Free The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

facts.
    It was a tricky, ticklish business. There was nothing—in Eliot’s admittedly limited experience—more tedious than virtue.
    Fortunately the Fillorians had an advantage, which was that they had every possible advantage. They 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 wizardkings and queens, and Eliot was very sorry but you knew that when you invaded us.
    Still, there were a lot of them, and they knew how to do damage—doing damage was pretty much these guys’ skill set. It was late spring when the Lorians came pouring through Grudge Gap and onto Fillorian soil. They wore steel caps and mail shirts, and carried notched old swords and war axes. Some rode big shaggy horses. They were met by a nightmare.
    See, the Lorians had made a mistake. On their way down from the Northern Barrier Range 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 crazy, over the top. They burned trees? His trees? They killed a
hermit
? They
killed
a
hermit
?
Where Fillory and the Fillorians were concerned Eliot no longer had any irony. 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. But whoever that hermit was, he obviously despised his fellow man, and that meant he was OK 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 mess them up good.
    He was tempted to let them 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 take fucking Fillory, dudes! He let them ford the Great Salt River. He met them on the other side.
    Eliot went 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 he wasn’t going to get out of the way called a halt. He waited while the guys behind those guys gotcrowded 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 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 boxing lessons, and he got the drop on the guy with an off-hand jab. Probably the Lorian wasn’t expecting what amounted to a suicide attack from some random peasant. Eliot knew he hadn’t done much damage, and that he wouldn’t get another shot, so he held up his left hand and force-pushed the man back so hard he brought six ranks of Lorians down with him.
    It felt good. Eliot had no children, but this must be what protecting your child felt like. He just wished Quentin could have seen it.
    He dropped the cloak and stood up straight in his royal raiment, so it was clear that he was a king and not a