The Prince's Mark

The Road to Dezmer - Twenty Five

"This elf knows what he's talking about."

Tracou translated it automatically, only realizing what he had done after the last word flew past his lips. Eyes wide, he turned to look at Pendaer, who gazed at Stepan in utter shock. Then, with the smallest hint of pleasure on his face, Pendaer turned away from him.

"He's not very friendly," Stepan said, punctuating his sentence with a stray 'heh.'

That line Tracou didn't convey.

"If the Winleans won't be here for over an hour, we can at least tell people to gather something to eat for... hopefully what will only be at most a day," Tracou said, speaking quickly. "But it means that we'll have to do another sweep to make sure no one is outside."

"We can do that," Elira chirped. "You and the elves can come up with something while the two of us make sure everyone gets back in their houses. I'll even give the announcement."

Stepan heaved a sigh. "I wanted to be part of the planning... Fine. Maybe this time I can convince others to join us."

Elira placed her wand at her throat and, before she could speak, Tracou muffled the sound around Mirthal and Pendaer's ears. Gather food from the storehouses for an hour, then hide. A simple advisory, but hopefully effective.

Stepan and Elira left to help with the gathering efforts.

With them gone, Tracou pressed against Mirthal's side.

If the Winleans didn't slaughter them today, they would endure days of hunger and then die at the hands of the Winleans or of starvation. Hopeless.

Tracou forced a breath out and sat up straight. If he gave himself time to breathe, time to think about the situation as a whole and not what needed to be done next, he would end up wallowing in misery. That quagmire would claim him even before death did.

"So," he said, voice thick. "A plan."

Silence. Tracou had never prepared for this sort of eventuality. Mirthal had probably studied famous battles or something of that nature, but that would have involved armies. Elvish armies, at that. Pendaer had likely only been trained in how to keep one person safe. None of them had the experience necessary to even begin to know how to tackle this problem.

"Well," Tracou began, shakily. "We can't attack them."

"We don't have enough time to prepare pits for them to fall into, either," Pendaer pointed out. "Even mine isn't finished. Why didn't you do anything, dezmek?!"

Guilt tore at him. Pendaer had been right; he had failed and they would all die.

"I... I don't know, I—!"

"Now isn't the time, Pendaer. Yell at him later," Mirthal said. Then he shifted his gaze toward Tracou. "Do you think we can negotiate with them? We can't attack that many humans..."

Pendaer shook his head. "We don't have anything to offer them."

"We have me," Mirthal said as casually as if he was talking about exchanging two mules for a horse.

Both Tracou and Pendaer let out cries of indignation and, instead of worrying about how they had done that at the same time, began to speak over each other.

"Your highness, are you out of your mind? You can't use yourself as a bargaining chip for the lives of some dezmek!"

"No, Mirthal, don't be stupid! This is my problem, not yours! Besides, they might take you and kill us anyway!"

Mirthal went quiet, his eyes distant.

It was one thing if Ergakan was destroyed because of Tracou's incompetence, but Mirthal could not lose his life over something so stupid.