Author's Note: here you go, guys! Finally an update! I know I waited a little more than a month, but things have been crazy here. I'm still trying to adjust. So here's the next installment of the Northern Villages arc. Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! I'll try to have the next chap up before Halloween. Huggles to you all!
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Chapter One-Hundred-Ten
The Hammer Fell Like Thunder
that is
A Short Tale of a Fomorian's Ponderings, Talk of Children, Weaponized Sugar, a Young Warrior's Honor Restored, Eavesdropping from a Pine Tree, Stripling Warriors, Nurse Pauline, Dragons' Fear, the Prince's Protection, Liam's Confession, the Prowling Shadow, and the Thunder
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Cíaran mac Aengus, disguised gancanaugh and royal torturer and assassin of Cíocal, opened his mouth to say something to his prince, but closed it again without uttering a sound. Bres had been staring out the window lost in thought off and on for the last three days. The only time he roused himself was when Princess Nuala came calling. Even Dierdre's enticements could do nothing to snare his attention. Cíaran had wanted to ask a thousand times what Bres was thinking about, but so far he hadn't quite dared. Not after the crown prince's explosion in the face of Nuada's refusal to find the third Golden Crown piece.
"I don't understand," Bres muttered, shattering the silence. Cíaran started at the sudden noise. "Why is she doing this?"
The gancanaugh cleared his throat. "Your Highness?"
Bres blew out a harsh breath. "That…human. I do not understand her. She is nothing but a mortal and yet…yet she is risking her life for Nuada's people. She isn't stupid, I know that much. So why is she doing this?"
A little more at ease—he had the answer to that—Cíaran replied, "It is simple, my friend. She wants to keep her place in Silverlance's bed."
To his surprise, the Fomorian prince shook his head. He glared out the window as if the setting sun dared to withhold the answers to his questions. In a low voice he said, "No. No, she would not risk so much just for that. Nuada is besotted with the whore, she needs do nothing to hold his favor at this point. There is another reason. I just do not know what."
"Does it matter?" Cíaran asked. "We know he loves her, we know she is mortal. Is that not enough of a betrayal? And who knows how long their little affair has been going on? How long Nuada has been flaunting his shame under our noses? Remember, Iolo could not discover when exactly Nuada betrayed us, only that he'd been going to the mortal's home for several months at least."
Iolo was the Master of the Hunt to King Arawn of Annwn, an old friend of Nuada's and a somewhat neutral party regarding the war. Iolo claimed to serve Arawn, but there was another in the Welsh king's court that he called "master." Someone who wanted Silverlance dead as much as Bres and Cíaran did. Someone who understood that the humans were nothing but filth to be washed away in a bloodbath to cleanse their evil from the world. There may have been a few worth saving, but the precious lives of the fae meant the princes and princesses could not bear to wait while their sovereigns picked through the detritus of the mortal realm to find those rare and perhaps mythical few. They all had to die, for the sake of the Twilight Realm.
Because his true master owed Bres a favor, Iolo had agreed to keep watch on the mortal whore's hovel, to garner information on the Tuathan prince's doings there. Despite the Welshman's distaste for some of Bres' other minions such as Eamonn and Dierdre, Iolo had maintained his post until the human had accompanied the prince back to Findias. And in doing so, he'd discovered something else Silverlance might have been keeping a secret from those he claimed as friends and allies.
"Arrachd and Lí Ban—they still haven't found Silverlance's bastard?" Cíaran asked. Although it was true that the child, who had Bethmooran blood and powerful Sight, might not be Nuada's child, the odds were stacked against her. How else could a child of no more than six or seven years pierce strong glamour? And she looked like the spawn of that whore and the treacherous prince.
Bres growled something deprecating under his breath. "No. They've hidden her away well enough. Bethmoora needn't worry about her; royal Elven blood might run in her veins, but the whore's polluted it to the point that the bratling has no true power. But if Silverlance thinks he can hide this little indiscretion forever, he's wrong."
"And we'll put the brat on display once we've begun heaping dishonor on Nuada's head?" Cíaran asked, just to be sure. After all, the worst thing they could do was show that Bethmoora's prince, already convicted of being a human lover, had also sired something with this human, risking the kingdom by taking the chance that his spawn might pollute Bethmoora, poison it and its people with mortality. If the Tuatha dé Danaan and the other fae of Bethmoora didn't despise him by then, Cíaran didn't know what it would take to make them do so.
The Fomorian prince snorted. "Cíaran, you've always been so honorable. Perhaps others might call you a coward for shying away from certain…necessities, but not I."
The gancanaugh stiffened. "Necessities, Your Highness?" Who the bloody hell had called him a coward?
"We're taking this kingdom through politics as well as marriage, Cíaran. We can't have Nuada's bastard still around for some faction of dissidents to try and turn into a savior or a rallying point or even a martyr. We need to dispose of her. Preferably away from the public eye but somewhere Nuada will either see or hear about it. The same goes for that halfling brat in the servants' quarters here. That thing is not Nuada's, but it's the offspring of that human whore and I want it dead."
"But…Bres. It's an infant. Surely we could…oh, I don't know…take it and keep it as a servant at Mágh Ithé. The same with the other one, the girl-child. Make them loyal to us. Then if someone did try to put the little creature on the throne or what have you, it would simply play right back into our hands, since both half-breeds would be loyal to us."
Whipping around, Bres fixed a savage look on Cíaran. "If Nuada were in his right mind, he would want us to eliminate the source of his dishonor, Lord mac Aengus. Why so shy all of sudden? I realize you're reticent about killing the half-breeds so young but if you give them a chance to become more than mewling larvae, they'll infest all of Faerie before you know it. They'll corrupt the fae. Half-blooded humans do it all the time, always have, always will. You can't allow the sickness to take root, Cíaran, or soon enough you're in a garden of weeds and nettles." Bres scoffed. "You've always been soft when it comes to children. I've never understood it."
Cíaran looked away. It was true that his stomach turned more than a little at the thought of hurting a child, even one with human blood. Killing the pure-blooded human children was a necessity of the coming war. It would stop them from growing up, rising up, and fighting back. But that was war. To kill a child, even a wretch like Nuada's get or the whore's infant spawn, in cold blood…
"Have you never wanted a family, Bres?" Cíaran asked softly.
Bres rolled his eyes and groaned. "Ugh, not from you, too, I beg you. The princess speaks of children from time to time. It's all I can do not to snap her neck when she starts prattling. I still don't understand why you want one of the things. Dierdre doesn't. I certainly don't."
"You've bastards aplenty—"
"Those aren't children," Bres interrupted. "They're by-blows. Unfortunate accidents. Nothing to concern myself with. They're the property of whatever sluts were stupid enough to try and get with child by me, thinking to win a piece of my crown."
The gancanaugh didn't comment on this. Luckily, Dierdre had never yet gotten with child by Bres, but if she ever did, Cíaran had no illusions that his sister's child would receive any consideration from its father. He only replied, "You'll have to have an heir someday."
"I'll find one of the stupid noble sluts who doesn't irritate me to death, marry her, roger her until she gives me an heir or three, and then have done with her. Simple. Families like what you're wishing for are a fool's dream, Cíaran, and more trouble than they're worth. That little wish will be the death of you someday." Then Bres barked a laugh. "Or of me, if you don't stop talking about it and moping around. Go play with your little hob maids; I'm sure they miss your attentions. And send Dierdre to my chambers."
Cíaran was glad enough to get away from such talk, and gladder still to submit to the ministrations of Lilè and Fiona, the two chambermaids he'd taken into his bed during his stay in Findias. But for some reason Bres's words still echoed in the back of his head.
The death of you someday…or of me…
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Upstairs in the tavern room where Iúile had fallen asleep only to wake up with labor pains, Dylan arranged folded linens, checked the small cauldron of water coming to a boil on the hearth, and made sure she had the proper herbs and tools because she really didn't want to have to send 'Sa'ti for them or worse, go scurrying to find them herself once the Elven maiden's labor got seriously underway. For now, though, they had time.
"You're all right," Dylan said for the hundredth time as she went to Iúile's side once more and took her arm. "Everything's going smoothly, believe it or not. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're all right, I promise."
Iúile's lips pressed together as a contraction slowly squeezed through her. Her grip on Dylan and Liam's arms matched the slow progression of the pain through her lower back and stomach that had been going on for nearly thirty minutes. Dylan had only left the room once during that time, and the girl had panicked in her absence.
When the pain eased back, Iúile murmured, "This hurts."
Dylan offered her an understanding smile. "That's why it's called labor, my dear. How long has this been going on?"
"A few hours," Iúile quavered. "Since before I talked to you, but…but it's hurt off and on for almost a fortnight. Cramps in my back and whatnot. I didn't think—"
"It's all right, no problem. I'm just trying to get an accurate timeline. Now Liam, for right now, she needs to walk around, okay? It'll help speed things up. I have to go again, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. 'Sa'ti," she added to the cougar girl, who hovered near the door, unsure what she was supposed to do. "I don't think I'm gonna need your help just yet, so you can go back to what you were doing, okay? But if you see any of my sisters on the way, tell them to come find me up here."
"Yes, A'ge'lv." The little girl scampered out of the room with Dylan following after, shutting the door behind her. Out in the hall, Francesca and Victoria were waiting. They were actually fidgeting.
"Are we in trouble?" Cesca asked the minute Dylan shut the door. Tori just raised her eyebrows.
Dylan's smile became more than a little strained. "Not quite, no. Rather, we all are. The bandits are coming. Don't ask how I know, that's not important. What is important is the fact that they're going to be here in less than an hour. I know that doesn't give you guys a lot of time, but…oh, good," she added as Mary huffed up the stairs. "You're here, too. Listen, you've got about forty minutes at the most. They'll come at sunset. I need traps set up, as many as you guys can put together. Spike-pits, whippy branches, ice patches, whatever Home Alone crud you guys came up with on the drive over."
Tori folded her arms across her chest. "You might've told me, by the way, that salt was a problem for these people. Luckily, though," she added with a savage smile, "sugar isn't. And no matter how molten sugar gets, once it cools down, you can always heat it back up again. You just have to make sure it doesn't explode or anything."
The other Myers sisters just stared at her. Finally Mary asked, "Sugar can explode?"
A veteran chemistry teacher, Tori replied, "Sugar dust can. It can melt glass, too, if you get it hot enough."
Dylan eyed her sister. "What did you do?"
That savage smile took on a wicked edge. "You know what light bulbs are made of?" Dylan and the others shook their heads. "Nothing toxic to faeries, apparently. Glass, argon gas, and tungsten. The blacksmith and the glasswright were really nice about loaning some very helpful apprentices to me for drilling holes through the foam-glass bottoms of the light bulbs I bought from Costco—to let the argon gas out," she explained. "I know you've been busy and I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull this off or whether we'd have any glass bottles to work with, so I decided to just prepare for everything. Anyway, my little army of faerie child-minions should be just about done pouring the unrefined cane sugar dust into my dozens of light bulbs and the whiskey bottles we got from the tavern owner. Stuff in a rag soaked in ethanol, light it on fire, and throw."
Francesca's eyes had been growing bigger and bigger throughout her twin's recitation. When Tori just smiled beatifically at everyone at the end of her explanation, Francesca whispered, "Holy sweet honey iced tea…you just had a bunch of kids make homemade bombs."
Tori rocked back on her heels. "Except they won't actually explode, just burn super-hot so I'll have to lob them at the bad guys to make them shatter on impact. But yes, I'm contributing to the delinquency of faerie youth by teaching them to make miniature, all-natural Molotov cocktails. They're not throwing them, though. Petra's idea, just in case this King Balor is a bigger psycho than we think he is. They're going to keep us glamoured so the douche bags can't see us. We'd have the adults doing it, but we don't want to risk them just in case."
Dylan bit her lip to muffle her squee of happiness as she threw her arms around her older sister. "This was exactly why I wanted to bring you in the first place! Oh, Tori, you're a genius!"
"Even better," Victoria replied smugly. "I'm a chemistry teacher. Hehehehehe."
"I feel like doing a happy dance," Francesca said. "Those things sound like they'll do a lot of damage without poisoning the land or anything. These fae guys are sensitive to that kind of thing."
Mary interrupted, "Save the happy dance for after we kick those guys to the curb. We've got less than an hour. Petra's not back yet. Pauline's downstairs with that one kid in the blue hat, the sick one—"
"How is she?" Dylan asked. "Any worse?"
Mary shook her head. "No worse, but she's not getting better, either. Maybe it's too soon to expect anything, but Pauline's looking pretty worried. What was that stuff you've been giving the kid, anyway?"
"It's an expectorant," Dylan said. "It's what you give kids with croup so they cough up the junk in their lungs. Okay, you three. Keep it up with the booby traps. Also, the adults in the village need to know where they are so they don't accidentally trip any of them." She bit back a sigh and considered her options. "Do we have any protections on tavern windows? On the stables?"
At that, Mary looked more than a little uncomfortable. "Uh…I'll get on the windows, but the unicorn—Duskshine, was it? He said not to worry about the stables. He said once the bandits arrive, no one should try to get in the stables unless they want to get hurt."
Remembering that along with the two adolescent unicorns guarding baby Shimmer, there was also Lòman and Maeve, the two arions, as well as Wink's massive bonnacon mount with the wicked bull horns, Erik Ashkeson's wolf-horse hybrid, and Lorelei's horned indrik stallion, and who knew how many other beasts, she figured things would be okay on that front. She tried to think if she'd missed anything. The plan for the fields was to glamour them so they'd look just as barren as they had before Fluttershy did whatever she was going to do to fix them. Had she gotten around to that yet? Or would she run out of time? And was there anything else?
Dylan had this nagging sense of dread, almost like she was forgetting something but not quite. More like…like she'd forgotten about an enemy. Like there was someone else she needed to be worried about, she just couldn't remember who. Except there wasn't anyone or anything…was there? She and Nuada had known going into this that it was most likely a trap; they hadn't forgotten that. So…
Another quick mental review of their resources reminded her that Erik Ashkeson, Nuada's dökkálfr friend who lived in Brooklyn in the Troll Market, wasn't bound by the treaty and didn't answer to the king. Technically he was from Elphame, and Roiben—whose kingdom didn't belong to the treaty since America had been founded long after the final war with the humans—was his sovereign. Would Balor respect a technicality like that? If he did, that meant they had at least one other fighter who could actually protect something with weapons instead of weaponized science experiments. And Lorelei had made her "neutrality" very clear. She was in no way part of the Bethmooran court, despite her connection to the princess, prince, and Wink. She had never sworn fealty to the One-Armed King or anyone else. Lorelei could fight, too. Dylan decided she would have the pair of them guard the tavern from the ground with John, since the entire township would be holed up there during this raid.
Did they have any vulnerable points? The tavern was made of stone. Flaming arrows weren't much of a problem, thanks to a lack of thatch, unless they struck a door or a pair of wooden shutters. Hopefully John and Petra would be enough to prevent that.
John had wanted to try getting his hands on some explosives—C4, maybe, or plastique—but the chemicals in them would've poisoned the air and the land around them for miles. Nuada hadn't been sure what that sort of thing would do to those who were already sick from the salt and other poisons the bandits had spilled into the earth, since he wasn't a healer, but Dylan hadn't wanted to risk it. As it was, John had rigged a few makeshift landmines (and she didn't even want to know where he'd learned to make a freaking landmine) scattered across the stretch of land surrounding the village. He'd marked each one on a map so that after the battle, if there wasn't a crater where an X marked the map, they could carefully dig the mines up and dispose of them properly.
Thoughts of Nuada flooded her with a sharp, bitter sadness. He hated this. He wanted to be out there fighting, protecting his people, not holed up wherever he was waiting for the battle to be over. He'd prowled the corridor until she'd come out for a quick second to speak to her. He'd already given the warning and the orders to prepare for the coming invasion. When she stepped out into the corridor, he'd gone as still a wolf, eyeing her…
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"I will be out on the street," Nuada said, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. Dylan's cheeks tingled as the blood drained out of her head. She grabbed his arm as if he meant to turn away, but he only gazed down at her, feral-eyed.
She shook her head. "You can't do that, Nuada. You know you can't."
"Our measly band is not enough to protect these people, Dylan. You know this as well as I. I cannot stand back and watch my people slaughtered. You would not ask that of me."
She swallowed and snatched the kerchief off her head so she could throw it on the floor out of sheer frustration. No, she couldn't ask him to do that. She couldn't tell him to stand by and let these monsters kill innocent women and children, the elderly. But she knew what Balor would do to him if word ever got back to the king that the prince had gone out among the human beasts during the night and returned with his sword sheathed in red. Balor would flay the flesh from Nuada's back—if he was feeling generous.
"John had an idea—"
"A foolish and irresponsible one," Nuada grumbled. "Letting children fight."
Dylan folded her arms. "They'll be safe from the bandits. They'll be with the girls. The Lallybroch kids have been so ready and willing to do what we need, and right now we need extra hands. It's no more than they did when the village was attacked before—throwing stones and whatever from the rooftops. They're not even doing that, they're just keeping the girls supplied and glamoured so the bandits can't shoot at them. It might just be the distraction we need to get the upper hand."
The Elven prince scowled, but his eyes were stormy with a terrible mixture of hope, dread, and resignation. "And what about after? It is not what the bandits will do to the children which worries me, Dylan."
A part of her flinched from the implication of his words, more because she knew it hurt him to even consider it than for any other reason. She'd already considered it when John had mentioned it to her earlier that day. She wouldn't have told him to run it by Nuada otherwise.
"I love you," Dylan murmured. Nuada closed his eyes because, she knew, he knew there was more. "You have nearly every part of me, Nuada. My heart. My love. My fealty. And I never want to hurt you. Ever. But Your Highness," she said, shifting the playing field, turning the conversation not into whispered words between a prince and his truelove, but a prince and his vassal. "If there is a monarch to whom you are pledged who will murder a child in cold blood for defending itself, especially in such a passive way, we both know what is necessary then. I wouldn't ask that of you for all the world, you know I wouldn't. But you also know that it would be necessary. And I would be a poor princess—and a poor wife to you—if I didn't stand by you while you carried out that duty."
A shudder ripped through him at the cold, merciless words she hated to strike him with…but he'd taught her something in the last month living in Findias, playing the court games, dancing the political dance. Sometimes you had to be cold to the person you loved if you wanted to help them push through whatever darkness had found them. She loved him so much. She did. But if Balor murdered a child, and Nuada did nothing…she didn't know what she would do.
But she did know her prince, and she knew he would never stand back and do nothing. If the king dared to kill one of Nuada's subjects, Nuada would retaliate. He would rip the king from power. It would mean civil war, but he would do it. The king might even die in the fighting, royal blood spilled with common, but it wouldn't stop the Silverlance from doing what was right. Noble or common, he loved his people. So the children would act as their defense because the king wouldn't dare punish them. Not the young ones, the little children. Not when the people of Bethmoora already teetered on the brink of rebellion. They were the only fae who could help protect her sisters, because they were the only ones safe from the king. They had to be.
Because even Balor couldn't be that stupid…or that soulless.
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Shaking the morbid thoughts away, Dylan shooed her sisters back down the stairs with orders to conscript John whenever he got done setting up the blinds he and Petra would be using on the rooftops and to find Lorelei and Erik and tell them what she wanted. While Victoria, Francesca, Mary, and even Pauline could shoot if necessary, it was John and Petra who had point and would act as snipers from the tavern roof, where Victoria was going to station a couple dozen of her little "minions" in order to set up a glamour-net. Dylan hoped none of them froze up there. Once night fell, it would get bitterly cold very quickly, and they wouldn't be able to risk fires until the attack began.
She said a quick prayer for the safety of all her loved ones as she went back into the room, where Iúile clung to Liam's arm while the gancanaugh youth rubbed her back to try to ease his sweetheart's pain. When the girl shot her a plaintive look, Dylan smiled for her.
"All right, let's lie down and take a look."
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A'du'la'di shivered even in his thick wool coat and wondered why girls had to be so dumb. Obviously it was cold outside. It was going to get dark soon. Why did that stupid dullahan girl have to go run into the woods, anyway? Just 'cause he'd made her cry…It wasn't his fault she was a big baby.
Think shame to yourself…
Well…okay, maybe he'd been kind of mean to her. He shouldn't have called her stupid. At least not out loud. Probably not at all. But she'd called him rude. And she'd made him nervous with her head that kept falling off. Why couldn't she just keep it on like a normal person? Except that's what dullahan did. Their heads came off. Didn't anybody else think that was weird?
And she'd made him so mad when she'd said he was stupid for working for a human. Even now the anger simmered inside him, knotting in his stomach, as he crept through the swiftly darkening woods, careful to avoid dry branches and pine needles. He wasn't stupid for working for A'ge'lv Dylan. A'ge'lv Dylan was the best. She read stories and took care of him and 'Sa'ti and Tsu's'di and loved them all like she was their mom. They were a family. Amaryllis was stupid if she didn't see how amazing A'ge'lv Dylan was.
But…but at the same time…he could sort of understand. Because Amaryllis had said something that made A'du's chest feel tight and his stomach twist all funny. Something about humans.
They killed my máta!
Her máta. Her mommy. Humans had killed her mama, just like they'd killed the prince's mama. Just like they'd killed his, sort of. Humans hadn't shot his mama like they had his daddy, thinking he was a regular cougar. But after his daddy had died, he remembered how sad Mama had been. She hadn't even seemed to be happy about 'Sa'ti being born, even though 'Sa'ti was all soft and fuzzy and kind of cute looking. And then Mama had gotten sick and gone away. That's what Tsu's'di said, but A'du knew it meant she'd died.
So maybe Amaryllis had a reason to not like humans. She'd smelled like burning plastic and ash and ice in summer when she'd yelled at him about humans killing her mama. Sadness. Not the same kind of sadness he picked up from the prince or the a'ge'lv when they got really sad, but it had been pretty bad anyway. He'd felt sorry…until he got in trouble. Then he'd just been mad again.
I am ashamed of you…
Just thinking about the way the prince had looked at him, like he was some kind of bug or something, made his tummy feel funny again and his eyes sting. He wasn't going to cry anymore, though. Hopping over a downed tree, he swore he wasn't going to cry anymore. He was going to fix everything instead.
He was A'du'la'di Ewah of the Children of the Cougar, pageboy to A'ge'lv Dylan, valet to Prince Nuada Silverlance, and a warrior. He was going to find Amaryllis and say he was sorry and then they were going to be friends because he'd been callow, whatever that meant. He hoped it didn't mean stupid. It would suck a lot if the prince thought he was stupid.
The wind tickled the back of his neck and his fur bristled. Why did it have to be so cold? Good thing he had gloves. He couldn't feel the pads on his fingers. Shoving his hands into his gloves, he stuck his hands in his pockets and trudged on through the forest.
At first he thought it was the wind, but after awhile he realized the sound that had been whispering in his ears for maybe five or six minutes was actually somebody crying. Probably a girl. They cried differently than boys. Boys usually tried to be quiet so nobody would know they were crying because people called boys who cried crybabies, even though that wasn't really fair. Girls could get away with crying more often than boys could, so they weren't usually so quiet about it.
At least when they were kids like A'du or 'Sa'ti. Tsu's'di said girls tried to hide crying more when they were big, but A'du wasn't sure about that yet. He didn't really play with girls that old. They always ruffled his mane and kissed him on the forehead and told him he was a "cutie," which to him sounded like cootie.
Sure enough, it was someone crying. A girl.
Amaryllis. She huddled against a tree, sitting on the gnarled root of an oak tree so she wasn't stuck in the snow, arms folded on top of her knees. Her shoulders shook even though her head was nestled on top of her folded arms on her knees instead of perched on her neck. The black colt hanging its head so its mane pooled like ink on the snow heaved a sigh.
A'du felt mean inside. He hadn't thought she'd cry this much. He hadn't even thought she'd cry at all. No wonder the prince was so mad at him. Real warriors didn't make girls cry. If they didn't like someone, they were polite but cold about it. A'du had seen the prince do that lots of times, like to Master John and Mistress Petra and them, since the prince thought they were all haters. The ewah boy wasn't sure if they still counted as haters since they were being nicer to A'ge'lv Dylan now and were helping, but whatever. He'd figure that out later.
"Amaryllis?"
She jumped and squeaked. The wight-colt reared, neighing shrilly. Amaryllis's head fell out of her arms to land on the snow as her arms flailed and she lost her balance, tumbling off the tree root to the ground in a heap of skirts and tangled limbs. A'du rushed forward and picked up her head while her body got to its feet.
Wondering which part of her he was supposed to talk to—this was why heads weren't supposed to come off! It was confusing!—he held out her head and set it in her outstretched hands.
"I think you dropped something."
She plucked the head out of his grasp and stuck it back on her neck, glaring at him. "What do you want?"
A'du cleared his throat. He'd seen the prince do that when he had to say something important—usually when he was apologizing to the a'ge'lv for making her cry about something. "Uh…I wanted to say sorry. About being mean to you. I didn't mean to make you cry."
"Yes, you did." She folded her arms and turned her back to him.
"No, I didn't," he said, coming around so he could see her face again. "Really. I'm really sorry. You just…you made me nervous."
Amaryllis frowned at him. "I didn't do anything."
He stared at the snow under his feet. "I know. Dullahan attacked me and my brother and sister once, and it was really scary and so I got nervous. That's why I was mean. I'm sorry. I should've been nice. I didn't want you to cry, though. Honest." He hesitated, then ventured softly, "Humans killed my mama, too. Sort of. They shot my daddy, and when he didn't come home, Mama got sad and she went away and didn't come back."
The dullahan girl glanced at him from the corner of her eye, then pressed her lips together. A'du wondered if she was thinking about something and what it might be. She didn't smell angry and sad now. Just thoughtful. He realized when she was feeling thoughtful, she smelled like burning autumn leaves and icicles.
"I'm sorry about your máta," she murmured at last.
A'du nodded. "I'm sorry about yours, too. A'ge'lv Dylan really is nice, though."
"I know," she said.
The forest was quiet around them as the two children studied each other for a long time without speaking. Finally, A'du couldn't take it anymore. He just wanted them to be friends so he didn't have to worry about whether she was still mad at him or not. So he stuck out his hand and asked "So…pals?"
She stared at his hand, then took it and shook it as a smile spread across her face. "Yeah. Pals." She opened her mouth to say something else when A'du's head whipped around and he stared off through the trees into the distance. "What's wrong?" She whispered.
"Somebody's coming," he whispered. "Humans."
Green eyes widened and Amaryllis turned the color of skimmed milk. "The bandits," she whispered back. "We gotta hide!"
A'du looked around quickly, then looked at a pine tree towering over them next to the oak Amaryllis had been crying against when he'd found her. He pointed up at the tree, which was still covered in needles. Without hesitating, the dullahan girl raced to the tree, leapt, and caught a branch. Hauling herself up, she reached for the next branch. A'du'la'di glanced at her black colt, but the colt whickered very softly, pressed against the wide trunk of the black oak tree…and disappeared.
Well. That was cool. Turning to the pine, he skirted around to the other side, shifted into cougar form, and scrabbled up the tree. He found Amaryllis high up among branches so thin that even if the bandits had been able to see her—which they couldn't, thanks to the clusters of thick, ice-crusted pine needles—they wouldn't have been able to get to her. A'du clung to the trunk with his claws and settled near her hanging feet.
*It's me,* he said as she stared at the medium-sized cougar with wide, fearful eyes, paralyzed by panic. *A'du. I can shapeshift.*
"Wow," Amaryllis breathed, relaxing. "That's so neat."
*Shhh,* A'du whispered as the voices he'd heard came closer. His lips curled back from his sharp teeth as the rank smell of old blood, salt, stale sweat, and cruelty wafted up from the forest floor. Amaryllis had been right—it was the bandits. The stink made him feel kind of sick.
Far down below, a group of humans trudged through the snow. There had to be at least fifty of them, A'du thought, if not more than that. So many straggled from the group, he couldn't count them all. They made him feel cold inside. These guys were bad, just like that prince and that faerie lord back at the castle, the faerie lord who'd danced with A'ge'lv Dylan and then called her a whore. Prince Nuada had almost cut that guy's head off. But these guys were humans and he wasn't allowed to kill humans…so what was he going to do?
Next to him, Amaryllis stiffened and clapped a hand over her mouth. A'du nudged her toes with his muzzle. She stared down at the ground with terrified eyes.
"That's him," she whispered so softly even A'du'la'di had trouble hearing her. She stared at a man with a thick scar slicing across his left eye, missing two fingers. The guy gave A'du the creeps. "That's the human that…that killed my máta and my sister. He…" Her eyes filled with tears. "He set our house on fire. He…" She put her hands to her head as tears spilled down her cheeks. "He tried to cut out my tongue but I got away."
A'du glared down at the ground before rubbing his cheek against Amaryllis's ankle. *It's okay. I won't let him hurt you. I'll rip him to pieces if he tries to hurt you.*
"Who's that man he's talking to?" She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. "That's not a human."
*I dunno…*
Under their feet—or in A'du's case, his paws—the scarred man was talking to a fat, kind of fuzzy-looking faerie with yellow eyes the size of teacups. A'du could see them from all the way up in the tree, they were so big, and they stuck out really far like a fish's eyes. Wisps of black hair covered his mostly bald head. Long fingers like tentacles waved in the air as the faerie spoke.
"That's a fear darrig," Amaryllis whispered. "They can scare you to death. Like, they really can. They can scare you so much your heart stops and you die. But they eat humans."
*Shhh,* A'du said as voices drifted up from below. *Listen.*
"What do you mean, you have no interest in raping her?" The voice that demanded this snarled and hissed, kind of like if a giant snake was spitting out radio static. "That's what you're being paid for, you ungrateful wretch!"
The scarred human spat something gross on the snow. "You want the royal bastard dead? I can do that without having to mount Silverlance's whore." He patted something hanging from his belt. "I don't like human sluts. I prefer Elves myself. Scarlet Fomori especially," he added with a creepy laugh, and Amaryllis whimpered. A'du laid his chin on the top of her boot. "When I'm done with her, I might give her to my men, but she's a little old for them, anyway. Most of them like their women a little younger."
A'du didn't know what that meant, but a still, small voice inside told him he didn't need or want to. All he knew was that this guy was going after A'ge'lv Dylan specifically because somebody was paying him to. They had to tell the prince! But they couldn't get down until the humans left.
"My master will not have that monster polluting the royal line," the fear darrig snapped. "That treacherous whore and her spawn need to die—"
"I know," the human growled, raising a hand like he was going to slap the faerie. The faerie flinched back. "Don't think you give me orders, you putrid little rat. I work for your master because we both hate Silverlance. But I've got a score to settle with more than one fae in that village. That dullahan whoreson for example, the one with the pretty wife and the loudmouth brats. The dark one bit me. I plan on snapping her little neck like a toothpick in front of her father."
Amaryllis made a petrified sound low in her throat. A'du'la'di purred to remind her that everything was okay and she had to be quiet. He could figure out the human was talking about Amaryllis's family. Had she been the one to bite him? She was pretty brave, the cougar thought. And no way was he letting this human hurt her.
"Your priority is Silverlance's harlot," the fear darrig insisted. "That's what we're paying you for."
"Hn." The human spat again. "Paid for right out of the king's own treasury. I like that. Don't get your knickers in a twist. I'll make sure to grab her tonight. Won't be too hard. I know just the men for the job. Now you said someone was trailing us? Go take care of them."
"If it is who I believe it is—"
"I don't care if it's fat, old King Balor One-Arm himself," the human roared, making the two children jump. "Use your powers on them and then kill them! And the rest of you," he bellowed at his men. "Get a move on!"
The bandit company went one way, the fear darrig another. To his surprise, A'du noticed several fae mixed in with the humans marching toward Lallybroch. He had to fight to hold still. If they got down out of the tree too soon…well, he had no idea what might happen. They'd get caught for sure. What would that scarred man do to them? Definitely kill them, but what would he do before that?
When he was sure it was safe, the two of them shimmied down out of the pine and landed with muffled thumps on the muddy snow. A'du looked around. He didn't see anything, but he still had a bad feeling. They had to get to the village, though. There was no time to waste—
"A'du!" Amaryllis screamed as someone grabbed her hair and yanked her head off her neck. The human—not the scarred one, thank goodness, but this one was just as thickly muscled, just as smelly, and his grin was just as cruel—seemed momentarily startled by the fact that her head came off. It gave her body enough time to spin around and kick him in the knee as hard as she could.
The human grunted and grabbed the front of her dress. Amaryllis screamed again. Her wight-horse, materializing like a shadow brought to life, lashed out with back hooves and kicked the man in the hip. He shook Amaryllis hard and the colt staggered as if suddenly dizzy.
A'du'la'di yowled and leapt forward, claws out and ready to draw blood.
.
Pine needles and snow crunched under massive paws as the gargantuan cougar loped through the forest, zeroing in on the scene he knew and loved so well. A'du'la'di, his little brother. Fear twisted in Tsu's'di's guts like cold wire as he leapt over a fallen tree. Silent as death he ran through the forest, wrinkling his nose at the stench of old blood and cruelty that whispered on the air. The bandits were close. His brother was close. A'du was just a kid, how was a kid like that supposed to stay safe in a place full of adults who thought nothing of raping and murdering little kids? What would they do to his brother if they found him?
'Sa'ti. Was 'Sa'ti safe back at the stables? He had to assume she was or he'd freeze up. She was with Duskshine, and the unicorn colt wouldn't let anything happen to her. Even though if the colt had been an ewah he would've only been about A'du's age, Tsu's'di had to trust him to protect her until he got back with A'du and that other kid, the steward's daughter.
He had no doubt the two of them were together. When he found them, he'd wring both their necks just to make sure they never did this to someone again.
A girl's scream ripped through the oncoming dusk. "A'du!"
Adrenaline spiked through Tsu's'di's veins as fury flooded his chest, mingling with the fear. No. No way. Not his little brother. Not a chance! Putting on a burst of speed, the cougar broke through the trees into a small clearing. A massive human male covered in rank furs had a little girl—and her head—in his grip and A'du was rushing forward, claws out.
If A'du attacked the way he normally did, the human would have time to scream. It would draw the other bandits back to them. But the girl's single shriek only told the enemy that their straggler had found easy prey. They had no idea this one had become the prey instead.
Time to silence that prey for good.
A'du's claws raked down the length of the human's leg and the man dropped the little girl, Amaryllis, as he opened his mouth to scream. Tsu's'di leapt at the man, his own paw outstretched, almost twice as large as A'du'la'di's. His claws swiped across the human's jugular. The scream died before it could begin. A harsh bubbling cry tried to well up and Tsu's'di lunged forward, still in cougar form, and got his teeth around the human's neck, crushing what was left of the throat and breaking the spine, a nearly instant kill.
He licked his lips to clean them but recoiled at the sickly taste of the warm, acrid blood like the juice from poisoned meat. Wrinkling his nose and curling back his lips from his teeth to keep anymore blood out of his mouth, he ate several handfuls of clean snow. Then he focused on A'du and the little girl.
The ewah boy gulped, then went limp as a kitten with relief when he stared up into familiar, smoky blue eyes.
"Tsu's'di!" He turned to Amaryllis. "It's my brother!"
*You,* his brother said sharply, *are in so much trouble when we get back. Doofus.* And Tsu's'di whapped him across the back of the head with one paw, claws sheathed, but then grabbed him and yanked him down to the snow to bathe his face and make sure he was really okay. *You scared A'ge'lv Dylan half to death, by the way.*
"I had to find Amaryllis," A'du protested, gesturing to the dullahan girl, whose head was back on her shoulders, though she looked a little cross-eyed and her colt was walking a little drunkenly. The cougar kept licking the boy's face, purring to soothe some of the terror still rolling off the cub in waves. A'du'la'di let himself relax into the composure grooming for a moment before straightening up. "We're okay, but Tsu's'di, the bandits, they're after the a'ge'lv, they're gonna do something really bad to her, we gotta tell the prince—"
*Got it,* Tsu's'di said, voice morphing into a low snarl. His lips peeled back from his knife-sharp teeth. *You need to shift. Can you ride that horse, kid?* The girl glanced at her colt and nodded. *Then hop on and let's go. We've got a lot of ground to cover.*
.
On the way back into the village from the fields, Petra stopped every so often to check on the progress of the traps. She saw boards being loosened, levers being set, pulleys put into place, Rube Goldberg type setups all over the village. The complicated but effective traps were Francesca's specialty, but the ingredients were all Victoria's idea. There would be ice patches, fallings rocks, broken glass—all sorts of fun things.
A few of the remaining buildings that didn't have thatched roofs—the tavern, the stables, the lumber-mill, and the half-repaired blacksmith's workshop—played host to companies of kids wrapped in warm cloaks and coats working on some sort of…actually, Petra didn't know what they were, just that it involved glass, which she only knew because she could see lantern-light reflecting on the polished surfaces. Some of the kids had set up little catapults on those roofs, also by virtue of Victoria and Francesca's instruction. Older children and teenagers scurried through the streets, carrying baskets of stuff that smelled pretty rank into the buildings upon whose roofs the catapults had been set.
The sun was barely dipping below the tops of the trees. Seamus Muldoon, the stable-hand with the gorilla arms, had already escorted Fluttershy back to the stables. In the village square, Mistress Stooree eyed the rooftops, one arm folded across her chest, one hand stroking her somewhat pointed chin in thought.
"I don't like the idea of those wee youngsters doin' this," she muttered to Petra and the goat-lady, Mistress O'Clyde. She shook her head and her auburn curls bounced. "It ain't right. But it's the only way; the king would have to be mad to put those bairns to the sword for defendin' their homes like that. It's only glamour, but we grown ones don't dare…T'oh," she sighed. "I just wish there was somethin' we could do. But it's almost certain death to raise a hand to humans in this kingdom, no matter the cause."
Mistress O'Clyde pointed to the tavern rooftop. "Those are my grandkids," she murmured. Petra looked up and saw that grandkids was the right word: three blond girls with little goat-ears peeping through their curls scurried around with buckets and scoops, bringing whatever was in the buckets to the somewhat older children working on those glass things. "They're only fifty, the little things."
Petra tried not to let the age thing throw her. Those three little girls looked barely seven years old. For all intents and purposes, they were seven years old. And Mistress Stooree was right—it wasn't right, those children having to do so much work because the adults might go to prison or even get the death penalty for protecting themselves and their homes. What was the matter with this King Balor guy, anyway? But Petra didn't ask, because Dylan had warned her not to criticize the king in public. Apparently there were laws against that.
This whole thing reminded her of a story Dylan had told her once from The Book of Mormon—which Petra had never read and probably never would—about a people who'd forsworn the use of weapons, but then were in danger of being attacked, and the only ones who'd never take the oath were the children. Helaman's Stripling Warriors, they were called, boys of perhaps fourteen or fifteen who'd gone into battle to protect their families. The miraculous thing was, not one of them had been hurt in the fight.
Petra could only pray they'd get the same result tonight.
.
Pauline stroked back the sweat-dampened hair from the little girl's forehead and wished those magical healer people hadn't exhausted themselves already. The curly-haired girl, who couldn't have been more than four, had been coughing and struggling for breath since Dylan had set up the impromptu hospital in the tavern early that afternoon. Several hours later, the medicine to help her wasn't working. At least not fast enough for Pauline's peace of mind.
Her feet ached. Her back ached. Her head ached. Pretty much everything ached, including her chest, with her traitorous lungs that hurt so badly and never got enough air because of…well, she wasn't going to think about that right now. She had more important things to think about than herself at the moment. Like this little girl.
Dylan had said she was a bluecap, which was some kind of faerie with a blue hat that originally came from Cornwall. Pauline wondered where the girl's parents were. She didn't want to think they might be dead. In the hours Pauline had been working on her, trying to help her cough up the crud in her lungs and throat, she'd managed to get the girl's name—Morgaine. Now Morgaine had managed to fall into a fitful doze, exhausted from the hours of helpless coughing.
Poor baby, Pauline thought, stroking her hair. I know what it's like, not being able to breathe. I know it sucks.
And that wasn't the only thing that sucked. Glancing over at a nearby window, Pauline saw the guy in the black coat with the weird wooden belt the color of bones—Dylan had said he was the steward, Master Gawain Something-with-a-Mac-in-It—staring out the window with a look of helpless fear burning in his freaky, emerald eyes.
"Master Gawain," she called. The steward jolted and turned to her, surprised at being addressed. He didn't speak English, but her guard was standing only a few feet away, some kid named Diarmid, and he would translate. "Any news?" Pauline asked kindly.
The steward shook his head and looked out the window again. Pauline bit her lip and turned her attention back to Morgaine. She knew the guy's daughter had snuck off to go hide somewhere, mad about something. She knew he had to be worried sick. She'd gotten the memo via Mary and the others that the douche-canoe bandits were on their way and would be here within the hour…and that little girl was still out there somewhere, possibly lost, possibly in trouble. It had to be eating Gawain alive, but she knew why he didn't go looking for her.
There were two reasons: one limped around on a crutch to compensate for the leg that had been mangled from mid-thigh to foot, a handsome boy of maybe fifteen, with a livid scar clawing from his jaw up past his hairline, who spoke quietly with some of the very young, injured children confined to their pallets and cots; the other was an eerily silent little girl, maybe four years old, who watched everyone around her with big, green eyes and never hesitated to run and fetch something for someone when asked. Pauline didn't think the little girl ought to have been there, but she refused to leave the boy's side—her brother, as it happened—and they needed the boy's help in the infirmary until the attack began and he was needed up on the roof, so…they were stuck with it.
Those two were Master Gawain's only surviving family other than the missing girl, Dylan had told Pauline quietly a little while ago. She hadn't said how he'd lost the rest of his family but Pauline wasn't an idiot. She could put the pieces together.
Suddenly the biggest of the royal guards—a tall, burly guy with gray skin that Dylan had introduced as Uaithne—flung open the tavern doors and started herding teenagers inside. Pauline recognized them as the kids who'd been running step-and-fetch for the Booby Trap Brigade for the last hour or so. A glance out the window told her the royal guards were clearing the streets.
The sunlight was nearly gone. Night would fall in a few minutes. Then the bandits would come. Hopefully everything would work out the way Dylan and her fiancé had planned. If it didn't…
Well, Petra hadn't been carrying two handguns around in her nearby purse this whole trip for nothing.
.
"Gahn!" Iúile threw her head back and let out a strangled cry between clenched teeth. Huffing and puffing, she squeezed her eyes shut. Dylan rubbed her stomach while Liam winced and let her squeeze his hand to bone splinters.
"You are doing very well," Dylan said calmly, keeping an eye on the bright color suffusing the girl's sweaty face. "I know it sucks, but you're okay. You are perfectly fine. You're not ready to push yet—"
"Yes. I. Am," Iúile growled, lifting her head to glare at Dylan. Liam's eyes widened and he shrank a little, but Dylan just sighed.
"No," she said, "you're not. Who's the doctor here?" Iúile groaned and dropped her head back onto the pillow. "That's what I thought. Now, you should probably do some walking. Can you get up?" With Liam's help, they got her on her feet again. In the short time she'd been in the room, Dylan had managed to get Iúile out of her shabby dress and into a clean, black one, which was now slightly damp from the sweat. "I know this is hard, but it will really help speed things up, okay? How does your back feel?"
"Like I was kicked by a nuckelavee," she mumbled.
Dylan nodded. "Okay, here's what I want you to do. Liam, I want you to bend down a little, brace your hands on your thighs, okay?" The gancanaugh obeyed. "Iúile, wrap your arms around his neck and hold on. Liam, I want you to straighten up very slowly; it'll help take the pressure of her spine. Okay…slowly…slowly…"
There was a series of soft pops and Iúile groaned in relief, dropping her face against Liam's neck as he slid his arms around her, rubbing soothing circles over the small of her back. She whispered, "Oh…so much better…thank you."
"You are so incredible," Liam whispered, kissing her temple. "You can do this, a ghrá. You are amazing, you know that?"
For the first time in the last thirty minutes, Iúile actually smiled. A tear spilled down her cheek. "You are. I don't know what I would do without you, Liam."
"You'll never have to be without me again, I swear to you."
"I hate to be a slave-driver," Dylan interjected, trying not to smile at how sappy and sweet the two of them were—were she and Nuada like that? Probably. How cute. And kind of gross, but still cute—and trying to look apologetic, "but time to start walking again. At the rate you're going, we should be done by midnight. Lucky you. Sometimes this can take days. Midnight," she reiterated when Iúile shot her a panicked loot. "We're aiming for midnight. You're proceeding very quickly. Which is good. You're okay."
There was a knock at the door and Dylan's entire demeanor changed as Iúile's flushed face turned pale and she burrowed against Liam. Scowling, the mortal went to the door and yanked it half open. "What—" She began savagely, but then snapped her mouth shut and blinked a couple times. "Oh," she said. "Sorry. Hi. What?"
On the other side of the door, Nuada eyed her with no little wariness. He wasn't quite sure, but he thought she might have gone for his throat if she hadn't recognized him in time. Uncertainly, he tried to say, "I need to speak to Master Uí Niall," but it came out more like a question.
Dylan huffed, exasperated. "What, now? His fiancée's about to have a baby!"
Nuada's eyes widened. "Right this moment?"
"Well, no, but sometime in the next seven hours! Which might sound like a long time to you, but it really isn't, and she really needs him with her." Lowering her voice, she added, "Look, in the mortal world when women have babies, they usually have family with them. Mothers, sisters, friends. The father of the baby. She doesn't have any of that. She has me and she's got him. Do you need him?"
He sighed. "I will keep it short."
"Thank you," she murmured, and then went and pried Liam away from Iúile and shoved him out the door. He was still looking over his shoulder into the room when she shut the door in his face. Dylan immediately went to Iúile's side and took up Liam's position.
"He killed a human," the girl whispered. "To save me. What if…"
Dylan patted her hand. "Don't you even worry about that. His Highness isn't going to hurt Liam for protecting you, and he's not going to let anyone else hurt him either, okay? The treaty can go jump off a cliff. Just don't go crowing the news from the rooftops. So while we have a minute, just us girls, how do you feel about putting the wedding off until you can actually stand up again? Because I don't think you're going to be in a condition to get married tomorrow."
.
"You're going to run into a tree branch and break your pretty nose if you do not slow down, Zhenjin," Shaohao drawled from behind him as the Dilong crown prince stumbled at a run through the trees. "Or should I say again? You are not yet fully healed, little brother." When Zhenjin ignored him, Shaohao muttered, "Oh, someone, help. Stop him. Suicide. Oh."
"Shut up," Zhenjin snarled over his shoulder. "I can hear you, you know."
Shaohao offered him a smirk. "Do you know what you can't hear? It's the sound of your common sense fluttering out the window like a dragon-bat. Love has made you stupid. I can't stomach the stuff myself. What's so special about this human, anyway?"
Zhenjin leaned heavily against an ice-slick tree trunk and fought to keep his head from imploding. "You wouldn't understand."
His brother chuckled. "Try me. Let me guess: she's a fountain of passion, like nothing you've ever known. Simply looking in her eyes is like making love to her all over again—"
The younger prince swung around abruptly and nearly drove his fist through his elder brother's face. Shaohao caught Zhenjin's fist, ducking to one side and twisting his arm to yank it up behind his back. The crown prince gasped at the sudden eruption of fire through his shoulder as the joint tried to wrench in two different directions.
Then, quick as a striking snake, Shaohao sank his teeth into the pointed tip of Zhenjin's ear. Zhenjin's entire body stiffened and he screamed at the searing pain raking through his ear, thudding through his skull, blazing across his face, boiling in his blood. He tried to yank away from his brother but Shaohao held him fast as he ripped the delicate point, practically shredding it with his venom-slicked fangs. The venom burned like black ice in the ragged wounds while the prince screamed. Then Shaohao let him fall to his hands and knees in the snow.
"Play nice," Shaohao hissed, licking the blood from his lips. "I don't have to help you, you know. I am only doing it because you're my favorite. Show a little gratitude. There's no reason to be so testy—"
"I've never bedded her," Zhenjin growled between shuddering gasps for air. Amber blood dripped down his neck and spattered the snow.
Shaohao stared at him. "Beg pardon?"
"That isn't why I fell in love with her. I've never lain with her. Ever. She is Nuada's truelove; I would never dishonor her or him or myself with such selfishness. Why do you think I left when I did? Merely to hunt you down?"
Silence. And then, "Well, honestly, yes. I'm feeling a bit neglected now, knowing that wasn't the reason. I do believe you've hurt my feelings, little brother. I'm not sure I like this truelove of yours and Silverlance's, even if she is resourceful and clever and somehow similar in appearance to moonlight. I still don't understand that, by the way." Zhenjin opened his mouth and the older prince snapped, "All right, all right. You haven't bedded her, you love her dearly, you're half a man without her—I get it. Get up. Stop acting like a frail old woman or a lovesick puppy. It's revolting. Fine. If you love the silly little slut so much, fine. I can't give you the pestilent weed's life even though you want it; you can have the human instead."
"There is no instead—"
"Take what I give you and like it, di-di. Now come on. We've miles to go before we sleep and…oh, dear." At the change in his brother's tone, Zhenjin looked up to see a fat fear darrig standing barely a dozen paces away. He glanced at Shaohao, whose eyes glittered. "Oh, dear, oh, dear. Oh, dearie me," Shaohao muttered. "Now what are you doing here?"
The fear darrig drifted closer. "The question is, Your Imperial Highness, what are you doing here? Surely not betraying your agreement with my master."
Shaohao smiled. "Ah. Terribly sorry. Turns out my little brother adores the slut. Can't let you kill her off now or I'd have to slaughter every last one of you in a variety of painful and gruesome ways in the dead of night and it's so terribly inconvenient, washing blood out of silk."
The fear darrig sighed. "That is a pity, Your Imperial Highness."
Shaohao's smile turned poisonous and sharp. His fangs glinted in the dying glow of the sun. "Now, now, Hastur. Don't be a fool. If you cross me, your death will take a very long time, and I prefer to kill you quickly."
Another sigh from Hastur. He clucked his tongue and laced his tentacle-like fingers together as he shook his head mournfully. "It seems a shame for us to come to this. Her Imperial Majesty is such a beauty." Zhenjin and Shaohao stiffened. The smile slipped from Shaohao's face like blood dribbling down glass. "The Jade Lily of the Dragon Court, they call her," Hastur added. "Such a shame, really."
"If you touch our mother," Zhenjin hissed, "I will make you suffer until you beg for death."
"He's not lying," Shaohao growled. "And I'll help him. You can be sure of that."
Hastur's smile took on a cruel, sly edge. "So the Red Dragon does have a fear. That makes my task much, much easier."
Zhenjin frowned. "What are you…" He trailed off the instant Shaohao vanished. "Shaohao!" May the gods curse him, this was the worst time to glamour himself from Zhenjin's sight and Sight in order to kill one of their rare mutual enemies. Snarling under his breath, Zhenjin focused once more on Hastur…but the fear darrig was gone, too. There was only the snow and the forest, the trees like black bones jutting into the twilit sky.
"What?" He whispered, turning a circle, trying to peer through the gloaming for his brother or their enemy. "Where did the little wretch go—"
And then came a terrible scream, three female voices joined in a chorus of agony. Somewhere in the tortured, inhuman sound, Zhenjin realized he could hear his name. That realization told him exactly what he was hearing. He leapt into action, racing toward the screams, half-mad with the sudden spike of terror lancing his chest.
"Ming! Dylan! Mother! I'm coming!"
And when he reached the source of the screams and saw blood like liquid gold, blood as scarlet as rubies, blood as green as his own scales—when he saw what had been done to his sweet little orchid, to his beautiful truelove, to his mother—Zhenjin fell to his knees and screamed and screamed and screamed until his voice faded into the darkness.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, like a whisper of night wind through the trees, he heard dry, sibilant laughter.
.
In the corridor, Prince Nuada studied the gancanaugh youth who eyed the closed door with obvious concern. The prince liked what he saw. The young man was sturdy, relatively well-groomed (considering the circumstances), and seemed to take decent care of himself. He obviously loved his betrothed. The Elf had to offer him even greater respect for being able to care about the child preparing to come into the world in the next room, considering it was his lady-love's by another man—a human, and a monster. The prince wasn't sure that if it had been Dylan, he would have been able to feel the same.
"I spoke to Iúile's father," Nuada said, and Liam's head snapped around. Crimson-slitted black eyes fixed on the prince's face as his nostrils flared. The rage pouring off of the youth in dark waves would've been tangible even to the most empathically dense. Nuada added, "He—"
"I don't care," Liam hissed. Nuada shot him a mild look, but the youth didn't waver. "I don't care what he said or did. If he comes near her again without her permission I'll cut his heart out myself."
In a cool voice the prince asked, "Will you? And if I ordered you to allow his presence?"
"With all due respect, Your Highness, you cannot ask me to allow a monster near my wife or our child."
"She's not your wife yet and that is not your child."
Liam squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. "She will be soon enough. And yes, it is." Something cold and brittle flashed in the gancanaugh's eyes before he looked away, back toward the closed door. He reached out with trembling fingers to brush the wood. "We decided, together. I…my brothers and I built the house this summer. Even…even…" The youth's voice broke. "Even a nursery for the baby. I carved the cradle myself. Planted Iúile a garden like she's always wanted." Liam's fingers drifted over the smooth grain of the wood. "I love her. I would never turn my back on her. And she loves that child…so I do, as well. It is her child, and therefore it's mine." Turning back to Nuada, he added, "I won't let Barinthus hurt my family, Your Highness. You can't ask me to do that."
A smile curved dark lips. "And I wouldn't. I told Master Barinthus that if he chose to make an enemy of you and your family, he would also make an enemy of the royal house, since I was placing you under my protection and making you members of my household."
Liam's mouth fell open. "You…but…you…you're the…we…" He stammered.
The smile widened. "He then made the very regrettable mistake of enraging my lady to the point that she tried to break several of his teeth. He is now in prison and is likely to remain there—or somewhere worse, once I have him transported—for a very, very long time."
"What…" Liam cleared his throat. "What insult could he have offered to upset Her Ladyship that much?"
Fury twisted Nuada's features for a brief moment as he remembered exactly what insult Barinthus had slapped him with. But he would repeat it, just so Liam could be certain Iúile was in no danger from the prince. "He claimed that I favored your lady because I intended to make her my leman. You and I both know better, of course."
After a brief silence, Liam nodded. "Yes, Sire. I do know better. Thank you. You have done me and my family a great service and I owe you a debt. It will never be forgotten for as long as I live." Then the youth hesitated, casting one softly anguished look at the door before dropping to one knee in front of the prince. Nonplussed by the sudden obeisance, the crown prince schooled his expression to careful blankness and waited for Liam to speak. The youth said, "Your Highness, I must confess a crime. I…I have slain a human."
Nuada's eyes widened. "What human?" The gancanaugh's fingers curled into a fist at his side. He ground his knuckles into the wooden floor but said nothing. "Look at me, Liam Uí Niall. Look at your prince and answer me truthfully. What human have you slain?"
Swallowing hard, he whispered, "The one who hurt Iúile. We…I killed him."
But the prince had keen ears and an even keener mind, and he knew the youth wasn't speaking the whole truth. He couldn't lie—not a common-born fae like this—but even the common-born Fair Folk knew how to twist their words. And even the fae sometimes slipped in their speech.
"We?" Nuada echoed. Liam's eyes widened before squeezing shut. "It was both of you, wasn't it? The two of you killed her attacker together, didn't you?"
Liam sucked in a sharp breath as if he'd been pierced through the heart. "She doesn't know. She didn't know. She stabbed him with a shard of glass as he was…finishing. She was so badly hurt, and there was so much blood, I…I finished him with my dirk, but she'd already driven the shard into his throat. He would have been dead in seconds anyway but I didn't want her to be punished. Please…"
"No one is going to punish either of you," Nuada said sharply. The youth's head shot up. "Not while I live. Get up. I refuse to allow an honorable warrior and a good man be punished for a so-called 'crime' I also committed. I won't have it. So, you've been blooded in battle. Good. Then I can trust you to protect your lady and your child if the bandits somehow make it this far past our defenses? Lady Dylan can look after herself," the prince added when Liam tried to protest. And no doubt she'd skin me alive if I forced the lad to choose her life over the lives of the woman he loves and her newborn child. "If the bandits get this far, you will take your lady and your child and run, do you understand?"
"I am not a coward," Liam said. Nuada bit back a sound that was half a growl and half a sigh. "I'm not. I do not fear death—"
"If you want to throw me to the she-wolf in there about to help bring your child into this world, be my guest," Nuada interrupted, gesturing to the door. "She'll rip me to pieces if you don't do as I say. And then she'll likely beat you like a dirty, old carpet for arguing with what I know she would want. Trust me, it's quite painful. Better to acquiesce gracefully and keep your dignity."
There was a long silence and then Liam started laughing. Nuada smiled as well, managing not to roll his eyes. He actually chuckled when Liam said, "Women have that effect on men, don't they?"
Nuada sighed, more than a little disgruntled. "Yes, they do. Now…" He trailed off as the instincts honed in centuries of battle suddenly prickled with electric warning. The air around him and beyond the tavern walls hung heavy over the village. The last beams of sunset melted away into twilight and gloaming. A predatory stillness gripped the freshly born night. Nuada reached for the shortened lance strapped to his back. He unsheathed and readied it in one fluid motion. Glancing at Liam, he drew his sword and offered it.
"Guard this corridor. Protect your family. You have royal pardon in advance. Let no enemy past. Do you understand?"
The youth nodded and gripped the sword. A life in the country had given him the muscles to lift the heavy weapon of Elven silver, even if he didn't quite know how to wield it. Unfortunately Nuada didn't have time to teach him.
"They're here," Liam murmured. "Aren't they?"
Nuada bared his teeth in something to primal and savage to be called a smile. "Yes."
.
They were coming. 'Sa'ti could hear them: whispers and vicious words, evil promises muttered under foul breath, the creak of leather, the muffled stomp of feet crunching through the snow. She wished A'du was back. She wished Tsu's'di would come. She wished the a'ge'lv and the prince were with her, or even Mistress Francesca or Master John.
Beside her, little Shimmer whickered in distress and cuddled close. Fluttershy nuzzled both cougar girl and unicorn foal while Duskshine moved to the open door of the stall and planted himself firmly between them and anything that might come at them. Lady Fair and Blackjack, the two Eathesburian glashtyn ponies A'ge'lv Dylan and Prince Nuada had given A'du and 'Sa'ti for Christmas, stood with dripping manes and tails nearby, guarding the young ones. Lòman and Maeve, along with Sétanta and Eimh, kept their eyes fixed on the stable doors. Even the massive bull-horned bonnacon, Ifrit, and Sergei, Mistress Lorelei's white stallion with the black horns and razor-sharp hooves, was on guard. Nothing was getting through the doors.
Overhead, 'Sa'ti heard some of the kids from the village moving around. They were with Francesca on the roof, getting ready to kick some bandit butt. Francesca peered down at the road while the cold from the shingles tried to freeze her stomach. She lay plastered to the roof to avoid cutting a silhouette, something Dylan had suggested. She knew Mary was with another group of kids on top of the lumber mill and Victoria was with a group on top of the blacksmith's shop. Pauline had taken up her station on the roof of the tavern. Hidden by adolescent glamour, hopefully the mortal women would be safe even as they attacked.
On the top floor of the tavern in a dark room with an open window, Petra Myers sat at a small, round table with her rifle at the ready. The scope had been transformed into a night-scope thanks to a bit of magic from the blacksmith. She didn't need light to see, so she wasn't a target. She just hoped her brother and sisters were as safe.
John stood between Lorelei von der Strom and Erik Ashkeson. He held his gun firmly in both hands and the glow from the tavern behind him made it easy to see the approaching shadow pouring toward the village from the forest. Erik lifted his heavy broadsword. Lorelei hefted her short swords. Behind them in the shadows, Wink waited to snatch up unwary humans that got too close with his metal hand. He did not fear execution at the king's hand if it meant saving the fae.
Inside the tavern, the Butcher Guards and other fae took care of the wounded and the sick while the humans prepared to make war. Upstairs, Liam stood with a white-knuckled grip on the hilt of the notched sword in his grasp. Behind the door he guarded, Dylan helped Iúile lie back down and mopped some of the sweat off her face as the contractions began hitting faster and faster.
In the forest, speeding closer and closer through the shadows, Tsu's'di led A'du and Amaryllis back to tell the prince what they'd overheard regarding the bandits' plans for Lady Dylan and the important piece of information that there was a fear darrig out there, somewhere, who worked for the Bethmooran noble behind the attacks.
And Prince Nuada Silverlance, heir to the Golden Throne of Bethmoora, son of King Balor, prowled the village like a shadow brought to life, slipping from darkness to darkness, hiding from the moon, spear ready and waiting to spill human blood. Let the king condemn him. He cared little if his father scarred his back again. Thanks to Dylan's ministrations and the magic of the underground chamber, most of his scars from the past two floggings had been reduced to thin, chalk-white lines crisscrossing his back. He could endure the lash for his people. He knew it would break Dylan's heart to see him beaten bloody again, but to hide would have stripped him of his honor.
Forgive me, my love, he thought. If I am punished for this, forgive me.
The moon crept out from behind the trees and in that moment the enemy struck with a cacophony like a thunderstorm erupting in Hell.