He was rocking Vile Father back on his heels now. Eliot found he was baring his teeth and spitting words with each punch.

“You. Killed. A. Hermit. You. Weird. Sweaty. Bastard!”

Don’t go down, cocksucker. Don’t go down, I want to hit you some more. They were practically back against the Lorian front line when Eliot kicked Vile Father in the balls and then, indulging a personal fantasy, he swept the leg and watched Vile Father rotate clockwise in a stately fashion and simultaneously descend until he crashed, thunderously and with a lot of slow-motion blubbery rippling, onto the packed sand.

Even then he started to get up. Eliot kicked him in the face. He was through with these fucking people. My kingdom. My country. Mine.

He dropped all the magic at once. The strength, the speed, the armor, all of it.

“Go.”

Well, not all of it all of it. His amplified voice echoed off the stone walls of the pass like thunder. He picked up the broken end of Vile Father’s weapon and threw it into the sand. Fortunately for his sense of theater, it stuck there upright.

“Go. Let this shattered spear mark the border between our lands. If any man cross it, or woman, I make no guarantee of their safety. Fillory’s mercy is great, but her memory is long, and her vengeance terrible.”

Hm. Not exactly Shakespeare.

“You mess with the ram,” he said, “you get the horns.”

Better leave it at that.

Eliot scowled a terrible royal scowl at the Lorian host and turned and walked away, speaking a charm under his breath. He was rewarded with the soft rustle and creak of the little stub of wood growing into an ash tree behind his back. A bit of a cliché. But hey, they’re clichés for a reason.

Eliot kept walking. His breathing was going back to normal. He’d done it, he’d shown the world that when it came right down to it the High King would put everything on the line. The pass ran north–south, and the sun was finally cracking its eastern rim, having already been busy lighting the rest of Fillory for at least an hour now. The ranks parted to let him go through.

God he loved being a king sometimes. There wasn’t much better in life than having your own ranks part before you, especially after you’d just delivered a bona fide public ass-kicking to somebody who deserved it. He avoided eye contact with the rank and file, though he did point two fingers at the most senior of the giants, acknowledging that he’d done the High King a personal favor by showing up. I owe you, man.

The giant inclined his huge head toward Eliot, gravely. Their kind played a deep game.