Awakenings

            “Something’s tracking us,” Thordin said, crouched next to a patch of bare earth where most of the snow had melted away.  He glanced back over his shoulder, back into the woods they’d crossed through, then looked up at Cameron and Neve.
            Swaying slightly on her horse’s back, Neve swallowed hard and asked, “How long?”
            “Probably since the bridge.  Maybe before.  Three, four days at least.”  Thordin straightened and walked over to take his mount’s reins from Cameron.
            “Can you tell what it is?” the former pilot asked.
            Thordin looked between the two of them, frowning slightly.  “I have a couple theories, but they’re not pleasant ones.”
            Cameron arched a brow and Thordin exhaled, staring at the road they’d already trodden, back through trees and brush.
            Then he turned his gaze to Neve.  “Will he believe me if I tell him?”
            She canted her head to one side, hands gripping the rim of her saddle so hard her knuckles had turned white.  “That depends on what you’re going to tell him.”
            “I think it’s a pack of hamrammr.”
            Neve sucked in a shallow breath, looking at Cameron.  He frowned slightly and looked between the two.
            “You might as well tell me.  Either I’m going to believe you or I’m not.”
            Thordin glanced at Neve again before he shook his head, turning to Cameron.  “They’re a touch like werewolves.  They’re not that, precisely, but that would be the best frame of reference for you.”
            “Werewolves that sound like some kind of…strange sneeze.”  Cameron’s head spun a little.  Werewolves?  What’s next?  Harpies?
            Oh wait.  Been there and done that.  Ghosts?  Vampires?
            He suppressed a snort and reminded himself that he needed to keep an open mind, no matter how crazy things started to sound.  “How dangerous?”
            “It depends on whether or not we’re their quarry.”  Thordin’s jaw tightened as he looked toward Neve.  “Would they be hunting you?”
            “Maybe,” she said, brows knitting.  “Though I haven’t crossed one of the Sisters in a long time—not since before we all went away. Have you?”
            Thordin frowned, looking off into the distance again.  “Maybe.  It’s possible.  I’ve been stumbling around for a while, anyway.  I could have crossed one of them inadvertently while I was still figuring everything out.  I don’t think so, but I can’t rule it out as a distinct possibility.”  He glanced toward Cameron again.  “What about him?”
            “I couldn’t run afoul of anything if I tried,” Cameron grumbled as he swung back into his saddle.  Neve gave him a sharp look and he smiled a self-deprecating grin.  “Except for the Dirae, apparently.”
            “Except for the Dirae,” Neve said quietly.  She closed her eyes for a moment, still swaying.  Cameron reached over and put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
            “You’re tired,” he said.
            “If something’s chasing us, we need to keep riding,” she said, opening her eyes.  “Especially if it’s hamrammr that’s doing the chasing.  The firbolg was child’s play compared to them.”
            “Unless it’s got the scent of blood in its nostrils,” Thordin said as he remounted.  “Then they have a tendency to turn into mindless berserkers out for…well.  Blood.”
            Christ, what have I ended up in the middle of?  Cameron frowned.  “And they’re chasing us?”
            “Could be.  Could be something else.  Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong.  I’m not omniscient.  Just good at what I do.”  Thordin shook his head.  “Neve’s right, though.  Something’s following, we need to keep riding.  Just in case.”
            “Just in case,” Cameron echoed grimly.  He shook his head, looking at Neve for another moment.  “All right.  You two win.”  He kicked his horse into motion.  “I’ll take point.  Maybe we’ll get lucky and cross a few streams.  Shake the scent.”
            “We can try,” Thordin agreed.  “Not a bad idea.”
            “Occasionally, I come up with good ones,” Cameron said with a grim smile.  “What else could it be?” he asked as they got moving again, heading steadily west.  It was as if some kind of tether was tugging him onward, westward.  “If it’s not a hamra—whatever you said it was.”
            Thordin considered the question for a long moment, then shook his head.  “I’d say a pack of wolves, but the last I’d heard, they were still a bit rare up here, especially the type the could transform into men.  I suppose it could be some local skinchangers or something similar, but that begs the question about why they’d be following us.”
            “We’re still trying to figure out why a pack of hamrammr would be following us, Thordin,” Neve reminded him, her voice barely audible over the sound of the horses navigating the brush-laden game trail.  “It could be anything, couldn’t it?”
            “Whatever it is, it’s a predator of some kind,” Thordin said, shaking his head again.  “Lupine, cat, otherwise—I can’t quite be sure. But there’s human—or other—intelligence guiding it.  There are both paw and footprints that’re evidence of that.”
            “Could be a few someones with hunting hounds,” Cameron said.  His stomach settled a little at the thought that it could be something entirely mundane.  A mundane threat would certainly be a change.
            “Aye, it could be,” Thordin agreed.  “Pray it’s that, I’m thinking.”
            I will.  Believe me, I will.  Cameron glanced toward Neve.  Not sure that the three of us could handle anything more than a few hunters and their hounds.  Not as ragged as we are, suffering like she is.
            Try as she might to hide it, he knew that Neve wasn’t recovering as quickly as she should, and he blamed the stress of the road.
            Though the sooner we get to where we’re going, the better off she’ll be.  That doesn’t do us any good if I lose her on the road, though.
            He dropped his mouth back half a length and reached across the gap, catching Neve’s hand in his.  She gave him a wan, brave smile and he smiled back, squeezing her gloved hand in his.
            “Stop worrying so much about me,” she whispered.  “I’ll be fine.  Just get us to where we’re going.”
            “That’s what I’m trying to do,” Cameron said quietly, then lifted her hand to his mouth to kiss the back of her hand.  “But not at the cost of any of us.”
            She smiled and squeezed his hand again.  He let go a moment later and concentrated on the road.
            Just get us to where we’re going.  That I can do.  It may be all I can do, but that I can do.

            We’d decided that it would take ten evenly spaced wards to fully secure the wall and thus our borders.  In some ways, it was easier to set the wardings along the edge of the ravine even though those could be accidentally knocked over or otherwise disrupted.  We worked quietly, efficiently at the next wards.
            We were three wardings in when I started to feel light-headed.  I leaned against the wall, swallowing hard and staring at nothing for a moment.  J.T. grasped my arm.
            “What’s wrong?”
            I shook my head, which turned out to be a bad idea as pain and dizziness spiked with the motion.  “Dammit,” I mumbled, putting a hand to my head.
            “What’s the matter?”  It was Kellin, this time.
            “I must be putting too much in,” I said, staring at the ground and hoping the world would stop spinning.  “Lightheaded and dizzy.”
            The three exchanged a look.  “That isn’t good, is it?”  Rory said.
            “Probably not,” J.T. said, reaching over and gently taking me by the arm.  “When did it start?”
            “Just a couple minutes ago,” I said, knuckling my eyes and hoping that would help.  I swayed slightly against the wall, sucking in a deep breath as nausea sunk its claws into my belly and twisted.  I cursed again under my breath, swallowing a groan along with bile.
            “What the hell is this?”  J.T. asked, glancing at Kellin.
            “You think I know?”  I saw her jaw tighten out of the corner of my eye.  She came around to the other side of me and put her arm under my shoulders.  “Come on.  Maybe you’ll feel better if you lay down.”
            Feel better if I lay down?  I’d feel better if I knew what was wrong with me.  Maybe I really had just dumped too much into the wards—or maybe they’d just sucked too much out of me.
            Then again, maybe it was something different.  Something worse.
            I straightened slowly, leaning on both Kellin and J.T.  Rory looked momentarily indecisive, then shook his head firmly.
            “Should I go get Thom, or should I grab a couple people and see if there’s anything nasty in the area?”
            “The second thing,” I said before I had to clamp my jaw shut so everything I’d eaten that day didn’t end up offered to the ground in front of my feet.  Jay will get Thom if I need him.  But I don’t think I do.  Not yet.
            “You don’t look good, Mar,” J.T. said quietly.
            I had to swallow twice before I could talk.  “My stomach and my head are staging a rebellion against the rest of me.  Of course I don’t look good.”
            J.T. and Kellin exchanged a look as if I wasn’t there, one that said that they were both worried
            Really not good.  Shit.  I struggled to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, hoping the world would steady around me.  It didn’t.
            Maybe I’m just hungry or something.  That could be it, right?
            Wishful thinking, that.  But I didn’t have much left beyond wishful thinking and scattering thoughts.
            What the hell is going on?
            I grasped for a pendant that hadn’t been there in months, the one I’d lost in the ravine.  The one that Phelan had sensed, asked if I wanted to find it.  Momentarily, I regretted not having him help me find it.
            Then I remembered the tall, slender boy that could only be Thom’s son and knew that I’d made the right choice.
            I half wondered if Phelan had ever seen anything like it—what I was going through, or what I’d seen in the ravine that sunny afternoon—about thirty seconds before I blacked out and stopped thinking anything at all.

            “You’re awful morbid today,” I said as we walked toward the walls.
            Kellin lofted a brow in my direction.  “You’re the one that brought it up in the first place.  I’m just stating a fact.  We usually figure out what needs to happen in the eleventh hour.  It’s just our luck.”  Her nose wrinkled.  “We’re still too new at this, maybe.  Maybe we don’t know enough, but I’m not sure how we’re supposed to learn outside of life and death situations.  Seems like Phelan can only talk so much about the hard lessons.  They don’t have much impact without the situation that goes along with it, I guess.  Either that or we just rely too much on hoping something won’t happen.”
            “That’s only worked once or twice,” I said.
            “Once or twice out of how many instances, though?”  Kellin shook her head as we came up to the wall.  “But you’re right.  Hoping it won’t happen isn’t going to be a long-term solution.”
            “Preparedness will be, though,” I said quietly, resting one bare hand against the wall.  They’d done a good job of placing the blocks and chunks of concrete, brick, and other debris so that it was mostly smooth, even if it was cobbled together out of the pieces of a half dozen buildings.
            Kellin smiled briefly.  “One way or another.”  She dug her chalk out of the baggie she’d stuffed into her pocket and began to sketch marks on the wall.  I took half a step back, watching her draw them, my arms crossed even as the hair on my arms and the back of my neck began to stand up, crackling with the energy that she was already gathering.
            I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, starting to try to find my center and drawing energy of my own to pour into the ward when the moment was right.
            “We should’ve had Jay and Rory and some of the others to help,” Kellin muttered.
            I shook my head, opening my eyes.  “We can always get their help to strengthen them later.”
            “Yeah,” Kellin murmured.  “I guess you’re right.  I’ve just got this feeling.”
            “There’s not anyone here that’s going to try to take those apart this time, Kel.  Besides, it’s going to be damned hard to do since we’ve got wardings incorporated into the walls themselves with that copper ring we’ve got buried around this whole damn place.”  I reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
            She grunted, nodding as she finished the last rune with a few swipes of the chalk in her hand.  “Dump now.”
            I pressed my hand against the markings and closed my eyes.  The stone and brick warmed under my palm as I willed power into the wardings.  A shiver shot through me as the marks hungrily devoured what I offered them.
            “Gods and monsters, Kel,” I gasped when I pulled away.  “What kind of runes are those?”
            “Phelan showed me,” she said quietly, almost distantly, her own hand still pressed against the wall.  “They’re the ones they used to use in the days of old.  He said they might make for stronger wardings than what we had before.”
            I shuddered.  “Damn.”
            She managed a laugh as she stepped back, swaying slightly.  “Yeah, well.  Hopefully they’ll last longer, too.”
            Hopefully.  I stared at the marks.  They seemed to almost pulse blue somewhere deep inside the walls, beneath the white chalk marks Kellin had made.  “You can almost see the power, even without nothing running into it.”
            “You can feel it, too,” J.T. said from behind us, lips thin.  “Rory practically fell off the roof back by the sheds when you two started dumping energy into those.  Said it felt like you’d rung some kind of bell.”
            I smiled grimly.  “A good bell, or a bad bell?”
            “Don’t know,” J.T. said, eyeing the first ward.  “But I’m damned worried we’re going to find out.  You two need some help?”
            Kellin and I exchanged a look.  She nodded.
            “We could probably use some, yeah.  Otherwise we’ll make it through about three wardings before we both just drop.”
            “Good to know that took as much out of you as it did me,” I said to her with a faint, rueful smile.
            The corner of her mouth twitched upward.  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything.”
            J.T. just stared at the two of us and shook his head.  “I’ll be back with Rory.  Don’t do anything until I get back.”
            I flashed him a thumbs up and leaned against the wall to wait.  Kellin looked at me sidelong.
            “The fact that they all believe is going to make them stronger,” she said.
            “Most of them, anyway.”  I tilted my head back and stared at the sky.  “Most of them.”

            Thom and I parted company when we got deeper into the main body of camp.  He split off to head up toward where Matt and Phelan were working at the forge while I headed toward the cookfire, confident that I would find Kellin there—or at least, I would find someone who knew where Kellin had gone to there.
            As it was, I found her there, sitting with Angie and Tala, both of them teaching the girl how to knit.  It looked like they were working on some sort of blanket to me as I walked up and unceremoniously piled another log on the guttering fire.
            Kellin glanced up from her work with a brow arched slightly.  “Done already?”
            “He let me bail out,” I said.  “You and I have dispensation to skip learning sword skills—for now, anyway—because we’ve got to worry about the wards and we’re both capable of defending ourselves without blades.”
            “I know how to use a sword already,” Kellin said with a perfectly straight face.  “The pointy end goes in the other guy.”
            Tala started to laugh.  Angie’s face scrunched in an expression that was part frown, part confusion.
            “Is that all you need to know about using a sword?  I thought more than just the tip was sharp.  I thought it was like a big knife, but with two edges instead of one.”
            “That’s true,” I told her.  “But it’s a little more complicated than that.”
            “So it’s more than just the pointy end going into the bad guy?”
            I smiled at her addition to Kellin’s previous statement and nodded.  “Yeah.  A little more than that.”
            “I thought so,” she said, then bent her head to study the square of dark blue yarn that she’d managed to knit.  It was knobby and a little messy, but it was still far better than anything I’d ever been able to accomplish.  I glanced at Kellin.
            “Can these two ladies spare you so we can get some work done?”
            “I think so,” Kellin said, turning her gaze toward Tala, who shrugged.
            “I think we’ve got things under control.  Where’d Thom go?”
            “Up to the forge to check on Matt and Phelan.”  I offered Kellin a hand up and she grasped mine, letting me pull her upright in one smooth motion.  “They’re working on some swords, though I’m not sure if they’re trying to work steel or just temper some iron.”
            Kellin shook her head.  “I’m not sure it’s going to matter all that much.  I hope it doesn’t.  It won’t if we do these wards right.”  She headed for her shed and I trailed along in her wake, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jacket.  I’d worn it out into the field by the well for practice because otherwise, the wind would have cut right through me.  Even sunny autumn days this close to the lake were cold.
            “That’s what I’m hoping,” I said.  “I’m hoping that we’ll luck out and the wards we set are going to keep Cariocecus and his camazotzi goon squad out of our hair.”
            “We can only hope,” Kellin said as she ducked inside and dug around for her kit of chalk and herbs.  She turned toward me for a brief moment, her face ghostly in the half-light cast through the open door.  “You know, maybe you shouldn’t have opted out of sword practice.”
            I raised a brow at her even as my stomach gave a sick little lurch.  “Why’s that?”
            She shook her head as she turned away again, rummaging around some more.  “It just seemed like he was really gunning for you and Thom when he made that threat that day.”
            Tell me about it, I thought bitterly to myself, lips thinning.  I shook my head a little, though her back was to me.  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” I admitted.  “But why would he warn us?”
            “Fair play?”  Kellin suggested, then gave a triumphant ah-ha! sound as she found her kit.  “I’m not really sure, to be honest, she said as she turned back to me.  “But that comes to mind.”
            “Fair play,” I repeated.
            She nodded.  “What, you don’t think any of our enemies have a sense of that?”
            “As a general rule?  No.”
            Kellin shrugged as she joined me outside again and began to lead the way toward the walls.  “You might be right.  Of course, the flip side of the coin is that he warned you because he wants a challenge, or maybe just because he wanted to see how you would react.  Get a gauge of what you’re made of and all that good shit.”
            “I’m not sure why he wants to take us down at all.”
            “Well, we’re squatting on a nexus.  There’s that.”  Kellin tucked her kit and her hands into the pockets of her pullover sweater.
            “Yeah, but then there’s no reason for him to threaten just Thom and I.  He’d be threatening all of us.”
            “Mm.  You’re right.”  Her brows knit.  “I don’t know, Mar.”
            Well, I thought.  We’d better figure it out, because it’s definitely a matter of life and death.
            “We think it is, at least,” I muttered under my breath, earning a sharp look from her.
            “What do we think is something?”
            I shook my head.  “A matter of life and death.  All of this.”  My lips thinned.  “It’s just a question of how many lives and how many endings.  We’ll figure it out.  We always do.”
            “Yeah,” she said quietly.  “Usually right before it’s too late.”

            “Get the tip of that damn sword up, Marin.  You’re not going to stop anything from getting past your guard if you’re holding it that low.”
            I adjusted how I was holding the kendo stick only to have Thom tap the butt of my staff against my instep.
            “Wider stance gives you more mobility.”
            “Bloody hell,” I cursed under my breath.  “Why am I learning to use a goddamned sword anyway, Thom?  I’ve got the staff.  Phelan’s talking about teaching me to use a spear.”
            “Everyone’s learning,” Thom said.  “Even Jac.”
            I shook my head, adjusting my stance slightly and swallowing a sigh.  “Jac was light years ahead of me in all this shit to begin with.  She actually likes it.”
            Thom shrugged with his uninjured shoulder, his boots crunching on the thin crust of snow that coated the ground out near the well.  “Everyone needs to know how to use one.”
            “A sword.”
            He shot me a look so cold I shivered.  “Yes,” he said, his tone turning the blood in my veins to ice.  “Swords.  Everyone.  Even if you use a staff, a spear, a bow, a gun.  Everyone needs to know how to use a blade.  You never know when you might be asked to take up one.”
            “You saw something,” I said, my tone far softer and gentler than his.  He still stiffened like I’d plunged a knife into his spine.
            “Yeah,” he said quietly, turning away.  He stared at the sky for a few long moments, then his gaze drifted out toward the walls.  “We’re not ready for him to come again, Marin.”
            I lowered the kendo stick and came over to him.  “It’s still a few weeks before the solstice.”
            “A few weeks,” he echoed.  “Not a few months.  Not a few years.  We’re not prepared, Mar.  He’s going to annihilate us.”
            “No he’s not,” I said, sliding my hand into his, our fingers knitting.  “Do you know why?”
            “No.”  His voice was bleak as his fingers tightened.  “All I see when I see that bastard and that day is a bloodbath.  We barely beat the camazotzi the first time.  You and Kellin and I almost got killed.  I just don’t see how we can defend ourselves against a fucking god.”
            “He can’t penetrate the wards without someone undermining them,” I said.  “We have that advantage.”
            “Vammatar found a way.”
            “That doesn’t mean Cariocecus will.”  I smothered a frown, making a mental note to talk to Phelan about how that had happened.  I still wasn’t quite sure if it was a weak spot in the wards or the sheer weight of the onslaught that made them buckle that day.  It wasn’t exactly clear which was worse, either.
            “Have faith,” I finally said.
            “I try,” he replied.  “Sometimes it doesn’t work so well.  Widen your stance a little more.”  He started to step back, fingers loosening around my hand.
            Even as I eased my feet another faction of an inch apart,  I held onto his hand and lifted the kendo stick, staring at it for a moment before I looked at him.  “These aren’t going to be what saves us.”
            “Of course not,” he said.  “Your brother’s working on some actual swords.  Phelan’s helping.  Once they’re done, we should have enough when we put it with the festival steel that’ll take an edge.”
            “That’s not what I meant.”  I looked at him and blew out a quiet breath.  “Physical weapons aren’t going to be what wins the day for us, Thom.  They might make a difference, but what’s going to save us is in here.”  I touched his forehead.  “And in here.”  I laid my hand over his heart, meeting his doubtful gaze head on.  “Our heads and our hearts, Thom.  We’re smarter than he is and this is our home and these are the people we care about.”
            “He’s ridiculously powerful,” Thom murmured.  “I don’t know how we can win against him.  I don’t know that Phelan knows, either.  He won’t say it, but he’s shaking in his boots.”
            “Of course he is.  Even if he’s not a primary target, he’s a prime secondary.”  I suppressed a shiver.  The threat Cariocecus had implied on my wedding day was that he was interested in taking out me, Thom, and our friends—there had been no threat against Phelan directly.  It had bothered me, tugged at the back of my mind since that day.
            Hell, be honest, Marin.  He threatened you and Thom—two of the last Seers in the world.  What makes us so damned dangerous?
            At the end of the day, I really wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
            I let the kendo stick drop to the snow and slid my arms around Thom.  He shivered as I drew him against me, his head dipping until his chin rested against my shoulder.  “We’ll win the day because there’s no other choice except to win, Thom,” I breathed in his ear.  “If we’re meant to have a future, we have to win.”
            “I don’t know if we can kill him, Mar.”
            “We don’t have to kill him.  We just have to win.”  I leaned back, looking him in the eye.  “And we’ll find a way to do it because if we don’t, Angie’s not going to have a future and Tala’s baby and the son we’re supposed to have someday won’t ever happen.”
            He gave a jolt as I mentioned our someday-son.  “You’re not–”
            “Not yet,” I said.  Though I’m not entirely certain I’d be very upset if I was.  I know we’re all going to be okay somehow, and when Tala’s baby comes, we’ll be able to start figuring it all out.  “But it’s going to happen someday.”
            “Only if we win when the Shadow Man comes, Mar,” Thom whispered.
            “And we’re going to.”  I cupped his face between my palms.  “We’re going to, Thom.  Our lives and the future of everyone here depend on that.”
            He shook his head slightly, gazing beyond me for a moment, toward the endless dark blue of a clear November sky.  “Will the wards be ready?”
            “We buried the copper before the ground started to freeze.  Kel and I are going to weave some protections into the walls starting today, if you’ll release me from this infernal sword training.”
            The corner of his mouth twitched slightly toward a smile.  “I’d be setting a bad example if I made an exception for you.”
            “And Kellin.”
            “She flatly refused.  Said the staff was all she needed.”  Thom shook his head slightly.  “You can’t force that woman to do a damned thing she doesn’t want to be doing.”
            “Then if it’s both of us, it’s not an exception.”
            He shot me a questioning look coupled with a wry smile.  “You have strange definitions for these things.”
            “Maybe I do,” I said, “but the point—and the question—stands.  Am I off the hook?”
            The rough parts of his fingers caught in my hair as he ran them through it gently.  “Only because you’re handling other matters important to our defense and ultimate survival.”
            I gave him a kiss and a gentle squeeze.  “Walk back with me, then?”
            He nodded, glancing back off into the distance again.  “Yeah.  Grab the kendo.”
            I stooped to pick up the fallen practice weapon and then fitted my hand into his once I’d straightened.
            Three and a half weeks left until the Feast of Midwinter.  Not a lot of time at all, but when the Shadow Man showed up again, we’d be prepared.
            One way or another, we’d have to be.

            He began the process of re-packing and loading in silence, stewing over the question as Thordin wandered off and returned with a mount of his own, one he’d apparently abandoned a short distance away so not to startle them by simply riding into their camp.  Cameron was aware of Neve’s eyes on his back, of a vague sense of concern coming from her.
            She doesn’t have anything to worry about.  I’m fine.  He was still sore from the fight two days before, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
            Thordin dismantled the lean-to to get to the fire as Cameron carried the last gear out and bundled it for loading.  Neve caught his hand as he headed toward the horses.
            “Cam.”
            “I’m fine,” he said quietly.  “Just a little worried, that’s all.  Three miles is too damn close for my comfort.”
            “It is,” Neve agreed, fingers tightening.  She tugged him down toward her.  He sighed and knelt in the thin layer of snow over the still-green grass.  Neve cupped his cheek with her palm, thumb stroking the corner of his mouth.  “But they haven’t quite caught up to us yet, have they?”
            “No.  Not yet.”  But someday, our luck’s going to run out and they will.  Bile crept upward in his throat and he swallowed hard.  “We can’t keep running from them forever.”
            She leaned her forehead against his.  “Someday, we won’t have to.”
            He snorted softly.  “I wish I could—”
            Thordin cleared his throat.  Cameron twisted to look at him over his shoulder.
            “Can I give you a little advice?” the big, strange man asked.
            Cameron’s eyes narrowed slightly.  “Something tells me that you’ll give it whether I say yes or not.”
            Instead of getting angry, Thordin laughed, peering around Cameron to Neve.  “A sense of humor.  I’m thinking that’s a good thing.”
            “Probably,” Neve agreed, a smile softening the worry lines that had only recently begun to gather around her eyes.  Cameron sighed.
            “Advise away.”
            “Believe her,” Thordin said.  “In the deepest, darkest hours of life, of your soul, believe in her.  Neve is not a woman that would ever lead you astray.”
            Cameron stared at him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Neve drop her gaze to her lap.  The bile he hadn’t quite tamped down started to rise again.  He squeezed his free hand tightly into a fist.  “Have you ever known something that cruel to just give up?” he asked, unable to keep traces of bitterness from his voice.
            “I’ve known the things that send them to find the cost so dear they call off their hounds,” Thordin said quietly.
            Neve squeezed his fingers again and Cameron looked down at her, throat tightening as he stared into her pale face and eyes ringed by dark bruises born of barely adequate sleep.
            “The cost has already been too high,” Cameron murmured.  Caliburn hung heavy on his back.
            I’m the only one who can protect her.
            “You don’t have to,” Neve whispered, as if she’d heard his thoughts.  Maybe she had.
            He kissed her forehead and pushed himself upright again.  “I want to.”  He glanced toward Thordin, who wore a faint, wry smile of approval.  “Are you riding with us?”
            “Do you think I came looking for Lady Rhiannon’s only daughter just to say hello?”
            Cameron laughed a tight, bitter little chuckle and nodded.  “I thought as much.”  He extended his hand.  “Cameron.”
            Thordin cocked his head to one side as his fist engulfed the pilot’s hand.  “No,” he said quietly, almost thoughtfully.  “No, you’re the Dragon.”
            His hand tightened briefly, then loosened.
            As Thordin turned away to tend to the fire and breakfast, Cameron glanced at Neve, who looked even paler for a moment, her lips pressed together in a thin, tight line.
            Cameron crouched again.  “What’s the matter?”
            “Nothing,” she said, giving him a weak smile.  His gaze lingered on her for a few long moments before he nodded and straightened up.  Neve’s gaze dropped to her knees again and she mumbled, “Everything.”
            Shivers shot down Cameron’s spine and he swallowed hard, refusing to give in to the urge to spin back toward her.
            “Everything?” he echoed a few minutes later as he settled a saddle blanket into place across a horse’s back.
            “I’m sorry, Cam,” she said.  “It’s not exactly turning out like I thought it would.  Nothing is happening the way I thought.”
            “That’s the way life is, Neve,” he said.  “Endless chance.  Unpredictability.”
            “I come from a bloodline of Seers,” she said.  “We’re supposed to know.”
            “Even gods make mistakes, hjartasystir,” Thordin called from the fire.  “Enjoy the unpredictability.  What your brother sees isn’t always what comes true.”
            “No,” Neve said softly, her voice strange.  “No, it’s not.”
            When Cameron looked back, she was smiling, though sadly.
            “Are you all right?”
            She looked up at him and nodded.
            She was fine.  That, at least, was true.

            “A little bird,” Cameron repeated, shocked his voice was as steady as it was.  His mind reeled.  Princess of Avalon.  Is he talking about Neve?
            He had to be.  Who else could it be?
            The man looked momentarily thoughtful and contrite all at once.  “Actually, it was a Dirae scout, but I took care of that for you.  I hope you don’t mind.  Was about three miles back.”  He grinned again even as the bottom dropped out of Cameron’s stomach.
            A Dirae scout?  We really can’t stay.  He dropped the bags where he stood and turned to bring more of the supplies out.  The stranger had suddenly become a secondary concern.
            If he killed their scout, he’s on our side, right?
            “Pilot or sailor?”
            Cameron froze in mid-step, turning toward the man’s impossibly cheerful voice.  “Pilot.  How did you know?”
            “You move like a warrior, but you don’t seem like the wilderness type.”
            He just blinked at the stranger for a moment, then turned to face him squarely again.  “Who the hell are you?”
            “Thordin,” Neve’s voice said softly from the entrance of the lean-to.  “I thought you were dead.”
            “I was,” the stranger said, voice still queerly cheerful.  “I got better.”
            Cameron swallowed bile and turned to Neve.  She stood on one foot, body wrapped in one of the blankets they’d slept under.  He slid his arm around her waist to steady her, to keep her weight off her bad leg.  “You shouldn’t be trying to walk on it,” he murmured in her ear.
            One hand came out from under the blanket and stroked his cheek, roughened by three days’ worth of beard.  “I can’t keep crawling for the rest of my life,” she murmured.  “I’ll be all right.”
            He kissed her temple gently and tried not to sigh, acutely aware that they had an audience that was watching them with a keen, measuring gaze.
            “I see that you’ve found more than just Caliburn’s latest choice,” the stranger—Thordin—said, grinning.  The expression softened from something just on the safe side of manic to a quiet, gentle smile.  “You spent a long time looking.”
            Neve blushed, going pink to the tips of her ears.  “Some of us are picky, cara sean.”
            “The implication is that some of us aren’t.”  He was still smiling fondly.  His eyes flicked toward Cameron then, gaze sweeping over him from head to toe.  After a brief moment, he nodded slightly.  “I approve.  Did your brother?”
            “Teague doesn’t have to sleep with him,” Neve said, leaning against Cameron.  He squeezed her gently.
            “Have to?”
            She smiled, looking up at Cameron.  “He doesn’t want to, either.  I choose to.”
            “Good to know,” Cameron said, unable to quell the wry smile that rose to his lips.  He glanced at Thordin.  “On both counts, I imagine.  So you two know each other?”
            I hope to high heaven that really means that he’s on our side.  But she hasn’t screamed or indicated that I should run him through, so maybe we’re okay.
            “So what’s a dead man doing here in the middle of the Canadian wilderness after the end of the world?”  Neve asked.  Cameron helped her over to where he’d dropped the things he’d been carrying so she could sit on top of one of their saddles, which lay amidst the pile.
            “You mean instead of minding my own business in an alehouse somewhere?”  Thordin smiled wryly again and shrugged.  “There aren’t any alehouses to be found, unfortunately, so I decided it’d be best to pick up my old pastime again.”
            “What was that?”  Cameron asked as he turned to duck back into the lean-to for the saddle blankets and the rest of their gear.
            “Killing anything that threatens the Earth,” Thordin said.  “Unfortunately, I don’t do asteroids.”
            Cameron looked at Neve, then turned to Thordin.  “You’re like Neve and Teague.  You’re not from around here.”
            “You’d be right,” Thordin said.  “Though unlike the fair maiden of the bow here, I was born beyond the Veil between worlds.  Not initially, anyway.”
            Cameron looked between the two.  “Does that make a difference?”
            “Oh yes,” Neve said quietly.  “It does.  A big one.  We’re more and less vulnerable all at once.”
            “Vulnerable to what?”
            “Depends on who you are,” she said quietly.  “But for most of us, iron.  Other things, like what the Dirae use to paint their claws.  Some poisons, plants, wardings.  Different things.”  She smiled weakly.  “There’s a lot you’ve got to learn, croí m’anam.”
            “Well, hopefully I’ll have time to learn.”  He looked at Thordin.  “I don’t suppose you cook?”
            “I could,” their visitor said.
            “Then please do,” Cameron replied as he turned back to the lean-to.  “If you killed a Dirae three miles from here, then we don’t have any time to waste.”
            “Three miles?”  The concern was clear in Neve’s voice.  “That’s damned close.”
            “Aye, they’re tracking you,” Thordin said.  “Maybe both of you.”
            The thought made Cameron shiver.  Not for the first time, he had to wonder about that.
            Why would anything be hunting both of us instead of just one or the other?

            Cameron let her sleep past dawn, past the time the storm abated.  She hadn’t answered all of his questions, but he’d settled for letting her fall asleep again in his arms.
            Not sure she could—or would—answer all of them anyway.  He smoothed her hair back from her face and gently tucked the blankets more closely around her, then tightened his boot laces and got up.  Two days had probably helped, but not as much as he’d have liked.  She still had a fever.  He was starting to think it was never going to go away.
            She’s right, though.  We can’t afford to stay in one spot, especially this far from any sort of civilization.  Not by ourselves.  Not until she’s healed.  We can’t wait that long.  He closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled noisily.
            “Bloody hell, Cameron,” he muttered to himself as he yanked on his coat and stepped out into the gray and white dawn.  “You never should have left that cabin in the woods.”
            The snow was shin-deep in places, in others the wind had scoured it down to bare earth.  His breath steamed in the chill air as he made his way the few feet to the second lean-to and the horses.  Neve’s mount nudged his shoulder as he eased under cover.  He patted its flank lightly and glanced at his own mount, who eyed him with what he could only describe as annoyance.
            He shook his head and untied their leads from the branches he’d secured them to.  “Come on, then,” he said quietly.  “Time for a drink before you get fed and loaded.”
            There wasn’t a choice.  They’d have to ride while the weather held.
            However long that is.
            He closed his eyes briefly.  There were still a lot of miles between them and where they were going, and a lot of water—and probably worse—besides.
            I just have to hope there’s a bridge intact or a boat we can use.  Just have to bloody well hope.  It’s all I can do.
            Cameron led the horses down to the creek and broke the thin ice over the water to let them drink.  He stared at the sky, at the clouds that were slowly clearing, leaving behind a sky streaked in pink and blue with the dawn.
            I don’t even know what I’m riding toward.  Just a feeling.  He glanced back toward the lean-tos, brows knitting.  “And I’m carrying a goddamned magic sword,” he muttered under his breath.  “And she’s telling me there are all kinds of crazy prophecies about some kind of once and future king bullshit, and I’m the one with the magic sword.”
            At least I know she doesn’t think I’m anything more than just…me.  I wonder what her brother saw when he looked at me.  He blew out a quiet breath, patting one of the horses on the neck.  I wonder what everyone else will see when they look at me.  It doesn’t matter who they are.  I just wonder what they’ll see.
            After another few minutes, he turned the horses back toward camp, trying to stay quiet so Neve could catch another few minutes of rest while he fed the horses started to break camp and load up.
            He gave the horses some of the grain they carried, then ducked into the shelter he’d shared with Neve.  The sword lay next to their blankets, sheathed in the same leather scabbard that Neve had carried it in.  Cameron crouched.  He picked up the blade, strapped it to his back.  He rolled his shoulders slightly until the blade felt comfortable—it didn’t take much.
            A fucking magic sword.  Somehow, it feels right.
            Damn it all, somehow it feels right.
            He began to gather up the packs, freezing as he heard the sounds of the mounts becoming restless.  He swallowed bile that suddenly rose in his throat and straightened slowly, silently, then eased out into daylight.
            There was another man in camp, dressed in biker boots and blue jeans under a herder’s jacket and fur cap.  He stood next to one of the horses, rubbing its ears and making soft, soothing sounds.
            Every muscle in Cameron’s body tightened.  Where the hell did he come from?
            The stranger turned a brilliantly blue-eyed gaze on the former pilot and smiled a lopsided, almost lazy smile.
            “A little bird told me I could find a princess of Avalon here,” he said, his accent strange but his tone disarming.  “I wonder if the man holding Caliburn could help me find her.”

            “The once and future king,” Cameron echoed.  “Are we talking King Arthur, knights of the Round Table, T.H. White, Mists of Avalon craziness, or something else?”
            Neve uttered a weak, broken laugh.  “Think about who you’re talking to.  You’ve seen the things that attacked us.  What’d you call it, a troll?”
            “That’s what it looked like,” Cameron said, momentarily distracted from the matter at hand.  “Big, green, and ugly.”
            “It was a firbolg,” she said.  “Traditional enemies, all that.  We sort of shoved them out of our territory and out of the Isles, too.  Not nice types.”  Neve inched closer, arms curling around his shoulders.  “We gave them a good reason for hate.”
            “Enough hate as a people to single you out?”
            She winced.  “That’s more complicated.”  And I don’t want to talk about it.  It treads too close to things I fear.
            Cameron laced his fingers through her hair and held her for a few long, quiet moments.
            Neve pressed closer, eyes sliding shut.  Maybe he’ll just let it go.
            “Your family makes a lot of enemies,” he finally said.
            Close enough.  “Yeah,” she said, sighing.  “It either came with the territory or with theboys I grew up with, one or the other.  Not sure which.”  Maybe we can stay another day like this, even if the storm finally breaks.  “Just a fact of life, I guess,” she murmured into his shoulder.
            “Apparently so.”  He fell quiet again.  He must have been listening to the storm.
            Laying in his arms, she was comfortable and warm, but at the same time she was acutely aware of how much she still hurt.  Moving her leg was still agony and the rest of her still felt like she’d been bruised straight down to the bone.
            But I’m still alive to feel the pain.  That’s better than the alternative—much, much better.
            “So is it?”
            “Is what…what?”  She felt addled.  I must have dozed off for a moment.  What were we talking about?
            “This once and future king business.  Arthur, Round Table, all that jazz?”
            “Oh,” Neve said, swallowing a yawn before it could escape her lips.  “Do you want the honest answer, a lie, or what I actually believe?”
            Cameron considered the question for a moment, then said, “Which one am I most likely to want to believe?”
            “None of the above.”  Neve tugged the blankets closer.
            “All right.  Which is closest to the truth?”
            “That’s an even harder question to answer.”  Neve opened her eyes and looked up at him.  His gaze was focused on something very far away.  She sighed silently and tucked her face against his breastbone again.  “I guess it might be.  Societies live and breathe mythologies, and that’s honestly one of the most enduring.  Maybe it’s that way for a reason.  I don’t know.  I honestly don’t know.  I just know what the prophecies said, and the prophecies said that a king would rise.  They didn’t even say whether he would be a good king or a bad king, just that there would be a king. That’s probably why everyone’s jockeying for position now.”
            “And now we’re back to discussing the war, aren’t we?”  Cameron said quietly.  “I’m a part of it because you found me first?”
            “You’re a part of it because you survived,” Neve said.  “There was never any avoiding it.  Anyone who lived is eventually going to end up on one side or another.  Neutrality is a farce.  You can try it, but it’s probably just going to get you killed—either because you said no to the wrong person or because someone assumes that because you trade with this community or sheltered that traveler, you must be on this side or that side of the conflict.”  She swallowed against the lump in her throat.  “I wish it wasn’t that way, but that’s the way it’s probably going to end up.”
            “Is there anything we can do to stop it from being that way?”  Cameron asked quietly.
            “Yeah,” she said.  “Kick some ass and take some names and pray a lot that I’m not wrong about all of this.”
            “This being?”
            “Everything,” she said.  “Absolutely everything.”

            Two days passed before the storm abated and they were able to dig their way out of their shelters, to even think about riding on. Neve spent those two days curled in the protective cocoon of Cameron’s arms, limply exhausted and wrung out by the days spent on the road in pain and then the events of their first night in this camp, when they were attacked.  Her dreams, too, were troubled, memories and visions of a war now long ago and far away.
            It was sometime before dawn on the second day when she woke to hear the wind beginning to taper off.  The fire was burning low.  As she moved to tend it, Cameron’s arms tightened around her.
            “Lie quiet,” he murmured in her ear.  “I’ll take care of the fire.  Keep the blankets warm.”
            She made a whimpering sound of protest, but she stayed where she was as he gently disengaged his arms from around her and got up to stir the fire back to life and add another log to keep it going.  Neve watched him move, limed in the light from the fire.  The bandages on his side were clean—no sign of bleeding since they’d changed the bandages yesterday.  He looked good.  Strong.
            I’m lucky.  She lifted the covers so he could rejoin her underneath the blankets.  He shivered slightly as he slid beneath and wrapped his arms around her again, smelling of smoke and him.  Neve settled back into his arms and closed her eyes again, listening to the crackling of the fire, the wind outside, and his breathing.
            Cameron pressed a kiss to the back of her neck after a moment and sighed softly.  “It sounds like it’s getting better out there.”
            She nodded slightly.  “Yeah.  It does, a lot.  We should be able to ride today, I hope.”
            He nodded, resting his chin against the top of her head.  “We’ll see.”  His arms tightened slightly.  “Tell me about this war I’ve been sucked into, Neve,” he said, his voice quiet.  “Your brother said that there was one I’d become a part of as soon as I woke up.  Tell me.”
            She winced slightly, twisting toward him in the dim, moving so they lay chest to chest rather than her back to his chest.  Cameron ran his fingers through her hair, eyes glittering in the firelight.
            “Tell me,” he whispered.  “It must be bloody well important if people are hunting us both.”
            Neve winced again.  “Us, them, my cousins…a lot of people are going to be hunted because they’ve been sucked into this, whether they like it or not.”  She rested her forehead against his.  “Promise me that you won’t think I’m crazy?”
            “Acch, Neve,” he said.  “If I thought you were crazy, I’d never have left with you.  There’s nothing you could say now that would change my mind.”
            That’s what you say now.  She brushed her thumbs against his cheeks.  “Are you sure?”
            “Every time you ask that, I begin to wonder whether or not I should be.”  The corner of his mouth twitched upward in a smile.  “In for inches, in for miles, Neve.  Tell me.  Please.”  His smile faded.  “Before it gets both of us killed.  That man two nights ago, he wasn’t here to play games.  He put that knife in me for a reason, didn’t he?”
            “But I don’t know what it was.  He hadn’t taken sides.”
            “In the war,” Cameron said.
            “Yes,” Neve said, her voice a bare whisper.  “In the war.”  She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly before she felt steady enough, strong enough to speak.
            “It actually started well before I was ever born, but open warfare…that was forestalled for a long time.  Perhaps that wasn’t for the best, because it gave every side far too much time to build alliances, and I’m ashamed to admit that we did not spend nearly as much time and effort at that as we should—and we’ve always been the types to make enemies easily.  It’s just in our nature.”  She smiled a tiny, weak smile as she opened her eyes.  “There’s a reason that Puck is such a recurrent character in lit out of the Isles, you know.”
            “Robin Goodfellow Puck?  A Midsummer Night’s Dream Puck?”
            She nodded slightly.  “Like that.  We—one in particular—have a penchant for that kind of mischief.  We’re not cruel by any stretch of the imagination, but…well.  Sometimes people take themselves too seriously.  My cousin Phelan, he…well.  That’s a story for another time.  You asked about the war.
            “I’ll admit that I’m not sure how it started.  I imagine it was either over territory or an insult to someone’s honor—a few misspoken words or an imagined slight.  It wouldn’t surprise me.  My uncle had arranged a very uneasy peace with the northron clans of Otherworlders—you’d probably find them familiar as a lot of the Norse deities and some Russian and Finnish deities.  The interconnections are really hard to keep track of sometimes.  Sufficient to say that by the time I was old enough to understand what was really going on, we were in dire need of allies.
            “However the war started, it resumed over territory.  There’s a myth among Otherworlders that the more mortals that believe in your power, the more powerful you are—the more people who think you’re a god, the more powerful you become. It’s hogwash, but the northron clans and some of the southron clans are bred on this shit.  They cut their teeth on it and believe it with their whole hearts.”
            “Is that what’s going on now?”  Cameron interrupted.  “Are they all waking up because the world’s broken and they’re seeing this as some kind of grand opportunity to relive their glory days?”
            Neve laughed a weak, broken laugh that made her ribs ache more than they had any right to.  “I wish it was that simple.  There’s a prophecy, too.”
            “A prophecy?”
            “Yes,” she said, staring into the depths of his eyes in the dim.  “One that the Oracle of Delphi, the Pythia, Cassandra, the druids, my mother, my brother, Mimir and every other Seer who’d ever seen seemed to agree on.
            “When stone rains from the sky and the old world dies comes the time of gods and monsters and heralds the coming of a once and future king.”