The shield of Avilon rose above the temple of Ravendorff in silent verbiage to all who passed by.
War had come to the Kingdom of Elvindor without warning, without cause and few were ready for the siege of Holy places or the burning of villages and hamlets by the Borga, the elves of the underworld.
This was the year of five Queens.
Throughout the kingdoms of Middle Earth a Queen had been crown.
It was the first time in recorded history that such an event had occurred.
The Borga, seeing this as a weakness, gathered their armies and began their attacks.
Small towns and Hamlets at first, then vast armies were seen to be mounting in the hills of Middle Earth without provocation.
The warning bells of Elfindor were the first to ring out, a call to arms for all Elves of the age fifteen and more.
When Borga threw down their challenge to Trolls and Fairies, and Elves knew that its Evil power would be one of the prizes of Borga victory (the common elves did not think this, at first, but saw only the outrage to Ravendorff, a brutal attack on civilization, and a glorious adventure), some Elfin Scouts were sent out, I was one of them.
We went in elfin clothes without military rank--the War council was not giving any.
Instead, they handed out bags of gold which might be necessary to hire horses, rooms, and the bribery of doorkeepers in the antechambers of war, as some of us had gone to the Troll Wars, and others.
The Old Guard of war detachments besieged the War council for official recognition and were insulted day after day by junior elves who knew that "Kings" hated these Borga and thought the Winged Elves ought to be throttled in time of war, or they were beguiled into false hopes by Generals who hoped to go in charge of them and were told to buy horses and sleeping-mats and be ready to start at a moment's notice for the front.
The moment's notice was postponed for months. The younger ones did not wait for it. They took their chance of "seeing something, " without authority, and made wild, desperate efforts to break through the barrier that had been put up against them by Warlocks and Wizards staffs in the zone of war.
Many of them were arrested, put into prison, let out, caught again in forbidden places, rearrested, and expelled from battle lines.
That was after fantastic adventures in which they saw what war meant in Borga countries where vast populations were made fugitives of fear, where millions of elfin and tinks (small ones) and old elves became wanderers along the roads in a tide of elfin misery, with the red flame of war behind them and following them.