Elves Invasion

76

Pale One bounded forward, flooding Ava with images from her journey as she went. Her excitement was quickly curtailed as she caught a scent on the breeze. Pale One stopped right in front of Ava, blocking her way and forcing her to stop as well. She howled into the darkness and the lonely sound was answered from a source close by.

They waited, Pale One tensing into the darkness at something the humans couldn’t see, until Ava felt Isaac stiffen. He unsheathed his long knife, thrust out an arm, and tried to put Ava behind him, but as he spun around in a circle she felt him deflating. They were already surrounded.

It’s a trap, Isaac said in mindspeak.

Then Ava saw them—dozens of pairs of softly reflective eyes staring at her. She didn’t know how far back into the gloom the Pack stretched, but Ava could feel that the darkness all around her was alive.

Not hunting you, Pale One assured Ava. They are afraid. And angry.

Ava wasn’t sure if that was any better. Can you tell them I mean no harm?

Speak, and they will understand.

Ava hesitated, not sure she understood Pale One correctly. Mindspeak was one thing, where concepts were passed along as much as words. The times when Ava had doubts that her Woven claimed could understand her all she’d had to do was picture what she wanted and pass the images along, as they did with her. Speaking aloud was different. Language, and the ability to understand it, was different. She hadn’t even attempted speaking aloud with Pale One yet, thinking it might be too complicated for her.

Speak with sounds, Pale One urged. They lose trust for you.

“I come to ask for your help,” Ava said, trying to sound confident. She heard growls as a response.

“Ava, what are you doing?” Isaac asked. “They can’t understand you.”

“We understand the witch,” said a low, raspy voice.

Isaac said something in Cherokee that was no doubt a swear word, and then a different raspy voice said something in Cherokee back to him. Isaac went very still.

I don’t believe it, he whispered inside Ava’s mind.

“Have you always been able to talk?” Ava asked.

She heard something like a bark and a laugh coming from the dark. “Of course,” growled another member of the Pack.

A different voice picked up the dialogue. “We have always had language and the use of tools,” it said.

“Why wouldn’t we?” asked a fourth voice.

“We are more like you than we are like wolves,” purred a fifth.

The Pack was circling them, passing the duty of responding from one member to another as if they were one mind with many voices.

They are a coven, Isaac said, realizing it at the same time Ava did. They’re sharing mindspeak as they talk to you.

They’re toying with us, Ava replied to both Isaac and Pale One, connecting them to each other through her.

Circling closer and closer, Pale One added. Ava felt Isaac startle to hear the Woven in his mind, but he accepted it.

Pale One, watch Ava’s flank, Isaac ordered, taking the defensive lead.

Next thing: one will come inside circle and snap with teeth to show they are Biggers, Pale One said as she followed Isaac’s order.

They may be Biggers, but they aren’t stronger, Ava replied.

“Where is your witch?” Ava demanded, suddenly sick of playing this game for dominance. “Bring me to her.”

“We need no witch,” hissed yet another voice from the dark. Ava felt Isaac count six in his mind.

Many more, Pale One said, disagreeing. Many, many smells.

“You have no fire, witch,” sneered a seventh.

“You are meat,” said yet another.

“I didn’t bring fire because I didn’t come here to fight you,” Ava said. “I came here to ask you to join us. In three days we go to destroy the Hive.”

Yips and barks burst from the Pack. There were dozens of them out there in the dark. Maybe hundreds. Ava felt Isaac slump, knowing they didn’t stand a chance against so many.

“My army is thirty thousand strong,” Ava said proudly, her voice ringing out in the darkness.

“The Hive are millions,” said a softer voice, and all of the other Pack members fell silent at the sound of it. “Thirty thousand is not enough, not even for a witch.”

Ava turned to face the soft voice. “I am not like other witches,” she said.

The soft voice chuckled. “And yet you still need our help,” it taunted.

“I need the Pack, the Pride, the raptors, the simians, and even the insect Woven, or I don’t stand a chance,” Ava admitted shamelessly. “And you need me or you don’t stand a chance. Because if I fail, the Hive will be coming for you next.”

There was a momentary silence. “The Hive can’t reach this far. Their range—”

“Their range will mean nothing in a few days,” Ava said, interrupting. “The witch who fuels them is going to learn how to appear anywhere she wants in the blink of eye. She’ll be able to be practically everywhere at once, and when she can do that, she’ll claim new Queens who will start new Hive colonies, spreading farther and farther until she’s conquered the whole world. Unless we stop her.”

Ava stared into the silent darkness, her heart in her throat, as the seconds ticked by. Finally, the soft voice spoke again.

“Light a fire and let the witch see us,” it said.

A spark was struck and torches flared. Ava tried not to show her reaction to the half-human, half-wolf figures that came to light. Their faces were snouted and fanged, and their arms were elongated to reach the ground in a sloped-back posture that had them hunkering over their dog-like hind legs. Their hands were clawed and padded with thick calluses like a canine’s, but still five fingered and mobile like a human’s, and their eyes had round pupils.

“My name is Ava,” she told the one who sat on his haunches across from her.

“We don’t have names like your kind,” he responded. “Who we are is more complicated than that.”

“Who you are is a scent and a rank, both of which are always changing,” Ava said. She saw surprise flash across his eyes and knew she’d guessed right from what she’d gathered from sharing mindspace with Pale One and Blueback. “You’re the alpha. For now.”

“You may call me Alpha.” He regarded Isaac and Pale One in turn. “The western witch only claims Woven,” he remarked, “but you claim all kinds.”

“So you know about Grace,” Isaac said.

Alpha’s eyes flicked over to Isaac. “We’ve always known. She created us to hunt and kill your kind, and your kind hunted and killed us in return. Many of us died. She was a bad alpha.” His eyes went back to Ava. “We would not be ruled by a witch. Not during my ancestors’ time. Not during mine.”

Ava nodded understandingly. “I have no interest in controlling you or forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“We don’t want to go to war.”

“Neither do we,” Ava rebutted.

“Witches always want war,” Alpha said, a faint sneer on his lips.

“Not Ava,” Isaac said. He and Alpha locked eyes. “I didn’t trust her at first, either, but you don’t have to trust her. You just have to decide what’s better—being claimed and having a chance at survival, or being free and getting wiped out by the Hive.”

The Alpha stood, obviously done with this interview. Ava called after him.

“You’ve seen them, haven’t you?” she asked, loud enough for the betas to hear. “You’ve seen the Hive flying through your territory, carrying humans back and forth. You’ve seen the Hive searching for someone. They enter your lands now without fear, and no matter how many of them you’ve tried to turn away at your borders, Grace sends more, doesn’t she?”

The Alpha turned back around and glared at Ava. He gave one curt nod.

“She’s not afraid of you,” Ava said. “Grace allowed the Pack to maintain this land after you defied her because she realized it was too far from her city for her to hold on to it remotely. She let you live, as long as you kept the eastern humans in the east, because she physically couldn’t be everywhere at once. That’s about to change. She’s coming back, and when she does it won’t be to claim you. It will be to exterminate you.”

Brick ran the last few blocks back to the Governor’s Villa. He tried to imagine that he was just out for a bit of healthy predawn exercise and that the adrenaline pumping through his body was from enjoyment, not fear. He envisioned a stress-reducing jog followed by a little tai chi, and gradually the Workers clinging to his arms lifted off.

After spending the night going to every restaurant, tavern, nightclub and after-hours bar he could think of, looking for people who might want to be claimed by Ava, Brick was running on fumes. He climbed the stairs two at a time, but stopped before he entered his apartment. He could tell that someone was in there.

He backed away from the door. It burst open and two Warrior Sisters stalked out of his rooms, their whips wrapped around their waists. They grabbed him roughly, tearing his skin with their barbed hands, and even though he struggled against the iron strength of their arms, he knew it was useless. They dragged him to a window. His gut lurched as the Warrior Sisters jumped.

This is it, he thought, and then it occurred to him. He wasn’t alone anymore. Ava! Help me!

Brick—what’s happening?

The Warrior Sisters flew him around the building and into another set of rooms.

I need strength, he answered as they threw him roughly onto a balcony. I think they’re going to kill me.

Brick staggered forward and tipped onto his hands and knees. When he looked up he saw Grace lying on the floor in front of him. Next to her was the shaman. They were immobile, barely breathing, and too pale and stiff to be simply sleeping.

They’re spirit walking, Ava told him. You must stop them, Brick. I have no fire ready—wait—

One of the Warrior Sisters buzzed her wings in agitation and then she grabbed Brick by the back of the head and dragged him by his hair to Grace’s side. All of the Warrior Sisters in the room seemed distraught. Their heads twitched and their hands grasped at their whips, unraveling them from their waists or from across their chests and then rewrapping again to no purpose. They weren’t attacking him, he realized, not intentionally.

I think they want me to help her, Brick said.

You can’t, Ava insisted. Brick felt a swell of fear overtake Ava and he briefly caught a glimpse of an enormous creature looming over her before he felt her leave him.

Ava and Isaac left Pale One with the Pack—her new claimed—and jumped back to the speaking stone on the mountain. Pale One would be no help to them, and maybe even a hindrance, on their subsequent missions. They arrived as the sun was rising.

“I’m running out of time,” Ava said. She looked around for the drake. “Here, boy,” she called, feeling like an i***t. She heard Isaac’s rumbling laugh.

“Tame Woven aren’t boys or girls,” he said.

“I can’t just say ‘here, it.’ Here, Spike,” she called again, figuring that was as good a name as any.

As they searched the gloom for the wayward drake, Ava felt Brick roaring into her mind in a panic. She stuck out an arm and grabbed Isaac’s hand.

“It’s Brick,” she said, her eyes far away. “The Hive has him.”

“What about the rebels he was supposed to gather for you to claim?” Isaac asked urgently.

“Shh—wait.” She gasped. “There’s Grace. And Red Leaf. She’s spirit walking.” Her face screwed up as she shared a rapid exchange with Brick. “I think they want him to heal her?” she said uncertainly.