Shifting Plains Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  PRAISE FOR JEAN JOHNSON AND THE SONS OF DESTINY

  “Jean Johnson’s writing is fabulously fresh, thoroughly romantic, and wildly entertaining. Terrific—fast, sexy, charming, and utterly engaging. I loved it!”

  —Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author

  “Cursed brothers, fated mates, prophecies, yum! A fresh new voice in fantasy romance, Jean Johnson spins an intriguing tale of destiny and magic.”—Robin D. Owens, RITA Award-winning author

  “What a debut! I have to say it is a must-read for those who enjoy fantasy and romance. I so thoroughly enjoyed [The Sword] and eagerly look forward to each of the other brothers’ stories. Jean Johnson can’t write them fast enough for me!”—The Best Reviews

  “Enchantments, amusement, and eight hunks and one bewitching woman make for a fun romantic fantasy . . . Humorous and magical . . . A delightful charmer.”—Midwest Book Review

  “A paranormal adventure series that will appeal to fantasy and historical fans, plus time-travel lovers as well. Jean Johnson has created a mystical world of lessons taught, very much like the great folktales we love to hear over and over. It’s like Alice in Wonderland meets the Knights of the Round Table and you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. Delightful entertainment . . . An enchanting tale with old-world charm, The Sword will leave you dreaming of a sexy mage for yourself.”—Romance Junkies

  “An intriguing new fantasy romance series . . . A welcome addition to the genre. The Sword is a unique combination of magic, time travel, and fantasy that will have readers looking toward the next book. Think Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but add one more and give them magic, with curses and fantasy thrown in for fun. Cunning . . . Creative . . . Lovers of magic and fantasy will enjoy this fun, fresh, and very romantic offering.”—Time Travel Romance Writers

  “I love The Sword. The writing is sharp and witty and the story is charming. [ Johnson] makes everything perfectly believable. She has created an enchanting situation and characters that are irascible at times and loveable at others. Jean Johnson . . . is off to a flying start. She tells her story with a lively zest that transports a reader to the place of action. I can hardly wait for the next one. It is a must-read.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A fun story. I look forward to seeing how these alpha males find their soul mates in the remaining books.”—The Eternal Night

  “An intriguing world . . . An enjoyable hero . . . An enjoyable showcase for an inventive new author. Jean Johnson brings a welcome voice to the romance genre, and she’s assured of a warm welcome.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “An intriguing and entertaining tale of another dimension . . . Quite entertaining. It will be fun to see how the prophecy turns out for the rest of the brothers.”—Fresh Fiction

  Titles by Jean Johnson

  SHIFTING PLAINS

  The Sons of Destiny

  THE SWORD

  THE WOLF

  THE MASTER

  THE SONG

  THE CAT

  THE STORM

  THE FLAME

  THE MAGE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over

  and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jean Johnson.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

  permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the

  author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / November 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Johnson, Jean, 1972-

  Shifting plains / Jean Johnson.—Berkley Sensation trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14912-6

  1. Young woman—Fiction. 2. Metamorphosis—Fiction. 3. Prophecies—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.0355.S55 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2009029841

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In the midst of thanking wonderful people like Alexandra, Alienor, NotSoSaintly, and Stormi, all of whom help polish my prose (and Stormi again for managing my website), on top of giving thanks to friends and family for putting up with me, and others such as my accountant for her wonderful services that free me from the worry and hassle and pain of having to wade through tax code, et cetera, ad nauseam . . . there is one other group of people I should thank. The Concepts Crew. Thank you for keeping my computer running, my monitor functioning, and my laptops in good shape.

  Some people have asked me why I spend so much money on my computer and laptops, and I tell them it’s quite simple: My entire office is my computer. Without it . . . well, I’ve had hospital nurses and pharmacists alike complain how they can’t read my handwriting; it’s that much worse than a doctor’s scribble. (Trust me, typing is the only way for me to go.) And if my computer breaks down (which it did a couple of times during the editing stages of this book, eep!), I have to have a laptop on hand to keep working . . . and if that laptop also breaks down . . . well, that’s why I have two. So it’s very important to have a good technoguru crew on standby, and they’re it.

  As always, you can visit my website at www.JeanJohnson.net to see what’s coming out next, or even chat with me on the forum boards. And if you’re 18 or older, you can drop by the Mob of Irate Torch-Wielding Fans and join in the benign insanity . . . er, I mean, fun. (E-mail me at my website for the address!)
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  ~Jean

  ONE

  Seventeen of them.

  Tava closed her eyes. Seventeen bandits were too many for her to fight. It was one thing when she had been tracking just five of them. Five, she could handle, since she could have separated one or two from the others. But not seventeen.

  Six was the number that had ambushed her father. Varamon Vel Tith had defended himself, slaying one of them with his dagger. The normally gentle scribe had fought hard and well. But two of the cowards had hidden in the bushes and shot him with arrows; Tava had seen that for herself in the tracks and debris they had left.

  If I had gone with him, pressed the matter, he would be alive. Six would have been no match for him and me, not even with bows and arrows. Father . . . Father, I’m sorry. I should have insisted. I should have been more forward, even in front of the Aldeman. They already consider me strange enough, so why shouldn’t I have also been unfeminine enough to have argued?

  Opening her eyes again, she blinked, adjusting her vision. Despite her skills, the underbrush was thick enough in the foothills of the Correda Mountains that it wasn’t easy to see all of the bandits at once. She counted them carefully as they moved through their encampment, marking them by the clothes they wore, the color of their hair, the weapons they bore. Still, most were visible, bartering over the loot they had stolen, gambling for each piece and laughing or groaning at each toss of the gaming sticks.

  Her father was not the only one who had been ambushed by this group. From the looks of things, they had struck a cloth trader’s wagon, one filled with bolts of brightly dyed linen, cheerful ribbons, spools of thread, and a chest filled with buttons and buckles and clasps, most made from pewter and brass. Apparently these brigands had encountered her father after disposing of the trader and purloining his goods, for they were still dividing the wagon’s contents.

  Her father was dead. The only parent she could even remember. Dead, because of these cowardly, dishonorable thieves. She wanted to strike them all, to tear into them, to spill their blood as they had spilled Varamon’s . . . but seventeen was too many.

  Too many.

  Think! she chided herself. You don’t have time for grief right now, so think. Father always said that if you have the time to think, do so, for thinking is what separates failure from success. So think, Tava. How do I separate out one or two at a time, and how do I take them out quietly without drawing the attention of the rest?

  She shifted on the stout branch she had selected for her spying perch, considering her options. She wasn’t about to go down there as herself, a single, young woman with no resources whatsoever. Luring them with the sight of a game animal wandering too close to their encampment was equally dangerous. Noises might be a good strategy, since they would need to investigate to keep their camp safe, but that was something best attempted after nightfall, and this was mid-morning.

  Tava could see better in the dark than anyone she knew, and it would be child’s play to lead a few of them around, separating and then attacking them in the deepest shadows of the night. The sounds of battle might even unnerve the rest into following and then getting lost in the dark. But she would have to be quick with each strike and flee into the shadows before she could be spotted by the rest.

  . . . Yes. An attack at night. Or even over several nights, she decided. Whittle down their numbers. That, I can do.

  She clutched at the branch supporting her weight, wishing it was their necks being throttled in her grasp. Mornai women were supposed to be gentle, docile, polite, and pleasant. They weren’t supposed to argue in public, and they definitely weren’t supposed to fight. Most wouldn’t even think of leaving their homes to track down their father’s absence, and most certainly wouldn’t have chosen to travel alone. But something fiercer than the blood of the River People coursed through her own veins. Sometimes she was ashamed of that foreign blood, but not right now. Not when these filth had to be stopped before they could attack anyone else.

  Maybe if I rigged a deadfall and led some of them to it? Or some other sort of trap? It would have to be some distance away, so they wouldn’t hear or see me building it. I don’t have any tools, but it’s not that far to the Plains from here; I could make some braided rope from grass and rig a log to swing down at them, bashing into them . . .

  Movement to the side made her twist her head that way, peering through the trees for the source. Another bandit? A new raiding party returning home? A . . . tiger?

  That was odd. It wasn’t unusual, since tigers hunted all along the fringes of the Morning River, particularly near the Shifting Plains. They even ranged up into the mountains on the south side of the Plains. But they were wild creatures; they disliked fire, and they were wary of men. They did not creep up to the edge of a bandit encampment, and they certainly would not do so on the downwind side, where the smoke from the three fires tended by the bandits would sting the striped cat’s sensitive nose, arousing the instinct to flee. A tiger might approach from the side, but not from fully downwind of a campfire.

  Tava searched the rest of the wooded slope that flanked the small vale the bandits occupied. The tiger was acting unnaturally; there had to be a reason. Unless there was something she was missing, something prompting it to be there, stalking slowly, warily, through the underbrush—there, another anomaly. But . . . what is a bear doing there? And so close to the tiger?

  Confused, Tava kept searching the underbrush, narrowing her gaze to help sharpen her vision. A third bit of movement, soft and gray brown. She didn’t know what it was, either another bear or maybe a wolf, but so many predators so close together was unnatural. Or at least not normal. There was a possible explanation, but it was one that unnerved her.

  Morna! So many predators in such a small area can only mean one thing: Shifterai. This is a Shifterai warband, no doubt hired by some village, either Mornai or Corredai. If so, they’re here to wipe out these brigands . . .

  On the one hand, her father would be more than adequately avenged. Shifterai were shapechangers—at least, the men were—and they often formed warbands that traveled into the lands surrounding the Plains, looking for work. When they did so, when they traveled on foreign soil, they were usually trustworthy, sticking to the letter of any contract they made . . . unless they crossed paths with a lone female. Like her mother.

  She had seen Shifterai twice before. Both times, her father had written the contract between the warband and a village to the Five Springs, where she and her father lived. He had acted as the scribe for at least eight other Shifterai contracts in the last twenty years, but had traveled to the other villages in order to do so. Few Mornai were well versed enough in the written arts to draw up a contract, so the Aldemen of no less than six villages had relied on Varamon for their business transactions.

  Those same village leaders had also accepted Tava to a lesser extent, but only when her father wasn’t available and the matter was time sensitive. Mornai females weren’t allowed to negotiate important contracts; recording one was bad enough. Varamon had argued that in the larger Mornai cities, ladies of good education were often preferred as scribes for the neatness of their penmanship, but there weren’t any large cities near Five Springs and the other villages. Nor even a modest-sized town for a full three days’ barge-travel in either direction. The Aldemen refused to bend their minds to an unfamiliar way.

  A scrabbling, yowling hiss snared her attention. Tava craned her neck carefully, peering through the boughs. She saw movement among the bandits, watched them snatch up their weapons and head to the right, toward the bear’s position. Voices shouted in command, then yelled in pain. She had a brief, nerve-racking glimpse of the bear bowling over a yellow-shirted bandit with the swipe of a paw, and of the yellow tunic quickly staining red as the man tumbled heels over shoulder into the underbrush. Other bandits darted around the clearing, either grabbing for weapons or drawn to the attacks of the other predators . . . or fleeing their approach.

  She was in the wrong sp
ot to see anything after a few moments. A good one for seeing the scattered loot lying throughout the hastily abandoned encampment, but not for the war being waged beneath the layers of the forest canopy. Lifting her head to try to find a better vantage point, again she spotted movement through the trees. This time, it was the stealthy movement of two, maybe three men. One of them with brown trousers and a shirt that was dyed half in dull blue, half in sun-faded purple.

  That was one of the bandits she had tracked; his boots had a distinctive crack across each sole. He and the other two men that she could see were picking their way uphill, sneaking away from battle. It was a wise course, provided they could get up and over the hill before the warband realized they were missing. There was a stream on the other side of the ridge, something they could lose their scent in . . . but only if they made it that far unnoticed.

  Which they would do if the warband didn’t realize they had left. Most of the battle noises were off to her right, toward the mouth of the little vale. Not toward the hillside. The hill wasn’t tall, either; it wouldn’t be long before the bandits were out of sight.

  Thrusting off of her leafy perch, leaping fearlessly from branch to branch, Tava followed them, sticking to the higher gaps between the branches for cover. She would have justice for her father, and for the wagon’s owner. A death for a death. And, most important, an end to these bandits’ continued predations. They had to be stopped.