Eira forced herself to look up at the branches. The heavy, roping foliage drooped toward her, dripping blood. She looked away before she could recognize too many of the parts that belonged inside someone’s body.
Lukasz gripped her arm, pulling her back to the ring of knights.
“How many trees?” he asked Kael.
“I can see five or six,” Kael answered. “There could be more deeper in the forest.”
“Five or six accounts for the village.” Lukasz’s face had drained of color. “And more.”
“Where are Alan and Philip?” Alistair asked quietly.
His answer came in the form of a bellow followed by a shape hurtling from high among the pine trees.
Philip’s limp body thumped on the ground and rolled over once. His chest was split open.
Another shape descended, but this one landed on its feet. When it rose, it loomed over them, half again as tall as Lukasz and twice as broad. Its skin matched the ruddy brown of the pine bark and its eyes shone like garnet. The tall creature wore a ragged shirt, and a hat was perched between its long ears. Red liquid slid off the hat onto the sides of the creature’s face.
Eira had encountered a redcap once before and she wasn’t pleased to meet another. Most sorcerers knew that while the idea of summoning the much larger and more vicious cousin of hobgoblins might be appealing, it rarely went well in practice.
Redcaps wielded powerful magics of their own and easily broke the binding spells used to call them to their would-be masters. Eira had come upon her first redcap just after it had decapitated its summoner and was kicking his head around like a ball.
Beside Eira, Kael spewed curses.
“Steady,” Lukasz murmured.
The redcap gazed at them, raised its arms in triumph, and let out another bellow. Two more redcaps lumbered out of the forest. Their hats dripped fresh blood. Alan’s head decorated the long pike carried by the third goblin.
“We can take them down,” Lukasz said in a low voice. “They have size and strength, but we have skill.”
“Where did they come from?” Cian asked.
“That’s a question to be answered after they’re dead,” Lukasz answered her. He raised his arm, shouting an order. “Arrows, now. We have the best chance if we can blind them.”
Seven of the sixteen knights bore ranged weapons. Projectiles whistled through the air, revealing the marksmen’s skill. Arrows and bolts lodged in the closest redcap’s face, several slicing through its eyeballs.
The redcap screamed, clawing at shafts.
“Kael, take your team and cover the archers. Keep the other goblins off us.” Lukasz pointed to the other two redcaps. “Sorcha’s and my men will hack this one apart. Don’t call out if you can help it. If it hears you, it will have a better chance of grabbing you and breaking you in half.”
Kael dashed into the forest with the archers, seeking to outflank the redcaps still in possession of their sight. The blind redcap stomped around madly, roaring and swinging its pike.
“A redcap’s bones are like iron,” Lukasz told the remaining knights. “If you try to strike a blow to its heart, you’re likely to break your blade. Slashing wounds, deep cuts that sever. When it falls, cut its throat. Now go.”
The knights rushed at the flailing redcap, but Lukasz stepped in front of Eira and Cian, blocking their path to the fray.
“My ladies, you must stay out of this,” the commander said brusquely.
Cian laughed at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Lukasz looked at her somberly. “I know well your skills as warriors, but this is a fight my soldiers are prepared for. It’s not worth risking two members of the Circle. You are needed there. You are the voice of the Guard.”
“We are warriors of the Guard,” Eira snapped. “Don’t ask us to stand by while you fight and bleed.”
“You risked enough bringing us here,” Lukasz said. “Trust that if the battle goes awry and we need your swords, I will call on you.”
Eira was about to argue, or even strike the commander to prove her strength, when Cian answered. “Very well.”
Lukasz nodded at Cian and with a battle cry stormed at the blind redcap.
“How could you?” Eira hissed at Cian.
Cian leveled a cool gaze on her sister. “There was no time to argue. Lukasz needs to be with his men more than we need to be in that fight.”
“We are not doddering old fools or helpless maids,” Eira spat. “We’re warriors. More skilled in combat than most of the knights here.”
“They are skilled enough,” Cian said quietly. “You bring shame on yourself to belittle them so.”
Bile came up Eira’s throat with her anger. Too furious to speak, she turned her gaze on the unfolding battle. Kael and his archers had blinded the second redcap, but the third had learned from the others’ folly. The clever redcap had torn a large branch from a pine tree, swinging it before his face to deflect arrows.
A roar from the closest redcap drew Eira’s attention. Lukasz hadn’t exaggerated his advantage over the blinded goblin. The Guard’s axes, swords, and polearms struck relentlessly at the redcap, shearing flesh from its arms and legs. Following Lukasz’s commands, the knights attacked without a sound, leaving the redcap to wield its pike in vain. Desperate and maddened by pain, the redcap threw down its weapon and turned to flee. It trampled over two knights as it stumbled into trees.
“Finish it!” Lukasz called as he led his warriors in pursuit.
As Lukasz’s company disappeared into the forest, shouts of triumph rose from Kael’s team. The blinded redcap, not able to aim its thrusts, had mistakenly impaled the other redcap with its pike, killing it. The dead redcap collapsed and the blind redcap tripped over the corpse. Without hesitation Kael’s men leapt onto the fallen monster, raining fatal blows on its exposed throat.
Eira knew both redcaps were dead when she heard Kael shout, “To the commander!”
Leaving the gigantic corpses behind, Kael and his men raced into the forest, following the trail of blood that would lead them to Lukasz and the final goblin.
“I don’t think the commander will be calling for us,” Cian said with a dry laugh.
Eira bit her tongue, too wearied by anger to fight with her sister.
“We should see to Philip’s body.” Cian returned her sword to its scabbard and walked toward Philip’s broken corpse. “He can receive proper burial at Tearmunn.”