Reign of the Dark Elves: Book One : The Sorcerer

by Andrew G. Wood

  In Whitebrook, Oswald had spent several days living among the somewhat bizarre settlement that consisted of both humans and elves living side by side. While he had to admit, he had never lived better, the whole idea of the two races so readily accepting each other was still foreign to him. Despite the fact that he resided in the same house as two Dark Elves, Masina and her mother Sansia, Oswald was unsure as to where his future lay. Although Masina had requested he stay with them, and which was something he had at the time readily accepted, something still not feel right.

  Whitebrook was all but cut off from the rest of society by the river that ran around it, accessible only by foot along a rather shaky looking footbridge near the southern tip of the land that surrounded the village. Other than that the only way to move from one side to the other was via a boat, and being as the darters and elven soldiers never carried one around with them, they appeared to leave the place completely alone. However, Oswald was sure that sooner or later someone would check to who or what lived on the land. Moreover, although he was no genius, even he could tell the population of Whitebridge was expanding, only slowly, but increasing nonetheless. If that trend continued, then even he was aware that sooner or later they would outgrow their small area and need to expand over the river; something he knew was not feasible.

  Oswald had awoken that morning somewhat more pensive than usual, and as a result appeared to be walking around in a daydream. He was startled somewhat when he felt a hand on his shoulder, but relaxed when he realised it was only Masina. The young elven girl had been so kind to him since rescuing him from the waters of the river. So much so he was even started to have strange thoughts and ideas of them even becoming a couple, something else he wasn’t sure of. While he knew Masina was not like other Dark Elves and the fact she was incredibly attractive, at least for an elf, he still felt a certain unease at them becoming any closer than they already were.

  Masina was constantly linking his arm and holding his hand and even kissing him a few times on the cheek and forehead, signs he would ordinarily have taken as a girl being interested in him. Had Masina been human, he was quite sure none of these self-doubts would be in his mind but was unsure as to why it should matter anyway. Despite being an elf, Masina was probably the kindest person he had ever met, and about the only female that had ever really shown an interest in him.

  “Where are you going?” She asked interlocking her arm with his.

  “I was just going to help out in the fields again,” Oswald replied.

  Despite not yet being allocated any proper job, having nothing to do all day had at first seemed a blessing. However, Oswald had soon found that sitting around doing nothing certainly made the days go much slower, especially if he was sat at home by himself. With the village and surrounding ‘island’ only being relatively small, even going for a walk had soon become all too familiar. As a result, Oswald had offered his services to assist in one of the small fields that was being turned over ready for planting the next crop. Although not everybody’s idea of fun, Oswald was glad at least to be doing something.

  After explaining to Masina where he was going, she seemed somewhat disappointed especially as she apparently had the day off. Oswald found it quite surreal that these people had days off, a notion that was unheard where he had lived and quite foreign to him. As much as spending the day with Masina sounded inviting, he wasn’t sure what they could find to do all day. Whether that reply was wrong, he wasn’t sure as Masina suddenly took umbrage at her rebuke, although still kept her arm linked with his. It was then that Oswald noticed something new, and suddenly all interest in working the field seemed to disappear.

  “What are they doing?” he asked pointing to a group of three people with bows on their backs.

  “Oh they are just going over the river to hunt, probably for a deer or some game birds,” Masina said all but dismissing them as nothing special.

  “Now that is what I would like to do!” Oswald replied already turning and heading their direction.

  As their arms were linked, Masina had little option but to be dragged along, and although she allowed it, she did so under the strongest of protests.

  “You can’t go with them. Do you even know how to fire a bow?” she added finally pulling Oswald to a stop. Whether it was the deflated look on his face or the genuine desire to help, Masina lifted her free hand up to his face and gently rubbed her fingers across his forehead, removing his overhanging hair from his eyes.

  “I can teach you…If you like that is. Unless of course, you would rather dig the field!” Masina added somewhat sardonically.

  Oswald’s face suddenly beamed a big broad smile, “Really? You know how to fire a bow?”

  “Well, I’ve seen them practising…I mean how hard can it be?” Masina replied. Not giving Oswald a chance to change his mind Masina dragged him back the way they had just walked.

  “Come on, we can get a bow and some arrows from the armoury, and then we can use those trees as targets,” she said excitedly pointing to where they had just watched the three hunters go.

  The two walked with a renewed impetus back towards the village when Oswald realised what Masina had just said. Stopping abruptly he turned to look at her.

  “There is an armoury in the village?” he asked.

  Masina just nodded.

  “With bows and swords?”

  Masina nodded again, “Yes, and spears and shields and other stuff. Did you not have one in your village?” she asked confused as to what the big deal was.

  Oswald shook his head, “You think the elves would let us have weapons?” he asked looking at her as if she had just said the most stupid thing ever.

  “Hmm, I suppose not,” she said shrugging her shoulders.

  “But why do you have them. I mean apart from hunting, you don’t have any need for them?” Oswald asked.

  In truth, Masina didn’t really know why the village had an armoury either and explained that it was something that had just always been there. However, she did recall her mother once telling her about a time back when she had been a child, and the villagers sought to protect themselves. While Whitebrook had evidently not been bothered by the Dark Elf soldiers, it was apparently under some kind of threat. As a result, those that lived there had gathered what weapons they could and stored them in case they should ever need to protect their homes.

  “What had them so scared?” Oswald asked, intrigued by the story.

  Again Masina just shrugged her shoulders, “No idea. We could ask Mother later though, I’m sure she can enlighten us.”

  At first, Oswald was somewhat disappointed at the building Masina led him towards. Barely a few feet in width it was scarcely bigger than a standard privy outbuilding, and after she had forced the rather shabby looking door open, the interior was little better. Inside was all but empty aside from an old bow leaning up against the wall and a few shelves that had a few bits and bobs upon it. Oswald was just about to ask where all the swords and other items were when Masina pulled the straw mat on the dirty floor revealing a trap door.

  “They built it underground. I guess they didn’t want people finding it just in case the village ever did get searched. A lot of the houses have these basements,” she added grabbing hold of a metal ring and heaving the door up.

  Oswald gazed down into the darkness below and wondered how they were going to see anything. However, Masina already had that particular problem at hand, as she grabbed a candle from off the shelf.

  “How are we going to light it?” Oswald enquired quite certain they had no source of fire at hand from which to get a flame.

  “By using one of these?” Masina answered with a smug grin and holding a small thin piece of wood no longer than her little finger, that had some kind of substance at one end. Oswald watched on in awe as Masina rubbed the strange little stick against the wall as it produced a small flash of light before setting itself alight.

  “Wow!” Oswald gasped, “Do you have magic?”

&n
bsp; Masina giggled, “No, silly. It’s just a vesta. A man in the village makes them, although apparently, it is very difficult to do so,” she replied slowly moving the small stick over to the candle and lighting it. With a puff of her cheeks, Masina then blew the vesta, and the small flame that was burning upon it vanished into a waft of smoke.

  Although Oswald was still stunned by the small fire stick, Masina soon reverted his attention back to the reason they were there, grabbing his hand and leading him down a set of steep wooden steps.

  “Careful,” she said holding the flickering candle up to make sure she could see where they put their feet. The climb down was only a dozen or so steps, and the moment Oswald’s feet touched terra firma once more, he turned around in amazement once more.

  “Whoah!” he said leaving his mouth gaping open.

  In the flickering light given off by Masina’s candle, he could see a room a good twenty paces wide and thirty in length. While having an underground room was reason enough to be excited, what lined the walls was quite something else. Rows of swords, spears, shields, bows and other weapons the like of which he had never seen before filled the room. There was probably enough in that basement room for a small army, and yet here it sat doing nothing except gathering cobwebs.

  “Where did they get all this from?” he asked picking up a short sword and gazing along the length of the blade.

  “No idea, like I said Mother will probably know. Come on let’s find a bow and some arrows and take them back up. I hate the dark,” Masina added looking somewhat uncomfortable within their surroundings.

  Finding a bow was not that difficult, being as there was plenty to pick from, finding the strings that went on them though was a little more problematic, especially in the small amount of light they had to see with. Eventually, Oswald had spotted what he assumed were bow strings, coiled up and placed in some kind of wax paper to protect them. After gathering a handful of arrows from the bundles that were piled up against the back wall, both Oswald and Masina headed back up the steps into the small building. After closing the hatch back down and covering it back up, Masina extinguished her candle and replaced back on the shelf where she had found it, before leading Oswald back outside.

  The sun was reaching its zenith, and Oswald had to squint for a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the bright light having only just gotten used to the darkness in the basement room. Without any further delay, Masina suggested they find a quiet spot away from the houses near the trees she had pointed to earlier and set up their bow.

  “How do the strings fit on?” Oswald asked holding the bow and string in his hand noticing the latter didn’t look long enough. Moreover, what he thought was the bow appeared a little straight, and not like the ones he had seen the hunters carrying a little earlier. However, Masina told him to stop being so dull and took them from him, as she knew what to do.

  Oswald watched as Masina hooked the bowstring to one end and tried to bend the bow, so the string reached the other. Of course, all this was very well in practice, but Masina had not taken into account how difficult the bows were to bend, and after cursing and ranting for several minutes, she finally gave up.

  “These strings must be too short!” she said tossing them to the ground. Now Oswald had seen what needed to be done, he thought it best he give it a try, after all, he was much bigger and stronger than Masina was.

  With Oswald being able to bend the bow a little easier than she had, Masina took the opportunity to step in and hook the bowstring on, thus allowing them both to take credit for sorting matters out.

  “There, told you it was easy,” she said twanging the string with her fingers and a wry smile on her face. Oswald just shook his head, and although he had now realised Masina had about as much idea as he did, they had at least managed to get the bow ready for firing.

  Having a rough idea of how a bow should work and actually making it do so soon became apparently clear. While Oswald had listened to Masina’s instructions on how to hold it, where to place the arrow and how far to pull back on the string, the first few attempts were somewhat disastrous, to say the least. Sure that he was holding it all wrong Oswald was about to give up, especially as his fingers were already feeling sore. However, both he and Masina turned quickly as a voice called out to them, “I wondered where you two had gone!”

  “Mother, I was just teaching Oswald how to use a bow,” Masina said looking somewhat bashful.

  “I see you have been down in the armoury again, even though you know it is not allowed!” Sansia said firmly planting her hands on her hips and staring at her daughter.

  “Sorry, that was probably my fault. I asked her if she could help me get a bow as I wanted to try…But alas, it seems a waste of time anyway,” Oswald said deciding to take the blame.

  Sansia glared at the two youngsters for a few moments, before finally relaxing her stance and nodding her head. “Very well, Masina should still have known better though. Right, now let’s have a look at what you are doing…Oh, you’re holding it all wrong,” Sansia said stepping up to Oswald.

  “I tried telling him that Mother, but he is very obstinant and wouldn’t listen,” Masina added, jumping in before Oswald could say anything. Oswald was about to plead his innocence and explain that was not exactly true but decided to let Masina save face and say nothing. Instead, he watched as Sansia took the bow and nocked an arrow on the string, took aim and released. The arrow flew true and hit a tree trunk some fifty paces away, making a dull thud sound as the point slammed into the bark.

  “See, that’s what I told him to do,” Masina added again.

  With a teacher who clearly knew what she was doing, it only took Oswald a few more attempts until he managed to fire off his own arrow. Sansia assured him that because he was quite strong in the upper body, probably due to a lifetime of working the fields, he should have no problem drawing back on the string much further than most. This should, once he got the hang of it, allow him to fire his arrows much further, although judging from his first successful attempts his aim would certainly need some work.

  Chapter 24.

  Brenion sat in one of the main halls of the council chambers within the keep at Insgarth. A rather plain room with whitewashed walls that had two large windows positioned on the far side, allowing the early morning sun to shine through. His wife Elynia sat to his left, while Lania was seated to his right. Ari, now officially Lania’s protector, not that he felt she needed one, stood dutifully just behind her smartly dressed in the new uniform he had been given. Seated just behind them were a few of the others from the magical fraternity as well as two officers of the small army.

  Since there fortunate, but overwhelming victory at the entrance to their lands, those in charge knew the elves would not make the same mistake again. As to how long it would take for the enemy to realise what had happened was anybody’s guess, but one thing everybody agreed on, was that the elves would not take such a defeat lightly. However, as far as they were all aware, there had been no survivors from the attack, and the only other elves that were aware of the attack were probably still based at the Elven outpost of Crendon. While the fortifications there might not have been the best, any thought of ever attacking the outpost had always been dismissed as folly. However, since questioning their elven prisoners and learning that Crendon was bereft of all but a few elves, a new window of opportunity had arisen.

  Brenion was aware that the council were a bunch of scheming, slimy half-wits and had already planted the seed of an idea in their minds. While he was quite aware he would be the one being sent, he allowed the council to at least think they were the ones who had planned the entire thing. Had he not mentioned it, Brenion was certain the Council would merely take note of what they had learned and done nothing proactive, allowing the opportunity they had given themselves as a species to drift on by. Knowing the council would jump at any chance of getting rid of him and his family, Brenion now waited somewhat anxiously for the High Councillor to deliver his
report.

  Although Brenion had informed both Elynia and Lania of the likely outcome of this meeting, neither had been over-ecstatic about having to leave the security of Insgarth. However, both also knew that somebody had to do it, and if the human race were ever to reclaim its lands back, such moves as this would have to be taken. Making an attack on an elven settlement had not been heard of since the invasion two hundred years earlier. Now it just needed those in power to realise the opportunity before them and act upon it before it was gone.

  Despite being sure of what was going to happen, Brenion actually started having self-doubts that the council would be so bold as to expand beyond the walls of Insgarth. Having all but offered himself and his family up for the task, Brenion also knew that the council would have to send others along with him, should they agree to be proactive. As to how many, that was also yet to be decided. Brenion shook his head as he realised he was letting his mind run away, especially as the council had not even agreed to the move yet. He turned to his left as he felt a hand grasp his own, and looked at his young wife smiling back at him, evidently feeling as apprehensive as he was.