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It was impressive, but not half as much so as the number of fey streaming through those portals. I guess Zheng must have thought so, too, because he was suddenly behind me. “Too many getting through.”
“Ray will have the portals rerouted in a few seconds.” I hoped.
“We don’t have a few seconds.”
“Yeah, but what can we do?”
“This,” he told me, and the next time I blinked, he was holding a fey warrior.
I hadn’t even seen him twitch, much less snake a long Gumby arm down into the pit and snare one, like a guy fishing off a dock. I saw it the second time, though, and saw the two fey go limp and collapse, their hair a bright spill against the dark rocks. Zheng had grabbed them by the neck, and he hadn’t bothered being gentle.
Neither was I as I frisked them for the weapons I knew I’d find: suspiciously human-style guns, because they were far better at delivering a payload in hand-to-hand combat than bows and arrows. Especially when complete with three rounds each of what I could only assume were spelled bullets. At least, I really hoped so, because this was going to look pretty stupid otherwise.
It didn’t look stupid.
I fired off a shot at the portals, and suddenly that whole end of the room was engulfed in a blizzard that—
“Whoa,” Zheng said.
“I guess the fey didn’t trust the help with the good stuff,” I said, watching blinding bands of snow lash the fey lines. “Too afraid it might fall into our hands.”
“Yeah. That’d be a shame,” Zheng said, and fired a round directly into the wall just below us.
We didn’t get a blizzard that time, but the effect was pretty spectacular just the same. The whole long expanse of rock iced up, like we were suddenly perched on top of a glacier. And sent the couple dozen blonds who’d spotted us, and started scaling the cliff like mountain goats, sliding right back into the crowd.
Zheng got another salvo off after them, but I didn’t see what good it did. Because I had to stop and deal with a group coming through the archway. You really can’t fault their reaction time, I thought, and shot the leader square in the face.
His skin turned blue and he staggered back, which I’d expected. And then an ice storm started up in the close confines of the hallway, which I hadn’t. In all of a second, the whole door had iced over, with a bluish white slab so thick that it looked like a glacier had suddenly decided to park itself there.
I laughed, because if you’re crazy, you may as well live up to it, and turned back to Zheng. Who didn’t appear to get the joke. Or maybe he was just concerned about the fac
t that fully half the freaking army had just broken off and were coming for us.
Because yeah, they couldn’t see us and didn’t know how many were up here, I realized, as Zheng fired his last bullet directly into the crowd.
Who, without missing a beat, raised long, shiny black shields above their heads, like they’d been expecting it. And maybe they had. Because the shields locked together, creating a slick, solid surface that gave the ice nowhere to go but out. And it did, spreading like frost over the dark water of a pond and creating an almost flat, hard surface.
Which another group of fey promptly jumped on top of.
“Shit!” Zheng said, grabbed my gun and fired again.
But not at them. Because even though they were climbing fast, something else was more urgent. Louis-Cesare and Ray were in trouble.
I could tell because I could see them, not clearly, but in fits and starts, little glimmers like a couple of ghosts, if ghosts made “oh shit” faces on the one hand and agitated French gestures on the other. And that sort of shit wasn’t going to go unnoticed for long.
Aaaaand it didn’t.
One of the fey in line for the portal nearest them let out a very inelegant squawk, and pointed. And Louis-Cesare and Ray looked up from arguing over Ray’s device to stare at the soldier in shock, as if they hadn’t realized they could be seen. And yelled at. And shot at, only the latter didn’t go so well because of Zheng’s bullet, which hit the floor near the line of soldiers the pointer was standing in and—
Yeah, that’s better, I thought, as a new blizzard tore through the lineup.
Except for the fact that that had been our last bullet. And that the fey below us had now achieved something that looked like a cheerleaders’ tower, composed of three tiers of black-armored warriors with death on their faces. And that the blizzard that was supposed to be helping Louis-Cesare and Ray was fizzling out for some reason, just like the other had.
I didn’t understand why until I noticed the shields of the fey clustered around them. Which instead of being shiny black, were now a blowing, snowy white, as a blizzard raged—beneath their surfaces. Somehow they’d trapped it, or most of it. The crazy winds and snow of a second ago had lightened to a few thin bands blowing across my vision, which did nothing to obscure the sight of Louis-Cesare and Ray fighting for their lives.
Louis-Cesare was showing the fey that he hadn’t been the European dueling champion for nothing. His form was fluid grace, liquid motion. If it had been slower, it would have looked like an exotic dance. But at speed it was easy to see the moves for what they were, violence doled out with deadly precision.
But it wasn’t enough, even though the fey hadn’t just shot him. I don’t know why. Maybe they didn’t want to waste the ammo or maybe he was too close to the portals, and they didn’t want to risk more going out of commission.
