I jumped to the top of the barricade, Esras in my hand. I didn’t let my brain slow down to boggle at the leap I’d just made—that wall of fire was going to be a problem.
I snuffed it out with a gesture of the spear, then duplicated the trick it seemed that everyone had pulled on me in the last year. I conjured a dozen blades of glamor and sent them hurtling at the telekinetic shields the fae had conjured.
Glamor shattered against the shields, but the glamor was only a cover for darts of force that ripped through the shields like they weren’t there.
A new shield appeared out of nothingness, covering my people from the incoming fire as best I could without blocking our return fire, and for a moment, that was it.
Then the fae conjured a new defense, a swirling storm of Fire and Ice and Force that filled the air between the attackers and our defenders. I contained it, holding it in place.
The intent wasn’t to attack us now. That storm was just cover, and it worked. While I struggled to contain the magic woven by over forty fae, they helped their mortal mercenaries retreat. By the time I collapsed the storm cloud, they’d abandoned the field.
And if I’d intentionally taken longer to destroy their spell than I needed to, well, no one was ever going to know but me.
47
A peaceful quiet descended across the mountains. The field in front of the chalet was a warzone, with snow and mud churned up with blood and ashes, that gave the lie to that peace.
“Get the wounded back to Niamh,” I ordered. “Richard, how are you holding up?”
The big shifter had a lot of holes in his heavy winter coat, but he shook himself like a wet dog and threw me a thumbs-up.
“I could really use a burger, but otherwise, I’m good,” he told me.
“Someone get the man who just regenerated thirty bullet holes a sandwich,” I called with a shake of my head.
“Raja?”
“I’m fine. Basant will need some bandaging and to pass the gun over to someone else,” he said, with a firm glance at the other asura. “He’s no good to our liege lord dead, is he?”
Basant wilted a bit under Raja’s glance and allowed one of the shifters to lead him away to get his injuries checked out. Cold iron bullets weren’t armor-piercing, but they were close enough to do a number on even asura who weren’t careful.
“No dead,” Damh reported. “It looks like our opponents pulled back their wounded as well, but they definitely lost more than they could afford.”
“I doubt the Masked Lords will weep for their mortal pawns,” I replied. I might. I certainly felt bad enough for the poor bastards. They had no idea what kind of war they’d wandered into the middle of.
“Or their fae pawns, for that matter,” Inga said gruffly. The Valkyrie was still weak, but she was conscious and recovering. She couldn’t take part in this wave, but she’d be ready if the battle dragged on. “Even Silverstar’s Vassals were expendable.”
“Much as I would like prisoners, I’m not going to feel particularly bad if none of the Masked Lords surrender,” I said grimly. “This needs to end, people. We can’t continue to run our society knowing that some of its leaders are rebels.”
“I don’t suppose we’re expecting more reinforcements?” Amandine asked.
I shook my head at the Guardian.
“It’s possible,” I allowed. “The problem is that I can’t trust anyone. I’m reasonably sure I can trust Oberis and his people…but I’m also relatively sure the Masked Lords still have at least one agent in his court.”
“So, we fight them with the Hunt and your personal Vassals?” she said.
“Exactly.” I hefted Esras and felt the tenor of the world around me. The way that all of reality seemed to be…malleable to me now was still strange.
“They’ll be here soon,” I observed aloud. “They know I’m here now and what I am. What my father started, it falls to me to finish—so, if they want to win their little war, they have to come for me.”
“We’ll be waiting for them, my King,” Amandine told me firmly. “The Wild Hunt has faced this enemy before and we taught them defeat once.”
With the attack on Tír fo Thuinn, the honors between the Hunt and the Masked Lords were roughly even, but I kept my peace.
She was right, after all. With my father at their head, the Wild Hunt had beaten the Masked Lords once. With me at their head, they would do so again.
If they didn’t, the failure was probably mine. My father, after all, had been a Power for almost a century before he’d fought the Masked Lords.
It was looking like I might have a whole three hours of experience as a Power before I fought them.
The arrival of the next wave of the Masked Lords’ attack was a hammerblow to the head of everyone with the Gift of Between. We could feel arrivals, but this was something else entirely.
This wasn’t a few dozen Hunters bringing one Companion apiece. This was twenty-one Lords opening a tunnel through the Between, creating a passageway from wherever they’d been preparing to the field in front of the chalet.
If we hadn’t had the warning, it would have been a disaster. They opened their attack with a salvo of grenades and light mortar rounds out of the Between. I threw a shield of Force up as soon as I realized just how large an opening they were creating, and barely managed to hold off the onslaught of explosives.
Explosives were followed by a brutal barrage of gunfire and Gifts as another hundred fae came storming out of the tunnel. Fire and lightning hurtled at our barricades from multiple directions as they spread out to cover as many angles as they could and the previous attackers joined the assault.
Our machine guns returned fire and our people added their own Gifts to the fray, but the mortars rapidly proved a serious problem. Grenade launchers had a bit of an arc and we could shield against them.
The mortars were firing dozens of meters into the air and descending behind our positions.
“Shield up!” someone shouted, and I expanded my defenses. Shells were falling from the sky and exploding against the telekinetic shields we were covering our position with.
Not every shell had cold iron fragments in it, but enough did that the shield was a strain even for me. I was protecting multiple angles against multiple attacks and suppressing the Gift attacks at the same time.
Gunfire echoed next to my ear as someone stepped Between inside our fortifications. Unfortunately for the Hunter who’d sworn service to the Masked Lords, Mary was waiting next to me, and his lunge at me ended in a spray of point-blank submachine gun fire.
“I’ve got your back,” she told me. “Keep covering everyone.”
This was the full-bore assault, the hard and fast hammer that had overwhelmed the defenses of Tír fo Thuinn. There’d been four times as many Hunters and Companions to protect that ancient fortress—but they’d been taken by surprise.
We weren’t.
I flung back the Gift assault, clearing the path for our own Companions to fill the air with a storm of power that smashed the lead elements of the assault force back. That gave me a few seconds to locate the mortars.
I didn’t have time for subtle. I focused my will on the weapons’ position and told the world to make them go away.
One moment, half a dozen portable light mortars were pounding our position and several more were being set up. The next, a dozen guns and two dozen fae were just…gone. Ash and dust drifted in the breeze as my will simply obliterated them.
I was no longer a changeling with specific Gifts at Noble levels of power. I was a Power, and even I had no idea what that meant.
I unleashed another wave of destruction at what looked like a core assault group, scattering the Nobles who tried to defend against it. They protected their people, but only at the cost of physically being strewn across the battlefield.
Even inexperienced and unaware of my powers and limits, I realized there was no way this assault could succeed so long as I was there. All of this was a distraction, a side
show to what had to be coming…now.
I stepped Between as I felt the arrival coming, emerging on the mountainside above the battlefield and spraying the attackers’ left flank with fire.
My goal wasn’t really to defeat them or kill anyone. My goal was to attract the attention of the newest arrivals.
Twenty-one figures in cold iron masks were suddenly standing in the middle of the battlefield. I could feel the potential power rippling off them from here. The ritual was already mostly complete, ready to be fired off. A second, smaller group of masked Nobles was shielding them from the battle.
All told, thirty Nobles and Lords of the fae stood in the center of the battle, ignoring everything except me.
The woman in front raised an ancient-looking sword and pointed it at me. There was no warning, no threat, no rise in the increase in potential.
Only the fact that I knew what was going on let me realize that she was attacking. Surprise was a powerful tool, and I could easily see how they’d managed to strike down my father and Ankaris.
I stepped Between as the blade leveled at my heart. Even from outside reality, I felt the blow strike home, an unimaginably powerful bolt of force hammering into the mountain where I’d been standing.
The ritual didn’t attack a Power. It attacked the reality around a Power, finding and twisting, distorting the link to the world and magic that made a Power a Power.
But I was Between. There was no link for the magic to hit, so it unleashed its force on the mountainside. I couldn’t tell if that was all they had or if the ritual had a second shot…and there was only one way to find out.
I stepped out of the Between back onto the mountainside.
That was a mistake. The spell hadn’t hit me, hadn’t had the inextricable link between Power and reality to sever, so it had spent all of its energy in a more…kinetic fashion.
On a mountainside of stone and snow. In avalanche country. The ground gave way under my feet as I tried to find my footing, and I realized the entire mountain was coming down.
Right at the ski lodge. They might have failed to kill me, but it looked like the Masked Lords were about to do a good job of murdering my people instead.
Except that I was, inexperienced and unprepared or not, a Power.
I let myself fall as I reached into that link with reality and changed what was happening. The mountain was still falling, yes, but it wasn’t falling on the chalet. By a “fluke” force and wind and angles, the rockslide was going to miss the lodge.
The Masked Lords took too long to realize I’d redirected the avalanche. They tried to shield themselves, but it was far, far too late.
I smashed their shield to pieces anyway. They probably had enough time to realize what I’d done before several thousand tons of rock and ice descended on them.
They definitely didn’t have enough time to do anything.
48
It took me fifteen minutes to find Asi in the debris. My people were focused on taking the survivors of the Masked Lords’ army into custody. None of the Lords themselves had survived. A Power-guided avalanche made for a terrifyingly deadly weapon.
And it looked like most of the fae had been bound by Fealty. The deaths of their lords had freed them from those bonds, so they were willing—even desperate—to surrender to anyone who’d let them.
My orders had been very clear and my people were being surprisingly obedient. Even the asura were calmly taking prisoners, focusing on making sure we got everyone who was still alive out of the snow.
The battle was over. No one was going to freeze to death out there on our watch.
Once I was sure that the survivors were in hand, I searched for the pulsing energy signature of the ancient blade and then starting digging.
None of the bodies I uncovered were intact enough to really deserve the title. I’d thrown the heart of the mountain at the Masked Lords’ ritual team. They’d been smashed flat.
The sword, however, was intact. I’d known that from the beginning, and I could feel it and Esras “communicating” as I got closer. The two weapons were much of a kind, really, and the degree to which they clearly recognized each other was fascinating to me.
More than anything, though, I wasn’t leaving Asi buried there. I couldn’t responsibly leave one of the most powerful artifacts in the world merely buried under a few meters of ice and rock.
I pulled the old sword out and levitated myself back up to the surface. Holding the two ancient weapons in my hands, I looked at the hole I’d dug for a long minute.
Then I collapsed it in on itself. The Masked Lords would be buried where they died. We would eventually need to pull out the bodies and check under the masks. Enough people had died in this chaos that there would be an open question of who the rebels had been otherwise.
For now, however, they would stay there under the ice.
I walked back toward the chalet and was unsurprised to find Raja waiting for me halfway.
“We’ve found everyone who’s still alive, I think,” he noted calmly. “Probably about half of them at best. They weren’t expecting to fight a mountain.”
“Perhaps they should have.” I considered the asura warlord silently for a few seconds. “You have your revenge, Raja Venkat Asi. What now?”
He winced.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t swear Fealty to you contingent on anything, my lord. I am yours to command.”
“Huh.” He wasn’t looking at the sword in my left hand but I knew he’d seen it. There was no way that Raja wasn’t aware of what I was holding.
“Catch.” I tossed him the sword.
He caught it, staring at it as it glowed happily at being in contact with him.
“I failed that oath,” he told me. “I failed my family. I failed the sword. I am your man now.”
“Then in my service, guard that damn thing,” I replied. “I’ll keep you with me and the Hunt if you want to stay, but there’s no one else better qualified to stand over Asi. Though I’ll note that if you fall back into mercenary assassinations, there will be words.”
His fingers clenched on the hilt.
“Never again,” he told me fiercely. “I will serve to my death, but I will see the sword guarded. And there will be no distractions for his new protectors.”
“Good.” I walked past him toward the chalet. The battle was over, but I still had work to do today.
Oisin’s people were clearing away the SUVs, though the Queen’s guard were still clearly maintaining a watchful eye. The Hunter Noble himself was sitting on the front hood of an SUV that was never driving again.
“Oisin. How are your people?” I asked.
“Alive, thanks to you,” he replied. “The Queen is still out, though. Any idea how long it’ll be before she wakes up?”
I shook my head.
“Ask Niamh?” I suggested. “She’s spent more time being a Power’s physician than I’ve spent being a Power. By a couple of orders of magnitude.”
He nodded.
“Fair enough. Not how you expected the day to go, huh, boss?”
I paused, then sighed.
“I guess I am your boss now, aren’t I?”
“One of two,” he confirmed. “And with Mabona still unconscious, it’s all your call.”
“I don’t see a reason to move her,” I told him. “I’m going to get some of my people moving back towards both Calgary and Tír fo Thuinn, but we’ll be keeping a close watch on this place.
“I’m certainly not going anywhere until she wakes up,” I said with a grimace. “I need to make sure there’s someone around to take charge of this giant mess. Speaking of people in charge, do you know where Amandine and Damh ended up?”
“They’re running your people ragged from over there,” Oisin pointed.
“Thanks.”
The four fae who’d ended up acting as the Wild Hunt’s command staff—Damh, Amandine, Riley and Inga—were gathered around the Escalade, talking to Mary.
I walked over to them, hugging Mary as I traded nods with the rest.
“Where are we at?”
“Digging,” Amandine replied. “There’s no road left out of here, if you hadn’t noticed. Someone dropped a mountain on us.”
“That was them,” I said. “I just made sure it didn’t fall directly on us.”
“Which is appreciated.”
“In any case, any problems getting people to fall in line?” I asked. “We’ve been going on ‘people know who Jason trusts’ for most of this.”
“Nada,” Riley replied. “That’s been enough.”
“It won’t be for long, not as we try and put this mess back together,” I told them. “So, let’s make it clear.” I pointed at Damh and Riley. “You two are Second and Third Guardians.
“Riley, I want your butt and three troops of Hunters and Companions back at Tír fo Thuinn,” I told him. “Double-check the fortifications, renew the cloaking spells.” I sighed. “Bury any of our dead that Silverstar left there.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Damh, I want you to take two troops back to Calgary,” I continued, turning to my first Hunt subordinate. “The house is now going to be an official Wild Hunt base. You need to petition Oberis and MacDonald for permission, but I doubt they’ll give us trouble.
“Once we’ve got leave, we’ll move more of our hands back to Calgary. I don’t want to have the entire Wild Hunt floating around here.” I shook my head. “We need to keep a careful eye on Mabona, but too many fae here is going to draw attention.”
“Can do,” he confirmed.
I turned to Inga.
“You’re retired,” I pointed out. “So are your Valkyries.”
“Your point?” she replied.
“I’m not giving any of you orders, but I would be grateful beyond words if any of you would be willing to return to the Hunt for a year or two.”
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