The War Begins

Chapter 20 - Almost Home

"Stop thinking. My men will think of all that. You need to get back to working on our army. I sent the war declaration and now we may begin the real work. Send out our first raid. Have them kill the first group of men they come across." Rydnarak stormed out of his tent. He would make sure to have a couple male slaves who could use a sword sent to him. The work of killing them would stave off his anger, if only for a few hours. The blood lust would calm him.

His brother didn't understand their ways, he sat and did reports. His slave mother had imparted strange morals and imbued him with feelings. It made him weak and Rydnarak loved to exploit that in front of others.

"Do you want to come and kill to work off your deep thoughts?"

Nucyron looked up, disgust clear in his eyes. He managed to rein it in and look simply bored quickly, but Rydnarak still caught it.

"No, I think I'll organize that raid," was Nucyron's bland reply.

"Your loss," Rydnarak shrugged before leaving to fetch some slaves to slaughter.

Nucyron watched his brother walk away to go kill some poor individual who had been worked to near death in a rigged competition. No slave could ever beat a well fed and agitated dark elf, his brother was both of those on a good day. Today was not a good day. The wolf girl was as much on his mind as she was on his half-brothers, but in a different way.

To his brother she was a loss, but to him she was an anomaly and he loved a good mystery. He forced himself to stop thinking about her and to think about his orders. With a sigh, he rubbed his face before shoving off the table to stand straight. Nucyron had scouted around and found some very good soldiers in this camp. He would have to go inform them that they had been selected for a mission.

Every elf he passed was nervously, willing to be picked for any type of mission if it got them into battle. Only after the first successful mission could a dark elf court a wife. Once a war was over, the men who were victorious would embark on their own personal war. Dark elf women were notoriously hard to win over.

Eventually the men who had not fought in any active battles, slave keepers and camp guards, would be able to court any girl who had not accepted any other man. That was why dark elves started wars every few years, so that their young men could win the girls.

Nucyron thought it was stupid. The older men who were in the army as scouts and warriors set up small settlements farther behind the front lines where they lived with their women. Dark elves hated to give up bloodlust for any reason, so many kept on killing until they died even if there was no war.

Rydnarak thought that the war gave them a good place to kill so that they wouldn't kill each other. Some dissension in the ranks was good, but at the rate that dark elves killed it was counterproductive which was why his brother had worked so hard to get them over the impassable mountains.

Nucyron pushed everything from his mind as he went out to contact the eager new and old soldiers for the raid. He tapped a guard's shoulder and took him along as he went to get a captain and some men. He wouldn't put it passed his brother or anyone else to have him attacked. If he was killed, his position would belong to whoever had him killed. It was the downside to being a half breed, even if he was a royal. He, unlike his brother, had to prove that he was worthy. His father and brother had both taught him to fight, so he could defeat any opponent. He kept the fact that he could kill his brother and any other elf to himself; it would simply get him attacked more often by elves who were trying to prove themselves.

With his pre-scouting and the captains he had sent to the camps, the choice was already made. He took a deep breath before going to arrange for a meeting so he could brief the men he was searching out in the camp. The elves were all thrilled to participate in any bloodshed he was offering. It would take a few hours for the captain to organize the first raid and to get there. With the last of his orders completed, he decided to help with the search for the wolf girl.