Other Elves Come To Wage War
Barra elbows Skarri. Only after he puts the box of supplies down as gingerly and delicately as a box of brews from Valaya's own students deserves does he whip around to glare at the Ranger, pretty clearly more than annoyed. "What the hell was that for?"
"Elves approaching, thought you might want to see." Ah yes. The Elgi will be stopping at the Dawi camp to pick up supplies on their way to join Malekith, as well as dropping off some correspondence for the High King to help ensure their forces are working together properly.
"Oh yes, there's nothing I'd like half as much as gawking at people like some kind of drunken Beardling."
"I'd do it if I were you." They both jump as one of the members of the Elgi contingent who's been working directly with the Dawi, Enell Shadowbane, seems to appear from nowhere. "They shall be a sight to behold, do not doubt that."
"...Elgi, if you spook me like that again, I will throttle you."
"What's it you say to that poor apprentice of yours, Runesmith? Eyes and ears open always, and if you don't, that's on you?'"
"...Five minutes, one day Elgi that's all I'll need, just five minutes."
--
Malekith has called, and so they have answered.
Houses of three Kingdoms of Ulthuan, here to purge the Fimir, here to take vengeance for the lives snuffed out, here for the sake of the righteous, here for the sake of the world they love, here for they have been summoned by the Son of the Defender. Though not the equal of gathering the might of the entire Kingdom proper, even just one of these houses could burn a city to the ground given sufficient cause.
And the Elgi have been given sufficient cause, indeed.
The Cothiquans first, and obviously so. Steed-mounted, glimmering and shining they appear, Kazhunki of some caliber. Shiny maille harnesses the shade of the bright blue sea, layered with scales and plates of brightest green, but for their helms, silver as ever but the shade of sea mists in the morning rather than the usual mirror-polished steel. Appreciably heavy armor, even by their standards, and so by elven standard they may as well be riding citadels. Intricately chiseled into each link of each set of chain, prayers to their Ancestor Mathlann. On each and every scale, some old sigil filigreed in brightest gold, catching the sun's rays and throwing them about. The bottom row of both chain and scale alternate between precious cerulean-lacquered gold and hard ithilmar, all of it enchanted to the point that nothing short of Runes could begin to cut into it. Their tabbards and cloaks dark blues framing sea horses ending in the bodies of beasts of the deep, bright swords, and stormy seas. Where it is all metal such imagery is instead filigreed onto hardened plackards and breastplates.
And none shines more than their Prince, Avarion Seashimmer. He smiles as he sees both Elgi and Dawi alike, waving to the both, bright and cheery and without reservation, his panoply bright and shining in the sun.
And what a panoply it is! At base a layer of hard scales of Ithilmar, worked to his body until form fitting and beaten and polished until they resemble the scales of a Merwyrm, shimmering in the sun with a twinkling cerulean hue, the better to meld into the seas he loves. His plackard is a bright thing made of brightly glimmering Ithilmar shaped to resemble a sea-shell, precious stones pulled from the sea encrusting it, casting lights all around the place, and a broader band of metal to reinforce it alternating between sea green and ocean blue. His tall, conical helmet shines in the sun, studded with precious, sea-foam sapphires set in gold around the rim. His breastplate proper, that same bright cerulean as his scales, is filigreed with silver wire depicting Mathlann's fury during the Great Incursion, drowning entire armies of daemons and dueling the Sea-Beasts to ensure The Defender could save the world. Where most are shaped like an eagle's, the feathers tat decorate his pauldron are instead are shaped like an albatross', and two-toned at that between a particularly pristine white and a singularly dark black, studded with blackest beryl. His lance's counterweight is shaped like a merwyrm, while the piercing end is layered in exhortations to their Ancestor. His sword in his belt is perhaps the most restrained thing, and even it is left that bright cerulean and its pommel is a precious sapphire.
It is all layered in magic, they can smell it. Something to face evil, to ensure the good, to battle the unrighteous and protect the innocent. Magic of the honorable, magic of a knight, magic of a warrior.
If such a thing is to be believed, anyway.
Scuttlebutt from the elves themselves says this is the relative youth's first command, apparently that being considered a virtue in this affair (less pride making it easier for him to obey Malekith where otherwise he might be inclined to argue). Honorable and righteous and utterly without treachery in the matter, having made a name for himself as a soldier hunting down the mightiest of Daemons that still linger in the world after the Catastrophe, dueling Beastmen, facing down abominations layered atop abominations in the name of his Princess, Banariel, and returning the trophies to her.
It certainly makes he and his band a contrast to the next figure.
The Dwarfs would almost be offended by the looks they receive, if the Cothiquans and Naggarythians and, well, every other kind of elf wasn't receiving the same snooty, self-righteous look of superiority from the wazzock and his band of fellow wazzocks.
An unwelcome difference from most of the Chracians they know.
They wear skins tossed over their shoulder and worked into cloaks, not unusual, his forces, but where it's usually the hide of one of the White Lions it varies considerably more for this band, everything from the White Lions, yes, but also Troll Hide left uncomfortably Troll Hide looking, Jabbersclythe Scale, Chimera Skin and a dozen other things only the elves themselves could name. Their shields are tall, towering things, each with an image of some beast they've killed, and their armor looks fine but there is little if any artistry in it, more effort dedicated to ensuring its protective than anything else, simple chain and plate and scale giving what a dwarf would consider adequate protection, more than enough when combined with their shields and the enchantments layered on those. Perhaps the biggest decoration is on their shields, a spear and a stylized representation of a unique beast they've killed. They carry heavy, gleaming axes on their belt but their main weapons are long, sharp, deadly spears spears designed to punch through scale or fur or armor or deliver a good, strong hewing motion if need be.
Their Commander, Prince Allanial of House Woodborn, is more decorated if not, perhaps, the more tasteful. A belt alternating between elgi-writing and varying precious gems, layered on the hide of a troll, simmers with an unwholesome light, the White Lion hide he wears a thick thing layered with writing describing his many, many victories, painted on it and stretching all the way back to the Great Incursion. His ithilmar has been blackened, the better to prevent rust he claims, trimmed and filigreed in white gold to resemble the forests of his home on Ulthuan. Metal claws have been worked onto the gauntlets so that he always has some weapon to hand, and amber decorates a number of the joints.
The ax he carries draws plenty of attention itself. It seems to devour the light, to claim it, to hold it and hoard it like some yellowbeard sitting on a vast pile of gold and threatening any who should so much as see a piece of it. The haft says two-handed, though the way these Chracians are built maybe if he really needed to he could manage it for a single blow, but the head is smaller, more precise than the kind of thing a Longbeard desiring it would carry about, the better to concentrate force behind each blow in return for less weight for the force, engraved with gold to break the dark gray of the metal, depicting shimmering, scinttilating writing which the other Elgi also watching look at with some confusion and apprehension, concern even. Precious jewels, red-rubies, encrust a band of silver that traces the grip, itself made of softened Troll Hide, breaking up the monotony of the black wood.
Allanial is an ass, but he is an ass that has been fighting since Aenarion first cast himself into the fire and became Phoenix King and so he is very good at it. His reason for coming, according to himself at least, is perhaps the nearest thing to a redeeming quality they've heard about him: "I served the father you fool, and so I shall come to the aid of the son." But he is petty, vain, arrogant, and power-hungry, constantly pushing for Chrace both to be granted special priviledge as a part of Ulthuan most under threat from invasion and as the ones who did much of the fighting during the Catastrophe (Aside, he grudgingly acknowledges, from Nagarythe itself). Other than blighting the people around him he has been hunting, though where the boy looks for evil and threats Allanial instead seeks trophies, many pelts and horns and other bits sent to the Priests of Vaul to make treasures.
In comparison, the Nagarythian that follows third, surrounded by his kinsmen, is considerably more tolerable. He may not be looking at them at all unlike Avarion, but at least he also isn't glaring like he just smelled something dead either. Rather than looking at the crowd his eyes are firmly fixed on whereabouts, as far as they can tell, the Fimir cities are located, looking rather the same as an old prospector might when his least-favorite nephew enters the mines, not unusual for the Elgi mages when they see just about anything involving the lizards.
What's more unusual is the also thoughtful look he gets on his face when he sees them, as though considering something.
His retinue are lightly armored, all told, white Ithilmar maille shirts loosely covered under black and red tabbards, bracers of bronzed metal studded with beryls, and open faced helms. Black capes flutter around them, and strung over their shoulder are intricately made bows while leaf-shaped swords are thrust into scabbards hanging from their belts. The most common decoration are symbols of their Ancestor Hoeth the Trickster, who has given them the cunning to face the Daemon and the Beast alike, who outwits and outsmarts his opponents, the gods of Chaos. Perhaps one in every twenty or so instead wear mages' robes, well-made sea-silk things that wrap around their bodies, all dyed varying shades of black and gray.
In comparison, the Mage, Zephil of the House Brightwalker, is very different. One of those who wandered the Ten Kingdoms of Ulthuan in the name of Hoeth, and so earned the title of Loremaster, he wears thick and heavy armor over his upper body while a layer of scale protects his bottom, all of it dark black filigreed with white gold in arcane symbols that, against all reason, seem to endow even the Dawi with some level of comfort. Alternating layers of the scales around the bottome of his body are plated in a different precious metal, from silver to bronze to brass and like as not any other he could mention. His helm is a tall crested thing shaped with eagle's wings and studded in the center of his forehead with a massive, burning pearl. His cape is intricately inlaid with glimmering golden thread in eight briilliant symbols, Runes of Magic (not, of course, Thungnirhun, for there would be words if it were so) that describe the sorceries he unleashes.
His towering blade honors his Ancestor. The blade is worked of silvery captured moonlight, simple in geometry but burning with brightest power, glimmering jewels worked at the bottom that seem to shine with an inner light and a great power indeed. The hilt, made of gold, ends in the image of a hand holding a moon made of glimmering silver. The upper guard instead ends in the visage of an angry steed carved from a ruby.
Here to fight the Fimir at the command of Malekith, aye...and to steal what lore he can from them.
There are words for what the Dawi think of that, but they aren't fit for the ears of beardlings like the lot of you.
Such thoughts are interrupted by the beating of wings and the breaking of air as the world seems to shake.
And they see him.
A Caledorian, mounted atop a dragon (and oh, don't some of them clench their axes at that, particularly the Runesmiths and the Runelords?) approaching.
His armor is simple, red scale and golden plate, if layered with magic. His cloth flutters in the breeze, and even from this far away his sword burns with bright power, fire and might, as does his lance. His young dragon is the color of a bright bonfire, a juvenile Sun Dragon away from his home in the mountains, gone abroad with his friend.
Gone journeying with his friend.
Exiled with his friend.
Valanis Firespitter is of no house, bears little honor, and holds only one hope: Wanil.
Death.
Death.
Death.
Exiled from his lands in Caledor, for a reason shared too easily by his political opponents: he was possessed by a Daemon, and for all he managed to fight it off, that it ever happened in the first place is a shame of greatest magnitude. Mercy, and mercy alone, has kept him alive.
Mercy, and his ability. For he is a mighty warrior indeed.
Two things it seems bring him here, where he shall not receive a warm welcome indeed: The desire to avenge himself upon the Fimir, a great concentration of Daemons and Beasts and worst that needs to be lanced down anyway...and the hope that he might regain his honor in the blood of foemen indeed, that he might return home.
They have all gone by the time he finally lands, save one.
One Dwarf.
