by Ethan Spears
He moved through the camp, ignoring the awaiting food and going into his tent. On his desk was a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and scanned the list therein, comparing the items on the list to the contents of his tent. His books, his clothing, his various knickknacks from his pre-military life; the list was near enough to complete as to make no difference. Anything unlisted could go missing and he wouldn’t care. His eyes stopped on the final item, his brass and silver hand mirror. He thought a moment, then tucked the list into a pouch on his belt.
He opened a drawer on his desk and retrieved the hand mirror, holding it up to see his own reflection. “Reggy,” he said in a clear voice. The mirror shimmered for a moment, Aoden’s face falling out of focus. When the image cleared, instead of his own half-elf visage, he was now peering into a room hundreds of stretches away. In the room was a desk, a chair, and a standing wardrobe, but the bed was what pulled Aoden’s attention.
Under the heavy comforter, a tiny figure slept, his quiet breathing only known by the steady rise and fall of the blanket. It was probably just before sunrise there. For a moment, Aoden debated waking the bed’s occupant, but two things stopped him: Reggy wouldn’t do that to him, and Reggy was too heavy a sleeper anyway. And voices came through the mirror muffled anyway. He doubted he could shout loud enough to wake Reggy without his entire squad hearing him and no matter how badly he felt he needed to talk to someone right now, it wasn’t worth bringing their focus to him. Frustrated, he put the mirror on his desk and left his tent.
The men’s attentions were still diverted with breakfast and would be for a while. He would be gone, and they wouldn’t care, perhaps even be happy, but he didn’t want to be around when they found out. He had neither the stomach nor the heart for it.
Their aggression had gotten more overt over the past few weeks. He was positive the Lieutenant had seen through his ‘we’ve been spotted’ ruse during the ambush last month and had spread the word. The men felt denied the chance to slay more orcs, an opportunity they would have relished regardless of their targets’ ability to fight back.
It was times like this he missed the human kingdom most of all. He had left to search out his elven roots decades before the Fury had swept the human kingdom from the map, leaving a blank space the halflings would come to fill. That was twenty years he could have spent happy, even if he was dead by the end.
He was getting morose. He forced himself to cut his nostalgia short.
He made his way quickly through the battalion’s main body using the messenger alleys, the empty expanses left between camps for unfettered travel between them, to avoid other elves if possible. He didn’t want eyes and unasked questions following him, and the messengers were too busy to pay him any mind.
His squad had made camp close to their section’s command center, so he wasn’t walking long before he spotted the Archonite’s lavish quarters protruding from the sea of lesser tents, a sprawling thing of purple cloth more suited for a circus than an army. It was nearly the size of a two-story human home, almost large enough to cover two commander tents side-by-side. He jogged over, hoping to be done with it as soon as possible. As he entered the Archonite’s camp, he was greeted by calls of ‘Saliel’ from Valdon’s personal guard, as well as other remarks, none of which were flattering or welcoming. They knew him immediately, for while he wasn’t the only half-elf in the army, he was the only one under Valdon’s command. They didn’t need to shout anything at all, for the looks they gave him said all that needed to be said.
He reached the tent and knocked on the post, eager to get inside. Valdon’s familiar rough voice called out to him. “I’m busy right now. Give me a moment.”
Aoden winced but did as he was told, standing straight as a nail at the entrance. The men of the Archonite’s guard laughed openly as they, like Aoden, could see through the propped-open tent flap as Valdon took his time adjusting his uniform. He then proceeded to sit and thumb through several papers on his desk, finally settling on one to read aloud, slowly. It was clear he had chosen the least significant document he could find, a request for tent patchwork supplies, to put on a show of power over Aoden. The men howled with laughter as Aoden stood stock-still, eyes facing straight ahead, his face expressionless. All in all, he was more bored with the proceedings than insulted at this point.
He stood this way for ten minutes before Valdon finally waved him in. “I’m ready for you.”
“Sir,” said Aoden, as if being forced to stand in the blazing sun and purposefully denied shade or dignity was of no concern to him. He turned and snapped the flap shut to lessen the noise of the elves outside.
“So, it has come to pass—” Valdon began, but Aoden spoke up instead.
“Let’s cut the pretense and get this over with,” he said. He had no reason to be diplomatic here and, now that the soldiers couldn’t see or hear them, he was done acting the passive abusee. Aoden gave him this: the soldiers hid behind barbed jokes and rude comments, but at least Valdon had the guts to openly hate him. Aoden was more than happy to make that feeling mutual. “Give me my orders, I’ll try to act surprised, and we can both get on with our day.”
Valdon’s face soured. “Stow the attitude, Saliel. Perhaps if you knew how to show respect, you wouldn’t be in these circumstances.”
Aoden scoffed. “That’s crap, Valdon, and you know it. I tried that the first thirty years and it didn’t help. My ‘attitude’ is caused by my circumstances, not the other way around. Just give me my orders.”
Valdon set burning eyes on Aoden, but he produced a scrap of paper in short order. “You’re being transferred,” he said curtly.
“What? Transferred?” said Aoden in mock surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Here’s the part where you try to argue that we keep you where you are,” said Valdon, admitting to his knowledge of the dance they had done a dozen times before.
“Futilely,” Aoden added.
“Yes, futilely.”
“Well,” said Aoden, “I don’t feel like wasting my time with that part of the play, if you don’t mind. My current squad isn’t worth the breath. I’m not even sure if staying or being transferred is the worse option at this point.”
Archonite Valdon rolled his eyes at Aoden. “Not even trying anymore,” he said with a sigh, tossing the scrap of paper across the desk. “These orders come from higher than my own station. Even if I cared—and I cannot stress enough how much I don’t— it’s not within my power to do anything. So take them and go.”
“I’m so glad to see our leadership listens to reason,” Aoden quipped as he reached for his orders. While it was true the elves of his squad did not respect him, they had, prior to the fumbled ambush, been warming to him very, very, very slowly. They had even followed his order to leave the orc woman alone. While it was true that they rarely disobeyed orders, they were fond enough of killing orcs that the result was a toss-up. Of course, it was wholly possible that one or more of his elves had relayed the events of the encounter with that orc to one of his superiors, directly resulting in his reassignment. Or it could just be a coincidence, considering he had been transferred dozens of times already in his relatively short military career, sometimes two or three times a year, often without any inciting incident, while most commanders retired without ever seeing transfer papers. Whatever the case, he’d had his belongings packed and ready to go since that day just in case. For good reason, it would seem. He had long ago realized that the higher-ups didn’t want the soldiers gaining any sympathy for him, a plan that was working masterfully, even if he couldn’t understand why they bothered.
The handwriting on the note was sloppy. It had been written quickly and carelessly. “Does this say squad four-one-eight?” Aoden asked at length, unable to decipher it himself.
“You read it right, Saliel,” said the Archonite, already focused on another report in front of him. “I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
“Somehow I doubt—” began Aoden, but the Archo
nite waved his hand in dismissal, cutting him off. Aoden dutifully left the tent, giving his orders another curious look as he passed through the camp without a thought to whatever comments were being fired his way by Valdon’s guard. The note offered no hint as to where squad four-one-eight could be found, informing him only that he should ‘ask around,’ and that ‘the troops will be able to direct you to them.’ Even for the maddeningly informal methods of the elven military, this was exceedingly and no doubt purposefully vague. Aoden was having trouble deciding whether to be more interested in the orders, the reassignment, or the fact that his superiors had found a brand-new way to torture him by making him speak to potentially dozens of soldiers to locate his new troops.
Sometimes he thought it would be easier if they just kicked him out already. The one thing he could never figure squarely was why they kept a half-elf in a commander position if they didn’t want him there. Secretly, he enjoyed the thought that they were too stupid for the idea to occur to them, but his practical side knew it was most likely tied to their love of military dominance. He had once hoped his impeccable record and conduct would be enough to overcome their prejudice, but that hope had long since died.
He began half-heartedly searching for his new squad. The first few attempts proved futile: some shrugged off his questions, while others flat-out ignored him. He eventually found one soldier who nodded politely upon hearing his query and pointed him to the east. To his east, however, was the edge of the battalion’s encampment bordering the thick woods. While it was true that elves couldn’t lie—whether that was a blessing or a curse from the gods was up for debate—they were clever bastards who found loopholes easily. Aoden found it difficult to trust these directions, knowing the elf could have been pointing to the last place he had seen the squad rather than where they were now. Having found no other help, however, and for the moment unwilling to subject himself to more humiliation, he decided he would at least give the directions a try before searching elsewhere.
As Aoden approached the woods, he caught a whiff of garlic, just the barest hint diffused by distance. It was an especially odd smell given its intense unpopularity in elven dishes. It was seeping out from the trees ahead, mixed with the nearly imperceptible smell of cooking meat. At least he knew that someone was out here, so he took the footpath in.
Another new squad was hardly an enticing prospect. He would try to make a good first impression on this one, but he wasn’t hopeful. He’d had the same optimism with every squad he had commanded, thinking ‘this time will be different,’ ‘this time I’ll earn their respect,’ but it never was and he never did. The realist in him that saw every one of his previous failures to do so braced for another few months of drudgery and disappointment, but the optimist wouldn’t relent.
No, he thought to himself, taking calming breaths. You can’t go in like that. Let go of the anger. Be calm, friendly. You’re an elf, just like them. If they don’t like you, it’s their problem, not yours. Demand respect with actions, not words.
He reassured himself this way for nearly a stretch, following a hint of a trail and the increasingly powerful smell, before he heard a voice.
“Halt,” it called down from above. “Who goes there?”
Aoden looked up, his past resentment suppressed enough for him to be bemused. “I haven’t heard that challenge from an elf in years,” he said. He peered around for a few seconds, shading his eyes from the bits of sunlight that filtered through the trees. “You’re very well hidden,” he added, impressed. “I can’t even see you.”
Yes, shower them with compliments, he playfully mocked himself in his head. Suck up like a champion.
“Who goes there?” the voice repeated.
The formality was striking compared to the note he held. “My name is Aoden. You don’t sound like a member of the Sentry Corps. If you’re a member of squad four-one-eight, then I am your new commander.”
A batch of leaves above shifted and slid down the trunk of a tree, landing in front of Aoden. Even standing before him now, Aoden could barely make out the figure of the elf shrouded within.
“Ingenious,” Aoden said.
“The Lieutenant’s idea,” the elf said, bitterness plain in his voice. “He says I can hide better with this thing on like I can’t do it adequately by myself.”
“Is that so?” Aoden said. The leaf suit—or ‘ghillie suit’ as he had heard it called—was a disguise technique mastered by human hunters and rangers. He had never seen an elf employ that technique before. Combined with an elf’s natural stealth in the forest, it was a truly formidable thing. “More to the point, I need to meet with the Lieutenant and take command of the squad. Would you take me to him?” He kept his tone polite but made it clear it wasn’t a request.
“Gladly,” the elf muttered, turning and marching off. Aoden was almost shocked into an inability to follow. Elves were never ‘glad’ to find out their new commander was a half-elf. No, he must have misheard. He knew he would be dancing on glass for the next few hours and had to be careful with every word, action, even facial expression. One misplaced comment or accidental offense given would be enough for them to dismiss him as the idiot half-elf they all assumed him to be. At that point, this squad would end up being just like the last.
They didn’t have long to march, breaking into a clearing after a few minutes, and instantly Aoden knew something was strange. Eighteen elves were in pairs sparring with swords on the south side. Honest-to-goodness swords. Aoden wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a squad training with anything but bows. On top of that, one elf was tending to a pair of fires. Above one fire hung an entire deer, skinned, cut into chunks, and spitted, which was nothing unusual, but the other was heating a small boiling pot. The elf tending the cooking wore a cloth mask over his nose and mouth as if the substance was toxic and occasionally brushed the deer with the contents of the pot, from which it was clear the garlic smell was issuing. Overlooking everyone stood an elf who had to be the Lieutenant, surveying with crossed arms.
“Sir,” said the elf leading Aoden, causing the Lieutenant to turn. The elf saluted—another oddity—and received a salute in return. “I found this one in the woods, sir. He claims to be our new commander.”
Aoden recoiled as the Lieutenant struck the elf hard in the face with the back of his hand. “If he’s our commander, don’t call him ‘this one,’ got it?”
“Yes, sir,” the elf responded, saluting and moving to the side.
The Lieutenant looked Aoden over, his gaze grazing over his ears, an action Aoden was acutely aware of. “You must be Saliel,” he said at last. “I’ve heard of you. First and only half-elf to make the rank of commander.”
“That’s right,” said Aoden cautiously. I have to be careful with the Lieutenant, he thought. If I start at the top, maybe I can—
“That’s damn impressive, sir,” said the Lieutenant, saluting.
Aoden was stunned. “I-I, uh…” he stammered. He realized he should return the salute, saying, “Aoden, please,” as he did so. For a moment he didn’t even know how to continue, though the Lieutenant waited patiently for him to find his words. “I was under the impression this was an archery squad,” he said after gathering his wits, glancing sidelong at the men who were unenthusiastically swinging their swords and watching their new commander out of the corners of their eyes. It was a safe assumption: every squad was an archery squad.
“That it is, sir,” the Lieutenant answered, likewise eying the sparring elves, “but I see no reason they should let their sword arms grow weak.”
Aoden took a moment to observe the camp. The layout was strange, yet strikingly familiar, one he had seen many years ago. The commander’s tent and the six soldiers’ tents weren’t in the usual circle formation with the fire pit in the center. Rather, the commander’s tent was to one side with the fire pit a field from the entry flap, while the soldiers’ tents were staggered off to the right. Along the edges of the camp were wooden stakes, sharpened and hammered into the
ground, the kind used to fend off cavalry charges. These facts, combined with the swordplay, told Aoden something important.
“I think I see,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken, it looks like you’ve been running this squad in the human style.”
The Lieutenant looked astonished. “You’ve seen the human military in action?” When Aoden nodded, the Lieutenant smiled with almost childlike glee, clasped his hands behind his back and stood with his legs a shoulder’s length apart, the human military’s form of attention. “You are correct, sir,” he barked proudly. “The elven military is undisciplined, and this lack of discipline has made soldiers soft. They don’t know how to treat their superiors, their brothers, or their blades. It’s all shambles. My family has served in the military for thirteen generations and they lament its current condition.”
Aoden whistled. “Thirteen generations? That must be at least a few thousand years.”
“Three thousand, eight hundred and thirty uninterrupted years,” he said with false modesty. “Thirty-one next month.”
“And you prefer the humans’ military form?”
“Prefer? Sir, it’s flat-out superior.”
“Well, I think in me you’ll find a kindred spirit.”
There were many groans and angry muttering. Aoden looked around and saw that the sparring and cooking had ceased as the elves gathered to watch them talk. He hadn’t noticed them walk up behind him, and his heart nearly sank at their negative reaction.
“Back to work, you mongrels,” the Lieutenant shouted at them, though the elves looked instead to Aoden.
The gears in Aoden’s head began to spin. He had clues now. He had something he could use. The optimist jumped madly about in his head, convinced that maybe he could make this squad truly his, but he would have to advance carefully.
Damn you, hope.
“At least let them meet their new commander,” he said affably. “They’ll have the rest of the day to train.”
“Of course, sir,” said the Lieutenant, easing back on his heels. Aoden watched the soldiers and judged them pleased with the call.
