A Spark in the Wind

Chapter 11: A Kingdom to Run

"It is no joke, but a true peril we are in," scoffed Caravir at the Sylvan-King, Meneldir so far had been eavesdropping from behind the doorway – his ears wide open and senses alert.

"I am not willing to waste my warriors upon some fantasy!" the king argued back. "There is no evidence of all that. The last time the daemons of chaos truly attacked, our forests withered away and rivers poisoned. You say this time the enemies are thrice as perilous as last time, so where are the decaying leaves? Where are the great spiders nesting within the trees? Where are the fish with blistered scales and dying tree-kin tearing the forest apart?"

"It was already begun, in secret! Fell dragons assail your people, chaos-elves are raiding villages, destroying farms, desecrating shrines, killing innocents . . . with each passing day their numbers grow and yours reduce, satyrs and druids from around the vales are being converted to cultists of chaos and worshippers of Morthaur. Soon enough will the entire world fall to their grasp, and be devoured back into primordial essence, you must take action now or see your kinsmen, the people after whom you've looked for the last three thousand years, face the most horrible death possible."

"Hah!" he pranced about, "do not fear, the daemons are not foolish enough to attack us first. Should they ever come unto our world; their first prey will be the high-elves, and then the orcs. By that time the dwarves will have engaged in battle too, and after all of that will come our time. And then we shall strike and defeat them, for they will then fall like feathers in a zephyr."

"Do you hope to know the mind of Morthaur better than us, the dragons?" asked Caravir. "O fool of a king, we dragons are the children of Kaal Time-Serpent, as is Morthaur Destroyer of Worlds. You should be joyous for our aid against our own kin and nature, not shrugging us off as meagre doom-mongers."

"Do not teach me history, for I am well learned in that," the king replied, "worst case scenario: the past is repeated. Long ago when the Empire of the First Elves stood strong, Morthaur invaded and destroyed their capital, but spared their colonies to grow to greater powers. If this is to happen again, we will be at an upper hand, in a world devoid of high-elves."

...

"But the high-elves will be killed!" Meneldir burst in, "have you no compassion for them? Will you let them all die knowing they're doing it all for the good of us?"

"I thought I made it clear to you that this was a matter of the ancients, and yet here you are, having eavesdropped all the time whilst we talked," he scolded, "as for your questions, yes . . . they will die, and perhaps then they will pay for all the crimes they've done in the previous eras."

"Crimes? What crimes?" Meneldir scoffed at his father. "They waged war against the forces of darkness to secure this world for us, they gave us the chance to follow them to Alímar because they wished good for us. They taught us their science as they wished..."

"You think they did all of that for us?" he neared his son, "listen then: the war against the Aerryan Dominion was not for us but for their own supremacy, they beckoned us to follow them to Alímar because they wanted to mould us into their image, as for arcane? The teachings of the high-folk brought to us nothing more than trouble."

"You cannot say that," he cried aloud. "They're our kin as well; we should aid them, for they've aided us for long."

"Aid?" the king retorted. "Remember: it is because of them your grandfather died, it is because of them that the daemons first dared to come to our world, it is because of them that we all suffer now! What have they brought to us but death and loss?"

"But that was an accident; you can't blame them for just having been there when the daemons first stepped into our world. They lost their king as well!"