Shattered

Chapter 29

I find meself royally pissed and quite happy about it. This is the kind of battle the bards were always singin’ songs about in the old days, where everybody’s mad and thinks they have a good reason to be that way. Me uncle would have loved it and wrote a song for sure. He’d call it “Rivers and Lakes and Bogs of Blood” or something. Probably something else—I’m shite at makin’ up songs. But I’m sure we’ll be stepping in large pools of blood soon, because the goblins keep coming and I keep killing them. I’m not sure they realize I’m a Druid, with an infinite energy supply and the ability to heal quickly. They don’t seem to expect me to move the way I do. They might be thinkin’ I’m the average bear.

The reason I favor the form so much is that I’m damn hard to kill this way, without a lucky spear thrust or one o’ those fancy hand grenades the modern soldiers like so much. If ye have a sword or an axe, there’s almost no way ye can get close enough to hit me without giving me a chance to hit you first. And if ye do hit me, why, you have to hack through a few inches of fat before ye get to something that matters. So I keep my head up and out of reach as much as possible, take the odd hits here and there, and kill the fecking bastards, because a bear’s strength multiplied with the earth’s strength equals a one-way trip to the dirt for the lads who run into me claws.

That’s not sayin’ I’m havin’ an easy time of it. I have three weapons stuck in me hide now, none of them feels good, and I expect there will be more before we’re through. Maybe a lot more. Maybe too many.

I could die here soon. I should have worked harder to convince Siodhachan to bring help, because feck a handsome chicken if I wasn’t right about Fand. But ye know what’s strange? I’m lovin’ the fight I knew was coming, with only one real regret: I wish Greta was here to fight alongside me. She’s already under me skin far deeper than these crude goblin blades.

Instead, I have a weepy Manannan Mac Lir on me left and a fiery Brighid on me right. I don’t feel sympathy for either of them, because none of us would be here now if they hadn’t spent so many years refusing to see the truth.

Strategically, the truth is that we are bent over and waiting to be pounded. We Druids have incredible power, but we’re not gods, and as such we’ll be the first to fall. The tide of foes doesn’t seem to end, and eventually one of them will push me under and I won’t get up. And while the Tuatha Dé Danann might last longer, they can fall, too, against odds like this. Brighid must have come to the same conclusion, for she stops spraying fire in the sky and becomes the fire in the sky, rocketing from the ground wreathed in flame and on a collision course with Fand. It’s impossible to miss, and as soon as she takes to the air, the crush of the charge stops, because no one wants to miss the show—it’s all about whether Brighid or Fand is left standing, anyway.

The sylphs protecting Fand and allowing her to float in midair lower her to the ground as Brighid dives down to confront her. When Fand plants her feet, she still stands head and shoulders over the goblins, and on me hind legs I stand eight feet tall, so I can see them well over the horde between us.

Fand sidesteps Brighid’s landing and stands unflinching as the goddess of fire attempts to barbecue her without the benefit of sauce. The sylphs bear the brunt of it, blowing the flames back and to either side. Seeing that it’s pointless to continue, Brighid douses the fire and has a go at Fand with the giant sword. I don’t expect it to last long, because Brighid has far more experience in battle and is fully armored, whereas Fand rarely fights and is naked. But Fand doesn’t try to parry or fence; she dodges and ducks every blow, inhumanly fast—faster than Brighid, her Druidic speed aided by sylphs—and she keeps looking for an opening in Brighid’s guard. Her eyes often flick to Brighid’s helmet, the only place where there is a gap in the armor, and I understand. She wants to make one strike with Moralltach, a solid hit that slips through the helmet and ends it—any strike that broke the skin would be sufficient, and she would never be able to penetrate Brighid’s guard any other way. The armor Brighid wears was designed and warded to fend off blows from Fragarach, which supposedly could cut through any armor, so I doubted Mortalltach would have any chance of penetrating it.

Tension rises as the duel lengthens, Brighid always missing but in guarded fashion, Fand doing nothing but dodging and waiting for an opening. Neither of them would ever tire, so it’s much more a duel of wits and skill. It takes a minute of this—a long time in battle—for me to realize that something is profoundly wrong. Why haven’t the bean sídhe screamed out the name of who was going to die? It’s not like their predictions of death are voluntary; when they know they have to shout it, and they’ve been yelling their throats raw during the whole battle. Now they’re silent, and it’s fecking creepy.

Me answer comes in the next five seconds. Seeing an opportunity after an overhead strike from Brighid misses and leaves the oversize sword edge in the dirt, Fand darts in and thrusts at the thin strip of space that allows Brighid to see through her helmet. Realizing that this was perhaps the only time she did not want to keep her eyes on her opponent, Brighid turns and bows her head as much as possible, and the tip of Moralltach strikes and etches a groove in the metal as it glances off. Fand tries to dance back out of range, but she had committed too fully, drawn just a hair too close. Brighid’s backhand sweep catches Fand underneath her own extended right arm and draws a red line across the tops of her breasts. It’s not fatal, but it rips loose a cry of pain from Fand and demonstrates that she’s overmatched. So she surprises everyone and scarpers without a word. The sylphs lift her up out of the circle and whisk her away at top speed to the far pasture, where a line of trees on the other side will allow her to shift away.

Brighid doesn’t have the best range of vision through that helmet of hers, and it takes her a few seconds to process that Fand has abandoned the field, leaving her army behind. By that time it’s too late for her to catch up, and she has her own people to worry about, besides being surrounded by a host of the Fae in rebellion. Everyone is stunned—especially the Fae, who just witnessed their leader flee after getting scratched—but at least we know now why the bean sídhe were silent.

Brighid is the first to recover. She shoots into the sky and hovers above the field in a nimbus of flame, her three-note voice booming over our heads. “It is over. Fand is gone, and I give all Fae a simple choice: You may have forgiveness or fire. If you wish forgiveness, leave the field and send an emissary to Court tomorrow to discuss with me in candid terms how I may best serve the Fae in the future. I truly wish to be a better leader for you and am eager to hear how I can become one. If you wish fire, however, continue to fight. Choose now.”

They choose forgiveness with fecking alacrity. The front line of goblins and spriggans cast nervous glances back at me, wondering if I’ll be bound by Brighid’s words or not. I nod and put all four paws on the ground, signaling that I have no wish to open up their bellies. The surviving airborne Fae, including the bean sídhe, disperse almost immediately, leaving the troops with no air support and only Brighid floating above them. They couldn’t wait to flee. The spriggans and Fir Darrigs take to the surrounding forest, and the goblins drain into the holes in the ground from which they’d spewed. That’s when I look off to me right and see that Siodhachan is down.