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King Corb is the Fomor head of state, although he is subservient to his Empress, the Goddess Ethniu. He is first mentioned in "Even Hand", and first appears in Peace Talks.

Description[]

I have heard it said that it is not his destiny to perish before the deepest ocean meets the sun.Mab, on King Corb[1]

King Corb as a heavy, burbling voice, is eight feet tall, and appears like a toad, with a mouth "so wide he could have eaten a banana sideways". His skin is sickly blue-green in some areas and ghostly pale where it isn't, with huge, protruding, watery eyes like an amphibian's. He does have mammalian hair, but it is withered like black seaweed and draped in uneven clumps over his shoulders.

Described as incredibly dangerous and not particularly sane, it stands to reason that King Corb is well above his already witheringly powerful cantrev lords[Footnote 1] such as Mag. Indeed, he is ancient enough to speak of Mab as a young woman in love with Merlin.[2]

In the series[]

"Even Hand"[]

In "Even Hand", he is Mag's lord, and receives Baron Marcone's weregild for Mag's death after Justine's theft of data and human property from him.[3]

Peace Talks[]

In Peace Talks, King Corb arrives at the Accorded peace summit with Ethniu, Listen, and a retinue of Fomor servitors. He directs Listen to murder all of the mortal guards outside the Brighter Future Society castle before passing within, wearing a chain leash held by Ethniu as he does so.[2] He enters the peace summit and tosses the severed head of Gwynn ap Nudd, monarch of the Tylwyth Teg and enemies of the Fomor, into the center of the summit to declare his intentions and violation of the Accords.

In response to Mab's threatening inquiry, he directed his servitors to open fire on all of Marcone's human caterers in attendance, tossing a velvet bag of gold at Marcone as weregild — just as had Marcone once paid him weregild for the death of cantrev lord Mag. Turning on Mab, Corb mocked her, remembering her crying, pockmarked younger face when the original Merlin cast her aside, and wondering whether the Merlin would love what she had become. King Corb laughs in glee as Ethniu blasts Mab aside, and departs with her when she leaves.[4]

Battle Ground[]

In Battle Ground, Corb begins his assault on Chicago with waves of Huntsmen and bombardments of squids that would fall from the sky and element enemy combatants,[5] only later arriving to join Ethniu in person.[6] He ignores Listen's advice, which results in a fifth of his legion being eliminated by Harry Dresden's volunteers, and their communications being cut by Dresden's Little Folk. Even so, he blames their predicament on Listen and moves to kill him several times, but is restrained each time by Ethniu. Ethniu eventually agrees to a joint assault on Mab herself, to Corb's immense pleasure.[7]

Corb, having armed his legion with iron for the battle against the Sidhe, launches a wave of steel bars that cuts down the Sidhe cohort around Mab, leaving her incapacitated and with only Dresden, Butters, and a unicorn as retainers.[8] When Mab and her forces recovered, King Corb took on the responsibility of repulsing the Winter Lady's forces[1][9] while Ethniu handled Baron Marcone and the Summer Lady's forces.[10] When Ethniu was banished by Dresden and Corb's legion began to collapse, King Corb and his retinue fled to Lake Michigan and only barely escaped in time.[11]

Footnotes[]

References[]

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