Spoils of War...

He turned, his new opponents axe landed squarely in the head of his present foe. With a twist of the now limp mans arm the axe was wrenched free of it owners grip, another swing of the dead mans arm and the live ones legs were swept out from under him.

This had gone on for hours, Zarg-nar was more than weary, he'd lost count of the dead on his side and theirs. He didn't want to be involved in this stupid war, but his emperor demanded it. A single pistol shot made a crater of the fallen second man.

He hated war and the killing, he fought not for honour or glory but because it was required of him. He fought and would die at the whim of his emperor. Many would die this day on that whim.

The battle was turning even though he killed swiftly it was not quick enough he was being over run and soon he would have no room to move and no room to fight.

They were out numbered hundreds to one, it was bloody and desperate. The enemy where armed with sword and some musket no match against his peoples weapons but the numbers complicated things. The Elves could win yet again but at further cost to their honour. A small force is not allowed the luxury of mercy, any sign of decency would turn the tide against them.

Then he saw it. Archaic but effective, a cannon. Simple, old fashioned and aimed directly at him. His enemy was desperate now, they had given up on their own troops and were about to use artillery through them to get to his forces. It fired, hoping that his body armour could hold or allow him a swift death he closed his eyes.

He felt nothing after the earth shattering boom. He was deaf, his skin still crawled from the shock wave. It had fired past him. If he could hear he would have heard what had happened over his communicator. Shell shocked and deaf he staggered forwards, towards the cannon. All he could hear was ringing, his communicator screamed into his deaf ear a retreat, he pressed forwards, felling another two opponents absent mindedly in close combat, shooting another three just out of axe range. Over the communicator the retreat sounded and the announcement that the emperor was dead.

Behind him his forces routed. They ran from the battlefield finally released from the order of an insane grief stricken emperor, who sought to bring back his empress by violence. The emperor had watched her die slowly, disease eventually taking her from him. He knew full well that he was baited into a war he could not win but grief blinded him. The Dark Elves would win every battle but would eventually lose the war.

Arzarak-nar the empress was not Zarg-nar's mother, in fact she was even younger than he was. Up till her death he had thought that she was only one of his fathers playthings. Zarg-nar watched her wither and even though her beauty quickly faded his father never left her side and only then to go to war.

He reached the cannon its crew had reloaded and were about to fire. A single shot stopped the Fusilier , Zargnar threw his new axe into the commander's chest. Clumsily he drew his knife and punctured the lung of the man who had collected him in the ribs from behind.

Finishing the other two with his pistol from where he had fallen to the ground facing the same direction as the cannon. He saw his forces retreating away from him. They were running away their resolve shattered, their enemies overrunning those that stumbled. A few fought on but they would soon fall, they would never have to remember the shame of this days defeat, he envied them.

Tapping on his communicator he realised that it was his own ears that had stopped working. Screaming into the mouth piece questions he could not hear the answer to. On the hill he saw the imperial colours had been lowered. The emperor was dead.

His father had loved him well enough but he was a reminder of the first empress. She had died when he was quite young, he had no memory of her other than her voice. Cooing to him his childhood name.

His new mother was little older than half his age, just at the age of adulthood, and she was an elf of the light of royal birth no less. Politically it was quite fortuitous, a marriage that could reunite the two peoples again after thousands of years of war. At least this would afford them a truce for a decade or two while they decided what it could mean.

Then Arzarak-nar fell ill. Something unheard of for elves, spared mortality and aging, disease was also something the gods neglected to bestow upon the elves. This plague ate away at her body, the technology and medicine of the dark elves could not save her and the wizards of the light elves saw it only as a dark elven trick. By the time the elven wizards arrived all they could do was start to identify what it was. Arzarak-nar's death marked the end of any reconciliation of the elves and the start of the eternal war.

At first the light elves were suspects, but only after many deaths was it realised that the magical plague was the Wizards Circle's work. The plague had effected more than just the empress it spread to many of the surgeons and then through the servants and then on through the people. Many died. And all the while the war effort raged.

The elves of the light soon developed a cure, buy kept it from their renewed enemies. Only segregation and quarantines prevented it from taking all of the dark elves.

That was years ago, now the war had raged for seven years now, concentrated mainly at the light elves and then more recently at the humans of sephardishe and then here ostol.

Another week and ostol like sephardishe would fall. That would give them the resources to continue. Weaponry would never be an issue but food already was a problem. The Yolknar dwarves had ceased trading with them years earlier in fear of supporting the losing faction of elves. Taking Sephardishe had eased the pain a little. But then the circle had burned all the crops and killed the 'traitorous' farmers that were just caught in the middle.

Zarg-nar could hear again. It was pointless though because he could see what was wrong. He was Emperor.