Free Elvenshore: 03 - Elf's Bane by Clark Graham Page A

friend of his. “I am so glad to see you, when I saw that the town was burning I feared the worst.”
    “We have returned, but a lot fewer in numbers than when we left,” Verian replied. Our leaders are gone. We never did find Bellios and Armurous was badly wounded. The beast will soon be upon us, so we can only hope that the walls of the Capital hold a long time.”
    “Yes, we can only hope.”
     

A Day without Death
     
    “Have the Humans left? ” Chancellor Armurous asked. He was in pain and the drink that the healer had given him was making him groggy. He was sleeping most of his days away now.
    Kolis was looking out of the balcony window in Chancellor’s chamber, “Yes , they left this morning.”
    “Is it night?” The throne was in the center of the room. It was an exact duplicate of the one that the Elves had left behind on Elvenshore, bu t Armurous could not see out of the windows from where he sat.
    “Yes , night has fallen,” Kolis replied.
    It took Armurous a few minutes to concentrate . He struggled to remember what he wanted to ask, then he finally remembered. “Are there any more ships that can be made usable?”
    “Just two, the shipwrights looked at all of them and are going to take what they need off the others to repair the two. It will take some time, but I think with the Trolls breathing down their necks they are motivated.”
    Suddenly, through the cobwebs in his head the Chancellor remembered something. “The troops, have they made it back?”
    “No , they have not, but do not worry, the monsters have returned to Morgus Tier and are finishing what they started last night. The town is ablaze again.”
    Armurous relaxed on the throne . “Good, let them burn it, it was a bad place to build a town anyway. Why build on sacred ground?”
    Kolis smiled at that, “I would like some of that drink the healer has given you. It has improved your sense of humor.”
    The Chancellor laughed despite the pain. “Did we have the wagons back from the coast?” he asked at length.
    “It was hard to get Mauric to give them up, but I was able to persuade him,” Kolis said, as he fondly remembered holding his sword to Mauric’s throat.
    “Good, we will get the wounded in them and send them to the coast in the morning.” Armurous hesitated; he knew this next part was not going to be well received. “I want you to put me in a wagon with the rest of the wounded. I am no good here.”
    Kolis turned from the window to look at the Chancellor, “You will need to appoint an army commander to be Chancellor in your place then, or that will make me Chancellor and I am no politician.”
    “No need, you will do just fine. You steer a mean team of horses ; just pretend the government is a team and steer it accordingly.”
    “Now I really want some of that drink.”
    They both laughed, and then Armurous grew serious. “We built a paradise of music, art and literature here. We built beauty in all we did, the buildings, the sculpture, even the cobblestones were made precisely. An Elf utopia and then we ruined it all by one stupid decision.”
    Kolis looked back out the window, ”I hope there are some of us left to rebuild.”
     Darnic Tewl and his men had been out all night. They watched from a distance as the monsters destroyed the last of the building at Morgus Tiel. He had watched their destruction before, but the last time he did it was his village that the beasts were gleefully destroying. He knew it would go on all night. The monsters were running out of Elf communities to burn, there was only Vil Harben, Fernar Darus and Vil Mawe left to go.
    Aron came up to him, “I now understand the hopelessness of the battle when you were driven to the swampland the first time.”
    “I am concerned,” Darnic replied. “They have not attacked our villages, are they going to finish off the Elves and then go after us?”
    "Will we fight them if they do start destroying our villages?" Aron asked.
    "No," came the short