“I know,” I said. My eyes scanned what I could see of the battlefield, while my back remained to the worst of the fighting. March and her group had backed off, the heroes were holding position at the woods to our left, and the Fallen were gathered across two farmhouses and the surrounding structures and fences, the two big buildings about two hundred feet apart. They were using them for cover, and as a place to drag their wounded.

Prancer’s group was having a harder time, further north. They had some vehicles they’d used to approach this area, but battle damage had rendered the vehicles immobile, and the trucks and cars didn’t offer much when they were trying to protect themselves from both hero and Fallen. Compared to the defensive line that Vista and Narwhal could provide, and the actual structures the Fallen had, the vehicles weren’t much, and the group had to work to huddle in the half-circle of vehicles.

Not that we were in a better situation.

The Valefor-controlled hostages filled the space between it all. The group was shrinking as hostages charged after one group or another and were incapacitated or trapped.

“If we don’t have a plan I want to go to Weld,” Sveta said, quiet. Her expression was grim, her face paler than usual in the gloom, damp with water.

“It’s a plan,” I said. I tried to sound confident. “We go to the heroes. We back them up.”

Sveta nodded.

Capricorn twisted around, looking at the situation behind us and to our right, where the heroes were. Orange lights began to flow across the gap, like fat, lazy fireflies.

Guillotines of ice or hard crystal flew from the heroes’ side into the mass of hostages. The guillotines weaved between the hostages, avoiding them, and slammed into the farmhouse the nearest group of Fallen were using for cover. A moment later, the guillotines disappeared, and the section of wall sagged without breaking.

Narwhal’s forcefields.

The Fallen cape with the horse’s head mask or helmet was facing Narwhal head-on, again. He created shadow duplicates, and they struck out at the forcefields as the things hurtled past or toward them. The effect was minor, changing the courses of the fields slightly, but as each construction tore past them, cleaving shadow duplicates in half, seeming to even hit the source of the duplicates, the guy persisted, and he produced duplicates faster than the fields cut them down.

Other capes in Narwhal’s group were turning focus onto him, and yet he was staying in the fight.

One of the lieutenants or leaders of a sub-family, it seemed.

Capricorn’s wall snapped into place, blocking my view. We hurried along it, using it for cover against gunfire, with Sveta lunging ahead to the far end of the wall with Rain in one of her arms. Capricorn lagged behind some, but he had to travel on foot.