Chapter 22

The atmosphere inside the elf city was very tense. Everyone had a serious look on his face as they went about preparing for an attack. Ash had been forgotten by the elves as the danger of losing their city doomed them. Maya was the only one left behind to watch him, she wasn't hiding anymore. She was a bit shorter than the average elf, who tends to be tall usually, she was also slightly different than the elves he had seen so far, while most of them had fair skin and light-colored hairs, she had darker skin and black hairs resembling his hairs. The other elves also seemed to treat her a little bit differently, even though she was Farin's daughter.

"I take you haven't seen a dark elf before?" asked Maya noticing his stare.

"What's a dark elf?" he asked.

"Dark elves, or winter-elves live in the snow-cold mountains, due to geographical changes we look different from these land elves, also known as Sun elves," she said.

"But you are all elves right, what's the big deal then?" he asked.

"The elves you have met so far, might have been good in fighting and magic, but since you are a human I am sure you must have noticed their immature attitude, anything that doesn't look like them, they have a slight problem with it, they have been brainwashed by their brainwashed parents, for them, we look too similar to humans or dwarves, they call us dirty-blood too but not to our face, they believe there might have been some intermingling in the past that lead to our creation, it could be true but still doesn't mean anything, so there is a slight animosity between us," she answered and Ash nodded.

"Now, tell me something, you traveled with Aria here alone, right? How was it? Did anything exciting happen?" she asked.

"W... what do you mean? Nothing happened" he answered instantly.

"You know when my father told me I'll have to follow and protect you, I thought it might be a good idea to see what I was up against, so I left a day early to check you out, and I saw something happening between you and Aria," she said smiling, clearly amused she had caught him in a lie.

Ash looked around for something to say.

"As you have seen already, they don't like it too much when we get too friendly with other races, it won't be a good idea if someone found out," she said.

"Don't tell anyone," said Ash and explained the deal he and Aria had made.

"Well I don't really care about the politics of it, but I do find your deal interesting, I don't have too many options while I am here in the sun region, and back home my mother is quite strict, so I haven't had much leisure time," she said looking him up and down.

"And if you are good enough for the princess, you should be decent enough," she added.

Ash had no idea what to think of that, he was fine handling one elf beauty at the moment, but even that was getting more difficult now. But he had dodged a bullet so he was just glad for that. But then one more bad news arrived, a scout had returned from the forests. The goblins were moving, they were coming out of their underground caves from everywhere, the scout described it as a green flood.

"Of course, they are, this was their plan all along," said Aria.

"Silv, get the preparations started that we were talking about," said Farin to Silv.

"I don't know but something felt amiss," said Ash. He had found the events weird, he felt like they got too lucky with the gobbling ambush now, otherwise, the city would have flooded with goblins and all the elves would have died.

"We can't think about anything else now, we are at war people, rules change in a war, I know all of you are trained warriors, but war is cruel, there is a lot of blood, noise, and dead bodies, keep your wits about you, Sarah, Hailey and Maya, I want you to go to the city hall with Ash and see that the people are settled properly, and take the device I mentioned with you, we'll need to try to contact with Ronin now," said Farin to them. They nodded and left the room. Ash pulled Aria aside to talk to her.

"Things are getting pretty serious now, do you think you can contact Derek," said Ash.

"Not unless he is with Ronin, but I don't think so, he said he had to go South, and Derek doesn't handle the army stuff in your kingdom, you will have to deal with others for that and I would be really happy if it's in our favor, look, Ash, my family is among the three families who look over this city, there are a lot of our family followers and members who live in the city, I know my dad will send most of his forces here for help but that would leave him vulnerable to other attacks, it would be best for all if we can get the humans to help," she said.

"Let's go Aria, we don't have time to think about that now, first we need to make sure that the city holds and we can survive the first wave, no help is coming today at least," said Farin and they all left. Ash with the three female elves went in the other direction. Only when he left the city walls and entered deeper into the city, did he see the normal elf citizens, they were much normal looking and human-like, of all sizes and some even fat, some small kids looked terrified and everyone was going in different shelters throughout the city, there were a lot of tall trees in the city, since it was almost made around the forest, this gave a feeling of unguardedness to him, that the goblins could attacks from above as well, but when he looked up he caught sight of archers here and there high up in the trees probably for this reason only.

There were about thirty horses between them, and same number of people in the party that left the city gates in the middle of the night. All were wide awake since they were all excited and thought they were going on a very important and dangerous mission. Ron and Fiona were riding towards a side, she was a pretty good rider he thought, the horse was perfectly calm underneath her. The night sky was clear as they crossed the grassland.

"I can't believe where I am now, two days ago I was on our farm with my father, and now I am marching alongside a group of soldiers," said Fiona. There was a sadness in her voice, but not the dark depression of before. She was really strong he thought.

"It's the same for me, I was just looking after the horses like usual one morning, when Sir, Derek came back along with Ash, since then my life hasn't been the same, but I bet he is having even more crazy experiences," said Ron.

"You never told me where he is," said Fiona.

"In the elven kingdom," said Ash.

"What? How did that happen?" she asked and Ron told her the jist.

"He better come back in one piece, or I'll not forgive Derek," said Fiona.

"I sometimes forget you are her older sister," said Ron.

"Is that a compliment about how young I look," said Fiona. As she was returning to normal, Ron had again started making the connection that she was a pretty girl and so sometimes he said some stupid things in his nervousness.