The House Of Gaian

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 meta! 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.
    She nudged Selena and scrambled back to the top of the rise. Liam stood there, his face bruised and dirty, his left sleeve soaked with blood, the fingers of his right hand still sending out little drops of fire that seared the grass around his feet as he fought to ground the power he’d summoned.
    Selena reached the top of the rise, clamped her teeth around Liam’s right wrist, and dragged him down the other side far enough to be out of sight of the enemy longbowmen.
    Ashk stopped as soon as she was safe, changed back into human form, and collapsed. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she crawled the arm’s length needed to peer over the rise.
    The enemy was retreating, heading back toward the cover of the trees on the other side of the field. She looked toward the road. Yes, men were retreating there, too. They’d held them off, but they hadn’t won.
    Would never win until they’d dealt with the Master Inquisitor once and for all. But there was time now for the rest of the Clans and companies of men scattered around Willowsbrook to reach this place.

    Her throat tightened as she looked at the bodies in the field, some moving but more laying still. She saw a stag struggle to its feet and begin its painful way toward the rise, hobbling on three legs. And she saw the arrows pierce it—arrows from the enemy longbowmen who had taken up position in the tumble of huge stones. She bared her teeth as other wounded, trying to make their way to safety, were shot down.
    She rose to her hands and knees, snarling when a strong hand pushed her back down.
    “You’ve done all you can today,” the man said, dropping down beside her.
    “I’ll do what needs to be done,” she snapped.
    “You already have.”
    Impotent rage filled her as she watched more wounded fall. “Mother curse them! May their land and their women be barren for a hundred years.”
    “Do you really mean that?” he asked quietly.
    She turned her head to say something cutting—and saw the