Orhalicon:Fall of the Elves

Orhalicon:Fall of the Elves


Jaden stood still on one of the stone bridges that led out of the mountain fortress. He nervously adjusted the clasp of his scabbard and looked around anxiously, awaiting the adrenalin rush of war at any second. Numerous other bridges also lined the mountain, three hundred and sixty degrees around, but none were symmetrical, some were at different heights, and some were bigger or smaller than this one. They all had one thing in common. They cropped outwards, and ended in a point. 
He let out an exasperated breath and turned his head, his short dark hair whipping around in the wind; working in a fortress was nothing like working in laboratory. The large metal door was still closed, flanked by twin machine gun turrets; their barrels looked like telescopes in the evening fog.

The sun was setting and the clouds were shifting colours from gold to a dark shade of blue. The moon could be seen clearly now, a shiny silver object in a sea of gold. However, it held its own and took the sky from the sun every night. Jaden wished he could be as courageous and determined as it was, because this would be the night everything happened.

Suddenly, he heard a grinding noise behind him. The doors were opening. They slowly slid into the side of the mountain, as if they weren’t oiled enough, and he saw another young man quickly turning the opening gears, with a lantern beside him. As soon as the doors were completely open, the man walked out the fortress towards Jaden, lantern in hand.

“You alright man?” asked the newcomer.
“Yeah. I’m fine, Phalanx. No need to worry. Its just kind of cold,” Jaden said in a semi-confident voice.
Phalanx was a first class soldier, with a tall figure, and a brown beard, a style used by many other veteran soldiers. His eyes stood out though. His deep blue eyes had looked out of place at first, on his rough, craggy face, as if he were some ghostly apparition but he had presented himself nicely, to both his superiors and his peers, gaining their trust and loyalty.  He had been working in the fortress for five years, and had already been offered a position as general, which he abruptly turned down. Nobody knew why; he just spent his free time in his own quarters, just like Jaden, though Jaden was naturally quiet and thoughtful.
“I just came out here to tell you that there’s going to be a major group of elves attacking
the base, in about an hour.”

Jaden immediately felt nauseous, before the last word was uttered.

“What!? Why are the turrets still empty then?”
“The attack in the southern desert was a decoy, we just got the message, I was sent to your bridge to alert you.”
“I wouldn’t call forty thousand troops decoys!”
“So…we only have eight thousand active troops in the fortress, including us?”
“Indeed,” Phalanx said gruffly.

Jaden looked appalled. The elves had created organic flying machines that could also be used offensively. In the past battles, they had almost decimated all of the human troops because of their advantage. These machines were created to kill. Even after its rider was swept off or killed, they’d continue the fight. The human would have to get ready as soon as possible.
“Okay, go get the others ready, I’ll take a turret.” Surprisingly, his voice remained steady as he said this. He was actually thinking of running away if any action took place in the fortress; after all, serving the army was his family’s oldest tradition. He could make it look like he fought and then just return immediately after it was safe.
Phalanx said, “Sure, I’ll be back here to assist you though. I was like you during my first battle.”

Jaden smiled at Phalanx as he ran back into the base.
Phalanx thought there was something odd about that smile, but, the boy was nervous after all.

Jaden ran to the machine gun turrets after Phalanx had left and he unscrewed a bolt on one of them, and sat at the other one, which was n the other side of the bridge, rubbing his hands on his pants to make sure they weren’t sweaty. His pants felt damp, but that was to be expected after ones first day keeping watch. He activated the sniper lens on it and waited. The sky slowly turned dark, but he didn’t notice it, lost in his own thoughts. He pulled his sword out of the scabbard at his hip and dug the swords blade into the ground beside him. There it sat, like a scarecrow.

The sounds of heavy footsteps around him told him that the others were taking their places at the turrets and the front liners were standing at the edges of each bridge, ready to fight those who evaded the turrets. His own bridge remained empty though.
“Those dead bodies must be sitting nicely in the underground lake,” He thought.

He looked into the lens again and saw dark shapes appearing out of the fog in the distance; the setting sun behind them. The mountaintops accentuated their arrival with a cold glow. “The best cover they’ll get is behind a mountain. Luckily, the building team shifted the size of the nearest mountains so this fortress is the tallest one around. It took a few years, but they did it.”
Jaden turned around. Phalanx appeared behind him, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and went to his turret. “The scope doesn’t work,” He said.
“Just take the bridge then.”
“Sure, those two guys who were supposed to take the bridge were missing.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Those two are probably going to act like heroes and take on the ground troop elves.” Said Jaden in an almost mocking voice.
“Heh, maybe they will,” Phalanx chuckled.

Phalanx stood at the tip of the bridge, away from the turrets line of fire, but able to intercept any landing elves.

Snow started falling a few moments later and to Jaden, looked like the bearers of bad news. Snow is just frozen water, with various other chemicals. Maybe pure gold has some percentage of water in it… Jaden thought.

The organic vehicles were coming closer, within range. Jaden started firing. These turrets fired rocks and shrapnel, not bullets, like the rifles the front men used. The rocks have more mass and could easy tear apart the guarded wing of a “vehicle”.  Two of Jaden’s shots hit a “vehicle”.
One of the closer “vehicles” went down, as its wings lost leverage. As it collided into a rocky ditch, a visceral scream of agony was heard.

The rest of the evening continued like this. They had no clock to measure the time, and it wasn’t until it got very dark that something unexpected happened.
Phalanx heard the turrets stop firing. That meant one of two things: The battle was over, or the “farm” in the fortress had been destroyed, jammed or production had stopped. All the missile turrets were sent fodder from the farm, where slaves worked to keep the supply of rock and shrapnel being sent to the turrets. But the shrieks of the flying machines were still heard. They came ever closer, and Elves started jumping off them, onto the bridges.

“Looks like its my turn to go to the frontline,” muttered Jaden, as he pulled his sword out of the ground, swinging it from side to side in order to find his center of gravity. It was a moderately heavy sword, but balance was an important battle concept. If he wasn’t calibrated, he’d not only miss, he could wind up dead.
He walked along the bridge until the tip, where he was standing earlier that evening. The lights that ringed the mountain’s exterior were activated, as were the ground area lights, which extended as far as the eye could see.

“Ready?” asked Phalanx eagerly, as the silhouette of a flying vehicle flew above them.
“I sure am!” said Jaden, though only he knew what end this battle would take.

A dozen elves jumped off the vehicle onto their bridge. Each elf was as tall as a human, but they had green hair and yellow eyes. They wore tight robes and their dreadlocks whirled upwards as they slowly landed on the bridge, snow being whipped into the air by the magnitude of their leaps.

Phalanx and Jaden silently ran towards them; (battle cries would be useless in this kind of warfare because they wasted breath) their swords dragging across the rock, and Jaden slashed upwards, catching an elf in the chin, slashing through, into its head, and he spun, ducked, and slashed another across the chest. No blood flew from them, but they died before they hit the ground.
Phalanx barely touched the other ones. They just dropped “dead” at his feet.
This…acting didn’t impress Jaden at all. “What was that!?” he angrily asked Phalanx.
“What was what?”
“They just dropped! One of them is still blinking! What’s going on here?!”
Phalanx dropped his sword, and put his fingers under his neck. He pulled upwards, and his skin started “unfurling” until he had pulled the mask off. What was staring at Jaden was an elf; not the quiet old man who had told any soldiers with an ear to listen to the adventurous stories about his past as a mercenary. The noise of warfare had now become background noise.

“I... I’m sorry. I couldn’t bear killing my own people.” Said Phalanx sadly, his head downcast.
“Why are you fighting on our side then? And how did you get a promotion to general!?”
“I captured some elves and then, after killing them I let them go. I do know woodcraft of course. I was a spy. You should have noticed I didn’t age at all for the past five years. Your ultimate defeat would be this battle.”

Suddenly, the elves Phalanx had “killed” got back up, drew wooden stakes from their belts and circled Phalanx, standing around him like bodyguards.
“I did know that. I sabotaged that turret over there AND killed the front liners that were supposed to guard this bridge…so you would be forced to fight the elves and prove your loyalty to our side”
Phalanx just stared at him with empty yellow eyes. He bent down to pick up his sword. The elves tensed up and stood ready to throw their stakes at Jaden if he tried anything daring.
Phalanx stood up and pointed the sword at Jaden.
“You are a murderous soul. I’m sorry, but this war will end here, at the mountain fortress of Orhalicon. You will not live to see the end.”
Jaden smiled and said with confidence, “Oh, I won’t die here!”
Phalanx pointed his sword at Jaden. “Sorry cadet, there’s nothing you can do now.”
“At least let me die inside the gates.”
“Fine.”
As Jaden strode across the bridge into the fortress, followed by the elves, he inconspicuously stuffed a vial into his turret’s barrel, and said his last words.
“This war will have no winner! The end is near.”
Phalanx jumped behind Jaden, lifted his sword and was about to strike downwards, to cleave him in half when a rumbling sound was heard. All the elves fell to their knees. Jaden ran past them to the edge of the bridge, where a ladder waited. He turned around and decided to let Phalanx know the truth, before all the elves died. It was the most he could do for him; after all, he did tell him of the oncoming attack. Phalanx stood up, using his sword as a crutch, and wheezed, “What is this!?”
“The truth is, the farm under the mountain makes elves react and explode if you pour a certain amount of water into it. Those aren’t regular rocks. I may be a new soldier, but I was an alchemist before I became a soldier. I told the other soldiers to pour the chemical into the other turrets too, as part of the secret operation. We knew who to suspect. It’s going to tear you all apart! Have fun you fools… it was why we kept a positive view on things, even when we were outnumbered. Your kind has no escape. Game over. It’s going to affect every elf from here to the Deep South.”

Jaden sheathed his sword, and turned around, beginning his descent. A stake struck Jaden in the chest as he was about to begin climbing down the ladder He fell down the mountainside with a scream that caused a huge pile of snow to fall, and landed on a bridge far below with a sickening crunch, the snow began covering not only his body, but also his master plan from his own eyes and ears. He would never witness the bloodshed the Alchemists had caused.

Far above where Jaden lay dead, elves were exploding into thin air, with high pitched pops.
Moments later, everything lay still, the only sounds heard by the living were the gusts of wind and the shrieks of the flying machines.