Chapter 16 #3
Jekha shook his head. “No need to apologize. Any knowledge is better than none.” He sighed, looking into the fire with a wistful expression for a moment before adding, “I often wondered about Morna and Mazoga, and their babies. Every time I meet a child about that age, I wonder if that might be one of them. I remember Mazoga’s boy.
Do you know if Morna had a son or a daughter? ”
Krujha tried to remember as much as he could about the two women left behind with him.
He did not think Jekha had been the father of either the newborn babe, nor the one still in Morna’s belly; but it had been long enough ago now that he couldn’t quite recall who was.
When they separated in Drol Kuggradh, the baby had not yet been born.
“I don’t know. She was still pregnant when we parted ways,” he said softly.
He had been only a child himself, but some part of him now regretted having been so quick to leave the women behind.
He thought he’d been doing them a favor—one less mouth to worry about feeding—but now the only remaining threads to his clan were lost to the wind.
“That’s alright,” Jekha said, seeming to sense his disquiet. “You were just a boy. I could hardly blame you for doing what you needed to do to survive.” Krujha nodded. Jekha let out a deep, heavy sigh before turning to look at him. “I’ll tell you what happened to me, then.”
“I can give you some privacy,” Alwyn said softly, startling Krujha—the elf had been so quiet he’d nearly forgotten he was there. But Jekha shook his head, gesturing for him to sit back down.
“No, stay. It’s not a tale I repeat often, and I don’t want to tell any of it again,” he said. Alwyn hesitated, but then sat back down. Krujha shot him a quick, grateful smile; but Alwyn’s expression remained tense as he met Krujha’s eyes.
“It is true that everyone else who was conscripted with me has perished. I’m sorry,” Jekha said.
Krujha couldn’t stop the way his shoulders sagged at the confirmation.
He’d expected as much, but hearing it confirmed was a blow.
“There was a battle that we lost—our forces were utterly decimated. I was wounded, left for dead. I don’t know how long I was lying there waiting to die when scavengers came to the battlefield.
They found me alive, and they brought me back to their camp. ”
As he spoke, one of the human translators came around to take the dirty bowls from those still sitting around the campfire. Jekha paused uncertainly until the man had stepped further away.
“I still thought I would die,” he said, glancing at Krujha again.
The pain in his expression was palpable.
“For days I lingered, and the most they could do was give me water and a place to lie down. I was delirious with fever, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted the suffering to end. How a quick death would truly have been a mercy… But I didn’t die.
Eventually, the fever waned, and my wounds started to heal.
It took some time before I could walk, and my knee has never stopped aching.
But I lived when everything in me believed I should have died. ”
“There was no healer?” Alwyn asked softly, frowning with concern. Jekha shook his head.
“It was a ragtag group, just trying to find things to sell. If any of them had that sort of magic, they would not have been there to begin with. They weren’t even a clan—only a group following the army from a distance.”
“How long did you stay with them?” Krujha asked.
“Not long. They followed the armies, and when I realized I wasn’t going to die, I decided I wouldn’t spend another minute bringing death and misery to anyone—myself or others.
I had a second chance at life—a gift beyond anything I could imagine.
Of course, I couldn’t risk being found by the army, either, and being slain as a deserter.
So when the scavengers went into the city to sell the things they’d found, I remained on the road.
There was a merchant camping outside the city walls at the same time, and I joined their caravan.
I’ve been traveling with them ever since.
I spent most of these past years in Autreth, actually.
It’s only been in the past year or so that business has picked up.
We just set out a few weeks ago from Aefraya to pick up the shipment in Drol Kuggradh, and that was the first time I’d come back to the wildlands. ”
He fell silent, still looking pained. Krujha had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but he could tell Jekha was unlikely to answer. Still, some things he couldn’t just ignore.
“Did you ever think of going back to the coast?” he asked quietly. “To see if the clan was still there?”
Jekha shook his head, looking even sadder somehow. “No. I knew you would all be gone. Two women and four children—that’s not even the start of a clan. I knew they would have found another to join. There was nothing for me there—not even hope—so I never returned.”
Silence settled between them. Jekha still wore a faraway look, but Krujha was busy absorbing everything he had learned. Something about the story unsettled him. He couldn’t quite place it at first; but the longer he thought about it, the more he felt—not angry, not resentful—almost disappointed.
After all Jekha had gone through, he had given up the fight. He’d gone to an entirely different country instead of trying to prevent what happened to him from happening to other orcs. Not everyone could be a fighter, sure, but—couldn’t he have done anything else, rather than run away?
“I am sorry to hear things were so difficult for you,” Krujha finally said, reaching over to clasp the older orc’s shoulder.
And he truly was sorry, despite his own disquiet.
Their suffering had been so different, but it all had the same tainted root.
“And I am glad you made it as far as you did, my cousin.”
“Tell me a little of how you’ve ended up here,” Jekha prompted him. Krujha managed a smile. He couldn’t tell Jekha much, but he could give a little more detail than he had already, he supposed—despite the palpable sense of unease coming from Alwyn on the other side of him.
“Well, I stayed in Drol Kuggradh, as I said,” Krujha started.
“I was an errand boy to keep food in my belly. Some of my... employers noted how I was quiet and discreet. And I started working for those who prioritized those qualities in their messengers. From there, I was given increasing responsibility until I was working for those who reported to the Silvertongue directly.”
“And you work for her now?”
Krujha was silent for a beat, meeting Jekha’s eyes steadily. “Not exactly. I don’t work for anyone anymore. But I’m doing a favor for her now.”
Jekha sighed, leaning back. “That’s a dangerous game, Krujha. But I suppose it’s one you’ve been playing long enough now that you don’t need some old merchant saying so.”
“I know. And it’s a risk that I’m willing to take,” Krujha said.
This time he let some of his emotion through in his voice—his conviction, his urgency.
“There is nothing I care more about than ending this war, once and for all. So nothing like what happened to me—to either of us—ever happens again.”
Jekha grimaced. As Krujha watched him, he could see the conflict in the orc’s features. There was some obvious pride, but he also seemed self-conscious and, perhaps, as unsettled as Krujha was.
“I commend that,” Jekha finally said. “And I wish you well in your endeavors.”
“Isn’t that something you would want to do, too?” Krujha pressed. “To make sure no one suffers your same fate?”
“Krujha, that’s enough,” he heard Alwyn whisper in elvish from beside him.
He hadn’t thought of what he was feeling as anger, but he could feel the heat of it coursing through him when the slight weight of Alwyn’s hand landed on his forearm—the contact was so unexpected it finally snapped the rest of his emotions into focus.
The last thing he wanted was to part in anger from a man who had been family—whom he once had thought was dead and gone forever—so he closed his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath.
“I understand where you’re coming from, cousin.
Truly. I don’t know what led you to this conviction, the same way you could never know mine,” Jekha said.
His voice was as gentle as it had been the whole time.
The man rubbed his eyes wearily; his knuckles were littered with scars that caught the flickering firelight with the motion.
When he spoke next, he somehow looked a decade older.
“The warlord’s men, the ones who took us from our clan, they all died, too, in one battle or another.
But that didn’t end the war. Others took their place, some willingly, some conscripted like I was.
I remember looking up one day and seeing no one I knew around me.
No one whose name I could tell you now. And still I marched, and fought, and died. For what?”
Krujha’s throat tightened. Jekha waited, as if expecting him to respond, but he had no answer. Finally, though, the older man sighed, shaking his head.
“You’re trying to stop a war, I see that.
A noble pursuit. I commend you for it, Krujha.
I hope you can believe that,” Jekha said.
“But I gave my life to a war already. I might have lived, but some part of me died and was reborn then. I won’t waste what time I have left doing anything less than what I want to do. ”
“And what is it that you want?” Krujha asked softly. Some part of him was cowed by Jekha’s words, but he still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all.
“To be happy. To minimize my own suffering,” Jekha finally said. “I think I’ve suffered enough for one lifetime. Traveling like this, seeing the world. Knowing I’m still alive: that is enough to keep me going. And sometimes I even feel happy. Never like before. But close, sometimes.”
Krujha was silent. Some part of him could understand it. For all that Hrul’s unending war had shaped his life, he had never been a warrior—never been forced to witness the front lines of it all—only the devastation left in its wake.
“Of course,” Krujha finally replied, his voice coming out stilted.
“Thank you for sharing this with me, Jekha. Truly, I’m glad we crossed paths like this.
Had we dallied at all, or if you’d taken a different route, we both might still believe every other member of our clan was dead. I’m glad to know that isn’t the case.”
“I am too,” Jekha said, softer this time.
And all at once Krujha felt as if he were a child again, being spoken to by a clan elder.
“Your life is your own, Krujha. I can see you live with pride, and it makes me proud. I genuinely wish for your success. I just hope you can understand why it’s something I could never be a part of.
I never wanted to go down that path, and I never will again. ”
He didn’t understand. He didn’t think he ever could.
How could the same event that had radicalized him enough to become a spy, actively working against the interests of his own nation for so long, lead Jekha to a life of complete avoidance and inaction?
But he forced himself to smile at the older orc.
And after a beat, the other orc smiled back at him, looking relieved.
From the other campfire, the sounds of a lute drifted over. It was a far cry from the musicians they’d traveled with before, the strings faltering and just slightly out of tune, but it was a welcome distraction all the same.