Shadows and Light

family.
    When they reached the farm, she saw two horses circling fearfully in the small paddock next to the barn.
    She heard the pony’s terrified neighs. And she saw the saddled Fae horse dancing and rearing just outside the barn, holding three wolves at bay.
    Her huntsmen circled the cottage on their silent horses. She reined in her horse a few feet away from the partially opened front door. A man’s foot, shod in an old work boot, lay across the threshold. Barry hadn’t even been able to get all the way inside the cottage before whatever was in the bread—or something else—brought him down.
    Ashk dismounted, nocked an arrow in her bow. As she approached the door, she heard a woman’s tearful voice saying, “Stop. Please stop.”
    She kicked the door, ready to leap into the room. It opened halfway before hitting something that stopped it. She stepped on Barry’s legs to get through the opening, twisting around toward the voice as soon as she got past the door. She pulled the bowstring back.

    Her arms shook with the effort. Her eyes refused to stay open and focused.
    She bit her lip until it bled, using the pain to force herself to remain clear-sighted.
    The woman, who was on her knees, twisted around to look at Ashk. “Please. Can you make them stop?
    ”
    The bow weighed as much as a tree. Her legs wanted to buckle. Mother’s tits! What was wrong with her?
    “Please?” the woman said.
    Ashk fought to study the woman, despite the fatigue that was blurring her vision. She looked at the black hair, the dark eyes, the face that was softer and fuller than the one she knew but enough alike. “You’re Morphia.”
    “Yes.” The word came out in a relieved rush of air.
    Her arms straining, Ashk raised the bow high enough so that if her fingers slipped on the bowstring she wouldn’t shoot Morag’s sister. As soon as the arrow was once again loosely nocked in the bow, she felt the fatigue lift. And she noticed all the bodies in the room. There were foxes and ferrets, wolves and hawks, crows and ravens, owls and falcons. A young stag lay across the legs of one of Barry’s sons.
    There were rabbits and, Mother’s tits, even a pile of field mice. The room was full of bodies tumbled over bodies. Some were Fae in their other form, but most were animals her hunting horn had summoned and directed toward this place.
    “Mother’s mercy!” One of her huntsmen thrust his upper body through an open window, his crossbow ready to fire.
    Morphia whipped her head around to face him.
    “No!” Ashk shouted, not sure to whom she was giving the command. She pointed to her huntsman. “
    Out. Tell the others to stay out. And have someone call off the wolves.”
    The huntsman disappeared.
    Ashk and Morphia stared at each other.
    “What did you do to them?” Ashk asked quietly.
    “They kept trying to attack me, so I put them to sleep.”
    “You put them to sleep.” Morag had told her Morphia was the Lady of Dreams, the Sleep Sister.
    Looking at all the bodies, Ashk didn’t know if she should laugh or weep. She’d never thought of sleep as a weapon, but dropping someone into an instant, deep sleep was an effective way of stopping an attacker.
    She looked down, saw Barry’s legs, and shouted for one of her huntsmen. “Fetch one of our healers.
    Tell her she’s needed here now.”
    “Jana is here. Came riding in behind us.”
    “Then tell her—” Ashk looked around. There was no place to work in this room, no place for another person to stand. By luck or instinct she’d managed to plant her feet on either side of a fox without crushing any furred or feathered bodies beneath her boots. But she couldn’t turn around to get back out the door. “Pull Barry out the door. Carefully. Take him to the barn and do what you can for him.”
    As her men pulled Barry out the door, she saw the crow, sparrow, young ferret, and tiny whoo-it owl sleeping on his back. And as she turned back to look at Morphia, she noticed the Sleep Sister was cradling a falcon in her hands, her fingers nervously stroking his breast feathers.
    Ashk was fairly certain that Sheridan, who was Bretonwood’s Lord of the Hawks, would have been delighted to have Morphia stroke his chest—especially if he’d been in his human form and had been awake to enjoy it.
    “Can you wake them a few at a time, or do you have to wake them all at once?”
    “I can wake them a few at a time,” Morphia said quickly.
    Ashk licked lips that had suddenly gone