Elves Invasion

81

“Caleb. I need you to coordinate between Alaric and the Pack,” Isaac said. “I’ll introduce you to Alpha, the Pack’s leader. Are you going to be okay fighting with the wolves?” Caleb nodded once. He didn’t like his assignment, but he knew what was at stake. “They speak our language, you know. That’s why I’m putting the Outlanders and the wolves together. I think we have more in common than you realize,” Isaac told him. Caleb looked stunned by this for a moment and then he seemed to rethink it. Isaac turned to Breakfast. “And you—”

“Guard Ava while she’s on the pyre,” Breakfast finished for him. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“Exactly,” Isaac said, and turned back to Ava, his demeanor softening. “Reach out to Mia. Stay linked with her. The two of you are going to have to work as one for our armies to synchronize.”

Ava called out to Mia.

I’m here, Ava said. My army is in the redwood grove.

I’m climbing my pyre now. Keep your army hidden until I tell you to join us and then stay open to my call. You’re going to have to jump your army out of the blast zone as soon as I tell you to.

Listen to me. You can’t use the bomb, Mia, and if you’re counting on using it to save you in the battle you’re going to die. Erye—

Ava felt heat and pain as the fire rose around Mia and their connection was severed as all of Mia’s concentration went into changing heat into force. Ava called her over and over, but Mia didn’t answer. She looked up at the swaying treetops, unsure if Mia had understood her. Mia’s witch wind began to howl through the grove, whispering and moaning around the branches like ghosts summoned to the battlefield.

Ava looked around her, taking this one moment to be right where she was, right at that moment. Isaac was marshaling her army into shape. Men, woman, and Woven were running this way and that. Axes were being put to the trunks of the redwoods and every thump of the metal biting into the venerable wood was like a sin inside her heart. But this was war, and Ava knew that the trees were just the first of many to die this day.

Brick, Ava called. Where are you?

She caught a glimpse of the streets blurring past as Brick ran through Bower City.

I’m a bit busy at the moment, he replied. She could hear him counting in his head. He got to ten. I’m not dead. He seemed surprised by this.

Ava could feel sweat streaking down his back and the bubbling hysteria of a squashed laugh in his chest. He looked to his left and his right and she saw rough-looking men carrying rope on either side of him. Ava recognized them as hers by their willstones, and called each of them by name. Avery. Michelson.

We’re trying to get crossbows from the Hive’s lookout platforms so we can use the pesticide we developed, Brick continued.

Does it work?

Don’t know yet. But the antidote does.

They’re still building my pyre, but I’ll give you what power I can, she replied. Where is the antidote?

Ivan has it, Brick replied.

Good. Let me know if you succeed with the pesticide, Ava told him. I have an impossible task for you when you’re done with that.

Oh, good. My favorite.

Ava smiled to herself. She transmuted as much energy as she could spare and filled Brick’s, Avery’s, and Michelson’s willstones with force. She felt them revel in it and smiled. A wave of exhaustion hit her and she staggered to the side. Juliet caught her.

“You need to sit,” Juliet said, leading Ava through the confusion and to a mossy rock.

“I just need salt,” Ava said as she sat down. She looked over Juliet’s shoulder and noticed that Alaric’s painted guard had shadowed every step Juliet took.

“Alaric really meant it when he said you were going to stay out of the fight, didn’t he?” Ava asked, gesturing to the guard.

“Yes.” Juliet rolled her eyes. “I feel so useless, and so do they,” she said, indicating her entourage.

Ava got an idea. “I need your help. I’m going to jump someone here, and he’s going to have a whole bunch of antidote for the Workers’ stings. Do you think they could help you distribute it? I’d need you to fan out and give it to as many as you can,” Ava said.

“Definitely,” Juliet said.

Ava reached out to Ivan in mindspeak and found him in his lab, frantically making more antidote and pesticide. She called his name softly.

Ava, he replied, surprised but polite as always. Forgive me. I’m out of practice being someone’s claimed.

This is going to be a little strange for you, she told him in mindspeak. But I need you to pick up as much antidote as you can carry.

Ivan did as she asked and Ava jumped him to her. He appeared before her, his arms laden with bags full of vials.

“That was one of the most singular experiences I’ve ever had,” he said with a quaver in his voice.

“Ivan, this is my sister, Juliet,” Ava said, smiling. “She’s going to help you distribute the antidote.”

Ivan nodded at Juliet politely as he handed her what he carried. He then turned back to Ava. “Send me back to my lab,” he asked. “I’ll keep making it for as long as I can.”

“Contact me when you’ve got more, and I’ll jump you back here,” Ava replied, and then sent him back to his lab.

Brick looked up at the Warrior Sisters’ platform, still wondering how he was supposed to get up there, when he felt a rush like he’d never experienced before. His body felt light, his head clear, and every sense was sharpened.

He heard Avery and Michelson groan. They felt it, too. The three of them met one another’s eyes with small, secret smiles on their faces.

“So that’s what all the fuss is about,” Avery said, his smile breaking into a grin.

“I guess we’ll die happy, then,” Michelson added.

Brick let out a shaky laugh and redirected their attention to the platform. It suddenly didn’t seem difficult to climb at all. The three of them clambered up the bare scaffolding with ease. They didn’t even need the rope.

The top of the platform was deserted. All the Warrior Sisters were at the perimeter. Brick looked toward the tiny orange glow of Grace’s pyre on top of the wall. Above her the Hive was swarming. A strange, circular cloudbank was forming in the darkening sky. It started to rotate over Grace’s pyre, and then there was a pause in the mounting tension like the end of an inhale just before a scream. A single beam of light shot out of the pyre and into the sky.

The Hive was unleashed. They streamed over the wall and flew down upon the waiting army. A moment later, Brick felt the ground shake and another beam of light pierced the sky from the direction of the battlefield. The Salem Witch answered Grace’s call to battle.

“Here,” called Michelson. Brick went to him and saw crossbows hung neatly inside a wall box.

Brick took down one of the crossbows, fitted a dart into the firing mechanism, and aimed over the side of the platform. Down below at street level, a swirling mass of Workers was flying past. Brick shot the dart into the swarm. He heard a pop as the dart exploded in its center. Nothing happened.

“Damn,” Avery said.

“What do we do now?” Michelson asked. “Do we go back to the lab?”

“Wait,” Brick said, holding up a hand.

The cloud of Workers seemed to be thinning, and a trail of dark specks was starting the litter the ground. Then all at once, the swarm fell out of the air, dead.

Brick reached out to both Ivan and Ava. It worked. The pesticide worked, he told them.

Try to kill as many swarms inside the city as you can, Ava said. The more you kill there, the less will be able to join the Warrior Sisters on the battlefield.

We’re on it, Brick replied.

The raiding party stripped the box bare, tied the crossbows across their backs to climb down, and left them at the base of the tower before moving onto the next. Brick passed Ivan an image of what they were doing so Ivan could send other rebels to gather the crossbows and start exterminating the Workers.

Brick contacted Ava again. What was that impossible task you were going to give me?

I want you to go through the back door of the Hive and kill the Queen.

Ah. Brick’s insides liquefied.

You should be able to get to her easily. The Warrior Sisters are aboveground, fighting, Ava said, trying to give him confidence. She sent him images of how to get to the Queen.

“You two keep at this,” Brick said aloud as his team approached the next platform. “I’m going to need all the rope.”

“Where are you going?” Michelson asked, taking the coil off his shoulders and passing it to Brick.

Brick didn’t dare say it, he merely gestured to city center. “Our witch has given me an impossible task,” he said.

He kept one crossbow for himself and took as many darts as he could. He left them to it and ran toward the Hearing Hall, pausing every chance he got to shoot down swarms of Workers.

The first wave of Warrior Sisters started flowing over the wall and raining down on Mia’s soldiers.

The sky over the battelfield darkened as the wheel of Mia’s storm clouds began to rotate above her. A ray of blindingly bright light shot up from Mia’s pyre into the center of the wheel, knocking everyone back with a pulse of energy.

Ava locked the iron-and-diamond cuffs around her wrists as she ran to her pyre. Isaac ran beside her, pulling her crown out of his satchel. When they got to the base he carried her up the uneven mountain of cut logs to the stake waiting at the top. Ava had never seen a pyre this high before.

“I have an ax crew stationed below with Breakfast to keep the fire well fed,” Isaac told her hastily. He started threading the chains on the stake through the rings on Ava’s cuffs. “Tristan will keep a squadron of raptors over you to repel any air attacks by the Warrior Sisters. Joyce will lead the Pride and the ranch hands on the left flank. Alaric, the Outlanders, and the Pack will be to the right. I’m leading the insect Woven straight up the middle.”

“How will you lead them?” Ava asked. “The insects don’t understand language.”

“I’ve become stone kin with all the queens,” Isaac said with a troubled look on his face. Ava stared at him, knowing how much it cost him to do that. “The point is,” he continued, “they’d have to get through our entire army before they could get to you—”

Ava put her hands over Isaac’s and made him look up at her. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” He placed the blackened crown on her head and kissed her hard, crushing her against him. “I’ll be with you,” he whispered, and then turned and climbed down.

Ava looked up. She could hear her chains, her breath, and the wind. High above her the tops of the redwoods rubbed up against the storm-dark sky. Thirty feet below, her army went about their frenetic last-minute arrangements for battle. Weapons were checked. Ranks were ordered. Strategies were concocted. Former enemies became stone kin to coordinate in battle. Only Ava stood alone. Waiting to burn.