Age of the Dragon 5: Dragons, Riders, and Kings

The Night Elves - Gwaren

Her orders had been simple - watch the army's progress and slow them as much as possible. She and the Night Elves would have been more effective in urban combat - they had all been born within city walls, after all - but they were the only ones who could fight effectively in the early dawn darkness. And their gift at moving silently seemed to translate well with the forest.

"What do we do?" Feraim - a dark-haired elven man from Highever - muttered lowly. "Say by some miracle, Lord Murtagh defeats the Orlesians, and we're free. Who will rule?"

"Why can't Lord Murtagh? No one would argue it - not with his dragon ready to roast them at the first chance," Lynes shrugged.

"True," Feraim nodded, his eyes nervously sweeping down the path for any sign of the Orlesians. "We'd have an elven queen too!"

"Shh!" Adaia hissed. "If you must discuss fantasies, do so when the risk of ambush is less. Besides, they have no interest in ruling."

"Pay up, Lynes," a third elf snickered as he held out his hand. "Told you Adaia would know."

"Shh!" silence fell over the group as the sound of the Orlesian camp waking up reached them.

She pulled back on her bow, holding her aim steady as she waited for someone to appear from the shadows. The reputation of the Night Elves had become such that the enemy almost completely refused to stand guard for fear of a silent arrow from the dark.

"Poor fool," she thought as she loosed her arrow, which caused a man to crumple to the ground as he was poking his head out of a tent. "You would have been better off waiting a little longer for the sun to appear."

Thanks to Murtagh, the army had moved swiftly from the retreat, and Fallyn's dragon had apparently held down the village of Gwaren along with the soldiers and people of Gwaren - without them, the Orlesians would have crushed the rebels, and there would have been nowhere for the soldiers to return to. The unfortunate Orlesians guarding the pass did not last long when the retreating rebels and the defending army pincered them in the pass. And now the Night Elves, now under her command until such a time as the Commander or Prince were located, harried the advancing army sent by Meghren to crush the rebels and whittled their numbers down.

"Good shot, Commander," Feraim joked.

"You know only the Prince has the authority to name a commander, right?" Adaia retorted softly, taking aim again. "Get ready - if they get too close, we'll be slaughtered."

"Aye," Lynes agreed, signalling down the lines to the others to prepare to fall back with the army.

More cries echoed out in the early dawn as arrows flew from the forest like angry hornets.

"Make them suffer for every step they take," Adaia ordered. "And let's give the Shemlen a reason to remember our deeds, eh?"

"I dunno," Feraim said sarcastically. "You'd think being a hero who ended the Fourth Blight would have done it."

"Well, they haven't erased him yet," Adaia quipped back as they began to fall back. "So it's a start!"