“David, this way!” Tamani called, directing him into the midst of the trolls. At such close quarters with the fae, he would have trouble swinging Excalibur; better to be completely surrounded by the enemy. “Almost there,” he whispered to himself, stabbing a troll in the neck as it tried to wrap its meaty hands around him. He had lost count of the number of shallow, meaningless wounds he’d received today; none were even remotely life-threatening, but they were taking their toll on his reflexes. As the trolls crowded thicker about him, it became increasingly difficult to kill them as fast as they came at him. David was making up some of the difference, but trolls were pouring down the hillside by the dozens.

They were well beyond the barricade when Tamani heard a low rumbling and looked up to see several fae standing on the rooftops at the edge of the quarter, hands stretching out to the sky, then gracefully moving in as though pulling invisible ropes.

It took Tamani a few moments to realise what was coming. “David!” he warned. “Up the hillside!”

The hill was too steep to climb very high in the brief time they had, so David and Tamani pressed themselves flat into the dirt as the rumble grew to a near-deafening roar. From further up the road, a huge herd of cattle came stampeding into the valley, trampling trolls as they rampaged down the road toward the barricade where their Herders had gathered on the roofs. At the thickest segment of the stampede Tamani had to push himself even flatter against the grassy hill to avoid the panicked cows and their long, deadly horns. Once the danger was past Tamani nearly laughed at David as he half stood, half sat against the steep hillside, his sword held limp in his hands, watching the spectacle.

“What the hell is up with the cows?” David asked, flabbergasted.

Tamani pointed up to the Ticers on the rooftops, swirling their charges into a wide circle now.

David followed his gesture and – though Tamani would have doubted it was possible – his eyes grew even wider. “Enticement on the cows?” he asked in disbelief.

Tamani nodded, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Come on,” he told David, “we have to strike while they’re confused.” The trolls were still bigger than most of the cows and they were getting the idea quickly, turning their blades against the herd. The distraction wouldn’t last long.

“Why do you have cows in Avalon?” David yelled as he chopped down a lower troll that was covered in festering sores where it wasn’t covered with coarse black fur.

Tamani dislodged his spear from a troll’s chest with a savage kick. The name tag on its jumper said greg, and Tamani wondered momentarily whether the mostly human-looking troll was Greg, or had just eaten Greg. “Can’t depend on Mixers for all of our fertilizer,” he said blandly.

The trolls were thinning out again, and David seemed to have found a rhythm that was working for him, so Tamani, his spear still clenched in one hand, took a few minutes to carefully pull some of the wounded fae back toward the barricade. They were still breathing, and if they could just avoid getting stabbed where they lay, they might be treatable.

There wasn’t time to take them anywhere truly safe, but at least he could drag them away from the risk of being trampled.

“Tamani!”

It was David. He turned to thrust his sword at a troll that tried to jump on his shoulder.

“They’re not coming down the hill anymore,” David said, breathless.

Tamani tensed. Last time the trolls stopped coming, it was because they were preparing to unleash something worse. He certainly wasn’t ready to trust this cessation.

He hesitated. “Let’s keep fighting here until the Ticers have a better hold on everything – then we need to go back to my mother’s.” Though honestly, Tamani had no idea how long that would take. The Spring fighters were barely hanging on as it was.

David nodded, then jumped as something made of glass shattered by his feet.

“Finally,” Tamani murmured, feeling his chest lighten a little. More tiny vials rained down from the sky, popping against the ground, splashing their sweet-smelling contents across the battlefield.

“Finally what?” David asked.

“The Beeherds have gathered their flocks,” Tamani said, one side of his mouth ticking up in a grin as the telltale noise reached his ears. He pointed to the top of the barricade, where archers had given way to a cadre of Spring faeries, each with a crook in one hand and a sling in the other.

A buzzing cloud of darkness descended into the pass and the trolls began to howl in pain. The black and yellow insects swarmed across the battlefield, blanketing the trolls and stinging them with fervour. Their tiny bodies were dropping to the ground almost as fast as they flew in, and Tamani felt a twinge of sadness at the years it would take to rebuild their hives – but true to their nature, the bees were defending their home, just like the Spring faeries. Those trolls that refused to be brought down by the venom were blinded, both by pain and by the clouds of insects surrounding them, and became easy targets for the faeries.

A cry of alarm from David made Tamani turn, his weapon raised.

The bees were swarming over David, too. Thanks to Excalibur he remained untouchable – and unstingable – but the insects had clearly unnerved him, and he was thrashing about, swinging his sword like a fly swatter, trying to drive them off.

“David. David!” Tamani called, but if David heard, he gave no sign. “David!” Tamani yelled, finally catching his ear. “It’s OK; I don’t think they can sting you.”