Anne Bishop - The House of Gaian

"What is that?" Ashk said.

"Fire," Selena replied in a queer voice. "But not natural fire. Not the Mother's fire."

The huntsman nodded. "One of the humans said the Black Coats have catapults. They're firing clay pots that shatter when they hit the ground or a man. Some are filled with scraps of metal that are flung in all directions when the pot breaks. Some have a liquid that burns when it meets air. Some have both. We're losing a third of the men before they make it up to the rise to fight."

"Where are you going with him?" Ashk asked.

"Message from Lyrra and Gwenn. They're sending carriages, wagons, anything they can to bring the wounded back to the gentry houses. They should be— There!" The huntsman pointed.

Ashk looked over her shoulder. Lyrra might have thought to send the conveyances, but Gwenn, married to a baron, would have known which ones to send. A pony cart, an open carriage, a farm wagon. They could travel over rougher land, but how would they get through the stone walls?

As the thought took shape, she watched a section of the stone wall in the path of the conveyances break apart, watched the stones roll out of the way. And noticed the man on horseback.

"That Son must have the gift of earth," Selena said. "He's clearing the way for the wagons."

Another ball sailed over the rise, hit the ground, and set the grass on fire. Ashk tensed. If the field on this side of the rise began to burn . . .

The flames diminished. The ground smoked.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. They might not be able to stop men from getting burned, but as long as the House of Gaian was fighting with them, they wouldn't have to worry about being trapped between the enemy's army and a wall of fire.

"See those trees?" Ashk pointed and waited for the huntsman's nod. "Tell the men driving those conveyances they are not to go beyond those trees."

"The catapults are positioned midfield," the huntsman said. "I don't think they have the range to reach that far. But if they push us back enough to move them—"

"They won't," Selena said. "Go now. We have work to do."

When the huntsman rode away, Selena pointed to the stretch of rise right in front of them. "You have to get up there and pull our men off that piece of the rise."

"If we open up a hole, the enemy will pour through it," Ashk protested.

"No, they won't. Because I'll be there to meet them."

Selena's hair fluttered, as if caught by a light breeze. Dust stirred around Mistrunner's hooves. The Huntress looked at her with cold, cold eyes, and the face was a perfect mask that held no hint of the woman Ashk was coming to know.

Saying nothing, Ashk urged her horse into a canter and headed up the rise. She stopped a few lengths from the top and went the rest of the way on foot, pulling an arrow from her quiver and nocking her bow as she got her first look at the field and the enemy.

The huntsman was right. There were hundreds of men marching toward the rise. Longbowmen marched at the back of each company, pausing long enough to aim and fire, then marching on again while they nocked another arrow. Men worked the catapults in midfield, sending their deadly balls over the rise. The road, barely visible from where she stood, had become a cloud of dust, stirred by the feet of men who clashed and maimed and killed.

It would take hours for all the Clans and human companies to reach this place, Ashk thought with despair. The camps were spread out all around Willowsbrook while the enemy must have come up in one mass hidden by the trees at the other end of the field.

She shook her head. Time to get on with the task at hand.

"Huntsmen," she said, pausing a moment to draw her bow, aim, and fire. "Move the line to either side of this position. Stagger the archers in a double line."

"But. . . Hunter," one of them protested, "we can't—"

Ashk looked over her shoulder and saw what was coming up the rise at the speed of a cantering horse. "Move!" she shouted, shoving the man on her left. "Move, move, move !"

The men looked back, cried out in fear, and scrambled away from that part of the rise.

Ashk ran a few steps to the left, then flung herself to the ground, pressing herself into it while it quivered beneath her.

Shouts of triumph from the enemy as they surged forward. Screams of fear as that funnel of earth and wind topped the rise and went down the other side, straight into the men who had been rushing up to break through the opening.

She crawled back up to the top of the rise and watched that fury suck men into itself. Watched others, caught by the edge of it, flung aside as if they were nothing more than dry leaves. Archers fired into it, but nothing touched the center of that storm, and men who hesitated before turning to run couldn't match the speed of a galloping horse.

How long could Selena channel that much power? How long before that funnel of earth and wind diminished, leaving her vulnerable to attack? How long before someone managed a lucky shot that wounded Selena or the horse, leaving the Huntress trapped?

Ashk leaped to her feet. "Archers! Now!" She fired. The men around her rose as well, firing at the companies of men who had changed direction now that the wind funnel was past them and were rushing up the rise to break through the open space and attack her people from behind.

She fired until her quiver was empty. She dropped her bow and unbuckled the quiver. They were useless to her now. But when she reached for the hunting knife in her boot, she remembered she had a better weapon.

The first man to reach the top of the rise had his throat torn open by a shadow hound.

She used her fangs to slash, her speed to dodge. She went for the throat if she could, but hamstringing a leg or tearing an arm down to the bone worked just as well to end that attacker's ability to fight.

She saw the sword slashing down, but she slipped in the grass slick with blood and gore and knew she couldn't dodge it. The stroke never fell, but the man did when a wild pig ripped open the back of one thigh with its tusks.

Their human weapons exhausted, the Fae used the weapons they had. Stags used antlers and sharp, cloven hooves. Wild pigs charged through clusters of men, ripping at legs with their tusks. The wolves among them gathered in packs and tore into flesh with fangs and fury. Hawks and falcons dove, raking heads and faces with their talons. And humans, who would have run from a wolf or a wild pig a few weeks ago, fought beside them now.

They slashed. They maimed. They killed.

And many of them died.

Then ribbons of fire swept down from the rise, racing through the grass, fanning out as they reached the middle of the field and swept over the catapults. The balls filled with metal and liquid fire burst, spraying the enemy with their own weapon. Wind funnels twice as tall as a man danced over the field, breaking up the enemy's efforts to attack. Parts of the field turned soft as water was called to the surface, and men stumbled as they sank into mud between one step and the next.

She saw it all in glimpses, in heartbeats. But the sight of Mistrunner galloping over the rise, alone, pierced her heart—until the other shadow hound leaped on the man who had closed in on her during that moment of inattention, ripping his throat open.

They fought for hours, for what felt like days, until she was exhausted and desperate for water.

She'd tried to keep them close to the top of the rise, but the fighting had brought them down into the field. A handful of men armed with knives rushed toward the two of them. There was no one else around them now. She braced for the attack. Two hounds, five men. Even if they got them all, they would also feel the knives.

Then fire streamed over their heads and hit the men chest-high. The five men rolled in the grass, screaming, burning.