Beside me, Keirran was moving, too, spinning and twirling like a dancer, his sword flashing in deadly circles. Though I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, he was inhumanly fast. Goblin body parts flew through the air, horrific and disgusting, before turning into mud, snails or other unpleasant things.
Three more goblins came at me, one of them the big goblin who’d spoken before, the chief. I shuffled away, blocking their attacks, whipping my rattan from one spear to the next. The frantic clacking of wood echoed in my ears as I waited for an opening, a chance to strike. The goblin’s size was actually a handicap for me; they were so short, it was hard to hit them. A spear tip got through my defenses and tore through my sleeve, making me grit my teeth as I twisted away. Too close.
Suddenly, Kenzie was behind them, bringing her stick smashing down on a goblin’s head. It met with a satisfying crack, and the goblin dropped like a stone. Kenzie gave a triumphant yell, but then the chief whirled with a snarl of rage, swinging his spear at her legs. It struck her knee, and she crumpled to the dirt with a gasp.
The chief lunged forward, raising his spear, but before either of us could do anything, a tiny black form landed on his head from nowhere. Razor buzzed like a furious wasp, hissing and snarling as the goblin flailed.
“Bad goblin!” the gremlin howled, clinging like a leech. “Not hurt pretty girl! Bad!” He sank his teeth into the goblin’s ear, and the chief roared. Reaching up, the goblin managed to grab the tiny Iron fey, tear him off, and hurl him into the brush.
With a snarl, I kicked a goblin into a stone wall, snatched Kenzie’s rattan from the ground, and attacked the chief. I didn’t see the other fey. I didn’t see Keirran. I forgot everything Guro taught me about fighting multiple opponents. All I knew was that this thing had hurt Kenzie, had tried to kill her, and it was going to pay.
The goblin scuttled backward under my assault, frantically waving his spear, but I knocked it from his claws and landed a solid blow between his ears. As he staggered back, dazed, I pressed my advantage, feeling the crack of flesh and bone under my sticks. My rattan hissed through the air, striking arms, teeth, face, neck. The goblin fell, cringing, in the dirt, and I raised my weapons to finish it off.
“Ethan!”
Keirran’s voice brought me up short. Panting, I stopped beating on the goblin and looked up to see that the rest of the tribe had run off with the fall of their chief. Keirran had already sheathed his weapon and was watching me with a half amused, half concerned expression. Kenzie still sat where she had fallen, clutching her leg.
“It’s over,” Keirran said, nodding to the empty forest around us. “They’re gone.”
I glanced at my sticks, and saw that my weapons, as well as my hands, were spattered with black goblin blood. With a shiver, I looked back at the chief, saw him curled around himself in the dirt, moaning through bloody lips, his teeth shattered and broken. My gut heaved, and I staggered away.
What am I doing?
The chief groaned and crawled away, and I let him go, watching the faery haul itself into the bushes. Through the horror and disgust of what I’d just done, I still felt a nasty glow of vindication. Maybe next time, they would think twice about assaulting three “tasty” humans.
Keirran watched it go as well, then walked over to Kenzie, holding out a hand. “Are you all right?” he asked, drawing her to her feet, holding her steady. I clenched my fists, wanting to stalk over there and shove him away from her. Kenzie grimaced, her face tightening with pain, but she nodded.
“Yeah.” Her cheeks were pale as she gingerly put weight on her injured leg, wincing. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Though my knee might swell up like a watermelon.”
“You’re very lucky,” Keirran went on, and all traces of amusement had fled his voice. “Goblins poison the tips of their weapons. If you’d gotten cut at all…well, let’s just say a watermelon knee is better than the alternative.”
Anger and fear still buzzed through me, making me stupid, wanting to hit something, though there was nothing left to fight. I turned my rage on Keirran, instead.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I snarled, stalking forward, wanting him farther away from Kenzie. He flinched, and I swung my rattan around the clearing, at the disintegrating piles of goblin. “You knew there were goblins here, you knew we would have to fight our way out, and you still brought us this way. You could’ve gotten us killed! You could’ve gotten Kenzie killed! Or was that your plan all along? Bring the stupid humans along as bait, so the goblins will be distracted? I should’ve known never to trust a faery.”
“Ethan!” Kenzie scowled at me, but Keirran held up a hand.
“No, he’s right,” he murmured, and a flicker of surprise filtered through my anger. “I shouldn’t have brought you this way. I thought I could deal with the goblins. If you had been seriously hurt, it would’ve been on my head. You have every reason to be angry.” Turning to Kenzie, he bowed deeply, his gaze on the ground between them. “Forgive me, Mackenzie,” he said in that clear, quiet voice. “I allowed pride to cloud my judgment, and you were injured because of it. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He sounded sincere, and I frowned as Kenzie quickly assured him it was all right. What kind of faery was he, anyway? The fey had no conscience, no real feelings of regret, no morals to get in the way of their decisions. Either Keirran was an exception or a very good actor.
Which reminded me…
“The chief said he smelled three humans,” I told Keirran, who gave me a resigned look. “He didn’t think you were fey. He thought you were human, too.”
“Yeah.” Keirran shrugged, offering a small grin. “I get that a lot.”
Razor appeared on his shoulder with a buzzing laugh. “Stupid goblins,” he crowed, bouncing up and down, making Keirran sigh. “Funny, stupid goblins think master is funny elf. Ha!” He buzzed once more and sat down, grinning like a psychotic piranha.
“You’re a half-breed,” I guessed, wondering how I hadn’t seen it earlier. He didn’t look like any of the other Iron fey, but he couldn’t be part of the Summer or Winter courts, either; normal fey couldn’t enter the Iron Realm without harming themselves. (I was still trying to figure out how Grimalkin did it, but everything about that cat was a mystery.) But if Keirran was a half-breed, he didn’t have the fey’s deathly allergy to iron; his human blood would protect him from the ill effects of Meghan’s court.
“I guess you could say that.” Keirran sighed again and looked toward the trees, where most of the goblins had scattered. “More like three-quarters human, really. Can’t blame them for thinking I was the real thing.”
I stared at him. “Who are you?” I asked, but then the bushes snapped, and Keirran winced.
“I’ll tell you later. Come on, let’s get out of here. The goblins are coming back, probably with reinforcements.”
I started to reach for Kenzie, but then I saw my hands, streaked with blood past my wrists, and let them drop. Keirran took her arm instead, helping her along, and she gave me an unreadable look as she limped past. I followed them up the stairs and ducked through the crumbling archway as furious cries echoed from the trees around us. The angry sounds faded as soon as I crossed the threshold, and everything went black.
Chapter Fifteen
Ghosts of the Fairground
I emerged, squinting in the darkness, trying to see where I was. For a second, it didn’t seem as if we’d left the Nevernever at all. Trees surrounded us, hissing in the wind, but I looked closer and saw they were regular, normal trees. A few yards away, three strands of barbed wire glinted in the moonlight, and beyond the wires, a scattering of fluffy white creatures peered at us curiously.
“Are those sheep?” Kenzie asked, sounding weary but delighted. Razor gave an excited buzz from Keirran’s shoulder, leaped to the top of the first wire, and darted into the pasture. Sheep baaed in terror and fled, looking like clouds blowing across the field, and Keirran sighed.
“I keep telling him not to do that. They lose enough to the goblins as is.”
“Where are we?” I asked, relieved to be back in the real world again, but not liking that I didn’t know where we were. The wind here was cool, and the wooded hills beyond the pasture seemed to go on forever. Keirran watched Razor, buzzing happily from the back of a terrified sheep, and shook his head.
“Somewhere in rural Maryland.”
“Maryland,” I echoed in disbelief.
He grinned. “What, you think all trods lead to Louisiana?”
I took a breath to answer, but paused. Wait. How does he know where I live?
“Where to now?” Kenzie asked, grimacing as she leaned against a fencepost. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk very fast with this knee. Someone might need to give me a piggyback ride later on.”
“Don’t worry.” Keirran gestured over the rolling hills. “There’s an abandoned fairground a couple miles from here. It’s a hangout for the local fey, most of them exiled. The trod there will take us to where we need to go.”
“And where is that?” I asked, but Keirran had moved up to the fence, peering over the wire at Razor, still tormenting the flock of sheep. “Razor!” he called over the bleating animals. “Come on, stop scaring the poor things. You’re going to give them a heart attack.”
The gremlin ignored him. I could just barely see him in the darkness, his electric-green eyes and glowing smile bouncing among the flock. I was about to suggest we just leave and let him catch up, when Kenzie stepped up to the fence, her expression puzzled.
“Where is he?” she asked, staring out over the field. “The sheep are going nuts, but I don’t see Razor at all.”
Oh, yeah. We were back in the real world now. Which meant Kenzie couldn’t see the fey; they were invisible to humans unless they made a conscious effort to un-glamour themselves. I told her as much.
“Huh,” she said in a neutral voice, then looked out over the pasture again, at the sheep racing through the grass like frantic clouds. A defiant expression crossed her face, and she took a breath.
“Razor!” she barked, making Keirran jump. “No! Bad gremlin! You stop that, right now!”
The gremlin, shockingly, looked up from where he was bouncing on a rock, sheep scattering around him. He blinked and cocked his head, looking confused. Kenzie pointed to the ground in front of her.
“I want to see you. Come here, Razor. Now!”
And, he did. Blipping into sight at her feet, he gazed up expectantly, looking like a mutant Chihuahua awaiting commands. Keirran blinked in astonishment as she snapped her fingers and pointed at him, and Razor scurried up his arm to perch on his shoulder. She smiled, giving us both a smug look, and crossed her arms.
“Dog training classes,” she explained.
* * *
The road stretched before us in the moonlight, a narrow strip of pavement that wove gently over and between the hills. Keirran led us on silently, Razor humming a raspy tune on his shoulder. No cars passed us; except for an owl and the flocks of sheep, snoozing in their pastures, we were alone.