"The problems we face aren't a matter of human, or dwarf, or elf...we let these problems go on, we thought if we waited, that it would simply go away," Cedric was neck deep in a bottle of pepper vodka and the few of his unit gathered around him were listening or pretending to.
"Indeed," chimed Leudwen. Who had opted not to leave the band for Dol Blathanna. "We watched the humans arrive, we retreated as they brought war to our cities and we thought, 'They are not so long lived, surely they will be their own end'." On the subject of history the elf was quite learned. If he were to be believed, he watched the first landings of the humans more than five hundred years prior with his father. Though the elf's features and hair are still fair, his eyes do appear to be old.
Then again, any soldier who has seen action often have the same look in their eye.
"Fuckin' right there...me old da' said we shouldnta ever let you pointy eared limp pricks in either," Harbare spoke up from where he sat.
The dwarf was correct. The gnomes, halflings, and dwarves had lived in relative peace until the arrival of the first elves. Though the Aen Saidhe consider themselves the Elder Blood, they were as much interlopers as human, though on not quite a grand scale. They integrated peacefully if legends were true.
"Ah, but then good dwarf, how would you have learned to make wine, if your sires had?" Countered Cedric with a small smile sent the dwarf's way. He liked Harbare. Trusted him and his wife with his life. Good friends, both of them. They'd follow him into the teeth of the emperor himself if Cedric planned to go that way. "But let's not get sidetracked with history lessons, shall we keep the debate on our current standing?"
The group nodded acceptance. Beron, an academic loved nothing more than to talk history and it's effect on the present, Cedric wanted to head that off before the elf caught wind of the conversation. As he was wandering in to listen.
Kessell was also in attendance at their small camp situated on a hill with a fine view in every direction from the water to the merchant's trek to deep in the forest and beginning of the boggy swampland. Though Kessell couldn't be counted on to say much even at the best of times, the finest spear Cedric had ever seen though that's for sure.
Verona and Shayla were off scouting, Haelgen the gem that the little dwarf woman is, was on alert near the river watching for ferries.
Nine souls to stand watch and detract any advances of humans toward the Pontar. Seemed an insurmountable task but someone had to do it.
"Now, if you squeeze every drop of blood from a human, any human in the land, regardless of what lineage they claim or what mantel they wore or whose colors they serve. You will find in that blood, a touch of our own." Holding a hand up to halt Harbare before he can protest, "I mean the Aen Siedhe fair dwarf. It's well known that dwarves prefer the much comelier jewels of their mines, the famously coveted dwarf women." For some reason, the dwarves thought the rest of the world were out to steal their woman. Unfathomable really. Haelgen is comely but her chin beard is bound to ruin any form of copulation. "Why is that Leudwen?" Cedric asked, a bit of a drunken lilt to his form as he leaned against a half fallen ash.
"Because the humans like to fuck." That earned a bit of laughter from the gathering, even an amused sounding snort from Kessell.
"We all like to fuck...you included, I can't go a week without hearing you throttling mice in your bedroll," Cedric countered, which earned a bit more laughter from the group. "And there's nothing wrong with that," before Leudwen could gain steam and get flustered, "I can't speak for your blankets however...but yes, we all like to fuck. But the humans like to fight as well." Which is true. Elves hadn't needed steel before human expansionism.
"Ain't just humans that be likin' a fight there Cedric," chimed in Harbare, puggish face pulling into a fierce grimace and gripping his hammer a bit tighter. "But you ain't sayin' nothin' new...how we sposed to end this war with fuckin'?"
"Cosmetics my friend. Cosmetics." Cedric replied in all seriousness, the silence which followed the statement was only broken when Kessell erupted into a full belly laugh. It was infectious and it filtered through the group, the stone which starts the mudslide, for a few breathless moments the camp was filled with laughter. Cedric enjoyed that. It made the hard times easier. He especially liked to get a response from Kessell. There were times when the elf just...frightened Cedric.
"Listen! Listen! Women, human women, have a beauty all their own. Hear me! However, they age quickly. With the proper use of cosmetics, taught by fine elven women and how to properly curl their mustachios by fine dwarven maidens...husbands wouldn't leave their beds to fight wars, for fear that other men may occupy them while they played soldier!" The soldiery of the northern kingdoms were a rabble. Militias, volunteers, regulars, levies, whatever they called themselves, they were not full time soldiers. Give a farmer a spear and make him pretend it's not a ho, he is still a farmer.
That doesn't mean the use of such men isn't effective. Regular soldiers swoop in as the militia dies, cavalry charges are sounded when the enemy is pinned in place and heroic moments are made, at the cost of the lordlings serfs. It's a travesty really.
"If the husbands stay home, there is no backbone, no shoulder to rest a battle on the blood shed would be the blood of those -wanting- war those who are-" Cedric's speech is ended by the shrill call of a falcon, followed by five more whistles, the first beat of the tune held for two breaths, the rest coming rapidly, it sounded like a bluejay, uncannily so.
"Verona, four miles out, on the road," Leudwen translated the message that didn't need translating, everyone gathered knew the calls and signs. Leudwen's uncanny ability to state the obvious strikes again.
"To your places everyone," Cedric muttered, the gathering flooded down from the hillside, moving to the road. The unit leader corked his bottle and stuffed it into a holster on his belt, upside down. The bottle banged against his hip but it was a reassuring beat with every step he took.