Where an Army Fears to Tread

I could have done it, once. Carried the world to victory.

Lira narrowed her eyes, keeping her breathing steady and silent. A twig was trying to dig its way into her leg and a few ants had decided to investigate her right hand, but she refused to move a muscle. Her dagger was blacked with ash, so the blade wouldn't glint and betray her position. Likewise with the few bits of metal on her armor... not that she wore much metal. A few buckles here and there, that couldn't be made of leather or wood. Everything else was elven-made leatherwork, study and silent.

Brought about the end of this infernal fighting.

The patrol was making its way past her, unaware of the watcher in the trees. Their armor was poorly made and badly fitting, stretched over limbs too long, or bagging at limbs too short, spotted with rust and dotted with leather-rot.

She could smell the pollution they brought with them.

Seen the last of these barbarians who worship Chaos.

Like a wraith she dropped from the tree on the last of the line, killing him silently then leaping away before the others could spot her. A lifetime in the forest made her steps silent and path untraceable for all but mages. A lifetime in the forest gave her all the know-how necessary to set the traps that would kill the advancing patrol.

They wouldn't reach her people.

But few trust an elf, and no one trusts a rogue.

"Lira, are you going out again?"

Lira didn't look up from the mortar and pestle, as she added a few drops of water to the sticky green glop that was forming. "I won't take you with me, Tenern."

"Come on, why not?"

Another few drops. Mix it a bit more. Add a drop of concentrator, wait for the fizzing to die down, mix a bit longer, add another drop.

The stone was beginning to show wear from all the acid-mixes she'd brewed up. Perhaps it was time to ask Odobin to craft her another set with an 'A' inscribed on it.

"Lira! Will you at least pay attention to me when I'm trying to have a conversation?"

Lira sighed. "We are not having a conversation. You are bothering me with repetitive requests to go 'adventuring' while I attempt to restock my supply of acids."

"But I want to go with you! Why can't I?"

"Tenern, go back to you mother." She finally looked up from her work, letting the final stages rest for a moment before bottling the result. The boy stood awkwardly in front of her, all elbows and knees and bumbling energy. He'd make a great warrior. Someday. "You're not even a hunter. You don't have the skill to go where I go, do what I do, and I don't have time or lives to train you."

So instead, I hide. We hide. Out here in the untamed forests, the last bastion of so called civilization.

"All the paths are lined with traps and pitfalls." Lira sat crosslegged before a map, tracing her dagger-hilt over various thread-like lines.

"Here, here, and here." She tapped the map to emphasize her words. "These will need to be checked once a night, their captives killed if they haven't died already, the bodies disposed of, and the traps reset. The rest should be checked in a general sweep, any bodies removed, and then replaced."

The men and women seated with her all nodded. Once, maybe, they would have protested her calm words of killing the defenseless, but that was a lifetime ago, when they could afford to be merciful.

Or, perhaps, it had only appeared that they could afford mercy.

Our mages keep the forest from burning, but there's only so much they can do.

Lira paused in her loping stride, head cocked to the side. The wind carried with it the clank-rattle..clank-rattle of approaching warriors, and the dancing flames of torches were visible through the trees.

"Mother save us all," she whispered. "For they come bearing flame in their eyes, and hate in their hearts."

It was the work of a moment to unlimber her bow and string it, a few seconds more to ascend into the trees and find a perch with a view. Carefully, she cracked open a vial of poison and began coating her arrowheads with it.

When the warriors came around the bend, she was ready.

The cities burn, the humans cry and flee, preying on each other in their panic.

She crept through the night, feeling naked without the trees sheltering her. Around her lay the scattered and burnt husks of refugee wagons, and the refugees that had been fleeing with them.

Lira knelt next to a small body, rolling it onto its back, then sighed. The blank eyes of a child stared sightlessly at the stars, a barbed arrow lodged tellingly in his throat.

Bandits.

She rose, then crept to the wagons.

Perhaps they had missed some supplies she could use. These poor souls wouldn't need them anymore.

I wonder, sometimes. If they hadn't denied me, if the humans hadn't turned on one another, if the dwarves hadn't hidden... could we really have won?

The rock crevice was just as uncomfortable as it had looked when she had spotted it at dawn, but there was precious little cover on this cursed plain, so anything that gave a bit of concealment was better than nothing.

She huddled as deep in the crevice as she could wedge her body, praying to any god or goddess that would listen that she wasn't discovered while she slept. A party could have set watches, fought off roving bands of trouble, and otherwise not looked as appealing as a single creeping elf-woman.

But the only human she had trusted was now dead, the human realm in chaos, her elf-kin reluctant to leave their forest-realms, and she'd never met a dwarf that hadn't been more interested in booze than war.

"Where are the armies you promised we could raise, Elian?" Lira barely gave breath to the words. "What happened to the pacts that people had to honor? As dead as you, betrayed by the people you thought you could trust."

'What ifs' have never won a war, though. Elian is dead, and hope is dead with him.

Or so they would like to believe.

Lira nimbly scrambled up the scree and debris of the ruined castle wall, then paused to gaze out at the plain below her. Four nights to cross its vastness, four days of huddling in tiny dens or nooks, praying to remain unnoticed.

It looked peaceful, from here. The grass swayed gently in the breeze; a few birds called sleepily from their perches in a nearby grove of trees; a fox paused at the edge of the grass, looking up at her, before slipping between the stalks with barely a ripple. But this was only one face of the new plains.

She shook her head, then continued her climb, trying not to disturb anything more than necessary. What she wanted was on the other side of the wall. Her plan would live or die by what she saw there.

While the humans squabble over who will lead the war, the barbarians devour the land.

The horde stretched out as far as the eye could see, a chaotic swirl of color and form. Those few important (and intelligent) enough had tents, brightly colored things looted from humans, erected haphazardly wherever the ground was deemed good enough. Spots of cleared ground held chaos-hounds, great slavering beasts with streaked, rubbery skin and sightless poison-green eyes. They strained at their chains, trying to reach anyone who came close, their glowing collars the only thing standing between them and free run of the camp. Where their drool fell, the ground sizzled and died.

Chaos-beasts were staked out around the entire perimeter, twisted things vaguely human in form, but with the same streaked, rubbery skin and poison-green eyes. There was barely a claws-breath between one chained beast and the next, a pen just as effective at keeping people in as out.

Lira rubbed her sweating palms on her pants. The Chaos-mages had been hard at work, to create that many beasts and hounds...

What else waited for her, deep in the heart of the camp? How many did she need to kill, to make sure the barbarian horde was left without a leader?

I refuse to let it end this way. For the elves, for Elian... and yes, even for the silly, directionless humans.

She slung her bow over her shoulder, then her quiver of arrows. Her daggers were sharpened and ready, sheathed at her side. Vials of poisons and acids were packed carefully in a satchel at her side, enough to create chaos... hopefully enough to see her through the night.

Magebane for killing mages, blackrot for the Chaos-creations, acid and poison for regular warriors.

In another satchel; healing potions, strength-boosters, speed-boosters, and potions of stoneskin. When morning came, when the adrenaline and potions finally wore off, she'd sleep the sleep of near-death, but there was no help for that.

She was playing to keep, and this time, she didn't intend to lose.

After all, I have some nobles that I need to visit, once these barbarians are taken care of.