Or fully trusting Sal when she said to cut the magic ropes.
She was still unconscious. Had she realized that her slice would harm Titania? And that the harm would cause even worse problems? Did she care? Battle was her focus, so battle we did. When one’s only tool is an axe, one does a lot of chopping and splitting.
What other choice did we have? Without Sal disrupting the entire magical circuit, Ellie would be gone, and Oberon would likely show up looking for his grandson.
Which at this point was probably inevitable, considering the blazing, blinding magic erupting from the wound I’d caused.
And my girlfriend’s mother, the Queen of the Fae, was about to hunt for us, and the elves, and probably everything else here in the veil. Hunt me as if I was some idiot village boy whom she’d decided was not at all worthy of her daughter.
The three ewes ducked under the fence just as a flash and a magical concussive wave hit our backs.
Ellie stumbled. The lamb jumped from my arm and followed his mother under the fence, and I accidently dropped Sal while juggling her and the animal.
She hit the snow with a yelp and a sudden, utter re-awakening into consciousness.
She swore in what sounded like Old Norse.
Ellie pointed at my axe. “Did she just talk?”
“The helpful fae magic is close by?” Sal said. “Freeing her worked?”
Ellie scrambled to her feet. “We need to go.” She turned toward the fence.
I reached for Sal. My reach required a twist, and I caught a glimpse of the magical storm behind us.
Titania’s ruptured magic gelled around her body. The antlered helmet sharpened into a rack of obsidian knives. The borrowed dryad armor solidified into sections of cutting light that appeared to float above her skin.
“How dare you!” she roared, and sent a thick, massive bolt against the elves’ sigils just as Arne and Magnus snapped through the barrier into the semi-realm of the veil, both in full armor, but without weapons. They were, it seemed, adhering to whatever treaty or promise they’d made to not bring along elven artifacts.
“Don’t let the fae steal me,” Sal said.
I picked her up, wishing for Arne’s scabbard, and set her on my shoulder. “I won’t,” I said.
Arne whipped out a new shield, but at an angle to the ground—an angle good for running and launching an attack.
Magnus bolted up the ramp and dove for Titania. Her hands came up to zap him, but he grabbed her and they rolled across the snowy pasture, armor clinking and clacking, until Titania’s razor antlers caught the ground.
She punched the side of Magnus’s head. He hollered and rolled into a crouch.
Titania jumped to her own crouch. “Why do the pretty ones always put up the worst fights?” She kicked Magnus away.
Arne motioned to Hrokr to come over to him. The Loki elf looked first at his father, then at Titania and Magnus. Then he looked at us.
The fire magic around his eyes flared. He smiled.
Behind us, a horse snorted.
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Ellie yelled.
I looked back at the fence. Bloodyhoof stood on the other side of the fence’s wooden rails, his handsome bay coat shimmering a deep red and his black-filled Fjord-horse mane brushed up and standing on end as if he was the greatest of Greek war horses.
He wasn’t Greek. He was Norse, and he was not going to allow the Fae Queen to attack his elves.
“I’d forgotten that he’s as beautiful as Magnus,” Ellie breathed.
The stallion’s eyes blazed in much the same way they had while we were in Vampland, except this time, the fire looked more alive. More chaotic. More… Loki.
I looked back at Hrokr. He’d somehow done this.
Bloodyhoof whinnied and pawed at the ground. He pranced to the side just as the lamb darted between his hooves.
“Blodughofi is drawn to the hunt,” Sal said.
The stallion raised his head and neighed out a call. Two other horses responded.
Lucky and Comet, the two Percherons stolen by Tony and Ivan and forced into Vampland, thundered around the side of the barn and leaped the fence as if they were show jumpers.
“Hrokr sent the sheep into the barn,” I said. He must have used them to bring out the horses.
I held out my hand as I scooped up Sal with my other. “Blodughofi, my friend,” I said. “How about we ride you out of here?”
Bloodyhoof snorted again. He sniffed at Ellie, then backed up.
“If he jumps here, he’ll land on—”
The stallion leaped. He arched his grand back and he pushed off the ground with all the strength of his powerful hindquarters.
Bloodyhoof sailed over the fence, and us, as if he could fly.
“Oh… oh wow,” Ellie said. “He’s worthy of a valkyrie.”
The last magical I wanted to see right now was a valkyrie. “We need to go. Magnus has other horses.” Maybe we’d get lucky and a more rideable animal would come through.
Arne and Magnus’s sigils parted with an audible pop and opened just enough of a rip for Bloodyhoof to jump through. He landed to the side of Titania and reared up as if to stomp her into the muddy snow.
She roared and jumped back, her hands coming up to hit Bloodyhoof with a bolt.
The two Percherons charged in, both kicking at the Queen, and keeping her from striking the stallion with magic.
“Magnus needs to get those horses away from her.” Ellie curled her arms around my waist. “If she hurts them…”
If she hurt Magnus’s prize horses, there’d be a war, but Ellie’s face said something else—there’d be trauma. Not just to the horses, or the elves, but to Titania, too. Hurting beasts would trigger a new cascade of anguish that would make any war that much worse.
There was nothing we could do. The horses circled. Magnus tried
