by Ethan Spears
He saw a sneer forming, but just as quickly it vanished. She looked away and sighed. “Fine, but then we stop talking about me, alright?”
“A fair exchange,” he said, ashamed of his pettiness.
“You already know a lot about my people,” she began. “We live off the land, being unable to farm in the dry ground east of the mountains, moving from place to place as our need demands. But things have been difficult the last few years. The tribes in the east, those loyal to Kenta, are aggressively expanding, burning villages and slaughtering people. Many broken clans have moved west to avoid the onslaught. We welcomed them at first but, as more came, they went from eating our extra food to eating the food our clan needed to survive. Fights began to break out, then all-out war. Being an established clan, we were more than capable of defeating whatever rabble came poaching our lands, but there were many of them and our food supply dwindled despite our efforts. Then came the droughts.”
“Tabir mentioned that. He said that Ezma made them.”
“Yes, he did,” she said, biting off each word. “Having our supplies pilfered and our traditional gathering sites destroyed both by refugees and drought, we were left with few choices. We could move east where we would inevitably clash with Kenta’s fanatics, though no matter how skilled our warriors were, we couldn’t stand against Mwezgala forever. If we moved north or south, we would infringe upon the lands of other clans. We had good relations with these tribes, but they were as taxed by the refugees as we were and there was little chance of our transgression not resulting in open conflict. That left us with moving west, risking the wrath of the elves but at least avoiding war with our brothers. We made the choice we thought best.”
“Wasuku,” cursed Aoden. “That explains the increase in orcish ‘scouts’ and ‘war parties.’ The archons thought they were all in preparation for the end of the Restraint.”
“Some are,” she said sadly. “My clan lived far to the north along the mountain, as did my brother’s wife’s clan. The fanatics spread their territory all the way to the mountains to the south. Some of those you saw were his followers.”
“Did your tribe not know the elves held all the lands along the mountain?”
“No, we did not, but we had heard that the north was not only fertile but sparsely inhabited as well.”
“If anything, the north is more heavily populated than the south.” Mergau looked downcast. “That wasn’t another lie spread by Ezma, was it?”
“That, at least, wasn’t Ezma. That was how the stories went, and many of those are hundreds of years old. They spoke of the northlands west of the mountain as a paradise, warm, but not as oppressively hot as our lands, and safe from elves should we make it, but the trek was anything but safe. Perhaps there was a time when it was true, but it wasn’t when we made the difficult journey over the mountains.”
Aoden didn’t have the heart to tell her that it likely hadn’t been true for thousands of years, if ever.
“I’m at least grateful my brother’s wife Jierta stayed behind, as is the norm for pregnant women. They don’t join the migrations, staying with their father’s clan until they’ve given birth. The clan then gives her an honor guard to bring her back to her husband, of which her father and brothers are a part if she has any. When I came back with news of Larna’s death, however, she grew so ill that the child miscarried. She would have been a girl. She was named Kolo.”
Mergau wiped the corner of her eye. “No more of this. Let’s talk about you instead.”
“What’s there to talk about?” he said ruefully as he thought of the unborn girl, yet one more death on his hands.
“You learned things about me last night, things I might have preferred to keep private. But it seems we’re going to keep traveling together, so you should even the score.”
“What? By telling you private things about myself?”
“I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea.”
“That’s fine, I guess.” He didn’t want the conversation to lapse back to darker topics. “I’m not sure what to talk about, though. My life is boring.”
“You speak twenty languages. That’s hardly boring.”
“Twelve languages. And that’s out of necessity more than anything.”
“Go on.”
“It that’s what you want to talk about.” He sighed. “I had to learn them if I wanted any chance of success. I’m a half-elf. My mother was a human, my father an elf. I’ve no idea who my father was, and my mother never spoke of him even when I asked. I’m fairly certain he wooed her, then vanished as soon as he learned she was pregnant. That’s usually how these stories go. She raised me in the town of Handock, but she died some forty years ago. At that point, I made one of the biggest decisions in my life and decided to find out more about my other half. I left Handock and struck out for elven lands.”
“What does that have to do with the languages?”
“Everything. You’ve seen firsthand what it’s like for a half-elf among elves. Short of out-and-out killing me, they’ve done everything they can to make me miserable.”
“It didn’t look so bad to me. Your men respected you.”
That was true, wasn’t it? She hadn’t seen the lowest parts of his life. “That squad was the best I’ve ever had,” he said, trying to shut out the images of the massacre by the stream. “I don’t want to talk about them at the moment, but I will say that my treatment was usually far worse. Remember that guard that grabbed you and choked you in that elven town? He did that because you were a half-elf. Now imagine that, except everybody, every day for forty years. I didn’t even want to join the military initially, having already done a stint with the human military, but I couldn’t get work anywhere else, even with twenty years’ experience, due to the prejudice my kind face.”
“Twenty years’ experience? Doing what?”
“Both before and after my military career, I was a tailor in Handock.”
“A tailor? That’s… I wouldn’t have guessed you were a tailor.”
“‘Were’ is the key word there. I haven’t picked up a needle and thread since my promotion. The military has little need for tailors.”
“So why the military, then? Why did they accept you if no one else did?”
Aoden snorted. “It’s a bit generous to say they ‘accepted’ me. The military is one of the most important aspects of elven society, being considered above even hunting, farming, and fletching, falling second only to the creation of music and poetry. They continue to make the military larger and larger, taking any elf that comes asking to join, even a half-breed. To give the military some credit, they did promote me further than any half-elf before me, for which I’m grateful, but that’s the only good thing I have to say.
“But I’m getting off topic: languages. As you might imagine, elves are so suspicious of other races and cultures that they even shun their own half-breed brothers, so it’s small wonder they don’t bother with foreign tongues. I knew I’d never match a veteran of a thousand years in combat prowess, but I could make myself useful in other ways. I already knew four languages when I went to the elves: Krik, which we spoke in Handock; Shantii, a language of the southern traders we bought wool and fur from; Techkuun, the language of the Telmarine silk traders from the west; and, since I like to be prepared, Elvish. I’d later pick up Orcish among others, some for need but, honestly, most from boredom. The more I learned, the easier it became to learn more, and soon I was collecting languages like trophies.
“It was all a big scheme of mine, and it mostly went how I thought it would. The first part worked fabulously: by being the most fluent and well-spoken translator, I became the go-to man in negotiations. By being, well, less of a xenophobic prick than the other translators, I had the best success rate when it came to sealing trade agreements and settling disputes. The last step is where the scheme failed since I never earned the respect I was looking for, but at least I was noticed by the archonites. So, I got promoted to commander.”
<
br /> “Wait, wait,” cut in Mergau. “You got promoted to a war leader because you could speak well?”
“I’m not sure if calling me a ‘war leader’ is accurate. I just command twenty-one men. An archonite or archon might be considered a war leader. But yes, that’s how the elven military works. Don’t ask me why, but it’s all a matter of tradition. Elves are crazy about tradition. No matter what rank you’re aiming to attain, you need to prove your abilities in several of the great arts. I proved I had a fine grasp of language and swordplay, so I was promoted.”
“And what are these ‘great arts’?”
“More tradition, I suppose. The Fifteen Great Arts of the Elves was a book by some ancient philosopher—I forget which one but probably Misithi the Teacher—that describes the great arts that elves should strive to master. Let me see if I can remember them all.” He began ticking off his fingers. “Swordsmanship, bowmanship, magic—those three are easy—speech, singing, instrumentation, philosophy, painting, poetry, woodworking, smithing… uh… poetry, woodworking, smithing… damn it, I know this…”
“Tailoring?” she offered.
“I know you’re trying to be snide, but you’re right. It’s smithing, something, sailing—just remembered that one—tailoring, and finally leatherworking. That damn twelfth one, though.”
“Pottery?” Mergau suggested, her curiosity piqued. “Engraving? Farming? How about animal husbandry?”
Aoden waved away each suggestion. “It was something more boring than all of those, but I can’t remember what. Ah well, it’ll come to me later.”
“You became a commander because you could use a sword and speak well? Wouldn’t the ability to lead men be more important? Oh! Is it ‘leadership’?”
“Yes, that’s why I was promoted, and no, it’s not leadership.”
“But that can’t be right. It should definitely be leadership. But you said that no matter what rank you’re trying to attain, you just need to prove yourself capable of certain arts. What about the war leaders, those archons of yours?”
“Same thing, though more difficult. To become a commander, I only had to display my expertise in four of the great arts—in my case, swordsmanship, bowmanship, tailoring, and speech—to the satisfaction of a review board. Rather formal and boring, but simple. Archonites need to show they’ve mastered at least two arts, meaning they need to spend ten thousand hours practicing and utilizing that art. The requirements for archons are even stricter. They need to become even higher than a master.”
Mergau frowned. “What could be higher than a master?”
“The literal translation would be something like ‘great art masters,’ though it would be more accurate to say ‘grandmasters.’ To become a grandmaster in one of the arts, you have to spend one hundred thousand hours practicing. And archons need to become grandmasters in three separate arts.”
“That’s not possible,” Mergau said. “I can’t do the math, but that sounds like it would take hundreds of years.”
“That’s right, which is why we’ve never had an archon younger than two thousand years. And that’s not even the craziest requirement. A grandmaster must also prove that they’ve practiced their arts at least ten thousand additional hours every two hundred years and should they be tested and their skills noticeably worsened over those two hundred years, they can be stripped of the title.”
“That’s insane. Who would have time for all that?”
“The archons, presumably.”
“So all the elven military leaders are just painters and poets?”
“Well, some are. You have some like Archon Tamizir who learned poetry, painting, and philosophy, or Archon Drisk, who they call ‘the Artisan,’ who chose woodworking, smithing, and leatherworking, but you also have Archon Keenas, ‘the Soldier,’ grandmaster of the sword, bow, and magic. I’ve heard he’s also mastered speech, singing, and poetry besides. He’s seen as the exemplar of the elven mind and body.”
Mergau nodded mutely. She pulled out a bit of bread and tore off a chunk, chewing it thoughtfully as her gaze wandered. Aoden realized that they were quite a ways outside of town and began steering them back.
Aoden’s was surprised to find how completely talking had distracted him from his thoughts of the night before, but as the silence stretched on, they trickled back to the front of his mind. He turned to see Margau deep in her own thoughts.
“What’s gotten you so thoughtful?” he asked.
“Stone carving,” she said.
“What?”
“Or is it child rearing? Or teaching?”
“Oh, we’re on that again.”
“It’s got to be leatherworking.”
“That was the fifteenth.”
“Right, right, right. Hmm… swimming?”
“Swimming?”
“If sailing can be an art, swimming can be an art.”
“That’s surprisingly hard to argue with, but no.”
Mergau guessed for most of the way back, both of them more than happy to let their conversation turn frivolous, but as they neared the edge of town, they both grew visibly wary.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mergau tried to say lightly.
“I dunno. I guess I thought the town would be in chaos or something. We were supposed to die today and all.”
“Yeah, maybe we would come back and the whole place would be burnt down.”
“Or at least a mass murder.”
Both were thinking the same thing, but neither voiced it: they were probably supposed to kill each other. It was the most obvious answer. They were already at each other’s throats last night and it wouldn’t have taken much to make Mergau decide it was time for her vengeance or for Aoden to decide she was just another savage orc like he first thought. The thought nagged at both of their minds.
“Or bandits!”
“Yeah, maybe bandits.”
But as they looked around, the town was peaceful. Their walking down the street was barely noted by the passing halflings.
“This is disappointing in a strange way.”
“I know what you mean. This feels too plain.”
“Maybe…” Aoden had a thought. “Maybe the house was robbed while we were away?”
“Ah, yes! And they would kill us in the process!”
“Is it strange that we’re hoping that someone tried to kill us while we were out?”
“We probably shouldn’t think about it.”
But when they got back to the house, the door was still locked and it didn’t look like anyone had forced their way in. Aoden pulled out his key and examined it.
“I suppose we should go in.”
“Right. Not like anyone’s in there.”
“Of course not. That would be absurd.”
He slid the key into the lock and turned it. Then he paused.
“What is it?” asked Mergau anxiously.
“Um, it was record keeping. The twelfth art is record keeping.”
“Oh, good, now I don’t have to die curious.”
Aoden took a deep breath and threw open the door. The house was empty.
Aoden felt something rise in his chest and began to snicker. Mergau snorted and soon both were loudly laughing.
“We must look like idiots,” she said.
“True. There’s nothing to be afraid of in here. I suppose whatever danger we were in has passed.”
“Damn Tabir, frightened us for nothing. Maybe we should ask him what was supposed to happen if we see him again.” Their eyes met for a moment and something passed between them, an understanding. They both knew this was a charade, but they agreed that it had to continue.
“Or let’s not,” suggested Aoden.
Mergau nodded. “Yes, let’s never.” Then she turned towards Aoden. “Record keeping?”
“I said it was boring,” he said, stepping through the door.
Mergau grunted. “This whole day has been boring.”
Thinking back on everything that had happened that
month, Aoden said, “And thank the gods for that,” and closed the door behind them.
Chapter 23
Orc and Halfling
Tabir’s return was unwelcome.
He knocked on the door and asked if he could enter. Mergau let him in against Aoden’s protests.
“He and his order killed your brother and killed my men and, if you want to get technical, they also killed your teacher. The only thing keeping me from choking the life from him right now is that I know he wouldn’t let me. Look,” he said, pulling his sword and swiping it an inch from Tabir’s face. “He doesn’t even flinch when I do this. I can’t even deliver credible threats to him. Do you know how upsetting that is?”
“Do we have to discuss your men right now?” Tabir asked.
“I don’t know, Chris, do we have to? You tell me.”
“Ah, I get it. A seer joke. Well done. But seriously, don’t call me that or I’ll get angry with you.”
“Oh, you’ll get angry with me! Heavens forbid I offend one of the people who’ve willingly ruined my life. I’m interested to find out what more you can do.”
“Just shut up and put your sword away,” said Mergau. “You can’t do anything with it and you look like a jackass waving it around. We’re already here, so we might as well hear what he has to say.”
Aoden glared at the human, but he put his sword away. “Since when are you judicious?”
“About ten elves ago. Don’t give me that look, it’s true. Now sit down. And Tabir, you better have some good things to say to us today or so help me, foresight or no…” she let the threat hang.
“Well, I’m glad to see you two have cooled down since last time. I’d just hate for there to be any tension between us.”
“Just let me try to punch him once,” Aoden pleaded. “Maybe I’ll get through and he’ll still be alive to talk to us afterward.”
Mergau put a hand on Aoden’s shoulder. “Just sit down and listen.”
“At least you two seem to be getting along better,” observed Tabir. “Or at least you both agreed to go for my throat first.”
“We have every right to be angry,” said Mergau, “so maybe if you stopped trying to make yourself the victim, we’d have less of a problem.”
