El-Vador's Travels (7 page)

'When
do you plan to test this liquid?' asked the forester. 'Did you even
think to ask him how it was going to save us from the Orcs?'

'I
plan on attacking them at night,' declared El-Vador, 'I'm going to
smear the liquid on the arrows I fire and take them out myself.'

'And if you find that there's no difference?' asked Cusband
relentlessly. 'Do you think they will take kindly to your shooting at
them? They will torch the whole settlement because of your
ineptitude.'

'Then I shall test it first.' El-Vador said. 'There is enough in the
phial for many arrows, I can spare one. When that night arrives, the
Orcs will bother us no more.' He held his father's gaze, waiting for
his approval.

Cusband
shook his head, drinking deeply from his broth before answering. 'A
lone archer, even aided by this phial of yours, could not hope to
triumph against so many,' he said. 'The others would not rally to
your cause either, we lost too many warriors in the first fight,
those few that survived the massacre will not want to invite a
second. Fighting a pitched battle against invaders is one thing, to
drive off an occupation is entirely different. Even if you were to
slaughter every Orc and Goblin they would simply send more until you
were overwhelmed. There is nothing but death at the end of this
road.'

Such
bitter cynicism took El-Vador's breath away. 'Why did you fight the
invaders in the first place, if you felt like that?' he asked. 'Why
not bend the knee straight away?'

'If we could have beaten the bulk of their forces at once, they
likely would have given up the campaign as a bad job and gone home,'
said Cusband. 'They've done that before. Now with a single victory
they're settled on the land and they see it as theirs.'

'They may be settled, I still plan to drive them away.' El-Vador
said.

'If you drive them off they'll just be made more determined and
bloodthirsty.' returned Cusband.

El-Vador
couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'So we should just give in to
them? Those are the words of a craven fool.'

He
fully expected his father to swing for him, or perhaps throw the
remnants of the broth in his face. Instead the man fixed him with a
saddened look, as if there were no anger in him. 'That you would call
your own father that disappoints me.' he said. 'You do not know the
things that I have seen and done in order to have this little peace
in my life.'

'I
don't care what you've done in the past,' said El-Vador, surprising
himself with the cold edge in his voice. 'You cannot stop what I will
make of the future.'

'I
do not wish to see my son killed and the settlement destroyed.'
answered Cusband. 'You are too young to understand that every action
holds consequences.'

'Then why send me off into that part of the forest if I am such a
youth?'

Cusband
only shook his head. 'The other hunters were complaining,' he said.
'You were driving off all the game.' His eyes narrowed. 'Why do you
ask?

'You know why I'm asking,' answered El-Vador.

'No, you went into those woods to hunt, nothing more,' said his
father.

'Never mind then,' said El-Vador, the look on his father's face was
clear enough. They weren't going to discuss what happened in the
woods, or how he had obtained the phial.

When
El-Vador kept silent, Cusband nodded in dour approval. 'All right,'
he rumbled. 'Listen to me when I tell you it is useless to strike too
soon. It may take years to happen but within your lifetime you shall
see a day of reckoning with your foe. For now you must simply prepare
and be patient.'

El-Vador
nodded submissively to let his father think that he would wait. All
the while the wheels in his mind turned, planning the downfall of his
foe.

When
Gurgash returned to their initial encampment with a message from his
commanding officer, he was impressed by just how much had been
altered since his departure. The wood he had previously complained
about cutting had genuinely been put to good use. There were several
buildings to house men and the fortifications were looking
impenetrable now.

Gurgash
was accompanied by Harg and two Goblin archers, apparently those upon
high didn't trust him to run a simple errand without getting in
trouble.

His
cousin pointed to wagons dotting the horizon, presumably more
supplies and forces to populate the land.

'Glad there's more bodies on the way,' said one of the Goblins. 'The
ranks are a bit too thin for my liking. Here's hoping there's plenty
of my brethren to stick these Elves with some arrows.'

Soon
they will have dug into these lands so deeply that no Elven counter
assault could remove them, assuming there would be one at all and
they hadn't broken the back of their main force as had been
suggested.

Sentries
at the gate of the encampment gave Gurgash and his comrades a careful
once-over before standing aside and letting them go in. That only
irritated the Orcs and Goblins. Gurgash wondered if the gate guards
feared they were Elven infiltrators in disguise. He laughed at the
idea of saboteurs painting themselves green in the hopes of blending
in.

The
commanding officer he was searching for was located in a temporary
barracks that would soon become the bones of a permanent stronghold.
The hall was well guarded, clearly these Orcs hadn't seen the
remnants of the Elves limp off after being defeated in battle.

The
inside of the barracks was lit by several braziers that hung from the
ceilings, the beds were in perfect alignment and there was a degree
of space that wouldn't have been seen in lesser constructions.

Gurgash
asked for the commanding officer and an Orc at the far end raised his
hand and called him over, apparently he wasn't so high and mighty not
to sleep in the same room as his fellow officers.

'What tidings do you bring, messenger?'

'I
have an urgent letter from my Commander, based in the first Elven
settlement we captured.' answered Gurgash.

'Ah yes.' The Commander smiled, baring a pair of large and crooked
fangs. 'Hand it over then soldier, let's see what it says that's so
urgent.'

Gurgash
handed over the parchment and patiently stood at attention as his
superior mused over whatever had been written there.

'Interesting,' the officer said as he finished reading. 'A most
interesting report. I shall write up a response soon, for now you can
depart with a verbal instruction for your Commander.'

Gurgash
listened on in confusion as the Commander spoke.

El-Vador
carefully picked up his quiver and bow. Experimentally he had coated
one arrow in the quiver with a spot of red ichor from the phial. He
needed to see exactly what this would do before destroying the Orcs
with it. If he could not slaughter Orcs, he would have to make do
with something else, anything else.

He
coursed into the woods near his home as if demons prowled his trail,
so that the Orcs would not be wary of his violation of their curfew.
He needed to find something living that he could loose this arrow
upon, perhaps one of the nearby farmsteads that the Orcs had been
building would provide an ample target for his initial foray.
Assuming that such things weren't already heavily guarded against
such terrorism.

In
the distance, El-Vador distinctly heard the sound of a tree come
crashing to the ground, something was out there cutting wood at this
late hour and it certainly wasn't Elven.

As
he progressed further into the woods the sound of chopping increased,
he knew from the direction he had headed that he wasn't far from the
fortification that the Orcs had raised outside the town. Perhaps
someone had forced them to work through the night. Irrespective of
that they were going to regret being out here alone in the woods with
just El-Vador for company.

Judging
from the sound he was very close now. There was little light in this
place, El-Vador certainly wouldn't have risked hacking down large
trees in this darkness. Perhaps the Orcs had little care for their
servants.

The
clearing in the woods came suddenly, El-Vador halted and observed a
solitary Orc cutting away at a stump outside what looked to be a
farmhouse.

'Who
goes there?' the Orc asked, peering out into the tree line and
startling El-Vador, it had spotted him.

Seeing
as how he couldn't put an arrow through the Orc reliably in this poor
light, El-Vador paused, not knowing what to do.

'I
am El-Vador.' he said, hating that he had ended up having to speak to
this thing.

'You
speak my language?' it asked him, seemingly surprised.

'I
speak a little bit.' he said, not wanting to be drawn into a
conversation.

'I
am Mugrab.' said the woodsman. He beckoned to El-Vador to come over
out of hiding and speak to him face to face.

He
hesitated, then strode forward and stood at some distance from the
Orc.

'Were
you going to shoot me with that?' Mugrab asked, eyeing the bow as
El-Vador came froward.

'Yes,
I was.'

'Why would you want to shoot a simple farmer?' asked the Orc, more
confused than scared.

El-Vador
grew increasingly uncomfortable the more he found out about his
potential kill. 'You don't belong here, the land you farm is stolen.'

The
Orc shook his head. 'This land was won by right of conquest and was
not being used by any of your people.'

He
was beginning to lose his patience with this chatty green-skinned
creature. 'The right of conquest is no right.'

'Then why were you going to shoot me? Was it not to take back this
land for your people through conquest?' Mugrab replied. 'Must it come
to bloodshed? Can we not live together?'

El-Vador's
hatred of the creatures bubbled up again. 'Live together?' he asked.
'Your people butchered mine in an unprovoked attack, you were the
ones who started this bloodshed.' He found he had put the arrow onto
the string and partially drawn it, sighting it on the Orc. 'I will be
the one who ends it.'

Mugrab
offered him a smile. 'Then do it.'

Questions started to rise then, my true helplessness had been
exposed by the might of something beyond my power that I could not
understand. I had been set a task that was not beyond the scope of my
lust for vengeance but one I felt was undoubtedly beyond my
capabilities. Perhaps if I had not been so hesitant in trusting the
creature, things would have been different. I think naught of it,
regrets would swallow me otherwise.

T
he
mountainous Elven lands were subjected to the worst of the winter
season.
O
ne storm
after another,
and
blizzards
that piled the snow in thick drifts
that
left trees so covered in white their greenery all but disappeared.
Hunting was hard as game was scarce, even scarcer with the addition
of the Orcs. Winter was a bleak and torturous time of the year, the
time when folk lived on what they had brought in during the harvest
and hoped they could
surv
ive
long enough to see spring dawn once more.

For
El-Vador and Cusband, winter was an even chancier season than for
most others. With his father growing weaker than ever before,
El-Vador had taken on all his labour. In spite of this their efforts
had been undercut by the Orcs, who had been willing to spare wood for
the Elves in exchange for less grain than Cusband had previously
demanded. They had suffered together through hungry winters before,
this looked like it could well be their last thanks to the
green-skins.

Despite
the drifted snow, El-Vador went hunting whenever he could. Although
he still refused to believe that the others would let Cusband starve,
he wasn't willing to take the chance.

Even
with his cold-weather furs, he still shivered as he entered the
woods. The icy weather seemed to bite at him remorselessly in an
attempt to devour all his body heat.

Not
far from the settlement the encampment full of Goblins and Orcs had
grown in size.

By
now, it seemed as much a fixture on the landscape as the settlement
itself and its sprawling size seemed to represent an increasing
amount of control that the Orcs held over El-Vador's people.

Sentries
stood guard outside the palisade as always, their previously sour
gazes had turned into ones of neutral indifference now. El-Vador
pretended not to notice this change, he didn't like the idea of being
seen as irrelevant. He needed to act, and soon.

His
father hadn't been lying when he spoke of the scarcity of game in the
forests, the influx in population combined with El-Vador's constant
foraying and the winter climate had reduced the already meagre
population significantly. He would be hard-pressed to find enough
food for them to survive on but that wouldn't stop him from trying.

A
keening howl from nearby froze El-Vador. He had heard wolves howl
several times that day, but not so near as to be considered a threat.

He
was too deep into the woods to find his way back now, the pack would
hunt him down long before he made it to the settlement or even the
nearest Orcs.

Taking
a deep breath he refused to panic, running would do him no good at
all. Wolves could outrun even the fleetest of foot when driven by
prey that was so much meat.

He
moved with grim purpose instead, searching the woods for a suitable
place to hold out against the inevitable pack. That was when he
remembered that he had coated one of the arrows with the red liquid
from the phial, what had he to lose from testing it now?

Settling
himself against a trunk he picked out the arrow and readied it,
waiting patiently for his hunters to emerge.