“This news pleases us greatly. We had our doubts about your tenure with us after the attempts on your life,” Gnella said with a sly smile. Her question helped further my guess that one of the elders, or even my father was responsible for the assassins. The woman was crafty and she had hinted to me before that she knew who orchestrated the attacks and would be willing to tell me who it was in exchange for favors.
“I disposed of the assassins. I’ll eventually find out who tasked them and exterminate that individual as well.” The meal was roasted boar and I cut a small piece and ate it. If I was eating alone I might have enjoyed the food, but in this company, it tasted bland.
“We have been investigating the attempts. The matter is difficult since none of your attackers were left alive.” Vuma’s voice had a hard edge to it and I didn’t need to smell him to know what he was hinting.
“Forgive me for defending myself, Elder. Next time I’ll just let them kill me. Or would that fall too easily into the workings of your plans?”
“Are you implying that I am behind the assassination attempts?” Outrage filled his sharp face.
I smiled and speared another bite of the meat. None of the other elders were eating either. The air smelled of tension as they watched me, probably afraid I would fling Vuma across the room again. Perhaps he meant to provoke me with his comments.
“My apologies, Elder Vuma. I meant no disrespect to you. Of course you are not behind the attempts to assassinate me.” I forced a smile to my face. I imagined my nails sliding into his eye sockets and the sensation of his skull shaking in my hands while he went through death twitches.
“Oh.” He was caught off guard, they all were. He struggled to find his next words and I took pleasure in the change in my tactics. “There is no harm, Singleborn. Let us speak of something else.” He nodded and the rest of the elders relaxed. My father returned to his meal and the others followed his example.
The second course was cleared and then the third course was laid out. My father indicated again that he wished to speak and we turned our attention to him.
“There is another important matter we wish to discuss with you. In many ways it is actually more critical to our tribe than the subject of your offspring.” I gave a slight nod. I guessed that my father already knew that I had found out about his side project.
“Before we speak of that; there was an earlier question, about your suitors, that you did not answer. You said that you would choose one from the current group, but you also indicated that you did not know whom you would breed with first.”
“That is correct,” I replied
“This complicates the matter of our next subject. We are allowing several members of competing tribes to live with us, and to have access to our most prized possession.” I felt my stomach harden when I realized he was referring to me as a possession. Of course I wasn’t considered a real Elven. I was just a tool, a way for them to gain more power, as my children would be.
“Our neighbors are warlike and jealous of the resources of our tribe. They will do anything to take what is ours, by force if necessary. We have already seen what they are capable of in their attacks on you. You have only been with us for a few years, but your arrival did not create this mistrust. We have been battling the Ubarwa, Leitive, and Proticule since the time of our great grandparents. Perhaps even longer.”
The rest of the elders nodded and he continued.
“Protocol demands that we host their descendants here for your courtship. Protocol also indicates that this should be a time of peace between our four tribes. But the attempts on your life and the cattle raids that occurred in the last six months have made us question the sincerity of our neighboring tribes. They smile to our faces and then stab us in the back for just a few cattle.”
The elders nodded again at his words. I knew of the raids on our cattle. They had resulted in a handful of Elven deaths. When I heard the news I guessed that Ubarwa was behind it. The more I studied the matter and spoke with Relyara, I considered that it may have been Proticule, since they had the most to gain from the attacks. My gentle inquiries with Alwor, Daranyet, Alatald, and Ilttaia had not gleaned me any information. The set of suitors and their matching female maidens were probably kept from the inner workings of their tribes while they were here.
But I knew they were all reporting what they observed.
“Do you wish me to dismiss them? It would probably increase tension between us.” I shrugged.
“No. I’d prefer for you to select a suitor so we have one less challenge.”
“As I said before, I am still considering. What does all this have to do with why you want to speak with me tonight?” I pulled the topic away from my selection and back to the real matter at hand.
“What do you know about humans?” He leaned into his chair and sipped on his wine glass. For a second, a shock of fear went through me. He must have found out about Kaiyer. I quickly dismissed the idea and hoped that my scent had not revealed my fear. I had been careful in my dealings with the human so far and not even Relyara suspected anything.
“Dumb, smelly, and practically useless. At least cattle give us beef for food and milk for cheese.” I smirked. I had once believed those words. Maybe I still did for all of them besides Kaiyer. He was the exception.
“The humans do possess a rudimentary intelligence. They can be trained. I never had a problem with them in the house until you arrived and took offense to them.” He smiled and chuckled a bit in his chair.
“I do have high standards,” I said and the elders laughed in agreement. I wondered, as I always did, at their motivations. Were they laughing because they feared me, or because they wished me to favor them and choose their offspring for mating? I knew it was not because they actually cared for me or found my comments amusing. The reek of deceit was thick in this room.
“We’ve had a few skirmishes with our neighbors in the last two decades. In these battles, many Elven lives were lost. Lives of our children and descendants sacrificed to defend what is rightfully ours. Your arrival has granted a short reprieve to the violence, but it is no secret that Ubarwa wants what is ours and the other tribes would be glad for scraps of our carcass,” my father continued.
“Aren’t we larger than Ubarwa? What do we have to fear from them?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear them give their reasons.
“We own more cattle, and more farmland. They have more mines and a higher population. They are gold rich right now, and rumor is that they are training soldiers. They have also acquired some mercenaries, and been in lengthy negotiations with Leitive. Perhaps nothing will come of this, but we feel it is best to be prepared.” The elders nodded in agreement.
“What if I choose Alwor for my mate?” I asked.
“That might befuddle their plans a bit. The intention of your breeding would be to form an alliance with another tribe, but one of your first offspring is already promised to your mother’s family. If we gave Ubarwa the other, it could be seen as a sign of weakness, as if we were giving away our bloodline just to appease them. If you were to breed with Alwor for a second time, this could create a lengthy truce.”
“Or, it would mean they need nothing more from us except for our land,” Gnella astutely pointed out from her seat next to me.
“Your current delay in choosing a mate creates opportunities as well as frustrations for us. No one will act until you decide,” Vuma said. It was an angle I had not considered before this meeting. I had guessed that whoever was organizing attempts on my life was doing so to thwart the breeding process. Either out of jealousy for my father’s power, or because they realized their tribe would not benefit from my offspring. Vuma’s words made my mind scatter with possibilities. Anyone who wanted war between our tribes would want me dead as soon as possible to expedite the process.
Or they might want me to choose a mate from my own tribe to erode any possibility of a truce.
“It sounds like you wish me to delay in choosing.”
“For now, yes. But this strategy cannot leave this room. We have to appear from all outside gossip to be angry at how long your decision is taking. All of my communication to your mother and our current dialogue has been to that effect.” I noticed that the servants were no longer in the room and had not been present since my father began to speak.
“But keeping your suitors around creates complications the chieftain already hinted at. Earlier, your father asked your opinion about humans,” Dluuzit said. His words were careful and calculated. I had once thought him a fool, but his actions over the last few years gave me reason to believe that he was the smartest of the elders. “You answered truthfully, and your honesty reveals what most of our kind believes of the slave race. They are weak, dumb, and have very little use beyond simple work in houses and the fields.” The elders nodded at his words and the old Elven continued, “But they are loyal to their masters; they are terrified of punishment. Nonetheless, it is our duty to the Dead Gods to ensure that they are put to good use. What if they could serve as our defenders?”
“I don’t see how. They are weak and slow. Most of them cannot even balance on their hands.” They were getting close to telling me what was actually happening in the training fields and I was going to continue to feign ignorance of their plans. They didn’t need to know I had eyes and ears everywhere in our land.
“What if their strength could be enhanced? What if they could be trained to fight even better than our own kind?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t believe it.”
“We have found a way,” my father said.
“How?”
“Magic,” Dluuzit replied. “Ancient magic, that dates back to the time when the Dead Gods lived. We are able to infuse it into humans, and they were able to perform incredible feats of strength and speed. In some cases they are as strong as we are.”
“I have never heard of such a thing. Where did you find such magic?” I knew they were experimenting on humans and giving them combat training, but Relyara had not learned of the magic from her network of observers.
“There are several ruins in our lands. They were once proud cities and villages that our ancestors inhabited in the time of the Gods. When they were betrayed by the humans, the cities were destroyed. Most are overgrown with foliage and have little to offer us. One however, a few hours ride to the south, had an underground complex filled with ancient texts and devices.” I nodded at his words and immediately wanted to visit the place. I had never been interested in the lore of our people, but the idea of exploring a ruined city and finding unseen treasures sounded like an interesting break from entertaining my suitors.
“The language of our ancestors does not translate well into our current spoken word, but I have been able to glean enough understanding of the process to begin my experiments. It has occupied most of my time for the last five years. The experiments finally produced results a few months ago and we have begun training some of our new human stock,” Dluuzit continued.
“Training an army takes space. It will be hard to keep it a secret for long,” I said.
“Exactly.” My father nodded. “We would like your help in ensuring that none of your suitors or maidens finds out about our endeavor.”
“What about the legends?” I smirked before taking a long drink from my wine glass.
“What of them?” Dluuzit asked.
“Humans killed the Gods and then were punished. We are the enforcers of their slavery. It is why we have access to the World,” I replied.
“That is one story. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not.” Dluuzit shrugged his shoulders. I could sense a shift in the room and smell the scent of bad citrus from Gnella. She was worried.
“Do you deny the existence of the Dead Gods?” I almost laughed. I never imagined I would be discussing religion with any of my father’s elders. I could not do much more debating on the subject. The Gods had never interested me, whether they had lived or not, the undisputed fact was that they were now dead, and held no power over me.
“I fail to see how these humans and the Dead Gods are connected. Our new slaves are strong, fast, difficult to kill, and loyal beyond what you might believe. They are the ultimate weapon, and if we continue on this path, our tribe can realize power and prestige beyond what our ancestors even dreamed.” Dluuzit’s voice grew passionate and the room filled with the scent of honey.
“You are really too stupid to see the connection? When humans had the powers of the World, they killed the Gods. We were tasked with overseeing them to prevent this from happening again. Giving them this power is a direct violation of the wishes of the Gods, dead or not. The other tribes will intervene if they discover what you are doing. And they may be correct to do so.” I set the wine glass down and laced my fingers together on the table. “This may actually provoke all the neighboring tribes to form an alliance to attack us. You may even bring the wrath of all the Elven people onto our tribe for playing with the power the Gods entrusted to our race.” The honey scent quickly went rancid.
“Daughter,” the chieftain said, and the attention in the room shifted to him. “The rewards we will reap vastly outweigh the risks you speak of. As long as you can keep your friends away from the training grounds, we will have enough of a head start to solidify our power.”
“I would like some time to consider your words. Perhaps dessert should be served while I think?”