Rebirth and Second Chances

Once Lady Kilaiee arrived, I only stayed long enough to make sure they apprised her of the true circumstances behind Lord Thomas' actions. That so many had died for his vanity would see his lands confiscated and his heirs destitute on Talahm. What would happen here was for someone else to worry about.

Lady Kilaiee had brought enough Sidhe Knights to make sure the people she was tasked with protecting would arrive safely to Duke Cavan's lands. That wasn't really much of a concern with her ability to share her fast travel skill.

Her ability wasn't powerful enough to cover everyone at once, so they had devised a rotation. By leaving a Knight detail behind to protect those that would have to wait their turn, she could move the refugees in groups. What would have taken a week at these people's best speed, she was going to be able to have finished by day's end.

It made me wonder why she hadn't been sent to collect these people from the beginning. It would have saved a lot of lives and time.

I hadn't set up camp, choosing instead to sleep under the stars, so it was a matter of moments to get ready to depart. Caraid had been following me, acting as guard and shadow, so he was ready when I was.

Meala had wandered off the moment we had arrived on this world. She was a companion and could fight, but she was more inclined to forage for food than worry about battle. Once I had managed to find Meala and Ag, we were ready.

She had been my mount dating back to when I was still [Rank: Prince], and like Caraid and my vassals, she was a part of my life that I refused to leave behind. She represented the simple joys that a brisk canter in the morning sun could bring. The simple pleasure of brushing her down after a run or filling her claws was soothing for both of us.

She still managed to find a way to sneak into my bedroom at night whenever I camped. Even after all these years, I wasn't sure how she did it. I had placed runes and arrays to guard against her invasions, but they had been money wasted. However, she did it. Whenever I had to camp, I would wake the next morning to find a massive six-limbed honey badger in bed with me.

I thought she might be using some innate magic to travel along the tether of our companion bond. Wherever I was, she could find me. It was possible that her ability to track included a type of [Portal] magic. It was the only reason I could think of that would explain her ability.

I had the accouterments to ride and care for her stored in my [Ring of Hidden Depths]. I had a few different types of commissioned saddle, one that allowed her to carry double, so Caraid and I would be able to ride as one. At least until we managed to scrounge up a mount for him to use. Ag was Cu Sith and capable of keeping up with the brisk pace Meala could set. Tia was still occupied with Cait Sith. So, we were ready to set out once I saddled Meala.

The motion of galloping, the movement of muscle as Meala stretched her six legs and raced the wind had been jarring to get used to when I first began to ride. But now that I knew how to anticipate the extra movement the third pair of legs gave, I was as comfortable riding her as I was walking. The rolling hills, the green fields, and the sun in my face allowed me to relax and just enjoy the moment. The first time I had been able to do that in a long time.

We had reached the base of a hill when the animals began to act strange. I'm not sure who reacted first, Meala or Ag, but both were on guard. Both had their nostrils in the air sniffing and tasting the smells of the surrounding area.

The reason for their actions became apparent when a Fachen blundered into range. Fachen were a unique monster, not Sidhe but always found on lands Sidhe controlled. They resembled the Cyclops from Olympus, in that each creature had one eye in the center of their head. That was where the resemblance ended. Fachen took that effect further. They had one arm that sprouted from the middle of their chests, and only one leg they used for movement.

They were behemoths of destruction and natural disasters to any field or forest they moved through. Unable to walk, it forced them to hop, and by dint of their size and weight, each hop left immense divots in the earth.

They were deadly hunters, feared as well as laughed at. They were often the butt of jokes in the bard's tales that included them. The reason was obvious. Most people that stumbled across them and lived, did so because they found the creatures buried in the ground. They were easy to kill when that happened, trapped, and struggling as they fought to free themselves. They had an ability to 'know' where the ground was safe.

This [Earth Sense] could be fooled, and there were times they misjudged the ground's ability to support their weight. Mistakes like that were rare, but they did occur. What made the scene even funnier was their appearance. Their skin was orange, their hair green, and buried in the earth. They looked like giant carrots that had come to life and were trying to pull themselves from the ground. Watching them struggle to free themselves, was made even more hilarious because of that coloring.

Ag had vanished into shadow almost as soon as the Fachen came into range. She was a stealth hunter, and her opening move was to hamstring anything she attacked. I wasn't certain how effective that opening gambit would be this time, considering the Fachen didn't really have ankles.

I may have ignored the creature if Ag hadn't attacked without prompting. We were fast enough that even with its size, we could outrace it. But now that first blood was spilled, it didn't matter how far or fast we traveled, the Fachen would be able to scent our passage and would follow.

There was no way to divert its attention. There was no way to hide from it or lose it once Ag had made an attack. An attack on the creature left a soul mark between it and whatever had damaged it. A mark that it was able to follow, no matter where you went or how long it took. I'd much rather deal with it now than find myself ambushed when I could ill afford it.

A quick cast had dozens of my ice pillars in place, each of them seeded with an explosive fire spark. This spell within a spell was the reason I had done so much damage to the Fomorians. I placed enough pillars to surround the creature so that even the slightest movement would set off a chain explosion.

Unfortunately, the Fachen was too smart for that type of attack. Using traps to defeat the creature was the most popular tactic used when hunting them. The Fachen, as a species, had learned to work around and adapt to that strategy.

I shouldn't have been surprised at the method the creature used to escape. It simply jumped over them, leaping so far forward and upwards that the pillars were nothing but wasted statuary. The ground that we were fighting at must have been well compacted and structurally sound because it was able to withstand the Fachen's landing. The loam and grass that had accumulated and covered the bedrock was barely three or four feet deep, not deep enough to impede the giant in any significant manner.

When it jumped again, it targeted our group instead of Ag. I blasted it with a fireball in response, hoping to force it back. It worked well enough to send it stumbling, but it didn't do any real damage. Fachen had been gifted with resistances to both fire and ice, another reason someone seldom provoked them. Most of the strongest Sidhe spells borrowed from those two elements.

Ag had faded into [Shadow] to continue to harry and harass the creature using the ability to jump between shadows to stay within reach to attack. As a Cu Sith, she might look like a dog, but she was no more a dog than the Cait Sith were cats. She was Sidhe. She could breed with the other races of Sidhe. Which meant she was intelligent, able to adapt her tactic once she realized that hamstringing the Fachen was a waste of time, and able to ignore the instinctive calling that a typical dog or wolf would rely on when fighting.

Her next attack was aimed at the Fachen genitalia. With only one leg, it didn't have even the smallest protection that two legs might have offered. The creature's testicles were hanging in full view, dangling just beneath a pubic flap. An irresistible target and snack for the Cu Sith.

The creature's scream of pain was so powerful that my eardrums burst, sending me reeling in the process. My sense of equilibrium was damaged for a split second as I fell. It had been a long time since I had been injured, and I liked it about as much this time as I did the last. My regenerative abilities repaired the damage almost before I could register the pain. My hearing was barely affected, but I was still angry. As a [Ranked: King] my body should have been able to shrug off that attack easily.

Angry about the injury and frustrated that my pillar traps had been so easily ignored, I began sending bullets of ice, each with that kernel of fire hidden inside that allowed for explosions. It was the same spell I used to create the pillars, simply modified to act as a ranged weapon.

As each ice projectile struck, the explosions I was expecting began rocking the creature, forcing it to stumble backward and fall. I stared at it, dumbfounded. The explosive power of the fire trapped within that ice should have released waves of fire so hot that I needed to shield everyone else to keep them from dying.

The attack was still powerful, but it was muted. The explosions created were powerful, but not as potent as they should be. Each attack was thousands of degrees cooler than what I expected.

There was something going on, something with my magic, I realized. I could still feel my magic, my connection to the ambient energies of the planet, and my connection to Fairy, so it wasn't an issue of access. There was no reason for my powers to have weakened so drastically, just like there had been no reason for me to have taken damage from the Fachen's cry of pain.

It was hard to quantify exactly how diminished I was, but if I had to guess, I thought my strength was about the same as it was when I was a [Ranked: Prince]. I hadn't lost an entire Rank of potential or power; it was still mine, but something was going on.

The spells and abilities were still familiar. The way I cast, and the way magic responded, was exactly as it should be for a [Ranked: King]. But the output was different. It was as if I was casting my spells through a barrier, one that limited the effectiveness of each cast, ratcheting down the amount of damage I did in the process.

I activated Beleros Aura, outputting fire and healing at full power to see if my Aura abilities were affected as well.

They were.

I was far from crippled even with the damage I could produce lessened, but I was nowhere near the Power level I was on Talahm. There had to be a reason for it, one I would worry about once we had finished this fight.

A fight I realized was going to be much harder than I had expected when a pair of Fachen bounded into range. It seemed the Fachen that Ag had antagonized was not alone. An additional pair had responded to his bellow when Ag made a snack on its testicles.

As the pair arrived, I realized that we had been fighting with a juvenile Fachen. A child whose parents had arrived. Parents that were pissed at the sight of their son, gelded and bleeding. And parents that were twice the size of the one Ag had initially attacked.