House Of Dragons Page 32

  I hated the thought of that. Hated the thought of just waiting for an attack, not knowing if the village I'd grown to love would fall, and the two men I'd grown to love deeply would be injured, or worse.

  Kathy started to say something else, but a distinct whooshing sound coupled with a faint creaking coming from somewhere out of sight but not too far away caught our attention. That was the sound of the village's massive steel gates being opened, hopefully meaning that all the men had returned.

  With Kathy not far behind me, I sprinted to the gates, elated when I saw Nick and Blaine coming through, with all the other men behind them. My elation was short-lived, though, when I saw the grim looks on their faces after they'd each given me a squeeze and a brief kiss. It seemed clear that the Borderliners had indeed been trying to get the shifters of Pine Bluff to form an alliance with them.

  When Nick, Blaine, and I got to the house and had a seat on the couch, Nick confirmed this, saying that from what they'd been able to gather at a distance, it seemed as if the Pine Bluff shifters had agreed to fight for Wesley Archer, whether temporarily or permanently. The evidence of this was that the Borderliners hadn't left Pine Bluff with any women or any other sign of having been given a "tribute," as usually required by Wesley Archer.

  In fact, peering through binoculars, Nick had seen the apparent spokesman of the Borderliners sweeping an arm in a wide gesture across the village, as if possibly saying something to the leader of the Pine Bluff shifters about how grand the village could be once Wesley Archer gifted them with supplies to fix everything up, or something. Also, Nick had seen the Borderliner spokesman shake hands with the Pine Bluff leader shortly afterward, indicating that they'd struck some sort of a deal.

  Nick went on to say essentially what Kathy had earlier, that a full-scale attack seemed inevitable, now with the Pine Bluff shifters adding to the number of attackers. "I don't want you to worry about a thing, though, Eva. Blaine and I have still have everything completely under-"

  "But how can I not worry? How can I not, knowing that Wesley Archer and all his couple hundred shifters, plus the Pine Bluff shifters, are soon going to be coming for us?"

  Making the faintest of sighs beside me on the couch, Nick took one of my hands. "You don't worry because even knowing what you know, you also know that we Helenian shifters are strong, and we've already beaten back all the Borderliners when they all attacked. We Helenian shifters are more than capable of defending our village and everyone in it."

  "From hundreds of Borderliners and Pine Bluff shifters at once, though? Other shifters that might outnumber us four-to-one or even five-to-one?"

  Sighing again, Nick squeezed my hand. "Have faith, Eva. No one is taking this village from us."

  On my other side, Blaine took my right hand. "What he said. We're going to kick all their asses, Eva. We promise you that."

  I turned my face to look at his and saw him wearing an unmistakable look of conviction. So unmistakable that I finally started to believe him and Nick. They could handle the Borderliners and the Pine Bluff shifters both. Turning to look at Nick again, I could see deep conviction in his eyes as well. He did know what he was doing. No one was going to take our village.

  As if reading my thoughts, he gave my hand another squeeze. "That faith you're starting to feel...hold onto that. Try not to let it waver. This will all be over soon. We just need to get past one single fight, and then everything here in the village will be back to normal, and we can turn our thoughts back to building our family and our community."

  "Well...okay. I do believe you and Blaine that you and all the other men will be able to handle everything. I am starting to have faith. But what am I supposed to do during the fight, whenever it finally happens? What are all the other women supposed to do? I get that regular human women can't go out in a fight against shifters, but I know I can't just sit here at home while everything is going on.

  “I'm going to need some task to do...something I can do to help in the fight, whether it’s looking out from the guard tower with binoculars, and reporting down if I see any more shifters coming, or...." I paused, unable to think of any other way I might help. "Or whatever else needs to be done."

  To my surprise, Nick said that there was something I could do to help. I'd kind of been thinking he was going to say I could "help" just by "keeping myself safe in the house" or something.

  "If you really want to help, you can help Kathy and a few other women charged with driving back Huskers from the village walls during the fight. Kathy and a small group did this during the last fight when the Borderliners attacked, and this was critical in making sure that no wall-breaking hordes built up."

  "What do you mean, 'built up?'"

  "Well, whenever there's a fight raging, the noise attracts Huskers from the surrounding forestland. But instead of the noise causing them to directly attack us shifters, they seem to just catch a whiff of human scent and head straight for the village, coming up against the walls. Kathy and the others took care of them last time by stabbing them through the cracks in the walls, making sure that large groups didn't form at any time.

  “This is part of the reason why we always have a guard up in the tower...all it would take to bring down part of the wall would be a group of a hundred Huskers, give or take...probably a much smaller group if the group was made up of shifters.

  “Blaine and I and the others will take care of the shifters, though...we'll make sure they don't get near the walls. And as long as you and Kathy and whoever else joins in can keep large groups of Huskers from building up around the walls...we'll all be just fine."

  Relieved to be able to help in the fight in some actually meaningful, important, non-token way, I immediately said I'd definitely help at the walls. "As long as I can stab Huskers with a screwdriver, anyway. Me and knives just don't get along."

  Nick said me using a screwdriver would be just fine. "Whatever helps you get the job done."

  "Well, good, then. I guess all there is to do now is just wait for the attack...which honestly, I hope is much sooner rather than later. I hate the thought of waiting for it."

  Putting an arm around my shoulders, Nick scooted closer to me on the couch. "There's no need to wait anxiously, though. Whenever Wesley Archer moves in, whether it be day or night, we'll have advance warning because of the guard tower. We’ll at least have a little time to take our positions. And in the meantime...maybe Blaine and I can help distract you from the thought of an attack."

  Definitely liking the sound of that, I almost asked him what he had in mind, but then I caught myself. "Oh. I almost forgot. The three of us are going to need to take a few days off, because I got my period this morning. Which...." I paused to issue a deep sigh, completely unable to help it. "It's not like I thought for sure I’d become pregnant in the couple of weeks after our wedding or anything, but...I guess I'm a little disappointed that I didn't.

  “And normally, I'd likely be up for a little distraction, but I just don't want to get into any of that during this time of the month. I know some people don't mind, but I'm just far too squeamish."

  Sometimes even just dealing with my own used sanitary items could make me feel a little ill.

  Nick said he understood, but his eyes betrayed a bit of disappointment. Blaine made a faint grunt that made me think that he didn't quite understand my squeamishness and was a little disappointed as well.

  Nonetheless, unlike the last time they'd been forced to keep their hands off me for several days, my two husbands didn't stay away from me. In fact, they both soon served me lunch in bed and ate with me, with Nick saying that they wanted to pamper me during my "difficult time," a phrase that almost wanted to make me giggle for some reason, even though it wasn't at all an untrue way to describe things. My period could be a "difficult time," because in addition to my squeamishness, I often had terrible cramps and headaches, too.

  After lunch, when I mentioned that my head had started to hurt a little, Blaine brought me two painkiller pi
lls, as well as a single wildflower in a bud vase, melting my heart. Then, once they'd both showered, he and Nick rejoined me in bed for a long nap, having not slept at all the night before. Some hours later, I awoke first and studied their handsome faces in the sunlight, determined to never let anything ruin our happiness. I'd kill a hundred Huskers through the cracks in the village walls. I'd kill two hundred. I'd do anything I needed to do.

  *

  By the time Wesley Archer led his shifters in an attack on Helena three weeks later, everyone had started thinking that maybe he'd just given up for some reason. Maybe his men hadn't struck a deal with the Pine Bluff shifters, or maybe they had but it had somehow fallen through. Maybe Wesley had just spent some time reconsidering his plan, realizing that if the Helena shifters had driven back his army once before, causing many casualties, they'd likely be able to do it again, even if they had to face shifters from Pine Bluff as well. Surprising myself, even I had almost started to think that it was possible that Wesley had just given up. Almost. But not quite.

  So, when a tower guard sounded an alarm around nine in the morning on a gorgeous, sunny, already-hot June day, I wasn't stunned, just ready. Ready to get the whole thing over with so that Nick, Blaine, and I could resume some semblance of our post-apocalyptic happily-ever-after, focusing only on surviving and building our family, instead of worrying about outside threats on top of it all.

  Nick and Blaine had left the house hours earlier, so when I heard the alarm peal for a few seconds, then stop before pealing for a few seconds again, indicating that the attack was coming from the east, I jammed on my tennis shoes, grabbed two screwdrivers I'd kept by the front door for weeks, and flew out of the house. Once in the street, I met up with Kathy, who'd already unsheathed a monstrous-looking knife that she’d be using to stab Huskers.

  Without even giving me any greeting, she glanced over at me, striding eastward. "Lily, Elisa, Tracy, and Diana will catch up to us at the wall. I'm going to send Elisa, Tracy, and Diana, to the north, south, and west, though. I just decided that earlier this morning.

  “You, Lily, and I can handle the east, where the largest groups of Huskers will probably gather, but the north, south, and west shouldn't be completely unattended. Huskers can, and likely will, come from those directions, too, though maybe not in such large numbers. We'll definitely have our hands full in the east. Reverend Thompson is probably going to come join us once he shuts and locks the gates after all the men leave."

  Reverend Thompson, who most people in the village just called Rev by this point, was the minister who married Nick, Blaine, and me. In his late sixties, and with various health problems, he wasn't sure if he could be effective at taking out Huskers, and in fact, he figured he'd probably only be in the way.

  However, I reminded him that he had to kill Huskers while bringing his little grandson, Asher, to Helena. He'd said that he'd done what he had to in order to keep Asher safe, and I told him that that was what he needed to do now as well. Even though he wasn't the only one protecting Asher anymore, he could still help protect him within the village. Finally, Rev agreed, saying that he would do his best to kill Huskers until his arthritic knees gave out.

  Several of the eighteen women in Helena were pregnant now and had decided not to fight because of that, and two had recently given birth and weren't in any kind of physical condition to fight. To my great disappointment, and to a little bit of irritation and anger as well, several other women in the village simply refused to fight, saying they didn't want to get flattened and killed in the event that a portion of the wall actually did come down, despite best efforts.

  I thought this way of thinking was a little backward, to say the least, because if a portion of the wall did come down, they might then be killed in their homes anyway, if a horde of Huskers rolled into the village. Whereas, if we all worked together, the chances of any part of the wall falling down would be significantly decreased. Kathy and I hadn't been able to change anyone's mind about refusing to help, though.

  Chris and another non-shifter man who'd joined the community with his nine-year-old daughter in tow would be manning the guard tower during the fight, scanning through binoculars in all directions and letting our shifters know with blasts of the alarm each time a new wave of enemy fighters were joining the fray.

  Using a complicated system of blasts and signals, they would even be able to let Nick, Blaine, and the rest of our shifters know what direction the new waves of fighters would be coming from. This advance warning from men who could see the entire battle area was expected to be a very significant help.

  Once all of us Husker-slayers, including Rev, had assembled at the section of wall directly east, Kathy dispatched Tracy, Elisa, and Diana to their posts manning sections of the wall in different directions.

  Then, almost shouting to be heard above the snarling and growling that was already intensifying to the east of the village, Kathy told Rev, Lily, and me that it was time for us to get into battle mode. "The Huskers are probably going to start heading out to the walls soon, if they haven't already, so grab your weapons and-"

  "Look!"

  Lily said that single word in a strangled shriek, and now she pointed at a section of wooden wall with a several-inch gap between two thick boards, where a gray-faced male Husker had stuck its face, moaning.

  Immediately, Rev pulled a knife from his belt and began heading over to that section of the wall. "Let me send this poor soul to heaven, if that's where he was going before the virus hit."

  Within seconds, more moans and faces between the boards announced the arrival of more Huskers, lots of them, and Kathy, Lily, and I joined Rev in getting to work releasing them from their current hellish state of being nothing more than bloodthirsty husks.

  Between kills, I took a few peeks at the battlefield in the distance, hoping to see Nick and Blaine in their respective lion and tiger forms, but I was unable to see much more than a blur composed of hundreds of wild animals in a melee.

  I could really hear the fight much better than I could see it. With roars, growls, and snarls intensifying along with the fighting, I would have had to cover my ears with my hands in order to not hear the din. And even then, it still might have been audible.

  I could, however, see at least enough to know that during this early stage of the battle, Nick was doing just what he'd said he and his men would, which was keeping all the enemy shifters away from the walls and the village. Good thing, too, since Kathy, Lily, Rev, and I were quickly becoming swamped with hissing, moaning Huskers, who were beginning to come faster than we could stab them through their rotting chests and bloodshot eyes.

  Within several minutes, the four of us were breathless, especially Rev, who I noticed was already beginning to wince in pain as he dashed along the wall on his creaky knees, stabbing Huskers fast and furiously as he went.

  After another several minutes, with the Huskers still coming, but still at a manageable level, Kathy told him to take a break to take a slow walk around the interior of the wall to see if Elisa, Tracy, or Diana needed any help at their posts. Since the Huskers clearly seemed to be coming in from the east, shambling around the walls in the direction of the fight before catching human scent, it didn't seem like Elisa, Tracy, or Diana probably did need any help.

  I knew Kathy was probably just letting a wheezing Rev off the job early, but that was fine with me. As long as things didn't get much worse, I knew Kathy, Lily, and I could keep things under control, and I didn't want Rev to injure himself continuing to fight further.

  Seeming to be having difficulty catching his breath, he didn't argue with Kathy at all, just began walking off south with a weak wave, telling her to send for him if things got really bad. Although after Rev left, things only got really bad for Huskers.

  With Kathy, Lily, and I really beginning to hit our stride as a team, the three of us began dropping Huskers like flies, making their corpses pile up four and five deep at several points along maybe an eight-mile section of wall
.

  However, after a while, Lily cut her hand badly in the exact same way that I'd done nearly two years earlier. She even managed to do this while wearing leather gloves that she thought would protect her from this very thing. Quickly soaking a bandage Kathy had pulled from her pocket, Lily tried to fight on, using my backup screwdriver as a weapon, but it soon became clear that she couldn't fight anymore, and Kathy dispatched her to the guard tower to see Chris.

  "He's got a medical kit up there for emergencies, and he'll get you straightened out. Shout up to him, even scream if you have to, to get him to come down for you. I don't want you to climb up the ladder one-handed in case you get dizzy and fall. Now, go."

  Clutching her crimson-bandaged hand, Lily began striding away, pale and clearly rattled. We'd previously discussed our respective squeamishness levels, and she told me that she never fainted at the sight of blood but that she wasn't "really too great with lots of it."