Rise of the Fomori: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure (Faerie Warriors Book 2)

by J. A. Curtis

  They’d never really mattered.

  They needed me, and so, succeed or fail, I would try my best.

  I should have figured that out a while ago. Any who fell today, because I hadn’t been there, would be partially my fault. Then again, if I hadn’t gone with Dramian, I wouldn’t have known it was a trap.

  I gritted my teeth. Somehow, we were all played for fools today.

  And aside from Chels, Mina was in more danger than anyone. The thought made my mouth go dry and my hands sweat.

  Save the faeries. Get to Mina.

  I could do this.

  The dragon beneath me let out two large puffs of steam and descended toward the earth.

  “Like last time,” I said to the large creature. It let out another two puffs of steam, which I took as a sign of agreement.

  The dragon skimmed above the trees, their tops jolting with the force of the huge dragon's wings.

  My golem rose among the treetops just ahead. I waited until the exact right moment and then cast myself from the dragon, dropping onto my golem who steadied me.

  Dramian’s dragon melted into nothing, returning to its owner.

  Standing on my golem’s head, I looked toward where the enemy base should be in the northeast. Even though I could make out the top of the building, about level with the treetops, I had several miles to go before catching up with the faeries. I urged my golem forward, and we pounded off into the trees.

  I saw our line of faeries approaching, retreating toward the Haven, according to Mina’s plan. The flashing metal wings of the stymphalian birds guarded the rear of their retreat. So far, it looked like no attack had been struck. I shook my head. That in itself should be a warning that something was up.

  Movement among the trees caught my attention. I looked left. They were coming out from a ravine, launching toward our line of retreating faeries. I glanced to the right and found another line of the enemy.

  They were going to surround and destroy us.

  I pushed my golem forward, rushing for the front of the line. I saw Nerime and Caelm. “Where is Palon?” I demanded.

  Nerime pointed behind her. “Just behind us, there.”

  I saw him coming up with Raedia and Jorgeral behind the line of faeries, making sure those chasing them didn’t get too close. I pounded over to him.

  “Stop the retreat,” I said.

  “What?” Palon said, surprised.

  “They are coming around from the sides. They are going to cut off your escape. Order it, NOW!”

  “Yes sir!” Palon said. He turned to Raedia and Jorgeral.

  “On it,” Raedia zipped off. Jorgeral stood there looking uncertain.

  “You heard him, go!” Palon ordered.

  “Yes sir,” Jorgeral said. He ran off into the trees in the opposite direction of Raedia.

  “They are going to surround us,” I said. “The bulk of their forces are in front of us. They will most likely swing in and crush us.”

  Palon looked shaken by that. “What do we do?”

  “We are no match for them,” I said. “Our only hope is to save as many faeries as we can. How many enemies are at our rear?”

  “Raedia counted eleven faeries.”

  Shouts and screams brought my attention to the left. I swung around to look. Monsters clashed, throwing dirt and debris into the air. My heart dropped. We were too late. Raedia was back, her eyes wide. “They’re attacking! We’re outnumbered.”

  More shouts and crashing now came from the right. Pretty soon they’d swing in and hit us at the center. Palon and Raedia both looked to me, panic on their faces. Jorgeral came back, announcing overwhelming forces on their side as well.

  “What now?” Palon asked.

  “We turn around. Retreat in the opposite direction,” I said. “Push past the faeries at our rear and keep heading past the enemy base.”

  “Past the enemy base is the freeway and humans and—” Raedia began.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Get them to the humans, and they’ll have to back off. Raedia, you make sure we get as many out as we can. Palon, Jorgeral, and I will hold off the faeries at our front.”

  “And if we do that, they will surround you three,” Raedia pointed out.

  I ran a hand over my face. How was I going to get to Mina after all this?

  “Let us know when our lines are past the enemy base,” I said. “Raedia, grab two faeries and set up a guard to protect the retreat, but only engage if you have to. Signal the stymphalian birds to help guard our retreat, as well. Palon, Jorgeral, with me. Everyone, move now!”

  Nobody argued.

  Nobody pointed out that I had absolutely no authority to issue any kind of command. Everyone burst into action.

  The faeries began pulling back through the trees in the opposite direction, disengaging from the overwhelming numbers at our front. Nerves struck me. What if we couldn’t push back the line of faeries? What if they destroyed us before we made it to civilization?

  Don’t worry about that. Get as many out as you can. Then if you survive, get to Mina.

  I released my golem, and it rose from the earth. The huge monster bent forward and ripped two trees out of the ground. Mina had once mentioned throwing trees as a fighting tactic in battle. It was time to test how effective that tactic could be.

  33

  Bres

  Mina

  “Sometimes we have to admit that we have less control over our lives than we think.”—Nana

  FLOWERS ADORNED THE inside of a home made of vines and leaves. Small light bugs glowing in jars granted light. A boy of nine or ten sat with a man and woman eating food off a wooden plate. The woman’s long butterfly wings extended from her back, covered in blues and greens and yellows. The wingless man next to her hunched his broad shoulders while he ate. A loud banging came at the door. The boy’s head shot up. His wings were a feathered gray. His brown eyes held a red tint to them.

  The woman turned to the man. Her wings fluttered nervously. “They wouldn’t—they have to know you had nothing to do with all the fighting.”

  The man’s large, wingless body rose, a grimness in his crimson eyes. He stepped to the door and opened it.

  “Rakin? It’s time.”

  The man’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. The boy jumped to his feet. “No! Father!”

  He ran for the door, but his father put out a hand, blocking the boy’s path. “You will stay in the house with your mother.”

  “No! It's not fair! You didn’t even fight!” He jerked out of his father’s grip and reached out his hands. A spark of light flew from his palms, pinning his father against the doorjamb as the boy squeezed past him.

  Two faerie soldiers, dressed in leather faerie armor, stood on the other side of the door. Large feathered wings spread out from their backs. Behind them was a large caged wagon with other wingless people sitting in them. They watched the boy with sad, red eyes. The boy’s eyes grew wide at the sight.

  “Please,” he said to the faerie soldiers. “My father is a pacifist. He didn’t fight with Balor or the other Fomori. He is peaceful.”

  “All Fomori are banished from Tir Tiamgire. Your father must come with us.”

  The boy’s father, coming unstuck from the doorjamb, stepped through the door. “I am prepared to go.”

  “Your family may go with you, Rakin, although they’d also have to give up their powers,” one faerie soldier said, eyeing the boy with disdain. “Goddess Danu knows, we don’t need mixed-breeds like him around, they have caused enough damage in their own right.”

  Rakin straightened, his eyes flashing. The boy gritted his teeth, electricity sparking between his fingers.

  Rakin laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “My wife and child will keep their powers and remain as allowed by the king and queen.” He gave the boy a warning look. “Son, go inside with your mother. We knew this was coming—”

  “Bres! My name is Bres,” the boy snarled, raising his hands.

  The light
ning-like electricity came from his fingers, shooting toward the faerie soldiers. One ducked, slamming his fist into the earth, and a wall of stone rose in front of them. Another reached out a hand, and suddenly, vines shot forth out of the trees and latched around the boy’s wrists, legs, and torso. He tried to flap out of it, but they tightened around him, restraining him. The vines pulled tighter and tighter in all different directions, like they were going to snap the boy apart.

  “No! Please! I thought faeries didn’t believe in torture? He’s just a boy! I’ll go. I’m going peacefully. I beg you, leave him be,” Rakin pleaded.

  The faerie soldier lowered his hand, and the vines, while not releasing the boy, relaxed a little. Bres gasped in relief.

  The faerie soldier, who lifted the wall of stone, took Rakin by the arm and led him over to the wagon while the other faerie soldier approached the boy.

  “Remember this, Bres. You are as worthless as the half-blood tyrant king whose name you bear, and someday, we will be rid of all of you.”

  “WAKE UP, GENERAL. I’VE removed the armband with the gemstones. It should no longer affect you.”

  My eyes drifted open. What had happened? I’d tried to use the yellow stone on the armband. It was supposed to save me from my enemies. But it hadn’t.

  Did I do something wrong? It should’ve worked with just the swipe of the hand. If I had messed it up, I couldn’t figure out how.

  Bres stood at the window, long, sheer drapes drawn back. The black unicorn tattoo on his arm was missing.

  “Your troops are not faring well.” He let the curtains fall so that only a sliver of natural light shone through. The image of the dark unicorn returned to his arm.

  “I was quite skeptical when Margus suggested we command Dramian to whisk you away from here. Even I could tell Dramian’s desire for revenge on Margus wasn’t greater than his love for his faeries.” He cast me a sideways glance. “And his conflicted feelings for you. But I confess, you did exactly as he predicted by inviting Dramian to join you.”

  Nausea curled in my stomach. Inviting Dramian to join us had all been part of their plan. It allowed Dramian to betray us. I was so stupid!

  “I thought I’d be able to rub it in Margus’s face when Dramian refused to give us any actual information,” Bres continued. “It was as I suspected—he didn’t hate Margus enough to betray you.”

  Wait. What? “Dramian didn’t tell you about the attack?” I asked.

  Bres smiled. “Foolish boy thought he would play us the same way he played you. And it might have been a blow to our plans, briefly, if you hadn’t gone into the mystical.”

  “The mystical?”

  Bres motioned to the bookcase on the far side of the room. Among the books and trinkets, on the second shelf down, rested a glass ball with a blue jagged stone suspended in the center. It matched the one at the Haven exactly.

  I stared at it. “I don’t understand.”

  He scooped up the armband with the gems. “The yellow gemstone is filled with the smoke of burnt leaves from the Rowan tree. Activating it has the same effect as the smell of burning Rowan leaves, causing the faerie to pass out until the stone is removed. A protective measure. The gemstones in the armband are powerful. The yellow gemstone was placed as a failsafe against any who may steal the armband.”

  “That’s not what I was told—”

  Bres slammed the armband onto the desk with a crack. “She lied to you, Jazrael. Accept it.”

  I cringed. “F-faeries can’t—”

  But they could lie. There was one way. I’d seen it in my visions.

  Liar’s Brew.

  “Queen Morrigan was a great sorceress. Perhaps the greatest,” Bres said. “You don’t think she’d pass that knowledge on to her daughter? Princess Niamh used a rare potion, allowing her to lie to you. Not the first or second time you met her. Those were as much a surprise to her as they were to you. But the last time, she was prepared.”

  The last time. The time she’d told me about the yellow gemstone. I could no longer deny it. Dramian wasn’t the one who’d betrayed us. Niamh and Bres had been working together the whole time. The princess was allied with the Fomori.

  This had all been a trap.

  “But why?” I whispered. “Why would she want her mother dead?”

  Bres’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t want her mother dead. She wants all of us to be free. The death of the queen is a necessary step to reach the greater goal.”

  “Greater goal? You tried to bring back Balor, the faeries’ greatest enemy!”

  “That is what’s wrong with you royalists. You act like our past was so black and white. That creatures like me, who possess both fae and Fomori blood, don’t exist.”

  My vision. “They took your father away. He was Fomori.”

  “That’s right, my mother was fae, but my father—didn’t matter that he was a pacifist—they still took his powers and banished him. My mother and I had a choice. We stayed, but were forced to give up our powers anyway to create the Otherworld. My name, after a half-Fomori king, made sure that wherever I went, my lineage would not be forgotten. Because of my tainted blood, my mother lost all position among the faeries, and we were forced to live among the cast-out fae and beasts of the outer realms.”

  “I saw you sacrificing an innocent life, releasing a magical plague.”

  “One life for the salvation of many. Surely you can appreciate that? For years, the faeries have guarded the Otherworld, died over needless territorial disputes. And we in the outer realms bore the brunt. But with freedom and the return of our powers, all that will end. And raising Balor is key to that plan.”

  A coldness stole through me. “But Balor is dead, killed by Prince Lugh’s spear—”

  “He needed to hit the center of his third eye. While the spear came close, it became clear, over time, that the strike did not completely hit its mark.”

  I gripped my arm and bounced up on my toes. Balor wasn’t dead. Bres was going to destroy the Otherworld and bring Balor back, the faerie’s greatest enemy.

  “Bres, we created the Otherworld for a reason,” I said. “To set all the creatures loose on an unsuspecting world—”

  “The humans will either adapt or be destroyed.”

  Even with a creature as powerful and terrifying as Balor on their side, I wasn’t so sure. Someone would be destroyed, but I wasn’t convinced it would be the humans.

  One thing was for sure, though, if Bres’s plan succeeded, the entire world would be at war.

  And I just handed them their victory.

  “Where’s Margus?” I growled.

  “Right now? Probably dispatching the queen. After they crush your tiny force, our larger force will continue to the Haven to back him up. We Fomori leave nothing to chance. Soon we will have confirmation that the queen is dead.”

  I’d left the queen with practically no protection. Definitely not enough protection to handle Margus. Then the larger forces would arrive. What would they do to the others? The children and the babies? In the past, they’d used them to get to me and the queen, but now they had no use for them. I trembled, recalling Bres’s words when I first walked into the room. He’d wanted to dispose of them—permanently.

  “Why do all this?” I demanded. “Why release me when you could have attacked the Haven and killed the queen anyway?”

  “You had done the work of retrieving the queen for us. Margus thought you might do the same with the scepter. And it was worth a try, I suppose. But when you mentioned to Niamh that the queen already possessed some proficiency with her powers, the princess determined it was time to cut the risk and go back to doing things my way. And so she gift wrapped you and sent you here to me, all while getting the queen vulnerable and bringing your soldiers out into an indefensible position. With your return, finding the scepter is inevitable.”

  A sly smile crossed his face. “And so, you see, you’ve never had the advantage. Every choice you’ve made was merely playing into our hands
.”

  I groaned. We’d never carried the upper hand. Getting the queen, trying to protect her, the attack, all of it happened because the Fomori allowed it to happen.

  I need to get out of here.

  I looked between the window and door. We weren’t on the ground floor, so without my faerie guardian, the window wasn’t an option. Gathering my legs under me, I rose to my feet. My jaw still throbbed, and there was an ache in my shoulder where it had struck the edge of the desk when Bres punched me.

  Bres watched me. My sword lay on the desk, but he moved around to the front and laid a hand on its hilt. If I tried lunging for the door, he could easily intercept and bring me into submission with my own sword. But it was the only way out. Maybe I could duck around his attack and make it to the door. With everything on the line, it might be worth the risk.

  “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it already is, Jazrael. Don’t fight me. Help us, and I might be persuaded to spare one of the brothers of the Ettemarch. I’ll even let you choose. Dramian or Arius?” He grinned knowingly.

  “Go to hell.”

  “No? Perhaps it's the younger children you’d like to save? The ten-year-olds will have to go, but I could agree not to harm anyone five or under.”

  I hesitated. This was a chance to save some of the younger children. My plan had left them ridiculously vulnerable. Whatever happened to them would be my fault. I may not save everyone, but at least I could save some.

  “That includes anyone who your faeries make fall during this fight?” I asked.

  “Yes. But you must let me know now so I can send the message. Otherwise, I can make no promises.”

  I had only one goal left—saving as many lives as possible.

  “Bres, if you spare the younger faeries, I’ll do whatever you want.”

  I’d just lost everything.

  34

  Battle Tactics

  Arius

  “Strike hard and fast.”—Nuada