by B G Mitchell
Made to look like beautiful dark elf women with long hair and a scorpion tail as well as white eyes and six scorpion legs of either side of her waist, before the statue was a simple grey stone block with chains attached and with a couple of old stains which were most likely blood. Nataylia moved to the front, taking a seat next to the other remaining member of house Dournden, next to her younger sister, Sylvania, she was just twenty-five years younger than her. She also had light blue eyes and light blue hair as well with streaks of white in it, and even thought she was a whole inch taller, she wore a simple white ruffled shirt made of spider silk and a short red skirt as well as the open sandals with straps going up to her knees.
Sylvania was a lot more colourful and bubbly then her sister, Nataylia, who felt like it was her job to look after Sylvania. She grabbed her sister’s hand and gave her a reassuring smile as the hall doors opened, causing the background chatter to stop, and in entered a couple of Arnea house soldiers, followed by a tall human which immediately caused the chatter to start again in speculation.
Behind him was another member of house Arnea who she immediately recognised as Lucinda. She had never talked to Lucinda but had seen her around, and it had been advised by her Matron mother to know all there is to know about the first house or as she said know your enemy well.
Lucinda briefly turned to her, their eyes meeting briefly before she turned to the human, who Nataylia noticed was busy looking at the altar with a rather concerned look. Lucinda put her hands up for silence, which she received. She then spoke in a loud voice, “Nobles, the goddess has abandoned us to our own fate along with most of her faithful. I have the human here who is responsible, and we must decide what to do now.”
Nataylia squeezed her sister’s hand and then stood up as she took in a deep breath. “I say we abandon the goddess, as she has abandoned us.” The silence somehow got even thicker. All dark elves had been taught to worship and love Zateria. As the race’s one true goddess, the one whose guidance had helped defeat the dark minds, what she was proposing was heresy. She turned to the leader of the soldier, who all stood a little uneasy after she spoke. “Your sword, captain.” The captain looked at Lucinda who simply nodded and then handed her sword to Nataylia in a very awkward fashion.
She then climbed up on to the altar. “Zateria was the liberator of our ancestors, but she is now a tyrant driven mad by power, and I say enough is enough.” Before anyone had a chance to respond, she raised the sword and swung towards the neck of the statue, which landed with a loud clang as a piece of marble chipped off. She then swung again, even harder, but the sword hit with another dull thud.
Then the captain came to the base of the statue and started to try and topple it by pushing it. She then motioned towards the other soldiers to join her, for a tense moment they looked at Lucinda and as they did, so did the rest of the room, eager to see the outcome. She waited for a second as if enjoying the drama, then simply nodded. The other soldiers rushed to help. After a bit of pushing and with the help of a couple of pole arms used as levers, the statue was tipped over and landed with a loud thud, causing the weakened neck to break, severing the head and also destroying a couple of her scorpion arms in a cloud of dust.
Nataylia smiled to herself. She had wanted to do that for a while now. She had managed to get a parchment from the surface world that contained the name of an alternative goddess. One she had been praying to and one who had guided her away from the madness of Zateria. She was planning to replicate the document and spread it to the masses. Looking at the audience, no one seemed too concerned about losing their goddess. She then noticed that the human Lucinda had dragged in was slowly inching his way towards the door. He understandably did not feel comfortable in a dark elf temple.
She turned to Lucinda and asked, “What are you going to do with the human?”
Lucinda looked at him and noticed how close he was getting to the doors. She tapped one of the soldiers on the shoulder and pointed towards the doors. The soldier quickly got in between the human and the door, leaving the human to wander off to the side while looking suspiciously casual. Lucinda then replied, “Not too sure. He is rather responsible for this mess.”
“Well,” replied Nataylia. “I think it may be best if we take him to the dwarven city of Blindstone and he can make his way to the surface.”
Lucinda gave her a studying look for a moment before nodding her agreement. “Fine, I will send a couple of males to escort him. We both need to stay for the moment. I sense you want to spread the word of Mikiria.”
Nataylia could not believe that she knew the goddess’s name and that she had been found out as a follower, a crime which would have carried a death sentence well, on top of toppling the statue of the ancient goddess, now she actually felt hope not just for her but for the rest of the dark elves.
Gary had guessed they had been travelling for about three days. It was a bit hard to tell under the ground, luckily the moss that provided a light could be carried, not as good as daylight or a light bulb but it was a light. The other problem was time, which was luckily kept up by his guides who decided when he slept or ate. What was rather interesting was his chosen mode of a transport, which happened to be a giant spider, a tarantula, to be precise.
Gary was not exactly wild on spiders. He could live with them, but anything bigger than an ten pence coin, and the part of his brain the controlled his fight or flight response instantly assumed that the spider was poisons and that as a young spider Gary had once accidently stepped on his father, and the spider had since been looking at him in a quest for vengeance. The logical part of his brain reminded him that there were no poisonous spiders in the British Isles (another part of his brain told him not to double check that fact). This left him half scared out of his wits as he performed the ancient ritual of trying to get the spider into a cup and to cover the cup with a piece of card, while reminding himself spiders killed lots of insects, most of which, he assumed where guilty of some heinous crime.
Seeing a giant spider with a saddle on it was not what he hoped for, but he had grit his teeth and managed to get one easily enough since the beast was so close to the ground, and he actually found it rather docile. It was rather like riding a very short eight legged horse (so nothing like riding a horse). At least it was more stable and could cross any terrain the underground threw at them.
His travelling guide had been the same dark elves that had escorted him in the city and not much in conversation partners, keeping to themselves and did not talk much to each other in front of him.
So he had used the time to check what supplies he had in his bag. His smart phone had long ago run out of battery power. He also had his laptop. It had some battery power, but he was hoping to save that, even though he had a charger, he so far had to find a plug socket. Luckily he also had his bag of demon gold coins. He had not had a chance to count them yet, but no matter how much gold he had, he could not buy any proper food or a bath.
The food he did get seemed to be fungus based and had very little flavour. He also managed to get dried meat which, after much questioning, he found that it was in fact lizard tail meat, which was a bit gamey but edible. He was personally thankful it was not tarantula. He did know that it was a delicacy in Cambodia but was not that hungry yet.
The lead soldier put his hand up in the classic stop sign. He too was riding a giant spider as were the rest of the guards. The convoy stopped as Gary struggled to hear or see anything. The dark elves easily had him beat in this department. They could see much further and hear better in these dark tunnels than he could. A couple of times in the journey he had to cover his torch and stay quiet and still at the leaders’ instance. He occasionally heard an odd scrapping against rock and was rather glad that the guards were armed with a crossbow and a sword.
Now there was no indication to put the torches out. He then heard what the guards heard. It sounded like a couple of boots were heading this way, and he could see the light peak around a corner. Wha
t followed the light was a group of short humanoids who had long beards with braids and even had axes, and he did not need his fantasy creature guide to identify them as dwarves.
They also wore chainmail armour and had on battle helms. Gary assumed they were part of a patrol. When they spotted the convoy, the dwarves stopped and took up defensive positions. The leader of his group put up both of his hands in a gesture of peace, and turned to Gary who got the hint and got off the giant spider which he assumed he could not take with him. It was a bit of a shame, he thought, as it did make a good mount despite being a giant spider. He made sure he had his two bags and walked over to the dwarves who regarded him with suspicion.
The dark elves took this opportunity to turn their mounts around and headed back to their city without a word, taking the extra spider mount with them. A dwarf whose most outstanding feature was his long, bright red beard also wore an ornate chain mail shirt that went down to his heavy black boots, and had a large battle helm. He stepped forward and pointed his axe towards Gary who noticed that at the top of the axe was a sharp point and behind the axe head was another sharp point but this was longer and bent down. Gary did not know axes, but he knew he did not want to be on either end of this axe when it was swung at full speed.
The dwarf studied him as one would study something they had accidently tracked into the house, which reminded Gary that he had not had a bath for a couple of days and nor had he had a shave. The dwarf then spoke in a gruff voice suited for a dwarf, “What is a human hanging around with a bunch of dark elves and wearing such strange clothes?”
Gary knew they would not believe him but decided to go with an explanation close to the truth. “I ended up in the dark elf city after being summoned from a faraway world, and I seek a way home.”
The dwarf looked at him, and if it was possible the look was even more sceptical. He noticed now that his escorts had gone away, the dwarves now encircled him, and there was no way out.
“Hand over your bags, human, let’s see exactly what you have.”
Seeing not much choice, he let the red bearded dwarf take his backpack and the small pouch containing his captured gold. The red bearded dwarf who Gary had nicknamed “red beard” opened up the small pouch and looked at one of the gold coins.
He studied the gold coin carefully then turned to Gary and his expression turned even harsher. “So a demon in human disguise.”
Before Gary had a chance to come up with an excuse for the demon minted gold, he felt a sharp pain in the side of his head, and then everything faded to black as he felt his body collapse underneath him.
Lucinda looked down at her solid wooden desk which was piled high with parchments. It was an odd feeling to find she oversaw the city, and it had a different feel on the street. Now a small sense of hope, now that the theocracy had fallen, but then there where challenges. Normally the city Narderba had relied on slave labour for its food production, but now that most of the slave owners had left, they had also taken their stock with them, leaving the city and all that was left was a couple of goblins that were used most as errand boys, and she had been left without a good portion of the city’s work force.
So she had to come up with a plan. She had her remaining soldiers go to the noble houses, most of which were abandoned, as most nobles had Zateria to thank for their position. If no noble was left in the house, she would take anything valuable and draft any remaining servants into her workforce, and any remaining soldiers into the newly formed city guard. If a noble was left, the soldiers would still be drafted, and provided the noble would swear loyalty to her and the city, they could keep their servants. If anyone resisted, they would find themselves as a group of prisoners given the worse jobs like transferring manure to the fields.
She looked up briefly and rubbed her sore eyes. Even though she was using candles which gave out a lot better light than the luminous moss, it still hurt her eyes if she read for long periods of time. She looked out of her room through the window and at the largest tower in the city which was the university, which was dedicated to the study of theology and magic, but the theology department had long left, and the magic department was at its bare bones.
Most of the powerful male mages had left as well, but the building did have another purpose. It was the city time keeper as well. On the four sides of the building were brightly coloured, solid stone blocks connected by a heavy chain to a hole in the top of the building, where they connected to a large metal container with small holes in the bottom. The way it worked was the container in the long shaft was filled with sand at the top and then gently allowed down to the ground, pulling the counterweights up, and as the sand slowly leaked out of the bottom, the counterweights would slowly drop, taking about ten hours to do so. In order to change it to night time, a special banner was flown on the side of the large counterweights after the first ten hours.
As Lucinda looked, she noted that the blocks had reached the halfway point of their journey and half the day had gone already. She heard a knock on her study door. She turned and headed back to her desk and simply said, “Enter,” in a rather disinterested voice.
In stepped Nataylia. By now, it seemed she had the job as Lucinda’s second in command and the head priestess, as she and her sister had started to spread the word of Mikiria. Lucinda was surprised at the take up of the new religion. It seemed there had been many secret followers in the city itself.
Lucinda studied Nataylia and noted she was wearing a light blue, long dress which matched her long, light blue hair. Nataylia also noticed the dress itself had a slit in the side that went right up the side of her leg to her thigh. She nodded to a spare seat on the other side of her room, and Nataylia took the hint and sat down.
Lucinda let Nataylia speak first. “Forgive me for this intrusion.” When she received no response she continued, “The city seems stable at the moment, and most of the nobles now follow your lead as well as the commoners, but I feel I must ask…” Nataylia paused for a moment, seeming to have trouble finding the words to carry on. She continued slightly softer than before. “Why is this so called city guard so large?” It was a fair question. The size of the city guard was now two thousand troops in total, all of them former house soldiers.
Lucinda stood looking out the window before she replied, “We are in a dangerous position. Soon other cities will hear we have lost a quarter of our population and regard us as easy prey. I am especially worried about the groups of Deep orcs in the northeast. After a millennium of raiding, they would be eager to return the favour, and of course we have to remember the dwarf city of Blindstone. We have been at peace with them for one hundred years, but they would jump at the opportunity to destroy a city of dark elves so close to good seams of ore.”
Nataylia replied with a hint of a smile, “The dwarves make good weapons and tools, not warriors.”
Lucinda gently raised her eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Well, if have this ore and wealth of the old noble houses, maybe we can show them we offer more as a trading partner than a destroyed city.”
Lucinda smiled to herself. “Well, we certainly would be a lot better off as a trading partner than destroyed, it will be difficult to earn their trust, but worth it. I will form a trading party with enough gold to get their interest. We need some more tools anyway, and it will be interesting to see what happened to that human.”
“Well,” replied Nataylia. “I think we should give the job to my sister, Sylvania. She may be a bit young but has shown much interest in creatures beyond the city, and with your captain to guide her I think she will do well very well.”
Lucinda thought about it for a second. It was rare to find a dark elf interested in other races besides their use as slaves. She nodded her reply and then turned back to look out the window as she spoke. “I will prep the captain, and we should be ready to leave in a couple of days, anything else?”
Nataylia just nodded and headed towards the door as Lucinda turned back to look at her papers briefly. R
estless, she then stood up and went to the balcony and looked out over the city. It was now her city, the question was for how long?
She may have felt differently about Zateria but still kept her senses about her and had seen a fair share of betrayals and backstabs in her time. It was the nature of dark elves. The threat she knew would be both internal and external. She had to keep a close eye on Nataylia, and to her surprise, part of her felt like she could actually trust Nataylia, but she remembered her mother’s old maxim. “The dagger in your back is more likely to come from a friend than an enemy.”
After adjusting his shirt, Zargon entered his throne room, which was a massive rectangle with large double doors as an entrance, it had the sense of decay. The carpet that covered the room was done in a faded red colour with an odd spot of dark. In the middle of the room was a large, rectangular, wooden table surrounded with five tall wooden chairs on each side. At the end of the table was his chair which was even larger with a bigger back. On it was carved images of him crushing his foes, and on the end of the arms where two skulls imbedded into it. This chair had the feel of a throne, generally a throne whose user liked skulls and death a lot. He headed that way, ignoring his advisors as they all stood. All were typical demon stock with blood red skin, large fangs poking out from their bottom lips, and cloven hooves. The odd one or two had large bat wings.
Zargon himself also had blood red skin, large bat like wings, and a large grey beard. He was not a happy demon, but then given the nature of being a demon, happiness was not included in the job description (as the demon manual says, happiness is smashing your foes and crushing all those who stand before you—there are rumours about the Markton, the weird and a strange substance called ice cream).