Finn's trip to the coast was largely uneventful. It would have been nice if the note had included clearance to use the magic circles in the Mage's Tower to teleport Finn closer to where she needed to go, but she supposed this particular uprising was not especially concerning. Even if teleportation might have been convenient, making the trip from the court to the coast wasn’t so bad. It was only a few days trip, and all of it was through the relative safety of a lush forest. Before the third day was out, Finn had walked within sight of where the kobold rebellion had camped out at the end of a small peninsula jutting out into the ocean.
Hiding on a rocky outcrop high above the beach, Finn used a small telescope to look over their camp. To some degree, it was smart to camp on the peninsula. It meant that they only had to guard one side of their camp, the other three being protected by water. Great protection against an oncoming army, but not foolproof against singular agents. Finn could swim, after all. She suspected that on nights when the moon was dark, it would be nearly impossible to see someone approaching from the water until they were almost on the beach. The question was, did they have people guarding the beaches, or were they only watching the land side of their camp.
After watching for a while, Finn believed there might be fifty or so kobolds in the camp. Finn had never seen kobolds before, but they were easy to recognize.
They were small, brown skinned humanoids with thick curly hair, a mouth full of pointed teeth and little pointed ears. She had heard that some kobolds had excellent night vision, since their natural habitats were caves. But, in those days, they were minor fae that managed to survive by co-existing with humans. Kobolds would take up residence in mines, barns and sometimes human houses and complete the work of the humans they lived beside at night after the humans went to sleep in return for a home and an occasional offering.
They had set up small leather tents interspersed around campfires and wooden racks of spears and bows. None of the tents looked special or more central than any other, so she wasn’t sure which was the chief’s tent. She suspected she would have to watch for a while before she found him.
Putting aside the relative weakness of kobolds themselves, Finn decided that it would be against her best interest if she went charging in with no plan. She doubted that anyone would care if she just ran in and killed all of them just so she could get to the chief, but Finn had never relished battle or bloodshed. If possible, she wanted to complete this mission as cleanly as possible and with as little death as possible. To achieve that she figured it would be better if she hunkered down and watched the camp for a few days until she understood their movements and could figure out a way to sneak directly to the chief, preferably under cover of night, so she could take him out and then sneak away without anyone noticing. She couldn't see how anyone could find fault with that plan.
A small voice reminded her that her father would probably notice that she had been gone too long and want to know why she didn't just storm in and kill them all, but she squashed that voice. The order had been to kill the chief, and that was all that she was going to do. It wasn’t like she would get a reward for going above and beyond. If anything, her father would take credit for anything impressive she did and blame her for anything less than perfect.
Finn spent the rest of the day setting up her own small camp in the cluster of trees on top of the rocky bluff. She couldn’t start a fire without drawing attention to herself, but she could lay out her bedroll and set up a small tarp to keep the rain and wind off her while she slept.
Watching the rebel kobolds was dull, but it was relaxing compared to life at court. She watched them wake up and make breakfast, she watched small groups travel into the woods to hunt or walk down along the beaches to scavenge for shellfish. They would be out most of the day, while the remaining kobolds piddled around in the camp cleaning, talking, moving between tents and cold fire pits in deep discussion. Before the sun went down, the scavenging parties would return, and they would work together to make dinner.
Finn chewed on a corner of beef jerky while she watched the kobolds laugh and talk over bubbling pots of seafood or small forest game. They seemed happy and, much to her chagrin, it lit a small fire of jealousy in her heart. Finn wasn’t sure if she could remember a time when she wasn’t worried about her father’s next dangerous test, or competing with her brother, or keeping up appearances with the other guards. Maybe when she was young, when she was still clinging to the old grandmothers around the court, things were easier. But, she had been so young when she left her mother’s side to go live with her father that she barely remembered her or their time together. She was a knight working directly under the Seelie Queen, the daughter of the most influential general in the Seelie army, but she knew after only watching the kobolds for a day that any one of them were happier than she was. And wasn’t that a kick to the nuts?
After three days, Finn had identified the chief. There was one kobold, short but with broad shoulders, a perpetual scowl on his face, and deep scars layered on his cheeks and shoulders. There were two younger kobolds who always hovered close to him and who looked similar enough that they were probably related. He didn’t leave the camp and never seemed to wander close to the edges. Finn took notice that, though he did occasionally walk around the camp during the day, he spent most of his time at one of the most central campfires, and he was the only kobold that all the other kobolds seemed to report to.
Once Finn admitted to herself that he had to be the chief, a rock settled in her stomach. This was the man she had been sent to kill. Her mind skittered away from the thought. She decided that she would keep watching a little longer, just to be sure. It was bad enough what she was going to do. She wasn’t sure if she could live with herself if she killed the wrong man. Even more importantly, she wasn’t sure she would still be alive if she returned to court after having killed the wrong man, anyway. Her father would sooner kill her in front of the entire royal guard than see her fail her first mission as a knight. Yes, she would stay a few more days and keep watching to be sure she had the right man.
By the time the moon rose high in the sky, most of the kobolds had retired to their bedrolls, so Finn didn’t bother to stay up late either. She already had their night patrols memorized. When the scarred and scowling man retired to a small leather tent, Finn retired to her bedroll as well. Above her, the sky was splashed with sparkling pinpricks of light, and the gentle rush of waves against the nearby beach sang her to sleep. She could stop thinking of the chief for the moment. She had a few more days yet to observe. Finn could sleep easily for a little while.
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Finn was in a deep sleep when the sound of screaming jerked her awake. She sat up straight in her bedroll, her heart pounding and her breaths coming in gasps. There was screaming coming from the beach and the smell of smoke was thick in the air. Scrambling to her feet, Finn sprinted to the edge of the rocky bluff where she had been watching the kobold encampment for days and was greeted with a horrific sight.
The entire kobold encampment was on fire, huge orange flames licked up the sides of their little tents, spitting black smoke into the brisk night air. People in armor and on horseback were charging into the camp holding torches and spears aloft as the smaller fae scattered before them. The kobolds were throwing themselves into the ocean to try and escape the fire and the armored men, but they were just slowing themselves down and making themselves easier prey. Finn watched with her breath caught in her throat as they drove the kobolds into the shallow water, where more men in boats with long spears waited to slaughter them as they struggled in the rolling surf. Some of the men in the back were carrying banners, crimson banners with golden embroidery in the image of a sun.
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Humans.
Finn felt bile build in the back of her throat. This was sick. This was a mess. She had to do something. Even if they were rebels, they were still Seelie fae and she was a royal guard. It was her duty to protect them. At least, that was what her pounding heart shouted at her.
Stumbling, Finn grabbed her sword from the ground near her pack and ran toward the kobold encampment. She left her pack with her supplies and her leather armor behind. There was no time for her to equip herself properly if she was going to get there in time to make a difference.
Finn kept running, but her panic built ever higher as she realized that she had sprung into action without any idea what she wanted to do. She wanted to help the kobolds, but she couldn’t do that. They were rebels, and nobody back at court would thank her for helping them. Quite the opposite, she could be labeled a traitor herself and executed for protecting them.
The chief, she thought in a frenzy. In the confusion, she could kill the chief and then disappear back into the woods. Any kobolds that survived would assume the humans had killed him. But, she had to make sure he died there, she couldn’t just trust the humans to do it and report back without making sure. That was the kind of sloppy work her father despised.
The nausea twisted in her stomach again, even as she broke through the treeline and ran full tilt toward the thick of the fighting.
She had been watching the kobolds for days and couldn't understand why this was happening to them. What had they done wrong to deserve to be slaughtered like cattle in the middle of the night by the people they usually coexisted with? They must have built their camp too close to a human settlement, but that was no reason to murder them in their sleep. They couldn’t live in their old homes, because Poseidon had taken that land. The Seelie Queen would give them no place to settle further inland, and now the humans were killing them for making their camp too close to them.
"This is fucked," Finn thought frantically as she raced down the beach. "This is so completely fucked."
Wadding all of those unpleasant feelings together as tight as she could, Finn pushed them down. Everything about everything was always fucked. That had been her experience in life so far. But, she had to keep fighting to survive. The only other option was to just give up, roll over and die, and Finn knew she was too much of a coward to do that.
The humans had built a loose line of soldiers at the end of the peninsula to stop any kobolds from fleeing inland, but they weren’t watching their backs. It was quick work to slash her way through the unsuspecting backs of a small clutch of humans and push her way into the camp.
Everything was in chaos. Fire and bodies and humans with bloody weapons were everywhere. Baskets with provisions were tipped over and food and cloth were scattered in the sand. The copper scent of hot blood cut through even the acrid taste of smoke. Finn tried to push it all away, focusing on dodging around cowering and fleeing kobolds, cutting down the occasional soldier, pushing her way to the center of the camp where the chief spent most of his time. She had to hope that he had hunkered down there to wait for an opening to escape. Hopefully he had guards who could protect him. Or, no, hopefully no guards. Finn didn’t want to have any witnesses to her killing the chief, nor any guards she might have to kill to get to him.
As she pushed closer to the center of the camp, the number of living kobolds dropped to almost nothing and the number of soldiers slackened too. But there were certainly still enough to slow her down, even if they weren’t enough to give her any trouble. There, in the center of the camp, were a group of people standing and talking casually around some crouched figures. She could see the familiar slope of broad shoulders peppered with deep scars. Details she couldn’t see through her telescope jumped out at her now. The chief wore soft brown leggings, not unlike her own, but no shirt. The skin of his chest and arms were covered in angry red marks, barely healed scars against his dark skin. He had his arms around a girl with long black hair tied back in a braid that reached past her waist. They were surrounded by human soldiers, important ones, judging by the vibrant red and gold trimmed capes they wore.
Finn rushed them, indecision gone for the moment. She moved fast, narrowing what little magic she had into her body in the way she had been trained to do since she was a little girl. Her legs and arms stiffened and burned with exertion, but it was worth it when her blade cut through the neck of one of the men standing over the chief. The cut was so easy, almost like he wasn’t there at all, and his head was liberated from his shoulders in a shocking splash of red. The other humans jumped, their hands flying to their weapons, but they were slow, way too slow to stop her. She landed to the right of a woman with a war hammer and crouched low, pulling her magic tight and then sprung forward with a deadly thrust, piercing the woman below her armpit and spearing her laterally through her chest between the ribs. She felt her sword exit the other side of her body. She was dead before she hit the ground.
“Elf!” someone shouted hoarsely. The humans had their weapons and their feet under them, but it wouldn’t matter. Their slow reactions wouldn’t allow them to stop her.
She spared a glance for the chief now unblocked from her, the dead woman lying bleeding on the sand between them. He was barring his teeth, all sharp fangs behind dark angry lips. She could see his face clearer than she had been able to through the telescope. He was growling at her, his thick brows pulled low over big dark eyes.
Finn forced herself to look away. There were still four humans in front of her, and they needed to die before she could decide what to do next.
A young man with dirty blonde hair stuck to his skin with sweat had successfully drawn his sword and descended into a crouch. He had advanced one step and was going to try and attack her, so she would take him next. His stance was good, but he was obviously tired and shocked by her sudden appearance, his dishwater blue eyes were wide with shock in his sallow face. With barely a thought, Finn used her superior speed and smaller size to duck under his huge claymore and slash brutally across the tops of his thighs. The young man screamed and fell backward, clutching at his legs. He wouldn’t be able to stand and was helpless to prevent her from landing the killing blow.
Staying low, Finn pulled her arm back and got ready to thrust for his throat when she heard it.
The words registered before the pain did, the thick lilting language of the elder tongue twisting reality, twisting her and her body to the point that she felt like she would break. Finn was aware in a vague way that some humans could use magic. It was a different kind of magic than what the fae had access to. Humans had to contract with demons or gods to use magic, and it took years of learning, or so she had heard from other fae. Only a few out of every human kingdom might have the knowledge to do so. What terrible luck she had that one of those few happened to be in the company of those soldiers on that particular night.
With a cry of pain that felt scraped from the bowels of her being, Finn dropped her weapon and fell to the ground, arching her back and scrabbling at the bloody sand. It felt like her bones were all shattering at once, like her skin was being flayed off her body in one big piece. She imagined she was a rabbit snatched up by a great hand, her back snapped in half and her skin yanked off of her from feet to neck. She didn’t know if she would die, but she knew that she wanted to.
Faintly, she could hear snarling above her and when her eyes rolled up in her head she could see the chief, his thickly muscled chest and arms rent all over with red welts, crouched over her. The girl was there too, clutching at her arms, trying to stop her from thrashing, her eyes big and dark and wet, all full to brimming over empathy and fear.
Everything about Finn’s life was fucked, but this was especially fucked. The man she was sent to kill was trying to protect her from more people who came to kill him. All of Finn’s struggles, all her fighting, all her training meant nothing. She would be killed on her first solo mission.
They were all going to die for no fucking reason at all.