48 Elven Scrutiny

Camus was currently looking over different maps of the area. They were relatively up to date as elven scouts had drawn them during the last two years.

His tall and slender figure was elegantly sitting on branches magically formed into a chair as two beautiful elven maids served fruits and juice from the table in front of him.

As usual, the two maids sneaked peeks at him, they quite enjoyed his serious expressions and his beautiful short and light silver hair.

Elven hair came in two colors: shades of silver or black. Currently, the most popular among the young elves was white silver, the Queen's hair color. And, as it turns out, Camus shared the same shade. Making him very desirable to most young elves.

But he was not paying attention to their stares as he was diligently updating the maps with the reports from his scouts. On the table in front of him, dozens of small pieces of parchment were spread out, each with coordinates followed by a few words. If one squinted to read the small handwriting one could read things like:

'5km N Windtide - 500p - H - NPR'

In this particular note, the scout was reporting a small human settlement, 5 kilometers north of Windtide [1] and he ended his note by saying there was nothing particular to report about this particular settlement.

The number of reports was particularly impressive as they had only been in the human territory for a few days. But the dozens of notes in front of him was evidence of the dozens of settlements all spread out in the northern territory, found by his scouts. It would take many times longer than the length of his stay in the human Kingdom for humans to walk from those settlements to Camus current position.

But elves had developed many ways to communicate that were unavailable to humans.

Most long-range communication was done by using birds homing onto magical beacons carried by the recipient. They were magic crystals tuned to the birds. Long-distance messages that would take days or weeks to be delivered could reach their destination in hours that way.

This was not all, elves could also communicate instantaneously by magic, but this was very costly and would deplete a decent size magic crystal in a few minutes.

It was so expensive it was usually reserved for the Queen or in case of a real emergency.

*Scribble Scribble*

*Scribble Scribble Scribble*

Lilac appeared from behind Camus' silver hair. To the maids, it looked like she may have been sleeping in it.

"So many camps!" She shouted in her usual upbeat voice.

Camus rubbed her tiny head and said with a smile. "It is not surprising, there are millions of humans. Many fled to other territories, but most remained. I expect these maps to be filled with annotations as we receive more reports." He continued as a thought came to him. "I'd better make a separate map just for the biggest, most noteworthy camps."

"Hm?" They both turned their heads towards the entrance of their temporary tree base.

An elven girl rushed in almost out of breath. It was clear she had rushed here.

Camus immediately recognized her. It was Sana, his second in command.

Her current job was to organize the scouts they had left to monitor the northern part of the territory as well as sort the reports before sending the relevant ones to Camus. This included removing duplicate and/or unusable reports.

This would be a delicate matter for most leaders, but Camus could sleep comfortably due to Sana's serious to a fault personality.

Camus looked at the panting Sana as she walked over. Light sweat was rolling down her forehead and her long black hair, arranged in a ponytail, was a little messy. But Sana was very fit, abs and muscles could be seen on her tummy and other place her light attire did not cover. She was recovering quickly.

[If Sana is back already, then something happened.] Thought Camus.

Sana hurried to face Camus, her ponytail swinging around cutely as usual, in stark contrast with her cold and serious face.

Her Emerald eyes looked straight at Camus without blinking as she said. "Sir Camus!"

"Twenty Kunall scouts left their main camp this morning. This was routine, but two of our people followed them discreetly. They were ambushed and defeated four hours later by humans!"

"What?!" Said Camus as he immediately stood up. This surprised the little Lilac so much she almost fell down, but she was caught by one of the maids.

"Are you saying the humans started the fight?" Asked Camus without hiding the doubt in his voice. [Are they crazy?] He thought.

Sana simply nodded to confirm her reports. She was not one to add flourish to a report to make it believable.

[A human army defeated Kunalls? Why now?] He was confused.

"I thought our reports were unanimous. They all said the humans had no army left, no working industries, no government… What's going on?" He asked Sana.

The elves had heard of the human's fate, of course. Many human refugees fled north to the Elven Kingdom to seek refuge after all. But the elves still wanted to know if they could find an ally in the remnants of the Human Kingdom. They had a common enemy after all.

Sana took this as a request to narrate the events.

"This morning a patrol of twenty Kunalls left their main camp. According to our reports, this was right on their usual schedule, but we still followed up on them."

"A few hours later they were ambushed by roughly a hundred humans. They had bows and traps ready." She recalled her scout's description of the fight and added. "The arrows and traps were most likely coated with a bloodletting poison."

"And the results?" Asked Camus.

"The fight lasted a few minutes. Not one Kunall made it out alive. The humans had no casualties." She answered bluntly.

"One hundred against twenty… I guess in an ambush the numbers are about right." Mumbled Camus. But his attention was grabbed by Sana's expression. She clearly had more to say. "Go on."

"They pulled out small carts they had hidden as soon as the fight was over. They used them to dump the Kunalls corpses into the forest, they then spread dirt on the bloodied ground and used branches to sift the ground and hide the battle's footprints. By the time they were done, there were no traces of the fight left."

Sana's eyes didn't blink once as she said this last part. "The fight was very well coordinated. The leader only gave the order to attack, and that was all. Everything else, including the cleaning of the battleground, was done properly in silence."

She remained silent to let the implication of that last sentence sink in.

"So you are saying they have done this before." Said Camus.

"At least more than once and in a very similar manner." She answered.

Camus sat back down in his chair and thought for a while.

"Humans hunting Kunalls?" He said.

"What's going on?"

"Aren't they afraid of the consequences? Do they think one hundred men is enough to survive their retaliation? Or do they think the Kunalls won't notice?"

"And why now? What's changed?"

Camus had many questions, but Sana remained silent. She had no answers, and she would not guess blindly.

[Is this it? Resistance against the Kunalls? That's certainly worthy of our attention. But is there more to it?] His fingers tapped on a nearby branch as he was trying to decide his next moves.

[I can't make a report with just this information. For all we know it might be a group of crazy humans that decided to go out in a blaze of glory…]

[But the timing… It can't just be a coincidence.]

Camus finally asked Sana. "Are we following them?"

Sana nodded, but this time she added something. "We are currently following them but… One of our scouts reported that they might have been spotted by their leader, he is certain they made no mistake and remained well hidden. If so that human has incredible senses. He, however, did not take any particular action, so we can't be completely sure."

"Let's assume that he did and make sure our scouts take more precautions. We are on neutral terms with the humans, but they might react negatively to our actions. There is no point in creating strife right now." Ordered Camus.

Sana acknowledged her instructions and left for somewhere else in the elf camp.

Cams was left to think for a while. [Looks like our trip was not for nothing. But what's going over here? How did they suddenly get the courage to fight the Kunalls? And so efficiently too… Did a great leader rise? Is he a great strategist too?]

********* *********

That leader was currently in Mia's tent, hearing Titus' report.

Chris' excited shout was suddenly heard. "Elves?!"

Mia's eyes narrowed as she looked at Chris' expression.

*Cough cough*

"I mean, Elves?!" He tried again but still failed to hide his excitement.