Ilona Andrews own the kate daniels series.

A/N: His Golden Majesty awaits...

Un-beta'd

Chapter 7 - Battlecry

Curran stood before his people, gripping the cloth-wrapped shard of sliver glinting menaciously in his hand. The shapeshifters in front of him murmured amongst themselves, uncertain and ready for the battle ahead. Dimly, in the distance, they could hear and smell their enemy shifters. Curran considered for the umpteenth time the insane plan Seleyda Medrano Farrer had planned in that tiny head of hers.

"The problem with this fight is we don't have anything against them," Seleyda explained for the final time.

"How can that be?" Mahon argued. "We are the strongest Pack in the world!"

"Imagine having your body set on fire, and then starved for a year. That's one modified shapeshifter." She listed the qualities down on a stray piece of paper. "Six out of ten shifters don't make out alive, so we can expect anywhere between six hundred to eight hundred of these monsters." Her grey eyes pierced through the hulking giant. "Your liege has three thousand shifters at his disposal. Granted, it is a formidable number, but you're forgetting something." Seleyda smacked away the miniature soldiers with one violent sweep. "That's not counting the women, the children and the elderly. Once those are taken into account, you have around a thousand and sixty shifters. That's two normal shifters to one modified shifter. As I've told you before, you need at least five renders to kill one of these bastards." Mahon flinched slightly at the curse. "Only ten percent of the Pack are renders, so we'll need at least double the numbers to kill one. That's ten to one for the average shifters." Seleyda folded her arms, a look of concentration on her face. "That's six thousand shifters. At least."

"What about the Beast Lord?" Thomas, the rat alpha, asked. "What are his odds?"

"Eighty. He can kill that many before giving in to his injuries."

Silence crept across the entire room.

"What do we do?" Aunt B asked. Seleyda flinched slightly, and a flinty look creased the female bouda alpha's eyes.

"We use this." Seleyda dropped a sack on the war table.

Mahon looked at it with undisguised curiousity and distrust. "What is in it?"

"The only thing that can even our odds."

Curran stepped forth. His eyes glowed golden. "The Code of Thought believes the form of Man is our true state, and the Animal is to be controlled, because it is wild. That is true, but not today. Today, we are facing something far more than the Animal, and it is not the wild. We will be forced to kill children. Children," his voice rang, "forced into deranged forms we have never seen before. There cannot be any doubt when you strike them. You must kill, or you will die. We know how much children mean to everyone, but these aren't children. Not anymore. Steel your hearts, and let us face this army the same as we always have!" Shapeshifters stared at Curran with fierce, feral eyes. "To arms!" Curran raised his hand. As one, the Pack followed. Curran turned to face the incoming army. "Together!"

In unison, they stabbed themselves over their left shoulder. The shapeshifters' eyes erupt into the various colours of their animal's magic. Their bodies vibrated in near-violent spasms but remained human. In the far horizon, a line of darkness appeared. The werebears crouched in full armour as the line thickened, giving shape to limbs, heads and body. Noise vibrated from them, but it was too far, even for Seleyda, to hear.

"One!" Seleyda shouted.

"One!" They chorused. The horde of twisted shapeshifters reached the halfway line. The were-rats behind Clan Heavy had their eyes bugging out of their heads.

"Holy shit!" One of them exclaimed in a whisper.

Holy shit was an understatement. Seleyda's estimation might have been have a little too optimistic at two thousand. The horde that met them looked at least triple that number. Especially with those ghastly glowing eyes.

"Two!" Twelve miles.

"Two!" Some of the shapeshifters started praying from the sheer pressure of the situation.

"Please, God, wherever you are, if I live through this, I'll stop fucking every living thing I see," one bouda prayed.

"Shh!" His elders shushed him.

"Three!" Seleyda screamed, giving into the moment.

"Three!" Six miles.

"Four!" Three and a half.

"Four!"

"Five!" Seleyda shrieked.

"Now!" Curran roared.

The sound of clothes splitting filled the air. Growls, snarls, and hysterical laughter followed. In an instant, the shifters stood in their warrior form. Kate whipped her head about, stunned at the perfectly-timed metamorphosis. Clan Heavy went first, throwing themselves at the horde of manic shape shifters who haven't yet thought to shift. The collision was as jarring as a thunderclap. The rats went in next, quickly putting themselves to work on those feasting on the were bears. There was little thought or consideration left on the fact that these were children as bloodlust overwhelmed their system. A wolf howled suddenly, and the LVIP shifters changed forms. But theirs weren't...right. They didn't have the easy, loping gait the Pack adopted, the streamlined warrior form nor the ease of tactics change that came effortlessly to the well-trained adult shifters.

Many of the Pack shifters began to lose faith. Seeing this, Seleyda dashed forth and covered for them, unable to stop the flash of panic from appearing on her face. Only Raphael saw this, and leaped to her side. The boudas, seeing his determination, surged forwards where the others wouldn't. Raphael moved faster and faster, blurring into a maelstrom of steel, fur and claws. Suddenly, he took out a dozen manic shifters with an elaborate, piercing move. The look of surprise on Seleyda's face boosted Raphael's spirits, and he began to reach out for the limits of his speed, agility and imagination. He noticed the strange gait of the LVIP shifters.

"Use your speed!" He roared, fending off the hordes of shifters. "Give yourself room to move! Work in pairs!"

Realizing what he was doing, Seleyda began contributing. "See their uneven shift? It makes it difficult to work fast! Their minds are also all over the place, so make use of loud noises to distract. Remember three words; distract and conquer. Listen to Raphael! Find a partner!"

Slowly, the shifters started to listen. The faster ones worked alone. The slower ones worked in pairs. Other worked in groups, playing bait and hunter. Eventually, they realized the truth the two shifters spoke. They had speed, the shapeshifters realised, and brawn in excess. But their jerky, wild gait made it impossible for them to maneuver just as well as the average shapeshifter. They were easily distracted, as Seleyda pointed out, losing concentration in loud nosies; sudden barks, yips and explosions. The moment they all realised this, was the moment they realised they could win this.

Hope and belief ignited within them. In moments, the once-daunting enemies lay shredded on the floor in pieces. They shouted out the news and plowed through the army. Pushing their senses to the limit. For once in their history the boudas was doing something the rest of the Weres could not, and that pride burned within their hearts, urging them on as they pushed through the enemy line. But then, the buzz from the extra Lycos-V running through their veins died.

They were instantly overwhelmed.

Seleyda saw, from a distance away, the situation Clan Bouda had gotten themselves into. She had entered a form that was a meld of human and hyena; black fur sheathed her limbs while the rest remained human. Her eyes were ruby-red around the whole eyeball. A werebull stalked her from behind. He raised a massive hand. Silver flashed. His gruesomely mutated head hits the floor, and was smashed flat as a pancake by a foot. Seleyda unsheathed both swords and ran.

Alejandro, one of the hyenas, was held underneath a charcoal-grey wolf with half its fur ripped off and mangled leg. He snarled, trying to land a hit, but it firmly planted a foot on his arms. A woman in warrior form off to his right was fighting for her life against a massive werewolf. Her ruby eyes were filled with terror and raw hatred. "No!" She screamed.

A single claw ran lightly over Alejandro's face. He flinched. The monster smiled, revealing ghastly rows of shark-like teeth. "Pweetty. Too bae I can' ea you righ now."

Alejandro glared viciously at it. "I'm not afraid," he growled back.

The smile became a smirk. "Feisty."

"Mouse!" The dark-brown rat screamed. "NO!" With one ferocious strike, she downed the wolf. Crack. Its head was bent at a perversely wrong angle. She ran towards the wolf and managed to sink a knife into its thigh. It howled in pain and outrage. The wolf moved back, snarling, but it caught her by the throat. "Another feisty one. But this one's not good. No, it isn't." She choked from the grip of its hand, clawing through the flesh as best as she could, dangling in the air as she was. It snarled in pain. "Be nice I'll snap you neck in two like matchsticks if you don't." It proved its point by squeezing harder. Her eyes started to roll into the back of her skull.

"Myranda!" Alejandro screamed. "Let go of her!" He tried to kick it, but failed. "She's my fucking wife!"

It looked surprised. Then, the expression turned evil. "I get to kill a couple! This is going to be fun!" It leaned heavier on Alejandro's chest and slowly tightened its grip on Myranda's throat.

"Drop them." Myranda's eyes bulged even more out of her sockets. A hyena in warrior form stood before them, eyes glowing a vicious red. But the voice was entirely Seleyda. And she was sheathed entirely in slate grey fur. Black stripes danced across her torso. Smoky brown spots peppered her fur in a curiously elegant way. Twin blades hung by her side, loosely gripped by long, slender claws, perfectly proportionate to her body.

It looked happy. "More toys!"

The hyena-that-is-Seleyda sighed. "Yes, Byzantium. Let the rat go. She's a toy, right? Toy die, and there's no more fun, is there?" The thing, Byzantium, frowned, trying to think it through. Its grip loosened some around Myranda's neck.

"I think so," it commented. "Right, let's-" Byzantium let out a roar of pain, clutching the stump that was once his hand. Myranda fell to the ground with a thud. Byzantium then fell over, his left leg cleanly sliced off. Blood gushed from the gaping wound, painting the ground a scarlet red. Myranda sat there, stunned. Alejandro slowly got up, staring openmouthed at the slate grey hyena.

As soon as Seleyda slashed Byzantium, a hyena with bulging limbs attacked her from behind. She stabbed it in the gut, creating a new exit for waste. A weredingo tackled her as the hyena fell. She whipped her wrists in a rapid reverse cut, cleanly beheading the beast. She rose on one knee and pinned Alejandro with those piercing eyes. "Grab your mate and get somewhere secure. She's in shock! Now!"

Alejandro jumped at the command. He gently gathered his wife into his arms and took off. Seleyda followed and soon overtook them, clearing a road of corpses for them to pass through. The road narrowed, becoming a line and finally closes. Seleyda surveyed the scene before her as she attacked the manic shifters.

The Pack was holding their ground, Seleyda saw, but barely. Her spell was working; the regeneration and reflexes of the shape shifters were accumulating with every heartbeat. But the manic monsters were jut beginning to enter the bloodlust rage. Many were close to berserkers. The survival chances of all dwindled to single digits.

Time for Plan B, Seleyda thought.

Seleyda jammed one of her sword into the packed earth. She sheathed her other sword and knelt in front of the sword in the earth. She sang a few notes, erecting a shield around her of liquid. Seleyda took a deep breath, and screamed into the metal. It amplified the volume tenfold. The wall of liquid multiplied it a thousandfold. It was the equivalent of having a concert-made stereo blasting a hair's breadth away from your ears. It commanded the enemy to fall, and the allies to step.

Within moments, all the manic shifters dropped to the ground, whimpering and clutching their heads. Seleyda coughed, and tasted blood at the back of her throat. Dizzily, she stood. She felt a presence, of someone watching her. Seleyda squinted, and saw the faint form of Kate. She nodded.

Kate hit Curran with all her might as he turned to her, the charm in her hand. The charm connected with Curran's forehead. He stared in shock at Kate for one excruciating long moment. Curran's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he sinks to his knees. Kate caught him, then threw the charm into the sky as hard as she could.

BOOM.

An inferno of flame engulfed the sky. Many shifters, insane or not, screamed. A pair of horns sounded, hanging on one long, continuous note.

"RETREAT!" Kate screamed, as if to reiterate the point. "To the fort!"

In an instant, everyone acted. There was a monstrous, frenzied stampede as the Pack went on a mad dash back to their fort.

Seleyda sank on her knees once more.

She swirled her saliva around in her mouth, tasting the coppery tang of blood. Seleyda spat at her sword. She wiped her mouth cleanly, and began singing a jarring, frenzied but alluring tune that called to the downed enemies. A sky of stars lit up on the ground.

The song of the Wild Hunt.

A/N: Thank you for patiently waiting. I'm sorry if this chapter isn't up to scratch; battle scenes aren't exactly my forte. R&R please.