2
“YOU DON’T LOOK like a whore,” Iahir was saying as they exited the front of Marthlis’s house.
The streets of the capital city of Renegahan were wide and made of white and yellow brick, a strange choice, Gathren thought, for it made all of the horse dung stand out all the more against them. She supposed, if the streets were clean, they might gleam and shimmer, like Iahir himself did.
Everything here, in this part of the country, was sunny and bright and yellow, too cheery for Gathren’s tastes. “I don’t look like a whore, because I am not one,” she said tightly to the elf lord she was now saddled with, apparently.
Iahir looked her up and down, furrowing his fair brow. He waved one hand absently, still scrutinizing her, and a servant scurried up and bowed his head.
“Sir,” said the servant, who was a Cirdan elf, the low elves, from the north. His hair was deep purple, bound in a braid down his back.
“My carriage,” said Iahir, still looking at Gathren.
“I’ll have it brought round, sir,” said the servant, who scurried off.
Iahir stroked his chin with his long, elegant fingers. He was taller than Gathren, but he did not seem larger than her. He had that graceful litheness of the elves.
She was hefty, like an orc, not only because of her ample breasts and hips but because of her muscled frame. She spent a lot of time training, both with weapons and just generally for strength. It was the life of a warrioress.
Iahir murmured, “Even if I wished to go and try to find you some sort of wardrobe of dresses that would befit a whore, I can’t think of any ready made that would fit.
Now, I could take you to a seamstress, and make a to-do over it, having dresses made for you, parading you about, that sort of thing… ”
“That seems like quite an expense,” she said. Not to mention, she did not like dresses. Very confining articles of clothing, designed to look pretty, not to be useful, but then, most men seemed to think the point of women was to look pretty.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “Might be fun, even. Would you like some pretty dresses?”
“Not particularly, I’m afraid. But if you think it’s necessary, I will endure it.”
This surprised him. “Do you not like dresses?”
“As a matter of fact, I do not.”
“Hmm.” He smiled a thoughtful smile, still stroking his chin.
His carriage pulled up. It was white with gold trim and blue curtains. The footman hopped down to open the door and Iahir got inside.
Gathren was not sure what to do. She knew it might not be proper for an orc to right inside with an elf. Should she climb up and sit on the bench on the back, outside?
“Well?” said Iahir, as she hesitated. “Get in.”
She got into the carriage, and she suddenly had a jolt of fear. She had just done this, all on her own, without making a plan, and she was making it up as she went along, and what if it all went very badly?
Sucking a sharp breath, she pushed the fear aside. It was happening. Nothing for it now.
“You’re some sort of female soldierette or something?” Iahir banged on the roof of the carriage and it took off.
“A warrioress,” she said.
“Are there many orc women fighting in your armies?”
“Not many,” she said. “It is rare for a woman to wish to undertake it. Male orc warriors may marry and have children, but warrioresses are consecrated to the goddess Kranr, and are to remain pure and devote themselves only to the art of war.”
“You’re a virgin?”
She glared at him. “That is really none of your business.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, from what I know of you thus far, I have to say that it doesn’t surprise me that you aren’t very good at following the rules.”
She really did not like this man. She could protest that she had not admitted to anything at all, but that would only make it clearer, she supposed, that she was not, in fact, a virgin, and had not been one for some time.
Truthfully, most warrioresses were not, no matter that they were supposed to be.
“Here is what we will do,” said Iahir. “We’ll say that I have brought you to the palace to be my sparring partner. And we will spar together. I assume you can fight? With a sword?”
“Indeed,” she said blandly.
“Everyone, of course, will still think I’m fucking you,” he said.
“But I’ll only admit that you’re there with me for the purpose of improving my skills in the arts of war.
Then, you don’t have to dress like a whore, and everyone will assume it’s just some new fetish I have.
” He smiled and his voice dropped in pitch.
“A taste for being dominated in bed, I suppose.”
She said nothing. She should be used to this sort of thing by now. Men were this way, after all.
His smile widened. “You’re very controlled, warrioress.”
“You’re not, elf lord,” she said.
He laughed. “I think this is going to be the best two weeks of my life. I’m really looking forward to it.”
She said nothing.
He leaned closer to her, still smiling that stupid smile of his. “To be clear, you’re not the least bit attracted to me? Is that right?”
She gave him a withering look and refused to dignify that with a response.
He leaned back. “Pity that,” he said with a shrug. “I think I would give nearly anything to see your bare bosom.”
She clenched her teeth. This was going to be the worst two weeks of her life, clearly.
GATHREN HAD NEVER seen the palace before.
She’d seen some drawings of it, rendered in black and white and printed on things from printing presses, so she knew the general outline of the place, its spires and towers and that sort of thing, but she was unprepared for the sheer grandeur of it, the gold tips gleaming in the sunlight, the intricate carvings on the stone face which made the white stone look like lace, the sheer size and height of it.
She could not take her eyes from it as they approached in the carriage.
She gazed out the window, rendered speechless by the sight of it.
Some part of her had to admit that she did not want this beauty torn asunder by an invading army, even if it was her people invading.
She felt the conflict tight in her chest, a ball of anxiety.
She was an orc, but she had been born here, in Lothnehil, in the land of the elves.
She had grown up with her mother on a small little farm in the barlinship of Notharlien, part of a tight-knit orc community of only four families, all of whom assisted each other with their crops and animals.
They were never welcomed by their elf neighbors, not truly, but they had always been tolerated, left alone, and the elves bought their milk and cheese and vegetables at the markets, until High King Findas.
He had taken the throne about ten years ago, and he had slowly made it his single-minded mission to remove everyone besides elves from Lothnehil.
He began rounding up orcs and sending them across the Rathog Pass.
He began to forbid trade with other countries and creatures—no more trading with the dwarves across the ocean, for instance.
Everything must be elfmade, because elves were superior in every way and needed no interference from other creatures—lower creatures, in his opinion.
At some point during this time, then, Gathren’s family and the other orcs had been banned from selling things at the elvish markets. Elves were not forbidden from buying from orcs, but they had to go out of their way to do so, and few did.
Then some of the orcs from other families were forced across the pass to Arzakh, which was the land of the orcs, in the northwest. This was when Gathren found out she was the daughter of the orc High Chieftain, for her mother had sent off a letter to him, asking that he look after the orcs who had been sent to Arzakh, hoping that the High Chieftain would remember her, would think fondly on their brief time together, hoping for some influence over the man.
But they had heard nothing back from the High Chieftain. Had he even gotten the letter? No one could say.
That was when Gathren had gone to Arzakh herself, presented herself to her father, and then—upon discovering that an invasion was underway—asked to be part of the orc army as a warrioress.
Her father had indulged her in that, but he paid her little mind else.
She had been given no special treatment, no high status in the fighting, nothing like that.
No one even knew the High Chieftain was her father.
“Pretty, mmm?” came Iahir’s voice, breaking into her reverie.
She turned away from the window to look at him, feeling embarrassed at having been caught gaping at the palace.
“I suppose,” she said, even though the truth was that pretty was not quite the word for what it was.
It was stunning, fantastically beautiful, the kind of thing that seemed far too beautiful to even exist. The craftsmanship was breathtaking.
“You orcs have palaces like this?” he asked.
She shook her head. No, the orcs had nothing like this.
Orcs, as a general rule, did not waste time making things look nice, only worrying about functionality and strength.
Of course, this was likely because the country of Arzakh was volatile, a country of earthquakes and eruptions, molten rock pouring up from the cracks made in the earth.
The High Chieftain’s fortress in Arzakh had been destroyed five or six times, moved to different sites to avoid repeated eruptions. There was little point in making it pretty.
“Florehil, he’s a Larhilist,” said Iahir conversationally.
Who was a what? She had no idea what he was talking about or how this even followed in their conversation.
“Larhil is at court sometimes,” said Iahir. “Perhaps you’ll meet him.”
She was even more confused.