Awakenings

“I—I’m sorry,” J.T. stammered after a few long moments of silence.  They climbed over the frozen hill and across the field toward Matt’s forge.  Smoke curled from its chimney, drifting away on the winter wind.

Phelan shook his head.  “It’s all right.  When you’ve lived as many lifetimes as I have, it’s almost to be expected.  The losses still hurt, but I’m afraid that they no longer surprise me like they used to.  Except…there are times when I think that I should tell someone something because it would make them smile, or laugh, or just because they would love to know it and it doesn’t hit me until that moment that they’re gone—sometimes for a very, very long time.”

“It’ll be like that with us someday,” J.T. said.

“No.”  Phelan swallowed against the tightness in his throat.  “No, it won’t be.  With everything that’s happened to the world, time touches all of us the way it touches you.”  He smiled faintly.  “We’ll age and die just like the rest of you.  High time for it, too, I’m thinking.  I’m ready for a normal life.”  As if I could ever have something even vaguely close.

Another silence stretched between them until they reached the forge, but it was a silence so loud that Phelan could hear all the words that were going unspoken.  He knew that Jameson MacKenzie felt sorry for him—not for the first time, likely not for the last.

“It’s all right,” Phelan said as he paused just outside the forge.

“Right,” J.T. said after a moment’s hesitation.  “Of course.”

“Are you two coming in, or are you staying out in the cold?”  Thordin asked as he poked his head out into the afternoon chill.

“We’re coming in,” Phelan said, then slid past him into the forge.  Matt was at the anvil, his brother-in-law at the bellows, the pair working on a broad-headed, double-bladed war axe that looked oddly familiar.  He arched a brow, glancing at Thordin.  “A new one?”

Thordin shrugged slightly.  “It’s not for me.  I thought I’d teach our young smith how to use it.”

“Oh?”  Phelan’s gaze met Matt’s over the glow of the coals, the glowing red heat of the axehead on the anvil.  The younger man met his gaze for only a moment, then looked back to his work.

“Whatever I need to do to protect my family, Phelan,” Matt said quietly.  His hammer rang against the metal.  “It’s all any of us would do.  I’m not that great with a sword.”

Thom snorted softly.  “If you worked on it a bit more…”

“There’s not a lot of time for it these days,” Matt countered, though he smiled weakly at his brother-in-law.  “Doesn’t help that my teacher was down for the count in the clutch.”

J.T. winced.  “Yeah, well…”

“Don’t sweat it.  I’m not very good and I know it.  Maybe an axe will suit me better.”

“Likely will,” Phelan admitted, thinking back to long-ago yesterdays with another man, another friend.  “You won’t know until you’ve tried it on for size, anyway.”

Matt nodded.

“Have you made something for your sister yet?”

Matt froze, blinking and staring at Phelan.  “Made something?  What are you talking about?”

“It’s Midwinter,” Phelan said.  “Yule.  Heart of the season.”

His companions stared at him for a moment as if he’d suddenly grown a second head.  Then Thom began to laugh.

“Of course it is,” he said, abandoning the bellows.  “Of course!”

As Thom breezed past them out into the cold, Phelan couldn’t help but smile.

Now to the messy business of finding a way to get back to the new normal.  I think we’ve made a good start of it.

“Where’s he going?”  Thordin asked, blinking in confusion.

“Unless I miss my guess, he’s gone to conspire with his wife.”  Phelan’s smile brightened.  “And that’s exactly what we need him to do.”

“Help me up,” Phelan said suddenly.  “Let’s walk.”

“Eh?”  J.T. blinked at him, expression blank, confused.

Phelan smiled briefly and shook his head.  “I’m not in the mood to stay here in the dark, near-death experience or not.  Let’s walk up to the forge.  You can’t tell me that Matt and Thom won’t be up there right now, and if I’m right, Thordin will be with them, too.”

J.T. just kept right on blinking, staring at him.  “Why are we—”

“Trust me,” Phelan said, then slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed.  Clothes, still.  Thank goodness for small favors.  As close as he was to all of them, the idea of one of the girls—Marin or Kellin or Jacqueline or Carolyn, any of them—stripping him and re-dressing him was near enough to make him blush as red as his hair.  “It’ll be good for both of us.”  I need to be around breathing people.  We both do.  Gods and monsters, Ériu, what were you doing here?  Did you come for me, for him, or both?

Or was it more than that?  Something I won’t realize until it’s nearly too late?

He groped around for his coat and shoes, wincing at the pain in his ribs.  “Damnation.  I’d forgotten how much this hurts.”

“I’m sure you’ll pull through,” J.T. said as he stood slowly.  “Who was she, anyway?”

“Who was who?” Phelan asked as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He already knew who J.T. was asking about—he just wasn’t sure he wanted to answer the question.

“The spirit girl.  Ériu.”  J.T. fumbled over the name, but he managed to pronounce it well enough.  “She seemed…I don’t know, Phelan.  Really fond of you.  More than a goddaughter should be.”

He choked back a laugh, shrugging slowly into his jacket.  “I was there when Brighid found her.”

“Found her?”  J.T. echoed.  He spun to follow Phelan as he brushed past on his way to the door, hands shoved deep into his pockets to keep them warm against the chill he knew he’d be facing.

They walked together out into the dim of the hallway before Phelan found the words to answer.  “Aye.  She washed up as a foundling on the shore.  Brighid found her and we were with her—her boys.”  He smiled a wistful, longing smile.  “That’s what she called us.  Her boys—her brother and her husband and I.”  He could hear the waves against the shore, smell the salt air and feel the warmth of the afternoon sun against his back.  It had been a fair day, that day so many centuries before, the first in months, after a long, cold winter and a stormy spring.  Not quite summer that day on the shore, but it had been promised in the sun’s warmth.

Phelan sighed and shook his head.  “Brighid heard the sound of a babe crying among the rocks while we were fishing.  To this day, I’ve no idea how the child survived, how she really came to us.  She was in a little wooden boat, wrapped in wool and linen, hair so blonde it was nearly white.  She and Finn had no children of their own, not then, and Brighid was always a kind-hearted woman despite appearances to the contrary.  She took up that babe and told us that she and Finn would care for her, that Ciar—her brother—would train her in the ways of the druids of old, that the child would want for nothing…and that someday, she would lead their clans united against any threat that stood against them.”

They walked out into the fading sunshine of late afternoon, boots crunching on the snow.

“What happened to her?” J.T. asked.

Phelan smiled sadly, throat tightening and tears stinging in his eyes.  “Like most of the men and women that I’ve loved in my life…she died.”

Phelan stirred awake only a few bare moments after she was gone.  He groaned quietly, twisting in his blankets, eyes blinking open slowly in the dim light.  J.T. watched for a moment, silent, the spirit’s words still sinking in.

Then ancient eyes fell on him and Phelan said without preamble, “I was dreaming.”

“Of what?”  J.T. asked, meeting Phelan’s gaze, curiosity edging the question.  Did he hear her voice, I wonder?  Does he remember who she is?

I never did get her name, did I?  There was something easier about dealing with the spirits when he could name them.  The faceless ones, the wraiths almost without form that he’d only seen once or twice in the weeks and months since the end of the world were the ones that left him the most unsettled.

“Home,” Phelan breathed, looking away again.  “The Isles.  I was walking with Finn and Brighid and their daughter.  I haven’t dreamed of the girl’s voice…”  His eyes slid closed again.  J.T. swallowed hard.

“Was she your goddaughter?”

Phelan’s eyes sprang open and he looked at J.T., brow crinkling.  “For lack of better terminology, aye.  How did you—”  He pushed himself up on an elbow and groaned, putting a hand to his head.  “Déithe agus arrachtaigh.  What actually hit me?”

“The camazotzi, apparently,” J.T. said, his tone desert-dry and his expression serious.  “Your head got bounced off the ground a few times.”

“Feels like it.”  Phelan traced the stitches along the sides of his face with a fingertip and winced slightly.  “It also feels like one of them danced on my chest.”

“I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure whether one did or not.”  J.T. edged forward in his chair a little.  “You feel okay?”

“Other than the headache and being able to feel most of my ribs every time I breathe, yes.”  Phelan eased back down to his pillows again and exhaled a heavy sigh.  He stared at the wooden planks of the ceiling above, brow furrowing slightly again.  “There’s something…clover and heather.  I can smell clover and heather.”  He looked at J.T. again, slowly, realization dawning in his eyes.  “There was a ghost here.  A spirit.”

J.T. nodded.  “I was out by the fire.  Jac was sitting with you when I saw it go by.”

“What was it?”  Phelan started to sit up again, more slowly this time.  He winced, but made it upright, sitting up in his bed and wavering only slightly.  “The spirit.  What did it look like?”

“A girl.”  J.T. closed his eyes, easily able to conjure the image of her against the black backdrop of the closed lids.  “Small, blonde hair—not golden blonde, but white-blonde—with all kinds of silver trinkets knotted into it.  She had a pretty face.  Voice reminded me of wind chimes.”

Phelan’s breath caught, the color draining from his face.  He uttered a quiet oath under his breath, words tumbling over themselves so quickly that J.T. wouldn’t have had a prayer of deciphering them even if he’d been fluent in Phelan’s native tongue.

“What did she say?” he whispered.

J.T. shook his head slowly.  “She made it sound like I’ve got a more powerful gift than I’d ever imagined.  How…how rare is what I can do?”  How deep will I end up going—how much further out of my depth am I about to be?

“Rare,” Phelan said, eyes sliding shut for a moment.  “More rare now than in ages past.  Unlike some with similar skill, I fear that your abilities will only grow as time goes on, rather than leveling out or beginning to fade away.”  His bright eyes blinked open again and he offered the younger man a weak, wry smile.  “Long and arduous road for you, Jameson.  I’m afraid I don’t have much good news in that regard, beyond the fact that I know you’ve got the strength in you to control it before it controls you.”

J.T. shivered, remembering the conversation he’d had with Marin months before.  How long before it controls me? How long before I cross over that threshold?  “And healing the soul?”

“Bloody,” Phelan breathed, then stopped himself.  “Ériu did a number on you, didn’t she?  How much did she say?”

“Too much,” J.T. murmured, “but enough.  She touched you and you…you healed.  She said something to you and you relaxed.  I don’t know what she—”

“My soul,” Phelan said quietly.  “She touched my soul, Jameson.  Healed a part that I didn’t realize was broken.”  He closed his eyes, swallowing hard.  “Gods and monsters.”

“I don’t know that I can handle that kind of power,” J.T. said.  “How can she be so sure I’ve got that kind of talent?”

Phelan shook his head, a sad smile on his face.  “Because she always knew and she tried to tell me long ago…but I didn’t listen.

“Déithe agus arrachtaigh, but I didn’t listen.  And I should have.  Forgive me, Jameson, but I should have.”

“Jay?”

He waved Marin away as he plunged into the dim of the hall, following the faintest sense of silver-gray as it disappeared through a doorway further down.

Phelan’s room.  Dammit.  He picked up the pace, trying not to let his increasing weariness, dizziness, or the pain in his back from his still-healing wound distract him from his quarry.

“Jay, what are you—”

He held up a hand again and she stopped talking, then ducked into Phelan’s cot.  Jacqueline startled at his entrance, twisting to look at him.

The ghost standing at Phelan’s bedside, a slender, ethereal figure in a woolen dress with silver trinkets woven into flaxen hair, didn’t turn.  Her ghostly fingertips brushed against Phelan’s forehead and his hair.

J.T. swore it moved at her touch.

Hell.

“What’s wrong?”  Jacqueline asked.

“Jac,” he said quietly, “I’ll sit with him for a while.  Go and get something to eat and stretch your legs.”

She blinked at him, glancing back at Phelan and then to J.T. again.  For a moment, she hesitated, then nodded.  “All right.”

“Shut the door behind you,” J.T. murmured as she drifted past him.  Jacqueline caught his hand and squeezed, nodding.

“I’ll come check on you in a little while,” she said.

He just nodded and waited until the door clicked closed behind her.  The ghost remained where she was, silver-blonde curls cascading forward to veil her face.

“He should not have been harmed this day,” she said at last.  Her voice was soft and musical, carrying a lilt familiar from dreams of long ago, from a life he’d lived a hundred lifetimes ago.  Her fingers brushed over Phelan’s hair again and he stirred with a soft moan.  She murmured a few words in a musical tongue that J.T. couldn’t understand and Phelan quieted, seeming to drift back toward sleep.

“Who are you?”  J.T. asked.

“His goddaughter,” the spirit whispered.  “Such as I am, such as he was.”  She looked away from Phelan and met J.T.’s gaze.  “I knew you.”

“I’m not—”  The words died on his tongue.  I’m not the person you remember.

“It was long ago,” she agreed, turning away again.  He could hear the chiming of the silver charms woven into her hair, the rustle of her clothing.  He’d never heard a ghost so clearly before.  “So many souls in the world again.  So many of the lost awakening.  It is…sad and frightening.”

A shiver shot down J.T.’s spine.  “Why are you here?” he asked, mouth dry.

She looked over her shoulder at him.  “All of your ghosts come with warnings, don’t they?”

“Is that what you’re here for, then?”  J.T. dropped heavily into the chair that Jacqueline had abandoned.  His back twinged uncomfortably and he exhaled quietly.  “To warn me so I can warn the rest?”

“It will only get harder before it eases,” she said.  “That’s the way of things.  The way it’s always been.  But this ground…this place…it’s like home.  Like every home I’ve known.  It’s easy to see why so many have come here, come together again.  Why the blood is here.”  Her spectral fingers brushed against his cheek and she smiled sadly.  “Your eyes see the most of what has been.  Others see what will be.  While they will see that…most of the warnings may come from you, Spiritweaver.  You see souls of those who are here and those who have been.  Your touch can heal them the same way the Blessed could.”

His throat grew tight, an uncomfortable feeling blooming in his guts.  He wasn’t sure what she meant, but he was fairly certain he didn’t like it, either.  “I don’t understand.”

“None who have gone before you did, either.”  She sighed and turned away again.  “I wish I could explain.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“It must be learned, not told.”  She gave him a sad smile.  “But I can tell you to safeguard this place and its people.  He can’t do it alone.  None of you can do it alone.”  She looked away again, her fingers against Phelan’s face.  Some of the red faded from along the edges of the stitched-up claw marks on his face, the edges firming before his eyes.  J.T. sucked in a breath, eyes widening as he watched.

“Heal the spirit and soul and you’ll often heal the body,” she whispered.  She leaned down and kissed Phelan’s forehead.

Then she faded away to nothing.

“Sounds like I missed a show,” J.T. mumbled as he bent close to inspect the stitches along the curve of Phelan’s neck and jaw.  Jacqueline’s handiwork was neat and even, as usual, even under duress.

She’s getting better at this all the time.  She’ll be able to take over for me pretty fast here.  Of course, the fact that Phelan was still out like a light helped the work go easier.

“Just a little bit of one,” Jacqueline agreed.  “Marin said that she saw a ghost army holding the perimeter a ways out so they could take down the camazotzi.”

“Sounds like we might not need to worry about them as much, then.”  J.T. sat back with a slight wince, his back twinging in pain.  “Did you try to use your…whatever it is on him?”

Jacqueline snorted humorlessly.  “When I saw him bleeding all over the ground, you’d better believe I did.  God…heard my plea.  It was kind of like healing Kellin, but not.”  She frowned.  “He had a cracked skull.”

J.T. cursed under his breath.  That’s not good.  “You fixed it?”

“If we’re lucky, he’ll just have a nasty headache when he wakes up.” Jacqueline hugged her arms across her chest and exhaled a sigh.  “That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”

“You did good,” J.T. said again.  “Probably better than I would have under the circumstances.”

“Nice of you to say,” she muttered, then exhaled a sigh.  “It was messy, Jay.”

“The wards held,” he observed.  “Couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Thank God for small favors.”                                    She paused, watching him in the dim light of Phelan’s room, which smelled heavily of herbs and leather.  “Thanks for coming to look.”

“Part of what I do around here,” he said, smiling faintly at her over his shoulder.  “I have to give you a reason to keep me around.”  He stood stiffly from his chair and winced as the room spun slowly around him, then righted itself.  He gripped the back of the chair tightly to help steady himself.  “I’ll be glad when I shake this off,” he muttered.

“You still feeling sick?”

“Dizzy, that’s all.”  He rubbed his forehead.  “It’s better.  I can’t expect to be right as rain as quickly as I’d like, that’s all.  I shouldn’t act it.”

“You probably shouldn’t,” Jacqueline agreed, appropriating the chair he abandoned.  “Go eat something.  I’ll stay here on watch.”

“You sure?”

Jacqueline’s gaze drifted to Phelan and she nodded slightly.  “Yeah.  I’m sure.  Carolyn’s probably wondering where you got to anyway.”

He smiled faintly.  “She’s checking on her little friends right now.  I’m sure she knows exactly where I am, since I’m never more than five or six feet from one at a given time, if you listen to her talk.”

“They’re that widespread?” Jacqueline asked.

J.T. shrugged with one shoulder, then winced slightly as his back started to ache again.  “Small space, a lot of them, I guess.  They keep tabs on what’s important to her.”  And I’m important to her.  God only knows why sometimes, but I am.  He smiled again.  “I guess I shouldn’t complain.”

“Probably not,” Jacqueline agreed.  She nodded toward the door.  “Still.  You’re pretty pale.  Go eat something and have a sit for a while.”

His smile matched hers and he nodded despite himself.  I’ve just spent days flat on my back.  I’m not entirely sure that sitting’s what I need to do, but healer’s orders are healer’s orders.  “Yell if you need something.”

“I will,” she said, then shooed him off again.  This time, he listened, stepping out of the room and heading down the hall back toward where Tala kept the cookfire burning all day and all night.  She’d been amazing down below in the tunnels, between her and Neve telling Angie stories about things long ago and places far away.

She was near the fire as usual, pouring Marin a mug of tea.  Both women glanced at him as he approached.

“How is he?”  Marin asked.

“He’ll live,” J.T. said.

“How are you?”

“Jury’s still out.”  He grinned and sank down onto the ground near the fire.  “But it’s looking favorable.”

“Thank god for small favors,” Marin said.

“Absolutely,” J.T. agreed, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

A sudden chill crept up his spine and he sat up straight again, looking around and swallowing hard.  Where–?

The ghost disappeared down the way he’d just come, down the corridor.

Without a word, he stood and followed.

“Again?”  Thom finally blurted, breaking the silence. “Did he just pull that stunt again?”

“If he didn’t, I’ve got no idea where they went,” Matt said from his perch.  “Because they’re gone.”

The sound of a gun’s report echoed off the walls.  “Don’t stop firing!”  Paul shouted.  “Because these bastards are still coming, general to lead or not!”

“Dammit,” I panted, fingers digging into Thom’s arm.  “God fucking dammit.  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”  I wasn’t sure if I was saying it to Thom or to myself.  I straightened up and shook myself, cursing under my breath again as the world slowly spun around me, then righted itself again.

“Give me your bow,” Thom said.

I shook my head slightly.  “No.  Give me a boost back up.  I’m a better shot than you are.”

“You just fell off the wall.”

“Thom.”

His jaw firmed, a muscle twitching in the corner.  I met his stare without flinching.  He was the first to blink with a muttered obscenity and a shake of his head.

Then he boosted me back up onto the top of the wall.

The camazotzi were definitely still coming, but the ranks were thinning as their numbers dropped.  Perhaps two dozen were still moving—still able to move, not trampled under the feet of their fellows or incapacitated by our wards.  The gunfire and arrows we rained down on them from the walls was starting to have an effect, though.  They were slowly starting to pull back.

I counted two with the strange markings left.

Just need to take them out.  Maybe they’ll cut and run.

“Paul!”

“What?” he snapped from his perch.

“Twenty meters to your left.  Red markings on the wings.  Take it down hard!”

I could almost feel his grin.  “With pleasure!”

I took aim on my own target and filed in the same second I heard the sound of Paul’s rifle.

Two screams, two kills.

The rout began then.

With all semblance of leadership gone, the camazotzi swarmed together, less an efficient killing pack than a rabble without direction.  They coalesced into a pack, then spread out again, as if they were deciding whether to attack or run.  A few struck off on their own, in clumps of twos and threes, and headed away from the walls, only to stop and turn back.

Why don’t they just bolt?

A flicker of silver-gray drew my eye, out in the distance across the snow.  A fog was rising out there.

No.  Not a fog.

“Hell,” I whispered.  “What a time for Jay to be down or the count.”

In the distance, Death in one of her many guises lifted a hand to acknowledge me.  A shiver shot down my spine and I nodded slowly.

“We have them pinned!”  I shouted to my friends as I met her faraway gaze.  I couldn’t tell if it was the Morrigan or the other one we’d met, not at this distance.  “Put them down.”

Rory balanced on the top of the wall a few feet away from me, slowly rising to his feet and balancing there precariously.  “Pyrotechnics?”

I glanced at him, swallowed hard, and nodded.

He grinned and the flames lit his eyes a second before fire flowed from his fingers like water, splashing down onto the camazotzi below.

If I live a thousand years, I will never forget the sound of those screams.

In the moment, I didn’t care.  They were a threat and we needed to survive.  They were the aggressors.

They were learning how high a price someone could pay for coming after us.

They’d started this, and we finished it.

Twenty minutes later, it was all over.

At least for now.

 I notched another arrow and picked my target carefully.  There were some camazotzi that seemed to have different markings on them—painted on their chests, on their faces, their wings—and I hoped against hope that meant they were in positions of authority.

Maybe if we kill enough of them, they’ll cut in run.

It was a longshot, but it was one that we didn’t have any choice but to take.

I felt her eyes on me before her power touched me, just as I released an arrow into the fray.  I twisted, gaze snapping to meet Menhit’s.  Her lips peeled back in a cruel smile.

“Huntress,” she breathed, though I could hear her words clear as day.  “Seer.”

I calmly pulled an arrow out of my quiver and readied myself.  “Call off your hounds,” I told her.  “And we can talk like civilized adults.”

“My hounds are all that is keeping me alive right now,” she said, lips twisting in another cold smile.  “We’ve done this dance before, you and I.”

“Strange, I don’t remember.”  I didn’t loose my arrow on her, but on another of the painted camazotzi.  The tide was ebbing, but slowly.  The more we fired on them, though, the more they lost the will to keep on coming.  “And it doesn’t feel like dancing.”

“Someday it will,” she promised.  “Someday it will.”

What’s your game, bitch?  What the hell do you want from us that makes you willing to get into bed with the Hecate if only to double-cross her later?  She’d set the camazotzi on Phelan.  Typically, that meant either he was a key to our defense or that he knew something.

Or she just hated him, like Vammatar and her ilk.

That’s always a distinct possibility.  He’s had a lot of time to make a lot of enemies with his meddling and mischief.

Puck indeed.

“Who the hell are you talking to?”  Matt yelled at me.

I shook my head hard.  “The bitch on the ground!”

“Less negotiating, more shooting,” he called back.  “I don’t think you’re going to talk her into calling off the attack.”

Not going to stop me from trying.

The camazotzi were climbing on top of each other, the fallen insulating them the copper ring.  When they touched the walls, most fell back, howling in pain, but they were starting to get too close.

Too damned close.

“Yes,” Menhit hissed, “listen to him, Seer.  Send more dead across.  More blood to foul the ground, to make the earth cry.  More and more.”

I choked on sudden sickness, staring at her.  My fingers fell away from the bowstring, arrow clattering against my knees and then falling harmlessly on the far side of the wall.  Matt and Thom were both shouting at me.  The world spun.

I’d heard those words before.

No you haven’t, Marin.  But someone else has.

I saw something twitch out of the corner of my eye, down on the ground in front of me, a split second before the memory came.

“We can’t keep going on like this, Mum,” the voice of a child said, a child wise beyond her tender years.  Her small fingers tightened around my hand.  “The earth is crying.  There’s been too much blood.”

“I know,” I murmured to her softly, drawing her against my hip, swathed in my hunting leathers.  “But it’s not a thing that’s in my power to control.”

She turned her impossibly blue eyes to mine.  “Find a way, Mum, or else we’re done for.  The survivors, the Imbolg, the Fianna…we’ll all be done for.”

Thom caught me before I hit the ground, my vision dimming.  I sagged into his chest, gasping raggedly.

“Hell,” I breathed. “Oh bloody hell.  I know why she’s here.”  I think I know why she’s here.  I’m afraid I know why she’s here.

“Seers!” Cariocecus’s ragged voice called, sounding weary beyond measure but damnably, certainly alive.  “This is two you’ll owe me.”

Menhit screamed and Cariocecus shouted and then for one aching moment, everything was silent.

The attack on Phelan happened too fast to prevent, but that didn’t stop me from burying an arrow in the camazotzi’s back a second after Phelan’s head slammed into the ground.

Dammit!  If I hadn’t been so focused on watching that bastard Cariocecus, I could have stopped them!  What kind of fucking game is this?

But Cariocecus was shouting at his minions to—to stop?

What the hell is going on here?

Low, rich feminine laughter echoed off the walls.  Below me, Thom and Thordin stood frozen, Thordin’s axe filling his hands and Thom’s sword drawn, both weapons in hand in the instant after the camazotzi fell on Phelan.

“They don’t answer to you anymore, you puny excuse for a warrior deity,” a woman’s voice purred.

A petite, slender figure garbed in a cloak of sable fur knifed through the ranks of camazotzi and crossed the field toward Cariocecus.  The cloak slid from her shoulders as she crossed the field, her hair oiled and dark, braided and beaded, skin the color of milk chocolate swathed in black leather tooled with red and white beads and shells.  She looked like some Egyptian empress garbed for war.

Maybe she is.  I swallowed rising bile.  That’s the last thing we need.

Apparently, it was always the first thing we got—the things we didn’t need.

I tried to will Thordin and Thom to retrieve Phelan, but they stood frozen in the gap.

Phelan just lay very still and bleeding below me, his eyes closed and his face turned toward the sky.

Not fucking good.  “Kel!”

“On it.”  She ducked between Thom and Thordin, startling both of them, and ran the dozen feet to where Phelan lay.  She hooked her hands under his armpits and started to haul him back toward the safety of the walls.

The woman’s eyes fell on her, then flicked up to me.  The hint of a smile played on dark red lips.

“Gutsy,” she said.

I notched another arrow.  “Trust me,” I said in a low voice.  “We try to be.”

She turned away and took Cariocecus’s face in her hand, twisting him around to face her.  Our enemy’s eyes widened, his posture stiff as he met her gaze.

“M-Menhit,” he stammered.  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this coup d’état?”

“You’re a bastard, little god,” she purred.  Though her tone was soft, her voice carried.  My fingers tightened around the haft of my bow.

“You’re a bastard,” she repeated, “and I’ve got use for these and theirs and this place and your little minions and you will not be stopping me from using them to my advantage.”

“You’re working with the Hecate,” he spat.

“Until our paths diverge and I win the double-cross, yes.”

The woman crushed his lips beneath hers, then tossed him away like a piece of garbage.  He hit the wall and screamed before crumbling into a faintly steaming heap at its base, barely moving.  Her eyes flashed a she looked up toward me.

“You always had the luck of a goddess, little hunter,” she said as she met my gaze.  I saw death there and stared back, unflinching.

It’s not going to be my death.  Not today, not at her hands.

Not ever at this bitch’s hands.

“Bring it on,” I said with a cruel smile.  The words came from a dark place inside, where memories that weren’t my own hid, still breathing despite the death of the bodies that had earned them.  “You didn’t win then and you won’t win now.”

She lifted a hand to signal the attack as I let my next arrow fly.

Like a black tide, the camazotzi rushed the field.

The arrow slammed home.