“Ready?”
“Oh, yeah.” She moved, quick and quiet as a snake, rising, pivoting behind a tree. Notched an arrow in her bow. Duncan grabbed the hilt of his sword, rolled onto the balls of his feet.
“Ridge secure,” Will murmured. “Hit the lights.”
Duncan pumped his free hand in the air and turned the night to midday. It effectively blinded any enemy wearing night-vision goggles. And the screaming began.
Some in the circle simply fell to their knees, maybe, Duncan thought fleetingly, thinking the light was a sign from their divine. Others scattered.
Gunfire erupted, and Purity Warriors flooded in.
He’d heard the saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight, but Duncan considered a sword a different matter. Plus, a gun didn’t do much good when the hand holding it was cleaved off.
The man he’d wounded let out a shrill scream as his blood spurted. The keen aim of Tonia’s arrow took out another, and Will’s return fire still more.
With his sword slashing, Duncan threw out a wave of power, sent two men and a woman flying back. He sensed a movement to his left, spun to block an attack. A good thing, he’d think later, as he heard a bullet whine past his head.
They had shotguns, the shells loaded with bits of metal. The shrapnel peppered trees, huts, the ground. He felt a sting at his hip, ignored it, and punched power toward the gun. As it turned molten, the shooter cried out, dropped it.
One of the elves rose out of a rock, dropped the shooter.
Chaos swirled. Within it one of the healers rushed, pulling the wounded to safety. Faeries risked their lives to swoop down, lift children away from flying metal. Duncan fought with the single-mindedness that had been trained into him. Beat the enemy back. Protect the innocent and your own people.
Then, to his horror, he saw that three of the Purity Warriors had broken through the northern flank. And one had a flamethrower. He fought off another attacker, drew blood and shed it before he could turn and run toward the cleared land.
Not soon enough, not soon enough to stop the woman who screamed in triumph from engulfing one of the kneeling men in flame.
The terrible high-pitched scream, the horrible sound of crackling flesh blocked out the gunfire, the shouts, the whizzing arrows.
Duncan didn’t think, and years of training fell away, crushed under his charging feet. On a wild cry, he rushed them, all three, barely threw out power—enough and soon enough—to block the flame that washed over him.
His sword seemed alive in his hand as he struck her down; and with that horror, that rage consuming him, he sliced and hacked at her companions. He didn’t see the knife, wouldn’t have seen it through his blind fury before it gutted him.
But he saw it slip from the hand of a fourth man who rushed at his back as that man pitched forward with an arrow in his heart.
Then it all seemed to stop. A few dim shouts from the distance, calls for healers. He stood with the fire flickering over his face, with the nightmare scent of burning flesh fouling the air. And four people dead at his feet.
He heard Will shouting orders for a search—for the enemy and for the targets—and only stood there with his bloodied sword heavy in his hand.
Tonia stepped beside him. “Let’s go.”
“I kind of lost it.” Still felt a little lost.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
He looked at the dead man, the arrow piercing him. “Thanks for having my back.”
“Mom’d be pissed if I came home without you.”
With a forearm he wiped sweat, blood, and God-knew-what off his face, turned to her. “Hey, you’re bleeding.”
Tonia winced as she looked at her biceps. “Yeah, I caught some shrapnel. It really hurts.”
“Tell me. Me, too.” He gestured to his hip. “I’ll do you. You do me. And we’ll never tell Mom.”
Tonia lifted her eyebrows, rolled her eyes under them. “She’ll see the hole in your pants, my jacket and shirt.”
“Right. We’ll worry about that later.” He laid his hand on her arm; she pressed hers to his hip. Eyes locked, they wound together the cool and the warm to heal.
When Will strode up, Duncan knew from the look on his face that he was in for it.
“You’re on your own now,” Tonia muttered.
“What the goddamn hell, Duncan? We don’t need any damn dead heroes. You run out, no cover, three against one?”
“I just—”
“You just nothing.” Will snapped it out.
“They set him on fire, Will. He was just kneeling there, and they set him on fire.”
“So you risked your life for a dead man. We fulfilled our mission here without a single casualty on our side. We’d have had one if your sister hadn’t been quick enough to take out the one about to cut out your liver because you were too busy playing fucking samurai to notice.”
“Okay, I get it.” But part of him didn’t believe he’d been wrong. “I’m sorry.”
“ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it. Jesus, I have to trust you, everybody, to think, to follow the training—and, worse, what would I tell your mom?” Pausing, Will rubbed his hands over his face.
Duncan figured he’d be in for more, but Eddie limped over and drew Will’s attention.
“You’re hurt?”
“Ah, just banged my knee up some. Rachel can fix me up. But, Will, I saw Kurt Rove. Rove was with them.”
“Rove? You’re sure?”
Something came into Eddie’s eyes that merged cold rage and hot grief. “I know the bastard, Will. He’s older, some fatter, but I know the bastard. He was running, fucking coward. I’m going to tell you I broke ranks to go after him. That’s when I banged up my damn knee. I couldn’t get him, Will. I couldn’t get him.”
“Okay, it’s okay. Now we know for certain he’s still alive. We’ll get him, Eddie. One day we’ll get him.”
Duncan wanted to ask why Eddie got an “okay” when he’d broken ranks, and he got a lecture. But he knew about Kurt Rove. Knew he’d been part of the Fourth of July massacre.
“Come on,” Will said, with a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Let’s get these people to New Hope. And the ones who won’t come, well, we’ll give them some supplies. Let’s go home.”
“I hear that.”
Duncan waited until they’d walked away—to avoid having Will remember to finish the lecture.
“He’s not going to tell Mom,” Tonia said. “He may threaten to, to scare you, but he won’t because it would scare her.” She waited a moment. “You scared me, too, but I know why you did it. It’s in us. Will can’t understand. Mom can’t, either, because it’s in us. It comes with the gift—I don’t know. It just is.”
She let out a breath that whisked away in a little cloud. “Let’s help clean up and get home. This one, I don’t know, Duncan, this one didn’t give me the lift I usually get from a rescue.”
“That makes two of us. Yeah, let’s clean up, get home.”
As he turned to walk with her, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. His sword all but flew back into his hand. The girl hiding behind the hut cringed, whimpered. Eyes blue as cornflowers gleamed with tears over fear.
On an expelled breath, Duncan sheathed his sword. “We won’t hurt you. You’re safe now.”
But she shook her head, curled into a tighter ball. “You need to come with us.” Tonia tried to mimic her mother’s no-bullshit tone. “We’ll take you somewhere safe and warm.”
“The women aren’t ever to leave the sacred valley.”
Duncan figured she was maybe his age, maybe a little younger. He didn’t think that qualified as woman, but let it pass. “It’s not safe here anymore. The PWs know about it, and they may come back. What’s your name?”
“I—Petra.”
“Listen, Petra. Is your mom, or maybe your dad here? We’ll help you find them.”
“My mother died giving me life because I’m cursed. My—my father …”
She pointed toward the blackened husk on the ground.