Chapter Ten

 

The walk back to the city was much slower than the run out had been. Leo moved as quickly as he dared, but he didn’t want to go so quickly that he would miss it if there was someone from Gilt Hollow ahead of them in the trees. He felt a bit surprised that the guards had apparently not tried to follow his trail. He’d been bleeding profusely, and he’d been a giant grizzly crashing through the trees with abandon. It was easy enough to see where he had gone. There were gobs of blood and smashed tree branches everywhere.

And yet, the closer he got back to Gilt Hollow, the more convinced he was that the guards had given up and turned around. If they’d been attempting to follow him still, he would have run across them by now. That made him feel a bit better about walking back into the battle with Isa. The guards clearly weren’t that dedicated to killing Isa if they’d given up on following her so easily. But Leo still felt uneasy about what else he might find. As they came within a mile of Gilt Hollow, the air had become so smoky that it was hard to breathe. From here, it looked like the whole city must be on fire, and Leo wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. He wanted Gilt Hollow destroyed, of course. But he questioned the wisdom of fighting a battle in the middle of smoke so thick that it would be hard to see a few feet in front of him.

If any of the other shifters had similar doubts, it sounded like those doubts hadn’t kept them from attacking Gilt Hollow. The noise in the air was the only thing more startling than the smoke. Leo could hear shouting, screaming, and gunfire. He shivered, knowing that the gunfire was coming from the Gilt Hollow fighters. No one in Bear Hollow had guns.

“Shit,” Isa said as another round of gunfire sounded off. She had to know as well as he did that the noise didn’t mean anything good for the shifters. The two of them picked up their pace and broke into a full-on run. Leo figured the time had come to throw caution to the wind. If they hadn’t run across the guards by now, the guards were almost certainly back in Gilt Hollow. And if the sounds he was hearing were any indication, the shifters needed help. The decision was the right one. A few minutes later, Leo ran across an abandoned sword on the ground. He picked it up and inspected it, but there wasn’t much to learn. The sword was dirty, but not bloodied. It obviously belonged to one of the Gilt Hollow guards, but Leo had no idea why it had been abandoned in the middle of the trail. Had the guard been attacked and fled in terror, leaving his sword behind in order to run faster? There were no bodies around, so the guard hadn’t been killed. At least he hadn’t been killed on this part of the trail.

“Do you know how to swing a sword?” Leo asked Isa, holding the sword out to her hilt first. “You’re going to need a weapon of some sort if you’re going to fight in this battle.”

“I was trained in sword fighting from a young age,” Isa said as she took the sword and gave it a few experimental swings. “I’ve never used it in a real fight though.”

“Just pretend you’re in a practice match. Don’t think too much about the fact that you’re fighting real opponents this time. The general principles are the same whether you’re fighting a real or staged battle. Don’t panic and you’ll be fine.”

Isa nodded, taking a deep breath as she swung the sword a few more times. “What about you? What will you fight with?”

“I’ll shift and use my bear teeth and claws. I can do more damage with them than with a sword. What I wouldn’t give to have a gun, though. But I guess we have to make do with what we have.”

“I’ll make do with this,” Isa said, her voice sounding a bit more confident. “Lead on.”

Leo led them the short, remaining distance to Gilt Hollow. As Leo had expected, the smoke was so thick by the time they emerged from the forest that Leo could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He grabbed onto Isa’s hand as they ran, in hopes that he wouldn’t lose her. But with every step he took, the noise of fighting was louder, and he knew that hoping not to be separated from Isa in the midst of this chaos was like hoping for the sun to rise in the west. So he stopped running and pulled Isa to a stop as well. He turned to face her, putting his face inches in front of her own so that she could see him.

“Listen, we’re going to get separated up here. It’s inevitable, and trying to stay together is only going to cause us to waste mental energy and focus that we should be spending on attacking the enemy.”

Isa’s eyes were full of terror, and watery from all the smoke. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we should say our goodbyes now, because in the next minute or two we’re going to be pulled apart without a chance to actually say a proper goodbye.”

“O-okay.” She was trying to be brave, but even in the thickness of the smoke she couldn’t hide her true feelings.

“You don’t have to do this, Isa.” Leo took her face in his palms and held on tight, willing her to make the right decision—willing her to turn around and run for safety. She had done enough for the shifters. She didn’t have anything to prove. She didn’t need to fight in this battle for anyone to believe that she was sincere about wanting the shifters to have their freedom.

But Isa stood up straighter and stuck out her chin stubbornly. “I want to do this. I’ll be careful. But I know that if I’m fighting for the shifters, that I’m fighting on the right side. I truly believe that destiny will protect me. And if not, well, at least I’ll die with a clean conscience.”

Leo nodded. He knew arguing would be a waste of time, and they didn’t have time to waste right now. “Okay. Well then, I’ll see you on the other side. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Her voice was barely audible over the noise of the battle that seemed to be growing ever louder around them. Leo leaned in and kissed her lips, savoring their softness and sweet taste. He prayed that this was not the last time he would have a chance to kiss her. Their life together was just beginning. He could not lose her now. He would not lose her now. But as much as he wanted to hide her away and keep her safe, he knew that he had to let her breathe. He had to let her follow her heart, and if her heart was telling her to fight, then it was not up to him to stand in her way. He would stay close to her as long as he could, but he was not naïve enough to think that would be very long in a battle as crazy as this one.

Drawing himself up to his full height, he gave Isa’s hand one more squeeze, and did his best to smile encouragingly.

“I believe in you, Isa. You can do this. You’ll make it through.”

“I believe in you, too. We’ll both come out okay.”

She smiled at him, this time without fear, and he knew it was time.

“Here we go, once more into the breach!” he shouted, and then took off running, his heart filled with love and adrenaline. As worried as he was for Isa’s safety, he had to admit that nothing in the world was quite as thrilling as fighting for his freedom with the woman he loved fighting by his side.

 

* * *

 

Isa wondered if her throat was ever going to feel normal again. She had lost track of how long she’d been lost in the thickness of the smoke, but it had been long enough to make her hope she never encountered a situation like this again.

The noise around her was finally starting to die down, although there was still quite a bit of shouting somewhere off to her left. Isa drew on the last bit of strength she had and started to run toward the screaming. She couldn’t tell who was winning or losing this battle anymore, but she had promised herself that she wouldn’t stop fighting until the shifters had won or she was dead. Every muscle in her body ached, and she was sure the whites of her eyes must be completely red from smoke irritation. But she still had strength enough to swing a sword, so she was going to keep swinging it on behalf of the shifters. She owed them that much, after the way her family had treated them for generations.

Isa had managed to take out quite a few of the Gilt Hollow fighters, and to keep herself alive. But the fight had not left her unharmed. She had suffered quite a few punches and slashes from swords and daggers. Luckily, nothing seemed to have cut too deep, and she hadn’t lost a huge amount of blood. But the pain radiating across her body from the various wounds had been growing steadily, and Isa wondered how much more she could take before she was simply going to pass out from the overwhelm.

It doesn’t matter. As long as I can stay conscious and on my feet, I’ll keep fighting.

She hadn’t seen Leo since about the first thirty seconds of the battle. He had shifted into bear form as they ran toward the fighting, and Isa had thought that it would be easy to keep track of such a giant grizzly. But once Isa was in the midst of the battle, all she could see was a whirl of angry forms, shouting, punching, and slashing. Leo was lost in the chaos, and Isa knew that it would be a waste of energy to try to find him again. He’d warned her that they would be separated. She had to do her best to fight on her own.

And fight she did. Leo had been right about a real swordfight being pretty much the same as a staged one, as long as you didn’t let yourself think about it too much. Isa had always been decent at the practice fighting she’d done, and she kept telling herself this was just one more practice round. She’d held her own against men who were twice her size, and she’d taken down quite a few shocked attackers who hadn’t expected a girl to be able to best them so easily. Luckily for her, most of the people fighting didn’t even recognize her as Isadora Eastmore, daughter of the Emperor. The smoke was too blinding, and everything was in too much chaos for anyone to look closely enough to see who she was.

People were mostly surprised that she attacked at all, since pretty much all of the shifters had changed themselves into animal form. If there was a fighter in human form, that person was most likely from Gilt Hollow. Isa hadn’t seen a single shifter in human form in this battle since the moment Leo had shifted into his grizzly form, and she guessed the other Gilt Hollow humans had not either. That had probably saved her life on more than one occasion. No one with guns shot at her, because they assumed she was one of them. And those with swords didn’t usually attack her until she attacked them first. Once they realized she was fighting for the shifters, the Gilt Hollow fighters attacked her with gusto. But by then she’d had a chance to get the first move in.

How many more swings of her sword would she have to make before all of this was over, though? She was tired, and she desperately wanted to know whether Leo was okay. But still, the smoke and the shouting continued. Isa forced herself to keep running, and to think only of fighting the enemies who still lay ahead. If she started to overthink things, she was going to fall into despair.

Isa wasn’t sure exactly where she was, since the fires had destroyed so many buildings and made visibility so poor. But from the little bit she could see, she thought she must be somewhere near Gilt Hollow’s Central Square. Central Square was known for its glitzy, gold-plated statues and its oversized, decorative water fountain that shot water up fifty feet into the air. She couldn’t see any water now, but it was possible the fountain was malfunctioning amidst all this chaos. Someone might have destroyed a part of it that was vital to the operation of the fifty foot spout. Isa had seen several of the golden statues knocked over in the midst of the glittering streets, and she doubted anyone had dragged a statue very far, which meant they had been knocked over near here, placing Isa in Central Square.

Isa had never seen Central Square like this, though. Blood smears were everywhere, as were lifeless bodies. She tried not to stare at the still forms that littered the shiny roads made of glittering, gold-flecked cobblestones. Some were human bodies and some were shifters, but either way: the realization of how many people had given their lives today in this war shocked Isa to her core. This war was so unnecessary. If only her father had treated the shifters like people, everyone could have lived in peace and so many lives could have been saved.

It was too late for could-have-beens, though. Isa heard shouting, roaring and growling directly ahead of her, and she ran toward the sound, her hand on her sword and ready to fight. She wondered if Leo was up ahead, still fighting as well. Or was he already one of the lifeless bodies lying on the glittering, bloodstained ground? Isa gulped hard and forced away the thought.

Just focus on the fight at hand. That’s what Leo is doing, if he’s still alive.

Isa saw a group of Gilt Hollow guards up ahead, and with a loud, long scream she ran toward them, her sword outstretched and aiming straight for their hearts. The Gilt Hollow guards turned toward her through the smoky haze, and Isa could vaguely make out the expressions on their faces, registering shock. She felt a boost of confidence when she noted the fear in their eyes, and she braced herself for the moment when her sword would make contact with the first guard’s body.

But that moment never came. Before she reached the guards, she felt a sudden, sharp pain on the side of her head. Something had hit her, hard, and she lost her footing as she went tumbling toward the street. She had the horrible thought that she was about to join the rest of the lifeless bodies scattered across Central Square’s cobblestone roads, but before she had even hit the ground, everything went mercifully black.