by Clark Graham
When the leaders in the capital had gathered to his chambers, Armurous looked around and said, “I am the new Chancellor, you will be taking orders from me until the situation is resolved.” He had been set upon the throne but had a stool also, to prop up his legs.
All of the leaders nodded that they understood.
Armurous looked at Under Commander Harsted. “How many troops do you have in the capital?”
“Five hundred of the regular army and one thousand reserve, not including those that Mauric took with him to the coast.”
“When did Mauric leave?” Armurous asked.
“Two hours ago,” Harsted replied.
“He’s traveling at night? Does he not understand that the enemy only attacks at night?” Armurous could not hold back his frustration. Turning to one of the Captains he said, "Take your men outside the gates, if the Trolls come, attack them from the wagons so that the women and children can get away."
"Yes, Sir," the Captain said and then hurried out to gather his troops.
The Chancellor looked at the remaining group and asked, "Can anyone tell me what the situation at the seaport is?"
Another one of his Captains spoke up. "Sir, there are about a five hundred refugees waiting to board the ships. Those that Mauric has with him number about fifteen hundred. So we have around two thousand that will be awaiting ships. The original seven ships have not returned. "
The Captain continued, "For all we know they may return full. Elvenshore could have been overthrown; that was a threat and one of the reasons we left. If Elvenshore is still in the hands of the free people of the land then we may have reinforcements on the ships. Another five ships left yesterday. All that is left in Vil Mawe is eight old and leaking ships."
Armurous sighed and then looked at Kolis, "Take your fastest horse to Vil Mawe and when you get there, find all the shipwrights. Have them look at all those leaking ships and see if any of them are fixable. If there are some ships they can fix, get them all of the materials they need for the job."
Kolis bowed and then hurried out.
"We can only assume that these beasts are undefeatable. Do not hope to win a victory, but do what you can to save our race. We will hold this capital until the last of us are dead or until all the women and children are on ships. We have to buy time for the seaport to be evacuated of all they can to Elvenshore. If not Elvenshore, then we will have to find a small island somewhere to live until it is safe to come back here. The Humans of the Far Shore managed to survive an onslaught of the Trolls, we will survive also," Armurous said.
The city leaders and military men nodded in agreement.
Armurous continued, "We have word now that Chancellor Lanor was found dead, next to his son. The only good news we have had lately is that the women of Vil Falcress have made it to the swampland and now live among the Humans there. They are safe."
The Fall of Morgus Tier
Under Commander Bellios stood looking at the damaged wall. Night after night the Trolls had hammered on it and during the day, he and his men had reinforced it with timbers. During the last attack, chunks of the wall had fallen off and the Trolls had taken them and thrown them into the town, causing heavy casualties among the Elves.
Bellios knew that the wall could not take another night’s pounding. He was amazed that it had lasted this long. He wondered if the Trolls were ever just going to give up and crawl back in the hole they had come out of, never to be seen again.
One of Bellios’ captains came up to report, "Sir, the wagons were taken by Mauric when he evacuated the women and children from the Capital."
Bellios sighed, "Does he really need all those wagons? I sent my wounded back in them with the hopes the wagons would return with supplies and maybe even reinforcements. I now have more wounded that need evacuating."
"He does not need all of the wagons. He had one family per wagon, sometimes only a mother and child. He could have done with a third of the wagons he took."
"I guess we will have to walk the wounded to the seaport. Take your men and some stretchers and head out with the wounded. The wall won't hold much longer and there is no reason to give the enemy more targets," Bellios replied.
"Yes, Sir," the Captain said as he left.
After the Captain's men and the wounded headed out, darkness began to fall. Bellios could see the large shapes coming towards the wall. So far all of the arrows that his warriors had shot at them seemed to be having no effect. When they tried to shoot out their eyes, the Trolls only put up an arm to deflect them. With the first crash against the wall, more stonework came down. The timbers that were the wall's main support were starting to crack.
"Shore up the wall," Bellios yelled and ten soldiers with yet another timber came running up. Just as they reached the wall, a large rock came over it, killing or wounding most of them. Several more timbers split and then the wall came crashing down, burying all of those who were near it.
Bellios just barely missed injury by the wall's fall. When the Trolls started rushing through and clubbing everything in their path.
"Fall back," Bellios commanded, "Retreat through the gate."
The Elves began fleeing through the south gate, but Bellios stayed behind. When several of his men saw that he was not leaving, they stayed with him.
At first the Trolls seemed content with smashing buildings and then setting them afire. Half of the city was up in flames by the time that one of the Trolls noticed that not all of the Elves had fled. He walked over to them. They tried to attack but a quick swing of his club took out half of them. Bellios was thrown several feet through the air by the force of the club, before smashing into a building. He struggled for breath, but he was too badly injured. He saw that most of the Elves under his command had escaped. He knew he had done all he could. Then he faded into unconsciousness and then he died.
The cattle and the sheep were on their way back to the swampland with an escort of twenty of Darnic's men. That freed the rest of them to roam the land. Besides seeing an occasional rider, he had not seen any Elves since the day that Vil Falcress had been destroyed.
They had been riding south when they saw the fires of Morgus Tier. Darnic headed his men in that direction. When they arrived there most of the Elf army was heading towards the Capital, bearing their wounded with them. The Trolls were still content with smashing buildings and starting fires.
When Darnic came up to them he said, "Give me your wounded and we will ride with them to the capital." The Elves complied and soon there was a wounded Elf on each of the Human's horses. Darnic and his men cradled the injured as they rode to Fernar Darus to take them to safety and deliver them there. The rest of the Elf warriors headed out on foot. Now free of their burdens, they started making good time.
The Trolls left back towards the mountain before dawn so that there was no longer a threat to the troops. With the backdrop of the burning town, the Elf soldiers marched back towards the Capital.
When Darnic arrived at the Fernar Darus and the wounded were taken to the healers, one of the guards stopped him. “The Chancellor desires to see you.”
“The Chancellor is dead,” Darnic replied.
“Chancellor Armurous now sits on the Silver throne.”
Darnic nodded and then let the guard lead him to the Chancellor.
When he entered the Chambers he noticed that theArmurouslooked like he had aged years since the last time he had seen him. His broken legs and now the weight of his office were all taking a toll on the Elf leader. Chancellor Armurous gave a smile when the old Darnic walked into the room.
“My dear friend,”Armurous said, “what is happening at Morgus Tier, we see the town is on fire and now I hear you have brought a lot of the wounded back with you.”
“The town is shattered. The monsters have smashed through the north wall and have set the town on fire. The survivors are led by a Captain and I fear your Under Commander Bellios is dead as he is nowhere to be found on the outside of the city. Your men will h
ave to hurry back here or they will be caught on the open road by the enemy in the night. There is now nothing between the mountain and the Capital, you can expect to start seeing attacks tomorrow,” Darnic reported.
The Chancellor went back to his hollow, drawn look, “How do I stop these demons?”
Darnic got a sad look and said, “You don’t stop them, you run from them.”
Flight of the Survivors
Captain Verian found himself in command of a beaten army. The one Sub Captain that he could not stand had proved to be his bravest officer. The tall and lean Istuin with thin brown hair was just back from his fifth trip back into the burning, enemy -infested town. This time he did not bring back a wounded man like he had the other four times. When Verian had first met the young Sub Captain, he was resentful of him. Istuin had been given a commission because his family was well connected politically. His uncle was the mayor of Fernar Darus, his wife’s grandfather had been Chancellor and in the distant past Istuin had been related to the Elf Kings of old. If there was still an aristocracy in the world of Elves, Istuin would be part of it.
Captain Verian had to work his way up in the ranks, starting out as a foot soldier and proving his worth over and over again to gain rank. His promotion to Captain had been one of the happiest of his life. It was hard to see someone given outright what it took him years to earn. Verian didn’t like Istuin and had told him so several times.
After seeing how brave the young Sub Captain had been he was now regretting being so harsh to him. Istuin, in Verian’s opinion, had just proved his worth.
Verian was older than most of the officers. He had a wisp of gray hair, on his otherwise blonde head. It was unusual for an Elf to have any gray at all. It made him look older and made Verian wonder if he had been passed up for command a time or two because of it. At this moment it didn’t matter. Bellios had not made it out of the town and now as the senior officer present, it was up to Captain Verian to get what was left of the Elf regular army back to the capital.
The Human horsemen’s willingness to take his wounded back for him was an enormous burden lifted from the Captain. Dragging back the wounded with them while on foot would have been a huge hindrance to the army and would have cost them a lot more time in getting back. He was wondering if he could make it even now without getting caught and slaughtered on the road.
Captain Verian formed the army into ranks and had them move out. They did so with the Trolls still in the town of Morgus Tier, smashing and burning the town. He tried would look back once in a while in sadness to see flames rising up.
The troops were tired so the marching was steady but slower than Verian had hoped it would be. He tried to coax them to move faster but it was just not in them, after the last few days of battling the enemy, to do so. As the sun dispelled the darkness, the morale of the troops improved and the speed of the marching also improved a little. Still Verian knew that if the Trolls were coming this way, they would catch the Elves on the road in the night. They didn’t stop for meals. The troops ate what they could as they marched. Water was also passed out to the warriors and they walked.
When darkness began to fall Istuin came up to Verian, “Sir, I can stay behind with fifty men to slow the enemy so the rest of the army can escape.”
“No, it would only take the Trolls a few minutes to cut their way through fifty men and they would be upon us soon after that anyway. We will stay as one unit and fight as one unit.”
“Yes, Sir,” Istuin said to Verian and went back to the ranks.
When the time had come that Verian thought the Trolls would be upon them, he had his men hide in the brush on both sides of the road. It was then, in the far distance, that he noticed the fires in the town of Morgus Tier had been relit. The Trolls had not completed the task of destroying the town. Hoping that the Trolls would be at the their task of destruction all night, Verian formed his army back up into ranks and once again marched on.
It was a joyful sight for the troops to see the walls of the Capital City in the early morning sunlight. Not a lot of them had thought they would see the city again when they realized how large their enemy was and had bloodthirsty. The army marched boldly up to the gate as it opened up to allow them in.
Verian was greeted by another officer and dear friend of his. “I am so glad to see you, when I saw that the town was burning I feared the worst.”
“We have returned, but a lot fewer in numbers than when we left,” Verian replied. Our leaders are gone. We never did find Bellios and Armurous was badly wounded. The beast will soon be upon us, so we can only hope that the walls of the Capital hold a long time.”
“Yes, we can only hope.”
A Day without Death
“Have the Humans left?”Chancellor Armurous asked. He was in pain and the drink that the healer had given him was making him groggy. He was sleeping most of his days away now.
Kolis was looking out of the balcony window in Chancellor’s chamber, “Yes, they left this morning.”
“Is it night?” The throne was in the center of the room. It was an exact duplicate of the one that the Elves had left behind on Elvenshore, butArmurous could not see out of the windows from where he sat.
“Yes, night has fallen,” Kolis replied.
It took Armurous a few minutes to concentrate. He struggled to remember what he wanted to ask, then he finally remembered. “Are there any more ships that can be made usable?”
“Just two, the shipwrights looked at all of them and are going to take what they need off the others to repair the two. It will take some time, but I think with the Trolls breathing down their necks they are motivated.”
Suddenly, through the cobwebs in his head the Chancellor remembered something. “The troops, have they made it back?”
“No, they have not, but do not worry, the monsters have returned to Morgus Tier and are finishing what they started last night. The town is ablaze again.”
Armurous relaxed on the throne. “Good, let them burn it, it was a bad place to build a town anyway. Why build on sacred ground?”
Kolis smiled at that, “I would like some of that drink the healer has given you. It has improved your sense of humor.”
The Chancellor laughed despite the pain. “Did we have the wagons back from the coast?” he asked at length.
“It was hard to get Mauric to give them up, but I was able to persuade him,” Kolis said, as he fondly remembered holding his sword to Mauric’s throat.
“Good, we will get the wounded in them and send them to the coast in the morning.” Armurous hesitated; he knew this next part was not going to be well received. “I want you to put me in a wagon with the rest of the wounded. I am no good here.”
Kolis turned from the window to look at the Chancellor, “You will need to appoint an army commander to be Chancellor in your place then, or that will make me Chancellor and I am no politician.”
“No need, you will do just fine. You steer a mean team of horses; just pretend the government is a team and steer it accordingly.”
“Now I really want some of that drink.”
They both laughed, and then Armurous grew serious. “We built a paradise of music, art and literature here. We built beauty in all we did, the buildings, the sculpture, even the cobblestones were made precisely. An Elf utopia and then we ruined it all by one stupid decision.”
Kolis looked back out the window, ”I hope there are some of us left to rebuild.”
Darnic Tewl and his men had been out all night. They watched from a distance as the monsters destroyed the last of the building at Morgus Tiel. He had watched their destruction before, but the last time he did it was his village that the beasts were gleefully destroying. He knew it would go on all night. The monsters were running out of Elf communities to burn, there was only Vil Harben, Fernar Darus and Vil Mawe left to go.
Aron came up to him, “I now understand the hopelessness of the battle when you were driven to the swampland the first time.”
“I am concerned,” Darnic replied. “They have not attacked our villages, are they going to finish off the Elves and then go after us?”
"Will we fight them if they do start destroying our villages?" Aron asked.
"No," came the short reply.
"Then what does it matter?"
Darnic was satisfied with that. "You are right."
Kolis sawArmurous and the rest of the wounded off and then sat there to watch the wagons leave through the gate. He then met with the surviving officers of the battle of Morgus Tier. There was just one senior officer, a Captain, the others were Sub Captains and Leaders.
Chancellor Kolis said to the Captain, “What is your name?”
“Captain Verian.”
“You are now Commander Varian as you are the only high ranking officer that has fought these beasts,” Kolis said.
“Thank you, Sir,” replied Verian. He was tall like most of the Elves, with a strong jaw that gave him a look of determination. Blonde, shoulder length hair extended out from under his steel helmet.
“Now, what do we need to win this war?”
Verian was downhearted. “There is no way to win, the more men we put against them, the more they kill. We are just targets for their clubs.”
“Then how do we delay the Trolls from attacking the sea coast before we can get people on the ships to Elvenshore?” The Chancellor was upset, but he would not show it because he wanted to hide the severity of the situation from his subordinates.
“We only need enough men in the Capital to keep the walls shored up during the attacks. I suggest we send the bulk of the army to Vil Mawe. It has no wall, but if we dig a ditch and fill it full of oil, every time they come upon us we can light it up and have fire separate us from the monsters. It is there where we can make our stand. The monsters walk fast but they will only have a couple of hours to do their mischief. By the time they make it to the coast, at the Capital, they will have around four hours.”
