“Lock these away—take their robes, and lock them tight. Take the house and the hill. Hold this high ground.”
He looked up as a bell began to toll.
“Ah, that would be a signal to their god. Shed blood if you must. Only if you must.” He looked down at Toric. “There is judgment coming.”
He ran out, called to Cróga. He, too, had a signal.
And when the dragon flew, Fey poured out of the woods, over the hills, across the beaches.
Some served to drive villagers to safety, to help gather children. And others waited with unsheathed swords, nocked arrows, clubs, and spears, on land, in air, in sea, for what would come.
And in the west, at the curve of land and sea, on the point of the cliff, Keegan saw the faint glimmer in the dark.
“West!” he shouted, pointing his sword as Cróga flew.
They leaped out of the portal, on horseback, on foot, on wing, on hoof.
“Archers.”
Arrows flew, some tipped with flame. And with the fiery flight, the first screams of the dying ripped the night.
He met the sword of a dark faerie, slashed through wing, and sent the snarling female into the sea. As he fought another, Cróga whipped his tail to fling a flying demon after the faerie where the Mers took up the battle.
And still they came, claw and sword, fang and arrow, though Keegan had a coven of the Wise working to close the portal. When he gave the order, Cróga spewed fire to scorch half a dozen who raced toward children huddled behind rocks on the cliffside.
He felt the burn of power sear his side, spun toward it.
He spotted the wizard robes, black and flowing, and the fallen Fey around him. He flung out power in sheets of ice to strike against the vicious heat.
The air sizzled; steam spewed. Keegan flew down through it. He slapped back, power against power, until the circle of mist spread thick.
And with it, protection against the dark within to those outside its ring.
He leaped from Cróga, met his foe on the scorched sand.
“I know you.” Aye, Keegan thought, he knew that face, the wild dark eyes, the sharp cheeks, the flow of black hair and beard. “Nori the Mad.”
“And I you, Keegan the Weak. What a prize you are.” He flung out a bolt of lightning. Keegan batted it away so it dissolved in the mist.
The mad eyes laughed. “The taoiseach before you sought to banish me, and where is he now? Dead by Odran’s hand, and lost in the underworld, where he cries for mercy. As you will when you die by mine, and Odran sips your blood, when his demon dogs feast on your—”
Keegan pierced Nori’s heart with his sword and lopped the head from the body as it fell. “Too much talking.”
With a wave of his hand, he dissolved the mists.
He called out for healers to help the fallen and rushed back into battle.
At the verge of the sea, he saw Sedric battling three, his silver hair flying as he whirled. Before Keegan could lash out power to even the odds, Sedric impaled the leaping demon dog. He used its body as both shield and battering ram. He cleaved one enemy’s arm at the elbow, and in the fountain of blood, slashed the sword upward to disembowel the third.
“It’s closing,” Keegan heard someone shout over the clash of steel, the screams and cries of war. “The portal’s closing.”
Once again he called for Cróga and took to the air to help cut off escape, to cut down the enemy, combat dark magicks with light.
Even when the portal shut, when the coven worked to seal it, the battle raged. Rolls of smoke spread from burning shops and cottages, stinging the air, muffling the pleas for help.
Sweat ran down his body, blood stained his clothes, his face as he fought those trapped in Talamh, as he shouted orders to pursue any who tried to escape over the hills, over the sea, into the woods, through the fields.
He turned a gargoyle to stone as it leaped on the back of a soldier, crushed it underfoot when it fell. Slashing, hacking his way through the enemy, he called for Cróga to pluck three he saw climbing the cliffs. Cursed when he stepped in the ooze of what had been a demon, and fought on, until he found himself back-to-back with Mahon, taking on the dwindling foe.
And at last, when there was only the weeping and the moans, the stench and smoke, he lowered his sword.
He said, “It’s done. We’ll send scouts to root out any that got through. There won’t be many.”
He turned, cursed again. “That’s your own blood.” He lifted a hand toward the gash in Mahon’s arm.
“Heal yourself,” Mahon told him, and pointed to the blood seeping from Keegan’s side and through his shirt.