Page 86 of When the Sky Breaks

“Soon.”

The night ground on. It was nearing ten o’clock. We still hadn’t reached Dale City. But suddenly something on the road felt different, wrong. There was something in the trees. Neal pulled back his horse, gesturing for me to do the same. I expected deer or maybe coyotes.

But instead we were suddenly face to face with four large masked men, armed to the teeth.

“This doesn’t have to be difficult,” one of the bandits said. “We’d prefer if it wasn’t.”

I shot Neal a panicked glance. He simply nodded in Ansel’s direction, otherwise unmoving.

“Let’s not do anything hasty,” Ansel said. “We’re just trying to travel up to Washington.”

“And you’ve picked a toll road. You can pay up nicely. Or . . .” The bandit trailed off, pulling a gun.

I glanced back and forth between Neal and Ansel waiting for someone to do something.

“Just tell us how much you want,” Neal said. He sounded eons calmer than I felt. Then again, he always sounded calmer than I felt.

“Depends how much you’ve got,” one of the highwaymen replied with a sneer. And then he fired a shot straight up into the air. And then the horses panicked. I reached out instinctively, to the horses, yes—to calm them. But into the surrounding woods too. We were seconds away from a gunfight. And maybe, just maybe, I could stop it.

As my gentle gelding reared and fought, terrified by the shot, I felt something tugging at the edges of my consciousness.

A big predator. Maybe two? I wasn’t entirely sure. I didn’t bother to check.

And then I felt my magic drain. More than I anticipated. And suddenly five full-grown black bears burst through the trees, barreling at the bandits and huffing aggressively. A cub followed, barely the size of a spaniel.

I watched with a bizarre sense of detachment as the bears trundled along, growling and baring their teeth, until the highwaymen were far down the road. One of the men dropped his gun as they stumbled over each other to get away.

I felt myself start to slip from the saddle, horse still pawing at the dirt, unsettled by the upset. And I fully expected to hit the ground—hard. Neal was still in the saddle. Ansel too. There was no way either of them would be able to intervene.

But I didn’t. Instead I fell on something soft, fluffy, yielding—a bear.

Thirty-Six

Neal

“Sorcha!” I shouted, slipping off my horse and sprinting over as I watched Sorcha start to lose balance in her saddle. But the bear was faster. The biggest one—a massive black bear that had to be near five hundred pounds—simply lay down on its back, easily cushioning her fall.

I pulled up short as I watched the bear carefully, gently paw Sorcha until she rolled off its furry chest, then get up and lumber back into the trees, chuffing and nodding at the other bears to follow.

“That’s one way to avoid a shoot-out,” I heard Ansel muttering from the other side of the road.

I knelt beside Sorcha. She was conscious, groggy though.

“Are you okay?” I asked, brushing hair back from her forehead with one hand as I felt her over for injuries with the other. Her pupils looked fine. She wasn’t moving like she’d broken anything important.

“They’re so soft, Neal,” Sorcha mumbled. “So. Soft.”

“And you summoned them,” I said as I pulled her up to sit, dusting her off. “Can you move your fingers and toes?”

Sorcha nodded.

“Did you mean for six of them, lass?” Ansel asked.

“One was a baby,” Sorcha replied. “That doesn’t count.”

“So did you mean for five?” Ansel clarified.

“I meant to summon a big enough predator to drive them off.” Sorcha nodded down the highway where the bandits had fled. “Didn’t stop to check what it was.”