7
NOW, DATHOR WAS in the dining room of Foxglove Peak and there were orc soldiers everywhere.
All the doorways were filled with orc men who stood in their uniforms, some with rifles and some with revolvers tucked into their belts and others still just holding large axes, like brutish monsters.
These orcs stared straight ahead, blocking any way out, and they were like stone soldiers, unmoving.
Aerhril shook off the orc who was escorting her, glaring at Dathor.
“She says, sir,” said the orc, pushing her at him, “that you indicated we should follow her orders.”
“And you believed her?” said Dathor. He said something to the other orc in the orc language, and the other orc responded, and Aerhril could hear that Dathor’s use of the other language was halting, that he hesitated, that he spoke it with a clearly elvish accent.
The other orc switched back to Valaedor, which was the language spoken here, in the Silvarenna, even before the wars. The old Cirdan language was spoken by almost no one, not anymore. “Well, here she is, anyway.”
Dathor heaved an enormous sigh. “My lady,” he said to her, “you wish me to punish you. Is that it?”
“I wish to be given leave to find the children,” she said.
“The children,” he repeated slowly. “They wouldn’t have been in the chapel.”
“The women and I,” she said, “we think that the children must be found if you want our cooperation.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You think this is a negotiation, Aerhril?” He shook his head at her, irritation written all over his features. And then, abruptly, he started laughing. “You are all right, I see.”
She squared her shoulders. “You’re making fun of me? Because if I find out you and these awful men have hurt the children, I will—”
“You will what?” He was taunting her.
She drew herself up. She would use this rift between himself and the other orcs to her advantage. She would tear down his authority over them.
“Oh, I see,” he said, giving her a very nasty smile. “You think that if you make the men in my brigade think that I am soft on you, that will mean that they turn on me, and then…” He tapped his chin. “How is that better for you, my lady? Would you rather it them than me?”
She swallowed.
He looked over her head at the orc who’d brought her to him. “Do not obey her orders again, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the orc. “But how do you know her? What is she to you? The one you killed—”
“Have I given you leave to ask these questions?” said Dathor.
The orc huffed.
Dathor shoved her at the other orc. “Take her back with the other women.”
“But what about the children?” she cried.
“They were probably outside, playing in the fields, and no one is going out of these walls,” he said.
“We’re not going to cooperate with you!” she cried. “If you think all of these women are going to be rotated into your orcs’ beds, you will find that we are not so easily cowed and we will slit your throats and cut off your cocks and—”
“No one is forcing elf women into orc beds,” he said.
She gaped at him. How dare he?
He gave her a nasty smile. “What? You thought we were all so very eager to hold down swearing, struggling elf women and thrust inside them even as they cursed us?”
She considered this. Perhaps not. “Just you, then?”
“Yes, that, between us, absolutely the pinnacle of my carnal experiences. I cannot tell you how I will treasure the memory of your dry cunt and your expression of shock and disapproval.”
He had meant to hurt her, and he had.
She ducked down her face, fighting to school her expression. “Fine,” she said, not looking at him. “Then allow one of us to go out into the fields and look for the children.”
“No,” he said. “You won’t come back.”
“I will come back,” she said. “You can trust that.”
“I definitely cannot trust that,” he said. “And anyway, even if you do come back, you will have tipped someone off to the attack. Word will spread, and everyone in the Vale will know we’re coming. That’s an absolute disaster.”
“I know you are not entirely unfeeling,” she said. “They are children and they have been separated from their mothers and they all lost their fathers and brothers. For all we know, they are cowering in some part of the keep somewhere. Let me look for them!”
“As long as you stay inside, do as you will,” he said.
“I’ve no issue with that now that the entrances are secure.
” He gestured to the orcs on the doors. “In fact, if you tell me the women will cooperate, I will let them out of the room where I have them, and they can go where they please. Between the lot of you, you can comb the keep. If you find the children, wondrous. If not, they are no longer your concern.”
“No one is leaving, I see,” she said, looking around.
“No one is leaving,” he said.
THE ORC HIGH commander was named Methud. He was missing half of his ear, and he had shaved the hair on that side of his head to show off the torn flesh. On the other side of his head, his hair hung long and lustrous.
He shoved it behind his good ear as he looked Dathor over.
Dathor clasped his hands behind his back, looking at the high commander’s shoes, not at his face. That would be a challenge, to look directly in the other man’s eyes.
“They tell me you’re arguing with the stewardess in the main hall,” said Methud.
“She’s not the stewardess,” he said. “The marriage was interrupted.”
The high commander smirked. “Indeed. You’re certain you’re going to hold this place for us, that you’re the right man for the job?”
“I believe,” he said, “that I begged several times not to be left here, that I said that you would need me for the battles in the south—”
“Yes, but you were quite keen to lead the charge here.”
Dathor bowed his head.
“You are not the only half-blood in the army,” said the high commander. “You are not even the only half-blood who has risen to commander or whose opinions on strategy we seek out. But you are the one who seems the least conflicted.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that is still the case?”
“Yes, sir,” Dathor said, lifting his gaze to the other man. “But if you worry about me, if you worry I will be swayed by that slip of a girl with yellow curls, let me go with you.”
The high commander let out a breath, thinking about it. “You would not stay and hold Foxglove Peak? You would come along.”
“I’m the one who said going after the smaller, out-of-the-way castles was a good strategy,” he said.
“You were correct that there was no resistance here to speak of,” said the high commander. “And that the other holdings are held by elves who have more in the way of bravado than they do in wealth or men or forces. They are easily crushed.”
“I have more insights,” he said. “I grew up here. I know these people.”
“And you feel nothing about turning on them?”
“Why should I?” said Dathor.
“You did not say that he was your cousin.”
Dathor sighed heavily. He bowed his head. “My apologies, sir.”
“You concealed it because you knew we would not have countenanced a personal vendetta being acted out? You knew we would not be pleased?”
“I couldn’t let someone else kill him,” Dathor muttered. “I had vowed it, promised it, I had decided—”
“So, yes, perhaps it isn’t wise for you to stay.”
Dathor let out a breath, nodding. “Yes, all right. That’s good. I will come to the south instead.” After all, he had accomplished everything he wanted to do here. He had killed Celedin, he had fucked her, and what else was there?
“You’ll go and tell your brigade that they must move to the tents, then,” said Methud.
“Wait, sir, the brigade should stay,” said Dathor. The men didn’t like him, but he had picked them entirely because he knew they were men who would be happy enough to stay put here, that they would not be angry about being denied the glory of the final battles in the south.
“So, you wish to come, but you want a different brigade?”
“I don’t need to command anyone,” he said. “I can just be there to… have insights.”
Methud looked him over.
Entirely the wrong thing to say, Dathor realized.
“Look, I’m not trying to influence the army or the attack in a way that would benefit the elves.
I have no loyalty to the elves. They cast me out of this country, and they have never treated me with anything other than contempt, and I promise you, there is no conflict within me. ”
Methud regarded him. “Perhaps there should be some conflict. Perhaps your lack of it is suspicious.”
Dathor shut his eyes and then opened them, inwardly scolding himself. This was his life. Never accepted anywhere, always too much an orc for the elves. Now, he was too much an elf for the orcs.
“I think it’s best you stay here with the brigade,” said Methud.
“Yes, sir, perhaps you’re right,” said Dathor, nodding firmly. “Now that you say so, I am reminded that we spoke, sir, of how it does not do to concentrate all of our effort in one element of our plan.”
“We did,” said Methud. “You are correct that if we do not have these pockets of strongholds here, we lose our advantage. It doesn’t do to leave our worst men behind here, holding these various castles.
We don’t want them to fall, after all. Keeping you here, with your brilliance and your ruthless strategies, perhaps it’s all for the best.”
“You flatter me, sir,” said Dathor tightly.
“The High Chieftain holds you in high regard,” said Methud. “I have sometimes heard you speak. When you wish it, you can be very convincing. And your ideas, like the idea of taking the woman in front of her husband, making him watch. You have a certain devious genius.”
When I had that idea, I did not think about her, though, he thought. But then it was my idea, so what was I to do, claim to be too squeamish to carry it out?
Maybe he wanted to carry it out.
Maybe it had been his most triumphant moment, in the end. Maybe he would never rise higher than he had in that moment, thrusting into her, looking at that expression on Celedin’s face.
“Again, sir, you flatter me.”