I catch sight of something outside the cargo door and see that Rodrigo has brought Benny up beside me. I realize the change of plans as Selvie unbuckles and shakily gets to her feet. I move quickly to the cargo door, setting my talons and one clawed hand, and reach out with the other. In a burst of courage I know I would lack, Selvie lets go of the securing straps and sprints down the wing, leaping toward me. I snag her one-handed from the air, careful not to dig in with my claws, and bring her safely inside.
She pats my chest, her face flushed, as I set her down. Outside the cargo door I can see Rodrigo cackling like a fool, and Bellara peeking up from the cockpit beside him. Benny pulls away and blinks out of existence as Bellara’s sorcery conceals her.
“There’s still the pilot!” I shout into Selvie’s ear, pointing toward the cockpit. She reaches for her pistol, but I see a sudden panic in her eyes. I toss her deeper into the cargo plane, turning to face whatever gunfire the pilot is about to unleash on me, but am suddenly slammed into from the side.
The pilot is a big man, muscled and fat, and clearly used to a brawl. His punches do less to me than the bullets from his comrades, but he leans his weight into me, bullheaded. I stumble back, my talons no longer catching purchase on the floor, and reach for something to steady myself.
There is nothing there.
I windmill once, managing to snag the pilot by the front of his shirt as we both tumble out the cargo door. My confidence is suddenly undone. There is nothing solid beneath me, beside me, or above me. I am falling, trembling, with only an enemy to hold on to.
The last thing I see before I hit the ground is Selvie’s stricken face poking out of the cargo door.
A few-hundred-foot fall does not kill a Changer. It hurts. It hurts like hell. I am frozen with indecision and fear as my brain regains control of my body. I can still hear the drone of the cargo planes in the distance, so I have not been unconscious long. I twitch a finger, experimenting, then move my wrist.
My pelvis is shattered, I think, but I can still turn at the waist. I am convinced I have broken an ankle, but it bears my weight without wrenching a scream from my mouth. Slowly my body begins to obey my commands again.
I lie halfway in one of the small fissures that crisscross the plains, and I am covered with blood. For several minutes I worry it’s mine and search for my wounds. It isn’t long before I find the enemy pilot nearby. Or what’s left of him. The fall killed him instantly, I am glad for that, because I have had to put men out of their misery before.
Unsteadily I gain my feet, searching the horizon. I spot two cargo planes in the distance, watch as they turn lazily through the air, heading back to the air base, no doubt worried about another enemy attack. I do not see Benny or the captured cargo plane, and wonder if Selvie has managed to take her home. There are no plumes of smoke in the sky, so she has not crashed. I can only assume that everyone has done their jobs well.
Everyone except for me. I try to clean myself with the tattered remains of my shirt, but give up when I realize that the enemy cargo planes will come back overhead. I climb back into the fissure and lie still, hoping that they take me for dead and report the loss.
I lie caked in the blood of the pilot for most of the afternoon. Enemy aircraft crisscross overhead. They are looking for the stolen cargo plane, I tell myself, though there is a small part of me that is certain they are looking for me. I hope they do not bother to send a ground scouting party and pass the time by thinking of all the supplies in that plane and the look on Aleta’s face when she gets some proper food to cook.
The patrols leave off by seven in the evening, and I allow myself to clean off the dried blood. I know I should leave the pilot where he fell, but I am struck by his bravery. Not a lot of men would charge a Changer barehanded, and for that I bury him in one of the fissures and cover his body with rocks. Though I am in pain from the fall, it is a simple enough task in my Changed form.
I even say a prayer from my childhood, though the words mean little to me.
Using the mountains as guideposts, I estimate that I am some thirty miles away from our little guerilla runway. The plains are not easy to cross on foot, even for a Changer, and I know it will take me several nights to return home without a motorbike. I wonder if Rodrigo will come looking for me, and dismiss the notion.
Even if he could spot me, he would not be able to land to pick me up.
I begin the long trek as night falls. I head west, toward the mountains, until I have reached foothills that will shelter me from searchlights and patrols. These few miles are all I can manage this first night. It will take me much longer to reach camp than I thought. I am not dead. My body is not irrevocably broken. But not even a Changer can fall from a plane and come through unscathed.
For two nights I limp north through the foothills. Everything hurts. During the long periods of darkness, eyes focused on the ground in front of me to keep my footing, I am assailed by doubt. What if Selvie never made it back with the cargo plane? What if Rodrigo and Bellara were shot down on the way home? What if the whole platoon has written me off, said a few words, and moved the camp?
It would be smart of them to loot the cargo plane and then retreat farther into the mountains. They could regroup and regain their strength, and be ready to fight again within weeks. It’s the intelligent option, and I know that if they take it I may never find them again. Bellara’s skill at illusions works both ways—if the enemy cannot see them, then I will not be able to track them down, either. I will make it back only to return to an empty camp.
My Changed form protects me from the elements and lets me travel faster than a human, but I grow weak from hunger by the fourth night. There are tiny foods along way: edible scrub grass and tubers. They are not enough. I find the recent corpse of a llama and eat my fill, not daring a fire.
I vomit it all back up half a mile later.
On the fifth night I am overcome by thirst. I know the high plains as well as anyone raised on the Bavares, but even I have a hard time finding water. I begin to see flashes of light in the mountains, and know that the delirium has set in. I decide I can push myself another two nights before I am unable to continue on, and I console myself by imagining the feast that must have accompanied Selvie’s return. It is a cruelty to my stomach, but the thought of my friends’ celebration helps calm my pangs of doubt.
I sleep by day—what sleep I can get on the cold ground—by huddling in the broken valleys of the foothills. A snake joins me for warmth, and I manage to kill it and have my first real meal in days. I keep it down. The blood is warm, the flesh tender.
During the long nights I reflect on my nature. I have been Changed for days, longer than I’ve ever maintained this other form. I am a reptilian monstrosity crawling across the scrubland. Am I even human anymore? I wish had gone to a university. The universities are all but gone, of course, but ah, how would it have been to study philosophy? To stare up at the sky and ponder on the source and essence of what makes me what I am, to Change and observe that Change, to study myself and others like me. Now there are almost none of me left.
I wonder if Bellara will ever bring joy with her illusions, and if she’ll think of me when she learns to dance.
I am halfway through the eighth night, still traveling on a belly of raw snake meat, when I decide that the lights in the mountains are not a delirium. The feeling of being watched, that sixth sense that animals have had since creation, hits me like an enemy jeep. My skin crawls and if I had hair on the back of my neck in my Changed form, it would have stood on end. I stop to sniff the night air for some hint of humanity. I pick up a whiff of gas, but I cannot be certain.