Beauty's Beast(36)

The Naginoka howled as they ran, their speed a wonder and a terror to behold. All about them, Alon’s Ghost Children grew restless. What was Alon waiting for?

“They won’t be able to tell us from them,” he muttered. “To them, we all look the same.”

She glanced back at the faces of the Ghost Children. Some looked eager but the expressions of many held apprehension. They did not look the same to her.

The wolves and lions surged down the hill, followed by a herd of buffalo. Samantha knew Tuff Jackson was leading them. Dust rose into the air in clouds behind the herd.

“Advance and intercept,” he called to his followers.

Samantha charged with Alon guarding his flank.

The vanguard of the Skinwalkers raced down the hill, meeting Nagi’s army head-on. Wolves circled the outskirts, looking to hamstring an opponent or rip into an exposed neck, but the Ghost Children’s quills protected from such an attack. The buffalo plowed through the center, swinging their massive heads like wrecking balls, knocking their foes to the ground and trampling them with sharp hooves.

Samantha saw her dad rear up on hind legs, fourteen feet of muscle and power. He roared and met his foes, using his long, curved claws to slash deep as he took his opponents to the ground. Ghostlings fell before him.

Blake led the Niyanoka on the hill, directing the firing at the Ghostlings, who charged directly into the bullets. None reached the hill.

She bellowed and charged, unwilling to watch as the horde attacked her mother, father and brother. She was glad for the chance to stand between them and Nagi.

All about her the Ghost Children locked in individual battles. Blood sprayed across the grass and she charged on.

The blue smoke from the gunpowder hung in the air, casting the hilltop in a haze. Here in the field dust burned her eyes and stole her view of the field.

The buffalo ran through the middle of Nagi’s forces like bulldozers, skewering those not quick enough to evade their horns. And the wolves were there, taking advantage of the panicked flight.

She heard the growl of the pumas, now just to her left. Samantha reared up to deflect the attack aimed at Alon. The lion veered away, choosing another target with supple grace.

In her momentary distraction, one of the enemies leaped and she braced, but Alon met the strike meant for her with one slashing blow of his claws. Her enemy fell, gouged across the face and neck. Blood sprayed from the great artery at his throat, but Samantha had no time to linger as she and Alon each met a new attacker.

Two drove into her at once, taking her to her back. Samantha lifted her rear feet, trying to disembowel the Ghostling on top of her before he could sink his claws into her chest.

* * *

Blake ordered the riflemen to shoot over the combatants at the reinforcements surging from the woods. Just the Ghostlings. The possessed humans were for him and for his mother. But the bullets did not stop them. They just kept coming.

From his vantage point on the hilltop he could see his father fighting paw to claw with Nagi’s forces. His heart nearly stopped as his father fell, but a huge buffalo knocked away his attacker.

“Tuff Jackson,” he murmured, sure he was right. “I’d bet my life on it.”

Above them, hawks, eagles and ravens soared in circles, some darting away to return and report what they observed.

He could barely see now through the gun smoke and dust. The acrid scent of gunpowder burned his nostrils.

Beside him, a raven landed.

“Alon’s fighting to your left. Tell your men not to fire at Ghost Children there unless they advance to the hill. Alon knows to stay below that mark unless you are overrun.”

“How do you know Alon?” he asked the raven.

“I’m his mother. And I changed your diapers, Blake Proud, so do as I say.”

“Bess?” he asked. But she had already taken to the air again. Alon had brought an army, despite Blake’s instructions not to do so. Without Alon, Blake knew the Spirit Children’s position would already be overrun. Now he had to keep his forces from killing the wrong Halflings.

“Cease fire!” he said.

The guns fell silent.

“To the left! Fire if they break through the Skinwalkers. Sharpshooters! Aim only for the ones actually engaging the Skinwalkers. And only if you have a clear shot.”

This was more dangerous, for his sharpshooters might accidentally kill the Skinwalkers.

“He’s sending humans now,” called someone from the line. “To the west.”

Blake swung his binoculars right and saw the humans, dressed in rags, hair a tangled nest of sticks and debris, as if they had walked for days and slept on the ground. Even through the smoke, he could see the telltale yellow eyes of possession.

“Mother!” he called.

Michaela was there beside him in an instant. Though his senior by more than two decades, she looked as if she might be his younger sister, for like all Niyanoka, she aged very slowly. If they survived the day, they might both enjoy another two hundred years.

“They’re possessed,” he said, pointing toward the mob now halfway across the field.

Neither the Ghostlings nor the Skinwalkers engaged them, letting them walk right by, like toddlers wandering on a battlefield. But these toddlers carried clubs and guns.

“There’s so many,” he said, as he and his mother rushed to the end of the earthen wall.

“Call the Memory Walkers and Peacemakers. They will need to revise the memories of the humans after we remove the ghosts.”

“I’m not sending them down there until the fighting is done.”

His mother nodded, her lips pressed into a grim line. “Very well.”

She handed over one of the two medicine wheels that helped channel their Seer gifts. She had had hers since before his birth and had used it successfully the last time she faced Nagi’s ghosts. That day there had been no Ghostling army, for the third Halfling race had not yet come into being.

His wheel was also made of cottonwood, bent into a circle. Two strips of wood bisected the center and crossed each other at right angles. Her wheel held one eagle feather at the center with her medicine bundle tied beneath. His bundle was likewise tied in the center, but he had also wrapped one feather on the bisection of each of the four directions using red trade cloth.

Together they ran toward the puppet army of humans.

“Wait until they are on the hill. Then we’ll work together. Remember, just keep breathing and focus on the middle of their bodies, right above the navel.”

His mother raised the medicine wheel to the sky. Blake lifted his as well and together they began to chant their prayers. His mother’s high voice rang clear above the chaos, while his boomed in a deep bass. In unison the people halted, clamping their hands to their ears as if the Calling Prayer was some heinous wail. The entire mob dropped to their knees, still clutching their heads, and together collapsed on the ground.

All the humans lay in the same direction, heads pointed north, motionless, except for their breathing. Blake gave a shout of triumph. They had removed the ghost invaders. All of them and without harming a single human.

He hugged his mother and she patted his back.

“You did well,” she said.

His elation died when he looked across the battlefield to see Nagi, billowing black and menacing at the tree line. He seemed to be looking directly at them.

Blake acted on instinct, dragging his mother to the ground as the killing blast ripped into the earthen embankment and shot above them into the sky.

“He’s seen us,” said Blake.

His mother lifted her head to peer across the battlefield. “He’s coming.”

* * *

Nagi billowed in delight. He had found two of the three Seers. Had the stupid Niyanoka actually brought them to the battlefield? The Seers were all that prevented him from enslaving the entire human race, so he would kill them first.

Where was the third? Nagi’s gaze swept the hilltop, looking for the telltale aura of violet that was unique to those three Halflings.

His search kept him from noticing when the tide of the battle shifted until the nearest of his forces charged past him. Had he not made it clear that any retreating would die?

He zapped the first half-dozen deserters with one blast. They stood seized in the grip of his killing force. He let the energy course through them as they began to smoke, their flesh cooking from the inside out. When they burst into flames, those retreating behind them reversed direction to make another stand as the souls of those he had killed slipped quietly away.

“Very smart,” he muttered. His children were fast, strong and deadly. But they lacked intellect. “Must get that from their mothers.”

His gaze swept from the hilltop to the mayhem in the valley. The Skinwalkers again, he realized, shocked to see that they were defeating his children. His offspring were stronger. So was it cowardice?

And then he understood what was actually happening. Some of his own children were fighting with the Skinwalkers. Impossible. Yet there they were, shoulder to shoulder with bear and buffalo, engaging the dwindling numbers of his vanguard.