Dust to Dust Extract

Prologue:
The Shape-Shifters

Old Kingdom, Egypt
2205 B.C.

The sand shifted beneath Nysacia’s paws as she darted through the humans’ feet, heading for the palace. Her mother Vesitia ran slightly behind her, the woman’s human body making it hard for her to part the crowd. Arrows thudded through the sand near Nysacia, and she yelped, twisting mid-stride and heading off down a space between two of the mud-brick houses that made up the domestic architecture of the Egyptian city.

“Nysacia, we have to stop!” Vesitia cried, regaining her footing as she tripped. “Pasheri’s fading fast, if we don’t get help for him soon–”

Nysacia turned her head to glance at her father, cradled in the arms of her mother. The were-hound was in his greyhound form, his side torn open with an inexpertly-wielded sword. Vesitia’s arms were blood-red, as were the hasty bandages she’d wrapped around the dog’s stomach to hold his organs inside.

Nysacia nodded, leaping inside the window of a nearby house. Vesitia followed her daughter, glancing over her shoulder. They’d just turned a corner in the alley and their pursuers wouldn’t be able to see which house they’d entered. It would buy them time.

Nysacia’s frame stretched upwards, her bones snapping as they shifted, becoming human. The golden fur of her hide sank into her olive skin, and her black hair grew to hang down her back. Nysacia spotted a dress lying nearby on a worktable and pulled it on. Not quite the splendour she was used to, but it was better than nothing.

“Show me.”

Vesitia looked at her daughter, fear in her eyes. Nysacia had become the first female priest of Wepwawet, and that had caused a stir in the city. Having the War God choose a woman for the role of his high priest was not a good omen; the men were scared, of her and of the future. Nysacia was an easier target than the War God.

The greyhound on the table whined, in pain. Nysacia watched her mother undo the bandage and stared at the gash in her father’s dog-ribs. She considered forcing her father to return to his human shape, to make it easier to treat him, but if they had to run, a greyhound was easier to move than a fully-grown human.

“Grab me a cloth, anything that can clean him up.”

Vesitia ran around the room, one eye on the windows. She was looking through large terracotta vases and through the chests for material, but all that Nysacia could see in the glances she spared from her father were games and wooden toys. This must be a child’s room. Vesitia needed to look elsewhere.

Nysacia turned her attention on her father as his breathing faltered. She used the soiled bandages to clean his grey hide, trying to peer into the wound. As far as she could see, the sword-tip that had maimed her father had almost disembowelled him. She was actually amazed that he was still alive, the amount of blood that was spilling out onto the table.

The greyhound stopped breathing. Nysacia grabbed his head, pressing gently on his neck. She couldn’t find a pulse. Pasheri was dead.

Nysacia leaped backwards as the were-hound returned to his human form, making it impossible for Pasheri to be moved. While his greyhound self was twenty kilograms, his human self was well over a hundred. He was literally a dead weight now.

“Nysacia!”

Nysacia turned around to face her mother as the men barged through the doorway and into the house. The size of the door slowed down the mob’s progress, which gave the pair of women valuable seconds. Nysacia’s body shifted and twisted as the men lunged for her. She shrank just in time to avoid a decapitating sword, and she offered the closest man a bite to the leg before she flew out through the window.

Nysacia barely hesitated as she landed in the dirt. A man trying to surge into the house noticed her and took off towards her. Nysacia ran, her toenails digging into the sand to give her traction she would otherwise not have. She bolted across the sand and yelped as a sword, thrown by the man, whizzed by her head. Another sword scraped along her side, shedding blood.

A man stepped out of a nearby house, grabbing Nysacia. She squirmed and snarled, scratching and biting the man to convince him to let her go.

“I’ve got her!”

Nysacia released the magic holding her to dog form and her body snapped and shifted. The man was forced to drop her as she became too heavy, and she backed away from him. A ring of men was appearing around her, some of them covered in blood. Nysacia could only assume it was her mother’s.

The high priestess, naked and injured, stood tall in front of the men, her face emotionless except for the glint of pride in her eyes.

“You kill me, and the god whose ear I hold will destroy this country.” She smiled at them, lifting her chin a little. “So bring it on if you want your families slaughtered.”

“Agent of Sutekh!” one of the men claimed, hefting his sword a little. “A curse by an agent of Sutekh!”

Nysacia bared her teeth at the man. “If I was Sutekh-chosen, do you think Wepwawet would have me for his priestess?”

“Usurper!” another man cried, inciting the rest to scream out similar insults.

Nysacia stood tall, her body in full view of the men. Her black hair whipped around her face, obscuring her brown eyes. Her lips pulled back from her teeth and she spread her hands, blood flowing down her side. Her olive skin sprouted fur and she shrank, shifting to her Persian hound shape. If she could move fast enough, she could escape the men—

An arrow sank into her uninjured side, striking her heart. Nysacia whimpered and collapsed, her dog-shape becoming human in the sand. She laid there, her black eyes open and staring at nothing.

With that one shaft, her life was extinguished.

The archer stood above Nysacia, disgust on his face. “Leave them to the western desert,” he said, looking around at the men. “It’s better than the usurper and her family deserve.”

From his right, a scream of pain, rage and vengeance emerged from the mouth of an Anubis priest, who had only just arrived on the scene.

“Nysacia!” he screamed, dropping to his knees. “You did it, you—you killed her!”

“Eteus Ankhuson, calm yourself—”

The Anubis priest launched forward, screaming, as his human shape giving way to that of a lion, albeit one only as tall as the man’s knee.

“What the—?”

“It’s another one!”

“Kill it!”

Eteus threw himself forward, slashing the throat of one man before disembowelling the next, his lighter weight giving him the agility that full-sized lions could not gain. He scratched the face of a third man and jumped as an arrow shot towards him—the archer was ready to play.

Good.

Eteus roared and flew at the archer, taking down any human that got in his way. A dozen more men became blood-soaked before the pygmy lion reached the archer, who drew back his arrow and sighted on Eteus.

You’ll only get one shot, Eteus thought, gathering up his paws, ready to leap. Make it count.

The archer let the arrow go just as Eteus jumped, and the wooden shaft buried itself in the pygmy lion’s belly. Eteus roared and tore the throat from the archer, using his claws to break the shaft of the arrow.

“Great Osiris!”

Eteus screamed, galloping over the trail of bodies to Nysacia. He nuzzled her human head, then looked up at the humans around him. With a roar as the sharp pains of his transformation dug through him, he stood, human and naked, proud and ready to deliver his own curse to the people.

“Death comes on swift wings for those who bare witness to the passing of shape-shifters,” he declared, then waited.

Someone threw a sword at him, and he closed his eyes. It hit him in the neck, and he bled out quickly. People screamed as he lay there, his body twisted, and a riot began around them. Only a couple of men stayed around them, guarding the shape-shifters’ bodies from the public.

“To the sands,” one declared, hefting the shovel he’d carried to his shoulder and grabbing the mother.

“To the sands,” the other men called, and each leant down to gather a body into their arms.