Chapter 79 - Warring Elves?

It had been over a week since Daniel and Erick had set out on Daniel’s ’money collecting’ mission.

And he wasn’t the only one that had started to feel the longing.

Cat and I had spent most nights talking away, until sleep eventually came to claim one of us, and then the other was left to roll around until she too was fortunate enough to be claimed.

By that time, the villagers had also learned that it would be better for them to not get on our wrong side, because both of us had become a bit... short tempered.

But luckily for both of us we had some guards to train, which was a pretty nice way for us to take our minds off of the situation.

That morning Cat and I had started our day like we had started all of the days since Daniel had left, we had breakfast together, discussing what we needed to do on that day, and how we would accomplish all of our tasks.

Then we split up, each of us going about our own business.

Cat was still busy teaching her soap making techniques and recipes to some of the women she had employed, amongst which was Beth— Erick’s girl.

And I had to make sure everything was still running smoothly at the mercenaries quarters, and get a report from the men who were on guard the previous night.

It was exactly at this point that I was interrupted by something I had not expected.

"Ms. Julia," I heard from behind me. I turned around to find one of the groups of mercenaries we had sent out standing there.

"Jason?" I asked, they were not supposed to be back by then, we had thought that they would be gone for months. They were supposed to be out building a reputation for our company after all. "What are you guys doing back already?"

"We brought some news," Jason answered, stepping to the side so I could see the group of elves standing behind him. "And also some new recruits."

Behind him stood a rather large group of elves, but they were definitely not all recruits. There were even some women and children among them.

"Did they bring their families with them?" I frowned.

"That’s where the news comes in," Jason answered.

The news he kept bringing up didn’t sound all that good at all, especially not if an entire group of elves decided that they would move to a new village, and become mercenaries.

Elves were notoriously... peace loving, after all.

"Come with me," I said, turning to make my way to the barracks, with the entire group of mercenaries and elves following along.

Along the way I found one of Cat’s recent hires, and asked her to tell Cat to meet us at the barracks.

A few minutes later all of us were sitting in the massive diner of the mercenary barracks, with Cat and me sitting across the table facing the newly grown group of people.

"So, what’s going on?" I asked.

"I guess instead of calling these people recruits, I should have called them... refugees." Jason said, looking back at the group of elves sitting behind him.

"Refugees?" Cat frowned. "From what? Elves don’t do battle."

"We normally don’t," An elven woman said, stepping forward. "But it seems that some of our kind have forsaken that belief."

As one entity Cat’s and my gazes landed on the woman, which usually led to them averting their gazes as quickly as they could, but not this one, no she met our gazes and held them.

"And you are?" Cat asked, the beginnings of a smile starting to show on her lips.

"My name’s Bronwyn," the elf answered, tucking a stray strand of her otherwise neatly braided platinum colored hair behind a long ear. "I’m the daughter of our village chief."

"Or I guess I should say I used to be," her sharp silver eyes gleamed like the edge of a sword at those words.

Those words caused my gaze to drift over the other elves in the room before meeting Cat’s.

It seemed that in a strange way, we had now found someone else that had become an orphan.

In a way, her situation was worse than our own. We had never known the care and love of a family, but she had, and hers had been ripped away from her.

"I’m sorry for your loss," Cat said to her, gesturing toward one of the seats next to Jason. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"It’s not a very long story," Bronwyn said as she sat down on the chair Cat had pointed to. "Months ago, we had started to hear some rumors of a man that had started to gather an army, hoping to conquer the elven lands, and unite them under one banner."

I couldn’t help but raise my brows at this, even if there was an elf that suddenly decided to become some sort of warlord, I found it strange that he would be able to find others to join his cause.

"And naive as we were, none of us believed any of these rumors," Bronwyn continued. "We all thought the same as you’re probably thinking right now."

"How would this man convince anyone to join him?"

"But we forgot about one very important thing," Bronwyn said, raising a finger. "Just because a leader is an elf, it doesn’t mean that his army would consist of only elves."

"You see, this man had once been an adventurer in the human territories, before becoming a mercenary fighting the wars of the Dellroy kingdom."

"He had made many friends among the humans."

"Friends who would follow him into any battle. Friends who would conquer any lands as long as he leads them."

"So you’re saying that an elf is leading an army of humans in an attempt to conquer the elven lands?" Cat asked with a frown.

"An army of mostly humans, yes," Bronwyn answered. "Along the way he has also recruited some of the younger elves, and even some of our criminals into his army."

"And how many are there?" I asked, if he was planning on conquering the entire elven lands, he was going to target Lofie Village at some point. Which meant that we would need to be prepared.

"The group that attacked our village was about two-hundred strong." Bronwyn answered.

"Only two-hundred?" Cat and I asked simultaneously

"What do you mean only ?" Jason asked. "We only have twelve men at the moment, two hundred is a lot of men, even if we could train this entire group of elves to our level."

It seemed that Cat and I had not been hard enough on these men in the short time they had trained with us. If they thought that two-hundred men should be enough to have us shaking in our boots.

"It seems you need some more training, Jason." Cat smiled, causing a visible shiver to run down Jason’s spine.

"I agree, sister." I said, looking at the group of men that had gone out with Jason. "It seems we have not yet trained the cowardice out of them."

"No, no, no," Jason said, shaking his hands in dismissal. "We would never run from a fight, it’s not necessary to increase our training at all."

"By the way," he continued, changing the subject. "Where is our fearless employer?"

"He went on a mission to the human territories," I answered, both Cat’s and my features visibly darkening at that reminder.

Which of course caused all of the men sitting in front of us to start trembling again.

The only one who seemed completely unaffected by our entire conversation up until that point was Bronwyn, earning her even more respect from me.

"So you two aren’t the leaders of this company?" She asked.

"No we aren’t," I answered with a bright smile.

"Our husband is," Cat said.

"Your... husband?" Bronwyn asked, with a shocked expression for the first time.

"Why do you seem shocked about that?" I asked.

"Because even here in the elven lands your reputations precede you," she answered. "I just never figured that either of you would be married."

"Oh," Cat and I said together again. "So you know of us."

This time Bronwyn only nodded toward us.

"Well," I said. "It’s a... recent development."

"And this man is the leader of the mercenary company these men work for?" Bronwyn asked.

"And the owner of the bar that’s inside the inn, and also the bathhouse at the edge of the village." I answered.

"He believes himself to be somewhat of a businessman." Cat smiled.

"A... businessman?" Bronwyn frowned, because the moment Cat had said Daniel believes himself a businessman, all of the mercenaries started to snort with laughter. "Why are they laughing?"

"Be... beca... because," Jason struggled to get out between snorts of laughter. "Daniel might be the strongest businessman out there."

"What do you mean?" Bronwyn asked.

"Well..." I didn’t really know how to put it.

"Let’s just say that our leader can keep up with both Catharina, and Julia, in a sparring match," Jason answered for us.

For a moment it seemed like Bronwyn hadn’t quite heard him, her gaze only kept drifting between all of us, but all she got in return was nods of agreement.