Chapter 2: Darker Days
"So now what?" Allia asked, still in disbelief. Everything had changed so suddenly. Out of nowhere, their enemies had returned, and Elven morale was at its lowest with the sudden death of their Champion. "By the light, what do we do?"
"We fight," James replied dully, leaning over the war map in their Staging room in Hogwarts.
"How?" Allia questioned. "We don't know where they are, we don't know how many they are, we don't know what they're capable of. We know almost nothing about them."
"You think I don't know that?" James cried suddenly, looking over at her. "I know it too damn well. We've no idea what we're up against, and there's not a bloody thing we can do about it."
"The Strike Force needs someone to rally behind. They need a leader they can believe in, now more then ever." Captain Seerin said, adding his piece. His command still made camp outside the walls of Hogwarts.
"They had one," James whispered, the pain still fresh in his mind. Only a week had passed. No body had been recovered...for either of the two. All that had been there when they had returned to the scene was blood stained grass...and his son's severed wings.
"Your son is dead Sir," Seerin said simply. "You must accept that. Now someone MUST take his place as the figurehead of the light."
"He's right you know," Allia said, sighing deeply. "The King has already granted you command over our forces, if you will but take it."
"Why me? The Strike Force has it's own Generals. Why not them?" Came the reply.
"Because while they may command the soldier's weapons, someone must command their hearts. They need someone to inspire them, a figurehead, someone without fear or weakness. Or someone they think has no fear or weakness. They need a strong leader."
"But why me?"
"They all feel a lack of hope, with Emrys' death. Should you, his own father, stand tall and proud before them, and show nothing but strength and determination, how could they not be inspired? They will see you, unwavering, mournful but not broken, defying our enemy, and they will be strengthened by it."
"But what if I don't feel that way?"
"It does not matter what you DO feel." Allia said softly, looking at him. "Its what they believe you feel. They need a symbol of hope. They need a leader."
James stood before the massed might of the Elven forces of Falandais, and finished his speech.
"We have defeated them once," he cried out, "we shall do so again! For Justice, For the Light, we shall emerge victorious!"
James raised a fist into the air as the cheers rang out from the elves gathered in the shadow of the Palace. Turning, he strode into the building, Allia falling into step beside him.
As soon as the door had shut behind them, James sighed, leaning against a wall dejectedly.
"Every word of that was a bloody lie, and you know it."
Allia shrugged, "At least now they'll have the strength to fight."
James nodded, but inwardly, he was distraught. This wasn't the way things were supposed to be happening. Too long, they had known peace, and suddenly it had been shattered.
"We've had word from Lathadrin and Erylandros," Allia continued. "They've mustered their forces. Lathadrin will look to the defense of the southern portions of the mainland, and Erylandros the north. Each have sent garrisons to the Wizarding School in their territories."
James looked up in surprise at this. "Why?"
"Because like it or not," she answered, "the wizarding folk are involved in this war. Those schools will be targets, you know this. Voldemort knows that to crush the schools will destroy the wizarding world's moral. Why else was he always so focused on Hogwarts? We will need them as allies in this, and as such, we need to defend them."
James nodded, acknowledging the sense of it.
"Feadir's done some research in the library. From what he read, the enemy will focus on us first, and the wizards. They'll bypass Muggle cities and forces for the most part now. They will strike at us, and the wizarding world swiftly, and brutally, erasing us from the world before crushing the Muggles." Allia said. "You've been given command of two thirds of our forces, to be based out of Hogwarts. Your task is to defend it, and Great Britain. However, should you receive word of enemy movements on the continent, you're granted full permission to take a force to battle them. The other third of our forces are going to be stationed here, to defend Falandais."
"Back to Hogwarts for us then eh?" James said, smiling slightly.
Allia shook her head, a grimace of annoyance and irritation on her face.
"Unfortunately, no." she replied. "I've been ordered to remain here, and command part of the defense."
"Damn," James swore, frowning in disappointment.
He stared silently at the wall for a few moments, before sighing and looking at Allia once more.
"Should things go poorly," he paused, breathing deeply. "It was good to know you."
He turned then, and walked away, not looking back.
Allia remained for several minutes, silent and reflective. She knew what he believed, and couldn't help fearing the same.
That it was highly likely they would never see each other again in the realm of the living.
Evelyn sighed sadly, trudging through the silent halls of the Palace. She was so utterly bored.
After a week of the excitement of the mustering of the Strike Force, things had suddenly...settled. Oh, the air was still tense with fear and worry, but to her it was just...boring.
She wasn't to be allowed to return to Hogwarts. Her father had deemed her to be safer at Falandais.
There was no one to entertain her anymore; Uncle James (she personally liked his human name far more then his elven one, and insisted on using it) had left almost a week age. Allia had left not long after, having been assigned to the defenses at the southern reaches of Falandais territory. She'd ridden off with a portion of the garrison to see to that, and wasn't expected back for a month, at least.Her father was busy with whatever it was he did in the Temple all day, and her mother was busy mass producing healing potions and bandages that the soldiers would no doubt need.
And she was left hanging. Too young to help with gathering supplies or helping in her mothers work, too old to just be content to play games and ignore the situation.
Sighing to herself, she flopped herself down on cushioned chair that sat in a little niche in the hall.
"I'm so BORED!" She yelled aloud, then frowned slightly, turning and reaching behind her. With a look of surprise on her face, she pulled out her riddle book.
"Well that's odd, I could have sworn I left you in my room," she said, addressing the book as though expecting it to explain its sudden appearance. Then she shrugged.
"Oh well, mind as well take advantage,"
She opened up the book, and looked at the riddle within. It was one she hadn't seen before, having closed the book without reading it after solving the previous one.
This engulfing thing is strange indeed,
the greater is grows, the less you see...
She looked at it for a moment, then shook slightly, seeing the answer, but not wanting to say it.
"Darkness," she whispered.
As the book shone, and the page turned, she shivered.
"Well, that was depressing," she muttered to herself, as she looked at the new riddle.
With a great crash
With searing light
The heart of the storm
I shatter the night.
She smiled faintly. She knew this one. She'd heard it before actually, one night during the summer when there had been a thunderstorm. She'd been scared, she always was, but Emrys had comforted her...and joked with her. He'd asked her it, and when she couldn't get it, he'd given her a hint that it was 'something the storm and he had in common."
"Lightning," she said, and smiled softly as the book glowed.
She sighed faintly after it, sadly. She missed her cousin.
Snape apparated into to the Dark Lord's location nervously. This would be his first time making contact since the Dark Lord had allied himself with those...devils.
From behind his mask, he sweated nervously, worried about what the call had been for.
"Welcome my Death Eaters," Voldemort hissed, smiling at his gathered minions. "I've called you here because tomorrow, we will be attacking those who defeated us earlier this year. We shall destroy those who dared stand against us-"
"Enough," the dark lord was interrupted, as a large, muscled pale skinned figure stepped out of the shadows behind him, and Severus got his first glimpse of the new power on the side of darkness.
"You babble too much, useless human, for your 'forces' won't be participating on the morrow, I've no desire to have to babysit a bunch of weaklings on the battlefield." Victus said, snarling, as he shoved Voldemort aside and eyed the gathered Death Eaters. Baring his teeth, he approached them slowly.
"I would just kill you all here, but you may possibly prove useful in the future, so I won't. But know this. You serve me now. Your lives belong to me, to do with as I wish."
Victus stopped in front of one Death Eater, Dolohov, and grabbed him by the throat, holding him up, and staring silently at him.
"Are we understood?" He spoke, slowly tightening his grip. The Death Eater nodded fearfully, and Victus dropped him.
"Frail weaklings," He snarled. "But I'll let you live. For now."
Victus turned away, and started to walk away, and Severus breathed a sigh of relief, looking down briefly to re-compose himself.
"Most of you," came the low, evil voice of the Nekmari overlord, laughing cruelly, and Snape's head snapped up, to see that the fiend had turned again.
"However, one of you...smells like a traitor. I smell the taint of the Light upon one of you, and I can taste your fear."
Severus swallowed nervously, reassuring himself with the fact that the Nekmari was looking further to his left, at some other Death Eater.
"One of you is a spy. One of you is a traitor, a weakling allied with the Light. There is only one punishment for such, and it is far worse then death," the voice seemed to echo in Severus's head, and he closed his eyes trying to calm himself.
"You will beg for death long before it is granted, fool," came the voice from directly in front of him, and Snape opened his eyes to see the glowing red eyes of the Nekmari staring at him from directly in front of him.
Severus Snape had enough time to blink once, as a sinking knowledge of defeat settled over him, before a mailed fist smashed into his face, and he knew no more.
September came quickly, too quickly for some. Hogwart's opened again on September 1st to the wizarding students, who were shocked as they approached the castle to see armed guards, elven guards, patrolling the grounds in groups, and from the forest, plumes of smoke rose marking numerous campfires.
The Start of Year feast began as normal, the sorting going smoothly. Dumbledore rose, intent on informing the students in as calm and comforting way as possible that the war would no doubt be escalating, and to explain the increased military presence.
He wanted to inform them gently, to build up to the situation.
He would not get that chance.
The doors burst open, and a bloody figure, supported by two of the elven guardsmen, entered the room.
"Where is the commander?" The figure, a pale faced elf in livery of a different colour then those supporting him, gasped, blood speckling his lips.
James rose from his seat, and hurried forward.
"I am here, what is it, what happened?" He demanded, while several elven healers rushed into the room and started surrounding the injured elf, who batted them away.
"My wounds can wait, I must report," he coughed, before looking at James. "Commander, Erylandros is overrun."
James paled, as did all the elves who heard his words. The students began whispering to each other, asking if any knew what was going on.
"What? How? When? How?" James stuttered in disbelief.
"We were tricked," the messenger said, gasping suddenly and clutching his side in pain, before continuing. "They sent a force to attack Durmstrang. We responded, sending a portion of our garrison from the city to aid the school."
James nodded, understanding. Erylandros, by some strange coincidence, was physically very close to the northern school.
"It was a trap. Our reinforcements to the school were ambushed, slaughtered almost to the elf. The school itself is no doubt destroyed as well. One of the mages managed to escape, to get back to the city. He warned us, but by then it was too late. The enemy showed up out of nowhere. All around us. They must have found and killed all our sentries. The city had almost no warning. Our garrison was just barely organizing when the enemy forces swarmed into us. We didn't stand a chance." The elf said, tears mixing with the blood on his face.
"How many of them were there?" James asked, though sheer horror at thought of what happened threatened to overwhelm him, he kept his focus.
"Thousands," the messenger choked out. "More. Plus, they had dementors, but the dementors seemed...stronger then anything we knew of them. Almost as though the Nekmari's sheer presence alone strengthened them. And undead...thousands of skeletal warriors. Our garrison was only three thousand. We were butchered."
"Why didn't you call for aid? Why didn't you send to here before now, for reinforcements?" came the obvious question.
The messenger grimaced. "We tried, believe me we did. All day we tried. They killed any birds we tried to send. They blocked us, somehow, from forming gates within the city. They had warriors all through the forest, anyone who tried to sneak out of the city was caught. I was the eighth messenger sent, all of us able to at least form a gate strong enough for ourselves, and even I didn't get through unscathed. They almost caught me but I managed to get past their pickets and gate."
James paled, realizing that without a means of forming gates within the city, the odds of survivors...
"And the rest of the city?" He asked, dreading the answer.
"I heard the King's final order before I gated out," the mage said, drawing a painful breath. "He ordered Quel'dandar.
The elf suddenly wobbled, and collapsed, and the elves supporting him pulled aside a portion of his robes to reveal a huge wound in his side. The elf must have been in sheer agony while delivering his message, only staying up out of sheer willpower.
"Justice," the dying elf whispered as he shuddered, and lay still.
All the blood had paled from James's face by then, as Dumbledore, who had been standing behind him, asked what the elven word meant.
"What is it James?"
"Quel'dandar...it is a war order...that has not been used in millennia. No one ever really believed it would ever be used, but it was always included in training. It's a standing order to all elves. The king of Erylandros...he ordered his people to arm every man, woman and child, and prepare to die in battle. It's an order only given when one knows one is going to die. It's also a warning to any others...that hope is lost. Not to attempt rescue or reinforcement. That they were doomed."
"How many...how many lived in this city?"
James closed his eyes in grief.
"Twelve thousand, roughly. Almost a quarter of our race, wiped out in a day."
Oh, so in playing with uploading this, I noticed I can make forums, so check my profile page or go here http/ (bugger, wont let me paste a address, so just go to profile page!) to access forums I've attempted to make. There, you can harass me, ask questions, threaten me with pain, its all good.