To say the day my life changed was like any other would be a lie.

“Captain Leanne, the scouts have returned,” my second said, emerging from the thicket behind me and crouching to a stop besides me, the soft sound, despite being no doubt imperceptible to the brutes camping far below the cliff, loud enough still to one with elven grace to, given the proximity, cause my ears to twitch.

“What do they have to report?” I asked, voice low and controlled both due to desiring to always present a confident facade to my rangers and due to the circumstances. One should never take Orcs lightly after all. For all that the tall wide backed lot were generally speaking about as dim as they were virile and thus unlikely to be aware or notice the thin figures perched atop a cliff’s edge in the gloom busy as they were…celebrating.

From what I’d observed so far, their behavior seemed to match the historical reports. The cretins seemed to prefer making merry, if their ugly thuggish ruckus could be termed such, than have any real desire to post guard and stand watch. Those of their numbers that did, seeming sully and I suspected, the task was as like as not viewed as some sort of punishment. And it was that, rather than duty that rooted their feet and large obscenely muscular tree trunks for legs to their assigned spot.

“The brutes are completely unaware of our presence.”

“Or so they seem,” I murmured.

“Come now Captain, there’s no need to be so wary,” my second said with a small smile. “The omens are good and they seem unawares. We should be able to deal with them and be back at the capital in time for the ceremony.”

“Right,” I said. And choose not to say how this all, as some of the humans I’d have the pleasure to work with would’ve put it, how this whole business seemed to ‘stink’.

The omens were good?

How would I know? How would any of us?

For a first, Command had not let us contact the seers directly nor permitted us to ask too many questions. We had our orders they said.

True enough, but they’d never been so tight lipped before for all that they’d always been…difficult to deal with.

Still duty must. And so we marched as commanded.

But this?

Something about it really did stink, and I wasn’t talking about the concentrated stench of the brutes wafting down from below and which tried to fill my mind with absolutely vile and indecent images which, of course, I promptly banished for all that they left a treacherous and very much unwanted heat in my core behind as they left.

“Iliria,” I snapped, making my second gasp and focus back on me with wide eyes, her fair cheeks somewhat rosy and flushed but she’d at least stopped rubbing her leather covered thighs together.

“Sorry, Captain, don’t know what came over me, but…”

I had an idea.

For even from such a distance the Orcs stench seemed to be about as potent as the rumors had claimed.

The less said about the faint moans and lewd pleasure filled cries, courtesy of the other participants in the Orcs celebrations and the validity of those rumors, the better.

“Assemble the platoon,” I said instead. “And be fast about it, the sooner we deal with them the better.”

My second snapped her fist to her breast in salute. “Right away my lady,” and promptly retreated the way she came and after a few seconds where I felt certain I was alone once again, a trembling sigh escaped me while a troubled expression spread across my face.

Owing both due to the effect the brutes stench seemed to have on me, my second, and I suspected most of my girls. But also due to how nothing about this operation seemed right. Seemed to make sense.

Yes, we elves were superior to most, if not all other races, but reports of an orc vanguard, presumably a splinter of a no doubt soon to be larger orc invasion force, that is once the main host of the pillaging brutes presently reaving managed to defeat the nearby kingdoms they were already invading or were repelled and in either case chose to then focus on us.

Such news should have resulted in a proper muster.

Not the full might of our glorious armies of course but to send merely a single platoon to deal with so large a camp?

That didn’t make sense. Yes we elves were better than most anyone else but the musclebound, thick membered cretins below as I realized with a mix of distaste and horror at the sight of some poor girl panting and mewling under a brute as his fat member stretched her to the brim and instead of trying to push him away she seemed to be trying her best to draw him deeper with a delirious smile on her lips.

The brutes were strong.

I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all.

Could we do it?

Oh certainly, its not like my rangers were an inexperienced bunch and for all that some of my scouts and newest additions to the roster had completed their training but a few months ago and were thus not as experienced as some of their new sisters, they were still fully fledged rangers.

Unlike Elda, that harebrained idiot and her team filled to the brim with silly pompous girls playing at being guardians of the woodland, my girls were both hardened and experienced.

…at least, unlike my voluptuous twit of a fellow Captain that I suspected had gotten her position through means other than strict merit. My team at least, I was certain was stuffed with girls who were trained, capable, and well past their majority! Which, if some rumors about some of Elda’s past exploits were be believed…

Scoffing with disgust, I too turned away from my vantage point and made my way back towards the main gathering of our forces, putting the idiot out of my mind who, if there was one silver lining in how she’d gotten her position and the accompanying lack of skill, coupled with her, a younger me had felt unfair beauty. It was that command employed the idiot and her vapid girls playing pretend merely for ceremonial morale boosting purposes back at the Capital.

Like the well oiled machine that they were, my girls quietly stopped checking their weapons and gear the moment I stepped into view, those in the clearing standing at attention while those atop the branches paused their work as well and waited.

“Everyone, you know our mission and our orders, we go in at midnight after the brutes have had their…fill,” several of my girls shared my frown at that. “and let their guard down,” I said, my voice low, clipped, efficient, but neither my tone nor the volume were a surprise to any of my girls and given our heritage a whisper in our midst was akin to a normal conversation amongst the mortal races. “You already know the plan but Lieutenant Iliria will remind you of the details.”

Some of our youngest sisters let out tiny almost imperceptible sighs and my lips almost twitched at that.

Ah, youth.

In time they’d learn the value of, as the humans would put it, crossing ‘t’s and doting your ‘I’s…or was that the other way around?

No matter.

A thoroughly vetted plan and a fresh memory of it resulted in missions with no casualties or surprises.

Just the way I liked them in other words.

“Prepare yourselves and keep your head in the game, I expect the best out of you for you are the best!”

A flowing whisper from a few dozen mouths with the volume of a few leaves falling carried the gathered ‘Yes Captain!’ which had it come from the lips of mortals would’ve been a shout no doubt but there was no need of that, not here, for all that the sentiment remained the same and the warmth I felt in my breast was no doubt shared by my analogs in the armies of our allies.

Although Gawain would no doubt laugh and claim we elves were silly. Still, the memory of my friend and fellow Captain made me almost smile before I smothered it. Like the constant nagging feeling that this entire operation ‘stinked’.

Still, how long had it been since I last saw him? A decade? Certainly no more than two or goddess forbid three?

Would he even remember me?

Would any of them?