“What was that?” Finn asked, lifting his head from studying the hare spitting fat into the fire.

  “Sounded like a slap,” Bee said, staring over the fire at the cave entrance.

  “Two slaps,” Finn said as another echoed from the cave’s depths.

  Someone else is using the portal.

  Dagda had stressed the need for secrecy, so she doubted they were sent by him, meaning whoever sent Bren might also have sent the newcomers. If it had been any other portal, Bee wouldn’t have leapt to that conclusion. Anyone arriving here at the butt end of the Kingdoms had to be involved in events.

  But to do what? The same question Finn voiced earlier came to her as she stared hard into the darkness.

  The firelight didn’t stretch far, so she couldn’t see anything. Those in the cave were keeping very still. The longer nothing stirred, the more Bee wondered if the slapping noises were some sort of natural phenomenon. Her doubts lasted until she heard a twang.

  “Watch out,” she yelled as the orange flash of an arrowhead reflected the firelight.

  A loud thock told her Finn had avoided the missile, which, when she looked, was quivering in the gnarled old tree behind them. Someone cursed in the deeper shadows, and she heard a whispered argument. Despite the sibilance of the argument, Bee thought the cave dwellers were women.

  “Keep yer head down,” she called, nodding when she saw Finn ducked behind the tree.

  That was quick for a tracker.

  Standing, Bee held her hands apart, curved as if holding a large ball, and concentrated on drawing draíocht. As she concentrated, a fizzling and crackling red sphere grew in her hands. When it was the size of a large ball she threw it into the cave and waved her hands as if it had burnt her palms. At the same time, the archer let fly another arrow. When it passed through the red ball, the missile shaft crumbled into ash, and the iron point dropped to earth.

  “Prepare yerself,” Bee warned, just as a wail of pain erupted from the cave and two figures all in black ran out. They were tall and hooded, carrying longswords; their curves were feminine, and their stances were those of trained fighters. Assassins, she thought. Remembering Dagda’s words about trackers being just trackers, Bee worried Finn might be unable to fight them both. Glancing at him, she saw he was crouching with one foot before the other, legs apart, knees loose and bent slightly. His sword and knife were angled up. He was waiting for the assailants to make their move. Judging by his expression, he more than enjoyed a fight.

  Just a tracker, me left butt cheek.

  The female killers were circling Finn warily, their swords held in the right close stance, holding the swords two-handed, hands beside their right hips, blades angled up. They appeared to know Bee would need time before she could tap draíochtagain, if she even could. The exhaustion of a Scourge war still weighed heavily, so even a simple heat hex left her feeling magically flat.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The way they circled, she was constantly in view of one or the other, but only from the corner of an eye. Any fast attack would not be detected quickly enough. With speed, Bee had an advantage. She had never needed an invitation when an opportunity presented itself. Drawing her long, needle-thin dagger, she jumped toward the nearest killer, who spun and assumed a high stance, ready for a sweeping stroke that would cut Bee from shoulder to hip. The attacker’s left arm was raised for balance, which Bee had foreseen and knew was a fatal error. The killer thought she would use normal forms, but instead of preparing to parry a stroke as another swordfighter might, Bee ducked in too close for the sword to be of use.

  The attacker’s silence made her neck hairs rebel.

  There wasn’t even a grunt as she grabbed the woman and she realised her predicament. Hugging the killer close with her left arm, feeling the hardness of tight muscles where a breast should have been, Bee plunged her knife into the woman’s side under the balancing limb, once, twice, three times, the first of Bee’s actions to elicit any sound from the killer. Distracted by the movement and the loud grunt, the other turned toward the deadly dance.

  “Ebliu!” she called in a high-pitched voice, half turning away from the tracker.

  Ah, they are lovers, Bee realised.

  Seeing his opportunity, Finn wasted no time in slashing his blade in a diagonal arc, which cut the other attacker from shoulder to gut, the exact stroke her partner had intended to use on Bee. The assassin dropped her sword and fell to her knees, keening, trying to hold the gash together so her intestines wouldn’t flop out onto the dusty shelf before the Cave of Cats.

  One look convinced Bee she was no longer any threat.

  Ebliu was lying on her side, knees drawn up. Bee crouched and threw back the hood, surprised to see a Fae woman staring defiance from a face in the rictus of a painful death. She should have known by their height they weren’t human killers. But then, of course, they couldn’t be human and use the portals.

  Ban Sidhe killers, she said in her mind. Bee’s heart leapt as she realised the implications.

  “Who sent ye?” she asked.

  The killer just grinned, showing blood streaking her teeth and bubbling with each laboured breath. The knife had punctured a lung, and the would be killer could count her lifespan in moments. Ebliu would either drown in blood or bleed to death, neither very pleasant nor taking too long.

  “This one’s already dead,” Finn said, bending to wipe his blade on her cloak. “Both women.”

  “Aye. Ban Sidhe and lovers, it would appear. Even stranger than me freezing me butt cheeks off on that Tuatha-forsaken twig.”

  “So, that slapping was them using the portal?”

  Bee shrugged. “Aye. I should have known, except I ain’t ever heard a portal being used before. Always been through on me own, like.”

  “How d’you get them out the cave?” Finn asked.

  “Heat. It was a heat hex. Simple but effective. Difficult to trace.” Easy to perform for one as tired as I am, she didn’t say. “Chief told me to keep me head down. Complex hexes act like signal beacons to anyone watching for them.”

  “Who’d be watching?” Finn asked, his expression incredulous.

  Danu for one, Bee thought, but said nothing. It was not the right time to tell him what her Master suspected. He’d been adamant that she could trust the tracker, but Bee never trusted easily. Until she was sure of Finn’s loyalty, she would keep a lot of what she knew to herself.

  Not that I know much, she admitted.

  “Ye sleep. I’ll keep watch,” she said, picking up her bedroll.

  “I’m gonna eat some hare first. It’s only a little charred. Besides, I don’t think we’ll have more visits tonight. And if we do, we’ll get the warning slap.”

  “Aye. Ye’re right. Still, I’m going to put me bedroll away from the cave, so I am.”

  “Not too far from the fire. Don’t forget the wolves.”

  “I’ve not heard any wolves,” Bee said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Aye. That’s the scariest thing, I reckon. Silent as desert mice, they are.”