“He only beat me to it by a couple seconds,” Blair told her.
“Well. Well. I went after him when it was my duty to stay, to speak to my people. But I went after him, and I deviled him. He’d done what he did to stop me from making a foolish and perhaps fatal mistake. And he told me as much, but I wasn’t ready to listen, to accept. He showed me as much, and it’s all of a piece, what happened at the end of it. He only showed me that I wasn’t strong enough to stop any sort of attack. It meant nothing more than that.”
“Okay…” Blair searched for words. “If you’re satisfied with that.”
“It’s difficult for a woman to be satisfied when she’s kissed in such a way, then coldly rejected.” Still Moira lifted a shoulder. “But it was done in anger on both sides. I won’t apologize to him, nor do I expect he will to me. We’ll simply go on, remembering there are more important things than pride and temper.”
“Moira.” Glenna stroked a hand over Moira’s hair. “Do you have feelings for him?”
As if to search inside herself, Moira closed her eyes. “There are times it seems I’m nothing but feelings. But I know where my duty lies. I’ve agreed to go to the stone, take hold of the sword. Not tomorrow. There’s much to do tomorrow. But by week’s end. I’ve shown my people they have a warrior in me. Soon, if the gods’ will it, I’ll show them a queen.”
When they stepped out, Moira remained in the chair, watching the fire.
“What I gave her will help her sleep, and soon, I hope.” Blowing out a breath, Glenna dug her hands into her pockets.
“This could get complicated.”
“What isn’t? I should have seen something like this coming.”
“Time to turn in your crystal ball on a newer model?”
“Oh well.” They walked together toward their own rooms. “Should we talk to Cian about this?”
“Sure. You go first.”
With a half laugh, Glenna shook her head. “Okay, we leave it alone. Stay out of it—at least for now. You know, I’m a firm believer in full disclosure in relationships. But I’m not going to say anything to Hoyt about this.”
“If you think I’m going to blab to Larkin, think again. We’ve all got enough on our minds.”
The morning was soggy and cold, but there were a flock of women on the gaming field. Most of them wore pants—what the locals called braes—and tunics.
“More than twice the turnout I had yesterday,” Glenna told Blair. “That’s Moira’s doing.”
“She sure as hell drove the point home last night. Look, I’ll give you an hour, get them started. Then I’m going to want to get my pet dragon up in the air.”
Whether it was the gloom of the morning or the dregs of the tension from the night before, Blair was antsy. “I want to check out the battlefield firsthand, make sure those settlements near it are cleared out. And I want to swing by, make sure the traps are up and running.”
“Just another day in paradise. Well, I guess we ought to move this indoors.” Hands on hips, Glenna turned a circle. “See if there’s a space we can work with.”
“Why?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s raining.”
“Yeah, I got that with all the water dripping off my hair. Point is, we don’t know what conditions will be like on Samhain. For that matter, we don’t know what they’ll be like if any of these women have to tangle with a vamp before that. Might as well get used to fighting dirty, so to speak.”
“Crap.”
“Buck up, soldier.” Blair gave her a friendly punch in the arm.
At the end of an hour, Blair was filthy, mildly bruised and in the best of moods. A little down-and-dirty training had gone a long way toward smoothing down the restlessness.
She started across the courtyard with the goal of finding Larkin, then stopped short when she recognized his mother and sister coming her way.
Perfect, she thought. Aces. She was covered with mud and sweat, and about to cross paths with the mom of the guy she was sleeping with. Just her lucky day.
Since there was nowhere to duck out of sight, she toughed it out. “Good morning.”
“And to you. I am Deirdre, and this is my daughter, Sinann.”
Blair nearly extended a hand before she remembered herself. Since she didn’t think she could pull off a curtsey under current conditions, she simply nodded. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve, ah, been training some of the women.”
“We watched.” In the way of pregnant women, Sinann folded her hands over the mound of her belly. “You have skill—and energy.”
She smiled when she said it, so Blair ordered herself to relax. “They’re coming along.”
“My son speaks well of you.”
“Oh.” Blair looked back at Deirdre, cleared her throat. Relax, hell. “That’s good to know. Thank you. I was just looking for him. We need to do a little scouting.”
“He’s in the stables.” Deirdre gave Blair a long, quiet look. “Do you think I don’t know he shares your bed?” Before Blair could speak, could think to speak, Sinann made a sound that might have been muffled laughter.
“I’m his mother, after all,” Deirdre continued in that same mild tone. “I’m aware he’s shared beds of other women before you. But he’s never spoken to me of them, as he speaks of you. So that changes the matter. I’ll beg your pardon. From what he’s said, I believed you’d prefer plain speaking.”
“I do. I would. Oh boy, I’m sorry. I’ve just never had a conversation like this, and not with someone like you.”
“A mother?”
“For starts. I don’t want you to think I just share my bed with anyone who’s…” Could this be more embarrassing? Blair wondered as Deirdre simply continued to study her with what looked like amused interest. “He’s a good man. He’s, well, he’s an amazing man. You’ve done your job very well.”
“No compliment is dearer to a mother’s heart, and I certainly agree with you.” The amusement faded now. “This war comes to us, and he’ll do battle. I’ve never faced such a thing, so I have to believe, deep in my heart, that he does what he must, and will live.”
“I believe it, if that helps.”
“It does. I have other children.” Deirdre touched a hand to her daughter’s arm. “Another son, the husband of my daughter who is a son to me. I’ll have the same faith in them. But my daughter can’t fight like the women you teach.”
“The child is to be born before the yule,” Sinann told Blair. “My third. My children are too young to fight, and this one not yet born. How do I protect them?”
Blair thought of the crosses Hoyt and Glenna had made. She believed the others would agree Larkin’s pregnant sister should have one. “There’s a lot you can do,” Blair assured her. “I’ll help you.”
Now she turned to Deirdre. “But you shouldn’t worry about your daughter, your grandchildren. Your sons, your husband, my friends and I will never let what’s coming here get this far.”
“You give me peace of mind, and I’m grateful. We may not be able to fight, but we won’t be idle. There are many things women who are no longer young, and women who carry life, can do. We’ll do them. Now, you have work so we won’t keep you longer. Good day to you, and gods protect.”
“Thank you.”
Blair stood a moment, watching them walk away. Women with spine, she thought. Lilith was going to be so out of her league.
Satisfied, she hunted Larkin down in the stables where he was stripped down to the waist, slicked with sweat, and helping forge weapons.
Her mood only improved. What could be better than watching a half-naked, great-looking guy beat hot steel into a sword?
She could see they’d made a good start from the number of weapons set aside to cure. The anvil rang with hammer strokes, and smoke billowed as a red-hot blade was plunged into a vat of water.
Was it a wonder, she asked herself, that her mind clicked over to sex?
“Can I get one of those engraved?” she called out.
“Something like: ‘To the woman who pierced my heart.’ Corny, yet amusing.”
He looked up, grinned. “You look like you’ve been rolling in the mud.”
“Have been. I was about to go clean up.”
He handed his hammer off to one of the other men, then picked up a cloth to scrub the sweat from his face as he walked to her. “We’ll have every man and woman in Geall armed by Samhain. Cian’s remark some time ago about beating the plowshares into swords isn’t that far off. Word’s gone out.”
“Good. It needs to. Can you break away from here?”
He used his finger to rub some of the mud from her cheek. “What did you have in mind?”
“A couple of flybys. Weather’s crappy, I know, but we can’t wait for sunshine and rainbows. I need to see the battlefield, Larkin. I need a firsthand look.”
“All right then.” He grabbed the tunic he’d discarded earlier and called out a quick stream of Gaelic to the men working behind them.
“They’ll push on well enough without me.”
“Have you seen Moira this morning?”
“Aye. We had a discussion, with considerable heat. Then cooled off and made up. She’s gone into the village to speak to people, the merchants. To bargain for more horses, wagons, supplies, whatever it is she’s scribbled down on her list of things we’ll need in the coming weeks.”
“It’s good thinking. And smart to make sure she’s seen after last night. Anyone who wasn’t there would have heard by now. The more visible she is, the better.”
In the coming weeks, Blair thought as she went inside to clean up, the shopping, list-making, supply-gathering were all something women like Deirdre and Sinann could deal with. Keep them busy, she mused. And keep the royal family visible.
She scraped off the mud, changed into a reasonably fresh shirt, then strapped on her standard weapons.
When she met Larkin in the courtyard, she took the sheaths for his sword, his stakes. “Got something for you.” She picked up the harness she’d set on the ground, slid the sheaths into the loops. “Put this together for you so you can carry your weapons when you’re zipping around up there.”
“Well, isn’t this fine!” He grinned like a kid presented with a shiny new red wagon. “This was thoughtful of you, Blair.” He leaned over to give her a kiss.
“Do your thing, and we’ll try it out.”
“I owe you a gift.” He kissed her again.
When he’d become the dragon, Blair looped the harness over his body, gave it a quick cinch. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.” She vaulted onto him. “Let’s fly, cowboy.”
She’d never get used to it. Even in the rain it was a thrill to feel the wonder of what was beneath her, and rise up and up. Into mists now, drenched with wet, that curtained the land below. It was like flying inside a cloud, she thought, where the sound was muffled and there was nothing but the flight.
She decided she’d never be satisfied with anything as ordinary as an airplane again.
The rain thinned, and as the sun struggled to carve beams through the clouds, she saw the rainbow. It arched, a bleeding blur of delicate colors that seemed to drip through the rain. With a lazy sweep of wings, Larkin turned so that the arch glimmered like a doorway ahead. And the colors deepened, seemed to shine like wet silk. As shafts of sunlight cut through the clouds, the rain and those soft, arching colors turned the sky to wonder.
There was a trumpeting call, a kind of joyful blare. Then the sky was filled with dragons.
She lost her breath, literally felt it whiz out of her lungs as beautiful winged beasts soared beside her, in front of her, behind. In more colors than the rainbow, she realized, with their emeralds and rubies and sapphires. She felt Larkin’s body ripple as he answered their call, and grinned like a fool when he turned his head and fixed a laughing gold eye on her.
She was flying with a flock of dragons. Herd? Pack? Pod? What did it matter? The wind from their wings blew over her face and hair, sent her coat billowing as they soared through the rainbow sky. The other dragons circled, looped, somersaulted in playful dances. Anticipating, she gripped the harness, shouted for Larkin to: “Do it! Do it!”
And screamed with excitement as he dived and rolled. Hanging upside down as he soared belly-up, she could see the mists tear and reveal the sparkling green and deep, deep brown of the land of Geall.
He skimmed the treetops, dipped over the rush of a river, then climbed, climbed, climbed into air that gleamed now with the strengthening sun.
They flew on, past rainbows and jeweled wings, until it was only the two of them and the sky. Overcome, she lowered to him, laid her cheek on his neck. He’d said he’d owed her a gift, she remembered. He had given her one beyond price.
They flew through sunlight now, and occasional and surprising showers of rain. Below she could see small villages or settlements, the rough roads that joined them, the tangle of streams or narrow rivers, tough little knuckles of forest.
But ahead lay the mountains, dark and mist-shrouded and somehow foreboding.
She could see the edge of the valley that lay at their feet, broken land scarred with rock. The first shudder rippled down her spine as she looked down on what she’d too often seen in dreams.
The sun didn’t sparkle here. It was as if the light was absorbed, just sucked away into the dark belly of gullies and chasms, rejected by the dull grass that fought with the spears and juts of weather-pocked rock.
The land dipped and rose, tightened in on itself into folds. And the looming mountains cast great shadows across it, shadows that seemed to cause the land itself to move and shift.
It was more than a shudder that ran through her now. It was an unreasonably, atavistic fear. A fear that this hard and forbidding land would be her grave.
As Larkin veered off, she closed her eyes and let the fear have its way for a moment. Because it couldn’t be beaten off, she thought, couldn’t be battered down by fists or weapons. It had to be recognized, and accepted.
Once it had, she could control it. If she were strong enough, she could use that fear to fight, and to survive.
When he touched down, she slid off. Legs a little shaky, she admitted to herself. But they held her up, and that’s what counted. Her fingers might have felt stiff, but they worked, and she used them to uncinch the weapon harness.
Then Larkin stood beside her.
“It’s an evil place.”
It was almost a relief to her to hear him say it. “Yeah, oh yeah, it is.”
“You can almost feel that evil rising up out of the ground. I’ve been there before, and it always seemed to me to be a place out of Geall. Not quite a part of it. But it never felt as it did today, as though the ground itself wanted to open up and swallow you whole.”
“Oh boy. It got to me, I’ve got to be honest. Turned my blood cold.” She rubbed her hands over her face, then glanced around. “Where are we?”
“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 befor
e,” 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,