by Peter Last
“Let’s just say we’re easily outnumbered twenty to one,” Nathan answered. “Actually it’s probably worse. That should be enough to convince anyone. Oh, and be sure to mention the fact that we’re holing up right on the border of Rampӧn. That should speed up the bureaucrats in their decision making.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it,” Senndra said. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Not that I can think of,” Nathan answered. He looked at the other two, but they just shook their heads.
“Very well,” Senndra said. “Then I will carry news back that a massive army has indeed attacked Saddun and gained entrance to Magessa. I will tell them that there is an army of defenders at the border of Belvárd and Rampӧn who are trying their best to hold the enemy off, but who need help immediately.”
“We’re outnumbered twenty to one as well,” Nathan reminded her.
“Of course,” Senndra agreed. “You’re outnumbered badly; you need reinforcements immediately.”
“One other thing,” Levvy mentioned. “We need as many supplies as we can get. We have enough for now, but our army is burning through them at a fast rate.”
“Very well,” Senndra said and waited for a few moments. “If that is all, I should probably be on my way. Thank you for the food, and I will do my best to bring you reinforcements.”
“We know you will,” Josiah said and rose when Senndra did. “I’ll see her to the door, gentlemen,” he informed the other Generals.
Josiah and Senndra left the keep and stood in the courtyard for a moment. Though they had not noticed it while there, the castle had been rather dark, and their eyes needed time to adjust to the sunlight. Josiah headed for the castle gate, but Senndra held him back.
“I’ll just have Feddir come here to pick me up,” she said, sensing Josiah’s intent. She added with a small chuckle, “After all, he can cover the distance a lot faster than we can.”
“I guess that’s true,” Josiah conceded. He stood for several seconds, letting an awkward silence grow. “So, how have your studies at the academy been going?” he finally asked in an attempt to break it.
“They’re going well,” Senndra answered. “I’ve been making good grades, and I’m almost ready to graduate.”
“How close is almost?” Josiah asked.
“I have another year. Of course it’s going to be a lot more than that if we keep getting attacked and whatnot.”
“I know what you mean,” Josiah commented. “It seems like most of my training in battlefield tactics and hand-to-hand combat has been on the job. I imagine it’ll be that way until we defeat Molkekk once and for all, which I don’t see happening in the incredibly near future.”
“It could be closer than you think,” Senndra said. “There’s no set plans as of yet, but there may be an attack on Vollexa Temp soon.”
“There’s no way it could succeed,” Josiah argued. “Molkekk has an incredibly vast host at his disposal…”
“All of which are either here or being directed here as reinforcements,” Senndra interrupted. “All together, it leaves Vollexa Temp nearly empty.”
“I don’t believe Molkekk would make such an important mistake,” Josiah disagreed. “Surely he knows we’ll attack him if given the chance.
“It wasn’t really his mistake,” Senndra said. “If he had succeeded in taking both Saddun and Belmoth, he wouldn’t have to worry about such an attack because we would all be occupied. However, we defeated his army at Belmoth, an event for which he was clearly not prepared.”
Josiah suddenly smiled, and Senndra looked at him quizzically.
“I was just thinking,” Josiah explained with a shake of his head. “Not so long ago, the name Molkekk struck an insurmountable fear into my heart. I mean, at Saddun we wouldn’t even say his name, mostly from fear, I guess. I never would have thought I’d be fighting his army before I graduated from the academy, much less considering that we might actually be able to defeat him.”
“I guess when I think about it, I’m a little surprised too,” Senndra agreed. “I never would have even considered the idea that we might be able to stand up to him.”
“And now, his name is just another word,” Josiah said. “I use it all the time in battle meetings and regular conversations. It holds very little fear now.”
A roar of wind rushed down into the castle as Feddir dropped out of the sky and landed with a thud. The guards on the wall staggered backwards from the force of the wind, but Senndra figured they would have done so even if there had been no physical reason. She did note, however, that they held their ground.
“I guess it’s true: fear of the unknown and untested is much stronger than any other fear in the world. See you in a while, General,” she called over her shoulder as she jogged up the stairs to the wall and climbed onto Feddir’s back. She waved down at him just before Feddir sprang from the wall. His wings flapped downwards in powerful strokes that pushed him and his rider up into the sky. Within minutes he was soaring north back toward Belmoth.
******
“It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s just that…”
“You don’t trust him,” Lemin finished Timothy’s sentence for him.
“Well, yes,” Timothy conceded. “I don’t trust him and with good reason. Only a fool would put his trust in someone who doesn’t trust in Elohim. That trust will be broken eventually.”
“I would tend to agree with you,” Lemin said. “Putting faith in someone who doesn’t believe in Elohim is often dangerous, but not this time, I think. Tiberius may not believe, but he is not an enemy of Magessa. He hates Molkekk as much as anyone else here and, in my opinion, will do whatever is necessary to be rid of him.”
“I am required to be respectful to you and abide by whatever you decide; however, I am in no way required to agree with you, so let me say right now that I don’t,” Timothy said bluntly. “Agree with you, that is. I normally don’t have this feeling about people, but with him, I can’t help but be suspicious. I have a bad feeling about what he might be up to.”
“And I don’t think he’s up to anything,” Lemin said. “Your feelings are founded entirely on the fact that he disagreed with us in front of our superiors and made fun of Elohim. Nothing he has done indicates in the least that his allegiance is to be doubted.”
“I’m not saying he’s working with Molkekk,” Timothy argued. “There are other ways a person can be a menace besides working with the enemy. We know nothing about him, and it’s not exactly like my feelings tell me what’s wrong with a person. Maybe he talks too much. Maybe his view of the world will hurt our cause; I don’t know. All I can say is that I have a bad feeling about him.”
“Logged and noted, Timothy,” Lemin said. “I’ll take what you have said into consideration.”
“Which is another way of saying you’ll just ignore it,” Timothy muttered as he left the room. It wasn’t that he disliked Lemin, but the elf could be extremely hard to get along with sometimes. Maybe it was the fact that he was usually right, and Timothy didn’t find it any easier than the next person to admit that he was wrong.
“Maybe he is right,” he told himself. “Tiberius probably just makes me edgy because of some completely unrelated issue. I’m sure he’s a fine officer and is an asset to anything that he is included in. Perdition! Not even I can convince myself of that!”
Timothy was so lost in thought that he almost ran over another cadet. He began stammering his apology until he realized the cadet was Senndra. Instantly the discussion with Lemin was forgotten as he looked his friend over from head to toe.
“Well, it looks like you got back in one piece,” he commented. “Please tell me the trip was a complete waste of time, and that you failed to turn up anything of importance.”
“I wish I could,” Senndra sighed.
“So your dreams were real?” Timothy asked.
“As far as I can tell,” Senndra answered. “The army of Molkekk is currently marching all over Be
lvárd, killing and pillaging. They’re more than five hundred thousand strong now, not to mention that they’ll probably be getting reinforcements.”
“Please tell me you have good news in all of that,” Timothy begged. “A massive elf army is coming to wipe them out or something along those lines.”
“An army is digging in at an outpost, named Castle Far Point, on the south border of Rampӧn and Belvárd. They have a large army, but against the numbers that Molkekk has…They’re outnumbered at least twenty to one, probably worse.”
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Timothy muttered. Louder, he said, “Lemin’s in his office. He probably wants to see you. I guess that’s why you’re heading there right now.”
“If I can make it without running someone over,” Senndra answered with a smile. “Most people make that a whole lot easier than you do.”
“Well, have fun with that,” Timothy said as he moved past Senndra. “I was just in there and, well, I guess you could say I softened him up for you.”
“What do you mean?” Senndra called after him.
“I think he’ll just be relieved to have someone that doesn’t disagree with him, is all,” Timothy called back before disappearing from sight around a corner.
Timothy was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Not even Vladimir with his suggestion of playing Lex Tanna could make him feel better. He realized the effect that he was having on everyone and chose to hide away in the library. Forsaking the fiction genre, the type of book he normally read, he wandered aimlessly. He scanned the shelves as he passed, meandering through the geography, medicinal, and historical sections.
As he was passing through the science section, a book that did not belong caught his eye. It was a large grey book tucked in the middle of a series of small blue books, and Timothy turned to take a closer look at it. Its title, Molkekk, did not seem to fit in the science section, so Timothy took it from its spot on the shelf. Dust coated it in a thick layer, almost as if the tome had not been touched in years. When Timothy opened it, dust fell from the cover and puffed up from the pages. Timothy flipped to the title page and scanned those surrounding it until he found the date the book had been written: only a year before Molkekk had been imprisoned in his tower. He flipped back to the title page and froze in shock as his gaze drifted down to name of the author. Jothnial Felling, the very elf who had defeated Molkekk, had written the book that Timothy now held in his hands.
Several hours later, Vladimir found Timothy sitting in a library chair. The light had already faded outside, and dinner was long past. In fact, most of the inhabitants of the city had already gone to sleep. Timothy sat with one leg slung over the arm of the chair and his back against the other; a large grey book lay open in his lap, and he was reading it intently. Vladimir walked softly up behind his friend and peered at the pages of the book, frowning at the strange characters he could not decipher.
“I didn’t know that you could read the Old Tongue,” Vladimir commented. The sudden break in silence didn’t startle Timothy as he had expected it to.
“I don’t,” the cadet said without even looking up. He flipped a page and continued reading.
“That’s weird,” Vladimir said. “It’s doesn’t seem like that’s much of a picture book.”
“What do you mean?” Timothy asked and finally looked up at Vladimir. “Why would it be a picture book?”
“Well, if you can’t read the Old Tongue, I don’t see any other way you could get anything out of it,” Vladimir said.
“You’re crazy, it’s not in the Old Tongue,” Timothy said and turned back to the book. He froze, then turned back to Vladimir, a strange look in his eyes. “What happened to this book?”
“What do you mean?” Vladimir asked. “Nothing happened to it. It’s still right there in your hands.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Timothy said. “It used to be in plain language that I could read. Now it seems like it’s written in the Old Tongue.”
“It’s good to see you’re coming around,” Vladimir said. “You had me worried there for a bit.”
“What do you mean?” Timothy asked. “How could this book change like this?”
“It didn’t change,” Vladimir said. “When I came up, it was written in the Old Tongue. You must have fallen asleep and dreamt that you read it because there’s no way you could have read this.” Vladimir took the book and hung it in front of Timothy’s face. Timothy took the book back and stared at it with a puzzled expression. Slowly he flipped through the pages, trying to decipher the strange characters.
“You fell asleep, Timothy,” Vladimir said. “You dreamed you were reading the book, that’s all.”
“But I was actually reading it,” Timothy argued. “It was written by Jothnial; I can even tell you what the title is. It’s one word: Molkekk.”
“And how can I tell if you’re right?” Vladimir asked reasonably. “I surely can’t read the title. It’s in Old Tongue characters. Look, Timothy,” Vladimir said, when Timothy continued to flip through the book’s pages. “I know how realistic dreams can be sometimes, but all of the facts are against you this time.”
“But why would I have taken it from the shelves in the first place if I couldn’t read it?” Timothy wondered. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Maybe you picked it out because of its pictures, I don’t know,” Vladimir started.
“There aren’t any pictures,” Timothy interrupted, flipping the pages of the book in front of Vladimir’s face. “You already brought my attention to that fact.”
“Look, I don’t know why you chose it, but the fact is, you did,” Vladimir said. “And the fact remains that you can’t read the book. The only logical explanation is that you fell asleep in the chair.”
It took a few more minutes, but Vladimir finally convinced Timothy. He took the book from his friend and guided him out of the reading cove. With a glare at the book, Vladimir tossed it onto the small table beside the chair and followed Timothy out of the library.
The next morning was a jumble of rumors and gossip. The common thread in all the stories Timothy heard was that the army was expected to move out that morning. But when noon rolled around, and there had been no orders to do so, Timothy went to see Lemin. He could hear several voices coming through the door, so he knocked and waited for a muffled voice to tell him to come in. Senndra, Vladimir, and another cadet Timothy didn’t personally know already occupied the space in front of Lemin’s desk, and the elf behind the battered wood looked harried.
“Timothy,” Lemin said as he entered the room. “I wonder how many others are going to join us before we’re through with this. I suppose you’re here about the rumors as well.”
“I am,” Timothy said. “So are they true? Are we going to mobilize soon?”
“I’ve already been to the Grand Admiral of the city to talk to him about the situation,” Lemin said by way of an answer. “It seems that no matter which way you look at it, the meager forces currently occupying this city will have to be split in some way. We have to send reinforcements to the army fighting at the bottom of the county, but it has also been decided that we can’t give up this opportunity to stage an assault on Vollexa Temp.”
“And interestingly, while Tiberius used to be against the attack, now he is an adamant supporter of it,” Senndra put in.
“Is that a reason to be against it, or what do you think that means?” Timothy asked.
“I supported the attack in the beginning, and I have not withdrawn my support yet,” Lemin said. “Just because someone you may not particularly like decides to support a cause is no reason to abandon it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Timothy said. “So we have to somehow split the army into two and send them in different directions. Is the decision of how the split will occur causing the delay?”
“There still have to be some men at this city to protect it, so the army has to be split three ways,” Lemin said. “But in answer to your question, no,
that’s not really the prroblem While the Grand Admiral of Belmoth thinks we need to attack Vollexa Temp, our Grand Admiral is of the opinion that we should send all our available men south to help defend the country. He thinks that we should secure our own land before worrying about going on the offensive.”
“I would tend to agree with him,” Vladimir said. “We can’t really go gallivanting off on an attack mission when we have enemies occupying our territory. It’s just not a strategically wise thing to do.”
“But at the same time, the best defense is a good offense,” said the cadet Timothy didn’t know. “If we can destroy Vollexa Temp, the threat of Molkekk would be gone, once and for all. Also, there’s the chance that when his army learns that we’re attacking his city, they’ll go back, thereby relieving the pressure on our country.”
“That’s only if they hear about the attack,” Vladimir pointed out. “Ideally they’ll never get news of the attack, and if they do, we will be long done with it. Besides, the chance of them abandoning their conquest to travel all of the way back to Vollexa Temp on a rumor is very slim.”
“So after all the facts are on the table, what’s your opinion on the situation?” Timothy asked Lemin. “I know you said that you still support the attack, but isn’t it more important to keep the country safe? It seems, from what I’ve heard, that we’ll need all the troops in the south that we can spare.”
“That is what it seems like, but looks can be deceiving,” Lemin countered. “This may just be a ploy of the enemy to get us to let down our guard in Belmoth so that they can come back from the north and take it. Maybe we should stay here; I just don’t know.”
“What about the elves?” Timothy asked suddenly. “A force of their soldiers is already with our army and the ogres at Far Point, but they have to have more soldiers than that. Maybe we can count on them to send more assistance.”
“We might be able to,” Lemin said, “but that’s a small hope, given the past record of what humans have done to the elves. Granted, they’ve already assisted us, but that doesn’t mean they’ll consent to a full-fledged war.”