The Dark Throne (52 page)

With a magnificent leap, Nehalim propelled us over the great jutting rock of the outcropping, landing behind the four men; almost immediately after we landed, the
garrelnost
hurtled over the rock on the opposite side. The men dove out of its path, regrouping at the far side of the ledge. A Valkyrie dove low and struck the
garrelnost
with her blade; the creature swiped at the winged
faehal
viciously and caught its wing in its claws, but the valiant mount heaved itself upward, carrying its rider out of danger. In the moment in which the
garrelnost
was distracted by the aerial threat, Nehalim leapt forward and I drove my sword down into the beast, the rank stench of its mottled fur filling my nose. It thrashed and I pulled my blade free as Nehalim danced aside, keeping us between the wounded
garrelnost
and the four men. There wasn’t much room on the outcropping and suddenly I was certain the
garrelnost
would strike at Nehalim’s unprotected belly; without giving myself time to think, I leapt down from his back just as the
garrelnost
lunged upward. Nehalim wheeled and whinnied as the
garrelnost
’s claws struck my breastplate rather than his stomach. The force of the impact drove the breath from me. A starburst of pain exploded in my chest and my boots skidded across the rocky ground. I fell and rolled to the side, holding my sword clear even as I struggled to draw in a breath.

Breathe when it’s dead.

The singular purpose of my thoughts narrowed to driving my blade into the
garrelnost.
As if from a distance, I felt my lips stretched in a snarl, heard my challenging yell and the beast’s furious growl. I plunged my blade into its chest as it leapt at me. It was a very small
garrelnost
but it still drove me to the ground again, the back of my armor hitting the rocks. I threw up my other arm as the
garrelnost
went for my face, driving my forearm into its throat and barely keeping its glistening teeth from grazing my cheek. I gagged at the fetid breath rolling over my face. My right arm was trapped beneath its weight. Power surged through my war-markings, and I growled defiantly, straining with every bit of my strength to keep those jaws from closing on my throat.

I expected a thunderous fireball from the Sword to blast a hole through the chest of the
garrelnost
, but what I got was the gleaming length of a long flathead screwdriver shoved into its eye, and then a spear unceremoniously shoved down its throat by a heavily tattooed, muscular arm. Two pairs of large, dirty hands heaved the beast’s weight off me. I coughed and levered myself to my feet, my first priority wrenching my sword from the foul carcass. And then, when I had my gore-drenched blade safely in my hand again, I turned to find two large, bearded men looking at me with a mixture of amusement and respect.

“Hey, Lucky,” said the one with tattoos covering every inch of skin on his arms, right down to his wrists. “You didn’t tell us you had a hot Amazon for a sister.”

Liam turned from retrieving his knife from the body of a skin-walker that had managed to crawl over the front of the outcropping. “Screw you guys,” he said without looking up, the tone of his voice somehow annoyed and affectionate at the same time.

“Dude,” said the fourth man, smaller than the other three and wiry in build. He spoke with a Southern twang. “Are we dead? Is this Valhalla?”

“We’re not dead,” Liam said, still absorbed in retrieving his various weapons. I could only stare at him, smiling slightly, as I breathed slowly, trying to work past the pain lancing through my ribs. The men were grimy and they smelled like, well, men who hadn’t had a shower in a month, but they all seemed relatively unhurt.

“Right, right, another world and all that bullshit,” said the one who’d shoved the screwdriver into the eye of the
garrelnost
.

The one with the tattoos on his arms gave me a questioning look, his deep brown eyes taking in the gauges on my breastplate. I gave him a thumbs-up with my unoccupied hand, though the motion made me grimace.

“I mean,” said the Southern one, “there’s beautiful women flying around on winged horses. Seriously, I think we’re in Valhalla.”

Nehalim nosed my shoulder gently. I patted his neck reassuringly, scanning the rocks. It sounded as though the rest of the vanguard had caught up, dispatching the last of the creatures that had evaded their blades.

“Literally and figuratively, I think the cavalry has arrived,” said the one with the screwdriver, clambering up to look over the rocks.

Finally I felt like I had enough breath to speak. “We thought you guys could use some help.”

Liam looked up sharply. “Holy shit.” He crossed the space between us with three huge strides, and then I was in my brother’s arms. I made an involuntary sound of pain and he immediately released me. “Tess! About time you showed up. That appearance was a good party trick.”

I coughed and grimaced, motioning toward Nehalim. “He’s fast. And he jumps well. But it sounds like you knew I was coming.”

“She tackled that thing,” said the man with the tattoos, nodding toward the dead
garrelnost.

“You killed it,” I told him. “Thanks for that.”

“Anytime,” the man replied with a grin. He wore his black hair in a short ponytail and a dark beard obscured most of his face. The tawny brown of his skin made the colors of his tattoos stand out vividly.

Liam held me at arm’s length and inspected me. He paused, turned and punched the tattooed man in the shoulder. “You should have killed it before it tackled her.”

“Hey, she saved
our
asses,” his teammate replied good-naturedly.

I grinned and then looked overhead as Niamh yelled down to me.

“Tess, Luca requests that you all come down from the rocks. He knows there is little room up there.”

I saluted her with two fingers, clenching my teeth at the flash of discomfort as my ribs twinged sharply. “So, there’s a group of us…I think you’ve met Luca before, Liam.”

“Solid dude,” my brother said by way of agreement.

“You aren’t nearly as surprised to see me as I thought you’d be,” I commented as they gathered their various sharp objects, tucking them back into their appropriate sheaths and straps. They picked up their rifles and clipped them into their slings despite the empty gray magazines littering the ground of the outcropping.

“I knew you were coming,” Liam replied simply. “I just had to convince these boneheads that none of this was a figment of their imagination.”

“Valhalla, man,” muttered the wiry Southern operator.

“I should introduce you,” said Liam, as though to remind himself. He pointed to the tattooed, dark-haired man. “That’s Quinn.” His finger shifted to the man who’d stabbed the
garrelnost
with his screwdriver. “Jess.” And then finally, he motioned to the smallest member of his team. “And that disbelieving idiot is Duke.”

“Noah,” said Duke rebelliously.

“I feel like there’s a story behind ‘Duke,’” I commented dryly, raising one eyebrow.

Liam grinned and Duke scowled, but I could tell his expression was mostly for show. “Oh, there is. I’ll be sure to tell you later.”

“Can’t wait. Well, time for you to meet
my
team,” I said with a grin.

“There are
more
beautiful Amazons to meet? I’m totally down,” said Quinn.

I chuckled and Liam merely rolled his eyes. Nehalim gracefully picked his way over the outcropping of rock. We followed. I surreptitiously watched Liam and the other three members of his team; their dirty, torn camo pants and t-shirts were in varying states of disrepair, stained in some places with old and fresh patches of blood, but none of them moved like they were seriously injured.

The corpses of Dark creatures littered the sloping ground. Jess gave a low whistle. The Valkyrie circled overhead and then landed a small distance away in a little clearing. As soon as I emerged over the rocks, I heard a shout of triumph; others of the vanguard took up the yell and I couldn’t help but grin as I made my way over to Luca. The
ulfdrengr
stood with an axe still in one hand, spattered with black gore but looking every inch the victorious warrior. His eyes flashed as he saw the gauges on my breastplate.

“I’m fine.
Garrelnost
tried to gut me, that’s all,” I said with a grin. “You already know Liam?”

Even as I spoke the words, Liam stepped past me and gripped Luca’s forearm in greeting.

“We meet again,” said Luca.

Liam grinned. “In your world instead of mine this time.”

Luca grinned in reply. “So now you’ve had a taste of war in our world.”

My brother ran his hands through his shaggy blonde hair. I couldn’t miss the curious glances directed at him and the other men as the warriors of the vanguard gathered around us. “It’s been a hell of a ride. I didn’t quite understand it at first, even with what Tess told me…and let’s just say that Duke especially seems to think that we’re dead and in Valhalla.”

The
ulfdrengr
laughed. “If you were dead, I would think that you would be more occupied with pursuing beautiful women than fighting creatures of Darkness.”

Liam shrugged. “Before today we didn’t see any beautiful women at all.”

Luca shook his head and grinned. Then he raised his voice to the rest of the vanguard. “Set camp in the clearing for tonight. Dress your wounds and rest. I will send our Walker to the Queen so that she will know we have found the Seer.”

At his last statement, howls of celebration rose from the warriors as they moved toward the clearing, cleaning blades and inspecting minor wounds. I glimpsed Robin limping, and another fighter being half-carried toward camp, but to my relief we hadn’t lost any warriors in the uphill battle to reach the stone outcropping. As the company dispersed, Liam introduced his three teammates to Luca. Jess seemed the oldest out of all of them, a few threads of silver in his chestnut hair betraying him; a deep scar cut a furrow across his cheek and lifted one corner of his mouth slightly, and his serious gray eyes felt as though they could see my every thought. Quinn seemed about my brother’s age, easy-going yet deadly when necessary; and Duke was the youngest by personality and experience if not actual years. They were a bit of a motley crew, but all good teams were, I thought. You couldn’t rely on another person’s strengths to compensate for your weaknesses if you were all exactly the same.

Jess, Quinn and Duke followed behind Liam and me as we made our way through the trees toward the clearing where the Valkyrie had already landed. Moira glanced at me as we passed the last trees before the open land; I saw that she was sketching runes into the bark and I nodded my approval. She smiled and continued her work. I paused to clean my plain blade in the long grass. Liam stopped with me and his teammates drifted to a halt around us, an easy unspoken pact between them. I could feel my brother watching me as I scrubbed the gore from the sword. He held out his hand questioningly before I sheathed it. I offered him the hilt and he tested the balance, peering down at the engraved names.

“Those are the names of our dead,” I said quietly, before he could ask. He looked up at me, his green eyes an echo of my own gaze. It was jarring, almost like looking into a mirror. He hefted the blade and then gave it back to me. I sheathed it and we turned back toward the center of camp.

Kianryk appeared silently out of the shadows and trotted up to us, blue eyes inquisitive yet unmistakably wild. Jess froze, a dagger appearing in his hand and his gaze pinned to the wolf; Duke swore, and Quinn said, “That’s the biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s not a dog, he’s a wolf,” I said, standing unconcernedly beside the four men as I watched their reactions.

“He’s got the same eyes as Luca,” murmured my brother, a frown creasing his forehead. “I wasn’t sure I understood that right, but I got the idea.”

“One of your visions?” I asked quietly.

“A glimpse,” Liam replied, shaking his head. The dagger disappeared from Jess’s hand, but he still watched Kianryk warily. Quinn strode forward until he was only an arm’s length from Kianryk. The wolf’s nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he sniffed at the man. Quinn stood stoically. Then Kianryk yawned and turned, padding off into the forest.

“Well,
that
was anticlimactic,” said Quinn.

“You probably smell too ripe for him to want to take a bite out of you,” offered Duke, though he hadn’t been willing to step close to the tawny wolf.

“Speaking of smelling ripe,” I said, raising one eyebrow, “there’s a river at the base of this mountain, if you want to wash up.”

Duke sniffed himself. “Aw, and get rid of this deliciously manly odor? Better’n any cologne, I’m tellin’ ya!” He grinned.

“Yeah, let me know how that works out for you,” I replied dryly.

“So…what you’re saying is…I have a
chance
with these gorgeous creatures,” the wiry fighter said in his distinct Southern twang. I shook my head and deferred to my brother, who chose to ignore the smallest member of his team in favor of setting up a little corner of camp. I heard Quinn talking to Jess in a low tone but I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, reprimanding myself silently for trying to eavesdrop anyway.

“You okay for now? I have to go take care of my…horse,” I said.

“We’ll be right here,” Liam told me with a nod.

“If you need anything, just ask someone. They all know who you are.”

Liam smiled at me and then he turned to his teammates. I left them talking quietly in a loose circle.

A new fire crackled in the center of the clearing, ringed by stones. Fighters emerging from the forest added armfuls of firewood to the pile already stacked by the stone ring. I found Nehalim grazing in the long grass at the edge of camp among the other
faehal
. I slipped off his bridle and the light saddle. Amazingly, my pack had remained strapped to my saddle during the headlong rush up the mountain. Nehalim nosed at my shoulder as I ran my hands over his legs, checking for any wounds; I found a few scrapes from our scramble among the rocks, but nothing severe. Still, just to be sure, I unrolled my healing kit and rubbed some salve over the cuts. I murmured a word of thanks and patted his shoulder when I finished. He bunted my chest with his nose—very gently, as though he remembered the
garrelnost
taking me to the ground—and then flicked his tail and returned to grazing.