FREE

The Fairwind had sailed out of sight long ago with the injured warriors from Vandar. Eberon, Vandar's most famous warrior, had been among the injured and, to the average onlooker, that sounded like a great loss to freedom. Nonetheless, the freed slaves atop Highcliff deserved to celebrate their own efforts to fight for liberty; yet, it wasn't Princess Ki-la of Vandar's place to shatter the illusion of who Eberon, the Mighty, truly was as a person...

"Princess."

Ki-la pivoted away from her place at the edge of Highcliff to overlook the waters. The sudden voice had prompted her to grab her staff of war as well. She should have realized that the voice had only belonged to Birdsei, the archer and the watcher.

"...The Fairwind is beginning to escape beyond my vision." Birdsei added. "Or are her majesty's eyes better than mine now?"

Ki-la chuckled at the back-and-forth. She needed the laugh.

"You caught me dreaming again, old friend." she admitted.

"Of course." Birdsei answered with a curtsy of apology for the interruption. "I was...well, I was thinking of these people that we freed. Highcliff was always a Tarnakian stronghold; until we booted their armies out of here and allowed it as a healing haven for their former slaves."

Ki-la glanced about the nearby warm campfire. Women and children, young and old, weak and disheveled, slightly healthy and gravely ill; all sat around the healing fire and all had just spent anywhere from days to years under subjugation to Tarnakian rule.

"I remember their former perils." Ki-la answered. "They are a free people now and have even chosen a leader for their tribe."

"Yes; that is well and good when there is no active conflict against them." Birdsei insisted. "I only meant...well, if this place was technically a Tarnakian realm throughout history, would they not return now to try to take it back by force?"

Ki-la glared at Birdsei.

"Do we defend the poor, displaced Tarnakian Bloodspillers this day; and right in front of their former hostages and slaves?" the princess demanded. "This is the good peoples' place of healing and emancipation now."

"We both agree there, Princess." Birdsei insisted. "The Tarnakian Raiders might not see things the same way; and they only understand bloodshed."

Ki-la glanced once more at the injured, ill, and recovering. The Tarnakian soldiers had lost Highcliff before by right of combat; however, they had done so with severe losses to great warriors on the side of humanity as well.

"You speak true, Birdsei." Ki-la relented.

"Could we possibly send to Vandar to deliver more warriors before a Tarnakian raiding party could arrive?" Birdsei asked. "Otherwise, I don't see these good peoples' liberation, or their lives, lasting much longer beyond the next conflict."

Princess Ki-la glared at her partner and lifelong friend.

"No, Birdsei; if the new proprietors of a now peaceful Highcliff are to know freedom and liberty, they must do their fighting." Ki-la insisted. "Follow my lead."

Birdsei shrugged and followed in the princess's tracks as she stood over the campfire. The new proprietors of Highcliff looked to their watcher from Vandar and all sat up and took notice.

"Good people of New Highcliff," Ki-la declared, glancing about, "have you chosen a new leader amongst all of you?"

Ki-la had a dreading inclination that the free people would look to her; not a former slave and a member of a royal household. Nevertheless, they thankfully turned to Arlor, a strapping young former slave whose own family had been forced into servitude alongside them and who had watched his young son crippled in injury from the taxing servitude and watched his daughter collapse and die. As Arlor rose up in determination as the elected leader atop Highcliff, Ki-la was forced to agree as she gazed to the physically imposing young warrior. He was practically Eberon; with legitimate good qualities as a person and who had been through actual suffering before.

Birdsei kicked Ki-la in a heel to prompt her to get her faculties back together in the presence of the young warrior. Ki-la promptly shook her head around to clear her mind.

"Take up my staff." she offered, extending it to Arlor. "You all know as we do that the Tarnakian primitives will not stay as quiet as this for long as your new encampment is atop their used stronghold. There will come an hour where you have to defend."

"We are as familiar as many with the Tarnakian savages." Arlor declared, spinning the staff.

"You are not staying with us?" Eldar, Arlor's frail father, asked, glancing up from his grandson.

"Please?" added Das, the blinded boy.

For a moment, Birdsei's heart went out to the child's pleas and she almost lost her own vigil. However, Ki-la shot a glare to the archer before her face softened and she turned back to the boy to kneel at his level and place her hands to his face.

"No." she insisted, delicately, but firmly. "This liberty is yours, my child."

"...and it is our fight to maintain it, lad." Arlor declared.

"Aye." his oldest companion, Lok, added. "Lend me a good weapon and I'll stand with you too!"

Birdsei surrendered over her bow and arrow.

"This vigilant presence of fighting back will take all able-bodied people to fight for your friends, families, and neighbors." Birdsei maintained. "And we know not when the Tarnakian men could return for vengeance."

Arlor nodded in understanding and handed his wife, Willa, the princess's staff as he knelt to fashion a functioning sword out of stone. He even forged a knife out of timber for his son. Other able bodied, healthy, young men and women went to work forging their own weapons as well as Ki-la and Birdsei looked on with pride...

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Evening came and the healing fire gave off quite a nice signal beacon to other surrounding communities. Sure enough, dusk had begun to set in when they heard the first primal war cry from nearby. The former slaves and prisoners had heard the sound before; it had once marked their terror as a servant was about to be punished. That night, it stoked their determination to defend their hard-earned liberties.

"So it begins." Willa whispered to Ki-la.

"Indeed." Arlor answered from nearby as he held aloft his stone-made sword. "Warriors of a free Highcliff, to arms!"

The newly inducted freedom fighters met the bloodthirsty Tarnakian tribe in single combat once more. The heroes, for the most part, had make shift weapons; the Tarnakians had their spears, clubs, and hatchets. The heroes were many; the Tarnakians seemed to have sent quite a small scouting party in anticipation that the humans were still injured. The citizens were, for the most part, peaceful and many were still healing; the Tarnakians were a bloodthirsty, savage breed. Nonetheless, the battle raged on from dusk until the following dawn...

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The citizens of New Highcliff had won their first of many fights. A pair of Tarnakian scouts had managed to escape long enough to warn a fresh raiding party. Nevertheless, Arlor and his friends and family could celebrate their first victory. However, not every aspect of their first win felt so sweet...

"...Grandfather?" Das wept from his place stumbling over to Eldar's side; then: "I can no longer sense anything."

Willa took her son in her arms as Princess Ki-la and Birdsei didn't know what to say. Arlor, in the meantime, took in the injured and the dead.

"We will have to take the daylight hours to bury our newly deceased and tend to our injured, even as we rest up ourselves." Arlor declared. "The Tarnakians are defeated but once; the war for our precious liberty is not over. Princess Ki-la, Birdsei..."

The royal interlopers glanced to the colony's new leader.

"...We of Free Highcliff thank the House of Vandar for their support here; we would not have this homestead without you." he added. "Can we turn to your kingdom again in the future if need be?"

Ki-la extended a hand to the new, young political leader and soldier.

"Vandar will be proud to stand with Free Highcliff." she added.

"Ah; and perhaps next time, we could have Eberon's help with Vandar's troops." Lok added.

"Perhaps so, friend Lok; or perhaps not." Arlor answered to save Ki-la the trouble of saying so herself. "Eberon's skill in combat may be legendary; but I think that it is time for ballads of your grit in combat to be written."

"...and your leadership too!" Lok added.

With that, Lok surrendered the bow and quiver back to Birdsei while Willa offered forward the staff.

"Let the staff remain here; as a token of a union between Vandar and Highcliff." Ki-la insisted.

"Then," Willa answered, drawing the staff back near to her, "safe travels."

"...and good fortune." Ki-la added to her new friends.

With that, the Fairwind could be seen returning. As it pulled up into position beneath Highcliff's face, Ki-la and Birdsei clasped hands and both leapt from the cliff to the ship. Arlor and his allies watched them go; and both parties saluted one another as the Fairwind vanished once more on its way back to Vandar...