Orcs vs Elves (part 10)

Othar plunged into the depths of the ocean with an elf trying to kill him. His teeth clenched, and his wings beat, and his tail lashed, and he tried to think of anything but the sheer indignity of the moment - to be plucked from humanity and given flight, only to be brought down by a millstone of an elf. What kind of creature wore full plate armor to a ship battle anyway? He struggled against her grasping arms, and only managed to dislodge her helmet, which sank to the left of them as the bright sunlight overhead fell away and they dropped deeper and deeper into the sea.

Beneath the helm, the elf was shockingly pretty - fine boned, blue skinned, with long flowing blue-white hair. But it was her neck, visible just barely around the narrow gorget of her armor, that roused within the former prince a true ire.

Gills.

She had gills.

Bubbles frothed around Othar as they dropped deeper still - and something dark rushed past him as the light faded from his eyes. His expanded lung capacity kept him from drowning immediately, but keeping his teeth clenched shut and his lips sealed was growing increasingly difficult as his body screamed for air. Then-

Jarring impact.

His mouth opened and water rushed into his throat before he closed his mouth with a snap, his lungs shrieking. The impact made his spine ache, and it surrounded him with gritty dust. Better, it knocked the elf from his body. His brain, panicking, looked for something, anything that might be his rescue. He thought to kick upwards towards the surface of the sea - but the light up there was so very dim and distant.

And there, in that panicking moment before his final doom, he saw the impossible.

The sea overhead was bisected by a line of deeper darkness. And within that darkness was a rectangle of light, bright and shimmering, like a portal to the noonday sun. He kicked towards it, pumping arms and legs and wings all at once.

His head broke surface and into musty, dusty air - and he grabbed onto the edge of a platform of cold, damp stone. He hauled himself up and a deluge of water came pouring from his throat as he hacked and coughed, wheezing - and then gasping, gasping, gasping desperately for air. His wings flared wide and he shook his head, blinking water from his eyes.

He knelt at the edge of an impossible pool, in a ruin of completely unknown make - deep beneath the sea. His eyes boggled at the elegant stone carving, all straight lines and geometric, at the shimmering crystal that provided illumination even in the depths of the sea, and thought wildly that every scholarly text he had read about the ocean depths had been staggeringly incorrect. The ocean was not bottomless in the slightest. There was only one door from the chamber, and it was flanked by a pair of statues. Hooved creatures unlike any he had ever seen, with horned helmets and heavy mauls, stood as if prepared to guard the door with their very lives.

He prayed they were stone as he reached for any weapon he might have carried with him - but in the long plunge, it seemed he had lost each.

The water behind him burst with a frothing spray and the sea elf that had dragged him down her hauled herself up, her eyes blazing with fury.

"Damnation!" Othar growled.

"You destroyed my ship, you twisted mockery of a dragon!" she snarled, her gill slits fluttering with agitation. She crawled up onto the platform that rounded the impossible pool and drew from an ankle sheath a small roundel - the kind of dagger one might used to plunge deep into the armored vitals of a knight. She tossed it from hand to hand, her eyes fierce as he hunched low, his own fingers clenching as he felt the L'ara blessed claws that his transformation had granted him burst from his fingertips, glittering like obsidian.

"You elves attacked us first," Othar said - before he caught himself. When had it become us? A part of him still felt a deep indignation at what the orcs had done to his kingdom, to him, to his fiancee - if he could even think of her as his fiancee, considering her preferred passtime was now to make love to orcs and glance at him not at all. And yet, they had given him the very wings that he now prized more than his manhood.

"I'm sure they claim that, even as your brutes rape their way across the snow elves lands!" The sea elf darted forward, her armor plating shedding water like rain droplets. It was only now that Othar really recognized just how strange her armor was - the plate over her chest was formed to the curves of her body, and her entire belly was exposed, as if she was taunting the whole world with her abdomen. He tensed, ready to strike - only for the adrenaline hazed state of his brain to betray him. For it was only as he put weight upon his leg that the memory of the arrow that had wounded him flashed to the fore in a blast of agony. He fell to one knee with a growl - then caught the wrist driving the roundel at his eye. The elf was shockingly strong, skidding him backwards along the smooth stone floor. He shoved her arm up and away - then slashed at her belly.

His claws struck air, as if it was solid!

"Hah!" She drove her knee at his snout and only by beating his wings once did Othar spring backwards in time to avoid the armored greaves of her leg. He managed to keep most of his weight on his other leg as she sprang at him, but the two fell backwards as the weight of her body bore him down. The knife slammed home, and Othar cried out in pain as it pinned his wing to the stone floor, blood welling. The elf grabbed at his wrists, then shoved them above his head and snarled what he took as an oath - until her gauntlets locked and then slammed down even as her fingers drew backwards.

Her hands were now bared, and her gauntlets held him in place, as if they had been melted to the floor. He writhed, squirmed, and she panted, glowering down at him.

"All right, beast," she said. "I am Athelen Cthonic, and you can yield... or die."

Othar, his teeth clenched, glared up at her.

"I yield," he growled.

Athelen sagged back. Her voice was still dangerous. "I saw the speech that Lord Sidroc gave to the council on the magic crystal..." She said, her hands sliding along his chest, her eyes glittering and flinty. "I heard what happened to Lord Icewild's wife - how she was raped for days by you brutes." Her hands grabbed onto the edge of her breast plate. Her eyes were blazing with a wild passion as Othar realized that she was almost frothing with this passion - this rage and hate... and lust. Her hands yanked the armor above her head, and the pauldrons and screws came free with a soft hum of almost subliminal magic, the same working that had fused her gauntlets into manacles for him, allowing her full, blue breasts to bounce free. She snarled. "It is time for revenge."

"Y-You wouldn't dare!" Othar growled up at him.

"Silence, beast!" She shoved her armored skirt down around her hips and swung herself forward in a single fluid motion. Her bare knees pressed to either side of her head and her hairless blue elf-pussy hung above his snout. The scent of her arousal struck his nose and the mixture of his indignity, pain, and the delicious view of her cunt all swam into his brain. He had his pride, though. He turned his head aside, trying to resist - but Athelen grabbed onto the horns that he now sported, yanking his snout around and then pressing her cunt to him. The taste of a sea elf's pussy was like that of the sea - salty, yes, but also the taste of longing for voyaging, the flavor of returning home and sinking deep.

Damn! He thought, while she pushed down harder, forcing his mouth wider - and his tongue started to press to her folds before he could even stop it. Her cool fingers slid along his belly as she snarled softly. "Yes... show me what all it is you are good for - eating elf cunt." She panted. "For the crimes your people have done, we shall unleash our fury a thousand fold! Every orc shall be bearing an elf bastard by the end of this war!"

Her eyes blazed and she threw her head back, gasping as his tongue pushed into her cunt, writhing up and up and up into her - and pressing against her center of pleasure with a little wriggle. The tip of his tongue wrung from her not merely a moan, but a deluge of eager sea-elf pleasure, almost drowning him as her back arched and she grabbed onto one of her tits with her right hand, her other hand sliding further down.

Her fingers teased the hardening, jutting length of his shaft.

"Yesss!" she moaned, softly.

Othar strained, hard, against the manacles.

Her fingers closed around his shaft.

Then-

There was a loud grunt and suddenly, the weight bearing his head down, the pressure of her folds, all was released. Othar blinked as Athelen fell aside, sprawling onto the ground beside him. Standing above him, heavy crossbow clutched in his hands, was the oddest goblin that Othar had ever seen - clad in black clothing that seemed to mold to his body like a second skin, his ears were tucked uncomfortably into a head covering coif that seemed to cling as tightly as the rest of his ensemble, while two large metal cans were attached to his back, with an alarming array of tubes and pipes connecting to an armored mask that he had slung up over his brows, to free his face.

"You okay, sir?" the goblin asked, panting, his voice tight and ragged with fury. Three more goblins, each still wearing their masks, still dripping with moisture, were poised behind him, their crossbows aimed at the elf.

"I'm no sir," Othar said - then blinked as he felt that the gauntlets that was sealing him to the ground had relaxed their grip. The goblin yanked the knife free from his wing and one of his comrades, sliding his mask up as well, started to apply some healing salve to his wing's wound. The pain faded, while Othar grinned toothily. "Who are you?"

"Diveblin First Class, Techgig Flipperswim," the goblin said, flashing him a wry grin. "The gobmersable Daggerfin is operating in these waters and your ship sent us a message fish that you went down. They expected us to find a body, not... whatever this is."

"She was raping him," one of the other Diveblins whispered. "These elves truly are monsters."

Techgig nodded, his eyes flinty and furious. "The Hoard doesn't do that kind of thing. But... you know what they say. Turnabout is fair play, eh?"

"Yeah..." Othar growled, softly, remembering his abuse - and feeling his own cock hardening more and more. The other diveblins nodded, slowly, and Techgig tugged his hood back, letting his ears spring free with a quiet slap of wet flesh. Athelen, who was only slowly recovering from the dazing blow to her head, groaned - then gasped as scaled hands grabbed onto her long blue-white hair.

"Wait-" she started, groaning softly, but Othar shoved her down with a powerful grunt, pinning her as her knees squirmed and wriggled, accidentally lifting the bare ass that she had so eagerly crammed into his face up into the air. Without a single iota of guilt, Othar shifted his member and thrust deep within her slightly cool cunt, pinning her to the floor. His scaled balls clapped roughly against her blue thighs, bringing forth a loud, wet, lewd slap that echoed off the walls of the chamber. The diveblins, who were all watching with their own wicked grins, started to skim their complex apparatus off. Their lithe, small green bodies showed that while they might have been half as tall as Othar had been when he had been human, they were still better endowed than he had been when he had been human as well. Tech chuckled as his hand gripped onto his own bright green prick, which was pierced in the odd way that some goblins preferred, with a golden ring and glittering old studs along the base. He knelt down before the gasping and mewling sea elf.

"Hey, gill bitch," he said. "Open wide."

"Y-You son of a mmmph!" She grunted, her eyes going wide as he casually took hold of one of her long ears, tugging the ear tip as he thrust his member into her throat, carelessly bucking his hips against her lips. Due to his shorter stature, it was easy for him to fuck her face even as she was on her hands and knees, while Othar, obligingly, took hold of her hair in his thick scaled hands and yanked her head back to provide a better passage for his rescuer to fuck.

"We want a turn too, ya know!" one of the other diveblins called out, laughing, his hand casually smacking against Othar's ass - a smack that was filled with such casual camaraderie that Othar felt a strange sense of feral pride. If he had ever done this as a human knight, would he have had such righteous purpose? The elves had called him beast, brute, and monster - while preforming acts of bizarre self slaughter, throwing themselves heedlessly into war, and then sneering like arrogance incarnate, bragging of how every orc belly would be heavy with elf bastards.

Well!

"How do you like it now, huh?" He growled, and Tech drew his prick back, his green member glistening with the sea elf's spittle. "How do you feel knowing you will have the dracorc bastard within your womb!?"

"I-I will kill you!" Athelen snarled - even as her cunt clenched upon his shaft, her mewl of pleasure echoing out as Tech tugged on her ear-tip roughly, as if he was playing with one of her full tits. She shuddered and closed her eyes, while Othar let out a brutal laugh, his hips beginning to hammer into her, battering against her thighs as if she was a gate under siege.

"Your lips say you wish me dead - but your cunt clenches on me as if I was your husband to be!" Othar chuckled. "Ah! Get ready for the jizz of a real dragon!" He roared in pleasure, clenching on her hips with his clawed fingers, dimpling her blue skin as his balls tightened and he started to pour his seed into her with blast after blast of heady, wild abandon. He panted, his nostrils flaring, his wings bearing once, twice... and then a diveblin tugged him aside with a laugh, his own studded cock bobbing.

"Lets see if we can put a few little goblins in ya too!" the diveblin cackled, his tattooed arms reaching around to fondle Athelen's breasts, the elf sorceress hissing - but the magical worlds she sought to form were obliterated by a casual thrust of Tech as he plunged down her throat once more, taking hold of her ears as if they were naught but the handles of a wheelbarrow... or a plow. And he was definitely plowing her field - his green balls clapping against her aristocratic chin in counterpoint to his comrade's eager thrusting, the two cackling as they felt the sea elf responding to their rape as, it seemed, most elves would...

By cumming.

Cumming hard.

"Yessss!" The diveblin thrusting into Athelen hissed and his cum started to froth around his prick as he pushed deep, pale white spunk splashing onto the stone floor. Othar, his hand casually working his own cock to keep himself half hard - considering his second shot at Athelen... he would, he thought, want her mouth uncovered, so he might hear her break upon his shaft.

And what if her claims? A whispering voice murmured in the back of his mind.

But Othar dismissed it. He had fought the orcs, and he had hated them bitterly. But... despite everything he would have wished to say, orcs were not rapists. Claims that they had raped human women were always found groundless - doubly so when half those women who had been so 'raped' had opened castle gates and secretly aided the Hoard. No. Orcs were sensual, lusty, they enjoyed to fuck. But the idea of an elf being raped for days out of hand? Impossible.

Isn't that just like these elves, though? He thought, shaking his head. Starting this war, then starting the atrocities. Well. Tit for tat, as they say.

Tech moaned and drew back, painting Athelen's face with his seed. "Ah. Do you want more of this cum, bitch?"

"Mmm!" She moaned, then gasped. "Ah... I... I've never drunk so much cum in my life..." She sounded dazed, her eyes half closed. "I... I can't stop... cumming!" She shuddered around the shaft filling her. "I'm... I'm losing my mind!"

"Sounds like a good gang rape is what this knife ear needed," Tech said, snorting. "Better than slitting your own throat, eh?"

"I... I don't... ahhhh!" Athelen moaned, her back arching as she threw her head back in bliss. "I'm cumming! I'm cumming!"

Tech smirked at Othar, his eyes glinting and pleased.

"She said she's never drunk this much cum. How about we give her a nice hard record to beat, eh?"

Othar stood.

And the two statues standing to either side of the ancient door watched, impassively. Faintly, nearly invisibly, a tiny red gleam flickered within ancient, carefully wrought stone. But the gleam faded almost as swiftly as it came - while Athelen's moans of pleasure, and the lewd wet slap of flesh on flesh rang throughout the underwater chamber.

***

Kelric Shadowsun was, even now, sailing to Denergar Rock with a good chunk of the elf fleet, to seize a staging ground that might be used to threaten the Orcish Horde.

And Lord Sindrak Evenshadow, the Kinslayer, was not with him.

Instead he stole through the streets of Sunshadow, his lips pursed, his eyes narrowed.

Kinslayer, they called him.

For countless turnings of the wheel, Sindrak had been called Kinslayer - for when the tales had been new, and the Worldtree had been the only home to the many people of the elven tribes, he had slaughtered Sindroc, his brother, in a fit of passion and jealousy. Till that day, no elf had known the word for murder. He had acted it into being.

Kinslayer.

Lord Sindrak's bitterness writhed within him as he strode through Sunshadow and came, at last, to the humble abode that his brother had claimed after his dramatic return from the Worldtree. He had come, with the news of war, to bring word of ruin and woe. He had spoken in the Everqueens Court, of the rapine and devastation of the Orcish Horde as it had despoiled its way through the snowy fields and the high forests of the snow elves lands. He had brought word to the horrified Lord Icewild of what indignities had been forced upon his wife.

And now?

Now Shadowsun was not sailing at the head of a simple expeditionary force. He was sailing at the head of a furious armada, full of elves whose blood had been riled as they had not since the last turning of the world. They would split continents, and shatter the skies, if they were pushed to it.

Lord Sindrak smirked, ever so slightly, as he placed his hand upon his brother's front door, then pushed it open. The ancient weaving of magic that served as a warding was simplicity itself to overcome. Sindrak had never been impressed by his oh so brilliant brother's magics, not even back when they had been boon companions and dearest friends. Now, he spurned the errant cantrip with a twist of his finger, a flick of his thumb, and stepped into the room of the humble abode. There were servant chambers to the left, a study in the back, a second story, ah, yes, and silver and gold cutlery and fine and exotic foods from distant lands. Oh yes. So humble, Sindroc Evenshadow was. He wore naught but a simple, modest thong and maybe a cape, while of course, always investing in those ships of his.

"Brother," Sindrak caroled. "Oh brother. I am here to speak to you of these grand events you have set in motion."

His voice rang against walls that seemed utterly deaf, dumb and blind to him.

Sindrak frowned. His head turned to the side. His ear-tips twitched.

"... oh brother... where art thou?" he whispered.

He paced slowly along the wall - and then paused at a shelf of nondescript items and curios. His fingers brushed along them, and found the one with the least dust, then yanked. The shelf slid down and to the side with an eerie smoothness, bespeaking more of a goblin's inventiveness than spellwork. His lips pursed and he frowned, then spoke the words that would bend light itself about his body. Like a shadow, Sindrak paced down the stairs. His brow furrowed as he heard his brother's voice... filled with joviality that seemed unbecoming for one that had returned with such dire news.

"They devoured it! They ate it up, as eagerly as a babe in the wood!"

"Good... good..."

The sound of a crunching apple, the sound of his brother's mouth, full and rich. "And you? How goes your efforts, even with the exile forced upon you?"

"Oh they Horde is easily manipulated. Honor bound fools always are."

Sindrak frowned. His ears twitched up more and he hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, then peeked around the corner - and saw a red chamber, bedecked in silks and cushions, the smell of a hookah spicing the air. His brother, clad in fine robes, lounged upon a cushion while he ate a juicy apple, while sitting across from him was a broad shouldered, hunchbacked, gray bearded... orc. The orc was clad in black robes, and his eyes had an evil intent to them. Standing behind the orc was a fetching beauty with an exotic complexion - orange-brown, curved pleasantly, with the sharpened ears of an elf and the broad nose of an orc.

What the hell!? Sindrak thought.

"Very good, very good..." Sindroc murmured, then sighed. "So, I have been meaning to ask, Nija-"

"This is Tejia," The orc said, while the strange creature smirked at Sindroc. "Nija is busy up north. Her sister... serves me down here."

"Ah. Well. I've been meaning to ask... what is this new creature of yours?" Sindroc asked.

"She is a Hobgoblin, as I said," the orc said, chuckling quietly.

"She doesn't look like a goblin at all..." Sindroc murmured.

"Names can be deceiving," the orc purred, as if he was imparting some grand wisdom.

"Hah!" Sindroc laughed, slapping his knee. He sprang to his feet, his half eaten apple clutched in his hands. "So true! Why, did you know that I have shrouded my actions even from my own people?" He smirked. "The Horde thinks that the elf that attacked them was Lord Sindrak, my benighted brother." His face twisted - into a sneering, glowering set of features that made Sindrak's belly twist with fury and disgust. "I boasted, using his very name, as I slaughtered those pathetic humans." His eyes glinted. "Even if orc and elf talk, I can twist this. Oh, don't slay my baby brother, there must be a reason for what he did!"

His voice had grown mocking as he projected this.

"And while you tie them in knots, the Working continues," the orc said, and Sindroc chuckled, then laughed, throwing his head backwards as the orc joined him - their jeering tones ringing off the walls.

Sindrak took a step backwards.

And something, wormlike and writhing, dropped from the ceiling to his invisible shoulder - and shrieked.

The orc jerked his head up, then shouted. "Tejia! Kill!"

The hobgoblin reacted with immediate speed, springing forward, a flamepowder pistol appearing in her hand without so much as a pause. She slammed, shoulder first, into the narrow stairwell while Sindrak, who had dashed the shrieking worm to the ground and stomped on it, bounded up the stairs. As nothing but a shimmering ripple of distorted light, he hoped that-

Tejia fired. Smoke roared.

Pain exploded and Sindrak cried out. He stumbled, staggered, then stumbled towards the door - blood smeared against wall, ceiling, and floor, his arm hanging half off his body, his hand clutching to try and stem the horrid torrent pouring from him.

In the basement, Sindroc looked coldly furious - while Ner'gal stood beside him, smirking.

"Fear not, humble Sindroc..." the elderly Blood Shaman crooned. "Tejia never lets her prey escape."

***

Kelris lowered the carefully crafted goblin made telescope from his eye, frowning as he glanced over to Findaras, who stood beside him on the deck of the elf frigate that cut its way across the southern reach of the Great Ocean.

"Think we can handle it?"

Her expression was grave. "I'm worried about the other captains."

Their eyes darted as one to the captain of the Dancing Dragon, the flagship that Kelris had chosen for the sortie against the pirate enclave of Denergar Rock. The captain, a slender sea elf by the name of Captain Teldonis, was looking at the approaching orc ships with the hungry expression of a shark, his teeth glinting and his eyes feral. The rest of the crew - a mixture of high, sea and sun elves - were all quivering with attentiveness... and Kelris felt the same raw battle passion stirring in his own breast as not but a flicker.

He wondered... if he had not been grieving the loss of his friend and battle brother, Kelric, he might have been more easily roused to wroth. Yet, while orcs had slain Kelric, they had done so in honorable battle. With that shield of sadness, he was not able to kindle the wroth that had been sparked in every elf, despite the news of the orcish atrocities in the northern lands of the Snow Elves.

And yet, Findaras was also aloof from the rage and hatred that was being stirred up. Her expression remained calm and collected as she leaned against the rigging of the Dancing Dragon, her voice growing soft. "Does it not seem odd that Sindroc returned to the realm of politics just in time to speak so elegantly about what vileness the orcs have unleashed?" She shook her head. "I would have expected him to caution us to restraint."

"Well, he did," Kelris said, frowning.

"And yet, our people are ready to burn down every orc city we run into," Findaras said, her voice hissing softly. "I don't like this, Kelris. I don't like this one bit."

Beyond the prow of the ship, there was something that Kelris was a mite more concerned about in the near future - more than the crew and their fury: Orc ships cut through the waves towards the elf fleet. And them merely being here left Kelris nervous. The entire point of this expedition was to avoid the majority of the orcish fleet and strike at their weakened underbelly, but if the orcs had enough ships to...

"They're throwing up their colors!" One of the sea elves called out. Kelris put his telescope to his eye again - then grunted in grim relief.

"They're flying the pirate flag," he said. "They're not of the Horde."

"They're still orcs and trollocs and the rest of their ilk," Captain Teldonis snarled. "No quarter!"

"Aye!" the entire crew shouted. Kelris frowned, then stepped to Captain Teldonis' side. His hand went to the elf's shoulder, gripping bare blue skin.

"Captain," he said. "This is your ship, but I am in command of the whole operation. We are not here to butcher everyone we run into."

"True... we could have some sport," Captain Teldonis said, his eyes fierce. "The same sport they made of us."

"That makes us as bad as the orcs!" Kelris snapped back.

"I didn't know a Knight of the Scale would be so cowardly," Captain Teldonis yanked his arm from Kelris' grasp, giving the general his shoulder. "I will choose to ignore your unmanly suggestions, and ask that you keep your requests to yourself, as this is my ship."

Kelris growled - but before he could say anything, the battle was joined by the thundering sound of distant guns. Blooming smoke wreathed the prows of the five approaching pirate craft and water bloomed into fountains of frothing foam - their beauty belying the deadly intention of the balls that hissed and sizzled into the briny depths. Captain Teldoins turned his head and barked orders. "Trim the sails! Bring us to tack along the will of the sea gods! We'll cut through them like the blade parts ribs!"

Elves clambered into the rigging, hauling aside the triangular sails, and the three hulled craft banked so swiftly and with such ferocity that the port outrigger lifted from the water, frothing and dripping with water. This brought the elves standing upon it higher into the air than the port railing, and gave them a line of sight. Their bows twanged and snapped as they loosed arrows until their outrigger splashed back into the water, their feet sure and graceful as elks bounding through the forests - they kept their feet and cheered and whooped. Peering through the telescope, Kelris saw that three trollocs and an orc lay on the deck of the nearest ship, their long gun no longer tended, blood pouring from throats and hearts punctured by fae-blessed arrows.

The Dancing Dragon and her fellow ships darted through the orc formation in a flurry of smoke and fire - the broadsides of the pirate ships bloomed and roared, while the elves on the outriggers and rigging loosed their bows again and again, launching arrow after arrow. The meaty sound of arrow striking flesh was drowned out by the shrieks and cries of the wounded, and the crash and splintering sound of wood. When the smoke cleared, Kelris saw that the Daring Lance had been, despite their speed and low profile, clipped by shot. Splinters scattered across her deck and half a dozen elves were sprawled, some still, others writhing. Crew hurried to slit the throats of the wounded, while the archers continued their fire, loosing again and again and again - and at the range of cannonshot, no elf could miss.

Kelris, despite his misgivings, took his bow from where he had it strung and knocked an arrow, peering through the smoke. But by the time he and Findaras had prepared to join the volleys, the elf detachment had completed their past among the pirate craft. Two now seemed nothing more than ghost ships, their decks wreathed in gunsmoke and covered with arrow studded corpses. The third was wheeling away, a scattering of survivors on her deck, while the other two were tacking hard to bring themselves around. Rather than rushing towards the elves, they threw down great anchors, bringing themselves to a halt and whipping their prows about with a groan of wood and creak of sail.

"Bring us about!" Captain Teldonis shouted, then smirked. "We shall finish them off, then board their ships and burn them to the waterline."

"No," Kelris said. "Our transport craft are approaching Denegar. We need to guard them, the guns of the harbor-"

"Hah!" Teldonis barked. "And leave our flank open to these butchers?"

"Captain, that is an order!" Kelris said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. The sea elf glared daggers at him and Findaras trembled, her own body hunched low and her own hand on the hilt of her blade. Teldonis sneered.

"Very well," he said, then turned, shouting orders. One of the elves on his ship waved flags, and the other frigates that were meant to escort the attack on Denergar Rock started to turn... save for the Triumph of Dawn, which kept rushing towards the orc ships.

"What are they doing?" Findaras hissed.

"It seems that not every elf is a coward," Captain Teldonis said, shrugging. "They will wipe those two ships out, within seconds."

"I don't think they shall," Kelris said, growling, then shouting. "Wave them back! Send the signal! Return now!"

The flags waved, but the Triumph of Dawn continued to course towards the two orc ships, even as Denergar Rock grew over the horizon. The transport ships that had swung wide around the battle started to rejoin the frigates, to begin their assault in good order, but all eyes were locked on the one elf frigate that rushed to take on two pirate ships. Kelris watched through his telescope - and saw that the guns were in range, they were aimed, yet, they did not fire. Arrows began to whistle through the air, and the deck rapidly cleared, but not all in death: Many goblins and trollocs went sprinting down the hatches, many holding shields above their heads and behind their backs... even if said shields were made of nothing more than hastily lashed together leather and wood. It was enough.

The Triumph of Dawn drew closer still. Some of her arrows now burned, elf magic lighting them and causing their eerie witchfire to catch in sails and rigging. But most went through the gunports of the ship, and screams came from within as even the below deck gunnery crews were struck. And yet, despite this savage attack, they did not fire. Kelris wondered at why when-

As one, every cannon roared. Smoke bloomed and swept over the Triumph of Dawn... and Teldonis cried out.

"No!"

The smoke blew away - and revealed tattered rigging, hanging sails, and the mutilated bodies nearly three score elves, ripped apart as if the air itself had turned to lead. The smoking wadding that laid here and there, the tiny red-stained balls, all of it was impressed upon Kelris' mind, as well as the curious pattern of splashes around and behind the Triumph - as he realized that the elf ship had been savaged by a fiendish combination of flamepowder, shot meant for a musket, sacks, and the cannons themselves, transforming guns that could punch a single hole in a ship into mouths that vomited not just smoke and fire, but death and blood. Teldonis snarled in fury - and Kelris barely could comprehend the loss. So many elves... not merely killed, but yanked from the Telling of the world utterly

Everyone who had joined this invasion had been told of the danger of flamepowder weapons. All had sworn on their names that they would face them bravely But.. still...

"Bring us about!" Teldonis bellowed.

"Belay that!" Kelris shouted just as loudly. "They already burn - see?" He pointed and the witchfire did indeed spread across the decks of one of the orc ships. Pirates leaped into the water, their attempts to fight the fires stymied by their own casualties and arrow studded decks. Their fellow ship fished as many green skinned buccaneers from the waters even as their crew used poles and oars to try and push themselves away from their rapidly burning comrade.

"The other-" Teldonis snarled.

"Can wait," Kelris said, his voice firm.

Ahead of them the fortified pirate freehold of Denergar Rock was becoming clear ahead of them - and even from this distance, smoke plumed from the crude fortifications that protected her vast and beautiful harbors. The city might have been rickety and wooden and built into the side of what appeared to be ancient ruins to an unknown race that Kelris had never seen before... but they had stolen and crafted enough guns to make this attack more terrible than he had predicted. Water burst off the starboard side of the Dancing Dragon, while more balls whistled by overhead.

Kelris shouted to the signal elf.

"Send up the red flag!" he said. "To all transports - we take that harbor now! Or we die trying!"

The transport ships unfurled every chaser and studding sail they had, while sea elves in full plate armor dove from their sides, swords already in their hands. One transport bucked and a flight of dragon knights took to the air as they were launched into the air with the help of magical assistance, metal cladding falling away as the war-wizards of the invasion finished lifting them up with their mastery over iron and steel. Wings unfurled and beat and Kelris wished badly that he could be at their side... but his place was down here.

Findaras nodded to him, gravely. She would be here too - his bodyguard and assistant in this battle.

Kelris stepped to the railing of the Dancing Dragon and watched as the battle of Denergar Rock was joined.