While Akira had been waiting for Rodger to finish his royal duties he had sent Klyn to go inform Elder Bleddyn and the other werewolves from the peace delegation to hurry and come to the castle so that they could start the negotiations.
Dolph had stayed behind in order to protect Akira and was fully alert as they waited in one of the castle’s many gardens.
It was only a short time after Klyn left when Rodger and Ruth both entered the garden unaccompanied by any guards.
“I informed the King and his ministers, they will be here shortly,” said Rodger.
“Are you sure it is not too late in the night for something like this?” asked Akira.
“It’s fine the ministers should all be used to gathering at strange hours already,” said Rodger waving his hand dismissively.
“So do you have anyone you are dating?” asked Ruth out of the blue catching Akira off guard.
“What? No, I’m not really dating anyone…yet,” said Akira.
“So there is someone that you could be dating in the future. Jezebel won’t be happy to hear this.”
“She shouldn’t be disheartened since she is the queen of Vussia and already has a husband.”
Ruth shrugged her shoulders as if it really didn’t matter to her.
“It’s too bad that we childhood Friends could not all meet up together on better terms. It is quite odd that we are only meeting up at a time like this over some unpleasant matters,” said Ruth.
Akira didn’t have anything nice to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut.
As they waited for the rest of both parties to join them the conversation was controlled mostly by Ruth asking Akira many questions while lamenting the changes of life and the hard truths one learned once they became a fully functioning adult.
Dolph signaled Akira to keep quiet and not let the enemies know anything more than necessary about the werewolf clans.
Klyn was the first to return along with elder Bleddyn, head shaman Carvey, along with the warriors sent to guard them.
This stopped Ruth’s long-winded one-sided conversations allowing them to wait in silence for the king and any ministers that would be he joining the meeting.
“An odd time to be having such an important meeting so late at night,” said elder Bleddyn in a whisper once he reached Akira’s side.
“At least they agreed to see us and are not going to push us off for another week,” said Carvey.
They waited for the King for over an hour in relative silence the only noise coming from the ballroom some distance away from the garden.
When the king arrived he came with a large group of noblemen trailing along behind him.
The Queen who had recently returned to the city even tagged along next to the king in an expensive silk dress that had been bought from Freeopia.
Before elder Bleddyn could even greet the King, he walked past him and up to Akira with an air of superiority and huffed a few times as he inspected Akira.
“I always knew that there was something wrong with you. For you to turn out to be a lowly werewolf…HA! My instincts were not wrong!” said the king Titus.
The werewolf warriors bristled at the insult. While Dolph, elder Bleddyn, and Carvey kept their faces blank not showing any emotion.
“Father-in-law this is not the time to be insulting Akira and the other guests that have come a long way to talk with us,” said Rodger trying to mediate between the two groups and move the negotiation talks forward without any fighting.
“Right you are. Behind me are several of the commanding officers of Beorin’s main army,” said king Titus pointing to each person as he quickly introduced them.
Akira was surprised to see several of the officer’s levels were in the 40’s and a few older officers were even at the same level as him.
When all the pleasantries of introducing everyone from both parties were finished, king Titus clapped his hands.
“Alright before we head to the discussion tables we have decided to put on a nice show for you our guest. If you would please follow me,” said king Titus before turning around and walking out of the garden.
Akira looked to Rodger questioningly and only received a shrug in return. It seemed this was a last-minute addition put in by the king.
They walked to a large open field behind the castle that was used as a training ground for the army. The field was lit by the moonlight as well as several green magical lanterns scattered all around the training field giving everything a flickering green glow.
Several well-armored soldiers were milling around on the open field while even more soldiers continued to filter in joining the large group of soldiers already waiting.
A large number of the soldiers gathered were conscript soldiers that had been called away from the fall celebrations on such short notice which caused some unhappy grumbling.
Upon seeing the arrival of the king and their commanding officers the soldiers formed up into their proper units.
The officers bowed to the king and left his side to take command of the units on the field. Even Rodger left after a short talk to the king.
“Are they trying to show off their power to us?” asked Klyn in a whisper next to Akira.
“Shh…It does not matter if they want to flaunt around their strength. This can be seen as a good thing since it allows us to get a better understanding of their army. We can use that to our advantage if things don’t pan out,” said elder Bleddyn quieting Klyn.
King Titus and the rest of the noble ministers still gathered around him ignored the whispering Werewolves and watched as the hastily mustered army marched with precision in front of the king one unit at a time making sure to properly salute the King.
When the parade in front of the king finished they formed up on the large field and began to show off their “Pretty parade ground dancing” as Dolph called it.
Many other warriors chimed in with comments about how impractical it would be to actually use some of the maneuvers they showed on a real battlefield.
But they also kept in mind that the formations were meant to wow and awe the guest.
Elder Bleddyn watched their movements like a hawk remembering everything so that he could give a proper report when they returned.
When the cavalry entered the field to show off it’s might, Rodger rode at the front leading them in a full out charge at a row of straw dummies which they struck down with easy slaughtering all the poor defenseless stuffed scarecrows.
“Ha, try that with me and I’d be glad to drag you off your pretty horses and play with you,” commented one of the warriors under his breath.
The military show when on for over an hour before the soldiers and cavalry left the field.
Nothing about the army surprised Akira as he had grown up training with them. But several of the others had changed their minds somewhat on thinking they were just as weak as they were in the past wars.
It had more to do with seeing their weapons, armor, and imagining the numbers they could conscript into multiple armies.
Rodger and the other officers now sweaty and caked with dust from the exercises returned to the group next to the king.
“Let us return to the royal garden for some privacy,” said King Titus as he stood up from his chair.
***
Akira sat at a large stone table to the right of Elder Bleddyn and Head shaman Carvey sat on the elders left. Klyn had been given a seat next to Carvey, while Dolph was sitting next to Akira.
The werewolves sat on the right side of the table while the king and his ministers along with Rodger sat on the left.
Both the queen and Ruth had decided to call it a night and had already headed back to the castle as it was now a little past midnight when the meeting finally started.
“King Titus you all know why we are here so I will only summarize. The Earth tribe wants you to stop terrorizing our villages, towns, and cities. We demand that you get out of our territory now,” said elder Bleddyn.
“HA! You have some nerve saying that to my face! The only reason we took any action was because we received information from a trusted nobleman telling us that werewolves had attacked human villages and were going to attack again. They asked for us to put a stop to it.”
“That’s ridiculous!” said Carvey.
“It’s true that we received such a request, here is the letter that was sent to us,” said Rodger pulling out a piece of paper in question from its protective leather tube.
The letter was handed over to Elder Bleddyn so that he could read it.
Akira and Carvey read it along with him from the side. When he saw the signature at the bottom of the letter his face darkened with anger.
The whole reason they were in this predicament was because of the vile Lord Madham.
“Some violence may have happened but none of our clans had anything with the things mentioned. There is no need to start a war over this baseless accusation.”
“It is not baseless! We know the ringleader of the violent thugs that killed many innocent people when they attacked and raided several human cities. You have the gall to even show your face here purporting to be part of the peace negotiations. I Name you Akira as the ringleader!” said king Titus pointing at Akira while spitting all over the place as he got worked up.
“Preposterous! Are you going to sit here all night and insult us or are we going to talk about stopping a war?” asked Elder Bleddyn who for the first time was showing his anger.
Rodger placed his hand on the king’s shoulder, “Father-in-law, calm down. This is a meeting to stop the fighting not one to further fan the flames of hatred and start a war.”
“GET your hand off my shoulder,” said the king through clenched teeth as he tried to rein in his anger.
“Your accusations are false. Yes, it is true that I had the misfortune of meeting this person indirectly. When I was staying in the city of Madham for not even a day the lord of the city ordered his personal guards and city guards to capture me and my companions. We were forced to fight our way out of the city to win our freedom. If they did not want to suffer casualties they should not have tried to attack us,” said Akira with a cold hardness to his voice as he explained what had happened.
“It’s your word against his and since he is not here to defend himself, we can not believe the word of someone like you.”
“You wouldn’t even believe me even if he was here!”
The negotiations continued with accusations and outrageous insults being thrown at the peace delegation who could do nothing about it but endure the humiliation since this was the heart of the enemy’s power.
The conversation halted for several minutes while the minsters whispered to themselves.
“We have decided the requirements you will need to fulfill in order to stop this war from starting. First, you will need to pay 20,000 gold for damages. Secondly, you must continuously give us a yearly 2,000 gold tribute, and lastly, you must hand over the criminals that started this so they can be brought to justice.”
“This is outrageous! It seems you view the Earth Tribe as a bunch of stray dogs that you can kick around! Are you trying to start a war?” shouted Dolph as he stood up from his seat in anger.
“We will not accept these terms. But are willing to hear if you have any other reasonable suggestions,” said elder Bleddyn who was having a hard time keeping his voice low from the anger he felt.
“That is our final offer. If you do not wish to take it we have nothing more to discuss,” said King Titus.
“Then we are done here,” said elder Bleddyn standing up. The other werewolves along with Akira stood up as well.
“You will be escorted to your former lodgings so you can gather your belongings and leave, you are not welcome in our kingdom any longer,” said king Titus.
“It is a shame that we were not able to work something out,” said Rodger as he shook Akira’s hand before he was escorted away by the royal guards.
Ding!
-
Peace mission has failed!
The Earth tribe’s relationship with the kingdom of Beorin has now become hostile.
The werewolves were all on guard for any trickery that the king might have in store for them but nothing happened as they returned to their guest house.
“We need to hurry up and leave. This city is no longer safe for any of us,” said elder Bleddyn.
“I need to send the message of our failure to the grand elders first!” said Carvey.
“Hurry! We only have a limited time before they make their move,” said Elder Bleddyn.
Everyone scurried around the house and began to pack up the meager belongings they had brought on the trip.
