by Nora Roberts
“Just a ways off from it. I didn’t want to set down there. It’s an easy walk from here, and I wanted a few moments first.”
“I’ll take them.”
He touched her cheek. “A long way from rainbows here.”
“The wrong side of them, I’d say. And I want to say something else, before we head back and face that place. That flight—the rainbow, the other dragons, the whole ball of it, it was the most incredible experience of my life.”
“Is that the truth of it?” He cocked his head. “I thought the most incredible experience of your life would be making love with me.”
“Oh yeah, right. Well, next to that.”
“All right then.” He tipped up her chin to kiss her. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“It was more than enjoyment. It was just flat down amazing. The best gift anyone’s ever given me.”
“Handy for me, that rainbow. Dragons can’t resist one.”
“Really? They’re so gorgeous. I thought my eyes would pop out of my head.”
“Happens you’ve seen a dragon before,” he reminded her.
“And you’re the most gorgeous and handsome of them, blah blah, but honestly, Larkin, they’re extreme. All those colors, and the power…Hold on—do people ride them, the way I’ve been riding you?”
“No one rides like you, a stór. And they don’t, no. They’re not horses, after all.”
“But if they could. You talked to them.”
“It’s not what you’d call conversation. It’s a kind of communication to be sure. A sort of expression of thought of feeling. And something I can only do when I’m in the dragon, so to speak.”
“Aerial warfare would give us a big, fat advantage. I want to think about this.”
“They’re gentle creatures, Blair.”
“So, for the most part, are the women Glenna and I are training to fight. When worlds are on the line, pal, you use everything that comes to hand.” She could see the resistance clearly enough on his face. “Let me just play with it in my head awhile. It’s this way, right?”
“It is.”
They walked the narrow road, framed in hedges and lined with spears of orange lilies. He bent, plucked one, then passed it to her.
Blair stared down at it, delicate petals in a strong and vibrant color. Something wild and lovely.
She talked of war, she thought. And he gave her a flower.
Maybe it was foolish—maybe both of them were—but she slid its stem into one of the buttonholes of her coat. And she breathed in its sweet scent as they walked toward the battleground.
Chapter 18
They’d walked only minutes when Blair heard the sound of horses, and a rattle she assumed was a wagon or cart. When they cleared the curve in the road, she saw she’d been right. There were two wagons, both loaded with people and possessions. There were riders on horseback as well, some no more than children.
Mules were tethered to the back of each wagon and clopped along with a look she could only describe as extreme irritation.
The first wagon pulled up, with the man driving it lifting his cap to Blair, then addressing himself to Larkin.
“It’s the wrong way you’re traveling,” he said. “For by orders of the royal family all in this province are to go into Dunglas, or farther, even into Geall City itself if they can manage it. There are demons coming, it’s said, and war with them.”
Beside him, the woman clutched the baby she carried closer to her breast. “It won’t be safe here,” she told them. “All are leaving their homes behind. The princess Moira herself has decreed that every citizen of Geall must be indoors by sunset. You’re welcome to a seat in the wagon, and to ride with us as far as my cousin in Dunglas.”
“It’s kind of you, mistress, and thank you for the offer of hospitality, but we’re on business here for the royal family and for Geall. We’ll make our way.”
“We had to leave our sheep, our crops.” The man looked behind him. “But the riders who came from the castle said there was no choice in it.”
“They’d be right.”
The man turned back to study Blair. “And it’s said, too, that warriors and wizards have come from beyond Geall to fight this war and drive the demons out of the world.”
“It’s truth.” But Larkin saw both fear and doubt. “I’ve gone out of this world, and back into it. I’d be Larkin, lord of Mac Dara.”
“My lord.” Now the man removed his cap altogether. “It’s our honor to speak with you.”
“This is the lady Blair, a great warrior from beyond Geall.”
The boy who sat on horseback beside the wagon all but bounced in the saddle. “Have you killed demons, then? Have you fought and killed them, Lady?”
“Seamas.” The woman, obviously his mother, spoke sharply. “You haven’t been given leave to speak, much less to pester with questions.”
“It’s all right.” Blair stroked a hand over his horse. The boy had a wide-open face, she thought, where freckles had exploded like ginger over cream. He couldn’t have been more than eight. “I have fought them, and killed them. So has Lord Larkin.”
“And so will I!”
She hoped not. She hoped to God he was safely tucked into bed by nightfall, 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 follow 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.
