Dance of the Gods

by Nora Roberts

  and every night after. “A strong boy like you has another job. To stay inside, every night until the war’s over, guarding his mother, his brothers and sisters. Keeping them safe will take courage.”

  “No demon will touch them!”

  “Best make your way now, and safe travels,” Larkin said.

  “And to you my lord, my lady.”

  He clicked to the horses, snapped the reins. Blair watched them until both wagons had rumbled by. “That’s a lot of faith in your family, to pack up, leave your home. That’s another strong weapon, that kind of faith.”

  “You spoke well to that boy, made him see that staying inside with his mother was a duty. Lilith’s whelp was about that age—a bit younger, actually.” Larkin reached under his hair, traced the scar on the back of his neck with his fingers. “Sweet-faced, too. He was some mother’s son before she turned him into a monster.”

  “She’ll be paying for that, and a lot more. That bite give you any trouble?” she asked as they started to walk again.

  “It doesn’t. Not something I forget though, that’s for certain. As I’m sure you know for yourself.” He lifted her hand, turned her wrist over and kissed her scar. “Still pissed, as you say, that the little bugger got a taste of me. Hardly more than a baby, and damn near killed me.”

  “Kiddie vampires aren’t any less lethal than the full grown variety. And actually, in my opinion, more creepy.”

  The hedgerows dropped away, and the Valley of Silence lay before them.

  “And speaking of creepy,” she murmured. “It’s no less goosebumping from down here. I’m no sissy, but I wouldn’t be insulted if you held my hand.”

  “I wouldn’t be insulted if you held mine.”

  So they stood, clutching hands, on what seemed to Blair to be the end of the world.

  The land fell off in a steep, jagged, ankle-breaking incline. It heaved up in nasty hillocks or rippled tables of rock. Acres of it, she thought. Acres of misery and shadows with only the undulating moan of a cold wind through the wild grass.

  “Lots of places to hide,” she commented. “We can use that as well as they can. Most of the fighting’s going to have to be done on foot. Only the best riders could handle a mount on that ground.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “We’d better go down, take a look at what we’re dealing with.”

  “How do you feel about riding a goat?”

  “Unenthusiastic.” But she gave his hand a squeeze. “Besides, if we can’t negotiate it now, daylight, no pressure, we’re not going to do very well at night, in the heat of battle.”

  Plenty of footholds, she discovered as they started down. And the ground was too mean and stubborn to crumble away under her boots. Maybe she’d have preferred a nice flat field for the mother of all battles, but there were ways to use what they had to their advantage.

  “Some of these crevices, shallow caves could be useful. Hiding men and weapons.”

  “They would.” Larkin crouched down, peered into a small opening. “They’d think of that as well, as you said back in Ireland.”

  “So we get here first, block off some strategic points. Magically maybe—we can talk to Hoyt and Glenna about that. Or with crosses.”

  He nodded, straightened. “We’d want the high ground there, and perhaps there.” He gestured as he studied the lay. “Flood down on them, that’s what we’d do. Flood down on the bloody bastards, keeping archers on the high ground.”

  Blair climbed up on a shelf of rock. “We’ll need light, that’s essential.”

  “We can’t count on the moon.”

  “Glenna conjured some sort of light the night we went head-to-head with Lora in that skirmish back at Cian’s place. They’ll slaughter us like flies if we fight in the dark. That’s their turf. We can’t lay traps here,” she added with a thoughtful frown. “Can’t risk our own men stumbling over or falling into one.”

  Larkin held up a hand for her as she prepared to jump down. “She’ll come here as well, at night, to study, to work out her strategy. She may have been here before, before we were born. Before those who birthed us were born. Spinning out her web and dreaming of that single night to come.”

  “Yeah, she’ll have been here. But…”

  “What?”

  “So have I. I’ve seen this place in my head as long as I can remember. From up there, from down here. In sunlight and silence, in the dark with the screams of battle. I know this place,” she whispered. “I’ve been afraid of it all my life.”

  “Yet you come to it. You stand on it.”

  “Feels like I’ve been pushed here, closer and closer, every day. I don’t want to die here, Larkin.”

  “Blair—”

  “No, I’m not afraid to die. Or not obsessed with the idea of it. But, oh God, I don’t want to end here, in this hard, lonely place. Drowning in my own blood.”

  “Stop.” He took her shoulders. “Stop this.”

  Her eyes were huge now, and deep, deep blue. “You see, I don’t know if I’ve seen it, or just imagined it because of the fear. I don’t know if I’ve watched myself die here. Damn gods, anyway, for their mixed messages and unreasonable demands.”

  She patted her hands on his chest to ease him back, give herself a little space. “It’s okay, I’m okay. Just a little panic attack.”

  “It’s this place, this evil place. Slides under the skin and freezes the blood.”

  “So, advantage them. But you know what? You know something that tips onto our side? The people who’ll come here, who’ll take this ground and fight on this place, they’ll have something inside them. Whatever it is, it’ll already have given evil the finger.”

  “What finger?”

  She hadn’t thought it possible, not in this awful silence, not in this nightmare place, but she laughed until her sides ached.

  She explained as they walked the broken ground. And it seemed easier then, to cross it, study it, to think clearly. When they climbed back up she felt more steady, more sure.

  She brushed off her hands, started to speak. Then simply froze.

  The goddess stood in a stream of light. It seemed to pulse from her white robe, and still it was dim compared to her luminous beauty.

  I’m awake, Blair thought, so this is new. Wide awake, and there she is.

  “Larkin, do you see—”

  But he was going down on one knee, bowing his head. “My lady.”

  “My son, you would kneel before what you have never truly believed?”

  “I have come to believe in many things.”

  “Then believe this,” Morrigan said. “You are precious to me. Each of you. All of you. I’ve watched you travel here, through the light and the dark. And you, daughter of my daughters, will you not kneel?”

  “Is that what you need?”

  “No.” And she smiled. “I only wondered. Rise up, Larkin. You have my gratitude, and my pride.”

  “Would either of those come with an army of gods?” Blair asked her, and earned a shocked hushing sound from Larkin.

  “You are my army, you and what you both carry inside you for tomorrow and tomorrow. Would I ask this thing of you if it were not possible?”

  “I don’t know,” Blair answered. “I don’t know if gods only ask the possible.”

  “And yet you come, you prepare, you battle. So you have my gratitude, my pride, and my admiration. This, the second month, the time of learning is nearly done. So will come the time of knowing. You must know if you are to win this thing.”

  “What, my lady, must we know?”

  “You will know when you know.”

  “See.” Blair spread her hands. “Cryptic. Why does it always have to be cryptic?”

  “It frustrates you, I know.” There might have been a laugh in Morrigan’s eyes as she stepped closer. But there was no doubt of the affection in the brush of her fingers—warm and real—over Blair’s cheek. “Mortals may see the path the gods have carved, but it’s up to them to chose a direction and f
ollow it. I will tell you that you are my hope, you and the four with you who forged the circle. You are my hope, the hope of mankind. You are my joy, and the future.”

  She touched Larkin’s cheek now. “And you are blessed.”

  She stepped back, the laughter gone. In its place was a sorrow and a kind of steely strength. “What is coming must come. There will be pain, and blood and loss. There is no life without its price. The shadows will fall, dark upon dark, and demons rise from it. A sword flames through it, and a crown shines. Magic beats like a heart, and what was lost can be regained if that heart is willing. Give these words to all the circle, and remember them. For it is not the will of gods that will win the day, but the will of humankind.”

  She vanished with the light so Blair stood with Larkin on the edge of the cursed ground.

  “Remember it?” Blair lifted her hands, let them fall. “How are we supposed to remember all that? Did you get it?”

  “I’ll remember it. It’s my first conversation with a goddess, so I can promise you I won’t be forgetting the details of it.”

  They flew again, away from the valley to the first of the three points Blair had devised for traps. They set down in a green glade with a pretty river winding through it.

  Standing beside the river, she took out the map the six of them had worked on. “Okay, if we go by the fact that our portal stands in nearly the same spot here as it does in Ireland, then we make the big leap of faith that the same would hold true for Lilith’s way in, the cliffs are roughly twenty miles west.”

  “They are, as you see here.” He traced his finger on the map, along the coastline. “And caves as well, which she could use for her base.”

  “Could,” Blair agreed. “And she might put some troops there. But it makes more sense to base closer to the battleground. Even if she doesn’t, at some point she’ll have to move west to east, and if she’s taking the most direct route, she’d have to cross this way. And this river.” She nodded toward the water. “Smarter to cross it near this point, where it narrows. Moira said she took care of the mojo.”

  “She had the holy man brought here, as you wanted. The water was blessed.”

  “Not to question your holy man, but I’d feel better if I checked it out.”

  She dug in her pocket for a vial of blood. “Courtesy of the vampire you skewered into the ground the other night. Let’s try a little chemistry.”

  Larkin took the water bag to the river to fill it. While he was there he cupped his hand, sampled straight from the river itself. “Fresh and cool in any case. Pity its not deep enough for a swim just here, or I’d talk you out of your clothes again.”

  “On the clock here, pretty boy.” She crouched down beside him and opened the vial. “Just a couple of drops. It’s either going to work or it’s not.”

  He tapped a few drops into the vial. And the blood bubbled and steamed with the water mixed with it.

  “All right! You’ve got yourself a happening holy man. Look at that boil.” She straightened to do a quick happy dance. “Picture this. Along marches the evil vampire army. Gotta cross the river, if not at this point, at some point. Crap, going to get our feet wet, but we’re the evil vampire army, we’re not afraid of a little stinking water. Then they start across. Man, I can just hear it. ‘Yipe, yipe, shit, fuck!’ Splashing across, splashing back, just making it worse. Wet feet, hell. Searing, burning feet—worse if some of them panic and knock each other down, slip. Oh joy, oh rapture.”

  Larkin stayed in his crouch, grinning at her pleasure. “It was damn clever of you.”

  “It was freaking brilliant. High five!” She grabbed his hand, slapped her palm to his. “It’s a thing.”

  He got up, yanked her to him and kissed her long and deep. “It’s a thing I like better.”

  “Who could argue? Wouldn’t it be great, oh, wouldn’t it be sweet, if Lilith was leading the way, starts her strut across the stream. The ultimate hot foot. I’m just loving this.”

  She took a huge breath. “Okay, that’s enough fun and frivolity. Let’s go check out the others.”

  A good day, Blair thought as they headed toward the second location. Rainbows, dragons, goddesses. She’d faced one of her personal nightmares by walking in the valley, and she’d come out of it again. Now she was seeing her guerilla warfare tactics take shape.

  Lilith’s army was going to take a few hard kicks in the ass long before Samhain. Since vamps weren’t known for tending their wounded without a strong connection between them, she was likely going to lose a nice chunk of troops on the march toward destiny.

  When Larkin started his descent she prepared herself for another pat on the back. Then he changed directions. Puzzled, she looked down and saw the overturned wagon.

  There was a man lying beside it, and a woman standing with a toddler in her arms, and another at her skirts.

  The youngest let out a squeal that might have been delight, might have been terror as a gold dragon with a woman on its back soared down to the road.

  The young mother went pale as a sheet and stumbled back when the dragon shifted shape into a man.

  “Oh, blessed mother!”

  “Don’t be frightened.” Larkin spoke gently, added what Blair thought of as his thousand-watt smile. “Just a bit of magic, is all. I’m Larkin, son of Riddock.”

  “My lord.” Her cheeks remained colorless, but she managed a curtsey.

  “You’ve some trouble here. Your man is hurt?”

  “It’s me leg.” The man struggled to sit up, but could only moan. “I fear it’s broke.”

  “Let me have a look.” Blair knelt down. His face was gray, she noted, with a good-sized bruise along his jawline.

  “The axle, it broke. Thank the gods my family wasn’t hurt, but I took a bad fall. Then the bloody horse runs off.”

  “Might have a small fracture here.” Blair gave him a bolstering smile. “It’s not as bad as your axle, but you’re not going to be walking for a while. He’s going to need help, Larkin.”

  Larkin studied the wheel. “There’s no fixing that without some new wood. Where are you bound?” he asked the woman.

  “My lord, we were going to stop at the wayfarers on the road to Geall City, then travel on from there on the morrow. My husband has relations in Geall City. His brother, Niall, is with the castle guards.”

  “I know Niall well. If you’d get what you feel you can’t do without for the evening, we’ll see you to the wayfarer.”

  The older child, a girl of about four, tugged on Larkin’s tunic. “Where did your wings go?”

  “I’ve just tucked them away for now, but I’ll show them to you again. Help your mother now.” He gestured to Blair.

  “Can he ride?” he asked her.

  “You’d have to go at a walk. We can put a temporary splint on that leg, but I don’t think it should be jostled around. He’s in a lot of pain.”

  “All right then, it’ll have to be flying. It’s only a few miles to the inn.”

  “You take them. Two adults—one of them hurt—a couple of kids. That’s about all you can manage.”

  “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

  “Broad daylight,” she reminded him, “and I’m armed. I can head over, check out the next trap. It’s what, about a quarter mile that way, right?”

  “It is, but you could wait here. I wouldn’t be much above a half hour.”

  “Kick my heels by a broken wagon? I can check it out and be back here by the time you make the round trip. Then we can swing by the last of them, and maybe do a sweep of the area, see if there are any stragglers that need a hand. We’ll be back home before sunset, with time to spare.”

  “All right then, for you’ll go anyway the minute I’ve gone.”

  “Nice to be so well understood.”

  It took time, not just to load the family on, but to first convince the woman that it could be done. That it had to be done.

  “Now don’t worry a bit, Breda.” Larkin gave her full-p
ower charm. “I’ll be staying as low to the ground as I’m able. We’ll have you and your family at the inn quick as a wink, and send off for help for your man here. I’ll see that someone comes and fixes your wagon in the morning, and delivers it straight to you. Can’t ask better than that.”

  “No, my lord, no. You’re so kind.” Still she stood, all but wringing her hands. “I’ve heard, of course, of your gift. All of Geall knows of it, but to see…And the idea of riding a dragon—”

  “Won’t your daughter have stories to tell? Come now, your husband needs help.”

  “Aye. Well, of course, of course.”

  He changed before she could balk, and left it to Blair to deal with the rest. She helped the injured man up, taking his weight as Larkin bellied to the ground. Using rope from the wagon, she tied him on.

  “I’m grateful to you,” he said to Blair. “I don’t know how we’d have managed.”

  “If you’re anything like your brother, you’d have figured something. He’s a good man. You get on behind him,” Blair instructed his wife. “Keep the kids between you. I’m going to tie you on his back. You’ll be secure, I promise you.”

  “I like his wings.” The girl clambered on before her mother could make a peep. “They shine.”

  When it was done, Larkin picked up the pack of possessions in his jeweled legs. Then turned his head to give Blair a nuzzle on the arm.

  And he was rising up. Blair heard the little girl shouting with absolute delight as they skimmed down the road and away.

  “Know just how you feel,” Blair said with a laugh. With the map in hand, she crossed the road and started across the first field.

  It felt good to walk, and to have a little alone time. Not that she wasn’t nuts about the guy, Blair thought as she brushed her finger over the flower in her buttonhole. But she was so used to being on her own. This whole business had all but eliminated her solo time.

  Since it started, she’d been part of a team—a circle, she corrected. People she respected and believed in, no question, but people who needed to be consulted.

  All in all, she was better at teamwork than she’d imagined she would be. Maybe, she decided, it was all a matter of who was making up the team.

  And somehow, through that team, she’d ended up being half of a couple. She hadn’t believed that was in the cards for her, not again. Certainly not with a man who knew everything there was to know about her, and not only got it, but valued it.

  She already knew it was going to rip her to pieces when they went their separate ways. No choice there that she could see, so there wasn’t much point in brooding about it, less point in wasting the time they had feeling sorry for herself.

  In any case, they both had to live first before they could be miserable and alone.

  It was better, all around better, to enjoy, and to cherish the time they had. When that time was done she could look back at it and know she’d loved, and had been loved.

  She glanced up at the sky, wondering how the farmer and his family were faring with their first—and if she was any judge of the mother of the brood, their last—dragon flight.

  Larkin would take care of them. It was one of the things he was good at. Taking care. When you added the fairy-tale-prince looks, the kick-ass attitude in battle, that quick grin and the excellent stamina in bed, he was just about perfect.

  She checked her map again, hopped over a low stone fence to the next field.

  Beyond it were a few trees, and the most direct route from the coast to the valley.

  They’d move through here, Blair thought, two, maybe three hours before they reached the stream with the blessed water. And at night, go quickly through this open area toward the shelter of woods another few miles inland.

  This route was logical, and it was efficient. Add in the scatter of farms, cottages sprinkled through, there was the possibility of fresh food.

  Oh yeah, Blair mused, this is the way she’ll come. Has to. In stages, maybe, leaving some at the caves, at various safe points along the way. For hunting, for ambushes, quick raids.

  “It’s what I’d do,” Blair murmured, and with a last check of the map, headed