Screams ripped the air. As bullets struck her shield, she flung out power to engulf guns in flame. Each one rendered useless was one less that could be used against her people.
She heard the raging, rapid report of automatic fire, rode straight toward it and the man who sprayed the air with bullets. Even as he swung toward her, Laoch impaled him.
She heard the screams of women, the shrieks of children as faeries risked their lives to lift them to safety. She heard the moans of the wounded, leaped off Laoch to strike down an enemy before he could slice the throat of one of her people who lay bleeding.
She saw a shifter take a bullet in mid leap, fought her way to him as she mind-spoke to Travis.
We need more medical transport.
Working on it.
Work faster.
She raced toward more gunfire, a barrage of it, coming from one of the fortified buildings. Bullets pinged off her shield as she pushed her way toward it. With a sweep of power she took down the door, then rose up as she once had as a child in a faerie glade.
But this time she rose up with a flaming sword, shot a stream of fire into the sniper’s nest. She flipped back through the air as Mick had taught her, landed. Five came at her at once.
She took the first out with a sweep of her sword at his legs before she leaped up. Sent another flying back with a vicious strike of her shield. She blocked a sword, spun, pumped up and back to kick out with both feet.
Blows landed, but she’d been trained to fight with pain. She struck back a sword, danced away from the swipe of a knife. With a slash of her blade, she cleaved the arm from one, and with his screams ringing in her ears, drove the point of her sword through the heart of the other.
Through the stench, the smoke, the screams, they fought. Bodies, so many bodies, littered the ground. She pushed away any thought of the carnage and the cost because she felt, she knew the tide had turned hard in their favor.
Some of the enemy ran for the gates, deserting the field. They would meet another line, she thought, be given the choice to surrender.
All prisoners and slaves secured, Travis said in her mind.
She caught an arrow in her shield inches from her heart, drew it out, flung it with a whip of power at the bowman.
Colin charged up to her. “We’ve got fifty secured in the prison. A few deserters got through, but we’ve got about a dozen of them. They’re done.”
Once again her shield blocked an arrow, this one before it cut her brother down. “Not quite.”
“Just mop-up now.”
Even as he grinned, she felt it.
“Get behind me.”
“Bullshit on that.”
“Don’t argue.”
She swung around to face the dark.
He stood tall, well over six feet. He dressed in black, and the air around him rippled with it. He flung a bolt of lightning toward her, easily blocked.
And he smiled.
She saw him, clearly, pouring the blood of the sacrificed onto the ground, burning the black fire, chanting the foul words to create the moat.
“These are nothing.” He spread his arms to take in the fallen. “Tools and dupes to be used and discarded.”
An arrow sang out, dropping with a hit that rippled air. He bent to retrieve it, glanced up at where Tonia stood on a rooftop. He shot it back at her with a strike of his arm.
Fallon swept out with her own power, broke it to pieces.
He laughed.
“She knew you’d come, would have to come to try to save these pitiful creatures. She knew you’d bleed for them. Your cousin sends her best.”
He flung out power that rattled her bones when it struck her shield.
“Get clear,” she ordered Colin.
“I’m not leaving you to—”
“Get clear. And mop the hell up. That’s an order.”
The brother in him nearly snapped back, but the soldier obeyed orders.
“You’re what she sent?” Fallon kept her tone mildly interested.
“I am Raoul, the Black Wizard. I am bound to Petra by blood, imbued with powers dark and glorious by what lives in her. I am the slayer of The One, in her name.”
“Raoul, the Black Wizard?” Now she added contempt. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Burn, burn, burn.” He circled his hands as he shouted the spell. “Now the fires and hungers of hell.”
Black fire struck her shield, circled her. She felt the pulse of heat, of dark joy. Some of her people rushed to defend her. As she shouted them back, Raoul snapped out a whip of lightning. It streaked toward Flynn, fast and deadly. Before it struck, Lupa leaped to shield him.
And fell bloodied and burned to the ground.
She heard Flynn’s cry of grief like a heart breaking inside her head. With rage, she flung power at the fire around her, beat at it with furious fists of light.
His laughter rang as he pulled lightning from the sky, pummeling the ground with it like rain. She pushed through the dying fire, striking at bolts with her sword, flinging them upward with her shield.
He chanted, drawing up smoke from the ground that hissed and snapped like snakes.
“Your light dims and dies,” he shouted. “And the shell that’s left of you I’ll spread at Petra’s feet.”
Drawing in, drawing up her power, pulling it as she charged across the bloodied field. She swore she heard the sword in her hand sing.
“By the blood of my blood.” Heat soaked her, but she fought forward. “By the flesh of my flesh, the bone of my bone. By the light of my light, be damned.”
When she struck him down, when his laughter became a shriek, she felt the jolt shake through her, all but steal her breath.
He lay, breath gurgling. “She will be your doom.”
“No. I’ll be hers. As I’m yours.”
She plunged the sword into him, ended it.
She lifted her sword high, called on the cool light of the moon to cleanse it. Once cleansed, she drove the point into the ground. So the ground shook, and light burst like noon before it faded to starlight.
“This place is now the place of the light. We claim this place. Light for life.”
There were cheers, but she walked through them with tears on her cheeks toward Flynn.
He stood, holding the wolf who’d given his life to save him. She saw his broken heart in his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“He died a warrior, a hero. He died in—” When his voice broke, Flynn pressed his face to Lupa’s bloody fur.
“He died in service to The One.” Starr stepped up beside Flynn, and though her voice shook, she continued. “To the light she stands for. To the light we fight for.
“Come.” She who rarely touched or allowed herself to be touched, laid an arm around Flynn’s shoulders. “We’ll take him home.”
At another shout, Fallon turned, looked with eyes blurred with tears as Colin fixed a cloth with the fivefold symbol shining silver on a field of white onto a flagpole.
The PW brand lay trampled in the dirt. And they raised the standard of The One over Arlington.
Faeries flew in to transport wounded even as, now with the base under their control, more healers rushed in to treat some where they lay.
Fallon ordered sentries to take their posts, and teams to sweep through every house and building, every shed and structure to make certain they missed no enemy, no wounded.