Tirith clung tightly to the feathers of his griffon, Kestrel, as he soared across his hometown of Ulthuan. The wind rushing through his air, he laughed as he remembered the pitiful Dark Elf army that had attacked not a day before. Tirith had sprung the ambush and his shadow warriors had performed excellently, shooting out the Cold One Knights and then slicing through the unprepared Corsairs. Meanwhile Tirith had fought his way through swathes of spearmen to reach the fleeing General. Unfortunately he had been unable to stop him but Tirith was consoled with the fact that the Dark Elves penalty would probably be worse than anything he could cause.
He tugged on the griffon's side and they turned away in a spiral, dropping down fast in a twirl, the air whipping past him filling him with adrenaline. He loved riding Kestrel; the sense of freedom and excitement was one he found little of elsewhere, except maybe in battle.
Swooping low over the houses, he caught glimpses of the city, mothers hurrying children to school, soldiers training in the fields, Mages performing daily chores. Ulthuan was a bustling, joyous, marvellous city that Tirith loved to watch. And watching was all he was allowed to do, being the prince of the Ulthuan and son of the Great King Glarmis meant he was not allowed to visit the rest of the town. He was forced to spend all day at home learning how to be a good king, discussing city politics; the rising price of fish, the growing hostility towards the dwarves and the worryingly low supply of barley.
Tirith sighed as the bell chimed 8'o clock and he was forced to turn back to the castle. On his way back he noticed a large amount of movement in the town, Sword masters hurried across the town in full armour, and Silver Helms mounted and cantered off across the fields. Even the Civilian Guard seemed to have assembled in a ramshackle formation in front of their commanding officers.
Dismounting quickly he charged up the stairs and burst into the throne room not even bothering to knock. There he found his father seated in the giant white throne of the King, beside him his royal advisor, Forsyth, stood trembling.
Forsyth was a wizened old man with papery skin and faded blue protruding veins. He had served the High Elf kings for years and had always done a good job, although recently he had become somewhat absent-minded as though finally his age was catching up on him.
Glarmis, rose to his feet, looking worried. At six foot 5 he towered over his son, Tirith's head just reaching the gilded wedding necklace that Glarmis had worn since his marriage to Mirina, Tirith's mother.
Glarmis nodded to acknowledge Tirith's presence and then without any more greeting he gestured to Forsyth, who stepped forwards and began to explain.
"In the last hour," he rasped, "we have received a call for aid from the Sisters of Twilight."
"The Sisters?" Tirith asked, confused, "The wood elves have never ask for our help before."
"They have been overwhelmed by the Orcs, it seems they've sent their entire force out to attack them."
"Then just send them some troops, we've defeated the Orcs before."
"That's what we planned to do" Forsyth sighed, "but moments after we received the call from the Sisters another message was sent to us, from Chotec, the High Slann Mage Priest, it appears they have come under attention from Necropolith, the Lich King."
"But how can this…" Tirith began but Forsyth cut over him.
"Then Fritz called, told us his little hamlet was being attacked by "dirty grit bigguns" I can only assume he meant the ogres. And finally just as we were sending out the last of our troops we got another call from Merlin. The empire is being ravaged by the Vampire Counts."
There was silence as he finished. Tirith couldn't believe it, what were the chances of them all attacking together out of chance? Impossible. But still these were not friendly races; they were not allies, Ogres and Vampires together made no sense. What was happening?
"So have you dispatched troops?" Tirith asked.
"As many as we could," Glarmis answered, "but we have hardly any left to defend Ulthuan."
"Defend Ulthuan? What are you talking about?"
"You think this is a coincidence? All our allies are being attacked, we are next and we will have a hard time fighting them off."
Tirith began to argue back but the knocking of a messenger at the door halted him. Forsyth collected the message, opened it and sighed deeply.
"The Dwarves request our assistance. They are began overrun with Skaven from the clan Eshin."
"We have no troops left," Glarmis said sadly, lowering his head.
"Father allow me to go," Tirith said suddenly.
"You? No!" Glarmis roared, "I wasn't happy about you fighting with the Shadow Warriors let alone sending you off to the Dwarven Mines!"
"But…"
"I've lost your mother. You are all I have left and I must protect you." Glarmis concluded, settling himself once more in this throne.
"You can't just ignore their pleas for help!" Tirith cried.
"We've done all we can," Glarmis, said angrily, Forsyth tried to ignore them, preferring not to get involved in family arguments.
"I can't believe you sometimes. No wonder the Dwarves hate us!" Tirith shouted, pushing out of the throne room and slamming the doors behind him.
Hurrying down to the stables he grabbed his sword and shield, and pulled on his lightweight golden mail. Mounting Kestrel in a single jump, he squeezed her sides with his legs and soared off into the sky. But this time rather than circling the town, he burst through the clouds and hurried off eastwards towards the Dwarven Mines.
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