She braced herself, leaning forward on the balls of her feet and watching for the attack that was imminent. The others followed suit. She smiled when she saw Adam did a few standing jumps and then rolled his shoulders like a boxer would just before a match.

“Thead, go back into your forest and do not come out until you hear from me,” Peri told him as she continued to watch.

“I will not hide behind you.”

“You will or I will turn you into a yard ornament.”

Thead’s eyes widened as he backed up and then finally turned and fled into the safety of the protected forest.

“Remember, no killing,” Adam announced just as running warlocks came into view. They moved through the forest like ghosts, whipping around trees and jumping over foliage. It was hard to believe that beings so large could move with such grace. The red eyes that peered out from each of their faces glowed dangerously and their lips were lifted in threatening snarls. Suddenly a knife flew past Peri’s ear so closely that she heard the whistle of it as it spun end over end through the air.

“Screw that,” Peri snapped, “I am in no mood to lose any body parts today, so if it comes down to my ear or them, I will not hesitate to save my ear.”

Adam laughed as he flung his arm out, his magic deflecting another soaring knife. “Vasile won’t be happy.”

“Vasile can go jump in a lake,” her words were followed by a war cry as she dodged the first warlock to finally reach her. As Peri dodged kicks, flung away knives, and dished out magical bursts meant to harm but not kill, her mind briefly jumped to her earlier realization that Reyaz was behind this. She knew it like she knew the sun would rise in the East tomorrow. The red eyes should have been enough to clue her in. But though she knew it was dark magic, her initial thoughts had not been to blame Reyaz and that idea made her think there must have been more to his spell than just planting the thirst for war in the warlocks’ hearts. So why did he do it? she asked herself as she kicked a female warlock in the face. He knew that the trolls couldn’t kill his brother, and that was what he was ultimately after, wasn’t it? At least it had been at one time. So what changed? What variable had been altered enough to change Reyaz’s plans?

When it hit her it was like a punch to the gut, well that and the fact that she was indeed just punched in the gut by the female warlock who refused to stay down. “Lilly,” she muttered, and then revised that statement, “the females.” She flung her hand to the woman’s chest and pushed, sending a jolt into her. The woman collapsed, but she was still breathing. She turned in a circle and saw that Dain and Nissa of the council had joined in the fight. And what a fight it was. Since they were trying not to kill the attackers, they were knocking the warlocks out with jolts of powers, effectively interrupting their nervous system. But warlocks weremagical and still pretty powerful, so they weren’t staying down long. Her eyes found Cypher and she stood still, briefly, in awe of his power, grace, and control. He stood back just a ways, watching the battle, waiting for a moment when he would need to step in. His face was blank, void of emotion, and it sent a chill down her spine to see a man who was usually so passionate look so complacent.

She didn’t know how long they had been fighting when she heard the howls, but she did know it was about bloody time that the fur balls had shown up. She felt the air whip around her as a flash of black flew in front of her and a huge wolf landed on a male warlock battling with Adam. The huge wolf swiped his paw across the man’s head and knocked him out cold.

The wolf turned his massive head back to Peri and bared large, sharp teeth. Amber eyes burned into her as a growl rumbled out of him.

“Decebel, get over yourself and go growl at the prey you can actually take on.”

With one final snarl for good measure he turned and jumped back into the fight.

“I swear, Great Luna, if you give me a wolf for a mate I will neuter him and shave him like a poodle,” she muttered as she hurried back into the fight. She ran over to Adam who was battling four warlocks at once. She pressed her back to his. “I’ve got you covered,” she yelled over the battle sounds.

“Did you know there were this many warlocks still living?” Adam shouted to her.

Peri grabbed the arm of the warlock who had just attempted to gut her with a sword. She bent his wrist and he dropped it with a yelp of pain. He fell to his knees and Peri once again sent her power into him to knock him out. “Yes and No,” she answered.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that sometimes I don’t know everything.”

He laughed. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Would you shut up and focus on injuring these psychos so that you don’t get yourself run through?” Peri turned, just as she heard a deep growl, and had to duck to keep from being knocked down by Vasile in his wolf form. She glanced over her shoulder to see why he had lunged over her only to see him in battle with Cypher. Apparently, the King had decided that it was time he added his two cents to the fight.

Now that the wolves were present, the battle was more evenly matched, though the warlocks still continued to get up after being knocked out. Peri wasn’t sure how long they could keep fighting at this intensity before some of them began to get hurt. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something drop from above the battle. She looked up quickly only taking her eyes off her opponent for a second and saw that Thalion had brought his elves and they were dropping from the trees. It was a sight that Jen would have appreciated and surely would have deemed it worthy of some weird military lingo.