Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 268: Fomorians

The Fomorians had always been creatures of nightmare, throughout our entire history they had become the Sidhe bogeyman. Giants, each standing at least twelve feet tall, monsters that had embraced the domains of chaos, death, and decay. Their very existence was the antithesis of all that Sidhe stood for.

The Sidhe were servants of nature. We followed the tenants of the Tuatha de Danaan, a Pantheon of Gods, bound by Fairy to encourage growth, order, and civilization. The Fomorians would destroy everything we stood for.

Most of the rank and file of the Fomorian race were cursed, their faces disfigured so that they were missing an eye. There was little difference between the Fomorian common troop and the Olympus' Cyclops, but unlike Cyclops, the Fomorians were intelligent. They made war methodically, employing traps, ambushes, and superior tactics and armaments. Cyclops were bestial in nature, servants to a hunger that could never be satisfied. They attacked anything and everything they came across, and what they killed they ate.

The Fomorian elite were different, there contained a beauty that rivaled the Sidhe. Not the ethereal beauty of our people, a darker version. They embraced that dark beauty, like the Sidhe, and could wield their attractiveness as a weapon.

The chaos and death they represented was considered by some to be worthy of poetry. They were fierce fighters and embraced their role as instruments of death wholeheartedly. But the purview of death consisted of more than fighting and killing.

They tempered their domain with every aspect of chaos and death. Those deaths that were poignant and stirred the emotion. Those deaths that broke the hearts of those left to mourn. Those deaths as men and women of strength and honor passed beyond. Even those deaths in peaceful bliss and slumber were theirs to claim.

For a few, their beauty was a beacon of light, those dying in pain or despair. They walked the earth with the transitive power of acceptance, stewards of death, and the continuation of the cycle of life.

If not for their determination to attack and kill the Sidhe, to wipe our race out until none remained and the disregard for nature, they would have been considered Unseelie. They would have been accepted into the ranks of those considered monstrous. Their beauty was comparable to the monstrous beauty of the Slaugh, the Redcaps, and the Hobs.

Gwyn ap Nudd had delivered us to the scene of battle. Perhaps that should have been expected, he was the Huntsman. From our vantage, it appeared that the Fomorians had ambushed a group of Sidhe. A mix of Seelie and Unseelie, few of them geared for war. Those that were outfitted for battle were hard-pressed to protect the rest, and each was sporting fierce wounds by now.

Things were becoming desperate, there already appeared to be dozens of Sidhe that had been slain, or so badly wounded they couldn't heal quickly enough to return to battle.

We would have to help. There was no recourse, one of the quests I had been given was to save the Sidhe, to unite them. I wouldn't have time to experiment with my spells and skills. To understand what it meant not having System mechanics

I had been conditioned to cast spells or use skills by triggering a System ability. That wouldn't work here. If I had more time, I might have experimented, tested to see how my abilities functioned without the stricture of System, but the time I spent worrying about something I couldn't change, might mean the death of Sidhe.

This would be where I started.

We had been transported to a location of advantage, behind them out of their line of sight. With one eye missing, I was determined to take advantage of that disadvantage. The forces before me were completely comprised of the common Fomorian. At least a regiment had gathered for this attack, and my [Identify] skill worked even if I couldn't use the System to trigger it.

So, I ignored the block that had formed, denying me access to System. I ignored Caraid being separated from me, standing next to me whole as his own person for the first time ever. I ignored that sense of loss, that something was missing as I prepared my attack. These were issues that could be addressed in the aftermath of the battle when there was time to regroup and time to heal.

"Ag," I ordered, a glance giving me an understanding of the battle and where the most help was needed. "Attack the Fomorians trying to reach the old and young. Try to hamstring them. Use your [Shadow] to keep out of sight.

"Caraid, see about healing the wounded, starting with those trying to guard the rest. Get them healthy enough to keep fighting.

"Tia, I'm not sure what your fighting skills are, but go with Caraid. Help those guarding the rest to shore up their protections.

"You go with her Meala," I ordered. Meala might not have the intelligence of Tia or Ag, but she was a ten foot tall honey badger bear hybrid. Each of her six legs ending in claws razor sharp and willing to rend.

Ag and I had hunted together before and had learned to trust each other over those hunts. His abilities as Cu Sith allowed him to use the shadows effectively. Tia was Cait Sith and an unknown. We would have to learn how to work together, but that was something for the future. For now, I had to trust that she could and respond to the situation appropriately and that the connection we shared across the companion bond would help us mesh well.

I tested the ambient magic in the surroundings, making sure that I had access to a pool of power I could draw on. The magic had a familiarity to it I was used to. Fairy and Wild Magic. The power that Gwyn ap Nudd had enticed to part the veil of Summerlands and bring us here had remained. Once satisfied that this world was now as rich with Fairy and the Wild Magic as Talahm, I activated my [King's Regalia] to launch my first attack.

The unassuming torc around my neck transformed, flowing like liquid metal to encase me in a full suit of armor. Made of a mixture of Mythril, Adamantium, and Silinium, it was enchanted along with the other three pieces of the set and provided to me as a quest reward for establishing my rule on Talahm and forming the Tuatha de Danann faction.

The Fomorians were creatures of cold and ice, given shape and form. Their skin was tinged blue. It mirrored the fortresses of ice they made their homes out of as those buildings reflected the sun. That they were attacking under the heat of the blazing sun was baffling. Even the briefest examination of the grass and wildflowers let me know the Fomorians were attacking out of season.

How they were able to not only withstand the heat of day, but fight using ice to attack is something that should have been impossible. The sun was as much anathema to them as iron was to the Sidhe.

It was something to worry about after the battle had ended.

But for now

I was a son of Cyronax, and like that God, I controlled the domain of ice, but I was also a son of Beleros, a God of the Sun. I had been able to learn how to balance fire and ice after I'd awoken both bloodlines. Because when a balance between the elements could not be managed. When I failed in maintaining my control, the elements clashed.

And fire was the natural enemy of ice.

I pulsed [Beleros Aura], increasing the damage output by increments as the aura expanded after Caraid, Meala, and Ag darted out of the area of my aura, Tia seeing how they responded followed. Instead of a sphere, I created a funnel and directed the aura of fire I controlled in an arc before me.

For a few seconds, there was no appreciable difference, but as I increased the power output and raised the temperature of my fire, those Fomorians nearest began to burn. To notice the attack, and to turn to confront me.

The ambushers had been ambushed, and in those first few seconds, before they knew what was happening, I had managed to increase my fire from the reds and orange of hearth and home to the blues and whites of destruction and solar energy.

"Behind you," I heard Caraid yell, his words of warning reinforced by Ag and Tia's concern vibrating across our companion bonds.

A quick glance allowed me to identify the Fomorian War Chief that had been satisfied watching his people slaughter mine. I redirected part of my [Aura], splitting its function so that it both damaged and acted as shield.

A few, perhaps five of the Fomorians were horribly burned in that first blast of controlled destruction. Their screams and the War Chief's fury was enough to gain the attention of a great number of the regiment. As they turned their attention toward me, I released glamour. An illusion so powerful that they would be unable to separate truth from lie.

I created a great seeming. An army at my back poised to strike. Trebuchets loaded with stone and fire, each staggered to release their fiery contents, and I set them to launch as Seelie and Unseelie in gleaming silver armor rode or marched to engage what appeared to be the badly out-numbered Fomorian regiment.

And I gave realism to glamour. Each time a trebuchet launched, I would release a fireball to pepper their ranks and scatter them. Illusion backed by realism made for the most effective glamour, and even for those few who might see through some elements of that illusion, it was safest to react as if everything was real.

I lost track of Caraid, Ag, and Tia as I entered within melee range, my focus on the War chief. Sidhe did not get lost to battle madness, but we came close. The Morrigu were renowned for skirting the edges of madness, a frenzied dance of death that straddled the line between the sane and insane.

I didn't have their abilities.

The one time we had clashed, I had won, but only because my magic was powerful and the way I had learned to wield it was something never before seen among our people. Trusting that my companions could read my intent through our bond, I began reproducing the attack that had destroyed the Seelie monarchy, creating pillars of ice, each containing a deadly trap. The pillars were embedded and created with a seed of fire that when released, blazed with expanding rings of heat and energy.

I scattered those pillars by the dozens, placement precise even if others thought my actions imprecise as I fought with sword and shield. My retreats or attacks allowing me to gain a better advantage in the field of battle. I was creating a maze, borrowing from the Minotaur mythos as inspiration. Once the pillars were formed, I had my glamour begin attacking in earnest, engaging one Fomorian after another, gaining their attention and leading them within the maze that I had created.

The more I gathered, the more pillars I created to hold those that followed me in my dance of feint and counter-feint. I had complete proprioception, I knew where I was relative to each of the pillars I created and the Fomorians I had following me into the depths of the killing field I had established.

And still, I battled the War Chief. Each time he attacked, the shield or sword I had summoned moved to intercept that attack. My speed eclipsed his, my strength on par. But the real advantage I had in this battle was my armor and weapon. My sword while not a named weapon, was crafted and enchanted to channel fire and ice.

Each time I slashed or hacked; the War Chief took damage. There was nothing elegant about my attacks. The beauty came in my speed, my precision, and my persistence.

I may have lost my ability to access the System, but I was still a [Ranked: King] with all the attributes that came with it. I was simply faster, stronger, and more agile than he was. And the maze of pillars I had created confused his people. They were creatures of ice, the element they were most adept at controlling, but they were lost in a pattern of ice that they had no control over and that made it difficult to traverse.

Slowly, Ag and Tia killed more and more Fomorians the System notifications were suppressed during battle, even as I gathered the attention of those still living and tricked them into following me, I was able to draw out the personal battle I was engaged in. Finally, satisfied that every Fomorian was in range, I disengaged.

I ran.

My movement so fast that I blurred, an echo of afterimages, a shuttering of images of where I had been and where I was.

I took the time to make sure the people I was trying to save were far enough away, and that Caraid, Tia, and Ag were safely distanced before I release the spark of fire that I had hidden within each of those pillars.

A field of blazing fireballs, each with the power I had invested in them, released in one climactic outburst of fire and heat that vaporized the Fomorians that had become lost within that maze. I was forced to battle the apocalyptic energies released, using my aura to contain the fire and heat because if I hadn't that small spark of fire would have expanded and created flash fire explosion so powerful it would have started the forest and fields on fire.

Sidhe did not play at war.

Those few engagements between the Unseelie and Seelie were at war on Talahm, we had come close to ending all life on Talahm. It was why the Court of Light and Darkness had been formed, a combined Court where shared rule could restrain the immense power the Sidhe could wield.

It was one of the reasons why the other Pantheons of Gods feared the Tuatha de Danaan. They were right to be afraid. If I could destroy an entire legion of Fomorians as a King, what forces could the Tuatha de Danaan unleash if they were stirred to action?