Page 117 of The Crown of Moonlight
We need every magical advantage now, so we arrive cloaked in Daire’s rune of silence and a more powerful rune that casts an illusion to bend the landscape around us and make us disappear.The illusion drains magic fast enough that Daire won’t be able to hold it long, but it gives us time to survey the battlefield ahead of us and make a plan.
“Six Greys and three dozen red coats.”Lorcan tosses his knife in the air, catches the handle, and throws it up again.“Vheara didn’t want to make this easy for us.”
“Easy has never been the Raven bitch’s style,” Daire says, his blond hair dulled and damp beneath the unceasing rain.“She’s been playing with us.”
Chyr’s smile is grim.“Pay closer attention, both of you.Those aren’t the plain red and black uniforms of regular soldiers.The crossed knives on the sleeve are the Butcher’s insignia—the Black Knife of Alba.That’s his personal guard.”
Sean whistles through his teeth.“The fucking Duke of Cumarann himself.Then he’s here somewhere.We should have known he couldn’t resist a party.Where is he, though?I don’t see him.”
“I’m sure you aren’t meant to,” Chyr says.“He’ll have the same runes and probably more of the amulets Vheara has been giving him.We saw how he used those at Culodur.”
Shadow and Shade lift their heads in the same instant, growling.Warm breath touches my bad ear, as if someone is standing behind me.But there’s no one when I turn, and then the feeling is gone, and the Shadehounds look away.
A steady wind drives bursts of cloud and needles of rain into our faces, and there’s no moonlight to show us the wet bog around the loch or the great stone slab of the Altar of the Moon balanced on four black pillars of stone.We shouldn’t see the landscape or the men at all, but purple-hued balls of magic light float in the air—the scoutlights that the Greys use.They illuminate the scene so clearly that the trap might as well be flashing to capture our attention.
In the darkness beyond, more men and more Greys are waiting.
“There are at least another sixty or seventy men held back in reserve beyond them, ready to spring at us when we move to attack those beside the altar,” I say, “together with another half-dozen Greys.And there’s another group we’d have to get past before we even reach the ones beside the altar, and still more waiting farther down the loch.”
The Riders are silent.The scent of the bog curls into my nose: the rain-softened citrus of myrtle overpowered by the sweet rot of peat breathing up beneath spring grass.Peat has an iron smell, too, as though it’s born to be soaked in blood.
“A few bolts of lightning would be convenient now,” Lorcan says.
“Wouldn’t they, though?”I raise an eyebrow at him.“Shame I didn’t use you for target practice a dozen times in the last several hours so I’d be accurate.”
He grins and nods, and I go back to thinking about the sort of power I could use—thatwecould use.
“Killing the first group has to take priority.We’ll need to muffle any sound and even the slightest hint of magic while we do it,” Chyr says, crossing his arms as he watches Lorcan with narrowed eyes.“Ideas?”
“Air,” I say.“We lift them by the throats the way the Grey did at Dunhaelic.All of them at once.Then choke them until the men die.The Greys will still need to be finished off, but they’ll be held in place in the meantime.”
Chyr’s mouth twists as he thinks.“That’s a lot of precise air magic, and none of us will have the strength to handle all the units.We’ll need to take it in turns—and save Sean for the group by the altar since they’re likely to be the most dangerous.We’ll need to use the darksight runes as well.Ronan, you’ll have to guide me, since I don’t have a rune of my own to see what I’m doing.Hopefully, we’ll both be able to hold out long enough.”
“Would it be easier if I gave you strength?It needs to be a single rope, and we’d want to wind it loosely to get all the targets at once.We’d also need Daire to make sure none of them felt the magic—”
“Until the rope is around all of them and ready to be pulled.”Daire’s eyes glitter in the darkness.
“Is that possible?”
Chyr rubs a hand over the back of his neck.“I’d have to push the rune-magic into the rope.It could work.”
“I don’t have much magic left to feed the runes,” Daire says.
“What if I feed them for you?”I ask.
“It would need Siorai magic, and you haven’t been drawing any of that.”
“I can give Daire the extra Veilstone.”Niall pulls the ring from his finger.
Daire accepts it and slips it on.I study the group of Greys and the soldiers beside the altar—the only group that isn’t hidden and ready to ambush us.
“Can anyone think of a reason this wouldn’t work?”I ask.
“Too many to count,” Daire says.“But your mind is lethal.Remind me never to make you angry.”
“You’re far too late for that.”Ronan’s teeth flash white against the bronze skin that almost matches his russet hair.Lifting Rua from around his shoulders, he lets her jump to the ground before swinging himself down from the saddle.
The rest of us dismount and tie the horses to stubby rowans that grow nearby.Lorcan activates a rune of silence between four stones, creating an area of silence around the horses.I wrap my scarf low across my forehead to hide the light from the Crown of Flame.
