Then I felt a ping against my wards as the little amulet that I’d left in the Garden of the Gods triggered.
Frak!
Chapter 27
Therese
Rafe groaned. “Uh-oh.”
I looked across to my boss who was riding on Beast about forty feet to my left. His face had tightened in concern.
“What now?” I asked, wondering what else could go wrong today. A day that hadn’t even begun, yet.
“They’ve opened a portal. I’d hoped to be there when they did.”
He took a long look at me, something I wouldn’t have been able to notice ten minutes ago, but the sky was rapidly brightening.
“Tess, I want you to hang back when we get there. Stay well behind me and keep drawing energy. You’re too weak right now,” Rafe said.
“No way, Boss-man. I’m your apprentice. I have to be with you in this,” I argued.
“I appreciate your desire to participate, but you aren’t up to full strength. I don’t want you getting too close to the action. Most of their attention will be concentrated on me, but a stray spell or blast could mess you up.”
We were passing over I-25. Both northbound and southbound lanes were already thick with traffic, and the lights would have been pretty any other time.
“I can still fight. I’ve got my crossbow and–”
“Tess, please,” Rafe interrupted. “Take my direction without argument. This isn’t going to be like the other fights you’ve seen me in. If Rowle has help, then I’m going to be outmatched and outnumbered. I don’t want to risk your life.”
“Then you need me,” I argued.
“I’ll get by. I always have. If it’s my fate to fall today, I don’t want you falling with me.”
“I don’t see that I have a choice. Without you, I’m a Wanderer with all of two weeks of training. You might have thought five years wasn’t enough for you, but that’s an infinity compared to two weeks. There’ll be nothing for me and no way I’ll be able to stand against anyone who defeats you.”
“Tess, damnit–”
“No!” I cut him off. “Stop worrying about me. You can always train a new apprentice if I fall, but I can’t train myself without you. If you die today, then I’ll die too, whether it’s immediately, or a few minutes later. I’m fighting with you, no matter what.”
Rafe stared at me for a few more seconds and then we were flying over the perimeter of the Garden of the Gods. Sheesh, I might die there today and I’d not even learned why they called it that.
I glanced over my shoulder at the glow in the eastern sky. Dawn was only minutes away.
“Okay,” Rafe said. “You know the game plan, stay behind my shield, and concentrate your shield to our rear. My shield will be stronger if I can make it smaller, as will yours. I’ll try to talk with whomever or whatever Rowle is bringing over before we get down to fighting. Spend that time regaining your strength.”
“You got it, boss,” I said. I unslung my crossbow and checked that the quarrel was still seated properly.
I didn’t know what we’d be fighting today, but I’d seen these little broadheads penetrate even Rafe’s shield. Whomever I shot at was going to get a nasty surprise.
We flew over the first of the red monoliths that made up much of the park and the site Rafe and I had identified as the point of Verðandi’s calling came into view. The nearest parking lot was empty. Did the park even open before sunup?
But there were people there. Bunches of people. At first, I thought they were milling about as though they were waiting on something, us? Then I realized they were moving and more were appearing through the largest portal I’d ever seen. The damn thing had to be fifty feet across.
“Before anything else, I’m going to make a stab at closing and locking the portal,” Rafe said. “Stay close.”
I tightened my knees around Maia’s neck as she banked to follow Beast in a steep dive toward the portal.
Even though I couldn’t see the glow, I felt the power emanating from Rafe as he triggered the tat on his left thigh. The portal flickered as if it were going to close. But then I heard shouts from people standing on either side of the portal and it stopped flickering and refused to close.
Rafe muttered something, the only thing I caught was “flaming assholes.”
Beast came out of his dive, leveled off and flew toward the head of the column of marchers. Maia and I followed, and I got my first good look at what Rowle had brought into our world.
It was for lack of a better term, a menagerie of creatures that I only recognized from mythology and the fiction of my youth. There were winged creatures, but none of them had taken flight. Mounted creatures on beings that were no more equestrian than Rafe’s and my own mounts. It took me time to sort out what I was seeing. There were just too many varieties to identify at first. Then I realized I was seeing, manticores and hippogriffs, sphinxes, minotaurs, griffons, orcs, and trolls. Along the edges of the column were things that didn’t resemble any mythology I’d ever heard of.
Staring back over my shoulder at the portal I saw enormous shapes beginning to enter our world. The first one through looked like some kind of long neck dinosaur with teeth like a T-Rex. It walked on all fours and had what looked like scales covering its ruddy red body. It wasn’t until the wings came into view that I understood what I was seeing.
A dragon! Frak!
I rose up on Maia’s shoulders and stared back at the portal. Behind the first dragon came more. They were similar in form to Rowle’s dragon familiar, but looking closer I could see a few differences. Their heads didn’t look as large, and their tails made up even more
