The Day of Reckoning (part 2)

You see elves are clever creatures. They could see what was coming and made plans to protect themselves. Elves were big on plans.

They had moved on to who knew where before the dark times had come. But they had not been reckless, they had left a guardian behind. Someone who officially was there just to keep an eye on things and look after their interests but in reality his role was a whole lot more. He was there to build bridges between peoples where (officially at least) none could exist. Sidrick the Innocent as he was known, would meet regularly with the dwarf known as Thom and plot and plan. There was trouble brewing and armies to build, they both knew and while both would normally trade insults, happily spill each other's blood or steal anything the other held to be precious, they both believed they had a common foe. A foe they could not name.

Sidrick the Innocent sat beside a river and regarded the dwarf for a moment. The sun was overhead, at it's peak but the history books would probably recount the time as being a quarter past four. Thom was- as always- wearing his best battle armour complete with family crest on his helmet, all highly polished. You had to hand it to Thom the guardian had thought, he was certainly brave but also pretty stupid. Why attend a semi-secretive meeting with a long standing enemy (and face it, they both had many of those) and advertise exactly who you were?

Sidrick waited while Sir Thomlin read the small scroll he had been passed. He watched as the dwarf's mouth silently formed each word. "Use this wisely," Sidrick told him. "I had to call in many favours to get you this." The dwarf finished reading and thought for a moment or two and then waited some more for what he considered to be dramatic effect. Dwarf's are not known for being big thinkers. Their world largely revolved around mining and fighting, interrupted by drunken songs about fighting and mining. Planning and cunning was not something that came naturally to most dwarfs. Thom however, was not most dwarfs.

"If this is to be believed," and dwarfs didn't tend to believe in much except gold. "This means we have less time than we had thought." He passed a small bag of coins over. Everything in their world had a price to pay, even information between allies. That particular bag had passed between them many times since their meetings had begun but never once opened and counted. It was their symbol of trust.

"Shush, " the dwarf had suddenly hissed. Thom, with his exceptional hearing, had realised they were being watched...

(To Teresa B)