Ardal stared at the nearest fire. “There is a choice,” he muttered gravely and then turned to his people. “Women and children to the fort! You men, to me! We will stay and give what time we can.” He looked to Jileen. “Be swift as you can. You need not cover the whole distance. The warriors from the fort will be coming on swift horses and will reach you ‘ere long.”

The woman looked as if she might protest, then nodded and began marshaling her charges.

“They will never make it,” Rosheen told the man. “Even if you can stall the main force, the scouts that lit the watchfires are out there waiting. Who will protect your people from them?”

Ardal did not answer. He was not even looking at her. His gaze was fixed behind her.

Rosheen turned.

The dwarf had donned steel mail under his traveling cloak, a heavy bladed sword hung from his belt, along with a quiver full of grey goose shafts. His hands were covered in thick gauntlets of leather and metal plating, one of them clutching a stout bow.

“I will,” Fafnir said.

Padric rushed across the fields, the stars and moon revealing less than his instincts. His breath burned in the canals of his ears, accompanied by Faabar’s ragged gasps, drifting farther and farther behind. He had dropped the pack his mother gave him, his father’s rope within it, left them behind somewhere in the dark. He ran with only his axe and his knife gripped tightly in his fists. The black mass of a field wall squatted before him and Padric vaulted it without breaking stride, leaving the limping fomori farther behind.

“We may not make it,” Faabar’s words haunted him. “We may not make it, but we must try.”

They had waited and watched, every moment more horrible than the one before. Padric saw the armored goblin barking orders, his voice echoing mercilessly inside the swine-shaped helm. He saw the goblins form up in bands and despaired as he tried to count them, each one a tally to hopelessness. Three score torches hungry for life, three score weapons thirsty for blood. And above it all, sitting atop his litter, the twisted goblin craned forward, leering at the dark horizon. Without warning, his eyes erupted into tongues of sputtering flames, smoke billowing from the sockets. It made Padric jump, hairs prickling. The armored goblin, the one called Torcan, approached and knelt before the litter.

“What would you have of us, my lord?” he asked.

The goblin on the chair grinned, his eyes still ablaze, watching something only he could see through vile sorcery. “The mortals remain,” he said. “They send the sows and sucklings away, but the men stay behind. Two dozen, no more…your lads may have them.”

Faabar cursed and drew Padric off with a touch. When they could no longer see the goblins, the fomori squatted and leaned into Padric’s ear.