Dead Rock's Hold – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Salara Ithan looked down at the man garbed in crimson robes, white circles marked on each breast with a black trim around the edges. His hair was black, greying around his temples, and his face was marred by the passage of time. He knelt in the dust and dirt, his gaze fixed on the dead bodies that lay behind Queen Vandrien.
"You are the one they call the Divine, yes?" The queen stood over the man, blood streaked through her long, loose hair. Her golden armour scintillated in the bleeding light of Efialtír's moon.
The human looked up at her, dazed. He nodded.
"You have a name, I assume?"
He nodded again, his stare moving back to the dead bodies before looking at Vandrien. "Rad… Radavan Ha... Harten," he stuttered. "I am not a man of war. Please, spare me. I know of elves and their honour. I ask you now to spare my life."
Queen Vandrien smiled at that. "You are not a man of war? You are a priest of Efialtír, are you not? The Traitor, the Great Deceiver, the Devourer of Souls. Efialtír is the herald of war, he is the merchant of death." Vandrien walked to the nearest body and picked up the clumsy human blade that lay on the ground beside it. "You say you are not a man of war, Radavan Harten, Divine of Efialtír, but you are no stranger to torture, cruelty, death, and pain. It was in the name of your god that my people were slaughtered. In the name of your god that we were driven from our homes, our kin enslaved." She pointed the sword towards the mines erected around the hold. "Your priests oversaw these mines, did they not?"
"I…" The man's words caught in his throat as he looked from the mines to the corpses in the dirt. Hundreds of elves stood around them, some in the golden armour of Numillíon, others in rags, their faces covered in dirt, their bodies marred by sores and scabs.
"You took my people here. You treated them like rats. Forced them to work your mines until their bodies gave way. You may not be a warrior, but you are most certainly a man of war. Twisting your words won't change the truth. My ancestors should have rid the world of your kind when you first landed on these shores. They should have killed you to the last and set fire to your bloodlines. Humans are war incarnate. You are consumption. You are misery. You are death. I will do now what my ancestors should have done then, what my brother and those cowards refused to do all those years ago." She tossed the sword into the dirt before Radavan. "In the name of honour, I give you the same opportunity as I gave your companions. The right of Alvadrû. If you strike me down, you will be allowed to leave without harm."
The man hesitated for only a moment, looking back at the other priests' lifeless bodies, then snatched up the sword and leapt at Vandrien. Humans were always like that, always feigning weakness and innocence only to turn to savagery in the blink of an eye. Treachery and deceit was in their blood. They had no honour.
Radavan lunged towards Vandrien. The queen sidestepped and extended her foot, sending the man crashing to the ground in a heap, a cloud of dust rising around him.
Vandrien turned to Salara, inclining her head. "Narvír." Commander.Salara bowed and handed Vandrien her axe. She watched as the human priest got to his feet behind the queen. Vandrien gripped her axe with both hands and spun. The blade sliced into Radavan's belly. The man dropped his sword and looked into Vandrien's eyes. She heaved the axe free, and Radavan fell to his knees, blood spilling out over the dirt.
"You have been given the honour of dying like a warrior," Vandrien said, looking down at Radavan. "An honour you did not give the elves who died in this mine." She looked up towards Efialtír's moon. "I hope your god is forgiving." Vandrien hefted her axe, then took the man's head from his shoulders.
She handed the axe back to Salara as Radavan's body collapsed, and his head rolled along the dirt. Salara wiped the blood from the axe blade and handed the weapon to the queen's attendant.
The queen turned to where her two sisters, Cala and Ervian, stood beside the druid, Boud. The woman was taller than both sisters, her dark hair tied in a number of plaits. The runes on the collar around her neck glowed with a vivid blue light.
"Rain, Boud. This place has not seen rain for a long time, and it would go some way towards washing away the blood." The queen raised an eyebrow at the woman who looked about the bodies of the dead. "Is there a problem? Do you object to us killing your kind?"
"They are not my kind," Boud said as she stared at the dead. "They hunted my kind just as they did yours." Boud tilted her head back and her eyes turned white as mist. Clouds formed overhead, dark and thick, glowing with the pinkish light of the moon. After a few moments, cool drops of rain tickled Salara's neck and hands, slowly turning to a downpour.
"We will wait for Efialtír's Moon to set." As Vandrien spoke, roars sounded overhead, and Salara watched as the dragons soared across the sky. She could feel Vyrmír's heart beating. "Then we will take back what is ours."