123 Barbarians at the Gate (1/2)

Aura had dropped that bomb on me just before sunrise which meant there was no time for me to convince her not to do anything crazy like invite Arah over to the Fayne. Not that it was what Aura was planning to do but I didn't want to take any chances.

Sadly, dawn's light peeked through the curtains just as I was pleading with her not to meet Arah later, and I found myself whisked back to Mudgard with my argument stuck in my throat.

Back on this side of the world, I'd resolved to convince Arah not to even consider anything remotely like journeying to the Fayne to help with the search for Ty. We had it covered. In fact, we'd already kind of found out where they were keeping him.

But Arah was ghosting me, ignoring my calls, seen-zoning my texts, and just disappearing on me for the entire day. She even cut classes so we wouldn't run into each other in school, and for Arah, that was beyond extreme.

Short of camping out at the Elfwood Circle Stones and waiting for Aura to arrive—which incidentally was my last resort—I didn't know what else I could do as even that plan was flawed.

It was that stupid sprite orb, a fairy tool that mimicked the abilities of a sprite, allowing messages to be sent back and forth between two people through vast distances. Essentially, it was the Fayne's answer to Mudgard's telephone.

This meant the pair of them could have set a rendezvous somewhere out of my reach.

Sunset eventually arrived while my anxiety levels were at their peak. I'd just gotten home from school, intending to stay awake for the night, a fact that was apparently impossible without permission from your contractor which I obviously wasn't getting.

So it was with a very heavy heart that I gave in to sleep after barely ten minutes of enduring the Fayne's lullaby wondering if I was about to get another headache.

I landed in the Fayne moments later, exchanging the scenery of my living room for the wagon they kept my anchor in.

With hurried steps I rushed to the back of the wagon and jumped out of it, wondering if I had enough time to stop Aura on this side. But then my feet landed on a patch of green grass that was different from the craggy earth I'd been in only last night, and I just knew it was too late.

The Foolhardies soldiers behind the wagon were standing at attention, although some of them looked at me with surprise as if these fairies weren't used to viseres dropping in suddenly.

\”Where's Luca?\” I asked the nearest soldier to me, a pixie I recognized as one of Qwipps' Talons.

The pixie pointed forward and past the wagon I just jumped out of.

\”Thanks,\” I said, before bolting for the other side of the wagon, screaming, \”Out of my way!\”

My pace slowed, and by the time I'd squeezed my way to the front, I was moving at a crawl while my eyes took in the imposingly high walls whose battlements must have been nearly thirty feet up.

\”Hey, there's our fearless leader right now,\” I heard Qwipps say off to my right.

I glanced toward the sound of his voice and saw him standing at the front of our soldiers alongside Luca, Ashley, and Edo. Predictably, Aura was nowhere in sight.

Opposite the trio was a small group of soldiers I didn't recognize, although all of them sported the same midnight blue cloaks that Darah's knights liked to wear. It was only the symbol of their tabard that was different. It was a red, upward-facing, double-bladed scimitar a bit like Darth Maul's famous lightsaber but with a ring surrounding it.

\”Shit,\” I whispered while thinking in my head that I just couldn't catch a break.

I walked over to the group while forcing myself to remain calm at the sight of this new complication.

\”Greetings, knights of Great General Garm,\” I said, feigning cheerfulness.

None of them responded. They all just looked at me like I was some kind of bug they wanted very badly to smash into pulp. The fact that they were all way taller than me and that most of them had curved horns sprouting at the sides of their foreheads made that image extra intimidating.

Still, I held my ground and kept walking until I was finally between my guys and these surly satyrs because that's what they were, freaking satyrs.

The leader, a bearded dark-skinned satyr with horns that curved twice as much as his fellows glared down at me with emerald eyes.

\”State your business, boy,\” he snarled.

\”We already did state our business,\” Luca answered back.

He turned his glare on Luca.