A Fair Fight (25 page)

Not all of Riocard's forces heeded him, caught up in the battle. While they fought ferociously against the new advance, some were forced back, and others simply crushed or smashed aside. Tiernan likewise refused to give ground. Indeed, he challenged the rider of the lead beast, managing to duck aside as it rushed him, before climbing onto its back to stab the rider and put his spear through the back of the beast's neck. The beast came crashing down as Tiernan drew his sword to meet the creatures and maddened warriors rushing around and over the body. His troops and some of the Unseelie warriors, inspired by the feat, rushed to meet them.

While the Fomoire took the worst of it, one by one, the spears, brightly lit by Orlaith's magic, snuffed out as their wielders fell. A number of Riocard's less-disciplined troops fell as well, and more and more of the attackers fought past the skirmish to reach the front lines again. Inwar struggled to reorganize troops to fill in the gaps with more spears, but more of the beasts and madmen poured through the holes as they appeared, or as they were able to drag down defenders.

Riocard, his troops, and some of the delegates with their own guardsmen started engaging these wherever they could, before they reached the builders, the archers, the sorcerers, the other musicians, or the bard atop the table. For a moment, Megan looked for more cover, but what she saw was her father fighting off three creatures and Justin and Cassia readying themselves to defend her. So Megan raised her voice in her own small challenge to the Fomoire.

Justin cut down the first two attackers to reach him, though the second struck his shield hard enough to leave a deep dent in the metal. Cassia attacked one of the slave-drivers, trying to match his strength and greater reach with greater speed and ferocity. The giant beast, some sort of horrible combination of bull, saber-tooth tiger, and alligator, kept coming at Megan, until both leopards attacked it, testing the thickness of its scales with their claws. It kept tossing them loose as they leapt, climbed, and clawed, but each time, they risked teeth and horns to pounce again.

Two more combatants reached them, the madmen swinging wildly. Justin gave each his attention in turn, holding his ground without managing to find a good opening to counter-attack against his savage opponents.

Cassia, meanwhile, found herself disarmed when the giant managed to entangle her sword with the whip, pulling it from her hands. He raised the whip, whirling it and looking to Megan, as if the satyress was harmless now. Before he could lash the long, thorned weapon, Cassia charged, crashing shoulder-first into his waist. The blow didn't knock him down, but did force him to stagger, and drew his attention back to the satyress.

“
Sound the horn
—oof!” Catching movement at the corner of her eye as a madman climbed onto the table, Megan dove for a weapon that one of Justin’s opponents had dropped. She fumbled with the knife a little as the Fomoire rushed her. Before he could swing, a streak of black and amber streaked past his face. The Count clawed at the madman's eyes, resulting in a lot of screaming and face-grabbing.

In the moment that bought her, Megan managed to grab the wicked-looking knife and, remembering the lessons from Justin, plunge it into his stomach. Seeing no other immediate threats, but plenty of chaos in the field as he fell, she stood, and resumed singing while Justin and Cassia fought to keep her free to do so.

Ashling did one more pass in front of Megan, the pixie nodding to her before going to help Riocard. Megan followed the Count with her gaze, catching sight of Orlaith talking to Riocard. He nodded, and both turned back to the field. The Queen began to chant, and lances of fire erupted from the skies, raining down into the ranks of the attackers. She was reinforced by more of the fae sorcerers, attacking with more powerful magic.

Inwar had gotten the lines stabilized, but it was still a struggle, constantly trying to fill new gaps in the defensive line, counting on Riocard's troops and those the other delegations had brought to the conference to tend to those who had broken through. Things had stabilized enough that healers were starting to make their way to the front to start tending to the wounded, but a number of small battles still raged behind the lines.

With Ashling leading the way, Riocard and a small knot of his warriors plunged back through the line, which opened to allow this new attack through. Riocard gestured, and a blast of hurricane wind carried one of the giant beasts and its rider out of his way, sending them crashing into one of the runes, which set them on fire, though they fell only after the monster stumbled through some of the Fomoire ranks in a blind panic. Riocard and his warriors continued fighting forward, trying to reach Tiernan, the ogres, and anyone else still fighting out in the open.

Megan lost sight of it as the whip cracked against the table only a foot away from her, pulling her attention back to the fight between Cassia and the slave-driver. Cassia was still without her sword, but had driven her attacker back a few feet anyway.

“
Sound the horn and
Cassia, knife!” Megan sang as she tossed her acquired weapon to the ground near the satyress’s feet. Cassia rolled out of the way of an attack, sweeping up the knife in one hand before rising to face off with the giant again.

Justin finally managed to find an opening after he cut an attacker's weapon in two with the Claiomh Solais. He bashed the other madman in the face with his shield, then ran the unarmed fighter through. The remaining attacker didn't last much longer fighting alone.

The huge beast fighting the cats finally knocked Maxwell down onto his back, then reared up, raising oversized front legs to crush the cat. Jude timed his leap perfectly, snapping his jaws onto the beast's throat and digging his claws into its chest to hold on while he tore at the jugular. The beast howled, and finally tumbled backwards. Maxwell recovered and leapt onto its stomach when it fell, finding more success slashing the softer flesh there than he had with the scales lining the monster's back and shoulders.

Cassia finally got in a good attack of her own, dodging a strike with the whip and driving the knife into the slave-driver's knee. He stumbled and, this time, fell. She recovered her sword in the seconds that bought her, and by the time he'd struggled back up to one knee, she had her proper blade, which she drove deep into his neck.

With no more attackers around them, Megan looked back to the front in time to see Ashling guiding Riocard through the chaos as he led a contingent of wounded faeries out of the open and back to cover, with Tiernan and Jack-in-Irons among them. Jack had nearly all of his handful of colleagues; of Tiernan's village worth, there were only a few. Jack and the ogres rejoined the lines, while the others mostly had to stagger or be dragged to the healers.

“
We make
—Dad!” Megan stopped singing and rushed up to the line to make sure he was all right and to help with the healing. Justin and Cassia followed, moving to help reinforce the line until the spearmen closed ranks after Riocard, Tiernan, Jack, and rest had passed through.

“I’m fine, dearest,” the Unseelie King said. “Just need to not get carried away.”

“Oh.” Megan smiled. “Then we’re really in trouble.”

Tiernan initially refused healing, pointing a brownie with a ladleful of antidote toward one of his men. Megan's eye caught the rip in the front of Tiernan's suit and the black lines growing from the scratch across his chest as he moved toward Orlaith instead. Her sunset eyes stayed fixed on the battlefield as her magical support of the Seelie forces continued, but she spoke to him.

"My sympathies."

“
...But...How?" he said.

“
You were right that the Fomoire play for keeps. Of course, that was never what I was arguing with you about,” Orlaith replied.

“
We drilled for centuries.” He watched as Orlaith gestured, and a wave of heat disintegrated a whole row of attackers where they stood.

“
And we lay in wait for more than a millennium.”

"The Northman..." he began, still breathing heavily.

"The Northman understands what it is to fight for everything. We both fought Balor. We both lost."

"But your alliance, the efforts to gain more control... they weren't his ideas, were they? That was you."

Orlaith paused, enchanting another line of spears with the white flames, before looking back to Tiernan. "The General and I, we agreed. Those who came later…they hadn't fought the Fomoire. Didn't see thousands of our people die. They didn't understand. We had to be prepared for war."

Tiernan stared at his aunt for a moment, then looked away.

The Queen didn't skip a beat in her efforts. “I missed you too, Tiernan.”

The battle continued, but Inwar and Orlaith managed to reform the lines. Riocard rallied his own troops, sending them to fill in at any gaps that appeared during the fight. The tide began to turn. The Fomoire's savage front lines thinned, and some of the remaining beasts and taskmasters were finally broken enough to retreat.

There were a few moments of celebration and threats called after the retreat, but soon enough, Inwar gestured, pointing out that the fight had only begun.

Bolts of greenish fire rained down onto the field, blasting apart runed defenses. In the distance, the hills filled with movement. The forces used as shock troops and minesweepers were retreating, but the true Fomoire were just beginning a charge of their own.

Chapter 36: Outgunned

Even at a great distance, the effect of seeing the Fomoire coming was immediate and drastic. While most of the fae ranks held, others broke from the lines, while others froze, dropping their weapons and staring. Megan had felt the powerful fear effect before: meeting Peadar, fighting the first wight, the battle of Falias.

Thankfully, such experience made the rallying song come quickly to her mind without any help or reminder. She began to sing again and quickly felt the cauldron's power augmenting her own. More of the fae settled back into place, but even with that aid and Inwar's commands, any confidence boost the Faerie forces had gained from routing the first attack had disappeared.

The Fomoire rained fire of their own down on the battlefield as they ran, focusing on destroying the traps and obstacles in their way. The runed stones exploded into rubble, the spear emplacements burned, and the barriers crumbled under the sorcerous onslaught.

The faeries attempted to respond, with Orlaith leading the magical assault as soon as the Fomoire grew closer. Unfortunately, most of the magic turned on the Fomoire army dissipated as it neared their ranks, or exploded as if it was striking an invisible barrier. Orlaith's bright fireballs, the attacks by the djinn, and a few others made it through the protections, wiping out a couple of the infantrymen and wounding one of the true giants, but even their magic showed signs of being far weaker than intended.

As they grew closer, the giants started to take the lead, shaking the ground as they moved. Having heard about their proficiency with disrupting earthquakes, Megan looked towards one of the Native American delegations, seeing the ohdows collectively crouching, hands touching the ground, faces in deep concentration as they cast whatever magics they were doing to counter the shaking ground.

Elsewhere in the ranks, the faerie archers fired barrage after barrage into the skies. As with the magical assault, the arrows seemed to have limited effect. Some deflected away from their targets, some were intercepted by blasts and waves of greenish flame, and some stuck into the flesh of the giants without seeming to do much.

The Fomoire infantry wasn't far behind, forming a line of spearmen of their own. While they started out marching, as they closed in, they started to run as one. Right behind them, the cavalry advanced, but more cautiously. At their head, Megan caught sight of a singularly hideous creature, giant and sharklike. On foot, he still led the heavy cavalry easily. Despite his size, he wore fine armor, studded with twisted spikes that Megan guessed were of cold iron.

“If we stay like this …” Orlaith called to Inwar.

“I know. Instead, we should get closer to the sorcerers.” He raised his off hand, gesturing his troops forward. It began as a slow advance and turned into a charge, with the ljosalfar leading, weaving between the pits full of bodies and the smoking ruins of the barriers. Riocard quickly joined in, as did dozens of his followers. The ogres and more of the Unseelie followed suit. Others were more hesitant, but momentum gradually built up.

Megan quickly learned why the Queen and her general, two of the few who had previously fought the Fomoire, had changed tactics. As they charged, green fireballs pelted the battlefield. Some of those who were struck directly simply burnt to a cinder, while some of the more powerful fae survived, but were still reduced to writhing on the ground, covered in burns, with the black worm-like things expanding under their skin.

Xurde, who had worked among the healers during the previous battle, took a more active hand this time. He swept out from the back ranks and strafed the field below with breath of misty white that froze a rank of Fomoire infantry in their tracks. Some of the other fliers, such as the lightning bird of the Xhosa delegation, followed his lead, raining magic down on the field, or swooping down to make their attacks.

At a shout from Inwar, the pixies and sprites finally joined the battle, swarming from points all over the battlefield into their glimmers and murmurs. As a flying blanket of color passed over her, Megan felt the winds picking up, pushed ahead of them. As they advanced, Megan both saw why they'd been held in reserve and gained some idea of Ashling's comments about the power of the smallfolk in bunches. The green firey rain was all but extinguished in the skies. Whatever barriers the Fomoire had erected against faerie magic started seeming less effective, while Orlaith and the other sorcerers' own spells started proving moreso, striking down a number of the infantrymen, and even one of the thirty-foot giants, under concentrated fire.