The Foolhardies 122 Barbarians at the Gate

Sadly, dawn's light peeked through the curtains just as I was pleading with her not to meet Arah later, and I found myself whisked back to Mudgard with my argument stuck in my throat.

Back on this side of the world, I'd resolved to convince Arah not to even consider anything remotely like journeying to the Fayne to help with the search for Ty. We had it covered. In fact, we'd already kind of found out where they were keeping him.

But Arah was ghosting me, ignoring my calls, seen-zoning my texts, and just disappearing on me for the entire day. She even cut classes so we wouldn't run into each other in school, and for Arah, that was beyond extreme.

Short of camping out at the Elfwood Circle Stones and waiting for Aura to arrive—which incidentally was my last resort—I didn't know what else I could do as even that plan was flawed.

It was that stupid sprite orb, a fairy tool that mimicked the abilities of a sprite, allowing messages to be sent back and forth between two people through vast distances. Essentially, it was the Fayne's answer to Mudgard's telephone.

This meant the pair of them could have set a rendezvous somewhere out of my reach.

Sunset eventually arrived while my anxiety levels were at their peak. I'd just gotten home from school, intending to stay awake for the night, a fact that was apparently impossible without permission from your contractor which I obviously wasn't getting.

So it was with a very heavy heart that I gave in to sleep after barely ten minutes of enduring the Fayne's lullaby wondering if I was about to get another headache.

I landed in the Fayne moments later, exchanging the scenery of my living room for the wagon they kept my anchor in.

With hurried steps I rushed to the back of the wagon and jumped out of it, wondering if I had enough time to stop Aura on this side. But then my feet landed on a patch of green grass that was different from the craggy earth I'd been in only last night, and I just knew it was too late.

The Foolhardies soldiers behind the wagon were standing at attention, although some of them looked at me with surprise as if these fairies weren't used to viseres dropping in suddenly.

"Where's Luca?" I asked the nearest soldier to me, a pixie I recognized as one of Qwipps' Talons.

The pixie pointed forward and past the wagon I just jumped out of.

"Thanks," I said, before bolting for the other side of the wagon, screaming, "Out of my way!"

I ran past row and row of fairies at attention, not even bothering to say hi to those who yelled a greeting toward me. I was so focused on getting to Luca it actually took me a really long time to notice the structure looming in front of me. In fact, I was already near the front of our forces by the time I paid enough attention to notice the defensive walls or the steel portcullis guarding over the lone entryway through said walls.

My pace slowed, and by the time I'd squeezed my way to the front, I was moving at a crawl while my eyes took in the imposingly high walls whose battlements must have been nearly thirty feet up.

"Hey, there's our fearless leader right now," I heard Qwipps say off to my right.

I glanced toward the sound of his voice and saw him standing at the front of our soldiers alongside Luca, Ashley, and Edo. Predictably, Aura was nowhere in sight.

Opposite the trio was a small group of soldiers I didn't recognize, although all of them sported the same midnight blue cloaks that Darah's knights liked to wear. It was only the symbol of their tabard that was different. It was a red, upward-facing, double-bladed scimitar a bit like Darth Maul's famous lightsaber but with a ring surrounding it.

"Shit," I whispered while thinking in my head that I just couldn't catch a break.

I walked over to the group while forcing myself to remain calm at the sight of this new complication.

"Greetings, knights of Great General Garm," I said, feigning cheerfulness.

None of them responded. They all just looked at me like I was some kind of bug they wanted very badly to smash into pulp. The fact that they were all way taller than me and that most of them had curved horns sprouting at the sides of their foreheads made that image extra intimidating.

Still, I held my ground and kept walking until I was finally between my guys and these surly satyrs because that's what they were, freaking satyrs.

The leader, a bearded dark-skinned satyr with horns that curved twice as much as his fellows glared down at me with emerald eyes.

"State your business, boy," he snarled.

"We already did state our business," Luca answered back.

He turned his glare on Luca.

"Slaves don't speak unless spoken to," he said with as much contempt as he could in such a short sentence.

Luca's hand twitched. Beside him, Edo's shoulders tightened. Even Qwipps looked like he was raring to go, which to me was the surest sign that these gate guardians had been very difficult.

I raised a calming hand toward my guys right before I turned to face this arrogant satyr and stepped right into his hit zone looking like I wasn't the least bit threatened by him and his creepy horns.

To be brutally honest, once I'd gotten over the initial shock of their appearance, I really wasn't in the least bit frightened of these satyrs. As horned fairies go, Edo was five times as intimidating and Azuma behind me was maybe ten times that.

Plus, I was already in a bad mood because of what was likely happening in Mudgard at this very moment. Now was not the time to mess with me, dude.

"Listen here," and I pointed to the shiny bronze commander's badge on my chest, a five-pointed star with two bronze wings rising up from behind it in a circular pattern, the symbol of a five-hundred man commander. "I'm here to pay my respects to Great General Garm, One-Hundred Man Commander."

I noticed that his own badge, a bronze star without the wings, labeled him as my subordinate, and I decided to stress this fact.

After finally seeing the badge on my chest, this arrogant satyr visibly deflated. There was a second of panic appearing in his eyes, then in a respectful tone he hadn't shown previously, he said, "Greetings, Five-Hundred Man Commander… my men and I would be, glad, to take you to our liege."

I'd never used my status to show off before. It was kind of a nice feeling.

"However," the satyr continued, "I cannot let you go before my master so armed."

As he said this, the satyr commander gazed out at the nearly four hundred soldiers standing at attention as if we were barbarians about to storm his gate.

What he wasn't aware of was by Foolhardies standards, standing at attention for this long without a single fairy or visere breaking ranks or being overly loud was as rare as a blue moon back on Mudgard.

I glanced back at my soldiers, and then with a wink to my little brother, I turned to face the satyr once more.

"Alright," I'll leave my soldiers just outside the city gates, but me and my officers," I made a show of counting with my fingers, "and about twenty of my guards are coming in."

I didn't wait for the satyr to agree. I simply turned around and issued my orders to Luca.

'Tell Azuma and twenty of his viseres to join us, and have Xanthor come upfront so he can lead the men while we're away. Sargeant Pike will assist him" I ordered.

Luca, after grinning at the mention of his not-girlfriend, saluted me in that Fayne military way and then trotted off to relay my commands.

"The rest of us?" Edo asked.

"You're all with me," I said.

"Wait… even me?" Qwipps asked surprised.

"You're one of my best warriors, Qwipps," I said, stroking his ego, a tactic that worked very well with Qwipps Daggerby.

It wasn't a lie though. He was one of my best killers. But my choice was also a calculated one.

Me, Ashley, Luca, Azuma and twenty other humans meeting a fairy who was notoriously biased against our kind was my way of showing off that I wasn't the least bit afraid of Darah's rival. It also helped that Azuma had a reputation even here in the west. Having him as my subordinate really made me look good.

As for Edo, well, he was just so intimidating. It was always a card I liked having around. Qwipps was around to be his annoying self. His participation in the proceedings might help to keep Garm off his footing.

Once all my selected soldiers had been assembled and I'd given the reins figuratively to my centaur lieutenant, only then did I turn around to face the satyr who looked like he was desperately holding back the irritation from his face.

For the first time that night, I was glad Aura wasn't around. Her being here might have made things worse regardless of who outranked who. It was one small mercy that she wasn't going to be placed in danger despite whatever it was she was talking about with Arah.

I sighed and tried my best not to think about it. Luckily, the satyr was proving to be a good target for venting my frustrations on.

"Alright, One-Hundred Man Commander," I said in a way that would have made Thom proud. "Let's go meet your master."

Chapter end