Chapter 94

The isle of Kedyrn in Tír na nÓg was tense, many of the inhabitants were passively refusing to co-operate with Verenestra’s forces, although the village leaders were at least giving lip service to her cause. That said, most of the population were too afraid to openly come out and support the Seelie court, just in case Queen Oonagh returned. Queen Titania however did openly come out in her royal ‘progress’ and settled herself upon the demesne of First Sword of the Morning Ghurran and proceeded to drain the suspected traitor of his fortune.

Oonagh’s forces remained in some numbers on the other side of the channel, though it was clear many of the lesser ranks had returned to their villages and farms to bring the harvest in. Our Seer group had attached itself to Verenestra’s headquarters and were constantly updating her with events on the Island as well as the progress of Mage William and the bulk of Verenestra’s forces who were reducing a few strongholds on the adjacent island of Ogygia (Ireland) and ensuring the Daoine Sidhe didn’t have a backdoor into the newly liberated island.

As the Sidhe didn’t have Seers, the respect and awe that Verenestra’s command group had for them was almost embarrassing. They really couldn’t do enough for them despite the Seers attempts to try to get them to treat them as normal people, something most of Verenestra’s forces seemed to be able to manage to do to the rest of us. As for the rest of the Sidhe populace, well let’s just say old habits die hard and there were the occasional extreme examples that had to be made over those who simply could not accept that humans had to be treated with respect these days, all of which were carried out by Verenestra’s forces.

What slaves the Sidhe population had were either liberated or emancipated, the liberated ones were healed, both physically and/or mentally, and returned to their various Mage Councils. The emancipated ones were checked over to ensure that they were safe enough in the care of their former owners and weren’t being abused or exploited.

Our mobile forces were kept on full alert for a while after the initial attempt to retake the island, but were stood down after the harvest period began. As Verenestra’s forces weren’t relying on any natives of the island of Kedyrn to supplement their units, there was no lessening of the number of Sidhe available to her for any situations that developed and those that did develop were swiftly isolated and dealt with. Still, we knew that once winter was out of the way, we could expect some activity from the mainland and plans were also being made to take the fight to them as well, mostly based on the maxim that a good defence begins with a good offence.

Despite the poor weather we kept our encampment warm and dry while we monitored what was going on over the channel and kept our allies appraised of any new developments, of which there were few. What intelligence we had gathered suggested that Oonagh’s generals had decided that the best time to deal with us would be as and when we tried to expand outwards onto the continental mainland, rather than attempt to try and break into Kedyrn and possibly face massive casualties in doing so. Not that the casualties bothered them, just that they knew we could replace our numbers and they couldn’t. This was also coupled with a baby boom amongst the female Sidhe of Verenestra’s forces. For the first time in millennia, Sidhe numbers were increasing as they put aside their petty differences and became a true people again. To many of the elder Sidhe, this was naturally an abomination, but Verenestra’s Sidhe were mostly the young (for given values of young) and who saw an opportunity to right so many of the wrongs in Sidhe society, including being kept in place by a political system that essentially set one Sidhe against another.

“Scouting mission, Arch?” I asked as Róisín and I were summoned to Arch’s cabin.

“Yes, John. Across the channel; Verenestra wants eyes on the ground,” he replied.

“Take it the Seers will be getting us in there?” I asked.

“Yep, they’ll also be monitoring our findings through our senses,” he chuckled.

“Take it the Sidhe have finally managed to block their view?” Róisín asked.

“Enough to turn certainty into educated guesses,” Arch nodded.

“I’d still bet money on any guesses they made,” I chuckled.

“You and me both, John,” Arch acknowledged with a grin. “But they’re insisting ... again.”

Since Abi’s first visit to Tír na nÓg along with the Rwandan incursion, the Seer group had finally started pushing against their cloistered and protected existence. This was causing no little consternation amongst the more conservative members of the Council along with giving Mage Julia a major headache at times. Seers were (and are) a precious resource, but they were people too and had a sense of adventure and a longing to challenge themselves at times, hence their now greater determination to assist us openly in any endeavour that the Council and the Bureaus found themselves. Morgana generally took it in her stride, realising that there was precious little she could do to prevent a determined Seer from doing anything she damned well liked, save only the threat of cancelling any mission she was working on. That only our Seers could open a hidden portal easily (Morgana could, but even she admitted it took time and gave her a headache that could last for hours) meant that they had to be available in our off world enterprises, hence the Seers were making the most of it, including Arch’s wife Jemima.

“Well, if they’re insisting,” I chuckled.

“Yep, and we both have to live with one,” Arch grinned.

“Oh, they aren’t insisting on sending one with us?” I sighed.

“They did, but Morgana refused, not until we’ve established another forward base and have secured it,” he chuckled.

“They accepted that?” Róisín asked.

“Yes, they still want to help, but at least accepted Morgana’s reasoning, plus Jemima admitted they weren’t too good at sneaking around yet,” he replied.

“Surprised Abi didn’t insist,” I chuckled. “She managed OK in Jezreel.”

“But she slowed you down somewhat too,” Arch replied.

“A little, yes. Talshish and I had to do most of the concealment stuff,” I admitted.

“Well, part of the mission is to scout out a base too. Then they’ll be joining us,” Arch replied. “Now let’s go see Jemima, as she’s on duty this morning.”

We stepped carefully through the hidden portal opened by Seer Jemima. We were being cautious as, for all the Seers stated that the Sidhe couldn’t detect one of their portals, there was always a chance of visual detection and observation.

It was dark when we entered the mainland, though in the distance we could see the glow of a Sidhe encampment. We quickly spread out using passive senses and scans to ensure that we were actually alone, as the Seers had mentioned that the attempted blocking was aimed at preventing them from noticing if there were Sidhe around.

“I rather suspect the Sidhe have ‘deigned’ to question a few of the rogue Mages who adhere to the Nephilim as to the type of powers our Seers can use,” Arch opined as we then proceeded to move silently through the countryside.

“As good an explanation as any, although what reports we do get suggest the Nephilim are not faring well in the Daoine Sidhe state,” Róisín replied.

“Well, they did fail to protect Azurana from our attack and its destruction,” chuckled Arch.

“They’ve also suffered a lot of desertions,” I added. “Which has not endeared them to Queen Oonagh.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of fanatics,” Arch chuckled.

“Well, the ones left wouldn’t be welcome on New Azurana anyway,” Róisín said with a wry smile. “They’re the ones mostly behind the atrocities.”

“Jerhz and Mergna still had to weed out a good many regardless,” I replied.

“Most of them slipped through during the final collapse when they realised that trying to prevent the people leaving was dooming them as well,” Róisín acknowledged.

“Yes, so I was told, although I was kind of busy at the time,” I chuckled.

“Don’t think we haven’t forgotten about that, John,” Róisín replied. “Abi still scans you on occasions.”

“I know, she’s not exactly subtle about it,” I replied.

“You really annoyed and frightened us, John, that’s why,” Róisín stated.

“Someone had to do it,” I shrugged.

“Yes, but it doesn’t have to be you every time!” Róisín said in exasperated tones as we came to a halt just outside the Sidhe camp’s perimeter of detection.

“Quiet now, children,” Arch chuckled as we began our observations, mostly looking for ways to circumvent the wards.

“Well, you don’t have to live with the bloody man,” Róisín whispered.

“He survived, that’s all that matters,” Arch admonished her.

“Yes, my Mage,” Róisín sighed, then giggled.

“Much better,” Arch chuckled.

“Not your usual Sidhe detection wards,” Róisín said frowning slightly.

“That’s why we’re here, the Seers want to know from close up just how different,” Arch replied.

“Yes, my Mage,” she replied.

“John, you scan the lower bandwidths, I’ll take the upper and Róisín, you look at the subtle variances between the bands,” Arch ordered.

The scan was long and detailed; we all felt the Seer group peeking out through our senses at times to our occasional annoyance as they’d move our attention from one bandwidth to another before we’d had a chance to do a detailed analysis (unlike them) as they looked for a way through the wards.

‘We have a way, ‘ Seer Jemima finally announced.

‘Can we do it?’ Arch replied on the same bandwidth.

‘Yes dear, use the following methodology, ‘ she replied and sent the details through to all of us.

Carefully we merged with the Sidhe wards, not breaking or opening them, but setting up a field that encompassed the edge of them with one covering us. We then crept forward until Arch was finally able to lower his screen closing the bubble and not raising any alarm. We then felt our Seers working through us again as they examined the ward from the inside, gathering a lot more data to permit them (presumably) to push a hidden portal through it.

As soon as we had an acknowledgement that they were finished we then set off on the main part of our mission to discover what the hell the Sidhe were up to that required such a need to hide their activities from us.

It was soon apparent that the Sidhe inside the ward had become lazy. There was no real pattern of intensive patrolling, nor as far as we could tell was it a trap to draw us in and close in around us. All we could feel were the occasional mind-scans emanating from the Sidhe encampment as they zoomed in on whatever had disturbed their ward, which was usually the local wildlife. What patrols they had seemed to be much closer in to what appeared to be some form of natural bowl.

“They definitely appear to not want us to have a look in there,” Arch mused as we carefully approached the site.

“Well it’s an odd way to go about it,” I replied. “I’d have had the patrols a lot further out.”

“Me too, but I’m with Napoleon on this, as in ‘never interrupting an enemy when he’s making a serious mistake’,” he chuckled.

“Well, the Seers are continuing to peck away at the ward, so I’m presuming they think they’re still safe,” Róisín added.

“Yep, if it’s a trap, they’re going about it all wrong,” chuckled Arch.

Carefully we approached the lip of the bowl making damned sure we left no traces of our passing or presence. We had absolutely no intentions of tripping up at the last moment.

“OK, what the hell is that?” Arch murmured as we settled into a hide well over the edge of the bowl and not likely to draw any attention from a patrol.