Chapter 448

ARIA

The tree line exploded first.

Not literally — the traps didn’t produce fire, weren’t designed to, Ivory’s botanical defenses worked with more precision than fire allowed. But the sounds that came out of it were the sounds of things going very wrong for the people who’d been planning this attack for days, and the light from the trap triggers was its own kind of explosion sharp, immediate, illuminating the northern approach in the specific way that showed you exactly how many people were coming and confirmed that Jason’s count had been conservative.

One hundred and fifty had been the confirmed minimum.

There were more.

–

“Traps engaging,” Andrew said through the link, with the sharp satisfaction of someone watching a plan work. “Eastern approach, the first trigger hit. They’re bunching at the second marker the vines are pulling them in.”

—

“Count,” I said.

“Twenty in the vine section,” Priya said, from somewhere in the western flank. “Maybe twenty- five. They’ve got counter-measures for the sedative compound but not for the physical grab. The vines don’t care what you’ve pre-treated yourself with.”

—

wolves tangled in Ivory’s aggressive Through the link, the image Priya was transmitting botanical defense, the same vines that had delivered Alric Vesper to the gate last week now deployed against a force that was considerably larger and considerably less dignified about the experience.

I filed the image and kept moving.

Santos was three feet to my right, moving in the coordinated pattern we’d established in the twelve minutes between the hall and the tree line. He was the anchor for the human fighters the physical coordination that my link was providing to the wolves, Santos was providing through sheer years of experience to the four non-shifting combatants who were operating in the gaps.

“Western approach,” Louis said. “They’re splitting the force. Someone on their side knows the eastern approach is compromised – they’re redirecting a section toward the secondary tree

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line.”

“How many,” I said.

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“Forty,” Louis said. “Possibly forty-five. Moving fast. They know where they’re going, which means the intelligence they had about the territory is real.”

Damon’s intelligence. The specific knowledge of someone who’d spent years learning about Shadowmere’s layout through proximity.

“Priya,” I said. “Western intercept.”

“Already moving,” Priya said.

—

Through the link, the western flank adjusting six wolves redirecting their approach to cut off the forty who were moving toward the secondary tree line. Not to stop them directly, not yet. To funnel them. The secondary tree line had two wolfsbane crossbow triggers that the trap system hadn’t fired yet.

“Jason,” I said into the walkie-talkie.

“Here.” His voice had the compressed quality of someone in position and waiting. “Third defense is staged. Twelve archers, four high positions on the eastern ridge, three on the western outcrop, five in the elevated platforms along the northern tree line interior. Everyone is ready.”

“Hold until I give the signal,” I said.

“Copy,” Jason said. “What’s the signal?”

“You’ll know,” I said.

he said it with the tone of “That is not a satisfying answer,” he said, but without heat — someone who’d accepted that the plan had improvised components and had decided that was fine.

Through the link: Andrew’s eastern flank had engaged the main body of the attacking force. I felt it before I heard it – the specific quality of coordinated wolves moving together, all of them connected through the anchor, all of them knowing where the others were with a precision that pack wolves hadn’t had in three years.

The sound of it was substantial.

—

There were screaming the attacking wolves, which confirmed they weren’t expecting the level of coordination they were encountering. Damon’s intelligence had given them the layout

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of Shadowmere’s traps, the approximate number of active fighters, the understanding that the mindlink was broken and the wolves couldn’t coordinate effectively.

What he apparently hadn’t factored in was a child of the moon providing a temporary replacement for the broken infrastructure.

“They’re surprised,” Sam said, through the link, with the grim satisfaction of someone whose opponent had expected an easy fight. “They came in expecting confusion. They don’t have confusion.”

“They have us,” Louis said.

Through the link, the sense of thirty wolves operating as a single coordinated unit while each of them remained entirely themselves – the thing that made the old mindlink functional and that I was providing through the anchor. Andrew’s eastern flank held their line. Louis and Priya’s western wolves pushed the redirected force into the secondary tree line where the crossbow triggers were waiting.

The triggers fired.

not loud, but the specific clean sound of

The sound of it carried across the pack grounds mechanisms working correctly, and then the subsequent sounds of the wolfsbane bolts doing what wolfsbane bolts did at close range.

“Forty reduced to twenty-eight,” Priya said. “They’re disorganized. The wolfsbane hit seven of them directly. The others scattered when the triggers fired.”

“Push them back toward the main force,” I said. “Don’t let them regroup separately.”

“Done,” Louis said.

—

not the

I was moving through the pack grounds in the space between the engagement lines front line, not the shelter, the specific position that let me maintain the link with the maximum number of wolves while keeping line of sight on the approach. Santos stayed with me, and two of his human fighters, and the specific quality of the ground around me had started to feel different in the way it felt different when you were the thing that the opposing side was trying to neutralize.

Which meant they’d identified me.

“Behind you,” Andrew said through the link, two seconds before my own expanded awareness registered it.

I dimmed the lights.

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Not all the lights the specific lights near the three wolves who’d broken from the main force and were moving in my direction. The moonlight, the ambient light of the pack grounds’ edge illumination, the specific quality of visibility that made fast coordinated movement possible. I pulled it back from their position the way I’d practiced with Ivory, and the three wolves found themselves moving through sudden deep shadow in territory they didn’t know while Santos and two fighters redirected to the threat.

It lasted six seconds.

The three attacking wolves were down.

“Good,” Santos said, returning to my side.

“Don’t thank me,” I said, “thank Ivory’s training.”