Lily
“Greetings, Lord Ellanaril,” Hunter said, moving forward to meet the leader of the moon elves. He was accompanied by Surrallathil and her husband Durrallathil. “And greetings to you as well, Hellebore. How is the dryad doing?” She added, turning to the wood elf who entered with them. He was also flanked by a pair of wood elves, but Lily didn’t recognize them.
“Greetings, your majesty.” The moon elf leader said with a shallow dip of his head.
“Hi, Hunter.” Hellebore said taking the goblin into a hug. “It’s been way too long. I was hoping you’d come join us for the hunt last spring. What happened?” The affable wood elf was liked by everyone present and was a far cry from the stern Unyielding oak, who’d led the wood elves with an iron fist.
“Sorry Hel,” Hunter said with a sad chuckle. “The Mountain’s embrace kingdom has been giving us grief ever since we started our caravan route. They sent another ambassador to threaten us into taking the knee,” she hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “That’s him over there in the corner. If he lives through the meeting, I’m going to draft a message to his king when we’re done with, whatever, the tin can wants this time.” There was no love lost between any of those who’d chosen to remain in Undercity, and the evil experimenting android. Hunter especially was furious with him. Since she had to watch all her friends and family grow old and die around her.
“Understandable,” Hellebore said, wincing in sympathy at the fat man who’d wet himself in the corner. “Let me guess, a belligerent bully, right up until you threatened him?” At the affirming nod, he scoffed. “Always how it goes.”
“Should we all take a seat, your majesty?” Benjamin asked, tilting his head towards the giant conference table that had been set up, and lined with delicious smelling foods that Guts had prepared for the occasion.
“No.” Hunter said, no give to her voice. “I won’t be offering a seat to those damned traitors. We’ll all stand until that hunk of junk says what he called us here for and gets out of my city.”
“Well said your majesty.” Lily said, with a nod. Smiling at the venom in Hunter’s voice. “They don’t belong here anymore. I even caught two of the yokai trying to recruit some of our young men on my way here. I told them to get lost. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider banning them entirely from the mountain?”
“What happened to you, Lily?” A voice asked, so deep and filled with bass that it rattled the dishes on the table. You were once my lord’s most ardent supporter. To see how far you have fallen breaks my heart. I wonder what he will say when he comes home and sees what has become of his people in his absence.”
“The White Flame syndicate delegation has arrived,” called the announcer. The tones that had sounded so deep and rich during the elf’s introduction, now sounded mousy and unimpressive. It had also come too late, as Staz was already walking through the open doorway, having to duck to fit through the entrance. The ten-foot tall oni was decked out in inches thick steel armor, made from interlocking plates, too complicated for any smith to forge. His black Flame armor had been made over months of dedicated time in the fabrication unit. Ambassador Jeffreys whimpered in the corner, when the blue monster filled the entryway, but otherwise kept his mouth shut.
“You know exactly what happened, Staz.” Lily snapped, her face going pale with poorly concealed rage. “It was that damned machine’s fault, that I lost… He could have…” Her voice trailed away, and Lily found herself in Halikor’s arms while she wept.
“He isn’t a god, Lily.” Staz said sadly, as he moved aside for the next person to enter the room. “When you got injured, he treated you the same as any other patient. There was no way to know the nanites would attack the baby.” Lily closed her ears to drown out the words she didn’t want to hear. Not wanting to remember the wound she’d taken during training, or what the ‘health potion’ her husband had designed had done to her unborn child.
“Enough Staz.” Unyielding oak said, entering the room after the oni stepped aside. “She knows she’s being irrational. It’s a mother’s prerogative to be a little crazy about their children. Isn’t that right son?” She added, looking over at Hellebore. “How are my people doing?”
“Hi ma,” Hellebore said with a welcoming grin. “Been a while, and my people are doing just fine, thank you.” He only emphasized the word ‘my’ a little, but it was still heard by everyone present. “How are the kids?” He asked in turn. Lily knew he was referring to the orphans the White Flame had taken in after Unyielding oak had abandoned them.
“They’re doing well. It was a shock to many of them, when the kids they played with, grew up and in a few cases, got old and died, while they remained small, but they adjusted. Isn’t that right Dandelion?” A teenaged wood elf walked in after unyielding oak. Lily, who was starting to get a handle on her emotions recognized her as the small elven girl her husband had sentenced with the murderers, and then paraded around the camp like a mascot, to show how well he was doing. No, Lily shook herself. She was angry about how things had turned out, but she didn’t need to twist the past like that. She knew the White Flame hadn’t had any bad intentions in taking in the children.
“I’m not that small auntie oak,” the twenty-eight-year-old wood elf, who looked no older than fifteen, said swatting playfully at the older elf. “Vaira just grew up faster than I did.” She added jokingly as a bugbear woman in her early to mid-twenties, with sleek black fur entered the room next.
“Me? Are you sure you don’t mean Tank?” The woman, Vaira said. “White Flame willing, we’ll grow old and die before you do too.” She added with a chuckle. Lily’s heart fluttered at the sight of this woman. She was one of the forty girls the White Flame had taken, now all grown up. Dressed in leather armor with small steel plate reenforcing the vitals. She also carried a saber and long dagger, though they were clearly upgrades to the one they’d left Gilded Lily with.
Rage began to boil again, replacing the misery of just a few seconds ago. When she’d transferred her allegiance to Undercity and Hunter, Lily had gone to Owl Two and requested her forty charges back. The girls she’d turned over to the Syndicate to save them, and herself. He’d flatly refused. Nothing she’d said could change his mind, even threats of war. He justified his actions by claiming she’d freely handed them over, and that his lord was going to need soldiers when he returned. Since Undercity had declared their independence from the White Flame syndicate, they needed every soldier they could get.
“How dare you bring kids to this meeting?” Lily wondered who’d said that, before realizing it had been her voice that had spoken. A little shocked about her own words, she figured that since she’d already spoken, she might as well go on. “This is not the place for the young. It’s bad enough you took them from their kind, but to raise them as soldiers is just wrong.” She was fuming, beyond agitated at the sight of one of the girls she’d been forced to give up, now laughing with the enemy.
“We haven’t even finished entering the room yet. I believe this is a new record.” Owl Two said, stepping through the door, followed a moment later by K2. The android looked the same as ever, thought Lily, though he’d upgraded his armor at least once. K2 was armored very much like Staz, only his plates weren’t as thick. None of them were armed, she noted. Not that it really mattered. Between the three groups leaders, the syndicate was far superior in close quarters combat.
“There, now that we are all here. I have a few things to discuss. Since it seems clear to me that you haven’t gotten over your personal hang ups. I will be brief…”
“Personal hangups?”
“Gotten over it?”
Both Lily and Hunter screamed at the same time.
“How is it a personal hangup? You let nearly my entire species die. With no recourse but for the handful of us that are left, to have as many children as possible. It will take generations to even come close to the numbers we had just five years ago.” Hunter said.
“You murdered my baby, how am I supposed to ‘get over it,’ you, soulless abomination. You expect me to believe you didn’t know what would happen? You’ve experimented on children for a decade. There’s no way you didn’t know that might happen.” Lily said at nearly the same time.
The two women heaved for breath, clearly fighting to hold themselves back.
“I, too, take issue with how things played out.” Brie added, speaking up for the first time since Lily arrived in the hall. “Ronin gave this city to the goblins. He gave it to us, and he left me here, with Guts because he wanted to help Hunter make this a safe haven for goblins. Thanks to what you did, we are a minority in our own city. Bugbears and humans far outnumber us. To say nothing negative about our fellow councilors, it gets harder every year to keep in control as our numbers decline and their numbers increase. We could be forced out of here when? Guts and I finally reach our end.”
Owl Two looked around. Waiting, it seemed, to see if anyone else had anything to say. Then, he moved over to the table and sat down, motioning for his people to do the same. In less than a minute, the syndicate members were all seated in chairs around the conference table. Even Staz, who shrunk himself down to fit. The android remained silent, he only motioned to the empty chairs on the other side of the table and waited.
“I wouldn’t mind keeping this discussion verbal, and nonviolent.” Hellebore said, taking a seat with his two subordinates. Ellanaril, Surrallathil, and Durrallathil each sat as well. Neither of the elven species being on bad terms with the syndicate. In fact, they had more of an inclination to them, than Undercity because of Unyielding oak and Hellebore’s relationship, and Owl Two’s having turned over the dryad and oakkin to their care.
“Will sitting down get you out of my city any faster?” Hunter asked with a snarl, but she still moved over and took her throne like chair at the table’s head. Once she’d capitulated, the rest followed suit soon after. Leaving only Lily standing, and the ambassador on the floor, muttering to himself about monsters. She almost refused, until Hunter caught her eye. The look had her moving quickly to a chair beside her consort.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I will address each of your points in order. Then I will tell you the reason I have come.” Owl two said emotionlessly. “Firstly, Dandelion is older than Rachel, whom I see you have brought to this meeting. Secondly…”
“Don’t bother Owl Two.” Staz said looking over the Undercity council, his eyes rested on Lily for a brief moment longer than the rest, but she was already preparing her counter arguments, so she didn’t pay any mind. “They interpreted our lord’s last order differently than we did. Nothing we say to each other today is going to change that. Just tell them why we’re here, so we can leave already.”
“Very well,” the android said turning his attention on the queen. “Our timeline has resynced with our lord’s. In other words, we are now experiencing time at the same rate as he is. I was recently in contact with him.” The people at the table were staring at Owl Two now, with shock and in several cases a lack of understanding.
“What do you mean, our timelines were out of sync?” Guts asked, “and how did you get in touch with him. Is that something we can do?”
“In order to have adequate time to evaluate the ship, I changed the time dilation to one year for every day in our lord’s time. It has been ten years for us, but for our lord, only ten days have passed since he left us.” That news hit the conference room like a bomb going off, no one had known, it seemed. Except for Lily, who’d had an idea after a few conversations with the android. Before they’d parted ways.
“The reason I am here, telling you this,” Owl two continued in his normal tone but at elevated volume, to cut through all the shouting. “Is because lord Ronin is sending upwards of four hundred human refugees to us, some of whom are considered rather dangerous. He wishes us to house these people and care for them. He also wants twelve more people to join him. I will be handling the selection however, so there is no need to worry about that.” The uproar this time was even louder than the last. Rage boiled on more than one angry face. Yet no one, not even Lily, screamed louder than Hunter, when she responded.
“Absolutely not.” She said, pounding her fists on the table hard enough to dent the wood. “This city was given to me, no, it was earned by me by right of combat. It’s mine. For the purpose of creating a goblin sanctuary. Thanks to you, you damned rusty can, next to none of my people remain. They all died without having children because of you and your interference. Now, you want to bring more humans into my city. Throw off the balance of power even more? No. I will not allow it. Now get out of my city. This meeting is over.”
“Hunter, please,” Staz said. “Each person in this city was a refugee at one point. How can you turn them away…”
“I said get out.” Hunter repeated, pulling a mark V from where it had been hidden under the table. Everyone on the Undercity side had drawn one type of weapon or another. While the wood and moon elf factions all headed for the doors, clearly not wanting to get involved.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Lily said, reaching for her own weapon that had been stashed under her seat.
“Rethink this,” Staz tried again. “There’s nothing you have in here that can put me down. You know that. If you start a blood bath, none of you will walk away.”
“Then unless you want to kill us all, I suggest you leave.” Benjamin said, holding a long dagger in his hand.
“This all escalated very quickly.” Owl two said calmly. “I didn’t realize the delusion you had was this strong. Very well then, I think a demonstration is in order.” As he spoke, the android pulled a small battery powered lantern from his bag and placed it on the table, turning it on. The weak light was barely bright enough to be seen under the LED’s that lit the entire room, like they were outside under the sun, and not miles below ground.
“Benjamin,” Owl Two said, turning to the man who had once been his closest ally. “Kill your ward.” Everyone blinked at that, some, including Rachel, laughed.
“You can’t be serious.” She said, with a scoff as she brandished her own dagger. “He’s like a father to me, he would never…” The words were cut off when the blade in Benjamin’s hand plunged directly at her heart. She was able to fend it off, but he came in again. Before anyone else had a chance to intervene, however, the humming of the generator stopped, and all the lights went out.
There were cries of surprise, and pleas to stop, the latter coming from Rachel, who was desperately fending off Benjamin with her own dagger. The dim lantern was now the only light in the room. Lily ground her teeth together and prepared her crossbow to fire.
“What did you…” her words were cut off when Hunter, Brie, and Guts all started screaming. Lily looked over in shock, to see all three of the goblins writhing. Either on the ground, their chair, or over the table, each was in evident agony. What was worse, Hunter, who was laid out over the table, was visibly aging before her eyes. Her Flame red hair was turning silver, and her face was filling with wrinkles.
“You see,” Owl Two said in his dead, emotionless voice while Benjamin tried to kill his adopted daughter and the goblin leaders rapidly aged. “My lord gave this city to you. With the understanding that you would make it a home. A home for yourselves, and for those who, like yourselves, needed one. When you turned your back on your lord, I did not interfere. When you rejected the hobgoblins, who could have partnered with you to create an entire new race of people just like you, I took them in. When you requested access to my nanites, to control the reproductive desires of your pure goblin population; a population that numbered well over three times that of the other races combined, I might add, I gave them to you willingly.” He stood up, moving around the table to get closer to the goblins as he spoke. Lily, not sure what she could do in this situation, took a step back.
“When you said you would no longer provide troops to the syndicate, I could have turned off all the inhibitors, returning you all to the animals you were. I did nothing except turn off the nanites that kept Guts and Owl five young. They could have lived for centuries in my lord’s service, but even then, I did not kill them, only returned them to nature’s intended path. As I hope you can see, I easily could have. As for you, queen hunter, I control the ship. I control your immortality.” Bending down, he lifted her head up by the hair and stared into her eyes as he spoke.
“I created the generator that powers this city. That feeds the fields with water, which provides the homes and streets with lights, which fuels your telephones and cars… I didn’t take that away from you when you rebelled. I did not cut off your source of food, and light, and lest you forget, the only path you have to the surface… no. Everything that has happened to your race, happened solely because you turned your back on my lord.” The power flickered on and off. The generator humming to life, before dying again, in time to his words. The strobe light effect instilled even more fear into Lily, as Owl Two, Rachel, and Benjamin seemed to jolt through time, as they moved between flashes of light and darkness.
Dropping Hunter’s head, to thud back onto the hardwood, Owl Two collected the mark V and walked slowly back around the table. Handing the rifle to K2 as he passed, he retook his seat. Without a word or a gesture, the lights stabilized, and the goblins stopped screaming. Benjamin even regained control of himself and dropped the dagger in shock. He stared in horror at Rachel, who had several deep cuts on her forearms and across her face.
“Now, I hope you have an adequate understanding of who holds the power here.” The android said, as deadpan as ever. “I tolerate your flagrant disregard for my lord’s orders because I know he would have allowed it. Unfortunately, for you, the war is about to start in earnest where he is. My lord will need troops soon, and a safe haven to return too. Those things will be provided to him… if not by you, then by someone who can appreciate what has been done for them.” Standing, he motioned for his people, who Lily was relieved to see looked as shocked and terrified as she felt, to stand as well.
“You will take these refugees. These, and any future batch that my lord sends to you. You will quit discriminating against the yokai, who have just as much goblin blood as any of you half breeds. And you will open your city once more to trade with the syndicate. In return, I will return Guts and Owl five to the age they were when this meeting started and maintain the power supply to the city you… earned. Do you understand me?”
Hunter, who was still regaining her youthful appearance, didn’t seem to be able to speak, but she nodded her head angrily. Without another word, Owl two turned and walked out of the hall. Trailed by the people who’d remained loyal to Lily’s ‘husband’. She watched them leaving and seeing that the goblins, Benjamin, and Rachel would need a minute, decided to follow them.
Lily trailed them outside, moving slow so they wouldn’t see her, and hid as they met up with several young people. Another bugbear woman and a handful of yokai. That included the pair Lily had seen earlier. Most of them were oni, goblin hybrid, but a few were also kaldarr, goblin crosses.
“Holy shit, K12 you should have seen it.” Dandelion said, once they’d reached the group. “Owl Two put them all in their places… Why did you let them kick us out and treat our people so badly all these years if you could have done that, the whole time?” The girl continued, turning to the android.
“For real,” Vaira agreed with a nod. “We have the stronger army. Since, they quit actively recruiting after the locust war. We have the fabrication unit, which lets us build tech they can only dream of, and we have you Owl two, who could, apparently, kill anyone who’s been implanted with the nanites… including all of us here, now that I think about it.” The girl looked excited when she started talking, but by the end, worry had crept into her voice.
“That fear right there,” Staz said, patting the worried young bugbear’s shoulder. “Is why. Now that you know you can die with a thought, do you feel safer?” The young woman shook her head. “Owl Two must be getting worried, to have shown so many cards. Hunter will obey, for now, but we just made an enemy for life. Don’t worry though, our lord would never allow him to do that to us, unless the situation was dire… What’s the matter, Owl two? Are things going that poorly out there?” He asked, turning to the android.
“They are,” Owl Two said, coming to a stop. “When I was able to contact him, after the timelines stabilized, I got to look at the ship’s readings. The enemies are closer than we thought, and the human government are already making their move. Our lord thinks he has two months to prepare. He will be lucky if he has two weeks. My Xerox is moving as fast as he can, but it might not be enough. Thankfully, our lord has secured an additional twelve bodies, we can use to send him back up. Even then, I need you all to be ready. If an opportunity presents itself, I will send you to our lord’s side without notice. As for you kids, your team will go now. Six of the bodies are well suited to your team,” A round of, ‘understood,’ passed around the group, along with excited squeals from the girls. Before Owl two turned to look at Lily, who had been hiding behind a statue of Hunter.
“I allowed you to hear that, because I hope you will see reason before it is too late.” The android said as Staz waved his hand, the one with the tricolored ring on it, and mounts appeared around them. Including several stone carver rats who were larger than cave lizards and were equipped with saddles over their thick metal plated hides. The girls jumped onto those. There were a few of the shaggy white mountain goats that K2, Owl two and unyielding oak mounted. Staz didn’t bring out a mount for himself, but Lily remembered just how fast the giant could run.
“No one wants to force you into anything Lily, but if lord Ronin loses out there, we all die. Keep that in mind, when hate and regret cloud your mind. Now, let’s go. I want to have a word with the elves before they get too far away.” With those final parting words, the group set off. Lily watched as they disappeared through the gates and into the city.
Lily leaned back against the statue she’d used as cover and shook. For the first time in nearly ten years, she was shocked out of her own misery long enough to see things from another perspective. Looking at the Undercity’s leadership from the outside left her feeling sick. She wasn’t convinced that they had been in the wrong, not yet, but she felt the old resolve she’d had in her youth stirring again. Turning away from the empty courtyard, Lily went back into the council chamber. There were many things she needed to do now that she was thinking about more than her own pain again. Starting with a conversation that ambassador Jeffreys wasn’t going to enjoy.