March

Another part of my fantasy world.

    The elves broke through the barricades and defensive lines as if they were twigs. They slaughtered guards and militia men with their wicked blades and poisoned arrows. The town was swarmed in a matter of hours and by the time Athedil rode through the gates on his white mare, the inhabitants were either dead or captured. His soldiers moved aside as he rode by.
    Into the town square he went, where from wooden posts hung the hanged corpses of elves, left to feed the birds. At the bases of the posts, were more elves, alive but bound to post by chains. Athedil cast his eyes up to the corpses of his brethren: they were all children and women, their limbs broken and twisted and their genitals mutilated. He stared at them long with mute silver eyes but on the inside he was outraged. No children or women served in his armies. They offered no threat to the humans....
    "My lord Athedil," Anil, one of his lieutenants called, tugging his cape lightly. "We found them like this. The men must have captured one of their camps or caravans."
    "If only they agreed to my protection sooner," Athedil said. "This would not have happened. Attend to the survivors - unbind them."
    "Yes, my lord. You two!" Anil called to soldiers. "Cut those chains and bring them to the healers."
    "Why would the men attack our women and children?"
    "I'm uncertain, my lord," Anil replied. He looked back up at the corpses. He swallowed hard. "It appears they were - ah - raped and tortured before hung, if the injuries are anything to judge. Have the humans done this before?"
    "Yes. The men believe they have honor, but it is this honor, Anil?" Athedil's eyes shifted to his lieutenant.
    Anil's features creased in anger. "No, my lord."
    "I want the corpses cut down. We will return them to Althera, where they will sleep with the honored dead."
    "Yes, my lord. But that leaves the matter of survivors. Of the town. What shall we do with them?" Anil questioned. "If I may speak, lord, I would have them all tortured and executed -- "
    "No. We are better than these creatures," Athedil said, swinging his horse about. "Grant them peaceful deaths, then burn whats left of this place."
    "Y-yes, my lord," Anil went to deliver the lord's will.
    Athedil wandered about the town, taking in it all. The bodies were left where they fell, felled by elven arrows or by elven blades. He dismounted and knelt over the corpse of a man, taking up the fallen's sword, cradling it with his long fingers. The thing seemed so foreign, so crude, a barbaric thing of iron and steel, so unlike the elegant blades of the elves. It made Athedil smile, to know that his kind was better than the one that had defeated his people, once, ages ago - even down to their art or craftsmanship. He crumpled the blade as if it were paper, tossing it away before mounting again.
    He rode back to the broken gates of the town. The militia's fortress was already blazing with flame, the battlements and turrets torn down, the bricks scattered about. Athedil smiled again. The work of the Oathbrothers, he though approvingly. And there they were, arrayed in a line, his Oathbrothers, drawing their straight blades, standing tall before the human captives, all taken and bound, kneeling in the dirt. The majority of them were men, already bloodied by the battle, but there were some women strewn about the line, some of them possessing injuries from the battle, too, having taken up arms alongside their men. As he passed by, they regarded him with looks of despair, rage or awe. In his own heart, he raged at them, wanting to butcher them like beasts for the crime against his own. His heart burned and howled for blood but he quieted it. They would have honorable deaths of the highest kind, despite their murders.
    But as he rode, he caught a glance of a boy in the execution line. He called his mare to a stop and dismounted. He approached the boy and knelt besides him.
    "Ungag him," he instructed one of the soldiers, who removed the cloth from between the boy's teeth. "Tell me, boy, who are you?"
    "C-Cair, son of Telor Hearthhand, who fell in the battle."
    "Cair, tell me, are you afraid of death?"
    The boy's eyes widened as he looked into the almond shaped moons of the elf's. His lips quivered slightly.
    "My father taught me that death comes for every man, no matter how old or how young."
    "That is wise, but you did not answer my question. Do you fear death?"
    A gagged man in the line protested but was put down by the pommel of an oathblade. Cair swallowed hard, then lowered himself into the dirt.
    "Y-yes...."
    Athedil smiled. He reached down and took Cair by the chin, lifting his head.
    "Cair, son of Telor Hearthhand, you need not fear death. You will not die today. I will have no children killed under my command."
    Athedil undid the boy's bindings and took him, taking him out of the dirt.
    "Come," he mounted his mare and offered Cair his hand. The boy took it and was hefted up onto the white horse. "Grant them honorable deaths, my brothers, but first, let you humans know; you are undeserving of such charitable honor. You are beasts wrapped in intelligent skin, slavering and ready to tear each other apart. You lash out and destroy and rape that which you do not understand... or that which is not yours. Your greed has caused a rift in this world, a rift that will never heal. Your greed and ambition and lust destroyed a people, a beautiful people. But I will rebuild them, bring them up from the ruination that you cast upon them, I will rebuild the alvhenkynd atop the bones of men, beginning with yours.
    You will be granted honorable deaths not out of mercy or equality. It is done out of pity, for you have brought destruction upon only yourselves. Look upon us and despair, for we are your betters."
    As their lord rode away, the Oathrbrothers, in one fluid motion, slashed the necks of the captives, spilling dark red blood into the dust beneath them. Cair watched, horrified, from the back of Athedil's horse, arms wrapped around the midsection of the elf, the enemy of men, who had ordered his neighbors, friends, fellows to their deaths. He clenched his eyes shut, afraid for himself, as the elves burned down his home.
    "Do not fear, Cair," Athedil spoke. "You will be given a higher purpose, a glorious purpose."