Chapter Thirteen
BOOM! BOOM!
Bréagha jerked from her dead sleep and squinted into the darkness trying to find the source of what woke her up.
BOOM! BOOM!
Bréagha gasped and grabbed her bed as the room shook with the sound of explosions. It sounded like giants were knocking on the cottage door.
All Sentinels to the gates! All Sentinels to the gates! Portal Keepers, portal them!
“Bréagha?!?” She jumped then fell out of bed when she saw Aiden and Killian, both dressed in black leather pants and leather tank tops.
Their swords were crisscrossed on their backs in their scabbards, and they were standing on her back balcony right outside the doors.
She untangled herself from her quilt before running over and flinging the windows open.
“What’s happening?” Killian stormed in and thrust a pile of dark clothes at her. Aiden followed carrying a crossbow and a quiver full of sharpened iron arrows.
“Shadows are attacking the gates. Put those clothes on and hurry. We need to get there. The rest of the team is already headed that way. Roz should be here any second to portal us as well. You have maybe a minute, so I would hurry,” said Killian impatiently. “I’ll go get Sperwa.”
“No need, I’m here. Bréagha hurry!” Bréagha ran to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
Her own set of leathers consisting of leather pants and a leather corset style tank top with thick straps was in the bundle Killian had given her.
She rolled her eyes but slipped into them.
They were surprisingly comfortable and easy to move around in.
The top had a racerback cut, which gave her wings space to pop out if needed.
The leather would give her some armor while keeping her agile enough to move easily.
She quickly pulled her long hair into a braid, tying it with a small piece of leather she found on the bathroom sink.
She was always losing her pony-tail holders.
She sat on the edge of her bathtub to yank on the boots that Killian had also thrown at her.
They were knee length, combat style with thick soles, stiff steel toes, but soft and supple everywhere else so they wouldn’t cause her issues since they were new.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Bréagha! Hurry your ass up!” Killian growled through the bathroom door as Bréagha opened it up and ran straight into his chest, so hard she fell backwards. He growled at her again and pulled her to her feet.
“Don’t do that while fighting. You’ll get yourself killed or badly hurt in this fight if you can’t stay on your feet.
” Before she could come back with her usual snarkiness, Killian walked through the portal that Roz was holding open.
Aiden wasn’t in the room, so Bréagha assumed he had already gone through.
She hesitated right before stepping through herself. Sperwa, who was now the size of an actual sparrow jumped up on her shoulder, startling her. Roz placed her hand on her other shoulder. When Bréagha turned her head to her friend, she smiled reassuringly.
“Sperwa will watch over you. You will kick some shadow ass, then I’ll be there to portal you to Stephen’s Deli for a BLT, extra B.” Bréagha grinned and nodded, then faced the portal again. She took a deep breath before stepping through onto the battlefield.
She was standing on top of a huge stone wall that had to be forty or fifty feet high.
To her right and below her was a gigantic stone gate with an image of the garden carved into it.
The gate was being battered by a swarm of shadowy figures and a big fiery gate rammer.
She glanced around half hoping and half dreading seeing orcs, giants, or ring wraiths but only saw what looked like thousands more shadowy figures like those at the gate.
She saw Killian and Jaxx’s dragons at a distance, throwing dragon fire in a wide arc around them. She heard cat screams, wolf howls, bears roaring, and predator birds screeching all around her. Every Sentinel fighting had a physical animal fighting beside them.
“Bréagha, down here!” She heard Aiden’s voice and looked down to see him standing on a platform about half way down the wall, shooting at the shadows with arrows.
Her wings popped out, then she flew down to stand beside him.
From here she could see clearly across the entire clearing outside the gates, and it was teeming with shadows.
“Where did they come from?” she asked as she started pulling arrows out of the quiver on her back, Sperwa sent out a gentle breath of fire to turn its tip into a flame.
She started taking out the shadows breaking down the gate, one at a time.
She growled at the slow pace in frustration.
Two arrows this time. She whooped when both struck true.
She grinned even wider when she was able to do three arrows at a time.
Her hands were too small to try for four so she would have to be satisfied.
“Nice job! Also, I have no idea. When I came out of the portal, I was up here. I was told to start shooting, and to not let them get through that gate. I figured I could find out the answers to my questions later.” He took a page from Bréagha and tried out two and then three arrows as well.
His hands were larger, so he tried for four.
He lost some accuracy, but he still took down four at a time.
Now that Bréagha had joined him and they were taking three and four down at a time, they were making a large dent in the number of shadows banging on the gate.
Bréagha and Aiden fell into a rhythm: grab arrows, Sperwa set them alight, notch them, let them fly, then grab more arrows and repeat.
They worked silently until all the shadows at the gate were gone and the gate rammer was on the ground.
She watched as a Sentinel threw water on it to extinguish the flames before moving into the larger battlefield beyond.
“Want to join them on the ground and practice your sword skills, or your fire whip,” suggested Aiden and Bréagha grinned.
She flung herself off the platform, her wings popping out and lowering her to the ground softly.
Aiden thumped down next to her, and she grinned wider when he grimaced and shook out his legs.
Out of the darkness Makani came to stand beside Aiden, giving Bréagha a soft bump with his big head.
She giggled and reached down to ruffle his fur.
Sperwa landed beside her, looked up and grew to the size of a large ostrich, standing around seven or eight feet.
“Aiden, hold out your sword.” Aiden obeyed Sperwa who sent a stream of flames to encompass the sword. He grinned and wagged his eyebrows at the two of them.
“Now this is badass! The one who kills less shadows has to buy lunch!” He leapt forward, clashing with a shadow that had separated from the crowd, heading towards the gate. Makani leaped on two more.
“We’re staying back and making sure no one else comes to the gates!
You kick ass but be safe, Aiden! If you die, I will kick your ass!
” Bréagha yelled at her friend’s back as she shot out her fire whip, hitting a shadow making a dash towards the gate from the left, Sperwa sending out a jet of flame to the right.
The pair worked side by side and sometimes back-to-back, taking down any shadows that slipped past the Sentinels and made for the gate.
The sun had set several hours earlier when Roz portaled her onto the battlefield.
The shadows were just darker shadows, they had no real structure, just a nebulous fog of movement and sound, some had glowing red eyes and others had silver.
They didn’t look like anything but shadows, however, when her arrows or fire whip hit one, she could hear them thunk against something solid before the shadow dispersed.
“Damn it!” Bréagha shouted as a shadow slipped past her whip and cut her with a knife.
She spun around and snapped her whip, cutting the offending shadow in half.
Another came up behind and took a swipe at her side, thankfully her leather took most of the hit, only a small line of blood swelled.
Bréagha spun in a circle, cutting down any of the shadows that were trying to encroach on her space or take advantage of her flagging energy.
The light from the fiery whip, from the phoenix, the dragons, Aiden’s flame sword, and the other fires the Sentinels were working with, had the shadows falling back easily but they would escape back into the darkness surrounding too much of the battlefield.
Bréagha watched them closely then looked over at Sperwa.
“Sperwa, we need more light. What can we do for that?” Sperwa cocked her head to the side.
“Roz! Can you stand on top of the wall and conjure us some kind of straw piles?”
“Ooohh…that’s awesome.” As they waited for Roz to work her magic, they continued to push the shadows back.
It took just a few minutes and then Bréagha started seeing straw figures popping up all along the battlefield.
They looked like the gingerbread men one of her foster moms used to cut from folded paper, each was connected to the one next to it, creating a maze through the shadows.
Sperwa screeched and jumped up into the air, she flew over the figures and spewed a stream of fire down into them.
Roz must’ve added some kind of combustion component to the straw because they all went up with a crash, setting the next one on fire and then the next, down the line until the entire battlefield was bathed in bright crackling flames.
A cheer went up amongst the Sentinels as the shadows dispersed quickly, once the light hit them.
There wasn’t enough darkness for the numbers to keep up, and the few that were able to find a dark spot were quickly routed out by the Sentinels, until not a single one remained.
Just as the last dispersed, the first rays of sunlight hit the sky, and it was truly over.
“Shadows can’t survive the light, that’s why they strive to create darkness. Good thinking Bréagha!” Sperwa had shrunk back down to her sparrow size and alighted on Bréagha’s shoulder again.
“It was a team effort my friend. Also, since when do you change size?” Bréagha turned her head to see Sperwa shrug her feathered shoulders.
“Since forever? I’m sure there are lots of things you’ll learn as we go along,” answered Sperwa smugly, making Bréagha giggle. She turned when she saw the pink of Roz’s portal pop up behind her. Roz walked through and grinned at her.
“How was that?” Bréagha pulled her in to a strong hug and laughed.
“That was perfection! Gingerbread men? So awesome.” Roz grinned and returned the hug, grateful and relieved she could help the Sentinels protect the Garden.
“Now, that could’ve only been our Rozengwyn!
That was badass, little fairy!” They heard Bracken holler as he came running out of the field, his face covered in soot from the fires.
His black panther, Kaelis, followed closely on his heels.
He ran up to Roz and caught her up in a huge hug, spinning her around and cheering her.
Cathal and Liam joined, with their animals as well.
They both took their turn to give her a swirling hug that caused her to giggle each time.
Travis and Mason, with their familiars, stood back and waited for her to be set down before giving her a high five that she had to jump up and flutter her wings to connect with.
They all gave her huge smiles, and she stood in the middle of all the guys with a huge grin on her face, glowing beneath their affection and Bréagha couldn’t be happier or prouder for her friend.
“You all think outside the box, don’t you?” Bréagha turned to Killian and grinned up at him.
“It worked, didn’t it?” He nodded and smiled down at her.
“It did at that.” He stood and watched as the sun rose behind the burning gingerbread men. “I don’t think any of us could’ve been more surprised to see gingerbread men pop up around us.” His smile broadened and deepened to a mischievous grin.
“You should’ve seen Bracken and Cathal’s faces.
They didn’t know if they should start fighting them too or what.
Then, they went up into bonfires. Man…too funny.
” He actually started chuckling and Bréagha stared up at him.
She had only known him for a few weeks and in that time, she had seen him smile a handful of times but never laugh. Her heart warmed at the sound.
Aiden walked up behind her with Jaxx and wrapped his arms around her neck, pulling her down to give her a head rub like he had when they were kids, not seeing Sperwa on her other side.
The fiery bird flew up with an indignant shriek and shot a small flame at him.
He yelped, jumping back and letting Bréagha go.
She harrumphed and crossed her arms across her chest, wincing when she hit both the cut on her arm and along her side.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we,” asked Killian, having seen the wince. They all watched Sperwa chase Aiden in a circle.
“No touchie my Soul-bonded, Sentinel.” Sperwa landed back on Bréagha’s shoulder, Jaxx and the rest of the Sentinels laughed at Aiden’s disgruntled face. Sperwa’s voice in all their heads just made them all laugh harder as they all started walking through Roz’s portal.
Killian and Jaxx waited until the last Sentinel exited the battlefield, then they pulled Roz through with them, all three leaving at the same time.
The portal snapped closed just as the sun climbed higher in the sky, and before they could see the lone shadow step from underneath a tree in the distance, transforming into a solid form as it moved into the full sun.
A tall lanky man with dark hair and eyes, squinted at where the portal had stood and growled.
“So, you found your Ultimate Guardian, huh? Think that will save you? Think again Garden. Think again.” He stepped back into the shade of the tree, turned to shadow and disappeared.