Orcs vs Elves (Part 14)

Ice cold snow wafted down from the flint gray sky, swirled through the thick soup of bluish fog, and finally settled on the curved edge of the crossbow. The mage-sight that threw everything into a sharp relief of blues and oranges made it pathetically easy to pick out the hulking form of the orc patroller as he walked through the gloom, bare chested despite the chill. His partner walked with his ax over his shoulders, arms hooked over the haft, while the two talked to one another.

Quietly, Estoc heard Trebuchet's voice in her ear.

"I'll take the one on the left, you take the one on the right. On three." She paused. Estoc shifted her crossbow, her wings fluttering behind her in a nervous twitch.

"One."

The two orcs paused in their patrolling.

"Two."

Estoc planted the cross-hair on the center of mass.

"Three."

The sharp, short thock thock of two fairie crossbows snapping off rang out in the cloying gloom. Both orcs jerked, twitched, then fell, their bodies beginning to dim as the life and heat sapped from their corpses.

"Tangos down," Trebuchet whispered.

"Lets go," Estoc murmured into her mage-link, then buzzed her wings. She flew from behind a small clump of snow and leaves on the branch she had been lurking on as she and her partner buzzed over the dead sentries and into the side of the orc war-camp. The images SCOPES had sent them were a little out of date - in their endless industry, the orcs and their war-slaves, the peasants, had been busy in expanding the facility. Watchtowers now sat at each corner of the base, with the short barreled snouts of heavy cannons jutting from each of their sides, while several logging facilities had been thrown up to match the receding line of trees that the orcs fed into their heavy buzz saws and cutters. They had, furthermore, started create copies of those strange skull shaped buildings that SCOPES had picked up before. Up close, they were not soaked in blood and sacrifice. Instead, peering through her mage-sight into one of them, all Estoc could see were orcs in robes, gathered around flames for warmth. She snorted, as the winds blew up fiercer and thicker.

Did the orcs even know that this blizzard was magic? They reacted to it with grumbles, not alarm and alertness, so she supposed they must not. She and Trebuchet flew down and landed in the underbelly of one of the towers. Overhead, goblins grumbled to one another.

"We can't see shit through this soup," one of them said.

"Ah put a sock in it, Gob Gobinglington," the other said. "We don't need to see something to hit it with canister."

"I guess you're right..."

Trebuchet, her hand reaching into the sleek black leather jumpsuit she wore, tugged out the small map of the camp that they had from their scrying. She peered at it, while Estoc fidgeted with her crossbow. The weapons were excellent tools of stealth assassination - but in an actual fight, their rate of fire would tell. She felt naked and toothless without her armored suit... she shook her head. Focus. Focus. There was a beautiful elf noble to rescue.

"Okay," Trebuchet said. "We need to break for here, then get into position for the distraction."

Estoc peered down as the wind picked up, snowflakes swirling past them. It looked like a straight shot through the camp to the underside of their central fortification. In the images from SCOPES, it had just been a simple wooden log town hall looking thing. Now? Now it was a dark sphere of metal and wrought iron, covered in spikes and skulls, with the rattling sound of industry and wicked revelry coming from within. Estoc frowned as she glared at it.

"We're going to have to buzz the whole camp to get there," she whispered.

"We stay on foot, use the snowbanks," Trebuchet said.

Estoc nodded.

The two fairies started to advance, the snow crunching underfoot. They cleared mounds that orcs would and did simply plow through, hunched low, their crossbows up, their mage-sights sweeping around. Estoc spotted a gaggle of the huge, hulking cow peasants that the orcs used for slave labor and the two hurried to hide next to a large bucket of what Estoc hoped was water. The peasants thumped by, their hooves shaking the ground, their pickaxes on their shoulders as they headed for the mine that was the heart of the orc war camp.

"Come on!" Estoc hissed, then ducked forward and ran, her wings fluttering behind her. She sprinted around the bucket, then got between two buildings, her shoulder pressed up against the corner. Peeking around it, she saw that an orc with a huge wolf was walking by, whistling to herself. The wolf sniffed at the air - then whined as a snow-crystal blew into its nostril. It started to whine louder as the orc gently guided it away.

"Lets get ya inside, beastie."

Trebuchet thumped against the wall next to Estoc, her back planted against the wood, her breath fogging the air as she panted.

"We're good," Estoc whispered.

"Okay." Trebuchet gulped, then checked her map, then nodded again. "One last flight, from here, to there." She pointed.

"Wait for that fogbank..." Estoc said - holding up her hand. The blizzard blew harder, the wind biting deep despite their warming leathers. The fog grew thicker and the two beat their wings, buzzing up into the air. There was a reason why they hadn't flown aside from the danger of being seen at eye-line-level: The blizzard threw wild, unpredictable swirls and rushes of wind into their path. Invisible save for how the snowflakes danced and twirled, a bad beat of the wings or a mistimed dive would send either fairie tumbling head over heads into the snowbanks below... or, worse, under the foot of some trudging groundling orc or goblin. Estoc's stomach flipped as she buzzed around a whorl - then suddenly, she felt the air pressure under and around her wings jar alarmingly to the side.

She beat her wings wildly, spinning end over end, then started to corkscrew towards the ground. Her mage-link started to chirrup at her.

Terrain! Terrain! Pull up! Terrain! Terrain!

Estoc clenched her teeth. She flared her wings wide, tossed her crossbow to the ground to rationalize her flight signature. She pulled up, narrowly missed a discarded pile of firewood, twisted around and skimmed her belly inches away from a log cabin. Then her wings beat and she was in control again.

"Estoc! You okay?"

"Condition green! On target!"

Estoc buzzed up and landed on the chosen hiding spot, right next to Trebuchet, who clicked her tongue. "The crossbow!"

"We'll manage," Estoc said, reaching up to fiddle with her wrist. Down in the snow, her crossbow destroyed itself with a tiny spark of hissing, purple fire.

A goblin passing by looked down at the puff of smoke, brow furrowing as they saw the tiny scorch mark where the toy sized crossbow had been, then looked around for a bit before the biting chill of the blizzard forced her to hurry inside.

Estoc, reaching down to her boot, drew her fairie knife, which glowed a pale blue in her hand. She nodded, gravely, to Trebuchet, who sighed.

"Okay," she said. "Now, we have to see if Raptor and Warhammer manage their distraction."

The two waited.

Waited.

Waited.

And then the entire left side of the camp, the part where the orcs kept their flamesmoke powder, exploded.

"I think that'll do it," Estoc whispered.

There was just one problem.

As the orcs milled around, shouting and running from place to place, and a hurried collection of them started to guide huge, blue skinned pig-like creatures to the burning armory, Estoc and Warhammer and Raptor and Trebuchet all converged on the tent where Mephileph Icewild was being held.

And found it empty.

***

"This is bullshit!" Estoc hissed. "Fucking bullshit. Bull. Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Her wings beat as she zipped through the air - having emerged from the blizzard with her knife tucked into her boot once more and her eyes glittering furiously. The decision had been made by Warhammer, and it had been made fast. Get back, tell the snow elves about this, we'll keep searching and gathering intel. Go. Go! Go!

Estoc was the fastest flier, and without her crossbow, she was of limited use.

But still.

Bullshit.

She glanced over her shoulder - as she flew away from the blizzard, she was getting clearer, smoother flight, and that was all well and good, but-

But.

... but...

Her wings flared and she buzzed to a hover, her brow furrowed. She saw that the narrow path she was following had been bisected by a jagged slash of disturbed snow. This far out from the supernaturally conjured blizzard, there was little coverage and she could see half a dozen snapped twigs. She flew down and landed. From the ground, it was easy as fuck to tell that someone going as fast as they could had pushed through the underbrush here, snapping branches and trampling underbrush. Someone had come through here, dragging something heavy and lumpy, and their path went right back to the orc camp. She frowned as she saw the distant, rising smoke from the fire, the blizzard already beginning to abate. Her buddies were back there, hidden in the way only the fae could be.

She couldn't mage-link them, she was too far off.

Her gut screamed at her. The same gut instinct that had seen her survive countless missions as an Armorite. She tapped at her mage-link, trying to connect to Headquarters. "HQ, come in. HQ."

No response. Just a buzzing crackle. She frowned. Her eyes swept over the path and she saw, dangling from a branch, was a tiny, silvery thread. She plucked it and looked at it, holding it above her head as she frowned.

Elf hair, she thought.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Her wings buzzed and she took off, then started to shoot after the path. She knew that her comrades were waiting on her to deliver her report. But... well, she consoled herself that the diagonal path she was following was still bringing her closer and closer to the range that the Armorite HQ would need to pick up her signal. She, not for the first time, wished she had her suit, whose range boosters would have put her signal in immediately to...

She heard grunting ahead of her, and grumbling, and... more importantly...

A woman.

Estoc paused, and resisted the urge to wiggle her eyebrows. She buzzed carefully forward, then landed on the branch of a tree. Ahead of her, she saw a... well, it wasn't quite an orc. It wasn't quite a goblin. It was some kind of weird orc-goblin. Taller than a goblin, shorter than an orc, with orange-brown skin and long hair, the woman was dragging a heavy sack behind her, grunting and swearing and sweating in equal measures. She was, like the rest of her kind, hardy as fuck and seemed to care about the snowy wilderness about as much as Estoc would have cared about dew and honey drops.

"Fucking asshole," she hissed. "Why did he have to fucking ask questions. Can't he just... goddamn it..."

Estoc shifted on the branch, and some snow slumped off the side. She didn't feel particularly frightened - orcs weren't humans, but they were still no-

A knife thudded into the bark right next to her head, sinking to the hilt and nearly bonking her face with its curved pommel. Estoc jerked back, buzzing upwards and away as she saw that the strange goblin-orc had spun around and thrown the knife in a single quick jerk of her wrist.

"What the fuck!?" Estoc exclaimed. She drew her knife, frowning. The goblin-orc glared at her.

"Little buzzing fairies," she said. "Not so tough outside of your armor."

Estoc grinned. "That's where you're wrong!"

She dove. Fairies had a lot of tricks - and as the goblin-orc drew a sack from her belt and began to dump the coinage within onto the ground, Estoc snorted. She thought she'd be able to grab Estoc out of the air with that. Estoc twirled to the side, slashing with her dagger, opening a line of blood along the goblin-orc's cheek. The blood was bright red and slicked her dagger up nicely, even as she spun away and buzzed her wings. The goblin-orc hissed, then shook her head.

"Bitch!" she said.

"Takes one to know one," Estoc shot back, then dove. The goblin-orc had her hand up, to guard her face, but Estoc knew better than to try a second pass with the same trick. Instead, she flared her wings... and hit her with the glitterdust.

The spell glitterdust was based on fairies and their ancient defensive art. Fairie glitter was everywhere in fairie biology, and expelling all of it at once produced a cloud of blazing sparkles. They flew into the eyes, into the nostrils, the ears, and would irritate every exposed membrane with the pure power of whimsy and fucking bucolic nature. Estoc's grin was feral as she readied to take advantage of the gob-orc's sudden confusion and blindness. The woman did clutch at her face with her free hand, howling in shocked pain and exposing her throat.

Estoc shot forward.

And the sack swept up, then cinched shut in the same motion. Estoc yelped in shock as she felt her arms being bound to her side, her blade puncturing into the palm of the goblin-orc holding her in the bag. The goblin-orc hissed, jerked her hand back, then used her fingers to pluck the dagger from the hole in the sack, then clamped her hands around Estoc, holding the fairie between her palms and keeping her firmly and truly trapped. If she squeezed any harder, Estoc knew that not only would her wings snap, but her spine would snap too.

"Gotcha," the orc-goblin said, her eyes and her nose entirely unhindered by the full spray of fairie dust.

"W-What the fuck!?" Estoc exclaimed. "You-"

"I'm immune," the girl said. "I'm a hobgoblin."

Estoc blinked at her. Her brow furrowed. "A fuckin' what?"

"Well, little fairie," the hobgoblin said. "My master is Ner'gal, the greatest blood shaman of this age." She tucked the pouch onto her belt, so that Esotc hung from her hip like a decorative dagger. Estoc squirmed, wriggled, trying to kick her way free, but she was utterly immobilized. The hobgoblin leered down at her, even as she bound her bloodied hand. The knife that had stuck her had cut fiercely - but, at the end of the day, a fairie knife needed to hit a major artery to really kill. As she wrapped her palm with crude bandages, she continued. "He traveled the world in secret, and gathered many allies, and made many creations."

"Like what?"

"Like me," the hobgoblin said, then laughed. "Fuck, everyone is so fucking stupid!" She shook her head. "There's an old human tongue, and he plucked my name from it. Do you know what hob means, little fairie?"

Estoc glowered at her. "Orange?"

The hobgoblin smirked. She leaned over, grabbed onto the sack she had been dragging, and purred the word.

"Elf."

The realization struck Estoc like a bombshell. "W-What?"

The hobgoblin just laughed as she dragged the sack through the forest. Estoc squirmed and wriggled more, then snapped up at her. "B-Blood shaman... what the fuck does a blood shaman even do for the Horde?"

The hobgoblin snorted. "Why are we called the Horde, do you think?"

"Cause there's a fuck of a lot of you," Estoc shot.

The hobgoblin paused.

Then she did something that made Estoc get real confused. She looked down at the fairie. "Spell Horde," she said.

Estoc blinked at her. "H O R D E."

The hobgoblin sneered. "Fuck. Fuck no wonder you elves were so easy to trick into fighting them - you don't know shit about anything." She started to drag the sack more, her grin feral. "It's spelled H O A R D. The Hoard is called that because the true wealth of them is not the gold and the gems and the iron and the flamepowder. It's the blood. The blood, you dipshit. The people!" She shook her head. "That's why Ner'gal, the glorious master, is doing this... because our Elder is weak in mind and weak in spirit - he has turned his back on what makes the Hoard great, he spurns the power of blood magic."

Estoc tried to not gulp. There was the passion of the true convert in those eyes... or...

Wait...

Estoc might not have been the best at reading people. She might not have been the cleverest diplomat. But she had played a lot of cards in her time in the bunk and barracks. She could tell when someone was hyping themselves up to cover for a bad hand. She bit her lower lip, thinking as the hobgoblin shouldered through some branches and emerged into a clearing. Snow dusted jutting, half buried structure of stone and carved rock. An ancient statue that had been cracked off at the knees was mounted by the entrance, the ankles showing hooves and nothing else. The hobgoblin panted, loudly.

"Made it," she said.

"What the fuck do you want with that old ruin?" Estoc asked.

"Do you recognize it?" the hobgoblin asked, reaching down to take her water canteen from her hip and swigging it. She wiped the back of her mouth.

"Yeah, there are ancient ruins all over the place, who gives a shit," Estoc asked - thinking furiously. Shit. Shit. They're poking around the Precursor ruins. Zero Dagger. This is Zero Dagger shit, Estoc!

"Course you don't. Idiots. Fools." The hobgoblin sighed. "Now. We got a ritual to continue."

She dragged the sack towards the entrance - and towards the sound of chanting, feminine voices.

Estoc, meanwhile, wriggled her shoulders. Pressure, relaxation. Pressure, relaxation.

Loosen.

Loosen.

Zero Dagger.

She thought the words again and again, as she strained herself.

Zero Dagger.

***

The orc ship that cut across the water swarmed with crew at work - but none did a thing for her sails, for she had none. No, instead, goblins worked below decks, shoveling fire-rock into the smoke belching, cantankerous machinery that throbbed beneath her decks. The ship was known as the Gofast, because it was not the strongest, nor the most heavily armored, which would be the preferred method for the Eldest of the Hoard to be transported. No. It was the swiftest, and it carved through the Great Northern Sea like a dagger, plunging towards a beating heart.

Save it was not a civilization it sought to end.

No.

It was calamity that the crew of the Gofast were so eager on abating.

L'ara wished that she could feel more hope for her future prospects as she sat in the small, stuffy meeting chamber that the captain of the Gofast, Herrin Spinnywheel, had set up for her, Athelen Cthonic, Scimitar Darkblade, and Melindan Millwheel. The three from the Many Hued Nation, as L'ara had learned was the name of the elf lands, were all looking somberly down at the gathered parchments and scrolls, while Melindan drank from a drinkbeast as if she had been among the Hoard her whole born days.

That in and of itself was something that vexed L'ara.

"So, you are a goblin?" she asked.

"Aye," Melindan said, smiling as she leaned against Scimitar Darkblade, whose lips were pursed as he glowered down at the parchment he read, his bright red eyes scanning back and forth, back and forth. He shook his head slowly.

"This shant do," he said, tossing the latest offering down. "The moon elves would find it insulting."

L'ara sighed. She picked up the document, which had been one that she had scribbled during the earlier days of their sailing across the sea, and crumpled it up, then tossed it into the pile of other failed missives, speeches, and even poetic songs that the entire diplomatic mission had been writing to try and secure some kind of peaceful communication with the elves once they had arrived at the port of Sunshadow under the flag of truce.

"Why do you ask like I'm a goblin as if it's odd?" Melindan asked, as the cabin door opened and one of the goblin crewmen of the Gofast stuck his head in.

"Food's here!" he barked out, and soon, sizzling, freshly cooked cattlebeasts cuts were being laid out before the elves. Athelen frowned down at her meal, her nose wrinkling slightly.

"It's... not quite as appetizing as what I used to eat on either my ship, nor Othar's," she said, softly.

"The Gofast can't hold the fancy cattlebeasts you're used too," the goblin said, then grinned amiably at Melindan. "So, you free later-"

"Dating someone bigger than you," she said, casually. The goblin's ears drooped and he walked from the room.

"He's a goblin!" L'ara snapped. "You're a goblin! Don't you find that odd in the slightest!?"

"No, why?" Melindan asked, lifting her gaze up to look at L'ara.

"Goblins joined the Hoard in the first and second conquests - two different tribes of them, both of them related, both originating in the Gobnemarkan Desert," L'ara said. "At first, I thought that our goblins and your goblins, the elf goblins, are different stock of the same branching point. But then I got some of your hair, Melindan, and you don't even share a single thread of bloodlines with them. You are two entirely different species, and yet, you're both goblins."

"That simply makes sense to me," Melindan said.

"It would be like meeting a twin giant after being born as an ogroc!" L'ara threw up her hands.

Melindan shrugged. "Strange things happen on the world of Ul-zat."

L'ara grumbled and crossed her arms over her chest, then sighed as Athelen lifted her head. "I think this will work."

"Great, we'll just-" L'ara reached out, to take the document, crumple it up and throw it away. Then she stopped and listened to what Athelen had said. "It... it will work? The elves will listen to this?"

"It's abject enough, and poetic enough," Athelen said. Her voice grew soft. "And... if the stories Scimitar have brought of Denergar Rock are true, I think that it can speak to a growing sickness in the hearts of all elves. If that soul sickness is taking sure and deep root... then the tiniest admonition here, in the final words, will be enough to sway the High Queen, I think." She sighed, quietly. "But it is still a risky thing."

L'ara took the document in careful hands. She folded it gently, then bowed. "Thank you. I..." She hesitated.

How do you begin to apologize for what had happened. So many had died, on both sides. So many had had their lives utterly upended by what both sides had done. L'ara was trying, even now, to try and disentangle who had more cause for offense and grief - and with the harrowing tales of what had been done at Denergar Rock, she knew that many in the Hoard would never forgive the elves for what they had done... yet... even Othar, who had been as dedicated to humanity as any other knight, had fallen to the temptations of this wickedness, when surrounded by the Hoard. L'ara looked down at her parchment.

Was...

Was there something wrong with the Hoard? Something that blood magic couldn't find nor fix, because it did not lurk in muscle and sinew, nor bone and glistening organs, but in the... the soul, for lack of a better word. She was, like every other eager grunt who threw themselves into battle against the elves, and wrought brutal vengeance both on and off the killing grounds, had been raised on the legends and tales of the Hoard, and of the clear good they had done to the world. Kingdoms of servitude and subjugation overthrown, famines banished by their innovations of cattlebeasts and fruit-vines and other miracles of blood magic. Prudery and disdain for women, cast into the trash.

She had been proud of it all.

And yet... what was the shadow of pride?

Arrogance.

She shook her head as she stepped from the room.

And we ran from triumph to triumph over a cliff, she thought as she stepped onto the wind swept deck of the Gofast, her face as somber as it had ever been. She hurried to the goblin scribes in the bow cabin of the Gofast, ducking in to hear the clattering and clicking noises of all their strange machines and complex aparatus. They barely waited for the words to leave her mouth as she held out her missive. "This needs to be copied and-" and the document was snatched from her hand, a toothy grin and glittering gold eyes shining up at her.

"Gotcha, Shamaness!"

She stepped away, leaving them to their work.

L'ara's progress ended with her near the chambers that Othar had been escorted too. She placed her palm on the glittering iron door, her fingers sliding along rivets and bolts, then touched the red painted wheel. This mere caress caused the door to open, and she found Othar sitting in the corner of the room, glowering at the comfortable bed he could have been using, his broad wings swept around his shoulders, his tail around his shins.

L'ara hesitated then spoke, softly. "Have... you spoken to Athelen?" she asked, quietly.

Othar shook his head.

L'ara nodded. She sighed. "I don't have anything to absolve you with, Othar. You need to find that."

He lifted his gaze up to her. "It would be... very easy to blame you, Shamaness," he said - and those words, after their sharing their bodies, cut close. It cut closer still as her palm brushed her belly - feeling the baby growing within her. His baby. His child. "For what you did to me."

L'ara lifted her chin, slightly. "I didn't change your brain."

"No," Othar said, then closed his eyes. He blew two streamers of smoke from his nostrils. Then he pushed himself to his feet, almost bonking his head into the roof of the iron shod room. His hand touched the wall above the iron door, and he looked down at L'ara. "I don't blame you, Shamaness. But Don't talk to me. Not for some time." He grabbed the door and slammed it shut - but she knew it was not to keep her out.

It was to keep him inside.

L'ara shook her head again.

Didn't change his brain. But we did change his mind, she thought as her passage brought her to the deck, where her father was standing at the prow, watching the coastline of the elves beginning to creep over the edge of the horizon. The grayish sky overhead felt entirely appropriate for the grim attitude that L'ara had been carrying - and when L'ara stepped to his side, Elder Tarish smiled.

"We can do it," he said. That was all that needed to be said - his voice was so confident, his tone so assured, his posture so easy, that L'ara felt the sensation catch in her breast. She smiled ever so slightly and lifted her chin up and her shoulder squared a bit.

"We must do it," she said.

The elf city of Sunshadow grew from a gleaming dot, to a pale white toy, to a splendor, to a glory. The swiftness of their ship only made the sensation of seeing a wonder unfolding before one's eyes grow more intense... and L'ara was only able to take it all in in a kind of a daze. Orcs built with iron and bone, and goblins could design remarkably constructions - one only had to see an oil derrick built underneath a bar, which itself was built underneath another oil derrick to realize that. But she had never once in her life seen people breathe life and beauty into stone like this. Sunshadow cupped around a perfectly shaped harbor, with multiple sets of wave breakers sunk into the water and sculpted with statues of elegant elven heroes and warriors, while stone docks thrust into the crystal clear blue waters of the bay, with dozens of ships berthed to them in neat rows, their sails and their rigging as precise as if they had been drawn by rulers and lines. Cargo was being shepherded off the ships by grunting elves in nearly no clothes at all, while warriors in mail codpieces and simply leather strips over their breasts and chests stood at attention on towers and walls that surrounded the harbor, giving a total encirclement without cannon or guns - but rather, with those longbows that the elves preferred.

Beyond the harbor was the city itself. Tier upon tier of massive stone buildings, each one scaled larger than an orc's dwelling, more splendid than a human mansion, and they all shone brightly in sunlight that suddenly split through the clouds overhead - golden rays brushing across the city like a paintbrush bringing to life what had once been merely an impression, a sketch. Only with the light did L'ara realize just how many striations of color there was in marble alone.

And as the Gofast slowed into the harbor, L'ara realized that the movement and the clamor and the noise of the harbor was missing. It was completely, utterly still.

The elves were watching. Their eyes were glued on the flag that fluttered from the highest pole on the goblin ship.

"Well, we're so many pincushions if they don't like it," Captain Herrin Spinnywheel grumbled, while L'ara heard the whirr and clank of the iron porthole behind her opening. Othar thumped onto the deck, frowning.

A low, steady whistle filled the air...

And an arrow THUNKED into the deck before L'ara's feet, sticking fully into the iron like it was carving into wood.

It quivered.

"Everyone, remain calm and still," her father rumbled. "That was not a shot meant to kill."

"How can you tell?" L'ara hissed.

"Elves don't miss," her father said. Then, bellowing, he called out. "We come in parlay! To speak to the High Queen and her council."

There was silence.

Then another arrow. This one whipped right past Elder Tarish's ear and thudded into the wheel that was used to steer the ship. The goblin at the helm remained perfectly still, her ears pinning back, as a trolloc crewman at attention hissed.

"A-Are you okay?"

"I pissed myself," the goblin mumbled between clenched jaws.

L'ara ignored the smell, as her father stood, bare chested, glaring at the elf city.

Then, slowly, a boat was lowered from one of the piers and began to scull towards them. In two sweeps of the oar, the blue elves in the boat managed to take it from almost a hundred meters away to close enough for one to leap up, then land on the prow of the Gofast, to glare at her father. He was clad in sleek armor that exposed much of his chest, his helmet fixed tight to his pale blue hair.

"Parlay," he said, quietly. "After what happened at the Battle of the Three Passes? After the last parlay that you offered was returned with a four day procession of the every surviving male and female of the forts there?"

Father closed his mighty eyes, his shoulders dipping...

But it was not his voice, nor L'ara's, which saved the moment. It was a most unlikely one.

"That's rubbish!"

Everyone gasped, spinning to face Melindan. The common born goblin, and former wife to a miller, stood beside Scimitar Darkblade, who had emerged from below decks with her. Melindan's voice carried as she spoke aloud. "I may have been married to a miller, but before that, I was an adventurer. I traveled with Scimitar and my poor departed husband - facing beasts and wild dragons and wicked plots, and it does not take a genius to smell something fishy going on here. Even in the den of pirates who had turned their back on the Hoard, trollocs, orcs and dracorcs were... rough, but honorable. They disdain slavery and revel in freedom, song, and good friendship. They are not brutes, beasts, nor animals. And neither, too, are elves! Elves love merriment and song, and the touch of a lover! Something has turned both our peoples against one another. You have to see it!"

The sea elf - L'ara could see the gills, just beneath the edge of the helmet - tensed.

Then... he sighed.

"I... I am sick of this war," he said, softly. "Though my blood sings for your death... my soul remembers the sea glades and glens, and gentle marshes." He nodded. "Come. I shall take you to the High Queen and her council."

As the boats were made ready, L'ara stepped back, whispering to Melindan. "W-What evidence do you have about this, uh, fell power?"

"None at all, I was lying," Melindan hissed back. At L'ara's look, she shrugged and spread her hands. "H-Hey, I was a rogue, a trapsmith and lock whisperer. Lying quickly was my entire reason to be in the party, it sure wasn't simply to admire Scimitar's tight black ass."

Scimitar frowned, turning his gaze at her. "You were... dating Fronden at the time."

"Girls have eyes," Melindan muttered. "It's no crime."

The procession down Sunshadow was the most eerie parade that L'ara had ever been in. Elves, as scantily clad as any whore she had ever seen, lined the ways to watch the orcs in deadly silence, while high elves in armor that seemed more lewd than protective flanked them as they marched towards the palace of the High Queen, the Everqueen, and a dozen other flowery names that she knew not. The elves remained utterly silent, their eyes glaring and fierce - as if each was holding themselves back from unleashing terrible violence. But as they entered into the palace, the true eeriness struck her with Othar's soft whisper.

"There are no children," he said.

L'ara blinked, looking at him, then back over her shoulder, even as the massive doors closed with a grinding crash. She had no time to confirm it now - now, there was merely the large, circular chamber where the Everqueen resided. The room was a strange kaleidoscope. At one edge of the door, it was somber black, then shifted in color and decoration - bass relief coral reefs and pale blue paint, imagery of mountains in purple, stars in ocher and reds, swirling forests, ice crystals, spiderwebs in silver on black, and other strange representations. L'ara pieced it all together when she saw the Everqueen herself reclining on a ruby and gold throne.

She was... every elf. Her form shifted, chimeralike, with ebony skin and purple skin, gold and brown eyes, antlers that came and went, with eyes that glittered and blinked shut to vanish away. She had two, sometimes, and eight other times. The only thing constant was the long, pointed ears, and the sheer ethereal beauty. Her voice came, melodious and ringing.

"Greetings, Tarish, Eldest of the Orcish Horde. Welcome to Sunshadow. Welcome to my court. My finest advisor, Lord Sindroc Evenshadow shall be here soon to assist us in this most fraught diplomacy..."

Nearly invisible doors opened in each of those alcoves representing different elfkinds. Robed figures, their bodies entirely concealed, began to enter. The Everqueen's features were hard to read, but confusion flitted through her many eyes.

"Who are these?" Othar asked.

"Priestesses... what does the Whore Goddess need of us?" The Everqueen asked - causing L'ara to choke. The first elves wearing any clothes, and they were the followers of the whore goddess? But before she could speak, the robes were cast back.

And they were no elves at all.

"AMBUSH!" Her father bellowed - but his battleax had been taken, and the elf guards reacted with unerring speed. One drew his blade and turned to face the strange orange skinned, rangy women who had cast their robes aside... only for an elf blade to burst from his back. One of the guards smirked, wrenching his sword from his comrade. The shock at the singular betrayal left the other high elf guards stunned - and that fraction of a second was enough. Darts and knives flashed and in mere seconds, the guards sprawled on the floor, while the ambassadorial party pressed back to back, facing outwards, their fists raised impotently. Father had gotten one of the elf swords into his hand - for a second, before the elf metal hissed against his palm and he was forced to drop it.

The Everqueen, meanwhile, remained rooted to the spot - for one of the orange skinned women had sprang to her side and pressed a flamepowder weapon to the side of her head.

The sound of a single set of hands clapping - once, twice, thrice - proceeded the entrance of a slender, smirking elf-man, dressed in naught but a leaf green thong and a flowing silk robe. He clapped but once more - and then came to a stop.

"L... Lord... Lord... Sindroc?!" The Everqueen gasped. "Wh... What are you doing?"

Lord Sindroc laughed, his voice dripping malice. L'ara, though, was not even looking at him. She was goggling at the orange skinned women.

"That's Ner'gal's handiwork!" she hissed to her father, his jaw tightened, his tusks creaking.

"Answer me!" The Everqueen's voice resonated with a terrifying depth and fury, eight ruby red eyes blazing in her ebony face.

Lord Sindroc crooned. "Succeeding you, mother."

The orange skinned woman smirked.

And pulled the trigger!