They spotted the Benevian army almost fifteen minutes later. A mass of dark cape and shiny armour glinting under the pale moon.
They appeared abruptly, materialising out of the thick grey blanket of mist and lingering smoke from Rudra's fire, which still clung to the trees—most of them scorched black now, leaves smouldering at the edges. For a large group of soldiers on war horses, they were unnervingly quiet.
They spotted Rudra almost the same moment he spotted them, and stopped in perfect formation—no shouted orders, no scrambling, just horses shifting into place like they'd rehearsed it. Those nervous things, twitching, barely containing fight-or-flight nerves under their riders' stillness.
And they smelled like rot.
Rudra stopped almost fifty feet away. "Nayan."
Nayan understood. She grabbed Tish's wrist and yanked her back, making the Saintess gasp, "What, now?" Nayan didn't answer at first. She looked at Rudra, noticing the rigid set of his jaw.
"I think he smelled a Shapeshifter."
Rudra didn't answer. He didn't have time to.
"Prince of Partha!"
It was the voice of the Benevian Prince that cut through the suffocating silence. His light eyes flickered like those of a nocturnal animal in the moonlight as he looked from Rudra to Nayan, noticing how they had pulled Tish behind them.
He pressed his lips thin. "Let the Saintess go," and he unsheathed his sword with a deliberately long shhhiiiing. "You can only capture her over our dead bodies."
"It's a misunderstanding!" Tish said promptly, hands raised in the air. "Prince Mamon, I am safe, I assure you."
Something changed in Mamon's expression. It didn't soften, not exactly. But it went from I will kill you to a solid I may kill you.
"Saintess." The Prince lifted his helmet, his blood-red hair dark under the fog of mist and smoke. His usual intense eyes dampened with worry and other things Rudra had no intention of finding out. "You almost gave me a heart attack. You shouldn't have run off like that." He looked at Rudra, eyes hardening significantly. "Especially when there are monsters roaming outside."
He hopped off his horse and marched towards them. "And you must explain this... misunderstanding properly."
As he stepped closer, Rudra stepped forward and Nayan pulled Tish behind her. "Stop it!" Tish hissed, but her protest was weak. "It... can't be him," she insisted, more to herself than to Rudra and Nayan, "I've seen him less than half an hour ago—"
"I've seen shapeshifters kill a man within," Rudra paused and thought for a second and finished, "less than a minute."
"I've seen a man killed and disposed of in less time," Nayan added, her voice tight, eyes fixed on Prince Mamon. Rudra didn't look at Nayan. But he didn't argue or ask.
A year back, when he had been busy hunting shapeshifters in the capital of Partha—Ashkavar—Nayan had been sent to the border to do the same. And without a heightened sense of smell like Rudra's, she must have suffered far more at the shapeshifters' hands. So he didn't doubt her words.
But the Benevian soldiers looked unimpressed.
"What is it you're talking about?" asked Mamon, scowling.
"Shapeshifters," Tish filled in. "He thinks," she tilted her head at Rudra, "there's a Shapeshifter among your men."
A murmur spread—restless and nervous. Everyone eyed the man to his left and right with equal wariness.
"Enough!" Mamon barked, a hand lifted in the air which silenced the men and stilled the horses. He walked closer, hand on the hilt of his sword. "I will NOT have my men getting confused because of you. What is this shapeshifter?"
"A species," Rudra said. "Something worse than a dragon."
His bravado flickered. "Why? Benevia never had a monster of this kind."
"It's me," Rudra said. "They're after me."
It was true. The shapeshifters wouldn't be running havoc here in Benevia had they not come for revenge.
"So," Mamon's lips curled with utter disdain, "it is, again, because of you that we are suffering?" He demanded, "Just go back to your country, you good-for-nothing!" He tore off half his cape and threw it at Rudra. "And put on something, you shameless beast!"
Rudra didn't pick up the cape. He walked close to him. One step. Two steps. Three...
Shhiiiing—
A blade pressed to his neck. Mamon held the sword, his grip shaking ever so slightly, not with fear but with barely contained violence. "Take another step," he taunted. "I dare you."
And Rudra did. He felt the sharp, hot agony the exact moment the steel bit into his flesh and drank his blood. Nayan took a sharp breath. The Benevian soldiers simply looked... disturbed.
"It's not you," Rudra said calmly.
"What?" asked Mamon, baffled.
Rudra moved.
He ducked his head and sprinted towards the line of Benevian soldiers. The horses let out startled sounds and the men raised their spears. But nobody attacked him, not really. After all, he was the dragon.
An arrow pierced the air and rushed at him. Rudra barely avoided it. It nipped his ear.
"Prince of Partha!" Mamon called from behind. "I am warning you!"
But Rudra didn't stop. He walked into the ranks of soldiers. They parted before him like water around a river, spears still raised. He looked at their eyes, one by one.
Under their helmets, the Benevian soldiers' eyes glinted with sheer hatred and fear. Some looked angry. Some looked desperate.
And then he spotted them—a pair of flat black eyes. No emotion.
Rudra moved before anyone could react. He grabbed the cape of the man and pulled. The horse panicked, legs thrown into the air.
"My Lord!" cried the man. "My Lord, save me—!"
Before he could finish, Rudra was dragging him away. Someone threw a spear. It sank into Rudra's back, embedding itself too close to his spine. Rudra grunted. The man whose cape he was gripping tried to run. Rudra extended his other hand, gripping the back of his collar.
"Save me, Your Highness!" his captive cried to Mamon.
And Mamon unsheathed his sword. He didn't give Rudra any warning. He just charged.
Nayan yelped somewhere. Rudra twisted his upper half, dodging the first blow. Mamon tilted his sword, the sharp tip of it pointing directly at Rudra's chest.
Rudra held the soldier with one hand while the other moved fast, barely catching the sword before it could sink into his stomach.
Mamon didn't stop. He pushed his sword against Rudra's fist, twisting it. The pain almost blackened Rudra's vision.
"Stop," Rudra said. His voice didn't shake, but his hand did. "I am not your enemy—"
THWACK!
Someone had hit Rudra's head with something hard. His stance faltered. He dropped to one knee, half kneeling as he felt warm red liquid running down his forehead, making him squint.
"I said—!"
Suddenly he felt white-hot pain, like he was splitting apart. He looked down and saw the tip of a spear peeking out from the center of his chest.
He opened his mouth to say something. Only a gurgling sound came out.
"That's enough!" Strangely, it was Tish who was protesting. "Your Highness, if he gets angry, he will—"
"Saintess!" The man in Rudra's grip was sobbing now, hard. "Don't let him kill me!"
Rudra laughed, then coughed, briefly choking on his own blood. He spat it out and gave the man a bloody grin. "Oh, you little beast," he shook him, "you don't realise that fooling others won't help you. I can take a hundred hits and still kill you."
He pulled the man close. "I can smell you," he said, holding him so close their noses almost touched, his amber eyes looking down into the pitch-black ones. "Don't be shy. Don't hide now. I can see you."
The man stopped struggling, looking at him with wide eyes.
And then he opened his mouth. "Now, now, Rudra." It was no longer the voice of a man. It was soft. Feminine. "No need to be so aggressive."
Rudra stopped.
"Remember our promise, Rudra?" the man asked. But the voice wasn't his.
It was his mother's.
"I finally get to take you everywhere."