Awakenings

            “Thordin, please don’t do this,” a tiny, weak voice said from some bushes that were just barely in our line of sight.  I couldn’t help but look in that direction, even as the tall, Nordic-appearing blonde before us held the bow taut, ready to fire if we so much as twitched.  All I could see behind those bushes was the very edge of a woman’s boot before my gaze snapped back to the man she’d called Thordin.
            I had to swallow before I could speak.  Steady Marin, steady.  “Magic,” I said, my voice remarkably even.  There wasn’t much more explanation I could offer.
            Thom’s hand tightened around mine, his bodily coiled tight as if he was ready to spring, to strike—or to knock me out of the way of an oncoming arrow.
            Hoping it won’t come to that.
            “Magic,” Thordin said, heavy-browed gaze as skeptical as I’d ever seen on anyone.
            “Thordin,” the thin voice pleaded, “she’s telling the truth.  Put my bow down and let them help us.”
            His arm relaxed, but only a fraction.  Skepticism mixed with curiosity in his voice.  “How would they work that kind of magic?”
            “Phelan is here.”  Her tone seemed to indicate that he knew this already and she was simply reminding him.
            “Wanderer doesn’t—”
            “It’s been a long time,” she said.  “It’s been a long time for both of you.”  Her voice was fading.  “Now let them help us.  They’re friends.  I can feel it.”
            The bowman relaxed slowly, still giving us a wary look.  Jacqueline pushed past me immediately and headed for the voice.  I followed her, casting a quick look to Thom, who was already heading for the bowman, J.T. on his heels.
            The woman tucked into the bushes was dark-haired and pale, with blue eyes set in dark, shadowed hollows in her elfin, delicate face.  Her leg was splinted, bound tightly, and she hunched the way Thom did back when his ribs were really bothering him.  She met Jacqueline’s gaze, then mine.  She took a small, short breath when she met my gaze, then swallowed, fingers flexing.
            “You know me,” I said softly.
            She nodded.  “I think so.”
            I wanted to know how, but I didn’t ask as I knelt next to her.  “I think I saw you in a dream.”
            She swallowed hard, looking past me as Jacqueline started giving her a quick once-over.  “Where’s Cameron?” she asked, then squeaked in pain as Jacqueline started to manipulate her leg, her face going white as the patches of snow that lingered on the ground.  “Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” she gasped, her fingers suddenly clutching mine in a vise-grip.  “Don’t touch it, please, for the love of everything you believe in, don’t touch it.”
            Jacqueline blinked at her, looking pale and stricken herself.  “I barely touched it.”
            Tears were running down the stranger’s face, a girl who I knew had to be connected to Phelan—probably blood-kin, if I was anyone to make the guess.  Her fingers grew even tighter as she saw the recognition dawn in my eyes.
            “You’re Teague’s sister,” I whispered.
            She nodded, then swallowed hard, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.  “Find Cameron,” she said to me, almost begging.  “Please, find him.  I saw him…but I don’t know where he fell.  Please, find him.”
            “Who are you—”
            Jacqueline cut me off even a she rummaged around in her kit, possibly for pain medication.  “Is he the one with the sword?”
            The girl nodded.  “You saw him?”
            “Yeah, but I lost sight of him after the troll-thing threw him.”  Jacqueline pulled out a bottle of pills.  “Here.  I want you to take these.  You’re not allergic to anything like that, are you?”
            “No.   I might sleep for days, though.”  The girl took the pills with a slightly shaky hand, the other still wrapped firmly around mine.
            “You look like you could use it,” Jacqueline said, pressing a hand against the girl’s forehead.  The girl hissed and Jacqueline swore softly under her breath.  “Bloody—you’re burning up.”
            “I know,” the girl said faintly before she swallowed the pills.  “Don’t tell them how bad it’s gotten,” she said, looking at the two of us.  “Please?”
            I exchanged a look with Jacqueline, trying to sort out who she was talking about until it struck me.  She doesn’t want Thordin and whoever Cameron is to know how bad it is.  I looked at Jacqueline.  “We can try, but that doesn’t usually work so well.”
            The girl offered me a watery smile and swallowed the pills that Jacqueline had given her.  “I know.”  She leaned into the cradle of my arms and relaxed in fractions, gaze focusing on something well beyond Jacqueline.  “The other two, they’ll find him.  The one who sees the dead and the other prophet.”
            I shivered slightly.  Jacqueline and I exchanged a long look.  She shook her head slightly.
            “I’m sure they will,” she said.  “Now just hold still and hang on.  I think I might have something I can give you for the pain.  Don’t mind a little prick.”  She paused in pawing through her kit.  “Are you allergic to antibiotics, too?”
            “No,” the girl murmured.  “That’s just Teague and Phelan.  I’ll be okay.”
            “Okay, good.”  Jacqueline looked at me again, expression bleak.  I shook my head a little.
            Just do what you can, Jac.  If she wants to live—and I think she does—she will.  All she needs is a little bit of help from you.
            Jacqueline must have read it in my eyes or something, because she nodded slightly and got to work, right out there in the field near the burning hulk of what used to be a monster.

            I startled awake, lying flat on my back on the slushy ground.  Snowflakes drifted down above me, landing on my cheeks and nose, melting quickly.  I sucked in a quick, deep breath and blinked again.
            Thom was there a moment later, crouching next to me.  “Marin?”
            “I’m fine,” I said, voice a little faint and shaky.  What just happened?
            As he helped me sit up, I realized that the screaming had stopped.  My breath hitched.  “Did it—”
            “Work?”  Thom smiled grimly.  “Seems like maybe it did.  Not sure what the price of that is, exactly, and not sure yet if it was worth it.”  He took my hand and carefully pulled me to my feet.  My knees felt a little shaky, but otherwise I seemed to be more or less intact.  As I leaned against him, I looked around for Phelan.
            Jacqueline was crouched over him where he lay a few feet away from where I’d fallen.  He was crumpled like a cast-off sheet of paper against one of the watchtower’s supports, his staff still clutched tightly in one hand.
            “What happened?” I whispered.
            Rory answered from the other side of Thom.  “Big green light, all the fire suddenly turned this weird blue-green color, and the screaming stopped.  Then a mini-explosion.  You dropped like a walk and Phelan ended up over there.”  He flexed his fingers, looking at Thom, not at me.  “I’m going to go check out the flaming corpse.”
            “Take someone with you,” Thom said almost absently, watching Jacqueline with Phelan before he shook himself and looked back to me.  I swallowed hard.
            “What was that?” I asked in a bare whisper.
            “The creature?”  Thom’s lips thinned.  “I’m still not sure.”  He wrapped both arms around me and pulled me tight against his chest for a moment.  “Why didn’t you stay where you were?”
            At least he’s not asking why I collapsed and why I was there in the first place.  He’s asking the questions I’d rather answer.  “I saw something,” I said softly.  “I knew where I needed to be when I heard the screaming, so I came.”  I stroked his jaw lightly, stubble rough against my palm and fingers.
            He sighed and shook his head.  “Come on.  There’re people out there and something tells me that I need you with me when I meet them.”  He raised his voice.  “Kel!  Come on.  We’ve got work to do.”
            Kellin dropped from the watchtower to join us, her boots slipping a little in the slushy turf and mud.  “Finally going to go greet the visitors that at least tried to come to our rescue?”
            “Yeah,” Thom said, squinting past the pile of what looked like sod that burned a few dozen yards away from the gate.
            “Wait,” Phelan’s voice rasped from behind us.  Both Jacqueline and J.T. were crouched with him now, though he was feebly trying to ward both of them off.  “Take these two with you.  They’re going to need you more than me.  I’m mostly in one piece.”
            Thom and Kellin both looked at me.  I could feel the solid weight of certainty riding behind Phelan’s words.  “He’s right,” I said.  “We’re going to need you two.”  I looked around for the nearest set of capable hands and spotted Paul.  “Paul, can you help Phelan back over to where we stashed Tala and your sister?”
            “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Paul said.  He headed for Phelan.  I tried to ignore the baleful look Jacqueline gave me as she straightened.
            “Right,” she muttered.  “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with, then.”
            The look J.T. gave me was more worried than upset as he fell into step with us, heading through the gates and skirting past the burning pile of something that Rory was inspecting with Greg, Pippa, and my brother.  Matt gave me a brief nod as we passed and I nodded back.
            “Phelan did that?”  I murmured, eyeing the pile as we walked past.
            “You both did,” Thom murmured to me, shaking his head and turning his gaze to the landscape ahead and the figures beyond the burning carcass, which smelled like a mix of burning flesh and sod as much as it looked like the same.
            I guess we did.  I shuddered at the thought and tried to ignore the remnants of my handiwork.
            One of the figures sprawled on the ground rose slowly at our approach, a bow in his hands.  The string creaked as he notched an arrow and drew back to his ear, ready to let fly.
            “Not another step,” he rumbled.  “What are you, and how did you just kill that firbolg?”

            God, that smell.  It was almost enough to make me stop thinking altogether, it was just so awful, the smell of flesh and other organic matter set on fire.  All I could do was keep running and hope that it wasn’t anyone I cared about that was on fire, that some wildfire wasn’t all of a sudden threatening our lives and the space we’d carved for ourselves out of the ruins of our former lives.
            I ducked between the last pair of sheds and into the open ground in front of the gate and found myself bearing witness to organized pandemonium.
            Something huge and foul was beyond the gateway and it was burning, screaming.  Phelan stood in the center of the gateway’s gap, power as green and pure as springtime or evergreens twisting around him, making my heart beat a little faster as waves of it crashed over me.  Thom was next to him, shouting orders, coordinating the gun volleys.
            Whatever the screaming, burning thing was, it wasn’t dead yet and we were still trying to make it die.  It clearly didn’t want to.
            “What’s going on?”  I yelled up to Jacqueline, who was perching with Paul in the watchtower.
            “What are you doing here?” she countered.  “You were going to stay put.  You promised.”
            “That was before something started screaming,” I snapped, glaring at her.  “What’s going on?”
            “Dammit, Marin.”  Thom had finally noticed me and was glaring over his shoulder, one hand still in the air as he got ready to signal the others to fire.  “What are you doing here?”
            “Making sure you’re still breathing,” I shot back.  “Now will someone tell me what’s going on?”
            “The big green ugly began to spontaneously combust,” Rory snapped, sweat beading on his brow as he directed a line of flames toward the burning, screaming thing.  “Unfortunately, that’s not putting it out of its misery.”
            “I can tell,” I snapped.
            Thom snarled and let his arm drop.  Shotguns erupted again and he took two steps toward me and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward his chest.  “What the hell are you thinking?” he hissed.  “I was fine when I didn’t have to worry about you getting hurt.”
            “I’m not going to get hurt, you guys lit the thing on fire.”
            “And it’s not dead yet,” Thom retorted.  “What do you think that’s doing to me and the rest of us?  Go back.”
            “Too late,” I said, grasping his arm.  “I’m here now.  Just tell me how to help.”
            “Get up in the wa—”
            Phelan’s voice interrupted him.
            “Marin,” he rasped, sounding as awful as I’d ever heard him.  “Get over here and take my hand and do what I ask.  I know what it is and I think I’ve figured out what we need to do.”
            I looked at Thom even as Phelan reached out a shaking hand toward me, through the swirls of green power that welled up around him from the ground beneath his feet.
            “Go,” Thom whispered.  “If he knows how to stop it, he knows how to stop it.  Go.  Do it.”
            I nodded, then grabbed him and pulled his face to mine.  Thom was startled by the kiss for a moment before he relaxed a fraction and began to kiss me back, but he was still the one to push me away.
            “Hurry,” he said, his voice low.  “Let’s finish this, then we celebrate.”
            I offered him a watery smile and took Phelan’s hand.
            The maelstrom of power swirling around him sucked me in and took my breath away.  The only thing that felt solid and real for a moment was Phelan’s vise grip on my hand.
            “Breathe,” he muttered.  “Just breathe, Marin.  I need you to anchor me for this, that’s all.  Ground yourself and breathe.”
            I looked up at him, brows knitting and heart starting to beat faster.  “What the hell are you going to do?”
            “End this once and for all,” he said through gritted teeth, “the only way I know how.  Endgame style.”
            “You’re not going to—”
            “I don’t have any intention of dying today, leannán.”
            Good.  “But what are you going to do?”
            “Bind it and kill it, I dearly hope.  Now ground yourself and pray that this works.”
            I swallowed hard against the lump that had begun to build in my throat and cast my own senses down toward the ground beneath us, through the wellspring of power that surrounded our feet.  I found the deep currents of the world and tried to bind myself to them at least temporarily.
            “Ready?” Phelan murmured through a clenched jaw.
            “Ready,” I confirmed, swallowing again.  I don’t know what you’re trying, Phelan, but I sure as hell hope it works.
            Green light exploded all around us and abruptly, I stopped being aware of anything at all.

            The keening, angry cry jerked me upright in the bunk with a gasp.  The pain in my head doubled and I hunched over, palms pressed to my temples.
            Breathe, I reminded myself.  Goddamnit, breathe.  I took one breath, then another, and a third, slowly mastering myself again.
            Whatever was screaming outside was still screaming.  I cautiously straightened.  The sound wasn’t human.
            You need to be out there, Marin, not hiding in here.
            “Bloody hell,” I muttered, feeling shaky as I threw the covers back and eased out of the bunk.  I wasn’t sure if it was cold or weakness as I yanked on a jacket before I went hunting for my boots.
            The scream was getting louder, pitched higher.  Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed it back down.  You’re in control here, Marin.  Settle down.

            Five figures clustered around a tiny table, their hands linked, chanting softly.  A mirror glowed in the center of the table, the image of something big and green and ugly visible beneath glow and fog.  A dark-haired girl at the head of the table was trembling, tears running down her cheeks, sweat running down her face.
            “Please,” the crying girl whispered.  “Please work.”
            The beginnings of flames began in the mirror, wreathing the huge green figure as it pounded through tangles of brush that sprang up to block its passage, as it floundered through churned earth.
            A larger spark lit the mirror just before it exploded into a hundred shimmering shards.
            The girl at the head of the table fell backward in her chair with a cry, her companions jerking back in confusion.
            “What just happened?” one of the men asked, his voice a deep rumble.
            “I don’t know.”  The woman who’d been crying said, mopping her face with the cuff of her sweatshirt.  “I lost all the images and everything when the mirror exploded.”
            “That’s not supposed to happen, is it?” the second man asked, turning his gaze to another woman, this one smaller, almost childlike.
            “Never mind that,” the other man said, his gaze shifting to the same woman.  “Did it work?”
            “Usually not and I don’t know,” the woman said as she looked between the two men.  “This was uncharted territory for me, too.”  She looked at the remains of the mirror, then at the first woman.  “What do you think?”
            “I think I need a new mirror before I can tell you anything,” she said quietly, staring mournfully at the remains of her mirror.  “I’ll find one and get back to you.”
            The larger man squeezed the shoulder of the tiny woman, who sighed and slumped back into his arms.
            “I hope it worked,” she said softly, “for all of our sakes.”

            “Fucking hell,” I growled, straightening slowly and rubbing my head.  That was the last thing I needed when I need to get the hell out there right now.  I snatched my boots from their spot near the door and sat back down on the bunk to yank them on.
            How long was I out?  I didn’t have any way of knowing and I couldn’t hear anything over a roaring in my ears.  What the hell did I just see?
            The figures from the vision felt strangely familiar, but I knew I’d never seen them before today.
            I yanked on a pair of gloves and stumbled out into the light of day.  My nose closed abruptly against the smell of burning flesh and burning foliage.
            What the hell is going on?
            I started to run, hearing shouts, beginning to hear the sound of the shotguns going off.  I could hear Thom and Phelan above everyone else and my heart began to beat a little faster.  Maybe it hadn’t gone as badly as I’d feared it would.  Maybe everything was okay.
            That was never something to bet on.

            “Excalibur is real.” Wat said, tone dripping disbelief.  He glanced at Kes and  Gray, his expression clearly indicating that he thought Aoife was completely off her nut—that he’d finally, truly come to that decision after giving her the benefit of the doubt for a long while.
            Aoife’s hands curled into fists.  “Yes,” she said firmly.  “It is quite real and I have been privileged to know a few of the men who wielded it.”
            “Like King Arthur.”  Wat said, tone still disbelieving.
            “Guys?”  Kes said.
            “Artorius,” Aoife said.  “He was the grandson of a centurion and his Welsh wife and the son of an Erse princess.  I knew him and his son.”
            “Guys?”
            “Really?”  Gray’s brows rose so high they almost disappeared into his hair.  “I didn’t think King Arthur had a son.”
            “He was a war leader, not a king,” Aoife said.  “He never had the chance to become a king.  His son, though…his son tried.”
            “Guys!”  Kes jerked on Gray’s sleeve and Aoife’s, then pointed to the mirror.  “If we’re going to make something happen, now would be the time.  Things don’t look so good for whoever this heir to the alleged sword of the Once and Future King is.”
            They turned back in time to see the firbolg stalk over to the fallen man, whose sword had bounced free of his grip.  The firbolg lifted one foot to stomp down onto its attacker.
            “Concentrate,” Terézia said, her voice tight.  “If we’re going to make this work, we’ll all have to do it together.”
            Aoife nodded firmly, putting one hand on Terézia’s arm and taking Gray’s hand with the other.  “Link up,” she advised.  “That should make it easier.”
            “We’re sure this is going to work?”  Wat asked, still sounding doubtful as he took Kes and Gray’s hands.
            “No,” Terézia admitted, “but we’ve got to try.  We’ll never know if we don’t.”
            “Gods,” Gray breathed. “Look.”
            In the mirror, they could see the flames jet from the gap in the walls to wreath the firbolg, who pivoted sharply, maw open as if bellowing in pain or anger.  Then someone else gestured inside that gap—the man with the staff, Phelan—and the ground erupted again, roots and earth exploding.
            And the sword and its owner went flying.
            “Fuck,” Kes said as the man landed hard, the blade a few feet away, stuck point-first into the ground.  Another figure was waving his arms and shouting, probably trying to get the attention of whoever was beyond the walls.
            The firbolg ignored him and started an inexorable plod through roots that tried to entangle it, making its way across churned, broken earth toward the walls.
            “Now or never,” Terézia said, sweat already trickling down her brow.  She was shaking slightly as she held the image, held contact with that place, these people.
            “Think of flames,” Aoife said softly, her gaze intent on the mirror.  Her voice dropped to a bare whisper, almost a rasp as liquid words tumbled from her tongue, some kind of incantation in her native tongue—or something close to it.  “<Fire come and cleanse my home of monsters from beyond the isles I call home.  Fire come and stop the walk of giants.  Fire come and save my brother and his get.  Fire come and save us all.>”  Her fingers tightened around Gray’s.
            “Say it,” she breathed.  “Say the words with me.  You know them.  In your heart, you know them.  Just speak the words with me.”
            She began to repeat the incantation and after a moment’s hesitation, Gray’s rumbling voice joined hers, low and resonant.  By the third repetition, Kes’s voice had joined them, but her words were different, spoken in another tongue.
            Kes’s nails dug into Wat’s palm.  He swallowed hard, his voice a mumble as he joined in.
            At the heart of their circle, the mirror began to glow.
            Then it shattered.

            The horse surged forward, hooves pounding against the cold turf and half-melted snow. All Cameron could hear was his heartbeat pounding in his ears.  All he could see was the firbolg, its eyes widening as he closed on it.
            He threw himself from the saddle, using the horse’s momentum to fuel his leap, Caliburn’s tip aimed at the firbolg’s chest.
            The shining blade bit deep into the creature’s breast and it roared again as it ripped arrows from its head and then grabbed for Cameron, still clutching the hilt of the sword he’d been entrusted with.
            “Cameron, let go!” Thordin shouted from somewhere behind him.  He didn’t listen.
            Twisting to avoid the firbolg’s grasping hand, he grabbed its neck with one hand and with every ounce of his weight and leverage he could bring to bear, he shoved the blade in deeper into its breast.
            Then the firbolg’s hand closed around him.
            Fuck me.  Cameron let go of its shoulder and got his other hand wrapped around Caliburn’s hilt, gripping it as hard as he could.  If the firbolg was going toss him, he was going to rip that sword right out with him.
            Nothing is going to come without a price, you big bastard.
            It yanked him sideways and sidearmed him to the left.  Cameron felt Caliburn tear free of flesh, heard the firbolg’s cry of pain and rage.
            Then he hit the ground and all the air rushed out of his lungs.  The blade bounced free of his hand as his head banged against a hidden rock.  Stars danced briefly in front of his eyes and he struggled to remember how to breathe even as he fought to maintain consciousness.
            Thordin was shouting something at him, but he couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears, the roar somewhere behind his eyes.
            Hang on.  You’ve got to hang on.  He wasn’t sure where the little voice whispering above all of it came from, but he was willing to lay decent odds on it being Neve.
            His vision began to clear just in time to see the firbolg over him, lifting one foot as if to squash him like a bug.
            Cameron lay there in the mud and snow, momentarily frozen, eyes widening as that big foot started to come down.  Time slowed, stilled.
            This is it.
            Flames suddenly wreathed the firbolg and it roared again, spinning back toward the gate.  Cameron sucked in a ragged breath and rolled to his knees, scrambling through the snow to find his fallen sword.
            Someone was shouting at him to get out of the way.  He wasn’t sure if it was Thordin or if it was someone near the gates.  It didn’t matter.  Either way, he was too damned close to the thing as the ground erupted around him once again, sending both man and blade flying.
            He hit the ground and his world went black.  

•          •          •

            Clustered around Terézia’s glass, they watched as it all began to unfold.  Phelan and his group’s opening salvo.  The arrival of apparent reinforcements.  When one of them drew the shining silvered blade out of its scabbard, Aoife gave a little gasp, her fingers digging into the flesh of Terézia’s arm.
            “Can you focus on that?” she breathed, eyes round, huge in the dim of the room.  “On the sword?”
            Terézia swallowed hard.  “I can try.  How close?”
            “As close as you can,” Aoife breathed, staring hard at the glass.
            The other woman nodded and took a deep breath.  The image sharpened slightly and enlarged, as if it were a camera zooming in on the object.  Aoife shivered as it came into focus.
            “Gods and monsters,” she breathed.  “That’s it.  She—she found him.”
            “Found who?” Wat asked from the other side of Grey.  He was with them in the room, he and Gray, Kes and Terézia and Aoife, the five of them clustered around the desk, around Terézia’s scrying glass.
            “Who’s she?” Kes asked in the same voice.
            “My cousin Neve,” Aoife said, eyes bright as she stared at the glass.  “She was the custodian of the sword.  She was supposed to find whoever was meant to carry it, and she did it.”
            “What sword?”  Gray asked, frowning at the glass.
            “The sword.  Excalibur,” Aoife said breathlessly.  “She found the man destined for Excalibur.”

            The ground beneath their feet vibrated with its footsteps, growing worse as it came closer, came quicker.  He could see it now, big and sickly green and ugly enough to turn the stomach.
            He knew this one.
            Damnation.
            Stay in control, Phelan.  Stay in control.
            He sucked in a breath and as he exhaled, the ground before the firbolg’s feet erupted, earth and roots geysering from the ground.  Phelan’s knuckles were white against his staff.  The trick wouldn’t delay the enemy for long.
            “Where the hell did you learn to do that?” Greg blurted from alongside him.
            “Why haven’t you ever done that before?”  Thom asked in the same moment, sounding vaguely betrayed.
            Phelan set his jaw.  Now was not the time for explanations.  “Get ready on the shotguns,” he roared, ignoring both questions.  “Paul, up top now!”
            “Already there!” the shepherd shouted from the watchtower.  “Just say the word.”
            “Fire at will,” Phelan said, voice quiet and deadly, but he didn’t need to speak any louder than he had.  They heard.
            The sound of shotguns left his ears ringing.  Next to him, felt Rory gathering power, then felt the heat, smelled the brimstone and ash of his fire as it at first dripped, then shot from his fingers.
            The gout of flame hit the firbolg in the chest as it staggered back from the onslaught of shotgun blasts.  Like a living thing, the flames rippled and crawled up the creature’s body and for a long, aching moment as the fire eclipsed their view of it, all was silent.
            “Is that it?” J.T. whispered, shouldering his shotgun in the sudden silence.  “Did we just—?”
            “No,” Greg said, voice bleak.  Phelan knew he was right—he could feel it straight down to his bones.
            The firbolg roared.

•          •          •

            “You’re fucking crazy!”  Thordin shouted at him as Cameron forced the horse to scramble across the broken concrete, leaping gaps and somehow scaling inclines.
            “You’re the one that’s following me!” he shouted back, one arm locked around Neve’s waist, his other hand clutching the reins in a death-grip.
            “Hurry,” Neve whispered.  “We don’t have much time.”
            They leapt the last gap and hit solid pavement again just in time to hear the firbolg’s voice again.

“Oh Wandering One, I hear your cry,
Just settle down and wait to die!”

            “Dammit,” Cameron growled, kicking the horse into a gallop.  “Dammit, dammit.”
            “What the hell is going on?” Thordin asked, voice booming like thunder over the sound of the horses and the blood roaring in Cameron’s ears.
            “It’s the firbolg who did this to Neve,” Cameron snapped.  She’d twisted in the saddle, wrapped one arm around his waist to free his other arm.  “Now it’s down there threatening the place I’m supposed to find.”
            He knew it, now.  Knew it straight to the core, with every bone, every fiber.  This was where he’d been drawn to—but he still didn’t know why.
            If that firbolg reaches whoever’s down there, I’m never going to know.
            He hauled sideways on the reins, jerking his mount’s head to the left, turning at a full gallop to pass under a weathered copper arch above the road.  Thordin came after.
            “Wanderer’s here!” Thordin shouted.
            “He’s in trouble,” Neve whispered into Cameron’s chest.  “They’re all in trouble.”
            They came around a pile of rubble in time to see the ground explode, see the shotgun fire, see the jet of flames.  Beyond the firbolg, facing it, stood a red-haired figure glowing with bright green light, hands locked around a staff.  Flanking him in the gap between walls were a dozen others, young and determined.  He could tell even this far away.
            “Phelan,” Neve breathed, staring at the man.
            Cameron felt sick to his stomach.  “Slide off the horse, Neve.”
            She went rigid, eyes flicking up to his.  “What did you—?”
            “I can’t fight that thing if you’re mounted with me.”  Caliburn rasped softly as he drew the blade.  “Slide off.”
            She stared at him, swallowed once, then did as he was asked, landing awkwardly with a wince and hobbling toward a half-destroyed bush.  “I’ll be right here when you come back.”
            He nodded.  “Thordin, stay with her.”
            Neve’s bow sang, three arrows narrowly passing next to Cameron’s head as they flew toward the firbolg.
            “Thinking not, Highness,” Thordin said with a grin.
            The firbolg howled as three arrows sunk into the flesh above its ear, whipping its great bulk toward the trio.
            “Now or never,” Thordin said.
            Cameron lifted Caliburn and charged.

            Phelan’s fingers flexed around the wood in his hands as he drove the butt of his staff into the chill-hardened earth in front of him at the heart of the gap in the walls.  They’d make their stand here and he could only hope that they’d be able to make the damned firbolg think better of bothering them again.
            Another moment when I don’t have time to explain exactly what we’re going up against. They must think I do this shit on purpose.  I don’t, but I wouldn’t blame them for thinking that I do.
            “How do we kill it?” Thom asked in a low voice, standing near his elbow.  Phelan barely smothered a wince.
            “Are you hiding any gasoline anywhere?”  Phelan asked.  “We had to use Greek Fire the last time I went toe to toe with one and there was a big question about whether or not that would work.”
            Thom winced.  “What’s left is out in all the damn cars out there,” he muttered.  “And I’m not sure how much there was in the first place.”
            “That’s what I thought,” Phelan said.
            “You don’t need the gasoline,” Rory said as he came up on the other side of Phelan.  “You’ve got me.  Just tell me what I need to do.”
            Phelan winced.  “Too dangerous.”
            Rory’s voice was quiet as he stared off in the direction of their oncoming hostile visitor.  “All of this is too dangerous.  What matters is that most of us survive this and that thing goes away and never comes back.”
            “How far out is it?”  Jacqueline asked from behind them.  Phelan spun, blinking.
            “I thought you were with—”
            “She told me that you’d need me out here more than she’d need me in there.”  She was dressed in her jeans and light jacket, her satchel of herbs slung across her body and resting against one hip.
            Thom glanced between the two, a frown growing.  Phelan held up a hand.
            “Ask after this is over,” he said, eyes narrowing as he peered at Jacqueline.  “You shouldn’t be here.”
            “Because I’m going to tell prophet among us that I’m not going to listen to what she’s telling me I need to do.  That’s real smart.  Because not listening to her has worked out so well in the past.”  Jacqueline planted one hand on her hip and jerked her chin toward the gap beyond Phelan.  “What’s out there that we’re waiting for to show up here?”
            “Something big and ugly,” Greg said as he took a shotgun from Paul, who was starting to hand them out.
            “Very big, very ugly, and very mean,” Phelan growled.  “Get up in the watchtower and don’t come down until Thom or I tell you to.”  Don’t want her here period, but I’m not getting a vote.  “I mean it, Jac.  J.T. can handle us.”
            “Not if something happens to him.”  Jacqueline turned and headed for the watchtower, scrambling up its ladder and heading toward the rail.  She squinted and then a heartfelt oath crossed her lips.
            “You weren’t kidding.  It’s ugly.  And big.”
            Phelan winced and turned away.  He leaned against his staff and swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he struggled to find the very core of his being, the place where his magic dwelt.
            Settle down, he warned himself silently.  Panic won’t do you any good.  He heard a soft crackling sound next to him—Rory, gathering his own power.  Phelan took a deep breath, nose itching at the scent of brimstone and burning leaves.
            Focus.
            “I’m coming for you, Wandering One!” the deep, guttural voice called, all pretense at rhyme and song gone.  “I’m coming for you and yours!  Justice will be mine!”
            “That’s what he thinks,” Phelan growled, feeling his limbs begin to tingle.  The power of the nearby lines, the nearby nexus began to answer his call, welling up through the staff driven into the ground.  He swallowed bile that suddenly crept up in his throat.  It was more power than he’d suspected.
            No wonder there’s so many of them here.  No wonder everyone wants this place.
            He took a deep breath and then eased forward, every hair standing on end, aware of the leaf-green light that coiled around his forearms and wreathed his hands.
            “I’m ready for you!” he roared at the firbolg.  “Come on and get me!”

            His stomach rode some kind of awful roller coaster as he and Thordin urged the horses into a trot, then a gallop, heading for their unknown destination.  He felt Neve wince every time the horse’s movements were particularly jarring and winced right along with her.
            Never should have come this far like this.  We should have waited longer to move on, no matter what she said.
            But then we wouldn’t be here now, riding toward whatever threat needs facing for the sake of whoever needs us to face it.
            “Another bend in the river ahead,” Thordin said.  He shook his head, expression tight.  “Not sure I see a good place to cross, either.”
            “Bloody hell,” Cameron muttered under his breath.  “We can’t catch a goddamned break, can we?”
            “No one said any of this was supposed to be easy,” Thordin pointed out.
            “No, but we’d be a lot more likely to show up in places we need to get to in a timely manner if the powers that be thought a little further ahead,” Cameron growled.  He squinted toward the spot Thordin pointed to, toward the wide ribbon of the river.  He mumbled a crurse under his breath. 
            “We’ve got to find a way across, Thordin.”
            “Saying it isn’t the same as making it happen,” his companion said.
            “Will getting angry and demanding it happen work?” Cameron shook his head and kicked his horse into motion, trusting Thordin to follow.
            “Maybe someday,” Neve whispered faintly into his neck, answering his rhetorical question.  “But maybe not today.”
            Cameron could barely stop the shiver starting at the base of his spine.  Don’t think about that.  Goddamn it, don’t think about that.  “We’ll just have to find a way across,” he said again, arm tightening slightly around his lover.  There isn’t a goddamned choice in the matter.
            They rode past the ruins of houses, past a shattered church that still stank of burnt flesh and decaying bodies.  Cameron swallowed the bile that bubbled up in his throat and hung onto Neve as she twisted and offered what little she’d eaten that day to the ground alongside the horse.  She gave a little moan as she settled against him again, dishrag-limp and shivering.
            “Looks like the roadway here is in bad shape,” Thordin reported, staring at the twisted mass of broken concrete that spanned the river.  “Not sure we’ll be able to get the horses across.  Grade looks too steep.”
            Never mind trying to carry Neve across that mess.  Cameron frowned darkly.  “Do we have a choice?”  His nose had closed against the lingering nearby smell, but there was something else that left his stomach unsettled.
            Then, he heard it—a voice he’d hoped to never hear again.

“Get of Princes, get of gods,
Smelling like desperate fear,
Bloodlines strong and bloodlines mixed,
Won’t save the Wanderer’s get from being nixed.”

            “Fuck.”  The curse dropped from his lips like ice sliding off a slick rooftop.  That’s the thing that hurt Neve.  The—what was it?  Firbolg? How the hell did it get here ahead of us?  Why the hell is it here?
            Christ.  Her family.  It’s hunting all of them, not just her.  Damn it!
            “We don’t have time,” he said abruptly.  He checked himself, arm tightening around Neve again.  Hang on to me, Neve.  Trust me.
            God, I hope I know what I’m doing.
            “What the hell—?”
            Thordin didn’t have time to get the question out.  Cameron set his heels into the flanks of his horse and pounded toward the gap.
            Somehow, some way, strength of will would have to do the rest.

            “Thank every power that is or was that we’re clear of all that,” Neve muttered for the fifth or sixth time since they’d cleared the outskirts of the devastated city that had once been the second largest in the state.  “Thank you, thank you.”
            Cameron’s jaw tightened painfully.  Even months later, even with the cold, it still smelled terrible—and felt worse.  There had been times when he and Thordin had needed to dismount and lead the horses on foot.  Cameron was completely convinced that he now wore the remnants of several someones on his boots.
            “But are we still going in the right direction?”  Thordin asked, gaze sliding toward Cameron.
            He took a long, deep breath and exhaled it, then nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, it feels like we are.  Getting really close now, too.”
            Thordin frowned, glancing toward Neve, back to Cameron, and then to Neve again.  “Are we sure he’s not just sensing the nexus?”
            “Nexus?”  Cameron asked, brow arching.  “What the hell is a nexus?”
            “A power node,” Neve said, frowning slightly.  “But no, I don’t think he’s feeling that.  I’ve been sensing it for days.”
            “Is that what’s making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up?”  Cameron rubbed his gloved hand against the back of his neck, trying to settle those selfsame hairs.  It had been going on for almost a week, almost since they’d crossed the water.
            Thordin raised a brow at the question and Neve nodded slightly.  “Odds are that it is,” she murmured.
            There was something strange in her voice.  Cameron reached across the gap between them to snag her mount’s reins out of her hand.  “Neve?”
            “I’m…fine.”
            It was a lie.  He frowned.  “You’re not,” he said softly.
            She shivered slightly, lips thinning into a white slash in her wind-burnt face.  “There’s nothing you can do,” she said, her voice a bare whisper.
            Cameron glanced at Thordin, who shrugged slightly as if to indicate that he didn’t have any more clue than Cameron did.
            That does it.  Cameron tossed his own reins to Thordin and slid off his horse’s back.  “I’ll ride with you,” he said to Neve.  She opened her mouth to protest and he shook his head.  “Don’t argue with me.  There’s something wrong.”
            “I can feel it,” she whispered, eyes unfocused, distant.  His brow furrowed.
            “Feel what?”
            “I can feel him,” she said next, ignoring the question.
            “Who?”  Cameron demanded.
            “Wanderer?” Thordin guessed, brow lofting slightly.
            “Her cousin?”  Cameron frowned.  “He’s close, then?”
            “Yes,” Neve said, her voice distant.  “Can’t tell how close, but close.”
            Cameron nodded and swung up onto the horse behind Neve, wincing as she flinched slightly.  He slid one arm around her waist and knotted the reins around his fist.  “Bloody hell,” he murmured.  “You’re burning up, Neve.”
            “I’m fine,” she mumbled.
            He glanced at Thordin again, frowning.  All his companion could do was shrug and shake his head.
            “Stubborn.”
            “So I’m starting to realize,” Cameron said, then looked at Neve.  “Lean back.  I’m not going to fall off.”
            “We don’t have to ride double,” she said, but there was little force in her voice to back up her argument.
            “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said before he kissed her ear and gently set his heels into the horse’s flanks.  “It won’t be for very long, anyway.  We’re almost there.”
            “We’re riding into a fight,” she said.  “Do you realize that?”
            His stomach dropped.  “I didn’t,” he said slowly. “But I do now.  What’re we going to be riding into?”
            Her throat convulsed and she turned her head, pressing her forehead into the crook between his shoulder and his jaw.  He winced at the heat in her face and swallowed hard as he felt the first of her tears splash hot against his flesh.
            “Neve?” he whispered.
            “Don’t make me say,” she whispered.
            Those words alone were enough to make his blood run cold.
            “Must be bad,” Thordin observed quietly, then held out his hand.  “Pass me her bow and the quiver.  Might need it.”
            “I can still draw,” Neve said sharply, lifting her head, face streaked with tears.
            “But for how many shots, Neve?”  Thordin held out his hand for the bow.
            “Cam,” Neve said, voice pleading.
            He shook his head and handed the weapon to Thordin.  “He’s right,” he said softly.  “You know he’s right, Neve.”
            She slumped into his arms and squeezed her eyes shut.  A sob shook her and he closed his eyes for a brief moment, drawing her even closer.
            “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
            “So am I.”  She pressed her face against his neck again, voice muffled as she repeated the words, “so am I.”