Awakenings

Silence lingered between us before I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Neve?”

She glanced up from the plate of food she was still picking at and toward me.  “What’s wrong?”

“Just…a question.”  I chewed the inside of my lip.  “What happens if the Taliesin dies without naming an heir and passing down what he knows?”  It was a morbid question and just shy of admitting that it was actually possible that Phelan would die tonight or the next day, but it had been bothering me since the day he’d left—what happened when there wasn’t a Taliesin anymore?  Had that ever happened?

Neve flinched and pressed against Cameron, who grunted and put both arms around her.  “We lose a lot,” she said after another momentary silence.  “The Taliesin is a repository for legends and histories and prophecies that everyone else has forgotten along with the interpretation of all of them.  I don’t know exactly how the knowledge transference takes place when one Taliesin is gone and another takes over, but I know that if we somehow lose my cousin now, there’s a lot of information that we’re never going to be able to retrieve.”

“Even if Seamus is alive?” Cameron asked quietly.  I saw Neve stiffen and look up at him.

“My brother’s dead,” she said, her voice heavy with conviction.  “We know he’s dead, Cam.  Even though everyone keeps dangling that carrot over our heads, we know the truth.  He’s gone.  We’ll never see him again.”  She looked toward me.  “And even if he was still alive, he’s not the Taliesin anymore and hasn’t been for thousands of years.  He gave that mantle up to Phelan and while he would still know a lot, he wouldn’t know what Phelan’s learned in the time since taking on the mantle.  That’s just how it works—as much as I understand about how it works, anyway.”

“It sounds complicated,” I murmured.

“It’s mystical and really complicated,” Neve agreed, rubbing at her eyes with a sigh.  “I never had to understand it all as well as maybe I should have.  Hell, I didn’t even really know that Seamus was the Taliesin until Phelan confirmed it—and then told me that he’d taken on the mantle.  I just found that out a few weeks ago, after we made it here.”  She looked down at her knees.  “I wish he’d told me sooner.  No one should shoulder that burden alone.  He said that Teague knew, but Gods love him, my brother’s got his own problems and I’m thinking he probably wasn’t able to give Phelan the support he needed or deserved.”

“He seems like he’s dealt with all of it okay,” Cameron said quietly, resting his chin against Neve’s hair.  She laughed a quiet, bitter little laugh.

“That’s because you don’t know him as well as I do.  Phelan wears his heart on his sleeve, but he buries the hurt and the stress deep.  You don’t usually see it until he’s about to explode.”

“I’ve noticed that,” I said quietly, electing not to mention that I seemed to be able to pick up on his pain and his stress before most of the others seemed to—possibly because of his past relationship with Brighid.  “But that seems like it’s in part because he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with it.”

Neve winced.  “That was my father’s doing.”

I shot her a questioning look and she just shook her head.  “My father–”

“He’s awake,” J.T.’s voice interrupted from my left and her right.  “And he wants to talk to you two.”

Cameron glanced up toward J.T., who looked like a dead man walking himself.  “Which two?” he asked quietly.

J.T. didn’t look at him, staring at Neve and I instead.  “The pregnant ones.  I’m going to bed.  Wake me if something starts to go sideways.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he walked away without looking back.

“Come on,” Neve said quietly.  “We’d better not keep Phelan waiting.  This could be important.”

“It sounds like he’s going to live,” I murmured.

“We can only hope,” Neve said as she got her crutches under her.

I winced at her words, made sure Thom was comfortable, then hurried in her wake.

[I apologize; this update is shorter than I wanted it to be.  It’s 11:20 on Christmas Eve and I’m stealing a few minutes of hanging with the fam to schedule this post.  Happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates and the spirit of the season to those who do not.]

The hours felt like days as we sat there, waiting for word.  I’d have gotten up twice if Thom hadn’t been asleep on my shoulder, then asleep with his head in my lap as we waited by the fire.  Afternoon wore away into evening.  Tala cooked and the others were quiet as they drifted through for their meals, as if they could sense the pall that hung over the four of us by the fire, as if it extended to the whole settlement.

Who knows?  Maybe it really did.  Maybe he was really that important to more than just a bare handful of us.  I liked to think he was.  Carolyn squeezed my shoulder gently as she came past during dinner.

“Jac and Jay aren’t going to let him die,” she whispered.  “They’re having a hard time of it, but it’ll be okay.  It has to be.”

I glanced up at her and smiled grimly.  “Someone’s watching, aren’t they?”

She gave a weak smile and a little shrug.  “Longfellow likes Phelan.  He’s keeping watch right now and reporting back.”

Sometimes, I envied her that connection she had with the fair folk, the small ones that rode on gossamer wings, the ones that most of us couldn’t see.  Other times, I wondered what that connection did to her, since we all seemed to pay a price for what we could do.

But she’s got J.T. to help her through whatever it is, and I can’t think of anyone better to help her than him.  They were well-matched, Carolyn and J.T., more than anyone would have ever thought back before the end of everything we’d ever known.

“Let me know if something changes?” I asked her.

She nodded and squeezed my shoulder again.  “Of course.  I’m guessing you’ll be right here, too, huh?”

“Bingo.”

She drifted away, then, back to whatever she’d been doing before dinner, leaving me by the fire with Thom, Neve, and Cameron.

“Is she okay?” Neve asked quietly, her eyes following Carolyn as she walked away.

“As good as we are, I guess,” I murmured, and left it at that.

“I hate this waiting,” Neve whispered, hugging her arms around herself as we sat together by the fire.  Thom had fallen asleep against my shoulder as we sat and waited for word on Phelan and Cameron looked set to join him as he sat on the ground next to Neve, his hair still damp from the bath he’d taken to wash away the grime of the road.  “I hate it so much.  I’ve done so much of it over the years and it never stops being terrifying, never stops hurting so much.”

“He’ll be fine,” I said with conviction I didn’t quite feel.  “Jac and J.T. know what to do for him.”

“They were so long on the road after it happened.”  She shook her head slightly, looking at Cameron.  “I—I’m surprised he’s still alive.”

“We cleaned and packed the wounds as soon as we could,” he said quietly.  “And his power was up when the Dirae hit him.  I could feel it, like electricity over my skin when I touched him.  Maybe it helped.  I don’t know.”

Neve’s gaze flicked toward me and I shrugged slightly.  “You’d know better than I,” I said softly.  “This is your wheelhouse, not mine.”

“I wish it was,” she said.  “They always left me behind to wait and hope.  Teague would know.  Phelan himself would know.  I’ve got no idea.  I’m as in the dark as you are.”

Cameron wrapped his arm around her and tugged her close.  Neve leaned into his chest, her eyes sliding shut as she sighed.  I chewed my lip, resting my cheek against Thom’s head for a moment.

He can’t die, the idiot.  We need him.  His cousin needs him.  We all need him.  I pressed one hand against my belly with a slight shiver.  He needs to be here for everything that’s coming.  I’ve seen him too many times for him to die now.

Things could change, though.  My visions hadn’t always come true.  There were things that I’d seen that hadn’t come to pass, might never come to pass.  What if all of my visions with Phelan in them were like that?

“He’ll be fine,” Cameron said quietly.  “You’ll see.  Worrying about it isn’t going to help anyone.  Jacqueline and J.T. are doing what they need to do to help him.  He’ll be fine.”

Neve looked at him, biting her lip.  “How do you know?”

“Because he’s too damned stubborn for us to lose him now.  He’s not going to let her win.”

He meant the Hecate.  I shivered again.  Thom stirred, lifting his head from my shoulder and blinking blearily.

“Do we…?”

“We don’t know anything yet,” I told him.  “Still waiting.”

“Mm.”  Thom closed his eyes and settled his head against my shoulder again.  “Don’t worry,” he said, then echoed Cameron’s words.  “He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?” I asked, feeling queasy déjà vu.  First Cameron and Neve, now Thom and I.  What the hell is going on today?

“Because I’ve seen it,” Thom said, his voice heavy with sleep.  “And I know that what I’ve seen this time is going to come true.”

I wanted to ask him how, but I didn’t.  I just rested my cheek against his hair and stared across the fire at Neve and Cameron as Thom went back to sleep and we resumed the long, silent wait for Jacqueline or J.T. to arrive.

“Riders coming!”

Neve and I froze just before the tent flap at the sound of Paul’s shout.  My breath caught as I turned.  She nudged me with her crutch.

“Go,” she urged.  “I’m coming.  Don’t wait for me.”

I squeezed her arm and took off at a run toward the gates.  I shouted up to Paul in the watchtower as soon as I was close enough that he’d hear me.  “How many?”

“Looks like four plus an outrider.  Outrider’s swinging back now to join them.”  He squinted against the sun, facing west.  The afternoon was fading fast, faster than I’d anticipated.  “Pretty sure it’s them.  They’re coming from the right direction.”

My heart hammered against my breastbone.  If there were only five, they either hadn’t found Phelan, or they had and they’d lost someone in the process.  Either possibility made my heart hurt so badly I momentarily wanted to die.  Please, let him be wrong.

I reached the open gates just as the riders came into view from the ground and I saw something that Paul hadn’t–Phelan, pale-faced and seemingly unconscious, riding double in front of Thom.  My heart gave a painful squeeze as my gaze met Thom’s over the span of a couple hundred yards.  I couldn’t see his expression clearly, but I knew it was grim.

“Is it them?”

I tore my gaze away and turned toward Neve, nodding.  “It’s them,” I said as she limped to join me.  “They’re all there.”

Neve swallowed hard, hope and fear warring in her eyes.  “Cameron?”

“Hard to tell from this distance, but he looks fine.”  I squeezed her arm before I turned back toward the gap, toward the horses riding in at a canter.  Our friends rode as if they didn’t dare push the horses any harder.

It makes sense.  Killing the horses sure as hell won’t get them here any faster.

“Phelan doesn’t look so good,” Neve said quietly, finally seeing what I had a moment before.

“No,” I agreed.  “He doesn’t.”  Maybe it just looks worse than it is.  I had no confidence that it was, but I had to hope.  I glanced up.  “Paul!  Get down here and go find J.T.  We’re going to need him.”

“Sure thing.”

I eased forward, beyond the gates and the magic of the wardings as Paul clambered down from the watchtower and went off in search of J.T.  Neve limped behind me, balancing carefully on the hard-packed snow.  Every foot the horses traveled felt like a mile as we watched them coming toward us.  They came into focus slowly–Phelan’s grayish pallor, the dark circles beneath Jacqueline and Cameron’s eyes, the stitched-up gash on Thordin’s cheek, the way Rory hunched in his saddle, one shoulder bulkier than the other under his jacket.  I couldn’t see much of Thom, mounted behind Phelan, his hat pulled low over his eyes.  Either he was cold, or there was something he didn’t want us to see right off the bat.  All I could do was hope that it was the former and not the latter.

Please let him be all right.  We’ve been through enough, and with Phelan looking like he does…I don’t know that I can handle worse than that, more than that.  One of them hurt I can handle at this point.  Not both of them.  Not anymore.  Not at this point.

Then, suddenly, they were there, only a few feet away from us, and Cameron was swinging down from his horse’s back to engulf Neve in an embrace and I was moving toward Thom and Phelan.  I put my hand on Thom’s leg and he smiled down at me tiredly.

“Just scrapes and bruises,” he promised softly, squeezing my fingers.  “Phelan’s another story.”

“What happened?”

“The Dirae,” Thordin said, coming around from the other side of Thom’s horse to start easing Phelan out of the saddle.  “I’ll let Cameron and Jacqueline tell the story, but the Dirae happened.”

“The Dirae?” Neve and I asked in the same voice.  She drew back from Cameron just enough to peer up into his face.  “How did that happen?”

“The Hecate showed up just before Jac and I made it to Phelan,” he said quietly.  “The Dirae jumped us first between where we’d broken off from Thordin and Rory and Thom and where we found Phelan.  By the time we dodged that ambush and made it to where Phelan was, he was facing off against the Hecate and some skinwalkers.  One of those bastards did us a favor by attacking Hecate so we could get away, but Phelan caught some claws across his back before we could get mounted.  Idiot was trying to tell Jac and I to leave without him.”

Neve grimaced and I winced.  “That sounds like him,” she said, glancing toward her limp cousin.  “Stubborn.”

“It’s a family trait,” Cameron observed dryly, then shook his head a little.  “We got the hell out of there and caught up with the others just as they were mopping up the hamrammr they’d been dealing with.  We’ve been riding for two days to get back.  Only stopped a couple of times to change Phelan’s bandages and wash out his wounds and rest the horses a little.  It’s been dead quiet out there and it makes me nervous.”

I shivered.  It made me nervous, too.

By now, Thordin had Phelan slung over his shoulder and was starting to walk deeper into camp.  Thom swung down from his saddle and into my ready embrace.  He hugged me fiercely for a long moment, then released me.

“Come on,” he said quietly.  “Jac and J.T. are going to need help with Phelan, and I’m thinking you and Neve are the best help they could ask for.”

I flinched, looking between him, Cameron, and Jacqueline, who looked exhausted as she slumped from her saddle and leaned against her horse’s flank.  “Is it that bad?”

“Worse,” Jacqueline mumbled, scrubbing her eyes.  “But we’ll find a way to nurse him through it.  I have to emasculate him later, so he’s got to live so I can do it.”

With that, she straightened and marched off in Thordin’s wake.  I choked back a laugh and leaned into Thom’s arms for a moment, aware that even he was wavering on his feet.

“Well,” I managed to say, my voice slightly strangled, “I guess that’s that.”

“Guess so,” Thom murmured.  He kissed my temple and gave me a gentle shove.  “Come on.  You’ll need to make sure she doesn’t collapse and I need you to make sure that I don’t collapse, either.”

“I think I can handle that,” I said quietly before I tucked myself under his arm and led him away, Cameron and Neve trailing behind us a few minutes later.  We had a long night ahead of us—that was for sure.

I just hoped that everyone would still be alive by the end of it.

“Four days,” Neve said, holding her jacket tight around herself as she stood with me at the edge of the ravine, lips pressed together in a pale line.  “Cameron’s been gone for four days, Marin.  I—it’s been two since—since—”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Neve,” I whispered.  “I’m sure they’re both fine.”  I swallowed bile.  I’d been puking up everything I’d eaten for those past few days, unable to shake the feeling that something had just gone terribly, horribly wrong.  I’d tried to tell myself it was morning sickness, but it was a lie.  It was something else.

The nightmares hadn’t helped, dreams of a life my soul had lived but I hadn’t, of a past that wasn’t mine.  They were images of a war that I had never fought and didn’t want to remember.  The others knew something was wrong with me, but no one pried.  That was Thom’s job, and Thom wasn’t here.

Please let them be okay.

“We need to—”

“We don’t have the resources or manpower to send anyone else out there,” I said.  “And I’m not going to ask anyone to go out there anyway, not with the weather that’s blowing in from out over the lake.”

“There’s always weather blowing in over the lake,” Neve snarled, spinning away from the edge of the ravine and starting to limp toward the walls, toward the gate.  “That’s never stopped us from sending anyone from doing anything, now has it?”

“Neve, calm down.”

“No,” she said, turning toward me again as I jogged to catch up with her.  “No, I will not calm down because I’ve got no reason to calm down.  Cameron is out there somewhere fighting god knows what to rescue my idiot cousin from who the hell knows.  My back still feels like it’s on bloody fire and it’s been two days since that started and it can only mean that one of them is hurt badly.  It’s sure as hell not my stupid brother at this distance and intensity.”

I swallowed whatever I was about to say.  She was right to worry, right to be bent out of shape.  I didn’t have any right to tell her not to be.

Except that I did.  My husband was out there, too, right alongside Cameron.  I loved Phelan just as much as she did, despite the lack of close blood ties.  We were still his family, too.  He was one of us.

“Going crazy doesn’t do any of us any good at this point,” I said quietly.  I reached out and touched her stomach for a bare moment before I withdrew my gloved hand.  She winced and looked away.

“I’m just scared,” she said softly.  “I can’t do this alone.”

“There is zero possibility in the universe of you having to do anything alone,” I told her, sliding my arm around her shoulders.  She sighed and leaned on me, closing her eyes.

“I’m so scared.”

“I am, too,” I said.  “You’re not alone in that, either.”

We stood in the snow for a long moment before she cleared her throat and asked, “Marin, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.”  I exhaled a breath in a trail of steam, staring blankly as it dissipated in the chill air.  There wasn’t much more we could do.  The gates stood open.  The volunteers on watch were on high alert, watching for even the smallest sign of anyone’s return.  I wasn’t sure how much sleep Paul was getting based on how much time he spent in the watchtower, looking for some sign that Thom and Thordin, Rory, Jacqueline, Cameron, and Phelan were coming home.  We even left the gates opeen a night, something that had some of us sleeping lightly in our beds for fear of attack, but we didn’t dare close them just in case.

Everything was just in case.

It was down to hoping right now, and every minute that passed, hope died a little more.

“Come on,” I murmured.  “Let’s get back to the fire and have something hot to drink.  Maybe I’ll actually manage to keep it down this time.”

“You seemed like you did okay with it this morning.”

“So far, anyway.”  I sighed.  “Let’s hope that luck holds.”

They have to make it back soon.  I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Neve squeezed my hand gently and we headed back to the tents and the warmth of the fire.  At least in there, we would have company to distract us from the worst of our fears–even if we shared them with everyone around us.

There was something to be said for collective distraction.

Phelan grabbed Jacqueline and Cameron and spun them toward their horses.  “Go!  While she’s distracted!”

Jacqueline seized his arm.  “Not without you!”

“Someone’s got to distract them,” Phelan said as he shoved them away.  “Go!”

Cameron opened his mouth to argue with both of them, then swore as he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.  “Phelan, get down!”

The warning came too late.  The Dirae landed on Phelan’s back, claws cutting deep.  Cameron darted forward, leading with Caliburn’s tip, the blade slicing deep into the creature’s neck.  It reeled back, gasping and bubbling out its last breath and life’s blood, stumbling away from Phelan, who’d gone down to one knee, eyes wide.

Oh hell.  Cameron sheathed Caliburn and hauled Phelan to his feet.  “Jac, grab his bag.  We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Here.”  Leinth thrust the bag and Phelan’s dropped staff toward Jacqueline.  “I’ll guard your escape.  Ride hard, and quickly.  I’ll catch up if I can.”

The Hecate gave a shout of rage and triumph.  Cameron winced, half carrying Phelan the last few steps to the horses.  The once-druid’s face was pale and he was already shaking, already in shock.  Cameron waited just long enough for Jacqueline to haul herself up into the saddle before starting to boost Phelan up behind her.

“On the horse, Phelan,” Cameron said as he helped him mount.  “Just hang on.”

“Was that one of the—”

“Just shut up and lock your arms around her waist,” Cameron growled, shouldering Phelan’s pack himself as Jacqueline concerned herself with making sure Phelan stayed mounted behind her.  “Don’t worry about anything else.  Let us worry about it.”  His gaze flicked toward Jacqueline.  “Keep him on your horse.”

“Trust me,” she said quietly, “I will.”

She kicked her horse into motion as Cameron swung up into his saddle.

“Seamus would be proud,” Leinth said from near his stirrup.  “Ride hard and don’t stop until you get them to safety.”

Cameron swallowed hard and nodded.  “I—I have to know.  How many…?”

“At least seven generations,” she said.  “Descended from our son.  Now ride, Dragon.  Ride.”

She slapped his horse on the flank and the creature leapt into motion, headed down the roadway as she spun away.

“You’re mine, you waning bitch.  You made a mistake today when you showed up here, when my power is at its zenith and yours is waning at best!”

Cameron shuddered at her words and leaned close over his horse’s neck, pushing hard to catch up with Jacqueline and Phelan, already a hundred meters and more beyond him.  He didn’t know when they’d be able to stop and if Phelan had any of the special poultice they’d used the last time the Dirae had attacked them, but he had to hope that he did and it wouldn’t be too late by the time they got to flush the wounds and pack them.

I reacted quickly when they hit me, and he’s full-blooded.  This is going to be bad.

They were another two hundred yards down the road when Phelan slumped off Jacqueline’s horse and into the snow.

He saw her as he crested the last hill before Phelan’s tiny camp and knew that somehow, impossibly, the night had suddenly found a way to get ten times worse.

Jacqueline was nearly to the edge of Phelan’s camp, riding hard toward the thin figure in pale gray and completely ignoring the dreadlocked woman bathed in red-white light.  Cameron’s mount pounded down the roadway behind her without his conscious direction, since the ex-pilot’s mind was still reeling from the sight of the Hecate hovering so close.

Beef with Phelan and Neve’s brothers and hunting for me because of Seamus.  Hell.  What’s she doing here?  We were only supposed to deal  with bloody Hamrammr, not her and the Dirae, too!

But he’d known as soon as they’d encountered the Dirae on the road that things had gone from bad to worse.  He knew that their appearance couldn’t have been coincidental.

He just hadn’t allowed himself to entertain the possibility.

“What the hell do you want?” Phelan demanded of the former witch-goddess as Jacqueline threw herself out of her saddle and Cameron drew within earshot.

This isn’t going to end well.  He was glad he hadn’t sheathed Caliburn.

The Hecate laughed at the question.  “The same thing I’ve always wanted, you fool.  Either you naked in my bed and begging me for it, or you dead at my feet with your power made mine.”

…yeah.  This just got a lot worse than I ever could have imagined.

“Well, I’ve got news for you–you can’t freaking have him!”  Jacqueline shouted, storming up to Phelan’s side and reaching down to help him back to his feet.

The Hecate tsked softly, looking at Jacqueline like she was an annoying bug.  “Stay out of this, girl.  It doesn’t concern you.”

“Like hell.”

“Jac,” Phelan said, “please, don’t do this.”

“Stop being an idiot,” Jacqueline told him.  “I love you, okay?  I’m not going to let anyone take you from us.”

Cameron grimaced, eyes scanning the array of figures around them.  A half-dozen skinchangers.  The Hecate.  Leinth, a pair of daggers clutched in her fists as she eyed the Hecate warily.  The other woman hadn’t noticed her yet, and it seemed that Leinth had no desire to draw any attention just yet.

No Dirae.  Of course, they may be laying in wait.  There were the three on the road that ambushed us.  There must be more nearby.

Hopefully, Thordin and the others hadn’t finished their fight with the Hamrammr only to end up going toe-to-toe with a bunch of Dirae on their heels.

Cameron slid from his mount’s back and strode toward Phelan and Jacqueline.  “You’ve got us at your back, Phelan,” he said as he took up position at the other man’s shoulder, both hands wrapped around Caliburn’s hilt.  “You don’t have to play her games or give in to anyone.  Not tonight.”

Phelan looked stricken as he met Cameron’s eye.  “Déithe agus arrachtaigh, Cameron,” he said quietly.  “Why the hell did you come?  You should have stayed where it was safe.”

“Neve would never forgive me if you got killed and there was something I could do to stop it from happening,” Cameron said.

“How touching,” the Hecate said, smirking as she watched them.  “Are the lot of you quite finished arguing and posturing?  I’d like to get on with this.”

Cameron’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her.  The Hecate drifted down until the hem of her robe touched the ground.  She twitched a hand and sent the skinwalkers sprawling, crashing into each other.

“Get thee gone,” she hissed at them.  “Tell your mistresses that they tread where they’re not wanted, where there’s prior claim.”

The hamrammr stared at her in confusion for a long moment.

“Go!” she barked, red light flaring in her eyes.  “Or feel my wrath and suffer a fate worse than death.”

The lead skinchanger snarled and leapt for her throat.

He saw the burning eyes in the night a bare moment before one of the Dirae tore him from the saddle.  Jacqueline shouted at him, her horse rearing again as his began to panic.  Cameron hit the ground rolling away from his mount, yanking a knife out of his boot and stabbing at the clawed hands that grabbed for him as he tried to roll out of their reach.  He heard an angry hiss and knew at least one flailing strike had hit is mark.

“Ride on!” he yelled to Jacqueline as he came to his feet, trying to get his bearings.  “Phelan needs you!  Ride on!”

There were three Dirae, one of them now nursing a slashed arm, and they were creeping toward him with malice in their eyes.  Jacqueline squinted at him past the shadowy figures, almost invisible in the night.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” Cameron lied.  “Go!”

Caliburn rasped out of its sheath and glowed with a fire all its own.  He sucked in a pair of breaths, risking one more glance toward Jacqueline, who was making no moves to ride on.  “Dammit, Jac, go!  If these bitches are here, Phelan’s got bigger problems than the skinchangers!”

She stared at him for half a moment, then kicked her horse into motion again and rode on.  Cameron sucked in a deep breath.  Thank god.  He squared his shoulders, fingers tightening around Caliburn’s hilt.

He focused on the golden-eyed hags just in time because they were on him as one, screaming in a language he didn’t understand and threatening to drag him under like an undertow.  He backpedaled with a curse, feinting to his left and leading with an edge of the blade, leaning toward the nearest of the Dirae.

What the hell are they doing here?  We weren’t supposed to see them again anytime soon.

The blade bit into the Dirae’s flesh and she shrieked, leaping backwards as he jerked the blade back and free of her ribcage.  He shifted slightly, just barely ducking a swing from one of her companions, one threatening to open his throat.

Don’t let them hit you.  Remember what happened last time?

He yanked the knife free of its sheath and threw it at one of them as he backpedaled, blood dripping from Caliburn’s tip.

He heard the sound of shattering glass not far away.  His opponents shrieked as one, their gazes suddenly turning south, down the roadway.

Cameron took the opportunity to spin and throw himself back onto his horse’s back.  Before the trio of Dirae could react, he was on his way down the road again.

Damnation, could this night get any worse?

Phelan blinked away the sting of the magical explosion’s bright after-image, the bright ghost that obscured his vision.  Leinth’s fingers dug into his arm through the sleeve of his parka.

“What was that?”

“A druid’s wardings,” Phelan growled.  “A Taliesin’s wardings.”

But I’m not going to be able to do that twice.

The skinchanger stuck on the other side of the boundary of the small bubble of his wardings was the biggest he’d ever seen, its fur as black as night and catching silver highlights from the moon.  There were others behind him—there had to be, somewhere—but Phelan’s gaze was full of this one, the one staring at him with such baleful malice that it left his stomach cramping and twisting in fear.

Stay calm.  Stay focused.  This isn’t a threat that you haven’t handled before.

Of course, running had typically been an option in the past, and the wound in his side still throbbed from his last encounter with this particular flavor of nastiness.

His fingers tightened around the wood of his staff.  Cold from Leinth’s grip bled into his skin through his coat.  He stripped off one glove quickly, then the other, stuffing them into his pocket.  “Can you cut off that damned cold?” he snapped at her.  “You’re leaving frost all over my goddamned sleeve.”

“It’s the chill of the grave, Wanderer,” she fired back.  “It’s hard to turn off.”

“Well, try to or else you’ll be leading the way to the underworld.”  He sucked in a deep breath, the cold of the air shocking his lungs.  A cough threatened and he forced it back down, casting his senses—his magic—down into the frozen ground beneath is feet.

Come on, answer the call.  Come on…

Power and warmth swept up in a sudden surge and he swallowed a gasp.  The skinchangers around them snarled at the sudden flare of evergreen light that wreathed him.  He sucked in a breath and drew that power into himself through the staff, wrapping it up with the golden kernel of power nestled deep in his heart—the Taliesin’s power, the Taliesin’s gift.

Please let this work.  It’s been so long since I had to…

Leinth cursed and stumbled back, her dark eyes wide as gold and green flickers suddenly suffused his being.  She swore in Etruscan as a pair of daggers rasped free of sheaths beneath her cloak.

“What are you about to do?”

“Something stupid,” he answered, one hand wrapped around his staff in a white-knuckled grip.  His other hand stabbed out, fingers splayed with green and gold light playing over and beneath his skin.

Please let this work.

He spat a word of power.  The green and gold light leapt from his fingers, braiding itself into a whip that writhed its way through the air and past the boundaries of his wardings.  It sprouted thorns and barbs as it flew, hitting the skinchanger squarely in the chest with enough force to stagger it.

Then it started to coil around the creature like a living thing, like a snake preparing to squeeze the life out of its prey.  The skinchangers gave a cry and began to struggle.

Sweat trickled down the back of Phelan’s neck, down his spine.  He was shaking already, his teeth grinding and chattering against the power he channeled.

Hold on.  You can manage this.  It’s nothing you haven’t managed before.

Of course, the last time you did this, you blacked out and didn’t wake up for three weeks, but that’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?

“More are coming, Wanderer,” Leinth said, back at his side once more, a cold, terrifying fire wreathing her blades, black and blue and painful to look at.  “They’re creeping toward the lines.”

“Deal with them,” he said, shocked at how steady his voice was through his pain and gritted teeth.  The woman at his side was remarkably calm.  He wondered for a spilt second if Seamus had retained some of the Taliesin’s power when he’d given up the mantle, given up the burden, and Leinth had seen it then.

What a sight to behold that must have been, if that were the case.  The warrior-healer with the Taliesin’s power, even a fragment, would have been terrifying and beautiful all at once, with metallic fire and light around him.

Phelan shook himself and instantly regretted his momentary distraction as the skinchangers slammed into his wardings all at once and shattered them like paper-thin glass.  The backlash tore a curse from his lips and forced him to his knees, already feeling blood starting to slide down his face.  The power he’d poured into those wards had made them into something almost physical when they’d shattered, sharp enough to make them all bleed where the metaphysical fragments struck them.

At least they’ll be cut up worse than we are.

Leinth screamed an angry battlecry from thousands of years past and threw herself at three of the stunned skinchangers, daggers moving so fast that they were barely visible blurs against the night.

The skinchangers he’d wrapped in magical thorns went down to one knee as the wardings shattered, only to lurch to his feet again, stumbling with grim determination toward Phelan, bloodlust gleaming in his eyes.

Phelan swallowed bile.

Berserker?  Déithe agus arrachtaigh, I hope not.  That would be a disaster.

He curled his fingers into a fist and jerked back, hard, snapping the rope of magic that connected him to the skinchanger.  The writhing tail of magic whipped toward the creature, curling around its neck and tightening there.  Phelan could see blood in the moonlight as the creature howled at him, lurching forward.

Stand your ground.  You can take him down if you just stand your ground.

Someone was laughing and it made his skin crawl, the back of his neck prickling.

Oh hell.

Even the skinchanger paused for a brief moment to look toward the sound.

There was that red-white light again and the slender, dreadlocked figure floating within it, her blue eyes alight with malice and mischief.

“Well, well,” she purred, ruby lips pulling back from perfect white teeth.  “What have we here?”

Jacqueline managed a shaky laugh behind him, a sound almost lost under the sound of their horses and the rushing wind.

Wolves howled behind them and ahead of them.  Cameron gripped his reins a little harder, fingers tangling in his mount’s mane, leaning forward over its neck.

We’re never going to make it in time.  Damnation, Neve’s never going to forgive me.

                I’m never going to be able to forgive myself.

The ground heaved and Cameron’s horse drew up short, screaming and rearing, on the very bleeding edge of panic.  Jacqueline shrieked as her horse tried to pull a similar stunt.  Her hand must have been firmer than his, though, because she managed to haul it sideways rather than having to fight not to be unceremoniously dumped to the snow-covered ground.

“What the hell is that?” she yelled as she got her dancing mount back under control.  Cameron swore as he gentled his own horse, having to trot it in a circle around Jacqueline’s before it started to settle.  He squinted down the roadway, detecting the dying afterimage of green light beyond the next hill.

“I’m not sure, but I’m willing to lay decent odds that it was Phelan.”

But was the Taliesin working his own magic, or was he the victim of someone else’s?

Something screamed ahead of them and Cameron cursed again.  The answer to that question no longer mattered.

“Move!”

He didn’t have to tell her twice.  Jacqueline kicked her horse into motion and pounded down the roadway ahead of him, toward the sound of howling wolves and other, stranger sounds that sounded distant and yet far, far too close for comfort.

Heart in his throat, Cameron set his heels into his mount’s ribs and the stallion took off like a shot in Jacqueline’s wake.

All he could do was pray they weren’t too late.