The Prince of Change

By Jeff W Long

The highly insular Half Elven society is unknown to the rest of the world. The peace has been shattered by a dark elven invasion. The warden of the western marches has been dispatched to safe guard the human trading port of Jarrod's Landing. It is a post that requires high diplomatic skills. Unfortunately Tiernan, Warden of the Western Marches has all the finesse of a battering ram in action. He arrives to find blind prejudice and distrust barring his way. He quickly finds the limits to his skills finding an ally in Tanith Sanderson, the mayor's daughter. Rising tension grows as the Mayor attempts to kick Tiernan out of the town. The back ground of humans robbing Half-elven merchants doing nothing to relieve the situation. A dark elven invasion is only the beginning of his troubles as he has to deal with his allies as well as his enemies. As bad as things are, Tiernan doesn't understand that his troubles are only beginning.
The Half-elven society is one of stability if not safety, yet Tiernan has to adapt to an ever evolving situation. He is whispered as a "bringer of change" a curse not approbation. As he adapts and over comes issues he finds that he is the target of those that resist what he represents most of all, for he is the Prince of Change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff W Long
• Release date: Mar 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301638413

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Wind Runner had been sailing slowly under her mottled gray sails. Entering the bay offered two hazards, the first being that they were using maps that were not proven, having been procured through a heavy bribe. The second reason was that the Wind Runner had sailed into a war that did not involve the Cistian Kingdom—the Elven Empire. The Dark Elven Assembly, the Tir-la-Noc, would sink the ship on sight.

The Wave Runner’s captain was only a Master in naval rank though tradition demanded he be called Captain. Javed hadn’t bothered to learn his name; he was not a Sword Brother and not by any means his equal. There was absolutely nothing about Javed’s mission that he liked. The mouth of the bay was fairly small, making discovery all too easy. At least that damned rocking had finally stopped. He and his fellow Sword Brothers were unused to the open sea, and the silent smirks of the sailors were just short of insufferable.

Javed looked into the black, moonless night; even his large, elven eyes saw little in the gloom. The clean smell of the sea was now overlaid with the musk and manure smell of the land. Clouds scudded across the sky obscuring the stars. He looked back at the raised bridge where the captain and his navigator were using instruments and one of those new, spring-wound clocks to figure out where they were.

He shook his head, it was all well beyond him. He went below the floor—deck, the sailors called it—closing one door tightly before opening another to the lighted cabin. The map pinned to the wall showed where the Wind Runner would slide her twin hulls lightly onto a submerged mud bank. The Wind Runner was a clever ship, he would give her that. Javed wouldn’t have known he was on the water, except when she turned.

The landing point was a bare mile from the forests of the ghosts. The Tir-la-Noc were announcing how they were winning a war with the half-breed savages of the continent. The Dark Elven word for the half-breeds translated as abominations. But the breeds called themselves the Elindari, after their supposed Goddess. He cared nothing for either the Inky or the Ghost. He would just as soon they killed each other off. Running a rough hand over close cropped silver hair, he sighed. He had studied the secret histories entrusted to him until he feared he would wear the pages out.

It was another war that had brought him here. The Elven Cistian Kingdom had come into a war with the Human Kovir Empire over three hundred and fifty years ago. The war had lasted over forty hard-fought years. It had begun well with the Kingdom’s invasion of the Empire. An occupation of some ten years of one-third of the continent had been achieved. The long practiced well-oiled military machine that comprised the Elven legions had seen to that. What the kingdom had not anticipated were the two factors that always come into play when huge empires fight. The first issue was that the war had become a war of attrition. When a Sword Brother fell it took twenty years to train his successor. An Elven Knight twenty-five years in the making was even more of a problem. The other problem had been the Human birth rate.

The Kovirian Empire had introduced the pike square as its standard infantry. The mobile hedgehogs marched across any battlefield, and worse they were quick to train. The Kovirian light cavalry was another innovation. Elven Knights were all but invincible one on one, but by the seventh year of the war that one on one fight almost never occurred. Kovirian lancers were men on fast horses moving in small squadrons that began to attack the heavy Elven horse from all sides.

The results of Human innovation and Human birth rates more than replacing Human losses began to wear down the might of the Cistian Kingdom. Imperial armies never seemed to reduce in size while the faltering Kingdom legions shrank. Conquered territory began to be abandoned when the legions could no longer defend the expanded territory. After twenty years of occupation the remnants of the Kingdom’s legions retreated back to the homeland.

Only the Cistian Kingdom with an arrogance born of twenty thousand years of ownership of the homeland would not have prepared for the counter-invasion that landed five years after the retreat. The legions had only just begun to recover its number when the vengeful humans arrived in force. The Imperial armies arrived and with them human settlers. When land was lost to the humans they began farming it and raising families. So any land lost to the humans was being lost forever. Only the rise of the Kingdom’s navy had stemmed the tide. Even when the Imperial armies had been cut off from resupply the legions had made little headway against the Humans. The lands they had taken already serving as supply and recruitment areas. After another fifteen years of war a settlement had been reached returning the land to the Kingdom.

One unexpected result of the invasions was something neither side had expected, the Half-breeds. The mere fact that the races could interbreed at all was an ugly shock. To the Elven with their pride in family lines going back millennia a half-breed was an anathema that could not be tolerated in the sight of any Elf. To the humans the half-breed was a symbol of defeat, disgrace, and a human mother that slept with the enemy. Many of the half-breed children were the result of rapes committed by both legion and army. The more common reason for the births was the result of liaisons that women of either race had good reason to deny.

The solution was to ship the undesired half-breeds to the unexplored northern continent. The mega fauna found on the continent made it far too hard to colonize and the perfect dumping ground for the unwanted half-breed. The reported losses of the children shipped there was staggering. To the Kingdom the die-off was expected and desired. The faster the half-breeds died off the quicker official denial of their existence would become a fact.

Humanity’s response was more complex, at first shipping children right alongside the Elven ships. However some Human mothers refused to abandon their children. Even more inexplicably some Human males married mothers of the abominations and accepted banishment with their families. The result was that some two-thirds of the half-breeds had survived and in time thrived. The half-breeds became known as Ghosts because officially they did not exist to the Kingdom. The long-term result was an ingrained hatred by the half-breeds of the Cistian Kingdom in particular and any Elf in general. Javed shook his head he had to focus on the here, not the once had been.

He looked at the three Sword Brothers that he had picked to come with him. Each warrior had been with him over one hundred years. All of them were expert with the thirty-two-inch blades they wielded.

They would not be wearing armor on this mission and this made them deeply unhappy. To Javed, armor was life. No warrior was above the occasional slip and armor could make all the difference then.

Four scouts were on the deck, another reason for Javed’s discomfort. Instead of standing in the ranks of thousands of Sword Brothers, each a known and trusted standard, he had scouts on this mission. Small even for Elven men, they were wiry, quick and hard to see. Instead of two-handed swords and armor, they carried short swords of barely twenty-inches. They were also armed with short compound bows. These double re-curve bows were composites of wood, horn, and sinew, bound together with glue. They had a terrible power to them. Still they were an unknown quality that he would be forced to stake his life on.

Quick steps down the stairs, no ladder, told Javed of a sailor’s arrival

Lord Javed, the captain has asked me to tell you that we are about to ground. He also asks me to say that we have to put back out to sea in six hours, the sailor said.

Javed only nodded in acknowledgement. One so low as the sailor was not worthy of more. Javed and his men put on the spider-silk garments woven in muted gray, dark green, and brown. They were to land and hide, watching without moving more than necessary.

Activate your talismans and move out, he said. Javed had been given eight talismans that held an eight-hour blurring spell. They were of Dark Elven manufacture and it had been explained to him that no magic user would miss the flare of the spell’s activation. However, a common spell against thousands of other talismans being activated on a battlefield might go unnoticed. It was just another thing that made his skin crawl.

The Sword Brothers moved out of the cabin while the Wave Runner barely moved towards the shore. They waited quietly on the honey-colored deck, letting their eyes adjust to the night. The Wind Runner came to a slow stop, all eight Elves lowered themselves into the water. They moved quietly to the shore so they didn’t splash. It was crucial to remain unseen; neither the Dark Elf nor the Half Elf had any reason to love them. Tall grass and scrub brush hid them well. Javed lowered himself to his belly with his Sword Brothers. The scouts moved forward and were lost to sight within seconds. From no more than a mile away, the shrieks of the dying and cries of fear reached him.

Ithian, his second, and a damned scout, whispered in his ear so low that none of the others would hear. Lord Javed, are you certain about this? That is a battle or I am a monkey. Nothing about this sounds right—it is more like one constant ambush.

Javed continued to move forward, his eyes searching the dark for anything at all in that all enveloping night. I remain obedient to my orders.

To the south, mage flares leapt into the sky. They rose to several thousand feet in the air and then slowly descended, lighting a scene beyond description. Knots of Elven-sized Tir-la-Noc Infantry, shields forming walls, tried to advance north against what looked to be an empty battlefield. Arrows rained down from shadows cast by the white balls of mage flares. Despite their shields, dozens of infantrymen fell from the nearest formation. The mage flares started winking out in rapid succession. The Dark Elven were not the only ones with magic users.

Javed blinked, now effectively night blinded. He heard a ripping sound and more screaming. As his night sight returned, he saw that the next formation had fallen apart as the square fled the formation. A stand of spikes had erupted out of the ground and bodies of the infantry were impaled upon them. A dozen giants, well-spaced out, were sprinting towards the broken square. They were Elindari, running so fast it was hard to credit them as Half Elven instead of antelope. Each bore a two-handed sword, though no armor. Javed recognized the stances and strokes the giants were using. They were the same as his men used. They were splitting shields and cleaving helmets, while never remaining still. They used a style that was a variant of the dancer school of sword mastery. The style was called ‘dancing the reaper’. It was intended to be used when a single sword master faced many opponents. In Javed’s opinion, it was the correct stance for the situation. To his practiced eye, the spacing between each of the Elindari was right for their reach. Each stroke was long practiced and well executed. A few Elindari fell as he watched, but the devastation that was wrought in the broken formation was incredible. He thought more than a hundred of the inky infantry might have been down and none of the fallen were moving. In moments, the Tir-la-Noc soldiers were running for their lives, throwing their shields away.

Javed watched as the square formation nearest him approached. He would have to signal his men to leave in a few minutes at this rate. An Elindari at least six feet tall raced in towards the square, coming within fifty feet, then throwing a ball and peeling off in another direction. The ball passed over the heads of the front line, slamming into the back of a soldier holding a shield, to the rear. The man shrieked as the ball hit him and ignited into a flaming sheet. The men on either side of him were caught in the splash and thrashed about, trying to put out the fire. The square wavered and when another dozen balls landed among the men, they fled. It was the wrong thing to do. Dozens of Elindari launched forward, using two-handed swords, cleaving paths through the retreating Dark Elven like they were harvesting wheat. Heads few into the air, and detached arms hurled up and outward.

The crossbows from nearby formations dropped some of the attackers. Unseen archers launched arrows from powerful bows, causing the nearby formations to squat behind shields. The screams of the wounded and dying came from within those formations, which were now at a complete stop.

Javed thought all of the troops of the broken square would die, but then a horn sounded, then another, then dozens. The sky brightened slowly with the rise of a quartering moon. Two miles away, he saw a column of troops winding back into the forest very slowly. Improving light showed that column was not formed of troops but of ragged men, women, and children, leaving Tir-la-Noc lands. Was that what they were fighting so hard for?

The knots of Dark Elven soldiers tried to advance against the retreating Half Elven, only to be met by arrows that felled dozens within Javed’s sight. He had already seen enough; he knew a stalemate when he saw one. At least for now, the boasts of the Tir-la-Noc were lies. He looked up—by the movement of the stars, it had taken less than two hours.

Javed had turned to signal his men back when he was confronted by twelve of the tall Half Elven standing there. Each of the Half Elves was at least six feet tall. Each had a long bow with an arrow nocked but not raised. One of them pulled a brown, gray, and green scarf off his face. The Half Elf was handsome; Javed would give him that, considering that he was a ghost. Aqua eyes looked down at him, over a long straight nose with deeply tanned skin.

If you have come to see the show, I’d advise you to find safer seats. With the dawn comes the Tir-la-Noc. We rule the night however. The stranger actually smiled when he said that.

Javed carefully considered his words. These Half Elven had them cold. They’d no more than get off the ground before those arrows killed them all. We call you ghosts, because you officially don’t exist. I didn’t know that extended to your actual abilities. How in the Creator’s name did you get behind us?

I’d know who I was speaking to on my own land, first, the Half Elf said.

I am Javed Istrell, Commander of the Sword Brothers, of the House of N’vid.

Tiernan of the Faith-Sworn House, Prince of Clan Silverway. What brings you to our land?

Now Javed knew that Tiernan was lying—Clan Silverway was twenty-five hundred miles away. Silverway is on the east coast—what are you doing out here? Javed asked. The aggravation had crept into his voice unintended.

You first, Commander. I won’t be asking again.

Javed noted that the Half Elf’s voice was soft but that just made the threat all the clearer. The Tir-la-Noc are announcing your kind are all but beaten. We came to see the truth, as we know them to lie. I’m to find out and report back.

Let me make your report more complete. Where the ground was open, they hold it. Where the forest lies, we still command. They hold a three-hundred-mile long by two-hundred-mile wide strip of our land. We want it back. This land we stand on is under watch from both sides. If you are here by dawn’s break, none of you will live to see dusk.

You could kill us now if you wanted, Javed said. He didn’t want to give the Half Elf ideas but he was just stating the truth.

I wouldn’t be talking if I wanted you dead. There are thousands of archers in the woods behind me. They are not going to take time to find out who you are before they draw bow. The trembling faint-hearts with their shields are even less picky. They make me wonder if blue skin is a trait for cowardice, really. However, they have crossbows that reach as far as longbows. It just takes three of the bastards a week to wind them. It won’t make much difference to your group. They will end up like pin cushions either way, Tiernan said.

Javed got up slowly, hands away from his weapons. Why am I not dead?

I won’t purchase more trouble than we have. As you can see, we already have enough. Your men are not prisoners; we have plenty of those as well. As for your scouting missions, they stop here. We don’t like uninvited guests. Our druids told us that a group of talismans were activated here. We thought we had a Tir-la-Noc assassin group gathering. You might want to dump those talismans; they are the same type the Dark Elven use. Tell your king that if he wants to see the war, to send an ambassador like we were a real people, not phantoms. Have your ship sail close to the north mouth of the bay. I will send word not to fire on it. Oh and, Javed, don’t you ever call me a ghost again, Tiernan said.

Tiernan walked off the battlefield like he hadn’t a worry in the world. Javed watched, then gave the signal, and his group retreated back to the Wind Runner and a nerve-straining voyage out of the bay.

Chapter 2

Jarrod’s Landing was a lonely, human trading post on the Half Elven, Elindari Confederation’s land mass. A good harbor where the Virago River met the Isandil Bay had made it everything that the Human Kovir Empire could have wanted, and the post had grown into a township. The farmers worked the fields outside the wooden walls, bringing in the crops and livestock that kept the town going. The end of the landing’s property could be seen from the top of the walls. The deep emerald forests were visible from the walk along the palisade. Outside the walls, the fields were huge; after all, they fed fifty-thousand people and more kept arriving with every shipload of supplies and trade goods that came from the Empire.

Admiral Isaac Sanderson walked through the streets as he did every morning. A tall man for the Empire at a height of five feet ten inches, he had the precise trim of hair and clothes marking him for a naval officer. This morning as every morning there was not a hair out of place. His wife had fussed over him making sure he had the right outfit on. Square faced and lantern jawed, his was an authority that brooked no objection. Black hair now showing the streaks of gray told of his forty-two years. Lines were cut deep into his skin by the long years on Imperial warships. That I have been brought to this. His relentless pushing for improvements for the fleet had landed him here. No, Isaac it was your big mouth that landed you here. How many times was I told to shut up? Why hadn’t I listened to the Admiralty?

He had been appointed Mayor by the High Court itself and his badge of office was the small gold medallion that hung from his neck on a blue ribbon. Unlike the mayors of other small towns, he did not report in to a council; instead, the council was appointed by him and responsible to him. This morning, he walked alone through the streets just as the sun broke the horizon. In his hand was a huge mug of coffee, something he would never consider doing without. He marched smartly to the highest point along the palisade’s walk and sat down on a chair provided for him by the town’s guard. He nursed the coffee, examining every part of the town. He had been a long-service Kovirian Admiral in his time, until the court’s magister had summoned him to the High Court itself. Most men would have been shaking in their boots, since the Emperor had been known to order executions on the spot, for high crimes and gross incompetence. But Isaac’s orders were received from the voice of the Emperor himself, ordering him to Jarrod’s Landing to assume this office. His orders were long and complex. He was to relay the Emperor’s wishes for the expansion of the colony, and above all else, improve the relationship between the Empire and the Elindari Half Elven. I am in exile with my family until I accomplish what is demanded.

Isaac had been in the Empire’s military long enough to know that his fate would ride upon how successful he was. A friend of his had lost a major sea battle against the Cistian Kingdom’s thrice-damned trimerans and catamarans as they sailed rings around the Imperial cutters and left only wreckage behind them. Only the fact that his fellow Admiral had died in the battle, allowed him to escape the noose.

Ships were Isaac’s life and since he couldn’t have a sea command, he had thrown himself into the design and construction business at Jarrod’s Landing. He watched, as the mighty, waterwheel-driven cranes grabbed floating logs out of the Virago River and placed them in the racks for the mills to saw them down into the long planks needed for his massive cargo ships. Jarrod’s Landing produced the new Wind Cutter four-mast cargo ships, with holds large enough for lumber and bulk cargos. He noted in his log, the state of each of the five new Wind Cutters being constructed and how they were progressing. The Saucy Lady was about ready to launch, needing only to be sent down the greased runners of the ship ways, sliding into the sea, and have her mast set and rigging completed. She had been a year in the building yards and it gave him much satisfaction to see her ready to go. He ran his hand over a full head of close cropped hair and sighed with regret that gray was creeping in. His long face was set with brown eyes and he carried the olive skin that most in the Empire had.

Isaac smelled Hunter Johnson’s coffee before he saw him walking up the stairs. They had become fast friends over the last few years. Hunter was the Commander of the 214th Brigade; it was a fine outfit though it was sorely undermanned for its mission. Hunter had about four thousand men under banner with his 3rd Regiment in transit to him, bringing his 214th to about six thousand men, when all was completed. All in all, a fine force but Isaac knew that Jarrod’s Landing should have had a much larger one, like many of the Empire’s outposts. With a smile and a nod, Hunter settled down beside Isaac. Neither of the men talked for a long while, as they admired the artistry of yet another dawn rise over the bay. They were close enough friends that they didn’t need words, to fill in the empty spaces in conversation.

Isaac considered his friend of the last five years. Brigadier General Hunter Johnson was only of medium height, his black hair always cut short in the way of professional soldiers. His long thin face had the wide, ready smile of a man that loved to laugh. He was a bit thin but that was the result of always working out with his men The olive skinned Hunter would never ask of his own what he wouldn’t do himself. Like everything about Hunter, he modeled himself after what would get the job done best. Yet this was a man with a biting sense of humor and a quick wit. With the exception of a few formal dinners Isaac couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen Hunter out of the regulation blue uniform and shoulder boards of a general of the Kovir Empire.

How is your resident nightmare working out? Hunter asked as he settled down his long lean frame against the back of the chair.

Six months of blessed relief gone. He showed up yesterday, announcing himself as our ambassador. He had the letters to prove it, Isaac said.

So young and he is an ambassador?

For all I know, he is three hundred years old, Isaac said.

Not a chance, he is far too quick-tempered for that.

Order the rest of your brigade here, Hunter, all of it, the cavalry and wizards. I am getting worried. What do you know about the war?

The Blues claim they are winning great victories. The Elindari say they have the bastards contained, Hunter said.

What do you think?

I’ve never heard an Elindari lie, have you? said Hunter.

Isaac knew enough from his dealings with the Dark Elven that they didn’t considered other races worthy of the truth, or anything else. Answer enough I guess.

Isaac, we are leaving the port open to be sacked and it will not take all that many ships to do it. In my opinion thirty war ships and fifty transports we’ll be done for here, Hunter said.

When the Empire stops pressing for more trade, I will. Every bit of extra money we have, is going to the new ships. One of the Wave Cutters hits the water every two months, which is all that is keeping the Empire off our collective butts.

All well and good but the Empire isn’t going to be pleased if they find Jarrod’s Landing taken by an assault from the sea.

Isaac pointed to the forest. "That makes me much more nervous. Twenty years, we know nothing about them.

We know things about them. We know that setting foot in their forest is a death sentence. The bodies of three would-be lumberjacks arrived on the morning’s trade caravan.

Isaac clapped a hand across his eyes, sighing in exasperation. How many times do we have to say stay off their lands?

How many times do you have to tell the traders to stop trying to steal from the merchants? Hunter asked.

What now? Isaac said.

Able Robertson tried to short-weight one of the fur traders. When he got caught at it, the Elindari threw a dagger at his feet. At least Able knew enough to run for his life. Then he ran straight for the guard. Unfortunately for Able, he ran into Sargent Clark Grimsby.

Well lucky for us, that man has a head on his shoulders, Isaac said.

Hunter nodded, drinking from his mug. He got things straightened out quickly enough. He found the short weights Able uses to cheat with and got the Elindari heading out the gate with no fuss. He also got the furs Able claimed he had paid for back to the Elindari.

Where is Able?

Hunter grinned and chuckled a bit. "Grimsby put him