7 Chapter 6: Mafrien- I bring War! (1/2)
Chapter 6: Mafrien- I bring War!
November, 1101 A.D.
\tIt was the last day of the month. I inwardly grinned in vicious pleasure as a messenger cowered on his knees before my father, mother and I on our thrones.
\t”So,” my father said darkly. ”You are telling me that the Woodelves have the audacity to give one of their assassins a mission to eliminate us?” His already deep voice lowered another octave, and the messenger pressed his face to the floor.
\t”Y-Yes, Lord Kellerok! According to our source inside of Havengrove, a Woodelf assassin has been given the mission to assassinate the Royal Family of the Darkelves!”
\tMy father stood, and the messenger jolted, his already shaking body quivering all the harder as he began sobbing.
\t”Please forgive me for delivering you this horrible news, your Maliciousness!”
\t”Father,” I interjected. ”Would you allow me the sincere pleasure of going to that filthy Havengrove city and wiping out the worthless Woodelves? With your permission, I would happily go and expunge them.”
\tMy father stroked his white goatee, mulling it over for a moment. Then he finally returned to his seat. ”Yes....Yes, Mafrien. See to it that they are successfully destroyed.”
\tI glanced at my mother, and cringed at the displeased look on her face. I looked away from her to my father, and bowed. ”It is my honor and privilege to serve you, my father.” And then I ripped the messenger off of the floor and drug him out of the throne room.
\tOnce we were outside of the room and the doors were closed, I set him on his feet fluidly. He cleared his throat and straightened himself.
\t”Go and rally the secondary Darkelf army. They should be more than sufficient in wiping out those Wood-scum. Have them to be ready in an hour. And have them bring the burning oils that the Orks crafted for us. We will be putting it to use right away. Have it stored on camels.”
\t”Yes, Prince Mafrien, right away!” He said as he scurried off. I sighed, holding my head. What a pathetic weakling. No backbone at all. It was disgusting.
\tI went to my chambers, and had my young Ork-girl servant undress me, putting my white battle armor on my body. I had a good meal, and then I looked at myself in the mirror.
\tI stood tall, nearly seven feet. And yet, my father made me look short. My dark, charcoal-gray skin against the solid white of my hair was intimidating enough, but my blood red eyes were nearly frightening even to myself sometimes.
\tIn my armor, colored white for only the royal family to wear, I looked magnificent indeed.
\tI armed myself, and then I left my bed chambers and went out to the gates of the city. My army was already there, waiting for me.
\t”Tonight, we set out on the ten day on foot journey to Havengrove, the Woodelf city. Tonight, we march. In ten days, we destroy!”
\tThunderous applause and the roar of battle-heated cries, my army followed me out of the city and into the desert, heading north to the Woodelf city.
\tFor days, we marched. No food, no rest.
\tOn the tenth night, we were outside of the city's boarders, hidden in the disgustingly lush forest.
\t”Tonight, we will feast and rest, preparing for our first strike in the morning,” I told them. ”We will rest here for the night. At dawn, we prepare the oils and start the fires....and then, we attack.”
\tI had a strange sensation about our attack on Havengrove city. I felt something. I could only fathom that it was anticipation. But anticipation for what, I wondered? I felt as if I were going to meet someone, someone that would change my fate. But that was silly, ridiculous. An absurdity, to be certain. How could I be about to meet someone that would change my fate in a city that I was about to destroy?
\tThe next morning came quickly, and we briefly discussed battle strategies. I only had around one hundred soldiers, and they were only second-grade Darkelves, turned from other elven races such as Mountain elves, Ocean elves, and Woodelves. The higher-grade Darkelves were turned into Darkelves from Skyelves. And the highest grade were the Born Darkelves, but that all depended on their parentage, of course.
\tI was the very first born Darkelf, coming from two Skyelf-turned-Darkelves. I was one of the highest class Darkelves there were.
\tI was very confident, however, that one hundred low-grade Darkelves would be all I needed to wipe out this city. After all, they were weaklings.
\tWe set out again after suiting up, and it would only be a few more hours before we would be entering the city. I sent scouts ahead to sneak into the city undetected and begin setting the oils on the trees and setting fires.
\tAs we arrived to the outer wall of the city, we looked upon the wall. It would be simple enough to break through, using the battering ram. It was a wall made of stone, mud, and trees and vines. And there were only two Woodelves guarding it.
\tIt was only when we saw the smoke and heard the rising panic from the fires that we made ourselves known.
\tWhen they saw us, one frantically began blowing a horn, and we heard a deeper, louder horn begin sounding inside of the city.
\tWe killed one of the guards, but the other had already fled into the city.
\tWe took the battering ram, and began slamming it into the thick, wooden gates of the city. It broke after a few strong slams, and we lit arrows aflame and began shooting them into the city. I then had them use the catapult to bring down part of the outer wall, so that all of my soldiers could make it through into the city.
\tThe ground shook with the force of it, and the horns in the city began sounding even more frantically.
\tI took in a victorious breath as I stepped foot into the city.
\tWe began to laugh as dried trees caught fire, and slaughtering people trying to evacuate as we made our way into the outer ring of the city. There weren't many people who lived out here, but it was a start.
\tWe set fire to cabins and huts, trees all alike. It all looked the same to my Darkelf eyes.
\tAs we arrived to the middle ring, there were dozens of guards lined on the top of the wall.
\tI motioned my soldiers to bring out the catapult, and I raised one arm up into the air. ”I BRING WAR!” I shouted, my voice belting out my divine authority for destruction into the air, and shot my arm forward as they released the catapult, a great stone from their own outer wall bringing down the middle ring wall. Shouts sounded as bodies flew off of the wall, and the ground shook.
\tMore soldiers came rushing up to defend the gate, but my soldiers made short work of many of them.
\tThere were several who my soldiers could not harm easily, and I began to rethink my choice of warriors to bring.
\tBlood pumped through my body, giving me adrenaline as I stabbed, sliced, parried. It was all a fun game.
\tI laughed, having a great time, until something.... unexpected caught my attention.
\tA young Woodelf man, with dark, dark brown and black hair and lavender eyes, was shoved to the ground by one of my generals. He was fighting to keep the general from decapitating him, and my general stabbed him in the chest.
\tHe cried out, and his arms weakened against the blade at his neck.
\tJust before his arms could give out, she arrived.
\tA blonde-haired woman rushed up behind my soldier and, leaping into the air, pulled out an assassin's knife. She brought it down with force into the top of the general's skull, and he fell, dead at her feet. I watched her fall to her knees, staring at him with fear and pain in her eyes. I knew the look all too well, the look of taking someone's life for the very first time.
\tSo, I had witnessed her first kill. I could see the weight of his life fall upon her, guilt panging in her heart.
\tShe snapped herself out of her daze quickly, before she began panicking frantically over the Woodelf man below her. She pressed her hands against the stab wound in his chest. I could barely make out pleas to tell her how to heal him over the roar of the battle around me.
\tAnd he brought his hand up to cup her cheek, the silly fool trying to comfort her. From their posture and body language with one another, one could assume they were close friends, though it looked more as if they were perhaps even lovers. It seemed a little...too close.
\tIt was sickeningly affectionate, and I hated it.
\tI could see the life fading from his eyes, and I watched on with satisfaction. She shook her head violently, before she bit into her own arm and pressed it against her mouth, drinking her own blood, and then leaned over to kiss him while she pressed her bleeding arm into the wound.
\tBlood ran down his cheek from his mouth, and his eyes got wide. His body began to thrash, and she held him down, forcing his body to lay still.
\tI couldn't understand what I was watching. I didn't understand.
What was she doing?
Why had she done this?
There was nothing special about Woodelf blood....
\tWas there?
\tI watched the change in his eyes, and it was almost as if he were a different man. Something had changed, you could see the chemical difference in the way he watched her. Before, his gaze had been endearing and protective, but now...now, he looked at her as if she were the very gravity that held him to the earth. It was a dangerous look.
\tI couldn't grasp what was happening for a moment.
\tAnd then, as another soldier went to kill her, a Mountain elf with black hair cried out, rushing over to her, and he interceded and was cut down instead as he protected her from getting killed. She whipped her head around to look, her face devastated.
\t”Grimoir!” She shouted. And then she stood from her straddling position over the Woodelf man, and jumped onto the soldier, ripping her teeth into the flesh of his throat. She pulled backward with force, ripping his throat open violently as she jumped back off of him, gulping down the blood in her mouth, and releasing a dark, guttural, feral sounding cry. She watched as he fell at her feet, dead. And there was an eerie satisfaction in her eyes, on her face. The Woodelf man watched her in amazed horror.
\tAnd then I truly looked at her face.
\tHer face was covered in Wraith markings, and her eyes were glowing a silver-blue that was certainly not a Woodelf trait. Yet she had the blonde hair of a Woodelf, and the ears. It was only then that it clicked.
\tI suddenly understood.
She was a hybrid!
A hybrid of the Light and Dark Realms, of a Woodelf and a Wraith. And as I got a closer look at her markings, realizing the shape, my heart filled with a sinister, greedy pleasure.
\tThis was too perfect. I knew exactly what clan of the Wraiths she belonged to. And oh, boy, was this something that I could use against them in the future should I desire to! This could destroy their fragile, beastly governing system.
\tOther Woodelves around her watched, amazed, as if they had never seen her fight before. And perhaps they hadn't, the possibility shocking me. She was very skilled, indeed. Definitely one of the most vastly skilled of the Woodelves that I had ever seen. And I had killed more than plenty in my time.
\tShe parried and slashed through ten more warriors with a speed that they could hardly comprehend and that even I was surprised at, making her total kill number twelve.
And that was just on her own. It didn't make sense; how superior she was to the Woodelves. It was a shock.
\tShe moved much more fluidly than the Woodelves. She was faster, stronger.
\tI knew then; I had to have her. I had to make her mine.
\tAnother of my warriors came up behind her to dispatch her, but I threw my spear with a great thrust to impale him through the throat, and he gurgled as he dropped.
\tShe whipped around, looking at him, looking at what was happening, and then followed the path of my spear to look at me dead on, her eyes locking with mine.
\tMany of my soldiers who remained looked at me with shocked, even mildly angry expressions as they all murmured and questioned me.
\tBut I paid them no mind. My attention was caught on the girl.
\tTime seemed to stand still, and I saw her in another place and time, only she had wings and a crown upon her head. Her eyes widened as if she saw me differently, also, and I idly wondered what she saw.
\tWe were thrust back to the present as one of my men shook me out of my daze. I ripped the Darkelf horn from his belt and blew into it, sounding our retreat.
\tWith shock and outrage, my army hesitantly began to retreat out of the city, and I ran to the edge of the burning forest, before turning back and watching the girl.
\tThe Woodelf man who had been stabbed and bleeding out was now standing at her side, completely healed, as she watched me with a wary expression on her beautiful face. I took in a deep breath, memorizing the girl's scent, before I disappeared into the forest.
\tI followed my nose through the burning forest to her dwelling, a large fir tree that had not yet been completely burned to the ground, though it was on fire.
\tMy army, now down to only thirty, didn't question me. They waited patiently for me to give them orders, as they should. They knew what would happen to them if they questioned me.
\t”Go, and return back to Barrenwilds. There is something that I must take care of. Have my servants prepare clothes for a woman.”
\tThey nodded, and went on to go out of the city.
\tI heard victorious shouts from the middle ring, even from way out here. And I, myself, felt victorious.
\tThey might still be alive and live to fight another day...
\tBut I would have that girl.
\tIt began to rain, and I felt disappointed anger as all of my hard work setting their cabins and huts and forest on fire went to waste. Thunder crashed around me, lightning flashing dangerously close to me, but it made me feel only all the more exhilarated. Now, I made my way to where her scent was the strongest in the city, a cabin in the middle ring of the city and I could smell.... coitus activities in the air. I found a good hiding place outside, waiting, watching.
\tI waited a few hours, before I began to get impatient.
\tBut eventually, I heard voices approaching, and I listened in, looking out a small little window to see who it was.
\tIt was the girl and the Woodelf man she had fed her blood to.
\t”Are you sure that you're alright, Kysael?” He asked. He hovered over her protectively, his eyes glued to her. There was something about the way he acted around her...he acted as if he wanted to have his hands all over her. And I couldn't blame him, I felt much the same way.
\tAnd then I remembered, when a Wraith shares their blood with a non-Wraith, it creates an intense bond that isn't possible with any other race. Even the Elven Soul Bond isn't as powerful, it could be broken. This bond was a Blood bond, one that could only end in death.
\tAnd it was a bond created by the Wraiths to create servants, to have servants who would kill themselves if the Wraith asked it. Endless food sources and body guards to dispose of at their leisure.
\tIt was a very powerful tool, and I felt sorry for the poor fool. He had no idea what she had just done to him.
\t”I am fine, really, Dragon.”
\tDragon...I instantly recognized the name. He was a world-famous healer, a Woodelf nobleman who was well respected for his knowledge and skill in healing and medicine, despite how young he was.