Ardal nodded. “Your piskie told us.”

Padric looked around. “Rosh…where?”

“She leads our families to the fort. She and the dwarf. Where is--?”

He was cut short by a wordless whimper from Laoire. Padric looked and felt a sickening in his bowels. The lights of three score torches danced over the fields, a swarm of huge drunken fireflies. They could hear the goblins’ laughter.

They came screaming between the buildings, tossing torches atop the sod roofs and into doorways. The small houses went up in seconds and the entire town was revealed with the light of their destruction. Padric had spent the entire night in silent vigil, watching these crazed creatures with a detached fear. That fear turned to barely controlled panic as they charged towards him, mouths full of teeth. The bows above him thrummed, six arrows swallowed by the teeming mass of sharp metal and gleeful howling that barreled towards them. Padric bent his knees, flexed his fingers around the hafts of his weapons and prepared to sell his life for the families of strangers.

“SONS OF GHOB!”

The Red Caps ground to a halt, turning towards the bellowed challenge. Padric looked to the south and there, standing on the hill, was a towering shadow, broad shoulders draped in steam, horns gleaming with moonlight, sword and maul raised in defiance.

Faabar’s voice boomed. “I am a servant of the Seelie Court, guardian of the Source Isle of Airlann! This trespass will not be suffered! Be gone! Your enslaved Fire shall not burn here, thralls of Penda!”

The faces of the goblins curdled, their confusion turning to outrage. Suddenly, they turned and charged up the hill towards the fomori, leaving Padric and the other men forgotten. Faabar did not wait for them. He bull rushed down upon them, the maul swinging in vicious arcs, scattering the goblins to left and right. Many fell broken to the ground and did not rise again. He towered over the mass, quickly surrounded on all sides. They stabbed with spear and pike, slashed with pole-axe and billhook, but the force of his charge was unstoppable and he won free, tearing a swath through the horde. Smashing through their rear ranks, Faabar continued his rush until he reached the stable. The big warrior’s body was covered in a hundred small wounds and Padric saw blood running freely through his bandaged leg. Faabar did not appear to notice.

“You men!” he yelled at the bowmen on the roof, “Thin these vermin out!”

The archers reacted quickly, sending arrows into the goblins before they could regroup from the fomori’s assault. Padric watched the shafts fall. There were so many goblins, the arrows could not miss, nor make a difference.

“Stay behind me,” Faabar ordered. “Guard my flanks. Do not let them surround us or we are lost.” Without waiting for a response, he turned back to face the Red Caps.