What Is Done

Chapter 1 - Cruelty

In the Sea of No'ereth sailed an armada of ships within reach of the western shores of the continent of Icast. The ships had stopped miles outward of the water and the army they carried had been loaded onto rowboats, heading for the shore. They had come from the place across the sea, the continent of Ghozokk, a land from across the sea. At the bow of two of the boats, stood two white-haired, unarmored elves, one male and one female. They had smooth faces with no traces of wrinkles upon them and the pointed ears the elves were known for. They were tall and slim, covered with long, flowing robes and dresses. The elves had eyes that sparkled like gemstones against the night's darkness, indicating they could see even when night draped its cloak over Oriande.. They didn't age once they reached physical maturity. Many of the other races called them perfect. The soldiers in the boats were of the four different races, some Dwarven, some Elven, some human and some were horned men. 

The female white-haired elf reminded the soldiers they didn't need to hurt any of the citizens in Arün.

"Arün? We're going to Elven Guard?" one of the soldiers questioned their motives.

"We will be the ones to bring Elven Guard to their knees by disposing of their fool of a ruler, King Valka," the commander shot back. Commander Xirrhul was a cunning man yet he didn't know he was being played like a fiddle nor that he had just set his army up for their final days when they agreed to help King Taergyn of Iridonia assassinate the High King of Elven Guard. Taergyn had claimed Valka had done unspeakable things to his nation and was unfit to rule and it hadn't necessarily been a lie.

"Why, what has he done?" a soft-spoken human knight asked from the back of the boat which Xirrhul and Taergyn were on.

"I don't have to tell you anything." King Taergyn's neck snapped to the side for him to peer at the soldier.

"Saxe, know your place. You don't question a king," Xirrhul scolded.

"Then, can I question you?" Saxe replied to his commander, easily in earshot of Taergyn. He'd joined the army for reasons unknown. He wasn't athletic or very muscular. Most of the higher-ranked didn't even consider him to be all that smart. Xirrhul was easily enraged when he found out his newest recruit was a useless, scrawny boy.

"I ain't gonna tell you anything about it, either, 'kay?" Xirrhul put a boot on the bench where he'd been sitting moments earlier, facing his subordinate. He lit a cigar and stuck in between his teeth.

Amidst all the verbal fighting, the female elf on a boat next to them proceeded to gripe about the smoke. "Do you have to do that now? It's disgusting."

"A man's gotta keep calm, Moria," Xirrhul angrily told her off. A verbal fight ensued between the Elven Princess of Iridonia and the Commander of a small town that nobody has ever heard of.

Saxe watched the other men on the boat, most of them anxious to get this over with. "Xirrhul—"

"Commander Xirrhul," Saxe's boss corrected, still seething with rage towards Moria. 

"Yea...that. Um, why is it...called Elven Guard?"

Xirrhul grinned from ear to ear. He had a sudden burst of energy, like a child on Christmas day when their parents brought out one last, super secret present. "Okay, gather 'round kiddies, Papa's gonna tell you a story!" The other men leaned into Xirrhul's space, drooling over what the commander was about to say. Xirrhul took a puff of smoke. "So, a long, long, looongg time ago, prolly hundreds of thousands of years, more than elves lived in Elven Guard. Right?" Some of the soldiers made noises of confirmation to Xirrhul's tale. "It did originally belong to the elves, mhm. But the elves shared their world with the rest of us. Until humans and others came and began sawing down the trees of Elven Guard to make buildings and other stuff. Yo, the elves didn't like this 'cause they made their structures out of stone or dead wood, not anything living. They tried to put regulations on the people destroying their homelands. But it didn't work. 'Course it didn't, you can't tell someone to do something and expect 'em to do it without monitoring 'em and enforcing the law ya put into place, yeah." Saxe and the others listened to Xirrhul's tale, partly wishing he'd stop with the opinionated commentary. "It continued because the elves didn't fight and they had enough when Elven Guard was barren from anything green."