CHAPTER 17

Cyrus had been completely flabbergasted as he saw Daelyn walk over to his brother, and apologise to him. He had never thought that Daelyn would do that, however Cyrus quickly saw the consequences of his actions. His brother did not seem favourable of it, and Cyrus stood just behind Daelyn as he saw his brother raise his arm, and clench his fingers into a fist.

Cyrus would not let his brother strike Daelyn down. Their family may hate humans, but he did not hate Daelyn.

His father had told him countless stories with humans as the antagonists, as the villains, as the murderers, rapists, corrupt nobles, greedy kings, necromancers, and much more. He had listened to those stories, he believed these stories to be true, but it was all undermined in but a moment.

He was normally a bit introverted, and liked to keep to himself. Daelyn waltzed through that, and struck up a conversation with him, a conversation he had greatly enjoyed, a conversation he had not had with any of his peers, or with anyone for that matter.

During the conversation and the play, he had felt a click with Daelyn, and he realized something. Daelyn was his first real friend, Daelyn was the first person he could talk with about his hobbies to such an extent, and Daelyn did not mind him being himself. He was the first person to break through his introverted self, and gain his interest and passion on a subject.

He was not going to lose him to the brother that was none of those things, or the family that only valued their grudge, instead of their children or anything else for that matter.

He grabbed Daelyn at the collar of his shirt, and pulled. He pulled him down, took a step forward, and moved his arms to block his brother’s strike. He did not know how to divert the impact, and so he didn’t. He took the full force of the strike just to help Daelyn.

Minos was in shock at his little brother’s actions. Why is he defending that human?! How dare his little brother disobey him!

Minos’ expression changed from shock to anger as he regained his footing. Okay, so he wants to save his little friend? I will make sure that he pays the price for saving that damned creature!

Minos directed his attention towards Fern and the other two boys standing next to him, and shouted: “What are you doing? Get him!”

The other boys looked at him with a bit of surprise, Minos normally wasn’t this commanding. This was quite an anomaly, as Fern normally took the lead. However, they saw the anger in Minos’ eyes, and quickly obeyed him.

They moved to surround Daelyn, they had fought with each other multiple times in the past, and they knew how to make the basic formation which gives them an advantage.

As they were about to start hitting Cyrus and Daelyn, their formation was broken. The Ulindil brothers quickly assaulted them. Bairo started kicking the youngest of the group, and Ralm started wrestling with the other goon. Their intervention surprised both Fern and Minos, as they had not expected them to act up against them

The distraction allowed Daelyn and Cyrus to regain their footing, and start assaulting the two goons Ralm and Bairo were fighting. Cyrus quickly provided backup to Bairo as they threw the small child to the ground, and Daelyn helped Ralm by kicking the goon in the shins and kneecaps.

Fern and Minos would not stand idle and threw themselves at the four boys assaulting their friends. Minos quickly pushed Daelyn away from the small child, and started his assault at Ralm to secure his comrade. Fern threw himself at Cyrus as his goon dealt with Bairo, as he wasn’t assaulted from two sides anymore.

After several moments of roughhousing, both sides retreated from the skirmish and regrouped.

Fern snorted and said with a smug expression: “Give up you babies, you’re only good at being beaten by us.”

He turned to the twins and addressed them: “Bairo, Ralm, I didn’t know you liked humans and weaklings. Well, it’s only natural that trash chooses other trash, I just hope you are prepared for the consequences.”

He finished his sneering at them with a wicked grin as he and his goons were about to charge the four boys, until they were interrupted by a loud shout, echoing throughout the room.

“Fern! What did you just say?!”

The shout stopped the two groups in their tracks as they all turned their attention towards the origin of the shout. In the doorway to the large room stood one man, Ellith Elrieden, and he was absolutely  furious. The four boys could see a vein popping on his forehead as he made his way over to them.

As Daelyn, Cyrus, Bairo, and Ralm turned their gaze upon the boys standing in front of them, they were amused.

The boys had different expression, but all had some kind of regret on their face.

Fern’s face had paled the moment he had heard his father’s voice. He was supposed to help organise the event, instead he was derailing it by fighting with the other children.

Minos had a sneer on his face. They could clearly see that he thought Ellith was a nuisance that got in his way, and they even heard him make a ‘Tchk’ sound.

The expression one the face of the youngest kid in the group was one of fear. His face paled even more than Fern’s as he saw Ellith approach, and he quickly looked at the ground, trembling from fear as he could only await the consequences.

The expression of the last goon was one of regret. He had a small sliver of hope that he would come unscathed out of this skirmish, but upon seeing mister Elrieden approach, that hope melted away. He would be scolded by his parents, and would most likely have to endure another punishment training. The blood drained from his face as he had flashbacks from the last one.

As Elrieden stood in front of the boys, he grabbed Fern’s arm, and said with a cold voice: “All of you, to my office, now.” Before leaving while dragging Fern with him, as he had a steel grip on his upper arm.

Fern was making high pitched noises that notified every one of his pain, and the occasional ‘ow, that hurts.’, but they were largely ignored by Elrieden, except for an irritated snort, after which the complaints died down.

The boys made their way towards Elrieden’s office in a hurried pace, as Minos and the two goons followed close behind Elrieden, and Daelyn, Cyrus, and the twins followed just a few meters behind them.

They received some sneering glares from the group in front of them, but they mostly ignored them. They were still amused by the spectacle that had unfolded before them just a moment ago, they could not help but snicker as they thought about their expressions.

They had changed their expressions faster than they could run!

Bairo tapped Ralm’s shoulder, and tried to imitate their change of face, only to receive laughs from his twin brother.

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As they finally reached the door, and entered the office, Daelyn was amazed. The room was filled with sunlight, as it filtered through the large windows at the back, and illuminated everything. The room was filled with all kinds of books, as bookshelves reached to the ceiling, and the bureau Elrieden sat behind was filled with all sorts of documents.

Besides the large amount of books, the room was also filled with some more impressive artefacts. Sword hung on the wall beside the bookcases, and the wall that held the door was filled with several hunting trophies, heads, tails, claws, and other body parts adorned the wall as if it were a necromancer’s collection.

Elrieden sat down at his bureau in a hard wooden chair, and as he was about to address the boys, the door swung open. The door was swung wide open, and slammed into a cabinet standing next to it, which appeared to hold some of the more fragile ‘trophies’. Daelyn suspected that Elrieden and Orthrus had similar hobbies.

The doorway was quite crowded, as Lyvia, Grey, Avary Tyrrith, and Celeria stood in the doorway. Avary Tyrrith entered first, and immediately started to shout: “It was the human’s fault!”

Lyvia’s expression worsened as she retorted: “The only ones who would cause trouble are your child and his friends!”

Avary’s face was filled with disdain, and answered with an arrogant tone: “How dare you accuse my son! I saw it myself, your human tried to punch my son!”

Lyvia quickly retorted with anger in her voice: “What?! Your son gave the first punch, you hag!”

Avary’s expression contorted, and she responded with fury in her eyes: “How dare you call me a hag, you bitch!”

Before they could continue their shouting match, a shout interrupted them.

“Silence!”

The shout caused the woman to fall silent, and shrouded the room in silence, as everyone looked at the origin of the sound. Elrieden sat down on his desk chair as he looked at the adults and their children.

“Thank you, now I was about to discuss the story with the children, but it seems you also want to voice your witness report?” Elrieden said with a calm and authoritative tone.

“Yes, I would very much like to.” Avary said with a confident tone.

“I would like to as well.” Lyvia said, falling just behind Avary, with a stern voice.

Elrieden turned towards Grey and Celeria.

“I’m guessing you two are here for the same reason.”

“Yes”

“Yes”

Elrieden sighed before saying with a tired voice: “Okay, we will start with the stories of the children, and then the stories of the adults. Let’s start by hearing the story of little Cellith.”

After saying this, he heard ten similar yet slightly differing versions of the story, and two that differed greatly, very greatly.

The stories of the children, and Grey and Celeria were very similar. Most described either that Daelyn threw the first punch at Fern, and others told that Minos threw the first punch at Daelyn. The version that came closest to the truth was told by the most people in this group, which Elrieden was pleased with. He could form some vague picture of what happened according to them.

The story would most likely be true, since the children had no reason to lie, and the parents did seem very genuine about them. The other story might also be more likely to be  false, because of the relation between the boys, and because they didn’t like the idea of punishment, so they blamed it on Daelyn.

As Elrieden was happy with the consistency of these stories, the inconsistency of the other two stories was almost baffling.

One story described Daelyn walking up to Minos, kicking him in the nuts, after which Minos and his gang started fighting Daelyn and the three boys out of self-defence.

Another story described the four boys assaulting the group, trying to specifically hurt the girls, and Daelyn saving them. The way it was told sounded more like a story than anything else, a very cliché one.

As the story finally finished, describing Daelyn valiantly defending the group of children on his own, Elrieden sighed. The stories were farther away from the truth than a person could run. The stories seemed so different from the others, that even the children could discern the truth behind them.

Elrieden sighed, before saying with a tired voice: “Okay, I got the gist of it. Following the stories I heard, and the ones I believe, I have reached a conclusion. It was unclear what exactly transpired, and it is unclear who threw the first punch. So I have made a decision upon the punishment of the children.”

Every one of the children in the room were on edge, as the next sentence would either doom or relieve them.

“I won’t be giving out any punishments, your parents will. I will write a letter describing the events that transpired to all of the absent parents, and they will make their own choice accordingly. I hope everyone here can be satisfied with that.”

There were different reactions from both the children and the adults in the room.

There were two relieved sighs from both Bairo and Ralm, as their parents would most likely not punish them. They would hear the story of them helping two others, and they most likely wouldn’t be mad, but proud.

The expressions of others were mostly filled with indifference, and some spite towards the opposite party, but nothing major. The Theandor family were happy since nothing major transpired, one of the goons of Fern was a little concerned about his punishment, and Fern himself was going to be thoroughly punished along with his cousin, Cellith Elrieden.

However, the emotions and the expressions with the Tyrrith family were far different.

Cyrus displayed a look of absolute horror at Elrieden’s proclamation. His face was filled with fear as he contemplated the consequences of his actions. He knew one thing, his father wasn’t going to be pleased.

In one moment of rashness, he had thrown away his family, he had valued a stranger above his own family, and he would pay for that. His family hated humans, and if they knew that he had defended one, it would be disastrous.

His family had endured much at the hands of the humans, his older brother had died because of them. Cyrus was not really affected by it, but Minos was. Cyrus had not known this older brother, and also did not bear a grudge for him, but Minos did. Minos had a very close bond to this older brother, he had some very fond memories of him, and humans took those away, they took him away. Minos hated that, and he hated humans because of that.

Unfortunately, Minos did not change to this day, and that was to be seen in his expression. He had a sneering look on his face as he looked at his brother, and glared Daelyn.

He was furious at seeing his little brother defend a human. A human of all things! If he wanted a pet, he should just get a local forest animal, but a human is a vile creature that can only cause pain and destruction. Cyrus had brought shame upon the family, and he would pay for that, either by the hands of their father, or his own. He would not let anyone who was favourable towards humans go unscathed.

When he is strong enough, that Daelyn would feel it, and the Theandor’s would not go unscathed. Those damned Ulindil’s would also have to pay! He would make anyone pay that was even remotely close with those damned humans! They would pay for his loss! They would pay for his brother’s death with their blood!

Thoughts of hatred raced through Minos’ mind as he became more and more fired up, before those thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. His mother spoke to him with a soft voice, yet she induced a feeling of cautiousness.

“Wait, bide your time, and strike. Don’t forget we Tyrrith’s are a family of warriors, power is only a matter of time, and so is revenge.”

She had a bloodcurdling smile on her face, but Minos was not afraid, he was determined. He hated those humans for taking away his brother, and he would let them pay.

Avary could only look on as the expression on her child’s face discerned his emotions. She was happy. She was happy that her child would take revenge for his brother. She was struck with grief herself, but she could not act openly, as the family had lost quite a bit of support and power over the last decade.

A number of events had led to their downfall, but they were not finished off. Minos’ father was still quite strong, and the new generation was quite promising. Minos alone would be adequate to elevate the household back to at least some kind of standing, and if the other remaining parts of the family helped, they would be able to reach their goal.

While they wanted to regain their former power, they wanted one thing even more. Revenge.

They wanted revenge on the dark elf nobles that took away their land, they wanted revenge on the branch families that abandoned and betrayed them, but most of all, she wanted revenge on that bitch. The bitch that sold them out, the damned woman that started this whole ordeal, she would have her killed, she would have her tortured until she begged for the sweet embrace of death, she would torture her lover, her children, anyone that is remotely close to her! She would have her beg for her death, she still harboured such feelings, despite the fact that the one that betrayed her, was her daughter.

She would seek revenge on those that wronged her, and she would get it, no matter the cost. ‘The end justifies the means’ was a phrase that seemed quite natural to her.

After Elrieden had led everyone out of his office, and ended the playdate early because of the circumstances, he sat in his chair, and couldn’t help but be wary of the future.

He had seen the clear hatred in the eyes of both mother and child of the Tyrrith family, and he could not help but be wary of them, as they were most likely to strike out towards Daelyn, and he would not know the consequences.

He waved those thoughts to the wind, as he continued hammering down on his ever growing pile of paperwork, and today certainly hadn’t lightened his burden.