Orcs vs Elves (Part 13)

Kelris Shadowsun wiped at the sweat beading and sliding down his brow - his arm twinged, and a passing high elf, his armor glittering despite the hazy smoke that nearly blotted out the sun, said: "Sir, your arm?"

Kelris saw that a flying piece of metal or wood had snipped through his preposterously slutty costume with the neatness of a surgeon's scalpel. Blood sopped his sleeve, and he had barely noticed in the frantic din that had been breaching Denergar Rock's fortifications. He snarled, then held out his hand "Your knife, soldier," he said. Without a hesitation, the knife was offered and soon it parted the uniform he had been given by the Everqueen herself. Kelris used the strips of the tunic to bind his arm and tossed the rest aside, then dropped his trousers. Bare save for a loincloth, he finally felt properly clothed and modest and shook his head as he grumbled under his breath. "Beastly weather for that kind of whoring."

"Yes sir..." the soldier seemed faintly disappointed - clearly, he had enjoyed just how Kelris had looked in a full buttoned up tunic and hose, but Kelris didn't mind cutting the show short for the leering swordsman. Instead, he handed the knife back and continued forward through the stone and wooden chambers that the piratical menaces that called Denergar Rock home had used as their front line of defense. He stepped over trolloc, orc and dracorc bodies, their forms struck down by a mixture of precisely aimed arrows and swords, and came to a chamber where the ringing sound of blades on blades continued to sing out.

"Kill them! Slay them! Butcher the beasts!"

The war cry that he had been hearing all afternoon rang sourly in Kelris' ear. He clenched his jaw - feeling his own temper rising and mounting... and then a crack rang out. The cry of pain and anguish that came was elvish, and when Kelris finished running forward, he saw that one of the elf soldiers had been taken in the chest by a pistol, held by a fierce orc pirate, whose cutlass slashed up to catch the shocked sea elf that was flanking the high elf who was, even now, dying. Kelris leaped into the battle, flanked by his fellow soldiers, and their blades glittered with their ferocity.

Everyone that had joined this army had sworn on their names that they would face flamepowder weapons without fear. Kelris felt that oath in his own breast. But there was still a horrible fury, burning within him as he saw the elf's eyes go black, his soul not passing to a new life but... rather, being rubbed out completely. The orc pirate's expression of furious pleasure at his victory was replaced by shock - then the shock was fixed, goggling up from the floor, the severed stump of his newly shortened neck spurting into the air, a crimson geyser that Kelris stepped about with ease.

The door taken, the elves emerged from the fort and into the city beyond. Pirates who had not fought at the front lines were now fleeing in every direction, and a shout came from every part of the squalid, wooden slums that these pirates called home.

"Quarter! Quarter!"

White flags fluttered and Kelris, his heart hammering, saw that many a orc or trolloc were tossing their weapons to the ground. Some battle continued to the left - the crash of a cannon roaring made him wince. Kelris shook his head, trying to clear his battle lust, the haze of his excitement and anger. But... he turned, barking an order to a soldier.

"Get me Findaras Lavabright," he said. "And send word to all commanders, we are to take prisoners. And treat them as if they were halflings."

The soldier nodded, his own features flushed.

Kelris stepped forward before the crowd of terrified pirates, calling out. "Who here speaks for Denergar Rock?"

The pirates glanced among one another, even as some fluttered their white flags. There was a squall of outrage, and a rather comely, teal skinned trolloc, her tricorn hat knocked askew and her wild ponytail of pale white hair now spilling down her shoulders in an uncontrolled waterfall. She glared daggers up at Kelris, then spat out, in her own language: "I am Captain Azighad Marrowcrack. It looks since you killed Bluebeard and T'erdak that I am the last survivor." She sneered, most impressively. "What, oh vaunted elves, oh noble warriors, have we done to so offend thy personages?"

Her words dripped with mocking scorn. Kelris felt his rage burning within him - but he had to restrain it. If he were to lose his control, then the whole army would be lost to him... never before in the history of the elves had there ever been what the humans called a sack. No elf had ever been so roused to fury. If they, with their immortal appetites and fierce whims, were driven to such a thing... Kelris gulped, slowly, then spoke, his voice growing even.

"We need your island, to strike at our true enemy. The Horde," he said. "We shall bring them to their knees."

Captain Marrowcrack glared at him. "You arrogant ponce," she hissed. "We might not wish to go endlessly a crusading - but we're still Horde! We are still their treasure and their bloodright - and when they find what you've done here, they-"

Her words were cut off by the soldier that Kelris had dispatched returning. He came not with Findaras, but instead, with a grave expression on his face. Kelris felt his own belly lurch - while the soldier whispered. "Sir," he said. "I... Commander Lavabright led the charge at the port bastion. A cannon burst near her. She was... she..." He hesitated, then held out the blade that Findaras used - and it had been shattered to the hilt, and soaked in the blood of a sun elf. Kelris took the hilt with numb fingers, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

"The gun... burst," he whispered.

"Yes, sir," the soldier said.

"It just... burst..." Kelris' hands tightened. "Randomly. Stupidly." The soldier did not respond. He, in fact, was looking just as Kelris felt. His comrade and former commander, his sister in the Order of the Scale, had been wiped from the Telling by something so... so inane as a cannon bursting from being too hot, from being too stuffed with gunpowder. Such things happened to humans and orcs. It did not happen to elves. Kelris' knuckles were whitening as his heart hammered within his chest. He closed his eyes.

"Oh do you want me to cry for your girlfriend?" Captain Marrowcrack crowed, her eyes flashing furiously.

Kelris' eyes snapped open.

Before he knew it, he was upon the trolloc woman. Her eyes widened and she yelped as her arms were pinned above her head, her thighs falling wide open as she was pressed to her back on the dirty ground. The army let loose with a furious bellow - a waiting cry that had been lurking within them ever since they had set sail. And now... Kelris felt his own passions overtake him. There was no Shadowsun, only an animal, a beast of the deep wilds. Once, the high elves had lived among the woods and the caves, like the wood elves and the spider elves. Once, they had swam in the dark oceans. They had come to their new civilization slowly and carefully, over many tellings.

Well.

He was back there in the savagery once more, his fingers grabbing onto the trolloc's blouse and ripping it open with iron hard strength. Her teal breasts bounced free, her bright nipples flashing in the firelight as she cried out. "Get off me, what are you-" She gasped as his hands took hold of her tits, squeezing her, tugging her nipples. While Kelris the beast was careless of her pleasure and driven only by passion, he remained an elf. And an elf did nothing without skill.

Even rape.

His fingers tugged her nipples with the artful pressure of hands honed by countless lifetimes, and his mouth pressed to her mouth, his tongue invading her mouth as she squirmed, bucking against him - but his hips rocked, grinding his bulge against the smoldering heat between her thighs. Hands yanked his leggings down, soldiers that had once been his underlings but now were comrades in the wildness of the now working to strip him naked. A hand gripped his cock and he bucked against the pressure - and was guided into the trolloc captain. Her mouth broke away and she tossed her head aside with a groan and hiss. "Bastard!"

Kelris pinned her arms above her head, his rock hard, pale high elf cock plunging into her sopping wet trolloc cunt. Her teal thighs spread wider and wider as she grunted in time with the lewd plap plap plap of his balls clapping against her ass. Her eyes started to grow hazy as she gasped and panted, her tusks glinting as she hissed. "B-Bastard... ah... fuck!" She trembled and he felt her tighten around him as Kelris let himself loose within her - his balls slapped her ass once more and he groaned fiercely.

His balls tightened.

And his seed spilled within the trolloc. He fucked it into her, pushing more and more of his cum into her - and the former captain rolled her head back, gasping as her spine arched. She might resist later... but in that one moment, as warm elf spunk filled her womb and pulsed within her body, she was nothing but a slut for elves. And the sounds of cries and shouts and clamoring screams rang into Kelris' ears as he lifted his head and saw that his loss of control was now rippling outwards, echoing and rebounding, like an avalanche.

Sea elves, laughing and jeering, had gotten an orc lass between them, her breasts bared, cupping and squeezed, her ass smacked, her eyes wide as she remained still and terrified of their unsheathed blades - they were the writhing, bright pink members of dolphins, and they prodded at her cunt and her ass. She squirmed and gasped as one sea elf grabbed her leg, lifting her up and pressing her to a wall. A goblin male had been captured by a sun self, his mouth opened and forced to her sex while her lava bright, crackling hair spilled down her bare back. A trolloc man fled from two high elf women, who both loped after him with the predatory hunger of wild animals. They sprang upon the trolloc - who was dressed as a shopkeeper, and started to tear at his clothes.

"Want a turn, General?" A spider elf female asked, smirking from where she bounced atop a pinned and tied up orc - the spider webbing keeping him to the ground leaving him looking like a pale white ghost, save for the emerald cock jutting up and vanishing into her ebon dark cunt. "Ah! Fuck!" She threw her head back, shuddering in pleasure as she forced herself upon the bound male. "This is for every musket you shot at us, you beasts!"

Kelris growled and then looked about and... ah, there. One of the goblin lasses that the Horde had. She was holding a knife and backing away from a smirking high elf - backing right into his hand. He snatched the knife from her fingers with a twist of his hand and then yanked her back against him, her bountiful breasts spilling from her blouse as the other high elf male grabbed at her blouse, yanking down.

"Let me go!" she gasped. "Let me go!"

Kelris did nothing of the sort. He tossed the knife aside, then took a hold of her immense tits - well, immense for a goblin - and squeezed roughly. "Listen, greenskin," he growled. "Your whole city is ours to play with! Be glad we know what we're doing!"

It felt deliriously good to let the wicked words fall from his lips. It felt even better to hear her whimper, half of fear and half of pleasure, as he twisted her nipples gently, then more roughly. Her mouth opened - then got muffled as the other high elf took advantage of her stature to press his cock to her mouth. Kelris pushed her head forward and she shuddered as high elf cock stopped up any chance she had to mew and complain, and wish that she was not a plaything of the elves. His mouth kissed down her spine, to her thick goblin ass. He wondered... ah yes... her sex was sopping wet, despite her words. Kelris forced her thighs wide and began to feast as he had never feasted before, his tongue delving deep inside of her. Her moans, muffled as they were by the other elf's cock, grew more desperate as her juices spurted onto his tongue.

The elf grunted and drew his cock back. His cum splattered the goblin's face, while Kelris drew back, smacking the goblins' ass, grinning fiercely. "Fuck her, my soldier," he said. "Give this gobbler a proper elf-child, so she might bless this world rather than blight it!"

"With pleasure, General!"

The other high elf threw the goblin to her belly and her hands and knees and with a single powerful thrust, impaled her to the hilt. Her cry of pleasure and shock rang out as Kelris, his hand stroking his own shaft, glanced about and saw, ah, there was another trolloc that had been just pumped full by a spider elf male. He grabbed her, dragging her along the soft grass of the ground and, without resistance, propped her onto his lap. His shaft thrust up into her as she whimpered and gasped.

"N-Not again..." She moaned, but despite her desperate words, the blue skinned trolloc bitch started to rock her hips as Kelris sank deeper and deeper into his pleasure. His hand on her left hip, his other hand found a flagon passed out by the jeering elfs passing by. He drank from it, and found that the pirates had some decent ale. It burned down his throat and left him feeling even more distant from the world as he bounced the blue trolloc up and down, up and down. Her already cum stuffed cunt felt divine around his shaft, and before Kelris knew it, he was grabbed her around her belly with his free arm, laughing as he poured ale into her open mouth. She coughed, spluttered, then tossed her head aside, moaning. "Oh by the Garden!"

Her cunt clenched, even if her body said no - and his seed spurted into her...

Kelris wandered then, as the sack continued, as the smoke rose into the air. He ate of meat filched from homes and houses, and where he saw his pleasure, he took it. Some of the Horde did try to hide... and finding one that had not been despoiled left him satiated again and again. Yanking a squirming orc pirate from under a building and throwing her to the ground for a gang of sun elves to make entirely airtight - her throat, her ass, her cunt, all claimed by the righteous power of elf cock... oh, there was nothing like it.

The sun rose and set, and rose once more. Kelris remembered laying in a bed while a desperate to please purple skinned trolloc slapped her thick ass cheeks as she slammed her hips down on his shaft, her hands on his shoulders, her voice a hungry gasp. He remembered rolling from bed and simply finding a quiver-kneeed goblin and pushing him to his knees and thrusting down his throat. He remembered joining some sea elves in a wicked game of fucking an orc beneath the waves - the game was to breathe through ones gills and into her mouth, to give her oxygen while the water of the beach surrounded you. While Kelris had no gills, he could enjoy the way fear made her ass clench him as if she was a virgin. And when she was brought to the surface, gasping and wheezing, she laughed giddily - her eyes glazed with pleasure.

The sun set.

And... slowly...

Slowly...

Kelris came back to himself. His passions receded as he lounged in a throne of stone and wood, his thighs spread. He, for a moment, knew not how he had gotten here, nor what had called him back... but then he saw the very first trolloc, the trolloc that had started this sack, kneeling before him. Captain Azighad Marrowcrack looked entirely the whore now, her nipples pierced with some fine golden elf craftwork, her throat collared and tied to a leash, a leash in his hand, her eyes glazed over with needy lust. Her nose was pressed to his balls and, mind broken, she lapped at him slowly, her soft whimpers pure servility. Kelris blinked slowly, as he regarded her and his own still hard cock, resting against her teal cheek.

Throughout the city, the sounds of the orgy of rape and wickedness continued to ring out - and yet, still, Kelris knew not why he had returned to himself. It was not merely Marrowcrack once more licking him, for when he thought, he could remember raping her several times more over the past few days - and each time, emptying himself within her with abandon.

"... Kelris..."

The voice. That voice had...

He blinked.

Findaras Lavabright, her body clad in her respectable uniform, her belly bandaged and still faintly stained with blood, her skin paled and pallid, stood in the entrance to the makeshift throneroom - while to her right, a spider elf female with an impressive dildo thrust her hips into a mewling goblin lass, and to her left, a sun elf male was availing himself of a rather feminine orc boy, whose own much smaller cock spurted weakly against the wall.

Kelris blinked.

"What have you done?" Findaras whispered, her voice choked. "What... what have you done?"

Kelris leaned back in the throne, while the trolloc he had claimed continued to lap at his shaft. With his passions receding, he could look back upon the past few days - and realize that everything he had once thought of elves was naught but a lie. A charming fable, told to make themselves think that they were better than them. They might be immortal... but a mortal's wickedness lurked in their breasts. And he had allowed it to escape.

Findaras turned and stalked from the chamber - spine stiff and hand tight on the hilt of her blade.

***

Aboard the frigate Calamity, Othar was beginning to realize something.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

The sea elf Athelen Cthonic, who was even now, clutching at the rafters above her head, her fingernails digging in fiercely, her face a mask of pure bliss, cried out as his hips jackhammered up into her so roughly that his scaled balls clapped against her ass - ringing out in the tiny cabin that they shared.

I can get used to this.

"Yeah, you love dracorc cock, don't cha, gill-bitch?" Othar snarled. His scaled hands grabbed her hips, yanking her down so that the thick base of his lizardlike cock bumped against her dark blue pussy lips. Athelen gasped out in shock, her eyes half closing, her frilled ears spreading a bit wider than normal, her hips rocking back and forth as she stirred his cock within her as her glowing juices dripped down his balls.

"I... I... oh fuck yes!" She whimpered, her voice rising to a desperate pitch. She dropped her hands to his shoulders, then leaned forward. Her kiss was as desperate as ever - her tongue warring with his as his hands swept up and down her back. Their tiny hammock swayed with the ship, while her free hand slid along his shoulder, tickling his scales. Othar felt the shift of her body... and his hand grabbed her wrist, moments before she drove the dagger into his throat. He rolled and flapped his wings - and the two fell from the hammock, crashing to the wooden floor of the small cabin.

The elegantly carved bone dragger that she had slipped from its sheath - it was his dagger, by the Goddess - skittered away on the decking as their lips broke, his muzzle splitting into a fierce grin, his teeth sharp and glittering.

"For a girl who says oh yes so often..." He drew back, then thrust deeper again, grunting as his scaled balls clapped against her ass. The impact rocked the sea-blue elf's whole frame as she groaned and rolled her head back, exposing her throat to his teeth, her gills fluttering. "... you do keep trying to fucking kill me."

"Y-You bastard," she whispered. "Cum in me."

Othar obliged with one more thrust as she gasped and arched her back, trembling. Her legs scissored behind his back, right above his tail, and she held him close, her wrists writhing beneath his clawed fingers. He knew what she wanted, and he gave it to her - his tongue thrust down her throat again and Athelen kissed him back hungrily.

When he broke the kiss and shoved her back, his cock popping free, the warm puddle that his cum made beneath her rump was rather delightful - and the expression of frustrated pleasure on her face was just as enjoyable. Othar smirked and stood, his arms resting on the rafter above his head, while his feet spread - the swaying of the ship allowing his balls to sway as well.

"If you don't want me to rape you again," he said, his voice teasing. "Don't lick my cum up off the floor."

"Elves do whatever they want," Athelen said, her voice a dangerous growl. She shifted around onto her side, then leaned over. Her tongue slid along the deck, sweeping up his seed. She shuddered and swallowed, her eyes half closed. "If you touch me again, I will kill you, fell drake."

Othar snorted, loudly, then shook his head. "You raped me first."

"You deserved it," the haughty response came, as it always did.

Othar blew steam from his nostrils, his wings mantling up. Before he could respond, the cabin door opened and Arjack stuck his red snout into the room. He grinned.

"Having fun lovebirds?" he drawled.

"Shut up," Athelen said.

The red scaled dracorc stepped into the cabin properly, his own cock out - and glistening with his fun. The Calamity had run several more close encounters with the elf fleets, and they had captured more than a few other elf-maidens and elf-males who were now making the ship quite a bit more... homey. The rumors sweeping the ship were that the elves had been even more bestial in reprisals along the mainland front that the Hoard was fighting - and so, Othar felt basically no guilt at all. Athelen had, after all, tried to do for him what he now most enthusiastically did unto her - and from the way she panted and whimpered beneath him, he had a feeling that elves were made to be little fuck toys. He casually caressed Athelen's hair, his clawed finger rubbing along her ear, and she whimpered softly, her eyes fluttering half shut.

"We got some fresh orders from the Elders," he said, nodding. "You've been recalled."

"I... what?" Othar asked.

"Yeah, apparently, the Elder needs a human - like, former human, who was highly ranked and has ever had dealing with elves," Arjack said, shrugging his broad, muscular shoulders. "And one that has become a part of us fully and completely. And, well..." He grinned. "The only thing you haven't done is choose a new name, Othar."

"I like my name," Othar said, then laughed. "And I've noticed Hoard names are pretty diverse."

"Of course. We take the good names, like we take the good bloodlines and the good women." Arjack grinned, kneeling down and leering at Athelen.

"I am going with him," Athelen said, her voice dripping with scorn.

"You are absolutely not," Arjack snarled.

Othar considered, then smirked a bit. "Well, she is my woman. I've put enough of my seed into her to call her my damn orchard."

Arjack barked out a shocked laugh, then shook his head. "We'll run it by the captain. Get dressed, Athel."

"Athelen."

"Len," Arjack said, as Athelen started to skim into her clothing. Othar had expected her to be shocked and offended to wear a filmy golden bikini with swirling patterns that caressed her sea blue flesh and a thong that nearly vanished into the folds of her cunt. And yet, she wore it with the arrogant assurance she had worn her strangely erotic plate armor. As she glared at Arjack, Othar reached down and grabbed her ass.

"I'm almost disappointing you're not more mad," he said. "At the outfit." His finger hooked on her thong, tugging it up against her, causing the golden fabric to grow even more snug against her well fucked, cum stuffed cunt. His seed poured down her thighs and she shuddered, grabbing onto his wrist to keep from toppling over.

"I tried to kill you seconds before," Athelen hissed.

"About the costume," Othar said.

She blinked, looking utterly confused, as the two followed Arjack onto the deck - the crew were busy at work bringing the sails to bear in some new direction as part of the Calamity's endless tacking too and fro for its hunting of elf shipping. The crew seemed casual, relaxed, and quite pleased to see Athelen, while the captain of the ship was chewing her knuckle, her long, goblin ears pinned back against her head in irritation.

"I hate to lose you, Othar, but when the Elder calls," she said, shrugging.

"Are we gonna fly straight back?" Othar asked.

"Nah, you're not far enough. The gobmersible Daggerfin is going to transport you back." She smirked. "Let me guess. You want to take your woman."

"If that's all right," Othar said as Athelen snarled, at the exact same time.

"I am not his woman."

The captain smirked, walking forward, then grabbing onto her thong, yanking it down and to the side, freeing another torrent of thick cum to come pouring from her. Casually, the goblinness pressed her face between the pale blue thighs of the sea self, her tongue curling up as she drank not only of Othar's cum, but also of the feminine juices of the shocked Athelen. Othar, who had been growing more and more used to the way the Hoard did things, grabbed onto Athelen's rump to hold her in place as the gobliness drank her fill, then drew back, planting one mocking kiss on the hard, diamond clit of the sea elf. Her smirk was wider than the horizon.

"Sure tastes like you are," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm as, blushing furiously, Athelen yanked her thong back up to cover her sex. "Sure, Othar. If you can keep her under control and the captain of the Daggerfin doesn't throw her out..." She snorted. "Well, at least she can handle the depths."

Athelen glared at her, while Othar reached down and yanked her up and off her feet, holding her as if she were his bride. Her cheeks flushed even more, while the captain led him to the railing - and there, their goggles and their dark suits glittering in the afternoon sun, was a squadron of diveblins, including Techgig Flipperswim, who lifted one gloved hand to wave at Othar. Othar, his arms busy, lifted a wing to wave it.

"Take care, new egg," Arjack said, while the other wing-mate of Othar's, Birak, stepped over to clap him on the shoulder.

"And don't have too much fun fucking the Elder's daughter," he said, then laughed at Othar's expression. "What, L'ara is a fine piece of greenskin ass!"

The crew of the Calamity laughed as Othar stepped over the side, and dropped into the sea. The diveblins, knowing their work well, spun about and began to flap their artificial flippers, guiding him with captured firefly lights towards the bulky, fish-like shape of the bronze and iron construction of the gobmersible. For a moment, Othar wondered how he might get in - but the diveblins swam beneath the belly of the metal beast, revealing that it had the very same queer kind of pool that the ancient ruins he had found used. The diveblins swam up into the mirror pool and surfaced within the noisome hold of a true and proper gobmersible.

The illumination came from captured fireflies, while humming and buzzing noises came from dozens of hanging cables that ran across ceiling and wall. The space between the edge of the pool and the roof was half of Othar's height, and as he pushed Athelen up onto the gangplank, goblins hurried forward to help him slide up. His head hunched forward and his wings furled close around him as he chuckled. "A mite cramped, my good diveblins?"

The goblins all burst out laughing.

"Don'tcha worry!" Tech said, grinning toothily as he yanked his complex breathing device off. "We'll get you there without too much cramptness."

"Oh?" Othar asked as a slug was laid against his shoulder. It was barely visible if he craned his head, and the touch of a similar slug caused Athelen to cry out in horror. "What's this?"

"A comaslug," Tech said, cheerfully.

Othar blinked.

"A wh... hu... mmb?"

He fell to his side - darkness swallowing him as the world fell far, far, far, far afield.

He was floating in darkness.

Then...

A golden beam of light shone before him. Othar blinked and tried to move. He felt as if he was in deep, dark water, his lungs burning as he realized he needed to breathe. He pursed lips that he had not felt in some time and reached out - and the hands that carved through the nearly invisible water through which he swam were bizarre. His left hand was the sharp, clawed hand of a dracorc. His right was the pale skin of his human hand, almost forgotten, even in dreams. He swam, them swam, then swam some more... and when his lungs felt near to bursting, he reached the golden light that spilled from the heavens.

There was a sensation of rising - and the golden light surrounded him. A resounding vibration buzzed through his skin.

BE NOT AFRAID.

Othar's eyes jerked open as he gasped and jerked his head up. Rather than striking his head against wooden frames - or metal - he instead found himself looking wildly around a sandy beach. He was laid upon a pier, while next to him was Athelen, her eyes closed still, while a goblin laid a pale white slug against her throat.

"Welcome to Landathel!" the goblin administering the slug said, her ears perking up - but Othar choked out a laugh.

"This is Landathel?" he asked. "That sleepy little fishing town?"

The Hoard, it seemed, had struck Lathandel with a ferocity in peace that they had never shown during war - save in a few citadels that had managed to hold out against their initial attacks. The old hovels and fishing boats that he remembered had been replaced with what looked like whole great oaks, broad enough to fit the old homes within their trunks, with branches sweeping out into each direction. Those branches grew into curious patterns, forming into the rough shape of... well, he wanted to say homes - and upon a second look, he saw that that was not the wrong impression at all. Wooden and cloth reinforcements had been added to the branches, and humans of his old kingdom walked from branch to bridge to branch again. The ground about the trees was strewn with more recognizably goblin infrastructure: Ramshackle buildings, smoking foundries - their smoke being caught by complex networks of vines and leaves that seemed to drink the sulfurous stink up and emit nothing but pure, clean air. The old fishing docks had been expanded with thick metal and wood piers, and the skeleton of three gobmersibles hung in cranes and ropes, while goblins and humans alike worked on them.

"Good Goddess," Othar whispered, his wings mantling. "It looks like this village has everyone from the surrounding county living here."

"Of course it does," the goblin doctor who had wakened him said, her voice amused. "We are much less silly about farming than you humans were - it's best to have everyone in a big comfortable city, and blood shaman creations provide the food." She grinned. "Also, we need all the metalworkers you had doing mining and turning that metal into silly little coins, to work on the cannons!"

Othar shook his head. Not for the first time, he had a sinking feeling that... well...

The Hoard invading had been the best possible thing that could have happened to the peasentry. And maybe they had chosen right, when so many had accepted the orcs so eagerly. He heard the distant moan of a woman having her best night possible - and his scales flushed as he started to stand up, some old human instincts towards patriotism rousing within him. He instead tried to focus on that... dream...

"Um, question," he said. "Do the comaslugs give you strange dreams?"

"No, why?" the gobliness asked.

"Bastards!"

The shout of a familiar voice rang out - fierce, furious, and eminently lovely. Othar swung his head around and grinned eagerly. "L'ara!" he said, his wings beating as he saw the blood shamaness L'ara walking beside... Quella? His wings beat once more and he skidded to a stop as he also realized that, to her other side, was the Elder Tarish, and around them were a great deal of Blademaster bodyguards, who all glowered at him most impressively. Tarish waved his hand, his expression amused, while L'ara looked up from the bone tablet that she had been reading.

"Othar!" she said, then flushed. "I... sorry, I wasn't referring to you."

"What happened?" Othar asked.

"We got a report from a fleeing refugee from Denergar Rock," Tarish said, his voice grave. "The elves have sacked it."

Othar nodded, gravely. "Those are those... pirate types that-" he stopped. "Wait, they sacked it? With what? I thought Denergar Rock was heavily defended!"

"That's why we let them ply their trade," L'ara said, while Tarish's expression grew more and more grave.

"The reason why our northern attack has gone so well - it is not because the elves are less numerous than we thought. It was because while their shield slowed us as we struck for their throat, their knife hand has been plunging towards our belly. With Denergar Rock, they can invade our heartland." Othar, who could see the map unfurling within his mind, gaped in horror as he saw the image exactly.

"No, you don't understand!" L'ara said. "They sacked it."

"Well, yes, invading armies do this," Othar said, quietly.

"Not according to what I have found out recently," L'ara said. "Not elf armies."

"That's is not my experience fighting elves," Othar said, his voice quiet and brooding.

"That is because you are most fortunate, oh Prince of humans..." A voice that Othar did not recognize - but one that was brooding and somber and masculine - jerked his attention to the people among the Blademasters that he had not even realized stood there. One was a strange looking goblin - more pale pink than green, with extraordinarily long ears. Another was a matronly, curvaceous gobliness who lacked the serrated ear that Othar was used to seeing among his goblinoid allies. The third and last... was an elf. A male elf with skin the same ebon black as the space between stars, and with eyes of burning red fire - coal bright and fiercely bitter. He was leaning against one of the Blademasters, who seemed entirely all right with supporting the elf - whose body looked as if it had been battered, burned, and slashed.

"Who is this?" Othar asked, quietly.

"I am Scimitar Darkblade," the elf said, quietly. "Denergar Rock was my home, if but for a short time. I bore witness to the... atrocity there, carried out by my people. And I fear that you have roused a great and terrible monster - one that may wear the mask of an elf, but has the heart and soul of some terrible beast from the wilderness." He shook his head slowly. "Your Elder Tarish thinks he can bring peace. But I think that the fate of this world is fire and death."

Othar glanced back, guiltily, towards Athelen, who was beginning to sit up, groaning softly.

"... who is that?" Quella asked, her voice suddenly rather sharp, while L'ara frowned at Othar.

Othar, spreading his hands sheepishly, chuckled. "Well, uh..."