Under Alune

Dobul Makeup

The men frowned at Keysean's hesitation, and crowded against him on the porch. A very low, almost inaudible growl escaped from Keysean's lips. He held his breath for a couple of seconds to quiet his anger.

"Did you know..." said Keysean. He lunged at the foremost ranger, driving him off the porch and onto the grass. "That this deed isn't signed?"

The two flanking men reached quickly for their faces and began mussing at their cheeks and eyes. Thick make-up rose at the edges of fingers. Their complexions deepened from sun-bronzed to a greenish tint ending at a mossy shade. At the same time, they changed in size, bellies spilling over their belts and pulling loose tucked hems. Their tan shirts tore as shoulders broadened and arms gained muscle.

The once rangers- now Orks by skin and appearance- chuckled with voices sounding of thick tongues and fluid-filled lungs. The one beneath Keysean stared coldly as it struggled against his weight and grasping hands.

Keysean looked down to find that he was transforming as well; Slowly and uncontrollably fur was spreading up his hands and wrists in a tiger's pattern of black-striped orange. The orks were pulling weapons from their belts and coming down the stairs, still chuckling. The smell of silver assaulted Keysean's nose. He growled softly, afraid to lose control of the situation. It had been many years since he'd used his War form, and still he was afraid of the consequences.

Suddenly the cabin's front door swung open, and Aeisha, carrying a bundle of things in a basket and wearing again her red-hood, gasped aloud. "Keysean!"

The orks jerked around to see her, and Keysean unable to restrain himself, shifted immediately into war-form. The Ork ranger beneath him made a gurgling noise as he tore open its throat and stood in one swift motion. Keysean snarled and pounced upon the orks. Landing on one, he slashed it with his long, sharp claws.

Oblivious to splashing blood and screams he lunged at the third Ork and caught it by throat and gut with jaws and claws. The Ork was quick to stab him with a silver dagger, opening his left shoulder wide. Keysean clenched in pain, snapping the ork's neck and rending through it's belly.

Keysean fell to his knees and grasped his shoulder tight. Grunting, he began to de-shift and after a moment was again a human. Aeisha, who'd barely blinked thrice before Keysean had dispatched with the orks, frowned. "How long did you know they were orks?"

Shadows from Aeisha fell across the scene of the bodies so neither saw them changing again in size. Keysean instead grunted and raised his hand. "Brought back Druid dobul shape-shifting makeup when I swiped the guy. Ugh, I dunno what's worse, this gash or the taste of their flesh."

Aeisha placed her bundle on the porch-step behind her then went to him. She pried at his hand until he lifted it from the wound. The skin below had a subtle bluish tint and bled profusely. "The orks are using Silver."

"We gotta get outta here, Eesh," said Keysean.

"Not until we do something about that wound." Aeisha slipped an edge of her cloak between her teeth and began tearing off long strips. She bound his shoulder as best she could then kissed the dressing. Keysean grunted once, stood, then helped her up. He leaned in to kiss her.

"Don't we have to go?" asked Aeisha, almost mockingly. Keysean gave a chuckle, took her hand and turned to leave. Aeisha grasped the handle of her basket then allowed herself to be lead after him.

Keysean growled as they passed from the lawn and onto the overgrown forest path. There were other footsteps in the forest than theirs. Behind him, he heard Aeisha come aware of the same thing. She sniffed and gave a growl.

"Gobold-kin," said Aeisha, "Lots more of them.. oh the stink."

Another few minutes and the smell weighed deep in Keysean's nose. The gobold-kin were either following them at a very fast pace or closing distance from ahead. Keysean glared into the forest racing alongside him. The trees were swaying in a disorganized manner on each side. There were flashes of moonlight off of metal. Something was following them through the boughs.

"We're surrounded, babe."

"I figured as much. What're we going to do Key?" Aeisha released his hand and came beside him. "There's already more than we can fight in our path."

"That stuff mean anything to you?" Keysean nodded grimly as she tossed the basket away. "Didn't think so."

Keysean continued running but began to decrease in size. His legs buckled and twisted, forcing him onto his front limbs. Small pads formed where his fingers once were, while his clothes shrank against him. Orange fur sprouted from bluish flesh covering a form that was now undeniably an adult tabby cat. Beside him ran a fox of ruddy-brown fur.

They could hear the gobold-kin panting and guffawing as they ran. Some shouted boasts to each other, punctuated by the sharp sounds of metal clashing.

Keysean found himself eying his wife more than the encroaching woods. He signaled for her to keep straight when the path curved away from a steep slope. He watched her lithe form slip beneath ferns and around bushes as they fled.

An ork broke from the verdure ahead of them, bearing a flattened bone and a stick laden with hollowed skulls. Dirt gathered on its sweaty skin where it was not covered by an odd garb of cloth strips and beaten metal. It stopped and peered around, and seeing only shivering foliage, continued on.

Further down, the slope leveled and lead into a glen of trees and high wild grass. Keysean espied more than a score of the orks moving swiftly in their general direction. These orks were joined by more as their perimeter began contracting. The large and welted forms of trolls strode close behind, crashing and tearing through the forest with overly long and stiff limbs. They slapped at any ork that came in their paths then berated them in splintery voices.

A smaller spindly kind of ork, with a long and twisted nose, came from a treetop and landed awkwardly on a troll's back. It dug a cruel dagger between thick knots of the troll's flesh to get the attentions of the rest. The orks slowed slightly as the troll howled out dryly, and gave this gobold their attention.

The gobold spoke in a fast, high-pitched voice and suddenly the orks changed tactics. They fanned out again and searched slower while the faster ones of them began moving in a westerly direction toward the High-Hill.

Keysean watched this through slips of trees as he and his wife crept through the brush. The orks were now moving to intercept them, this he knew. He looked back to his wife and ran faster to pass her.

She slowed as he crossed her path and twisted her head quizzically at him. He motioned to the ork forms between the trees, then to the dark form of the High-Hill in the near distance. She understood immediately and lowering herself closer to the ground she seemed to ask him, "what's the plan?"

Keysean urged her on toward the High-hill and the shifter hamlet, Wolfhelm, that sprawled across its peak. Aeisha instantly recognized the expression on his feline face. The trio of stripes that ran over his forehead were drawn low with his heavy brow.

He increased speed over the loam, bolting in a straight line to the orks cutting them off further ahead. Aeisha followed after him for a few paces. Then, fighting against herself, she split off from her husband. She ran at an angle that would overlook the clash of shifter and gobold-kin.

Keysean ran even faster after his wife had gone. He assumed that she would not leave him far behind, but hoped that she would see reason and return to the safety of Wolfhelm.

The gobold-kin were close now, and more were rushing toward him from behind. He took in each breath as slowly as he could, savoring the mountain air, and the feeling of the living earth beneath him.

'How long has it been?' he asked himself, beginning to transform, allowing his emotions to slip over the edge. He could smell the enemy, muddy and dirty and stinking of sap. Their thick voices brought to him a feeling of utter contempt. The sight of the first of his enemy caused him to immediately jerk into full war-form.

Snarling, Keysean leaped from behind a massive tree trunk. The orks there were so surprised that they had not even raised their crude weapons before three of them were dead. Keysean leaned away from a wide swipe then flayed his claws against an ork's face.

It fell away screaming, leaving room to admit two more. A mace head whooshed dangerously close. Keysean grasped the ork's arm and jerked it close to him, then killing it, thrust the corpse at the next. The living ork slashed angrily at the fast-crumpling body and gave chase as Keysean made his way further southward.

The forest came alive with the loud clacking of bone-on-bone. Bootsteps came from every angle. If Aeisha was still around, she was not at all visible.

A gobold came hurtling from a tree, a simple javelin of sharpened wood clutched firmly in its hands. Keysean caught its leg and the length of the javelin as it arched downward toward him. Still jogging, he threw the gobold over his shoulder then ducked another scrawny form leaping screaming from the boughs.

Further ahead the foothills fell away suddenly, giving an impression of fissured forestland. The Splitway's forests were young, much less seasoned than the wood he now fled in. Keysean decided he didn't trust it to lead him straight and true to home. It was foreign to him; Even though the Splitway had been a large part of his childhood, the young forest was beyond his memories.

He instead changed direction slightly to run along the cliff edge. Ahead, the cliffs were lower and soon met both the Splitway and the High-hill. He was just about to return to cat-guise when he blundered into a line of orks coming from the opposite direction.

Keysean broke through them like a mad beast, slashing his claws against everything he could touch. All around him that smelled and sounded like ork was rent by claw or gouged with swift snaps of sharp fangs. Thick green sap flowed and misted onto him, clotting his fur in knots.

He snarled as the last one fell. it left behind a long but shallow gouge along his forearm. He couldn't at all figure out what they were doing here in the forest, chasing his wife and himself. Of all nights this was the one the two of them had planned and taken as their own, away from everything. Then out of nowhere, Orks. Keysean was shaking his head at that; such rotten luck.

Bad luck was the only worthy explanation; What else would bring such things as orks so close to the dealings of men? Again he looked toward Theyeark to the south, his thoughts slipping from mankind to the myriad of things their presences could attract or cause to be. He himself was among the listings, supposedly on the better end but in reality no different than any other monster.

More orks, these wielding silver-tipped spears and daggers appeared ahead. Through a surprising show of ingenuity, they had Keysean caught in a pincer formation and were using his fear of silver to herd him northward. He grabbed a spear shaft and hauled its wielder forward just as a troll came barreling from the tree-line.

Keysean's eyes craned a bit upward. The troll was two or so feet taller than him, placing it around eleven-feet high. Keysean stood about the same difference to most orks- and humans for that matter. He had a certain poetic feeling of irony at that.

The troll was swift but stiff. Keysean sent a ruined corpse over his shoulder then caught the full brunt of the troll's strike. He slid rough over the loam, but gnashed at the troll's wrist until it splintered off. The troll grunted and chopped downward with its one remaining hand.

The Tiger-shifter dodged out of the way, feinted, then leaped over a sweep from the same arm. He jumped forward into the troll's face, then quickly assaulted the creature's throat with his claws until he'd breached the bark-like outer flesh. Keysean braced foot-claws in grooves on the troll's midsection then pushed himself over its shoulder. He snarled into the small hole serving as the creature's ear as he severed it's spine at the neck. He dropped back to earth holding its head in his clotted claws.

There were more orks crashing through the undergrowth to meet him. Two trolls were approaching from the north-east, and more from cardinal east. Immediately to the west was freedom and home, only a quick leap across a small mesa. Keysean looked at the trolls head, which gnashed at him angrily despite being disembodied. It would do for a souvenir and proof. Perhaps he wouldn't be in as much trouble as he thought.

Still, he dropped the head and charged toward the enemy.

In the boughs of a tree, a thrush watched the melee intently. She tittered at the lone Loper who thought himself a berserker. She thought at first of an old story, her favorite in fact. Then, remembering Alune, she shook her head at her own ignorance. They were under the warrior's moon.

The Loper, a wild-cat, was regaining its senses after a heavy swipe from a troll. The tiger-shifter slipped around a tree only to re-emerge from higher in its reaches. He crashed into a troll, and by the time the two of them had landed, the troll was missing an arm and half of its face.

The thrush leaped from branch to branch to find a better viewpoint to catch the carnage. The orks- and how she detested them- died with marveling speed, but the trolls seemed a bit more of a match for the Loper. The thrush tittered and decided she liked the wild-cat's ferocity.

She dropped from the tree. Her form, the thrush, blended into a soft green luminescence as she changed from bird to biped. The green faded into the myriad of life's colors leaving behind a maiden; Soft pale skin, light pink lips thin but used to pouting, and intense green eyes. In her light-brown hair was a garden of small flowers with gentle hues. She wore a shimmering but opaque gown of morning blue and, despite the fact she wore no shoes, her delicate feet lit light upon the ground.

The Gobold-kin immediately stopped fighting. All eyes swiveled to the young woman as she slowly approached them, seemingly oblivious to the blood and the mangled remains all around.

Keysean was facing a troll, and ready for the orks that were flanking him. He did not take his eyes off of his target until the maiden was very close indeed and a light from her bosom attracted his eye.

"Privolret," she said. Then, after speaking in an odd tongue, she finished with, "that is warning enough."

The remaining gobold-kin eyed her murderously then quickly looked away. Set apart from her gown and shoulder dressing of stitched animal pelts, she wore a silver chain and oblong pendant. Keysean immediately recognized it to be none other than the fabled Lunar pendant itself. He clenched his teeth and tore his eyes away from the odd whispers that came to him from its subtle luminescence.

Meanwhile the troll was responding. "What of you, Darlaune, should the Druidyer ask?"

"Tell him I go to scout the path of the Lopers. I wish to see their holt with my own eyes."

The troll looked at the girl, Darlaune, then at the rest of its kind. An ork sounded out the rhythm of retreat on its skull-stick, and the whole band began to move southward towards the Splitway

Keysean remained watching and ready for some other trick. When none came he closed his eyes and turned to face the maiden.

"Are you hurt?" she asked and noticing a number of scratches on his flesh came perilously near to Keysean. "Oh my, you-"

Keysean flinched and stepped back. "What is this? What are you doing here, Dryu-maiden?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm trying to help you, Loper."

Keysean snarled, his eyes snapping open instinctively. In his ire, the pendant's glow did not faze him. "Your Green-skins-"

"My father's green-skins." Darlaune clarified. She swept a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Were it my forest I would have none of them here. Ugh they stink."

Keysean still unbelieving, went to where a troll's head lay on the tumbled ground and picked it up. The creature's spine and vertebrae had already regrown along with some of the accompanying muscle structure.

"Wait!" shouted the Maiden. She was pouting when Keysean turned to face her, an expression that made him realize how young she must be. As a human she would pass for fourteen, but for a druid she could be any age. "What is thy name, Loper?"

"Keysean," he replied.

"How would you like me to save your people Keysean?"

"You save us?"

"From my father and his Gobori."

"I think you underestimate our strength."

"You don't understand-"

"You're right about that, girl," Keysean was turning again to leave. "What I do know is someone is going to have to answer for this."

"Then we are agreed." The druid maiden followed quickly after Keysean. "But what if we can end this before it gets even more out of hand?"

"Why are you offering this to me against your father?" Keysean frowned.

"I do not believe in such endless killing and war, that is not the will of Gaia."

"You've already invaded Shifter territory, Dryu-maiden. All this is ours, both the mountains and the Splitway." Keysean's voice faltered as Darlaune shifted and the lunar pendant became visible again in the folds of her mantle. The pendant shone inversly with the moon; since the moon was nearing its fullest state, the pendant had only the most subtle of glows.

His temper was settling so he had to blink away the pendant's drawing awe.

"I apologize, oh Keysean of Nyzoul, on behalf of my people and our Brambelhein," she cast a glance at the troll's head. "You are not the shifter I expected to be found here."

"What's that mean?"

"My father tells stories about your holt- Wolf Helm is it?- and the treacherousness of your people. Of the blood-thirsty, flesh-hungry inhabitants of the High-hill."

"He's got the jist of it, but missed the meaning," replied Keysean.

"I would ask a favor of you, Keysean," said the Druid maiden, with an odd sort of urgency in her voice.

"You can ask it."

"Leave to me the troll's head; A token, perhaps, of your forgiveness."

"Forgiveness is many moons away," Keysean jerked his head toward the gibbous moon. Those who knew her as Alune would note that she was in the aspect of Anuxere, the warrior's moon. "My Elders will need proof of your Druidyer and his indiscretions."

"Wait, what if I were to speak to my father, on your behalf. What if I could prevent any further bloodshed?"

"Is that not what you have been proposing?"

"And of course you can talk to your Changeling-kin. I am sure my father will come around once he learns that you are not so monstrous as he thinks."

"And proof?"

Darlaune plucked from her locks a flower of red petals laced with swirling white. She let it fall to the ground then knelt, whispering, beside it. When she was done, she stood slowly; and as she stood, the flower took root and grew into a wide petaled blossom with white-tipped buds along its stalk.

"A truolua blossom, sign of peace. Your elders should recognize it."

"This truolua has grown from you, as is your scent." And truly it did smell of lilies and violet alike the girl.

"A gift from a Dryu-maid, precious in its rarity."

"Then this I will take to my elders."

"And meet again me upon that mesa under Alune tomorrow. " Darlaune said. She pointed off to a small area of dirt and thin trees set in a fissure between the High-hill and the mountains.

"If I am able." Keysean eyed the small mesa to which the girl was pointing.

"But come you alone. I will suffer no other eyes to light upon me."

"The elders will have say-"

"You will deliver their words."

"Who are you to make demands of me and my people?" Keysean snapped.

"These are my only demands; Hubris for sure, but it must be. Few eyes must see me, and I am bound now by my word to you."

"Fair enough then..." Keysean went to the flower then stopped, reaching. "What should I call you?"

"Dar-la-yoon," she pronounced, slowly, " which is my name. I will seek quickly the word of my father."

Keysean took up the truolua and tucked it into the bandaging on his shoulder. Without another word he went to the edge of the mountains and crossed over to the High-hill.