“Nine thousand goblins will greatly outnumber my five thousand elf warriors,” Rynn said. “This goblin army will pose a true test for my elf military. But it is a test we shall pass! Victory will not come easily, but we will win. I will find a way to win. The fae military will march into combat, and we shall defeat the goblin menace!”
“We have more bad news,” Zalyx said. “Yarid, your father the King is dead. Goblin marauders ambushed and attacked his caravan while he and his fae retinue were traveling to Imperia to renegotiate his trade deals with the humans. The goblins slaughtered everyone. Only one elf, a guard, escaped, despite being heavily injured. He sent us a Yellow magic telepathic message to tell us what had happened, and then he died from his wounds. Because we were up north, we were within range of the elf guard’s spell, and we heard his mind speak to us as he died.”
Yarid blinked. Do not cry. They need to see that you are strong, Yarid thought. They will be relying on you… now that you are their King.
“The goblins seem incredibly well-organized in their plans,” Yarid said, his voice pointedly calm and even. “Normally goblins are very stupid. Which goblin general or goblin king is leading them? I wish we had spies among the goblins, but we do not.”
Rynn rested a hand on Yarid’s shirtless naked shoulder. Yarid felt her fingertips, her touch warm against his skin. “It’s okay to cry, my King,” Rynn said, seamlessly making the transition of her loyalty from Leonyx to Yarid under the terms of the loyalty oath that she had sworn; it was a fae pact that bound all elves, nobles and commoners, to their king, in return for the king’s service to the realm of faerie. “It’s okay to grieve, and to be sad. I know you loved your father.”
“I will cry after we win the war or after I am dead,” Yarid said. “I do not choose to cry now. I do love my father. He would not have wanted me to allow our people to lose this war.”
Rynn did not say anything in reply, but she reached her hand up to his forehead and gently and carefully tucked a loose stray lock of his gold-blonde hair back behind his crown. He smiled.
“Zalen, Zalyx, go forth and summon all the generals and commanders and the royal advisors, and give notice to ready the troops for war. Have the commanders and advisors meet me in the military command center, which is in Temple Mountain. Give the townspeople the command to evacuate the settlements and retreat into the forest, as is our long-standing plan. Our soldiers will mass in the plains north of the forest, and make our stand there, to block the goblins coming from the north and prevent them from reaching the forest or the Temple Mountain south of the plains.”
“We will, my King,” Zalen and Zalyx said together, speaking the words at precisely the same time. The twin pixie boys often had fun by shadowing each other or talking in unison as a joke, and the habit was so strong that they continued to do so now, although Yarid could see the look of darkness and fear developing in the boys’ eyes.
“That should not take you much time, because you can use Yellow magic to teleport short distances and to send telepathic messages to all who are within the range of your magic,” Yarid said to the twins. “Once you finish, I have a much more urgent and critical task for you boys: fly southwest to the distant lands known as the Gnome Country. The elves and the gnomes have an ancient treaty for mutual defense; our alliance dates back thousands of years, and the gnomes have always been trustworthy and loyal. Inform the gnomes that we are under attack, and request reinforcements from them immediately. Gnomes are tiny, weak and puny, despite being brainy intellectual geniuses, but those mechanical war machines of theirs called the metal giants, that they have invented and which they pilot into combat, will strike fear into the hearts of the goblin army, and will crush the goblins underfoot.”
“We will do so, my King,” the twin brothers said in unison. They began to cast Yellow magic to teleport away.
“Wait!” Yarid said. The twins stopped their teleport spell. “I have one more command. After you speak to the gnomes, go up far to the northeast, to the human lands, and ask them for aid. Leonyx invested much into our treaty with the humans, and they owe us their swords. Given the distance, the human army would arrive too late to save us from the goblins, although I doubt that the humans will ride to our aid at all, but at least the Imperium could inflict heavy casualties and take our revenge for us against the goblins if we die. Truly our only hope is to pray that the gnomes come and that our own soldiers can defend and protect us until the gnomish metal giants rescue us. Our own army cannot defeat a goblin force of this size, but metal giants can, and I pray they will.”
Zalen and Zalyx looked at each other and nodded to each other. The twin faeries bowed to Yarid and, without delaying by an additional moment for any more words, they disappeared with their teleport spells.
“Come, Rynn,” Yarid said. “Let us go to Temple Mountain. I need to see my new kingdom, knowing that I may lose it and see all of us dead merely days after inheriting it.”
“We will not die,” Rynn said. I hope not, Yarid thought. The elf king walked to his desk. He picked up his longsword with the long chains attached to it from off the top of the desk. He looped the chains around his torso, forming the shape of an X made of chains across his chest, to strap the gigantic longsword to his back. He looked at Rynn; she returned his gaze. She nodded. He nodded back. Rynn and Yarid cast Yellow magic spells and instantly vanished from the cabin.
Yarid was pacing back and forth in the military command center in the heart of Temple Mountain. Ages ago, elf architects had carved the room out of a gigantic cavern the same pale blue-gray-white stone as all of Temple Mountain. The elves had carefully smoothed the walls and floors into clean straight planes and capped the ceilings into graceful vaulted arched domes high above, and they had made the room gigantic, to be sure to give their faerie leaders plenty of room. Fae Yellow-magic orbs of white light floated high above and illuminated the room; the stone of the room seemed to almost glow a weird blueish white in their magical light.
Giant stone statues of many different ancient elven kings, Yarid’s ancestors who had ruled thousands of years ago, lined the walls; the statues were so tall that they towered all the way up to the high vaulted ceilings and cast heavy shadows from the fae lights floating above them. The statues had been made from stone from the mountain and their color blended in with that of the rest of the room. A massive set of iron double doors, ornately forged with fae runes covering their vast surfaces, opened from the far wall of the chamber into hallways that led both to the Temple of the Elements and to the outside entrance to Temple Mountain, but the doors were open only a slight crack, big enough for a single elf to walk through.
A throne had been carved into the stone against the back wall of the room, but Yarid did not sit in it; instead, he paced up and down in front of it. The room contained only four elves: King Yarid, Rynn the general of the army, Garyx her second-in-command, and Arvoryx the High Priest, leader of the elf priests. Yarid had ordered all other nobles and members of his faerie court to take shelter in the forest alongside the commoner civilians; the nobility was largely ornamental and served no practical purpose in war. Rynn and Garyx stood directly in front of the line that Yarid was tracing with his feet as he walked up and down, and the two elves’ eyes followed their king as he walked back and forth, turning their heads left and right to keep their eyes on him. Arvoryx stood farther away, leaning against one of the stone elf-king statues and being partially obscured by the statue’s shadow.
“Word has come back from Zalen and Zalyx,” Rynn reported to King Yarid. “The twins flapped their wings with a force they did not know they were capable of. They reached the gnomes mere hours after you had sent them, and they pushed as hard as they could with their minds and forced a brief telepathic message the long distance back to us. The gnomes have agreed to come. They say that they can arrive here with a battalion of their metal-giant war machines in ten days.”
“And how long will it take for the goblin army to sweep down from the hills and invade the realm of faerie?” Yarid asked.
“The goblin army will enter the plains in three days,” Rynn said.
“Can you hold them?” Yarid asked. “Can our elf soldiers stop the goblin spread for a week and hold them back until the gnomes arrive with their metal giants to save us?”
“We can try,” Rynn said. “Our soldiers are smart, and strong. A goblin is small, weak, and stupid; they become dangerous only when they gang up and attack a superior foe using a sheer mass of numbers. I can try to hold them back for one week, although we will take heavy casualties, and if our gnome allies have not arrived on time, then we will be forced to abandon our lands and retreat into exile.”
“Do it. Hold them. I have faith in you, Rynn. Find a way to win this war for me,” Yarid said.
“The gnomes say they will be here in ten days, but they might arrive much sooner than that,” Garyx said. Garyx was a lean, handsome elf, who wore a yellow cape over his iron suit of armor. His hand always rested on the hilt of the sword at his side, and it did so now, too. Garyx was the same age as Yarid and had been one of Yarid’s first lovers, although they had not slept together in over a hundred years. Early in his youth, Garyx had left the land of the elves to study at a school in the Gnome Country, where he had been educated by the gnomes in their strange sciences of machines and chemicals and engines. After returning to the fae realm, Garyx had joined the army and had rapidly risen through the ranks as an intelligent and reliable leader, despite coming from one of the lesser-ranked noble houses.
“Gnomes like to always be right, and gnomes hate it when they are wrong,” Garyx said. “So they often given conservative estimates when they tell each other about what time they expect to arrive, because they would not want to show up later than they had planned and be proven wrong to the other gnomes. When a gnome says ten days, it usually really means seven days, or maybe even six days. Perhaps as little as five.” I trust him about all things gnomish, Yarid thought. Thank God if he is right.
“Going into exile is simply out of the question,” Arvoryx said. Yarid, Rynn and Garyx looked at Arvoryx, as if just noticing him. “We must not leave our land. The realm of faerie, our elf land, has been the home of the fae people for ten thousand years! We must not retreat. It would be better for us to die here with honor than to run away from our sacred lands as cowards! Our sacred obligation, the Temple Mountain in which we stand right now, is here, not some other place far away!”
“We cannot pray to God or pay any homage to God if we are all of us dead,” Rynn said. “And we will not successfully defend Temple Mountain by means of being slaughtered by goblins at its gates outside. You priests are very admirable, but we have a war to win.”
Rynn turned her gaze away from Arvoryx and back to Yarid. Yarid met her eyes with his large blue eyes. “I suggest that we send our soldiers up to face them in the plains and make our stand in the grassy plains, and not at the north side of the fae forest, my King,” Rynn said. “If we allow them to reach the forest it will be easier for us to attack, because we know that territory well and they do not. However, our civilians are currently sheltering high atop the forest trees to be out of the way of danger. I do not want the goblins to reach our forest. I suggest we send all of our soldiers to make our stand at the north, and not leave any behind in the forest with the civilians; there will be nothing a small force of warriors can do to save our people in the forest if the goblins break through our ranks, so why bother to split our numbers.
“With the civilians sheltering high up in the upper branches of the treetops of the forest, the goblins hopefully will not even see the elf civilians or know that they are hiding there, and our people should be safely out of range of goblin arrows and beyond the reach of goblin axes and swords. The goblin folk live in the depths of caves in their mountains, and I have never heard of them being able to climb trees. But you are our King: the final decision is yours.”
“You are my top general and I trust your advice in all military matters,” Yarid replied. “Meet them in the plains at the north. Send every elf warrior. This is my order. Send forth the fae army. Make your stand at the plains; do not allow the enemy to invade farther south.” My cabin is in the northern plains, but I am happy to sacrifice it for the good of my people.
“Your will is my command, my King,” Rynn said. Rynn and Garyx bowed to Yarid and then turned and strode away towards the exit doors.
“You must ensure that the goblins never make it far enough to reach this mountain,” Arvoryx, the High Priest of the elves, said to Yarid, now that they were alone. “The goblins must not raze our Temple and destroy our Crystal. If we allow our Crystal to be destroyed, our priests will lose the favor of God! And that will be the end of our ability to work any small miracles ever again, to say nothing of losing any last trace of any privilege we once had to pray for grand miracles from God. Do you have any idea how bad it will be for the elves if their priests cannot work small miracles for them?”
Arvoryx was a tall, thin elf, who wore flowing robes of the palest, lightest, faintest yellow. His head was shaven bald, as was the custom among the fae clerics. His nose was also particularly pointy and long, even for an elf, and his nose seemed to dominate his face, so that one did not even notice his small, beady blue eyes or the roundness of his smooth, supple, young-looking cheeks and bald head. Yarid did not know how old Arvoryx was; Arvoryx had been High Priest since long before Yarid had been born, although his name did not appear in any of the ancient legends, so he was probably less than five thousand years old.
“Yes, I know that,” Yarid said. “I am honor-bound to protect this Temple, and I will do so. Arvoryx, I had put you in charge of sending out the priests to console and support our people who are sheltering in the treetops of the forest. How is that going?”
“Yes, yes, it’s going fine, but the Temple!” Arvoryx said. “The Temple is what matters above all. That Crystal is the covenant between faerie and God. If it shatters, the hopes and dreams of the elves shatter with it.”
“Have you prayed to God for a grand miracle or to help us win the war?” Yarid asked.
“Yes, but God gave me no sign as to whether God intends to intervene on our behalf,” Arvoryx replied. “God might or God might not; no priest and no mortal person can ever predict or know the mind of God, and it is blasphemy even to claim that we can. However, I am confident that we stand on the side of good and right and that therefore God’s favor walks with us and God stands with us as we fight. But that will only hold true unless, and until, we allow the Crystal to shatter or let goblins raze our sacred Temple.”
“No goblin will ever set foot in our Temple,” Yarid said. “Now go and minister to our people. Try your best to keep them calm and relaxed and without fear, especially the children, the elderly and the sick who cannot fight.”
“Yes, my King,” Arvoryx said.
Arvoryx bowed to his king, a wide majestic bow which lasted perhaps for a moment too long. Arvoryx disappeared into a Yellow magic teleportation spell.
Yarid continued to pace, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He was alone, with no sound other than his footsteps echoing through the empty stone chamber and no company other than the giant stone statues of the ancient elf kings looking down upon him.
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“Our army has met the goblin army in battle along the northern plains," Rynn reported. "And our soldiers are faring much better than we expected in that battle. The goblins are small and weak compared to our fae warriors, and our troops hunger for blood. We can contain the goblin army from the north until the gnomish reinforcements arrive.”
Praise God, Yarid thought.
“But you look concerned,” Yarid said. “I know you, Rynn. I know your eyes. What more are you not telling me?”
Yarid stared at her. Rynn looked away and refused to meet Yarid’s gaze. Garyx was the one who spoke.
“We have some bad news, my King,” Garyx said. “Our perimeter scouts have detected a second goblin army. The goblins sent a small force, well, comparatively small, of one thousand goblin soldiers. They flanked all the way around the western border of the fae realm and are now coming at us from our southwest flank. They must have set out and marched from the goblin lands months ago to be where they are right now. They are on a direct route to the area where our townspeople and villagers used to live, and no elf army stands in their way to obstruct their progress.”
“Yes, but our civilians are sheltering in the forest! They are not in the villages!” Yarid said.
“We know, my King,” Rynn said. “But I, being a fool and underestimating the goblin menace, sent all our fae soldiers to the north, to the battle taking place on the grassy plains. That means no fae army stands in the path between this second goblin army and our Temple Mountain, and I have no elf warriors to send down to block them. The goblins are marching steadily in our direction, and they could reach us here, in this room, within a day. Furthermore, the path that this second goblin army is on would take them from the southwest towns, through the southern part of the forest, and then to the southeast, to this mountain. When the order was given for the civilians to evacuate into the trees, it was natural for them to go to the nearest section of the forest. Our people are sheltering in the southern section of the forest. The goblins will be upon them, potentially within hours.”
Yarid laughed. Why is she so worried about this? “Our people are sheltering high up in the trees, in their upper branches and treetops. The goblins cannot reach them. And all the members of faerie have the inherent Yellow-magical ability to become invisible and stay so perfectly still that we make no sound. The goblins will neither see them nor be able to reach them.”
Rynn shook her head. “We underestimated the goblins, my King. This second goblin army brought goblin-hounds with them. They will smell the civilian fae, despite not being able to see them. The goblins also brought cave-spiders, the giant spiders who live deep in the bowels of the goblin mountains. Our scouts report that goblin warriors have domesticated the cave-spiders, and that the goblin vanguard is riding them as mounts. The spiders can ascend the trees. I now believe that the goblins anticipated our moves of defense and made their own countermoves ahead of ours, although no goblin has the raw intelligence to be able to do so.”
Why, God? What more can possibly go wrong? Yarid thought.
“What are our options?” Yarid asked.
Rynn swallowed, so loudly Yarid could hear her throat. “If I give the order for the elf army to pull back and retreat from the plains and come back to the forest, I believe the goblins would not be competent to prevent them from doing so. Our army could arrive at the same time as the second goblin army. Although it would be difficult, I believe our troops could protect our civilians from both goblin armies, from the north and from the southwest, buying us enough time to abandon the fae realm entirely and evacuate our people out to the west. But, if we were to do this, our army must accompany our people until they are out of harm’s way, far to the west. By that time, our lands will be overrun with goblins and will be totally under their control. Retaking the fae realm would be outside of our power, and, even if we tried, by the time we did, the goblins could break into Temple Mountain, raze the Temple and break the Crystal. However, I believe my soldiers could buy us enough time to protect the civilians from the two goblin armies until the gnomes arrive, and then gnomish metal giants will protect our flank and guarantee our ability to retreat with the civilians into exile.”
“If we pull our soldiers back from the plains, could they defend our civilians and protect Temple Mountain at the same time?”
Rynn shook her head. “No. I thought of that as well. It would not work. We cannot protect a convoy of civilians heading west and defend a mountain at our southeast at the same time. And, if we don’t get them out of here, our people will be slaughtered during the battle. The fae civilians are farmers, fisherman, and hunters, and a lot of them are makers of gold ornaments and others who work with fae gold and make a living from the fae gold industry. They are not soldiers. All the ones who can fight, I already conscripted.”
“And what of sheltering our people within Temple Mountain?” Yarid asked, although even he knew that this was probably not going to work either.
“Temple Mountain was designed to be a sacred space for God. It is not a fortress. This command center, this room, is fortified, but the Temple itself is not, and the halls and entryways leading into the mountain are wide open, to invite all people to come explore the worship of God. Never in ten thousand years have we elves ever allowed a foe to penetrate so deep into our territory that Temple Mountain was in danger.”
“But if we use our own soldiers to plug the holes? If we fight to defend the halls and entries to the mountain?”
“Then, bottlenecked as we would be, a handful of soldiers would face wave after wave of goblins coming at them. The halls of this mountain would run red with blood, and our numbers would run out before theirs did. Also, we do not have enough space within the halls and rooms of this mountain to house thousands of elves,” Rynn said. “And we have thousands of civilians who are currently taking shelter from this war in the forest. We are simply not equipped with food and supplies within this mountain to withstand a siege or to house our people here during one. Again, I was not prepared for this scenario, which will be my undying shame. If we lead our people into this mountain to hide, we lead them into this mountain to be their tomb.”
“I know that most fae are not nearly as talented at Yellow magic as the elves of the noble houses, but can we teleport them away to safety?” Yarid asked.
“There are too many of them, and too few of us who are good at Yellow magic,” Rynn said. “That, too, would not work.”
“Then what would you have me do?” Yarid asked.
“Give the order for me to pull back my army. Command the faerie to evacuate the fae realm. Abandon the Temple to the goblins, and lead your people west, into exile.”
“No!” Arvoryx said, with a fury so loud that the others jumped in their shoes. They had forgotten that he was there, listening. “No! No! No! I won’t let you do that! I won’t let you! You must defend the Temple! We made a fae pact with God to defend the Crystal! We must defend the Crystal!”
“We cannot,” Rynn said. “This surprise second goblin army makes that impossible. We cannot weather a siege at this mountain. Our only hope was to stall the goblins long enough for our gnome allies to arrive. If our army continues to make its stand along the plains, then the second goblin army will take the mountain. But if we pull our army back and use it to defend Temple Mountain, the goblins will fight their way through within a day or two, before the gnomes arrive. The Temple will fall, and we will all die, and our civilians will die, too.”
“There is… another option,” Garyx said. “I have had an idea. You may not like it. But it is an idea.” Yarid saw the look in Rynn’s eyes; she was not happy, but she chose to allow Garyx to speak.
“What is it, Garyx? Speak,” Yarid said.
“The river is dammed near the towns, forming a lake that the elves use for drinking water,” Garyx said.
“Yes, I know,” Yarid said.
“The lake is quite large.”
“I am aware of it. I have lived in these lands all my life.”
“It rained a lot recently. The lake is quite full.”
This is getting me angry. “I know about the lake, Garyx, I will take you on a boat to fish there after we have won the war, would you please tell me what your idea is?”
“At the gnome school, I learned about buildings and structures and how to manipulate the land,” Garyx said.
“Garyx, as your King, I command you, just spit it out! Tell us your idea!” Yarid said.
Garyx did not flinch. “I believe that I have the tools necessary to rupture and burst the dam. If we were to do so, the river would flood. Those floodwaters will flow and flood precisely the area that the second goblin army needs to march through to reach Temple Mountain. No longer needing to worry about the second goblin army, we could leave our fae warriors on the northern plains and hold off the first goblin army. By the time the goblins got around the floodwaters, the gnomes would arrive.”
Yarid laughed; tears of joy flowed down his cheeks; his face was red. “Why, Garyx, that’s marvelous! What a grand idea!”
“But there is a catch,” Garyx said.
“What is it,” Yarid said, all joy and emotion suddenly drained from him.
“If we break the dam and flood the river, the floodwaters will cut off the goblins,” Garyx said. “But it will also flood directly into the southern section of the forest. That is the precise location where most of the civilians are taking shelter.”
Yarid laughed. “But our people are high above in the treetops! The water could not reach them.”
“The initial wave of water would knock over many trees, and, with the soil saturated with water and turned into mud, many of the other trees would fall over or sink,” Garyx said. “And, by my calculations, the level of water in that area of the forest, after we flood the river, will be so high that everyone will drown.”
Yarid said nothing.
“Do it,” Arvoryx said. The other three elves turned and looked at the High Priest. “You heard what he said. With his plan, Temple Mountain can be saved!”
“And all of our people will die,” Rynn said. “Our civilians will drown. They will die.”
“We swore a sacred oath to God,” Arvoryx said. “We are bound into a fae pact with God. The Crystal in the Temple of the Elements must be defended at all costs. We are fae, and we must obey our fae covenants. There is nothing to discuss; that fact cannot be argued with, it cannot be gotten around, there is nothing that you can tell me that could allow us to bypass it. Oh, yes, we fae are masters at manipulating promises and baiting people into fae pacts for things without them fully understanding what it is that they signed up for. We are the lords of telling truths that are half-truths or incomplete truths, so that we lie to people and fool them even though they know we cannot tell lies. But this is the truth, and you know that this is true. This is the covenant, our oath to God, and we cannot disobey or break or manipulate our way around this one. Nor should we try. If it is any consolation, those who died so that the Crystal could be protected will go down as heroes of legend and people will sing songs of their heroic sacrifice for centuries to come. And I will pray to God that God accepts the dead into Heaven.”
“He does not speak falsely,” Yarid said. “What he says is true.”
“You cannot seriously kill our people when we have a plan that might save them!” Rynn said. “Let me remind you, Yarid, that you personally are bound by a fae pact with your people, as their king, that you are honor-bound to protect them! Give the order to evacuate the civilians and abandon the fae realm! Let the Crystal shatter. These are our friends, our families, men, women and children, the people with whom you and I have lived our lives for hundreds of years! I love some of those people! I cherish them! I have friends, and other lovers, hiding in that forest! My King, you know that you also have many friends and lovers among them! Do not kill them!”
“Blasphemy!” Arvoryx said. “Break the Crystal? Then it is your soul that will be broken! What life can you live, with your soul destroyed, after you betray God! My King, you are a pious and virtuous fae; all the things that people say and the stories and rumors about you converge and agree upon that one point. You are a faerie of faith, and your loyalty to God and devotion to God goes without question—or at least in the past it has gone without question. But now God questions it; now God tests your faith. Will you pass this test, my King? Do you love God, Yarid? Do you have faith? Faith is easy when it is easy, but it only becomes real when it is tested and weathers a fierce and raging storm that seeks to blow it away. Was your faith ever truly real, my King?”
“You have to give me an order, my King,” Garyx said. “Should I go and begin preparing to flood the river? Or shall I go north and sound the retreat and prepare for an evacuation of our civilians out to the west?”
Yarid looked from Rynn to Arvoryx, and back to Rynn, and then back to Arvoryx.
“Give the order to abandon the fae realm and go into exile,” Rynn said. “It is the right thing to do.”
“Obeying God is always the right thing to do!” Arvoryx said. “In times of war, great sacrifices must be made! You know this! Behave like a King! And behave like an elf, with honor, and honor your obligations under your pact with God!”
“Or do the honorable thing and save your people,” Rynn said.
He who hesitates is doomed, Yarid thought. I must make one decision and act upon it now or else I will dissolve into a puddle of doubts and inner conflicts.
“Go with Rynn’s plan,” Yarid said. “Sound the retreat. I will lead our people into exile.”
“NOOOOOOOOO!” Arvoryx said, his voice a wail of agony. The High Priest dropped to his knees, overcome with emotion, and began to cry. Yarid, too, hung his head and started crying, and a look of surprise was also in his eyes while his face flushed red, and many tears poured down his cheeks. Rynn and Garyx had already turned their backs to the King and started to leave to go initiate the plan. They did not see his tears.
Yarid thought of calling out and asking them to return and telling them that he had changed his mind, and to save the Temple instead of the fae, but he did not. Yarid looked up and, a moment later, saw that Rynn and Garyx had walked out the door. They were gone. He and the High Priest were alone in the chamber. This is really going to happen, Yarid thought, as his initial sense of shock and denial about what he had done gave way to acceptance and confidence. I made this decision. Now see it through.
Arvoryx moaned in pain and then simply fell over from his knees onto the floor, his arms and legs prone and limp. Yarid went over to Arvoryx and reached down and pulled Arvoryx up off the ground. “Come, Your High Honor, we are leaving,” Yarid said. “We are abandoning Temple Mountain. And I will not leave you behind to die.”
“I will obey my King,” Arvoryx said. He remained standing after Yarid had dragged him to his feet. “I know that I cannot defend the Crystal all by myself, and I lack the sin of pride to make such a foolish and empty gesture and die by it. I will lead our priests while faerie is kicked out of the fae realm. God will not fault my behavior; God will fault only yours.”
“I take full responsibility for my actions and will pray and ask God to punish me and to spare our people from God’s wrath,” Yarid said, as he helped Arvoryx, who was still weakened by his suffering, towards the exit. Yarid looped Arvoryx’s arm around his shoulder, and he walked, while the High Priest tried to walk and was half-dragged along by the King.
“Those were not the terms of our fae covenant with God, the text of which is clearly spelled out in the pages of the elven history books, and you know it,” Arvoryx said. “The goblins will raze the Temple and shatter the Crystal into a thousand fragments and tiny jagged shards, and they will laugh with evil glee while they do so. God promised us that the breaking of the Crystal and the razing of the Temple would harbinger the downfall of the fae, if we were to let those things happen. And now, the fae realm will become the goblin realm, as I fully expect the goblin army to occupy our lands once they have seized them from us. Our lands are rich with gold, land, and food, and we leave behind much for them to steal. But God is merciful. I expect that faerie is now damned to Hell for all eternity, and you have put the entire realm one step closer to the return of the dragons and the apocalypse of dragon’s fire, but, well, we shall see what God’s plan for us is.”
“We will return,” Yarid said. “One day our army will return and reclaim these lands from the goblins. I vow this to you, Arvoryx. I swear it to you upon my blood and honor as a fae. I am now bound by this fae pact that I have made with you.”
Arvoryx laughed. “I gave you nothing in return, so there is no pact, only your crazy honor and delusions of heroism. You truly are crazy or stupid or both, to think the elves will ever defeat the goblins after today. I know that under the terms of the covenant with God as it is written we can request of God to return to God’s good graces if we reclaim the mountain and rebuild the temple. God is under no obligation to grant this request, but we would become able to make it.”
“And, one day, we will. And you and I will live to see that day.”
“I am a priest, but I am also a realist. The elf army is not nearly big enough to take on the goblins, and I do not expect that our size will increase at all while we are in exile; in fact, our numbers will probably diminish, and I suspect many fae will bleed out from our ranks and wander into human realms and leave behind faerie forever. Do not rely upon the Imperium to come fight for us: humans will give us up as a lost cause, now that we have lost. The humans are astute, and they do not throw good money after bad. They will not waste their soldiers against a goblin army this large. You will need to recruit an army of many thousands of mercenaries, probably humans, to reclaim this land. The goblins will not fall to a force of less than around five thousand men, perhaps more, if we assume that they leave only a few of their troops behind to occupy our land, and return most of their horde to their own accursed realm. Humans are pigs, but they are not cheap. How many gold coins or silver coins does it take to buy a human life? I assume at least two gold, or twenty silver, if my knowledge is correct that ten silver coins is worth about the same as one gold coin. Now how and where in the world do you propose to get ten thousand gold coins to pay for the elves to raise an army of mercenaries and retake control of the fae realm and take our land back from the goblins? How will you do it, my King?”
“I will find a way,” Yarid said. “We do not have that money; you are right about that. I will find it. I shall leave Rynn in command of the fae in exile. I shall journey out into the human realms, alone, and look for some way to come up with the money. My father was always good at extracting coins from the humans; I hope that skill runs in my blood.”
Arvoryx laughed. “You are insane. That gold will be impossible to find. And what if the humans ask you to betray your faith in God in return for a vast sum of gold such as we will need? You know that humans, unlike the fae, have no morals and no true souls, which is, perhaps, why they have all the gold in the world with which to buy the items our people craft and sell to them. No, Yarid, I see the anger in your eyes, but please, do not answer my question. Answer it, not with words, but with your actions, when you go out among the human realms, and stay true to God. You will fail, of course, and you and I both know that this is the truth. But I admire the hope and optimism that you display. I pray that God blesses your efforts. God knows that for such a crazy stupid plan to succeed, you will need it.”
