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Mostly out of curiosity, and because I had nothing better to do, I went to the dark elf village under a disguise to check things out. I wanted to see how much damage the orcs had done. What I saw was shocking. The home of hundreds of warriors--very few dark elves are not trained for battle (women are treated equally with men in elven society when it comes to battle)--was reduced to mere dozens.

Just to backtrack, they never officially surrendered, although it was obvious they had lost. However, given their broken and hopeless state, it was incredibly easy to convince them to send someone to give a message of their surrender.

They sent two people with the message, and another message also... They begged the dark elves in our village to return and help them against the orcs. Now... the dark elves with us had defected because they considered it the right thing to do, but they still had close family and friends in that village. Most of them were willing to help.

That's when things got interesting.

Remember Qal'la? She didn't like the thought of the dark elves getting stronger again. Most of us recognized that they could do as they pleased since they surrendered; they had no hope of attacking us in the next couple hundred years anyway. But Qal'la was unconvinced. She believed that the dark elves would kill the orcs and then come for us once again. What she failed to realize is that if the dark elves in our village returned, the majority of their population would consist of those who had helped us and would do so again.

She wanted to kill the messengers and leave the dark elves in their hopelessness. She asked for my permission to kill them (as I am in charge of war matters). I tried to explain my reasoning, but she was furious. She simply would not listen. She challenged me (which I will explain later) and demanded that they should die, and that the dark elves belonging to our village should stay. What she was saying sounded too close to slavery for me to let it slide... But I told her to go to the king. If the issue was unresolved, then I would accept her challenge.

In reality, I knew that King Glem would take my side. I knew that she would come to me battle-ready. And so, knowing that Qal'la has decades more experience then me, I made plans in case I failed.