With a tight grip on my spear, I say, “Red branch battle arts; Star flower.”

Then I dash forward knocking as many of the enemy soldiers away as possible. I move from place to place striking down as many of them as I can and as I do this, I shout, “I won’t let any of you die.”

“You need to leave Ferdiad!”

“No way, unless all of you come with me. You guys are my family, and none of you shall die here!”

I continue to move faster and faster knocking back their enemies, but due to their armour, I cannot strike a killing blow on any of them.

Yet he manages to push many of them back, and he says, “I will slay all of you.”

“You’re far too arrogant for your skill level, and I will show you that now.”

One of the armoured beastkin gets in a stance that is all too familiar to me. Shocked, I say, “Red branch battle arts!”

“Clover.”

The beastkin then lunges forward and is about to hit me with clover, but as his spear comes towards me, Cruadhlaoich gets in the way, and the beastkin sword goes straight through his head.

Seeing this I freeze out of shock, and before I can regain myself the beastkin pulls back his sword, and kicks Cruadhlaoich’s body right into mine, sending me flying back.

“Defend Ferdiad,” many of my men say as I lie on the ground.

Getting up, I look at Cruadhlaoich’s dead body and hold him saying, “Please get up, you can’t die here, don’t you want to beat the smug look off of Setanta’s face? Your daughter and wife are waiting for you at home, so please get up.”

But my time to grieve over his death is soon cut short, as the soldiers break through the shield of my men. Then they stare at me holding Cruadhlaoich and say, “This is the end of you.”

Suddenly from above me, I start to hear a loud sound, and turning around I notice that Téad and the rest of the Lúcogadh’s cavalry are running down the hill towards us.

They crash into the enemy soldiers, and as they do Téad picks me up and starts to run away, saying “We need to get out of here immediately.”

Trying to resist with my tired body, I say, “Let me go, you traitor.”

“I did not betray you, I went to go gather my men to make sure we would have enough strength to turn the tides. If you look you can see that my men are picking up the injured Faoláin men.”

Seeing that his words are true I start to quiet, down, but then I say, “Behind you!”

Behind him, one of the armoured beastkin is in the air, above our heads. Did he use sky flower to jump this high? Regardless of the way he is coming towards us, where going to be hit.

As his sword is about to swing at Téad, Ibar riding Crunniuc crashes into him, and screams, “GET FERDIAD OUT OF HERE!”

“IBAR!”

“Please take care of my sister.”

Soon Crunniuc's head is cut off, and Ibar falls off then I shout, “We need to go back right now!”

“We can’t do that!”

“Of course we can, as the commanding officer in charge of this scouting party, I demand you turn around right now!”

Suddenly Téad slaps me and says, “You need to shut up right now.”

“How dare you!”

“HOW DARE YOU!” He says back at me with an enraged expression. “All of those men including that boy have put their lives on the line to protect yours.

I am merely the third child of the Lucogadh, born from a mistress. I was never treated with respect or care by people outside my father no matter how well I did.

Not a single person would be willing to go to the lengths that all those people went to for me unless it was for the sake of my house's honour. But countless men just put their lives on the line for you, so be respectful and live to fight another day.”

Unable to hold myself up, I say, “But they shouldn’t die for someone like me?”

“And someone like me shouldn’t have been awarded this spot when there are people like Ibar who are far better riders than me. But still, this is where we are in life and we need to find a way to deal with it. So please just let us go.”

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Falling silent I let the Lúcogadh’s ride us to safety.

Location: Basecamp

Φ Turning his head in horror, Setanta says, “What the hell do you mean Ferdiad and Ibar are chasing after them.”

“They went out earlier to scout ahead of where the humans disappeared too, and haven’t returned yet. We got a messenger bird that told us they were heading into the mountain just a few moments ago.”

Setanta says, “If they are chasing the humans into the mountain range they might get attacked by those beastkin who are working with the humans.”

Trying to calm Setanta’s nerves, I say, “So what they went with a pretty strong party, and Ferdiad is just as tough as you.”

“My father is personally going to the battlefield to surprise attack the humans, he never would do such a thing unless he thinks it’s imperative. So that must mean there is someone of strength who is making my father that this precaution.”

The room around us all becomes tense, and then Setanta shoots up and says, “I need to go and warn them.”

Ruán says, “It would be faster to send the bird back.”

“I can’t risk that, I need to go personally and make sure they get the message.”

“But it is nightfall and there is no way you will make it there in time.”

“There is one way, if I ride diagonally across the mountain range, I should be able to make it to their current location. Where they were headed was disclosed in the message after all.”

Ruán says, “It’s impossible, they could still be wonderbeasts, and you would have to ride through incredibly uneven terrain in the dead of night, no one could do it.”

“I could,” I say raising my hand.

Setanta looks at me, and says, “Laeg, are you sure?”

I put both of my hands on Setanta's shoulders and say, “You told me to decide things for myself, and any risk is worth making sure all of our people come back alive, so trust me.”

Setanta smiles, and says, “I do. Now let’s go.”

As we start to move, Ruán shouts, “Send messengers to each of the armies scattered about, and inform them of the plan.”

“Right!”

-Break-

Φ Slowly opening my eyes, I see a beastkin in front of me, who is dressed in the same armour as the men who attacked us, but he isn’t wearing a mask.

Seeing him, I become incredibly angry and try to move, but then I notice that I am sitting on the floor and tied to a try.

The man is currently peeling an apple, and upon hearing me move he looks up and says, “Oh you’re awake.”

I instantly start looking around, and there I see that many of the armoured beastkin are simply walking around unbothered by my presence.

“Hey you look sort of hungry, do you want an apple?”

Glaring at him I ask, “Where am I?”

A woman’s voice says, “You’re at our base camp.”

Looking up to my right, I see a Fanalis relaxing on a tree.

The man then says, “What Saoirse said is correct, we brought you back after we won our battle. Oh and by the way I am named Craig.”

“Why have you not killed me.”

“Because you’re a child.”

Saoirse then says, “And since you seem to be friends with the leader, they might foolishly come back for you without getting reinforcements.”

Craig, says, “Hey Saoirse, no need to be so crass. I would have you know that I simply just don’t like killing kids. That's the only reason I didn’t finish that other boy.”

I hold back my rage as I realise he was the one who beat Ferdiad, and then I start to take in my situation. Right now I am a captive, and if they were to use me as some form of bargaining chip it could be horrible for us all.

I don’t believe I have great value, but I do know that Setanta would do something stupid to get me back, and I can’t allow Setanta to get hurt or worse die for me. Right now the best way to protect everyone and increase the value of my name would be to die for the empire.

Opening my mouth I prepare to bite my tongue off, but as my teeth come down the top row never end up hitting my tongue as he puts his sword in my mouth stopping this from happening.

Pulling his sword out he places the apple in my mouth and says, “You can try all you want to kill yourself but I will stop you every time.”

Walking away from me he says, “Classic Faoláin behaviour, always ready to throw away one's life.”

Quickly devouring the apple, I spit it out and say, “Don’t bring up that name, you know nothing about my house.”

“But I do because I was born and raised in Gorias and was one of Lugh’s knights.”

Shocked, I say, “I have sent lots of time studying up on the house of Faoláin history, and no such knights exist, you’re just making up lies!”

Saoirse says, “It is common for people to not want to believe things that could break their worldview.”

Craig then says, “We where a secret order of knights who served the House of Faoláin for off the book missions. We exemplified the principles of house Faoláin perfect in everything. That’s how we were able to lure you bastards into this trap.”

“That just cannot be true.”

“Red branch battle arts. Lugh specifically asked Scáthach to teach it to us, and as you know very few people are as close to Scáthach as Lugh.”

“Then why, why would you betray Gorias and side with the humans.”

“Hey did you know that Gorias is the only of the four providences where they teach us about the beastkin origins? And that’s just inside Tir na n-iontas, on the other parts of our empire most beastkin have no idea they even share common ancestry with humans anymore.”

“Our blood has always been special even before when we were humans. We only looked like humans because we limited ourselves.”

“True, but during our times of bringing up our populations we used many different humans to help us increase our numbers.”

“That’s because the humans reduced our numbers, so if you trying to say they didn’t deserve this you’d be wron-.”

Saoirse swats me on the top of my head, and says, “You keep talking like you have actually experienced life outside of anything you have just been taught. Maybe if I snap off a few of your bones you will learn about what you are talking about.”

She grabs my arm and is about to break it but Craig says, “Saoirse I thank you for getting angry for my sake, but I am alright. Please let go of him.”

Sighing, she says, “Ok.”

As she lets go I grab my arm, and Craig says, “My elder sister was a human.”

“But that’s-.”

“Impossible. It is almost impossible for human blood to be more apparent than a beastkin when they have children together but it can happen. Due to this, my sister was treated as scum by everyone including our parents.

She was denied all of the rights that countless citizens had just for being born, but despite all of that she treated me with great amounts of care. She loved me deeply, and I remember that.

But still, as someone born human when she turned thirteen she was going to be married off to a Fanalis who had far more intense beastkin genes, or killed so she couldn’t pass down her inferior traits.

Fanalis have the most marriage prospects of any within the empire and didn't want my sister, so a date for her death was set down. Until one man stepped forward to help, Lugh Ó Faoláin our saviour.”