she thought: Not just the battlefield of D.C. They would see each other on so many more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Just before dawn on January second, Fallon stood in front of the barracks. More than two thousand spread out with her. Some mounted horses, others straddled motorcycles. Foot soldiers moved into formation.
Breath expelled in clouds swirling the air in mists.
The dying night hung cold and clear, the waning half-moon sailing low as the stars shimmered out. A fresh snowfall lay like ermine over branches while men and women trampled it underfoot to move into position.
She saw Marichu take hers, quiver on her back, eyes already fierce.
Those who would stay behind had already said their good-byes, embraced their loved ones, and waited now in the shivering dark.
When she felt the sun waking, she mounted Laoch, called Taibhse to her arm, and Faol Ban to her side.
She turned her horse to face the troops.
“What you do today, you do for all. Every blow you strike is a blow against persecution, bigotry, suffering. You are the brave and the true. Today you fight for all who are hunted and caged, tormented and slaughtered, and what you do this day will ring the bells of hope and freedom through the smoking cities, through the forests and over the hills, the seas.
“We are warriors of the light.” She drew her sword, lifted it high as the air rang with cheers. “And today, as surely as day breaks the night, our light strikes back the dark. Solas don Saol!”
Thousands of voices echoed the call. Solas don Saol!
As the sun shimmered, blooming rose over the eastern hills, she enflamed her sword.
And struck the first blow in the heart of D.C.
Within seconds, the air filled with shouts, screams, gunfire, the flame of arrows, the thunder of horses, a roar of engines. Much of the city, already in rubble, smoked from fights waged through the night.
Overhead, the crows circled and cried out in a kind of jubilation. Taibhse shot off her arm, a white missile, tore through the smoke and ripped at the crows with beak and talon.
Fallon rode toward power. She felt it pump, black and vicious, pushed through the oily stream of it toward a woman striking out with bolts of red and black at oncoming troops.
With her shield, Fallon slapped a bolt to the ground, where it burrowed in the rubble. And with one swipe of her sword she ended it as Laoch soared over the fallen body and the charred stones.
A man with a bat studded with nails rushed forward, struck down one of the government militia. “Resist!” he shouted, and behind him poured a dozen more as Fallon rode into the chaos.
Arrows flamed and flew through the dull morning light. Fire burst from the thunder of explosives, quaking the ground as brick and stones avalanched from ruined buildings. Their dust spumed up, another smearing haze so thick soldiers became ghosts.
She pounded through wherever she felt that pulse of dark power, striking down, battling back. As war cries echoed, she thought of nothing but the next foe, the next inch of ground. Sweat and blood rolled through the frigid wind as powers clashed, as steel rang and bullets sliced.
Her forces drove through the barricades, north, south, east, west. Dozens of ugly battles flooding a city that no longer stood for its people, no longer honored the blood spilled, the lives sacrificed for centuries to preserve the rights of its people.
Monuments defaced, parks scorched to ash, the dome of the Capitol broken and blackened.
In that dawn, through the bitter morning, they fought savagely against the government forces, the Dark Uncannys, the cold hands of cruelty that had choked all life, all hope from a once shining city.
She took Laoch up, dived over the base, heaved down fireballs.
From her height she could see holes in the enemy lines, holes in her own defenses. Relayed orders to exploit the first, close up the second.
In her mind Duncan shouted, We need to move on the containment center. They could start executing prisoners. We need to move there now.
Now, she agreed. She shot down on Laoch, leaped from him. “Fight,” she told him, and flashed.
Men and women scrambled to secure vials, samples, equipment. In what she took to be a holding cell, a boy—no more than sixteen—struggled against his chains. She heard the echoes of shouts beyond the main lab.
A woman running for a steel door, pushing a wheeled crate, saw her, shrieked.
“You should fear me. You should be afraid.” Like a backhanded