The House Of Gaian

upward to hit the top of the door.
    Bent over, he ran as fast as he could. Arrows swirled around him, tumbled like sticks in a storm. He saw Breanna behind the watering trough. Heard her yell of anger and surprise. Saw her pop up, a target begging to be killed. He knocked her down. Felt an arrow slice through the left sleeve of his coat.
    “You fool!” he yelled.

    “No! Let me up. Liam!” She struggled to get out from under him. As her head smacked his chin, he looked up—and saw the ball of fire arching toward the barn.
    Wind roared around him, but it was too late. The flaming ball smashed through the barn roof. The hay would go up instantly, and the men inside—
    He looked up and saw one of the Fae in the hayloft. Saw him change into an owl and take flight. Saw him fall, impaled by three arrows.
    He shifted enough to let Breanna get to her hands and knees. “We’ve got to get away from here. The barn’s going to go up.”
    Spitting out dirt, she twisted around enough to look at him. “I know—” Her face paled. Her eyes widened. “ Mother’s mercy !” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down.
    He looked over his shoulder—and felt his heart clog his throat as the spinning funnel of dirt that towered over his home raced past the manor house and drove right into the center of the enemy’s men.
    They had no chance , Liam thought as that funnel captured the living, the wounded, and the dead, captured earth and stone, spinning it up, up, up.
    Arrows flew at it. Became more debris to impale those who had been alive when it caught them.
    It raced down the drive, a straight path of destruction. Men who scrambled out of its path met the Fae’s arrows. They couldn’t turn fast enough, couldn’t run fast enough. And when it reached the catapult with another ball of flame ready to be released, he heard the savage snap of wood, heard the roar of fire—
    and covered Breanna’s eyes and closed his own when he heard the screams of those who were still alive in that spinning fury.
    “We surrender!” several voices yelled. “Please! We surrender!”
    Breanna jerked. “The ground’s hot.”
    Liam scrambled to his knees. The ground around them smoked gently. The grass near the barn was withered, as if it had been burned by an unrelenting sun. When he glanced up, he saw smoke rising from the barn roof but no flames.
    He pulled Breanna to her feet and led her back toward the manor house, keeping himself between her and the drive.
    “We surrender!”
    Men, holding their empty hands above their heads, looked toward the trees. Slowly, cautiously, the Fae appeared and herded the prisoners toward the manor house.
    And at the end of the drive, now moving slowly back toward them, was that funnel. Flames still flared at the top of it like captured lightning. Charred wood and bodies began falling from it.
    “Mother’s mercy, Liam. What is that?”
    Liam looked over, relief flooding through him as he saw Donovan—dirty and with a bloody scrape along his jaw—guiding Gwenn toward the manor house. She was limping a little, and her face had no color.
    As they got closer to each other, he heard Gwenn muttering, “I can do this. I can. This is what I stayed to do. Mother’s mercy. Calm calm calm. I can do this.”

    Donovan’s eyes held worry and fear. Breanna was a quivering mass of tension beside him. The prisoners hurried toward them, terrified. And Varden and the rest of the Fae who gathered on the edges of the drive looked equally pale and frightened.
    And still that funnel moved slowly toward them, losing height now, losing its prey.
    He swallowed hard as he watched the bodies fall. More and more of them until there was nothing left but a thin veil of dirt.
    Three hundred men—and they’d had no chance.
    “I can do this. Let go of me, Donovan.” Gwenn pulled away from her husband, shook out her skirt, and brushed at the dirt on her shirt. “I can do this.”
    “Do what, Gwenn?” Breanna asked, her eyes narrowing as she watched the funnel.
    Liam stared. Was he seeing what he thought he was seeing?
    The last of the dirt fell away as the funnel faded into a gentle swirl of air around the black-haired, cold-eyed woman riding a gray stallion. A beautiful woman. The kind of woman who could take a man’s breath away.
    The realization that his heart wasn’t just pounding in fear scared him to the bone.
    The horse stopped. The woman just stared at them.
    Gwenn took one step forward. Her smile was as