Elvenshore: 03 - Elf's Bane (12 page)

When they finally
all inside the city, the first thing that Fannor had his men do was to check all corners of the city. He had them bear lit torches, just in case the evil that had once lived in the Lost City was now in the city of Santera. The search of the city proved that it was safe. He then let the rest of the settlers in.

I
t was heartbreaking to see how bad the city was. The Minotaur had left a mess behind them, and then the rebels who possessed the city afterwards had burnt most of the furniture in their big bonfires that were set in the middle of the streets.

The good news was that the homes were intact and that they would have shelter over their heads.
They had been provisioned by the people of the land. One of the first tasks they sat about was planting. The women of the Elves were going to have to do the lion's share of the work, because most of the men that they had with them were the ones that had been wounded in the battles or old ones.

Those men that had healed sufficiently were the ones that Fannor sent out to do the work of hunting game and fin
ding fruit and the bounties of the forest.

When they started to settle in, Fannor brought his people together. "We have a new start in an old home. We will thrive
as we always have," he said. "We have survived, and by the grace of those who have brought peace to a troubled land, we have our old home again. It's not perfect, but we will make it so."

The people cheered. Fannor was still feeling the rough road, so they managed to get him into one of the houses and placed cushions on the floor for him to rest on. A healer came along and gave him something to drink to help with the pain. He slept straight through until the next day.

Gilead had thought of all of the accomplishments of Fannor over the past few weeks. Despite being badly wounded, he had negotiated their resettlement with the people of the land, settled them in a new home, and gave the people encouragement. Gilead had decided that Fannor should be made Chancellor before some other leader with more authority came to upset the balance of power. He started talking to his fellow Elves about it and everyone liked the idea. They scheduled a vote on it in a week's time.

The journey of Fawn and Amlius had been a qu
iet one. She didn't want to talk about what he did and he was not in the best mood. They traveled on in silence. Amlius was getting good at riding horses. She said her goodbye to him at the Ornomac tree and then she headed straight north to the Hidden City to visit her mother. Her shunning had been hard on her, but now that it was over, she was welcome back into the cities of the Valkyrie.

When the gate of the
Hidden City was finally opened, Fawn rushed to the Palace to see her mother. She was shocked to see how frail the once powerful warrior queen had become. She still sat on the throne, but she was only a shell of her former shelf.

The
Queen raised her hand and beckoned her daughter forward. "I am so sorry, I was wrong to do what I did to you. I am so happy for you and Sarchise. It must have been a wonderful wedding. I wish that I could have been there."

"Oh
, Mother, you didn't miss much. King Cazz said something in old Dwarfish that I didn't understand and I nodded my head. He then said something else in old Dwarfish that Sarchise didn't understand. He then talked Sarchise into nodding his head. That was all there was to it."

"The first Valkyrie wedding after four hundred years, I would have expected more than that!"

"It is so good to see you, Mother," Fawn said as she hugged her.

The Far Shore

The nightly attacks of the Capital were taking a toll. It had been a week of it. More and more of the El
f warriors were getting wounded. It was all the more they had to send to the coast, adding woes to their evacuation efforts. In the end Istuin had to request two hundred more men to replace those that he had lost. The ones coming back were feeling that they were being sent to the slaughter and their moralee was very low.

Istuin
was having trouble keeping the Chancellor's spirit up also. The Chancellor was fatalistic about the chances of the Elves remaining in the land or surviving. Night after night Kolis sat looking out his balcony window, waiting for the Trolls to break through and kill him.

When Istuin arrived at the Chancellor's chamber he reported the latest news of the war. "Two hundred men from Vil Mawe have arrived. I have set them to the task with helping shore up the wall. The two ships that the shipwrights were fixing are finished. We have put
Mauric to the task of getting the refugees to the swampland using the ships."

Kolis turned to look at Istuin
. "So you wanted to guarantee failure of the projects so you could divert the ships back to Elvenshore?"

"Something like that. Verian is about to kill him anyway, so getting Mauric out of town serves a dual purpose."

Kolis turned back toward the window, "Those that Verian sent from Vil Mawe must be thinking that this is a death sentence."

"They drew lots to see who had to go
; we got those who lost."

Kolis smiled despite his dark mood then asked, "How much longer will the wall last?"

"Not long, today, maybe tomorrow, between the chipping away by the Trolls and the fires, there isn't much left of the wall. We are bracing it, but it's like putting a small cork in a large bottle of wine; it isn't going to hold."

"Wine
; funny you should use that analogy," Kolis said.             

"We will drink a toast
of good Elvenshore wine when this is all over."

Kolis turned to look at Istuin, "You
r optimism is misplaced, neither one of us are going to survive this. I am planning on dying right here in this chamber. I think it's up to you decided where you will die before the Trolls decide it for you."

"You can have your fatalistic attitude between the two of us, but in front of the men I want you to keep everything light. Their
moralee is low enough. It does them no good for them to hear how bad it is from their leaders. They already know how bad it is."

"Are you daring to instruct your
Chancellor?" Kolis said with a red face.

"
Yes, Sir," Istuin said and then turned around and walked out of the room.

As Istuin went about preparing for the night's attack, he kept expecting Chancellor Kolis to come down and relieve him of command, maybe even send him packing. It didn't happen. Istuin just thought that the
worst thing you could do to an officer you didn't like was to leave him in the Capital at this point and time. It was akin to a death sentence.

The enemy had their timing precise. They came at nearly th
e exact same time every night, and left at nearly the exact same time. Surviving was making it through the hours that they were there. They didn't disappoint this time either; at the expected time, Istuin and his soldiers watched as the Trolls’ torches appeared over the hill.

Archers took pot shots at them, again to no avail. It just seemed to make the creatures angrier. They started smashing the wall with their clubs again. The sound was near deafening.  There was a new cracking sound this time. The black oak of the wall was starting to crack and splinter. Troops with timbers shored up the wall even more, but when the Trolls put their torches to it the dry timbers burst into flame. Pa
ils of water were brought forward from every nearby well, but the fire was starting to get out of control. The Trolls started smashing the now fire damaged wood and it splintered even more.

To the horror of all, one of the Trolls smashed through the wall and grabbed one of the archers then threw him fifty feet. The mad died instantly upon hitting the ground. Other Trolls started to come through the breach, but it was time to head back to the mountain, so they all turned and
abruptly left.

Still having a fire to fight
, the troops spent most of the morning putting it out. Istuin examined the smoking ruins of that section of the wall and determined that it there was no way to repair it. He gathered his men together. "We are leaving for the coast. The Trolls will be happy to stay and destroy the city each night for the next week. They will have a lot of houses to burn and it will take them awhile to do it. Staying here will only mean death to us. I want four or five men to go and get the Chancellor. If he refuses to come, tie him up and bring him along anyway. We are running out of people foolish enough to be the Chancellor at this point in time." His men laughed out loud at that one. Istuin didn't know if it was a relief at being able to retreat or because they liked his joke.

To I
stuin’s surprise, his men took him seriously and followed his orders. A few minutes later, a bound and gagged Chancellor emerged being carried by five Elf warriors. The Chancellor was stuffed in a wagon along with the wounded and the army started down the road to the coast. The once proud army was now retreating from a hopeless situation.

Several hours later, Kolis was released from his bonds. Istuin wanted to see if the Chancellor would go back and die in his Chambers, but Kolis just sat in the wagon and stayed with the troops.

"Land Ho" was heard from the crow's nest on the mast. Sarchise and his Dwarves gathered along the railings to look out and see it. It was just a misty bluish outline at first, but as the ships got closer, they could start to make out the land features. The
y could see a village on the water’s edge that was visibly overcrowded. There were tents and makeshift shelter surrounding the village. Sarchise thought that he saw smoke in the distance away from the village. The ships sailed gracefully up to the dock. The dock was much larger than the one at South Fort and could hold four of the large Elfish transports at a time.

When the Dwarves started disembarking the ships, all
of the Elves at the riverside didn't know what to do. Dwarves had been an enemy in the past. The ships were still sailed by Elves but that only added to the confusion.

Verian and his top officers went down onto the dock to see what was going on. The Captain of the ship Sarchise rode on handed Verian a letter that Fannor had written.

'To Armurous or the current Commander of the Elves,

Per
Chancellor Lanor's instruction, we have asked the leaders of the land of Elvenshore for help. These Dwarves are the first of a larger group that will eventually join the fight against the Trolls.

Signed
,

Captain Fannor'

Verian looked up as Sarchise got off the ship. There were four Dwarves on either side of him as guards, along with Commande
r
Roalig.

"Who are you?" Verian asked Sarchise.

"Sarchise adopted Dwarf Prince, and you might be...?" 

"Commander Verian, I have half a mind to put you and these Dwarves back on the ships and send you home, but I need the transports to get the noncombatants out of here. The Trolls will squash this lot between their toes."

Sarchise was used to dealing with difficult Elves
, having been around Amlius for a number of years. "Captain Fannor had a choice of Humans, Valkyrie or Dwarves. He chose the Dwarves as the best race to fight the Trolls."

"Captain Fannor was badly injured. Perhaps it was the pain talking
; besides Valkyrie no longer exists, how would he have had them as an option?"

"They don't exist? I'll have to tell my wife."

"Now why would you tell your wife?" Verian asked.

"Because she is a Valkyrie."

Verian looked stunned. He then turned to the Dwarves surrounding Sarchise to see if they would betray him as lying about the Valkyrie with their eyes. They did not.

Sarchise saw that he now had the advantage over the speechless Verian
. "What do you have to lose letting the Dwarves fight? They had proved a worthy enemy of yours in the past. You relied on a peace treaty instead of being able to destroy them outright."

Verian thought for a minute, "You are right, I have nothing to lose. We have already lost almost everything except this village. Now that the Capital has fallen, we will be next. I will provision the ships and send them back out. The two hundred and fifty souls that I set upon these ships might be the last that leave
. The rest of us could die here where we now stand. I will expect your help and the help of the Dwarves. If with your added strength, we can last until the seven ships make it back, then that would be a miracle. I would then be able to save three hundred and fifty more."

"So then
let's go work a miracle." Sarchise said with a smile. 

It had been a long time since Verian had heard any optimism. He smiled and led the Dwarves up the hill. Now they would have to find them a place to sleep.

The village was overcrowded with people everywhere. Tents surrounded all of the houses and buildings. There were even a large number of lean-to shelters. People were shoulder to shoulder on the one street that ran through the middle of the village. Despite the normal cleanliness of the Elves, the street was started to get cluttered. There were few smiles except for those on the faces of those who had been assigned to go on the ships when they headed back out. Those were gathering their belongings and getting ready to leave.