advisor then stopped talking, looked up at the sky and turned to face the messenger once again before saying “change will come, great change to say the least. But will it be for the better or worse. This truly troubles me”. The messenger then replied “not to me sir, this is change, change for the better, if only you had seen what I had seen before I was sent here”.
Allan laid his head down to rest, his voice was broken and he was physically beaten by the marsh, which was the same for all the others that had just made it out of there. This was truly a test of manhood and Allan seems to have pulled it off somehow. He laid down on the soft grey soil and his rested on a satchel he was carrying some food and supplies in. Now all he and his men had to do was wait for Serai to appear out of marsh with the rest of the Trolls so that he can give the command for the signal that would inform his advisor that the other army could now scale and march through the marsh. Unfortunately, it was already dawn, the sun was not up yet but it will rise soon. Allan was now lost in thought again as he slowly fell asleep, again he was thinking about returning to his father. He was also thinking about seeing Elis again, not sure of weather to dread or long for the next meeting between them. Finally, he fell asleep hoping he would not be disturbed before being satisfied with the time he got to sleep. At the same time, there was lots happening around him. There were sleeping Trolls and men, conversations were going on between Trolls and men and hunting parties were of scavenging for food. However, all was not peaceful and tranquil, it seems history has left a deep impact on many of the soldiers, particularly the Unodites. Since the Great Tri War, Unodite culture and literature has deeply immortalised beasts as animals of war and savagery, who had butchered so many of their people and destroyed their once great city and not to mention the recent sack of Zanten during this campaign.
The main reason the king of Unodos decided to contribute to the Kingdom of Hetheil’s cause was because of their fear of beasts in their lands once again. They contributed men and arms to stand side by side with the other Human kingdom, Hetheil, in the hopes of the repulsion of the Trolls. Now it seems the Unodite soldiers are going to have to accept Allan’s idea and this entire incident as a beacon of peace or a sign of hope. For a people, so long troubled by war with the beats, it is quite hard for them to accept such an idealism bestowed upon them by a Human from outside their own kingdom. One soldier spoke in front of the others, all of whom were Unodite in origin, saying “what are we doing? Why should we agree with this? giving them land, so close to our kingdom, this prince of Hetheil is mad, this is not what our king or any of us bargained for. Who does he think he is, we don’t belong to him or Hetheil, we are here for our future. Allowing them settlement would only encourage them to want more and encourage more to leave that forsaken land called Doomenheim and invade in the hopes of getting what these ones got”. Another Unodite spoke up from within the crowd in full agreement of this other soldier’s statement and said “worse, what if all of the beats learn of this, it won’t just be the Trolls who we would have to worry about, Goblins, gargoyles, wyverns and worse still the Orcs, oh god forbid the Orcs”. Things were getting heated amongst the Unodite soldiers.
Soon after another soldier spoke up viciously “we must save ourselves from this mad man’s idealism and take matters into our own hands”. The others responded with loudly clearing their throats and nodding their throats and nodding their heads in full acknowledgement of this soldier’s radical statement. It was obvious that this soldier was extremely opposed to what Allan had done and was himself radical in his opposition. In the middle of all this madness a lone voice exclaimed from the outskirts of the crowd “No! why put distrust in our allies, these men have bled alongside us in so many instances. Allan has saved so many of us from death in battle. In a sense, we owe our lives to him”. Suddenly the madness turned quiet but this was short lived when the soldier who had spoken viciously before exclaimed “traitor!” and the soldier that had spoken in support of Allan’s idea for peace came up to the front and responded by angrily shouting “traitor to who? to what?!”. The soldier who called him a traitor then said “you’re a traitor to Unodos and a traitor to the Human kingdoms”. “I’m no traitor, tell me what makes me a traitor!” shouted the other soldier back. “You have no idea, you upstart, peace with the Trolls would only bring us long term problems and war, they will eventually want more from the Human kingdoms and our kingdom shall be the first to be attacked. You know the nature of the Trolls, don’t you?”.
After this response, there was a lot going in the crowd of Unodite soldiers and the soldier who was called a traitor then said “upstart huh? Stop wallowing in the past, peace is the new way of protection. Do we even know the nature of the Trolls? I don’t think we even do. Listen to Allan, he speaks the truth, he speaks it all. Peace will save lives and the world be greater if all things prospered by means of peace”. An elder of the Trolls was sitting on a log nearby and he asked himself “Humans, they got a lot of problems, these ones act as if we are savages better tell their leader before this nonsense gets too out of hand”. The Troll then got up and started walking towards Allan who was lying down. Allan was not far but he was oblivious to the situation, he had been sleeping for some time and was dazed in his tired restlessness. Suddenly Allan started to hear on and off vibrations and they were steadily approaching him. He had a black cloth on his face to shade him from the sun’s rays. It was the Troll walking over to him. Before Allan knew it the Troll took a deep breath and blew the cloth off his face. The sunlight pierced his unprotected face and this was then followed by the Troll stomping on the dry mud. Allan stumbled awake and looked up to see the Troll. “Look over there, Human prince, there’s a gathering of some kind” said the Troll with discontent. Allan stood and then pulled his sleeve up and brushed his arm across his eyes and looked over at where the Troll was pointing. “Thanks, I’d better go and see what it’s about” said Allan.
Allan then started to walk towards them, even from a distance he could tell they were displeased with something as they were all angrily yelling and arguing with each other. He could also tell that they were all Unodite soldiers from their distinctive yellow emblem on some of their shoulder bands and armours. Allan shook his head and said to himself “what’s up with them?” Getting closer, the crowd seemed to be much bigger than it had originally seemed to be. Allan was entrusted with the leadership of the Unodite soldiers in battle and on the march, this was a situation Allan had to deal with even if the soldiers were not men from his kingdom. The air grew unsettling as the arguing and yelling ceased and the air grew quiet. They had all noticed Allan and the crowd opened to allow Allan a path to the centre where the two men were. He stood at the fringe of the crowd with a puzzled expression, he then turned to one of the soldiers and asked “what happened here?” The soldier responded by arrogantly saying “you are the cause, the root cause”. Allan was stunned, this soldier was clearly angry at him and it must be quite so as Allan is his superior in this case.
Then another soldier behind Allan said “that’s not true at all, yes Allan maybe the cause but it is for a good purpose” and as Allan turned his head to face him the soldier then said “there are soldiers here that feel your recent decisions are going to prove disastrous. I don’t think so, they are just assumptions”. Allan nodded and said “thank you, good soldier of Unodos, for the reassurance that some here still support me, I’ll fix this, there will be no infighting so long as I’m around”. He then walked down the row, some were staring at him angrily, some with hopeless expressions while a few were glad to see him however quite worried at the same time. Suddenly Allan felt a strong push to his back and was quickly forced by a reckless Unodite soldier into the centre of the crowd. Allan surveyed the crowd and tried to look for the soldier who had pushed him but by the time he could get a grip of the situation, the soldier had become a ghost in the crowd. He was now in the centre between two men, one who strongly opposed him and the other righteously supported him. After realising he was p
ushed, Allan realised he might be in danger, this was no place to be, these were all soldiers who were loyal to him only because he was appointed as their commander by their king. He was still Hetheilian and they were still Unodite after all.
“What on earth is going on here?! I was just pushed. This should be a joyous occasion” exclaimed Allan in complete disbelief. The soldier who opposed him walked to him and stared him straight in the face and said “joyous? You, this is a terrible time to have such foolish leadership”. Quiet turned to an eerie silence as whispers ceased. The soldier had just challenged Allan’s authority. Suddenly Allan could feel his blood rushing again, he had the urge to punch this soldier in his face. Instead he spoke and angrily said “times have changed, and it’s about time your mentality did as well. Peace is what we all want and it’s what I can bestow upon you, one way or the other”. In a sense both had threatened each other at that point. “Peace? We won’t have any so long as your stupid decisions send us