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Or maybe they just didn’t want to admit that a single warrior could hold them off.
But he couldn’t, not forever. There were just too many and it didn’t look like he could manage that disappearing trick again. He was already defending instead of attacking, dodging and weaving and twisting, yet finding no opening because there was none to find. Just a solid wall of shields closing in, and swords flashing and—
And Louis-Cesare looking at me, searing me with his stare, for a long second.
Before he fell.
A cold wash of disbelief tore through me, like the blood had suddenly left my body all at once. And if I’d ever had any doubt about how I felt, it was gone in that second. When I couldn’t do a damn thing about it but scream my head off, a hopeless, horrified sound that hurt my own ears with the intensity of it.
But not as much as it seemed to hurt everyone else’s.
Suddenly the whole room went quiet. The portals were still running, still murmuring to themselves, like two dozen rushing rivers. The thin bands of ice were still blowing, making shush-shush sounds against the stone. But nothing else talked—or fought or moved. Even the fey coming over the precipice, the ones who had been about to swamp Zheng, were frozen in place, as if they’d all been hit by one of their own weapons.
But I didn’t think so. They weren’t cold and blue; they were simply stopped. Or stunned, I realized belatedly, as one of them fell off the wall and crashed to the floor, and just lay there, looking up with portal light gleaming in his wide-open eyes.
I stared at the fallen fey for a second, and then at Zheng, who was just as unmoving by the wall, face set in a snarl, fist raised. And then I moved. Over the wall and down what felt like a fun-house slide, three bumps of slick, icy shields and then a spray of snow over a cold, cold floor. And then through an army of frozen obstacles, not one of which was less than seven feet tall, with helmets that made them even taller.
It was like being in a shiny black forest, one that could suddenly come to life and kill me at any second, because I had no idea what I’d just done or how long it would last. But something told me to hurry, hurry, hurry, to the point that I was pushing soldiers over, jumping past their bodies, fighting and clawing and—and finding them. Both of them, Louis-Cesare bent over Ray, still trying to defend him, even with no fewer than five swords sticking out of his body.
But none were through the heart; none had slit the throat. He would live if I could just—
And I couldn’t. If I’d been weak before, it was nothing to how I felt now. That scream had taken every bit of energy I had. And even if it hadn’t, Louis-Cesare was a column of solid muscle and I couldn’t budge him. And then there was Ray.…
“What the hell just happened?”
Somebody growled behind me, and I spun, hands still on the shield I was trying to get in place for a travois. But I didn’t need it now, because Zheng was there and—
“Grab them!” I told him desperately, even as eyelashes started to flutter around us and limbs started to twitch. And to his credit, he grabbed them, without asking further questions that I couldn’t have answered anyway.
“We’ll talk later,” he threatened, throwing Louis-Cesare over one burly shoulder and snatching Ray up under one arm, like a package he was carrying home from the store. And then we were moving, back through the crowd that was more like a forest than ever, but the wind through these treetops was sighs and groans and vague, slurred words—
And then action, as the forest came alive even as we neared the not-so-fun slide. Which had been easy coming down but was a bitch going up even for me, and I wasn’t carrying two. But Zheng’s boots were made for walking—and stomping and kicking—and we made it up the first level, and then the second, before our footbridge realized what was going on and all hell broke loose.
But by then Zheng was able to unceremoniously dump his two burdens over the edge of the rock shelf, and then it was just about getting the two of us over. Although that was harder than it sounds with a mountain of fey disintegrating around us. And then surging up underneath us as Zheng caught the ledge and swung us over, arcing just ahead of the grasping hands—
That caught us anyway.
But they caught us at the top of the arc as we fell onto the ledge, not over the side, and that made all the difference. Or it would if I could—
There! I wrestled the vampire’s gun out of its holster just as someone grabbed my leg. And jerked me back, trying to pull me off the ledge or himself up, I wasn’t sure which. And it didn’t matter, because either was equally bad for me and equally not happening. I twisted, trying to line up a shot, while it felt like I was being torn in two.
“GO!” I yelled, as Zheng threw off three fey who had jumped him, sending two over the ledge.
His head whipped around at me, and then at the two bodies lying so still on the floor. But they were on the floor by the portal because Zheng wasn’t stupid, and he’d thrown them as far as he could. And now he dove after them, because we both knew I couldn’t drag them through with me or protect them on the other side if I did.
But he threw his last attacker into mine as he went, buying me maybe two seconds of freedom in the process. But not to run. Because running wouldn’t help, just like the few regular old bullets I had left wouldn’t do much against the dozens of fey now surging over the ledge.
But something else might.
I rolled onto my back, took aim and fired—at the cages just above the ledge. I’d almost forgotten about them, despite the fact that the contents had been rattling their bars and howling. And I guess they’d slipped the fey’s minds, too, because they looked a little surprised when a wave of snarling, slashing hate fell on them as soon as the locks popped open.
I didn’t wait to see who won. I didn’t even turn around. I leapt back into a circle of blue, even as the third fey Zheng had thrown off recovered and twisted and lunged—
And missed.
Because the portal’s familiar jerk caught me.
And I was gone.
