'Those are Hairstreak's people,' Fogarty said. 'Fighting the demons.' He started to clamber down from his sedan chair. It wasn't just Hairstreak's armed guards – the whole of his household staff seemed to be outside, as if the mansion was under attack.
'Where are you going, Alan?' Madame Cardui asked sharply.
'To get a closer look.'
'My deeah, you will be careful?'
But Fogarty was already pressing forward through the still ranks of Forest Faerie soldiers. This made no sense. First of all, the Hael portals were closed down. Secondly, he'd never seen a portal anything like this one. It was the wrong colour, there were no cold flames and it was huge. Thirdly, Nighters dealt with demons all the time and Hairstreak in particular was rumoured to have cut some sort of long-term deal with the Demon King or whoever their stupid leader was. Why were the demons attacking his home now?
He caught sight of Queen Cleo at the head of her troops and made his way quickly towards her. 'Do you know what's going on?' he asked breathlessly.
'No, Gatekeeper. But those are demons in my forest, exactly as I feared.'
'They're attacking Hairstreak's men,' Fogarty said. 'Maybe we should let them get on with it before we think of interfering.'
The Queen watched the action thoughtfully. Her troops were massed in the trees, out of sight. Their discipline was absolute. There was not a sound that would draw attention to their presence. 'You think they may do our job for us?'
'Could do.' Hairstreak's people were losing, no doubt about that. Their bodies were strewn everywhere. He'd no idea why this was happening, but given half an hour he was fairly sure it would be a wipeout. With Hairstreak out of the picture, the Forest Faerie could demolish his mansion at their leisure.
Queen Cleo said, 'What do we do with the demons, Gatekeeper?'
Fogarty looked at her. After a moment he said, 'Good point.' It was the possibility of demon portals that had worried the Forest Faerie in the first place. That thing on Hairstreak's lawn must be their worst nightmare. And there were one hell of a lot of demons marching through it.
'It may be a question of timing,' the Queen told him thoughtfully. 'As you say, Gatekeeper, it could be useful that the demons have attacked Lord Hairstreak. But we still cannot permit demons in the forest, not at all. The interests of my people would be best served if Hairstreak was routed, his mansion destroyed, the demons driven back to their own realm and their portal permanently closed. Ideally without revealing the existence of the Forest Faerie to the outside world.'
'Tall order,' Fogarty said.
'Not if we attack now,' the Queen said quietly. 'While we can still contain the situation.'
It made sense. As the Queen turned to signal to her people, Fogarty thought of Blue and Pyrgus. He hoped they'd have the sense to keep their heads down if they were anywhere nearby. There was a major battle coming and it was very easy to get yourself killed in crossfire.
'Those are demons,' Nymph said.
They were standing by an open window in Hairstreak's mansion watching the slaughter outside. Maybe the best thing was simply to stay put, wait for the demons to wipe out Hairstreak's guards and servants – which probably wouldn't take too long by the looks of it.
As against that, there were more and more demons pouring through the portal and, once they had dealt with the defenders, there was every chance they might take over the house. Pyrgus had been captured by demons once before and it was an experience he didn't want to repeat. Maybe they should make a break for it now, try to escape in the confusion.
The one thing he was absolutely certain they shouldn't do was get involved in the fight.
'Those are my people!' Nymph exclaimed suddenly.
He followed the direction of her gaze. Forest Faerie were pouring from the trees like a river in spate. Before he had time to react, Nymph had jumped through the window and was running towards the fray.
'Nymph!' Pyrgus shouted desperately, then leaped to follow her.
'Pyrgus!' Blue shouted and launched herself through the window after him.
Henry hesitated for no more than a second before following. Only Comma remained. He stared through the open window with a bleak look on his face.
Fogarty chilled as he watched the Forest Faerie fight. They were the most ruthlessly efficient killing machines he'd ever seen in his life. The odd thing was nobody seemed to give orders, yet everybody clearly knew exactly what to do. The stream of faerie emerging from the forest split in two to circle both the demons and the remaining few of Hairstreak's defenders. But instead of plunging into close combat, they remained at a distance and showered their opponents with arrows and elf-bolts. There was a moment of confusion, then demons began to fall.
For a moment he thought the whole battle might be fought from a distance, but the demons quickly regrouped and turned to face their new attackers. The Hael troops were like insects, completely without personal fear. They hurled themselves forward, oblivious to the deadly rain of bolts and arrows. At the same instant, a tightly-knit group of Forest Faerie made a lightning sortie towards the open portal.
'A convincing grasp of strategy,' said Madame Cardui. 'Disable the portal and you cut off demonic reinforcements.'
The swelling demon army clearly came to the same conclusion, for a large contingent of Hael troops separated off to stop the sortie. The faerie fighters fell back, then were reinforced in their turn and pushed forward again. New ranks of larger, more heavily armoured demons had begun to emerge from the portal now. One raised a massive fire wand. An elf-bolt sliced through his right eye as he triggered the weapon and the gout of flame passed over heads to set fire to a tree.
'The Queen's not going to like that,' Fogarty said sourly. There was a stirring in his blood. He actually wanted to be out there in the middle of the fight. Which was strange, since when he bad been a soldier -nearly sixty years ago, could you believe it? – he'd spent his time avoiding battle whenever humanly possible. Old age was a pain. It gave you brave new ideas, then took away the ability to carry them out.
It looked as if he was right about the Queen not liking it. The river of Forest Faerie emerging from the trees abruptly became a flood. Foot soldiers hurled themselves upon the demon horde while archers pounded them with darts and bolts. A team made straight for the burning tree, snapping cones of suffocation spells to extinguish the flames. The party headed for the portal suddenly found itself massively reinforced. Fogarty noticed there was a three-strong team of wizards at its core.
What happened next was almost too fast to follow. The key was a vast, flame-free explosion at the portal. The structure erupted into fragments that showered down like hail, bloodied by the body parts of nearby demons caught in the blast. Starved of their constant reinforcements, the remaining demons fell like chaff beneath the horde of Forest Faerie. It was over in minutes.
As work teams of Forest Faerie moved in to demolish Hairstreak's mansion, Fogarty and Madame Cardui walked on to the battlefield. The dead and dying were everywhere, but already faerie clean-up squads were hard at work destroying the evidence of what had happened here.
'My deeah, isn't that Prince Pyrgus?'
Fogarty followed her gaze and felt a chill claw clutch his stomach. Pyrgus was lying on the grass, his jerkin soaked in blood. Blue and a worried-looking boy were kneeling beside him – with a start, Fogarty recognised him as Henry. Nymph was standing behind them, bow in hand like a guard. For some reason there was an endolg at Henry's feet.
'Pyrgus!' yelled Fogarty as he ran towards the group.
Pyrgus opened his eyes slowly and gave a wan smile. 'It's just a flesh wound, Gatekeeper. I'll be fine.'