Awakenings

            It all happened too quickly.
            One second, Thom was negotiating with the band’s leader, the next he was on the ground.  I didn’t even see Phelan draw and fire the first shot, though I saw the head raider sprout an arrow through his chest, watched a pistol tumble from his hand as he dropped to his knees.
            “If one of you so much as twitches for a weapon, you’ll be next.”
            I didn’t stay where Thom told me to stay.  My heart trying to hammer its way clear of my chest, I marched forward, toward the spot where J.T., Matt, and a few others filled the gap between the walls.
            Thom was on the ground, blood flowing from his side.
            “Shoot them!” someone behind the lead raider shouted.
            Phelan loosed another arrow just as Paul whipped his shotgun up and fired.  A moment later, all I could hear was the sound of shotguns and automatic weapons.
            And screams.
            I wedged myself between J.T. and Matt and joined the firing line, though my gaze kept straying to Thom.  He wasn’t moving.  I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
            Don’t you dare leave me now, Thomas.  Don’t you dare.
            J.T. stumbled back from my side with a grunt, blood spattering my face abruptly.  I glanced sidelong.  He was clutching his arm, but whatever it was didn’t look that serious.
            At least, I hoped it wasn’t.
            In the field, without cover to hide behind, the raiders were going down—some wounded, others dead.
            By the time the smoke cleared, more of theirs had gone down than ours.  J.T. and Jack were both walking wounded.
            “Drop your weapons,” I barked.  “And keep your hands where I can see them or I’ll blow your balls off.”
            The half dozen that were still standing took one look at me and did as they were told, tossing their weapons on the ground and putting their hands up.
            I strode out into the killing fields, waving for Paul and my brother to back me.
            Phelan, for once, had avoided so much as a scratch and bounded down from his perch as quickly as he could at the sound of voices shouting that they surrendered out in the field.  I would’ve rather he kept his perch, but if he felt his place was at my back—or at Thom’s side, which I hoped was more likely—I would take it.  Carolyn scuttled out behind us, heading toward Thom.
            Thanks, Care.  I walked toward the crumbled body of the leader.  He’d fallen completely over, all the life gone from his eyes as I looked down at him.  My gaze scythed across the field, finally landing on the six men still standing.
            I pointed at the weapons on the ground.  “Paul.  Matt.  Start gathering these up.”  I kept on staring at the six men.  “We’re burning the bodies tonight by the road.”
            Two of the six men exchanged nervous glances.  A third swallowed hard, shifting from one foot to the other.
            I let them stew for a moment longer.  “You six can take a week’s worth of food from your supplies.  You don’t get any weapons, you don’t get any ammunition, but you get your lives, which is far more than you deserve.”  I raised my voice.  “Rory, Drew!”
            They materialized a few moments later nearby, Greg and Kellin trailing a few steps behind them.  Greg ducked past us toward the five prisoners in the wagons.  The six men kept their hands up, still looking nervous—probably because we still had people on the walls aiming weapons at them.
            I jerked my chin toward the six.  “Watch them while they get their supplies.  Then pick four other people and walk them to the far end of campus.  I don’t want to see them here ever again.”
            Rory nodded.  “We’ve got them.”
            I nodded and turned back, moving toward where Thom lay.  Carolyn’s hands were slick with blood as she pressed both of them against the side of Thom’s chest.
            “How bad?”  I asked, crouching down.  I reached toward his face, brushing my hand along his cheek and jaw.  His skin was cool, but not frigid, and he was still breathing.
            She shook her head.  “I’m not sure.  It hasn’t stopped bleeding, though, but I think it pinged a rib.  He’s not going to be happy when he wakes up.”  She looked past me.  “Where’s Jay?”
            “Probably finding Jac so he can worry about seeing to his own shoulder while she deals with this.”  I pressed my fingers into the hollow near the corner of Thom’s jaw, feeling for a pulse.
            There it is.  Slow and steady, but it’s there.
            For the first time since the fighting started, my heart began to beat normally again.
            “You don’t think you were a little harsh?”  Kellin asked softly as she came up behind me.
            I stared at Thom’s pale face for a moment before I shook my head.
            “Nope.  Not at all.”

            Cameron jerked awake with a gasp, pain stabbing through his guts from one side of his body and through his belly and lower chest.  He peered up through tears and his lashes at Neve, who bent over him, pale, her face streaked with tears.
            His jaw worked for a moment before he managed to speak.  “How…?”
            She swallowed hard, meeting his gaze.  Tears welled up in her eyes and she leaned down to hug him, her hands bloody from tending him.  “Cam.”
            He went quiet, slowly reaching up and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.  His collarbone hurt, his back hurt, his side hurt.  I don’t even remember something hitting me in the side.  When did that happen?  He drew a shaky breath, comforted by the smell of Neve’s hair.
            “What happened?” he asked.  “They weren’t what we thought.”
            “I know,” Neve said, giving him a gentle squeeze before letting go and setting to work again.  “Hold still, I need to finish.”
            “How bad?”
            “Deep enough for muscle but not anything else.  It was a short knife.”
            “A knife?”  What got a knife into me?  None of those creatures—
            The one that caught the sword?  The one with a maybe-human face?  “Are you sure it was a knife?”
            She held it up where he could see it, a small, dark knife with a short blue-steel blade and an ebony hilt.  Cameron shivered, then winced.
            “That was still in me?”
            “In the snow next to you,” she said, leaning back down to resume stitching him up.  Her bad leg was stretched out at an angle that looked uncomfortable, her face locked into a grimace.  Cameron squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
            “I’m sorry,” he said.
            She shook her head, a few swift stitches completing her work.  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Cam.  You saved our lives.”  He craned his neck to watch as she knotted the threads.  The fire cast a flickering glow on her face, making the tears that still lingered on her cheeks sparkle in the dim.
            “Did they get close to you?” he asked.  Did I fail?  Did they hurt you?
            She shook her head.  “You kept them tied up.  Two of the kills are really yours.  I got one and feathered the one that stabbed you and ran.”  She crawled over to a bucket and cleaned her hands in what must have been meltwater from snow.  There was no way she’d have gotten as far as the creek, especially in the storm.
            And a storm it had truly become.  Cameron could hear the wind howling hungrily outside the lean-to.  He rolled onto his side, trying to figure out how to sit up.   Have to check the horses.
            “Don’t, Cam,” Neve said, crawling back to him.  “Just stay right where you are for a few minutes more.”
            He considered protesting and discarded the idea, nodding and staying where he was.  He curled one arm under his head and lay on his side until she came back with a cold, wet rag and started to clean his side around where he’d been stabbed.
            “What were they?” he asked as she washed away the drying and fresh blood, his flesh prickling with the water’s chill.  “Do you have any idea?”
            “I’ve never seen creatures like that before,” Neve said.  “But the last one…maybe.  But I’m not sure why he’d be here unless it was only to make trouble—trouble he’s either borrowing or trouble with some kind of hidden agenda.”
            “What was it?”
            “Who,” she corrected gently, her lips thin.  She wiped her hands on the rag and then reached for a roll of linen bandages from the kit Kira had assembled for them before they’d left all those weeks ago.  “You can sit up now.”
            He pushed himself up gingerly, wincing slightly as the flesh across his shoulders protested and his collarbone twinged.  “All right, who, then?”
            She started to wind the bandages around him to protect her work on the wound, shaking her head slightly.  “Another one like Teague and I and our cousins, but I can’t be sure if it’s who I thought it was.  There’s no reason for him to be interested in any of us.”  Her lips thinned again.  “Unless one of us did something to piss him off.”
            “You still haven’t told me who,” Cameron said, lowering his arm as she secured the bandages.
            “I didn’t get a good look,” Neve said, “but it could have been Cariocecus.”
            Sounds Roman.  Cameron shook his head.  “Doesn’t ring any bells.”
            “I don’t see why it would,” Neve said, smiling wryly.  “He’s one of the ones that’s mostly forgotten, from one of the pantheons that’s mostly forgotten.”  Her fingers laced through his.  “But I don’t know why he’d be interested in us.”  Her gaze met his.
            “You don’t think he’s interested in you.  You think he’s interested in me,” Cameron said quietly.  He wasn’t sure how he knew—perhaps it was something in her eyes.
            Neve bit her lip and leaned into his chest.  He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly, ignoring momentary flashes of pain.
            “I don’t know why,” she whispered.
            “We’ll figure it out,” he said, resting his chin against her head.  “One way or another.  We’ll figure it out.”
            And if he wants to hurt either one of us, we’ll be ready for it.  He’ll be surprised by what he gets.  Next time—if there is a next time—I’ll be ready.  And he won’t like what he faces then.  Not at all.

            A magic sword?  A bloody magic sword?
            Goosebumps rose along his limbs, not born of any draft driven into their shelter by the storm, but by what she’d just said.
            “A magic sword,” he repeated, mouth almost too dry to speak the words.
            Neve winced, withdrawing slightly even as she grasped his forearms, fingertips digging painfully.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.”  Her voice was a bare, desperately frightened whisper.  “Now you’ll be too afraid to touch the damned thing and that’s not right.  It chose you.”
            Now I know we’re both crazy.  A sword can choose someone?  He tried not to shiver.  The worst of it was that he believed her.
            I believe in a bloody magic sword that my girlfriend gave to me.
            “Déithe agus arrachtaigh, Cam.  Say something.”
            “What does that make you, the lady of the lake?” he croaked.
            She went whiter than the snow falling outside and jerked back, turning away.  His stomach dropped.
            What the hell did I say?
            “Neve—”
            A shrieking cackle echoed in the distance.  His heart leapt into his throat as Neve gave a startled gasp.  His fingers closed around her arm.
            “Dirae?” he asked in a whisper.
            “I need my bow,” Neve said.  “In case they find us.”
            You’ll never be able to draw it in your state.  Cameron swallowed his protests, scrambling for their packs and the weapons resting among them.  “Is there any chance that they won’t?”
            The wind rattled the lean-tos and he saw Neve swallow in the firelight.  He pressed her bow into her hand.
            “No,” she whispered.  “I don’t think there’s much chance that they won’t.  But we can hope the weather will be our ally.”  She slid her hand into his and squeezed.  “And failing that, we have to hope there aren’t that many.”
            We have to hope.
            The next cackle-shriek was closer.
            “Stay behind me, whatever happens,” Cameron breathed.  “Whatever happens.”
            “They won’t find us,” she said, but her words lacked conviction.  She wanted to believe them, but she couldn’t.
            I want to believe they won’t either.
            The way his skin began to crawl, his hackles rising, told him they probably weren’t going to be that lucky.
            The next shriek sounded like it must have been only a few feet away.
            Cameron started to get up.  Neve grabbed his arm.
            “Don’t,” she said, her voice almost too soft to hear over the wind and the fire.  “Wait.”
            His heart quickened.
            Something scraped against the ground outside.  He squeezed his eyes shut.  The blade’s hilt was warm and heavy in his palm.  It felt right.
            “What’s its name?” he asked in Neve’s ear.
            She looked up at him, swallowed once, then said, “Caliburn.”
            Cameron nodded.  He kissed her once, then threw himself out into the snow.
            Four pairs of red eyes glared back at him through the driving snow.
            Four.  I can take four.
            He threw himself at the first and realized that it wasn’t what he thought it was.
            The creature was slightly bigger than he was, black-winged and ugly, its chest broad and black and well-muscled, covered in a fine fur.  Snow caught in that very fine fur, melting slowly.  It let out a soft, whistling hiss as it sidestepped his strike, extending one arm and one wing as if to grab him on the way past.
            Caliburn tore into the leathery part of its wing as Cameron ducked low and then rolled to escape the grasping of two-inch claws.  He ripped it free, sending a spray of red-black blood spattering across the snow.
            “Not dirae!” he shouted to Neve as he rolled up to one knee.  Though whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I’m not quite sure.
            The creatures, almost as one, turned toward him and began to close.  Cameron lunged toward the nearest.  The blade bit deep into the creature’s belly.
            It screamed so loudly that the sound left his head ringing.
            Pain seared hot across his shoulders.  He yanked the blade back and clear of the creature’s belly, whirling toward the second creature, the one that had just ripped open his shirt—and the flesh of his back.
            As he threw himself at the second creature, the one with a bleeding wing, all he could hear was the ringing in his head and the pounding of his heart.
            What the hell are they?  One grabbed for him and he danced back and out of the way, almost tripping over the creature he’d stabbed in the belly.
            An arrow flashed past him, burying itself in a third creature’s eye.
            Neve stood at the corner of the lean-to, her lips white, body trembling even as she held the bow steady, implacably notching another arrow. 
            Just stay behind me.
            Cameron wrapped both hands around the blade’s hilt and swung it with all his strength at the first creature.  It hit with a wet thock, sinking into its flesh at least four inches.  He hauled back again, working the blade free as the creature sprouted an arrow in its breastbone.
            “—hind you!”
            He turned in time to jerk back half a step.  Claws that would have taken his spine instead scraped against his collarbone.  He stumbled back, one hand spasming.
            The blade almost fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, but he dipped just in time, catching it before it hit the ground.
            Both hands curled around the wire-bound sharkskin of the hilt.  He twisted, coming up as hard and fast as he could, swinging with all his might.
            A clawed fist grasped the blade and held it for a brief moment.  The creature snarled an oath and for the barest of moments, Cameron thought he saw a human face buried deep in the shadows of a hood.
            Then the creature released the blade and vanished in a profusion of black smoke.
            He realized he was short of breath a moment later and stumbled back, glancing down to see red spreading across his chest and blooming along his side.  He turned toward Neve.  Her face was as pale as the driving snow.
            Then he fell face-first into the cold whiteness beneath his feet.

            The cold had nibbled its way through his gloves to every part of his hands, leaving them frigid and stiff by the time Cameron stumbled into the second of two lean-tos he’d built at their campsite—one for their horses a few feet away, the other for he and Neve, their tent, and their fire.  The snow had begun an hour before, heavy with thick, wet flakes.  The wind was starting to pick up as he ducked into shelter, gratefully, gracelessly falling onto his rear next to Neve and the fire.
            She reached up and dusted some of the snow from his hair.  “Hopefully we’ll find a town or something soon where there’s a sporting goods store we can loot.  We need more cold weather gear than what we’ve got.”
            Cameron could only nod in agreement as he tugged his gloves off an studied his hands in the fire’s glow.  Red, but not blue or white.  Just cold, then.  Not frozen.  He stretched his hands toward the fire, setting his jaw so his teeth wouldn’t begin to chatter.  Neve was already starting to unbutton his coat for him.
            Even after weeks on the road, battered and bruised as she was, she still somehow managed to look amazing to him.  He stared at her for a long moment, letting her divest him of his cold weather gear as he let his fingers thaw near the flames.  As he warmed, he became increasingly aware of the smell of rabbit roasting over the fire, which they’d managed to snare before the snow started.  Hanging from the same rod over the fire was a small pot of instant potatoes, seasoned with a little freeze-dried cheese and salt from their supplies.
            “Dinner smells amazing,” he mumbled, shucking his coat fully off and hanging it from one of the tent poles to dry.  Beyond the trees and the lean-to, the wind began to howl as the storm finally hit.
            “Thanks.  Sounds like you got under cover just in time.  Do the horses have enough room to graze?”
            “They’re tied to a bush they can nibble on.  I watered them and gave them some of the oat cakes from your saddlebags.  I’ll check on them after we eat.”  He slid his arms around her and stared at the fire.  He glanced toward one edge of the lean-to, watched the snow sheet toward the trees.
            West.  Almost due west.  He closed his eyes and buried his nose in Neve’s hair.  “It feels like it’s a long way away,” he whispered.
            “What you’re running toward?”
            He nodded against her hair and sighed.  “I think it’s running toward, anyway.  I don’t think your brother scared me that badly.”  Of course, he told me that I’ve been sucked into a war older than most of the world’s religions and that I’ve got some kind of destiny that neither of us quite understand—one I’m not sure I’m up to fulfilling, especially if it means abandoning everything I’ve begun to care about in order to pursue.
            The lean-to rattled and he sighed, opening his eyes and glancing up.  Neve’s fingers tangled in the fabric of his sleeve.
            “It’ll hold,” she said softly.  “Stay here.”
            He relaxed in fractions, forcing himself to stay put.  “How do you know?” he asked.
            “I just know,” she whispered.  “My brother’s not the only one with a strange kind of prescience.”  She took a deep breath and exhaled it shakily, shifting against him.  His arms closed around her shoulders.
            Cameron managed to laugh, though it came out slightly strangled.  Neve twisted in his arms, not quite concealing her wince, and took his face in her hands.
            “Cam,” she said.  “Cam, talk to me.  What’s the matter?”
            He shook his head and the words tumbled over each other.  “I don’t know that I can do this, Neve.  I don’t know that I can do all the things that your brother told me I was supposed to someday.  I don’t know if it’s in me, but I’ll be damned if I fail.”  He rested his forehead against hers.
            Her eyes crinkled at the corners as her brows knit together.
            Damnation, Neve, I don’t need your pity, I need your strength.  I need you with me.
            He kept talking.  “I’m not a knight-errant and I’m not a hero and that’s what he said I was, what I would be.  He said that broken world would change us all but I don’t know if it’s in me, Neve.  I’m too damned selfish.”   All I want is to find a safe place to hide with you.  Is that so terrible and wrong?  “He said the cost could be dear—could be everything.  It’s not a price I’m willing to pay.”
            “Anyone who says that they’re willing to pay anything—any price—is lying,” Neve said, her thumbs stroking his cheeks and jaw.  “No matter how selfless someone is, there’s always a cost that would be too high, one they’d say hell no to.”  She kissed his forehead.  “As for a hero and a knight-errant, I don’t think you should sell yourself short.  You wouldn’t have cared so much for a little Black Irish girl you met on the road if you didn’t have some kind of spark.”
            Cameron smiled crookedly.  “I had ulterior motives.”
            “Liar,” Neve said with a grin.  “You didn’t realize how you felt until after I saved your life.”
            “Yeah, well.”  His cheeks warmed.  “You still need to heal up so you can get me using that crowbar properly.”
            “Crowbar!  That’s a magic sword you’ve got with your gear.”
            Cameron froze.

            “Magairlí,” Neve spat, hands tightening around her reins as she swayed in the saddle, pain shooting up her leg.  Wind gusted cold out of the north, battering she and Cameron and making it that much harder for her to stay mounted.
            Cameron twisted to look at her, reining up.  “Neve?”
            “I’m fine,” she said, tugging her coat tighter and trying not to shiver.  “Bloody wind just keeps trying to knock me out of the saddle.”  Her mount eased up next to Cameron’s.  She tugged on the reins, urging the horse to halt.  It nickered and obeyed, snuffling and pawing at the ground.
            Cameron reached across the gap and touched her hand.  “Maybe we should make camp.”
            “Too early.  We can make at least another dozen miles before a storm hits.”
            His fingers tightened.  “Neve.”
            “I’m serious,” she said, hating how much like a whine her voice sounded.  She set her jaw, her other hand covering his.  “Trust me.  I’m all right.”
            “If we find a decent place to camp, we’re going to,” Cameron said.  His eyes said that he didn’t really believe that she was fine, but he was willing to let her win this time.  Neve smiled a tight smile and squeezed his hand.
            Thank you for that, at least.  “I can agree to that.  Whatever’s coming isn’t going to be pleasant.”
            “Another one out of the north,” Cameron said, shaking his head and squinting up at the dark clouds to the north.  They boiled, twisting back on each other like water over a Bunsen burner.  “And worse than all the ones before.”
            Neve tried not to shiver.  Shivering still hurt.  Her body was still black and blue from her close encounter with the firbolg—and she was certain that’s what she’d had a close encounter with, based on Cameron’s description of the thing—and while parts had dulled to yellow and brown as they healed, it seemed she discovered new places she’d hurt every time she moved.
            Riding isn’t smart, but we also don’t have a choice if we want to make it to where we’re going by the time the real storms come.
            Their mounts had eaten up the miles these past weeks since her injury, and as they urged their horses into motion again, side by side, they got moving at as quick a clip as Neve could stand.  It was slower than she would have liked, but almost too fast for her to take.  Every night she fell out of the saddle and into Cameron’s arms, letting him cradle her like a child as he carried her to a waiting bedroll while he made camp.
            She felt utterly useless but tried to make up for it on the road by being as little a burden as possible.
            And still, he worried.
            He worries because he loves me.  I wouldn’t be any different if our situations were reversed.  Of course, I think I’m more stubborn than he is.  She watched him for a few moments as they rode together.  He had the countenance of a hero of old, of the times before the years were truly measured, in the time of gods and legends.
            I’m glad he loves me.  I’m glad it’s he and I, not him and someone else.
            “What’s wrong?”
            She startled slightly, then winced as the sudden movement shot lances of pain up and down her spine.  “Huh?”
            Cameron smiled crookedly.  “You’re looking at me strange.  Just staring.  Your horse could’ve ridden right off the edge of a cliff and I don’t think you’d have noticed.”
            “Oh.”  She let out a brief, ragged laugh.  “I was just thinking, that’s all.  Not about anything important, really, just reflecting.”
            “Reflecting, eh?  On?”
            They were riding almost close enough for their knees to touch, though Cameron was careful not to catch her bad leg between the horses.  It had happened once and she’d blacked out from how much it’d hurt.
            “That I got lucky,” she said, her voice quiet, barely audible over the wind.  “I’m not alone out here.  I’ve got you, and you chose me.”
            “I’d do it all over again, too,” he said.  He smiled.  “Dirae and all.”
            They hadn’t encountered anything like the Dirae or the firbolg since the ambush on the road.  One morning by the lake they’d been scared witless for a few moments by a hawk’s cry before they’d realized what it was.  It had sounded like some kind of harpy coming after them, though.
            “Even with my brother?”
            His grin broadened.  “Even with your crazy brother.  The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe he’s not as bad as I keep wanting to think he is.  He loves you and his wife, and your family.  I can tell.  Even if I’m not completely sold on everything he told me, enough of it made too much sense for me to not believe parts of it.”  The smile faded and his eyes grew distant for a few moments.  “What terrified me the most at first was how old he said you guys were.  Then I started to realize that it didn’t really matter, since you were here now and had given up…well, a lot.  And you’d done it willingly.”
            “I’d do it all over again,” Neve said softly.  “Over and over again as long as I knew that it’d lead me to this and you.”  Whatever Teague might have thought, whatever his theory of the future was, it’s wrong.  It wasn’t supposed to be this man and Aoife.  It was supposed to be Cameron and I.
            Cameron smiled at her, then shook his head slightly, nudging his horse off the main road.  “Come on.  I think there’s a good place to camp this way.”
            “We haven’t gone that much farther,” Neve said.
            “No,” he agreed.  “But I don’t think we’ll find a better place to weather an oncoming storm.  Let’s have a look.  If I’m wrong, we’ll still have time to press on.”
            “Mm.”  She nudged her horse into following him.  “Where do you think we are?”
            “Ontario, maybe,” he said.  “We probably should have stuck to following along the rivers, but for some reason, due west felt better than cutting south.”  He rolled his shoulders as if they were uncomfortably tight.  “If I’m wrong, that’s what we get for following my heart.”
            “I trust it,” Neve said softly, fervently.  I trust it so much it might kill us both.  But I trust it just the same.

            Phelan appeared at Thom’s shoulder just as Rory reported that the incoming rabble had managed to cross the broken span over the Grand River.  Thom looked at him sidelong, jaw setting.
            “Did anyone send them, Phelan?” Thom asked, his voice low enough that only Phelan, on one side, and Marin, on the other, could hear him.
            The flame-haired man bounced an impressive old-style hunting bow between his palms, brows knitting in thought as he considered the question.  His gaze drifted to the north, toward the threat he couldn’t see.
            He shook his head slightly.  “No,” he murmured quietly.  “No, I don’t think so.”
            “You’re sure?”  Marin asked, peering around Thom.
            Phelan frowned.  “There’s no such thing as ‘sure’ in these things, but my instincts say no.  This is random.  Bad luck.  Nothing more.”
            Bad luck.  Right.  Thom’s lips thinned.  “Right.  What’s your range with the bow?”
            “Farther than the shotguns,” Phelan said with a wry smile.
            Thom nodded firmly.  Good.  “I need you on one of the roofs with that thing.  Can you climb?”
            “I’ll manage,” Phelan said, hand drifting unconsciously to his side.  Thom clapped him on the shoulder.
            “Start climbing.  Hold your fire until I give you a signal.”
            “I think I can handle that.”  Phelan gave both of them a tight smile and headed for the nearest shed, beginning to scramble up, using a tote as a step to give himself a boost.
            Marin eased closer, a shotgun in one hand and her staff in the other.  Thom slid his arm around her shoulders and squeezed briefly.
            “Stay out of the direct line of fire,” he murmured in her ear, then kissed it gently through her hair.  “Promise me.”  I’m not going to stand by and watch something happen to you.  The camazotzi, the Greys, that’s one thing.  This is different.  This isn’t something she’s equipped to fight.
            It’s not anything any of us are equipped to fight, but I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to her.
            Pain flickered across her features and she took his hand and squeezed.  “I’ll try.  Where do you want me?”
            Traces of tension eased.  I couldn’t ask for much more than her trying, at least.  “Right here, under the watchtower.  Go up if you have to if you need to get a clear shot.  You’ll know if you do.”
            “Thom!  They’re halfway up the hill.  My count’s twenty-five.  Five look like prisoners.”
            Prisoners?  Thom swallowed bile.  What the hell are we dealing with here?
            It struck him that just scaring them off might not be an option.
            We might have to kill them all just to make sure we’re safe.
            As if he hadn’t already shivered enough today.  He glanced at Marin.
            I have to keep them safe.  He thought of Jac, of Angie.  I have to keep all of them safe.
            He shook his head at himself and started getting everyone in order—ten people up on the walls, ten in the gap.  He took the middle.
            “They’re coming down Campus Drive now,” Rory called down.
            Won’t be long.  “All right.  Hold until my signal.  Kel, are you coming down to negotiate?”
            After a momentary hesitation, she answered.  “You open.  If they’re willing, I’ll come down.”
            Thom nodded, mostly to himself.  “We’ll meet violence with violence only if we have to.  Stand fast but be alert.  If one of them so much as twitches, we need to be ready to respond.  On my signal.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  He could almost hear them now.  “Check your loads and wait.”
            He tried to quell the racing of his heart as he strained to hear the sound of their approaching “guests.”  All he could hear was the thundering of his heart and the sound of the others checking to make sure their weapons were loaded around him.
            The one that came into view first was taller than even Thom with shoulders broader than J.T.’s.  He was clean-shaven, chiseled features, like some kind of European model.  The men who came behind him were equally rugged, though they looked less reputable than their leader.
            He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
            The man’s eyes glittered like obsidian in the sun and a slow, cruel smile split his features as he and his wended their way across the field before the walls.  “Well well,” he said, his voice almost a purr.  “Look at all the little children with their toy guns.”
            Thom eased forward from the line.  “Have you come to trade, or to raid?”
            The man considered the question for a moment, his gaze raking over Thom.  “We’ve come for your food, your livestock, and your women.”
            To raid, then.  A muscle in Thom’s jaw twitched.  “In exchange for what?”
            “Your lives,” the man said, then grinned.  Some of the men behind him grinned feral grins—the group was mostly men, except for four women with their wrists duct-taped together in a wagon—while only two of them, plus a teenager boy in one of the wagons, looked uncomfortable with the statement.
            “I’m sorry, that’s raiding, not trading.”  Thom mustered up a smile that he hoped matched the stranger’s in cruelty.  “And New Hope is closed to raiders.  Find yourself easier pickings elsewhere.”
            The man started to laugh.  Thom set his jaw, resting one hand on the hilt of his sword.
            “And you’re going to stop me with your little toy sword and your little toy guns?” the  man said, mirth fading though the cruel smile remained.
            “You bet.”  Thom said.  One way or another.
            The man started to laugh again.
            A pistol appeared from nowhere.
            Thom dove.
            Shots echoed off the walls, the remnants of buildings.
            Pain exploded in his side and he hit the ground gasping, his chest and shoulder on fire.
            Something whistled over Thom’s head, then hit somewhere ahead of him with a dull, meaty thunk.
            “If one of you so much as twitches for a weapon, you’ll be next.”
            It was Phelan’s voice, Thom realized dimly as black and red nibbled on the edges of his vision.  Breathing hurt.
            Someone ahead of him was shouting.  He heard weapons cocking.
            Gunfire erupted above him even as he fought to stay conscious, every breath a battle.
            Please.  Please, gods and monsters and whatever the hell is out there, please take care of them.  Protect them.
            Protect them when I can’t.
            Like right now.

            “We’re starting to do this too damn often, Thom,” Matt said as he thrust a scabbarded sword in his brother-in-law’s direction.  “How many more people and things are going to show up to potentially kill us?”
            Thom’s fingers closed around the scabbard.  He began to belt on the blade as he answered Matt’s question with one of his own.  “This year, this month, or into perpetuity?”
            “Real funny,” Matt muttered.  He nodded toward the shotguns.  “Reloading those is going to be a problem if we end up in a straight fight.”
            “We’ll just have to hope,” Thom said.  Hope that the first volley makes them run.  How many people can I get up on the walls with shotguns?  How many can I pack into that gap in the walls?
            How many of us are going to be dead before this is over?
            He swallowed bile and rounded up an armload of shotguns.  “We’ll just have to hope they’ll want to talk.”
            “Talk and then take our shit, probably,” Matt muttered under his breath, scooping up an armload himself and stuffing a bag full of ammunition boxes.  “You wouldn’t be flipping out if you suspected anything but.”
            “We have to hope, Matt,” Thom repeated.
            “Right.  Where’s rally point?”
            “Under the watchtower,” Thom said, long strides carrying him out of the tent and back in the direction he came.  Already a small knot of people was gathering near the watchtower, where Rory still perched with Kellin, both squinting into the distance.
            “Start handing these out as soon as we get there,” Thom muttered to Matt.
            “Roger that.”  Matt took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  “How are we going to pull this off, Thom?”
            “With a lot luck and a lot of guts.”  Paul’s back already.  That was fast—Carolyn must have sprinted the whole way out to the pasture and they must have driven the flock hell-bent for leather all the way back.  Unless he was already on his way back for the day or something…  Thom shook himself and stopped wondering what could have driven Paul and the sheep back from grazing so early in the day and was instead grateful that he was already back.  He thrust a shotgun into the other man’s hands.  “You’re the best with one of these.  If I send you up on the watchtower, what do you think your range will be?”
            “With a slug?”  Paul shrugged slightly.  “I can aim it at a hundred or so, but I can’t guarantee it’ll do any damage at that range.  It’s the nature of the beast.”
            Thom nodded slowly.  No better or worse than I thought.  Not for the first time, he silently cursed the fact that most of the firearms they’d been able to gather were shotguns.  That was going to put them at a disadvantage at range.
            Unless the sound of a bunch of shotguns cocking all at once scares the crap out of whoever’s coming.  He suppressed the urge to knuckle his eyes and laid the other shotguns in his arms down on the ground, letting Matt handle the distribution.  “Head on up to the watchtower, then,” he told Paul.  “Did Carolyn tell you what’s going on?”
            “Yeah, someone’s coming and they might be violent.” Paul headed for the ladder, handing the shotgun back to Thom.  “Let me get partway up, then hand it up to me.”
            Thom nodded, glancing toward the others.  Drew crossed his arms.
            “What’s the plan, Thom?”
            “We’re going to put some people up on the walls,” Thom said.  “They should be wide enough in some places, strong enough.  We’re going to pack a bunch in the gap.  Try to rack the first shotgun round all at the same time and hope that gives these folks pause.  Whatever happens, they’re not just going to run us over like a bunch of kids unable to defend ourselves.  We pushed back the camazotzi and the Greys.  We can set some raiders back on their heels and show them we’re not here for the picking.”
            Easy prey we’re not.  Anyone who makes the mistake of thinking that’s what we are is going to get a nasty surprise once they try to take a bite of this piece of pie.
            One way or another.

            It took another three hours to get the first tower up, but by the time they were done, it seemed sturdy and stable enough—at least for the time being.  The clouds above had thickened to a dark gray, though no fresh flakes had begun to fall and no snow-thunder threatened.  Just the dark gray of a threatening sky, with the clouds moving fast in the heavens under a strong wind that was much less noticeable on the ground.
            Despite the tower’s apparent stability, it was over Marin’s objections that Thom was the first to scale the makeshift ladder up to the platform.  The wind up above the rooftops was a little stronger, but not enough to make the tower sway as ominously as he feared—not as badly as it would under the gale-force winds of a West Michigan winter.
            “Be careful up there,” Marin warned from below him.  He grinned, though she couldn’t see it.
            “I will be.  Pretty stable, though.  Want to come up?”
            “Hell no,” she said.  “Just be careful.  Do you see anything up there?”
            His gaze swept over the rooftops, toward the ravine, then on toward the river and the ruins of M-45.  What’s…?  He squinted, trying to get a better look at what he thought he saw.
            A curse dropped from his lips like rocks off a precipice.  “Send Angie and Tala below,” he snapped.  “We have incoming.”
            “Fuck me,” J.T. said from below, even as Marin asked, “How many?”
            “Can’t tell,” Thom said, leaning forward slightly.  “They’re still too far away.”
            “Dammit, Thom!  Stop leaning over that rail and get down here before you give me a heart attack.  Rory, trade places.”
            “His eyes are better,” Rory said, his grumble just barely carrying enough so Thom could hear him.
            “I don’t think she cares.”  Thom hurried down from his perch and stepped aside so Rory could climb up.  He gave Marin a quick squeeze.  “I’d say at least two dozen.  Hard to tell how they’re traveling, but they’re moving too slow for some not to be on foot—unless they’re hauling something damned heavy.”  I hope they’re not hauling anything heavy like some kind of cannon or heavy weapon.  Of course that would come to mind instead of, say, wagons full of wounded.
            J.T.’s expression was grim as he shook his head slowly and then turned away.  “I’ll talk to Carolyn and see if her little friends can give us a better idea of—“
            “Iron,” Carolyn interrupted, her expression matching J.T.’s.  “They’re saying a lot of iron.  That probably means guns, or something worse.”  Her lips thinned and she glanced at J.T., then at Thom and Marin. “I was coming to tell you.”
            Matt shook his head.  “I’ll grab the shotguns.  Someone going to go round up Paul and the sheep?”
            “I’ll go,” Carolyn said.  “I think I know where they are.  I’ll tell Tala that something’s coming on the way.”
            “Thanks,” Marin said.  “Be careful, okay?”
            Carolyn shot her a wry smile.  “Always.  I’ve run into the camazotzi enough times for one lifetime.”
            Shivers shot up and down Thom’s spine.  The days were ticking away and every new threat that reared its head only made him feel less prepared for the resumption of hostilities with the Shadow Man—no, Cariocecus—that would come on the shortest day of the year.
            “We still don’t know why,” he murmured as Carolyn jogged away.
            Marin gave him a quizzical look after giving a few last instructions to her brother, who’d jogged in another direction to start rounding up their guns and swords—hopefully, they wouldn’t need any of them, but the swords most of all.
            “Don’t know why what?”
            “Why he’s coming after us,” Thom said.
            Marin just blinked.  J.T. shook his head.
            “One bloody problem at a goddamned time, Thom.”  He shook his head.  “I have to tell Jac to get the kits ready.”  His nose wrinkled and he glanced upwards.  “How close, Rory?”
            “Still about a mile out.  They haven’t crossed the river yet.  They’ll have a hell of a time coming across the broken bridge.”
            Thank god for small blessings, right?  Maybe they’ll turn back.
            He didn’t think it was likely, but they could hope.
            “What’s coming?”  Kellin asked, jogging up with Drew on her heels.  “I saw Matt grabbing the guns.”
            “At least two dozen people,” Thom said.
            “Hauling a wagon of something.  Loot, I think,” Rory called from above.  “They’re not looking very nice.”
            “Are we sure they’re hostile?”  Kellin asked
            Marin grimaced and shook her head.  “No, but can we take the risk that they’re not?  We have to make sure we can defend ourselves.  If they fly a white flag or send someone forward for parley, that’s one thing.  What if they’re showing up to take what we’ve got?”
            Kellin frowned.  Drew touched her shoulder.
            “They’re right, Kel,” he said.  “We have to assume that they’re hostile until they’re proven not to be.”  He glanced up at the watchtower.  “Rory!  You see any kids with them?”
            “No dice.  Can’t tell if they’ve got any women, either—they’re too far away.”
            Drew made a gesture as if to say, see? and shook his head.  “You be ready to be diplomatic, Kel.  The rest of us will be ready in case they’re not here to chat.”
            Kellin muttered a few curses under her breath, then scrambled up the ladder to join Rory.
            Thom’s hand found Marin’s and squeezed.
            “I don’t like this,” she murmured.
            “None of us do,” he murmured back.  “But we’re going to have to deal with it whether we like it or not.  We’re not getting a vote.”
            “Are the walls strong enough?”
            I hope so.  “They’re thick enough, anyway.  Hopefully they’re high enough.  If they’re not, we’ll find out.  We’ll just have to face them in the gap.”  Someday we’ll have some kind of gate—someday after I figure out how to engineer it.
            I hope I get the chance.
            “They’re at the bridge now,” Rory said.  “Slowing down, but they’re still coming.  Looks like they’re sending a few across to figure out the best way to come across.”
            “Time’s running out,” Thom said, then kissed Marin gently.  “I need to help Matt.”
            She nodded.  “I’ll stay here with them.  In case I don’t get to say it before things maybe get bad…I love you.”
            “I know.”  He kissed her again and jogged away, trying to swallow his heart.  This is bad.  This is really, really bad.
            I hope all of us come out of this alive.
            The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that even if they all came out of it alive, they wouldn’t escape unscathed.

            Thom straightened as Marin’s fingers closed around the fabric of his sleeve.  He craned his neck toward his wife, using his free arm to wipe the sweat from his brow that had gathered despite the day’s chill.
            “What the hell is going on around here?” she hissed.  “I’m up at the greenhouse out across the road for three hours and all of a sudden you’ve quit working on what you said you were going to be working on and you’re putting up a watchtower.”
            “Did you guys have a good haul?”  Thom peered past her toward the horses and the makeshift wagons they’d put together—plus the real wagon they’d acquired across the road.  Tala was coordinating the unloading of what looked like mostly apples and potatoes.
            “Decent enough.  Don’t change the subject.”  Her fingers tightened.  “What’s going on?”

            Hoofbeats pounded in the distance and his hackles rose, goosebumps rising, racing up and down his limbs.  Another? Again, so soon?  His lips thinned.  Dragon warned us it could get bad this time.  He thought of Marin, of Carolyn and the others.  They would want to fight.  How could he stop them?  Appeal to their maternal instincts?  That was what made them want to fight.
            He glanced over the tower rail and saw the smudge in the distance.  His eyes narrowed and he grabbed the binoculars.  Two dozen riders, armed to the teeth—guns this time, not bows and blades.
            “Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath, then rang the bell.  Twice, two loud, long peals.
            Camp exploded into motion and shouts.  No longer were they the disorganized rabble they’d been.  They had enough of these fights under their belts to know what to do instinctually.
            I wish we didn’t know what to do so well sometimes.  It means we do this too often.
            “Thom!  What’ve we got?”
            “Horsemen with firearms,” he said.  “Angie needs to take the twins and the other kids down to the tunnel and the rest of us need to get set.  I want Tala and Phelan up on the walls with the longbows.”
            “What about Marin?  She’s just as good.”
            Thom winced.  Matt squeezed his arm.
            “I know what you’re thinking.”
            “And?”
            “The needs of the many.”
            Thom squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.  “You’re right.”  His brother, the pragmatist, right as usual.  “Her too.  Coordinate the ranged ones and I’ll rally everyone else.”
            Matt flashed a thumbs-up and jogged off.

            “Thom?”  Marin’s hand was against his face now, bare and cold against his suddenly feverish flesh.  He shivered slightly and covered her hand with his.
            “J.T.’s ghosts,” he said quietly.  “They warned him that someone’s coming.  Someone human, probably violent.  We need to be ready.”
            Marin stared at him for a long moment before she shuddered.  “Gods and monsters,” she breathed.  “And you just saw something, too.”
            “Not about what might happen today or tomorrow or the next day,” Thom said before h gathered her against his chest and squeezed her tightly.  “Something that might happen on a day a long time from now.”  He rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment before he gave her one more squeeze and released her.  “I should get back to work.”
            “What can we do?”  Marin asked.  “Once we’re done with the unloading, what do you need us to do?”
            Thom considered it for a moment, then exhaled.  “Just do what you’d usually do.  There’s no way we can get more than one tower up in a day, and we’ve got this in hand.  Make sure the weapons are somewhere near so we’re not in a mad scramble.”
            “We need an armory.”
            Another thing to add to the list.  “I’ll add it to the list.”
            Marin cradled his face between her hands.  “This isn’t all on you.”
            “No,” he agreed.  “It’s on you and Kel and Matt, too.  But we already knew that, didn’t we?”
            Marin winced slightly and nodded.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Yeah, we did.  I wish we didn’t.”
            He folded her into his arms again all too briefly, then released her.  “Go on.  “I’ve got work to do.”
            “I’ll bring you all something to eat in a little while.”
            He smiled.  “Thanks.”
            She smiled back crookedly.  “Someone’s got to make sure that you guys don’t forget to do that.  You concentrate on protecting everyone.  We’ll keep an eye on your well-being.”
            Thom wanted to go after her as she walked away.  Matt clapped him on the shoulder.
            “Quit staring at my sister and help me with this lumber, will you?”
            Thom laughed and nodded, turning.  “Right.  Sure.  Lumber.”
            Watchtowers, to keep them safe.  I just hope it’s enough.  He had no way of knowing one way or another, but he had to hope it would be.  After all, wishing for more time would only be some sort of exercise in futility.  He didn’t even know how much time they had in the first place.
            All I can do is hope it’s enough.