13. Reclamation
Chapter 13
Reclamation
6 th Day of the Blood Moon
Elven encampment, east of Elkenrim – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Salara didn’t speak as she marched through the silent camp, lanterns atop posts illuminating the night. Red tents were pitched all about her, banners emblazoned with the golden stag flapping in the breeze. The sigil of the dead kingdom of Lunithír, reborn as the mark of Numillíon – of all free elves.
Every elf she passed bowed at the hip, placing a hand across their chest as they did, whispering the word, “Draleid.”
She returned their greetings with a nod, never stopping, never lingering. On the surface she was calm and still, her expression stoic. She knew this because she had spent centuries perfecting it. She was a Draleid, the beacon of hope her people looked to. In an ever-shifting world, she was their constant. It was tiring but necessary.
Contrary to the stillness she outwardly portrayed, her mind was chaos. She could feel Vyrmír’s heart beating, his lungs swelling with air, his talons slicing into the soft earth beneath him.
The dragon lay curled on the edge of the camp with Baerys and Nymaxes, but his mind was with her. Warmth flooded through the bond as he tried desperately to ease her pain, but she pushed him away. Seeing Eltoar alive after all these years, hearing his voice, feeling the weight of his stare… It had taken far more from her than she had ever expected.
Two guards stood to attention at the entrance to her personal tent. Both were armoured in gold and crimson, fingers wrapped around the shafts of long glaives.
They protested when she waved them away, but acquiesced.
The tent itself was rectangular in shape, wider than it was long, with enough space for three or four inhabitants. A small oil lantern sat by the side of her cot at the tent’s rear and two more on the small table to her right.
As soon as the flap closed behind her, Salara stumbled, her legs fumbling beneath her, her chest feeling as though it had been hollowed out and filled with stones.
She dropped to her knees on the rug by the entrance and ran her hands through her sopping wet hair, shaking. Gods curse him for doing this to her. She had been preparing herself for the day she would once again lay eyes on her old master, the things she would say, the things she would do . But how naive she had been to think that anything could have prepared her. There are some wounds so deep that nothing could fill them.
Queen Vandrien’s voice sounded behind Salara. “Narvír.”
Commander.
Salara hauled herself to her feet, wiping her eyes with the cold steel of her gauntlet. She straightened her back and brought a closed fist to her chest. “Myia’nari. La?l sanyin?—”
“There is no need for apologies, Salara.” Queen Vandrien Lunithír stood at the tent’s entrance, a flowing crimson dress threaded with gold reaching just past her knees. Vandrien was everything an elf should be. She was grace and beauty, hard as steel and strong as diamonds. Her arms were lean and muscled, her hair white as snow.
Vandrien raised her hand, looking into Salara’s eyes. She walked around Salara, her dress swaying as she moved, and stopped at the table. She raised an eyebrow at the glass bottle beside the candle.
Vandrien had gifted that bottle to Salara after they had destroyed the human city of Easterlock and finally begun the Reclamation. The grapes had been harvested from the vines in western Numillíon, the only such vines that could trace their lineage back to the soil of Caelduin. Under the dense canopy of Lynalion, grapes were not easily grown. That one bottle of wine was a rarity, a treasure, a taste of what had once been.
“I was waiting,” Salara said, inclining her head towards the bottle, pulling her gauntlet off and rubbing at her eye with the heel of her hand. “Until we have won the war. Until we have taken back what was stolen from us.”
“We have waited for four hundred years, Salara.” Vandrien pulled on the Spark, sliding thin threads of Air around the bottle’s cork and lifting it free. “I do think that is long enough. Don’t you?”
The queen pulled two wooden cups across the table, poured the wine, then passed one to Salara.
Vandrien swirled the wine in the cup gently, lifting her nose as she drew a long breath. She shook her head, a smile curling her lips, then sipped the wine. The queen let out a long, happy sigh. “It seems strange that something so…” She pondered, looking towards the tent’s ceiling, then continued, “frivolous can remind you of what you’re fighting for.” She stared into the glass. “Though, I suppose wine is not frivolous. It is history and culture. It is time and hardship. Our ancestors in Caelduin worked the vineyards tirelessly, refusing to use the Spark, keeping to the old ways. This wine is their legacy, our heritage preserved in glass… In essence, it is everything we fight for. Our past, our way of life…” Vandrien lifted her gaze, a nod letting Salara know the queen wished for her to drink. “Forgive me, I’m wandering.”
Salara did as instructed, swirling the wine and inhaling the scents. Some said they could pick individual scents from wine – cherries, peaches, chestnut, oak. Salara figured they were full of shit. She smelled wine. It was sweet, fruity, pleasant. But not much else. The taste, however, was a different world altogether. She might not have known the individual notes, might not appreciate the subtleties, but that wine reminded her of home. It was full, and rich, and warm.
“We must allow ourselves these small things, Salara.” Vandrien gestured towards the cup in her hand. “We are at war now. We will never know when Heraya will choose to call us into her embrace. Don’t hold these things in hope for what might be. Embrace them, let them fill you with longing. Let them fuel you. We cannot wait for our destinies to unfold. We must forge them ourselves.” Vandrien moved back towards the table, looking down over the map that Salara had tacked there, red ink marking the land Numillíon had already reclaimed. Ice crept into the queen’s voice. “You went to meet with Eltoar Daethana.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I did, Myia’nari.”
“I’m assuming there was a good reason you did this without speaking to me first?” Vandrien looked from the map to Salara, studying her. “The young dragon and their Draleid. What did Eltoar say?”
“He confirmed the reports. A new dragon has hatched. We must…”
Salara allowed her words to fade as Vandrien raised a hand.
“We must follow the plan, Salara. I promise you, on my honour, that I will do everything I can to find out more about this, but we must hold fast.”
“Du haryn myia vrai, Myia’nari.” You have my thanks, my queen .
Vandrien nodded, sipping her wine. “May I ask a question of the heart?”
Salara nodded. A queen did not need to ask. Vandrien gave Salara more honour than she was due.
“How was it, seeing him again? How is your heart?”
Salara took a long draught of her wine, breathing in through her nose as she did. “Torn,” she said, exhaling. She folded her arms, staring off at an empty patch of red canvas on the tent’s wall. “I can’t reconcile the Eltoar I knew with the monster that ripped us apart. Seeing him only made that worse because he doesn’t look like a monster.” Salara turned to Vandrien, not bothering to hide her emotions. “He doesn’t, Vandrien. He looks like my master, like my friend. He looks like the elf who taught me everything, who taught me what honour truly meant, what it was to be a Draleid. He taught me who I am.”
“We are, each of us, capable of things we could never imagine.” Vandrien moved beside Salara, following her gaze. “No soul is incorruptible. Good and evil are words created so that our minds might grasp, in its most simplistic form, the concept of what is right and what is wrong. But the words themselves serve no purpose. For boiling down right and wrong into such basic forms is not possible in the living world, only in theory.”
Vandrien placed her cup on the table and filled it once more, doing the same with Salara’s. “Eltoar Daethana is not evil. He is not a monster, nor a demon, nor a god. He is an elf, a Draleid. Nothing more. He is capable of both good and evil, right and wrong. But it is through his actions and the actions of those who followed him that so many of our people died. He is your former master, but he is also the butcher of everything you loved. He betrayed us, betrayed you. He hunted and slaughtered more Draleid than we could ever hope to count.” The queen gave a soft sigh. “Come. I have something you need to see.”
Salara followed Vandrien from the tent, the queen’s Sunguard taking up positions on either side as they made their way back through the camp. There were six in total, never any more, never any less. Each guard wore a suit of smooth plate forged from Antherin steel and brushed gold. Charging stags adorned the tops of their articulated pauldrons, while their breastplates were marked with depictions of the sun. Unlike the rest of the army, the cloth that decorated their armour was not crimson but white trimmed in gold.
They were, each of them, the greatest warriors in Numillíon, masters of the blade, artists of the Spark. Even Salara herself would be hard pressed to fight her way through their steel.
“Alaith anar, Draleid.” Their commander, Olmaír Moridain, inclined his head to Salara. He was a tall, lithe elf with long, wiry arms and sharp eyes and had seen a hundred battles by the time Salara had drawn her first breath. A living legend.
Salara returned the gesture, bowing slightly. There were few for whom she held as much respect as she did for Moridain. Her father had raised her on stories of the elf.
As they walked, there were no bows from the elves they passed along the way. A bow was not sufficient for the one who would lead them from the darkness. Instead, each elf dropped one knee, leaving it to hover just short of the ground, resting their sword hands atop their pommels. It was something they had taken to doing when Vandrien had commanded them not to kneel, a sign they were always ready to fight for her.
After a while, they came to a section of the camp where the canopies switched from crimson and gold to a plain cream, marking where the elves who had been freed from the human iron mines were housed. She had not visited in the days since the mine’s sack, for which guilt still wracked her. She simply could not bring herself to look upon what the humans had turned her kin into.
The guards who stood about wore no armour and held no weapons. Crimson tunics adorned their shoulders, linen trousers falling over sandalled feet. Vandrien stopped and spoke with one of them, then gestured to Moridain. “Wait here.”
“Myia’nari.” Moridain and the Sunguard spread out in a line.
“Leave your sword with Olmaír,” Vandrien said to Salara, moving forward and gesturing for her to follow.
Salara did as commanded.
“You have the blood of Achyron in your veins, Salara,” Vandrien said when Salara caught her up. The smile that sat upon the queen’s lips was one of sorrow and sympathy. “You are a warrior through and through. But you still bleed like any other, still feel the crush of heartache.”
Salara looked at the ground as she walked, as much to avoid Vandrien’s gaze as to mind her step.
“Feel your grief,” Vandrien continued. “Let it flow through you. But so too feel your anger .” Vandrien’s voice rose, a growl forming in her throat. “Feel the rage at what was done to our people. Feel the fury at what Eltoar Daethana did to our people, his people. Feel the fire.”
Vandrien rested a hand on Salara’s pauldron, her voice gentle. “Lift your gaze, Salara. Do not look away.”
Before them, the tents had parted into an enormous opening with hundreds of baldír lined along the edges, their white glow dim. Now that she focused, she could feel the thrum of the Spark in the air, see the threads of Spirit, Air, and Fire swirling about the mages who sat with their legs folded.
After a moment, her gaze moved to what Vandrien had brought her here for.
“So long have they been surrounded by rock on all sides that they refuse to sleep in the tents for fear of being trapped.” Vandrien clasped her hands behind her back, worry in the creases of her eyes, anger in the tremble of her voice. “The baldír give them comfort, shelter from the darkness.”
Everywhere Salara looked, elves lay in the dirt or sat huddled in groups. They were packed so tightly it was like looking upon a colony of ants. Each was garbed in the finest spider-silk woven in Eselthyr – beautiful, vibrant garments of blues, yellows, greens, and reds. They had been bathed in warm waters, their hair brushed, skin scrubbed. They had received treatment fit for royalty, and yet they huddled in the dirt, looking as though they feared their own shadows would come for them.
Rage smouldered in Salara’s chest, her jaw clenching.
“They have known little else besides the mines, besides the darkness and the walls, the hopelessness and the pain. They were born into a life of chains and bonds. Brought to the surface only so that they would know the light – know what they would never have.” As Vandrien spoke, Salara felt her draw from the Spark, threads of Earth and Spirit. “Generations of our people born into subservience, born to believe they were worth nothing more than the dirt in the ground.” The cup of wine that Vandrien had carried from the tent cracked and splintered, shattering, wine spilling like blood. Her hand shook, still holding the cup’s remnants. The queen’s dress flapped and lifted, threads of Air swirling around her. Waves of power surged from her, pulsing like a beating heart. She looked to Salara. “Warmarshal Luilin leads their integration. He is having the bralgír tell them stories of times passed, showing them our customs and culture, teaching them of honour and how to hold a weapon, educating them on the choosing of a valúr and what it means. But sometimes these things are not enough.”
Vandrien let out a long sigh, then rested her hand on Salara’s cheek, staring into her eyes.
“I know how much I have asked of you. I know it is not fair. But I also know that I would not have asked it of you if I did not think you capable of it.”
“On my honour, my queen, I am yours. Ask of me what you will, and I will see it done.”
Vandrien smiled softly, brushing her thumb across Salara’s cheek before turning back to look at the hundreds of elves huddled together in the open camp. “Show them they are safe. Give them a reason to believe, as you have done for us all. But most of all, show them that the darkness cast upon them will not go unpunished. Eltoar Daethana is not the master you once knew. That elf is dead. He is what remains. I need to know you will do what must be done.”
Salara looked out at the rescued elves, pity swirling with rage in her heart. She dropped so that her right knee hovered just off the ground. “Eia v?ra cuaran i sanv?r. Ur myia haydria.”
He will pay in blood. On my honour.
“Rise.” Vandrien pulled at Salara’s arm and lifted her upright. “Although the gesture is appreciated, I wish you to teach these elves how to stand, not how to kneel.” She pulled a long breath through her nose, then exhaled slowly. “The Lorians will strike at us soon. Once they see we are waiting for Efialtír’s moon to wane.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it is what I would do, and Fane Mortem is many things, but he is no fool. The moon gives his mages an advantage over ours, an advantage that fades when the Blood Moon sets. In fact, I am quite curious as to why they haven’t attacked already.”
“Our scouts report large numbers of Lorian soldiers joining the ranks at Elkenrim, many of them travelling from the Svidar’Cia. Perhaps they are mustering.”
Vandrien’s eyes widened at that. She gave a sombre nod. “So he returned to where all of this began. Have our scouts push harder. Intercept messages, eliminate patrols. Take as many alive as you can. I want to know where the Lorians sleep, where they empty their bowels, what songs they sing. I want to know what Fane Mortem eats to break the fast. Knowledge wins wars, Salara.”
“I will pass the command on to the generals. What of this attack? How should we prepare?”
Vandrien traced her finger along the map. “Have you ever read The Art of War, by Sumara Tuzan?”
Salara shook her head.
“She was a human tactician, from the Age of War. A brilliant mind for warcraft. If humans know anything, it is destruction and death.” Vandrien folded her arms. “Sumara posed that the simplest way to win a war is to destroy your opponent’s capacity to wage it. We began that by taking the mines near the Sea of Stone, and now we must continue on that path.”
“What would you have us do?”
“With the mines, we took their iron. Next, we must take their food, their gold, and their ability to communicate. We will use their advantage against them. Cut off the blood, and the limb will die. Cut off enough limbs, and the body will die.”