of The City. Your husband has been returned, my lady Vilia, but he is with the troops. Even now the guardsmen are going through The City warning the folk to remain indoors this day. Those without homes are being sheltered by whomever will take them in.”
“Send me women and children,” Lady Gillian said. “I have more than enough room. Vilia, will you remain and help me?”
To Lara’s surprise Lord Jonah’s wife nodded. “I’ll stay,” she said.
“Where are your servants?” Lara asked Gillian.
“I let them go to their families if they chose,” the older woman answered. “All but old Rona, my baker, who has no family.” Then Gillian paled. “The Wolfyn came from the cellars. If they passed by the kitchens…” Her voice trailed off.
“I smell baking bread,” Vilia noted.
“I will go and see for you,” Lara said. The two mortal women had had more than enough this day, she thought. She knew what
“Where will you go?” Vilia asked her.
“First home to tuck my children into their beds, for it is night now in Terah. Then I shall return to fight in the battle that is to come. Remember, Hetar is the land of my birth. With the blessing of the Celestial Actuary we may defeat the forces of the Twilight Lord this day.” And then she was gone from them.
“What an unusual creature she is,” Vilia noted. “In the midst of all this chaos she thinks of her children. I would not have thought her a good mother given her life.”
“I suspect when she does not have the weight of our worlds upon her slender shoulders, she is happiest being nothing more than a wife and a mother,” Gillian remarked.
“Do you think her children have magic?” Vilia wondered.
“Mayhap, although their fathers have been mortal,” was the reply. Then Gillian said briskly, “We had best prepare for the women and children we are to shelter,” as a knock sounded upon her front door downstairs.
Throughout The City the doors and windows of every available building were being shut and barred. The morning was breaking, but the skies above were gray and dark clouds loomed on the horizon. Those on the walls could see the fires of the Wolfyn encampment and the shadowed figures of the enemy hurrying back and forth. They saw the fire machines anchored in their pits, kettles of pitch burning next to them. Tightly woven balls of oily wool stacked in piles next to the kettles were to be dipped into the pitch and flung from catapults. The fire machines would be used to destroy enough of The City to bring its inhabitants to their knees in abject surrender. Many could die.
Hrolleif, the high commander of the Wolfyn, paced back and forth within his tent. He had lost his favorite nephew, Ulf, whose head had been thrown from the battlements of The City along with Rolf and Fernir’s. Hrolf and at least a dozen other Wolfyn had been roasted within the tunnel when it had been set afire. He had been mad to even consider using the tunnel. Battling face-to-face with an enemy was far preferable to sneaking up on him. Hrolleif looked into the reflecting bowl on his camp table.
“My lord, we are almost ready,” he said.
The Twilight Lord’s face appeared upon the surface of the water. “Try not to destroy everything or kill everyone,” he cautioned his general. “And remember that the faerie woman is mine. She is not to be harmed. As for the rest of them I care not what you do. Slay her husband if you can.”
“And the Hetarian hierarchy, my lord?”
“Kill its pompous emperor. You may have the empress for yourselves. I do not want her but I believe she will scream quite nicely for you, Hrolleif,” Kol said.
The Wolfyn commander smiled toothily. “What of the rest of them?”
“Leave them be for now. I believe I may have kin among them and I should never kill my kin,” Kol murmured. “Family is so important, is it not?”
“Indeed, my lord. Will Skrymir and his giants be joining us?”
“The traitor has deserted us, but one day we will repay him for his perfidy,” Kol said darkly.
“Do not fret yourself, my lord,” Hrolleif said. “My Wolfyn and I can take The City easily and then will Terah fall to us,” he boasted.
“Be certain that you do,” Kol said, his dark voice heavy with menace. And then his image disappeared from the watery surface of the reflecting bowl.
“We are ready to attack, Commander Hrolleif,” his second’s voice announced.
“Then let us begin,” Hrolleif said. “I want to spend my evening in one of those Pleasure Houses for which Hetar is so famed,” he growled as he walked outside to view his troops. They were a fine-looking bunch, he thought. He raised his hand in signal. At once those on the great horned battering ram began to pound upon the main gates of The City, but try as they might, and despite Hrolleif’s roars of encouragement, the gates did not give way in the slightest.
Up on the walls the Hetarian soldiers looked down and laughed until the tears rolled down their faces. They knew their gates were secure thanks to the Shadow Princes. There would be no battle until they were ready. The Wolfyn howled with their anger and frustration.
Hrolleif had not planned on using the fire machines until the last, but now he signaled to the soldiers standing by them to begin hurling some of their pitch-covered balls into The City just to teach these arrogant Hetarians a lesson. The first three fireballs soared toward the roofs of The City, but then as Hrolleif watched in amazement the fireballs seemed to hit some barrier and they bounced back to his encampment, setting several tents afire. He roared with his fury as his attack on The City came to a halt while the Wolfyn scurried to put out the fires before the entire camp was ablaze. The Hetarians on the wall roared with their laughter.
And then suddenly the gates to The City opened wide, revealing a great army which marched out to meet his own men. And when they had all exited, Hrolleif saw a great platform set up in the open gates. On it sat the fat and foolish emperor of Hetar and his beautiful wife, along with other dignitaries including the faerie woman, Lara, his master Kol’s mate. But the faerie was not garbed as befit a woman. Instead, she wore tight-fitting doeskin breeches that clung to her supple form, a white shirt, and over it a small golden breastplate. The long golden gilt hair he remembered was hidden beneath a golden helmet and upon her back was a sword the like of which he had never seen. Even from here he could see there was something special about the weapon. Why would a beautiful woman carry such a weapon? Women did not own weapons.
Hrolleif suddenly realized that men and Wolfyn were fighting all around him, and he swung his sword, engaging the enemy in battle as he had been taught so long ago. He battled his way through the mass of fighting men, something seeming to lead him onward toward the platform in the gate. And then suddenly he found himself standing before the faerie woman, Lara. “Woman!” he shouted. “Step aside!” But she did not. Instead she drew her weapon from its scabbard and raised it aloft. Hrolleif was astounded.
Her green eyes were like ice and he felt the cold as if he had been encased in it. Her great sword met his, metal clanging noisily against metal. He drew back. He didn’t want to fight her. She was Kol’s mate. It was his duty to return her to the Dark Lands so his master would be happy again and would reward him. But then he saw the glowing eyes of a face in her sword’s hilt. And he heard a deep dark voice begin to sing.
“Come, Hrolleif,” Lara’s voice mocked him. “Surely you are not afraid of a mere woman? If I allow you to live, how will you explain it to Kol?”
“I would rather die with my own sword in my hand than face the Twilight Lord with my failure,” Hrolleif said.
“So be it,” Lara told him. They began to battle in earnest.
He was a good opponent. He was strong but Lara was quicker and, Hrolleif soon realized, far more skilled than he was. He was astounded by her expertise. For every blow he offered, she blocked him. Twice she blooded him. Her sword sang as it tasted his flesh. He had never imagined that any woman could be so fine a warrior. But he fought on, for to yield to a woman was simply unthinkable. About them the fighting slowly stopped as both sides
