“Swords!” Tae shouted.
Bows were cast aside and swords drawn. With that order, Commander Varcir started shouting, sending his troops into the battle with ours.
“Falcons to me!” Taeven took to the air with a spring of his legs, and I followed him, along with his Falcon Guard.
Battle became a whole new experience from up there. Less chaotic, more precise. I didn't have a lot of training with fighting in Falcon form—as in none at all—but it was as instinctual as shrieking. I picked a target and dove, then my bird took over. Talons the size of human forearms pierced scaled Farungal flesh and rent that hardy skin to ribbons. Barbed tails lashed out but were easy for me to avoid, and their swords couldn't slice fast enough to hit me. I screeched victoriously as I picked them off, one by one, Tae at my side.
Below us, the Unsidhe army joined ours. Leanan-Sidhes hissed viciously, their nails growing with their fury, and gracefully darted through the Farungal ranks, their speed dizzying. Trolls lumbered forward more slowly, but when they reached the front, monsters died, crushed beneath their boulder-fists. Red Caps laughed maniacally as they swung axes and swords nearly as long as a human was tall, slicing Farungals from belly to throat. They didn't pause to soak their caps (though some angled their heads into the spray); that activity was reserved for after the battle.
Around their larger Red Cap cousins, the squat Goblins swarmed, terrifying despite their size. We'd been notified that every single Goblin had eagerly agreed to carry a vial of poison with them. I wasn't surprised; if I'd known there was a possibility that Farungals would cart my body away for a post-battle snack, I would have carried one too. Slightly less terrifying were the Dwarves, with their thick beards and pointed helmets, who swung axes, maces, and hammers nearly as big as they were. Their signature move was to cut a Farungal's legs out from beneath them, then take their heads. Far worse were the Imps, who rushed forward in a tide of laughing little bodies with razor-sharp teeth.
In contrast to the Goblins, Imps, and Dwarves, the Glastigs and Sylphs were breathtaking in their beauty. The Sylphs were ethereal, turning nearly transparent to slip through the Farungal troops and then reverting to solid to strike their blows. Very few Sylphs joined the armies, but those who did were some of the most valuable soldiers around. It was extremely hard to land a blow on a Sylph—like trying to cut the air—but they rarely missed. As for the Glastigs, they looked exactly like what they were—creatures of the forest. A blend of beast and man whose strong hooves could crack bones. In their armor, they were especially stunning, the shining steel gleaming against swarthy skin and dark fur.
It was all going quite well, Farungals falling like flies, until a strange screeching rolled over the battlefield.
Tae turned his head, and I followed his gaze toward a group of rowboats that had just landed on the beach. The creatures scrambling out of those boats were not Farungals. I stared, trying to figure out what I was seeing. They were squat and silvery gray, some with curved tusks, and some had sharp fangs. Vicious claws curved from their thick fingers and spikes stuck out from their shoulders and backs. But it was their eyes that troubled me the most; they were the green of burning death oil. Farungal soul stone magic.
“Goblins!” I screeched in epiphany. “They're the missing Goblins!”
“By the Mother,” Tae cursed. “The Farungal have transformed the Goblins with their dark magic and set them against us.”
Whatever had been done to those poor Goblins, it made them nearly destructible. They surged forward and spread out to start a wave of slaughter that, from my aerial view, bloomed like explosions. Farungals cheered, then chittered, pushing forward in the wake of their deadly creations. I had wondered why they hadn't been using their death oil and here was the answer; they had a new weapon to test.
Screams peppered the air as soldiers fell to the eerie efficiency of the altered Goblins. Unsidhe soldiers rushed forward, but many were hesitant to strike their brethren and their hesitation cost them. Once those few fatal mistakes were made, they rallied and pressed forward, but the creatures ran them down as easily as they did the humans.
The battle had turned.
The band of altered Goblins did more damage than should have been possible, clearing the way for the Farungal forces to obliterate us. Falcons dove and attacked, but any who tried to strike an altered Goblin was picked out of the air by a little hand and smashed to the ground with impossible, jaw-dropping power. The power of death.
In the seconds it took for the Farungals to gain the advantage, I searched my memories for the information the Goddess had shown me. This had to be why she had presented me with those pictures of Goblin anatomy. Two hearts; strike one and a Goblin goes into a death-like state. That was helpful, but striking either of their hearts was going to be a problem. So, what was the key? What other information had she intended for me to use?
“The armpit,” I whispered. Then I screeched, “Strike upward into the right armpit!” I dove at one of the altered Goblins.
“Shane!” Taeven roared, fear tinging his tone, and chased after me.
“Strike upward into their right armpits! It's the easiest path to their heart!” I shouted to our soldiers as I hooked my claw into the armpit of an altered Goblin.
Taeven was screaming above me, but the Goblin I hit stared up at me with startling gratitude. The green glow in his eyes died out as his body went limp, falling into stasis. Instead of letting him go, I clutched the body of the Goblin and carried him to camp. I didn't believe that the Goddess had shown me that book just to give me a way to kill these men. She had done it to save her children—all of her children—and I wouldn't leave this soldier on the battlefield to be trampled.
I laid him somewhere safe and rose back into the air to find myself alone. Knowing that I was in the relative safety of the camp, Tae had gone to rally the troops, shouting orders to strike upward at the Goblin's hearts through their right armpits and to then preserve the fallen. Our armies roared in response, especially the Goblins, and fell upon their altered friends in a huge mass. Glowing eyes winked out all over the battlefield and mutated bodies were gently carried to the safety of the camps. The altered-Goblin threat was defeated in mere minutes, leaving the Farungals fumbling in the middle of a unified force of two very angry armies. To say they were slaughtered would be putting it mildly. Not a single Farungal made it back to the ships.
Chapter Forty-Five
What followed was a massive beach clean-up that I was—thank the Goddess—excused from. The Farungal bodies had to be burned so they didn't poison the land, though the Red Caps did indulge in a good hat-soaking first. Bonfires dotted the beach, the corpses of monsters feeding the flames as our soldiers celebrated, both human and fae, together. Once all the bodies had been added to the flames, our troops set to drinking and eating as if it were a barbecue. But inside the Falcon Lord's tent, the officers of both the Sidhe and Unsidhe camps were gathered to discuss what to do about the altered Goblins. They'd been put in the hospital tent under guard, all of them still in stasis, but they'd be healed soon. Their guards kept a close watch on them, one soldier per Goblin, with the order to stab their charges in the heart at the first sign of awakening. Yes, it was brutal, but we had to keep them in stasis until we figured out how to undo the dark magic the Farungals had worked upon them.
“It's this new Queen,” Varcir snarled furiously. “The last King was her brother so she's after revenge.”
Tae rolled his eyes, “They've been after revenge from the very beginning, Varcir. It makes no difference. If she hadn't come up with the spell, someone else would have. They are cunning in their cruelty.”
“What about your soul stone?” I asked Tae. “Can't it change the Goblins back?”
“It's possible, but with such a large number of Goblins to heal, the amount of magic it would take would be significant. I'm hesitant to drain my kingdom like that.”
“We have another option,” a man with crimson hair declared as he strode into the tent with a large group of faeries.
I recognized several of them, including the redhead, as warlords. I assumed the people with them were their valorians.
“Vathmar?” Taeven stood up and went to greet his guests. “What are you doing here?”
