Awakenings

This time, they’d only gone a few steps before Phelan jerked his arm away from Thom.  “No.”

“What do you mean no?”

Phelan’s eyes narrowed.  “No, we’re not going to go discuss this in private so you can convince me to forget about helping you, fear fiach, and worry only about your wife.  That’s not going to happen.”  His gaze flicked toward Marin.  “You’d never forgive me if I agreed to that.”

“You’re right,” she said, coming down from her perch and crossing the open ground between them and the gate, boots crunching in the ice and snow.  “I wouldn’t forgive you—either of you.  Either we stand and fight together or we don’t stand and fight at all, Thom.”  She glanced at Phelan.  “Though we could trick him.  Would it impinge on your honor too much if you just went out there and killed him under the pretense of quitting the field?”

Phelan rocked back against his heels, blinking at her.  Did she just—bloody hellfire and monsters.  “Did I just hear you correctly?”

Thordin rumbled a laugh.  “Bloody-minded, isn’t she?”

“Shut up,” Marin said, half glancing toward Thordin before her gaze returned to Phelan’s, rock steady and serious.  “Would it?”

“I don’t know that he wouldn’t see through it as a ruse,” Phelan said.  Still.  The idea’s got merit.  His camazotzi will probably turn into a disorganized rabble at that point and we’ll have the advantage if it comes to a straight fight.

Of course, either way, we just kill until the fighting is over.  All we can hope is that they’ll decide that standing and fighting isn’t as attractive as living to fight another day.

“It’s worth a try,” Kellin said quietly to his left.  He glanced at her and saw determination mingling with fear in her eyes.  The camazozti had almost killed her once, left her the scar on her throat as constant reminder.  “If we can get them to turn and run rather than stand and fight?  It’s worth a shot.  We can’t afford not to take it.”

“Time’s wasting,” Matt said.  “We have to give him our answer.”

Phelan looked at all of them and drew a deep breath, then held out his hand to Thordin.  “Give me the dagger in your boot.”

Thordin crouched and freed the knife, handing it over to his friend.  His eyes narrowed slightly as Phelan checked the blade.  “Don’t lose it.  I made that myself and you’ve got no idea how hard it was to retrieve after what they did to me.”

Phelan didn’t miss the traces of pain in Thordin’s eyes and voice, traces that no one else would have noticed.  It’s more important than just that.  He brushed his thumb over the wrapped hilt.  He didn’t make this knife alone.  “I’ll make sure I come back with it.”

Thordin nodded and stepped back.  Phelan took another breath, looking at Thom and Marin first, then Kellin and Matt.

“Wish me luck,” he said.

Marin smiled weakly.  “Luck.  Let Matt and I get into position again before you head out there.  If something does go sideways, we need to be able to react.”

Always thinking.  Phelan nodded, turning to Thordin.  “If the worst—”

“It won’t,” Thordin said.  “Those bitches of death aren’t coming for you today.”

“They might,” Phelan murmured.  I just don’t fear it the way I used to.

“Then they’ll have to get through me first.”  Thordin clapped Thom on the shoulder.  “I have a feeling I’m not speaking for just me, either.”

“Probably not,” Thom agreed.  “We’ll throw the gates open and fill the gap.  We’ve got your back, Phelan.”

“You always did,” Phelan murmured, then nodded to himself.  “Right.  Let’s do this.”

Thom and Thordin preceded him to the gates, opened them so he could step out into the killing fields beyond.  Phelan took another deep breath and lifted the hand not gripping his staff in greeting to Cariocecus.  He moved forward across the frozen ground, watching as the dark shadow of the war god turned and moved forward to meet him, shadowed himself by a pair of rather large bat-monsters.

He suspects something.  Phelan couldn’t help but look pained as he stopped twenty feet from the gate and let Cariocecus meet him there.  He shifted his staff from one hand to the other, fingers closing around the knife beneath the cloak he wore against the cold.

“Did they send you out to tell me they were surrendering the camp?”  Cariocecus called as he approached.

“They’re still deciding,” Phelan lied.  “But they prevailed on me to save myself and take up your offer.  But I would know what price Aoife has paid for the boon of my life before I go.”

Cariocecus’s smile was a flash of white in his dark, tanned face.  “Not so high as it could have been, but valuable nonetheless.”  He was nearly within striking range, now.

Just a few more steps.  I don’t want to risk throwing it.  I can’t get enough power on it to penetrate that armor with a throw.  He’d have to stab Cariocecus himself.  Something about doing it that way made it feel less cowardly, less dishonorable.

Then again, I didn’t walk out here under a parley flag, either.  I just walked out.  He’s the one that’s presuming nonviolence.

“What was it?”  Phelan asked.

He smiled even more broadly.  “Seamus the Black had children.  His bloodline lives and I’m set to find them.”

One of the camazotzi twitched.

Phelan fell back a step, staring at Cariocecus.  Bloody hellfire and ashes.  What interest would he have in—

My cousin—

Aoife, why didn’t you tell us?

The second of the camazotzi shadowing its master darted forward, around Cariocecus.  It plowed into Phelan with the force of a charging bull and carried him to the ground.

His head bounced off the frozen ground and he saw stars.  Ribs cracked, sending white-hot pain shooting through his chest.  His staff bounced free of his hand, but he maintained his grip on the knife.  He brought it up to plunge it into the creature’s eye.

Cariocecus was shouting.

Even as Phelan stabbed the first in the eye and it reared back, roaring in pain, the second was on him, claws bared.  It grabbed him by the face, razor-sharp talons digging into his flesh, and dashed his head against the ground again.

He spiraled down into darkness and knew no more.

“What were the terms?”  Thordin rumbled, eyeing the two men as they returned to the relative safety within the camp’s walls.

Phelan was the one to close the gates and lift the bar back into place as Thom answered.  “Not good.”

“Not good or not good enough?”  Marin asked from her perch, keeping half an eye on the goings-on beyond the walls.

“Both,” Thom said.  “Mostly the latter.  He wants us to leave and forget we ever lived here.  I told him no deal.”

“Doesn’t seem to be attacking yet, though,” Matt observed.

“He gave us half an hour to stew.  I’m not sure why he thought we’d change our minds.”

Phelan shook his head slowly.  “I doubt that he actually does.  I don’t think his ego is quite that impressive.”  He frowned briefly.  “Or that confident.  The threats were designed to scare you.”

Thom stared at him.  “And the offer to you, to let you leave unharmed?”

Phelan winced.  Was hoping he’d keep that under his hat.  No such luck.  “I’ve got no idea what it means.”

“He offered to let you bail?”  Thordin grasped his shoulder.  “Why would he do that?”

“Something that Aoife did,” Phelan growled.  “I don’t know what she did and I’m not sure what she had to give to exact that promise from him, but she did it.”

“And you’re going to squander it,” Thordin surmised.

“She knows better than to pull stunts like that,” Phelan said quietly.  “I’m the master of my fate.  Not her.”

That assumes that anyone’s the master of their own fate.  His eyes slid shut for a moment and he sucked in a breath, fingers flexing around the staff in his hand.

Steady.  He opened his eyes and looked at Thom.  “We can beat him,” he said simply.  “He can’t cross the wards.”

Thom nodded.  “They just have to hold.”

“They’ll hold,” Kellin said, eyes narrowing dangerously as she headed toward the wall to take up her firing position with the rest.  “You said yourself weeks ago that Marin makes wards strong enough to rattle your teeth.  I believe it.”

“She’s got a point,” Thordin said.  “The wardings are strong.  You can feel them even if they’re not supposed to stop you from coming in.”

Phelan glanced toward the gates again, lips thinning.  “I wonder.”

“What?”

He smiled wryly at Thom.  “If I can leverage my own immunity into immunity for a few more.”

The younger man frowned.  “What kind of good would that do?”

Phelan looked him square in the eye.  “It could save you and Marin.”

Thom opened his mouth, then closed it again, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

“We need to talk.”

For the second time in the last ten minutes, he took Phelan by the arm and dragged him away.

“Bloody hell, Thomas, slow down, would you?”  Phelan jerked his arm from Thom’s grip a few steps shy of the gate.

“If he wants this over quickly, then we’ll end it fast.  I’m not above negotiating.”  Thom hefted the cross-bar on the gates with a wince and set it aside.

Marin made a face.  “For the love of all that’s holy, Phelan, help him before he hurts himself.”

Hurts himself?  I’m about to hurt him.  Something about all of this tripped every instinct inside him that screamed that this was either a trap or just a very, very bad idea—either way, stepping beyond the safety of Marin’s wards wasn’t something he relished.

But she was glaring at him from atop the wall like Brighid once had and so he hurried to Thom’s side to help him haul the doors open.

“I hope you know what you’re doing fear fiach,” Phelan said as he and Thom shoved one half of the gate doors open.

“I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,” Thom admitted as he stepped through the narrow gap between the doors.  “I’m just hoping that Marin’s more right than I am.”

I suppose that’s a safe way to live if you’re Thomas Ambrose.  Phelan shook his head and ducked after the younger man.  Hope against hope and pray your wife’s wiser than you are.

I wish I could live that way.

Phelan shifted his staff to his left hand and fell in behind Thom, who marched across the snow pack with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Thirty feet away, well clear of the warding lines, Cariocecus stood alone, draped in a maroon cloak so dark it might as well have been black, leather armor underneath the color of ink.  His cold amber gaze met Phelan’s and the once-druid felt a shiver inch its way down his spine.  He set his jaw and lifted his chin.

Show no fear and you will know no fear.

It was a lie, but a comforting one to tell himself.

“You wanted a parley?”  Thom said as they drew within a few feet of Cariocecus.

The erstwhile war god inclined his head.  “I did.  I decided to offer you the chance to quit the field without bloodshed.”

Thom’s eyes narrowed.  “And what would we need to do to win that?”

Cariocecus’s gaze flicked toward Phelan, then back to Thom.  Phelan felt his stomach drop straight out of his body and through the snow and turf beneath his feet.

Gods and monsters.  What the hell is the bastard about to ask for?

“Abandon the nodes,” Cariocecus said after a moment.  “Leave this place after the weather breaks and find yourselves a new place to live.  Forget this place existed, that it was ever home.  Move on.”

Thom didn’t even blink.  “No.”

One corner of Cariocecus’s mouth twitched in amusement.  “I didn’t think you would agree.”

“No more than you would agree to quit the field and leave us in peace without a fight.”

Cariocecus inclined his head.  “You’re correct.  You’re dangerous, Seer.  You and your lady-wife…more dangerous than you could imagine.  They fear you.”

“They?”

That queasy feeling wasn’t going away.  Phelan squeezed his staff, trying to take comfort in the feel of the wood against his bare hand.  Power flickered between his clenched fingers, faint green lightning sending shivers up and down his arm.

This doesn’t feel right.  None of this feels right.

He tried to chalk it up to knowing that they were about to fight a protracted battle against Cariocecus and his army of camazotzi but his gut was saying that wasn’t it.

If it’s not that, what is it?

“The others,” Cariocecus said softly.  “The rest.  Those who would take this world for their own, shape it, possess it.  They fear what you may become, what your presence means.”

“And you don’t?”  Thom asked.

Cariocecus smiled for a moment, then looked at Phelan.  “If they are resolved to combat, then only you must quit the field.”

Phelan arched a brow.  “Pardon?”

“A promise made is a promise kept,” Cariocecus said.  “No harm is to come to you this day.  You must quit the field.”

“I’ve made no such promise,” Phelan said.

“You did not,” Cariocecus agreed.  “The Lady of Sighs did.  Quit the field, Wanderer.  I will not break a promise to her.”

Phelan rocked back against his heels.  Thom looked at him askance.

“What the hell is he talking about?”

“My sister.”  Phelan’s lips barely moved as he spoke.  “He cut a deal with my sister.”

“For what?”

“His life.”  Cariocecus smiled.  “But I can only guarantee it if he leaves the field here and now.”

“I can’t.”  Phelan sucked in a breath and met that amber gaze.  “You know that I can’t.”

“So be it.  I pray you reconsider.”  Cariocecus turned.  “Think on it.  You have half an hour.”

“And then what?” Phelan asked.

“Hell,” Cariocecus said.  “As much as it pains me to destroy you, I will if I must.”  He looked back over his shoulder at Thom.  “Think on it, Seer.”

Thom turned and walked away.  Cariocecus laughed.

The pair headed back to their respective battle-lines, leaving Phelan shivering in no-man’s land between them.

He squeezed his eyes shut.  Gods and monsters, cousins mine, pray for us today.  Something tell me we’re going to need all the help we can get.

He turned and walked back to the walls.

Thom strode out into the morning’s gloom, squinted up at the shafts of sun slicing through the clouds above, then shouted up to Davon, “How many?”

“Just a dozen,” Davon called back.  “Looks like more are coming, though.”

Not good, Thom thought, trying to smother a frown.  I wonder how many he’ll be able to muster to cause us problems.  As Thordin and Phelan moved to flank him, he glanced between the two.

“Any idea on how many he’ll be bringing in for this?”

“Could be two dozen, could be two hundred,” Phelan said with a grimace.  “But I doubt it’s more than fifty.”

Fifty still outnumbers us, Thom thought as he carefully climbed up to a perch on the wall near the gates for a look of his own.  The snow beyond the walls sparkled where the light hit it, piled deep and hissing as the wind carried errant flakes over the icy pack.  He saw the dozen at the far end of the fields, a dozen yards beyond where they’d burned the firbolg’s carcass.

He shivered as more of the camazotzi drifted in.

“None of the gremlins,” he called down to Phelan.

“That’s good,” he heard Marin say as she joined them, sounding slightly breathless as she did.  He glanced back to see her filling the space between the two ancients he’d vacated.  Matt was headed for the spot on the wall opposite him, shotgun in hand.

“That’ll work to our advantage, right?” she said.

“We can only hope,” Phelan answered.

Thom grunted, and looked back toward the field.  Two dozen, now, but he didn’t see Cariocecus—not yet.

What’s the bastard waiting for? The best opportunity to make some kind of insane, grand entrance?

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, cursing the fact that he hadn’t thought to bring his sunglasses out here.  Now that the clouds were clearing, the brightness of the sun glaring off the snow was nearly blinding.

Use that to your advantage, a little voice said in the back of his mind.

But how?

He almost—almost—snarled, but stopped himself, taking a deep breath.  The sun was to their backs this early in the day.  They’d be silhouetted against the brightness.

Maybe that’ll help.

He slid down from his perch and marched back toward Marin, Phelan, and Thordin.  “Get the cover fire into position,” he shouted as more and more of their friends filtered into the empty ground between shelter and the gates. “If you’ve got a gun, I need you up on the walls.  If you’ve got a bow, I need the same.”

Marin started to slip past him and he grasped her arm.

“I know you’re not about to tell me not to go up to where you just were,” she said without looking at him.  “Because we both know that’s exactly where you need me, especially if it comes time to parley with them.”

Thom snorted at the idea of parley.  “He won’t want to negotiate.”

“We can hope against hope that he’ll see that this is stupid,” she said.  “Maybe he’ll realize that.”

“He won’t,” Thom said, hating how certain he was of it. He leaned in and kissed her.  “Be careful.”

“I’m not the one who needs that,” she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek.  “That would be you.”

“Thom!”  Davon shouted.  “I think I see him.”

Marin squeezed his arm and scrambled toward her position.

“How far?” Thom called.

“Dead center on the field,” Davon answered.  “Looks like he’s heading for the gate.”

The blast of something that sounded vaguely like a trumpet echoed off the field.  Dead silence reigned for a moment before Cariocecus’s voice rang out, rolling like thunder.

“Seer and Wandering One, I would treat with you this day!”

Thom’s stomach flopped, twisted in on itself.  Hell.

He found himself answering without any additional thought. “We’re coming out.”

He grabbed Phelan’s arm and headed for the gate.

The hairs stirred on the back of his neck as he neared Neve and Cameron’s cot.  The door stood slightly ajar and he could hear Marin’s voice among the speakers within.  Matt shivered slightly and tried to ignore the stirrings of power that he could feel more than sense.  It wasn’t the same feeling he’d gotten the day the radio exploded, so it couldn’t have been anything that horrible.

Hope not, at least.

He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the sound of Marin laughing ahead of him.  If there was something wrong, she wouldn’t be laughing, would she?

Matt shouldered the door open fully.  “What’s going on in here?”

“Just a little bit of insanity,” Marin said cheerfully, shaking her head.  “Trying to figure out how we’re going to get Neve down into the tunnels.”

I’m not sure how that’s funny or insane, but it’s probably better not to ask.  Matt nodded, glancing between Cameron and Neve.  The latter was still sitting in bed, one leg stretched out and bulky under the blankets, her hair tousled from sleep.  Cameron was up and dressed, his own hair in equal disarray.

“It’s probably something we should have thought of before we decided that we were going down below,” Cameron said, eyeing Marin.  “Have you ever sent someone down with a broken leg before?”

“Don’t forget the ribs,” Neve said, rubbing her eyes.  “It wouldn’t be a big deal if I wasn’t going to end up blacking out if I tried to slide down a ladder or something.”

Matt frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

She shook her head.  “If I try to use my arms to control my descent, that’s going to make my ribs hurt so bad that I’m going to drop like a rock.  Believe me, this isn’t my first time doing this.”

Matt saw Cameron glance at her askance out of the corner of his eye but shook his head slowly instead of inquiring further.  “We’ll have to come up with a way to get you down there.”

“I’d suggest sliding down carefully and I’ll catch you, but I have a feeling that won’t work, either,” Cameron said, handing her a change of clothes.

Marin shook her head, smiling wryly.  “Either way, we’re going to have to figure it out fast, since I’m pretty sure we’re running out of time.”

“What makes you think so?”  Cameron asked.

A whistle echoed through the corridor from outside, once, twice.  Marin’s smile melted into a grimace.

“That,” she said, heading for the door.  “You two pack it in and head for the steam tunnels.  Find J.T. and Carolyn.  They’ll get you there safely.”

“They don’t need to find us. We’re already here.” J.T. leaned against the doorframe, Carolyn at his side.  “You three go.  We’ll make it down on our own easily enough.”  His gaze flicked to Marin.  “Tala and Angie’ll be coming, too, right?”

Marin looked at her brother, who nodded.  “That’s what Tala said, anyway, but I’ve got a feeling she’ll still be by the cookfire when we get out there.”  He was already headed for the door, trusting his sister would follow.

Carolyn stood on tip-toe to kiss J.T. gently and stroke his cheek.

“Be careful,” the big man murmured.

“Always,” she said with a faint smile.

Steel glinted in the dim light and Matt frowned.  She’s wearing a sword?  I didn’t even know she knew how to use one.

Then again, there’s a lot about my sister’s friends—my friends—that I guess I didn’t know.

J.T. eased clear of the door so they could leave.  Matt ducked past him, Carolyn on his heels.  Marin lingered behind for a moment, looking at the three they were leaving behind.

“Don’t just hole up here,” she said sternly.  “You need to head below.”

“We will,” J.T. said.  “Don’t worry about that.  You worry about making sure that Tala and Angie join us—and then make sure that everyone stays alive.”

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Marin said.

You, me, and everyone else, Matt thought as he caught his sister’s hand.  Another whistle echoed from the watchtower.

“Come on,” he said.  “We’re out of time.”

“It’ll turn out well enough,” Thordin rumbled, interrupting his thoughts.  “You’re all as prepared as you can hope to be, and seems to me that you’ve got more ability to reason than whatever monsters Cariocecus has recruited to his aid.  Of course, that assumes that I’m not soundly mistaken about the ability of—what did you call them, Phelan?”

“Camazotzi,” Phelan supplied, staring down at his plate.

“Aye, well.  Unless I’m soundly mistaken about their abilities, the advantage is yours.”  Thordin frowned, glancing between them.  “The claws don’t cause the same kind of problems the dirae’s do, do they?”

“Not that we’ve noticed,” Matt said, finally sitting down near the fire and letting Tala foist a plate onto him.  His guts had turned to lead in his belly, but he’d eat anyway, if only to make sure he had a source of energy that wasn’t adrenaline and fear.  “Honestly, they seem to do a little more damage throwing us around than with their claws.”

“Either way, it’s not going to be a problem because they’re not going to get close enough for that,” Phelan muttered.  “The wards are going to hold and we’ll just shoot them until they decide to quit the field and move on.”

That’s the plan, anyway.  Matt frowned at his plate.  I hope it works.  “What if they just…fly over us?”

“These things can fly?”  Thordin asked, looking between Matt and Phelan.

“Not really,” Tala said, turning away to tend the frying pan over the fire.  “Seems like they ride updrafts and downdrafts.”

“How do you explain what happened to Drew and Care and Jay, then?”  Matt asked, glancing up at her.

“They never actually saw them fly, now did they?  Just gliding.  No flapping, just gliding.”  She shook her head.  “It’d be hard for something that big to be as heavy as they are and still somehow manage to fly.  The wingspan isn’t big enough to support it.”

Matt just blinked at her.  How the hell does she know this shit?

She gave him a knowing smile.  “I do my homework on this crap, Matt.  Not like I’ve got a lot that I can be doing other than hanging around here.  There’s a lot of books that came out of that library.  Someone ought to read them, right?”

“R-right,” he said.  “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

“Apparently not,” she said with a smile, then glanced toward Thordin.  “So in final answer to your question, no, they probably cannot fly unless some kind of magic lets them do it.  Their apparent physiology indicates that they can’t fly on their own.”

“What are we talking about, now?”  Thom asked as he joined them by the fire, his leather jacket unzipped and his sword belted around his waist.  “Someone see something I should know about?”

Tala snorted and started fixing another plate.  “Just your brother-in-law and I arguing about whether or not the camazotzi can fly.”

Thom just stared at her.  “Why aren’t you below yet?”

“And let you people try to fend for yourselves when it comes to food?  I don’t think so.  I want all of you to be alive to fight today.”  She thrust the plate at him.  “When you guys blow the whistles, I’ll round up Angie and head on down, my promise to God.”

He gave her a hard look.  Phelan laughed.

“Give it up, fear fiach.  This isn’t a fight you’ll win.”

Thom gave a little growl as he accepted the plate that Tala offered him.  “I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, since you’re the one feeding me.”

“Probably not,” she agreed.  “Where’s Marin?”

“Checking on Jay, Neve, and Cameron,” Thom said as he started eating.  “She was going to see if they needed help getting below, since they probably will and that’s not something we want to be scrambling to take care of at the last minute.”

“Gee, that sounded like a hint,” Tala said.  “Next time, I won’t make you breakfast.”  She was grinning, though.  “I’m not helpless, Thom—not yet, anyway.  I can still run and dodge.  Maybe I’m a little rounder than would be safe in a fight, but I could even do that if it came to it.  So quit your worrying and eat your breakfast.”

Matt choked on a laugh right alongside of Phelan.  Thordin choked on his bacon, coughing.  Thom glared at all of them and hunkered down to eat his breakfast.

“Think my sister needs help?”  Matt asked as he wolfed down his breakfast.

“She might.  Why?”

“Just trying to think of reasons not to go back outside for a little bit longer,” Matt admitted.  “I’m still getting feeling back in my hands.”

“You need better gloves,” Tala said.

“I’ll have to worry about that later,” he said.  “Usually it’s not a problem.  I’m usually wearing those heavy welders since I’m working up at the forge.”  He finished up with his plate and tucked it into the wash bucket.  “I’ll go see what I can do to help her.”

“Send Care to me after she’s got Jay settled,” Thom told him.  “Jac, too, if she’s there helping, too.”

“Sure thing,” Matt said, then turned to go, leaving the warmth of the fire behind him.

Dawn shattered over the world as the last vestiges of the storm cleared—ice coating every ounce of snow, every flat surface slick with it.  The sun peeked through the iron gray clouds in shafts and tendrils, one such glimpse so abrupt and dazzling that Matt stepped back from the rail of the watchtower with a curse.

His fingers were numb from the long night on watch and his nose was painfully cold, cheeks hot and stinging from the ice that had lashed them.  He scanned the horizon as he tried to rub warmth back into his half-frozen fingers.

Nothing.  Not yet, anyway.

“Matt!  Ready to come down?”

He grinned at the sound of Davon’s voice.  “You bet.”  He clambered down, almost slipping as his fingers struggled to grip the ladder’s rungs.

“I’m surprised that Thom’s not out here with you,” Davon said as Matt stepped aside of the ladder.

“I sent him to bed five hours ago,” Matt said.  “Told him there wasn’t any point in both of us freezing ass out here if the weather wasn’t going to break.”

“But now it has,” Davon said, already starting to climb up.

“And I’m on my way to wake him,” Matt said.  “Blow the whistle if you see anything.”

“Anything like what?”

“Like anything,” Matt said.  He slipped the first step before he caught his balance on the icy snow.  “We just know the attack’s coming.  We’re not sure what it’s going to look like yet.”

“Right.”
His boots crunched against the crust of ice over snow as he headed back into the warmth of the sheds and tents.  He didn’t stop for coffee like he usually would, instead headed straight for where Thom and Marin would still be sleeping if he judged them right.

They might still be busy.  I should probably knock.  Five hours would be a long time for them to be busy, though.

He split the difference, rapping on the door and then simply walking in.  “Sun’s rising and the storm’s broken,” he said as he crossed the plank floor to their bed and reached down to shake their shoulders.  “Time to get up.”

Marin swatted him and Thom cursed him, then sat straight up.

“The storm broke?” he said, traces of sleep disappearing from his voice as he asked the question.  “How long ago?”

“Just now,” Matt said, stepping back from the bed to let them both get up.  He half turned away—while he wasn’t squeamish about barging in on them while they were in bed, he still had no desire to see what they looked like beneath the sheets.  “Trust me, I didn’t hold off on waking you.  Storm broke and morning came at the same time and Davon relieved me about four minutes later.”

The bed creaked behind him—one or bother of them getting out of bed.  “Any sign of attack?”  Thom asked.

“Nothing yet,” Matt said.  “But you’d both better hurry, just in case.”

“We’ll meet you by the fire inside of five, Matt,” Marin said.  “Figure out who else is up and ready for whatever’s about to hit us.”

The muscles in his back tightened, scalp prickling at her words.  “Did you see something?” he asked.

“No,” Marin said.  “But I don’t need to see anything to know that something’s coming, now do I?”

I guess not.  Matt nodded and ducked out into the darkness of the hall, jogging back toward the tent and the cookfires.  Tala would probably be there despite the date and time, despite the fact that she was supposed to be getting ready to hunker down in the steam tunnels and wait for the fighting to stop.

As he’d suspected she would be, she was there, making bacon and giving Phelan and Thordin a sly, knowing smile as she teased them.  She threw a glance over her shoulder at Matt as he joined them and smiled briefly.

“Looks like the storm broke,” she said.

“Only took all night,” Matt answered, snagging a coffee cup from a nearby shelf and stooping to pick up the coffee pot that sat on a warm piece of flagstone near the fire.  “Glad it held off on breaking until morning.  At least most of us will be well-rested when the attack comes.”

“It won’t be long,” Phelan said.  “Give it an hour, maybe a little more.  Cariocecus has to feel the battlefield first.”

“I’d ask how you know so much about it, but I’m not sure I want to know,” Matt said, pouring his coffee.  “It’s safer for me not to ask, isn’t it?”

Phelan’s shoulder hitched in a shrug.  “This isn’t my first time on the battlefield, Matt, and I’ve heard tales from those who’ve faced Cariocecus—enough of them to know that he’s not going to walk into this until he’s ready.  He’s calculating, strategic.”

Well, we knew that.  He’s tricky.  He never would have found a way to crack our defenses the first time if he hadn’t started manipulating Leah.

At least the wards would hold this time—he hoped, anyway.

Matt gulped down some of the coffee and glanced toward the clouds, slowly growing lighter as the storm cleared and the sun rose.

“It’ll be a bloody morning,” he predicted quietly.

“Hopefully not as bloody as we fear,” Phelan said, his voice just as quiet.

All Matt could do was nod and pray his ancient friend was right.

“You know, I hope that someday, you’ll be the one to talk me out of doing things that are stupidly rash and potentially dangerous rather than the other way around,” Finn said.  He was chewing on that damned thumb again, the way he always did when he was attempting wisdom.

Wisdom has its own price for all of us, I guess.  My brother’s cost him his sight and all but the tatters of his sanity.  Mine cost me him.  Finn’s?  He had to look like an idiot, chewing on that thumb.

I shook my head and turned my back to him, concerning myself with stocking the quiver and making sure that my leathers were in good repair.  It’d be a long ride to answer the call, and I needed to be ready for it.

“What happens if you ride out there and don’t return?  What will the Imbolg do without their chieftain, Brighid?”

I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath before I turned back to him, my gaze meeting his.  I could see Thom somewhere in his soul, a spark that neither of us were aware of all those centuries ago.  “Then they will have you,” I murmured.  “They will have you and Ciar and our daughter.”

“They won’t accept her,” Finn said, standing slowly and reaching out to grip my arms.  His hands were big, strong and calloused from long years of handling weapons, of handling tools.  “She’s not one of us.  Too many have realized that she’s a foundling.  Some whisper that she’s some sort of changeling.”

“She’s a child,” I snapped, “an orphan with no one else.  I swore an oath to a man dying years ago that if I ever came across one of his isle that needed—”

 “Hush,” Finn whispered.  “I know it, Brighid, I know it, and I don’t gainsay your choice.  But until there is an heir of your body and mine, neither the Imbolg nor the Fianna will accept that they’re secure.”

I sat down heavily on the bed we shared, perhaps not often enough for the comfort of our clans, and stared at the fire.  I pressed my lips together so hard they began to hurt after a moment, taking deep, almost ragged breaths.

“There’s naught I can do for that, Finn,” I whispered at last.  “Either we’ll be blessed, or we’ll not.  We try.”

“I know,” he said, sitting with me among the blankets and my war kit.  “I know.  It’s not as if we don’t, and it’s not as if I don’t love you and you, I.  Perhaps it’s—”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a weak, rueful smile.  “I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s our lives, our lifestyle.  We are warriors born, warriors made, hunters and killers.  Perhaps we’re not meant to make life between us.”

“That can’t be it,” I murmured.

“Pray it’s not,” Finn said, putting his arms around me.

Our lips met, then, and he pressed me down against the blankets, against my leathers and my quiver, and I realized I didn’t care about riding to meet the call anymore.

Not then.  Not in that moment.  In that moment, I had more immediate concerns, ones that were far more pleasurable than riding to war.

Lips brushed lightly against my cheek and I came awake with a deep breath and a stretch, blinking up in the darkness at Thom, who smiled wryly down at me.

“You were right,” he whispered.  “This storm isn’t going to end any sooner than dawn.  A couple hours won’t hurt.”

I smiled and held back the covers for him.  “Glad you came to your senses.”

“Me too,” he said as he undressed and crawled in with me.  His hands were cold as he slid his arms around me, pulling me tightly against his chest.  “I left your brother on watch.  He’ll come if anything starts.”

“We’ll traumatize him for sure,” I said, wrapping one leg around his.  He shivered.

“So be it.”

He kissed me again and like Brighid and Finn all those centuries ago, we made love in the darkness, warmed more by each other than any fire, on the eve of war.  It was the proverbial calm before the storm, enjoyed only because beyond our shelter, the snow continued to fall and the wind continued to howl.

But the storm would break at dawn and the war would begin—a war we hadn’t started in this life, but we were bound by fate to finish.

“Come to bed,” I said after a few long moments of silence.  “Just for a few hours.  I won’t make you stay past midnight, since you’re so sure they’re still going to hit us.”

He winced.  “Mar—”

“Am I really asking for that much, Thom?  Really?”

He winced again but stayed silent, resting his chin against my temple.  I swallowed a sigh.

I’m asking too much.  He won’t do it.  I suppose I can’t blame him, either.  He’s got the well-being of everyone on his mind.  I’ve just got my comfort and his on mine.  “All right,” I murmured.  “I guess I’m going to go get some sleep while I still can.”

Thom nodded slightly.  “You should.  We’ll need you when it starts.”

As a fighter or a symbol?  I swallowed the question and nodded.  “I’ll be there with that bow.”

The morning after the fight with the Dirae and the Hecate, I’d found a bow lain across the threshold of our cot’s doorway.  I wasn’t sure if Thordin or Phelan had put it there, but it had been a welcome gift all the same, acknowledging my apparently growing skill with the weapon.  Every time it filled my hands, I felt a sense of rightness, as if that was where it belonged—as if this, not a sword or a staff, was the weapon I was meant to wield.

I was almost afraid to consider what I might be like with a spear in my hands—a weapon that Phelan kept quietly threatening to give me, if only to see what I’d do with one.

I started to pull away from Thom but his arm tightened as I did.  He held me fast for a  long moment, wrapping both arms around me and hanging on.

“I love you,” he murmured into my hair.  “Never forget and never doubt that.”

“I never will and never could,” I said, tilting my face up to his.  I caught his face between my hands and kissed him hard enough that he sucked in a sharp breath in surprise, eyes popping wide.

“Hell,” he said after I pulled away.  “Is there something that you’re not telling me, Mar?”

I smiled wryly.  “Just showing you what you’ll be missing, that’s all.”

“I already knew,” he said, his expression abruptly sad.  My brows knit.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

One corner of his mouth twitched toward a rueful smile.  “For better or worse, I don’t think I’ve seen anything about this encounter.  That’s terrifying and comforting all at once.”

I shivered slightly and hugged him close for another brief moment before I stepped away.  “Well, let’s hope it’s a good omen, not a bad one.”

“Here’s to hoping.”  His fingers brushed my face as I stepped back.  “Sweet dreams, Mar.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, giving him one last smile before I turned and walked away, wishing he’d agreed to come to bed.  That had been all that I’d actually wanted—him to come to bed so I could curl up against his chest.  I slept better that way.  I couldn’t blame him for staying up, though.  He had his reasons and they weren’t bad ones.

That didn’t stop me from wanting him with me as I trudged back to our shared quarters and changed into something that wasn’t quite pajamas but wasn’t quite clothing, either.  I wanted to sleep, after all, and I wasn’t about to sleep in blue jeans when an attack wasn’t guaranteed to happen that night.

I fell into bed and buried my face in Thom’s pillow, inhaling deeply.  I’d only left him a few minutes before, but my heart ached deeply for him.

I wish he’d come to bed, I thought, biting my lip.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I took another deep breath.  I was asleep in minutes, curled in a ball under our shared blankets, all alone.

And I dreamed.

I remembered.

“It’s not going to happen tonight, Thom,” I said quietly as I drifted up behind him.  He stood at the mouth of the tent, staring at the driving snow that was drifting into knee-deep piles in places.  At that point, I wasn’t even sure that the attack would come the following day, either—it would be too hard to move on the ground with snow calf-deep nearly everywhere.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I wrapped mine around his waist and we stood there together, staring at the snow.  If not for the dim reflection of the fire off the flying flakes and the snow already on the ground, it would be nearly black as pitch out there—a darkness we were still slowly getting used to, even four months after the end of everything we’d ever known.

“I want to believe that,” he murmured softly, “but I can’t.  I’ve just got this feeling, Mar, and I can’t shake it.  It’s going to happen tonight.”

“In this?”  I nodded to the storm outside.  I wasn’t sure who was on the night watch in the tower, but I knew for certain that I didn’t envy them one bit.  “I don’t think so, Thom.”

“If this breaks, he’ll be on our doorstep in the next heartbeat,” he said.  “I’m sure of it.”

I almost asked how, but I elected not to.  If he’d seen anything about the coming battle, I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to share it with me.

I didn’t want to force him to lie to me about it if the outcome was bad.

“I still wish I knew why he wanted us so badly, though,” Thom murmured, then closed his eyes and sighed.  “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Means to an end, I guess,” I said softly, resting my cheek against the warm, soft cotton of his sweatshirt.  His coat was slung over one of the storage bins by the fire, but the hilt of his sword dug slightly into my belly where I was pressed against his side.  “It’s a long game.”

“A game,” he echoed.  “Some fucking game, huh?”

“We’re playing the long game, too,” I reminded him, tilting my face to peer up into his shadowed eyes.  There was worry there, clear in their blue depths.  I could see it even in the dim, even with our backs to the fire.  “We’re in this for the long haul, trying to survive just the same as they are.”

“No,” he said quietly.  “Not just the same.  We’re different, Mar.  We’re supposed to be here.  They’re—”

“Not?”  I smiled weakly.  “Whether they’re from one of the Otherworlds or not, they’re here now, Thom.  Possibly exiled like Phelan and Neve.”

He shook his head slowly.  “It doesn’t feel right.  That’s all I’m saying.  Us, here—this feels right.  Cariocecus, Vammatar…it doesn’t.”

Of course not.  I closed my eyes and swallowed a sigh.  “They may not have a right to be here, but they’ve still got a right to be.”

“I’m not saying that they don’t have that right,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly.  I sighed again.

“Thomas, I love you, but this world isn’t black and white and without the shades of gray, we’ve got no idea what good and bad are.”

“They’re trying to take our land and our lives, Mar.”

“And I know it,” I said, trying to be soothing.  “And we’re not going to let them.  That doesn’t mean that they’ve got no right to exist.”

He shook his head.  “I’m not saying that.  I just want them off our patch, that’s all.”  His arm tightened around me.  “I don’t think that’s too much to be asking.  We were here first, after all.”  His eyes slid shut.  “And Cariocecus is here for more than just the land and the node, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why and it’s driving me crazy.”

“It’s doing the same to Phelan,” I admitted.  “He’s been up the walls over it.  I don’t know that we’ll ever know why, Thom.”

“No,” Thom said quietly.  “I think will.  It’s just that by the time we figure it out, it’s going to be too late.  No one goes to all the trouble of turning someone against their fellows just to gain the land they’re standing on, Mar.  He wouldn’t have used Leah like that if there wasn’t more at stake.”

I hadn’t thought about Leah in weeks.  Now that I did, I felt a pang of regret for the way we’d treated her—but she was the one that had taken supplies and run.

I hope she found a safe haven somewhere.  I hope she broke free of the voices.  Not for the first time, I wondered how many others of our merry band were as vulnerable as she was.

“At least there hasn’t been any evidence of anyone tampering with anything this time,” I said, half to myself.

“Let’s hope that the fact that we haven’t noticed any evidence means that there isn’t actually any tampering going on,” Thom muttered.  “Since last time, we at least noticed it first.”

As my arms tightened around him, I swallowed hard and hoped against hope that he was right.