Chapter 21: Discussions, Discussions and more Discussions

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Fire Council Capital



The air in the Fire Council Capital was writhed and thick with tension. The council members stared at each other in silence, glancing at the Fire Lord again and again, waiting until finally, Lord Tenabre spoke up.

"The reason we called you in today, is because of an incident that occurred on the surface." He paused as the Fire Lord rolled his eyes.

"So, you called me because I'm supposed to know everything that's going on, on the surface. Because it's my responsibility, my 'duty' to fix every problem that occurs on the surface. Is that it, Tenabre?"

Lord Laros spoke up. "Believe it or not, that is not the reason we called you. Can you please not interrupt until we finish?"

The Fire Lord raised an eyebrow before waving his hand as an indication for them to continue.

Laros continued. "Look, we know you hate being called out here-"

Lord Cas cut in, "Which is perfectly reasonable. I mean, seriously, who wants to be at these meetings. I certainly don't! We spend half the time at each other's throat figuratively, and the other half literally. We're lucky to walk out of here alive!"

Cas grinned and Laros sighed.

"Anyway," Lord Laros continued. "We needed every council member here to discuss and decide what needed to be done, as this is a direct attack on both Fire and Ice."

"Yes," Lord Tenabre continued. "A group of our resource collectors ran into Ice's resource collectors. We're not completely sure what happened, but they ended up attacking the Ice collectors and one of the Ice collectors were killed, two of them were severely injured and four more were slightly injured."

Lord Tenabre paused.

"This doesn't look good." The Fire Lord said, his hand hovering over his jaw in concern.

"No, it doesn't."

He lowered his hand. "Do we know anything else about the situation?"

Tenabre started saying 'no' but was cut off by Lord Kopuh. He had a dagger in his hand and was twirled it skilfully in his fingers, a sadistic smile on his face.

"Actually," he started, "I took it upon myself to... extract the information from them.

"Both groups were hunting meat from the same location. One of the Ice collectors shot down a bird that the Fire collectors were tracking. The Fire collectors got it into their head that the bird belonged to them, so when the Ice collector walked forward to collect the bird, the Fire collector killed him.

"This in turn started a battle between the two groups which led to the Ice collectors running back to the Ice Kingdom to report this incident to their leader. The Fire collectors realised what they had done and came crawling back home, where we found them on the road carrying some of the gear that the Ice Kingdom collectors had left behind.

"You know the rest."

Lord Nargh growled and slammed his hands down onto the table in front of him. "How could they be so stupid?!? This could end the peace treaty between Fire and Ice. The next thing we need is Ice at our backs ready to restart a full-scale attack! We should prepare our armies and attack before they attack us!"

Lord Delro was contemplating these new things he had learned. At this moment, he leaned forward and started speaking. "No."

Nargh's head whipped to face him, his mouth twisted into a grimace, his muscles straining to keep his body still. "What?!"

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