Hope (33 page)

Lord Alextor straightened to his full height. "If they are forced to leave Ka’latin castle and evacuate the surrounding villages, they will destroy the Portal and the Daemons’ only way to Earth. We will attack before dawn tomorrow and hope to have the advantage of the night to get into position before the Daemon sentries spot us. We thought you should know your Sights are playing out."

Kathryn stood in her room, studying the contents of her backpack. Her mother's smiling face filled her with an intense sadness. Bitterness at her father's method of coping was gone. She now longed for nothing more than for him to hug her and say everything would be okay. Her hands shook as she uncovered the other pictures.

Rachel’s smiling face clenched her heart and Kathryn gave her daughter a sad smile. The next picture showed Donny holding Rachel upside down by her ankles. He used to tower over Kathryn, but he would never walk again. Two tours in Iraq without a scratch. Every time she saw him in his wheelchair, she knew it should have been her in that chair. If she hadn’t lost her temper when Rachel broke her mother’s vase, Donny never would have insisted that Rachel and he pick up mom from the airport.

Working full-time as a single mom never seemed glamorous, but Kathryn always respected the idea of providing for Rachel and herself. She hadn’t needed a man in her life and Greg never offered to help her financially, even after moving in. Why would he? He made a fraction of her salary. Looking back, she realized his refusal to do anything beyond sitting in front of the television or occasionally playing games with Rachel didn’t make him worthy of her. She’d just been so happy to believe a man loved her she lowered her standards. Lazy bastard.

Kathryn reached into the large pocket and felt a furry clump. Withdrawing her hand, Ella’s trunk pointed at her in greeting. Stroking the soft fur, Kathryn hugged the elephant against her chest and closed her eyes against the ache. Fighting tears, she placed Ella on a high shelf so Dargo wouldn’t get her.

Exploring the outer pockets of the bag, she discovered Hal's badge, wallet and gun belt. Hal had changed after Vikten’s men had taken him. She saw the defeat in his eyes. Opening his wallet, she smiled into the face of a young boy sitting upon Hal's shoulders. Gathering Hal’s things, she headed for his room. Dargo's tail wagged, but he remained in his comfortable position in the sun shining through the back door.

Hal answered the door on the first knock. "Hi. What’s up?" he asked in a serious tone of voice, his usual humor missing.

"I have something for you. May I come in?"

"Sure, come on in." He stood aside and performed a welcoming and theatrical gesture with his hand. "Make yourself at home. There’s beer in the fridge, chips and salsa on the counter, and the Super Bowl should be on any minute."

She smiled, walking into his modest room, careful not to knock his collection of throwing knives off his desk. "Are you preparing for a war or something?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"It’s just a little hunting trip. There should be plenty of game." He tried to sound funny, but it was impossible to be in this situation. They could both die in less than 24 hours. Add his recent torture to that...

She offered him his things. "I think these are yours."

His features finally showed some sign of life. The expression on his face was thoughtful as he stood staring at the picture of his son, not moving. "Thank you. This is what I needed."

In his eyes, she saw his appreciation. She had a lot to prepare before the battle in the morning, so she took her leave after a brief goodbye. As Hal closed the door behind her, a sad smile touched her mouth. They were fighting to protect their families. Perhaps they had both forgotten that.

Elena was in Kathryn's room petting Dargo when she returned. Kathryn closed the door behind her and leaned against it.

"Elena, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me." Kathryn shook her head and prayed she wouldn’t start crying over the entire situation.

"Tell you what." Elena dropped the sheets and looked at Kathryn with genuine surprise.

"About whom he was."

"I told you not to. I couldn’t just blurt out his identity. It’s tradition." She started wringing her hands and her eyes started to water. "Please, don’t be angry with me."

Kathryn sighed. Her life was a violent soap opera. "I’m angry with myself. I think I knew it all along."

"What?" Elena walked over and pulled her to a chair, sitting beside her.

"He smells like pine and cinnamon. I smelled it that day I healed him in the library. He smelled the same at the Ball. Two of my favorite scents and he had to smell like both of them. I didn’t even have a chance. And now he’s going to die." Kathryn felt the tears streaming from her eyes and her nose start to get stuffy. She gave in and let out her grief.

"Shh, it’s okay. Everything will be okay." Elena held her and stroked her hair.

"I don’t want to lose him, Elena. He gets under my skin and irritates the shit out of me, but I don’t think I could handle losing him."

She was in her room cleaning her sword when there was a knock at the door. Since her sword was in her lap and her hands were full with an oily rag and a honing stone, she verbally granted entry instead of opening the door herself. The door opened to present Lord Alextor, accompanied by Sir Lanclor and Sir Garrent. Making a move to put her supplies away, Lord Alextor gestured for her not to bother.

"This will only take a minute, Lady Kathryn." He nodded toward Sir Garrent to close the door behind them.

"You’re the most powerful knight we have, magically." Lord Alextor got right to the point. "We need you in the air to cover the ground troops. We’d like you to lead a squad of graywings."

Kathryn's eyebrows rose in shock
.
"Milord, I’m honored, but surely—"

"You may not have the battle experience, but you have the respect of the Knighthood," Sir Lanclor said in a serious voice. "You probably never realized it, but you do have their respect. They remember the battle at Southker village. You exhausted yourself to save Derrek’s squad. They also know you’re the most powerful mage we have. You have what it takes to be a great leader if you believe you can do it."

The last thing she expected was this. If anything, she expected to be stuck in a squad back in Ralenth to be the backup in case things went wrong. Now, here they were saying she had the potential to lead and were offering her the opportunity to do so. Most surprising of all, she believed she could do it.

"Yes, I’ll do it. You’ll need to tell me the plan, though. I need to know where I should be when the attack begins."

They all breathed a sigh of relief. "We’ll be discussing strategy in an hour in the throne room. Sir Garrent will prep you while you finish up with your sword. We’ll see you shortly." Sir Lanclor gave her a penetrating look, and then Lord Alextor and he left her room while Sir Garrent stayed behind.

"They have a gift for making people nervous, don’t they?" Sir Garrent said as he noticeably relaxed and took the seat next to her. "It looks like your sword is changing. Would you mind if I looked at the runes?"

"Not at all. I just oiled it, so use the rag." She handed him her sword, holding it by the hilt and by a rag wrapped around the blade. He held it gingerly, turning it around so the runes were the right side up. There were only three runes at this point, but she had a feeling there would be more in the future. If she didn't die tomorrow, that was
.

"Hmm. It’s an interesting choice of runes. I know you didn’t choose them or anything. Some people believe the first several runes give us a hint as to our future. The first rune here, toward the hilt, means fire. We all know that’s your most powerful skill. This second one on the other hand, doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s the rune representing a gate. The last rune represents hope, something we’re all going to need come tomorrow morning."

Hope. Ironic. "Fire, gate and hope? Fire, I can understand, and maybe hope, but gate?"

"Sometimes the meanings of the first runes aren’t apparent until the time is right, or even looking back on particular events in your career." Sir Garrent adjusted his position in the chair after he handed her sword back to her. "The war council meeting will discuss where all of our squads fit into the overall strategy of the battle.

"We’re all encouraged to speak our opinions without fear of rebuke. Any ideas at all are welcome, especially in this scenario. I’d recommend getting there a little early so you can look over the maps and think about any strategy we might have missed. I’ll now take my leave to prepare for the council. I’ll see you soon, Lady Kathryn."

Sir Garrent rose from his chair, his green armor glowing from hours of polishing. Kathryn nodded her farewell, too overwhelmed with information to respond with words. She finished cleaning her sword and returned it to its scabbard on her desk. The last half hour before the meeting, she spent going over the spells Sir Lanclor and she had found in the Lost Spell books.

Kathryn had already gone over them dozens of times, memorizing them months ago. Still unsure which spells could turn the tide of the battle, she strapped on her newly cleaned sword, placed her helmet upon her head, and headed toward the throne room. She met Sir Garrent on the way and they walked together in distracted silence. They would be discussing a strategy to keep all of them from dying. No pressure.

They were some of the first to arrive. Lord Alextor sat at the table while Sir Lanclor concentrated on the map. Derrek and Hook arrived shortly thereafter, accompanied by Hal. Hal stood next to Hook, seeming just as surprised to see Kathryn, as she was to see him.

The room began to fill, so Hal and she had no opportunity to talk. She only recognized some of the knights from mounted warfare practice. The rest of the knights were from R’kelo. They were only familiar because she had seen them before in her Last Battle Sight. Just looking at them gave her chills.

"If everyone will gather around, I’d like to begin so we can try to have a few hours of sleep before the battle tomorrow." Lord Alextor rose from his chair, gesturing for everyone to join him at the table around the map. "The way I see it, our best approach is from the valley around Hopent. This will be the most heavily guarded, but it’ll take too long to try to find a pass through those mountains other than the wooded pass south of Southker. That pass is just too sheltered with trees and an ambush would be likely. If we had thirty more squads, I would say to bring our winged squads over the mountains to flank them, but with our limited numbers, I think our only chance is to have the winged squads cover the mounted ones. Do you all agree?"

They all studied the map, but Hook was the first to voice his agreement with Lord Alextor. "The wind can be awful in those mountains. It could be too much, blowing a winged squad off course and throwing them right in the middle of the Daemons instead of flanking them. A direct assault is our only choice."

"Derrek will be leading a squad of Browns and Grays, so I want him in the front to handle the initial aerial assault." Lord Alextor pointed to the southernmost village. "Lanclor will lead the mounted assault doing whatever it takes to secure the bridge at Hopent. Once the bridge is secure and Lanclor’s squads are on the south side of the bridge, Hook’s winged squad of Browns will defend the north side until all of the mounted units are across."

Lord Alextor looked around, meeting everyone’s eye in turn. He focused on Hal. "Hal, I want your squad of browns to cover Lanclor. He’ll be in the thick of the Daemons at that point. He’ll have enough Grays on the ground to assist you in the air if the need arises. At that point, I want Garrent’s and Kathryn’s Grays to attack in force, giving the rest of us time to re-group. Does anyone else have anything to add?"

Hook stepped forward, leaning over the map. "Should we bring all of the mounted squads up at the same time? Would it be better to hold some in reserve?" Hook asked, pointing to the map as he spoke.

"I thought about that, but I think they would be useless if anything were to happen to the bridge. We need to get all of them on the other side of the river if we’re going to overpower the Daemons." Lord Alextor pointed to the only bridge across the river and their only means of escape with the horses.

Sir Lanclor shook his head. "Agreed, but I think we should have a squad of Grays covering the bridge while we’re crossing just in case. That way, if there is any unforeseen trouble, we have some magic to back us up. I think Garrent’s squad should do this, and then we’ll have Lady Kathryn’s squad come in and attack in force. Lady Kathryn has enough power to cause a distraction, allowing us to re-group. Garrent’s squad would be of more use in the initial assault and defending the bridge."