Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)

He said out loud, “The null spell. We need the null spell on as many arrows as we can get. How much magic-sensitive silver do you have?”

“Not enough to spell all their arrows,” she said grimly, gesturing to the group. “I was on vacation. Choose your best archers, and we’ll go from there.”

While Nikolas prioritized the group, Sophie retrieved her luggage and pulled out a small package. She called out to the gathering crowd, “Gawain?”

“Right here, lass.” Gawain shouldered through to her.

“Did you get metal-making tools for me?”

“We didn’t have time.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Okay. Doesn’t matter. This doesn’t have to be pretty. We’re going to need to light a propane stove after all and use one of the cooking pots. All we have to do is get the silver melted enough to dip the tips of the arrows in it, and then we can cast the spell.”

“Got it.”

As they set to work, Nikolas organized others to shift the supplies, along with the fallen timbers and stones, into the side halls to make more room for arriving troops. They weren’t going to get all four hundred and fifty into the great hall, but if the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, they could get most of them in. The rest would have to line up back in the courtyard.

“Watch out for the painted lines!” he called out to the workers. “They mark time-space shifts. There’s a shift along one side of the courtyard too—Rhys, go back there and make sure people know to avoid it.”

“I’m on it.” Rhys worked his way to the back.

Annwyn appeared at Nikolas’s side. She stared at the Mini and the Harley for a long moment and took a breath as if she meant to ask a question. But then, in the next moment, she seemed to think better of it, for she shook her head and let it go.

“How many have come through?” he asked.

“Close to three hundred,” she told him.

Nodding, he strode to Gawain and Sophie, where they bent over a small propane stove set on the dining table. He asked, “What do you have?”

As he spoke, another low rumble started. This time it rose and rose, and a sharp crack sounded overhead. Immediately Gawain doused the flame while Nikolas lunged forward to cover Sophie’s head and shoulders with his, and people swore and crowded as close as they could to the walls.

For a long moment everyone in the great hall held tense and still as they waited, but nothing fell. Then Sophie said in a cranky, muffled voice from underneath him, “We’ll get you ten spelled arrows as soon as you get off me. Any minute now.”

With a growl, he expelled a sharp breath and rubbed his face in her hair.

Crazy. She made him crazy. Somehow in spite of that, he was more in love with her than ever.

Straightening, he said to everybody, “Get back to work.”

Activity resumed. Gawain lit the propane stove again, and he and Sophie went back to spelling arrows. Annwyn joined them and said, “I don’t think this old place can take much more.”

“I don’t either,” Nikolas told her. “Soon as Gawain and Sophie are done, we’ll make our move.”

“We’re done,” Gawain said. He doused the flame again, and he and Sophie sat back. She handed Nikolas two fistfuls of arrows.

He strode over to the archers and handed the strongest ones two arrows each. “These are only to be used on Morgan,” he said. “This is your only job.”

“Understood,” the lead archer said, her expression direct and clear.

As Sophie joined them, Nikolas said, “Morgan doesn’t know we’ve broken through to Lyonesse. He doesn’t know about any of you. Let’s keep it that way until we strike. I’m going to hide you with a cloaking spell. We’ll open the doors, and then you’ll hit him with everything you’ve got.”

“Yes, sir.”

They strode over to the doors. Annwyn said to the troops, “Get ready.”

The troops drew their swords and readied shields, then silence fell in the great hall.

When Nikolas, Gawain, and Sophie reached the doors, Nikolas cast a massive cloaking spell over the five archers who took their places behind them. Then Nikolas fixed Sophie with a stern look. “You’ll stay out of it.”

She widened her eyes. “Oh, believe me, this is not my fight.”

They pulled open the doors. Morgan lifted his head.

Sophie surveyed the wreckage of landscape with tightened lips. She called out, “I don’t know if you’re a monster or if you’re massively misunderstood. But I do know one thing.”

Morgan stood. Even from the distance of twenty meters, Nikolas could sense him amassing Power, as Morgan asked, “What is that, Sophie Ross?”

“You need to get off my lawn,” Sophie said. She stepped to one side.

Nikolas whispered, “Now.”

Five arrows flew through the air. Morgan dodged, moving so fast he turned into a blur. Most of the arrows missed.

One didn’t.

It struck him in the arm. The Hounds to either side of Morgan broke into a run, hurtling toward the house.

Even as Morgan reeled back, he flung his hand out in the direction of the open doors. Nothing happened. Behind Nikolas came the distinctive sound of the archers drawing their bows. Raising his hand, he kept his eyes trained on Morgan and the approaching Hounds.

Morgan tore the arrow out of his arm. The archers loosened their arrows, and he blurred again as he dodged. Another arrow hit, this time in his side. He stumbled and fell to his knees.

Nikolas dropped his hand and roared, “Go! Go!”

Soldiers sprinted out the open doors and collided with Hounds. More and more poured past Nikolas while he drew his own sword. He lunged onto the field eagerly, looking for Morgan.

This time, centuries later, the Daoine Sidhe had not come too late.





Chapter Twenty-One





The battle was a complete rout.

Sophie climbed onto the Mini to get out of the way as troops streamed past. The sound of shouts, growls, and screams rocketed back through the open doors, echoing in the shattered great hall.

Robin had disappeared. Nikolas, she knew, would be in the thickest of the fight. He had lived for the eventuality of this battle. When the last of the troops had sprinted out of the manor house, she limped to the front doors to look out.

She’d been telling the truth earlier—she didn’t have another fight left in her. After running through every one of the shifts in the house, digging through to Lyonesse, and then coming back again, she couldn’t even imagine how to calculate how long ago it was that she might have slept.

She had jet lag on steroids. She had only eaten a protein bar in a very long time, probably in at least a day. The fight with Ashe had been short, but it had wounded her and knocked her around, and the wild ride to Raven’s Craig and back again had made every joint in her body ache.