CHAPTER 242: STANDOFF

Counciler Vedras seethed silently amongst his peers as he stared at the report beneath him. An uprising plain and simple. Minuvae that forsaken exile has rallied clans to her cause to resist the will of the Elder Council. The Grove Guards themselves have thrown in their lot with her movement.

Vedras has served on this council for six hundred years, and he knows the forest dynamics all too well. On paper, each clan was supposed to see to its own welfare and defence. Any grievances were to be brought to the elder council, and then the council’s word was final.

There was no debate once the command was given but yet that exile has defied the council again and again.

Now she has put dangerous ideas into the minds of the clans, they believe they can bargain with the Vampires. Vedras bit his lip as he pushed the record away.

They were young, they did not know that Vedras himself had bargained with that curr Ordias Derenge. For his trust, Ordias gave him his granddaughter’s head on a pike.

It sparked another war were many died on both sides, but Vedras has learned his lesson. No more, we would never trust those blood sucking parasites.

He remembered the deal, the signing beneath the glade’s heart-tree where the roots grew in a perfect spiral. The war had left both sides ragged. The clans wanted rest. The vampires wanted room to hunt without open conflict. Vedras had given them that room. He put his name and seal on the pact.

The terms were clear. Neither side would cross the dead lands between the woods and Necoronas, the borders marked in ruin and ash. The council would hold its people to that law, and Ordias swore that he would obey in kind.

For a time, it held. The clans stopped bleeding. The woods grew quiet again, until one day the pike.

Vedras did not know at first whose head it was. It was left on the outskirts of the border, just beyond the tree line where the armistice had first been spoken aloud. Her face was pale from blood loss, lips blue, but her features were left intact so she could be easily identified.

His granddaughter had crossed the border. Foolish, yes, but she was young. She had gone in search of an herb said to cure root-fever, nothing more. It was a rare herb growing only in places where death and light meet, and yes, that violated the letter of the law, but was the goal not peace?

What would he gain by turning her into some twisted effigy, her skull scalped, her hands crushed and severed, tied beneath her chin in mock prayer?

Vedras clenched his teeth. There had been no warning. No request for judgment. No appeal to the Council. Just a head, rotting in the morning mist.

And Ordias had left no message. Only silence.

Vedras burned the pike where he found it. He returned to the Council with her signet ring and nothing else.

Three nights later, the council ordered the war renewed. So it began again for centuries to come. Peace held for only half a year…

Let Minuvae make her overtures. Let her claim the clans can speak with the likes of Ordias and not be devoured. Vedras knew better. He had seen the truth, carved into the flesh of his own blood.

Peace was never the goal

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“They won’t accept peace.” Ordias said simply as he stared at his staff.

One officer looked up and asked a tentative question, “Why are you so sure grand general?”

“The rebellion is the only way because the Elders do not trust me, thanks to Rosa.” Ordias said with a grimace.

“Rosa Maledicta?” another officer asked.

“Indeed, my compatriot with a sadistic streak.” Ordias said as he rose from his seat and pointed to a spot on the map.

“This is where all the problems began. Rosa stuck the head of one of the elves here on a pike, during an armistice. The Elders believe it was me, since I signed the peace, but at the time we vampires were still at each other’s throats.

Rosa sought to undermine me since my territory bordered the elves. What better strategy than to force me to fight on two fronts? There are no hard feelings of course. It was undeniably effective. She won quite a few good victories for that,” Ordias stated as he withdrew his finger.

He sat back down, folding his hands neatly in his lap, calm as still water.

“I had nothing to gain from killing that elf,” he said. “The peace served my purposes. My forces needed time, my borders needed calm. That treaty bought me breathing room. Killing her would only provoke war, which it did.”

He glanced toward the officers. “But Rosa? She gained everything. Tarnished me in the eyes of the Elders, weakened my position, and stirred a conflict right where it would hurt me the most. It was clean work. No witnesses. Just a pike and a message. She wanted me bleeding in two directions, and she got what she wanted.”

He gave a small, almost respectful nod to the thought. “I never told the Elders the truth. There was no point. They had made their decision before the body had even gone cold. They needed a name, and mine was already signed on the treaty. It was convenient. Predictable.”

He looked over at the map again, not with regret, but with the quiet detachment of a man who understood how the pieces moved.

“And now that Rosa and I both serve the Empire, it only cements their suspicions. They see partnership where there is only duty. But I hold no grudge. I would have done the same in her place.”

He gave a slight shrug. “That’s the game. You play to win.”

A few of the officers exchanged glances. The humans among them were new, less than a year in his command, brought in for this campaign against the elves. The rest were his old guard, vampires who had followed him for millennia. They said nothing.

One of the human officers leaned forward. “It just seems... extreme. Leaving a child like that. Doesn’t sound like something you’d do, General.”

Ordias looked at him, then down at the map.

“Oh, it’s something I’d do,” he said. “But not when it’s my border.”

He tapped a forested ridge with one finger.

“If I’m holding ground, I don’t force the other side into rage. I keep them uncertain. A move like that guarantees retaliation. Rosa knew that. That was the point.”

He paused, then smiled to himself.

“And she played it well. A head on a pike, so crude, so theatrical. But that’s exactly how the elves imagine us. Monstrous. Mindless. Blood-drunk. She played into it perfectly.”

He looked back at the officers.

“They saw what they expected to see. They wanted a reason to break the peace, and she handed them one.”

He stood straight, calm as ever.

“Had the roles been reversed, I might’ve done the same. The difference is, I would’ve chosen someone else’s front to light on fire.”

He stepped back and folded his hands behind his back.

“She staged the body at the edge of elven territory, knowing it would be interpreted as a deliberate breach. The elves retaliated, as expected. The moment they did, she struck from the west. Not symbolic. Not random. Coordinated.”

He looked toward the western edge of the map. “Her forces were already positioned. She hit the western corridor hard, supply routes, communication lines, small garrisons. It forced me to divide my command. By the time I responded, she had already taken ground and put me on the defensive.”

He kept his voice even. ”She framed the act to look like mine, to collapse the treaty, then exploited the timing to open a new front. ”

He let his eyes linger on the map. “It wasn’t just about the elves. It was about drawing pressure to one side so she could gain territory on the other. She didn’t care who held the blame, only who held the position after.”

Ordias picked up a glass of blood and raised it slightly, as if toasting someone far from the room, now serving the Empire in her own way.

His newer staff all shifted uncomfortably, but he saw the faintest smiles crack on the faces of his vampiric old guard, their sharp fangs glinting just under their pale lips. They knew the game, vampires drank blood and shed blood, that was their way.

Well played Rosa

Quite a mess me made, haven’t we?

What fun we had…

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Minuvae picked up the Imperial Rifle and looked at it, just a glance told her it was dwarven smithing. The mithril was perfectly shaped with that classic dwarven vanity. The construction was obviosuly designed to be simple and mass produceable but she could see where the dwarven craftemen couldn’t resist putting just that little bit of soul into it.

Then she glanced over at the human soldiers all in indentical uniforms, hair cut perfectly to exacting specifications. From the back Minuvae coud barely tell any of them apart and that was by design.

Minuvae still had misgivings about this course of action, it was plainly obvious that the Empire as a whole did not see souls in its people. It saw only tools and function, exactly how a hive might see its soldiers.

Her people were always free spirits, some would say too free which was why they needed the Elder Council. That was why the elves were in small clans rather than in large unified nations. They were never meant to be bound in lock step but Minuvae wondered, would they one day be bound like the humans? It was no wonder why the vampires fell in so easily with the empire.

She wonders at times, would it be better to fall in battle or fall in line?

The one thing that edged her decision towards falling in line was this. She was an adventurer and there were a few golden rules that every adventurer learned, disregard them and death would come to collect your soul.

1) Know your enemy, know yourself

2) Preparation is the best armour

3) Unknown strikes are twice as deadly

4) One in a million is better odds than none at all

It was the fourth that pulled her forward down this path.

Minuvae knows the last tenant was the most important; right now, her decision is riding on that last line. However, she can’t help but feel she is forgoing the first three.

But still, most adventurers can potentially survive forgoing the first three if mistress fate or lady luck favoured you that day but if you forsake the last one, only death awaits. Honourable deaths serve no purpose to an adventurer, it is always better to live and fight another day.

“One in a million… Fight another day…” Minuvae muttered, setting the rifle down and turning to look out over the makeshift rebel camp.

The camp was a mess.

Vampiric officers barked orders to human marksmen. Living cavalry hive-units patrolled the edges. Her own kin huddled together in tight clusters, whispering in hushed tones, eyes flicking toward her and away again.

This wasn’t a place of trust, every one of her kin knew this was a betrayal of their own, but there was no choice. It was either this or the elves would fade from this world with nothing but a defiant scream.

“Movement on perimeter!” a living cavalry soldier shouted as he bounded out of the tree line, his six-legged mount tearing across the grass.

The camp sprang into motion. Her kin ran for the trees and quickly scaled them. The human marksmen cocked their rifles and spread out into firing positions. The vampires readied themselves and hefted their heavy shields and necromantic staves. As for the living cavalry, they rode off into the trees, no doubt to prepare for a flanking manoeuvre if the situation called for it.

Minuvae on the other hand, picked up her bow and walked towards the perimeter and stood ahead of the entire formation. If it was her kin they were here to talk or to kill, but she didn’t want to be the one to loose first the first arrow.

From the trees emerged Clan Oaken Spire, a relatively young clan if you could call a two millennia-old clan young. Their bows were drawn as they approached, but no one fired. She could sense more of the clan in the trees above, but she could also sense her own rebels there.

If a fight broke out she would be the first to be cut down. She was told the imperial forces would follow her lead and so far they seemed to be holding fire but also holding position.

The clan leader, someone she did not know the name of approached.

He too lowered his bow and gazed at her his gaze cold.

“Have you lost your mind?” the clan leader hissed as his eyes darted to the Imperials behind her.

“Probably, but as of now, I remain Minuvae, Leader of the Rebel Alliance.” Minuvae replied in an almost resigned tone.

“The Elder Council wants you dead, claims you have turned traitor and from what I see, you have.’ the clan leader said.

“Your eyes do not deceive you. But as to wanting me dead, well this is a poor way to take my head.” Minuvae replied calmly.

She glanced around her at the nearby rebels and Imperials, in this position, Clan Oaken Spire would be cut down to the last. Her side would take casualties, of course, but it would still be a decisive victory for her side.

Minuvae took one look at the clan leader and grabbed her bow. She watched him tense as she did so, then, without any ceremony, she threw her bow at his feet. There was a moment of stunned silence from him, but Minuvae just powered on.

Are you here to talk?