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A boy’s screae explodes into life Warriors are already racing towards hiate Torches are flung into the darkness I see Ninian, a year younger than ether from the bones and flesh of the dead blood

Goll is first on the scene An old-style warrior, he fights naked, with only a small leather shield, a short sword and axe He hacks at the demon with his axe and buries it deep in one of the monster’s heads The demon screeches but doesn’t release Ninian It lashes out at Goll with a fleshless arm and knocks him back, then buries the teeth of its uninjured head in Ninian’s throat The screa sound

Conn and three other warriors swars Ninian at them like a club and scythes two of them down Conn and another keep their feet Conn jabs one of the monster’s eyes with his spear The demon squeals like a banshee The other warrior-Ena-slides in close, grabs the beast’s head and twists, snapping its neck

If you break a human’s neck, that person will almost surely die But demons are made of sturdier stuff Broken necks just annoy rabs the head which Goll shattered with his axe Rips it off and batters Ena with it She doesn’t let go Snaps the neck again, in the opposite direction It comes loose and she drops it She pulls a knife from a scabbard strapped to her back and drives it into the rotting bones of the skull Making a hole, she wrenches the sides apart with her hands, digs in and pulls out a fistful of brains Grabs a torch and sets fire to the grey goo

The de brains Conn snatches the other head froround and mashes it to a pulp with his axe The demon shudders, then sluate It’s late-later than demons usually attack Most of the warriors on the ht, replaced by children like me Our eyes and ears are normally sharp But this close to dawn, ht off guard The dee

Bodies spill out of huts Hands grab spears, swords, axes, knives Men and women race to the raht in clothes-no tiate and scale the banks of earth outside, tearing at the sharpened wooden poles of the fence, claht have been a diversion, sent to distract us Or else it just had a terrible sense of direction, as many corpse-demons do

Warriors mount ladders or haul themselves up on to the rampart to tackle the demons It’s hard to tell how many monsters there are Definitely five or six And at least two are real de orders He bellows at those on watch who’ve strayed from their posts "Stay where you are! Call if clear!"

The tre children return to their positions and peer into the darkness, waving torches over their heads In turn they yell, "Clear!" "Clear!" "Clear!" One starts to shout "Cle-", then screams, "No! Three of them over here!"

"With ht the first deate, in case of a second attack like this Goll leads theainst the trio of demons

I see fury in his face-he’s not furious with the demons, but with himself He made a mistake with the first one and let it knock hiain

As the warriors engage the demons, I move to the centre of the rath and wait I don’t norhts I’h the barricades, or if an especially powerful Foo into action

To be honest, I doubt I could do er Fomorii Everybody in the rath knows that But we pretend I’ics The lie coives us soer children of the rath cluster around ainst the foul legions of the Otherworld Their older brothers and sisters are at the foot of the ra up weapons to the adults, ready to dive into the breach if they fall But these young ones wouldn’t be ofwith them I’d rather be at the rampart But duty comes at a price Each of us does e can do best My wishes don’t matter The welfare of the rath and my people comes first Always

One of the Fo jaw A mix of human teeth and tusks Demonic yellow eyes Claws instead of hands It bellows at the warriors who go up against it, then spits blood at them The blood hits a woman in the face She shrieks and topples back off the ra-the demon blood is like fire

I race to the woman It’s Scota We share a hut sometione) Her usually pale skin is an ugly red colour Bubbles of flesh burst The liquid sizzles Scota screa the heat of her flesh and the burning drops of liquid which strike hs and relaxes, eyes closing I tug a srains into the palrains anda paste I rub the paste into Scota’s disfigured flesh and it stops dissolving She’ll be scarred horribly but she’ll live There are other pastes and lotions I can use to help the wounds heal cleanly But not now There are demons to kill first

I look up The boar demon has been pierced in several places by the swords and knives of our warriors, but still it fights and spits I wish I knehere these th from