by Anne Bishop
Ashk hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s not something I know, it’s something I feel.”
“Messages from the spirits of the woods?” Selena asked.
Ashk jolted, too startled for a moment to reply. How—? Of course. Selena must have heard the story about how the Fae came to be, just as Rhyann had.
“It is my gift that hears the warning, not my head,” she said slowly.
Selena nodded. “Then it’s a warning we should heed.”
Liam shook his head. “We aren’t sure the Black Coats are moving, but we are sure there was something close to the Old Place last night.”
“It’s easy enough,” Donovan said. “I’ll ride to the village and on to Squire Thurston’s place to coordinate the defense of the village and the guarding of the main road.”
“I’ll go with Donovan,” Aiden said. “I can take care of sending and receiving messages. Lyrra can do the same here.”
“I—” Lyrra began to protest. She pressed her lips together, then took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. Yes, you’re right. If the Bard and the Muse can’t relay messages, no one can. Gwenn, Gwynith, and Rhyann can help me with that—and with keeping a record of any wounded who may be brought here.”
Ashk walked over to her horse. As she swung into the saddle, she found comfort in the feel of a full quiver of arrows resting against her back. “Let’s ride.”
“The men are ready, Master Adolfo,” the guard captain said.
“You understand your orders?” Adolfo asked as he sipped his wine. No sign of disapproval that he took wine so early in the morning. Not today. Never again.
“Yes, Master. One arm of the army will seize the village. The other arm will take possession of that low rise, set up the catapults, and crush the Fae and the other witch-lovers when they move against it.”
“Let it rain fire.”
“Yes, Master.”
“But I must have some prisoners,” Adolfo said firmly. “Males.” He waited until the captain nodded. “You may tell the men one other thing. Today I will give fifty gold coins to every man who kills a witch.”
“Fifty!” With effort, the guard captain regained his professional stance. “They’ll kill every female they encounter in an effort to claim the reward.”
Adolfo smiled. “Yes, they probably will. But the foul creatures I want are easy enough to identify. Most of them wear an ornament hidden beneath their clothing. A five-pointed star within a circle. Any man who brings me one of those ornaments—and the tongue of the bitch who wore it—will receive the gold.”
He saw a glint of greed in the captain’s eyes and did not disapprove of it.
“I’ll tell the men,” the captain said.
Tell the other captains, Adolfo amended silently. “Go on, then.”
“We’ll have the Old Place cleansed by nightfall,” the captain promised.
“A pretty thought,” Adolfo murmured as he watched the man leave with more haste than dignity. He drained his wine glass and set it aside. “A very pretty thought.”
Breanna walked toward Nuala’s grave, Keely a few steps ahead of her. Keely, still grieving and displaying an unshakable stubbornness, had insisted on walking to the grave that morning. The men who stood the last watch until dawn had already left since it was safe to leave the grave unattended in daylight. Clay, Rory, and Falco had agreed to ride into the village for supplies they’d run short of with so many people to feed. Fiona and some of the other women threw themselves into household chores with grim single-mindedness, but work hadn’t provided solace for Nuala’s daughter or granddaughter. So the two of them walked to the grave in order to touch the earth, feel the air.
A healthy walk, Nuala used to call it with a smile. It was that. For the first time since she’d found Nuala, Breanna felt a tightness in her chest and shoulders ease. Even in daylight, the grave glowed in its circle of moonlight. She wasn’t sure if that light simply offered some comfort to the living or was protection for the dead, but she was grateful for this gift from the Lady of the Moon.
As they reached the grave, Keely stopped and cocked her head. “Do you hear something?”
No, she didn’t, but her nose picked up an unpleasant smell in the air that made her uneasy. A…decaying smell. Not wanting to think about why she might be smelling something like that, she summoned a light wind and guided it over the crescent of rose bushes Nuala had planted years ago. Even though the bushes were trimmed every year, they were chest-high now, and, despite being so late in the season, there were still enough roses blooming to scent the air.
“I do hear something,” Keely said. “There’s someone behind the rose bushes, crying. It sounds like a child.” She moved toward the bushes, altering her course to come around the nearest end.
Breanna wasn’t listening. The wind had stirred the long grass on the bank of the brook, revealing a patch of red cloth for a moment. Puzzled, she walked toward the spot where she’d glimpsed the cloth.
“Hello?” Keely said, moving closer to the bushes. “Are you lost?”
A small sound. A click of pebble on stone. Breanna looked toward the bridge and saw the three riders, still distant, heading toward her. Liam, she thought affectionately. Coming for his daily brotherly inspection.
“Don’t cry. You don’t have to be afraid. Are you lost?”
Another click of pebble on stone. Another small sound, muted but still filled with agony. Dismissing Liam and his companions, she turned her attention back to the brook and moved closer.
Keely rounded the end of the crescent, stopped when she was close to the middle of it, and asked, “Who are you?”
Ashk reined in so hard and fast her horse almost tumbled over in its effort to obey. She patted its neck as both comfort and praise, but her attention was on the light wind blowing in her face.
Selena and Liam pulled up and looked back at her.
“Ashk?” Selena said.
“Can’t you smell it?” A tremor went through Ashk’s body. “That smell. That scent.”
Selena turned her face into the wind. “I don’t—” She gasped, then twisted in the saddle to look at the Hunter. “It’s coming from the direction of Nuala’s grave. And there’s someone near there.”
“Breanna,” Liam whispered. He whipped his horse into a frenzied gallop, leaving Selena and Ashk racing to keep up with him.
Get away from there, Breanna, Ashk thought as she rode recklessly toward the bridge. Get away from there!
Breanna felt her gorge rise as she reached the bank and looked down. Fear hammered in her chest, in her head.
Not a piece of red cloth. Part of a bloody arm. The small man had been ripped apart before the remains had been flung up on the bank, abandoned.
She saw other things now. Mangled bodies of water sprites caught among the stones. Blood still dripping over the stones into the water.
“Who are you?” Keely asked again, her voice now holding a touch of fear.
Blood still dripping over the stones. Breanna shivered.
Pebble on stone.
She whipped her head toward the sound so fast, she felt a muscle pull in her neck.
The water sprite clung to the rocks, her side nothing more than ripped flesh and broken bones. “Run, Breanna,” she whispered. “Moonlight. Circle. Can’t…touch…circle. Run.”
The sprite stared at her with dying eyes as Breanna backed away from the water. Fresh blood. Fresh death. “Keely?” She turned to look for her mother, the woman who had remained a child. She saw Keely’s head and shoulders above the rose bushes. “Keely?”
“W-what are you?” Keely took a step back.
“Keely! Get away from there!” Breanna ran toward the rose bushes. The circle would protect them. She could warn Liam that there was danger here before he got too close. But first…
She heard Liam shouting at her, but she didn’t stop, just ran.
Keely spun around, stumbled, and grabbed the rose bushes to keep from falling, screaming in pain a
nd terror.
Breanna rounded the end of the crescent and stopped, too frozen to do more than stare.
They were big. Much bigger than the ones that had attacked her and Liam a few weeks ago. And…different. Not wings, but flaps of skin that stretched from hips to front limbs, like the squirrels that could glide from tree to tree.
As she watched, unable to move, one of the creatures sank its sharp, jagged teeth into Keely’s leg, ripping off a chunk of her calf and gulping it down while another slashed at the other thigh with teeth and talons. When a third scrambled up Keely’s back and sank its teeth into the flesh that joined shoulder and neck, her scream raked through Breanna.
“Keely!” She took a step forward, unable to think past the fear and yet certain she needed to do something.
Until the fourth creature turned and stared at her—and her courage shattered.
It had a long, deep gash down one limb, as if it had been slashed with a sharp stone. Tears still glistened on its dark, leathery face. Snot still bubbled from its nostrils. It let out one whimpering cry as it held up its arms to her—and then snarled and leaped.
And Keely’s screams of terror turned into a shriek of rage as she let go of the rose bushes and grabbed one of the creature’s legs. “Not my girl. You can’t have my girl! EARTH!”
The ground around Keely moved, shifted, churned. She sank into the earth so fast there was no time for the creatures attached to her to escape.
Breanna watched Keely disappear. Watched her mother’s hand convulse around the leg it held, pulling the last creature down with her until it was buried up to its waist. It screamed, clawing at the ground as it fought to free itself. She watched, too numb to move, until an arrow whistled past her and buried itself in the creature’s chest.
Silence.
Keely.
She wanted to scream to break the silence, to beg Keely to come back. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
“Liam, get Breanna away from here. Get her away now.” She recognized Selena’s voice, but it was just a sound.
She knew Liam picked her up. She knew he got her on his horse somehow and they were galloping to her house. But she was too far away to feel him, too far away to feel anything. Even the wind.
“Mother’s mercy,” Ashk said, her voice rough with pain and pity. “That bastard turned children into nighthunters.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “He turned them into nighthunters.”
“Could they still be alive down there?”
There was something cutting about Selena’s voice—and there was something odd about that cutting tone.
“They’re buried in the earth,” Ashk said. “Buried alive.”
“But they might be able to survive longer than her?”
What difference does it make? “I don’t know.”
Selena raised her hands and pointed at the nighthunter that stared at them with dead eyes. “I call fire to cleanse and air to give it breath.”
The nighthunter burst into flames, burning so hot Ashk took a step back. Moments later, spears of fire shot out of the ground, and she thought—she imagined—she heard something shriek.
The fire was gone as quickly as it had been summoned. It was only her refusal to give in to the urge to back away—and keep backing away—that made Ashk stand where she was.
Mother’s Daughters. House of Gaian. They aren’t the same as the witches who live among us. And this one…Mother’s mercy. This one.
Selena watched the tendrils of smoke rising from the ground. “You said nighthunters feasted on spirits as well as flesh and blood. If, by some chance, they were able to live even a minute longer than she did, they could have destroyed more than her body. I couldn’t save the flesh, but I could save the spirit.”
“She wouldn’t have survived long in any case, but she might have been alive when you sent your fire into the earth.”
“I know,” Selena said softly. “That’s why I had Liam take Breanna away from here.”
No, Ashk thought, we do not know your kind at all. We do not understand the power that walks in the Mother’s Hills.
“Do you fear me, Hunter?”
“At this moment, I am feeling cautious, Huntress,” Ashk said carefully.
“It is wise of you to feel that way when you deal with the House of Gaian. That is something our enemy has yet to learn.” Selena raised her hands. “Earth.”
The ground shivered. Softened. The nighthunter, with Ashk’s arrow buried in its chest, sank into the earth.
Selena raised her hands higher. “Sister moon.” She glowed as moonlight washed over her skin, pooled at her feet, then spread out until it became a shining circle bordered on one side by a crescent of rose bushes.
The glow faded from Selena’s skin. She turned and walked back to where Mistrunner waited.
Ashk studied the glowing circle for a long moment before going to her own horse and mounting.
“Selena?” She waited until the Huntress looked at her. “I am cautious, but I do not fear you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think your heart matches your power.”
A film of tears covered Selena’s eyes before she blinked them away. “We’d better see if Liam needs help with Bre—”
“Hunter!”
Ashk dropped the reins, freeing both hands for arrow and bow. She relaxed a little when she saw the Fae male cantering toward her—until she got a good look at his face.
“The Muse sent me to find you,” he said. “The fight’s started.”
“Where?”
“At the field with those tumbled stones. We got to that low rise ahead of them, but not by much. That’s where the fight is—and along the road leading to the village.”
“Warn the witches in the Old Place, then ride to the Fae camps and tell the leaders to get their huntsmen to that rise as fast as they can.”
As she and Selena rode over the bridge and galloped over the fields that provided the fastest route to the battleground, she wished there was some way to convince Liam to stay out of the fight for Breanna’s sake—and knew the wish was a futile one.
Liam slowed his horse as he rode through the arch. When one of the boys came forward to take the horse, he shook his head and turned the animal toward the kitchen door. Since Breanna was in no shape to walk, it was easier to let the horse carry them both.
The barking caught his attention for a moment before he shook his head. Idjit was dancing under the big tree, defending the world from another squirrel.
The kitchen door opened. He heard Fiona’s voice, sharp with annoyance. “Either shut him up or lock him up. I don’t need his yapping today.”
“I’ll get him.” Brooke came out of the house, waved at him, and trotted toward the tree. “Idjit! You stop that now, you hear? You’re giving Fiona the headache.”
Suddenly Breanna went rigid in his arms. “Keely, no,” she whispered.
Liam tried to shove aside the worry that flooded through him. They didn’t look anything alike, but Brooke and Keely had been about the same age mentally. That’s why she was confusing the two. She was still stunned by what she’d witnessed. That was all.
“Keely, no!”
Breanna rammed her elbow into him, breaking his hold so that she half fell, half slid off the horse. The momentum took her forward a couple of steps before she fell to her hands and knees.
He flung himself off the horse, giving it a slap to send it to the stables. He tried to lift Breanna, but she clung to the ground, making horrible, mindless noises while she stared at the tree. He glanced at the tree. Idjit’s barking had become frenzied, and Brooke had slowed down, her attention also caught by something in the tree.
Wind riffled the leaves, just enough for him to catch a glimpse of a dark shape hiding in the branches. Something too big to be a squirrel.
“Mother’s tits!” Fiona burst out of the kitchen, a poker in her hand. “Can’t I have a minute to tend the fire without having to deal with some kind of ruc
kus?”
He closed the distance between them without realizing he’d started to move, grabbed the poker out of Fiona’s hand, and ran just as the nighthunter jumped out of the tree, its flaps of skin turning the jump into a gliding fall. Heading straight at Brooke.
Heat pulsed under his skin, but he couldn’t unleash the fire because Brooke was standing between him and the creature. He couldn’t burn one without burning the other.
He ran as if his world depended on it—and knew he wouldn’t reach her in time.
The nighthunter landed, but before it could leap on the girl, Idjit attacked, sinking his teeth in the flap of skin and bracing his legs to play a deadly game of tug.
Shrieking, the creature turned on the dog, ripping and tearing.
Liam reached Brooke. Grabbing the back of her dress, he flung her behind him, then braced for the attack.
The nighthunter, crouched over the still dog, lifted its face. Blood spilled over its chin. As it gathered itself to leap at him, Liam stepped forward and swung the poker at its head with all his strength. He heard the sharp crack of bone. Felt the poker sink into something softer. Watched the poker slide out of the smashed skull as the body slumped over the dog’s haunches.
And saw the perfectly shaped human foot. The birthmark on the back of a pink-skinned calf. A birthmark a distraught mother had described to the guards who had searched for her missing child.
He dropped the poker and backed away. He’d seen, briefly, when Ashk shot the creature that Keely had prevented from attacking Breanna. He’d seen, but his mind had refused to understand.
His gorge rose as he remembered the feel of the poker connecting with that small head. He turned, caught a glimpse of Elinore running out of the house while Fiona tried to comfort Brooke, who was crying hysterically. Then he stumbled away from them as far as he could manage before he fell to his hands and knees and was violently sick.
Breanna slowly got to her feet. On legs that felt as fragile as cracked glass, she walked toward the tree, wobbling as if she’d been ill for a very long time. Her legs buckled before she reached the tree, so she crawled the rest of the way on her hands and knees. She saw a foreleg twitch, heard the bubbly, labored breathing as she crawled to the dog.