Eighteen – 02

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]

Thom felt something give in his shoulder as his flight continued, crashing into Paul and taking the other man down with him. He hit the watchtower floor and skidded to the far side, nearly off the far end. The muted sound of shouting was barely audible over the thunder of blood in his ears. His lungs spasmed as his body slipped over the edge of the watchtower’s floor and began to fall again.

It was thirty feet to the ground.

His fingers barely caught on the edge of the flooring and he cried out, his shoulder wrenching. Splinters dug into his fingertips as they continued to slip. He looked down, struggling to breathe. His knee throbbed.

This—

“Hang on!” The shout was clear and hands closed around his wrist.

Thom dared to look up, seeing Paul there, hanging onto his arm with both hands. Thom sucked in another breath.

“I’ll pull you up but you need to help me.”

His blood roared in his ears as Thom nodded. He swallowed hard, swinging his other arm up, fingers reaching for the edge of the platform as Paul started to pull him back. Pain screamed through Thom’s arm and shoulder, pain he ignored. There wasn’t time.

It took two tries, but he caught the edge of the platform with his other hand. Between the two of them, Thom ended up back on the platform, laid out on his belly and breathing hard, relief and pain pouring through his nerves in equal measures.

“Are you all right?” Paul asked, panting.

“No. Are you?”

“More surprised than hurt.” Paul’s jaw tightened. “There’s three left.”

“Take them out,” Thom said, squeezing his eyes shut as he started to try to pick himself up off the floor. “That’s all that matters. Take them the hell out.”

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Eighteen – 01

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]

“They’re inside!”

Thom swore at Paul’s shout, the words punctuated by the sound of a shotgun blast aimed down into the courtyard beneath the wall and the watchtower. He tore his gaze from the camazotzi swarming the field, twisting to look inside the walls, inside the wards. Above them, lightning sheeted down along the curve of the wardings, casting a strobing blue-white light over the combatants.

He counted five before Marin’s hand closed on his sleeve.

“Deal with in there,” she said. “Seamus and I have the other side handled. Watch our backs.”

“Hold the line,” he said.

“We always do.” She squeezed his arm again before she let go, notching another arrow. Thom turned and dropped off the wall, jaw tight and expression grim.

“Rory!” he shouted as he drew his blade. “On me. We’ve got a mess to deal with in here.”

The words had barely left his lips when one of them landed on him and bore him to the ground. All of the air was knocked from his lungs as he hit the ground, barely managing to maintain his grip on his weapon. He gasped in a breath as the camazotzi smiled down at him, a predator looking at its prey.

It reared back, grasping his shirt by the collar. Muscles bunched and wings unfurled. Thom flailed as it hauled him up off the ground, carrying him with it into the sky.

Oh shit. His stomach lurched as it shot upward, then banked, swinging toward the watchtower. More lightning sheeted down the sides of the wards, crackling.

He saw the bolt a split second before it lanced downward toward the camazotzi. He felt a shock and found himself tumbling through the air, flying sideways rather than straight down—and free of any tether.

The watchtower’s rail splintered as he slammed into it sideways, shoulder first.

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Seventeen – 04

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Thordin’s point of view.]

Matt grabbed his shoulder, snapping Thordin out of his rage. His hand froze inches from Menhit’s throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Cameron was there, gathering Sif up into his arms. Her gaze was on him, her complexion already waxy.

Thordin’s heart rose into his throat. The rain hid the tears he knew were rolling down his cheeks. It was hard to breathe.

What am I doing?

Matt stepped around him slowly and trapped Menhit’s free hand with his foot, leveling his warhammer at Anhur. “If you move an eyelash, I will finish the job she started. Do not think I won’t.”

Menhit stared up at Matt, mirth fading and expression hardening. “I warned her that they wouldn’t let her keep you. Is she dead, then?”

“She told you to leave us alone,” Matt said, his voice low. “Where the hell do you get off, not listening?”

Her eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t give me orders. Not anymore.”

“Then don’t use her as an excuse for being here,” Matt snarled. “And if you even think about laying a finger on her, you’ll answer to me. If you survive today and breathe a word about where she is and who she’s with, I will hunt you down and end you myself. Trust me on that.”

Cold gripped Thordin as he reached down to wrap a hand none-too-gently around Menhit’s throat. His fingers no longer crackled with lightning, though his grip on the storm remained. “Choose your words carefully,” he whispered, staring at her. “Answer me truthfully if you want to have a prayer of living to see another sunset. Why are you here? Who sent you?”

She stared at him, her jaw tight. “Leviathan,” she said after a few silent moments. “He made an offer too good to refuse. You and yours spurned him. You’re an impediment. He wants you out of the picture if you won’t join him and he knows that with Seamus the Black and the Wanderer in your camp, you never will. Those bastards are more stubborn than any other men the world has ever seen.”

Matt rocked a little harder onto her wrist and Menhit hissed softly. Anhur made a pained sound but didn’t make any moves toward them, instead shrinking back as Thordin and Matt both skewered him with a glare. Matt’s gaze returned to Menhit.

“You return to that bastard,” he said, his voice low. “You tell him he can shove his deal where the sun doesn’t shine and if he doesn’t like it, he can blow it out his ass. You tell him that we’re not interested in helping him take over the world. We’re not interested in his plots and his alliances or any of that bullshit. You tell him that if he comes after my family again—if he comes for my wife—then he will answer to me and I know he remembers what the Ridden Druid could do. You tell him that.”

“You’re as insane as he was if you think I’m going to do that,” Menhit snarled. “I value my life.”

“If you valued your life, you wouldn’t have come here at all,” Thordin said softly.

His fingers tightened until her eyes grew wide.

“No,” Anhur whispered. “No, don’t.” He started to move. Matt brandished his warhammer and he stopped moving, staring at Thordin, staring at Menhit struggling as she tried to breathe.

Thordin loosened his grip when she stopped moving, waited to see the faint rise and fall of her chest. He stood slowly, glaring down at Anhur.

“Take her and quit the field,” he said. “I have given you your lives this time. I didn’t have to have mercy.” Thordin turned, moving toward Cameron, reaching to take Sif from his arms. She was still pale, barely conscious, her eyes on him. His breath caught in his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment.

“If my lady succumbs to the wound your lady dealt her, then both of your lives will be forfeit. There will be nowhere you can hide. I promise you that.”

Cradling Sif against his chest, Thordin turned and walked back toward the walls, ignoring the storm, the camazotzi, and the lightning that cleared his path.

Matt and Cameron turned and followed in his wake.

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Seventeen – 03

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This pot is from Thordin’s point of view.]

Menhit let go of Sif, squaring herself to meet Thordin’s charge. Sif dropped to her knees, pale and swaying, weakly clutching at a spot where bright blood soaked her shirt. Anhur’s gaze fell on Thordin, full of hate that the former warrior-god could see even at this distance.

Behind him, he could hear Thom and Phelan shouting at him. He ignored their calls to stop, to wait. He plunged through the heart of the fighting just beyond the lines of the wards. Lightning struck around him, ahead of him, clearing a path as his boots somehow found traction in the mud churned up by fighting and the storm.

He clearly heard Marin call her brother’s name over the din and in a heartbeat knew that Matt had come over the wall after him.

A camazotzi came at him from ahead and abruptly, he realized the sheer multitude of them that Menhit and Anhur had brought and the sight shook him to the very core of his being. They had an army at their backs and he was charging headlong into it.

No. I’m charging headlong to save her.

In that moment, nothing else mattered.

An arrow took the camazotzi charging him and it fell back. He didn’t look back, but knew who’d fired the shot.

Marin would watch over them when no one else would, as Brighíd had for so many so, so long ago.

Behind him, someone—Seamus, maybe?—issued the call to form up ranks. The sound reached his ears a few steps before he was on top of his quarry.

Thordin launched himself at Menhit, catching her around the waist and tackling her to the ground. They hit hard enough that the air was knocked from her lungs and the dagger she’d held, the one soaked with Sif’s blood, bounced free of her hand and skittered across the ground and away, out of reach.

Menhit sucked in a few rasping breaths, her eyes on Thordin’s face, not full of the fear he had expected—almost hoped for—but of glee.

Then the bitch had the gall to begin to laugh.

She laughed at him.

“So vulnerable,” she gasped, her mirth apparent even though her voice had become a rasp, as she struggled to regain her breath. “If I had known long ago that this was the only thing it would take to draw you out, I’d have done it long ago. You won’t kill me. I won’t allow it.”

The strength flowed away from his limbs and for a moment, control of the storm slipped away. He knew what she was doing but had no way to stop it.

“Thordin.”

And then, control was back as certainly as it had slipped away with Sif’s whisper of his name. His blood roared in his ears.

“You dare,” he snarled. He reared back, straddling Menhit, using his body to keep one of her arms pinioned, the other momentarily released. Lightning crackled around him, gathering in one hand, a hand he reached toward her throat. “You gambled and lost. Now it’s time to pay the piper for the tune you called.”

One way or another, he was going to end this.

One way or another, Menhit was going to pay.

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Seventeen – 02

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Thordin’s point of view.]

The storm overhead twisted, lightning that had once arced toward the walls wrenched away. The wind howled as it shifted, the clouds churning like a maelstrom. At the far end of the field, smoke and dust cleared as the rain poured down, cold like liquid ice.

Sif turned slowly to look toward the wall, standing in a glittering dome still crackling with the last traces of the lightning that had been called down on her. Across the distance between them, their gazes met. She gave a slight nod. Thordin nodded back, throat tight as relief flooded through him.

An incoherent, enraged shout echoed over the field. Thordin’s heart froze.

He didn’t realize I was alive.

Sif twisted as Thordin watched, turning back toward Anhur as he charged the barrier that had sheltered her from his storm. It shattered under the weight of his shoulder. The skies roiled, the storm shifting again as Anhur tried to wrench control of the weather away from Thordin and reclaim it as his own.

A shriek split the air, followed by another, then a third.

“Camazotzi!”

Thom’s identifying shout was followed by Marin’s orders. “Ranged, fire at will! Don’t stop until they stop moving!”

A whisper of power shivered through Thordin’s bones and for a second, he panicked, control of the storm slipping until he realized that the source wasn’t Anhur, it was Phelan and Matt, strengthening the wards that Marin and Kellin had worked so hard to forge and maintain. A faint shimmer coruscated up an invisible path, skating up over their heads toward a spot somewhere above and behind them—a dome over the village they’d built from the ruins of what had come before. Dark blurs sped toward that invisible barrier, upward, along the curve of the wardings, trying to beat that faint shimmer to the apex of the dome.

Focus. Vestiges of control were slipping form his grip, wrested away by Anhur, who’d managed to claim some of the rolling thunderheads above. Thordin’s hands squeezed into fists and he set his jaw, focusing on the storm, on the flows of the wind and the power behind the clouds, behind the lightning and the thunder.

Focus.

The shrieks of the camazotzi mingled with the shouts of his friends on the wall, on the ground, in the watchtower. Dimly, he heard J.T. shouting about them being inside. That sent ice sluicing through his guts, a feeling he tried to ignore. Anhur’s control was slipping. Out on the field, he could hear shouting, as if the Wild Hunt had gone over the walls to engage the camazotzi beyond the lines of the wards, wards that crackled as the black-winged creatures threw themselves at the invisible walls, trying to find a single weak point, a crack they could exploit.

The cacophony was familiar and alien all at once.

The storm slipped entirely from Anhur’s grip. Thordin exhaled, feeling the power of it down to the marrow of his bones, wrapping around him like a lover’s arms. It was an achingly familiar feeling, one he’d only briefly experienced when Olympium had come, when he’d taken over strengthening the wards from Matt—and even that hadn’t felt like this. This felt like nothing else he’d experienced in this lifetime and yet he knew he’d felt this way before, in some long-ago yesterday when he’d lived another life.

Thordin took one slow breath, then another, nudging the storm gently. The rain turned to sleet, turned to hail out on the field. Lightning skated across the wards, another layer of protection. The winds battered the camazotzi still in the sky, buffeting them and driving them to the ground. The clatter of steel and the sound of arrows was distant, lost over the sound of the storm that was as much within him as it was around him.

Then he heard the scream.

His eyes snapped open, searching the field.

Sif stood at the center, Anhur on one knee in front of her. Menhit’s arm was around her neck and Thordin could just see the glimmer of red-stained silver in her hand.

The gaze of both women landed on him and his heart froze in his chest.

Howling an anguished cry, Thordin threw himself off the wall and charged.

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Seventeen – 01

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Thordin’s point of view.]

“Where is Sif?”

It was the second time he’d asked the question, as he hauled himself up onto the wall on the far side of the gate. He was surprised to see Marin crouched next to Seamus, her bow in hand. How had she beaten them there? He hadn’t thought rallying the rest and getting Phelan’s staff from his room had taken quite that long.

Maybe it was his good-bye to Jacqueline and sending her below. That’s what took so bloody long.

Even as worry swelled his throat, Thordin couldn’t blame his friend. If he had been in the same spot, he’d have done the exact same thing.

“Seamus.”

The former leader of the Wild Hunt gave a little jerk, tearing his gaze from the field. He took a deep breath and for a second, Thordin could see the weight of all of the years crash down on Seamus’s shoulders.

Then, he pointed out into the field and Thordin’s heart froze in his chest.

No.

There she was, out on the field, her hair whipping around her, torn free of her braid in the winds of Anhur’s brewing stormfront. She faced Anhur, who slowly drew to a stop a few yards from her, clouds writhing in the sky above him. It was too far away to hear what they said.

He didn’t realize he’d risen from his crouch, didn’t realize he’d moved toward the forward edge of the wall. He didn’t realize that his weapon was in hand, that he was ready to jump—not until Phelan grasped his shoulder and jerked him back.

“You can’t,” the Taliesin said, his voice grim but firm. “If you go out there and whatever she’s doing is going well, you showing up there is going to turn everything sour.”

“And if it’s not going well?” Thordin croaked. It felt like someone or something had him by the throat, choking off his air. Maybe it was his heart, risen up to strangle him. “What then?”

Phelan’s fingers tightened. “Then we fight like hell because this is our home and no one’s going to take it—or anyone here—from us again.”

“Why didn’t you stop her, Seamus?” It was Thom that asked the question, and for that, Thordin was silently grateful. He wasn’t sure he could form the words, let alone sound quite as civil.

“When she has her mind set to something, there’s no stopping her, no matter how much you may want to,” Seamus said, his voice grim.

Out on the field, there was a flicker of movement. Thordin sucked in a sharp breath as Sif drew her blade.

“Oh no.” The words escaped before he could stop them, a whisper lost in the suddenly howling wind.

Thunder crashed and lightning arced downward unerringly toward the charging shieldmaiden as the storm flowed outward, toward her, toward the wall.

Toward the rest of them.

“No.”

The light left him blinded and breath burned in his throat. Rain sheeted from the sky, the storm suddenly rolling over them, over the walls, the sky black as soot and wrought iron. Thom was yelling; something about archers and range. Marin was shouting—something about watching the sky. A shiver of power swept over him. Phelan and Matt were working magic again, deep magic—it seemed the geology student turned blacksmith remembered far more of a druid and a silversmith than he had ever let on.

And Thordin could do nothing except stare blindly ahead at a spot where there was nothing but the painful blue-white of lightning bolts raining down where the love of his life had been and hold on to a last fraying thread of hope.

Lightning crackled at his fingertips. It was hard to breathe.

No.

There was something.

He stopped thinking entirely. He slammed a hand down against the stones of the wall; a ripple of something flowed outward in the space of a heartbeat.

If it takes my life for yours, it will have been worth it.

His vision dimmed at the edges.

I love you, Sif. Forgive me.

The sky screamed.

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Sixteen – 01

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Sif’s point of view.]

Her gaze was fixed on him, one hand resting lightly on the blade at her hip. Sif picked her ground carefully, stopping in a place that would yield slightly higher ground than where she expected Anhur to stop—and there was no doubt in her mind that he would stop. She kept her posture loose, open, though in truth she was ready to draw her sword at any moment, or to throw the knife secreted in her sleeve.

Lightning licked silently through the clouds above. Idly, she wondered for a moment how much effort it was taking to keep the thunder quiet.

His boot crunched softly on a dry twig as he drew to a stop, perhaps ten feet away. His dark cloak shrouded him and while he appeared unarmed, Sif knew better—he was too much like her for that. His pale blue eyes met hers, his jaw set as he regarded her with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. A short mop of brownish-red dreadlocks woven through with cowrie shells and beads fell to just shy of his jaw.

“Sif Freyesdottir,” Anhur said softly. “Isn’t this an unexpected surprise. Shouldn’t you be off with your fellows fighting a war that’s already over?”

“I am where I am meant to be,” she answered, meeting his gaze steadily. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Likely.” He lifted his chin slightly, offering her a glimpse of a pale line of scar tissue that stood out in stark contrast to his café-au-lait skin, a mark on his neck that represented what she knew had been the killing blow Thordin had struck all those years ago. “But I, too, am where I am meant to be. My masters, it seems, are more merciful than your own.”

It was a barb, she knew, and it struck cleanly. Her jaw tightened for a moment before she forced it to relax.

I will have years to make up for the centuries we lost.

What he said, though—he doesn’t know. Praise be, he doesn’t know.

“Have you come to parley with me on their behalf, then?” He gestured vaguely toward the walls behind her. Sif didn’t look back; her gaze remained steadily on him.

“I have,” she said, her voice steady. “Do you object?”

“No, not at all. I suppose you were a logical choice, all things considered, despite our sordid history.” One corner of his mouth quirked upward into a rueful smile. “You are quite the warrior. I remember that well.”

“And a skilled hunter are you, for all the good it did.” Steady. Don’t bait him if it gives you no advantage to do it. “Why have you come here, Anhur?”

He stared at her, one brow arching almost delicately, as if he were questioning her intelligence with a simple gesture. Sif just stared right back at him—almost through him—and waited.

I will not be the one to give way first.

After a few minutes of silence, Anhur inclined his head slightly. “Very well, then. I have come help my lady fulfill her obligations and obtain what is due her as recompense as per a contract she had made with the Witch-Goddess. She was to obtain a share of the spoils should the Hecate be successful in acquiring her quarry from your allies. Further, she was to ensure that you and yours did not trouble the Hecate again after the girl obtained her objective. From what I understand, her objective has been reached but the girl has vanished. Menhit suspects foul play was involved and frankly, I believe she is correct—just as I believe that she is likewise correct in suspecting that it might be your allies that are responsible for the disappearance. So here I am, the harbinger of my lady’s coming.” Anhur smiled and it sent ice sluicing through her guts. “She will have what is due her, Mistress of the Valkyries. Abandon them, and live. Stand with them, and suffer as they will. It makes no difference to me.”

“Then you will not negotiate?”

“There is nothing to negotiate,” Anhur said, then gave her a regretful smile. “If only there were, but her contract and her aim is clear. She knows what must be done and I will assist her in this—as I should have been doing for two thousand years and more.”

“Very well,” Sif said, her voice rock-steady despite the churning of her stomach and the pounding of her heart. Anhur stared at her, like a predator sizing up its competition. She stood firm, her gaze never leaving his. “Does she grant us time, then?”

“I am her vanguard,” Anhur said. “She will be upon you soon.”

“Then she is near enough to see how this goes,” Sif said.

“Likely.”

She nodded once. “I am sorry, then.”

The hunter’s gaze turned wary. “For what?”

Her blade whispered free of its scabbard and Sif charged.

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Fifteen – 03

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]

Out on the field before the wall, Sif had slowed—but so had the figure ahead of her. My stomach sank.

“What the hell is going on out here?”

A chill shot through me as I heard the annoyance—and an undercurrent of fear—in my brother’s voice. My jaw tightened and I didn’t dare glance back to see the expression on his face. I already knew what it looked like, anyway.

He wasn’t happy, but neither was I. I didn’t answer him, either, knowing that he’d be on top of the wall with me soon enough—he and Thom both, probably, with Thordin and J.T. likely taking the other side. I’d be surprised if it turned out any different.

Seamus glanced sidelong at me—I caught his gaze out of the corner of my eye—and grimaced. “You’d better get up here fast,” he called, half twisting back to look behind him, down to the ground on the other side of the wall. “There’s not much time.”

“Where’s Sif?” Thordin asked.

This time, both of us ignored the question. My brother climbed up onto the wall, taking up a position next to me, his eyes narrowed, gaze focused first on me and then shifting out to the field. “Is that him?”

“That’s him,” I confirmed. My hand tightened around my bow. Sif and Anhur hadn’t quite met up out there in the field, but they were getting close enough that I didn’t dare tear my gaze away.

This feels too familiar. I don’t like it.

“Why is he here?” Matt asked.

“Not sure, but we’re certainly going to find out soon,” Seamus said quietly. “Running theory is that it has to do with Menhit coming back for another bite at the apple.”

Matt went rigid next to me. “No.”

“What are we saying no to?” Thom took up a position on the other side of Matt, perching nearest to the gate, his brow furrowing.

“He can’t be here because of her,” Matt said, staring at me. I could feel the weight of his stare, his voice laced less with fear and more with horror. “She was working for Hecate the last time she showed up here. Then, after I went with Hecate, she told her to back off, to leave us alone. Whoever that guy is out there, he’s not here because of her.”

“That assumes that Menhit’s not hiring out to the highest bidder—or worse, gone freelance.” Seamus took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. A shiver crept down my spine. There was a ring of rightness to his words, as if I knew he’d grasped the truth of it.

Behind me, I could hear Thordin clambering up onto the wall.

I held my breath.

Out on the field, Sif had stopped walking.

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Fifteen – 02

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

Seamus shook his head. “How could I and why would I? If anyone’s got any chance in hell of getting them to talk before they attack, it’s going to be her. She can offer the bastard his life—she can tell him that he’ll live if he turns back and he might actually believe it.” He sighed. “And if that doesn’t work, I’m sure she’s got a plan. She usually does and I’m sure she’s playing things ridiculously close to the vest.”

I stared at him, jaw tightening. “You should have gone with her.”

“Someone had to stay on the wall and make sure Thordin didn’t go off after her.”

“Congratulations. You still have that job and you get to convince him that this was a good idea.”

He winced but didn’t say anything, turning his attention back to the field. I got myself situated next to him, readying my bow.

The line of clouds heralding the storm had slowed slightly, though it hadn’t stopped moving. I could see the figure leading it now, a broad-shouldered man in a dark cloak, a shadow on the landscape. “Who was he then?” I asked Seamus, my eyes narrowing slightly, as if that would give me a better view of the enemy.

At least it looks like he’s alone—but that squall-line is following him. That’s never a good sign.

His being alone also made me wonder where his backup was lurking. On wings, in the storm? Hidden to our eye like the Greys could be?

Or something worse, something more horrifying than either of those possibilities?

“He was from Aegyptus,” Seamus said quietly. “One of the southern groups.”

“Southrons?”

The ghost of a smile curved Seamus’s lips and then vanished in the space of a few heartbeats. “Yes and no. We didn’t tangle with them so much as some of the others did. They were a southern group without falling into the term. Does that…does that make sense? They warred with the Southrons as much as we did, sometimes.”

It did and it didn’t, but I was willing to let that much go—it was thousands of miles and thousands of years away by now. “Right. Keep going.”

Seamus took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “He was one of the mid-level powers there—not in charge, but not a peon, either. A hunting god, which is how I think he ran afoul of Thordin in the first place—ranging too far afield of territory and a lot of rot like that. I don’t know. There was a lot going on during the wars and I couldn’t track all of it.”

“Well, you guys had your own problems to keep track of.”

“There is that.” Seamus shifted his weight slightly, repositioning next to me at the top of the wall. “There was the matter of a little war we were fighting.”

“Little,” I said, then snorted. “Right. Master of understatement right here next to me.” I swallowed, tasting bile at the back of my throat. “Give me the short answer, since she’s almost reached him. How dangerous is he?”

“As dangerous as a hunter gets, especially when backed into a corner.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Just great.”

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Fifteen – 01

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]

Seamus was the only one perched near the gate when I arrived, my bow in hand and a quiver of arrows at my hip. Paul was up in the watch-tower with Davon; Rory and Greg were securing the gates, layering the second heavy bar into place. I could see the Wild Hunt starting to assume positions up on the walls, but none of them were terribly close to the gate—only Seamus, whose back was to me as he stared out over the field beyond the walls.

A chill crept down my spine.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I swallowed my unease and jogged the last few steps to the wall. “Seamus!”

He tore his gaze from the field to look toward me, blinking rapidly for a few seconds before he straightened from his crouch. “What are you doing here?”

“Defending my home,” I said as I started to climb up to the top of the wall. Rory broke away from the gates to give me a hand up and Seamus reached down to pull me the last little bit up onto the wall. I didn’t want to let on, but I was still more than a little sore from Lin’s birth. “Where the hell else would I be?”

“With my sister and your son and Tala and the kids?”

“Even Tala’s coming to the wall,” I said quietly. “The last time Menhit came, she was able to call the camazotzi and control them like Cariocecus used to do. We’re going to need all the hands we can muster out here on the wall.”

Seamus wasn’t paying attention to my answer, though. He was gazing out over the field again, his brow furrowed, expression grim. I stared at him for a second, then followed his sight-line.

My stomach dropped. “What the hell is she doing?”

“Playing the hero,” Seamus said grimly. “Or at least trying.”

“She’s going to get herself killed.”

Seamus exhaled. “Déithe agus arrachtaigh. I hope not, Marin. I hope not.”

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