Elves Invasion

3

3.

"Well, I've been chatting to my fellow traders. It's no surprise that trade with Troglo and Drome has come to a halt. Trade with Fertilian has also stopped, I'm guessing the internal conflict is holding things up there. But trading with Majute is picking up. They love our vegetables and clevercat messengers and we've been getting nuts in return. They last forever, taste delicious and sustain you for hours. Be good for the warrior's diet, I should suppose."

Brin reached into his pocket, and then put his fist, knuckles down, on the table. He unfolded his three fingers to reveal a nut. "This is my last one. I'll be glad to eat them again. We call them…" And he proceeded to speak an unpronounceable word in his singsong language.

"And we shall call them Jute nuts," Joz said with a bright smile.

"We have plenty of money," Omya said squinting in Erye's direction.

"Omya, where are your eyeglasses?" Erye said.

"They came from Drome and I smashed them. I would rather be near blind than see through something made by those cockfaces." She sneered and slapped her hand on the table. Naomya jumped at the rare show of emotion from the Head Teller. Omya collected herself. "The Ferts paid us in advance for a year's supply of birds' nests. The money arrived before the Dromedars, thankfully. Along with five hundred of the one thousand Fert horses Queen Jessima Cleland of Fertilian promised Melokai Ramya."

"I will leave it to you, Omya, to allocate the funds as you see fit."

Omya nodded curtly and folded her arms. Chaz leaned forward, careful not to knock his sling.

"Erye, the House of Knowledge was destroyed. All our history records, all our library. I understand we cannot rebuild at this time, but we cannot simply neglect to record that which is around us. And attempt to salvage and reproduce some of the most important tomes."

"Find somewhere suitable, Chaz, to accommodate the House of Knowledge for the time being," Erye said. "Why not that traitorous warrior Ashya's apartment? I've heard it's going spare," Elf Ava said.

Erye nodded and Chaz dipped his head in agreement.

Mia looked up from her notes. "I'll organise the burial of Melokai Ramya, and the announcement of her successor Melokai Violya, who also has The Sight. The people will want to celebrate after so long with no new magic."

"I entrust that fully to your care, Mia," Erye said. She was pleased at how this meeting was progressing.

"Well, if everyone else is saying their bit, then so will I," Elf Ava said. "The Dromedar invasion exposed vulnerabilities at the border. It's the first time a foreign army has ever crossed into our land, and it will be the last. I will make some changes."

"Thank you, Elf Ava," Erye said.

"And you'll need a guard. I'll assign you Monya. She might be a youngblood, but she'll keep you in order."

Erye smiled.

"And we need to talk about you know what," Elf Ava

said.

Erye's smile faded. "We have a new threat. One from

the inside."

As her councillors crunched their foreheads, she gestured to Elf Ava. Can't wait to unleash peril on those sect! Ava sighed. Wait for your time, we would pretty soon.

The new Head Warrior said, "The stone army, for

one thousand years rooted to the ground, is coming alive. As Sybilya's power wanes, the stone males are starting to move. We witnessed it on our return from Mlaw."

"Coming alive?" Chaz repeated, "Remarkable. I should like to study this occurrence… these… stone creatures…"

"Oh my," Naomya uttered.

"Zhaq," Mia blurted and scrawled a note on her "We'll send Daya with some fresh warriors to assess and report back," Elf Ava said. She rolled her shoulder and a dark cloud passed across her features. "Our warrior numbers are diminished and stretched thin. We suffered many losses with the wolf war and the invasion. We need to bolster our force, and rapidly. Any bright ideas?"

The question hung in the air as all considered this.

Erye collected her thoughts. Customs must change if the nation is to survive. This was a matter of survival, of life and death. What custom had served Peqkya up until now but was now redundant?

"The peons," Sybilya's voice blurted in Erye's mind and then was silent.

The peons. When Sybilya created Peqkya, from the ashes of the country of Zerd, she punished the surviving males for their atrocities, renamed the male children as peens and adults as peons. She set quotas on the number permitted to live from peen to peon, devised strict usefulness tests that must be passed at fifteen. Life and death. Life or death. Life. Erye had to be bold. Had to choose life to continue living.

'There is no use for useless peons', the saying went.

But what if they could be valuable? Peons were not permitted to become warriors, but the peon rebellion had proved that they could - and would - fight for a cause.

The red-haired warrior cleared her throat. "I appreciate many Peqkian customs have changed this day. But I have one more. All peons are to pass into peonhood. Those who would've been ended at fifteen will be trained to fight. Both girls and peens will learn basic combat training from childhood."

It’s funny, Vasher thought, how many things begin with my getting thrown into prison.

The guards laughed to one another, slamming the cell door shut with a clang. Vasher stood and dusted himself off, rolling his shoulder and wincing. While the bottom half of his cell door was solid wood, the top half was barred, and he could see the three guards open his large duffel and riffle through his possessions.

One of them noticed him watching. The guard was an oversized beast of a man with a shaved head and a dirty uniform that barely retained the bright yellow and blue coloring of the T’Telir city guard.

Bright colors, Vasher thought. I’ll have to get used to those again. In any other nation, the vibrant blues and yellows would have been ridiculous on soldiers. This, however, was Hallandren: land of Returned gods, Lifeless servants, BioChromatic research, and—of course—color.

The large guard sauntered up to the cell door, leaving his friends to amuse themselves with Vasher’s belongings. “They say you’re pretty tough,” the man said, sizing up Vasher.

Vasher did not respond.

“The bartender says you beat down some twenty men in the brawl.” The guard rubbed his chin. “You don’t look that tough to me. Either way, you should have known better than to strike a priest. The others, they’ll spend a night locked up. You, though . . . you’ll hang. Colorless fool.”

Vasher turned away. His cell was functional, if unoriginal. A thin slit at the top of one wall let in light, the stone walls dripped with water and moss, and a pile of dirty straw decomposed in the corner.

“You ignoring me?” the guard asked, stepping closer to the door. The colors of his uniform brightened, as if he’d stepped into a stronger light. The change was slight. Vasher didn’t have much Breath remaining, and so his aura didn’t do much to the colors around him. The guard didn’t notice the change in color—just as he hadn’t noticed back in the bar, when he and his buddies had picked Vasher up off the floor and thrown him in their cart. Of course, the change was so slight to the unaided eye that it would have been nearly impossible to pick out.