Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (30 page)

She didn't
really
expect the bear to completely turn from Skye and start attacking her, but somehow wasn't surprised when it happened. It turned and lunged at her, knocking the wind out of her as she hit the ground. Ashlyn found herself dodging teeth, claws and slimy strings of drool. She scrambled sideways as the bear snapped its jaws shut inches from her face, and brought her bare foot around to connect with the side of its head.

The blow didn't seem to faze the beast at all.

Ashlyn flipped up in a scissor-kick, again landing a solid hit, but she might as well have been beating her legs against a brick wall. Nothing happened. A little shaky from the sudden exertion, she stood and dodged another advance from the bear, wondering how the hell she was going to fight her way out of this one.

"
Ashlyn," Drake said calmly from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at him and squeaked out an exclamation when she saw that he had his revolver aimed right at her.

"Wait a second!" she yelped, dropping into a crouch, covering her head with her arms and waiting for the sound of the gunshot. But it didn't come.

She looked up just in time to leap out of the way of yet
another
swipe from the bear. "Uh, Drake?" Ashlyn exclaimed, executing a perfect jab to the monster's throat- or at least, where she assumed his throat was underneath all that fur. It must have worked, because the bear staggered backwards on its hind legs, hacking up spittle.

Just then a giant bolt of lightning split the sky, zig-zagging down to tear through the grass in front of
Ashlyn and hit the bear. The smell of burning fur whipped along the wind of the storm, and the creature shrieked, pawing uselessly at its blistering skin as it fell forward. Ashlyn scrambled out of the way of the flailing monster, swallowing hard and trying her best not to wonder if the bear was anyone she knew.

As the beast finally stilled, singed fur still smoking,
Skye walked up beside her. "A scout," he said grimly. "This is actually good news. We bought some time by killing him. They'll wait before sending another one. They have no idea where it's possible to penetrate the city's defenses, and this guy's not about to tell them."

"Right."
Ashlyn stared down at the dying bear. "Aaron," she said before she could change her mind, "take him to the pagoda. Restrain him, but see if he can be saved. He may be useful to us later. Skye, we need to set up that perimeter defense." She turned to head back to the main gate.

"
Ashlyn," Aaron said as she walked away.

"What?" She glanced over her shoulder and stopped.

The bear was shape-shifting, its fur slowly receding into seared skin, its features changing into something entirely more human- and familiar.

Heart in her throat,
Ashlyn jogged back to the naked man and knelt beside him.

"Oh go
ds," she murmured.

"Someone you know?"
Skye called.

Ashlyn looked up, m
et Aaron's eyes. "It's my cousin," she said. "Help me move him to the pagoda."

Chapter 14

Shaky Ground

“
Wait." Drake knelt beside her, so close she could feel the heat of his shoulder against hers, a shock from the chilly western air.

"There's no time to wait."
Ashlyn shifted her weight, balancing herself. "Aaron, help me-"

"
Ashlyn," Drake interrupted gently, touching her arm. "The army awaits your orders."

She paused, looking at him incredulously. Being
Drake, she kind of expected him to be out of the loop sometimes, but how, exactly, could he think of the Toryn army at a time like this?

"The city is under attack," he said, unnerving in his infinite patience. "They need a leader."

"And this kid needs a healer," Aaron said. He chewed agitatedly on his ever-present cigarette. "I'll do my best, just get the troops rallied fer me."

Slowly it began to occur to
Ashlyn what was happening. They were telling her, in the most respectful way possible, that she couldn't help her cousin now. They were telling her she needed to put aside her personal ties and be a leader.

"Oh," she said in a small voice, the incredible vastness of her undertaking suddenly seeming overwhelming. Sort of like the time her dad had dumped her in the cherry blossom orchard in the middle of fall and told her to clean up all the dead foliage. She'd stared at him, mouth agape-
hello, I'm eleven years old? You have GOT to be kidding.

This was sort of like that.

Skye seemed to notice her distress, and moved into action, as he always did. "Aaron, move him to the pagoda. When you're finished, come back out and Ash will assign you to your post. Ash," and he put a hand on her elbow, pulling her up to her feet effortlessly, "we need to give the troops a purpose. Are you all right?"

"Sure," she said reflexively, without bothering to stop and consider, then shook her head. "I mean…"

Skye gave her arm a squeeze, and she glanced up at him. His eyes were darkened, glowing in their customary way, but now with a devastating purpose. He'd spent the entirety of their undertaking with Lord Angelo leading FLD, fighting to overcome his private demons every step of the way. Ashlyn had never realized until now how intense the pressure must have been. He was a natural leader, but his time was past. Now he was supporting her in the only way he could- silently.

"I'm fine," she said softly, and turned, his hand slipping from her elbow as she did. The cold air that hit her skin at the absence of his fingers sent a shiver up her bicep, and
Ashlyn wrapped her arms around herself, noting to herself that the rain had started again. Defending the city would be considerably more difficult- and she meant 'difficult' as in really, really sucky- when she could hardly see ten feet in front of her own face.

A blonde woman appeared in front of her then, herding a small group of children in front of her. About twenty
Toryn soldiers marched behind, solemn but obviously scared.

"Trace
," Ashlyn said, grabbing the Spartan's arm. “The kids- you're taking them to my house?"

The older girl looked at
Ashlyn warily. "Wasn't that what you told me to do?"

"Yes. I mean- yes, that's exactly what I want you to do."
Ashlyn stared at one tearful little girl, clutching a ragged stuffed bear in one arm, her thumb jammed in her mouth. "These kids are everything. There's…wait…wait here," she said to the soldiers, motioning for them to keep an eye on the children as she pulled Trace aside. "My basement is like a fortress, believe me. Nobody is getting in there if you don't want them to. If it was bigger I'd just cram everyone in there.

"The levers on the shelf in my basement- they all perform a different function. But there's a cabinet beneath the levers that has a control panel in it." She lowered h
er voice. "The password is Susyn- S-U-S-Y-N. Once you put the password in, the display will show you how to activate the storm doors and anti-intruder system."

"Paranoid much?"
Trace said, raising an eyebrow, and Ashlyn grinned, wistfully out of character, remembering her childhood dreams of filling the house her mother had left her with valuable trinkets, flowers and tea-sets and delicate weaponry and the dolls that she'd flung off Na Michico the day of her thirteenth birthday, when her father had let a tourist journalist defeat the five Lords simply for the publicity...

"Well, someday I'
d hoped to hoard all the stanes in the world, you know. In the meantime, I was a little bored. Didn't quite get all the stanes, but at least I know some of my gadgets will come in handy," she said, shrugging. "Guard these kids, Trace. If I don't…" She hesitated, realizing for the first time that she may not be around to give further orders after this battle. "The rest is up to you," she finished lamely.

The blonde girl smirked, some of her icy demeanor melting away. "You've got
FLD behind you," she said, squeezing Ashlyn's shoulder. "I think you're going to be fine. But thank you. We'll see you when it's over." She turned and went back to the milling children, clucking like a mother hen as she ushered them towards Ashlyn's home.

When
Ashlyn turned around, her friends were standing before her, minus Aaron, who apparently hadn't returned from the pagoda yet. Just the sight of her friends, together again, uniting in battle to help her, gave Ashlyn confidence. The clouds had made it so dark she could hardly see their expressions, but the sight of them was comforting all the same.

"Hello again," she said, grinning. It would have been much, much too awkward to be somber in the face of her doom. After all, her friends were the best warriors in the world.
There was no force on the earth strong enough to defeat them- not Lord Angelo, and certainly not some ragtag army of magic-driven beasts.

The
Toryn army, ever at the ready, stood behind them, clustered together in separate groups and looking as though they were ready to be assigned. Ashlyn wondered if her friends had had anything to do with that, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Okay,"
she said firmly. "I want two battalions at the path to Na Michico. That's the most likely point of entry if they come from the northwest. Drake and Sk-" She hesitated, realizing that it was probably better to keep Skye close to her in case she needed some advice, and substituted, "Drake and Aaron, I want you to take the soldiers up there and defend the path. Don't send anyone beyond the walls of the city at any point, and try to make use of the archers as much as possible."

It seemed like she should say more, give them a specific plan of action, but for some reason she was drawing a complete blank on what else s
he could say. "You can send runners if you need help," she said finally. "It's possible that they may only attack from the south, but if you should see them, contact me immediately. Don't be afraid to request reinforcements."

She opened her mouth to assign everyone else to their positions, but suddenly there was a giant BOOM behind her, followed by an intense wave of heat that flattened her like a rice cake. She hit the ground hard, smacking her forehead on the grass, and sprang up immediately, spinning on her heels, the breath torn from her body in a single instant.

The pagoda was on fire.

A shadow fell over
Ashlyn, blocking the light from the burning temple, and she didn't stop to think- she dropped to her belly, scraping her elbows painfully. She flattened herself to the ground, and edged her hand around to her back to loosen the crystal shuriken. Claws scraped across her back, shrieking on the surface of the shuriken and shredding her shirt as a bear leaped over her, unable to stop his forward motion enough to counter her quick maneuver. Ashlyn jumped up and threw a straight jab, then another, and kept going when the beast roared its anger. She ducked a swipe from the first bear and hit him with an uppercut, then spun in a leg sweep, knocking him to the ground. She followed up the assault with a high-pitched yell, completely focused on casting her magic as fire rolled up in great flames around her opponent.

Ashlyn
spared a glance to her right, recognizing only Restlyn in the midst of dozens of soldiers, sparsely intermixed with the beasts. The brunette was fighting smoothly, her movements flawless and calculated even as she shouted orders to her soldiers. Ashlyn looked to the left and swallowed, seeing only wave upon wave of beasts and Toryn soldiers coming towards her. The monsters were ridiculously outnumbered. This fight should be easy enough.

Motioning to the soldiers behind her and shouting for them to follow, she was off and running before reality sank in. How the
hell
was it possible that there were even a few dozen of these creatures? The
shift
magic was indigenous; no one but a Li could wield its strength!

She vaulted into the river and came up the other side, lashing out with her shuriken in a series of short leaps that cut down the single monster she came upon. Her attack was halted abruptly when something hit her from behind and pushed, and it took
Ashlyn a moment to realize that she was being shoved along by frenzied Toryn, far too quickly to see if the enemy was anywhere near.

Someone grabbed her hair and yanked, hard, and she yelped as she was hauled back mercilessly, catching herself with her hands behind her, digging in her heels and somehow managing to stay standing even as she was bent over backwards. She struck out with the heel of her fist, catching her assailant in the throat, but lost her balance when he let her go, and fell on the ground, landing with a splash in a huge puddle of rainwater.

She choked as the breath was knocked from her, and lay there for a split second, trying to get her bearings as a feeling of claustrophobia settled over her.

A
gleam glinted out of the corner of her eye at the same instant that a bear grabbed her by the front of the shirt, pulling her up. The shuriken! Ashlyn twisted sideways- there went her shirt, completely this time- and hit the ground again, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of yet another monster. When she snatched up her shuriken, the weight of it was comforting in her hands.