Diamond Elf - Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Chelindra caught up with the enemy army at a distance of 2-days’ march – less than 1-day’s ride – from her field camp. They seemed to be holding position, which was a huge relief to Chelindra. She decided a little stealth reconnaissance was called for.

She hid in a tree and let her ears pick up what they could. There was plenty of idle camp gossip. No women in the Emperor’s army meant that there were plenty of complaints about needing sex. This prompted Chelindra to wonder if the lack of such complaints in her army meant that her soldiers were sharing beds whenever the urge struck, or if they simply felt it was better to avoid the subject and resultant temptation all together.

“Commander, we still haven’t received any word from the first wave. Should we send some scouts to assess the situation?”

“Yes, sitting here doing nothing is getting us nowhere. I want to be in battle by tomorrow morning!”

Chelindra circled around to where she could ambush the scouts, and when that was done, she wondered how to go about incapacitating the enemy. She learned from camp gossip that a few of the units led by Randy had managed to harass and kill a few handfuls of soldiers, but that wasn’t nearly enough. She needed to… to… do something big, something demoralizing.

I could start a fire, or destroy their supplies… or I could start a fire that destroys their supplies… no, that won’t be enough…

Chelindra had an idea, but it would need to wait for nightfall.

*******

That night, once she was certain most of the enemy soldiers were asleep, she snuck into their camp, and methodically started slitting throats. She called on her Elven speed to strike fast as lightning. It helped that each tent full of soldiers housed anywhere from 12-20 men – most closer to 20 – allowing her to take out at least a dozen men every couple of minutes. This would take forever if I had to do this one man per tent!

By the 20^th tent, she was covered in blood from head to toe. No one looking at her would notice because she was wearing her favorite onyx colored uniform, but she could feel it, and it was not pleasant. She had already killed between 3-400 men, and had barely made a dent!

She studied the layout of the camp a bit, and realized that each unit consisted of an officer and up to 200 men. She had only taken out 2 units so far, and there must be close to 40 units left!

She silently dispatched one unit after another until she was thoroughly disgusted with herself over the sheer number of men she had murdered. She paused to count the units she had put to death.

20 units down… That’s half their men, and dawn must be approaching. She made her way to the supply tent, murdered the cooks sleeping in it, and piled half a dozen large bags of flour in the middle of the floor. Spare uniforms were tossed atop the flour, and doused with cooking oil. If things went according to plan, the oil and clothes would burn easily, heating up the flour until it exploded… but that didn’t guarantee that the rest of the supplies would burn, so she covered everything she could with cooking oil. With any luck, the enemy soldiers would merely think that the cooks were beginning their morning chores until the explosion proved them wrong.

Chelindra was pretty sure that not even fire could hurt her; at least it never had before. The force of the explosion might be able to do what weapons could not, but she was confident that she would have enough time to get clear before the explosion occurred. She found a box of matches, lit and tossed several onto the pile, and watched to make sure they did their job.

Looks good… it seems to be working… good… time to run!

            Chelindra couldn’t actually run as that would attract attention from the guards on duty, but she got as far as she could. She crouched next to a tent full of dead men to wait for a moment when all the perimeter guards would be looking elsewhere when the supply tent blew.

“You and you, stay where you are, you three come with me!” The head perimeter guard ordered, and the group ran off. The two perimeter guards left spread out, and she knew she had to take this opportunity to escape before it passed.

Chelindra kept low and crept from one hiding spot to another until she reached some tall grass. So long as she moved slowly, and kept all parts of her body below the top of the grass, she should be able to get far enough away to escape.

            No… I need to find a good place to hide so I can listen to them. I need to learn what they are going to do now.

She found a tree with an abundance of branches full of leaves, and climbed up. Bracing herself in a solid sitting position, she let her ears do their job. The camp was in chaos, and it was hard to pick out one voice among the many, but finally she heard what she wanted to hear.

“Commander, the main supply tent is a total loss, but we still have the two small back up supply tents. All in all, we have enough supplies to last us about two days.”

The Commander growled. “Two small supply tents rationed among 40 units… even at half rations, we would not last until the Emperor could send more.”

“Quarter rations?” The officer suggested uncertainly.

“I…

A new person entered the conversation. “Commander! Some of the men have been slaughtered in their sleep! When some of the soldiers did not report for assignment after the explosion, men were ordered to go see what was wrong, and what we discovered was so horrible… We… We still don’t know how many men we’ve lost.

“Was it a whole unit?” The Commander asked.

“Units, sir… several at least.

“Several whole units!” The Commander exclaimed in disbelief, and ran to find someone with more information.

“Commander, it looks like half of our men are dead!”

“20 units gone!” The Commander sounded as if he would like to murder someone himself. He sighed, and his tone changed. Now he sounded on the verge of tears.

Chelindra kept her ears focused on him, but didn’t hear anything more for a few moments. The noises she did hear made her wonder if he was checking each tent for himself.

“Lt. come here,” he ordered.

“Yes Commander,” the Lt. complied.

The Commander lowered his voice. “Even with only half our troops, we don’t have enough supplies to last more than a week; a few days more than that if we go to half rations. I think it might be best to send a few runners ahead to requisition more supplies, and retreat a bit to meet them half way.”

“The Emperor was very clear that he wanted a crushing victory; he is not going to be happy at all. What if he decides not to send more supplies as punishment?” The Lt. asked.

“A few years ago, he might have considered it, but these days he cannot afford to. The enemy General Chelindra has managed to whittle down our army quite a bit, and aside from a few training camps of new recruits, this is pretty much all we have left. I think it is more likely that the Emperor will be forced to call an end to the war.”

“I see.”

“We will wait here for two more hours for our scouts to return, and then we will head back towards the Imperial Palace.”

Chelindra kept a tight reign on her urge to rejoice. She may have whittled their army down to about 4000 men plus an unknown number of new recruits, but she would be mildly overestimating it if she stated that she had 2000 men and women. They still had more than twice as many soldiers than she did, and if they wanted to continue the war, they could still win.

I won’t have a better time to report to the king than now, she thought. Quite honestly, after the death of her sister, losing her lover to another, racing to rescue her best friend, and the atrocious mass homicide she had just committed, she was emotionally exhausted. A few days rest in the palace would do her some good.

She returned to where she had stashed her horse, mounted, and directed him towards the nearest Armintan town. It was a good two days ride from here – one if she pushed her horse to exhaustion – but she would be able to hire a messenger to deliver the news to her main camp, along with orders to recall the field camp and all of the ambush camps.

*******

Randy rode his horse right up to Chelindra’s small backup tent, and discovered it was empty.

“Colonel! Where’s the General?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Randy replied.

“You mean she’s not with you? The moment she heard you had been captured, she set out to rescue you.”

“Great!” Randy muttered unappreciatively. The last thing he needed was for Chelindra to be missing now. He wasn’t worried that she’d be hurt since he had never seen her injured in all the years he’d known her, though he was a bit concerned that she might be captured by the enemy and brought to the Emperor to be used against King Collin.

“Have the lookouts spotted anything?” He asked.

“No, nothing,”

Randy sighed in relief. “I need to rest for a bit, I’ll be in my tent. Wake me when it’s time to eat.”

“Yes Colonel!”

Randy made his way to his tent, laid down without bothering to remove his smelly clothes, and fell asleep.

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