Elf-Boy's Friends 54
The Southern Ocean
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. Dragon's Blood
On the quarterdeck of the frigate Arctic Tern the young war wizard Liam turned to his captain cum boyfriend Sir Nathan Lathrop and commented:
"The sea we've just crossed is so empty. There's hardly a speck of land anywhere in it. It's no real use to anyone except maybe to fishermen."
"Only no one is fishing those waters," Nathan pointed out, "even though huge schools of tuna, cod, and hake are there for the taking."
"That resource could be the basis for a deep sea fishing industry. Fish could be smoked or salted to preserve them or else packed in ice then shipped to market. Those small islands we found might not be suitable for settlement, but they would do just fine as bases for fishing fleets."
"Which was why Commodore Dekker took possession for the Commonwealth. Besides the obvious economic benefits, annexation serves a strategic interest as well. Fishing fleets increase the number of mariners, the prime recruiting ground for an all-volunteer Navy like ours. And most of our mariners have no experience on the ocean, having only sailed the waters of the Great Inland Freshwater Sea."
The empty sea the young men were discussing was a great ocean gyre twelve hundred miles across and eight hundred north to south over which they had sailed in diagonal zig zags. Pilots of flying wings based aboard the aerocraft carrier scouted the seascape from aloft, their altitude letting them see for more than a hundred miles to either side. That was how they could be sure that their flotilla had not missed any significant land masses.
The gyre was characterized by calm seas and blue water of extraordinary clarity. Floating seaweed stretched in lines for miles across the surface providing the base for an ecosystem which ranged from the plankton and krill to ocean giants like oarfish, sperm whales, and a colossal species of squid called the Kraken.
The Arctic Tern was one ship in a flotilla sent out by the Commonwealth as the latest Corps of Discovery. It consisted of five ships, three heavy frigates, a sloop, and an aerocraft carrier.
The flotilla commander, Commodore Jan Dekker, flew his broad pennant on the frigate Cormorant, sister ship to the Arctic Tern and her consort the Gull. His mission was one of exploration, geographical and scientific discovery, diplomacy, and the promotion of trade.
His orders stressed that the flotilla was to eschew provocative acts and to avoid hostilities if at all possible. The Commonwealth did not need new enemies. There had been plenty of those in the past, and everyone wanted the current era of peace and prosperity to continue.
Nevertheless, the flotilla was a powerful naval force. The frigates were armed with magnetic cannon mounted in pairs atop four rotating barbettes, one fore and aft and one on each beam, which gave them wide fields of fire and the ability to bring six guns to bear in all directions. Their twin barrels were sixteen feet long and extended over a stationary circular ring of armor made of steel plate backed by oak.
The gunners were masters of magnetism who propelled steel jacketed incendiary shells and canister shot down the long tube which was made of non-magnetic bronze, a metal which fortuitously did not corrode in the salt water of the southern ocean.
The sloop had just two single cannon in small barbettes fore and aft, while the aerocraft carrier relied on its air wing and its escorts for defense, having only ranks of swivel guns in sponsons along the sides.
The next day was target practice for the magnetic cannon. The frigates and the sloop took turns firing on a raft made from driftwood picked up at their last stop. The results were better than good. The commodore had every confidence in the ability of the flotilla to defend itself.
The day after target practice they chanced upon a good sized island about eighty miles long and thirty wide. There was only one decent anchorage, a sheltered bay on the northern shore. Aerial surveys showed it to be uninhabited. The climate was semi-arid with greater landfall at higher elevations. Beyond narrow coastal plains lay a limestone plateau, and in the center mountains rose to five thousand feet.
When the scientific party was finally allowed to land, all three natural philosophers were struck by the almost alien appearance of the plants and animals. One species of tree had an upturned and densely packed crown in the shape of an umbrella. Its leaves grew only at the ends of the youngest branches. They were lucky to find it in bloom with small clusters of fragrant, white or green flowers. It was quickly named the dragon's blood tree for its dark red resin. The older trees had many branches while the saplings looked like a bristly thatch atop a very thick undivided stem.
Professor Scolari collected specimens of the leaves and fruits of many new species for his herbarium back at the Institute. He made detailed notes about their environs, and drew numerous sketches.
Johan Klutz found the geology intriguing, spending days taking rock samples and drawing terrain sketches. Knowing that the limestone plateau must be riddled with caves he asked Jemsen to delve the locations of some caves worth exploring.
Klutz and the others spent several days exploring several large caves. Some were a thousand feet long with arched openings sixty feet across. The entrances to other caves were mere clefts in the rock face. Calling Light to see by, the explorers marveled at the huge stalactites and stalagmites and curtain walls all of which were created over centuries by something as simple as acidic water percolating through limestone.
The zoologist Evander Blok made a survey of the terrestrial animal species, of which, sadly, there were only a few, finally reporting:
"I'm afraid it's mostly reptiles again but no amphibians at all, not a single frog, toad, newt, or salamander. I found six new species of birds but only one mammal, a bat, which is not terribly surprising for an isolated oceanic island. How else would mammals get here but to fly?"
"This island is more than just isolated, my friend." Klutz told him. "Unlike all those islands we found earlier which were volcanos and coral atolls built atop extinct volcanoes, this island is not at all volcanic in origin. It is actually a chunk of a continent left behind when its parent body broke up millions of years ago. The rest drifted away, possibly to merge with some other continent."
"The plants too are unique and almost certainly endemic to this one island and specifically adapted to its ecology." Scolari marveled. "It is a veritable jewel of biodiversity."
Dahl nodded. "We druids will ask for this island too to be turned over to our order as a nature preserve."
The next day a terrific cyclonic storm blew up which would have endangered the anchored ships and pushed them onto a lee shore except that the weather wizards took the sting out of the storm and directed its eye on a track which skirted the island.
The rains left by the storm brought what Scolari called a super bloom of flowering plants where dormant seeds in the soil sprang to life to produce the blossoms of millions of ephemeral wildflowers. They covered the normally bare lower slopes of the plateau. The entire landscape was a kaleidoscope of blue and red and yellow, and purple, and white as the winds carried the swell perfume of the blooms everywhere.
The boys decided to make an occasion of it, a spring festival. They threw off their clothes and pranced around sky-clad gathering stems which they wove into floral garlands and crowns.
The twins were careful to keep their floral accessories color coded, as always green (with white) for Jemsen and blue with yellow accents for Karel. Aodh's choker of red and white blossoms went so well with his pale coloration that he wove a similar garland around his tiny waist. The auburn-haired journalist elected to go with a red and white combo.
"Let's have some music!" Drew enthused.
"Why not?" the druid replied then reached out and seemingly plucked a flute out of thin air.
"Was that a space portal?" Liam asked.
"Yes, it was, but only a tiny one -- just big enough for me to reach through to my cabin on the Arctic Tern. I focussed it on the corner where I store my gear."
"It's a neat trick. I'd like to try it myself."
"I'd better show you how. It's tricky, because unlike with a portal you step through your body is in two places at once. So you must never reach for something very much north of south of your own position because the rotational speed of the planet will be much faster or slower than at your latitude."
With that Dahl put the flute to his lips and played a lively tune, one you could tap your feet to, and so everyone did. Soon they all joined in singing the lyrics of the well-known song and dancing in pairs.
Dahl was in his element. No one relates to plant life better than a druid, so soon floral vines were growing up around him, twisting around him from ankles to shoulders, turning him into a living floral statue, a veritable flower child.
All this attention to beauty in both flowers and comely youths had the predictable effect of inspiring romance. As Karel quoted to Scolari:
"In spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love!"
"As if you boys ever needed to come into season. You boys are pretty much turned on all year round, as far as I can tell," he replied with a grin.
The three scientists turned away politely as the boys indulged themselves, paired off, and made delirious love among the wildflowers. It was the highlight of the voyage so far.
Chapter 2. Landfall
Six days' sail beyond the alien looking island, the flotilla found itself in a northward trending ocean current, one which originated in the South Polar Sea hence the water was ten degrees colder than subtropical waters of the gyre. Nathan and Liam reported that the upwelling of water would bring nutrients to the surface to support plankton and fish populations which fed on the plankton.
That made for a prime fishing ground, so it was no wonder that fleets of fishing boats were working these waters. Yet the fisher folk fled at their approach, even cutting their nets loose in their anxiety to get away.
"Something is very wrong here." Dekker told Dahlgren. "Fisher folk do not abandon their catch and their nets unless they are very afraid of something."
"Perhaps they took us for pirates or slavers. Professional navies generally leave fishing fleets alone even when their countries are at war. There is just too much human capital tied up in the skills of the fisher folk to throw away. Fisher folk pay taxes like everyone else, and would also be a source of recruits."
"Indeed, we'll have to approach the inhabitants of this region very carefully. After all, they won't know what a magnetic cannon is, but it will be obvious from their placement that they are weapons of some sort and that ours are warships."
Sailing on for another two hundred miles they found themselves on the West coast of a substantial land mass, a small continent or a colossal island at the very least. The coast had a humid subtropical climate with lowlands well-settled with farms and agricultural villages. Fishing villages were sprinkled in coves and bays all along the indented coast. About seventy miles inland rose a formidable mountain range with snow covered peaks.
Flying wings scouted the coast, careful to keep the afternoon sun at their backs. The Navy wanted to keep the inhabitants unaware that they were even under observation. Even more important was to keep them ignorant of their full capabilities, especially about flight. Hence the next aerial survey was flown by Liam who flew much closer to the new found land while hidden behind a magical Concealment. To anyone on the ground, his aerocraft looked like a flock of sea birds.
The elf-boy Dahlderon flew with him. His Mind Speech would let him eavesdrop on the thoughts of the inhabitants of the town they overflew.
"What a magnificent setting for a town, in the crook of a large bay which largely shelters it from storm waves. It's a pretty town too, isn't it, Dahl? Airy with lots of trees and trellises and pergolas."
"Yes, but look there, Liam. The town has a newly built palisade and dry moat to landward, and the older harbor defenses are built of stone. These people have enemies."
"It is up to us to persuade them that we are not their enemy. Can we even talk to them?"
"Yes, the people are a mix of elves and humans with the elves outnumbering humans two to one. Virtually everyone speaks elvish, so communication will be easy. So many of us are elves or speak elvish as a second or third tongue."
"Right. Common tongue or no, many citizens of the Commonwealth speak more than one language."
Commodore Dekker dispatched a party aboard the sloop, the Sandpiper, to make contact. Her captain was a naval veteran, a solid officer with twenty-three years' experience. Ensign Anduriel was a mustang, an elfin recruit who had risen from the forecastle to the quarterdeck of a Navy ship of war. He had held a warrant for eight years as sailing master of a frigate before being awarded a commission for sterling service against the trolls. However small she was, the Sandpiper was an independent command, and she was his.
Now being an elf Anduriel hardly looked half his age, but he had earned the respect of everyone who had ever served under or with him. Anduriel took the sloop in under a green and white parley flag, though he had no guarantee that the locals understood its significance. Just in case, his magnetic cannon were manned and loaded.
Aboard the sloop were Dahlderon, Liam, the twins, Drew Altair, and Aodh -- Dahl went as a druid and an elf-lord, Liam for magical defense, the twins because as elf-friends they were so fluent in elvish as to sound like native speakers, Drew as the expedition's chronicler, and Aodh as their body guard whose tripled strength and speed, sonic weapon, and poison claws would come as a nasty surprise to anyone who made an attempt on the lives of the delegation. Dekker sent his chief of staff Commander Grayson to represent him.
On this mission Dekker wore three hats: commodore, expedition commander, and ambassador-at-large. The Commonwealth had few professional diplomats since it did not maintain permanent embassies in foreign capitals. Instead envoys might be current or emeritus members of the High Council or senior military officers double-hatted as ambassadors. Finn Ragnarson, though a law enforcement officer, had acted as an ambassador when in command of the two prior Corps of Discovery. His record of success spoke for itself.
The locals ignored the parley flag. Instead their militia mustered and manned the defenses. Guards in the two stone forts protecting the entrance to the harbor raised a chain to close it off. Floats gave the chain a slight negative buoyancy, which let it rest on the bottom till the slack was taken in and the chain locked into position. Crews atop the stone forts used catapults to lob rocks at the approaching vessel.
"This will be fun," Liam told the others confidently. "Watch me mess with their ranging shots. I'll do it so subtly that they won't catch on for quite some time."
Indeed, where a shot looked liked it would go over, Liam used telekinesis to make it fall just short, then, when the crew used greater tension to send the next shot farther, the next shot flew well beyond the Sandpiper. Shots which were aimed dead-on went wide. It was not long before the crews were shouting and shaking their fists, blaming their comrades for their erratic aim. Drew finally put an end to the farcical proceedings. Looking through a far-viewer, he wielded an edged disk to sever the twisted cordage which powered the catapults, pulling their teeth as it were.
"Spoilsport," Liam chided good-naturedly.
"Now that we have their attention," Commander Grayson began, "please amplify my voice Lord Dahlderon."
With his voice amplified by druidical magic, Grayson announced to the locals in elvish that their visitors were not pirates or slavers and had no hostile intent. The flotilla was not on a war footing but on a peaceful mission of geographical and scientific exploration and discovery and the promotion of peaceful trade. He asked them to lower the chain so that the sloop might enter the harbor and land a party for talks.
The answer they got was an arrow the size of a spear shot from a ballista. The shaft lodged in the hull of the Sandpiper with a thunk, a symbolic indication that the locals rejected the offer of talks. Drew yanked it out with telekinesis and sent it winging back to the ballista emplacement at high speed only to bring it to a sudden halt then dropping it at the feet of the crew. With Dahl amplifying his voice, Drew told them casually:
"You really want to be careful where you shoot these things. Someone might get hurt."
Now Grayson was not easily discouraged, and he had his orders. At his direction, Jemsen used earth magic to disintegrate the dozen central links in the chain which allowed the freed ends to settle to the bottom opening the way for the Sandpiper to slip into the harbor.
Presented with this fait accompli and realizing that their visitors would not take no for an answer, the local commander had his ballista crews point their empty weapons to the sky and stand down, signaling that the townsfolk were now willing to parley. The Sandpiper sailed across the snug harbor and drew up at a quay where a reception party of four was waiting.
Just in case the ship was rushed, the Sandpiper's cannon were manned and her crew went armed with personal weapons including air guns. The ship's bosun was a water wizard and was on station in the fire suppression tower. It was equipped with a water cannon, a brass tube four feet long which could direct a powerful jet of water driven by magic at a fire or to counter boarders.
The spokesperson for the town was a handsome elf of indeterminate age who introduced himself and the other three. His own name was Arielen and he was the mayor of the town which went by the name of Argyll. The militia commander was called Zanderel and was clearly of mixed human and elven heritage, while the other two were members of the town council, a human named Gaspard Nottmeyer and a full-blooded elf named Ulliel.
The captain and crew of the Sandpiper stayed aboard while Commander Grayson, Dahl, Liam, the twins, Drew, and Aodh walked the short distance to the town hall and into a meeting chamber. All were in uniform and carried personal weapons except Dahl who wore full druidical regalia and was armed with a quarterstaff plus a brace of ironwood throwing knives worn under his cloak. At his throat the druid wore an ensorcelled amulet which would negate hostile magic directed at him and alert him of the attempted assault.
The mayor started off by asking the visitors where they had come from and why had they come to Argyll. Commander Grayson repeated what he had said about their mission and told the locals that the flotilla had sailed from the southern coast of the continent of Valentia which was over fifteen hundred miles across the sea.
"We know nothing of this land you come from. We live in isolation between the Western Seacoast and the Snowy Mountains. The farthest we venture into the open ocean is to our fishing grounds in the cold current which lies to the West. Those adventurous few who have gone beyond found a largely empty sea with only a few uninhabited islands and those just specks of land."
"I saw that many of the crew of your sloop were elves, which speaks in your favor. You are an elf yourself Lord Druid, and even way out here we know of your order. Er... Lord Dahlderon your cloak appears to be changing color even as we speak..."
"Sorry about the distraction; the garment is infused with magic which makes it change both hue and pattern for camouflage unless I freeze it. There, that should do it."
The druid like to use the morphing effect to remind his interlocutors that he wielded powerful magic. That was just one of his minor stratagems. A second was never revealing the powers of the ensorcelled amulet to potential foes.
Addressing the twins the mayor said:
"The tattoos on your shoulders indicate that you twins are not only elf-friends but also giant-friends, and dwarf-friends twice over. You must have had many adventures."
"Yes, we have." Jemsen conceded. "You might say that we are professional adventurers though we are also much published authors, as is the diminutive red-head who travels with us. He is our official chronicler."
Jemsen did not try to explain what a news-paper was to these isolated folks.
"I see now that we were too hasty in assuming you to be hostile. Your ships and their armaments were unfamiliar, but even so we had to fear that you were yet another set of raiders like those who have plagued our coasts this past decade."
Grayson nodded. "Which is why the fisher folk fled when we approached."
"Indeed. In your favor was your restraint in dealing with our attempts to, shall we say, discourage you from landing. You hurt no one and did no real damage, all the while effectively neutralizing our attacks. One of you must be a powerful fetcher indeed to deflect boulders the way you did. And what was that weapon you used to disable the catapults?"
Liam shrugged. "Actually two of us are powerful fetchers strong enough to have flung your boulders right back in your laps so altering their trajectories was child's play. I'll let my colleague Drew Altair explain what he did to the catapults."
Drew removed his edged disk from its wooden holster and held it out telekinetically, cautioning the locals to be careful of its keen edge. He explained that the disk was used in naval combat to disable enemy vessels by cutting lines, cables, hawsers, and standing rigging to render them helpless.
Zanderel the militia commander nodded. "A humane sort of warfare, since it is obvious that the disk readily lends itself to the anti-personnel role. Yet you went out of your way to avoid bloodshed, merely cutting cordage."
Drew shrugged. "We had any number of ways to counter your catapults without hurting anyone so why would we? Jemsen could have burst the rocks apart into showers of sand, the druid could have crumpled the beams of the catapults into sawdust, and so on. You have a new trick too, don't you Karel?"
"Right. I am an air wizard. A shield held against an arrow storm must cover the entire front of the battle line since the enemy shafts are so numerous. So a shield against arrows is weak enough that boulders could punch through it. It takes another approach to stop boulders."
The militia commander shook his head. "I never realized that a wizard could harden air enough to counter the momentum of a boulder flung from a catapult."
"Boulders are large enough and few enough that I can visually track every single one and intercept its flight. I push against it with a very small but thick shield of hardened air. So what I counter is not its momentum but its inertial resistance to moving sideways."
Zanderel frowned. "Aren't inertia and momentum the same thing?"
Karel shook his head.
"They're not the same thing at all. Momentum is a function of both mass and velocity, inertia of mass alone."
"That's my brother all right, brains and beauty both!" Jemsen quipped.
Even Commander Grayson allowed a ghost of smile show on his normally grave mien.
"As one further indication of our good will there is the endorsement of your own empath," Dahl told them, pointing to Councillor Gaspard Nottmeyer. "He has just passed you the signal verifying our bona fides has he not?"
Nottmeyer and the mayor chuckled. "We stand unmasked. You are right, of course, but how did you know?"
Dahl broadcast to everyone. <I can read your surface thoughts quite easily, but I shall now withdraw from your skulls and allow you the privacy of your own thoughts while we resume sonic speech.>
Everyone relaxed, knowing that no one was plotting treachery.
The flotilla lay at anchor in the roadstead of the great bay with only a harbor watch mounted though most hands remained aboard ship. Aerial scouts patrolled the skies in case raiders approached. The scouts would bring enough warning for the flotilla to put to sea. Dekker was not looking for an engagement. Much as he sympathized with the locals, he had not been sent across the Southern Ocean to suppress piracy.
Shore leave was arranged for small parties. Sailors and naval infantry were warned to be on their best behavior. They were not to be on the prowl for fights, gambling, intoxication, or rough sex. Argyll was no raucous navy town for all that it was a seaport. It had only a few small houses of pleasure and half of those were staffed by pretty-elf boys who catered to those of their own gender.
Dahl, Drew, the twins, Liam, and Aodh plus the three natural philosophers took rooms at an inn on the edge of town. Alas Nathan mostly had to stay aboard his ship and was able to take shore leave only briefly. The proprietor was pleased that his new customers could pay with Commonwealth's silver coinage. It seemed that silver for coins was in such short supply that it actually crimped commerce and trade which perforce relied on weighty strings of copper coins for daily purchases and gold for big transactions.
Their inn was situated beyond the hastily constructed defense wall protecting the town center. It was two stories tall and overlooked the bay, though the boys took rooms facing the distant mountains. They took their meals either on the deck overlooking the sea or indoors if it rained. The chef was something of a local celebrity for his seafood recipes, but they were all tired of the catch of the day and preferred dishes of pork and lamb and beef.
Best of all were the cookies and cakes flavored with vanilla, an aromatic flavoring unknown on Valentia. The twins made a point of looking into its origins and found out that it was an extract of the pods of a particular kind of orchid. The druid investigated how the plant was cultivated and learned that the orchid was in a symbiotic relationship with a single natural pollinator, an endemic species of bee. That meant the orchid could not be propagated elsewhere, guaranteeing the people of the Benign Coast a monopoly of a potentially lucrative commodity.
Even in a town with so many good-looking young elves the visitors caught the eye of those who fancied their own gender. Not only were the boys walking wet dreams, they were exciting and exotic travelers from a far off land across the sea, inhabitants of a continent which the locals had not known existed.
It was said that they were great adventurers, explorers, and soldiers. For all that they looked like a pack of rent boys, they were heavy hitters who had thrown their magical powers onto the balance in wars against barbarians, predatory centaurs, and genocidal trolls. Moreover they had battled monsters like a dragon, a kraken, a mosasaur, a pack of reptilian raptors, and terror birds not to mention a plague of locusts, and a mud volcano.
Moreover the boys bore the friendship tattoos of the various races they had helped. The red-headed chronicler and the dark-haired war wizard were giant-friends, while the pale shapeshifter, like the twins, bore the silver medal of an Amazon-friend. Astonishingly the twins were elf-friends, giant-friends, and dwarf-friends twice over. And one of their own race, an elf-boy, was a member of the legendary order of the Druids of Haven.
Every morning the visitors went for a run, glad for a chance to work on their wind and their stamina after being confined aboard the Arctic Tern for so long. Understandably for a society more than half elven, the locals had no more use for nudity taboos than the youth of the Commonwealth, so the boys ran in the nude as was their wont back home.
The boys were all good runners, but it was the twins who had the true runner's build, lithe, slender, and clean-limbed. They ran smoothly, their legs scissoring metronomically as they carried the boys along. They breathing was deep, slow, and rhythmic, and timed with their strides. The boys loved the kiss of the sun on their bare backs and rumps. Exhibitionists one and all, it made them feel ever so sexy and naked.
Some of the locals were happy to pace them, running along and chatting them up, trying to spark their interest. Others joined them at the beach where they went for an easy swim after their run and engaged in the rough-housing and grab-ass horseplay beloved of young males.
The boys introduced the locals to swim boards and paddle boards. Swim boards originated as swim floats, a buoyant device to keep the upper at the surface while the swimmer kicked with his legs. Fetchers found a whole new use for it. They would propel it telekinetically, holding on by a grip at the rear, as they swim board tore through the water at breakneck speed. It could also dive underwater to let a swimmer explore that watery realm.
Paddle boards were originally conceived as a form of transportation by the Medkari of the Lesser Inland Freshwater Sea. They were flat boards with a round point about a dozen feet in length. The paddler might lie on it, kneel or stand atop the board and propel it with hands or scull or paddle or even telekinetically.
Shameless exhibitionists one and all, the boys mostly preferred to stand up straight, a posture which put their nude bodies on display for their many admirers. Their zoologist friend Evander Blok labelled it a courtship display, as indeed it was.
The boys also liked to toss around the Gemini Zinger a sport which could have been purposely invented to display the male form to perfection as players ran, and reached, and turned, and sometimes took a tumble. Soon the locals were using pie tins to play the sport.
Unfortunately for their suitors the boys made it clear that rather than play favorites among the locals they wanted to be friendly with all but would take no lovers, lest they incite jealousy.
Yet their reticence was due as much to their forebodings if not a sense of guilt for leaving these good people in the lurch, at the mercy of their enemies the raiders. Yet what else could Commodore Dekker do? His duty was to his mission and to his ships and his crews, not to these strangers, whatever his sympathies toward them.
Four days after their landfall, much the same landing party but with Commodore Dekker instead of Commander Grayson met with the local authorities for a full briefing on the coastlands including maps and charts. The locals called the western coastlands the Benign Coast. It was a collection of autonomous cantons which tended to their own affairs. A Cooperation Council provided a few common services like the post office, commercial courts, lighthouses, and standardized weights and measures.
The land was fertile and yielded bountiful harvests, partly because so many farmers were elves gifted with a Green Thumb. Farmers were freeholders with from one to two hundred acres. There were no large landowners and no gentry or aristocracy. Manufactures, such as they were, were produced by artisans in small workshops. There were no large manufactories as in the Commonwealth. All persons were free and equal before the law. Mayors and Councillors faced the electorate every two years.
The origins of the settlements in the Benign Coast were lost in the mists of time. Some held that their ancestors had simply sailed to the coast. Others believed their forebears had crossed the mountains, while a small group insisted that their ancestors had been among the original refugees fleeing the chaos of the galactic empire of yore who had simply stepped through a rift in space created by wizards.
Chapter 3. Invasion
The Commonwealth folk introduced the locals to the technology of refrigeration which was fast becoming the standard ice-breaker, as it were, between peoples. The utility of refrigeration was obvious. It retarded spoilage of meat, fish, milk, and eggs and preserved leftovers.
Refrigeration was also a time saver. It spared shoppers the chore of going shopping every day at the butcher, the fishmonger, and the dairy. Cold beer and iced-cream were ancillary benefits of refrigeration.
The system was simple and straight-forward. It used ordinary materials every people would have at hand: wood, nails, and pegs for the ice-boxes and wood beams, earth, and sawdust for the ice-houses. The design of ice-houses and delivery carts was straight-forward except the locals could not use the wire wheels standard on Valentia. They would have to use wooden wheels with heavy wooden spokes.
The system did need firecasters to freeze the upper layer of the ice pond, but there were always a few firecasters in any considerable population. The locals had all the usual magical gifts from lesser ones like Calling Light, a Green Thumb, Healing, and Unerring Direction to telekinesis and other abilities useful in defense like fire, air, water, and weather wizardry though rather fewer earth wizards compared to a similarly sized population of dwarves.
The difference was that the Commonwealth could draw from a much larger population and had systematically recruited the gifted as war wizards and war mages and assigned detachments of the gifted as organic elements of its military units on land and at sea.
Until the raids started nearly a decade earlier, the Benign Coast had not known war. There was simply nothing to fight about. Lightly settled as the region was, arable land was there for the taking. There were no concentrations of wealth. Organized military forces simply did not exist. The militias formed since then had been called into existence only by the threat of the raiders as had the crude fortifications of towns like Argyll.
"So who are these raiders?" Commodore Dekker asked. "Are they pirates who simply rape and pillage or do they run a protection racket where you pay them tribute not to attack you or interfere with your commerce?"
The mayor shook his head.
"These raiders are no ordinary pirates or brigands but revolutionaries called Communalists, extreme egalitarians who are rigid in their beliefs, self-righteous in their attitude, and tyrannical and controlling, setting spies and secret police to watch everyone including each other."
"The Communalists dress almost identically in sober grey clothes. They despise private property as theft, and believe that all property should be held in common. Work for hire is regarded as wage slavery. Profit is a dirty word and businessmen are a class of criminals while artists and writers are deemed social parasites. Skilled workers are assigned to regular jobs in their trade, but those at loose ends get rounded up in work gangs."
"Their motto is: 'From each according to his abilities, To each according to his needs'. Without the normal incentives to hard work, thrift, and civic spirit their system is simply not sustainable in the long run. The machinery is already seizing up, hence the need to supplement their own output with the fruits of the labor of others. They seize what they want 'according to their needs' whether it be the fisherman's catch or the farmer's harvest. They will even sweep through a town and carry off the prettiest human lasses and the most comely elf-boys to gratify their lusts."
Dekker wondered if anyone had tried to resist or fight the Communalists.
"Mariners from the port of Rock Island formed a naval militia and rehearsed boarding tactics to counter the depredations. After a couple of minor successes they got their comeuppance when the raiders came at them with fireships. By fireships I do not mean sailing ships filled with inflammables, set alight and aimed at the enemy with the wheel lashed."
"No, these fireships are small and highly maneuverable fishing smacks. Though they normally move under sail, in battle they are propelled or at least guided telekinetically. At the bow is a bronze siphon which spews an inflammable liquid whose flames cannot be doused by water, indeed the liquid will float on water, burning merrily all the while. Against liquid fire boarding tactics were worse than useless. They were suicidal. The vessels of the naval militia were set ablaze before they could close with the raiders."
"What is the range of this liquid fire?" Dekker asked.
"It is not very far, no more than fifty feet. We think they propel the liquid by compressed air rather than a pump."
Dekker learned that the Communalists were based far to the South in a rain soaked region where the coast was broken into many islands, fjords, channels, and twisting peninsulas, restricted waters which they knew well. The sea had submerged the central valley between the coast range and the high mountains forming a long narrow gulf. Beyond that lay a land of many lakes and short rivers, none of them navigable for any length. Beyond that lay alpine mountains. All in all it was quite a challenging geography.
There was no way Dekker could stretch his orders to justify a campaign against the territories of the Communalists in the South. The town fathers of Argyll understood. They did not like it, but they understood.
As luck or the gods would have it, the raiders arrived before the flotilla had left on the next leg of its voyage. Aerial scouts gave warning of a raider fleet consisted of dozens of warships plus scores of transports. This was no mere raid but an all out invasion.
The flotilla might then have sailed away, but Dekker could not bring himself to abandoned their new friends to their fate. Besides it was clear that the Communalists were a long term threat to the Commonwealth and to its naval ambitions in the Southern Ocean. So the flotilla weighed anchor and sailed around the headland to the next bay up the coast where the ships could conceal themselves behind a wooded island.
The folk of Argyll raised the newly repaired chain to block the entrance to the harbor, closed the landward gates, and manned the walls. The townsfolk were indifferently armed with spears and axes; they had few swords and fewer crossbows. Also the defenders had hardly any artillery, just a handful of catapults and ballistas. Mostly they had piles of rocks ready to drop on anyone attempting to scale the wall.
The enemy warships split into two groups. One stood out to sea to hold the weather gage. The larger portion provided close escort to the transports, with a pair of ships breaking off from the main body to torch the fishing fleets of the two villages on the other side of the bay.
The transports carried a landing force of some twelve thousand infantry armed mostly with a cutlasses and spears though with a corp of bowmen. This was an army if a rather disorganized one, understandably so since its commanders had no experience of land warfare and the maneuvering of large bodies of troops. They had no horses either, so even their commanders went on foot as they approached the South gate and demanded the town's immediate surrender.
The mayor refused, though he did agree to a parley, which was allowed to enter by a postern gate. The main gate remain closed. The mayor's back had been stiffened by Commonwealth mages and the presence of six dozen Frost Giants, the naval infantry from the carrier.
The parley was held in the street just inside the postern gate. The delegation of the Communalists was headed by a fierce looking human of middle years and of middling height named Hadorn. He was accompanied by two elven aides and backed by a bodyguard of eight intentionally intimidating humans.
The town of Argyll was represented by the city fathers: Mayor Arielen, their militia commander Zanderel and two members of the town council, Gaspard Nottmeyer and Ulliel.
The mayor introduced the participants from the Commonwealth naming Commodore Dekker with the twins, Aodh, Drew Altair and Liam. Dahlderon represented the Ancient Order of the Druids of Haven.
"These wimpish youths are your bodyguards?" the Communalist envoy Hadorn, sneered, continuing with:
"Why they are nought but a clutch of effeminate youths and on the puny side as that. Now my men are proper bodyguards," he said pointing to the heavily armed soldiers behind him, all of them over six feet and muscular.
"Understand I am not here to negotiate, just to lay out our terms. This land is now our land. You will evacuate the town and abandon everything within it marching out unarmed carrying nothing away except food and drink. In the villages farmers will abandon their farms and turn them over in good condition for distribution to those among us assigned to work their former lands."
"Everything you once thought you owned now belongs to us. We leave you only your lives and the clothes on your backs. Leave and go away -- far away. We don't much care where you go, but don't hang around. Don't try to stay anywhere nearby or we shall simply slaughter you."
"Your town -- that is your former town -- will become our new capital. In time we shall extend our control to everything between the mountains and the sea."
"Oh, and as you leave we will be selecting the prettiest of your lasses and lads for our brothels."
The mayor shook his head.
"You cannot really expect us to accept those terms, to simply turn our town and farms and all that we own over to you, to leave here without a fight, to go into exile in the wilds where we would all eventually starve to death."
Hadorn shrugged. "Your lives are forfeit either way. You will just die sooner and more bloodily if we have to take the town by storm."
Mayor Arielen frowned.
"You are operating under the misconception that thanks to your numbers you hold the upper hand. These boys you sneered at are not my bodyguards. They are allies with powerful magic, and the commodore commands a professional naval flotilla which can destroy your entire force. Withdraw or die."
"Your empty threats are just pitiful Mister Mayor. You threaten me with a clutch of rent boys. And a friendly navy which comes calling just at your hour of need -- why that's just wishful thinking."
"As punishment for your effrontery I am changing the terms. You will immediately surrender that pack of pretty youths to be our sex slaves. The tiny pale one over there is as cute as a kitten. I'll take first dibs on him, then share him with my bodyguards and anyone else who fancies him, as doubtless many will. Resign yourself little one to a future of endless mountings. Now get rid of your clothes, crawl over here, and kneel at my feet."
"He will do no such thing," Dekker told him coldly. "You have violated the sanctity of this parley by contravening the immunity participants must enjoy during any parley and thereby forfeited your own. Moreover the terms you offered amount to a war crime. Your own terms thus condemn you, you and all their host."
Aodh turned to the Commodore and asked. "May I have the honor sir of killing them?"
"Go right ahead, Aodh."
Aodh took off his clothes and taunted Hadorn with his sexy little body.
"These are the sensual delights which you and yours will never sample. You have no idea who and what you are messing with. Why even I, little guy that I am, can kill all eleven of you, all by myself, and without breaking a sweat. Defend yourselves, if you can."
Aodh's form blurred into that of a black panther. Once fully formed the young wir cut loose with his stand-off weapon, an intolerable screech much like the sound of fingernails scraping on a slate only far worse. The sound could rupture eardrums and induce pain, temporary deafness, and dizziness, making it easy to close with and kill enemies as they staggered about with their hands over their ears. The screech was highly directional, strong in a conical zone in front but negligible to the sides or behind.
Aodh closed with the helpless raiders and raked them with his poison claws delivering fatal doses which set them to writhing in intolerable pain. Frost giants picked them up and tossed them out the postern gate to die as an object lesson for the rest.
"What is well begun is halfway done." Dekker quoted. "It is time now for me to return to the fleet. If you will assist me Drew."
Drew let Dekker step into the stirrups attached to his cuirass and flew low and fast all the way to the North bay pausing long enough only to set the naval officer down on the bridge of his flagship before flying on to the sloop, his duty station for the coming naval battle. Drew was sure he had not been observed. The capabilities of the Commonwealth with flight would come as a nasty surprise to the raiders.
Meanwhile Dahl strode out onto the wall to face the enemy army. Magically amplifying his voice he told them that their delegation had been slain for violating the sanctity of the parley and for proposing terms that themselves were a war crime. That elicited curses, cries of "Treachery!", and promises of retribution. One huge warrior strode closer to the wall and drew his finger across his throat, a promise to personally slit Dahl's throat.
Shaking his head, Dahl calmly told the man. "I don't think so."
He then pointed at the man and told him to die, which is exactly what he did, slumping to the ground as his bones turned into powder, transforming the powerfully built man into a leaking bag of organs and bodily fluids. Dahl did so not out of anger or from cruelty but as a grisly form of psychological warfare.
Archers loosed arrows which the druid countered with contemptuous ease, turning their shafts into dandelion seeds. He then snapped their bowstrings for good measure, though they he knew that they would have replacement strings. Finally the druid flung an ironwood throwing knife into the skull of the commander of the archers, catching the bowmen by surprise. With his quadrupled strength, a throwing knife in the hand of a druid had nearly as much range as an arrow shot from a bow.
The town's defenders cheered.
Another raider strode forward and challenged the druid to come down off the wall and face him man to man.
"I don't see how that can be possible," Dahl explained with exaggerated reasonableness. "You're a grown man all right, but look at me, why I am just a half-grown elf-boy."
Snarling the man hurled a powerful levin bolt at the druid, but its trajectory swerved harmlessly into the ground thanks to Dahl's ensorcelled amulet which made him immune to hostile magic. Invoking druidical earth magic, Dahl opened a hole twelve foot deep beneath the man's feet. Once the man dropped in, Dahl slumped sand over the opening to close it. The lightning caster tried to blast his way out with levin bolts, but all he managed to do was to fuze the sand above him into dirty glass.
For his final contribution to the defense of Argyll Dahl needed something more than psychological tricks. Now when druids went on expeditions they always carried starter kits of seeds to help flash grow food and fodder crops or tanglefoot vines and briars to impede enemy movements. In war druids were force multipliers. They did not expect to defeat military formations all on their own.
Against the raiders, the druid had sown the seeds of poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak. As it happened it was the enemy reserves who stood upon the ground sown by the druid. From atop the wall he swept his quarterstaff in an arc directing his life magic at the seeds. Quickened into sprouting and flash grown, greenery sprang up suddenly all around the soldiers. Surprised but not shaken, they marched out of the chest high shrubbery in good order.
Soon though the raiders soon found themselves severely incommoded by the characteristic itches and rashes caused by the chemical the plants had secreted which was an irritant rather than an outright poison. At first it was mostly their limbs which were affected. However, with the poisons on their hands it was not long before the need to relieve themselves transferred the chemicals to their virile members with disconcerting results. The reserve force soon lost interest in the impending battle.
The commanding general of the enemy forces could only grind his teeth in frustration at seeing his tactical reserve of two thousand soldiers so easily neutralized and removed from his order of battle. He unleashed a dual assault by land and by sea. That forced the townsfolk to fight on two fronts: the harbor defenses and the South wall where sixteen hundred raiders carrying scaling ladders advanced to the base of the palisade.
They clambered into the dry moat which Jemsen had widened and deepened to compensate for the inadequate height of the palisade. The top of the wall rose thirty feet above the bottom of the moat. That was a big help to the locals who dropped rocks on the enemy while others with magical gifts lobbed small balls of fire or wielded horseshoes telekinetically or snapped electrum sparks.
The enemy countered with archers who tried to make the townsfolk keep their heads down. The elven councillor Ulliel flung electrum sparks at the enemy. He teamed up with his colleague the human Nottmeyer, who could call light to englobe a foe's head and scramble his brains but was also armed with a brace of pistol crossbows, one in each hand. The pair acted as force multipliers, helping those fighting at their side with only conventional weapons.
At one point Ulliel hissed in pain and drew back an arm transfixed by an arrow. A lady Healer tsk-tsked when she examined his injury. With surprising strength she snapped the shaft in two and pulled the ends out of his flesh, letting it bleed freely for a very short while to flush the wound. When she invoked her healing magic her patient's arm was enveloped in an intangible nimbus which cycled from pearly white to green and back again twice before fading away.
Her ministrations fixed him up and in no time the plucky fellow went back to the wall as good as new. One incautious young human paused too long to watch the effect of the rocks he had dropped over the wall and took an arrow in the eye. It penetrated his brain pan, and he fell back dead.
Back in his human form Aodh lent his assistance, selectively focussing his sonic weapon on officers and teams of sappers who looked like they had their act together. Then a couple of enemy fetchers started Lifting pairs or trios of fighters and dropping them atop the wall. The defense faltered as those defending the wall found themselves threatened from both sides and front.
The jumble of fighters was too mixed up for his sonic weapon, so Aodh morphed into a black panther and waded in with his natural weapons. After using so much of his poison in dealing with the parley party, he but reserved what little he had left for contingencies. Even so Aodh's tripled strength let him overpower even the strongest of the human and elven attackers, tearing faces off with a swipe of a paw and biting foes below their armor, at the fork of their legs where they were most vulnerable. The psychological effect on Aodh's other foes can only be imagined.
Thanks to his enhanced speed and reflexes the shape shifter mostly evaded the blades of the enemy, taking only superficial wounds. The blood loss was minor, and indeed the blood spattered on his dark fur only made him look more fearsome. After all, to most men and elves, a black panther on the attack, was a nightmare come alive.
Aodh did take a serious wound toward the end when a cutlass slashed the muscles of his left foreleg. Deep into a killing frenzy, Aodh managed to stay focussed despite his pain and lashed out with the poison claws on his right paw to rake the man's thigh. He missed the femoral artery, but the poison did its job anyway, ending that threat. With no foes in his immediate vicinity, Aodh invoked his innate magic and transformed back into his human form. Painful though it was the transformation automatically healed his wounds. Wrung out, Aodh sat and set his back against the parapet to catch his breath and recoup his strength.
Moments later five new foes, three to his right and two to his left clambered from scaling ladders onto the wall. With no time to transform or to even snatch up a weapon, Aodh fought in human guise empty handed. The five raiders grinned as they spread out, sure that this tiny pale youth, unarmed and bare-ass naked as he was, would be cut down in an instant. They badly misjudged the situation.
True, the foe they faced seemed no threat at all. He looked more like a lover than a fighter, more specifically an upscale rent boy. For Aodh was so beautiful he took your breath away. Small, skinny, and smooth muscled, comely as an angel, with a skin like porcelain, and looking utterly fragile and vulnerable -- in short no one the three raiders should have had any reason to fear.
It was a perfectly natural but utterly wrong conclusion. For even unarmed Aodh could call on tripled strength, enhanced speed and reflexes, and years of training and experience in the martial arts. Moreover, Aodh was fighter endowed with the fierceness of the black panther he was under the skin.
As the two foes to his left raised their sword for a downward chop Aodh lunged toward the nearer one, closing with him faster than his foe had thought physically possible, stabbing into the man's armpit with the blade of his hand. The shock to the radial nerve made the man lose his grip on his sword. Aodh then jumped chest high and delivered a drop kick with both feet which shoved the man toward his ally whose sword inadvertently transfixed his comrade.
As the man looked in stunned surprise at his comrade fouling his blade Aodh landed lightly and spun on one foot, kicking the side of the man's knee which destroyed the joint. When the man sagged, Aodh picked him up by bodily and hurled him at the other three who went down in tangle.
Aodh was on them in an instant. He tore out one man's windpipe with his hooked fingers, then slammed the heel of that hand into the other's man's nose driving the nasal bone into his brain for an instant kill.
Warned by the shadow of his final foe, Aodh dropped into a forward roll which let the man's sword cut through the space Aodh had just vacated. Snatching up a discarded buckler, Aodh hurled it edge on at the man's shins. The impact knocked his legs out from under him. That gave Aodh the time to grab a discarded long knife and thrust it into the back of the man's neck. Aodh then stationed himself at the crenellations, ready to lop off the next head or heads which topped the wall.
For the sake of freedom of movement Dahlderon had set his camouflage cloak aside to fight in tunic and sandals. Limited in what he could do with magic in a melee, he lent his quadrupled strength to that fight, crushing skulls with the metal caps at the ends of his quarterstaff, breaking limbs and ribs.
Unlike the wir, Dahl kept his anger reined in, his mind cool and collected and always focussed on what he had to do and how he was to do it. A wir panther might give in to a killing frenzy but never a druid.
The only time the fight looked like a contest was when the short and slightly built elf-boy squared off against a whole squad which had forced its way up a pair of ladders. Eight of them came straight at him while the other two edged along the top of the wall trying to flank him.
"Resistance is futile, little one," their leader told him. "The odds are ten to one, and we are properly armed, while you bear only that stick. You fate is upon you, you are going to die!"
Speaking conversationally Dahl agreed. "Yes, I am going to die, someday, but not today!"
Red faced with anger the man ordered a charge. Dahl's right arm was a horizontal blur as he hurled an ironwood throwing knife under the man's chin. It pierced his throat and cleaved his spine dropping him like a puppet with its strings cut. Now a druid could blind an enemy with a thought, which is what he did to the pair of would-be flankers. Then he waded into the rest, relying on his strength and speed and reflexes and skill with a stave, which gave him greater reach than any sword. Telepathic eavesdropping on his foes let him anticipate their moves, all of which more than balanced their numbers.
Dahl relished physical combat, which he found so much more satisfying than wielding magic. Fighting at close-quarters allowed him to bring his strength fully to bear as he blocked sword cuts with his staff then whirled it to crush a skull or thrusting it forward to smash in their faces. As those who have experienced combat know, when you succeed in killing those who had been intent on killing you, it leaves you with a profound feeling of righteous satisfaction.
The squad of raiders never stood a chance and never even nicked the nimble druid. The way they went down was like wheat falling to the scythe of an angry demigod. After the druid recovered his ironwood blade, the townsfolk killed the two blinded ones and pitched them over the wall, sweeping away several raiders who were trying to clamber up a scaling ladder and reinforce their comrades.
Even so by sheer weight of numbers the enemy pressed heavily on the defenders who had to hold both the South wall and the harbor. Just as the enemy surge threatened to carry that wall Jemsen invoked earth magic to open a ditch to connect the ocean and the dry moat which was soon dry no more as tens of thousands of tons of sea water rushed in to fill it, drowning the entire assault force at the South wall except the handful still fighting atop the wall who were speedily dispatched and thrown over the side into the roiling waters below.
The enemy general maneuvered his remaining force to a position opposite the East wall which was built atop rocky ground, out of reach of any flood waters. Besides the general knew that while it was easy for an earth wizard to reshape terrain in sand or soil which could be made to flow, solid rock could only break slowly and laboriously, and an earthquake would bring down the wall and much of the town. He was tempted to use fire arrows and fire pots to set the town ablaze, but he had orders to take it intact.
Then, as the enemy general was making his dispositions for an assault, the Frost Giants rose up from behind the crenelations of the wall and started lobbing fire globes with their slings. Fire globes turned anyone into a minor firecaster but were particularly effective in the hands of frost giants who were so strong they could sling them nearly as far as a bow could send an arrow.
Invented years earlier by than none other than the shape shifter Aodh fire globes were about the size of a fist and made of glass to shatter easily. They were filled with an inflammable liquid which would cling to the foe's armor, clothing, and skin. A rain of hot coals set the oil aflame.
With the flames burning fiercely, the Frost Giant took aim with their oversized air guns. Their officer gave the command:
"Volley...Fire."
In accordance with their training the giants pulled their triggers in unison, not on the preparatory command but on the command to execute.
"Again, Volley ... Fire," and lastly:
"Independent Fire ... Fire at Will,"
After which the giants kept up a continuous fire on the enemy supported by the more numerous crossbows of the townsfolk and the twins and Aodh with their air guns. Not even a well trained army could withstand that kind of punishment, standing in the open the way they were, shields useless to stop the bullets from the air guns. The enemy broke and ran back till they were out of range where they formed up again as their general considered his options.
Alas, they might have been out of range of crossbows or airguns but the enemy's shift of position had brought them to the sector of the wall defended by Liam and put them in range of his white fire, which was not any kind of flame but a stream of subatomic plasma, the stuff the stars were made of. White fire did not merely incinerate, it disintegrated anything and everything.
Liam lashed out half a dozen times at their tight formations. He succeeded in turning nearly three thousand raiders into clouds of elementary particles which quickly dissipated into the air.
His toll might have been higher, but after the first few attacks the raiders panicked and fled for their ships. The headlong rout spread the raiders over the terrain, depriving Liam of worthwhile targets. Besides, he had pretty much shot his bolt as far as white fire was concerned, so he went over to the twins and said:
"It's your turn, Karel"
Up till then the young air wizard's effort had been low key. He had used hardened air to shielded the defenders of his own section of the wall from enemy arrows. Karel had also wielded a small air blade in defense of his person, decapitating any raiders who stuck their heads above the battlements he stood behind. Now it was time to take the offensive.
Gesturing as he invoked his air magic, Karel created a trio of sun mirrors, which were mirages in the sky made of hardened air. Guided by Karel's gift of Unerring Direction, two flat mirrors reflected the sun's rays into a parabolic mirror focussed not on the fleeing raiders but initially on the fleet of transports drawn up on the beach or floating just offshore plus the soldiers in the reserve who had rushed to the shore to bathe and scrape their skins with sand trying to remove the plant irritants.
Neither ordinary combustion nor the subatomic plasma of white fire but simply the reflected heat energy of the sun, Karel's beam was nowhere nearly so hot as white fire but it was at least ten times hotter than the flames and fireballs of a firecaster. It swept over the ships setting them alight. Most of the soldiers in the reserve flashed into ash; those who ducked beneath the surface were scalded or boiled to death.
Karel next turned his wrath on the remainder of the retreating invasion force, sweeping his beam across the rocky area and the foreshore. Visible more as a shimmer in the air than as a beam of light, it scorched the ground and incinerated the hostiles. In that intense heat bodies and clothing did not simply catch fire and burn; they flash-charred into ashen simulacra of human beings and elves, which, lacking cohesion, soon slumped into formless piles of cinders.
Karel shook his head at the sheer waste of life -- not just the deaths of the Communalists but also at the way they had lived. Most of all he hated them for forcing him once again to kill on a grand scale, killing not soulless creatures like trolls or centaurs but human beings and elves -- real people just like them, however reprehensible their politics and tactics. Jemsen and Karel were both heartily sick of war and halfway ashamed that they were so terribly good at it.
Turning to his twin Karel remarked:
"So much for the non-lethal weapons and tactics we had hoped to use. Itching powders, pepper spray, and emetics were not going to stop those fanatics."
Thus ended the battle of annihilation on land. It now was time for the battle at sea. That was Liam's cue to fly out to the sloop and rejoin Drew and take part in the Sandpiper's attack with torpedoes and guns.
Author's Note
The isolated island where the Dragon's Blood Tree grew was based on the Island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea. The geography of the Benign Coast was suggested by Chile in South America.
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This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead. It is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, usually appears in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence focuses on several of the large cast of characters in the ongoing saga which now exceeds Tolstoy's War and Peace in word count, if in no other measure.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.