Chapter 1

In the Sea of No'ereth sailed an armada of ships within reach of the western shores of the continent of Icast. The ships had stopped miles outward of the water and the army they carried had been loaded onto rowboats, heading for the shore. They had come from the place across the sea, the continent of Ghozokk, a land from across the sea. At the bow of two of the boats, stood two white-haired, unarmored elves, one male and one female. They had smooth faces with no traces of wrinkles upon them and the pointed ears the elves were known for. They were tall and slim, covered with long, flowing robes and dresses. The elves had eyes that sparkled like gemstones against the night's darkness, indicating they could see even when night draped its cloak over Oriande.. They didn't age once they reached physical maturity. Many of the other races called them perfect. The soldiers in the boats were of the four different races, some Dwarven, some Elven, some human and some were horned men.

The female white-haired elf reminded the soldiers they didn't need to hurt any of the citizens in Arün.

"Arün? We're going to Elven Guard?" one of the soldiers questioned their motives.

"We will be the ones to bring Elven Guard to their knees by disposing of their fool of a ruler, King Valka," the commander shot back. Commander Xirrhul was a cunning man yet he didn't know he was being played like a fiddle nor that he had just set his army up for their final days when they agreed to help King Taergyn of Iridonia assassinate the High King of Elven Guard. Taergyn had claimed Valka had done unspeakable things to his nation and was unfit to rule and it hadn't necessarily been a lie.

"Why, what has he done?" a soft-spoken human knight asked from the back of the boat which Xirrhul and Taergyn were on.

"I don't have to tell you anything." King Taergyn's neck snapped to the side for him to peer at the soldier.

"Saxe, know your place. You don't question a king," Xirrhul scolded.

"Then, can I question you?" Saxe replied to his commander, easily in earshot of Taergyn. He'd joined the army for reasons unknown. He wasn't athletic or very muscular. Most of the higher-ranked didn't even consider him to be all that smart. Xirrhul was easily enraged when he found out his newest recruit was a useless, scrawny boy.

"I ain't gonna tell you anything about it, either, 'kay?" Xirrhul put a boot on the bench where he'd been sitting moments earlier, facing his subordinate. He lit a cigar and stuck in between his teeth.

Amidst all the verbal fighting, the female elf on a boat next to them proceeded to gripe about the smoke. "Do you have to do that now? It's disgusting."

"A man's gotta keep calm, Moria," Xirrhul angrily told her off. A verbal fight ensued between the Elven Princess of Iridonia and the Commander of a small town that nobody has ever heard of.

Saxe watched the other men on the boat, most of them anxious to get this over with. "Xirrhul—"

"Commander Xirrhul," Saxe's boss corrected, still seething with rage towards Moria.

"Yea...that. Um, why is it...called Elven Guard?"

Xirrhul grinned from ear to ear. He had a sudden burst of energy, like a child on Christmas day when their parents brought out one last, super secret present. "Okay, gather 'round kiddies, Papa's gonna tell you a story!" The other men leaned into Xirrhul's space, drooling over what the commander was about to say. Xirrhul took a puff of smoke. "So, a long, long, looongg time ago, prolly hundreds of thousands of years, more than elves lived in Elven Guard. Right?" Some of the soldiers made noises of confirmation to Xirrhul's tale. "It did originally belong to the elves, mhm. But the elves shared their world with the rest of us. Until humans and others came and began sawing down the trees of Elven Guard to make buildings and other stuff. Yo, the elves didn't like this 'cause they made their structures out of stone or dead wood, not anything living. They tried to put regulations on the people destroying their homelands. But it didn't work. 'Course it didn't, you can't tell someone to do something and expect 'em to do it without monitoring 'em and enforcing the law ya put into place, yeah." Saxe and the others listened to Xirrhul's tale, partly wishing he'd stop with the opinionated commentary. "It continued because the elves didn't fight and they had enough when Elven Guard was barren from anything green."

"The elves are the ones who started the war!" someone shouted from a nearby boat, clearly listening to the tale.

"Uh huh. The elves pushed every last horned man, dwarf, human and anything else that lived back then out of Elven Guard and to the east. Being forced to abandon their homes, everybody turned on the elves. It started a war, yeah it did. They called it the Great War of Elven Guard. Even some of the elves left as they didn't agree with their High King's ways. That be why there are elf cities outside Elven Guard."

"The elves colonized their own kingdoms? That's cool," Saxe babbled to himself.

"Yeah, Saxey, my boy. Though there was one race that agreed with the elves, the shifters. They helped the Elven Guard elves fight off everybody else and it worked. Except it ended with the extinction of the shifters and the surviving populations of everybody else was halved. Their High Elven King was also a winning factor, and prolly the most by far, who used his magic to draw all the power of the sky like lightning and tornadoes and all that. And fought with it. He was victorious."

"Oh, and what was his name?" Taergyn smirked, cutting in.

"Everybody called him I'Resduín Märeē. You know what that means in Elvish? Course you do, you're an elf. It means 'The Storm King'. They call him that 'cause of the magic he used but his name was Mithzerai Ingerman. Now stop interrupting, elf," Xirrhul ordered Taergyn, becoming impatient from all the interruptions. Taergyn's smirk faded into a scowl. "After the war, our races forgot about the injustice 'cause they were only told stories from their parents and grandparents. The elves still guarded the borders of their nation viciously. That's where it got the name Elven Guard. Over the centuries, the elves let up on defending their borders and now they just don't. People can walk right through Elven Guard but only elves really live there. I think one has to get permission to live there by the High King himself if they ain't an elf."

"What was Elven Guard called initially...?" Saxe pestered.

"That name was lost to the ages of when Mithzerai lived," Xirrhul spat. "But yeah, that's the story of elves."

Another soldier piped up, "It'd make an interesting children's book."

"Yeah, a book on why you shouldn't go to war with a race that has millions in numbers, natural magic and terrain advantages," the man next to him exclaimed sarcastically.

"We're so close!" a female soldier yelled from another boat loudly enough that everybody could hear. Saxe stared at the white sand beaches of Icast. The sand lined the coast as far as the eye could see. Just beyond the beaches were some of the tallest mountains in the world. To the north, on the beach, they could see lights in the distance.

"What's that?" Xirrhul turned to Taergyn, vaguely pointing at the illuminated shore.

"That is Zilawin. It's one of the last human kingdoms on Oriande. It's run by a blind prince that is barely scraping sixteen years old. Some say he can see the world in depth despite being unable to see," Taergyn grumbled his informative response. "Extinguish the lanterns, the humans of Zilawin may see us and question what we're up to if they see an army traversing into Elven Guard." The army did as told by the elf who would likely have all of their heads if they refused to follow orders.

The soldiers pulled their sailboats onto the sand and leapt out. Commander Xirrhul, King Taergyn and Princess Moria went over the plan one final time in the darkness where nobody would know the treachery that awaited Arün and the rest of Elven Guard. They were going to climb the stairs the elves built into the side of the mountains behind the beaches. Next they would follow the path all the way to Arün, around Lake Adgränia. Moria reminded them that when they came to the crossroads of the Trail of Tears, that they needed only to go straight and not turn.

"Trail of Tears?" Saxe watched the lights of Zilawin flicker in the distance. He could barely see, being human and all.

"Ugh, could you stop questioning literally everything?!" Xirrhul howled at his soldier. Taergyn slapped the back of the commander's head.

"Shut up! You're going to alert someone of our presence," he harshly whispered, putting a finger over his mouth. Saxe sulked as nobody answered his question.

"Well, they probably already know you're here," Xirrhul hissed. "Your eyes glow in the dark, elf. Your daughter's are less noticeable as hers are silver. Your emerald green eyeballs are practically asking to get us killed." Xirrhul cupped his index finger and thumb around his eyes. He had long, unkempt fingernails. It is shocking he didn't scratch his eyes out when his hands came close to his face.

"I would not have sought out Commander Xirrhul of Despondos to carry out the assassination of King Valka Ingerman if I knew he would be an absolute pain." Taergyn countered, huffing.

"How about we assassination the bitchy Elf King Taergyn Rochambeaux next, hmm?"

Taergyn rolled his eyes. They both knew Xirrhul couldn't kill him without major repercussions. His threat was as empty as his brain. It was like this man thrived on futility and Taergyn considered himself an okay person to get along with when his patience wasn't being tested. Unfortunately, this was not one of those moments.

When the soldiers began marching up the mountainside, Saxe began to question his moral beliefs. Nobody had been told of what this mission was about before getting on the ship. According to Xirrhul, it was assassination.

Assassination? Saxe thought. Did he really want to be involved in killing somebody? Valka might have a family and people he loves.

Saxe had come to the conclusion that he didn't want to take somebody away from the ones they loved. Saxe's eyes darted around the area as they walked, searching for a way out of the precarious situation he’d found himself in. He'd originally joined the army to protect the people in his hometown, not go off to another continent to aid in murder.

Saxe's mind drowned him in thought of what he was going along with. Did Xirrhul know that the elves probably had the factional advantage? The elves didn’t sleep for very long unlike the other races, so he was sure there's people awake in Arün. No doubt. Elves were quick and nimble, too. The army would consider themselves lucky if the elf townsfolk don't decide to fight back and kill them with the random things they find on the streets as a revolt. He didn't bring his worries up to anybody. If they wanted to commit suicide, he would let them go ahead with it and have no part of it. They wouldn't listen to Saxe anyways.

Saxe's pace with the lined up soldiers began to slip until they were pushing past him on the trail heading east to the elf kingdom. Saxe ended up left behind, standing alone in the dark. What Taergyn didn't account for is that they had scouts in the trees, watching, waiting. He did not know Arün as well as Moria did. Moria had lived here for a good portion of her life. Heck, she'd been married to Valka at one point and given him two sons. Although, even Moria did not know of this little factor that Valka had kept hidden from view.

A few of the elf scouts used the trees to get within city limits before the soldiers could even come close. Saxe continued to stand there, questioning. He saw the sign for the crossroad a few yards in front of him and the army getting further away. The sign was written in a language he did not understand yet he knew it was the Trail of Tears. A spark ignited inside him. Curiousness.

And with that, Saxe laid his weapon down and disappeared into the cloak of night.