Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 298: Misdirection

The first council meeting didn't last long. My ability to suppress both Lleu Llaw and Morgan le Fey had forced the remaining members to fall quickly into line. It became easier for them to accept my position as [Voice] when they finally understood I was serious about engaging the armies of Man and the Fomorians.

Morgan was the first to concede. Her desire to destroy the armies assaulting our shores was an all-consuming obsession that trumped even her anger at Llew Llaw. It didn't stop her from hurling invective and denouncing him for his cowardice, but the slinging of shadow blades did stop.

I wouldn't play dictator, safe within the realm of Sithern, my intent to do battle-proven once the meeting was adjourned and each of the members of the council given areas of responsibility, I escorted a few of the twelve along the corridor to the Hall of Portal doors. For those I left behind, this meant leaving them to help those in need or in danger as they continued retreating to the Sithern. For those following me, we would visit the front lines.

All of them were eager to experiment with their magic, to understand how or if it had changed now that it was restored. I understood that intrinsic need to flex long-neglected abilities, to stretch magical muscles that would have atrophied over the millennium, but I made certain they knew to share this piece of information with all Sidhe.

They were Powers, but they weren't the only Powers. Every Sidhe had magic, each species suited to a specific function and capable of filling a role that would allow our race to survive and thrive. We needed our entire people to embrace the return of their powers, and for those too young, those born after magic's demise, we needed them to explore the facets of this new world, to understand what magic had gifted them and what new abilities and magics they could now call upon.

Merlin, not surprisingly, was well suited to play mentor and teacher. He had lived long enough to remember coming to this world. He was ancient, one of the few Sidhe who remembered the old [Rituals] and [Rites] the Sidhe practiced. He might not have walked with Danu, but he remembered.

Remembered a world where Sidhe was in tune with the Gods. Closer to nature and their heritage.

The Underhill opening to the front lines was located beneath a fortress. One that had managed to weather the tides of Man that had assailed our people since the invasion began. We were standing on the battlement of the Keep. A bastion on the coast of the Isle of Wight, its position relative to a natural harbor that had formed closest to the continent.

The battlement had been named Wright's Rest. The architecture was built in such a manner that the winds off the ocean were funneled through crenels along the Keep's walls. The embrasures guided the wind and transformed the channeled airflow into creating a wailing noise that was reminiscent of an undead Wright's moaning.

The beach and ocean were crowded with the vessels of Man armed for war. An armada of ships, some breached, most at anchor. The ships that had ferried the armies of Man to invade our land and slaughter our people. The armies were encamped, lines of tents in neat rows surrounding great bonfires that provided cook-tents the means to feed the mass of controlled chaos that swarmed between neatly established avenues.

Gunpowder either hadn't been invented yet or wasn't common enough to be used in war. Fortunately, because this war would have been all but over otherwise. The Sidhe would have been slaughtered, poisoned by iron bullets and shrapnel from cannon fire battering fortress walls.

Morgan still had to deal with trebuchets lobbying pots filled with boiling tar or ceramic jars tightly sealed with Greek fire. The battlements managed to withstand everything sent against it, at least so far. But there were signs of damage. Broken crenels and missing silver leaf that had been used as an overlay on the more pedestrian materials used in construction.

Someone had been smart enough to create a trench around the fortress, the dirt, and sand used to create a berm capable of stopping most of the boiling tar. A lucky few were able to fire past the berm, but for the most part, the trebuchets had been neutralized.

The ground between the beach and the fortress had been left with obvious signs of battle. Trenches dug for fortification outlined by sands that ran red with blood. So much had been spilled that it had discolored a section of land a half-mile wide. That land would be reclaimed by nature quickly, once the fighting was over. The blood supplying the nutrients to foster a fast recovery.

That Morgan had managed to turn back each assault from the forces levied against her was a testament to her military acumen and sheer force of will. She had marshaled the armies of Slaugh, Redcaps, Goblins, and Selkie that hadn't fled Underhill or hidden and used their superiority over air and water to maintain the status quo.

The Selkie and Kelpie had managed to hole ships at anchor, sinking ship after ship that dared to brave the coast, but the armies of Man simply ignored the losses, sending a new ship to replace the one that was lost.

Still, the losses were not sustainable, not even for Caesar. And he had sought aid.

Interspersed with the Greek longships was a fleet of Viking Skeid. Both vessels relied on sail and ore to navigate the ocean's waters, but the Skeid was narrower, longer, and shallower. They were built for speed, not deep ocean voyage, and could more easily breach ashore than the Greek's longships.

The unique shape of those ships, the front and back a mirror image of each other, made it easier for them to reverse direction or clear the beach once Vikings had been off-loaded. They couldn't hold as many men as the Greek galleons, but their maneuverability made up for that limitation.

The Selkie and Kelpie still sunk these ships where possible, but the Vikings had started a strategy of heading to shore and beaching their ships as fast as possible. It left little time for the Sidhe to react, and even if their ships took damage while beaching, it was easier to repair a damaged ship than to build a new one.

I knew that only a direct edict by Zeus and Odin would convince these two people to forge an alliance. An alliance that would shatter at the slightest provocation. One maxim about Man that held true no matter the universe, they would as soon fight and destroy each other as they would anyone else.

They were fiercely tribal, and it was because of this nativism and prejudice that the pogrom against the Sidhe had allowed them to ignore their fierce hatred for each other long enough to work together to eradicate our people. This tribalism would be humanity's downfall. If the race of man didn't breed as quickly as rabbits, they would have long ago annihilated themselves.

But as magic and science were studied and new, more powerful weapons were created, their ability to reproduce quickly would be offset by their new weapons of mass destruction.

It was their damn ingenuity that gave them their edge, their ability to harness the world around them in new and wondrous ways. The problem was that they cared as little for that world they lived in as they did for each other. In their relentless drive for progress, advancement and profit ruled them all. This drive, now fueled and protected by divine providence, gave them a sense of entitlement. They believed themselves blessed, and they were right.

Perhaps without that divine protection, the people in this world might have learned discretion. Even the smallest amount of humility to temper their drive to master and own everything they saw would have been fortuitous. With the various magical species existing and living next to them, it would have been an opportunity to learn cooperation and moderation. Without that temperance, they seemed driven to destroy what they could not claim, and the Sidhe could not be claimed.

We would not play the slave for any master. We refused to wear slave collars or labor under yokes. We would rather die than allow ourselves to be branded and hobbled.

We were creatures of nature, and we railed at the destruction that followed in the wake of man. Everywhere they turned, they left chaos. Forests decimated. Mountains stripped of ore. Waters polluted. All the changes and innovations man produced came at a horrendous cost.

"What has been your strategy when fighting?" I finally asked Morgan, satisfied I understood the forces levied against us.

It had taken her pointing out the deep trenches fortified and camouflaged for me to spot the Fomorians. They were creatures of winter and ice and should have fled north by this point. The coastal waters and warmth of summer's breeze were normally an effective deterrent against their people, the reason they usually retreated. They simply wilted under the sun's blazing heat.

The trenches had been dug for them, had been deep enough that they could unleash their native magics of ice and cold to create a subterranean eco-system that would allow them to survive the summer's harsh temperatures.

"Sacrifice and distraction," Morgan replied succinctly.

"We meet their armies with armies of our own. The Slaugh, Redcaps, and Goblins mostly. They fight as the bulwark that stands ready to stem the tide of each attack. Once the battle begins, we send Selkie and Kelpie to sink ships, stealing or ruining whatever cargo each vessel we sink holds."

"You fight them using their tactics?" I asked in disbelief. "Why would you do that?

"We are Sidhe.

"Why have you ignored our greatest weapons in defending our lands?

"Where are the [Greater Illusions] you have you spun?

"Why hasn't Lleu Llaw used his control over the ocean's water to sink this entire armada instead of a few ships here and there?

"Why hasn't the Abhac been tasked with diverting rivers of lava into the Fomorian trenches?" I demanded.

"But our magic was just restored," Morgan reminded me. "How could we have used those tactics?"

"Illusions are as much a part of Sidhe as our lungs and heart. Illusion can be made stronger with the use of magic, but it isn't required. Lleu Llaw still retained some control over the ocean's water. It is part of the connection between Sidhe and nature that the Tuatha de Danann used when giving us life.

"Even you had some control over the shadows you have mastered. You still commanded shadows, even if what you could command them to do was lessened.

"These natural gifts of Sidhe are part of who we are as a people. None of them are powered by magic or spells," I explained.

The horror on Morgan's face. The realization that she had allowed her people to fight this war on man's terms made it evident that she had fallen into the trap of war.

This wasn't a battle of honor. This was a battle for the soul and existence of our people. To wage war using infantry and catapults was insane. Not when we had the ability to turn the very water and land against those that would dare trespass onto lands tended by our ancestors since the Sidhe were created.

"For some of that, we have been constrained. When the armies of Man first landed, they approached under a flag of truce and informed us that if we used our powers of nature in this battle, that the Gods of their people would be free to intervene," Duchess Boadicea, General of the Sidhe forces explained. Her words restored Morgan's equilibrium and faith in her actions.

"They lied to you," I sneered.

"The Gods are bound by rules and laws as tightly as any mortal when it comes to intervention on this plane of reality. They tricked you, and in the process hobbled you, keeping you from using your strengths to defend our people."

Eyes blazing with anger at the perfidy of Man and their Gods, I sent tendrils of magic racing across the ground. Swirls of magic laced with ice and illusion. Those with me watched in consternation as I formed an illusion of Fomorians charging out of their entrenched positions to attack.

Magics of ice and snow gave depth and realism to the illusion as the Fomorians I created charged behind the emplacements Man had created to attack guards and soldiers that had become inured to their presence.

My gambit proved successful as the armies were roused, the catapults of pitch, oil, and fire that had been lobbed at the fortress quickly repositioned and flung with deadly precision to the Fomorians that were ignorant about what was happening.

It was that simple to spark a conflict and destroy an alliance that was built on mistrust and shared hatred.

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