I couldn’t even really respond now that I had people around me. The bastard.
“How long until our reinforcements start arriving?” Oisin asked. “We did just send up a giant flare, after all.”
“We just rang the dinner bell for the fae-pocalypse, brother,” I told him. “The Masked Lords probably knew where Mabona was, but they were working their way across their list. Now they know we’re calling the Hunt here, they have to come here if they want to win.”
I shook my head.
“Mabona is the strongest of the High Court, I’m told.” Or had been told in the last five minutes, anyway. Assuming the Puck was real. “So, if we can save her, they’re screwed. Mabona and the Horned King could build a new Court from ashes and the dead, so everything rides on them killing her.”
“Or Silverstar,” Mary pointed out. “If she abandoned her fortress like you said, then she’s probably harder to find.”
“They’ll hope she’ll come here,” I said. “Hell, I’m hoping she’ll come here. I may not like the woman, but she is the Horned King of the Wild Hunt now. I’ll eat crow and apologize if it puts her and the rest of the Hunt on the right side of that barricade out there.”
“But you won’t give her the right of life and death over the Hunt,” Oisin said quietly. “So, we’ll see if apologizing would be enough.”
“Regardless of what Grainne Silverstar thinks or wants, I am a Noble of the Wild Hunt and a Vassal of the Queen of the Fae,” I reminded him, equally quietly. “Which means this is the only place I can be and this is a battlefield I cannot retreat from.”
Further conversation was cut off as both Oisin and I felt the incoming arrival of people traveling Between.
“The beacon should direct them outside,” I told them.
“Yup,” the Puck confirmed for me. “I wonder if this round are friends or enemies, don’t you?”
My dirty look at the Power’s projection earned me some strange gazes from the others, and I shook my head.
“It’s a long story. Let’s go greet our guests.”
“Is that going to be with words or cold iron bullets?” Raja asked, leaving me wondering if the asura warlord could hear the Puck.
“Depends on who it is, doesn’t it?”
Thankfully, it was Riley and two troops of the Wild Hunter from my half of the organization. They brought a dozen shifters and another dozen asura with them, bringing the first wave to forty supernaturals.
From Oisin’s expression, I don’t think he’d truly believed he was getting reinforced until that moment. As the Hunters, Companions, shifters and asura swarmed out of Between and began inspecting the ski lodge, though, a degree of strain finally left his face.
“Riley.” I clasped forearms with the Hunter. “How are we holding up at home?”
“I made sure the call came to me and not Damh,” he said brightly. “The rest of the Hunt is prepping the heavier gear. Once they’re equipped, Orman will wake up Damh and he can lead the way.”
“We really need to start handing out some job titles,” I murmured. “Damh’s in command after me, but I think Amandine is technically the only one who’s supposed be ordering around the troop captains.”
We had one Guardian and one Noble. Chain of command amongst the troop captains went by respect—or in this case, who they figured had my ear.
Weird thought.
“Probably,” Riley agreed. “Right now, though, everyone knows how it goes. Once the crisis is over, we’ll sort shit out.”
Hopefully, once the crisis was over, Silverstar and I could reconcile the two halves of the Wild Hunt. The schism amongst the Hunt’s survivors was a clear and present threat to the security of the fae.
I turned to face Barry Tenerim and shook his hand next.
“I’m glad to see you lot,” I told him. “Based off their last op, these guys are coming loaded with cold iron. You and yours are going to be a nasty surprise for them.”
“I love being a nasty surprise,” Barry replied with a grin. “How’s my cousin?”
“Running things, as usual,” I said. “Check in with her. I know protecting her is your first priority.”
“Right now, it looks like the best way I can protect my charge is to keep this whole little fort intact,” he said. “Could do with a few tougher walls or a tank. Or six.”
“I could do with an army or a conscious god,” I agreed. “But we’ve got what we’ve got.”
“Oberis got the call as well, but I don’t know what he’ll have ready to go,” Riley pointed out.
“Not much, most likely. The only fae organization that keeps troops ready to go is us,” I reminded him. “And my Fealty won’t let me inform the Wizard.”
“We could use him,” Riley said slowly. “But hell, I can feel my Fealty refusing, and my oath is to you.”
“And mine is to Mabona, so you do owe her Fealty as well,” I said. “We can’t let another Power near our Queen while she’s helpless. Even MacDonald might be tempted to take advantage.”
“So, we’re waiting for the enemy?” he asked.
“For now.” I glanced over to where Raja was organizing his own people. “I do have one task for you right away, though. Hunters only, I think. There’s a sniper team with an antimaterial rifle and at least a few rocket launchers stalking the driveway into this place.
“Deal with them.”
Riley grinned and bowed.
“Consider it already done, my lord.”
We spent the next hour reinforcing the barricades Oisin and his people had assembled. Now that we had hands, such “simple” tasks as pulling the tables from the unused dining rooms and using them to reinforce the line of vehicles were possible.
Oisin had three Fae Nobles, also Vassals of the Queen, under his command. Their glamors helped us reinforce the barricades further, turning the horseshoe-shaped connected chalets into something close to a true fortification.
It wouldn’t hold against anything resembling a modern military force, but we weren’t really expecting to face that. There were limits to the resources that the supernatural community could field.
Even military-grade ordnance like the AMR and rocket launchers the sniper team had been using to besiege the ski lodge or the pair of M60s we’d now set up on the barricade was few and far between. Most supernaturals were limited to what a well-connected criminal organization could get their hands on.
I expected more of the mortal mercenaries we’d seen at Tír fo Thuinn, equipped with the gear you’d expect of mercenaries. They’d be supported by supernaturals armed with assault rifles, submachine guns and Gifts.
At the heart of it all would be the ritual team. Twenty-one Lords and Nobles, one of them carrying Asi. I wasn’t sure what the range of their ritual was, but it couldn’t be short. Not if they’d killed my father—and a Magus, for that matter.
I was operating on the assumption that if the ritual team could see it, they could kill it. The only real question was how much energy the ritual team had available. It would make a massive difference if the they had one shot available to them…or, say, ten.
“Amandine, we’ve got at least some people who were there when my father fought the Masked Lords, right?” I asked the Guardian. “I need to know more about what they did with this damn ritual.”
“A few,” she admitted. “Including me.” She shivered. “I don’t like to think about it, but if you need to know, I’ll answer what I can.”
“The ritual team they assembled,” I said. “How much fighting were they doing other than focusing on that? I mean, we’re talking about a collection of some of the most powerful non-Power fae alive. If they’re free to get involved in the battle, it could be ugly.”
She considered.
“From what I remember, they were defending themselves but not much more until after they’d fired their shot at Calebrant,” she said slowly. “It seemed to be a ‘one and done’ kind of deal, where they had to rest afterwards and it took all of their energy
.”
“That makes sense. Powers are supposed to be unkillable.”
“I’d agree. I don’t know if that’s safe to rely on, though,” Amandine pointed out.
“Oh, I know,” I agreed. “Once we locate the ritual team, we need to hit them hard and fast. That’ll be the key point of the conflict. We’ll need our best.”
“We’ll need you,” she told me. “I don’t think anyone will be able to go up against Asi without you and Esras. Artifacts like that…” She shook her head. “With that sword in their hands, they don’t need to be Lords to be able to destroy anything in their path.”
A new presence rippled through the Between, and we both inhaled.
“New guests,” I said aloud.
“It’s too soon for Coleman,” Amandine reminded me. “Our people won’t have been ready this quickly.”
“I know. With me,” I ordered.
“Where did they get the horses?”
It took me a moment to even register that it had been the projection of the Puck who’d asked the question, because I was thinking it myself and I was quite sure everyone else was too.
Twenty-four massive pure white horses emerged from the Between in a neat double file, each easily six or seven feet high at the shoulders.
The women on their back—and they were all women—were not cut to the same scale. Even from a distance, though, I could tell they were carved from iron and stone. They wore regular casual clothes—and finely crafted silvered chainmail hauberks over those clothes.
Each bore a silver-hilted sword over her shoulder, and the horses were carrying an assortment of weapons, ranging from a massive two-handed greataxe to a World War II–vintage Browning machine gun.
I knew what they were, but I wasn’t sure why they were there until the leader dismounted and embraced me.
Inga Strand had trained me in the use of my Gifts as a favor to the Queen. She’d been a Valkyrie and then been a Hunter once the Wild Hunt had absorbed the various other military forces of the Fae and Aesir.
She was retired now, after two centuries of service. No one who’d ridden as a Valkyrie remained in the Wild Hunt—two hundred years was more than enough for even a fae to decide they needed to try something new with their lives.
“Kilkenny,” she greeted me. “We heard the call. Looks like you were doing okay, but I figured you wouldn’t mind the help.”
I returned her unexpected embrace as I looked over her companions. Like Inga, they all could have passed for a solidly fit middle age among mortals. Among fae, that meant they were all easily into their third century.
“You brought the Valkyries,” I said slowly.
“All I could call in short order,” she confirmed. “We’re retired now, but…it seemed like you could use the hands.”
“Everything might ride on tonight, Inga,” I told her. “Thank you. I…I never expected you to come. You’re retired, after all.”
“Retired or not, I’d rather not see these morons burn the Covenants of Silence down around our ears!” she said fiercely. “Where would you have us, Lord Kilkenny of the Hunt?”
“My lady, you’ve fought more battles than I’ve seen movies,” I pointed out. “I’d use you as a mobile reserve, but you know this dance better than I do.”
She smirked.
“You’re getting better at this,” she told me. “Ankaris was right to recruit you.”
“You know what happened to him.” I wasn’t asking. There was no way she’d be here if she didn’t know.
“I know. I won’t say he made a mistake with Silverstar, but I think everyone would have been happier if you’d been with the Hunt for a decade or so before anything happened to Ankaris.”
There was an implication there I didn’t dare try and unpack, so I stepped back and bowed to the other Valkyries.
Respect cost very little, and one did not disrespect multi-century-old Hunters.
They were dismounted and arranging their weapons. The one with the WWII Browning turned out to have a harness for mounting the big gun on her horse, the animal seeming surprisingly unperturbed by the process of being turned into a mobile weapon platform.
I was so distracted by the Valkyries that it took me a few seconds too long to sense the incoming presence of the next people to arrive from the Between. They didn’t arrive calmly or politely, either, with Between ripping open to spill out rapidly deploying fire teams.
If I hadn’t recognized them, we might have had a firefight right there.
“Hold fire, hold fire!” I barked. “It’s the Wild Hunt.”
Coleman wouldn’t have been there yet—and Coleman wouldn’t have shown up nearly as aggressively. Fire teams of Hunters and Companions formed a rough perimeter in the outdoor parking lot, clearly prepared to fight the people I’d arrayed to defend the Queen.
They weren’t starting a fight, though, and I waited for what had to come next, the only reason multiple troops of Hunters I wasn’t expecting would have shown up like this.
She arrived in the center of the perimeter her people had established, clad in reforged green armor and the horned helm of her rank. Walking out of the nothingness of Between, she surveyed us all with distaste.
Grainne Silverstar, Horned King of the Wild Hunt, was there.
43
The parking lot made for a solid impromptu assembly yard for the troops we’d been gathering, and now it looked like it might make for an effective battlefield.
Silverstar picked me out of the people waiting and clearly stalked directly toward me.
“Stand back,” I murmured to Amandine and Inga, gesturing for them to fall behind me as I walked forward to meet the Horned King.
The perimeter her Hunters had formed drew back slightly to allow her to walk through, and I waved my own people back. We halted about ten feet apart in a rapidly growing empty space in the center of the parking lot.
“Your Majesty,” I greeted her, inclining my head. “You received our message? I’m grateful that you could come. With the Masked Lords threatening the Queen, every hand, every fae, is needed to keep us together.”
“The Queen lives, then?” Silverstar asked. “I’ve been seeking the High Court, but every one of them we’ve found is already dead. We are growing short on Powers, Kilkenny.”
“I am her Vassal,” I said. “She lives and we stand to protect her. Unfortunately, the Masked Lords know where we are. This lodge was under siege already before I arrived.”
I shook my head.
“My call for aid inevitably has warned them that we are preparing to defend her, but we had no choice.”
“I understand,” she allowed. “You seem to be missing a few Hunters who followed you into treason, Kilkenny.”
“They’re coming,” I said calmly.
“She’s missing a few of her own, too,” the Puck said softly. “Don’t ask why. You’ll make her suspicious…but I wonder if these are only the ones she trusts completely.”
He was right. There were only two troops of Hunters here…thirty-six fighters. Eighteen should have been Companions, but it looked like instead she only had nine Companions and twenty-seven Hunters.
Why? Was the Puck right? Had she brought only the ones she trusted completely?
And if so, what was she trusting them to do?
“You are not forgiven your trespasses, Kilkenny,” the Horned King told me, her voice iron. “But we have a greater enemy today. Will you put aside our conflicts and stand together to defend our people and our Court?”
If she was willing to make peace for now, I was fine with that. So long as she didn’t try to execute any of my Hunters, at least.
“My Queen is in danger,” I replied. “I will accept any aid to make certain she is safe.”
She slowly bowed her head to me.
“Then we stand together,” she told me. “My Hunters will reinforce the defenses. Do you have any intelligence on when the enemy are coming?”
“Not yet,” I admitted. “We removed
their agents on the scene, however, so I can’t imagine they’ll wait long.”
“Some of what we have learned may be of value,” Silverstar suggested. “Shall we speak inside, out of the cold?”
“All right.”
The cold in this conversation had nothing to do with the temperature, and I wasn’t sure that going inside would help it at all. Nonetheless, it cost nothing to be polite.
We left Silverstar’s people outside, but Inga calmly followed us in. From the way Silverstar quailed when the Valkyrie fixed her with a harsh gaze, I wasn’t the only one in this room that Inga had trained.
I traded a quick glance with Niamh as we entered the chalet lobby. She coughed, tapped the base of her throat with two fingers, and then disappeared back toward Mabona’s room.
It took me several seconds to realize she was reminding me about the tiny vial of quicksilver I wore around my neck. While I’d replaced the dose of heartstone-infused mercury after using it, the stone vial and leather cord I stored it in had been delivered to me by Niamh.
She’d only delivered under Mabona’s direct orders and had never approved. If she was reminding me about it now…
Yeah, Niamh did not like Silverstar.
“You said you might know something useful?” I asked Silverstar as she promptly proceeded to the bar and, without asking, started mixing herself a drink.
“We tracked the amphibious vehicles the bastards used to attack Tír fo Thuinn,” she told me, then swallowed down a mouthful of whatever hellishly alcoholic beverage she’d just put together. “They were launched from a retrofitted merchant ship, French registration. A few pointed questions to the captain later and, well…”
Somehow, her phrasing left me doubting that the captain of the merchant ship was still alive.
“And?”
“They docked at a port in France after the attack. Doesn’t matter which one, really. There were transport planes for them there, heading to North America. The Masks already knew where they needed their mercenaries.”
“Assuming they brought their gear on those planes and managed to sneak by customs, they would be in the mountains by now,” I concluded. “If they’re relying on conventional transportation for their mercenaries, that limits how subtle they can be. We’ll want to send scouts to watch for them.”
Noble's Honor (Changeling Blood Book 3) Page 23