to comparable speed.
What the Banshee Queen’s sometimes consort didn’t realize, was the magic runes on Daroch’s sword allowed it to slice through Fae mail like hot iron through flesh. He just needed to get to it, and because of the angle he’d climbed up the rocks, his possessions were on the other side of Ly Erg.
Fucking Faeries.
“Why must you finish him? He’s not threatening anyone.” The Banshee drifted into the space between them.
She may or may not know it, but her incessant curiosity was helping him, for once, giving him the time to work on a stratagem. Daroch reached his Druid sense out to the surrounding moors, calling for help. A stag lingered nearby and answered his call. A mother fox hunted by a loch, but she declined for obvious reasons. As did the flock of ravens feasting on a kill left by a pack of wolves that’d unfortunately moved out of his range. Sheep grazed on a nearby hill. Useless. Though a serpent or two slithered through the grasses to his aid.
Strength and cunning. He would need both.
“Is that what he’s convinced you of, that he’s no threat?” The Fae soldier’s silver eyes lit with mild amusement, contrasting with the shimmering gold of his braided hair. “That makes you twice the fool. Think about what you risk. In three more months you’ll no longer be a dead woman, but a lower caste of the Fae.” His sneer turned lecherous. “I’ve had untold millennia to think of ways to punish unruly girls like you.” Ly Erg ineffectually slashed through the Banshee with his curved blade, drawing a dark growl from Daroch’s throat that surprised none more than himself.
Where had that come from?
The Banshee trembled, but held her ground. “The Fae can’t just go around killing innocent humans,” she argued. “The Queen, Cliodnah, told me there was a pact struck with the Gods.”
“All pacts are not ironclad,” Ly Erg sneered. “And this human is no innocent. He spends his time trying to work a way to slaughter all of our kind, and our seers have told us he is close.”
The Banshee gasped, turning to him with those lovely, wounded eyes. “Is that true?”
Daroch could feel his animal guardians drawing near, power and strength surged through his veins until he nearly burst with male aggression as the stag bounded toward them. Clarity and cunning sharpened his senses as the snakes wove sacred, ancient knots into the grasses.
“Aye,” he snarled. “Every last one of ye.”
The Faerie attacked. Though he was stronger and faster, Ly Erg telegraphed every move he was about to make before he followed through. By not focusing on any one part of his opponent, Daroch was able to see all of him and use the acumen lent by the snakes to predict his attacks.
Ly Erg slashed and sliced, mostly carving the air as Daroch dodged and lunged around him. Taking a calculated risk, he curled and dove past the enraged Faerie, paying for it with a shallow slice to the thigh, but unfolding from the roll with his sword brandished in front of him.
“You think that will make a difference to the outcome of this battle?” The Fae soldier scoffed. “Since finding out it cuts us, all your human weapons have become iron.” He hacked at Daroch with bone-jarring force. “Still doesn’t kill us,” he mocked. “Just stings a little.”
Daroch recovered, twisting away from Ly Erg, and sliced upward, slashing the Faerie’s torso through the armor. He reveled in the momentary look of shock as the Fae inspected his precious armor and the blood pouring from the deep wound. “That mail might protect ye from Fae blades, but not mine.” The runes on his blade pulsed with power and light, even in the midday sun.
Ly Erg’s skin made terrible, wet sounds as it knit together. “Fortunate, then, that I require no protection from you.” His offensive was swift and brutal, yet methodical enough to be learned from centuries of bloodshed. Daroch had to adjust his style to deflect and avoid his devastating blows to conserve strength. For he fought Ly Erg, the most lethal Fae in the history of mankind. One who had slaughtered so many ancients that his hands were forever stained with blood so as to alert an unsuspecting human to not be fooled by his beauty or artifice.
This Faerie lived for the kill. And hated all humanity.
Daroch most of all.
Thrusting when Ly Erg sliced, Daroch made him pay for every offensive. But the wounds he inflicted instantly