by D. Brumbley
She pushed herself to her feet and looked around with a mixture of panic and anger. “Orlando!” She was still dizzy and disoriented from the flower’s drugging effects, so she stumbled around like she was drunk, but the sun beating down on her woke her up quickly. It had been some time since she felt overwhelmed by the sunlight, and now that Orlando was nowhere to be seen, it was taking a toll on her. Since she lost him only recently, she was able to go most of the way across the compound in the sunlight before she had to duck into the shade and slink her way over to Nick’s house, where she pounded on the door.
Some of the Forestborn that saw and felt her set fire to their plants followed her at a distance, rumors running wild around them about why she was out by herself, calling for Orlando. Maybe they’d gotten into a fight the night before. Maybe they’d gotten drunk and they were just separated. She certainly didn’t seem like the calm and collected Lightborn goddess she had been the night before. Either way, there was a small crowd forming near Nick’s house by the time she was pounding on his door.
He came out still looking bedraggled from bed, but he pushed his hair out of his face as he looked down at her. “Candra? What are you doing here?” He looked around beyond her. “Where’s Orlando?” They never went anywhere without each other. Where could he be?
She was gasping heavily as though she had been running with a hundred pound weight on her back, and her face was covered with sweat, since she was fighting so hard to remain in her human form. “He’s gone. There was this flower…this woman, she gave us one…it made us so sleepy and then I woke up…trapped in ivy and branches and…I can’t find him! I can’t find him anywhere!!”
“Look, calm down, just…here…” He opened his door widely and hit the switch to turn the lights off in his main room as he let her in, then shut the blinds quickly, both to keep out the sunlight and to keep out her growing audience. “Start at the beginning.” He was fully awake at her panic, and at the waves of power that were flowing off her even without any physical contact between them.
Candra felt a little bit better in the darkness, but the energy in her was still making her shake and sweat in addition to glowing like a thousand-watt bulb. “We were going through all the sectors. The Earthborn didn’t really like us very much, the Stoneborn were nicer, and then we were looking at the plants and this woman was sleeping under this grass and flowers.” She put her hand on one of his walls, and he could feel her power ripple through his metal that made up his house. “She grabbed these seeds and she grew these black and gold flowers. They smelled very nice…but then we started to fall asleep. When I woke up, I was trapped and Orlando was gone.”
Nick’s temper flared, and she could feel the resonance through the walls she was leaning on. “Mitch…” He turned on his heel and walked back into his bedroom, grabbing a shirt and pulling metal off the sheet of it he’d slept on the night before as he yelled at Zara. “You told me he could be trusted!” He screamed at her, waking her violently from where she’d been sleeping soundly.
Zara got up quickly and scrambled backwards as though she had been struck. “You saw it for yourself! You know he was! That doesn’t mean people stay that way forever! How can you blame me for this?”
He grabbed his shirt and pulled it over himself as he felt how his attack cut into her. His rage grew quieter, but not quite apologetic. “I’m not. Hurry up and get dressed. They’ve taken Orlando, and I intend to find out where.”
Zara got up and went over to Candra, trying to comfort her, but it was hard to even touch her, she was radiating so much power. “Just stay here. Dion and Katrell will watch over you. We’ll be back.” She got dressed quickly and she followed Nick outside where there was already a commotion. Mostly people were wondering how such a thing could happen within their gates. Obviously the guards hadn’t been protecting the precious legends that they all were depending on. This is escalating. Zara said to Nick silently as she felt the panic of the crowd. Far too quickly.
Nick was caught between prosecuting the fight that was about to come on the Forestborn Alpha and trying to keep the peace behind him with the other packs, all of whom had apparently had some kind of representative or friend close enough to his home to hear Candra’s outburst. The rumor was spreading faster than Orlando’s own lightning. The only way to contain it is to find the source and cut it off. We have to get to Mitch before he runs, if he hasn’t already.
I hope he hasn’t. She started running as soon as he did, and there were people running after them, trying to get answers to their questions. As soon as they ran through the Earthborn and Stoneborn sectors, they realized that both groups were already causing trouble. Other groups accused the Earthborn and Stoneborn of not protecting the Shadowborn when they had been so close to the area where it happened.
“Quiet!” Nick roared as they ran through the area, but he didn’t stop as he ran toward the Forestborn area, where a wall of trees was already laid in place by fearful-looking men and women with deep green eyes. He didn’t try to breach it, though he knew he could have if he tried. He put out a hand to everyone behind him to stop them as well, and was glad when his command was actually obeyed. “Mitch! Beatrice! If you haven’t already run off like cowards in the night, you will…”
“We will what, Prince Nickel?” Mitch’s voice yelled back at him as he stepped through a tangle of woven-together trees to stand in front of Nick and Zara, Beatrice stepping out right beside him. Both of them looked like they had been woken in an untimely manner from their flower-beds but had already heard the news. “This was not our doing. Put your Heartborn to good use for once and see for yourself if you doubt me.”
Zara trembled a little bit behind Nick, but as she touched the back of his shoulder, he could see through Zara’s filter that Mitch was only partially being truthful. It was not his doing, nor his mate’s. They hadn’t touched Orlando at all. But apparently, according to Zara, their guards had. They didn’t do it themselves. She said as though she was wincing, since it was painful for her to go through with the lie, though Nick thought the pain in Zara was from all the fighting around them. They must have sent others to do it for them.
“How many did you lose?” Nick spat at Mitch, his hands balling into fists and the metal on his arms flowing down to wrap around his fingers in horrible curving blades that changed and shifted into more painful-looking instruments as he spoke.
Mitch’s face looked sad. “It wasn’t our doing. We knew nothing, even if it was Forestborn that was responsible…”
“It happened on your ground, by your guards, while you slept.” The metal in his hands finally formed itself into blades and solid gauntlets covering his hands, and Nick’s face was murderous. “You’ve broken the peace we tried to make here, Mitch.”
“Alpha Nickel, listen to me closely. I have no desire to end this peace against anyone but the Council.” He held out his hands, empty and unarmed, though Nick was obviously about to murder him where he stood. “I swear by all the gods that this was not our doing. May I never touch a single blade of grass again if I lie.”
Nick had a moment of doubt at the man’s earnestness, but he took a step forward anyway. “If you lie…”
A Forestborn on top of the wall behind Mitch leapt down from where he’d stood, bringing most of a branch with him to bash Nick directly in the face with it, sweeping him off his feet. “Run, my Alpha!”
Chaos broke out at that, and there were four Ironborn leaping at the man before his feet even touched the ground. Beneath their cry, Mitch’s shout was barely audible. “You idiot!”
Zara cried out as the onlooking Earthborn and Stoneborn took that single struck match of conflict and turned it into a wildfire. She was shoved aside as the Iron Guard leapt in to protect Nick, and so stumbling, she ran as hard as she could to get away from all the fighting and pain that was breaking out around her. She had to get away from the compound.
As she ran through the Stoneborn and Earthborn sectors, no one attacked her, and in
fact, most of them made a path for her to get out quickly and safely. They were following someone else’s orders, after all. Someone else who cared about Zara’s safety just as much as Nick did.
Before Nick could even get his bearings, the war had broken out around him. There were Ironborn making a shield over him with their own bodies, throwing up a whole wall of a house on one side and a web of violence on the other. Earthborn and Stoneborn had swept in against the Forestborn, but Mitch was doing his best not to kill anyone he was going up against. He was as crafty a fighter as he was a strategist, and most of his fighting was just tripping up and trapping his opponents, not actually wounding them. From his place of safety, Nick’s heart sank as he realized that Zara had spoken the truth, but so had Mitch. If he was truly Nick’s enemy, he would be fighting to kill, not just to restrain.
“Stop! Stop it! The Forestborn are not…” Nick was knocked off his feet at that point, though, by a stray flying branch, and his plea was lost to almost everyone, though he could see that Mitch heard him, as he turned toward Nick with an acknowledging glare that was almost as condescending as it was truly remorseful at what was happening. After that, the peace broken, Nick jumped up and tried to order his fighters to pull back one at a time, trying to get it through their heads that they were being deceived into fighting each other.
The Ironborn started to pull back and any fighting with the Forestborn started to die off, but as soon as they stopped, they realized that there was still fighting going on. When the Ironborn and Forestborn stepped back behind their shields and barriers, they saw that the fighters who hadn’t stepped back were facing Earthborn and Stoneborn…and they were losing. Lea nearly jumped through the trees as she saw a Stoneborn shatter the leg of one of her friends and leave him howling in pain. Lea shattered the man’s skull with a single iron-wrapped punch, but she couldn’t leave Nick. She looked around for Sedovin, and once she saw him, she screamed out for him. “You traitor!”
Sedovin was there dancing in the midst of a group of Forestborn, breaking them in half with strength that his lackadaisical manner had never given her the impression he actually had. “Sticks and stones, baby doll.” He actually winked at her and went back to laughing maniacally as he pressed against the Forestborn, who fell in front of him and his mate like a field of wheat beneath an avalanche.
As Nick saw Osvald in the far distance fighting against a large contingent of Ironborn, he began to understand. His rage finally boiled to the forefront as he watched the fight for the barest moment, peace held intact around him as Ironborn and Forestborn gathered together, beginning to realize what was happening.
Nick was limping, but he couldn’t feel any pain in his leg at the moment. “I want both their heads on spikes outside my front door. Furred or skinned makes no difference to me.” His command set every Ironborn around him in motion toward the Earthborn, and he himself made to square off against Sedovin, but the other Stoneborn got in the way, and he had his hands more than full, as did Lea and William beside him.
Lea was interested in going after the Stoneborn as well, and she shifted quickly, shredding her clothes as she burst out of the trees and barriers straight into the fight. The Stoneborn might have had an advantage in their human forms with their strength, but if she could get through their rocks, then she knew they couldn’t fight her teeth and her speed while she was in her wolf.
She barely dodged a stone to grab one by the leg, and she bit down as hard as she could, splintering its leg instantly as she bashed it against its own stone, which shattered upon its master’s impact. She shifted quickly, and the fighter’s own blood dripped from her human mouth as she held out her hand, which became a magnet for any metal in the vicinity. A shield of scrap metal came flying toward her, and in mere seconds it had shifted into a wicked knife that she used to behead the wolf, only to leave his neck gushing as she moved on to the next.
Nick always fought as a human, because he was stronger and faster that way. The metal around him and the very houses they were fighting among became weapons in his hands. The ground itself might have been working for the Earthborn and the Stoneborn, but the entire compound was ringed with iron, and every house had some kind of fixture he could bring down as a spear through some enemy’s throat. The fight quickly turned into a meat grinder of iron and mud and stone and blood.
He saw Sir William finally make his way to Osvald, and the ancient knight squared off in patchwork plate armor against the Earthborn Alpha. They were nearly equals in every way, in age and power, and the two almost looked respectful as they rushed at each other across the churning battleground. Lea was ripping apart the Stoneborn, and Nick rushed in to assist her, but in the chaos, his thoughts were screaming out for Zara, without answer.
Several of the Stoneborn and Earthborn were falling at their feet, but so were their own. Lea tore down another, but it seemed that for every enemy they killed, another of their own would go down. It wasn’t until she was again looking for Sedovin that she realized the fight was slowly moving inward, toward the portion of the compound that had remained the heart of the Ironborn.
They were being pushed toward their homes, their children, the defenseless.
“Nick!!” She screamed as she ran up to him, covered in mud and blood. “They’re moving us in. They want to get to everyone else. We’ve got to break through or else they’re going to destroy our future in there.”
He blocked another attack from a young-looking Stoneborn who hadn’t realized what he was swinging at, then he cut the young man down with one of his blades jabbed into the base of his spine, leaving him a twitching mass of limbs on the ground. They were momentarily pulled back from the combat itself, and he pulled back even further to talk to her, though his eyes were darting around. “Raise Veronica and Reston if they haven’t already rallied. Find Candra and get her to Veronica. They’ll know what to do. Run.”
She looked around quickly, trying to find a way through. “What about Zara? I can’t find her anywhere.” There had been some kind of unspoken bond between her and Zara ever since they’d both been brutalized and survived the ordeal at the hands of the Council guard.
“Hopefully she’s with Candra. She can feel what’s going on out here. If you find Katrell or Dion, tell them to find her and guard her. You go get the other Alphas. Now.”
Lea found a break in the battle and shifted again before darting through, barely making it as the ground shook beneath her by a mixture of Earthborn and Stoneborn power. She was able to find Veronica and Reston on the other side of the compound, but it seemed like an entirely different world there, since it was peaceful with only a few shivers in the ground here or there from the war happening on the other side.
She ran in the streets, shifting back and forth, telling people to stay in their homes, and for all the remaining fighters to rally. Once Veronica and Reston had ordered their own to get to the fight, she was able to circle back to the Ironborn quarter and escort a distraught Candra to Veronica and get her safe, though Zara wasn’t with her either. The last thing they needed was for someone to take Candra too.
* * * * *
The fight started to spread, and as it got closer to the outskirts of that side of the compound, the sound of the battle and the ground shaking more and more often rattled Ziem and Aura’s house. She woke up with a start and in a panic. Z? Ziem? What’s going on?
Ziem was already up and standing across the room, still in his wolf, looking out the window, but he jumped backward as he felt her awake, standing on the bed with her for a moment with a kiss. Just stay here, baby, something’s gone really, really wrong out there. He jumped back off the bed and started grabbing at his clothes, obviously about to shift and leave her there.
What? She ran to the window anyway, and she could barely see the hint of a battle going on. Gods! How could this happen? She started to panic, since she knew that they were the only ones out so far and that they would essentially be trapped, since she couldn’t get out of the gates without
bending the bars, and she couldn’t do that in her wolf form.
I don’t know, but somebody fucked up. He finished getting his things together, then leapt back across the room to be on the bed next to her, meeting her eyes. I love you. I’m gonna shut down the house. Stay low and out of sight.
Aura whimpered and licked his face several times. I love you too. Come back to me, you hear me? You cannot die out there. I need you.
So much faith in me. I like living, remember? He jumped off the bed and was human before his feet touched the ground. As soon as skin replaced fur, the pieces of scrap metal all over the floor leaped up to take their places around his arms and legs, and for a moment he looked like some kind of punk-rock gothic knight running out to war. As soon as he was out of the house, she could feel the house shaking around her. Windows collapsed on themselves as Ziem ran by them and walls began folding in half, forming a thick shield without windows or weaknesses, sealing her inside.
Lea crossed paths with Ziem as he made his way around to get into the thick of the fight, one that was not only spreading in the direction of Ziem’s house, but also in the opposite direction where Lea was coming from after alerting the people. She was covered in some places with scrap metal as well, but more than that, she was covered in blood. “Well, Chaos. Good to see you woke up in time to kill something.”
“You really think I’d miss it?” He said with an actual smile as he grabbed a few chunks of a house, running next to her towards the nearest patch of ugliness. “Who are we killing?”
“Sedovin and Osvald’s packs betrayed us. More than that, we don’t know yet.” She was breathing heavily, but she knew it was going to be a long day yet ahead of them.