Awakenings

                The backlash of the ward-line snapping shot shivers down Thom’s spine, though he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to acknowledge the feeling.  It could have been just his imagination.
                That’s what he kept telling himself until he caught the barest glimpse of something gray in his peripheral vision and felt Carolyn tense at his side.
                “They’re coming,” she hissed, stepping away from his side.  “They broke through.  Stay behind me, Thom.”
                “I’m better with a sword than you are,” he reminded her none-too-gently.
                “When you don’t have broken ribs and a bad ankle, yeah,” Carolyn snapped back.  “Besides, you can’t see them right now, can you?”
                Thom bit his tongue.  The truth was, he couldn’t.  Any ability he’d had to see them before was something he’d lost now.  He couldn’t be sure what had done it.  “I can see them well enough to fight back.”
                Carolyn’s blade flashed.  Thom felt a burst of cold from in front of them, saw the vestiges of something falling to the ground.
                “Right,” she said.  “Just as well I promised Marin I’d look after you!”
                He felt his hackles rise.  She did what?
                “Don’t give me that look,” Carolyn said, glancing back over her shoulder at him.  “You’re lucky she let you on the line at all.”
                Thom swallowed his next protest.  She was right, of course, though he’d never admit to that.
                He drew his sword and straightened.  “Just point,” he growled.  “I’ll try not to let anything past us.”
                Carolyn stepped away from him faster than he anticipated, angling toward another flash of gray just at the edges of his perception.  Thom’s heart started to beat faster.
                If I focus, can I see them?  Or do I just need to stop looking?
                Something caught him full-on in the belly and knocked him sprawling, the wind knocked out of him.  Whatever hit him was frigid, and he swung wildly with the blade in his hand.
                It hit something solid that screamed, sending vibrations through him and the blade.  Something cold splashed across his face, his clothes, then immediately began to steam
                Something gray and translucent, looking insubstantial lay bisected on either side of him.  His heart quickened and he sucked in a breath.
                “Shit.”
                “Get up, Thom!”
                Ribs protesting, he shoved himself upright, stumbling to his feet, using the blade for leverage.  The toe of his sneaker caught against one half of the body; it was solid, much more solid than it looked.  “What the hell are they?”  he asked, trying not to wheeze.
                “Phelan called them gremlins.  Mar and Drew called them Greys.  Can you see it?”
                “Now that it’s dead?  Yeah, a little.”  Thom swallowed bile.  His blade wasn’t that sharp, was it?  Goddamn.  Is it?  He looked bleakly at his sword for a moment.
                Carolyn eyed the body grimly for a moment.  “Well, that’s something at least,” she muttered, then looked back ahead of them, toward the lines.  Thom could hear Marin shouting again over the sound of screams that hovered just on the very edge of his hearing.
                Is this what it’s like to live in a haunted house?  He wondered.  Everything just barely on the edges of your perception, so distant and ephemeral that you’re not quite sure they’re really there?
                Except that he knew they were there—at least his instincts did—but his conscious senses refused to cooperate with his instincts.
                Carolyn tensed again.  Thom set his jaw, bracing for another impact.
                “How many?”
                “Two.  Go left when I say go.”
                Thom nodded.  “Right.”
                She waited exactly three seconds.  “Go!”
                Thom moved to their left, leading with his sword.  The impact shivered along the blade, which went icy in his grip—so cold his fingers spasmed briefly and he nearly dropped it.  He added his other hand to gain a better grip, more leverage, then tried for a backhanded swing at whatever hit his blade.
                The sword sliced through open air and he stumbled, crying out as he came down harder on his bad ankle than he intended.
                Carolyn’s fingers closed on his arm and jerked him back upright.  As she hauled him straight again, he saw the Grey clearly for a brief moment.
                He lunged, aiming the tip of his sword for its neck.
                It went in clean, then stuck as he buried it to halfway down the blade.  He let go of the sword, stumbling again.  Carolyn caught him against her chest and held on for a moment, steadying him.  They both gasped for air as they watched the Grey fall gracelessly to the ground.
                “Are you all right?”  Carolyn asked between breaths.
                Thom mentally checked himself.  Pain was distant, though it was there—he’d pay for this fight after the rush wore off.  He swallowed, sucked in a couple more breaths, then nodded.
                “Yeah,” he said, still feeling breathless.  “Yeah, I’m okay.  Are you okay?”
                She nodded, chest still heaving as she let go of him and turned back toward the front line.
                The screams were ebbing, the strange light from the Greys hitting the wards dying down.
                “Do you think it’s over?”  Thom asked, trying to wrest his sword out of the dead gremlin’s neck.
                “I don’t know,” Carolyn said, taking a few tentative steps forward.  “Maybe.”
                Thom jerked his sword free.
                Ahead of them, a ragged cry went up, sounding like victory.  He could hear Marin’s voice above it, yelling for someone to go get Kellin from the other end of camp so they could patch a hole in the lines.
                His heart skipped a beat.  She’s okay.  Thank god, she’s okay.
                He wiped his sword on the grass and started for the front line.
                “Thom?”
                He waved Carolyn off.  “Go get Kellin and bring her to the wards.  Sounds like one of them went down.  I’m going to Marin.”
                Carolyn stared at him for a moment, then nodded.  “Right.  Tell Jay I’ll be there as soon as I round up Kellin.”
                Carolyn and J.T., huh? He smiled briefly and nodded.  “I will.  Go on, hurry.  We need to be ready just in case this is a lull and not an end.”
                They parted ways.  Carolyn jogged off for the far end of camp as he limped forward, feeling sore but strangely alive.
                Marin stood amid a pile of bodies, Drew next to her.  Rory picked his way through the piles, translucent gray corpses disappearing as he touched them.  Thom swallowed bile again.
                What the hell?  His eyes met Rory’s.  There was a bleakness in the other man’s gaze, almost pain.  Thom started to say something, but the words died on his tongue.  He just nodded.
                Rory nodded back, turning and heading deeper into camp.  Thom headed straight for Marin.
                “What are you doing up here?” she asked when she spotted him, eyes widening slightly.
                “Clear on the back line, so I came to you.”  He picked his way to her, reaching for her arm when he was close enough.  She took half a step toward him, then turned away, staring back toward the ravine.
                “What’s wrong?” he asked.
                “Phelan,” she said.  “We have to find him.  He’s down there somewhere.”
                Thom touched her elbow.  “What happened?”
                “I don’t know,” she whispered.  “But I’m not sure I want to find out, either.”
                He followed her gaze and swallowed hard.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to, either.
                Thom lifted his blade.  “I need five volunteers!” he shouted.  “We have a man down in the ravine and we’re not going to stop looking until we find him.”

            I yelled, starting to go after him.  J.T. caught my arm and jerked me back.
            “Stay on this side,” he shouted as the screams began; the Greys had started to throw themselves at the ward-lines again.  “You cross that now and they’ll tear you apart.”
            “But Phelan—”
            “You can’t help him now!”

            “There must be a thousand of them,” I murmured.  The voice I heard was not my own, the skin I wore was unfamiliar and yet familiar all at once.  Silver trinkets woven to my dark, reddish hair clinked softly against each other as I shook my head slowly, hand tightening around the haft of my great boar-spear.  “It’s too many.”
            “There’s no choice,” a voice whispered at my elbow.  My brother’s voice, I knew by instinct, though he didn’t sound like Matthew.  A wave of irritation washed through me.
            “I know there’s no choice,” I snapped, then glared down at him, eyes narrowing.  The figure wrapped in brown was solid, though leaner than I, and green-blue eyes filmed over by white gleamed from the depths of a hood.  My voice dropped.  “Head for the back, Ciar.  It’s too dangerous and I have already lost you once.  I will not stand to lose you again, brother.”
            His chin lifted for a moment, as if those blind-seeming eyes were searching my face, until he finally nodded.  “Gods walk with you, my sister, my chieftain.”  He touched my face gently before he turned and withdrew.  A shaggy hound—more wolf than dog—detached from my side and trotted after him.  The men behind us parted to let them pass.
            I stepped forward, clear of the line of warriors.  It was a ragged force of perhaps a hundred or a hundred and fifty, warriors and hunters, two dozen bowmen—that was all I had to face the host before us, waiting for us to come sweeping down from the high, wooded place where we had camped and waited for them.
            Five-score against a thousand.  Five-score and Phelan’s men, and Finn’s, should they arrive in time.
            I took a deep breath and lifted my spear.
            “Haghaidh fola agus tír!  Haghaidh imbolg!”
            My men roared the battle cry back at me.
            My heart began to beat faster, my voice rising.  “Haghaidh fola agus tír!  Haghaidh imbolg!”
            Spears rattled, men shouted.  A few voices yelled different oaths; one reached my ears, one rarely heard that left me heartened and shaken all at once.
            “Le haghaidh an taoiseach, do bhean Brighid!  Haghaidh imbolg!”
            I swallowed.  For the chieftain.  For Brighid.  For me.
            I lifted the spear one last time.  “Haghaidh imbolg!”
            Somewhere to my left, I heard a faint echo of our cry.  I grinned a Death’s head grin.
            Perhaps we’ll win the day after all.
            I whirled and ran toward the thousand.  My army poured after me, crying for the blood of our enemies and the honor of our people.  Our day would not end until the grass was stained red with blood.

            My vision cleared.  J.T. was still gripping my arm.  The vision couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds.  I looked past the curtain of Greys toward where Vammatar had been standing, ready to shake off J.T.’s grip and run to help Phelan if he needed it.
            Vammatar was gone.
            So was Phelan.
            “What the—where did they go?”  I clawed at J.T.’s arm.  “Jay, they’re gone!”
            He startled, too, and his gaze swept over the ground beyond the lines.  He shook his head.  “They must have backed over the edge.”  His muscles bunched beneath my fingers.  “Look sharp,” he said, jerking his chin toward the ward-lines.  “They’re pressing.”
            The invisible barrier that was the lines was starting to warp and bow.
            Shit.
            A cry went up to our left, coupled with a snapping sound I felt more than heard.  I darted past J.T., running toward the sound, toward the point where the Greys were pouring through a gap in the line.
            It was Drew and Rory’s section, and I could hear them shouting amidst the howls of the Greys.  A litany of curses ran non-stop through my brain as I laid about wildly with a staff I barely knew how to use.
            “Drew!”  I shouted over the din.  “Rory!”
            A Grey plowed into my side and bounced off.  Frost rimed my jeans and my arm felt like it had been engulfed in frigid fire.  My fingers convulsed.
            I didn’t drop the staff.
            A strange, deadly calm washed through me as I pivoted on the leg that wasn’t half-numbed from the impact.  The staff moved like it was an extension of my body, of me, and it sluiced sideways, quicker than I ever thought I was capable of moving.  I caught the Grey over where its ear should have been.
            Its skull caved in like a rotten piece of fruit.
            Part of me felt like I should be puking on the corpse.  The other part urged me to keep moving damn it all.
            I listened to the latter, plunging through the narrow tide of Greys washing into camp.
            “Marin!”
            I reached Rory first.  He pointed to a spot on the line.
            “They managed to knock it out of true!  Can  you fix it?”
            “I don’t know!”  If I try, I’ll be vulnerable to attack every second I’m working on it.  No idea how long it could take, if it worked at all.  “We need to hold them here!”
            “Easier said than done,” Rory snapped, his staff coming down on the head of another Grey, which stumbled back but didn’t go down.
            I dropped low and cut its legs out from under it, then whipped the tip of my staff at its head.
            The Grey went still.
            I wasn’t even breaking a sweat.  That terrified me.  I didn’t feel anything except for a terrible, terrible calm.
            Rory glanced at me as he tripped up another Grey.  “Are you all right?”
            “No,” I whispered, though he couldn’t hear it.  “No, I’m not okay.”
            I threw myself toward a knot of Greys anyhow, catching a glimpse of Drew at the heart of the melee in this section.
            Settle down, settle down.  Trust your instincts.
            Even if you don’t know where they’re coming from.
            But I did.  It was the woman I’d seen in the vision—the woman I’d been in the vision.  Touching J.T. must have had a strange effect on me.  I’d never really seen anything like that before.
            I hoped I wouldn’t again.
            In the middle of a fight wasn’t the best time to start believing in past lives.
            Well, not your own past lives.
                “Drew!”
                I made a path for myself through the mob.  A few more Greys went down before they began to scatter before me.  Drew bettered one before it got a few steps deeper into camp, but two more ducked past, headed for our secondary lines.
                Oh god.  Please be ready for them.
                Thom had insisted on being on the second line.  There had been no dissuading him.
                I prayed he knew what he was getting into.
                “I’m okay,” Drew called to me.  “I’ve got this, it’s okay.”
                “Obviously not.”  I knocked a Grey sprawling only to have another pop up in its place.  “We need to hold the line!”
                “Sealing it would be better!  Where’s Phelan?”
                Words stuck in my throat and I choked on them. 
                “I don’t know,” I managed to say, closing in on him.  “I think we’re on our own.”
                The idea frightened me, though not as badly as the prospect of Phelan’s death.  He could already be dead or dying down there in the ravine, locked in mortal combat with Vammatar.
                There was nothing I could do about that now, though.  I set my stance and held my ground.  All we could do was keep holding on until this was over—however it ended.

            “I wondered how long it would take you to get the upper hand,” Phelan said.  “What did you have to promise him?  What was left of your soul?”
            She tsked.  “So high and mighty, Wandering One.  You’re no saint.  You act like you’ve got a soul left to barter with yourself.”  Her feet touched the ground and she prowled toward him like some kind of great cat.  “Did you want a parley, kutevat saari, or are you just trying to vex me further?”  Her eyes flashed as she looked beyond him, eyes lighting on me before her gaze slid to Matt and then on to J.T.  “You came to parley,” she purred, lips twisting into a cruel smile, “and I know why.”
            My stomach did a full somersault inside my belly.  I don’t like the sound of this.  Not at all, not one iota.  I squeezed my staff, the wood oddly warm under my cold fingers.
            A muscle in Phelan’s jaw twitched.  “This is between you and I, Vammatar, and no one else.  Send your army back to where it came from and my friends will stand down.”
            J.T. tensed up beside me.  I held a hand out toward him.  Settle, Jay.  Settle.  Let him play this the way he needs to play this.  For now, anyway.
            She was watching us, not Phelan.  “It seems they may have other plans.  Of course, mine might, too.”  Vammatar flashed a predator’s smile.  “I don’t think I can make that deal, especially for a dirty little trickster like you.  Do they know how many people have died for you, for your precious little causes?”
            “Yes,” I said, unable to stay silent as she mocked him.  The words welled up from somewhere I couldn’t identify, mine but not.  I took a slow step forward.  My heart started to pound.  “And we don’t give a damn because we’re not them and we’re not going to die today.  From my lips to the gods’ ears and I know they’re out there listening and waiting to see how this all plays out.”
            Phelan shot me a look of pure terror as I stopped just shy of the ward line.  I met his gaze with a calm, measured look that I hoped told him I knew what I was doing—even though I didn’t.
            Where are the words coming from?  How do I know what to say?
            Vammatar stared at me, smirking a little, knowing smirk.  “I can smell your fear, Seer.  Lying does you no good.”
            There’s that Seer term again.  I hate that everyone seems to know that about me from just looking.  I swallowed, lifting my chin to meet her gaze head-on.  “Posturing doesn’t do you any good, either, outsider.  Phelan offered you a choice.  Take it or leave it, but know that there are consequences to either choice.”
            The corner of her mouth twitched as she looked back toward Phelan.  “She has fire, that one.  You and yours don’t deserve that kind of spawn, O’Credne.”

 
            Her arm moved, almost faster than I could blink.  Something darkly bright sprang from her fingers, turning end over end, spinning too fast to really perceive.
            Phelan dodged in front of me, then fell, a knife protruding from his eye—a knife meant for me.  I cried out and moved, only to be swarmed by the Greys.

 
            “Knife!”  I yelled, hitting the dirt.
            Phelan twisted toward the sound of my voice and cried out as the knife that Vammatar threw bit into the flesh of his shoulder.  As he dropped to one knee, I lifted my heard to meet Vammatar’s gaze.
            She looked shocked, almost shaken.
            It was almost as if she was wondering how I’d known.
            I wasn’t supposed to know what she was doing before she did it.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  It wasn’t in how she foresaw this going.
            I grinned at her and shouted, “Fire at will, fire at will!”
            The sound of gunfire echoed across the field, through the ravines.
            Vammatar screamed.
            The Greys stood frozen for a brief moment as they watched birdshot chew through Vammatar’s fine cloak and the leather armor beneath.
            I scrambled across the line and grabbed Phelan by the arm.  He tried to throw me back.
            “No!” he shouted over the gunfire.  “It’s my fight!”
            “We made it ours!” I yelled back, latching on again.  “Either take her out or fall back across the line!”
            Something flashed through his eyes before he set his jaw and darted back to the safety of the ward-lines with me.
            “Remind me when this is over to make you a gods-be-damned spear,” he muttered.  He reached up and yanked Vammatar’s knife out of his shoulder.  He winced heartily and I cursed, reaching for the wound.
            “What the hell did you do that for?”
            “Let it bleed,” he growled as he sniffed at the blade, then cast it aside.  “It’s not poisoned.  I’ll live.”  He took me by the hand and pulled me to my feet as he straightened up again.
            The Greys were starting to move.  I began to turn away, but he held me firm, facing him.
            “Look at me, Marin.”
            “Phelan, we don’t have time for this,” I snapped.  His fingers dug into my arm.
            His eyes snared mine.  “What you did was stupid and dangerous and pretty fucking heroic and I’m impressed but don’t let me ever see you pulling shit like that again.  Unless we take her down now, she’s going to be gunning for you for the rest of your life.”
            “Then I guess we know what we have to do.”
            His eyes hardened, but for a brief moment I thought they misted over slightly—but only for a moment.
            “Yeah,” he said, almost hoarsely.  “We do.”
            He spun away, howling a battle cry that sent shivers through me from its strange familiarity, and ran straight at Vammatar.

            Everything went silent before the attack came.
            No birds called in the trees.  The wind didn’t blow.  We scarcely dared to breathe.  No one talked.  We just took position and waited in that aching, terrifying silence.
            Something twitched, moved in the foliage down below us, in the ravine.  I swallowed hard, set my stance.  I was at the heart of the forward line, J.T. within arm’s reach to my left and Matt to my right.
            There was a flash of burning cold on my arm, almost enough to make me drop the staff in my hand.  My stomach flopped over itself and I had to swallow again, forcing bile back down.
            Steady, Marin.  Steady.  I sucked in a breath and looked over at Matt.
            “Stand fast,” I whispered into the stillness and silence.  “We can do this.”
            The howl of a thousand voices echoed through the ravines.  It shot shivers up and down my spine.
            Then they came boiling up over the lip of the ravine toward us, an undulating mass of chest-high, gray-black figures with eyes that glowed like sickly witchlights.
            Thirty meters until they hit the wards.
            “Hold!”  I bellowed, summoning up courage and voice I hadn’t known I had.
            Twenty-five meters.
            “Hold!”
            Twenty meters.
            “Guns ready!”
            A few voices echoed my call.  My heart began to beat a little faster.
            Fifteen meters.
            “Wait for it.”
            Ten.
            “Fire!”
            The shotguns we’d gotten loaded with Paul’s birdshot went off almost in unison.  They took a devastating toll on the leading edge of the Greys’ line.  Dozens dropped, shrieking in pain, a sound that set my teeth on edge.  It didn’t stop their advance, though.  It just slowed them down a little.  They kept coming, running over their injured, their dead and dying, as inexorable as a storm surge.
            “Reload, reload, reload!”  I shouted as I braced for the wave.
            Five meters to the ward lines.
            They hit the lines and the world erupted into color and inhuman screams.
            “Aim and fire, aim and fire!”  I yelled, struggling to be heard over the sound.  It was enough to make you want to drop everything and run in the opposite direction.
            I looked up and down our battle line.  It was holding.
            So were the wards.
            A hand fell on my shoulder.  I startled, head snapping to the side.
            Phelan’s fingers tightened briefly and he stepped past me, into the fifteen-meter gap between our line and the wards.  His voice was a little ragged, but steadied after a moment.
            “I know you’re behind this, Vammatar!  Come out here and face me if you’ve got the stomach.”  He stopped dead-center in the gap, planting his staff against his instep, squinting past the lightshow that was the wards-line.
            The Greys pulled back, like a wave washing back into the ocean.  Dozens lay strewn across the open ground between the wards and the edge of the ravines.
            I put up a hand to signal the others to hold their fire.  My heart was in my throat.
            “Phelan,” J.T. hissed, “what are you doing?”
            “Taking responsibility,” Phelan said firmly, not looking back.  “It’s time I did that.”
            “Do you have a death wish?”  J.T. asked, voice strained.
            I could just barely see the corner of Phelan’s mouth twitch upward in a smile.  “Maybe.  I hope not.”
            The sea of gray-black parted and Vammatar strode through the gap, blood-red cloak billowing in the wind she created through her firm stride.
            “Oh, Wandering One.  I think you do.  I really, really think you do.”

Tacking this on to the end as a treat for folks — I did a redesign of the Awakenings Book One cover in anticipation of releasing both the expanded edition and the paperback edition. I though y’all might like a peek.

A lot of symbolism going on in that cover! Might have to explain it in the FAQ. Speaking of, anyone who has questions for the FAQ, please post them here so I can add them into the manuscript before I’m done with edits.

            “We’d better get everyone over here for a few minutes, then,” Thom said, then limped toward Matt, who was still working with Tala a few feet away.
            Phelan nodded as he splashed a few drops of water into the mortar and pestle, followed by a few holly leaves and berries.  His gaze lifted to Jacqueline, who watched him with a sort of shocked fascination, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d just said.
            “Kneel down, aingel, and give me a hand here.”
            “What are we doing?”  Jacqueline asked as she dropped to her knees in front of him.
            Phelan nodded to the holly he was grinding.  “D’you remember what it felt like when you healed Kellin?”
            Jacqueline looked vaguely uncomfortable but nodded.  “Mostly.  But holly isn’t a person and I’m not desperate.”
            He chuckled softly.  “Same principle.  Pay attention, now, and try to follow what I’m doing, hm?”
            Seems like he’s found himself an apprentice.  I turned away and joined Thom, Matt, and Tala.  The cluster was growing.  Jack had appeared from somewhere, looking more than a little nervous about the prospect of another fight with something supernatural.  He stared at me for a moment and swallowed hard.
            I shot him a reassuring smile and then looked at Matt, who crouched at the center of the circle with a sharp twig, a vague sketch of the settlement in front of him in the dirt.  He marked out Thom’s proposed three lines of defense quickly as Kellin, J.T., and some of the others crowded behind Tala, Thom, Carolyn, and I.
            “Two lines and a central fallback point here by the fire,” Matt said, glancing up over his shoulder at Thom.  “Right?”
            Thom nodded.  “Right.  Sounds like they’ll be coming up from the ravines and not across open ground, which means we can arrange ourselves in a wedge instead of actual rings.”
            “Will we be able to react in time if you’re wrong about that?”  Jack asked.  “If they come at us from the wall sides?”
            “We’ll just have to hope that the walls slow them down enough that we’ve got time for that,” Carolyn said quietly.  “They’re good, strong walls.  It’ll take some effort to get over or through.”  There were still spots where the walls weren’t as high as we wanted, and there was a ten-foot opening where we planned for a gate someday.
            “Should we post someone in the gap?”  Rory asked, crossing his arms and frowning down at Matt’s dirt-sketch.  “Just in case?”
            Kellin glanced at me.  “Davon, do you think?”
            “We need someone sensitive in that gap,” I said.  “Davon hasn’t shown any sign of being able to see anything.”
            “It comes and goes,” Jacqueline piped up from what she was doing.  Phelan made a displeased sound and her attention snapped back to their work.
            Kellin shrugged a little. “Guess it’ll be me, then.  I’ll do it.”
            Part of me was relieved she’d volunteered for that duty.  While her depression had eased, I was still a little concerned about the prospect of her being in the thick of a fight.
            “Are you sure, Kel?”  Carolyn asked.
            Kellin considered the question for a moment before she nodded.  “Yeah.  I’m sure.  It’s probably the best place for me.  I can see them coming and sound the alarm if I’ve got to.”
            “Well, that means we just need people to watch the pathways coming up from behind that,” Thom gestured to the ruin of Robinson Hall, “and then the rest of the ring to the south.”
            A sound echoed off the ruins, off the trees, a cry mixed with a howl. 
            Everyone went silent.  The hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms stood up on end and a shiver shot down my spine.
            “They’re coming,” Carolyn whispered, eyes focused somewhere far away.  “It’s the Greys.  They’re coming.”
            My hand covered the mark on my arm.  There are more of them than there are camazotzi, but how many?  How can we stand against them?
            “We don’t have enough people,” I murmured.
            Thom touched my shoulder.  “But we’ve got those wards.  Those have to do us some good, right?”
            “With any luck, they’ll do more than a little good.”  Phelan twisted around and looked up at us.  “At least with the initial wave.  Or waves.”  He got to his feet.  “But we don’t have much time.  Let me see those swords.  All of them, unsheathed, quick now.”
            He got some strange looks, but after a moment the sound of blades scraping out of sheathes filled the air.  Jacqueline pressed a staff into my hand and smiled bravely before she turned away and scooped up a small bowl filled with a mixture of water and pulped holly.  Her eyes slid closed as she took up position alongside Phelan, her lips moving in silent prayer over the tiny bowl.
            My heart skipped a beat.
            Phelan began to sing as he dipped his fingers into the mixture, a liquid tumble of Gaelic sounds, rising and falling like the wind before a storm.  I swore that tattoo on the back of his neck began to glow as he swiped two fingers along the flat Matt’s blade first.  My throat thickened.  Power rose within the circle like high tide.
            Matt’s eyes widened and his breath caught. He stared at Phelan, his hands shaking a little around the weapon’s hilt.
            Phelan smiled and moved on to the next blade, and the next, and the next.
            Another cry echoed through the ravines as he finished with the blades and moved on to my staff, his, Jacqueline’s and Rory’s.  He gave me a tight smile.
            “Everything will be okay,” I whispered, putting a hand gently on his arm.
            “I hope you’re right,” he whispered.  “The gremlins coming means that she won.”

            We reached the fire as most of the others were gathering there.  Matt frowned at me, looking away from instructing Tala in the finer points of aiming and shooting a shotgun even as he belted on the bigger woman’s festival rapier around his waist.  “Where’s Phelan?”
            “He went to get holly,” Carolyn said.  “Jac, he said you two would need a mortar and pestle and a bucket of water.”
            Jacqueline blinked, but nodded.  “Right.”  She moved quickly, rising and darting toward the well.
            Thom took me by the elbow, drawing me slightly aside.  “What are we looking at?”
            He was leaning on one crutch but most of his weight was on his good leg.  His broken ankle had improved markedly over the last few weeks, but J.T. had been keeping a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t push his limits too much.  I was afraid he was about to do it, too, since his festival sword was riding on his hip.  I frowned, staring at the blade.
            He sighed softly and touched my cheek.  “You didn’t really think that I was telling Matt to get it to use himself, did you?  All he knows is that the pointed end goes in the bad guy.  He’d hurt himself trying to fight with it at this point.”
            “So will you,” I murmured, tearing my eyes away from the weapon to meet his gaze.
            “I hope not.  I’m tired of it.”  He rested his forehead against mine.  “I’ll be careful.  Now come on.  Tell me what we’re up against.”
            I swallowed hard.  “We don’t know yet.  All we know is that whatever’s out there in the ravine stopped fighting amongst themselves and maybe could be coming for us.  We’re waiting.”
            He nodded slightly, putting his arms gently around my waist.  I leaned into him, sighing quietly.  I hate the waiting.  I hate not knowing.
            “We’ll get through it,” he murmured.  “All of us, in one piece.  I promise.”
            Carolyn cleared her throat behind me and I jerked, straightening and pulling away from Thom.
            “What is it?”  I asked.  “Are they moving?”
            “Not yet.  Paul and Stasia are driving the flocks across the lines.  What are we going to do?”
            “Three rings of defense,” Thom said quietly.  “Most able at the exterior line, with the firearms and most of the swords.  Angie and Tala  and Jac here at the center, which is the last line and our fallback point.  Anyone that gets hurt needs to shift back here.”
            Carolyn shook her head.  “Thom, we don’t have the manpower for that.  There aren’t that many of us.”
            “We’ll make it work,” he said firmly, glancing at me for support.  I sighed quietly and shook my head a little.
            “It might work.  We don’t have to ring the whole camp, just the ravine sides.  That’s where they’ll come from.”  At least I think that’s where they’ll come from.  I hope they don’t try to surround us.  There were probably enough of them to pull that off, though.
            “What might work?”  Kellin asked as she joined us, red-faced and breathless.
            “Thom’s plan,” Carolyn said.  “Three lines, one nearest to the ravines and the wards, one further in, then a knot back here by the fire.”
            Kellin looked between Carolyn and I.  “How many are we talking about?”
            “We don’t know.”  Could be dozens, or hundreds, or thousands.  Shivers worked their way up my spine.  I hope dozens, or less than dozens.  I hope none at all.
            Thom squeezed my arm, his palm covering the mark, warming it slightly.
            “No movement yet,” Phelan called from behind us.  “But they’re stirring.  Something’s coming.”
            His was torso bare except for the gauze taped over his stitches.  He’d taken off his shirt so he could carry a tangled mass of holly leaves and berries, the bundle cradled in his arms like something precious.  Rory came on his heels, carrying four staves—one of them Phelan’s—in hand.
            “Set them there, Rory,” Phelan said as he knelt down near the fire and spread his shirt over the bare earth.  Quick fingers made small ornaments of leaves and berries, which he lashed to the balance point of each stave.
            “What are those for?”  I asked.
            He grinned over his shoulder at me.  “Protection.  Staves for you, me, Rory, and Jac.  Where is she, anyway?”
            “I’m here,” she said, huffing as she hauled a bucket of water over, a basket bumping against her hip, trapped between it and her elbow.  She set the bucket down heavily next to Phelan, then started to unload the requested mortar and pestle.  “What are we going to do with these?”
            Phelan’s eyes glittered.  “We’re going to bless the blades and the staves and the ammunition and hope that I haven’t lost my touch—and that yours is as strong as I think it is.”

            “They stopped,” Carolyn said suddenly, taking half a step toward the very edge of the ward-lines.
            My heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of my feet and I swallowed hard.  “Who won?”
            “I’m not sure anyone did,” Carolyn said.  “They’re arguing again.  Words instead of flinging their allies at each other.”  She looked at us, grimacing.  “So much for hoping they’d waste themselves fighting each other.”
            Phelan shook his head.  “I didn’t think we’d be that lucky.  Vammatar’s smarter than that.  Apparently, so is her opponent.”
            “Do we even know who—or what—he is?” Matt asked, looking down at Phelan and I.  “Or is he just some overgrown camazotzi?”
            “I’m not sure,” Phelan said, “though I do have some theories, none of them very good for us.  The only upside is that if I’m right, Vammatar wouldn’t work with any of them in about a million and a half years.”
            A million and a half.  Apparently that’s an important half.  I bit down on my tongue as I got to my feet.  “Matt, go send someone to relieve Drew.  We’re going to need him.”
            My brother grunted, looking at me sidelong.  “Anything else you need me to do?”
            “Yeah, get everyone else to the fire so we can get organized before these things come boiling up out of the ravine at us.”
            “I can do that,” he said.  He reached over and squeezed my shoulder before he turned and jogged away, shotgun still in hand.  I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, then looked at Phelan.
            “Theories, now.  Before we go back and pow-wow with the others.”
            Phelan stared at me for a moment, then glanced at Carolyn, as if she’d help him fend me off.  She crossed her arms and just stared back, clearly sharing my thoughts on the matter.
            Finally, he just sighed and looked back at me, holding up three fingers.  “Three possibilities crossed my mind, but there’s one that’s most likely, though I shudder to think of how he got his claws into the camazotzi.”
            “You’re not really explaining, Phelan,” I said, crossing my arms.
            “Be patient,” he snapped.  “I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts in order.  Just bear with me a second.”  He sucked in a breath and exhaled it in a rush.  “Enyalius, Gurzil, and Cariocecus.  I can’t be sure it’s any of them, but I’d lay the strongest odds on Cariocecus.  He’s a warmaker and needs as much power as he can garner.”  Phelan’s brows knit.  “Of course, so does Enyalius, if only to step out of his father’s shadow for once.  Could be either one of them, really.  The more I think about it, I don’t think it could be Gurzil at all.  We’re too far out of his comfort zone and he’s the type that needs a horde of priests to make him feel powerful enough to take on much of anyone.”  He rubbed at his temple and shuddered slightly.  “Did it just get very, very still out here?”
            It had.  I frowned and reached down, pulling him to his feet.
            “I think our time’s up,” I said, feeling my pulse begin to quicken.  “Better get back to the others.  You can tell us the rest about the two it might be on the way.”
            He swallowed but nodded, then squeezed my arm gently.  “The wards will keep them out at least for a time.  Don’t panic, Marin.  You’re made of stronger stuff than that.”
            If I am, it’s news to me.  I just nodded, looking past him to Carolyn.  “What do they see?”
            “Nothing,” she said quietly.  “But they’re coming back to the lines.  They think something’s about to go sideways.”  She looked at me.  “So do I.”
            “Yeah, me too.”  I tugged Phelan toward the tents, toward the fire and the others.
            Phelan kept talking as we walked, his voice low.  “Cariocecus is probably the most likely, because he could have been exposed to the camazotzi thanks to the conquistadores and their adventures in Camazotz’s territory, or at least caught whiffs of their existence.  He’s the type that likes to possess people rather than inhabit his own skin—or so the legends I’ve heard say.  Enyalius is a bit trickier.  He’s more powerful and a little more clever.  The good news is, neither of them have a grudge against me.”
            “And the bad news?”  Carolyn prompted.
            “They’re stubborn, like a hound worrying a bone, and powerful.”  He grimaced.  “And Vammatar is equally stubborn, but more vindictive, and she had a grudge.  If they don’t take each other out, we’re going to have to fight them on both fronts.”
            I don’t like the sound of that.  “Can we win?”
            “I hope so.”  Phelan frowned, then changed directions, heading perpendicular to our previous course.
            I spun, reaching for him.  “Where are you going?”
            “To get some holly,” he said, strides lengthening as he apparently forced any feeling of discomfort from his mind.  “We’ll need it for the blessings.”
            “The blessings?”  I asked, feeling abruptly bewildered.
            “Aye, on the weapons.  Some of you have steel, right?”
            “Well, yeah.”  Not all of it is combat steel, though.  “Why?”
            He grinned over his shoulder at me and Carolyn, who was a step behind me.  “Believe me, it’ll work better than bullets.  Tell Jac to get a bucket of water and one of the mortar and pestles.  She and I can work while you two plan.  I’ll meet you back by the fire, go!”
            I stared at him for a second as he broke into a jog, heading toward the line of holly bushes that we’d planted in the weeks before.
            “What the hell is he talking about?”  Carolyn asked me.
            “I have no idea.  Come on.  We’re just going to have to trust him.”

            It was like listening to a bard of old, a teller of tales and guardian of history.  I wondered, briefly and not for the first time, if he’d been a druid in some long ago past life—with his power, his staff, and all those tattoos, he certainly could have been mistaken for one.
            “Long ago in Ireland, there was a holy man named Bréanainn.   He gathered to him fourteen men to go on a grand voyage across the sea to places unknown.  It’s an old tale, doubtless one you’ve already heard.  There’s more to the story than that, though.  The fourteen men each had a ship apiece, each carrying fourteen others, to begin a new life far away from the old.  Men and women, children, hounds and chickens and all the rest.  We knew that it would be a long journey, but it would be worth it to escape the coming bloodshed.”  Phelan’s eyes focused distantly, as if he could see that long-ago past.
            “Two hundred and twenty-five souls boarded fifteen boats and sailed into the sunset one fine summer afternoon.  Bréanainn was much like all of you—his blood carried gifts from beyond normal ken.  I had watched him for a time.  He was a great leader, an inspiring man, a dreamer.  He believed me when I spoke of wars beyond imagining, wars that had lasted thousands of years, of hates older than time itself.  There was another war coming, I could see it, could feel it in my bones.  Pieces on the boards were moving.  He could feel it too.
            “I sailed with them.  It took us seven months to make the crossing and we almost didn’t make it.  We landed somewhere on the coast and then walked and hunted our way inland, finally settled on a rocky slope overlooking fertile fields with a forest at our backs and for a time, we knew peace.  We traded with the natives—they were fascinated by us, by how we looked and spoke, by our instruments, our songs.  We of course were equally fascinated by them.”
            Phelan grew quiet then and just stared at nothing, his pain over what came next almost palpable.  I knelt down next to him and rested my hand on his shoulder.  He flinched slightly and shivered.
            “We had been there for seven years when it all began.  Strange ghosts in the darkness, the sound of spears against shields.  Then the dragon ships came, sailing up the river.  We could see them from the hill, so different from the war canoes of our neighbors.  I knew what it meant, knew what they’d come for.  Vammatar…Vammatar and I’d had words in the past, though so long ago that I’d dared to hope she’d simply forget about me if I wasn’t in her path, wasn’t standing in her way.  I was wrong.  She came for war and she brought warriors with her.  I had farmers and holy men, women and children—innocents.
            “One night, I went to Bréanainn and told him he had to flee, to take as many as he could and steal away in the night.  I was almost too late.  As it was, some of the refused to leave—they were as loyal to me as they were to Bréanainn, much to my eternal regret.  I never meant for that to happen.”  A tear trickled down his cheek.  “The night Vammatar came, every one of them that had remained to stand with me were slaughtered, save for two women and a child.  The boy—gods and monsters, I pray his line lives on—put my spear through Vammatar’s shoulder before she could end me once and for all.  She’d sworn vengeance on me for a slight that had happened before the boy was ever a glimmer and he saved my life.
            “I woke up four days later in a native camp.  The two women and the boy had been taken up the river to another settlement where they might be safe.  As soon as I recovered enough, I crossed back to home and didn’t return for another three hundred years.”  He swallowed hard.  “Just in time for the Vikings to show up in Ireland and make a mess of things.”
            I squeezed his shoulder gently and he laid his hand over mine, squeezing my fingers.  “Forty-seven people died for me that day.  Vammatar’s words cut to the bone.  I didn’t want it to happen, but it did, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
            He looked at me.  “That’s not going to happen here, even if I have to sacrifice myself to make it so.”
            “That’s not going to happen,” I said.
            He made a quiet noise in the back of his throat.  “You know, I never did know if they actually made it back to Ireland.  Bréanainn and the rest.  I hope that they did, but I was in no shape to try and find out, and my uncle had a right fit when I came back and he found out what had happened.  Tried to forbid me from ever coming back.”  He smiled humorlessly.  “Of course, it didn’t work.”
            Matt snorted softly.  “You know, Phelan, sometimes I wonder about this uncle of yours.”
            A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.  “He loved us, but he didn’t do a very good job of ruling his own family.  Then again, he always said that I reminded him too much of his sister, who could be ruled by no one.”  He waved his hands and shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter now, anyhow.  He is gone and the ways are closed.  There’s no going back again, not that I would ever want to.”  He straightened.  “My place is here with all of you.  I just hope that I can withstand her, or at least turn her back for a time.”  He swallowed hard, then said quietly, “I have to.”
            I squeezed his shoulder again, heart aching, but knowing that if it came down to it, there were some of us who would already die for him—whether he wanted it or not.
            It would be our choice, and that was all there was to it.

            I went back to the ward-lines, Thom’s protests still echoing in my ears.  Carolyn came with me, leaving J.T. to organize the defenses back by the fire.  She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, staring at the ravine, at the trees.
            “What are they telling you?” I murmured softly.
            She shivered.  “That we might have enough time for Kellin to get back with Paul and Stasia and the flock.  Deadlocked down there, apparently, but getting uglier by the second.”  She glanced at me.  “I want to tell them to stop watching and come back to where it’s safe.”
            She meant the fairies, the tiny refugees from the shattered Shakespeare Garden that had been our allies since the day the camazotzi tore the garden apart.  Carolyn could see them without trying—I only caught glimmers when they wanted me to see them, and most of the others could only sense their presence.
            But they talked to Carolyn, trusted Carolyn, and thanks to that relationship, they helped us and we let them share our space, our wards, and our safety.
            A glimmer of green and blue on Carolyn’s shoulder told me that Longfellow—a young fairy who had a particular attachment to her—was about, probably perching there and relaying her the information.  I watched her for a moment, frowning slightly.
            “They’re smart enough to know when things are getting too hot, Care,” I said, resting my hand on her shoulder.  “Trust their judgment.”
            She nodded, eyes still focused far away.  “I’m going to have to,” she muttered, then sighed.  “You didn’t have to come out here with me.  I would’ve been fine.”
            I shook my head slightly.  “I could say the same thing to you.  One way or another, we’re out here together.”  My hand slipped from her shoulder as I walked to the nearest ward, a few feet away.  My skin prickled with the energy coming off of it; it was refreshing, like jumping into a cold pool on a hot day.
            Still intact.  That was good.
            “Nothing’s messed around with them since we set them again, right?”
            I nodded.  “Just the same as they were the day Phelan got here.  I don’t have any explanations for it.”
            “I thought maybe we were wrong about Leah,” Carolyn said.  I glanced back over my shoulder at her and she smiled wryly.  “Until today, anyway.  Until I heard what she said.”  Her smile faded.  “What does it mean?”
            “That’s why I needed to talk to Phelan,” I murmured.  “I wish he’d been of more help.”
            “Sounded like he was hearing voices, too.”
            “He was.”
            Matt had a shotgun propped against his shoulder as he joined us, expression grim.  “I didn’t want to tell you in front of everyone.  I don’t think he wanted to tell everyone.”
            I blinked at him.  “Why not?”
            Matt shrugged slightly.  “You don’t think he’s crazy, Thom doesn’t think he’s crazy, and sometimes I don’t think he’s crazy, but I think that Phelan thinks the rest of us might not judge him sane if he doesn’t at least make an effort to act like he is.”
            I snorted humorlessly and turned away.  “What else did he tell you?”
            “Not much,” Matt said, coming to stand between Carolyn and I.  “About the same as what you guys already know.  The shadow guy and that Vammatar chick are going toe to toe down there and he can sense them doing it.  He said it echoed and he was open so he started to hear it.  Rung his head like a bell.”
            “Was that when his eyes rolled back into his skull?”  Carolyn asked.
            Matt nodded.  “Yeah, that was about when it happened.  Thom started seeing shit and Jacqueline and I just kind of sat there for a second until Thom snapped out of it.  Jac couldn’t carry Phelan alone and neither of us wanted to leave Thom up there by himself.  We hadn’t been down by the fire for very long when you guys got back.”  He glanced at me.  “Where did you guys put Leah?”
            “Tied up inside of the supply tent.  Drew’s watching her.”  We’d checked on the way out to the lines.  She was still out like a light, a bruise forming where I’d clocked her.  Jacqueline could take a look at it later, we’d decided.  I shook my head.  “I didn’t want to believe that she—or anyone else—would betray us like that.  I guess I know why.”
            “If you could let me in on why, I’d appreciate it,” Matt said dryly.
            Carolyn glanced at him.  “I don’t think it’s that big of a logical leap to assume that if she was hearing their voices in her head that they’d been talking to her—or at least one of them was.”
            Matt frowned.  “So what does that mean for Phelan?  He could hear them, too, like they were broadcasting clear as day.”
            What does that mean?  I frowned a little.  “If I were to venture a guess?  Could be something and could be nothing.   If it means something, it’s that we’ve got an advantage.  Vammatar came after him up by the barrow.  They have some kind of history.”
            “What kind of history?”  Matt asked.
            “A very violent one,” Phelan said wearily as he joined us.  “Carolyn, are they still in deadlock out there?”
            She nodded mutely, staring at him for a moment before she said, “I thought you could hear them.”
            “Closed the door,” Phelan said, sitting down slowly on the ground near Matt’s feet.  “Took more effort than I thought it would, but I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing in the first place.”  He smiled humorlessly up at me.  “It’s the kind of thing I kept telling Teague not to do because it’d get him killed someday.”
            “Well,” I said quietly, “I suppose it hasn’t yet, and it didn’t kill you this time.  Whatever doesn’t end us makes us stronger, right?”
            He grunted and nodded, looking away again.  “Yeah, something like that,” he muttered.  “Vammatar could, if she wanted to.  She almost did.  It’s the second time that’s happened.”
            “Second time?”  Matt looked askance at him.
            Phelan nodded slowly.  “Second time.  And if they’re still deadlocked out there, maybe I have time to tell the story.”
            Maybe it’ll give us some insights about how to fight her—and anything else that gets thrown our way.  “Well, then,” I said quietly.  “We’re all ears.”
            Phelan took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and then began to tell us everything.

            Phelan wasn’t at the forge.   He and Thom were near the cook fire instead; Thom painfully hunched over his knees with a wet rag against the back of his neck, Phelan flat on his back with a similar cloth across his eyes and forehead.   Jacqueline and Matt stood nearby, both looking worried and more than a little nervous.  
            Screw me sideways.   “What happened to them?”
            “Thom was daydreaming again,” Jacqueline said quietly.   Matt gave her an exasperated look.  
            “He started to have a vision about the same time Phelan’s eyes rolled back in his skull and he started screaming with no sound coming out.   Is something about to attack us?”
            “Maybe,” I said, glancing toward Rory and J.T. “Better rally the troops just in case.   Grab Kellin to help.   Is Paul in camp?”
            “He’s out with the flocks.   Stasia’s with him.” Matt swallowed nervously.   “Shadows or grays?”
            “I don’t know,” I said, feeling as sick to my stomach as he suddenly looked.   “We might not have much time, Matty.   Hop to.”
            Matt glanced at Thom and Phelan before starting to move away.   Thom lifted his head.  
            “Matt,” he croaked, “Mine’s in the wardrobe next to where we sleep.”
            The muscles in Matt’s jaw bunched and he nodded, then jogged away.  
            Thom looked at me wearily.   “What’s going on?”
            “Something Phelan warned us might happen.   Sounds like there’s a war starting down there and whoever wins will be coming after us.”
            Rory looked at me strangely.   “How do you figure?”
            “What Leah said, that’s how.”  I studied Phelan for a moment before I looked at Jacqueline.  “Is he okay?”
            She nodded, looking grim.  “Yeah.  He’s awake under there, but he told me that talking hurt.  Something about echoes.”
            “There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Rory muttered, then yelped in pain.  J.T. smiled a grim, satisfied smile and kept tending to Rory’s gash.
            “Well, he’s going to have to talk because I don’t know how else we’re going to figure this out.”  I nudged Phelan with my toe.  “Did you hear that?”
            One of his hands lifted and he gestured vaguely, then gave me a thumbs-up—a signal I hoped meant that he’d heard me.
            I crossed my arms and stared down at Phelan’s prone form even as Thom levered himself to his feet and limped to my side.
            “What did Leah say?”
            I looked at him sidelong.  “That the shadow from her dreams and the pale lady were fighting over her in her head and that their voices were too loud for her to function.”
            Thom’s eyes widened.
            Phelan sat bolt upright.  “She said what?  Ooh…”  He started to topple over, gripping his head between both hands.  Jacqueline moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before and caught him before he hit.  She eased him back down, tongue clicking maternally.
            “Stay down, you dumb bastard,” she muttered, dropping the cloth back over his face again.
            Phelan huffed a sigh, still holding his head but obediently staying down.  I was less surprised by his reaction than I was by hers.
            I’d never heard her use the word bastard before.
            Thom’s hand was on my arm, near the mark, which had faded to a dull ache again rather than burning with cold.  Maybe it was a good sign.
            Or an indicator of the calm before the storm.  I can hope that I’m wrong.
            Phelan cleared his throat.  “Now what were you saying?”  He was practically whispering.  I was willing to let him do it if it helped ease whatever migraine he’d spontaneously developed this afternoon.
            “Leah’s hearing voices,” Rory piped up helpfully.  I glared at him and he shut up before J.T. could slip with a needle this time.
            “Voices,” Phelan echoed, then winced.   “From—from a shadow and a pale lady, you said?”
            “That’s right,” I said, catching movement out of the corner of my eye.  Carolyn had turned away and was staring toward the ravine, her posture loose but ready to move if she needed to.  I exhaled quietly.
            Well, with her on the watch, at least we’ll know if something’s coming a little faster than if she wasn’t on alert.
            “You were right to send Matt to get people together for defenses,” Phelan said, voice almost distant, as if he were watching everything from very far away.  “Hopefully they’ll exhaust each other in whatever toe-to-toe cage match is going on down there right now.”
            “So you think they’re having a knock-down, drag-out down there?”
            “That’d explain why she told us to run,” J.T. said quietly.  “Why the greys ignored us even though they probably knew we were there.
            “My head’s ringing like a bell.  Something’s going on down there.”  Phelan’s fingers wrapped around Jacqueline’s arm, tightening for a moment before he started to very slowly sit up again.  She put a steadying arm around him but maintained her disapproving frown as Phelan moved the cloth and glanced at Thom.  “Might even be why you suddenly started seeing things again as violently as you did.”
            “So what does it mean?”  Rory asked.  “What do we do about it?”
            Phelan swallowed hard, wavering a little and looking pale as death.  “We wait,” he said quietly.  “And hope that they don’t decide to give up the fight and join forces after all.”
            “You said that’s not Vammatar’s style,” Thom said quietly.
            “No, it’s not,” Phelan agreed.  “But I’ve been wrong before.  I’m just hoping I’m not wrong now.”