The fight between the Beast Tide Firehorns and the Contracted Beasts was almost over, while the Wolverine Hunters and Engineers had taken down the Synod Inquisitors with a combination of Argent Magic Dispels and opportunistic spell attacks while their defenses were compromised, overcoming their Armor and Shields and finally smashing them down with pure uncompromising tenacity and the extraordinary teamwork that was their hallmark.

The Inquisitors were masterful duelists, but they and all their surprises weren’t up to taking on the level of coordination and trust in one another the Wolverine Hunters had!

Dirk indicated to Elder Winkle that he was running out of Mana to keep the Foxes around, and the Silver Foxes idly finished their fight, crushing the Wills of the remaining Contracted Beasts and allowing the Firehorns to be sent back to the Beast Realm. They hopped off the great flaming Beasts as the burning dinosaurs urgently exited the Mortal Realm, and the Silver Foxes sauntered in parade formation back through the silvery Gate that opened to receive them, clearly unimpressed with the defenders of the Mortal Realm.

The crippled Sun Scarab Beetle was dying as five Monkey Kings tore into its back with great energy, ignoring its Light Magic and attempts to roll over, alternately tearing at its back and eating the flesh there with enthusiasm as they burrowed into the much bigger Insect.

As for the Archangel, Babe’s most beloved attendants, the Sunbreasted Robins, arrived on the scene. They were a noble Bloodline, and there were Great Commanders and Nobles among the flock that came down out of the sky and promptly lit into the Sage with a literally unceasing rain of nearly Phoenix-Class Fire Magic. Their Flames had thoughtfully been helped into development by the Heavy Mana of the scattered White Zone Refractory Towers, all of which were occupied by a nest of Sunbreasted Robins each, opposite the Whitecrown Eagles enjoying the Heavy Lightning and Air Mana on the other side.

The City of Light defense of Archangel Joel’s Wings was pounded down by unstinting Mana demands, worn through and constantly tested by Babe’s titanic hammerings and now the Robins’ unceasing rain of Fire. Space was locked down and he couldn’t flee...

The Silver-Vined Blueberry Bush erupting from the ground below, reaching up to snag him in gleaming roots and tendrils far stronger than steel, still took the Archangel by surprise in the end. He shouted in dismay as they wrapped around him, piercing through his City, and then yanked him towards the ground with overwhelming strength.

It was one of the key ending moves of Between Earth and Sky: keeping the opponent close enough to the ground that a Contracted Plant could reach them! The great Blueberry Vine that dwelled in the wooded area north of the Compound had been waiting some time to show that it could produce more than wonderful berries...

Archangel Joel still survived the impact with the soil, his City guttering about him, and looked up in time to see a massive long horn arcing over and down, two of his companions still impaled on its bloody end. It came right down on him with irresistible force as the Blueberry Vine held him tight.

The Sun Scarab Beetle, the nearly-comatose Midnight Wind Owl, and Hoarfrost the White Dragon all convulsed as the Archangel died and their soul-bound Contracts were savagely broken. Sun Wukong took the opportunity to grab the Dragon’s head and wrench it savagely as it struggled to deal with the spiritual backlash, bending it sharply around Yeoui and twisting and yanking as he held its neck tight and trapped, counter-leveraging it with his prehensile feet in an adept lethal grappling lock.

The crack of the Dragon’s spine breaking was audible for a mile in every direction. Sun Wukong kept up the pressure until all the light had died from the Frost Dragon’s eyes. If its frenzied final efforts meant he was covered in a foot of ice despite the heat of his Staff and golden fur, he just tolerated it until the job was done.

Dirk looked over a moment at the land of the farmer who’d thought he was being sneaky about letting the Inquisitors of the Church of Light stay there. Tobias Schindler had been on a watch list a long time for his unshaken loyalty to the Church, especially with the ideal location of his farm. A couple passive Mana detectors reacting to the presence of powerful Casters on his property, combined with a follow-up report that his wife had more than doubled the amount of her grocery bill, had been reason enough to investigate more closely and find the intruders.

Knowing the Synod was coming had certainly helped taking them down, Dirk reflected, shaking his head at the fate of the man and his family. Babe certainly would have killed them if they weren’t slain in passing, just normal folks messing in a world they shouldn’t have...

The Schindler farm and its buildings were flattened, frozen solid by a Dragon’s Domain and then shattered into motes. Tobias Schindler and his family were scattered among the remnants thereof, soon to be plowed under and quietly removed as word that he’d played host to a Synod team ready to attack Coralost and all its buildings got around.

Huge swaths of farmland were currently frozen solid, baked to bricks, or ripped and torn like titans playing in a sandbox. The crops for over a square mile of area were total losses, but getting the fields themselves back to viability wouldn’t be too awful hard, what with some Archmages getting fed to them. A bumper crop next year, or maybe this year if enough Plant Magic was used to make up time.

Dirk eyed the corpses impaled in triumph on Babe’s towering horns, a spread of Sunbreasted Robins sitting on the gold-traced, copper-Runed ivory and singing out their glorious salutations in triumph.

The bodies could Burn, but they were going to use the skulls. Archangels could be pretty informative about certain things...

-------

The Land was calling out to me to get the shit off its shores. It was being very insistent, a combination of wheedling That-Tastes-Good appreciation for vivus and Get-Dis-Shit-Offa-Me disdain for the vast assortment of small invasive organisms the Aquatics left behind like infectious living boobytraps in their wake.

It made it very hard to sleep, or even to Meditate properly. Being the only person on the planet with true attunement to Natural Mana, let alone Sage-level Awareness, meant it was pretty hard to ignore the Land when it wanted my attention.

Unfortunately for it, I was in high demand at the moment. Its neighbor across the stream was yelling for attention, too.

A hard knuckle rapped on my head, jolting me out of what was supposed to be a rejuvenating trance, and instead just left me with a headache. I did have most of my Mana back, and was passively regaining more every second, but it was still irritating not being full up because the Land was metaphorically grabbing me and shaking me for my attention.

I had literally glutted it on the biggest feast it had EVER had, and it was wanting more. I groused and told it to use the plant life to kill the biowarfare tricks the Aquatics were using and clambered back up out of Meditation into the real world.

Sama was looking right in my face as I opened my eyes. She didn’t look very sympathetic. Nope, she looked pretty amused.

“You looked like you were having so much fun it was almost a shame to get you up. Still, how dare you take more than three hours of down time?” She made it sound like I’d committed a cardinal sin!

“And I’m still not full. Greedy island wants me to keep feeding it so it doesn’t have to do any work.” I pushed her grinning face away from me. “You must’ve just got laid. You’re entirely too chipper.”

Her smile just got wider. “I haz Fuzzy benefits!” she chortled at me. “You might want to put some thought into procuring one of your own...”

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe some time in the future. Like I need a man to worry about right now. And no, you don’t worry about Briggs. There IS a difference.”

“That is true,” she agreed with exaggerated sagely wisdom, and threw out an elegantly curved hip. “Mah Fuzzy is mine!” she blatantly hooted, pointing up with both hands and doing a little dance of glee for my benefit.

“He’s a wonderful sleep-inducing machine, I concede the point,” I agreed, waving a hand and letting a wave of Prestidigitation seep over me, remove sweat, grime, gunk, straighten out my clothes, wipe away the smell, comb through my hair, and add some zing back to what I was breathing. “Why’d you get me up?” They couldn’t possibly expect me to help with the harvest, could they?

“No. Mick, Sam, and Big John sent the Undead Hunters back a few hours ago, although a bunch of the Plant mages are out there helping reseed the island. With the plummeting of the population, there’s a good opportunity to do some civic reorganization of the lands.” She cleared her throat with exaggerated emphasis. “The Queen of England would like to speak to you.”

I just sighed. “Please tell me the worldwide strategic and tactical situation has changed, and I am needed urgently elsewhere.” Governmental leaders were always so trying to deal with, always looking for something from me.

Sama pouted for me. “Nope, ‘fraid not. Your infamous ability to duck out from national leaders isn’t going to save you today!”

I eyed her very not-sorry face suspiciously. “You want this to happen? What’s the angle?”

“Well, I imagine we can charge a lot for your services.” She gave me another shit-eating grin. “Especially after the show you just put on!”

It was true the paltry hundred million we’d been paid could not possibly cover the benefits of the fighting we’d done, and all the Irish knew it. That said, we’d not asked for a dime more, because contract... although there were some really healthy trade agreements that had been worked out between them and Obai’s people in Gabon, as the Gabon Undead Hunters were volunteers, not under contract.

Still, they owed us big, and they knew it.

“I am NOT going to camp their shores until the five years are up and the Aquatics maybe go swimming back home. Really, the way to deal with their problem is just to get the Aquatics out of the waters around the islands. The ones ON the island will run away really fast once that happens and they’ve no more reinforcements coming, or to back them up.”

“Oh, you’ve a way to clear out a zillion Aquatics dreaming of clearing the British Isles of Beasts completely for the first time in a thousand years?”

There was a catch in her voice I noticed. “Well, I have to make a call. What’s up with using Beasts? Although it’s oddly appropriate.” There couldn’t be many Beasts, if any, left in Ireland proper, unless they were buried deep under the hills.

“Ah, they haven’t told you yet. Follow me!” she grinned.

---

There were four of them. They were snowy white, none of the black shades that horses had. Even their hooves were as white as snow, even gleaming a bit. The spiral alicorns gleamed sharp and ready, and magic was pulled to the deadly point of them all around, drawing the eye to the bearers, like a lance and crown combined looming over all.

They were twice as tall as normal horses, but still not huge for what they were. A mare, a stallion, and two colts, resting inside a clearing inside an area of old trees barely an acre or two in size. They were plainly uncomfortable and restricted, as many roads, walls, and houses filled the area just outside their trees, and mages were standing guard to make sure they were not disturbed... which also meant they were caged in by humans all around.

The last Unicorns left alive in Ireland.

Unicorns didn’t live in new growth forests. Even if the ravaged trees regrew, it would be nearly a century before a Unicorn would deign to dwell in a forest here.

I took one look at the four of them, shook my head, and looked away. -Babe! I’ve got four Bright Moon Unicorns here in Ireland without a forest. Got an area I can drop them in?”

=====

Author’s Note: Remember, a herd of Unicorns is called a blessing.