It was a rolling plain, full of rich grass dotted with shrubs—nothing else. The road stretched on past it, and given the distance from village to village,

town to town, it was nice to know there was a decent camping site available. Just one thing—or rather, one person—moved through that field. It was a strange warrior. He wore grimy leather armour with white hair that reached past his nape, long for a man ; at his hip was a sword of a strange length. The noticeable trait about him was his leaf shaped ears which were pointing to the sides.

He walked the road in silence; when he came to the field, his bold,

nonchalant stride carried him violently through the shrubbery. His steps were as sure, as determined, as if he was following a sign. Right, left, through the grass—it could not have taken him more than five minutes, if that. Then he stopped. There still didn’t seem to be anything there. But in the bushes, he heard a crinkling under the heel of his boot.

He knelt down and picked up the source of the noise. Ashes, of something utterly consumed by fire. He squeezed them between his fingers until they were nothing more than sooty marks on his gloves. Something had burned here. Was it a tree? Human bones? That much remained unclear.

He shook his head as if sternly dismissing the possibility.

It’s been over ten years already.

No human bones, no human ashes would still be recognizable after a

decade lying exposed to the elements. And even if anything had lasted this

long—whose remains would they be?

“…”

The wind gusted over the field. It was a warm and gentle wind announcing

the changing of the seasons, the arrival of spring.

The grass rustled, tiny ripples running through it all along the hill. He heard the faint sound of running water. When he turned his head, he could see

the lake, right where he remembered it.

Seized by a whim, he glanced up. The sky was staggeringly clear and blue;

it seemed to spread out across the entire world. The faintly visible clouds

were so thin it seemed like the colours had run.

“…And so what?”

He clapped his hands together brusquely, wiping off the soot.

He knew these were not the remains of his parents.

He knew what had become of them and what had become of their blood and flesh and bones. He knew, too, that there used to be a village here.

He observed around. 

"Dioral. Castall. One day, you shall pay for what you did to us...the dark elves" He muttered to himself in extremely furious expression.

"Brother." A girly voice called him from behind. He turned back towards the figure who was shorter than him.

The bulging chest indicated the gender was female. Her hair is white but her length reached past her nape and shoulders. Unlike his sharp and slanted eyes, hers were round. Her face is cute and oval. 

"Let's not stay here any longer, Lupine."

"..."

She only stared at the ground sadly while her brother, strode away. 

***

Like Dalish tribe, dark elves were distant descendants of the extinct legendary elves. Upon long fought battle with Tevinter of Olga Federation, their former territories in the present day Castall were ambushed by Castall armies. They were massacred, forcing their survivors to fled to various places. Like Dalish, they became a nomadic tribe. 

On that day, a dark elf man called for an alarm in their firecamp.

The man was of average height for a dark elf.

However, his slender and supple limbs moved with a light, yet lean movement

that gave the impression of hidden inner strength, making the man appear larger than he actually was.

There are no dark elves among them who did not know this man.

He was a first-rate melee fighter with a great deal of experience and had been a guerilla warrior for

many years, and bears the family name of the Tirvac. 

Rihito Tirvac, a dark elven man of great experience as a melee fighter, holds in his hands, swords of medium length. Usually, warriors only hold short swords if they fought with two swords but Rihito was a very talented warrior with countless life an death experience. The sword in his left hand is medium length while his right hand even holds a longer sword.

In front of his brethrens, who had gathered there with a look of determination on their

faces, Rihito's pointed ears twitched slightly as she concentrated on the sound of the

music.

He announced in a strong voice, "It's a great honour to have all of you here.

The reason I asked you all to come all the way here is nothing else. We shall ambush the cargo from Castall aristocrats heading for Gwaren."

"Gaaaa!!"

The men shouted. There were also women  As nomadic tribe, there was concept of segregation between peasants and fighters. Everyone looked for food and everyone fought. Compared to Dalish, the dark elf survivors were a lot lesser, which was three hundreds. 

The interesting part of these nomadic tribe was that they consist of young people. The oldest were twenties while most of them were teenagers. 

Rihito Tirvac was twenty five years old who acted as their leader. 

Standing next to him, was his sister, Lupine Tirvac who was eighteen.

***

Moriham Obilic strode in a dignified manner through the center of the room. A middle aged man shut the doors behind them and followed closely behind him.

He sat on the only seat in the room. The middle age man who seemed lower in rank compared to him took a knee in front of him and said,

“Lord Marquis. Heads of our faction have arrived.”

There were three other men kneeling before him.

"Raise your heads.”

“Yes!”

The four men raised their heads as they gave their crisp answers, an action that was both flawless and in unison.

On both sides of the room were doors that were dissimilar to the one they had just walked through, doors that were not warranted given the relatively small size of the room. The room was just decorated in such an exquisite manner that it emanated an air of grandeur.

It was set up to be the audience room within Obilic castle.

He immersed himself in his own thoughts for a bit. However, no one would speak until he had spoken, so he was forced to despite not being the emcee or something similar.

“So, Jovan Nenad. Tell me the reason why everyone was gathered here. It’s something important to our faction, or rather, to the Castall Kingdom, right?”

“Yes. Simply put, our grain that was being transported through the Kingdom towards Gwaren was plundered four days ago.”

“Oh… and who did that?”

"Bandits with light brown skin,.white hair an pointed ears."

The pupil in Moriham's eyes flashed for a moment. Jovan Nenad was being vague. Normally, he would report the name, military power, and goal of the noble all at once. "Why is that?" Moriham thought about it as he asked further,

"Velja Mironic. Did the your knights in charge of transportation not have soldiers guard the caravans? Moreover, the rule was that our flag should have been flown, yes? Which meant the bandits had chosen to start a war with us?”

"Could it be that other noble sabotaged us?" Velja Mironic replied with another question.

“No, well…”

Jovan Nenad lowered his head as he muttered, she then glanced at Moriham Obilic as if he was trying to sneak a peek.

Moriham thought that his current attitude was quite rare. Rather, this might have been the first time he has ever shown this kind of behaviour. He was behaving like a little girl who was afraid of getting scolded, definitely unlike the Count ranked aristocrat he had always been.

"What’s wrong, Count? Is something the matter?”

He had a cordial smile on his face.

“Don’t worry about it, Count. Tell me about it.”

"Surely you remember about the dark elves?"

Everyone in the room looked at each other and mumbled while Marquis immediately stood up.

"Could it be their survivors had returned for vengeance?"

"Indeed, marquis."

Another noble man voiced up,

"For the past ten years, we have been hunting those brats. I never think they would dare to return!" 

Moriham Obilic closed his eyes for a while before stating,

"So, those dark elves dare to return to their land. I wonder how the royal family and central noble would react to this."

No one say anything for minutes. They just stared towards the floor and ceiling.