by Sean Oswald
That was the reason that she had left him with Balayria and was playing in the town by herself. As much as she liked Krinnk, she still longed for other friends, kids, who might think like she did. Sara was a very social person and needed that community around her. Yet, while the adults were almost all considerate to her, calling her My Lady, and some of them even bowing to her, the kids wouldn’t come near her. She had even heard some of the parents warning them away from playing with the nobleman’s daughter.
The elven children were even worse. Fortunately, they were mostly outside the big fence that was being built around town. Sara could tell that the elves didn’t seem to like her and even though the adults were kind to her face, she saw how they looked at her when they didn’t think she was watching. The children were another matter entirely. They didn’t bother holding back. Just yesterday one elven boy had hurled a clod of dirt at her and then ran away calling her, “Usumera.”
Today though, she had stumbled upon a new idea. She got Emmaline to make two trays of sweet rolls for her. The cook always had a kind word or a treat for Sara, and it had only taken a small amount of pouting and puppy dog eyes to get her to agree to make the extra rolls. Now, her plan was to see if she could get some of the other kids to come and eat the treats with her. She set out a blanket in the town square and laid the pastries out where their scent spread on the cool autumn breeze. As she waited, she watched several of the children between ones barely able to walk to kids around her age playing various games of tag or hide and seek. Many times, a parent would call, and the children had to do chores, but they all still found time to run and laugh together. That was something Sara so desperately wanted to be able to join in.
There, she saw one little one, not more than two or three years old probably with a grass stained dress, poking her head around the corner of the partially constructed town hall. She kept looking and finally Sara beckoned her to come over, with a sweet roll in hand. One thing led to another and soon, Sara found herself surrounded by half a dozen other kids all wanting a bit of dessert.
The next couple of hours were amazing. It was the first time that Sara had truly felt like a child, since arriving in Eloria, not that she could put words to that. Sara had been missing this time with friends, even friends procured through pastries, but she hadn’t known how much she had missed it.
That was why when the adults started running around town that she tried to ignore it for as long as possible. One by one her new companions were called away by obviously concerned parents, and it wasn’t long after the first adults started running around till Balayria and Krinnk appeared before her.
“There is danger, little one. We need to seek shelter,” Balayria said while looking down at Sara who was still sitting on the blanket, absentmindedly cleaning up the mess left by the other children.
“What’s wrong?” she asked still more curiously than worried, even as she noticed that her half-orc surrogate mother was no longer looking at her but instead scanning all around them.
“Bad menz is coming, sweet Sara,” Krinnk answered for the distracted Balayria.
“What bad men?” Sara asked with a slight tremble in her voice. She wouldn’t have been able to put words to the way the constant peril of Eloria was wearing her down, but still it was there in her tone.
Balayria answered after having found what she was looking for as a trio of elven monks and a half a dozen soldiers wearing the mark of Shanelle led by Sir Elgin, appeared. “These men will tell us where we need to go. It is their duty to make sure that you are safe even if Eris’ Rise falls.”
Sara shuddered involuntarily. All of these men looked brave, and she trusted both Krinnk and Balayria, but still she was a little girl, and she wanted her mom and dad when faced with such terrifying words.
Not far away in the partially built town hall, a circle of the leaders of Eris’ Rise were meeting to try to respond to the news brought back by one of the patrols.
“For the final time, I am in charge of Eris’ Rise while the Baron and his wife are away, and Ozakai is my second. You all know that this was the express instruction of his Lordship,” Sir Morganthal’s face was red as he repeated himself.
“That was an order given for the tree sapper hunt. No official chain of command has been established. Besides that, we answer to the great God Mishpat, Lord of Justice and not to any secular authority,” Derrick Mun Hagen, head paladin of Mishpat had a way of annoying everyone around him no matter what he said.
“We do not recognize your forgotten deity; we serve at the pleasure of Lady Emiri under her charge from the Throne of all Moon Elves,” Eisuke added in a quiet tone laden with unspoken threat.
“Knights and paladins and forest wardens, this is silliness. We all are residents of Eris’ Rise. We all share the same fate today, whether that be to stand or fall. We have but moments before we need to have a plan in place. There is no room for this bickering. We must follow the last orders of Baron Murkwood and work together,” Talvenicus spoke with exasperation as he tried to get his words out. He had once been a soldier serving under men like this, and it was hard for him to go against those habits, but this was his town, and he wouldn’t let it fall to pettiness if he could help it.
“The mayor speaks wisely. Can we not table this argument and come up with a plan of defense,” Sir Morganthal said.
All around the room, hardened men with an assortment of motivations stared at one another. The tension was palpable. Finally, it ended when the most obstinate of the warriors, Sir Mun Hagen said, “Very well, given the imminent threat, let it not be said that the Church of Mishpat could not respond justly. We will accept this order given that I am placed as third in command.”
Morganthal and his elven counterpart looked at one another briefly, before they both nodded and Morganthal said, “So be it. Now what exactly do we know from the patrol.”
All eyes turned to Eisuke who said, “Here is what we know …”
Outside of town, a staggered line of soldiers was approaching Eris’ Rise from the south east. An hour ago, those soldiers had worn the insignia of Holstein’s boar on their livery, but now, all such markings had been removed from their equipment. To the unwitting observer, they would look like a mercenary company. Of course, that wasn’t what they were. They were in fact trusted soldiers of Duke Holstein with very specific instructions from their officers, passed down from the Duke.
They were to engage the villagers and their defenders as much as possible at the edge of town without allowing themselves to be drawn into a house to house sort of urban warfare battle. Then on a pre-set signal, they were to start a fighting retreat as if they were being pushed back. When that happened, Duke Holstein would insist that Lord Itsu send his elves into melee combat rather than leaving them back as archers in fire support.
Meanwhile, a good half mile behind the line of advancing soldiers, Duke Holstein stood surrounded by his personal mage and bodyguards as he spoke to the officers in low tones. “You have to make it look convincing. Oh, and don’t be afraid to kill a good number of the armed defenders, but try to leave most of the civilians alone. Well, actually, make sure that there are enough civilian casualties to engender terror on behalf of the serfs.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” answered Captain Bellicus. The Captain had been with the Duke long enough to have come around to his twisted way of thinking. That, or he had always been twisted and Holstein just had a way of attracting such people to his service.
“The main thing is that we have to force that long-eared coward, Itsu, to engage inside the town. Then, when we ride in and help the defenders kill off the ‘human mercenaries’ and their evil elven masters, we will be lauded as heroes. Even that fool Harold will have to see that the Murkwood needs a stronger master.” Holstein was already seeing the outcome before the first arrow had been fired or sword had been swung.
“And what of the so-called Baron Murkwood?” Bellicus asked.
“Well he and his wife have to die. We wi
ll probably need to arrange for a training accident at the Royal Academy for his son as well, but the daughter can be left alive. She is a rather attractive little tart even if she is a half-blood.” The men all joined in with the Duke’s laughter, perhaps sharing in some of his lewd thoughts.
Chuckling to himself, Edwin Holstein said, “Bors, doesn’t deserve her, but I will probably have to marry him off to her to secure control of the Murkwood. Of course, it won’t matter if the goods are sampled first, I suppose.”
All around him the mood was lightened in a dark sense as they joined in with their lord laughing at both his underappreciated son and the fate planned for Mira.
Even further out from the town, under the shade of a large tree was the elven rebel, Lord Itsu and some of the druids and officers who had rebelled with him. None of them were there because of Itsu, and most thought him to be a coward and swine, but he was the rallying point for those who could not bear to accept the humans as the Throne had done. The crazy thing of course being that now they were in a joint military occupation with humans who typified everything they believed about the lesser race.
“Try to stay back as much as possible and shoot down any of those defending the village,” Itsu instructed.
“What of the elves who are there, Lord Itsu?” asked one of the druids.
With a sneer upon his lips, Itsu spat back, “They are traitors to their race, and I would actually say should be targeted first.”
“And what if the humans can’t handle the attack without us? Do we then need to engage more directly?” This question came from one of the older elven soldiers who had defected.
“I would almost bet that they can’t. You know how weak humans are. The elven defenders, traitors or not, will almost certainly be too much for them. If it comes to it, we may have to go in and finish up what they can’t, but if we do that, make sure you kill any of Duke Holstein’s men too,” Itsu answered smug in his supremacy.
Around him, many of the older elves rolled their eyes or shared furtive glances of worry. Yet, it was so ingrained into the elven people to obey that having already broken away from the Throne, even if it was for the good of the Circle, most of them didn’t have it in them to disobey a second leader. So, all of them were swept up into Itsu’s plan even if they didn’t share his assessment.
Epilogue
Far to the west of Eris’ Rise, the Ironclaw Orc clan had finally made its way home. As was the custom on the clans, except for very quick hit and run raids, the entire clan always traveled. Their yurts, or mobile homes made it possible for the clan to pack up and follow after the warriors. Yet there was still a place that they considered home, a tract of land in the southern portion of the Halcon Mountains. This was their preferred hunting grounds and hosted the many locations where the clan could set up near sources of fresh water if the hunting ever dried up in one spot.
At the westernmost edge of their lands, one could look out from the side of Mt. Terriyan and stare into the endless waves of the Far Sea. The brisk sea air was refreshing in a way, yet no orc willingly endured it for long. The rocky coastline below was unusable by any but the most foolhardy of sailors using the smallest of boats. The cold water was a grave to many human pirates who had sought to come up from the spice islands in order to avoid the customs at any of the human ports. Long ago, in legend, there had been many who sought to trade with the orcs, despite the bans placed by the other peoples.
None of that though was the real reason that orcs could not bear the sight of the sea. They all felt it, yet only the first of each of the six clans knew the reason. Upon being raised to be first, each one did a pilgrimage to a cavern protected by an ancient creature of nightmares. The clans all believed it to be a test of the strength and cunning of the first to survive sneaking into the cavern deep in the middle of the orcish lands and then to return with a coin from within the treasury stored within that cavern. The clansmen did not know that it was part of a compulsion placed upon the new first when he assumed the mantle by the very definition of the prestige class which was First of the Clan.
Each of the firsts who went, did so with dread and ignorance. Once there, they each learned that the beast who guarded the cavern was no foe to orcs but an ally moved to her current vigil by a debt lost in the annals of history, that and an aching pity for those who had fallen so far in her estimation. Deep within that cavern, each first broke a law as old as the exile. One time, each broke it; they read. The orcs were a people of oral tradition. It was forbidden to them to read or write, and none ever learned. They would sooner murder their own children than teach them such a thing. Yet still, each of the firsts did this thing. Reading a book created by the last great shaman of their people and learning their true heritage. Anger and loss were all that resulted, and the first alone in each clan bore that burden.
The land of the Ironclaw Orcs was still the northernmost of the orcs, and their clan was the only one to hold to the old ways religiously. Since before the time of the exile, if legends could be believed, the orcs were a migratory people. To their memory, they had always been a warrior race, and not even the furthest southern clan, the soft-hearted Smoke Curl clan would have claimed anything less. Yet the exile had been hard. From the tales of old, their people had been betrayed by the other races which had led to what the clerics called the Trail of Ruin. It was in that time of hardship which had led the orcs to find the worship of Bal Zar, although no living orc or their forefathers for many generations could remember a time which such was not the case.
The result of the exile followed by the Trail of Ruin was that the orcs were few in number. Even the largest clan the Ironclaws boasted no more than three hundred warriors. Life in the mountains was hard and apart from the Smoke Curl, none of the clans had any trade with other races. Most of the other clans felt that living in the lowlands had corrupted Smoke Curl clan, but they were all still willing to trade with them for the luxuries from the human kingdoms. Yet to the eyes of the Ironclaws, the other clans had also been corrupted, becoming farmers and settling for most of the year in a single location.
Once Naraanbataar had seen his people settled back into their hunting grounds, he had set to work on gaining the secret of adamantium from the captured dwarven slaves. He was not unnecessarily cruel, that was not the orcish way, nor however, did he shy away from doing what was necessary. Several of the slaves had already been slain within the first week back, and there was only one captured dwarven smith remaining. He was old even by the short folk’s standards and thus had no family with him to use as leverage.
Still Naraan hoped to learn the secret. It would make all the difference. It was not as if every dwarven weapon was made of adamantium, not even one in a hundred of the dwarven warriors they faced on the battlefield carried such weapons, but they were always carried by their champions. In the rare instance of capturing such a weapon, they were always of limited value because of their size compared to what the orcs were accustomed to wielding. So it was that Narann plotted, surrounded by his brother and sister for a way to get even a single adamantium weapon crafted by this elderly smith. Such a weapon would make Khunbish, his Second and the Champion of the clan, invincible. With that, his plan to unite the clans might happen without excessive bloodshed. It all depended upon his ability to wring the secret from a dwarven smith beyond caring about the world around him. Then the seed of an idea appeared within his mind, and a hint of a grin began to curl his lip.
The council room of Thane Harlan Du’Darden, king of the dwarven people, was a flurry of activity. The four and half foot man was screaming in a room full of nobles and warriors from the top of the council table. Screaming might have been an overstatement, but he was pacing back and forth on the top of the table. He animatedly waved his hands as he spoke as if to punctuate his intensity. The jeweled beads woven into his beard made the strands wave back and forth with his animated gestures. Once the hair had been a rusty red but it wasn’t age that made the hair beneath his helm and upon his
face a deep gray. Despite this only being a war council and not actual war, he was adorned in his full battle armor, a set of armor crafted for him more than one hundred years ago in his youth when he had been a greatly feared champion. The other dwarves present were not surprised by this decision. Passions ran high with the people of the mountains. To outsiders, they could seem all business as when they were haggling prices, but within their own halls it was a different matter. It is a well-known expression, ‘singing like a drunken dwarf,’ and it wasn’t only about their deep and abiding love for a variety of strong drinks, but also for their ribald passions.
The armor he wore was mythic level forged from a combination of drake scales and adamantium. The scales were light and sturdy and helped to offset what would be an impossibly heavy armor if it was made solely of adamantium. The overlapping charcoal scales provide both protection from weapons and also from flame, not only due to their own composition but also from the intricate sigils of dwarven runes etched into them. It had cost a king’s ransom to forge this and years of work, but it had all been worth it as it served him well. Many an orcish blade had been turned away by this armor.
Orcs were in fact the entire reason for this council meeting. Things had been relatively calm between the two races for more than a decade. Only an occasional raid by their warriors. Then three years ago, there had been a steep increase in the raids. Larger forces, and they would drive deeper into the territory. The conflict had even spilled over into caves that the goblins hid in and had pushed the annoying pests out of their normal territory.
Yet nothing had ever happened like the indignity that the dwarven nation had just suffered. An entire clan of the blighters had invaded. They had known secret passages they had no business knowing and had somehow been able to avoid engaging with any significant dwarven force. When they left it was with dozens of dwarven slaves, carts of treasure, and even a handful of precious adamantium weapons.
