The Foolhardies

"Dean, get down!" Luca yelled at me.

I ducked just in time as a spear tip pierced the space where my head was only a second ago.

Now, I wasn't usually cool with my kid brother giving me orders but this time was an exception. After all, Luca probably just saved my life.

Glancing up, I saw the spear's charred blade mere inches from my face. Wispy black vapor spilled out of its edge. The sight of it sent a cold shiver running up my spine as if death had just brushed my cheek.

"Dean, keep moving!" Luca yelled again.

His warning felt like a splash of cold water on my face. It saved me from giving in to the sudden fear that was clawing its way into my brain, reminding me that there was no room for panic. This was a time for action.

I dodged a second spear thrust aimed at my fair-skinned face. In the next motion, I drew my falchion from its sheath strapped to my belt with my right hand and then sent it forward in an arc. Thanks to its own charred edge, the blade sliced through the spear wielder's leather vest and cut into the thick skin underneath as easily as if I was cutting butter.

A howl of pain reached my ears, nearly giving me pause to reconsider my action, but my falchion's momentum continued. Its shadowblade slashed through thick skin and soft fleshy parts and out the other side in a spray of blood.

As soon as I finished my first slash—the falchion's own wispy black vapor trailing in a line through the air—I twisted my wrist one-hundred-eighty degrees and sent the sword back down the path it came from.

Blood and guts spilled out of the x-shaped wound I'd cut across my attacker's stomach, and with a final gasp for life, my enemy tumbled forward and crashed onto the dirt by my feet.

The faint metallic scent of blood wafted out of the corpse and assaulted my nostrils, causing my nose to wrinkle in displeasure.

Precious seconds ticked by while I just stared at the dead body.

It certainly wasn't my first kill—and it most definitely wouldn't be my last—and yet I couldn't repress the sickening feeling forming in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. Another fairy was dead because of me.

Yeah, you heard right. I, fifteen-year-old Dean Dapper, was a fairy slayer.

Make no mistake, the ugly face staring back at me with its lifeless, bulbous eyes probably didn't deserve the guilt I felt for killing it. Certainly, the pointy, crooked nose that someone had broken one too many times, and the cracked, yellowing tusks peeking out of the misshapen mouth made this creature so repulsive it was hard to feel any pity for it—but I did.

I couldn't help it. My brain was just wired that way. Although I knew if I hadn't taken its life it would have taken mine. Probably in the most gruesome way, too. Hobgoblins were mean like that.

Yeah, you definitely didn't mishear me this time either. I said hobgoblin. They're real. Hobs are actually a race of fairy, which, believe it or not, is just as real as you or me.

Just like in the old fairy tales, there are many kinds of fairy. Some so beautiful that the sight of them would turn untrained mortals into sappy, love-struck fools for the rest of their short lives. Others so ugly they're literally the stuff children's nightmares are made from. However, no matter what they look like, whether fair or foul, most fairies are rotten to the core. They're petty and cruel creatures who have enormous egos you couldn't fit into a house if you tried. They think anyone who doesn't look like them is an inferior being, and that goes double for humans like me and Luca who possess no fay blood inside us.

Now, you might be wondering why two human teenagers were out and about killing fairies. The short answer was that we'd been roped into fighting in a war of succession that's been ongoing for almost five hundred years. Tonight was no exception. Luca and I, along with the hundred-man unit we were part of, were in the middle of invading the fairy fort of a rival clan whose defenders also numbered roughly a hundred.

As fairy fort's go, this one was rather tiny. It was just a broken ring of white stones—about ten to fifteen feet in height and evenly spaced between each other—gathered at the top of a low, circular, barren hill.

While I contemplated on the mess Luca and I were in, a second hobgoblin soldier charged me.

It had a tall, lean frame that would have given it an intimidating aura if only the grey-tinted leather armor it wore wasn't a size too big for it. Dark brown skin pulled taught over an angular face that had comparably uglier features to the one I'd just defeated. Long and unruly braided hair trailed behind the hobgoblin as it quickened its step toward me.

The hobgoblin raised knobbly arms and lifted a battle ax with both hands. Long, spindly fingers wrapped tightly around the wooden handle. The charred ax head blazed. Wispy black vapors leaked out of it.

Still, the threat of impending bodily harm didn't worry me much because I knew the ax would never reach me. Luca would arrive first.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Luca sprint forward. He was a blur of movement that caught the enemy unaware.

With a single swing of his shadowblade—a heavy-looking broadsword mounted on an iron crossguard and hilt—severed the hobgoblin's head from its shoulders.

I clapped in appreciation while I watched the head thump down to the uneven ground.

"Nice assist, Luca," I said, genuinely impressed at how easy he made killing monsters look.

Luca swiveled his head in my direction.

His wavy hair, red like mine but much longer, almost shoulder-length, framed the sun-kissed face with the refreshing smile plastered on it.

Now, a casual observer who didn't know my little brother might have thought his smile genuine, but I knew better. I could see it in the depths of his brown eyes. They had a haunted look to them. Clearly, they possessed the same soul-crushing sadness reflected in mine.

Luca was only fourteen, but at five feet and nine inches, he was taller than me. He was also more muscular. You would expect as much seeing as how he swung that broadsword around pretty often. In contrast, I was three inches shorter, thinner, and had fairer skin than him. My red hair was cut short and styled in the same side-parted haircut as your typical action hero.

Luca and I both wore the same armor, a low-quality leather vest and shoulder pauldrons dyed in the Trickster Pavilion's midnight blue colors. We wore wool pants and old leather boots that showed too many signs of wear and tear. In fact, the only equipment we carried worth stealing was our shadowblades, my falchion and Luca's broadsword. As they were both bronze tier, they'd naturally fetch reasonable prices at any auction house. It was one thing to be thankful for. The clan may treat us with disdain but at least they gave us good weapons to fight and die with.

"Can you stop spacing out… this is a battlefield, you know," Luca complained.

"Sorry… my bad," I replied.

Luca shook his head at me before glancing back to where we came from. "We're too far out…"

He was right.

South of us, our unit had formed an offensive line that stretched the bottom of the southern hillside. Ahead of them, the fairy fort's defenders formed their own defensive line to repel our siege. As their position was elevated, they obviously held the terrain advantage, which meant our side would have a rough time pushing forward.

Luca walked over to my side. The south wind whipped at our faces while we surveyed the battle.

"We should move, Dean… we're sitting ducks out here," he nodded toward our unit. "Should we head back and help them?"

"Would it kill you to call me big brother?" I grumbled.

"Maybe if you start acting like one," he countered.

I sighed inwardly. It was challenging to have such a capable little brother who didn't need to rely on me at all.

"We're fine. We killed the only two guards who saw us. I doubt anyone else will notice two teens climbing up the side of the hill in all this chaos," I reasoned.

I was mostly right. Earlier, while the two armies prepared for battle, Luca and I ignored our commander's orders and broke off from our unit. Instead, we circled around the eastern slope of the chocolate-colored hill so we could climb it unobstructed by the defenders who'd focused on our main attack force. Midway up, we encountered and defeated the only two guards stationed there. As foolhardy plans went, things were going pretty well.

From our new elevated vantage point on the hillside, I now had a good view of the fort's defenses. My eyes scanned the scene before me—the battle was going just like I thought it would.

Despite our attackers' determination to climb the hill, the fairy fort's well-placed defenses repeatedly kept them at bay. Separate groups of defenders scattered across the hillside, charging the weakest points in our line which had stretched itself too thinly along the southern slope. Their shadowblade spears crashed onto our unit's shields, forcing us back a step for every two we made forward.

Projectiles rained down from above—arrows with charred-tipped heads, giant boulders that rolled through predetermined paths down the hill, even mid-sized fireballs from the lone mage standing near the hilltop. In the wake of this onslaught, our troops could do nothing but crumble slowly.

A cacophany of sounds assaulted my ears. Soldiers screamed threats into each other's faces as they squared off. Shadowblades banged on metallic shields. Cries of pain soared high as arrowheads pierced into flesh. It was chaos.

"Bunch of incompetent idiots," I whispered.

"Why? What do you see?" Luca asked.

"We're stretched out too thin… the whole line is in danger of breaking," I deduced. "They need to reform and gather closer to the center. With more men together they might have a chance of breaking through the defenses and get higher up the hill where the enemy arrows won't be as effective."

Luca hefted his broadsword's blade over his right shoulder. "Wouldn't that just make them a bigger target?"

"Only if they kept up this slow pace… but one big push forward could turn this whole battle around," I explained.

Luca glanced my way. "Is that what your Fool's Insight is telling you?"

To be clear, Luca didn't actually call me a fool. He was referring to the gift bestowed on me by the clan leader. Lowly humans like me who didn't have a drop of fairy blood in our bodies couldn't wield the arcane powers most fairies possessed. To make us more useful in battle, fairies gifted humans with abilities that enhanced our natural talents. Mine was Fool's Insight. It was a power that enhanced my sense of sight to a disturbingly high degree, allowing me to absorb and process all the visual information around me into useful insight.

"No, I don't need it to see the mess our commander put us in," I reasoned.

It wasn't just that I didn't need to use the power, I also didn't want to. Fairy gifts were double-edged swords that caused problems equal to the boons they provided. Overusing Fool's Insight meant I would later have to deal with temporary blurry eyesight akin to near blindness. Such a debuff would prove fatal in a battlefield like the one we were in.

"You think Commander Roselle's plan will fail?" Luca asked.

"It already has," I answered. "That arrogant pixie wouldn't know what strategy was even if it jumped out and bit him in the face…"

Luca sighed. "If he survives, we'll be getting another whiny reprimand about breaking away and doing our own thing, for sure. You know how he is about rules…"

I grinned at Luca. "Not unless we help turn this dire situation around, little brother."

"You have a plan?" Luca sounded skeptical.

"When have I not?" I answered.

Luca lowered his broadsword tip first and impaled it onto the soft earth where it sank a good two inches. "It's probably another reckless idea..."

"What we're doing is called gallantry, not recklessness," I countered.

I pointed to the top of the hill.

Around seventy to eighty yards above us, the barren hill that was the color and surface texture of chocolate brownies peaked into a low rise encircled by a ring of white stones made visible by the large golden moon that was native to this realm.

"See what I see?" I asked.

Luca gazed in the direction I pointed. After a while, he shrugged. "You know I don't…"

"I see a path to victory," I said, confidently.

"Uhuh, and how exactly are we supposed to win this?" Luca asked with an impassive face that seemed unconvinced by my declaration.

My grin grew wider. "Follow me."