by Linda Howard
A convoy of trucks filled with men, flanked front and back by jeeps, rolled along the highway. Cael Ansara, dressed all in black, rode in the first jeep.
Suddenly Echo saw only darkness and heard the screams of the dying. She fought to emerge from the vision, but Mercy urged her to fight her fear and follow through until the end. As if in accelerated motion, Echo’s sight flashed over the faces of the Ansara warriors inside the trucks, and with Mercy’s assistance, she absorbed minute traces of their emotions. The overwhelming hatred and savage bloodlust Echo sensed frightened her, and Mercy could no longer keep her focused. Realizing it was best not to force the matter, she helped Echo pull back from the vision as she took all the Ansara emotions from Echo and into herself.
“Crap!” Echo’s eyes flew open, and she jerked away from Mercy. “There were at least a hundred of them. And they were all thinking about coming here, killing every Raintree in sight and capturing the home place.”
Mercy staggered slightly as she struggled to dissolve the evil emotions trapped inside her. She could hear Echo talking to her, then felt her cousin shaking her, but she couldn’t respond, couldn’t return to the here and now, until she had disposed of the last particle of negative energy.
Several minutes later she slumped over, weak from the inner battle. Echo caught her before she hit the floor.
“Damn, that scares me,” Echo said. “I’ve seen you do it before, but it’s not an easy thing to watch.”
Mercy offered her cousin a weak smile. “I’m all right.”
“You saw what I saw, didn’t you? There are so many of them, and they’re heading here today.”
“I know. We have to be as prepared for them as we can be. Dante and Gideon are on their way. I expect them to arrive sometime between five and six.”
“How many Raintree do we have already here or that can make it here by the time Dante and Gideon arrive?” Echo asked.
“Not enough,” Mercy said. “Not nearly enough.”
5:40 p.m.
By late afternoon on the day of the summer solstice, a small band of Raintree were ready to go into battle to defend the sanctuary.
The clear blue sky slowly darkened with rain clouds moving in to obscure the sunlight. The rumble of distant thunder announced a brewing storm. But Mercy knew that Mother Nature had not created the impending tempest. Cael Ansara’s forces had breached the protective shield around the Raintree sanctuary and were at this very moment charging toward the handful of Raintree prepared to defend their home place.
She had sent out Helene and Frederick as scouts, because of the few Raintree under her command, they possessed the strongest telepathic abilities and therefore could send her instant reports on the positions and movements of Cael’s troops.
In times past, when the Raintree went into battle, their empathic healers were called upon to fight, but their primary purpose on the battlefield had been to attend to the wounded. Today Mercy had no choice but to be all warrior. Until Dante and Gideon arrived, she would lead her people against the Ansara, and then she would fight beside her brothers, a united royal front with combined powers. Temporarily outnumbered more than two to one, the Raintree had to hold out against the invaders by any means necessary.
Reinforcements from the nearest towns and cities had joined the others who were visiting at the sanctuary, giving Mercy forty-five fighters to combat over a hundred renegade Ansara. The odds were not in their favor, but those odds would improve as more and more Raintree arrived at the home place.
Standing alone in her study, she bowed her head, closed her eyes and mediated for a few brief moments, focusing on the challenge she faced. Not only was the sanctuary threatened, but so was her daughter’s life.
Mercy reached above the fireplace mantel and ran her hand over Ancelin’s sword, the one the Dranira had carried on the day of The Battle two hundred years ago. According to legend the sword was much older, thousands of years old, and enchanted with an eternal magic spell. Only a royal empath could wield this powerful weapon, and only against great evil. If Raintree lore was correct, once Mercy used the weapon, it would then be known as Mercy’s sword to future generations.
Using both hands to lift the heavy weapon from its resting place, Mercy recited the words of honor that Gillian had taught her. Once in her possession, the sword’s weight lightened immediately, enabling Mercy to hold it easily in either hand.
Knowing that Eve was safely hidden in the Caves of Awenasa, protected by a cloaking spell and guarded by Sidonia, Mercy concentrated solely on leading her people against the Ansara.
Now, prepared in every possible way, she went to join her troops. When she emerged from the house, she was met with rousing shouts from those assembled, a show of respect and confidence. Twenty men and women stood before her, and the others were already strategically placed in and around the battlefield Mercy had chosen. The western meadow was protected by high mountains on all sides, and it was miles away from the Caves of Awenasa. The dozen Raintree who lay in hiding were ready to attack as Cael’s troops drove farther into the sanctuary.
Mercy lifted her sword high into the air and keened the ancient battle cry. Following her lead, the others yelled in unison. The sound of their combined voices rang out across the sanctuary and mated with the late afternoon wind, carrying the Raintree call to arms far and wide.
SIXTEEN
The hills rumbled with the clatter of battle, physical force united with psychic power, resulting in bloody bodies ripped, mangled and near death, as well as minds numbed or destroyed. The ashes of many disintegrated Raintree and Ansara covered the ground, spread across the meadow and into the hills by the force of the wind. Less than an hour since Cael’s forces had set foot within the Raintree sanctuary and Mercy had lost a fourth of her people. Her only consolation was that they had destroyed more than an equal number of Ansara.
In the struggle, she had not seen Cael Ansara, nor had she caught sight of Judah. Had the brothers sent their troops into the fray while they bided their time until more Ansara could join them? She couldn’t imagine Judah standing back and watching as his warriors fought and died. If she knew anything at all about Judah, she knew that he would do as she had done—take the lead and charge into battle.
So where was he?
She shouldn’t be concerning herself with thoughts of Judah. He was the enemy. It was inevitable that they would meet on the battlefield and one of them would die. It didn’t matter that he was Eve’s father or her own lover. She couldn’t allow her personal feelings to influence her, not where the Ansara Dranir was concerned.
During the battle, Mercy had employed psychic bolts sparingly, since they required a great deal of energy and she wanted to conserve as much as possible. Luckily she had encountered only two Ansara capable of the feat, and she had been able to deflect their bolts with Ancelin’s sword. One of the sword’s most potent magical properties was its ability to protect the woman who wielded it from all attacks, including psychic blasts, thus making her practically invincible.
Standing alone on a rock formation that jutted out of the ground, Mercy applied her telepathic powers to induce the illusion of a dozen green-eyed warriors on either side of her, battle ready and protective of their princess. To keep her magical guard in place, she would have to renew the illusion periodically or replace it with another.
As two male Ansara warriors approached, she concentrated on sending out paralyzing energy strong enough to permanently incapacitate them. Once she had dispensed with the males, she turned to the redheaded female Ansara coming toward her from the left. Mercy projected a mind-numbing mental bolt that caught the woman by surprise; she froze to the spot, then dropped into a crumpled heap. Sensing an immediate threat from her right, Mercy whirled around and swung her sword, landing a fatal blow to her attacker, a tracker with keen animal senses. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. As so often happened to those who died on hallowed Raintree land, his splintered body instantly returned to the earth.
; Mercy noted Brenna in a fierce struggle near the creek, barely able to keep two Ansara at bay—a huge, black-bearded man and a tall, willowy blonde. After dissipating her troop of fading shadow soldiers, Mercy ran across the field, rushing to Brenna’s aid. She took on the more dangerous of the two Ansara—the woman, who Mercy sensed possessed far more power than the male. The blonde turned and lifted her hand, showing Mercy the glistening energy ball floating in her palm. She smiled wickedly as she released the psychic bolt, but when she realized that Mercy’s sword deflected the energy and sent it back toward her, she scrambled to get out of its path. She lunged for safety, but Mercy swooped down on her, plunging the sword through her heart. As Mercy withdrew her blade, the dripping blood vanished drop by drop, leaving the weapon shimmering and pure.
Brenna managed to take out her opponent, but not before he had pierced his poisoned dagger into her body several inches beneath her left arm. Mercy stepped over the dying blonde warrior in her haste to reach Brenna, who clutched her wounded side as blood seeped through her fingers. Mercy leaned down, lifted Brenna’s hand away from the jagged slash and brushed her own fingertips over the torn flesh. The blood slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. Within minutes the cut would seal, and by tomorrow the wound would be completely healed.
As the pain and infection from the poison she had taken from Brenna flooded Mercy’s mind and body, she doubled over in pain. She fought the agony within her, and it slowly drained away on a green mist of recycled energy carried off by the wind.
Mercy suddenly lifted her bowed head and looked due east. Her brothers were close. She sensed their nearness. For the first time since she was a child—except when they joined together yearly to renew the shield around the sanctuary—Dante and Gideon had opened their minds to her, connecting with her to give her infusions of their strength and power. The Raintree royal triad possessed an unequaled combined energy. Together, they could accomplish the impossible. They had to. The alternative was too unbearable to even consider.
More than twenty minutes later, as the battle escalated, Mercy caught her first glimpse of Dante, and shortly after that she spied Gideon. Within an hour of her brothers’ arrival, more Raintree joined them, fighting alongside Dante and Gideon and Mercy. Still outnumbered, but holding their own, they called upon every resource available.
And then the moment she had anticipated and feared arrived. Cael Ansara appeared out of nowhere, his ice-cold eyes reminding her that he was indeed Judah’s brother. Their gazes met across the battlefield, and Mercy heard his warning.
Death to Dranir Dante. Death to Prince Gideon. Death to Princess
Mercy. Death to all Raintree!
Gideon shot a thin sapphire bolt of lightning at the most threatening of the three Ansara who surrounded him. Electricity danced on his skin, coloring his body and everything near him blue in the evening light, and deflecting almost all the attacks that came his way. He held a sword in his right hand, while he used his left to deliver deadly jolts of electricity.
None of these three were capable of sending psychic bolts his way, so Gideon conserved that special energy and fought with the power that was so much a part of him that it didn’t require intense concentration. He would need to use psychic bolts again before the battle was over, he was sure, but he didn’t need them now. The electricity he wielded was more than powerful enough for most of those he fought.
A long-haired burly Ansara whose gift was apparently one of extraordinary physical strength had twice penetrated the electrical field surrounding Gideon, leaving a deep, jagged cut on his shoulder from the small knife he’d tossed. Gideon’s left thigh was sore from being slammed with a good-sized rock that had easily broken through the streams of electricity and almost knocked him down. But both injuries were healing as he fought.
The big man dropped to the ground as the lightning hit him square in the chest, but Gideon realized the bastard wasn’t dead. This Ansara warrior’s brute strength made it difficult to kill him with one shot, but knocking him down at least bought a little time. Gideon turned to face the other two.
These three—two men and one woman—had led him away from the others, obviously working to separate him from the siblings who gave him enhanced power. What they didn’t realize was that, physically separated or not, the strength of his brother and sister remained in him, and would until the battle was over.
The female Ansara had short black hair and a gift for robbing the air of heat. She carried a sword, and had swung it at Gideon’s head and neck more than once, only to have it deflected by a stream of electricity or by his own sword. The blade that had sliced his shoulder had not been poisoned, since the brutish soldier relied more on his extraordinary strength than anything as common as poison, but he suspected this woman’s blade might be tainted. She’d also tried to freeze him by sucking the natural heat from the air that surrounded him, but he was generating so much energy at the moment that freezing him was impossible.
The redheaded man at her side most likely had some sort of mental power. He carried a sword in one hand and a small knife in the other but had displayed no outwardly threatening magical abilities. As he was the least menacing, Gideon turned his attention to the female Ansara, who had the audacity to smile. There had been a time when he would have hesitated to kill a woman, even an Ansara soldier, but after tangling with Tabby, he had not a single doubt about sending a deadly bolt of lightning, the strongest he could muster, into her forehead. Her head snapped back, she gasped loudly and dropped her sword. Dead, she was instantly frozen, taken by her own gift.
Her companion, the only one of the three standing at the moment, did not smile as Gideon turned to face him. The hesitant soldier lifted the sword in his hand, and Gideon did the same. He needed a moment to recharge, after putting down the more powerful two, and the remaining soldier did not look to be an immediate threat. In fact, he looked damned scared. Still, the redheaded Ansara before him had a chance to run but did not. Brave, but it sealed his fate.
There was great concentration on the Ansara’s face, a wrinkling of the brow and a narrowing of eyes, and Gideon imagined the man was trying to affect him mentally in some way. Was he trying to push thoughts or emotions into Gideon’s mind, or was he perhaps attempting to muster a pathetic bolt of psychic energy? Whatever he was trying didn’t work, and as Gideon stepped toward him, sword in hand, the man swallowed hard.
Gideon was about to swing the sword when a sound stopped him cold. Someone called his name in a loud, frightened, familiar voice. Hope.
He deflected his opponent’s blade, then turned his head toward the voice that had broken through the sounds of battle and claimed his attention. Hope appeared, cresting the hill at a run, her gun in one hand, her eyes wide with shock and revulsion and all the horrors he did not want for her.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gideon saw the large, unnaturally strong warrior stand and shake off the electrical surge that should have killed him. Long brown hair fell across the Ansara soldier’s face, and the muscles in his arms and chest seemed to ripple, to harden. Then the Ansara lifted his head and tossed his hair back, and his gaze fell on Hope.
“Kill her!” the man who fought Gideon screamed as he swung wildly with his sword again. “She is his.”
Gideon quickly killed the redheaded man, a dark psychic of some sort who had identified Hope as his woman, with a blade through the gut. He withdrew his sword smoothly and let the body fall, then spun to see the one remaining warrior running toward Hope.
Hope and Emma. They were his future, his soul, his home—and he would not allow the Ansara to take them away.
The enemy who now focused on Hope was closer to her than Gideon was. He could slow the big bastard down with another jolt, but would it be enough to stop him? Or would it be too little, too late? The Ansara warrior was too far away for Gideon to take him down with a psychic bolt, too far away for the accuracy and strength he needed. The incredibly high stakes of this battle crept higher.
“Shoot him!” Gideon screamed as he ran up the hill. “Now, Hope. Shoot!”
In getting this far, Hope had seen enough of the battleground to know that his order was a serious one. Before the long-haired brute reached her, she lifted her weapon and fired. Twice.
Her bullets didn’t stop the Ansara, but they did slow him down. The enemy soldier staggered, looked down at the blood staining his massive chest, and appeared to be very annoyed by this unexpected resistance from a mortal woman—and Gideon knew he would now realize that she was mortal, since she’d been able to fire a gun. No Ansara or Raintree would have been able to make the weapon work on sanctuary land, and Hope wouldn’t become Raintree until she gave birth to Emma.
Gideon continued to run, until at last he was close enough to do what had to be done. He formed and projected a psychic bolt, a bolt very unlike the lightning that was in his blood. Gold and glittering, it smacked into the Ansara, and in an instant, the threat to Hope was over as the Ansara warrior turned to dust.
Hope rushed toward Gideon. He let his electrical shield fall, and she threw herself into his arms.
“What the…?” she began breathlessly, her heart pounded against him. “This is not…Oh, my God…He just…” She took a deep breath and regained a bit of composure, then said, in a breathless voice, “You’re bleeding again, dammit.”
There was no time to explain as two Ansara warriors came into sight, rushing toward them with deadly intent. One held a sword in each hand, and the other displayed a weak flame of unnatural fire on his open palm. The firebug would have to go first.
“Stay with me,” Gideon ordered as he placed Hope behind him.
As he raised his own sword and erected a barricade of protective electricity that surrounded them both, she muttered, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dante whirled away from a psychic bolt of energy, and it shattered the tree trunk behind him. He threw himself as far away from the tree as he could, not even daring to look back, because if one of those massive limbs hit him, he would be dead. As he ran, he threw a bolt in retaliation, hoping to keep the Ansara ducking for cover until he himself could find a handy boulder to duck behind.
