that, girl-creature?”
She could have told the assassin that she’d grown up a tomboy in Maine with rough winters and rougher boys, or that she’d lived in New York City for years and had to learn to protect herself, or that she’d had a husband who’d hit her exactly once before she’d taught him never to do it again.