Y'Nfalle: From Beyond Ancient Gates

"Here again…" Eirlys thought as she sat in the interrogation room for the second day in a row.

Following Anita's torture, the elf has spent the rest of yesterday in the infirmary. Her hands, feet, upper body and right half of her face were wrapped in bandages, leaving her only able to see with her left eye. The pain was still fresh; every movement reminded her of what she had gone through at the hands of the female Warhound. As the otherworlders were unfamiliar with the workings of elven anatomy, the medic couldn't give her anything to ease the pain or speed up recovery. It was a blessing in disguise to a degree, as it meant Eirlys wasn't taken back to the interrogation room that same day but instead was allowed a night of rest.

But it didn't matter. She was little more than a toy to the monsters in human skin that captured her; they fixed her just to break her anew when the sun rose the following day. This time, she was at least given the dignity of clothing, though she was unsure how long that would last, given the behemoth of a man sitting across from her.

The man was bald, with a thick, dark brown beard. He seemed to be around thirty, but his brown eyes looked tired, betraying the fact that he was much older. Eirlys swallowed a lump forming in her throat, clenching her thighs together tightly as the man adjusted in his seat. She wasn't cuffed or restrained this time, but knew there was no way to overpower or escape the massive Warhound.

Her mind raced with nothing but pure horror whenever she thought about what he would do to her. Heart pounding as she steeled herself for the anguish ahead of her, telling herself no matter how much he hurts or defiles her, she won't tell him anything. She recognised the man, one of the three prisoners the Marbella kingdom was supposed to hand over. He must've wanted revenge.
The silence drove her crazy, the waiting for the torture almost as bad as the act itself.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Come on, I won't fight back." Eirlys said, hoping he was one of those who preferred the struggle over the act itself and that knowing she wouldn't struggle might convince him to use a different method of inflicting pain on her.

Clyde said nothing still. He simply leaned in his seat and looked at her, almost like he was drinking up the panic that coursed through her.

"C'mon already! I won't tell you anything, you filthy bastard, so just get it over with!" The general thought as she glared at him with her one good eye.

The tension was broken by a sudden knock on the one-way mirror in the room. Clyde turned his head towards it and motioned to whoever was knocking to come inside. The door swung open, and much to the elf's surprise, the person who walked inside wasn't one of the otherworlders but the Marbellan knight Elisia. Eirlys couldn't believe what she was seeing; the once loyal knight to Queen Kyara Marbella was now dressed head to toe in the clothes the otherworlders wore. Black boots, baggy green pants, a green shirt and an unzipped fleece jacket. She looked no different from one of them. The only thing that assured the elf that it was really her was the sword that hung from the woman's hip.

Elisia walked over to Clyde, a grey foldable chair in hand, and sat next to him. While much less wounded than Eirlys, the knight seemed equally exhausted and depressed, remnants of dark thoughts still clinging to her.

"What kind of interrogation is this?" Eirlys asked, shooting Elisia a dirty look.

"It isn't," Clyde replied.
"I have something else I want to talk to you about."

As soon as he spoke, Eirlys put the voice to the face. While she didn't understand the otherworlders unless they used translator stones, she knew the sound of orders being given when she heard it. And the way the man sitting across from her sounded whenever he talked to others, especially in the infirmary where she heard him speaking most, the elf knew he was the one in charge. It made the bitter taste of failure all the more potent, now that she knew such an important figure managed to slip through their fingers.

"First, you send the one who killed my men to torture me, and now you arrive, acting benign and civilised, as if that would somehow lessen my loathing of you. I know she answers to you, dog. All the grief within me and all the bruises on my body are a direct result of your orders." The elf growled, locking eyes with the Colonel.
"You may as well have tortured me yourself."

The large man was neither surprised nor shaken by her words. He knew Eirlys was tough and stubborn, even while fear swirled inside her like a storm.

"You're right. Anita did what she was instructed to do; whether she enjoyed it or not doesn't matter. I may come off as a spiteful man for saying this, but would your people have gone easy on the torture that we would've endured before being executed?" He said calmly.

"Believe my words or don't, I care none at all. But the elven folk are above such barbarism. No matter our ire, there are some depths we refuse to stoop to." Eirlys replied, looking down at her bandaged hands.
"Even for all you've done, you would not have suffered any crueller a death than any other enemy of our domain. That claim I stake my life on, ape."

"Even if it went against her wishes?" Clyde asked, slowly leaning forward and placing both hands, fingers intertwined, on the table.
"Can you say, with your chest, that your kind would stay true to their principles if those principles went against the wishes of your revered guide?"

The question caught the elf off guard. She opened her mouth to speak, to argue back, but her conscience kept her tongue tied. Of course, the elves went out of their way to follow every word from the lips of the Highborn. They were vanquishers of the Demon Lord; they helped civilisations rise from the mud, selflessly bestowing their wisdom and their knowledge even to those so far beneath them, whose lives were less consequential than specs of dirt. When faced with such agape love, what else is there but to devote yourself entirely to it? To hang on every word from their lips, obeying every suggestion in hopes that your actions would show that the love given to you wasn't in vain.

Humans, especially ones from a world so unrefined, could never grasp such love. Their lives are simply too short, too caught up in petty squabbles and grand ambitions that far outweigh their capabilities.

Any elf would've told him that, in a heartbeat. Eirlys, however, held her breath. The preparations that took place in Vatur, the subtle shift in command from Princess Claudia to her brother, who was far closer to and under more influence by the High Elf, despite being evidently inept as a ruler. And most of all, the wyvern attack on Perriman duchy, all those only further nurtured the seed of doubt and distrust that grew in the elven general.

While words about Aurelia summoning and controlling an entire flock of such powerful beasts were sung as praise, Eirlys couldn't help but see the deed as an unnecessary show of force and an uncaring attitude towards innocent human lives. To condemn an entire town of innocent people to such a fate over crimes belonging to just one man was unbefitting of someone like Aurelia.

The White Maiden appeared many times throughout the Vatur kingdom's history and always as an agent of peace. She guided the elves out of conflicts with the aim of minimising loss of life on either side, if such a thing was possible. What was it about the otherworlders that drove the Great Mage to act in spite of herself and everything she represented?

Those thoughts were what held Eirlys back from answering Clyde's question. She could lie, but the human seemed to have already taken her silence as an answer of its own.

Elisia sat in her chair, stunned. The Colonel seemed like a completely different man; the way he spoke pierced deep into the elf general's psyche. No insults, mocking or taunting that she came to know him for. Each word he said carried weight without ever needing a rise in tone.

Clyde elbowed Elisia a few times, snapping her out of her daze. It was her turn to drop the bomb on Eirlys. Elisia composed herself and cleared her throat.
"Aurelia attempted to kill me. She killed the guards I was assigned by the Queen. Were it not for the soldier Colonel Clyde left behind, I would have died too."

"'Colonel Clyde'?" The Warhound glanced at her with his right eyebrow raised, but kept a straight face.

"That's impossible!" Eirlys shot back without an ounce of hesitation, staring at Elisia, searching her face for even a trace of dishonesty.

"I wish it were. But such is not the case. She considers us, Layla, Mitsy, and me, to be traitors that befriended the enemy of both of our kingdoms." The Knight continued.

"And she is right to consider you so, given what I see before me." The elf said.
"There is no doubt that Lady Aurelia saw your treacherous nature from far away, but to claim that she would stoop so low as to attempt to murder you?"

The accusation stung Eirlys, riling the elf so much that she had almost forgotten her situation. She spoke to Elisia directly, as if Clyde was no longer present in the room, glaring at the human knight with anger burning in her eye.
"Tell me, Elisia. Have these apes tampered with your mind? I cannot think of what other reason there would be for you to spout such blasphemous drivel than for your mind and will to be bent to serve them!"

Like a match tossed inside a barrel of gunpowder, the words lit a fire inside Elisia. She served the Queen and no one else, and that would never change. The knight slammed her palms against the table, but Eirlys did not flinch or look away. Were it not for Clyde, who placed his hand on the knight's left shoulder to keep her seated, Elisia would've most likely lunged at the elf.

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"Why did the forest abandon you?" The Warhound said calmly.

The question was so out of left field for the elf that she did not have time to think it over before answering, the rage from Elisia's accusation still burning hot.
"Because you silenced it! Tricked it into false security with your foul devices. Made it think you were not the enemy at that moment."

Eirlys turned her eye towards Clyde.
"Make no mistake, Ape, the Forest learns. Whatever you did, it will never work again. It knows you are the enemy and your people will find only death the next time they step into it."

What followed was anything but what Elisia expected the Warhound to do. Even from the beginning, she was unsure in which direction the Colonel was steering the interrogation, but now she was wholly confused. Clyde stood up from his chair, folded it and placed it against the wall before motioning to the knight that they were leaving. Elisia copied what he did with the chair and then followed him as he left the room without a word.

Once the doors to the interrogation room were closed, leaving the equally confused elf inside, Elisia voiced her thoughts to the otherworlder.
"Why did we leave? There was a lot more we could've asked her."

"She told us everything we need to know." The man replied while shrugging.

"How? Everything we need to know about what?"

Clyde opened the door to the box and stepped out into the cold, winter air. Snow fell slowly from the grey clouds above. He pulled out a cigarillo and lit it before turning to Elisia.
"Their leader."

Elisia waved her hand in front of her face, getting rid of the smoke blown her way. She wanted to ask more, but not immediately, trying to first piece together the information they got from Eirlys herself.

The two walked at a leisurely pace back to the cube that was given to Layla, Elisia and Mitsy. Clyde was in no rush, enjoying his cigar and letting the knight think.

"If it wasn't Eirlys who botched the spell, and it wasn't the otherworlders…"
Elisia looked at Clyde.
"Are you saying Aurelia was the one who sabotaged Eirlys and her soldiers?"

"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, sure ain't a fucking moose, is it?" Clyde replied, holding the smoke in for a moment before exhaling.

"What's a moose?" Elisia asked while rubbing her palms together and blowing air into them to fend off the cold that nibbled at her fingers.

"Never mind." The Warhound cleared his throat.
"What matters is why Eirlys was set up. Seems Aurelia isn't a fan of people capable of independent thoughts and strong principles. Both of which the elven general seems to have."

The knight nodded, more to herself than him, as pieces of the puzzle began falling into place, revealing also which information Clyde was after. The Colonel had little interest in Aurelia as an individual or in her power. What the Warhound was really looking to learn was just how she counselled and guided the Vatur elves. Elisia wouldn't admit it to the man's face, but she was slowly beginning to see how he got to be the one calling the shots.

As the pair arrived in front of the quarters given to the Marbella group, Clyde said something the knight didn't expect to hear.
"There will be a briefing in regards to our next mission. You three will be present there as well. I will send someone to come get you before it starts."

The Colonel didn't wait for Elisia to say or ask anything; he simply continued walking, leaving the knight with her thoughts.

***

Even as evening came, the snowing did not let up at all. Just as Clyde said, a pair of soldiers arrived to get the three women and bring them to the briefing room. Elisia stood in a poised manner, head held high and hands behind her back. Layla, on the other hand, scribbled frantically, drawing everything she saw inside the room, with the cat sitting on her left shoulder, looking disinterested as always.

Inside the room were the Warhounds and Jeremy, whom neither of the three women had seen since they arrived at the outpost.

The pair of soldiers who brought the women to the room left on their own, not waiting to be dismissed.

"What are they doing here?" Anita asked, turning around in her seat to look at the newcomers.

"The second half of this briefing concerns them too, so I'd rather have them hear this now than have to repeat myself later." The Colonel said.
"Girls, take a seat."

Layla and Elisia did not wait to be asked a second time, each grabbing a foldable chair and sitting down behind the soldiers, while Clyde stood in front of a table that looked more like a large coffin and had a blue, three-dimensional representation of the outpost they were in on it.

"I ain't gonna sugar-coat it. The situation we are in is not good. We're racing against the clock." The Colonel spoke, leaning forward with both of his hands placed on the table.
"Our reconnaissance revealed that, following the rescue operation conducted by Howler, the elves have been on the move. Safe to say, we've kicked the hornet's nest."

He moved his hands, and the holographic model on the table expanded, showing the entire topography of the wider area around the outpost, reaching all the way to the borders of the Vatur kingdom and Marbella kingdom, encompassing the second portal gate that the humans used to hold prior to Aurelia's arrival. Layla stared at it, eyes wide like they were about to pop out of her head.

Several lines on the blue model, which represented major and minor roads in the area, suddenly turned red.
"Jeremy and his drones have been working around the clock since we got back, so we could get a better idea of what's going on. And we're boxed in. As you know, this outpost and the secondary outpost are both situated in No Man's Land, an area belonging to neither the elves to the north nor the humans to the east. Starting three days ago, the elves have begun patrolling all major and minor roads in large numbers, focusing primarily on the border between this chunk of land and the Marbella kingdom. They have closed off everything to everyone. No adventurers, trade caravans or any other civilians have been observed passing or even attempting to traverse those roads."

Everyone turned their attention to the three women at the same time as Clyde commented.
"Seems the elves don't want you three going back home and whispering sweet nothings into the Queen's ear."

The Colonel cleared his throat and straightened up as the hologram on the screen returned to only showing the outpost again.
"Given the fact that Elisia here was almost sent to feed worms by one of the elves, it is very likely that they will kill you three on sight. So, until further notice, you're staying here with us."

The knight frowned at the reminder, but said nothing.

"The elves and humans are allies, close allies. And given what we learned during our travels, both kingdoms seem to dance to one person's fiddle."
Clyde looked at Anita, his face turning smug for just a moment, as if saying: 'See? We haven't been dicking around on a fantasy adventure the entire time we've been gone.'

"Good news is, we've been authorised a little budget increase. Two anti-aircraft Spiders and two extender range artillery ones, plus a bunch of other shit, the lists of which you will be getting later. Bad news is, we can't wheel them in cuz we have a 1500-ton scrapheap sitting in our back yard." Clyde continued speaking, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the massive rail cannon outside, despite there being no window behind him.

"Wheeling that thing back through the gate will take days of preparation." Anita said.

"We're not gonna wheel it anywhere. We're gonna use it."

"Use it?" Jeremy looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"How are we gonna use it? We don't have enough juice to fire that thing from just one side."

The Colonel grinned.
"We ain't gonna fire it."

He extended the three-dimensional map again, marking several towns and villages on the border between the No Man's Land and Marbella kingdom, all of which fell within the Iron Fortress's effective range.
"Both the elves and the Marbella humans know about the cannon and are afraid of it, but don't know much about how it works. We have a very big stick, and we're gonna shake it."

The large Warhound looked up at Elisia, Layla and Mitsura.
"That's why I've brought you here to hear this, so I don't have to explain it again later or risk misunderstanding. Pay attention now."

Layla closed her notebook and straightened in her seat, eager to hear what the man had to say.

"We will power up the weapon and change its positioning, so that it's no longer aimed at the elven Home Tree, but at one of the towns along the border with your kingdom. The cannon will not fire." Clyde said slowly, making sure each word reached them.

"Why?" Elisia asked, knowing the panic it would cause amongst the people of whichever town the weapon was aimed at.

The Colonel grinned, marking one of the towns on the map with a yellow colour.
"We've got eyes on us, no doubt. Watching to see what we do next so they can prepare or try to counter. So, we're going to divert those eyes. When something long, black and destructive is swung with impunity, anyone watching tends to look to where it's aimed at, to see which poor soul is on the receiving end."

"I see. That will cause panic, and the border patrols might get reassigned to try and help with the evacuation of the civilians." Marcel said, nodding along.

"Correct. While that is going on, Anita and her squad will be sent to purge the second outpost, the one north of here, which we lost to the elves earlier this year. We will reclaim it and use its portal gate to bring in the gear."

Layla, being little more than a neophyte in the art of military strategy, was amazed. Elisia, on the other hand, wasn't too happy with the thought of having the Iron Fortress aimed anywhere in the direction of the Marbella kingdom, but she came to trust the otherworlders enough not to protest.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you three are dismissed. Return to your quarters." Clyde said, more an order than a suggestion, to the three women. The rest of the people present all turned around, waiting for them to leave the room.

Elisia did so without a word, getting up from her seat and having to usher the still doodling mage out of the briefing room.