Chapter 55

Before Morgana stepped forward to meet the Sidhe delegation she first gave the three women in our party the ability to understand what any member of the Sidhe or Nephilim said; then she also protected each one by placing on them a small Null ward that would shield their minds to any mental probe.

“Please direct any comments to me as only I will do the speaking other than being announced by John if the old forms are to be observed,” Morgana requested politely.

“Yes, Mage Morgana,” they all replied.

“Observe their reactions, their attitudes will tell us all we need to know,” Morgana went on, speaking to her companions. “If challenged directly, request a champion and allow John to deal with the challenger if it’s a Sidhe; use your judgement if it’s a Nephilim but be aware they will probably be Malakha.”

“Why can’t you deal with a challenger, Morgana? asked Dorry curiously.

“The old forms only allow for the challenged to request a champion. They’d have to be insane to challenge me; nor as the head of the party could I take up the role of champion. John is in this instance the equivalent of my ‘squire’ and he takes on the role of champion,” Morgana explained. “I also expect whoever does it will underestimate John and die quickly and violently, as is usual in any instance involving him in similar circumstances. That said, Marja, Nell, feel free to tear any Nephilim apart if you believe you can do so if challenged.”

“I can look after myself as well, Morgana,” Dorry said quietly.

“Your weapon will probably not penetrate a warded shield quickly enough, Dorry, and the Null charm won’t protect you against physical attacks via magic,” Morgana replied. “Trust me, leave it to John.”

“Yes, Mage Morgana,” said a slightly chastened Dorry.

“Lead the way, John, and let them speak first. They’re the ones requesting a parlay, that and whoever speaks first is regarded as subordinate,” Morgana chuckled.

“Yes, my Mage,” I replied and stepped forth leading Morgana who was followed by the three women.

We approached the Sidhe party and I noticed immediately that there were two Nephilim amongst them in positions of lesser ranking and that the leading Sidhe was positioned behind his ‘herald’ as Morgana was behind me. All were observing me carefully and I deliberately put on an expression of bored disinterest.

For five minutes both parties simply waited each other out. Trying in the Sidhe’s case to position themselves as dominant, in Morgana’s case to simply wait them out as she really had nothing to say to them ... beyond a few choice insults as Arch put it.

“I present to you Lempe’ Kanu’Waer Kuru Goibhniu, Daoine Sidhe of the returned, weaponmaster of High Queen Oonagh and liege Lord of this world,” the herald finally announced.

“I present to you Lady Morgana, Dhaerowathil ... Sidhe-bane,” I replied forgoing all Morgana’s titles yet adding one I knew would give great offence in response to the herald’s eclectic boast of Goibhniu being the king of this world.

“What matters your poor attempts at grandeur,” sneered the herald.

“About as much as a claim to a world that one has neither conquered nor been recognised as liege Lord,” I chuckled.

“Queen Oonagh herself gave title to this world to the weaponmaster,” boasted the herald.

“And I gave my Mage the title of Dhaerowathil, a title earned, not given by some petty Queen who has no claim to our allegiance, nor to this planet from whence the Sidhe were driven like lemmings off a cliff,” I replied with a contemptuous tone.

“Enough!” came the voice of Goibhniu. “You waste my time in a petty dispute over what has been given by the once ruler of this realm!”

“Once, being the distinction,” I replied airily.

“I call upon you to surrender to me, your rightful liege!” he snarled, addressing Morgana.

“You are no liege of mine, Goibhniu, lle naa haran e’ nausalle,” Morgana replied calmly stating in Sidhe that Goibhniu was liege only in his own imagination.

“Then I will crush you, petty human,” he stated.

“I doubt it. Your forces have been driven from the field with little or no effort on our part, despite your outnumbering us by five to one,” Morgana chuckled.

“Pah, you have yet to meet the Daoine Sidhe in combat!” Goibhniu retorted.

“We did, though we did not care for the taste, Mage Morgana,” Marja interjected. “Still, we are willing to try again.”

“Agreed Marja, though I expect them to run as they did then,” Morgana replied.

“The Sidhe do not run!” roared the herald.

“Dead ones don’t, no,” Marja replied directly to the herald. “Live ones do.”

“I challenge this ... this ... Nadorhuan! To a duel for her base lies,” screamed the herald.

“How typical, he cannot refute the facts yet seeks to still the voice of the accuser,” snorted Marja. “I accept for you are as nothing to the Zielona Gora Lycana.”

We all stepped back as the herald drew his blade and advanced on Marja, clearly expecting her to draw a blade of her own, or run. Instead she stepped inside his guard so swiftly she seemed to almost blur and her head flowed into that of a wolf as her jaws closed on the throat of the suddenly stricken herald to clamp down and draw golden blood before he tore free. Marja then completed the transformation and leapt forward again to knock the herald down clamping down on his sword arm and literally ripping it from its socket, taking a wicked knife from his free arm to her shoulder which drew blood but healed almost immediately.

The herald despite his terrible wound hit Marja full on with balefire only to scream in horror as she came through it ablaze to land and roll over him leaving both of them aflame. Marja then rose and went through a rapid series of transformations as the flames of the balefire were consumed before advancing on the now dying Sidhe.

“Mereth en draugrim,” she said quietly as the light went out of his eyes and his body crumbled to dust.

“A feast for a wolf indeed,” Morgana replied reaching out and squeezing Marja’s shoulder.

“Still tastes like shit,” she murmured with a slight grin, looking directly at the impassive Goibhniu.

“Perhaps it will grow on you?” Morgana replied.

“God, I hope not!”

“So much for the base lies,” Morgana said speaking to Goibhniu.

“You can believe what you wish, prey. Reality is another matter and you simply cannot win against our numbers and defences, nor stop us withdrawing as we see fit, should the mood take us,” Goibhniu hissed.

“Wishful thinking on your part again. Your numbers will not matter. You will not be able to defend against what we will bring to this battle. You may surrender now, Sidhe, and save yourself the ignominy of explaining yourself to your mistress,” Morgana rebuked.

“Your magic and your weapons are no match for ours, foolish prey. I can see my offer for you to withdraw was in vain, let it be unto the death, your death naturally,” Goibhniu chuckled before stalking haughtily away from the parlay.

“Gotta have the last word,” I chuckled.

“They do, but what he really was doing was trying to probe us for our plan of attack. When he realised he couldn’t read any of us, he withdrew,” Morgana explained as she led us back to our lines.

We had barely gone twenty paces when a hail of shots, arrows and balefire erupted from the enemy lines straight at us only to hit Morgana’s flicker shield to be absorbed or nullified.

“Petty,” she muttered as we walked on, not even deigning to notice the breach of parlay which was supposed to allow all the right to safe return to their own lines.

“I suspect that gave them a lot to think about, my Mage,” I chuckled.

“Yes, John. But I doubt it will teach them anything,” she replied with a slight smile.

We made it back to our lines with no further incidents and went back to the areas to which we were assigned. After that we simply waited until Morgana (presumably) got word that the Seers were ready to act. The tension grew as everything came to readiness, yet I surmised it was nothing as compared to our foe, now trapped behind their warded shields.

“Wonder why they haven’t ported out?” I asked Arch.

“Numbers, John. They believe we can’t win. All part of Morgana’s plan as we could have called in a lot more Mages and allies, yet would only have caused them to withdraw,” Arch replied. “As it is, once those shields go down, the Seers will disrupt the portals and we’ll defeat them in detail and give their leadership a stark lesson on messing with the Mages of Earth.”

‘Ready yourselves, ‘ came a gentle mental request, from the Seers I presumed.

Goibhniu fumed as he stalked back to the safety of his own lines, flickering out a mental command for his forces to attack the prey in breach of the parlay rules. Once he reached the warded area, to his horror he found that he was no longer in control of his body and that something had taken possession of his conscious mind, that his own consciousness had been pushed back away from the levers of control, so to speak.

‘Not so superior now, are we?’ came the soft mental voice who had taunted him in the past.

‘I will kill you for this!’ he mentally screamed.

‘Got to find me first, ‘ came a taunting laugh.

‘You can’t do this, you can’t get past the ward. No mental commands could!’ Goibhniu stormed.

‘Oh, but you already showed me the way,” the voice riposted.

‘Impossible, ‘ Goibhniu gasped mentally, yet knowing it apparently was all too possible.

‘I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that, ‘ said the voice as he approached the warded areas that protected his forces and the transportal rings.

Despite his desperate attempts to regain control of his mind and body, Goibhniu found his arms reaching out to move and disrupt the various energy controlling keys of the wards, weakening the shields both of energy and physically to the point where he knew they’d be unable to resist a determined effort to breach them. He was then forced to walk to the controlling transportal ring and sever its empowering energy stream before he keeled over unconscious.

‘Now!’ came the command we’d all waited for and several anti-tank rockets shot out from our ranks directly at the protected bunker-style emplacements the Nephilim had built to defend themselves against our approach. Morgana and those that advised her were correct, they’d been built to withstand mortars and shrapnel from above, not the direct impact of a HEAT round to their sides from a hand held anti-tank missile.

Also to the enemy’s dismay, all their wards went down at the moment of the missile’s launch and to compound their woes all of their portals went down at the same instant leaving them isolated and facing us with no chance of retreat.

The Sidhe, to give them credit, instantly realised that their doom was upon them unless they could take the field and repair their portals. The bulk of their forces charged our lines in a desperate attempt to kill us all or at worst, drive us off. Naturally enough, we all opened up with our weapons both magical and physical. The Sidhe did likewise with their own magic and their composite bows. It was also apparent that the Sidhe were far faster in a run than an ordinary man. Indeed they were roughly three times as fast as the fastest human athlete which meant they had crossed the dividing space between our forces in less than a minute. As they did so, to the right of me was the thunderous roar of the two Browning M2 machine guns yammering away in short bursts using magnetised iron tipped ammunition which, if it could breach their mental shields, punched through Sidhe adamantine armour. Many indeed did go down, torn apart by modern arms, but many also did not and they closed rapidly upon our own earthen entrenchments, only to fall into a hidden pit whose sides were lined with sharpened rebar which again took its toll on the attackers. Yet this did not stop their determined efforts to close with the hated prey. Realising that, no matter our efforts, at least five hundred enraged Sidhe were going to get in amongst the two hundred defenders holding the area being attacked I, along with Arch, Roxanne, Morgana and a few other Mages and all the Nosferatu with sword skills, leapt onto the earthen parapet to face the horde of attackers whilst telling those Mages with guns to keep firing to whittle down the attackers.

Within seconds I was facing five Sidhe and found myself being pushed to my limits. Still, I was a far superior swordsman compared to a few years ago and had both my magnetised rapier and trench sword in hand along with my deliberately enhanced strength, agility and speed to hold them at bay whilst I sought out an opening to exploit. Fortunately having Arch fighting next to me only allowed them to attack from my front and one side and the Sidhe were also exhausted from their mad dash so I was able to skewer one immediately, my rapier slamming through his shields and his adamantine armour to his heart causing him to collapse into dust as I used the guard on my trench sword to punch the open face of the leading Sidhe next to him. Dropping swiftly I copied a move I’d seen Marja use on Adok and swept the legs of the Sidhe attempting to behead me to my right, causing him to fall back into the spiked trench and impale himself on the rebar. I was hauled to my feet by the grinning Kyresi Daniel who held a couple of war hatchets as he used his own skills to despatch the nearest Sidhe bearing down on us.