Awakenings

            As Aoife left the room to round up Gray, Kes, and Wat, Terézia sank back down into her chair before the desk and her small scrying mirror.  She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, staring blankly at the glass, at the table.
            Gods.  What are we doing?  What are we about to do? Her lips thinned and her fingers curled in, nails digging into her palms.  Is this something that’s possible?
            It’s got to be.  If the people I’m watching can affect me, I’ve got to be able to affect the people I’m watching.  She squeezed her eyes shut.  Have faith, Teca.  You’ll pull this off.  All of you will because you’ve got to.  If you don’t, Aoife’s brother could die.  You can’t let that happen.
            The door banged against the wall and her eyes popped open as she looked up.  Gray loomed in the doorway, his face like a storm.
            “What’s going on?” he asked, his tone slightly more gentle than his angry expression.  “Aoife’s freaking out and she said I needed to get my ass in here now.”
            She took another deep breath.  “We saw something she called a firbolg on its way to where her brother is.  She’s worried.  I’m worried.  I’m sure that we can do something.”  I’m sure we can. I’m sure.
            Gray frowned darkly at her.  “You think that we can do something.”
            “Yes, I do.  I know we have to.”
            “How,” he demanded, stepping closer.  “How the hell do you intend to do something?”
            “The same way they threw acid in my face,” Terézia said.  “Sheer force of will.”
            “Sheer force of will,” he repeated.
            She nodded firmly.  “Somehow.”
            He just kept right on staring at her.
            “Christ, Gray.”  She stood up from the table and pointed to the mirror.  “Would you rather we just stand by and watch it happen?  Do you think that Aoife would stand by and let that happen?”
            “Of course not,” he said.  “She couldn’t.  She couldn’t bear it.”
            “Neither could I,” Terézia said softly.  “So we at least have to try.  I need your help to try.  I need your strength to pull this off and so does she.”
            Gray’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.  “Fine.  Just tell me what you need me to do.”
            “Start thinking of how you’d kill something big, green, and ugly.”
            “Air strikes come to mind if we’re talking about the Hulk.”
            She snorted humorlessly.  “Think uglier.  Think a troll.”
            Gray frowned.  “Fire,” he said.  “If it works like the trolls that tend to pop up in fantasy, anyway.  Fire should do the trick.”
            “Do you think we’ve got a chance to make it spontaneously combust?”
            He smiled grimly.  “What is it that they all used to say?  Go big or go home?”
            Terézia glanced at the mirror again.  “We’re going to have to.  This isn’t going to be easy.”
            “That’s what I was saying.”
            “I know it.”  She sighed. “But it’s something we’ve got to do, Gray.”
            “Yeah.  I know.”

            “Hell!”  Terézia reeled back from her scrying glass, a string of even more unpleasant words running through her head beyond the one that had already escaped her lips.  Aoife’s fingers dug into the flesh of her shoulder as Terézia tried to quell the shakes that she could feel coming.
            “What is it?  What did you see?”
            “Things should not be allowed to be that ugly,” Terézia said with a shudder.  The hulking green thing had looked like something had blown half its face off—and then the wound had somehow frozen in the instant a shotgun blast had hit it.  It was quite possibly the most unpleasant thing she’d seen in the whole of her life.
            Aoife’s brows knit.  “Damnation, Teca, make sense!”
            “It was big and green and ugly, all right?”  She shivered.  “And it was heading right for the camp where your brother is.  The one we’ve been watching.”
            “Show me,” Aoife said, eyes wide, sounding almost breathless.  Terézia stared at her for a moment before she swallowed, nodding.
            “I can try, anyway.”
            Aoife nodded.  “That’s all I ask, Teca.”
            She set her jaw and laid her hands alongside the mirror again, focusing on Phelan O’Credne again, since that was how she came upon the image in the first place.  The clouds in the glass slowly began to clear, revealing the pale-faced red-head shouting and waving his arms at a knot of men and woman just beyond an open gate.  Terézia winced as she shifted the focus, scything her ‘gaze’ across broken ground spattered with snow, green grass poking up here and there in thin patches.
            As the creature came into view, Aoife gasped and reeled back from the table.
            “Let go of it the image.  Let it go!”
            Terézia didn’t hesitate.  Her hands flew away from the mirror and the image vanished as she sprang back, meeting Aoife’s terrified gaze over the now-blank mirror.
            “What was it?”  Terézia asked, feeling sick to her stomach.  If she’s that afraid…
            “A firbolg,” Aoife said, hands curling into tight fists.  “Bloody hell, what’s one of those doing here?  How did it come across?”
            Gray chose that moment to burst into the small room, eyes bleary as if he’d just woken up.  “I heard shouting.”
            Aoife huffed a sigh and shook her head, turning toward him and laying one hand against his chest.  “It’s all right,” she said with admirable calm.  “Teca and I were just…looking.  That’s all.”
            He cast them both a dubious look before he nodded and ducked back out again.  Terézia frowned.
            “Why didn’t you—?”
            “Because there’s nothing we can do about it,” Aoife said, shaking her head heard.  “Much as I’d like to be able to help them, there’s not a damned thing I can do from this far away.”
            “Are you sure?”  Terézia frowned to herself.  If they can throw metaphorical acid in my face, there’s got to be something we can do from this distance to help them.  There has to be.
            “I don’t see what we could do,” Aoife said as she slumped back into her chair.
            “Think about it,” Terézia said, crossing around the table and leaning against its edge, staring at Aoife.  “If they can affect me from as far away as they are, who’s to say that I—or we—can’t do the same thing?”
            “Scrying doesn’t work like that,” Aoife said, voice quiet, almost lost.
            Terézia set her jaw.  “Maybe once upon a time it didn’t,” she said.  “But today it’s going to.  Are you going to help me?”
            Aoife blinked at her.  “How?”
            “I don’t know.  But I know we’ve got to try.”
            For a long moment, all Aoife did was just stare at her.  Finally, the other woman nodded and a ghost of a smile touched her lips.  “Of course.  You’re right.  We have to try.”
            Terézia smiled.  “Aye.  Now go get Gray and Kes and Wat.  Let’s see what we can muster.”  We’ll send that thing back to wherever it came from.  Somehow.  We’ve got to help her brother.
            It’s the least we can do right now—and it’s the right thing to do.
            We at least have to try.

            Phelan led Carolyn and J.T. out through the open gateway and across the mess of mud and broken asphalt, half-melting snow and ice crunching beneath their boots.  Greg caught up with them a few feet out of the gate, blinking as he saw them coming.
            “How did you know?”
            “I felt it,” Phelan growled.  “I’m guessing you did, too?”
            Greg nodded, changing direction and falling into step with the trio.  “Started to a while ago.  Got worse and worse.  We can hear it now.”
            “Hear it?”  Phelan swallowed hard.  It’s got to be close, then.  “Could you see it?”
            “Just barely,” Greg said.  “Big, green ugly.  It’s still pretty far out, but it’s coming.  Faster than I thought it could move, actually.”
            Damn.  Big, green, and ugly could be any number of things, but I’m afraid I know what it could be.  “What did it say?”
            “Something about princes, bloodlines, and the Wanderer.”
            Phelan winced.  “In rhyme?”
            J.T. frowned.  “Do you know what it is, Phelan?”
            “I’m afraid I do,” Phelan said, shaking his head.  His fingers tightened around his staff.  Bloody hell.  We need to get back inside the walls and hope that those wards hold.  He broke into a jog.  “Get back into camp,” he barked to J.T. and Carolyn.  “Get Paul with some firearms up in the watchtower.  Something heavy.  Slugs if we’ve got them.”
            “What the hell are we dealing with, Phelan?”  J.T. called after him.
            “Firbolg!”  Phelan called back, picking up the pace.  If it was close enough to hear, close enough to feel as strongly as he was beginning to, they didn’t have much time—certainly not enough to properly prepare.
            Hopefully it’s only one.  When have we been that lucky, though?
            “Never bloody ever,” he muttered under his breath.   He raised his voice, calling to Thom and the small band with him.  “Fear fiach!  Pippa, Rory!  Deartháir!  Fall back to the wall.”
            Matt’s gaze snapped toward him and he blinked, yelling back, “What is it?”
            “Just fall back!”  Phelan yelled, pace slowing as he grew nearer.  “I think I know what it is.”  He glanced off to the north and shivered.  He could see a tall blob on the horizon, nothing more, not at this range, not moving the fast as he was.  He could feel it, though.
            But how many are there that I can’t sense?  He swallowed again as he joined the small knot of people near the pile of broken concrete where Thom had perched.
            “We need to get back inside the walls,” he said.  “We get back inside, we’ve maybe got a chance to take it down.”
            “What the hell is a firbolg?”  Thom asked, brow furrowing.
            “Something big and mean and fucking old,” Phelan snapped, struggling to rein in his temper.  Settle down.  They don’t know.  They’ve never run into one before.  How could they know?  “Kind of like a troll and a giant and a man all at the same time.  Our people fought them once upon a time and just barely won.  Took almost every damned dirty trick any of us knew, too.”  His knuckles had gone white against the staff.  “Come on.  Cover.  Now.”
            A guttural sing-song echoed from the distance.

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

            “Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” Phelan cursed, then yanked on Thom’s arm, not caring if he hurt his friend.  “Let’s go you fools, before it’s on top of us.”
            “What the hell can it do?”  Matt asked as they started to move.
            A chunk of concrete the size of Phelan’s head landed not three feet from Phillipa’s leg.  She gave a little cry as she sprang clear, already starting to move faster.
            Phelan stared at it pointedly for the barest moment.  “Does that answer your question?”
            “Yeah,” Matt said, starting to hustle back toward the walls.  “Yeah, it does.  Let’s go.”
            “Bloody hell,” Thom cursed.  “What else can it do?”
            “Pray you don’t find out.”
            Rory snorted humorlessly as he started to run.  “Believe me, Phelan.  He’s already praying.”
            Phelan shook his head as even Thom began to run.  He cast one last look over his shoulder toward the source of the rock.  It was laughing.
            Well, he thought grimly.  Let it laugh.  It won’t be able to do it much longer.  I guarantee it.

            Phelan dropped the piece of chalk in his hand, fingers suddenly nerveless, a frisson of fear arcing up and down his spine.
            “Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” he growled, pushing away from the wall.  “Now what?”
            “What’s the matter?”  J.T. asked, frowning darkly as he bent over and scooped up the dropped piece of chalk.  He offered it back to the flame-haired man.  “You’ve got a look.”
            “Something isn’t right,” Phelan muttered.  He snatched the chalk from J.T.’s hand and shoved it deep into his pocket.  His fingers itched for the staff he’d left laying on his bunk.  For the second time, he cursed himself for a fool.  I should have gone to get it before we came out here.  I wasn’t thinking.  His skin puckered with a chill that wasn’t from the weather.  Do I have time to get it now?
            Do I have a choice?  He swung away from the wall, breaking into a jog a few steps away from the edifice of concrete and broken brick.
            J.T. stayed with him, his first few steps shivering the ground at Phelan’s heels.  The bigger man rivaled some berserkers Phelan had known in sheer presence and girth, as gentle a giant as J.T. was.  “Start explaining, Phelan.”
            “I can’t explain when there’s nothing to explain yet,” Phelan snapped, hating himself for the sudden harshness frustration brought to his voice.  Settle down.  You’ve got no idea what’s out there yet.
            And that’s why I’m snapping at him.  Déithe agus arrachtaigh, Phelan.  He blew out an explosive breath and shook his head firmly.  “I’m sorry.  I am, I’m sorry.  I don’t know what’s out there, I just feel something and it’s not right.”
            “Then why are we heading back into camp and not out there to Thom and Greg and Rory?”
            “Because I’m the godsdamned idiot who left his staff on his bed,” Phelan growled.  “And whatever’s out there is something I don’t want to face without it.”
            J.T. missed a step behind him.  “What is it?”
            “I don’t know,” Phelan said again.  “Déithe agus arrachtaigh, Jameson, I don’t know.  Go get your sword, col ceathrar, and hurry.”
            The big man cursed under his breath and broke off, headed toward his shed even as Phelan ducked into his own.  He hesitated a moment to let his eyes adjust to the slightly warmer darkness indoors, taking a few deep breaths and trying to settle down.  The scent of herbs and leather calmed him slightly, helped his thoughts clear.
            Ifreann.  This isn’t like me.  I’ve never been this unsettled.
            Then again, he’d never been quite as close to dying as he’d been a few weeks ago.  His jaw tightened as he strode across the plank floor to his bed.  As his fingers closed around the haft of his staff, the voice from his dream of the Morrigan echoed in his thoughts.
            “Someday, go leor grá amháin, someday I will come to carry you home.  It will not be this day, nor the next, but someday I will come.  You’ve served us well, but someday, leanbh, that service will come to an end and I will be there to bring you home.”
            The words still made him shiver.
            He grabbed his kit and threw the long strap of the small leather bag across his body.  Better to have the herbs and oils at hand, just in case.  With both hands around the worked wood of the staff, he took another few breaths, trying to find his center.  There was something about this group that kept him slightly off-balance—probably the sheer power concentrated in one spot—but at the same time, was oddly comforting.
            They’re your family, leathcheann.  That’s why.
            These people are family and they’re your home and you’re terrified of having to leave them someday.
            “Not going to happen,” he murmured to himself before he turned and walked back out into the winter chill.
            Carolyn was at his elbow almost as soon as he stepped out into the light.  He blinked at her, eyes drifting momentarily to the sword she’d strapped to her side, to the rifle in her other hand and the faint glimmer of her fae companion, Longfellow, perching on her shoulder, hanging onto the woman’s hair.
            “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
            “Marin said you would need me.”
            Phelan blinked.  “She’s awake, then?”
            “She said she felt like something threw her down two flights of stairs, but yeah.  Jac talked her into staying put.”  Carolyn looked past him, eyes lighting on J.T. for a moment as he joined them.  The big man gave her a stern, grave look and she shook her head slightly.  “But she said that I should get my ass to wherever you were and stick with you until it’s over.”
            Until what’s over?  He kept the question trapped behind his teeth and nodded.  “All right, if that’s what she says.”  His gaze flicked toward J.T., whose claymore poked up over his shoulder.  “Let’s get going.”

            “Can you hear it?”  Greg asked after a few moments of silence.
            Thom glanced at him, brows knitting, about to ask what the hell the former professor was talking about, when he heard it.  A faint, rhythmic, shuddering rumble in the distance.  Footsteps.  “Is that–?”
            “Yeah, I think it’s what’s coming.”
            “What’s coming?”  Rory asked as he joined them.  Matt, Drew, and Phillipa were with him.  Thom smothered a frown at the sight of the slender woman, especially with the sword—Tala’s—on her hip.
            Matt must know something I don’t.
            “Something big and ugly,” Greg said, turning his gaze northward again.
            “Fucking fantastic,” Rory said, only mildly sarcastic.  “Good thing Phelan and Jay are finishing up those wards.”
            Thom startled.  Phelan and Jay?  What about Marin and Kel?  That’s supposed to be their specialty.  It’s what they were doing today.  That’s why I let her get out of sword practice.
            Unless…  His stomach dropped to his knees.  “What happened?”
            “Nothing,” Drew growled, turning north.  “So all we know is something big and ugly is coming?  Nothing else?”
            “And green,” Greg said, squinting against the sun’s glare.
            “Green?”  Rory’s brows went up.  “What is it, the Incredible Hulk?”
            “No,” Greg said.  “No, I don’t think so.”
            Thom scrambled down from his vantage point, suppressing a sudden shudder.  The malevolence of whatever was coming hit him like a linebacker, making his chest ache and his stomach churn.  “Damn,” he breathed, squinting into the distance.  He rested his hand on his blade, feeling a terrifying desire to draw it here and now, just so he’d be ready.
            Ready for what?
            He swallowed hard.  Shit, I don’t even know.
            A voice began to echo out of the distance, deep, guttural, but strangely lilting, as if the creature was singing as it came toward them.

“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.”

            Bile shot up into the back of Thom’s throat so hard and fast he doubled over for a moment, cleared his throat, and spat it out onto the thin crust of half-melted snow.  Greg grasped his shoulder.
            “Hellfire and monsters,” Thom rasped, hands on his knees.  He looked up at Greg.  “Get back in there and get Phelan out here now, wards or no wards.  Tell him to bring his goddamned stick, too.”
            The staff Phelan had been working on for months was almost complete—there were times Thom couldn’t believe it wasn’t done yet—and Marin had mentioned more than once that she could feel the power coming off of it.  Against whatever was wandering toward them at a leisurely pace, Thom had a feeling they were going to need the power Phelan had locked up into the two meter length of wood.
            Hopefully it’ll be enough.
            Greg squeezed his shoulder again before he let go and jogged back toward the walls, picking up speed as he went.  Thom spat a second time in an effort to rid his mouth of residual sourness before he straightened.
            “Is there more than one?”  Matt asked from beside him.
            “God,” Thom muttered, “I hope not.”
            In the distance, the ugly thing coming toward them began to laugh.

            The hairs on the back of Thom’s neck stirred uncomfortably the further from the walls they walked.  His hands tightened into fists and his teeth ground until he made a conscious effort to stop.  “Do you feel that?”
            “A creep factor?”  Matt nodded slowly.  “Yeah, I feel it, but I couldn’t tell you where it’s coming from and I couldn’t tell you how much of it is based on watching you react to something I can’t quite consciously feel.”
            Great.  I forgot who I was out here with.  Thom’s jaw tightened again and he swallowed.  We should’ve stopped and rounded up some help.  “Where the hell is the source, though?”
            Matt shrugged.  “Not getting any sort of sense of direction.”
            Me neither.  Which means it’s diffuse, it’s coming from everywhere, or I’m not as sensitive to this as I used to be.  He winced at the thought.  Fading sensitivity to the majority of threats targeting them wasn’t going to help him keep anyone safe.
            Hell.  Is that why she was angry with me all the time?
            “Go back to camp,” Thom said.  “Get Drew and if you can pry Rory away from whatever he’s doing, grab him, too.  And get a rifle.”
            “I don’t think I should leave you out here by yourself,” Matt said, frowning.
            “I’ll be fine.  I’m just going to try to get a better sense of where this is coming from.”  Thom jerked his chin toward a nearby pile of rubble.  “Going to climb up there and see if I can see something, too.”
            “All right.”  Matt still didn’t look happy.  “Just Rory and Drew?”
            “And Greg, too, if he’s here, and anyone else you think might be useful, but I think a group larger than six might be overkill when we don’t know that there’s actually anything coming.”  Thom shook his head as he headed for the pile of broken concrete and other rubble.  “Could be ambient bad vibes and paranoia.”
            “You sound like Kel,” Matt said as he turned to head back toward the open gateway.
            Thom managed a lopsided smile as he turned away.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
            His ribs twinged uncomfortably as he scrambled up pile, cursing under his breath as bits and pieces of rubble slipped under the soles of his sneakers.  The last thing he needed was to undo all the healing that had already happened by slipping on a snow-slick pile of broken bricks and concrete.
            “Sounding like Kel,” he muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing as he straightened at the top of the pile, his vantage a few feet higher than it had been on the ground.  His chest ached even as he tried to take a few deep breaths, struggling to relax and focus.  None of this was easy anymore.
            It’s not easy and that’s probably my fault.  He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to turn toward the point where things felt darkest, the most questionable.  It took a few moments, wrestling with his own thoughts and emotions.  It was hard to pick out what was real and what he was simply imagining.
            Thom opened his eyes and stared out into the distance—north again, as usual, almost as always.
            Why do all the threats seem to come from the north?
            Except for when they’re coming from the ravines, which are in the south.  West is nothing but the lake and east is the ravine again and the river.  He shivered.  There was only north and the broken bridge, for the most part.
            At least we found a defensible position.  Passably defensible.  If we can find a way to keep things from coming up out of the ravine to eat us.
            The wardings they’d laid helped with that—he knew that much—but until they’d built a solid reputation as a force to be reckoned with, they weren’t going to be safe.  He had a feeling they weren’t going to be safe anytime soon, either, not until they faced down a few more high caliber nasties.
            Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind having to guard the ravines a little longer if it meant us facing fewer threats on that terrifying of a level.  He was under no illusions that they’d gotten lucky against Vammatar, Phelan’s injuries notwithstanding.  He didn’t have much confidence that they’d be as lucky with Cariocecus—the Shadow Man.
            His lips thinned as he squinted into the distance.  There’s definitely something out there, I just can’t figure out what it is—and I can’t see it yet.
            Yet.  He could feel it, though.  Something was coming, and it made him queasy.  It felt different from every other bad feeling he’d gotten.
            Something new?
            “I don’t like it, either,” Greg said from behind him.  Thom startled, half spinning and barely catching himself as he lost his balance on the slick pile of rocks.
            “Damnation, Professor,” Thom growled.  “You scared the crap out of me.”
            “I noticed,” Greg said.  “And if you don’t stop calling me ‘Professor’ soon, I’m going to start punching you every time you say it.  My wrist can take the punching but your ribs sure as hell can’t.”
            Thom snorted and touched his ribs as they twinged again.  “Right, okay.  So…”  He glanced out toward the north again, toward the distance where he couldn’t see anything yet, “when did you start feeling something?”
            “Hour and a half ago, but it was pretty far out.  I didn’t start worrying until I felt it getting closer.”  Greg’s jaw set and his lips were a fine, pale line slashed through his face.  “That started about twenty minutes ago.”
            “And then Matt found you.”
            Greg nodded.  “And I decided not to wait any longer to come out here.”  He followed Thom’s gaze out into the distance.  “Whatever it is, it’s coming.  Slow, but coming.”
            “Big?”  Thom asked, mildly curious.
            “Big.”
            Great.  Just great.  “I hope Matt comes back with enough fire power.”
            “We can only hope.”
            Yeah.  We can only hope.

            Cameron shook his head and turned to Thordin.  “I’ve had this feeling in my gut about where I’m supposed to be.  We’ve been chasing that, for better or for worse.”
            “Well, that does sound like destiny.”  The big man smiled.  “Either that or foolishness, and since you don’t seem the type given to it and I know she’s not, I’d have to say it’s what she said.”  He nodded to the river’s bank.  “North or south?”
            “South,” Cameron said without thinking.
            Thordin nodded.  “Mind if I lead for a little while?”
            “Not at all,” Cameron said.  “You’d probably know better where good places to cross would be than I.”  He squeezed Neve’s hand again as Thordin turned his mount to the south and began to walk it along the muddy bank.
            She nodded toward Thordin’s back.  “Better get moving before he starts going any faster and we lose him.”
            Cameron chuckled softly and nodded.  “Right, right.”  He let go after one last squeeze and nudged his horse into motion.  Neve followed, her horse falling into an easy sway next to his.  He dropped his voice low enough that only she could hear.  “Who is he, anyway?”
            Her brows went up.  “What do you mean?”
            “He’s like you,” Cameron said.  “So who is he?  Where is he?”
            The ghost of a smile crossed her face.  “You already know, Cam.  You’re smart enough to have already figured it out.”
            “I didn’t think—”  He stopped, frowning.  “You said he was dead and he said he got better.  How the hell does that work?”
            Her brows knit.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it before.”  She shook her head slightly, fingers tangling in her reins and tightening around the saddle horn.  “I was beyond the veil when he was killed, but Phelan was there.  He saw it happen and he couldn’t stop it.  He told us about it when he returned to us for a time.”
            “What happened?”  Cameron asked quietly.
            She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, eyes focusing on something very far away.  Her voice took on a weary, almost dreamy quality as she spoke at a level just above a bare whisper.  “It was in the eighth century.  The…old religions…were already well on their way to giving up the ghost to the newer monotheistic faiths across the continent.  Most of us had retreated beyond the Veil, back to our Otherworlds where we might escape the worst of all of it.  A few stayed.”
            “Like Phelan?”
            She nodded.  “And Thordin.  He and a few of his brethren were still hunting in the deep forests of northeastern Europe, feeling as invincible as the day they were made.  It was probably their downfall, that.  You see, there was this tree in a village up in the hill country in northern Germania.  Someone told me once that it was an offshoot of Yggdrasil linked to the lives of a couple individuals.  It was this huge, old, beautiful oak so big that three grown men couldn’t wrap their arms around it if they tried.  I saw it when the tree was young.  It was huge even then, and beautiful.”
            Cameron reached over and squeezed her hand again.  This is hard for her.  I suppose I can understand—he was killed somehow, even if he “got better.”  “You don’t have to tell me, Neve.”
            “No, I do.”  She smiled weakly.  “You deserve to know, and I don’t think you want to ask Thordin.”
            “I wouldn’t tell him,” Thordin called with a measure of decidedly forced cheer from ahead of them.  “I’m going to ride on a little.  If I find a spot to cross, I’ll wait for you to catch up.”
            “Ears like a bloody bat,” Neve muttered as they watched Thordin urge his horse onward, widening the gap between them.  “I should have known that he could hear us.  He could hear flies break wind at twenty paces.”
            “Thirty!”  Thordin called back to them, then laughed.  Neve just shook her head.
            Cameron smiled.  “The story?”
            “Yeah,” she said.  “The story.  Well…”  She exhaled quietly and shook her head again.  “There was this man that Rome sent named Wynfryth.  He was on some kind of miniature crusade to turn the last holdouts of the old ways to Christianity.  He came to the village with an axe and power unlike anything Phelan had ever seen, a power that he’d never witnessed in anything before or since—not even his friend Bréanainn had power like that, and Bréanainn was a powerful, holy man.
            “Wynfryth walked up to that oak and swung the axe once, twice.  While he was doing that, a dozen men were attacking Thordin and his party in the woods.  They’d just taken down a boar and were starting to butcher it when they were attacked.”
            “I’ve heard this story,” Cameron said quietly.  “I remember it.  Except it was Boniface.”
            Her eyes slid closed and she nodded slowly.  “Then you know what happened.”
            “I know that there was some kind of supposed miracle and the tree was knocked down by a great wind.  And that a certain thunder god didn’t show up to strike Boniface down where he stood.”
            “That could be because he was busy being vivisected a hundred miles away.”  Neve’s fingers tightened.  “I don’t know if he was able to fell the tree because Thordin was being killed or if Thordin died because the tree was felled.  Either way…I never expected to see him again.”
            “His presence is a welcome surprise, then,” Cameron said, his head spinning.  Screw it all sideways.  I can’t believe who we’re following.
            “Yeah,” she said softly.  “But don’t…he’s just a normal guy, Cam, as we all go.  More normal than my brother, anyway.”
            Cameron smiled faintly.  “I’ll try forget it.”
            “I don’t think he’s got much of his power left.”
            Good to know.  Cameron nodded.  “We’ll have to rely on what you and I can muster.”
            “Mostly what you can muster,” Neve said.
            “Aye,” Cameron said.  He let go of her hand and reached up to brush hair away from her face.  “I’d die to protect you, Neve.”
            Her hand covered his.  “Don’t,” she whispered.  “I’d rather have you with me than lose you.”
            “I guess I’ll just have to stay alive then.”
            “Good.”  Her fingers tightened briefly.
            “Found a place to cross!”  Thordin called from beyond a hill.
            “Well,” Neve said.  “I guess we’d better get a move on.”
            “Yeah.  We should.”
            They kicked their horses into a trot, chasing an erstwhile, once-dead thunder god up a hill to cross a river headed toward collective destiny.

            “What the hell is going on, Phelan?”  J.T. asked as they headed for the walls, trailing two steps behind Phelan.
            “Nothing,” Phelan growled.  Left the staff on the bed.  I shouldn’t have, but how was I supposed to know I might need it?
            Gods and monsters, I should always expect to need it.  Idiot.
            “I thought we were past this whole lying to each other bullshit.”  J.T. caught Phelan by the shoulder and used his momentum to spin him.  “What the hell is going on?”
            Phelan’s gaze flicked between J.T. and Rory and he sighed, shaking his head quickly.  “Things might be starting too soon.”
            “Like what?  The Shadow Man showing up to eat our faces prematurely?”
            “That wouldn’t happen.  He’s a man of his word.”  The thought made him shiver, though.  As big as a bastard as Cariocecus has always been, can be, he’s always been a man of his word.  Promises are sacrosanct, gifts are sacred.  His voice dropped quiet.  “He gifted them time.”
            “He said that we wouldn’t see him until Midwinter Eve,” J.T. said.  “It’s only another few weeks.”
            “That they wouldn’t see him, at least,” Rory said.  “That doesn’t mean all of us.”
            Bloody loopholes.  “No,” Phelan agreed.  “But he’s careful.  Anything that happens would be totally unseen.”
            “Like Marin suddenly dropping?”  J.T.’s eyes narrowed.  “Could he pull that off?”
            “It’s not his style,” Phelan said as he turned away and started walking again.  The sisters, though…could be, but I hope it’s not.  I don’t think that she’s pissed them off enough.  “This is something different.”
            “Then what the hell is it?”
            Phelan stopped and looked at the two men following him.  “I don’t know yet, but I’m going to figure it out.  Trust me.”

•          •          •

 
            “We’re getting closer,” Cameron said as he reined up along the edge of the river.
            “How much further, do you think?”  Neve asked, drawing her mount to a stop.
            He looked at her, jaw tightening.  She was pale, still wavering in her saddle, eyes sunken into dark hollows.  “How many more miles do you have in you today?” he asked quietly without quite meaning to speak the words aloud.
            “Cam.”
            “Let him worry, princess,” Thordin said as he swung off his horse and walked closer to the river’s bank, checking the firmness and gauging the depth.  “Lying to him won’t change the truth, and he knows the truth when he hears it.”
            Cameron looked at the other men and felt an odd pang of gratitude even as a faint feeling of fear welled up somewhere in the pit of his stomach.  Do I know the truth when I hear it?
            I suppose most of the time I do.  I just don’t want to believe it sometimes.  He exhaled quietly and reached a gloved hand over to Neve.  “How many miles?”
            “As many as it takes,” she said quietly.  “How far?”
            “I don’t know,” Cameron said softly, shaking his head.  “But we’re close.  I can tell that much.  Less than another day, I’d guess.”
            “Good.”  Her fingers tightened briefly around his hand.  “Do you want to camp here then, start fresh in the morning?”
            “Let’s find a good place to cross the river first, I think.”  Cameron glanced toward Thordin for confirmation.  The blonde man nodded.
            “A good idea.  We could lose half a day trying to find a place to cross a river this wide safely.  Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be a bridge somewhere that’s still mostly intact.”
            Mostly intact.  Cameron winced at the thought of trying to get Neve across a bridge if she couldn’t stay mounted.  “Let’s hope for fully intact,” he said quietly.
            “Fully intact would be better, yes.”  Thordin swung up into his saddle again.  “You know, I don’t think I ever asked what we’re heading toward.”
            “Destiny,” Neve said softly.
            Both men blinked at her.  Thordin was the first to speak.
            “I thought you didn’t believe in that.  Said it was a lot of hogwash.”
            For the first time in a long while, her smile reached her eyes.  “I lied.”

            He should have known that something was wrong right away when Rory sent Thom and Matt to go scout without having them consult with someone else.  Phelan frowned as he followed their resident flame caster down into the maze of sheds instead of toward the walls or the cookfire.
            “What the hell happened?” he asked.
            Rory glanced at him and momentarily appeared to be on the verge of clamming up, jaw tightening for a moment, then exhaling and relaxing by a fraction, as if a weight was being lifted as he spoke.  “Marin collapsed while we were working on the wards.  Not like any other time she’s blacked out, either.  I don’t think she’s seeing anything right now.  She’s just down.”
            “Down?”  His throat constricted and his heart started to beat a little faster.  That’s not good.  That’s really, really not good.  Phelan nodded for him to keep moving.  “Show me.  Who’s with her?”
            “Jay and Kel, though he maybe sent Kel to find Jac.”
            Phelan sucked in a couple of breaths, suddenly relieved that Thom was out beyond the walls by now with Matt, though already dreading sending someone after him.
            It’s too bloody soon if it’s what I’m afraid it is.  Damnation, Teague.  Fucking damnation.
            “She’s seeing something,” he said, keenly aware of how grim and angry his voice must sound.  “Trust me on that.  When she wakes up, she’ll have seen something, and Kellin will need to be near.”  And Thom, and quite possibly her brother and I.  Bloody hellfire, monsters, gods, and damnation!  He punched the corner of one of the sheds and cursed softly as the impact shivered up his arm and he skinned his knuckles against the rough wood.
            Rory spun at the sound of meat smacking against wood, eyes widening as he saw Phelan shake out his fist, spraying tiny droplets of blood from his now-bleeding knuckles.  “What the hell was that about?”  His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
            “Things happening sooner than they should,” Phelan growled, then started to push past him.  “Are they in Thom and Marin’s?”
            Rory nodded, keeping his gaze on Phelan as the older man kept walking.  “What the hell is going on?”
            “That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” Phelan said.  “And I’m hoping that I’m wrong about what it is.”
            It’s too bloody soon.  What’s going on around here?  How did I not realize that things weren’t happening the way he thought they would?
            Not that it really matters, but…
            …well.  It might. It could.  He grit his teeth.  His cousin had seen a lot of things, warned him about others.  One of the things Teague had seen, had mentioned, was the long, on-and-off illness that Thom Ambrose had also forseen—the one that had forced him into denial, the one that had almost cost him his life and his happiness when he let that fear drive him away from Marin Astoris.
            But it was too soon, wasn’t it?
            Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe it’s some kind of attack.
            He never thought he’d see the day where he hoped something was an attack, not illness, not accident.
            The door to the space Thom and Marin shared stood partially open and Phelan shouldered his way inside, into the light of the lamps that J.T. and Jacqueline had lit.  Kellin leaned in a corner and looked at him sideways as he came inside.
            “What took so long?”
            “Distracting Thom and Matt temporarily,” Rory said from behind Phelan, giving him a shove to propel him deeper inside.  “Sent them out to scout.”
            Kellin nodded.  “Good.  Don’t need them underfoot right now.”
            “We might soon,” Phelan said as he walked over to the bed where Marin lay.  He put a hand on her forehead, glancing at J.T. and Jacqueline as he did.  “What’re your professional opinions?”
            “Low-grade fever but otherwise I can’t figure out why she’d pass out,” Jacqueline said, sinking down to perch on the edge of the bed.
            J.T. just shrugged.  “She was complaining that she was lightheaded and nauseous. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that she’s…y’know.  But I think it’s a little early for that.”
            Phelan cursed inwardly.  “Don’t know.  It’s certainly possible.”  He brushed hair back from Marin’s face, gaze flicking toward Kellin.  “You guys were just setting the wards?”
            “Yeah.  We’d just finished the third.”  Kellin caught her lip between her teeth.  “She might have just put too much into it.  That could be it.”
            Could be.  Phelan nodded slowly.  “That could be it.  I could feel them starting to shiver my bones from up at the forge.”  Though I couldn’t be sure which one of you was responsible for that.  The corner of his mouth twitched upward in a faint smile.  “That’s a sign of good ward-forging.”
            In the bed, Marin groaned softly, starting to stir.
            Good sign.  Phelan straightened and stepped back.  “Stay with her,” he said, his gaze taking in Jacqueline and Kellin.  Then he looked to Rory and J.T.  “You two come with me.  We’re going to finish off those wards.”
            “I should come with you,” Kellin said, straightening from her lean.
            Phelan shook his head.  “No.  When she wakes up, she’s going to have seen something.  You need to be here to find out what it is.”
            Kellin stared at him.  “How do you know that?”
            “It’s not important right now, Kel,” Phelan said as he headed for the door.  “Anyway, I hope I’m wrong, but in case I’m not, stay here.  You’ll know if something goes wrong.”
            “How?”  That was Jacqueline.
            He smiled grimly.  “Believe me, you’ll know.”

            “Phelan?  Can we borrow you for a few minutes?”
            Three sets of eyes turned toward Rory’s voice as his head poked inside the forge, which was easily thirty degrees warmer inside than it was outside.  Phelan stepped away from Matt’s makeshift bellows and nodded for Thom to take over.  “Sure.”
            Thom arched a brow as he took over.  “What’s up?”
            Rory shook his head.  “Just something we need Phelan’s touch for, that’s all.”
            “Wards stuff?”  Thom winced slightly as he started to work the bellows, ribs twinging uncomfortably.
            “Yeah, something like that.”  His gaze flicked between Thom and Matt.  “Y’know, Marin wanted someone to go out and scout to make sure there’s nothing strange going on outside the walls.  Think you guys could handle that?”
            Matt frowned a little, glancing at the half-started piece in his hand, then looked at Thom.  Phelan swallowed a chuckle.
            “You’ve barely gotten started, Matt.  I think you’re okay to leave it.  Better get to it if Marin asked.”  Phelan snagged his coat from where he’d tossed over a pile of wood and turned to Rory.  “Lead on.”
            Thom stepped away from the forge to let Matt clean up and bank the fire, drifting toward the door.  He shivered slightly as he stepped out of the warm darkness of the forge and out into the chill of daylight.  Even with the sun high in the sky, the day was still cold, holding the promise of an even colder winter to come.
            Every time I have to deal with a security threat, I can’t be building something that needs building.  At this rate, nothing will ever be done and we’ll end up freezing to death before winter’s out because I haven’t been able to make sure everything is properly insulated.  His jaw tightened.  Too many problems.  Not enough solutions.
            Not enough time.
            Matt nudged him and offered Thom the jacket he’d left inside.  As he shrugged into it, he said, “What do you think?”
            Matt frowned.  “About what?”
            “We ready for any of this?”  Thom asked.  “War, the weather?  Any of it?”
            “No one told me we were going to be fighting a war,” Matt said.  “Just some skirmishes to solidify our position and defend ourselves.  As for the weather, we won’t know that until we face the first real test, will we?  At least we’re staying dry and out of the wind.  That’s the worst of it.  We’ve got blankets.  We’ll find ways to stay warm.”
            Thom shook his head slightly and reached back inside, snagging his blade from where he’d left it leaning against the wall just inside the door.  He belted it on before he zipped his coat and yanked on his gloves.  “I’d hoped we wouldn’t need to worry about that.  Too many other problems.”
            “One thing at a time,” Matt said, momentarily sounding wiser than his years.  He clapped his brother-in-law on the shoulder.  “Come on.  Let’s have a look around.”
            “You’ll need a weapon,” Thom said.
            “Got some.”  Matt produced a throwing knife roughly the length of Thom’s hand from somewhere—probably inside his sleeve.
            Where the hell did that come from?  “When did you learn to throw knives?”
            “When I was in Scouts.  Same time I learned rifle and archery.”  The blade disappeared again.  “Rory’s been helping me with the sleight of hand part.  Made the knives.  Good practice for the swords.”
            Thom shook his head.  “Full of surprises, aren’t you?”
            “I try to be, anyway,” Matt said, then set off down the hill.  Thom shook his head again and followed.
            “You thinking they felt something?”  Matt asked after a few minutes.  “While they were working their mojo?”
            “Don’t know.”  Thom glanced to one side and then the other as they drew up to the gap where he hoped someday a gate would be.  He couldn’t see the warding team right away.
            Probably broke off in case we find something.
            I hope we don’t.  I really, really hope we don’t.
            “You and I going to be enough?”  Matt asked, frowning as he peered through the gap.
            “For the moment,” Thom said, stepping out into the open, gaze scything from side to side as he cleared the walls.  “Otherwise, you book it back and I’ll try to hold whatever we run into where it is.”
            “That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
            Thom shrugged.  “Not going to strip camp of defenses.  Two of us is enough to scout for now, especially if there’s not actually anything out here.”
            Matt arched a brow.  “You don’t think anything’s out here.”
            “Correction,” Thom said.  “I hope there’s nothing out here.”  He smiled grimly.  “Come on.  Let’s get to work.”