The day arrived when Ogedei and his troops finally began moving. His control over his calvary was impressive. The Mongols were used to riding across prairies and open fields, but Ogedei managed to maintain discipline even when they had to wend their way through trees and forests. It was easy enough to move with some formation and order when galloping over fields and plains but to do it while dodging trees took talent.

Balfour had a few of his Azi-fey shadowing the army, watching to ensure none of the troops decided to turn back. It would not do for us to ambush the camp and attack the remaining warriors, only to be ambushed by the Mongols that had returned without notice.

We waited an extra day to make sure Ogedei and his men were far enough away that even if they noticed the smoke that billowed as we burned the camp to the ground, there would be little they could do. They wouldn’t have time to return to stop us or support the troops he left behind.

“Boag, Une, are you ready?” I asked.

Boag and Une were going to lead the Sidhe attack. Boag was a Korrigan, one of the Sidhe races that had been gifted with some immunity to the poison of iron. Their immunity would allow him and his people to use the weapons we had gathered from the Norse soldiers we had killed. Any bodies left at the camp would be left by us intentionally. We were gifted at illusion, so staging the encampment after it had been raided and burned would show the signs of attacks we had planned.

Une was Slaugh, tasked with patrolling the skies making sure no Mongol managed to escape. The surrounding trees might make that impossible for some of the larger Slaugh, but Une was still young, barely the size of a cow. She would do well.

Her size would allow her to maneuver between the trees when necessary. She was more than dangerous and capable enough to capture and attack anyone lucky enough to escape the devastation Boag would be unleashing.

Her only problem might be tracking down everyone if a large enough contingent of people escaped the camp, a problem I mitigated by assigning a slew of Azi-fey to act as spotters. They could kill those fleeing as well, but I wanted the terror Une’s involvement would generate. The Slaugh were feared more than any other Sidhe. When Man thought about the horrors of the Sidhe, it was the Slaugh they imagined.

I planned to stay out of the actual fight. I would observe, and only if something significant went wrong, something beyond what Boag and Une had planned, would I get involved. The Sidhe were capable fighters, but the armies of Man had left them demoralized, even afraid, as they relentlessly besieged Sidhe land. This battle would be the first of many that would help them regain their confidence and the arrogance that defined what it meant to be a Sidhe warrior.

“Conceal,” I heard Boag order his people.

Once the order had been given, the Sidhe faded from sight, the illusion they were cloaked under expanding to include sound and smell. The attack about to commence would not be an exchange of blows between two equal forces. There would be no warning and no chance to prepare before the Mongols realized it was too late.

“Forward,” Boag finally ordered after one of the Azi-fey had returned to report the death of each sentry. We were attacking under cover of night. That, combined with the look-away illusion the Sidhe were shrouded behind, should allow for a decisive victory.

I was not worried about fairness or honor with this attack. The armies of Man had broken truce, renounced their oaths, and used the Sidhe weakness to iron to slaughter my people. This attack was revenge. The Sidhe did not conduct war in a civilized manner, and revenge was even less civilized. Revenge ignored the niceties of fairness or honor.

“I’ll take this tent.”

“There are ten asleep here.

“Stand guard outside here. Lord Teigh wants whatever treasure and documents hidden here saved.

“This is too easy.”

“Easy, you almost tripped and woke that woman.”

From my vantage, I could hear the whispering of different people as they went about their tasks. The [Diadem of Focus] allowed me to ignore illusion. With my perception so high as a [Ranked: King], it was easy enough for me to blanket the entire area with my perception to watch and listen to events as they unfolded.

Early on, we had discovered that there were women and children in the camp, but that hadn’t changed my decision to attack.

It did change who we would target.

The women would die. There could be no survivors or witnesses to this night’s work. But the children would be saved.

Saved and changed.

They would be secreted Underhill, and bonds of blood and magic would be exchanged. They would become Changelings. No longer human. They would gain the gifts, blessings, and curses of Sidhe.

For Changelings created on Talahm, they would be restricted to lands controlled and owned by Sidhe. But here, in a world that was shared across races, I thought that limitation might be removed.

It would have to be tested. Carefully. Because Changelings that ignored that prohibition died in agony. If they stepped foot on an area not controlled by the Sidhe, their blood would begin to boil, the magics that made them Sidhe coursing out of control, as the magics of [Fairy] repudiated them and cast them out.

It was possible to save them if they could be moved back to lands claimed by our people quickly enough, but the memory of the pain wasn’t something that could not be removed or healed. I would council the Twelve to wait a few thousand years before testing this limitation on the Changelings. Let them grow up and mature before subjecting them to the kind of torture the limitation might apply.

Even better might be to test that prohibition on an enemy, to make him Changeling, and toss him out of Sidhe lands to see what happens.

The sounds of slaughter continued for only about ten minutes. The mix of Korrigan, Knocker, and Loan Maclibuin was effective; this army of Sidhe was methodical and relentless as they killed. I didn’t reflect long on how many lives had been taken so quickly. I didn’t care and felt no remorse.

It took fewer than ten minutes for the Sidhe to harvest the lives before me like fields of wheat; their effectiveness was a testament to their abilities despite their rage.

To do it without an alarm being raised. To do it without creating mass panic. To do it and still spare the lives of the children, not one of them stirring from their sleep. That is what it meant to offend the Sidhe.

We were not known as monsters without reason. And although we might be slow to anger, our long lives giving us time to consider our actions, we could be stirred to react. Although it might take a real effort to combine the forces of Sidhe under one banner, it was possible.

The armies of Man had thrown down the gauntlet. An unending provocation of Sidhe slaughter that Morgan and her faithful had withstood like the tide. The problem for the armies of Man was that the Sidhe, unlike that ocean tide, was not limited in location or intelligence.

Alexander and Ptolemy would attack Caesar’s legions and gain his attention. But this here. This killing field was a strike by Sidhe for Sidhe. It was our revenge, a trick to change the course of events. A deception that would cause the armies of the Vikings and Mongols to fight, but that only made it more of a Sidhe design.

We would not lie. But we reveled in illusion and deception. To make man engage in war and destroy each other would become part of the history of our people. It would become part and parcel of the stories we shared and how this attack, this deception, served to trick others into serving our purpose.

Why fight the armies of Man ourselves when Man was so quickly encouraged to kill each other instead?