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Elf women sewed colourful rugs and hammocks, using lanterns to light their small houses at night.
In the middle of the square were two fountains, carved out of stone in the shape of lilies. Several
Elf children crowded round it. They splashed at each other playfully, squealing loudly with excitement.
“Aya!” cried one of the children, as they passed them. She was a little
Elf girl, with braided blonde hair that was wet from splashing. She beamed up at Aya, clutching a small hand-made doll. “You’re dancing tonight!”
“I am,” Aya smiled back.
“You’ll be beautiful! I’ll clap the loudest!” the little girl called, and dipped her doll into the water, giggling, “When I’m grown up, I want to dance too,”
“I’m sure you will,” Neecrid said kindly. “Aya, come on, we need to get ready.”
Groups of E
lves passed them as they made their way towards the south tower. There were three towers in total; the north, where the two Elder Seers lived, the east tower,
which was a place of worship to the Dragons and open to all, and the south tower, where the youngest Seer slept, and who Aya served as one of her servant girls.
Everyone seemed to be in a hurry; women carried baskets of food and decorations, children ran between people’s legs, men called to each other carrying huge flags and slabs of wood. An
Elf man with sand-coloured hair carrying chopped wood made to pass them, then did a double-take at Aya.
“Sister!” he exclaimed.
“Alviér, Flint,” Aya greeted her older brother with a smile. “Why are you in such a rush?”
“Alviér, Miss Neecrid,” Flint nodded to Neecrid in greeting, who blushed and smiled. “I have to take this wood to Awron before he sends a search party. You know he panics when something is not exactly how he wants it. Father’s looking for you, by the way,” he added to Aya.
“We’re going to the south tower to dress now,” said Aya quickly. “Flint – could you take this basket?” she pushed her spilling wheat basket into Flint’s free hand, who stumbled slightly in surprise.
“Have you just got back from the fields, Aya?” he asked disapprovingly. Aya jerked her head in the direction of the marble staircase impatiently, and he sighed and hurried away with the wood and the basket.
The south tower was a tall, slim building like the turret of a castle with arched windows and grand white flags. Inside,
on the ground floor, was the armoury, and a narrow stone staircase spiralled upwards, leading to the servant girls’ bedrooms, and the youngest Seer’s bedroom on the top floor. Aya felt relieved that the other servants were tending to the Seer now, for she had to wash and dress for the festival. Aya and Neecrid began to quickly climb the staircase, and suddenly collided with someone on the stairs.
“Excuse me!” Neecrid squeaked in surprise. The
Elf man gazed down at her sternly with sharp grey eyes. He looked somewhat intimidating with his white beard and long, dark cloak. It was Dorran, Aya’s father.
“Alviér, Father,” said Aya hastily. “I’m sorry we ran into you.”
“There you are!” Dorran exclaimed, his wrinkled face looking much kinder as he recognised his daughter in the dark stairway. Neecrid bowed nervously to him. “I’m very sorry, Dorran,” she said shamefully.
“No matter,” Dorran nodded patiently. “Shouldn’t you be dressing for the festival, Miss Neecrid?”
Neecrid nodded shyly and swept past Dorran and up the stairs. Aya swallowed. “Good evening, Vatra,” she nodded respectfully. “I was about to go upstairs to dress.”
“Indeed,” Dorran said, his serious face softening into a smile. “I was just about to go looking for you, Aya. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters. You may go and join Miss Neecrid, and I will see you at the feast. It will start soon, so hurry, won’t you?”
“Thank you, Vatra,” Aya let out a slow, relieved sigh and passed her father on the stairway.
“Aya,” said Dorran, turning to his daughter. “Come sit with me at the festival. I have news I want to share with you.”
 

Chapter Three
Villid suddenly woke with a jump, gasping, as if someone had just slapped him hard in the face. He felt sure that he had just been dreaming, possibly a nightmare, but as he thought about it, he couldn’t remember what it was about.
Feeling foolish, he lay back down on his bedroll, and stared at the darkening sky above him, mulling over the three week journey which he and his Tyran brothers had just ventured. They had left their larger tribe in Xentar and battled the harsh weather of the Dravak mountains, which even in summer were surrounded by a miserable cold mist. The hailstorms there were harsh and endless, and Villid had spent sleepless nights in the merciless storms. It had taken some time to escape the hail-battered land and finally arrive at the edge of the eastern forest, where, so they said, dwelled the
E
lves. Villid rolled over in his bed and stared down at his battle axe, sword and daggers, which he always laid close to him whenever he slept. He could hear Swift snoring loudly beside him, and thought about the coming attack against the
E
lven village. It was unusual for him to feel so disillusioned and unimpressed by an approaching battle, but the Seer’s words echoed in his mind and he couldn’t help feeling that they were indeed making a mistake. Why try to establish power so far east when they had perfectly good bases in the north? And the Seer’s warnings about condemnation from the Dragons… Villid,
like most of his kind, was not a religious Tyran, but he had never heard the Seer speak so earnestly about prophecies. There had been a fear in the Seer’s eyes, a weakness and desperation Villid had never seen on another Tyran’s face before. Yes, something was badly wrong.
Unable to stifle a loud yawn, Villid turned over again, trying to get comfortable. Shade had ordered the whole tribe to lie for a few hours before they attacked the
Elves at midnight. Villid had suffered nights with worse weather than this, and yet all sleep had left him. He found himself gazing back up at the violet sky, and thought about the Seer once more. He had disappeared into the forest after Shade’s speech and no one had seen him for the rest of the evening. “Old fool,” some of them had muttered to each other. “Insane old man”. Villid had not joined these accusations, and sat stony-faced whilst his brother Swift had poked fun at him for being miserable before a battle, which to the Tyrans was bad luck.
Villid wondered if the Seer had been right. Religion wasn’t a common pastime in modern Tyran society anymore. Villid knew a little about
Elves – as well as rigorous physical training,
the Tyrans educated their young about the different cultures of the land. He knew that the
Elves had been in hiding for years, and only with Tyran spies in the past few years did they know the E
lves were here. They lived in a small village, close to nature, and didn’t seem to have an army of any sort. They knew a fair bit of magic,
although the practice had been forbidden for decades.
The Tyrans, in contrast, always used physical weapons, the bigger and heavier the better. He knew little else about the
E
lves. Villid briefly wondered how Shade seemed to know so much about them – that their festival was tonight, and how he knew the location of the
Elven
village. But Shade could get any information he wanted if he put his mind to it.
A long sigh escaped Villid’s lips as all tiredness left him. The Seer wasn’t just an old man to him – he was almost like a father. As most Tyrans, Villid didn’t have true parents, but the old Seer had always been there to protect him, to help him, to give him advice. As he gazed down at his own weapons, memories of Villid’s childhood flooded his mind. A lot of it consisted of acquiring the scars and burns he now carried on his body. He remembered lifting his first sword, the Seer teaching him that the sword was a part of him, telling him how to control it, how to swing it correctly, and perform the perfect kill. He could remember gaining a battle axe and discovering he worked best with a sword in his right hand and an axe in his left. He remembered the Tyran’s battle arena, where gladiators from all the Tyran tribes fought for victory and honour, and how the Seer and Swift had both helped him train. He remembered his first kill – swift and bloody, victory raging in his heart and power pumping through his veins. He remembered his first woman. How nervous he had been –
far more nervous than he had ever felt during a battle. Nights with women, the Seer had said,
were one of the many features of manhood, and were one of the more pleasant necessities for the Tyrans’ future.
He heard Shade grunt a few feet away, and Villid’s stomach groaned with hunger. He thought angrily about the warthog that Shade had so arrogantly taken from him. He dwelled on that for a few moments, and his thoughts lapsed back to the Seer. Was he still in the forest, or had he crept back and joined their camp when no one had noticed?
Almost as if he had read Villid’s thoughts, the Seer suddenly emerged out of the exact thicket of trees that Villid had been looking at. His hands were trembling more than ever and he was leaning heavily on his staff. He beckoned to Villid with a bony finger, and Villid got up off his bedroll and went to join him near the trees.
“Villid,” the Seer whispered. “My boy,”
He looked so tired and frail, Villid thought, as the moonlight shined on his wrinkled face, which was curved into a deep frown. “I have prayed to the Gods,” the Seer whispered.
Villid was unsure how to respond. “Here?” he asked lamely.
“They warned me,” the Seer’s gaze was fixed straight ahead, towards where Shade slept. “They showed me possible futures for us… here…” he glanced at the sleeping Tyrans,
then pulled Villid towards the dark trees with surprising strength.
“We cannot attack the Elves,” he kept muttering through his teeth; they reached the edge of the forest and he moved branches out of the way with his staff, pushing his way into the woods. A little way into the trees the Seer pointed the ground where a large puddle from the rainwater had formed.
“Look here,” the Seer dipped his staff into the water, where several ripples formed. The black water suddenly turned pale orange, and then to purple; Villid felt heat erupt from the water and onto his skin, and bright images suddenly flashed on the water.
“Look, look,” the Seer murmured. “Our future…”
Villid could see the shapes forming into moving pictures on the water; it was Xentar, the Tyran city, engulfed in flames and chaos, soldiers overrunning it. “Darkma,” whispered Villid.
The Darkma had never gotten as far as the main city; the battle raged south-east of their capital, miles from them. But now, in the water, Villid watched as their blood enemies burned their homeland. Their skin was a dark red, their armour sharp, jagged swords gripped in their bloody hands as they flooded Xentar; the great fort was being burnt to the ground, Tyrans being swarmed by the creatures, and up in the darkened, lightning-struck sky was a roaring black D
ragon. “Shavon,” Seer whispered. “The
Darkma Dragon. Roaring in victory at our demise.”
The image changed; blurred, rushed images of Villid’s own tribe appeared, running through a forest towards the E
lven
village. The image dissolved… a young woman appeared; an
Elf with long, black hair, gazing out of a stone window where a bloody battle between Elves and Tyrans raged. Slowly she turned round, her piercing green eyes seemed to stare straight into Villid’s. The image then disappeared, shining brightly for a moment before nothing but the glassy black water sat beneath them.
“Who is that?” asked Villid. The woman’s gaze burned in his mind for a few seconds before fading away, and the Seer’s face stared back at him.
“This is the possible future our G
ods have shown me,” he said, and clutched at Villid’s arm, his watery eyes filled with sadness and desperation. “That woman you saw is the youngest
Elf Seer, I believe. She cannot be harmed. If she dies, the Dragons will truly leave us forever, this terrible fate will befall us, and the entire land will be ruled by the Darkma. It cannot happen.”
Villid stared at the Seer – the closet thing he had ever felt to family. Earlier he had been torn between the desire to believe the Seer, and his own beliefs, which were that the Dragons had indeed left them, and that the Seer’s old age was causing him to lose his senses. But after seeing from the Seer’s own eyes the fate that would befall his people if they defied the Dragons, Villid’s own heart raced, and he
gave a determined nod.
“We must turn back, and go home,” the Seer warned. “I tried to tell Shade, and being such a fool, he would not listen. I don’t expect him to listen to you, either. He was always a difficult Tyran, favouring power over wisdom. Do not listen to him, Villid. The Dragons still speak to me, still urge me to lead the Tyrans down a path of loyalty. But Shade and so many Tyrans like him have led us to corruption and blasphemy. ”
“I believe you,” said Villid, and in his heart he meant it. Shade was wrong. The Seer had shown him everything – if the Dragons had truly left the Tyrans, they wouldn’t have warned them.
“Listen to me, Villid,” the Seer said. “We cannot stop the Tyrans attacking the
E
lves tonight. Our voices alone are not strong enough to overpower Shade’s orders. But if we are responsible for the
E
lf Seer’s death, our race is doomed. Shade is a fool to ignore the Dragons. If the
Elven Seer dies by a Tyran’s hand, we will be wiped out forever.”
“The Seer girl might survive,” Villid said helplessly. “She might escape.”
“My dear boy, Shade does not wish to allow any E
lves to live,” the Seer cried, gripping Villid’s arm painfully. “At first, I thought that perhaps he would simply establish power here, perhaps even attempt to gain alliance from the village. But he holds a hatred for the
Elves like I have never seen before – he has a past with them, a troubled past, I know, although I do not know what, exactly. He wants them all dead, even the Seer.”
“What can we do?” asked Villid, who saw the whole situation as impossible.
“I will warn as many Tyrans as I can, although most of them will not listen to me,” the Seer said. “You must get to the Seer girl before Shade does. It does not matter how you do it. As long as she isn’t harmed, the Tyrans may still have a chance; otherwise, we will most certainly be doomed. This I promise you.”
Villid looked into the eyes of the old Tyran Seer, and saw pain and desperation there. He knew in his heart that, no matter how impossible the Seer’s task seemed, he must try. What the Seer had said made a lot of sense – two hundred years ago the Tyrans had been defeated by the Darkma, and in two centuries the Tyrans had been unable to achieve victory, no matter how much they trained and fought. Was it really lack of faith that was to blame? Villid mulled over these thoughts as he got back into his bedroll, making up his mind to do as the Seer had asked him. He would have to worry about the details later.