The blow, which simply had to be magically enhanced, caught Mircea as well as the door, shooting them both almost halfway down the hall. And leaving me facing the mass of fey muscling in with no magic and no time. But thanks to Mircea being a bastard, and my current terrible mood, I did have one advantage.

“I hate it when you’re right,” I muttered, and slammed a heavy shield into the nearest fey’s face, hard enough to send him and the three immediately behind him staggering.

“I heard that!” A distant voice said.

“Shut up and help me!” I yelled, and for once, Mircea did as he was told.

A bunch of spears machine gunned through the air, thrown hard enough to blow the vanguard off their feet, and to affix them to the wall like bugs on a pin. It was the sort of thing that would normally merit a double take or two, but not now. I was too busy lobbing every weapon I could find at the fey while walking backward down the hallway.

Using my own strength, I’d have had trouble even lifting many of the heavy maces, war hammers and flails, much less rapid-firing them with devastating effect. But I wasn’t using my strength; I was using Mircea’s. And he didn’t have any problem at all.

The initial barrage paused some of the feys’ forward momentum, and the second—half a dozen of the heavy shields—stopped it altogether. The iron banded disks slid across the stone floor, hard enough to cause sparks to fly up, before tumbling the fey like bowling pins. And before they could react to that, Mircea was running at them carrying the heavy oak door.

“What are you doing?” I demanded as he blew past. “The hinges are broken!”

“Then make me some new ones!”

“What?”

He didn’t answer. He just waded into the fey, half of whom were already back on their feet, completely defenseless except for the door he was holding in front of him. I had no idea what the hell he thought he was doing.

“Why don’t I ever fall for sane men?” I said, and grabbed some swords.

“Your life… would drive them mad… soon enough,” Mircea informed me, while using the door as a club to beat back the fey. “It is easier to start out that way.”

I opened my mouth to make a response to that, realized I didn’t have one, and started throwing swords. Because the fey had surrounded him now and ex or not, I didn’t want him dead! Not until I get the chance to kill him myself, I thought, slamming swords through fey bodies hard enough to pin them to the floor.