Street Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 2)

by Jeffrey Cook

  Megan shifted again, struggling to find the right notes for her courage-boosting song, starting off flat and off-tempo. The red light burst outward from Balor and O'Neill, washing over everything around. The skeletons Justin had destroyed remained broken, the sword apparently having destroyed whatever animating force enchanted them in the first place, but the others began to heal and rise again. The wight's green eyes blazed brighter, and he pressed his attack more aggressively. For a moment, Megan felt the fear spell trying to grip her mind, but neutralizing that effect was one of the first songs she'd learned. Her song bolstered her allies as well, and though Lani and Jude both froze for a moment, that moment passed.

  The light continued out into the city, and, Megan knew, it would hit the armies outside as well. She could only guess that the pin was tied to the wards outside, perhaps both defense against magic in its own right, and an early warning system for when O'Neill's armies, or maybe his anti-faerie wards, needed refreshing.

  When the spell had passed, with the rest of the fight still raging around them, Megan and O'Neill glanced at each other, like a pair of gunfighters about to draw. Megan started in again, trying to further unweave the magics O'Neill had cast on Balor's corpse.

  O'Neill smiled and called upon another spell, flinging a blast of green flame towards her. Despite her counter-song, the fireball still exploded in front of Megan, diminished, but not harmless. She was flung back against Lani, and Lani hit the wall of the building behind them, hard. Jude was tossed back, rolling to a stop against the building as well. A dozen skeletons were blasted apart, and a few more tossed away, but more stepped over the bodies to take their places.

  By the time Megan had shaken off the stars in front of her eyes from the impact, O'Neill was casting the spell to resurrect Balor again, while the archers had formed into ranks again, nocking arrows to finish them off.

  Other movement attracted her gaze, just in time to see Justin, only a few feet away, blocking the wight's swing with his shield. This time, the shield broke, and from the scream, so did Justin's arm. The follow-through sent him backwards, hitting the ground just a couple feet in front of Megan, while Maxwell, bleeding from a dozen cuts himself, fought savagely to keep a trio of skeletons from closing in on the fallen knight. Megan sat up, looking back to Lani as if seeking a suggestion, but her best friend wasn't moving.

  Chapter 37: The Man Who Would Be King

  Megan seized on the first and most natural thing to come to mind. She called out the words to her storm song as loudly as she could manage, blasting skeletons and arrows away from her, and setting the wight staggering. Maxwell managed to dig claws into the cracks between the stones, and everyone else was on the ground. The loosed arrows deflected away.

  O'Neill's head whipped around, looking at Megan as if she was a problem he had thought he'd already solved. The winds died down as she tried to switch to counter-magic, struggling to make the dramatic change so quickly. Thankfully, she didn't have to, as a missile of black feathers launched itself at O'Neill's face. The Count had picked his moment to disrupt the sorcerer. Green fire exploded nearby, sending O'Neill staggering and tripping over the stone, while the Count managed to fly away, though struggling to stay aloft and still smoking.

  Megan was about to start her counter-magic again when she saw the wight coming at her, with no one in the way now. He raised the sword to lash down at her, and Megan froze. The swing missed, as Justin barreled into the wight's back, not quite knocking him off his feet, but managing to disrupt the swing.

  Justin had his left arm, with half of the broken shield still tethered to it, cradled against his body, but still had the Claiomh Solais readied. The wight managed to turn enough to block the blow, but Justin's furious assault kept him off balance, staggering under the rain of sword attacks as Justin forced the undead warrior away from Megan.

  Trying to set aside worry for Lani, and recover from the panic of seeing the wight coming at her, Megan picked her counter-magic back up, undoing more of O'Neill's resurrection magic while he was on the ground. As she did, both cats got back into the fight, moving to protect Lani and Justin from the skeletons as best they could, though neither was moving nearly as quickly as when the battle started.

  O'Neill dragged himself back to his feet, snarling in Megan's direction.

  "You had your chance. Now, I'll deliver your broken body to your father before Balor wipes out his armies," he spat, before launching back into the resurrection ritual. As he did, Megan met more and more resistance to her efforts, and the body began slowly healing once again. Still, it wasn't enough for O'Neill.

  "Useless." he called, gesturing towards some of the skeletons between himself and Balor. A whole rank crumbled not simply to bones, but to dust. As they did, Megan could feel O'Neill pouring more magical power into the ritual, and Balor began to heal faster still. O'Neill chanted another guttural syllable, and more skeletons crumbled, their energies channeled into the resurrection spell, as he began overwhelming Megan's counter-magic.

  Even more disturbing to Megan than watching helplessly as the giant body became more and more whole was the eye. The three shrouds still blocked a lot of the energy, but a few of the skeletons standing guard nearest the head disintegrated in the light radiating outward from under the shrouds. She tried to convince her mind it was imagining things when she thought she saw one of the giant hands twitching a bit on its own.

  A moment of inspiration hit, and she found herself glancing around desperately towards the rooftops before finding what she was looking for. She nodded as she found it, holding up one hand, before tapping it to her chest, and finally pulled herself up on the wall.

  "The only bodies he's going to find are yours and Balor's, and he won't know which is worse off," she shouted back at O'Neill. "Jude, help Justin!" she called, launching back into the counter-song, directing it again at the skeletons in front of her, de-animating a rank to buy herself and her protector a little room.

  Just as the wight was finding his feet and trying to go back on offense, Jude crashed into one of his knees, while Maxwell continued protecting Justin, guarding the side the shield had been on. This time, Justin managed to evade the skeletons and cut right through one of the wight's arms. The wight released an unholy howl, the remnants of his arm catching fire—a fire which started to spread. Not dead yet, he swung his blade one-armed. Justin managed to get the Claiomh Solais in the way, preventing himself from being cut in two, but he was still launched backwards, landing hard on his injured arm several feet away, nearly losing his grip on his sword.

  The wight started to follow up, but Jude held on, tearing at the wight's leg, slowing it down while the fires continued to spread. Jude finally let go and dodged out of the way of a wild, flailing swing by the wight. As soon as it was released, the flaming warrior lurched onto the battlefield aimlessly, swinging at everything in his path, hitting only skeletons, before finally falling and going still.

  "Justin, the sword! I need it!" Megan called, before starting up on her countersong again. Justin fended off a couple blows from skeletons around him, hesitating to give up his best defense. In the end, he rolled away from his current attackers, despite the new surge of pain from his arm, and flung the blade towards Megan. It fell well short. He managed to come up with a leg bone in his fumbling for another weapon, desperately using the makeshift club to fend off the next attacks.

  The leopards split up, Maxwell going back on the attack, trying to rescue Justin, while Jude charged the sword, pouncing on the skeleton nearest to where it had fallen. He took another wound, this time to a back leg, in his efforts to get his jaws around the hilt, but he managed, limping away from the assault and towards Megan, finally delivering the sword.

  Picking the flaming blade up, she called, "Guard Lani," before she rushed onto the field, toppling a few more skeletons with her magic, heading for O'Neill.

  She didn't make it far when O'Neill turned his attention back on her. "You can't stop me, child." he called, a few
more skeletons disintegrating as he added their power to the ritual. The light from under the shrouds flared brighter, disintegrating whole ranks of the skeletons that had been guarding Balor's head. Worse, there was no doubt about it now: one of Balor's hands was shifting, and some of the muscles flexing. There were also skeletons coming at her from multiple directions, closing in, and there would be no one to protect her this time.

  She picked up her song again, shouting the words to her counter-magic, and directing it not towards the ritual healing Balor, but O'Neill himself, and his protections.

  Picking up on her shift in tactics, O'Neill called up another blast of fire. The greenish flame hit Megan directly, and exploded outward—but with the Claiomh Solais in hand, she weathered the blow with only minor burns. He lashed out again, with the same effect, and she moved another few steps forward, managing to destroy a skeleton by being just a little quicker on the stab than it was, grateful that all she had to do was touch it with the blade. "Now!" she shouted towards the rooftop.

  The Count dove, unsteady in flight, but accurate enough to wrap his claws around the lapel pin, before tearing the shiny object away from O'Neill. He grabbed for the crow, but came away with just a few feathers in hand, as the crow climbed out of reach. Megan felt some of the resistance fall away as she attacked the protections around him, feeling some of them crumble.

  She started to surge ahead again, drawing the skeletons, before shifting, and running towards Balor's body. O'Neill was still well protected by a dozen skeletons he'd left intact as a vanguard, but the eerie dark light seeping around the three shrouds, not even half of what were supposed to be there to stop the power of the Fomoire's eye, had ensured that that area was free of skeletons.

  Megan dug into her pack as best she could, dragging out the neatly folded shrouds, holding them like a shield to cover herself as much as possible, until she could pull them over herself as a cloak, singing all the way, letting her voice build and build.

  O'Neill's first spells failed to stop her, green fire both from his hands, and called down from the skies failing to get past the protection of the sword and the shrouds. He lunged for her, just as she reached the point she needed to in her building song. Megan didn't bother with controlling the winds, forgoing the verses that would help her direct it. Instead, she just trusted in the sword, and that her friends were some distance away, and let the wind go.

  The powerful burst knocked pursuing skeletons away, and hit O'Neill in the back. Devoid of his protections, he stumbled towards her. As he grabbed for Megan, she ducked down, covering herself with the shrouds.

  There was a flash of impossible light and a scream, then the sound of bones clattering around her as O'Neill's magics failed. Megan managed to avoid looking out, continuing to advance towards Balor with the shrouds protecting her. Her song switched back to the counter-magic, doing her best to undo the resurrection. By the time she was able to feel Balor's shoulder through the shroud, it was mostly bone again. Finding her way to the skull, she shifted the rest of the shrouds onto the first three, then, for good measure, hit the skull with the Claiomh Solais a couple times.

  Getting all seven shrouds into place over the eye had stopped the effects, blocking it off, but Megan could still feel intense warmth through the magical cloths. She did her best to secure the last four shrouds, and finally turned to survey the scene.

  The skeletons had all collapsed where they'd stood. The stone was no longer glowing. Justin and the cats had dragged themselves to the wall next to Lani, and the Count had settled in with them. Justin was looking her way, and trying to get back to his feet, with limited success. There were no more sounds of battle out beyond the city walls. The only sound, really, was the screaming.

  Brian O'Neill, Ard Ri, was writhing on the ground nearby, showing signs of intense burns—though none as bad as the blackened stump where his right arm had been.

  Chapter 38: Nobody

  Megan hurried towards the others. “Is Lani okay?”

  “Yes, she should be fine,” Justin said as he stood unsteadily on his feet, his broken arm held close to his stomach. “Are you sure that you're—” He was suddenly muffled by Megan's lips against his. Once Megan managed to actually think about the kissing in progress, she decided she was strongly in favor of it.

  Justin seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, frozen by the initial interruption and then going with it. Once they parted, he looked at her as if to say something, but didn't actually speak.

  “Oh, Um, I hope that wasn't too...”

  He shook his head. “Quite all right. More than all right. Not too anything. Let's talk about this. But let's look over Lani, and see if anyone's burns need anything."

  “And a sling for your arm.”

  “And a sling for my arm. And bandaging the cats. And at some point we should probably confirm whether O'Neill is going to live.”

  “Okay, but, I mean, I promise I'm not trying to make a hostile chivalry environment here. If you don't want...”

  “That's not the issue. My more prominent concern is understanding the pace of things. I've only just started studying for the GED.”

  “So you don't think you have time for a relationship?”

  “I can always make time for you. I was thinking more in terms of not having money or land or family—beyond the Kahales, to whom I'm not formally entitled—or anything else to properly deal with the possibility of—”

  “Okay. I get it. Justin, I can promise you, I have no intention of moving that fast. You don't need to plan for some kind of formal procedure for an immediate long-term relationship. This isn't courting, this is kissing. And saying let's try hamburgers as an actual maybe-date thing, or—” Megan raised a hand dramatically. “—if you can forgive the cheese, pizza.”

  Justin smiled, looking down slightly at his arm. “Megan, when it comes to you, I'm hardly going to worry about my health.”

  “What exactly do your 14th-Century sensibilities say about cheese on top of tomatoes, anyway?”

  “My 14th-Century sensibilities are still having trouble with the concept of tomatoes.”

  Any further commentary was interrupted by the ringing voice of General Inwar, directing a few knights to secure the perimeter and engineers to prepare equipment for hazardous-materials transport. One of the menehune engineering corps, of course, made a brief digression to check on Lani, who insisted loudly that it might not even be a concussion.

  As several trolls passed on the way to checking the shrouds, Megan heard a particular rich voice as well. She turned to see her father sporting a new necklace of dragon's-teeth.

  “Everything's okay?” she asked.

  “Of course everything's okay, dearest. You're fantastic, and we don't seem to have a Sorcerer-King on our hands.” Riocard looked to O'Neill, who seemed to have caught enough breath, even after all his screaming, to try to hoarsely mutter some of the chants he'd done before. Nothing was happening. “Those powers were contingent on being king. There's a reason kings in the old stories lead from the front with their strong sword arms. The ancient rules don't look kindly on people without sword arms. So sorry.” Riocard then looked to Inwar. “So it seems he's still alive.”

  “Easily remedied,” Inwar said.

  O'Neill didn't look panicked, actually giving Inwar a defiant look, at odds with the earlier screaming. He pushed his way with his good arm to sitting, and then stood, puffing his chest out and waiting for the death blow.

  “Please don't,” Megan said. “Getting killed at the end of a battle... that's something that happens to kings right? Not to disqualified losers.”

  The general actually smiled. “A reasonable point, Highness.” The smile lapsed again. “Brian Angus O'Neill, for war crimes, for conspiracy with the enemy against the well-being of all realms—”

  “Yes, yes, General, war crimes, I know,” Riocard said. “Orlaith is understandably shocked by those, because dying isn't really a thing we do much around here. But it's still something tha
t can happen in wars. I've started a few. And deals with ancient, undeniably evil beings? Not that unusual a by-product of grasping for great sorcerous power. Reaching for the glories of long dead ancestors... you know, O'Neill, I can respect that.”

  Riocard paused, tilting his head, looking thoughtful. "But I also know what you did in... what was it, graduate school? You pinned my scout to a butterfly board and broke her wings to steal her power. You denied one of my people her freedom... and that, I can never forgive. And so I pass judgment.”

  “Subject to Her Majesty's approval,” Inwar interjected.

  Riocard glared. “Yes, yes, I know what month it is, General. And she'll approve the living daylights out of this.” He looked back to O'Neill. “I pass judgment. But what punishment? Oh what hells could I devise for you?"

  Another pause, and a warm smile. "Several dozen, actually. But you're human, and American. I think there's a jury of peers thing, or similar nonsense. To save time, having already pronounced you guilty, I'm going to broadly paraphrase one of your fellow American mortals, then... thank you for sharing, by the way, Ashling...“

  Riocard pressed his fingertips to O'Neill's temple.

  “With this touch, I give you this, Brian Angus O'Neill: every night, you shall dream of the glories of Faerie. You shall remember its peaks and valleys, its colors, its mystery. You shall recall, in vivid detail, the worlds, the realities beyond your own. You shall think in crowns and feasts and subjects and hunts for the white stag. It shall ever be in front of you...”

  Yet another pause. “And you will never, ever find your way back. The paths shall fade, the memory of how to actually reach the realm shall always be just beyond your fingertips. As shall the names and faces of those who defeated you. So close, and yet...”

  The Unseelie King gestured with flair. “I give you what all destroyers earn... nothing."