Chapter XX
CHAPTER XX
Aisling froze.
From the pits of black, they emerged: formidably large, waxen figures cautiously lumbering into the light. Her eyes were nailed to their moonlit faces, the wrinkled, scaly, balding heads of great bipedal beasts, who hunched their shoulders and walked like men, giant men. Their expressions were twisted with fury, blistered mouths stained with crusting blood. And on their bodies, they wore rusted armor, steel that appeared a millennium old, hanging from their brutish forms.
From the center cave emerged the largest ogre of them all, limping and dragging a mighty battle-ax across the expanse. His fangs bruised his bottom lip. And sliced diagonally across his face was an iron wound.
Aisling’s expression twisted at the sight of him. Her excitement quickly bled into horror.
The creature growled in Aisling’s direction, lifting his flared nostrils to smell her more clearly. To inspect what the midnight wind delivered from across the clearing.
Had Aisling believed in the gods, she would’ve prayed to them now. For this was how she’d always imagined the fair folk before she’d laid eyes on them for herself. Not even the trow held a flame to the bestial monstrosity that approached her now. These primordial, grim titans. The antithesis to the beauty of the Aos Sí. For while the Aos Sí inhaled from the life-breath of the forest, the fomorians exhaled its death.
“What is it?” a thin one asked, prudently cocking its head as it approached. Its voice was mangled and rough, pricking Aisling’s flesh till her shoulders shuddered.
“A mortal,” another replied. The creature hissed, boasting an inky tongue and a collection of razor-sharp canines.
In sight, there were perhaps fifteen fomorians emerging from each cave and crawling into the light. But Aisling knew there were more hidden away, watching. Waiting.
“How can you be sure?” the first said, blinking its saucer-like eyes bulging from its head. Eyes whose pupils were slit down the center like a wild cat’s.
“She looks like one,” the second said, inhaling deeply, ravenously, “small and pathetic. Delicious.”
Lir moved closer to the mortal queen, brushing her shoulder. Aisling willed herself not to respond. Not to reveal that the fae king stood beside her, invisible. For she knew not what wrath the fomorians would unleash should they know they were being herded into the fae king’s presence.
“But is it a trick?” The first fomori was now a measly pace from the mortal queen.
This close, Aisling could smell them. Beasts who reeked of manure and rot.
“She doesn’t smell like a mortal.” The horde of fomorians inched closer, surrounding her from every direction. Aisling held her breath. Could they smell Lir?
“Does it matter?” the second replied, joining the first’s side. “Just a lick won’t hurt. Or a bite.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Gnoll,” the first growled, leaning closer to smell Aisling more thoroughly. “She doesn’t smell of Sidhe either.” That ruled out Lir’s scent. Did his glamor mask even his smell?
“Look at her ears, round as a rat,” hissed another from the mouth of a cave.
“Perhaps she’s a banshee,” chimed a fomori crawling on all fours.
But it was the mighty shadow cast over her head that focused her attention, the largest fomori a pace away.
“What is your name, fleshling?” the fomori asked. His voice was guttural, deep, as though the surrounding mountains themselves addressed her.
Aisling cringed, opening her mouth to speak but her words ran dry.
“Can it not speak?” a gangly one said.
The largest fomori blinked at Aisling, lifting its skeletal, spidery fingers to touch the mortal queen’s hair. Aisling flinched, her stomach knotting. She could feel Lir’s body tense beside her own, his arm turning to solid stone.
“Aisling,” the mortal queen blurted, “my name is Aisling.”
The fomorians reeled. Exploding into whispers slithering between one another’s ears. Why Aisling’s name meant anything to these creatures, the mortal queen knew not. They reacted strangely, their bulging eyes lit with curiosity as they examined her more fully.
The great fomori before her, on the other hand, glowered at the mortal queen instead. Eyeing Aisling from head to toe until his scrutiny landed on Iarbonel’s dagger sheathed on her thigh.
“You speak my tongue,” Aisling said, unintentionally speaking her thoughts aloud.
“No,” the second fomori, Gnoll, said, “but it’s understood by mortals and varying species regardless, translated in the breath between us.”
“The trees said you came from the land of iron,” the largest said.
“Now, now, Balor. You’re in the presence of royalty,” Gnoll crooned, peeling back his lips in a gross, crooked smile, a broad smirk of dull, yellowed teeth .
“I expected as much. Could smell her in the winds,” Balor, the largest, said. “And what brings the mortal queen of the greenwood to fomorian land?” Balor moved closer.
“Do you come alone?” another fomori asked.
“Don’t be stupid, Kikkul. Where there is a queen, a king is never far behind,” Balor boomed, and Kikkul shrank at the insult, sinking back into the caves as the others snickered around him. “I’ve smelled him too.” Balor stabbed the earth with his axe, dropping to one knee. The earth rumbled beneath his great weight. And despite his kneeling position, he still towered over the mortal queen.
Closing his eyes, Balor leaned closer to sniff Aisling. The crater held its breath, listening to the fomori’s lazy, indulgent inhale, pulling his head back.
“You’re soaked in his scent, mo Lúra .”
Balor reached out to caress Aisling’s arm, and in response Aisling bit her tongue. It was all she could do to not recoil at the sight of the dried gunk buried beneath Balor’s jagged fingernails.
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. And even if there were, this is where she was to remain. She could do this. She could be brave. The mortal queen held her breath as Balor’s fingers hovered above her shoulder.
“Just a quick taste then, Balor,” another nameless fomori said from afar, “before he comes to fetch her. This is too perfect.”
“Yes, yes,” said another. “I thought we’d have to hunt her down. Steal her from his castle to undo this union. But now that she’s here, we can do it quickly. Nobody will know. Just a taste.”
“What makes you think you get a taste, Mul?” Two fomorians shoved Mul to the side.
“Just a finger,” Mul whined.
“Let him have the fingers. Meatless and useless,” one said, “but I claim the thighs.”
“I’ll skin you alive before you claim all that flesh, Bashuk,” a female growled from atop one of the caves.
Balor whipped his head and roared at the horde. He silenced their griping and sprayed both saliva and slimy, unidentifiable chunks across the rocky meadow. They flinched at the reprimand, knocking their knees as they withdrew, cowering.
“Just one b-bite, Balor,” another fomori pleaded, madly fiddling with his own fingers. “It’ll be even more delicious knowing it’s his bride. Knowing it won us our rights once more. The fury in the Sidhe king’s eyes?—”
The fomori stopped, unable to finish the sentence for the squeals of delight that possessed him.
Balor growled, “Don’t speak his name nor his title here.” And so, the fomorians shrank away, hiding behind one another once more.
Balor eyed the mortal queen from head to toe, bringing his icy fingers to her chin and examining Aisling’s face. Aisling jolted at the contact, willing herself to stay put. How long was Aisling to stand there before Lir intervened? How long must she endure this? It occurred to Aisling then, she should’ve, at the very least, inquired of Lir’s plan more fully.
And once Balor was satisfied with whatever he’d studied in Aisling’s mortal features, Balor’s pupils flared at the blood still dripping from Lir’s prick. Red and warm and wet.
Balor licked his lips with a thick, textured tongue.
“Why are you here, fleshling?”
“To speak with you,” Aisling said dumbly, biting her bottom lip.
“Perhaps he has given her to us as an offering,” a small fomori said. “To remedy the damage this marriage has done to us.”
“Yes, yes, after all, he wouldn’t leave his queen all alone should he care for her wellbeing.”
“It could be a trick,” one shouted from within the caves .
“Or she ran from him; you know how these mortals are.”
“Just one taste, Balor, then we can sort it out.”
Balor inhaled again. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, lost in ecstasy.
“Alright,” he relented, his raspy voice cracking mid-word. “One nibble. But do it quickly. Before and if he comes for her.” Balor grinned, yellow eyes glittering. “On the other hand, take your time. I’d indeed enjoy the look on his face if he found us mid-meal.”
The horde of fomorians scurried towards Aisling, descending from their caves like a colony of ants.
Aisling gasped and before she could move, Lir wrapped his hand around Aisling, reaching for Iarbonel’s dagger and puncturing the nearest fomori in the neck. And at the touch of iron, the ogre’s skin sizzled, boiling and dissolving the nearest flesh. Nothing like the clean cut she’d given to the trow with Lir’s axe. No. This iron was ruthless, blistering the fomori’s flesh like acid.
The impaled fomori collapsed on its back, writhing viciously as the others paused and looked on in shock.
“Iron! She carries iron!” they shouted. But soon their attention was not on her but on the fae king who materialized beside her. Glamour gone, he stood with one hand around Aisling’s, the other twisting the dagger into the fomori still gurgling on his own inky blood.
Balor’s jaw fell open as he stumbled back, wincing at the weight misplaced on his lame leg. The rest of the fomorians recoiled and clamored behind their leader as though death itself had been named. And perhaps it had.
“You filthy fleshling,” Balor growled, flicking his bulbous eyes between the mortal queen and the fae king at her side.
Aisling’s heart leapt as she beheld him: the fae king glimmering in the moonlight, crowned by the whispers of the bygone pines as he straightened, dagger dripping with fomori blood between them. Beheld him as if for the first time. A warrior and guardian to the arcane spirit of the forest.
The fomorians’ knees rattled, their fangs chattered, cold sweat caked their sickly chests and backs. They feared him. Observed him in both horror and fury. And Aisling found a strange, sadistic sort of joy bloom within her. That the creatures who’d delighted in her own torment were now the tormented.
Lir’s eyes lit with verdant storms, every muscle in his body taut with cold, calculated rage.
“How quick you are to break Sidhe law,” Lir growled, his voice the groaning of the oak in a storm.
Balor cackled nervously. “It is you who breaks Sidhe law, mo Damh Bán. No mortal, no Unseelie, and no Sidhe are to enter fomorian territory and if they break such law, it is within fomorian right to do with their intruders as they please.”
“You appear well acquainted with the law when it suits you, Balor. And, once said law has changed against your favor, you turn a blind eye.”
“And should we disagree with such change?” Balor took a step closer. “Tell me, mo Damh Bán , why jeopardize your allegiance with the Unseelie for humans? Those who burn our land, light fire to the isles?”
“To prevent the continuation of such crimes from harming either Unseelie or Sidhe,” Lir growled.
“You’re naive, mo Damh Bán . There is no such thing as peace between mankind and the Sidhe. Maybe you should’ve spoken with Danu before seeking an audience with the fomorians. She would’ve told you all there is to know. Or do you fear what the empress has seen ?”
Danu. The empress. Aisling turned her attention to Lir, in time to witness a muscle flicker across his jaw.
“You will obey me, Balor,” the fae king commanded, his voice startling the nearest Unseelie.
“And what if the fomorians reject your leadership?” Balor challenged and the surrounding hordes of Unseelie inched nearer, drawing their weapons. “We’ve heard rumors of what you did to the Cú Scáth. Only what the trees have whispered. How quick your loyalties change when the possibility of an heir is dangled before you,” Balor spat, pointing his axe at Aisling.
Lir stepped before her, shielding Aisling with his shoulder.
“Especially after what happened with the last. What was her name? Narisea?”
Aisling’s heart skipped a beat. The name of his first caera and mother of his passed child.
Lir grinned but it was humorless. Unholy. The boasting of fangs in the mouth of a hungry wolf. Aisling shivered, beholding the fae king as he curled his hands into fists at his sides. The knuckles turned bone-white around the hilt of her dagger.
“I’ll tell you what, mo Damh Bán ,” Balor spat, “the fomorians will give you your peace. Obey your Sidhe law. Vow to you their continued allegiance”—Balor licked his teeth—“in exchange for the mortal queen.”
Dread was a snake coiling around Aisling to release whatever breath remained within the mortal queen’s lungs. Aisling couldn’t see Lir’s face but every muscle in his back tightened, forcing him to roll his neck from side to side.
The fomorians shrieked with delight, whispering to one another wildly. Their hunger a bitter taste in the midnight air.
Lir licked his lips, glancing at Aisling over his shoulder.
“ Never let your guard down around him, Aisling. Never give him an opportunity to choose between you and what he covets .”
Aisling’s stomach twisted. It would be so simple for him to hand her over to the fomorians. Hide the truth of her violent death from the mortals for another handful of decades to ensure the treaty didn’t lose its value. Would Nemed demand to see proof of her? Or could the fae king trade her to the fomorians with no negative consequences?
“And should I refuse?” Lir asked, returning his attention to the giant before them.
“As Danu foresees, the Sidhe have already lost the war against the mortals. You are no longer my king,” Balor said. “In fact, after you failed to prevent the fire hand from destroying the feywilds you haven’t stood as my sovereign. Should you refuse to hand over the mortal queen, we will denounce your kingship once and for all. And, with no Sidhe king, there’s no Sidhe law; all those who find themselves unfortunate enough to stand in fomorian territory or elsewhere will be ours to do with as we like.”
The hordes of fomorians leapt up and down, slamming their weapons against the earth and pounding their chests. The expanse lit like the audience at a tournament, stretching their ugly faces and stripping their vocal cords to shriek.
Lir rotated the iron blade in his palm, toying with the haft.
“ I won’t let any harm befall you .” He’d promised the mortal queen, but Aisling didn’t know the worth of a fair folk’s word. To her father it meant nothing. But what did it mean to her?
And even as she repeated Lir’s words in her head, she doubted them. Vows, if Aisling were being honest, she hadn’t taken seriously herself. Hadn’t taken any of the fae superstitions seriously. For they were all nothing more than empty religion and poison from the Forbidden Lore.
“ Never let your guard down around him, Aisling. Never give him an opportunity to choose between you and what he covets .”
“ I won’t let any harm befall you .”
And just as the words began to lose their meaning, Lir flicked his wrist, releasing Iarbonel’s dagger. The knife spun four, five, six times, pegging Balor between the eyes. The mighty ogre gaped, eyes flooding from within. He swayed to the left, then the right, glazed orbs unblinking .
The hordes of fomorians held their breath. Balor was a giant. Surely such a small weapon was ill-equipped to slay the great fomori where he stood. Unless Lir had nailed him in the brain. Shot the target on a whim.
At last, Balor sagged backward, colliding against the gravel, a great thud that rattled the ground in which they stood. The image of a tree chopped down in the forest with a needle-like blade lodged in his creased, pale brow.
The next few seconds were a blur of fangs, armor, arrows, and blades as the rest of Lir’s knights swarmed the crater. They descended like the mighty warriors and the legendary heroes the Forbidden Lore described them as—a secret Annind had whispered when he’d drunk himself silly, and Aisling was forced to help him up the stairs to his chambers.
Swathed in tribal markings, these glorious fae warriors overtook the fomorians, slaying all those who dared to fight against them or their fae king. With lethal speed, Galad beheaded the fomori who charged him, sliding beneath the beast and swiping his whetted blade through Unseelie bone. Six fomorians surrounded Yevhen. He was outnumbered but thrived nonetheless. The knight thrust at one and kicked at another. But still they swung their kris blades and scratched with their blood-soaked nails. So, Tyr shot the Unseelie down till Yevhen could unsheathe his bloodied blade from the heart of the largest. One by one, Tyr’s reeds nailed the fomorians to the ground like flightless birds.
A hunched, crooked fomori leapt from the top of the cave to catch Gilrel unaware. Silently, it lifted its spear above its head. Poised to sink into the lady’s maid. Aedh, having spotted it the same moment Aisling did, shouted in warning. Gilrel spun on her heel, raising her throwing axe and swiping left. The blade made contact, digging across the chest of the Fomori. The creature screamed an unearthly bellow, tumbling across the dirt and down into the crater. But it wasn’t finished, it turned furiously, charging the marten. Gilrel adjusted the axe in her paw, positioning her feet and hurtling the axe towards the approaching Unseelie. The blade flew, lodging in the fiend’s neck. Fountains of scarlet oozed down its thick crane and before the creature could snort its last breath, Gilrel was already racing to unpluck her axe to wield at another.
And a mere pace before the mortal queen, Lir slit the throat of one Unseelie, spinning with impossible speed to drive his dagger into the belly of another. One of the larger fomori swung his spiked mace at Lir. The fae king ducked, sprung to his feet, and kicked the fomori in the jaw. The ogre flew, landing face down on the gravel. But Lir wasn’t finished. The fae king pounced atop the beast, lifted its head to slice open its neck in a movement so quick, Aisling scarcely saw it occur.
His expression was feral, devoid of the kingly fair folk who breathed life into death. Turned black to green. Now he was the wild savage, all bloodthirst and fury, rippling with corded muscles visible even beneath his leathers. His slim figure cut through the fomorians as a deathly shadow. The same animal that had slain the Cú Scáth the night of the Snaidhm .
The mortal queen scoured the battleground for her dagger. No longer was it lodged in Balor’s skull. Somehow amidst the chaos, it had disappeared. It could be anywhere, buried beneath the bodies of fomorians steeping in their own sticky blood.
Lir grabbed Aisling’s wrist and spun her towards him. Hiding the mortal queen in the curve of his chest, Lir raised one of his twin axes above his head and hurtled it towards a fomori who—had Lir not pulled Aisling away—was an inch from beheading the mortal queen. The blade flipped, at last impaling the fomori in the stomach. But there was no time to rejoice. Another ogre, standing atop the center cave launched a shower of arrows at Lir and Aisling. The fae king reached for the shield from one of the freshly deceased, falling to his knees and raising the rusted contraption above both their heads. Seven hollow pangs struck the center of the shield and when Lir tossed it to the side, Tyr had already shot the fomori down, the bestial thing strewn across the arch of the cave with a reed pulled through his left eye.
Aisling couldn’t tell how long this chaos continued. Red seeping into the crater till the mortal queen believed it would surely transform into a shallow lake before the Aos Sí had finished. Mightily, they slayed all who threatened themselves or their comrades, deigning to approach all those fomorians who hid in the caves or cowered behind the mountains. Even those who wept over the recently dead. No, those were left untouched.
“Go,” Lir shouted at her during a feint. “Take Galad and hide in the forest. I’ll come find you.”
Aisling hesitated. Her dagger was still here. Still lost somewhere on the ground, perhaps lodged in the gut of the dead.
At last, Aisling nodded her head and turned to search for Galad, unaware that Gnoll approached her from behind. She scrambled, stumbling through the chaos, tripping over bodies and primeval armor. Aisling’s head swiveled on her shoulders, searching for the sapphire-eyed knight. He’d be looking for her too if Lir had requested it. But all Aisling could see, could determine from the bedlam, were weapons flying, limbs kicking, screams of pain, the crunch of broken bones, and then Galad pinned beneath a large Fomori, struggling to free himself. Aisling paused, searching for something, anything, to help. To make use of her increasingly useless self. But there was no time.
Gnoll tackled the mortal queen from behind, sticking her to the rocks. Aisling screamed but the sound was lost amidst the discord.
Ice seeped beneath Aisling’s flesh as Gnoll held her against the earth. The fomori rubbed his corrugated tongue atop her clavicle, inhaling and savoring the scent of her mortal flesh, eager to sink his teeth into her skin and munch on her bones.
“You do smell strange, fleshling,” Gnoll drawled. “I’ll eat half of you today and half tomorrow.”
Aisling screamed, thrashing wildly to no avail. A mortal man could pin Aisling to the ground easily, and so she stood no chance against an Unseelie thrice her size. Fae and mortal warriors alike feared for their lives before the Unseelie, fighters trained and bred for bloodshed. So, the prospect of Aisling, nailed to the earth before this ravenous, insatiable aberration was as certain as death itself.
None appeared to hear her screams as she writhed beneath Gnoll, too distracted by their own brawling to behold the fomori widening its gaping maw to peel apart her skin. Six fomorians surrounded Lir with more on their way, his vision obscured by their massive bodies.
“Please,” Aisling begged, for pride seemed useless now. Tears streamed down her cheeks. A wave of hysteria washed over the mortal queen, tossing her like a violent sea till she knew not which way was up and which was down. She grew numb to his touch. Deaf to the bedlam surrounding her. Blind to the night.
Was she dead? Killed by the fomori so quickly? Without as much pain as she’d anticipated? Or perhaps horror consumed her? Fury? She couldn’t tell, both blended seamlessly, slapping at her inner walls to be let loose. A sentient, eager, tempest pleading to be set free. Aisling fought the urge, the desire to allow such a thunderous rage to spill forth from every pore in her body. Like the impulse to drink when one is thirsty. To eat when one is hungry. To sleep when one is tired. To run when one is afraid. To scream when one is angry. To tear away the bridles of civilized society.
The lust for such release scared Aisling. For now, it was not only she who occupied the sentiency within her but another whose name she knew not. Someone else asked to take control. To stoke the embers that hungered for a kill, embers looming in her periphery since the trow. Even the Cú Scáth. And what’s more, she wanted to hand over control to this sentient, persuasive creature within. Needed that vengeance so clearly, it brought more tears to Aisling’s eyes.
So, Aisling complied to the voice within her, inhaling as deeply as she was capable and when she exhaled, the world spun back into motion.
It was painful. Alarming, like the sudden bang of a loud, unexpected crash. But a crash that whirled around her in not only sound but also sight and feeling. For when Aisling opened her eyes, she beheld Gnoll leaping off her, swaddled in amethyst flames.
The fomori danced. He swatted at the fires enveloping him, but it was useless. The more he struggled, the greater and more brightly the fire burned. And, once Gnoll realized this, he turned towards Aisling, horror swimming in those yellow pits for eyes.
The mortal queen crawled backwards, clawing at the earth beneath her. Gnoll knew he was dying, eager to take Aisling with him. The fomori stumbled towards her, the scent of his burning flesh rancid. Aisling floundered to her feet in search of a weapon. There was no time. Gnoll lunged, flying towards her like a pale, violet breath of flame.
The mortal queen squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the impact.
It never came.
When Aisling opened her eyes, Filverel stood behind the Fomori, a sword staking the creature through the center of its chest. Gnoll stared at Aisling, eyes vacant. And as if they knew, as if the fire listened for the beating of the Fomori’s heart, the flames stilled, dimming until only smoke swathed the Unseelie’s charred corpse.
Filverel slipped his blade from Gnoll’s chest. Aisling soured at the slushy sound of it. The fomori slumped to the ground, a blackened pile lying amongst countless of his dead comrades. For now, the mountain clearing was a graveyard of Balor’s horde; only a handful, those who’d chosen not to attack, retained their lives, scurrying into the caves from which they’d emerged.
Filverel wiped his sword on the body of one of the deceased before sheathing it on his back. The fight had loosened his braid, strands of white-blonde hair falling across his blood-splattered face.
And once his eyes found Aisling’s, he considered her, circling like a vulture. But there was something more in the glint of his opal stare. Something Aisling hadn’t seen before.
“What are you?” he asked.