She swung the sword down, and Blair thrust hers up to meet it, to block it, to hold it. The muscles in her arms screamed with the strain and her side wept blood and agony.

“I’m no pu**y,” she panted. “He’s not whipped. And you’re done.”

She yanked the dagger from her side, stabbed it to its bloodied hilt into Lora’s belly.

“That hurts, but it’s steel.”

“So’s this.” With all her remaining strength, Blair shoved Lora’s sword aside, and plunged her own into the vampire’s chest.

“Now you’re just annoying me.” Lora hefted her sword, point down. “Now who’s done?”

“You,” Blair replied as the blade still in Lora’s chest erupted with flame.

Burning, screaming, Lora started to tumble from the rock. Blair yanked the sword free, swung it, hard and true, and cut off the flaming head.

“Fucking well done.” Blair stumbled, swayed, would have fallen if Larkin hadn’t sprung forward to catch her.

“How bad? How bad?” He pressed his hand to her bleeding side.

“Through and through, I think. No organs hit. Quick patch to stop the bleeding and I’m back in the game.”

“We’ll see about that. Get on.”

When he shimmered into a dragon, Blair crawled onto his back. As they soared she saw Glenna on the ridge clashing with Midir. And she saw her friend fall.

“Oh God, she’s hit. She’s done. How fast can you get there?”

Inside the dragon Larkin thought: Not fast enough.

G lenna tasted blood in her mouth. There was more seeping out of a dozen shallow slices in her skin. She knew she’d hurt him, knew she’d chipped at his shield, his body, even his power.

But she could feel her own power ebbing out of her along with her blood.

She’d done all she could, and it hadn’t been enough.

“Your fire’s cooling. Barely an ember left to glow.” Midir stepped closer now to where she lay on the scorched and bloody ground. “Still it might be enough to trouble myself to take, along with what’s left of your life.”

“It’ll choke you.” She gasped out the words. He’d bled, she thought. She’d made him bleed onto the ground. “I swear it will.”

“I’ll swallow it whole. It’s so small, after all. Can you see below, can you? Where what I helped wrought runs over you like locusts. It’s as I foretold. And as you fall, one by one, my power grows. Nothing will hold it now. Nothing will stop it.”

“I will.” Hoyt swung, bloody and battered, over the lip of the ridge.

“There’s my guy,” Glenna managed, gritting her teeth against the pain. “I softened him up for you.”

“Now here is something more to chew on.” Whirling, Midir shot black lighting.

It crashed, sizzled, spewed bloody flames when it struck against Hoyt’s blinding white. The force blew them both back, searing the air between them. On the ground, Glenna rolled away from a streaking line of flame, then clawed to her hands and knees.

Whatever she had left, she gathered to send to Hoyt. Closing a trembling hand around the cross at her neck she focused her power into it, and to its twin Hoyt wore.

While she chanted, the sorcerers—black and white—battled on the smoke-hazed ridge, and in the filthy air above it.

The fire that sliced at Hoyt carried the burn of ice. It sought his blood—what was shed, what it aimed to shed, to draw away his power.

It clawed and slashed at him while the air flashed and boomed with magicks, sending smoke billowing high to drown the swimming moon. The ground beneath his feet cracked, splitting fissures under the enormity of pressure.

While his lungs labored and his heart pounded, he ignored those earthy demands on his body, ignored the pains from his wounds and the sweat that ran salt into them.

He was power now. Beyond that moment at the beginning of this journey when he’d wavered for an instant over the black. Now, on this ridge over blood and death, over the courage of man, the sacrifice and the fury, he was the white-hot flame of power.

The cross he wore flashed silver and brilliant as Glenna joined her magic to his. With one hand he reached for hers, gripping it firmly when she linked fingers with him and pulled herself to her feet. With the other he raised a sword, and the fire on it went pure white.

“It is we who take you,” Hoyt began and slashed away a thunderbolt with his sword. “We who stand for the purity of magic, for the heart of mankind. It is we who defeat you, who destroy you, who send you forever into the flames.”

“Be damned to you!” Midir shouted, and lifting both arms hurled twin thunderbolts. Fear rushed over his face when Glenna waved a hand over the air and turned them to ash.

“No. Be damned to you.” Hoyt swung down the sword. The white fire leaped from the blade to strike Midir’s heart like steel.

Where he dropped and died, the ground turned black.

H igh ground, Moira thought. She had to get back to higher ground, regroup the archers. She’d heard the shouts warning that their line had broken again to the north. Flaming arrows would drive that invading force back, give the troops in its path time to forge their lines again. She searched through the melee for a horse or dragon that would take her where she knew she was most needed.

And looking up saw Hoyt and Glenna bathed in brilliant white, facing Midir. A spurt of fresh hope had her racing forward. Even as the ground seemed to catch at her feet, she swung her sword at an advancing enemy. The gash she served it slowed it down, and as she poised to strike again, Riddock took it from behind.

With a fierce grin, he charged with a handful of men toward the broken line. He lived, she thought. Her uncle lived. As she raced to join him, the ground bucked under her feet, sent her sprawling.

As she pushed up she looked down into Isleen’s dead and staring eyes.

“No. No. No.”

Isleen’s throat was torn open, the leather strap where Moira knew she’d worn a wooden cross was snapped and soaked with blood. Grief struck so strong, so deep, she gathered the body up against her.

Still warm, she thought as she rocked. Still warm. If she’d been faster, she might have saved Isleen.

“Isleen. Isleen.”

“Isleen. Isleen.” The words were a mocking mimic as Lilith flowed out of the smoke.

She’d dressed for battle in red and silver, a mitre like Moira’s banding her head. Her sword was bloody to its jeweled hilt. Seeing her crashed waves of fear and fury through Moira that had her surging to her feet.