Oh yeah, Blair mused, this is the way she’ll come. Has to. In stages, maybe, leaving some at the caves, at various safe points along the way. For hunting, for ambushes, quick raids.
“It’s what I’d do,” Blair murmured, and with a last check of the map, headed
southeast into a small, thin grove of trees.
She saw it almost immediately, and her first thought was some kid or passer-by had stumbled over the trap. And into it.
Her heart bounced straight into her throat. She sprinted toward the wide hole, terrified she’d see bodies impaled on the wooded spikes below.
What she saw was a scatter of weapons, and one very dead horse.
“Moved up the schedule,” she said softly, and despite the sunlight, reached behind her to draw her sword.
Moved things up, Blair decided, when the reports came in that they’d gone to the Dance with supplies and weapons. And vanished.
She’d have known where they’d vanished, Blair thought. So Lilith’s army was already in Geall, already on the march. And had already passed this point. The trap had worked. From the weapon count, it looked to have taken out at least a dozen—and the very unlucky horse.
She crouched down, wishing she had some of the rope she’d used earlier. They needed to retrieve those weapons—waste not, want not—and get that poor horse out of there.
She was puzzling over how she and Larkin might do that when she realized the light had changed. Looking up, she saw the sky overhead was black with clouds.
As twilight fell in a fingersnap, she got to her feet. “Oh shit.”
She backed up, backed away from the hole, and thought it wasn’t just a dozen vamps who’d walked into a trap. She’d just walked into one herself.
And they came up, out of the ground.
Chapter 19
She took two out fast, an instinctive and wide sweep of her sword, before they were fully disinterred. But there were alarms shrilling in the back of her mind that said she was in big, bad trouble.
Eight, she counted, after the two she’d dusted. They had her surrounded, cutting off any chance of retreat. And she’d walked right into it, all but whistling a tune. If she managed to live—and the odds were against it—she’d curse herself for it later. Right now since flight wasn’t an option, fight was all that was left.
The one thing she had, Blair reminded herself, was a lot of fight in her. She pulled her stake, blocked the first blade with her sword even as she pumped out a back kick. She spun, swinging out with the sword, scoring flesh, buying time. Spotting an opening, she rammed the stake.
One more down.
But these weren’t green recruits who’d make many sloppy and fatal mistakes. What she was facing were trained and seasoned soldiers, and it was still seven against one.
She envisioned the fire, sending it rippling down the sword Glenna had charmed. “Yeah, come on. Come on!” Hacking out, she sent one falling back, his arm ablaze.
Then went flying as one caught her foot on the next kick and hurled her into the air. She slammed hard into the trunk of a tree, saw stars floating on a gray field edged with sickly red. But the one that charged her met fire and steel, and fell screaming into the trap.
She rolled, and with pain bursting through her, struck out with the flaming sword. Her left arm was numb from the shoulder down, and she’d lost the stake. She hacked, thrust, sliced, took a hard punch to the face that nearly sent her into the trap. She managed to spring over it, fight for footing. And with vicious, screaming blows, beat back the next attack.
One went for her throat, so she cracked the hilt of the sword on the bridge of his nose. She felt the chain that held her crosses snap as he fell back.
No stake, no cross. And five of them left. She wasn’t going to make it, no longer hoped she could hold them back until Larkin got to her to even the odds.
So she wouldn’t die in the valley, but here and now. But by God, she’d take as many as she could with her first so that when Larkin came for her, he could finish the rest.
Her left arm was nearly useless, but she still had her feet, and kicked up, kicked out as she sliced out fire. They’d weakened her, breaking her form, her rhythm. She blocked an oncoming sword, but the tip of it scored a line down her thigh on the down swing. Her slight stumble left her open enough so that when another kicked, the blow plowed into her belly, stealing her breath as her body flew back.
She went down hard, felt something tear inside her. With what she had left, she thrust up blindly, had the grim satisfaction of seeing one burst into flame.
Then the sword was knocked out of her hand, and she had nothing left.
How many left? she wondered. Three? Maybe three. Larkin could take three. He’d be all right. Head swimming, she struggled back to her feet. She didn’t want to die on her back. She fisted her hands, fought to get her balance.