It was also tricky because the Lorians didn’t give a shit about any of that stuff. Death was inevitable, and they seemed to think dying in battle took some of the sting out of it. They were one hundred percent Klingon about it. Which, whatever, Eliot wasn’t about to impose his twenty-first-century American worldview on them. But he didn’t have to go over to theirs either.
Fortunately the Fillorians had an advantage, which was that they had every possible advantage. They totally outmatched the Lorians in every stat you could name. The Lorians were a bunch of guys with swords. The Fillorians were every beast in the Monster Manual, led by a clique of wizard kings and queens, and Eliot was very sorry, but you knew that when you invaded us.
It was late spring when the Lorians came pouring—they didn’t really march, they weren’t that organized—through Grudge Gap and onto Fillorian soil. Some rode big shaggy horses. They didn’t wear matching outfits, but they all seemed to have chosen from the same menu: steel caps, mail shirts or leather armor, round shields, long tunics, bare legs, UGG-type leather boots with fluffy interiors. In their hands or over their shoulders they carried straight double-edged swords of varying lengths, modest-sized but vicious-looking war axes, countless spears and bows. They were met by a nightmare.
See, the Lorians had made a mistake. On their way down from the Northern Barrier they set some trees on fire, and an outlying farm, and they killed a hermit.
Even Janet was surprised by Eliot’s anger. I mean, she was furious, but she was Janet. She was pissed off all the time. Poppy and Josh looked grim, which was how they got angry. But Eliot’s rage was towering. They burned trees? His trees? They killed a hermit? They killed a hermit? His heart went out to that weird, solitary man in his uncomfortable hut. He’d never met him. They wouldn’t have had much to say to each other if they had met. But whoever the hermit was, he obviously despised his fellow man, and that gave him some credibility in Eliot’s book.
And now he was dead. Eliot was going to destroy the Lorians, he would annihilate them, he would murder them! Not murder murder. But he was going to fuck them up good.
He was tempted to let the Lorians try to cross the Great Northern Marsh, where the sunken horrors that dwelt there would deal with them, with extreme prejudice, but he didn’t want to give them even another day’s march on his grass. Besides, there were a couple more farms in the way. Instead he let the Lorians march part of one day, till noon, till they were hot and dusty and ready to knock off for lunch. Probably it was blowing their minds how easy it was all turning out to be. They were going to do it, lads, they were the ones, they were going to fucking take fucking Fillory, dudes!
He let them ford the Great Salt River. He met them on the other side.
Eliot stood alone, disguised as a peasant. He waited in the middle of the road. He didn’t move. He let them notice him gradually. First the guys in front, who when they realized that he wasn’t moving called a halt. He waited while the guys behind those guys got crowded into them, soccer-stadium style, and they called a halt, and all the way back down the line in a ripple effect. There must have been, he didn’t know, maybe a thousand of them.
The man leading the front line stepped out to invite him—not very politely—to kindly get the fuck out of the way, or one thousand Lorian linebackers would pull his guts out and strangle him with them.
Eliot smiled, shuffled his feet humbly for a second, and then punched the guy in the face. It took the man by surprise.
“Get the fuck out of my country, asshole,” Eliot said.
That one was on the level, no magic. He’d been taking some boxing lessons, and he got the drop on him with an offhand jab. Probably the Lorian wasn’t expecting what amounted to a suicide attack from a random peasant. Eliot knew he hadn’t done much damage, and that he wouldn’t get another shot, so he quickly held up his left hand and force-pushed the man back so hard he brought six ranks of Lorians down with him, much the same way Asterix took down entire files of centurions.
Eliot dropped the cloak and stood up straight in his royal raiment, so they could see that he was a king and not a peasant. A couple of eager-beaver arrows came arcing over from back in the ranks, and he burned them up in flight: puff, puff, puff. It was easy when you were this angry, and this good, and God he was angry. And good. He tapped the butt of his staff once on the ground: earthquake. All thousand Lorians fell down on their stupid violent asses, in magnificent synchrony.
He couldn’t just do that at will, he’d been out here all day setting up the spells, but it was a great effect. Especially since the Lorians didn’t know that. Eliot allowed it to sink in.