Each would have a black knife bonded to him that could dissolve and re-form like his body, but as such it was magical and couldn’t penetrate my aura. Granuaile and Oberon could be hurt by those knives, however, so I wanted the dark elves to try to stab me all they wanted while Granuaile bushwhacked them.
As I pelted down the hill and crossed the field to their position by the road, I noticed that they weren’t heading for trees on the far side of the road or forming up to face me. They were remaining in their positions, solidifying briefly and then going smoky again but waiting for me to close the gap.
That was odd. Alarm bells went off in my head and I stopped yelling as I tried to figure out what was up. There were no telltales of a magical booby trap, but perhaps they decided to go with something more mundane. They could have planted mines around their position and I would blow myself up.
Oberon, tell Granuaile to approach on the road. There might be mines.
I contacted Carpathia. //Query: Shallow buried metal ahead of my current path?//
//Yes//
I stopped running. //Show me//
The images filtered into my head. A semicircle of M16A2 bounding anti-personnel mines surrounded the dark elves on either side of the road but easily two hundred feet from their position. It was an American design; they were scattered throughout the Middle East and Asia. Step on one, remove your foot, and the mine would pop out of the ground about three feet into the air before detonating and spraying shrapnel for a hundred feet in every direction. To avoid detection, they would have been wiser to plant the modern blast mines that used a minimum of metal, but they probably were counting on me being stupid. I was still a safe distance away and could detonate them remotely. I’m not brilliant at shifting earth, but I can move a bit of topsoil when I need to.
Oberon, tell Granuaile to stop and hit the deck for a few seconds.
Targeting a circle of sod near me, I bound it to the top of the first mine. The turf flew through the air and triggered the bounder when it landed and rolled off. The explosion boomed in the night, and shredded bits of iron sprayed out and fell harmlessly between us. I repeated the exercise until all the mines had been detonated.
Silly dark elves. Earth is for Druids.
Still they refused to move. When they solidified, they were looking in my direction, but they kept their positions by the road. That meant they had some other kind of protection and wanted me to charge in. I wouldn’t do that, because doing what the enemy wants is tantamount to taking a bath with a kitchen appliance. They might have another ring of those plastic mines after all. Carpathia would have a tough time sensing them, except perhaps as displaced soil.
Warn Granuaile to look for more booby traps. They’re too comfortable there. Take them out from the maximum distance possible.
<Okay,> Oberon said.
I beckoned the elves to come forward, but once they saw this—which proved they had excellent night vision—they remained solid and copied the motion, white smiles splitting their faces. I smiled back and watched one on the far side of the road take a throwing knife in the side of his neck. So nice of him to remain still and present a target like that for Granuaile. His partner immediately went smoky, but the remaining dark elf on my side didn’t see it happen, because he was facing me. I kept smiling at him and gesturing, and in another couple of seconds he went down too. The last dark elf had to turn solid after his five seconds were up, but he tried to be clever about it and solidified in a crouch, presenting a smaller target. Granuaile anticipated it and nailed him anyway. It wasn’t a fatal shot, catching him in the shoulder, but my theory proved true: They couldn’t dissolve their substance once their skin was broken. He clutched the knife and cursed in Old Norse, remaining crouched on the ground.
Tell Granuaile to head back to you and leave the knives. We’ll get her some more. He’s neutralized now, and I don’t want to risk walking into a trap we can’t see.
After a pause, Oberon replied, <She says last one to the hound is a really old guy.>
I grinned and sprinted back up the hill, leaving the lone dark elf behind to watch the bodies of his comrades melt to black tar. A regular infusion of Immortali-Tea might be keeping my body from aging, but Granuaile made me feel young again.
Chapter 3
The only way dark elves and a vampire could have been waiting at that particular spot long enough to plant land mines was if somebody had known we’d be running through there. That suggested a couple of things: Either the Olympians tipped them off—which I thought unlikely because they wouldn’t achieve their measure of glory if they let someone else kill me—or someone was following the Morrigan’s movements and made an educated guess about our route. That someone was most likely Fae. Few others would have a chance to move around the Irish planes without being seen.
Guessing our route wouldn’t have been that difficult if one assumed we were headed north; there were few passes through the Carpathians, and following a river was one of the easiest ways to shake a tail—you cross it, you cross it again, you pretend to cross but really you just run in the shallow water until you reemerge a bit upstream on the same side. Sitting on a river that led more or less straight to the pass was a fair gamble.
I said to Granuaile, “We may have a faery tail.”
<Yeah! This is the kind of faery tale with children who wander off and get in trouble in the forest. Usually they die because they don’t have a wolfhound along—or parents. You ever notice the rampant child neglect going on in faery tales?>
“No, Oberon, I said we might have a faery tail, as in a faery who is tailing us.”
My hound whined. <English is stupid sometimes.>
“Look up once in a while. It’s clearly not only the goddesses hunting us. We still have vampires and dark elves to worry about, and I think they’re getting help from someone in Tír na nÓg.”
“Does anyone like us?” Granuaile asked, an edge of bitterness to her voice. “Because I’m thinking maybe we should go hang out with them if we survive this.”
“Yeah. We should probably get out of Europe for a while if we can.”
Grauaile exhaled quickly, banishing wishful thinking and returning to practical matters. “But first things first, right? We have to get out of this fix. Would it be ridiculous to booby-trap our trail?”
“No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s strategically necessary.”
“Agreed. Even a failed trap will cause them to slow down and be wary for more. We should make a pit trap with spikes in the bottom. You make the pit and I’ll make the spikes.”
I grinned at her. “A cold suggestion of mayhem? That’s hot.”
Granuaile dropped her staff, stepped forward, and placed her hands flat against my chest. Her face darted toward mine for a quick kiss but then pulled back at the last instant, leaving me with the heat of her breath and the scent of strawberry lip gloss. I don’t think she was wearing any—beauty products tend not to survive the rigors of shape-shifting—but I always smelled it now, regardless; the memory of it was indelibly linked with the sight of her lips. She pushed me away, hard, and shape-shifted to a horse. She picked up her staff in her mouth and galloped north at full speed, leaving me bewildered and more than a little wistful. Oberon’s mental groan came a few seconds later.
<She says if you want any, you have to beat her to the other side of the Carpathians.>
I broke into a wide smile before dropping Fragarach’s scabbard on the ground and shape-shifting to a stag. <Giddyup!> I said to him, picking the sword up in my mouth.