Dani Harper - Storm Warrior

If iron was the Achilles’ heel of the Tylwyth Teg, then she was going to damn well look for some. And then she was going back to the barn.

There was no need to turn the lights on—there was no darkness. The storm was still over the fields, but its lightning strobed strange hues of blue and green and pink through the windows. With it, guttural thunder pounded the senses as if with physical blows.

Shielding his eyes as best as he could, Rhys risked looking out the small window in the back door. He could see the leading edge of the storm clearly, like a great roiling black wall of cloud that nearly brushed the ground as it approached. There had been late grain in the fields, but in the morning, it would be flattened and impossible to harvest.

For a split second, he wondered if he would be around to see it, then shoved that thought away. He was preparing for a battle that was mere minutes away, and doubts were a weakness he couldn’t afford. He turned back to the tasks at hand. Looking longer at the encroaching storm would only lead to discerning the horrors within it. He’d seen the Wild Hunt before, when he had been an emotionless grim and unaffected by their terrible appearance. By all the gods, he was glad that Morgan was safely in her house.

“You gave her your charm,” he said to Ranyon. They had only to put the finishing touches on their preparations. The ellyll scrambled up the loft ladder and tossed down a rope.

“Aye, well, she needed to be safe or you’d be distracted.”

“My thanks to you.”

The rope went through a pulley in the ridge beam. Rhys hauled the load upward until Ranyon gave him a signal. “Just hold it there for a wink,” he said and busied himself around it. “’Tis solid now.”

Rhys released the rope slowly. Nothing fell. “Do you have another charm to hide yourself with?”

“I have many charms, but not another like that. It takes time to make such a thing. But I can burrow in the straw up here like a mouse.”

“A strange and spindly mouse, for sure.”

Ranyon huffed in mock offense. “Aye, well, it’s not me that the Fair Ones are looking for, now is it?” He disappeared into the dark loft.

No , thought Rhys. It’s me they want. He felt the pommel of the sheathed sword beneath his palm. The strange icy calm that came before a battle settled over him like a cloak. Muscles in his arms twitched, snake-ready as adrenaline began to surge through his system. With the eerie lightning flashing all around him and thunder hammering at his brain, he reached for his anger as a man might reach for a weapon. This time, he was no collared dog for the Fair Ones to play with. And he wasn’t a wounded and dying man who couldn’t defend himself.

Rhys melted into the deep shadows between the bales and the wall, one of the few spots where even the lightning couldn’t reach. He hefted a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Iron had been forged into steel to create them, as he had once been forged into the Bringer of Death.

This was no arena match, however. This time he had to win, not to save his own life, but Leo’s. Morgan’s life was on the line as well, although she didn’t know it. Like Leo, the Tylwyth Teg had her singled out and marked for their malicious mischief—all because of him.

It ended here.

Iron. What the hell did she have that was made of iron ? Her kitchen knives were ceramic. She didn’t own a gun. As quickly as she could, Morgan searched the house and piled things on the kitchen table as she found them. Finally she stopped and surveyed the motley collection. A pair of iron bookends in the shape of kittens. A rooster doorstop. An old set of fireplace tools. A cast-iron Dutch oven. And a large skillet with a frustratingly short handle. She glanced up at the photo of Nainie. What am I going to do with this?

Anything remotely weapon-like was out in the machine shed or the garage—hammers, axes, and other tools. There was even a rusted scythe in the old workshop, although it was probably too clumsy for her to use effectively. But she didn’t dare risk trying to reach any of those buildings. She’d be lucky to get to the barn.

A sudden thought had her yanking out the junk drawer on the end of the counter near the door. In the hail of debris that tumbled to the floor, Morgan was able to secure an enormous screwdriver. The vintage tool looked big enough to tune up a tractor, but it had been on the kitchen counter when she moved in. The blade was rusted, and she hoped that meant it was iron. The handle had a few inches of baling wire threaded through it, and she twisted it to a loop on her jeans. It was goofy looking, but she could tear it free in a heartbeat if she had to use it. And she fervently hoped that she had whatever it took to use it.

Morgan looked up at Nainie’s picture again. “I can’t let Rhys face them alone. I can’t. They’ll kill him or they’ll take him away. I won’t let that happen.” Somehow she knew that her grandmother would understand. Hell, she’d probably even approve—after all, Nainie had been no shrinking violet. Glad to be wearing the treasured necklace, Morgan grasped the cool stone pendant through the fabric of her shirt. It reminded her of a favor given to a knight to carry into battle, and there was a satisfying sense of rightness in having it next to her skin.

Thinking of Nainie shook loose more memories of the old stories. Morgan added a shaker of salt to her arsenal, tucking it in her jeans pocket. A loaf of bread was often useful when dealing with the fae. A fast search yielded three stale slices and a heel in a rumpled bag. Goddamn it, why hadn’t she gone shopping? Desperately, she dug through the freezer and finally came up with a leftover cinnamon roll. It was large for a roll, but pretty damn small for a loaf of bread. It’s probably stale enough to use as a weapon. She took it with her anyway.

Morgan decided the skillet might be a good shield and tied a loop of stout twine through its handle. If she lost her grip, she hoped the loop would stay around her arm and the frying pan wouldn’t fly away from her. The poker looked promising. She threw on a vivid red ski vest with very large pockets and stuck a bookend in each one. She wasn’t sure how she was going to use them, but she felt better having them—even if they weighed a ton . She had a healthy new respect for the knights in armor at the Renaissance fair.

Another length of twine helped her hang Ranyon’s strange charm around her neck—and then she looked at Fred. What did he have to protect himself? She could leave him behind, safe in the house, but the truth was, she might need him. Nainie had said that when she was growing up, people carried iron nails in their pockets to ward off faery interference or sewed nails into the hems of their clothing. Morgan ran to her office and dumped the magnifying glass out of its small leather pouch, then raced to the cellar to fill the pouch from an old jar of nails in the otherwise empty pantry. A few moments later, the pouch hung against Fred’s dark brindle chest, tied and duct-taped to his collar.

Having armed herself and her companion as best as she could, all she had to do now was cross the huge open space that was her yard. Again. Only this time, she had enough metal on her to attract all that lightning that was currently hammering the fields in the distance. If you can see the cloud, you can be struck. If that adage was true, then she could have been toasted during the dash to the house. It was completely insane to go outside again. The lightning was near continuous now, and she’d be much smarter to hide in the basement till morning. But that wasn’t going to help Rhys.